Trumps of doom

«He's a fine athlete and he keeps himself in good shape,» I answered. «There are other people like that here - very strong and fast.»

He shook his head as we started out along the path. «I'm not arguing that,» he said. «It's just that it seems like one coincidence too many. This guy hides his past the same way you do, and then it turns out that he really knows who you are anyhow. Tell me, is he really a big art buff?»

«Huh?»

«Art. He really cared enough about art to collect it?»

«Yes. We used to hit gallery openings and museum exhibits fairly regularly.»

He snorted, and swung his stick at a pebble, which splashed into the stream.

«Well,» he observed, «that weakens one point, but hardly destroys the pattern.»

«I don't follow…»

«It seemed odd that he also knew that crazy occultist painter. Less odd, though, when you say that the guy was good and that Luke really did collect art.»

«He didn't have to tell me that he knew Melman.»

«True. But all of this plus his physical abilities… I'm just building a circumstantial case, or course, but I feel that guy is very unusual.»

I nodded.

«I've been over it in my mind quite a few times since last night,» I said. «If he's not really from here, I don't know where the hell he's from.»

«Then we may have exhausted this line of inquiry,» Bill said, leading me around a bend and pausing to watch some birds take flight from a marshy area across the water. He glanced back in the direction from which we had come, then, «Tell me - completely off the subject - what's your, uh, rank?» he asked.

«What do you mean?»

«You're the son of a Prince of Amber. What does that make you?»

«You mean titles? I'm Duke of the Western Marches and Earl of Kolvir.»

«What does that mean?»

«It means I'm not a Prince of Amber. Nobody has to worry about me scheming, no vendettas involving the succession» `

«Hm.»

«What do you mean, ‘Hm'?»

He shrugged. «I've read too much history. Nobody's safe.»

I shrugged myself. «Last I heard, everything was peaceful on the home front.»

«Well, that's good news, anyway.»

A few more turnings brought us to a wide area of pebbles and sand, rising gently for perhaps thirty feet to the place where it met an abrupt embankment seven or eight feet in height. I could see the high water line and a number of exposed roots from trees that grew along the top. Bill seated himself on a boulder back in their shade and relit his pipe. I rested on one nearby, to his left. The water splashed and rippled in a comfortable key, and we watched it sparkle for a time.

«Nice,» I said, a bit later. «Pretty place.»

«Uh-huh.»

I glanced at him. Bill was looking back the way we'd come.

I lowered my voice. «Something there?»

«I caught a glimpse a little earlier,» he whispered, «of someone else taking a walk this way - some distance behind us. Lost sight of him in all the turnings we took.»

«Maybe I should take a stroll back.»

«Probably nothing. It's a beautiful day. A lot of people do like to hike around here. Just thought that if we waited a few minutes he'd either show up or we'd know he'd gone somewhere else.»

«Can you describe him?»

«Nope. Caught only the barest glimpse. I don't think it's anything to get excited about. It's just that thing about your story made me a little wary - or paranoid. I'm not sure which.»

I found my own pipe and packed it and lit it and we waited. For fifteen minutes or so we waited. But no one showed.

Finally, Bill rose and stretched. «False alarm,» he said. «I guess.»

He started walking again and I fell in step beside him. «Then that Jasra lady bothers me,» he said. «You say she seemed to trump in - and then she had that sting in her mouth that knocked you for a loop?»

«Right.»

«Ever encounter anyone like her before?»

«No.»

«Any guesses?» I shook my head.

«And why the Walpurgisnacht business? I can see a certain date having significance for a psycho, and I can see people in various primitive religions placing great importance on the turning of the seasons. But S seems almost too well organized to be a mental case. And as for the other -»

«Melman thought it was important.»

«Yes, but he was into that stuff. I'd be surprised if he didn't come up with such a correspondence, whether it was intended or not. He admitted that his master had never told him that that was the case. It was his own idea. But you're the one with the background in the area. Is there any special significance or any real Bower that you know of to be gained by slaying someone of your blood at this particular time of year.»

«None that I ever heard of. But of course there are a lot of things I don't know about. I'm very young compared to most of the adepts. But which way are you trying to go on this? You say you don't think it's a nut, but you don't buy the Walpurgis notion either.»