“I know,” I said, “that’s why I did.”
She offered me a cigarette and I took it, lit hers, lit mine.
“You always were unpredictable,” she finally told me. “While this has helped you often in the past, however, I wouldn’t count on it now.”
“What do you mean?” I said.
“The stakes are far too high for a bluff, and I think that’s what you’re trying, walking in here like this. I’ve always admired your courage, Corwin, but don’t be a fool. You know the score.”
Corwin? File it away, under “Corey.”
“Maybe I don’t,” I said. “I’ve been asleep for a while, remember?”
“You mean you haven’t been in touch?”
“Haven’t had a chance, since I woke up.”
She leaned her head to one side and narrowed her wonderful eyes.
“Rash,” she said, “but possible. Just possible. You might mean it. You might. I’ll pretend that you do, for now. In that case, you may have done a smart safe thing. Let me think about it.”
I drew on my cigarette, hoping she’d say something more. But she didn’t, so I decided to seize what seemed the advantage I’d obtained in this game I didn’t understand with players I didn’t know for stakes I had no inkling of.
“The fact that I’m here indicates something,” I said.
“Yes,” she replied, “I know. But you’re smart, so it could indicate more than one thing. We’ll wait and see.”
Wait for what? See what? Thing?
Steaks then arrived and a pitcher of beer, so I was temporarily freed from the necessity of making cryptic and general statements for her to ponder as subtle or cagey. Mine was a good steak, pink inside and full of juice, and I tore at the fresh tough-crested bread with my teeth and gulped the beer with a great hunger and a thirst. She laughed as she watched me, while cutting off tiny pieces of her own.
“I love the gusto with which you assail life, Corwin. It’s one of the reasons I’d hate to see you part company with it.”
“Me, too,” I muttered.
And while I ate, I pondered her. I saw her in a low-cut gown, green as the green of the sea, with full skirts. There was music, dancing, voices behind us. I wore black and silver and . . . The vision faded. But it was a true piece of my memory, I knew; and inwardly I cursed that I lacked it in its entirety. What had she been saying, in her green, to me in my black and silver, that night, behind the music, the dancing and the voices?
I poured us more beer from the pitcher and decided to test the vision.
“I remember one night,” I said, “when you were all in green and I in my colors. How lovely things seemed–and the music…”
Her face grew slightly wistful, the cheeks smoothing.
“Yes,” she said. “Were not those the days? . . . You really have not been in touch?”
“Word of honor,” I said, for whatever that was worth.
“Things have grown far worse,” she said, “and the Shadows contain more horrors than any had thought . . .”
“And. . .?” I inquired.
“He still has his troubles,” she finished,
“Oh.”
“Yes,” she went on, “and he’ll want to know where you stand.”
“Right here,” I said,
“You mean. . .”
“For now,” I told her, perhaps too quickly, for her eyes had widened too much, “since I still don’t know the full state of affairs,” whatever that meant.
“Oh.”
And we finished our steaks and the beer, giving the two bones to the dogs.
We sipped some coffee afterward, and I came to feel a bit brotherly but suppressed it. I asked, “What of the others?” which could mean anything, but sounded safe.
I was afraid for a moment that she was going to ask me what I meant. Instead, though, she leaned back in her chair, stared at the ceiling, and said, “As always, no one new has been heard from. Perhaps yours was the wisest way. I’m enjoying it myself. But how can one forget–the glory?”
I lowered my eyes, because I wasn’t sure what they should contain. “One can’t,” I said. “One never can.”