The Jack said, “Random.” Then its face blurred and it said, “Help me.” I began getting a feel of the personality by then, but it was weak. The whole thing was very weak. Then the face rearranged itself and I saw that I was right. It was Brand. He looked like hell, and he seemed to be chained or tied to something. “Help me,” he said again.

“I’m here,” I said. “What’s the matter?”

“…prisoner,” he said, and something else that I couldn’t make out.

“Where?” I asked.

He shook his head at that.

“Can’t bring you through,” he said. “No Trumps, and I am too weak. You will have to come the long way around…”

I did not ask him how he was managing it without my Trump. Finding out where he was seemed of first importance. I asked him how I could locate him.

“Look very closely,” he said. “Remember every feature. I may only be able to show you once. Come armed, too…”

Then I saw the landscape — over his shoulder, out a window, over a battlement, I can’t be sure. It was far from Amber, somewhere where the shadows go mad. Farther than I like to go. Stark, with shifting colors. Fiery. Day without a sun in the sky. Rocks that glided like sailboats across the land. Brand there in some sort of tower — a small point of stability in that flowing scene. I remembered it, all right. And I remembered the presence coiled about the base of that tower. Brilliant. Prismatic. Some sort of watch-thing, it seemed — too bright for me to make out its outline, to guess its proper size. Then it all just went away. Instant off. 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.