“Yes,” I agreed, turning the reins over to his orderly. “What news have you?”
“Well . . .” he said. “I’ve been talking to Benedict …”
“Something stirring on the black road?”
“No, no. Nothing like that. He came to see me after he returned from those friends of his-the Tecys-to tell me that Random was all right, that he was following a lead as to Martin’s whereabouts. We got to talking of other matters after that, and finally he asked me to tell him everything I knew about Dara. Random had told him about her walking the Pattern, and he had decided then that too many people other than yourself were aware of her existence.”
“So what did you tell him?”
“Everything.”
“Including the guesswork, the speculation after Tirna Nog’th?”
“Just so.”
“I see. How did he take this?”
“He seemed excited about it. Happy, I’d even say. Come talk with him yourself.”
I nodded and he turned toward his tent. He pushed back the flap and stepped aside. I entered.
Benedict was seated on a low stool beside a foot locker atop which a map had been spread. He was tracing something on the map with the long metal finger of the glinting, skeletal hand attached to the deadly, silver-cabled, firepinned mechanical arm I had brought back from the city in the sky, the entire device now attached to the stump of his right arm a little below the point where the sleeve had been cut away from his brown shirt, a transformation which halted me with a momentary shudder, so much did he resemble the ghost I had encountered. His eyes rose to meet my own and he raised the hand in greeting, a casual, perfectly executed gesture, and he smiled the broadest smile I had ever seen crease his face.
“Corwin!” he said, and then he rose and extended that hand.
I had to force myself to clasp the device which had almost killed me. But Benedict looked more kindly disposed toward me than he had in a long while. I shook the new hand and its pressures were perfect. I tried to disregard its coldness and angularity and almost succeeded, in my amazement at the control he had acquired over it in such a brief time.
“I owe you an apology,” he said. “I have wronged you. I am very sorry.”
“It’s all right,” I said. “I understand.”
He clasped me for a moment, and my belief that things had apparently been set right between us was darkened only by the grip of those precise and deadly fingers on my shoulder.
Ganelon chuckled and brought up another stool, which he set at the other end of the locker. My irritation at his having aired the subject I had not wanted mentioned, whatever the circumstances, was submerged by the sight of its effects. I could not remember having seen Benedict in better spirits; Ganelon was obviously pleased at having effected the resolution of our differences.
I smiled myself and accepted a seat, unbuckling my sword belt and hanging Grayswandir on the tent pole. Ganelon produced three glasses and a bottle of wine. As he set the glasses before us and poured, he remarked, “To return the hospitality of your tent, that night, back in Avalon.”
Benedict took up his glass with but the faintest of clicks.
“There is more ease in this tent,” he said. “Is that not so, Corwin?”
I nodded and raised my glass.
“To that ease. May it always prevail.”
“I have had my first opportunity in a long while,” he said, “to talk with Random at some length. He has changed quite a bit.”
“Yes,” I agreed.
“I am more inclined to trust him now than I was in days gone by. We had the time to talk after we left the Tecys.”
“Where were you headed?”
“Some comments Martin had made to his host seemed to indicate that he was going to a place I knew of further off in Shadow-the block city of Heerat. We journeyed there and found this to be correct. He had passed that way.”
“I am not familiar with Heerat,” I said.
“A place of adobe and stone-a commercial center at the junction of several trade routes. There, Random found news which took him eastward and probably deeper into Shadow. We parted company at Heerat, for I did not want to be away from Amber overlong. Also, there was a personal matter I was anxious to pursue. He told me how he had seen Dara walk the Pattern on the day of the battle.”