“In that we’re both Sawall, the question becomes academic.”
“You mean you’re cooperating on this?”
“We have our differences,” she said, “and I draw the line at any discussion of methods.”
I sighed and took another drink. The storm had grown worse over the dark waters. If that strange light effect beneath their surface were indeed Ghostwheel, I wondered what he was up to. The lightings were becoming a steady backdrop, the thunder a continuing soundtrack.
“What did you mean,” I said, “when you spoke of the times for which I was meant to be uniquely qualified?”
“The present and the immediate future,” she said, “with the conflict that will come.”
“No,” I responded. “I was referring to the business about my being ‘meant to be uniquely qualified.’ How so?”
It must have been the lightning, for I had never seen her blush before.
“You combine two great bloodlines,” she said. “Technically, your father was King of Amber briefly-between the reign of Oberon and that of Eric”
“Since Oberon was still alive at the time and had not abdicated, neither reign should be considered valid,” I responded. “Random is Oberon’s proper successor.”
“A case can be made for an implied abdication,” she said.
“You prefer that reading, don’t you?”
“Of course.”
I watched the storm. I swallowed some wine.
“That is why you wished to bear Corwin’s child?” I asked.
“The Logrus assured me that such a child would be uniquely qualified to reign here.”
“But Dad never really meant that much to you, did he?”
She looked away, out to where the circle of light was now racing toward us, lightnings falling behind it. “You have no right to ask that question,” she said.
“I know that. But it’s true, isn’t it?”
“You are mistaken. He meant a great deal to me.”
“But not in any conventional sense.”
“I am not a conventional person.”
“I was the result of a breeding experiment. The Logrus selected the mate who would give you-what?”
The circle of light swam nearer. The storm followed it, coming closer in to the shore than I’d ever seen one reach here before.
“An ideal Lord of Chaos,” she said, “fit to rule.”
“Somehow I feel there’s more to it than that,” I said.
Dodging lightning bolts, the bright circle came up out of the water and flashed across the sand toward us. If she responded to my last remark, I couldn’t hear it. The ensuing thunders were deafening.
The light came onto the decking, paused near to my foot.
“Dad, can you protect me?” Ghost asked in a lull between thunderclaps.
“Rise to my left wrist,” I bade.
Dara stared as he found his place, taking on the appearance of Frakir.
In the meantime, the final flash of lightning did not depart, but stood for a time like a sizzling stalk at the water’s edge. Then it collapsed into a ball that hovered in the middle air for several moments before drifting in our direction. As it came on, its structure began to change.
When it drifted to a position beside our table it had become a bright, pulsing Sign of the Logrus.
“Princess Dara, Prince Merlin,” came that awful voice I had last heard on the day of the confrontation at Amber Castle, “I did not wish to disturb your repast, but that thing you harbor makes it necessary.” A jagged branch of the image was flipped in the direction of my left wrist.
“It’s blocking my ability to shift away,” Ghost said.
“Give it to me!”
“Why?” I asked.
“That thing has traversed the Logrus,” came the words, differing at seeming random in pitch, volume, accent.
It occurred to me that I might defy it now if I were really as valuable to the Logrus as Dara had indicated. So, “It’s theoretically open to all comers,” I responded.
“I am my own law, Merlin, and your Ghostwheel has crossed me before. I’ll have it now.”
“No,” I said, moving my awareness into the spikard, seeking and locating a means of instant transport to an area where the Pattern ruled. “I’ll not surrender my creation so readily.”
The brightness of the Sign increased.
At this, Dara was on her feet, moving to interpose herself between it and myself.