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and headed toward the arches. Deirdre had already passed through them.
We ran and we made it. There were many swords at our sides, and the footmen turned back. Then
we sheathed our blades, and Random said, "I've had it," and we moved to join with the band of people
who had stood to defend us.
Random was immediately ordered to surrender his blade, and he shrugged and handed it over. Then
two men came and stood on either side of him and a third at his back, and we continued on down the
stair.
I lost all sense of time in that watery place, but I feel that we walked for somewhere between a quarter
of an hour and half an hour before we reached our destination.
The golden gates of Rebma stood before us. We passed through them. We entered the city.
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Everything was to be seen through a green haze. There were buildings, all of them fragile and most of
them high, grouped in patterns and standing in colors that entered my eyes and tore
through my mind, seeking after remembrance. They failed, the sole
result of their digging being the now familiar ache that accompanies the half recalled, the unrecalled. I had
walked these streets before, however, that I knew, or ones very much like them.
Random had not said a single word since he had been taken into custody. Deirdre's only conversation
had been to inquire after our sister Llewella. She had been informed that Liewella was in Rebma.
I examined our escort. They were men with green hair, purple hair, and black hair, and all of them had
eyes of green, save for one fellow whose were of a hazel color. All wore only scaled trunks and cloaks,
cross-braces on their breasts, and short swords depending from sea-shell belts. All were pretty much
lacking in body hair.
None of them spoke to me, though some stared and some glared, I was
allowed to keep my weapon.
Inside the city, we were conducted up a wide avenue, lighted by pillar flames set at even closer
intervals than on Faiella-bionin, and people stared out at us from behind octagonal, tinted windows, and
bright-bellied fishes swam by. There came a cool current, like a breeze, as we turned a corner; and after
a few steps, a warm one, like a wind.
We were taken to the palace in the center of the city, and I knew it as my hand knew the glove in my
belt. It was an image of the palace of Amber, obscured only by the green and confused by the many
strangely placed mirrors which had been set within its walls, inside and out. A woman sat upon the throne
in the glassite room I almost recalled, and her hair was green, though streaked with silver, and her eyes
were round as moons of jade and her brows rose like the wings of olive gulls. Her mouth was small, her
chin was small; her cheeks were high and wide and rounded. A circlet of white gold crossed her brow
and there was a crystal necklace about her neck. At its tip there flashed a sapphire between her sweet
bare breasts, whose nipples were also a pale green. She wore scaled trunks of blue and a silver belt, and
she held a scepter of pink coral in her right hand and had a ring upon every finger, and each ring had a
stone of a different blue within it. She did not smile as she spoke:
"What seek you here, outcasts of Amber?" she asked, and her voice was a lisping, soft, flowing thing.
Deirdre spoke in reply, saying: "We flee the wrath of the prince who sits in the true city-Eric! To be
frank, we wish to work his downfall. If he is loved here, we are lost, and we have delivered ourselves
into the hands of our enemies. But I feel he is not loved here. So we come asking aid, gentle Moire-"
"I will not give you troops to assault Amber." she replied. "As you know, the chaos would be reflected
within my own realm."
"That is not what we would have of you, dear Moire," Deirdre continued, "but only a small thing, to be
achieved at no pain or cost to yourself or your subjects."
"Name it! For as you know, Eric is almost as disliked here as this recreant who stands at your left [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]