Free Blood of Amber by Roger Zelazny Page B

It’s gotten sort of clubby.”
    “Hell! I don’t want conversation or atmosphere.   I just want some nice fresh fish.   Where would you go for the best?”
    “Well, it’s a long walk.   But if you go all the way down to the docks, at the back of the cove, it’s a little to the west.   .   .   .   But maybe you shouldn’t.   It’s kind of late, and that isn’t the best neighborhood after dark.”
    “Is that by any chance Death Alley?”
    “They do sometimes call it that, sir, as bodies are occasionally found there of a morning.   Maybe you’d better go to the Net, seeing as you’re alone.”
    “Gerard took me through that area once, during the day.   I think I could find my way around it, all right.   What’s the name of the place?”
    “Uh, Bloody Bill’s.”
    “Thanks.   I’ll say hi to Bill for you.”
    He shook his head.   “Can’t.   It was renamed after the manner of his demise.   His cousin Andy runs it now.”
    “Oh.   What was it called before?”
    “Bloody Sam’s,” he said.
    Well, what the hell.   I bade him a good night and set out walking.   I took the path to the short stairway down the slope, which led to the walkway through a garden and over to a side gate, where another guard let me out.   It was a cool night with the breezed smells of autumn burning down the world about me.   I drew it into my lungs and sighed it out again as I headed for the Main Concourse, the distant, almost-forgotten, slow clopping sounds of hoofs on cobbles coming to me like something out of dream or memory.   The night was moonless but filled with stars, and the concourse below Banked by globes of phosphorescent liquid set atop high poles, long-tailed mountain moths darting about them.
    When I reached the avenue I strolled.   A few closed carriages rolled by as I passed along the way.   An old man walking a tiny green dragon on a chain leash touched his hat to me as I passed and said, “Good evening.” He had seen the direction from which I had come, though I was sure he did not recognize me.   My face is not that well-known about town.   My spirits loosened a bit after a time, and I felt a spring come into my step.
    Random had not been as angry as I’d thought he might.   Since Ghostwheel had not been stirring up any trouble, he had not charged me to go after it immediately and try again for a shutdown.   He had merely told me to think about it and come up with the best course of action we might pursue.   And Flora had been in touch earlier and told him who Luke was-a thing that seemed to have eased his mind somehow, knowing the identity of the enemy.   Though I’d asked, he would not tell me what plans he might have formulated for dealing with him.   He did allude to the recent dispatch of an agent to Kashfa, though, to obtain certain unspecified information.   The thing that seemed to trouble him the most, actually, was the possibility that the outlaw Dalt was still to be numbered among the living.
    “Something about that man .   .   .” Random began.
    “What?” I’d asked.
    “For one thing, I saw Benedict run him through.   That generally tends to terminate a person’s career.”
    “Tough son of a bitch,” I said.   “Or damn lucky.   Or both.”
    “If he is the same man, he’s the son of the Desacratrix.   You’ve heard of her?”
    “Deela,” I said.   “Wasn’t that her name? Some sort of religious fanatic?   Militant?”
    Random nodded.   “She caused a lot of trouble out around the periphery of the Golden Circle-mostly near Begma.   You ever been there?”
    “No.”
    “Well, Begma’s the nearest point on the circle to Kashfa, which is what makes your story particularly interesting.   She’d raided a lot in Begma and they couldn’t handle her by themselves.   They finally reminded us of the protection alliance we have with almost all the Circle kingdoms-and Dad decided to go in personally and teach her a lesson.   She’d burned one