Guns Of Avalon tcoa-2

by Roger Zelazny

  “I don’t believe you are telling me the whole truth,” I said, “but I haven’t the time to care. We are going ahead now, and there will be fighting. The safest thing for you will be to remain here. I will assign you a couple of bodyguards.”

  “I do not want them!”

  “I don’t care what you want. You are going to have them. When the fighting is over I will send for you.” I turned then and selected two men at random, ordering them to remain behind and guard her. They did not seem overjoyed at the prospect.

  “What are those weapons your men bear?” Dara asked.

  “Later,” I said. “I’m busy.” I relayed a sketchy briefing and ordered my squads.

  “You seem to have a very small number of men,” she said.

  “They are sufficient,” I replied. “I will see you later.” I left her there with her guards.

  We moved back along the route I had taken. The thunder ceased as we advanced, and the silence became less a thing of relief than of suspense to me. The twilight resettled about us, and I perspired within the damp blanket of the air.

  I called a halt before we reached the first point from which I had observed the action. I returned to it then, accompanied by Ganelon.

  The wyvern-riders were all over the place and their beasts fought along with them. They were pressing the defenders back against the cliff face. I sought for but could not locate Eric or the glow of his jewel.

  “Which ones are the enemy?” Ganelon asked me.

  “The beast-riders.”

  They were all of them landing now that heaven’s artillery had let up. As soon as they struck the solid surface, they charged forward. I searched among the defenders, but Gerard was no longer in sight.

  “Bring up the troops,” I said, raising my rifle. “Tell them to get the beasts and the riders both.”

  Ganelon withdrew, and I took aim at a descending wyvern, fired, and watched its swoop turn into a sudden flurry of pinions. It struck against the slope and began to flop about. I fired again.

  The beast began to burn as it died. Soon I had three bonfires going. I crawled up to my second previous position. Secure, I took aim and fired once more.

  I got another, but by then some of them were turning in my direction. I fired the rest of my ammo and hastened to reload. Several of them had begun moving toward me by then. They were quite fast.

  I managed to stop them and was reloading again when the first rifle squad arrived. We put down a heavier fire, and began to advance as the others came up.

  It was all over within ten minutes. Within the first five they had apparently realized that they hadn’t a chance, and they began to flee back toward the ledge, launching themselves into space, becoming airborne again. We shot them down as they ran, and burning flesh and smoldering bones lay everywhere about us.

  The moist rock rose sheer to our left, its summit lost in the clouds, so that it seemed as if it might tower endlessly above us. The winds still whipped the smoke and the mists, and the rocks were smeared and splotched with blood. As we had advanced, firing, the forces of Amber quickly realized that we represented assistance and began to push forward from their position at the base of the cliff. I saw that they were being led by my brother Caine. For a moment our eyes locked together across the distance, then he plunged ahead into the fray.

  Scattered groups of Amberites united into a second force as the attackers fell back. Actually, they limited our field of fire when they attacked the far flank of the wizened beast-men and their wyverns, but I had no way of getting word of this to them. We drew closer, and our firing was accurate.

  A small knot of men remained at the base of the cliff. I had a feeling they were guarding Eric, and that he had possibly been wounded, since the storm effects had ceased abruptly. I worked my own way off in that direction.

  The firing was already beginning to die down as I drew near the group, and I was hardly aware of what happened next until it was too late.

  Something big came rushing up from behind and was by me in an instant. I hit the ground and rolled, bringing my rifle to bear automatically. My finger did not tighten on the trigger, however. It was Dara, who had just plunged past me on horseback. She turned and laughed as I screamed at her.

  “Get back down there! Damn you! You’ll be killed!”

  “I’ll see you in Amber!” she cried, and she shot on across the grisly rock and made it up the trail that lay beyond.

  I was furious. But there was nothing I could do about it just then. Snarling, I got back to my feet and continued on.

  As I advanced upon the group, I heard my name spoken several times. Heads turned in my direction. People moved aside to let me pass. I recognized many of them, but I paid them no heed.

  I think that I saw Gerard at about the same time that he saw me. He had been kneeling in their midst, and he rose to his feet and waited. His face was expressionless.

  As I drew nearer, I saw that it was as I had suspected. He had been kneeling to tend an injured man who rested upon the ground. It was Eric.

  I nodded to Gerard as I came up beside him, and I looked down at Eric. My feelings were quite mixed. The blood from his several chest wounds was very bright and there was a lot of it. The Jewel of Judgment, which still hung on a chain about his neck, was covered with it. Eerily, it continued its faint, glowing pulsation, heart-like beneath the gore. Eric’s eyes were closed, his head resting upon a rolled-up cloak. His breathing was labored.

  I knelt, unable to take my eyes off that ashen face. I tried to push my hate aside just a little, since he was obviously dying, so that I might have a better chance to understand this man who was my brother for the moments that remained to him. I found that I could muster up something of sympathy by considering all that he was losing along with his life and wondering whether it would have been me lying there if I had come out on top five years earlier. I tried to think of something in his favor, and all I could come up with were the epitaph-like words, He died fighting for Amber. That was something, though. The phrase kept running through my mind.

  His eyes tightened, flickered, opened. His face remained without expression as his eyes focused on mine. I wondered whether he even recognized me.

  But he said my name, and then, “I knew that it would be you.” He paused for a couple of breaths and went on, “They saved you some trouble, didn’t they?” I did not reply. He already knew the answer.

  “Your turn will come one day,” he continued. “Then we will be peers.” He chuckled and realized too late that he should not have. He went into an unpleasant spasm of moist coughing. When it passed, he glared at me.

  “I could feel your curse,” he said. “All around me. The whole time. You didn’t even have to die to make it stick.”

  Then, as if reading my thoughts, he smiled faintly and said, “No I’m not going to give you my death curse. I’ve reserved that for the enemies of Amber — out there.” He gestured with his eyes. He pronounced it then, in a whisper, and I shuddered to overhear it.

  He returned his gaze to my face and stared for a moment. Then he plucked at the chain about his neck.

  “The Jewel…” he said. “You take it with you to the center of the Pattern. Hold it up. Very close — to an eye. Stare into it — and consider it a place. Try to project yourself — inside. You don’t go. But there is — experience… Afterward, you know how to use it…”

  “How —?” I began, but stopped. He had already told me how to attune to it. Why ask him to waste his breath on how he had figured it out?

  But he caught it and managed, “Dworkin’s notes… under fireplace… my —”

  Then he was taken with another coughing spell and the blood came out of his nose and his mouth. He sucked in a deep breath and heaved himself into a sitting position, eyes rolling wildly.

  “Acquit yourself as well as I have — bastard!” he said, then fell into my arms and heaved out his final, bloody breath.

  I held him for several moments, then lowered him into his fo
rmer position. His eyes were still open, and I reached out and closed them. Almost automatically, I put his hands together atop the now lifeless gem. I had no stomach to take it from him at that moment. I stood then, removed my cloak, and covered him with it.

  Turning, I saw that all of them were staring at me. Familiar faces, many of them. Some strange ones mixed in. So many who had been there that night when I had come to dinner in chains…

  No. It was not the time to think of that. I pushed it from my mind. The shooting had stopped, and Ganelon was calling the troops back and ordering some sort of formation. I walked forward.

  I passed among the Amberites. I passed among the dead. I walked by my own troops and moved to the edge of the cliff.

  In the valley below me, the fighting continued, the cavalry flowing like turbulent waters, merging, eddying, receding, the infantry still swarming like insects.

  I drew forth the cards I had taken from Benedict. I removed his own from the deck. It shimmered before me, and after a time there was contact.

  He was mounted on the same red and black horse on which he had pursued me. He was in motion and there was fighting all about him. Seeing that he confronted another horseman, I remained still. He spoke but a single word. “Bide,” he said.

  He dispatched his opponent with two quick movements of his blade. Then he wheeled his mount and began to withdraw from the fray. I saw that his horse’s reins had been lengthened and were looped and tied loosely about the remainder of his right arm. It took him over ten minutes to remove himself to a place of relative calm. When he had, he regarded me, and I could tell that he was also studying the prospect that lay at my back.

  “Yes, I am on the heights,” I told him. “We have won. Eric died in the battle.”

  He continued to stare, waiting for me to go on. His face betrayed no emotion.

  “We won because I brought riflemen,” I said. “I finally found an explosive agent that functions here.” His eyes narrowed and he nodded. I felt that he realized immediately what the stuff was and where it had come from.

  “While there are many things I want to discuss with you,” I continued, “I want to take care of the enemy first. If you will hold the contact, I will send you several hundred riflemen.” He smiled.

  “Hurry,” he said.

  I shouted for Ganelon, and he answered me from only a few paces away. I told him to line the troops up, single file. He nodded and went off, shouting orders.

  As we waited, I said, “Benedict, Dara is here. She was able to follow you through Shadow when you rode in from Avalon. I want —”

  He bared his teeth and shouted: “Who the hell is this Dara you keep talking about? I never heard of her till you came along! Please tell me! I would really like to know!”

  I smiled faintly.

  “It’s no good,” I said, shaking my head. “I know all about her, though I have told no one else that you’ve a great granddaughter.”

  His lips parted involuntarily and his eyes were suddenly wide.

  “Corwin,” he said, “you are either mad or deceived. I’ve no such descendant that I know of. As for anyone following me here through Shadow, I came in on Julian’s Trump.”

  Of course. My only excuse for not tripping her up immediately was my preoccupation with the conflict. Benedict would have been notified of the battle by means of the Trumps. Why should he waste time traveling when an instant means of transport was at hand?

  “Damn!” I said. “She is in Amber by now! Listen, Benedict! I am going to get Gerard or Caine over here to handle the transfer of the troops to you. Ganelon will come through, also. Give them their orders through him.”

  I looked around, saw Gerard talking with several of the nobles. I shouted for him with a desperate urgency. His head turned quickly. Then he began running in my direction.

  “Corwin! What is it?” Benedict was shouting.

  “I don’t know! But something is very wrong!” I thrust the Trump at Gerard as he came up.

  “See that the troops get through to Benedict!” I said. “Is Random in the palace?”

  “Yes.”

  “Free or confined?”

  “Free — more or less. There will be some guards about. Eric still doesn’t — didn’t trust him.” I turned.

  “Ganelon,” I called out. “Do what Gerard here tells you. He is going to send you to Benedict — down there.” I gestured. “See that the men follow Benedict’s orders. I have to get into Amber now.”

  “All right,” he called back.

  Gerard headed in his direction, and I fanned the Trumps once more. I located Random’s and began to concentrate. At that moment, it finally began to rain. I made contact almost immediately.

  “Hello, Random,” I said, as soon as his image came to life. “Remember me?”

  “Where are you?” he asked.

  “In the mountains,” I told him. “We just won this part of the battle, and I am sending Benedict the help he needs to clean up in the valley. Now, though, I need your help. Bring me across.”

  “I don’t know, Corwin. Eric —”

  “Eric is dead.”

  “Then who is in charge?”

  “Who do you think? Bring me across!”

  He nodded quickly and extended his hand. I reached out and clasped it. I stepped forward. I stood beside him on a balcony overlooking one of the courtyards. The railing was of white marble, and not much was blooming down below. We were two stories up. I swayed and he seized my arm. “You’re hurt!” he said.

  I shook my head, only just then realizing how tired I was. I had not slept very much the past few nights. That, and everything else…

  “No,” I said, glancing down at the gory mess that was my shirt front. “Just tired. The blood is Eric’s.”

  He ran a hand through his straw-colored hair and pursed his lips. “So you did finally nail him…” he said softly. I shook my head again.

  “No. He was already dying when I got to him. Come with me now! Hurry! It is important!”

  “Where to? What is the matter?”

  “To the Pattern,” I said. “Why? I am not certain, but I know that it is important. Come on!”

  We entered the palace, moving toward the nearest stairwell. There were two guards at its head, but they came to attention as we approached and did not attempt to interfere with our passage.

  “I’m glad it’s true about your eyes,” Random said as we headed down. “Do you see all right?”

  “Yes. I hear that you are still married.”

  “Yes. I am.”

  When we reached the ground floor, we hurried to the right. There had been another pair of guards at the foot of the stair, but they did not move to stop us.

  “Yes,” he repeated, as we headed toward the center of the palace. “You are surprised, aren’t you?”

  “Yes. I thought you were going to get the year over with and be done with it.”

  “So did I,” he said. “But I fell in love with her. I really did.”

  “Stranger things have happened.”

  We crossed the marble dining hall and entered the long, narrow corridor that led far back through shadows and dust. I suppressed a shudder as I thought of my condition the last time I had come this way.

  “She really cares for me,” he said. “Like nobody else ever has before.”

  “I’m glad for you,” I said.

  We reached the door that opened onto the platform hiding the long, spiral stairway down. It was open. We passed through and began the descent.

  “I’m not,” he said, as we hurried around and around. “I didn’t want to fall in love. Not then. We’ve been prisoners the whole time, you know. How can she be proud of that?”

  “That is over now,” I said. “You became a prisoner because you followed me and tried to kill Eric, didn’t you?”

  “Yes. Then she joined me here.”

  “I will not forget,” I said.

  We rushed on. It was a great distance down, and there were only lanterns
every forty feet or so. It was a huge, natural cavern. I wondered whether anyone knew how many tunnels and corridors it contained. I suddenly felt myself overwhelmed with pity for any poor wretches rotting in its dungeons, for whatever reasons. I resolved to release them all or find something better to do with them.

  Long minutes passed. I could see the flickering of the torches and the lanterns below.

  “There is a girl,” I said, “and her name is Dara. She told me she was Benedict’s great-granddaughter and gave me reason to believe it. I told her somewhat concerning Shadow, reality, and the Pattern. She does possess some power over Shadow, and she was anxious to walk the Pattern. When last I saw her, she was headed this way. Now Benedict swears she is not his. Suddenly I am fearful. I want to keep her from the Pattern. I want to question her.”

  “Strange,” he said. “Very. I agree with you. Do you think she might be there now?”

  “If she is not, then I feel she will be along soon.”

  We finally reached the floor, and I began to race through the shadows toward the proper tunnel.

  “Wait!” Random cried.

  I halted and turned. It took me a moment to locate him, as he was back behind the stairs. I returned.