“Kill the horned one and they will crumble,” I said.
“Perhaps. Perhaps not. Maybe you could do it,” said Ganelon. “Unless I got lucky, though, I don‘t know whether I could. He‘s too mean to die easily. While I think I‘m still as good a man as I was some years ago, I may be fooling myself. Perhaps I‘ve grown soft. I never wanted this damn stay-at-home job!”
“I know,” I said.
“I know,” said Lance.
“Lance,” said Ganelon, “should we do as our friend here says? Should we attack?”
He could have shrugged and equivocated. He did not.
“Yes,” he said. “They almost had us last time. It was very close the night King Uther died. If we do not attack them now, I feel they may defeat us next time. Oh, it would not be easy, and we would hurt them badly. But I think they could do it. Let us see what we can see now, then make our plans for an attack.”
“All right,” said Ganelon. “I am sick of waiting too. Tell me that again after we return and I‘ll go along with it.” So we did that thing.
We rode north that afternoon, and we hid ourselves in the hills and looked down upon the Circle. Within it, they worshiped, after their fashion, and they drilled. I estimated around four thousand troops. We had about twenty-five hundred. They also had weird flying, hopping, crawling things that made noises in the night. We had stout hearts. Yeah.
All that I needed was a few minutes alone with their leader, and it would be decided, one way or another. The whole thing. I could not tell my companions that, but it was true.
You see, I was the party responsible for the whole thing down there. I had done it, and it was up to me to undo it, if I could.
I was afraid that I could not.
In a fit of passion, compounded of rage, horror, and pain, I had unleashed this thing, and it was reflected somewhere in every earth in existence. Such is the blood curse of a Prince of Amber.
We watched them all that night, the Wardens of the Circle, and in the morning we departed.
The verdict was, attack!
So we rode all the way back and nothing followed us. When we reached the Keep of Ganelon, we fell to planning. Our troops were ready—over-ready, perhaps—and we decided to strike within a fortnight.
As I lay with Lorraine, I told her of these things. For I felt that she should know. I possessed the power to spirit her away into Shadow—that very night, if she would agree. She did not.
“I‘ll stay with you,” she said.
“Okay.”
I did not tell her that I felt everything lay within my hands, but I have a feeling she knew and that for some reason she trusted me. I would not have, but that was her affair.
“You know how things might be,” I said.
“I know,” she said, and I knew that she knew and that was it.
We turned our attention to other subjects, and later we slept.
She‘d had a dream.
In the morning, she said to me, “I had a dream.”
“What about?” I asked.
“The coming battle,” she told me. “I see you and the homed one locked in combat.”
“Who wins?”
“I don‘t know. But as you slept, I did a thing that might help you.”
“I wish you had not,” I said. “I can take care of myself.”
“Then I dreamed of my own death, in this time.”
“Let me take you away to a place I know.”
“No, my place is here,” she told me.
“I don‘t pretend to own you,” I said, “but I can save you from whatever you‘ve dreamed. That much lies within my power, believe me.”
“I do believe you, but I will not go.”
“You‘re a damned fool.”
“Let me stay.”
“As you wish. . . . Listen, I‘ll even send you to Cabra . . .”
“No.”
“You‘re a damned fool.”
“I know. I love you.”
“. . . And a stupid one. The word is ‘like.‘ Remember?”
“You‘ll do it,” she said.