Prince of chaos tcoa-10

by Roger Joseph Zelazny

  I took another swallow.

  “I never realized how close I’d gotten to the head of the line,” I added. “Jurt is number four or five in the succession, isn’t he?”

  He nodded.

  “I’ve a feeling it’s going to be a very busy day,” I said.

  “Finish your tea,” he told me, “and follow me when you would.”

  He walked away through a dragon tapestry on the far wall.

  As I raised the mug again, the bright bracelet on my left wrist came free and drifted before me, losing its braided outline, becoming a circle of pure light. It hovered above the steaming brew, as if enjoying its cinnamony aroma.

  “Hi, Ghost,” I said. “Why’d you weave yourself about my wrist that way?”

  “To look like that piece of rope you usually wear,” came the reply. “I thought you must be fond of the effect.”

  “I mean, what were you up to the whole time?”

  “Just listening, Dad. Seeing how I might be of help. These people are all your relatives, too?”

  “The ones we’ve met so far, yes.”

  “Is it necessary to go back to Amber to speak ill of them?”

  “No, it works here in the Courts, too.” I took another sip of tea. “Any special ill you have in mind? Or was that a general question?”

  “I don’t trust your mother or your brother Mandor, even if they are my grandmother and uncle. I think they’re setting you up for something.”

  “Mandor’s always been good to me.”

  “… And your uncle Suhuy — he seems eminently stable, but he reminds me a lot of Dworkin. Might he be sitting on all sorts of internal turmoils and ready to flip out anytime?”

  “I hope not,” I said. “He never has.”

  “Oh-oh, it’s been building, and this is a time of stress.”

  “Where are you getting all this pop psychology, anyway?”

  “I’ve been studying the great psychologists of the Shadow Earth. It’s part of my ongoing attempt to understand the human condition. I realized it was time I learned more about the irrational parts.”

  “What brought all this on?”

  “The higher order edition of the Pattern I encountered in the Jewel, actually. There were aspects of it I simply could not understand. This led to considerations of chaos theory, then to Menninger and all the others for its manifestations in consciousness.”

  “Any conclusions?”

  “I am wiser therefore.”

  “I mean, concerning the Pattern.”

  “Yes. Either it possesses an element of irrationality itself, like living things, or it is an intelligence of such an order that some of its processes only seem irrational to lesser beings. Either explanation amounts to the same thing from a practical standpoint.”

  “I never had the opportunity to apply some of the tests I’d designed, but can you say from self-knowledge whether you fall into such a category yourself?”

  “Me? Irrational? The notion never occurred to me. I can’t see how it could be.”

  I finished my tea and swung my legs over the side of the bed.

  “Too bad,” I said. “I think some measure of it is what makes us truly human — that, and recognizing it in ourselves, of course.”

  “Really?”

  I rose and began dressing myself.

  “Yes, and controlling it within oneself may have something to do with intelligence and creativity.”

  “I’m going to have to study this very closely.”

  “Do that,” I said, pulling on my boots, “and let me know your findings.”

  As I continued dressing, he asked, “When the sky turns blue you will breakfast with your brother Mandor?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “And later you will take lunch with your mother?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Later still, you will attend the late monarch’s funeral?”

  “I will.”

  “Will you need me to protect you?”

  “I’ll be safe with my relatives, Ghost. Even if you don’t trust them.”

  “The last funeral you attended got bombed.”

  “That’s true. But it was Luke, and he’s sworn off. I’ll be okay. You want to sightsee, go ahead.”

  “All right,” he said. “I do.”

  I rose and crossed the chamber, to stand before the dragon.

  “Can you tell me the way to the Logrus?” Ghost asked.

  “Are you joking?”

  “No,” he stated. “I’ve seen the Pattern, but I’ve never seen the place of the Logrus. Where do they keep it?”

  “I thought I gave you better memory functions than that. In your last encounter with the thing, you pissed it off in the max.”

  “I suppose I did. Do you think it would hold a grudge?”

  “Offhand, yes. Upon consideration, yes. Stay away from it.”

  “You just advised me to study the chaos factor, the irrational.”

  “I didn’t advise you to commit suicide. I put a lot of work into you.”

  “I value myself, too. And you know I have a survival imperative, the same as organic beings.”

  “It’s your judgment I wonder about.”

  “You know a lot about my abilities.”

  “It’s true you’re good at getting the hell out of places.”

  “And you owe me a decent education.”

  “Let me think about it.”

  “That’s just stalling. I suppose I can find it myself.”

  “Fine. Go ahead.”

  “It’s that hard to locate?”

  “You gave up on omniscience, remember?”

  “Dad, I think I need to see it.”

  “I haven’t the time to take you there.”

  “Just show me the way. I’m good at concealing myself.”

  “I’ll give you that. All right. Suhuy is Keeper of the Logrus. It lies in a cavern — somewhere. The only way I know to it begins in this place.”

  “Where?”

  “There are something like nine turnings involved. I’ll lay a seeing upon you, to lead you.”

  “I don’t know whether your spells would work on something like me —”

  I reached out through the ring — pardon me, spikard superimposed a series of black asterisks upon a map of the ways he must follow, hung it in the space of my Logrus vision before him, and I said, “I designed you, and I designed this spell.”

  “Uh, yes,” Ghost replied. “I feel as if I suddenly possess data that I can’t access.”

  “It will be presented to you at the appropriate times. Form yourself into the likeness of a ring upon my left index finger. We will quit this room in a moment and pass through others. When we are near the proper way I will indicate it by pointing. Proceed in that direction and you will pass through something along your route which will conduct you into another place. Somewhere in that vicinity you will find a black star indicating the next direction you must take — to another place and another star and so on. Eventually, you will emerge in a cavern that houses the Logrus. Conceal yourself as completely as you can and make your observations. When you wish to retreat, reverse the process.”

  He shrank himself and flew to my finger.

  “Look me up later and let me know your experiences.”

  “I was planning to,” came his tiny voice. “I would not wish to add to your probable present paranoia.”

  “Keep it up,” I said.

  I crossed the room and entered the dragon.

  I emerged in a small sitting room, one window looking out over mountains; the other, a desert. There was no one about, and I stepped out into a long hallway. Yes, just as I recalled.

  I moved along it, passing a number of other rooms, till I came to a door on my left, which I opened to discover a collection of mops, brooms, buckets, brushes, a heap of cleaning cloths, a basin. Yes, as I remembered. I pointed to the shelves on my right.

  “Find the black star,” I said.

  “You’re ser
ious?” came the small voice.

  “Go and see.”

  A streak of light proceeded from my index finger, grew distorted as it neared the shelves, folded itself into a line so thin it was no longer present.

  “Good luck,” I breathed, and then I turned away.

  I closed the door, wondering whether I had done the right thing, consoling myself with the thought that he would have gone looking and doubtless located the Logrus eventually, anyway. Whatever was to be on this front, would be. And I was curious as to what he might learn.

  I turned and took myself back up the hallway to the little sitting room. It might be my last opportunity at being alone for a time, and I was determined to take advantage of it. I seated myself on a pile of cushions and withdrew my Trumps. A quick run through the deck turned up the one I had hastily sketched of Coral on that recent hectic day back in Amber. I studied her features till the card grew cold.

  The image became three-dimensional, and then she slipped away and I saw myself, walking the streets of Amber on a bright afternoon, holding her hand as I led her around a knot of merchants. Then we were descending the face of Kolvir, sea bright before us, gulls passing. Then back in the cafe, table flying against the wall…

  I covered the card with my hand. She was asleep, dreaming. Odd, to enter another’s dreams that way. Odder, to find myself there — unless, of course, the touch of my mind had prompted unconscious reminiscence… One of life’s smaller puzzles. No need to awaken the poor lady, just to ask her how she was feeling. I supposed I could call Luke and ask him how she was doing. I began searching for his card, then hesitated. He must be pretty busy, his first few days on the job as monarch. And I already knew she was resting. As I toyed with Luke’s card, though, finally pushing it aside, the one beneath it was revealed.

  Gray and silver and black… His face was an older, somewhat harder version of my own. Corwin, my father, looked back at me. How many times had I sweated over that card, trying to reach him, till my mind tied itself into aching knots, with no result? The others had told me that it could mean he was dead, or that he was blocking the contact. And then a funny feeling came over me. I recalled his own story, in particular when he’d spoken of the times they had tried to reach Brand through his Trump, being at first unable to because he had been imprisoned in such a distant shadow. Then I remembered his own attempts to reach through to the Courts, and the difficulty imposed by the great distance. Supposing that, rather than being dead or blocking me, he was greatly removed from the places I had been when I had made the efforts?

  But then, who was it had come to my aid that night in Shadow, bearing me to that peculiar place between shadows and the bizarre adventures that befell me there? And though I was totally uncertain as to the nature of his appearance to me in the Corridor of Mirrors, I had later encountered indications of his presence in Amber Castle itself. If he’d been in any of those places, it would seem he hadn’t really been too far off. And that would mean he’d simply been blocking me, and another attempt to reach him would probably prove equally fruitless. Still, what if there were some other explanation for all these occurrences and…

  The card seemed to grow cold beneath my touch. Was it just my imagination, or was the strength of my regard beginning to activate it? I moved forward in my mind, focusing. It seemed to grow even colder as I did so.

  “Dad?” I said. “Corwin?”

  Colder still, and a tingling feeling in my fingertips that touched it. It seemed the beginning of a Trump contact. It could be that he was much nearer to the Courts than to Amber, within a more reachable range now…

  “Corwin,” I repeated. “It’s me, Merlin. Hello.”

  His image shifted, seemed to move. And then the card went totally black.

  Yet, it remained cold, and a sensation like a silent version of contact was present, like a telephone connection during a long pause.

  “Dad? Are you there?”

  The blackness of the card took on the aspect of depth. And deep within it, something seemed to be stirring.

  “Merlin?” The word was faint, yet I was certain it was his voice, speaking my name. “Merlin?”

  The movement within the depth was real. Something was rushing toward me.

  It erupted from the card into my face, with a beating of black wings, cawing, crow or raven, black, black. “Forbidden!” it cried. “Forbidden! Go back! Withdraw!”

  It flapped about my head as the cards spilled from my hand.

  “Stay away!” it screeched, circling the room. “Forbidden place!”

  It passed out the doorway and I pursued it. It seemed to have vanished, though, in the moments it was lost to my sight.

  “Bird!” I cried. “Come back!”

  But there was no reply, no further sounds of beating wings. I peered into the other rooms and there was no sign of the creature in any of them.

  “Bird…?”

  “Merlin! What’s the matter?” — this from high overhead.

  I looked up to behold Suhuy, descending a crystal stair behind a quivering veil of light, a sky full of stars at his back.

  “Just looking for a bird,” I replied.

  “Oh,” he said, reaching the landing and stepping through the veil which then shook itself out of existence, taking the stair along with it. “Any particular bird?”

  “A big black one,” I said. “Of the talking sort.” He shook his head.

  “I can send for one,” he said.

  “This was a special bird,” I said.

  “Sorry you lost it.”

  We walked out into the hallway and I turned left and headed back to the sitting room.

  “Trumps all over the place,” my uncle remarked.

  “I was attempting to use one and it went black and the bird flew out of it, shouting, ‘Forbidden’! I dropped them at that point.”

  “Sounds as if your correspondent is a practical joker,” he said, “or under a spell.”

  We knelt and he helped me to gather them.

  “The latter seems more likely,” I said. “It was my father’s card, I’ve been trying to locate him for a long’ while now, and this was the closest I’ve come. I actually heard his voice, within the blackout, before the bird interrupted and cut us off.”

  “Sounds as if he is confined to a dark place, perhaps magically guarded as well.”

  “Of course!” I said, squaring up the edges of my deck and recasing it.

  One cannot shift the stuff of Shadow in a place of absolute darkness. It is as effective as blindness in stopping one of our blood from escaping confinement. It added an element of rationality to my recent experience. Someone wanting Corwin out of commission would have to keep him in a very dark place.

  “Did you ever meet my father?” I asked.

  “No,” Suhuy replied. “I understand that he did visit the Courts briefly, at the end of the war. But I never had the pleasure.”

  “Did you hear anything of his doings here?”

  “I believe he attended a meeting with Swayvill and his counselors, along with Random and the other Amberites, preliminary to the peace treaty. After that, I understand he went his own ways, and I never heard where they might have led him.”

  “I’d heard as much in Amber,” I said. “I wonder… He’d killed a noble — a Lord Borel — near the end of the final battle. Any chance Borel’s relatives might have gone after him?”

  He clicked his fangs twice, then pursed his lips.

  “The House of Hendrake,” he mused. “I think not. Your grandmother was Hendrake…”

  “I know,” I said. “But I didn’t have much to do with them. Some disagreement with Helgram…”

  “Hendrake Ways is very much of the military sort,” he went on. “Glory of battle. Martial honor, you know. I can’t see them as holding a peacetime grudge for a wartime happening.”

  Recalling my father’s story, I said, “Even if they considered the killing less than honorable?”

  “I don’t know,” he said to
that. “It’s hard to guess attitudes on specific questions.”

  “Who is head of the House of Hendrake now?”

  “The Duchess Belissa Minobee.”

  “The duke, her husband — Larsus… What happened to him?”

  “He died at Patternfall. I believe Prince Julian of Amber slew him.”

  “And Borel was their son?”

  “Yes.”

  “Ouch. Two of them. I didn’t realize.”

  “Borel had two brothers, a half brother and a half sister, many uncles, aunts, cousins. Yes, it’s a big House. And the women of Hendrake are as doughty as the men.”

  “Yes, of course. There are songs, such as ‘Never Wed a Hendrake Lass’. Any way of finding out whether Corwin had any doings with Hendrake while he was here?”

  “One could ask about a bit, though it’s been a long while. Memories fade, trails grow cold. Not easy.”

  He shook his head.

  “How long till bluesky?” I asked him.

  “Fairly soon,” he said.

  “I’d better be heading for Mandorways then. I promised my brother I’d breakfast with him.”

  “I’ll see you later,” he said. “At the funeral, if not before.”

  “Yes,” I said. “I guess I’d better clean up and change clothes.”

  I headed back through the way to my room, where I summoned a basin of water, soap, toothbrush, razor; also, gray trousers, black boots and belt, purple shirt and gloves, charcoal cloak, fresh blade and scabbard. When I had made myself presentable, I took a way through a forested glade to the receiving room. From there, I exited onto a thruway. A quarter mile of mountain trail later, ending abruptly at a chasm, I summoned a filmy and crossed upon it. Then I bore right to Mandorways, traveling a blue beach beneath a double sun for perhaps a hundred yards. I turned right, passing through a remembered archway of stone, moving briefly past a bubbling lava field and through a black obsidian wall, which took me to a pleasant cavern, over a small bridge, through a corner of a graveyard, a few steps along the Rim and into the receiving area of his Ways.

  The entire wall to my left was composed of slow flame; that to my right, a non-returnable way, save for light, giving sight of some sea-bottom trench where bright things moved about and ate one another. Mandor was seated humanformed before a bookcase directly ahead, wearing black and white, feet propped on a black ottoman, a copy of Robert Hass’s Praise, which I had given him, in his hand.