Poking my head around a corner, I felt a chill on my neck and got a whiff of salty sea air... which startled me into rolling forward along the floor. Embarrassed that I'd jumped at nothing, I looked up to see that which the others had missed -- a small air vent hidden in the shadows of the ceiling, just wide enough for a Griffin-sized person to climb up. I yelled for Shen, and he was there in only a few moments.
I used my own chalk to mark an arrow on the wall that pointed up at the ceiling, and after assuring Shen that I was me -- the me that I'd always been -- I was up into the chimney chasing our thief. It went up quite a long ways, and when I lost the light from the prison level below, I had to summon a fuzzball to illuminate the way. While the chimney continued onward and upward, another passage high enough for one to stand in branched off towards the "right."
I guess I'd gone maybe fifty or sixty yards before I caught a glimpse of a man in a dark cloak... and features that looked similar to me, but different. A relative? I thought in the that instant, and then the man made a sharp gesture with his hand and the mountain came down around me.
Something buzzed in front of my face -- it was the little puff of light I'd summoned. I then realized that by some stroke of luck, the mountain hadn't killed me instantly or broken my bones, but instead was conspiring to crush me slowly. I used the last bit of breath I had to summon an earth elemental, who quickly worked to absorb and move the rocks around me, allowing me to get my bearings. The tunnel ahead was nothing more than a wall of rock and dirt; the other direction, though, was more promising, as I heard grunting and scraping. Turns out Shen had followed me up the chimney and was working to dig me out from his end -- and so my elemental friend and I worked to meet him halfway before heading back to down to the others.
The worst part of the whole thing was not almost dying, but that I couldn't even tell in what direction the thief had gotten away to. Plus, I was a bit scared at how this person had looked -- it reminded me of why I'd started on this trip to begin with.
*****
I like to think I know something about people and human nature -- based on the report that Rickets had given before this whole mess began, I knew that our thief had a lot of bravado, and that would be his downfall. I recruited Merlin to come with me to the tavern at which the thief had made his brash proclamation that he'd steal the signet on the hunch that he'd return to show off his prize. Merlin used his shapechanging abilities, and I was able to break out one of my disguide kits to alter my own appearance. Thus attired we were on our way.
It did not take long for the thief to show up -- and as I scrutinized him, it looked as if he was trying to do a bad imitation of me. As he bartered with the barkeep about how much to fence to ring for, Merlin used his magic to immobilize the fellow while I taunted him, swiping the ring in the meantime. Suddenly, the room was filled with Eyrians, and Fletcher came in to apply some of his special attention to our thief friend.
"That was right smart of you to figure he'd come back here," he said with his peculiar drawl.
I smiled. "That's what I would have done." Of course, his response was derogatory after that, but I wouldn't let that knock me down. We marched the whole party and our crippled thief back to the Castle so Cecily could have her say in this matter, and I could return the ring.
*****
So it turns out that this man was nothing but a flunky of some Golden Circle sorceress and not related to our family at all -- and I'm not exactly certain if I'm happy about that or not. I have to admit, when I was describing the scene to Cecily, plots of trying to find out who this was and how he was related to me raced through my head. Because of everything that has been going on here, I've been forced to put aside my quest to find Caine, my father. The more I think about, however, will things ever let up here in Amber long enough for me to go off and follow my fancy?
I look around at the people dancing and singing, the couples retreating to the fields -- scowling only a bit at watching Gerda and Fletcher, of all people, leaving together -- and wish that if Amber was just like this for more than one fleeting night, I'd have time for my own business. An Eyrian approached, her eyes wide and sparkling in the moonlight; I'm not sure she full understood my response -- "I'm in love with myself" -- and maybe that's for the best.
I could probably get over the scorn of the others for abandoning Amber in a time of need, but the hell I'd put myself through would make the whole endeavor not worth the trouble. I can rationalize things this way purely because this family of Amber has existed for thousands of years -- and a wait of months, even a year, probably will not throw the universe off balance. Better now to focus on the problems at hand, and but my spare time to use when I actually get it.
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