“Maybe you were being attacked, only nobody realized it at the time.”
He hesitated. “I suppose that's possible. Though the first such storm came up years ago, before I was born. It killed seventy-six people.”
“This one has to be an attack,” I said, shaking my head. “If the first three bolts hadn't come so close to me, I might have doubts. But that lightning was aimed at me. Considering everything that's happened, it can't be a coincidence.”
He thought about it, nodded, turned back to watch the storm. If anything, the lightning grew more intense, sheets of it flashing across the sky and lighting up the wall and courtyard before us as though it were noon.
“I wish they would hurry up,” I murmured to myself.
“Who?” he asked.
“Everyone. Dad if he's still at court. The hell-creatures if they're coming back. King Uthor if he's sending word of Dad's arrest—”
For our father still hadn't returned from his audience with King Uthor.
The storm raged on throughout the day. Every time I went to the door and looked outside, the dark sky roiled more violently than before. With a high wind that whistled over the wall and whipped through the house, this clearly wasn't the weather for travel. I pushed back my half-formed plan of visiting King Uthor's court and trying to find out what had happened to our father.
Clearly, I wasn't the only one who found this sudden storm unnerving. A strange hush had descended over the servants. I could not help but notice how they watched Aber and me from the corners of their eyes, how they silenced their voices when we entered a room, then swiftly found duties elsewhere.
They, too, must be remembering our last days in Juniper, when a strange storm had descended on us and lightning bolts began to blast the highest towers to rubble. Fortunately, the lightning here now seemed to be staying high among the clouds. But the similarities still disturbed me. I did not like it that our enemies could control the weather.
I stayed close to Aber as we wandered through the house, checking on the servants and guards, poking into unused corners to see what damage the hell-creatures had done. Although I still became confused by the odd turnings and switchbacks in the halls, I began to sense an order in the seeming randomness. Too, there were landmarks to learn—statues in alcoves, faces of doors, lots of other points from which I could get my bearings.
Aber stayed with me, and I found myself drawing strength and reassurance from his presence. We both needed to plan for the future… to find out what had happened to our father. Somehow, I thought I wouldn't feel so helpless if I had a goal to work toward.
We had talked about trying to contact my father and Taine via Trumps. After a hasty lunch of cold meat pies and ale, I broached the subject with Aber once more.
“I'm not contacting Dad,” he said. “I don't mind bringing out any Trumps you want, but more than that—no. I've learned better.”
“Fine,” I said. “I don't mind doing the work. Get me Trumps for Dad and Taine. I'll see what I can do.”
“Let's move into the library,” he said, glancing pointedly around the dining room. No servants were in evidence, but they could easily walk in on us at any moment. “It's more private there.”
“All right. I know where it is. I'll meet you there.”
He gave me a puzzled look, but didn't ask how I knew. Pushing back from the table, he hurried from the room.
I drained my ale, then strolled out to the front hall. Extra lamps had been lit, reducing the gloom somewhat, and I went into the library. With its thousands of ancient scrolls and old, leather-bound volumes along the walls, it seemed the perfect place to try my first magical experiments.
Aber returned perhaps fifteen minutes later. He had taken the time to wash up and change into fresh clothes. He carried not just the two Trumps I'd asked for, but a deck of perhaps thirty cards.
“Why so many?” I asked.
“In case you want to talk to anyone else.” He set them facedown on the table. “This is a family deck, no places just faces.”
I picked up the top card. About the size and shape of the tarot cards used by fortune-tellers in Ilerium, it felt cool to the touch, like ancient ivory. A rampant lion had been painted on the back in gold.
“I recognize your work,” I told him. “You painted this one.”
“Years ago. Turn it over.”
I did so, revealing the portrait of a dark-haired man of perhaps twenty-two, with a thin moustache and our father's piercing eyes. He had an almost mocking half-smile on his face. He dressed entirely in dark reds, from his shoes to his hose to his shirt with the puffed velvet sleeves, and he leaned casually on a long wooden staff. A thin white dueling scar showed on his left cheek.
“From the scar, this must be Taine,” I said.
“That's right.”
“He doesn't look much like this anymore.”
“It will still work, if he's reachable. Try him first.”
I chuckled. “Don't think you can fool me. You're avoiding Dad.”
“Damn right.”
Raising the card, I stared at Taine's picture. The few times I'd used Trumps previously, simply picking them up and concentrating on the picture had been enough to bring the person or scene to life before me. First would come a sense of contact and motion, then the figure would seem to become three-dimensional and lifelike, and we would be able to talk.
This time, however, I sensed nothing from the card. I might have been staring at a blank piece of paper, for all the good it did.
“Well?” Aber finally asked.
“Nothing,” I said. “He's not there.”
Aber nodded. “It happens. He's either dead, unconscious, or in a place where Trumps don't work.”
Of course, we had no way of telling which.
“The next card is Dad's,” he said, “if you still want to talk to him.”
“I do. What's the worst that can happen?”
“Plague, pestilence, death…” He shrugged. “Dad can be pretty creative.”
“So can I.”
“Yes, but you haven't promised to throttle me if I bother you with a Trump again.”
“Not yet, anyway.” I had to laugh at his sour expression. “But I am thinking about it, the way you keep popping into my bedroom unannounced.”
“Go on, then. Call him.”
I drew the next Trump from the stack and turned it over. It showed our father, all right, but dressed rather comically in a jester's outfit—complete with bells on his pointy-toed purple slippers. His image gazed up with an idiotic grin frozen on its face.
“If this is how you paint him, no wonder he's annoyed.”
Aber chuckled. “You know it's the subject that matters, not how he's dressed. I made this one when I was mad at him.”