The Hand Of Oberon

«To you, also.» He smiled again. «Things are better,» he said, and he clasped my shoulder as he passed to the entrance. We followed him outside.

«Bring Benedict's horse,» Ganelon directed the orderly who stood beneath a nearby tree; and turning, he offered Benedict his hand.

«I, too, want to wish you luck,» he said.

Benedict nodded and shook his hand.

«Thank you, Ganelon. For many things.»

Benedict withdrew his Trumps.

«I can bring Gerard up to date,» he said, «before my horse arrives.»

He riffled through them, withdrew one, studied it.

«How do you go about repairing the Pattern?» Ganelon asked me.

«I have to get hold of the Jewel of Judgment again,» I said. «With it, I can reinscribe the damaged area.»

«Is this dangerous?»

«Yes.»

«Where is the Jewel?»

«Back on the shadow Earth, where I left it.»

«Why did you abandon it?»

«I feared that it was killing me.»

He contorted his features into a near-impossible grimace.

«I don't like the sound of this, Corwin. There must be another way.»

«If I knew a better way, I'd take it.»

«Supposing you just followed Benedict's plan and took them all on? You said yourself that he could raise infinite legions in Shadow. You also said that he is the best man there is in the field.»

«Yet the damage would remain in the Pattern, and something else would come to fill it. Always. The enemy of the moment is not as important as our own inner weakness. If this is not mended we are already defeated, though no foreign conqueror stands within our walls.»

He turned away.

«I cannot argue with you. You know your own realm,» he said. «But I still feel you may be making a grave mistake by risking yourself on what may prove unnecessary at a time when you are very much needed.»

I chuckled, for it was Vialle's word and I had not wanted to call it my own when she had said it.

«It is my duty,» I told him.

He did not reply.

Benedict, a dozen paces away, had apparently reached Gerard, for he would mutter something, then pause and listen. We stood there, waiting for him to conclude his conversation so that we could see him off.

«…Yes, he is here now,» I heard him say. «No, I doubt that very much. But -»

Benedict glanced at me several times and shook his head.

«No, I do not think so,» he said. Then, «All right, come ahead.»

He extended his new hand, and Gerard stepped into being, clasping it. Gerard turned his head, saw me, and immediately moved in my direction.

He ran his eyes up and down and back and forth across my entire person, as if searching for something.

«What is the matter?» I said.

«Brand,» he replied. «He is no longer in his quarters. At least, most of him isn't. He left some blood behind. The place is also broken up enough to show there had been a fight.»

I glanced down at my shirt front and trousers.

«And you are looking for bloodstains? As you can see, these are the same things I had on earlier. They may be dirty and wrinkled, but that's all.»

«That does not really prove anything,» he said.

«It was your idea to look. Not mine. What makes you think I -»

«You were the last one to see him,» he said.

«Except for the person be had a fight with - if he really did.»

«What do you mean by that?»

«You know his temper, his moods. We had a small argument. He might have started breaking things up after I left, maybe cut himself, gotten disgusted, trumped out for a change of scene - Wait! His rug! Was there any blood on that small, fancy rug before his door?»

«I am not sure - no, I don't think so. Why?»

«Circumstantial evidence that he did it himself. He was very fond of that rug. He avoided messing it.»

«I don't buy it,» Gerard said, «and Caine's death still looks peculiar - and Benedict's servants, who could have found out you wanted gunpowder. Now Brand -»

«This could well be another attempt to frame me,» I said, «and Benedict and I have come to better terms.»

He turned toward Benedict, who had not moved from where he stood a dozen paces away, regarding us without expression, listening.

«Has he explained away those deaths?» Gerard asked him.

«Not directly,» Benedict answered, «but much of the rest of the story now stands in a better light. So much so, that I am inclined to believe all of it.»

Gerard shook his head and glared down at me again.

«Still unsettled,» he said. «What were you and Brand arguing about?»

«Gerard,» I said, «that is our business, till Brand and I decide otherwise.»

«I dragged him back to life and watched over him, Corwin. I didn't do it just to see him killed in a squabble.»

«Use your brains,» I told him. «Whose idea was it to search for him the way that we did? To bring him back?»

«You wanted something from him,» he said. «You finally got it. Then he became an impediment.»

«No. But even if that were the case, do you think I would be so damned obvious about it? If he has been killed, then it is on the same order as Caine's death - an attempt to frame me.»

«You used the obviousness excuse with Caine, too. It seems to me it could be a kind of subtlety - a thing you are good at.»

«We have been through this before, Gerard…»