Read SIGN OF CHAOS for Free Online

the book and set it on the table.
    Then, “There is trouble?” he asked.
    “There is trouble, Mandor.”
    He rose to his feet.
    “You wish to come through?”
    I shook my head.   “If you have any Trumps handy for getting back, I’d rather you came to me.”
    He extended his hand.
    “All right,” he said.
    I reached forward, our hands clasped; he took a single step and stood beside me on the bridge.   We embraced for a moment and then he turned and looked out and down into the rift.
    “There is some danger here?” he asked.
    “No.   I chose this place because it seems very safe.”
    “Scenic, too,” he replied.   “What’s been happening to you?”
    “For years I was merely a student, and then a designer of certain sorts of specialized machinery,” I told him.   “Things were pretty uneventful until fairly recently.   Then all hell broke loose-but most of it I understand, and much of it seems under control.   That part’s complicated and not really worth your concern.”
    He rested a hand on the bridge’s side-piece: “And the other part?” he asked.
    “My enemies up until this point had been from the environs of Amber.   But suddenly, when it seemed that most of that business was on its way to being settled, someone put a Fire Angel on my trail.   I succeeded in destroying it just a little while ago.   I’ve no idea why, and it’s certainly not an Amber trick.”
    He made a clicking noise with his lips as he turned away, paced a few steps, and turned back.
    “You’re right, of course,” he said.   “I’d no idea it had come anywhere near this, or I’d have spoken with you some time ago.   But let me differ with you as to orders of importance before I indulge in certain speculations on your behalf.   I want to hear your entire story.”
    “Why?”
    “Because you are sometimes appallingly naive, little brother, and I do not yet trust your judgment as to what is truly important.”
    “I may starve to death before I finish,” I answered.   Smiling crookedly, my step-brother Mandor raised his arms.   While Jurt and Despil are my half brothers, borne by my mother, Dara, to Prince Sawall the Rim Lord, Mandor was Sawall’s son by an earlier marriage.   Mandor is considerably older than I, and as a result he reminds me much of my relatives back in Amber.   I’d always felt a bit of an outsider among the children of Dara and Sawall.   In that Mandor was-in a more stable sense-not part of that particular grouping either, we’d had something in common.   But whatever the impulse behind his early attentions, we’d hit it off and become closer, I sometimes think, than full blood brothers.   He had taught me a lot of practical things over the years, and we had had many good times together.
    The air was distorted between us, and when Mandor lowered his arms a dinner table covered with embroidered white linen came into sudden view between us, soundlessly, followed a moment later by a pair of facing chairs.   The table bore numerous covered dishes, fine china, crystal, silverware; there was even a gleaming ice bucket with a dark twisted bottle within it.
    “I am impressed,” I stated.
    “I’ve devoted considerable time to gourmet magic in recent years,” he said.   “Pray, be seated.”
    We made ourselves comfortable there on the bridge between two darknesses.   I muttered appreciatively as I tasted, and it was some minutes before I could begin a summary of the events that had brought me to this place of starlight and silence.
    Mandor listened to my entire tale without interruption, and when I’d finished he nodded and said, “Would you care for another serving of dessert?”
    “Yes,” I agreed.   “It’s quite nice.”
    When I glanced up a few moments later, I saw that he was smiling.
    “What’s funny?” I asked.
    “You,” he replied.   “If you recall, I told you before you left for that place to be discriminating when it came to giving your trust.”
    “Well?