Blood of Amber by Roger Zelazny Page A

saw the blade protruding from his back, the hand of the grim-faced man who had put it there already tightening to pull it out again.
    “You son of a bitch!” I cried in English-though I’m sure the meaning came through-and I dropped my burden and drove my fist into the stranger’s face, knocking him over backward, his blade remaining in place.   “I needed him!”
    I caught hold of my former adversary and raised him into the most comfortable position I could manage.
    “Who sent you?” I asked him.   “How did you find me?”
    He grinned weakly and dribbled blood.   “No freebies here,” he said.   “Ask somebody else,” and he slumped forward and got blood on my shirtfront.
    I drew the ring from his finger and added it to my collection of goddamned blue stones.   Then I rose and glared at the man who had stabbed him.   Two other figures were helping him to his feet.
    “Just what the hell did you do that for?” I asked, advancing upon them.
    “I saved your damn life,” the man growled.
    “The hell you did! You might have just cost me it! I needed that man alive!”
    Then the figure to his left spoke, and I recognized the voice.   She placed her hand lightly upon the arm I did not even realize I had raised to strike the man again.
    “He did it on my orders,” she said.   “I feared for your life, and I did not understand that you wanted him prisoner.”
    I stared at her pale proud features within the dark cloak’s raised cowl.   It was Vinta Bayle, Caine’s lady, whom I had last seen at the funeral.   She was also the third daughter of the Baron Bayle, to whom Amber owed many a bibulous night.
    I realized that I was shaking slightly.   I drew a deep breath and caught control of myself.
    “I see,” I said at last.   “Thank you.”
    “I am sorry,” she told me.
    I shook my head.   “You didn’t know.   What’s done is done.   I’m grateful to anybody who tries to help me.”
    “I can still help you,” she said.   “I might have misread this one, but I believe you may still be in danger.   Let’s get away from here.”
    I nodded.   “A moment, please.”
    I went and retrieved Frakir from about the neck of the other dead man.
    She disappeared quickly into my left sleeve.   The blade I had been using fit my scabbard after a fashion, so I pushed it home and adjusted the belt, which had pulled around toward the rear.
    “Let’s go,” I said to her.
    The four of us strode back toward Harbor Street.   Interested bystanders got out of our way quickly.   Someone was probably already robbing the dead behind us.   Things fall apart; the center cannot hold.   But what the hell, it’s home.
5
    Walking, with the Lady Vinta and two servingmen of the House of Bayle, my side still hurting from its encounter with a sword hilt, beneath a moonbright, starbright sky, through a sea mist, away from Death Alley.
    Lucky, actually, that a bump on the side was all I acquired in my engagement with those who would do me harm.   How they had located me so quickly upon my return, I could not say.   But it seemed as if Vinta might have some idea about this, and I was inclined to trust her, both because I knew her somewhat and because she had lost her man, my Uncle Caine, to my former friend Luke, from whose party anything involving a blue stone seemed to have its origin.
    When we turned onto a seaward side way off Harbor Street, I asked her what she had in mind.
    “I thought we were heading for Vine,” I said.
    “You know you are in danger,” she stated.
    “I guess that’s sort of obvious.”
    “I could take you to my father’s place up in town,” she said, “or we could escort you back to the palace, but someone knows you are here and it didn’t take long to reach you.”
    “True.”
    “We have a boat moored down this way.   We can sail along the coast and reach my father’s country place by morning.   You will have disappeared.   Anyone seeking you in Amber will be