I weighed perhaps fourteen stone now, and felt like my old self again. If I could help clean up this mess in the land called Lorraine, I knew that I would have a chance at least to try what I most wanted, and perhaps succeed.
“So that‘s it,” I said. “I don‘t see any troops mustering.”
“I believe we will have to ride north,” said Lance, “and we will doubtless only see them after dark.”
“How far north?”
“Three or four leagues. They move about a bit.”
We had ridden for two days to reach the Circle. We had met a patrol earlier that morning and learned that the troops inside the thing continued to muster every night. They went through various drills and then were gone—to someplace deeper inside—with the coming of morning. A perpetual thunderhead, I learned, rode above the Circle, though the storm never broke.
“Shall we breakfast here and then ride north?” I asked.
“Why not?” said Ganelon. “I‘m starved and we‘ve time.”
So we dismounted and ate dried meat and drank from our canteens.
“I still do not understand that note,” said Ganelon, after belching, patting his stomach, and lighting his pipe. “Will he stand beside us in the final battle, or will he not? Where is he, if he intends to help? The day of conflict draws nearer and nearer.”
“Forget him,” I said. “It was probably a joke.”
“I can‘t, damn it!” he said. “There is something passing strange about the whole business!”
“What is it?” asked Lance, and for the first time I realized that Ganelon had not told him.
“My old liege, Lord Corwin, sends an odd message by carrier bird, saying he is coming. I had thought him dead, but he sent this message,” Ganelon told him. “I still do not know what to make of it.”
“Corwin?” said Lance, and I held my breath. “Corwin of Amber?”
“Yes, Amber and Avalon.”
“Forget his message.”
“Why?”
“He is a man without honor, and his promise means nothing.”
“You know him?”
“I know of him. Long ago, he ruled in this land. Do you not recall the stories of the demon lordling? They are the same. That was Corwin, in days before my days. The best thing he did was abdicate and flee when the resistance grew too strong against him.”
That was not true! Or was it?
Amber casts an infinity of shadows, and my Avalon had cast many of its own, because of my presence there. I might be known on many earths that I had never trod, for shadows of myself had walked them, mimicking imperfectly my deeds and my thoughts.
“No,” said Ganelon, “I never paid heed to the old stories. I wonder if it could have been the same man, ruling here. That is interesting.”
“Very,” I agreed, to keep my hand in things. “But if he ruled so long ago, surely he must be dead or decrepit by now.”
“He was a sorcerer,” said Lance.
“The one I knew certainly was,” said Ganelon, “for he banished me from a land neither art nor artifice can discover now.”
“You never spoke of this before,” said Lance. “How did it occur?”
“None of your business,” said Ganelon, and Lance was silent once again.
I hauled out my own pipe—I had obtained one two days earlier—and Lance did the same. It was a clay job and drew hot and hard. We lit up, and the three of us sat there smoking.
“Well, he did the smart thing,” said Ganelon. “Let‘s forget it now.”
We did not, of course. But we stayed away from the subject after that.
If it had not been for the dark thing behind us, it would have been quite pleasant, just sitting there, relaxing. Suddenly, I felt close to the two of them. I wanted to say something, but I could not think what.
Ganelon solved that by bringing up current business once more.
“So you want to hit them before they hit us?” he said.
“That‘s right,” I replied. “Take the fight to their home territory.”
“The trouble is that it is their home territory,” he said. “They know it better than we do now, and who knows what powers they might be able to call on there?”