The Dawn of Amber

by John Gregory Betancourt

  “Father doesn’t like to be followed,” Freda said suddenly, breaking the uncomfortable silence between us. “He has always been good at laying traps.”

  “Traps?” I managed to pull my gaze from the window to regard her questioningly. “What do you mean?”

  “Anyone who tries to follow us will be attacked, of course. That is his plan.”

  “By the bats,” I said, realizing what she meant. “And the people in that town. And the burning grasslands—”

  “Yes.” She smiled a bit and smoothed her dress around her, as though we had gone for a pleasant afternoon’s ride or a picnic in the country. “Father is awfully clever that way. I never could have thought up those bats.”

  “But . . . how—” I frowned, puzzled. Thought them up? She made it sound like he had created them, somehow.

  “He is a true master at manipulating Shadows,” she said with a little shrug. “Far better than me. I like to pick a place and stay there.”

  “As long as it’s safe.”

  “Of course.”

  More riddles, I grumbled to myself. Shadows? What was she talking about? She was Dworkin’s daughter, all right, and I was sick of their games. Every time one of them said anything to me, it only made my confusion worse.

  My attention drifted to the table between us. Apparently she had finished with her Tarot cards; the whole deck sat neatly stacked before her now. I wondered what she had seen in our future. Briefly I considered asking her, but then I thought better of it. Somehow, I didn’t think the answers would make much sense to me. And I had never put much faith in fortune-telling.

  I turned my attention back to the window. Without warning, the carriage burst into a clearing, and dazzling noontime sun caught me full in the face. I had to shield my eyes and squint to see, and even so, bright spots drifted before my eyes.

  A desert . . . we were riding through a desert of red sand and red rocks now. Heat shimmered in waves, and though I could feel a scorching heat on my face, I felt a chill inside.

  Magic again. The carriage was ensorcelled, taking us on a nightmare journey where neither day nor night nor landscape held any true form or meaning. Even so, knowing it couldn’t possibly be real, as my eyes grew accustomed to the light I found I could not look away.

  We turned, crossed a bridge of stone, and entered another forest, this one filled with redwoods of immense proportion, their trunks so big around that it would have taken a dozen men with arms stretched fingertip to fingertip to surround one. High up among the leaves, I glimpsed creatures the size and shape of men leaping from branch to branch. Male and female alike wore skirts of woven grass and carried short wooden clubs hooked to small belts. When they spotted us, they began to shriek and point.

  The sky darkened without warning; hailstones the size of peas began to fall, followed by gusts of wind strong enough to shake the carriage. Behind us, I heard a huge grinding, tearing sound like nothing I had ever heard before, and a jolt of fear went through me.

  Opening the window, I stuck my head out and looked back to see what was happening. A cold, gale-strong wind whipped my hair, and I had to squint to see, but the sight filled me with a terrible awe.

  Half a dozen tornadoes writhed and danced through the redwood forest behind us. Trees by the hundreds were falling before the winds, huge knots of root tearing loose from the ground, immense trunks slamming down in an impenetrable maze of wood. I saw hundreds of the manlike creatures sucked up into the black swirling funnels where, still screaming, they vanished.

  The road would be impossible to follow on horseback. It had to be another trap for our pursuers, if they made it around the fires, through the townspeople, and past the bats. But how had Dworkin known to come here? How had he known the trees would fall? They must have been standing for centuries to have grown so huge. For us to pass just as tornadoes blew them over seemed unlikely, to say the least.

  No, I thought, Dworkin hadn’t known the trees would fall, I realized with a growing sense of helplessness. He had made them fall. It was the only possible explanation. With such powers as he now commanded, he could have ruled Ilerium. How, in all our years together, had I never even suspected them?

  I felt sorry for the tree creatures in that forest who had died because of us, unwittingly giving their lives and homes to protect our passage.

  The winds began to drop when we descended into a small valley. Fog came up suddenly, and a dense, dismal gray cloaked the windows for a time. Though I knew cliffs stood to either side, somewhere just out of sight, I thought once or twice I heard the sound of gently lapping waves.

  I pulled my head in and glanced at Freda, who looked as serene as a cat with a bird in its mouth. I couldn’t understand her calm. This journey—and it wasn’t over yet!—already had me feeling battle-worn and weary . . . yet too ill at ease to relax.

  “How much longer?” I asked her.

  “It depends on Father. He is not taking the fastest or most direct route to Juniper, after all.”

  Juniper? Was that our destination?

  I’d never heard of it . . . and from the name it could have been anything, from castle keep to sprawling kingdom. She expected me to know the name, I thought, from the way she said it, so I simply smiled like I knew what she meant. Perhaps she’d tell me more if she thought I already knew about this Juniper.

  Instead of talking to me, though, she settled farther back in her seat and folded her hands in her lap, volunteering nothing.

  I did notice that dawn had just broken outside again, burning off the fog with supernatural speed.

  After that, everything kept changing, but subtly, never quite while you were looking at it. The sky turned greenish, then yellow-green, then back to blue. Clouds came and vanished. Forests rose and fell to grassland, which gave way to farmland and then back to forests again. Dawn broke half a dozen times.

  I had never even heard of magic like this before, which bent time and place to a driver’s will, and my estimation of Dworkin—or the people he worked for—grew steadily greater, if that was possible. Whatever wizards had created his crystal-weapon and this carriage clearly had the power to save Ilerium from hell-creatures.

  My job would be winning them over to King Elnar’s cause.

  It seemed our only hope.

  Finally, after what felt like hours of travel, we entered a land of rolling green hills. The highway we traveled—at times paved with yellow bricks but for the moment deep ruts with grass in between—curved gently ahead. Brightly plumed birds flitted among the scattered bushes and trees, their cheerful songs strangely normal after all we had been through. Overhead, high white clouds streaked the deep, perfect blue of the sky,

  “We are close to Juniper now,” I heard Freda say.

  I glanced at her. “You recognize the scenery?”

  “Yes. A few more hours and we should be there.” Then a dozen horsemen dressed in silvered armor fell in around the carriage.

  Chapter Four

  Instantly my hand flew to the sword lying across my knees, but I didn’t draw it. These soldiers seemed to be acting as an escort or honor guard, I thought, rather than a band of attackers.

  When one turned slightly, I noticed the red-and-gold rampant lion stitched on the front of his blouse. The pattern matched Dworkin’s—these had to be his men.

  I allowed myself to relax. We should be safe in their care. So close to this mysterious Juniper, what could go wrong?

  The carriage slowed enough for them to keep up with us. Trying to appear uncurious, I opened the window again and pulled back the curtain a bit, studying the rider closest to us. Thick black braids hung down behind his rounded silver helmet, and he had a long, thin black mustache that flapped as he rode. His arms seemed odd, I decided—a little too long. And they seemed to be bending halfway between shoulder and elbow, as if they had an extra joint.

  Suddenly he turned and looked straight at me. His slitted yellow eyes caught the light, glinting like a cat’s with an almost opalescent f
ire.

  Swallowing, I let the curtain fall. Thus hidden, I continued to study him. These might be Dworkin’s guards, I thought, but they weren’t human. Nor did they have the unpleasant features of hell-creatures. So who—or what—were they?

  Taking a deep breath, I forced myself to turn away. I’d seen enough. No sense brooding on questions I couldn’t yet answer.

  My attention now focused on Freda, who had begun to shuffle her Tarot cards and lay them out again. Every few minutes she rearranged them into a different pattern, sometimes circular, sometimes diagonal, once square with a cascading pattern in the center.

  “Solitaire?” I asked, trying to get her attention. Perhaps I could learn more from her.

  “No.”

  “I prefer games for two players, myself.”

  “Games are for children and old men.”

  I leaned forward, tilting my head and looking at her deck more carefully now. Rather than the standard Tarot cards such as any wisewoman or soothsayer might employ, filled with religious and astrological figures, these showed men and women I didn’t recognize and places I had never been—a strange castle, a dark forest glade, even a romantic beach bathed in the warm glow of moonlight . . . or moonslight, rather, for two moons hung in the sky—the artist’s idea of a joke, or a real place? I could no longer be sure.

  Freda gathered the cards, shuffled seven times, and dealt out fifteen, three lines of five cards each. Only portraits of men and women came up. Most had features similar enough to Dworkin’s to be related to him.

  “What do you see?” I finally asked after the waiting became impossible to bear.

  “Our family.” She pointed to the cards before her. “Nine princes of Chaos, all torn asunder. Six princesses of Chaos, where do they wander.”

  “I know fortune-tellers are always vague,” I said, taking a stab at humor. “But at least it rhymes, almost.”

  “It is part of an old nursery verse:

  “Nine princes of Chaos, all torn asunder;

  Six princesses of Chaos, where do they wander?

  Fly falcon, stout hart, and unicorn brave;

  Between the Shadows, to escape your grave.”

  I had never heard it before. And yet it did fit.

  “A bit grim,” I said.

  She shrugged. “I did not write it.”

  With a start, I realized we were no longer speaking Tantari, but some other language, a richer one with a lilting rhythm. It spilled from her tongue like water from a glass, and I understood every word as though I had been speaking it all my life. How did I know it? More magic? Had I come under some spell without even realizing it?

  Stammering a bit, unable to help myself, I asked her, “W-what language is this?”

  “It’s Thari, of course,” she said, giving me the sort of odd, puzzled look you’d give the village idiot when he asked why water was wet.

  Thari . . . It sounded right, somehow, and I knew on some inner level she spoke the truth. But how did I know it? When had I learned it?

  My every thought and memory told me I never had.

  And yet . . . and yet, now I spoke it like I’d known it my entire life. And I found it increasingly difficult to recall Tantari, my native tongue, as though it belonged to some distant, hazy dream.

  “You have been in Shadow a long time, haven’t you?” she said with a sigh. “Sometimes it is easy to forget what that can do to you . . . ”

  In Shadow? What did that mean?

  Remembering the look she’d given me when I asked what language we spoke, I bit back my questions. I wouldn’t appear foolish or ignorant again, if I could help it.

  Instead, I said, “Yes, I suppose I have been gone too long.” I didn’t know what else to say, and I didn’t want to volunteer too much and reveal my ignorance. “I hadn’t seen Dworkin in many years.”

  “You still look confused,” she said, and then she gave a kinder laugh and reached out to pat my hand. Her skin, soft as silk, smelled of lavender and honey. “It does not matter.”

  I smiled. Now we were getting somewhere.

  “Wouldn’t you be confused, too?” I asked. “Pulled from my bed in the middle of the night to fight hell-creatures, trundled off in this ludicrous carriage, then thrown in here for a frantic midnight ride—all with no questions answered?”

  “Probably.” She cleared her throat. “Thari is the primal tongue,” she said matter-of-factly, as though lecturing a small child who hadn’t learned his lessons properly. “It is the source of all languages in all the Shadow worlds. It is a part of you, just as everything around us is part of Chaos. You do remember the Courts of Chaos, don’t you?”

  I shook my head, once again feeling foolish and ignorant. “Never been there, I’m afraid.”

  “A pity. They are lovely, in their way.” Her eyes grew distant, remembering. I could tell she liked that place . . . the Courts of Chaos, she’d called it.

  Hoping for more answers, I said, “It’s been quite a night. Or day now, I suppose. What do you think of all this?” I made a vague, sweeping gesture that covered the carriage, the riders, her cards. “What does it portend?”

  “War is coming. All the signs are there. Everyone says so, especially Locke. He has been playing general long enough, he is bound to be good at it. But we will be safe enough in Juniper, I think. At least for now.”

  “And this Juniper?”

  “You have never been there, either?”

  I shook my head. So much for my plan to keep my ignorance to myself.

  “It is nothing like the Courts of Chaos, but for a Shadow, it is really quite lovely. Or used to be.”

  That didn’t really help. So many new questions . . . Juniper . . . Shadows . . . the Courts of Chaos—what were they?

  I glanced at the window again, thinking about Chaos. At least that name sounded familiar. Reading from the Great Book was part of every religious holiday in Ilerium, and I had heard some of the most famous passages hundreds of times over the years. Our most sacred scriptures told how the Gods of Chaos wrought the Earth from nothingness, then fought over their creation. They were supposed to be great, magical beings who would someday return to smite the wicked and reward the pious.

  As a soldier, I had never put much faith in anything I couldn’t see or touch. Deep down, I had always believed the stories set forth in the Great Book were nothing more than parables designed to teach moral lessons to children. But now, after all I had seen and done this night, it began to make a certain amount of sense. If the stories were literally true . . .

  I swallowed. The Gods of Chaos were supposed to return with fire and steel to punish those who didn’t believe. Perhaps the hell-creatures marked the beginning of their return. Perhaps we had been working against the Gods of Chaos all along and hadn’t realized it.

  For they shall smite the wicked . . .

  No, I decided, I had to have misunderstood. The scriptures didn’t fit. The hell-creatures killed everyone, from priests to tradesmen, from doddering crones to the youngest of children. No gods could have sent such an army.

  What were the Courts of Chaos, and where did Dworkin fit into all of this?

  Freda seemed to sense my confusion. Smiling, she reached out and patted my hand again.

  “I know it’s a lot for you,” she said. “Father did you no favors in letting you grow up in a distant Shadow. But on the other hand, that may be why you are still alive when so many others are not. I think he means you for something greater.”

  I frowned. “You think so? What?”

  “We can try to find out.”

  In one quick motion, she gathered her deck of Tarot cards into a neat stack and set it in front of me. She tapped the top card once with her index finger.

  “This deck has forty-six Trumps. Shuffle them well, then turn the top one. Let’s see what they tell us.”

  Chuckling, I shook my head. “I don’t believe in fortune telling.”

  “I do not tell fortunes. As Father says, even in Chaos there
is a grand pattern emerging, truths and truisms if you will. The Trumps reflect them. Those who are trained—as I am—can sometimes see reflected in the cards not only what is, but what must be. Since the whole family is gathering in Juniper right now, it might be best for us to know where you stand . . . and who will stand with you.”

  Giving a shrug, I said, “Very well.” I didn’t think it could hurt.

  I picked up the cards. The backs had been painted a royal blue, with a rampant lion in gold in the middle. They were a little thicker than parchment, but hard and chill to the touch, with a texture almost like polished ivory,

  I cut them in half, shuffled them together a couple of times, then set them down in front of Freda. The palms of my hands tingled faintly. A light sweat covered my face. Somehow, touching the cards had made me distinctly uncomfortable.

  “Turn the first Trump,” she said.

  I did so.

  It showed Dworkin, but he was dressed as a fool in red and yellow silks, complete with bells on his cap and long pointed shoes that curled at the toes. It was the last thing I had expected to see, and I had to choke back a laugh.

  “That’s ridiculous!” I said.

  “Odd . . . ” Freda said, frowning. “The first turned is usually a place, not a person.” She set the card to the side, face up.

  “Meaning . . . ?” I asked.

  “Dworkin, the center of our family, who is now or will be the center of your world.”

  I said, “Dworkin is no fool.”

  “What matters is the person pictured on the card, not his clothing. Aber made these cards for me. Everyone knows he’s a bit of a prankster.”

  Suddenly I had a new name to remember: Aber. Aber the prankster. I thought I might like him. And she seemed to assume I knew who he was.

  “Turn another card,” she told me.

  I did so. It depicted a younger man, fifteen or sixteen years old at most, dressed in yellows and browns. Without a doubt, he had to be another of Dworkin’s children—they shared the same eyes and strong chin. He wore a hat adorned with a set of preposterously large elk antlers and looked slightly bored, like he wanted to be off on adventures instead of having to sit for this miniature portrait. He held up a broadsword with both hands. It looked too long and too heavy for him. Somehow, he struck me as familiar, though I would have sworn we had never met—or had we?