![]() Texorami was a wide open port city, with sultry days and long nights, lots of good music, gambling around the clock, duels every morning and in-between mayhem for those who couldn't wait. And there I was, staring at the Jack of Diamonds again, with the guy across from me not knowing whether to be mad at my long distraction or concerned that I might be having some sort of sick spell. Some sort of watch-thing, it seemed - too bright for me to make out its outline, to guess its proper size. And I remembered the presence coiled about the base of that tower. Brand there in some sort of tower - a small point of stability in that flowing scene. Rocks that glided like sailboats across the land. It was far from Amber, somewhere where the shadows go mad. Then I saw the landscape - over his shoulder, out a window, over a battlement, I can't be sure. prisoner," he said, and something else that I couldn't make out. Depends on what you want most at the moment. I mean, ask me another time and I might say one of the others. Well, maybe soaring has a little edge - in gliders, balloons, and certain variations - but mood has a lot to do with that too, you know. With me, Corwin, it's drumming, being up in the air, and gambling - in no special order. While sex heads a great number of lists, we all have other things we like to do in between. Drawing back the drapes, he stared out for a time. He got to his feet, stepped over the room's other occupant, and made his way to the window. The Jack of Diamonds began talking to me. "Not bad," I said, "but I can't spare any more brothers at the moment. "Plenty of noble Amberites around with possible motives. I had decided to go looking for an assemblage of all my simple pleasures in one small nook of Shadow. Still, it was a very nice crop - silver-chased, beautifully tooled - and I made good use of it. He gave me a fancy riding crop for a going-away present - to hasten the process of affection, I suppose. I had often noticed that his fondness for me tended to increase as an inverse function of my proximity. Dad was still around, and when I noticed that he was getting into one of his grumpy moods, I decided it was time to take a walk. "There's a lot to tell."Īnyway, I was here in Amber some years ago. It could have been that my subconscious - which was kind of footloose at the time - just seized on the available props out of habit. Ordinarily, of course, we get the message empty-handed, unless we are doing the calling. ![]() I decided later that it must be our mental quirk associated with the Trumps that made me see it that way when someone was trying to reach me and I had cards in my hand - any cards. Also, I was physically strung out from a long day's gliding and not much sleep the night before. I had just finished a couple very hot sets and was still kind of high. ![]()
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