“Well, I gather he didn’t exactly come to her with clean hands,” I said.
“True, but I wonder how elaborate his plans really were, to begin with,” Luke mused. “This is the most cheerful thing I’ve heard all month.”
We exited into the little covered walkway that ran along the side of the palace. Luke halted and looked around.
“Where is he?” he asked.
“Not here,” I said. “I just needed a point of departure with no witnesses to say I’d kidnapped the king.”
“Where are we going, Merlin?” Jurt asked, as I swirled a spiral from the center of the spikard, drawing upon sixteen different power sources.
“Good idea. Kidnap away,” Luke was saying as he was caught up along with Jurt.
I used it as I had when I’d transported myself from Amber to Kashfa, forming the target from memory rather than discovered vision. Only this time there were three of us and a long, long way to go.
“Have I got a deal for you,” I said.
It was like stepping into a kaleidoscope, and passing through about 120 degrees of cubist fragmentation and reassembly, before emerging on the other side beneath a towering tree, its top lost in the fog, in the vicinity of a red and white ‘57 Chevy, its radio playing Renbourn’s “Nine Maidens.”
Luke’s ghost emerged from the front seat and stared at the original.
Luke stared back.
“Hi,” I said. “Meet each other. You hardly need an introduction, though. You have so much in common.” Jurt stared at the Pattern.
“That’s my dad’s edition,” I said.
“I could have guessed that,” Jurt told me. “But what are we doing here?”
“An idea I had. But I thought Corwin would be here, and I might discuss it with him.”
“He came back, and he left again,” said the resident Luke, overhearing me.
“Did he leave a forwarding address, or say when he might return?”
“Nope.”
“Damn! Look, something that got said just a little while ago gave me the idea that you Lukes might want to change places for a time-if this Pattern could be persuaded to approve some leave.”
Luke, whom I decided to continue calling Luke when his ghost was around, brightened suddenly. I resolved to think of his double as Rinaldo, to keep things sorted.
“It’s an experience no man should do without,” he said.
“Then why are you so anxious to get away from it?” Rinaldo replied.
“To help Merle find Coral,” Luke said. “She’s been kidnapped.”
“Really? By whom?”
“Agents of Chaos.”
“Hm.” Rinaldo began to pace. “Okay, you know more about it than I do,” he finally said. “If Corwin gets back soon and the Pattern excuses me, I’ll help you any way I can.”
“The trail will be getting colder while we wait,” Luke observed.
“You don’t understand,” Rinaldo said. “I’ve got a job to do here, and I can’t just take off-even if it’s to go and be a king somewhere. What I do is more important.”
Luke glanced at me.
“He’s right,” I said. “He’s a guardian of the Pattern. On the other hand, nobody’s about to hurt Coral. Why don’t Jurt and I pop on back to the Courts for a few minutes, to check on the progress of the funeral? Corwin might show up while we’re about it. I’m sure you two will find something to talk about.”
“Go ahead,” Luke told me.
“Yeah,” said Rinaldo. “I’d like to know what we’ve been doing.”
I looked at Jurt, who nodded. I went and stood beside him.
“Your turn to drive,” I said.
“Back soon,” I remarked as we faded into the first jump.
… And so again to the Ways of Sawall, and back into our ruddy garb over demon-form. I also changed our facial appearance to the nondescript before Jurt returned us to the funeral party, not wanting a matching set marching along.
The Thelbane proved deserted. A quick check outside, however, showed us the procession, perhaps a quarter way across the Plaza, halted and in a state of confusion.
“Uh-oh,” Jurt remarked. “What should I do?”
“Take us down there,” I told him.
Moments later, we were at the outer edge of the crowd. Swayvill’s blazing casket had been lowered to the ground, a guard posted about it. My attention was immediately attracted to a knot of figures perhaps twenty feet off to the right of it. There was some shouting going on, something lay upon the ground, and two demonic forms were being held tightly by several others. My stomach tightened as I saw that the two were the pair I had ensorcelled to resemble Jurt and myself. Both were protesting something.