“Hello,” I muttered, remembering an adventure we'd shared. “It's been a long time...”

“Merlin?” came a small voice.

I withdrew my hand immediately. It was as if the vase “a had spoken.

“Yes,” I said then. “Yes.”

Again, the chafing sound, and a bit of shadow stirred within the creamy opening, above the fire.

“Ss,” said the shadow, rising. “Glait?” I asked.

“Yess.”

“It can't be. You've been dead for years.”

“Not dead. Ssleeping.”

“I haven't seen you since I was a kid. You were injured. You disappeared. I thought you'd died.”

“I ssleep. I ssleep to heal. I ssleep to forget. I ssleep to renew mysself.”

I extended my arm. The shaggy snake head rose higher, extended itself, fell upon my forearm, climbed, wrapped itself.

“You certainly chose elegant sleeping quarters.”

“I knew the jug to be a favorite of yourss. If I waited long enough I knew you would come by again, sstop to admire it. And I would know and rise up in my ssplendor to greet you. My, you have grown!”

“You look pretty much the same. A little thin, perhaps...”

I stroked her head gently.

“It is good to know you are with us still, like some honored family spirit. You and Gryll and Kergma made my childhood a better thing than it might have been.”

She raised her head high, stroked my cheek with her nose.

“It warmss my cold blood to ssee you again, dear boy. You've traveled far?”

“I have. Very.”

“One night we shall eat mice and lie besside a fire. You will warm me a ssaucer of milk and tell me of your adventuress ssince you left the Wayss of Ssawall. We will find ssome marrow boness for Gryll, if he be sstill about—”

“He seems to serve my uncle Suhuy these days. What of Kergma?”

“I do not know. It hass been sso long.”

I held her close to warm her.

“Thank you for waiting here for me in your great drowse, to greet me—”

“Iss more than friendliess, helloss.” “More? What then, Glait? What is it?”

' “A thing to show. Walk that way.”

She gestured with her head. I moved in the direction she indicated-the way I had been heading anyhow, to where the corridors widened. I could feel her vibrating against my arm with the barely audible purring sound she sometimes made.

Suddenly, she stiffened and her head rose, swaying slightly.

“What is it?” I asked.

“Mi-ice,” she said. “Mi-ice nearby. I musst go hunting-after I show you-the thing. Breakfasst...”

“If you would dine first, I will wait.”

“No, Merlin. You musst not be late for whatever brought you here. There is importance in the air. Laterfeasst-vermin...”

We came into a wide, high, skylighted section of the gallery. Four large pieces of metal statuary-bronze and copper, mostly-stood in an asymmetrical arrangement about us.

“Onward,” Glait said. “Not here.”

I turned right at the next corner and plunged ahead. Shortly, we came to another display-this one resembling a metal forest.

“Sslow now. Sslow, dear demon child.”

I halted and studied the trees, bright, dark, shiny, dull. Iron, aluminum, brass, it was most impressive. It was also a display that had not been present the last time I had passed this way, years before. Nothing odd about that, of course. There had also been changes in other areas I had passed through.

“Now. Here. Turn in. Go back.”

I moved on into the forest.

“Bear right. The tall one.”

I halted when I came to the curved trunk of the tallest tree to my right.

“This one?”

“Yess. Negotiate it-upward-pleasse.”

“You mean climb it?”

“Yess.”

“Right.”

One nice thing about a stylized tree-or, at least, this

stylized tree-was that it spiraled, swelled, and twisted in such a fashion as to provide better handholds and footholds than at first seemed apparent. I caught hold, drew myself up, found a place for my foot, pulled again, pushed.

Higher. Higher, still. When I was perhaps ten feet above the floor I halted.

“Uh, what do I do now that I'm here?” I asked.

“Climb higher.” `

“Why”

“Ssoon. Ssoon. You'll know.”

I drew myself about a foot higher, and then I felt it.

It is not so much a tingling as it is a kind of pressure.. only feel a tingling, too, sometimes, if they lead someplace risky.

“There's a way up there,” I said.

“Yess. I wass coiled about a branch of the blue tree when a shadowmasster opened it. They sslew him afterwardss.”

“It must lead to something very important.”

“I ssuppose. I am not a good judge-of people thingss.”

“You have been through?”

“Yess.”

“Then it is safe?”

“Yess.”

“All right.”

I climbed higher, resisting the force of the way until I'd brought both feet to the same level. Then I relaxed into the tugging and let it take me through.

I extended both hands, too, in case the surface was

uneven. But it wasn't. The floor was beautifully tiled in black, silver, gray, and white. To the right was a geometric design, to the left a representation of the Pit of Chaos.

My eyes were directed downward for only a few moments, though.

“Good Lord!” I said.

“Wass I right? It iss important?” Glait said.

“It is important,” I replied.

VI

There were candles all about the chapel, many of them as tall as I am, and nearly as big around. Some were silver, some were gray; a few were white, a few black. They stood at various heights, in artful disposi

tion, on banks, ledges, pattern points on the floor. They did not provide the main illumination, however. This obtained from overhead, and I first assumed it to proceed from a skylight. When I glanced upward to gauge the height of the vault, though, I saw that the light emanated from a large blue-white globe confined behind a dark metal grate.

I took a step forward. The nearest candle flame flickered.

I faced a stone altar that filled a niche across the way. Black candles burned at either hand before it, smaller silver ones upon it. For a moment, I simply regarded it.

“Lookss like you,” Glait remarked.

“I thought your eyes didn't register two-dimensional representations.”

“I've lived a long time in a musseum. Why hide your picture up a ssecret way?”

I moved forward, my gaze on the painting.

“It's not me,” I said. “It's my father, Corwin of Amber.

A silver rose stood within a bud vase before the portrait. Whether it was a real rose or the product of art or magic, I could not tell.

And Grayswandir lay there before it, drawn a few ` inches from the scabbard. I'd a feeling this was the real thing, that the version worn by the Pattern ghost of my father was itself a reconstruction.

I reached forward, raised it, drew it.

There was a feeling of power as I held it, swung it, struck an en garde, lunged, advanced. The spikard came alive, center of a web of forces. I looked down, suddenly self-conscious.

“. And this is m father's blade,” I said, returning to the altar, where I sheathed it. Reluctantly, I left it there.

As I backed away, Glait asked, “Thiss iss important?”

“Very,” I said as the way caught hold of me and sent me back to the treetop.

“What now, Masster Merlin?”

“I must get on to lunch with my mother.”

“In that case, you'd besst drop me here.”

“I could return you to the vase.”

“No. I haven't lurked in a tree for a time. Thiss will be fine.”

I extended my arm. She unwound herself and flowed away across gleaming branches.

“Good luck, Merlin. Vissit me.”

And I was down the tree, snagging my trousers only once, and off up the corridor at a quick pace.

Two turns later I came to a way to the main hall and decided I'd better take it. I popped through beside the massive fireplace-high flames braiding themselves within it-anr turned slowly to survey the huge chamber, trying to seem as if I had been there a long while, waiting.