"Deirdre..." I said.
"Corwin," she replied softly.
"Do you know what's been going on as we walked along?"
She nodded.
"How much is bullshit and how much is true?" I asked.
"I don't know, but I don't think any of the others do either--not for sure."
"Thanks. I'll take all the reassurances I can get. What now?"
"If you will take hold of the other's arm, it will make the transport easier."
"What transport?"
"You may not leave this hall on your own motion. You will be taken direct to the killing ground."
"By you, love?"
"I've no choice in the matter."
I nodded. I took hold of Luke's arm.
"What do you think?" I asked him.
"I think we should go," he said, "offering no resistance--and when we find out who's behind this, we take him apart with hot irons."
"I like the way you think," I said. "Deirdre, show us the way."
"I've bad feelings about this one, Corwin."
"If, as you said, we've no choice in the matter, what difference does it make? Lead on, lady. Lead on."
She took my hand. The world began to spin around us.
Somebody owed me a chicken and a bottle of wine. I would collect.
I awoke lying in what seemed a glade under a moonlit sky. I kept my eyes half-lidded and did not move. No sense in giving away my wakefulness.
Very slowly, I moved my eyes. Deirdre was nowhere in sight. My rightside peripheral vision informed me that there might be a bonfire in that direction, with some folks seated around it.
I rolled my eyes to the left and got a glimpse of Luke. No one else seemed to be nearby.
"You awake?" I whispered.
"Yeah," he replied.
"No one near," I said, rising, "except maybe for a few around a fire off to the right. We might be able to find a way out and take it--Trumps, Shadowalk--and thus break the ritual. Or we might be trapped."
Luke put a finger into his mouth, removed it, and raised it, as if testing the wind.
"We're caught up in a sequence I think we need," he said.
"To the death?" I said.
"I don't know. But I don't really think we can escape this one," he replied.
He rose to his feet.
"Ain't the fighting, it's the familiarity," I said. "I begrudge knowing you."
"Me, too. Want to flip a coin?" he asked.
"Heads, we walk away. Tails, we go over and see what the story is."
"Fine with me." He plunged his hand into a pocket, pulled out a quarter.
"Do the honors," I said.
He flipped it. We both dropped to our knees.
"Tails," he said. "Best two out of three?"
"Naw," I said. "Let's go."
Luke pocketed his quarter, and we turned and walked toward the fire.
"Only a dozen people or so. We can take them," Luke said softly.
"They don't look particularly hostile," I said.
"True."
I nodded as we approached and addressed them in Thari:
"Hello," I said. "I'm Corwin of Amber and this is Rinaldo I, King of Kashfa, also known as Luke. Are we by any chance expected here?"
An older man, who had been seated before the fire and poking at it with a stick, rose to his feet and bowed.
"My name is Reis," he said, "and we are witnesses."
"For whom?" Luke said.
"We do not know their names. There were two and they wore hoods. One, I think, was a woman. --We may offer you food and drink before things begin..."