It came in from the beast’s blind side, of course. A big mother of a rock, careening along like a semi out of control . . .
It would have been more elegant to mash it between two of them. However, I hadn’t the time for finesse. I simply ran it over and left it there, thrashing in the granite traffic.
Moments later, however, inexplicably, the mashed and mangled body rose suddenly above the ground and drifted skyward, twisting. It kept going, buffeted by the winds, dwindling, dwindling, gone.
My own rock bore me away, slowly, steadily. The entire pattern was drifting. The guys from the tower then went into a huddle and decided to pursue me. They moved away from the base of the slope, began to make their way across the plain. But this was no real problem, I felt. I would ride my stony mount through Shadow, leaving them worlds away. This was by far the easiest course of action open to me. They would doubtless have been more difficult to take by surprise than the beast. After all, this was their land; they were wary and unmaimed.
I removed the goggles and tested my ankle again. I stood for a moment. It was very sore, but it bore my weight. I reclined once more and tamed my thoughts to what had occurred. I had lost my blade and I was now in less than top shape. Rather than go on with the venture under these conditions, I knew that I was doing the safest, wisest thing by getting the hell out. I had gained enough knowledge of the layout and the conditions for my chances to be better next time around. All right . . .
The sky brightened above me, the colors and shadings lost something of their arbitrary, meandering habit. The flames began to subside about me. Good. Clouds started to find their ways across the sky. Excellent. Soon a localized glow began behind a cloudbank. Superb. When it went away, a sun would hang once again in the heavens.
I looked back and was surprised to see that I was still being pursued. However, it could easily be that I had not dealt properly with their analogues for this slice of Shadow. It is never good to assume that you have taken care of everything when you are in a hurry. So . . .
I shifted again. The rock gradually altered its course, shifted its shape, lost its satellites, moved in a straight line toward what was to become the west. Above me, the clouds dispersed and a pale sun shone down. We picked up speed. That should have taken care of everything right there. I had positively come into a different place.
But it had not. When I looked again, they were still coming. True, I had gained some distance on them. But the party trooped right along after me.
Well, all right Things like that can sometimes happen. There were of course two possibilities. My mind still being more than a little disturbed from all that had just occurred, I had not performed ideally and had drawn them along with me. Or, I had maintained a constant where I should have suppressed a variable—that is, shifted into a place and unconsciously required that the pursuit element be present. Different guys then, but still chasing me.
I rubbed my ankle some more. The sun brightened toward orange. A wind out of the north raised a screen of dust and sand and hung it at my back, removing the gang from my sight. I raced on into the west, where a line of mountains had now grown up. Time was in a distortion phase. My ankle felt a little better.
I rested a while. Mine was reasonably comfortable, as rocks go. No sense turning it into a hellride when everything seemed to be proceeding smoothly. I stretched out, hands behind my head, and watched the mountains draw nearer. I thought about Brand and the tower. That was the place all right. Everything was just as it had been in the glimpse he had given me. Except for the guards, of course. I decided that I would cut through the proper piece of Shadow, recruit a cohort of my own, then go back and give them hell. Yes, then everything would be fine. . . . ,
After a time, I stretched, rolled over onto my stomach, and looked back. Damned if they weren’t still following me! They had even gained some.
Naturally, I got angry. To hell with flight! They were asking for it, and it was time they got it
I rose to my feet. My ankle was only half sore, a little numb. I raised my arms and looked for the shadows I wanted. I found them.
Slowly the rock swung out from its straight course into an arc, turning off to the right. The curve tightened. I swung through a parabola and headed back toward them, my velocity gradually increasing as I went. No time to raise a storm at my back, though I thought that would have been a nice touch if I could have managed it.
As I swept down upon them—there were maybe two dozen—they prudently began to scatter. A number of them didn’t make it, though. I swung through another curve and returned as soon as I could.
I was shaken by the sight of several corpses rising into the air, dripping gore, two of them already high above me.
I was almost upon them on that second pass when I realized that a few of them had jumped aboard as I had gone through. The first one over the edge drew his blade and rushed me. I blocked his arm, took the weapon away from him, and threw him back down. I guess it was then that I became aware of those spurs on the backs of their hands. I had been slashed by his.
By that time I was the target of a number of curiously shaped missiles from below, two more guys were coming over the edge, and it looked as if several more might have made it aboard.
Well, even Benedict sometimes retreats. I had at least given the survivors something to remember.
I let go of the shadows, tore a barbed wheel from my side, another from my thigh, hacked off a guy’s swordarm and kicked him in the stomach, dropped to my knees to avoid a wild swing from the next one, and caught him across the legs with my riposte. He went over, too.
There were five more on the way up and we were sailing westward once again, leaving perhaps a dozen live ones to regroup on the sand at my back, a sky full of oozing drifters above them.
I had the advantage with the next fellow because I caught him just partway over the edge. So much for him, and then there were four.
While I had been dealing with him, though, three more had arisen, simultaneously, at three different points.
I rushed the nearest and dispatched him, but the other two made it over and were upon me while I was about it. As I defended myself from their attack, the final one came up and joined them.
They were not all that good, but it was getting crowded and there were a lot of points and sharp edges straying about me. I kept parrying and moving, trying to get them to block one another, get in each other’s way. I was partly successful, and when I had the best lineup I thought I was going to get, I rushed them, taking a couple of cuts—I had to lay myself open a bit to do it—but splitting one skull for my pains. He went over the edge and took the second one with him in a tangle of limbs and gear.
Unfortunately, the inconsiderate lout had carried off my blade, snagged in some bony cleft or other he had chosen to interpose when I swung. It was obviously my day for losing blades, and I wondered if my horoscope would have mentioned it if I had thought to look before I’d set out.
Anyhow, I moved quickly to avoid the final guy’s swing. In doing so, I slipped on some blood and went skidding toward the front of the rock. If I went down that way, it would plow right over me, leaving a very flat Random there, like an exotic rug, to puzzle and delight future wayfarers.
I clawed for handholds as I slid, and the guy took a couple of quick steps toward me, raising his blade to do unto me as I had his buddy.
I caught hold of his ankle, though, and it did the trick of braking me very nicely—and damned if someone shouldn’t choose that moment to try to get hold of me via the Trumps.
“I’m busy!” I shouted. “Call back later!” and my own motion was arrested as the guy toppled, clattered, and went sliding by.
I tried to reach him before he fell to rugdom, but I was not quite quick enough. I had wanted to save him for questioning. Still, my unegged beer was more than satisfactory. I headed back top and center to observe and muse.
The survivors were still following me, but I had a sufficient lead. I did not at the mom
ent have to worry about another boarding party. Good enough. I was headed toward the mountains once again. The sun I had conjured was beginning to bake me. I was soaked with sweat and blood. My wounds were giving me trouble. I was thirsty. Soon, soon, I decided, it would have to rain. Take care of that before anything else.
So I began the preliminaries to a shift in that direction: clouds massing, building, darkening. . . .
I drifted off somewhere along the line, had a disjointed dream of someone trying to reach me again but not making it. Sweet darkness.
I awakened to the rain, sudden and hard-driving. I could not tell whether the darkness in the sky was from storm, evening, or both. It was cooler, though, and I spread my cloak and just lay there with my mouth open. Periodically I wrung moisture from the cloak. My thirst was eventually slaked and I began feeling clean again. The rock had also become so slick-looking that I was afraid to move about on it. The mountains were much nearer, their peaks limned by frequent lightnings. Things were too dark in the opposite direction for me to tell whether my pursuers were still with me. It would have been pretty rough trekking for them to have kept up, but then it is seldom good policy to rely on assumptions when traveling through strange shadows. I was a bit irritated with myself for going to sleep, but since no harm had come of it I drew my soggy cloak about me and decided to forgive myself. I felt around for some cigarettes I had brought along and found that about half of them had survived. After the eighth try, I juggled shadows enough to get a light. Then I just sat there, smoking and being rained on. It was a good feeling and I didn’t move to change anything else, not for hours.
When the storm finally let up and the sky came clear, it was a night full of strange constellations. Beautiful though, the way nights can be on the desert. Much later, I detected a gentle upward sloping and my rock started to slow. Something began happening in terms of whatever physical rules controlled the situation. I mean, the slope itself did not seem so pronounced that it would affect our velocity as radically as it had. I did not want to tamper with Shadow in a direction that would probably take me out of my way. I wanted to get back onto more familiar turf as soon as possible—find my way to a place where my gut anticipations of physical events had more of a chance of being correct.
So I let the rock grind to a halt, climbed down when it did, and continued on up the slope, hiking. As I went, I played the Shadow game we all learned as children. Pass some obstruction—a scrawny tree, a stand of stone—and have the sky be different from one side to the other. Gradually I restored familiar constellations. I knew that I would be climbing down a different mountain from the one I ascended. My wounds still throbbed dully, but my ankle had stopped bothering me except for a little stiffness. I was rested. I knew that I could go for a long while. Everything seemed to be all right again.
It was a long hike, up the gradually steepening way. But I hit a trail eventually, and that made things easier. I trudged steadily upward under the now familiar skies, determined to keep moving and make it across by morning. As I went, my garments altered to fit the shadow—denim trousers and jacket now, my wet cloak a dry cape. I heard an owl nearby, and from a great distance below and behind came what might have been the yip-yip-howl of a coyote. These signs of a more familiar place made me feel somewhat secure, exorcised any vestiges of desperation that remained with my flight an hour or so later, I yielded to the temptation to play with Shadow just a bit. It was not all that improbable for a stray horse to be wandering in these hills, and of course I found him. After ten or so minutes of becoming friendly, I was mounted bareback and moving toward the top in a more congenial fashion. The wind sowed frost in our path. The moon came and sparked it to life.
To be brief, I rode all night, passing over the crest and commencing my downward passage well before dawn. As I descended, the mountain grew even more vast above me, which of course was the best time for this to occur. Things were green on this side of the range, and divided by neat highways, punctuated by occasional dwellings. Everything therefore was proceeding in accordance with my desire.
Early morning. I was into the foothills and my denim had turned to khaki and a bright shirt. I had a light sport jacket slung before me. At a great height, a jetliner poked holes in the air, moving from horizon to horizon. There were birdsongs about me, and the day was mild, sunny.
It was about then that I heard my name spoken and felt the touch of the Trump once more. I drew up short and responded.
“Yes?”
It was Julian.
“Random, where are you?” he asked.
“Pretty far from Amber,” I replied. “Why?”
“Have any of the others been in touch with you?”
“Not recently,” I said. “But someone did try to get hold of me yesterday. I was busy though, and couldn’t talk”
“That was me,” he said. “We have a situation here that you had better know about.”
“Where are you?” I asked.
“In Amber. A number of things have happened recently.”
“Like what?”
“Dad has been gone for an unusually long time. No one blows where.”
“He’s done that before.”
“But not without leaving instructions and making delegations. He always provided them in the past.”
“True,” I said. “But how long is long?”
“Well over a year. You weren’t aware of this at all?”
“I knew that he was gone. Gerard mentioned it some time back.”
“Then add more time to that.”
“I get the idea. How have you been operating?”
“That is the problem. We have simply been dealing with affairs as they arise. Gerard and Caine had been running the navy anyway, on Dad’s orders. Without him, they have been making all their own decisions. I took charge of the patrols in Arden again. There is no central authority though, to arbitrate, to make policy decisions, to speak for all of Amber.”
“So we need a regent. We can cut cards for it, I suppose.”
“It is not that simple. We think Dad is dead.”
“Dead? Why? How?”
“We have tried to raise him on his Trump. We have been trying every day for over half a year now. Nothing. What do you think?”
I nodded.
“He may be dead,” I said. “You’d think he would have come across with something. Still, the possibility of his being in some trouble—say, a prisoner somewhere—is not precluded.”
“A cell can’t stop the Trumps. Nothing can. He would call for help the minute we made contact.”
“I can’t argue with that,” I said. But I thought of Brand as I said it. "Perhaps he is deliberately resisting contact, though.”
“What for?”
“I have no idea, but it is possible. You know how secretive he is about some things.”
“No,” Julian said, “it doesn’t hold up. He would have given some operating instructions, somewhere along the line.”
“Well, whatever the reasons, whatever the situation, what do you propose doing now?”
“Someone has to occupy the throne,” he said.
I had seen it coming throughout the entire dialogue, of course—the opportunity it had long seemed would never come to pass.
“Who?” I asked.
“Eric seems the best choice,” he replied. “Actually, he has been acting in that capacity for months now. It simply becomes a matter of formalizing it.”
“Not Just as regent?”
“Not just as regent.”
“I see. . . Yes, I guess that things have been happening in my absence. What about Benedict as a choice?”
“He seems to be happy where he is, off somewhere in Shadow.”
“What does he think of the whole idea?”
“He is not entirely in favor of it. But we do not believe he will offer resistance. It would disrupt things too much.”
“I see,” I said again. “And Bleys?”
“He and Eric had some rather heat
ed discussions of the issue, but the troops do not take their orders from Bleys. He left Amber about three months ago. He could cause some trouble later. But then, we are forewarned.”
“Gerard? Caine?”
“They will go along with Eric. I was wondering about yourself.”
“What about the girls?” He shrugged.
“They tend to take things lying down. No problem.”
“I don’t suppose Corwin . . .”
“Nothing new. He’s dead. We all know it. His monument has been gathering dust and ivy for centuries. If not, then he has intentionally divorced himself from Amber forever. Nothing there. Now I am wondering where you stand.”
I chuckled.
“I am hardly in a position to possess forceful opinions,” I said.
“We need to know now.”
I nodded.
“I have always been able to detect the quarter of the wind,” I said. “I do not sail against it.”
He smiled and returned my nod.
“Very good,” he said.
“When is the coronation? I assume that I am invited.”
“Of course, of course. But the date has not yet been set. There are still a few minor matters to be dealt with. As soon as the affair is calendared, one of us will contact you again.”
“Thank you, Julian.”
“Good-bye for now. Random.”
And I sat there being troubled for a long while before I started on downward again. How long had Eric spent engineering it? I wondered. Much of the politicking back in Amber could have been done pretty quickly, but the setting up of the situation in the first place seemed the product of long-term thinking and planning. I was naturally suspicious as to his involvement in Brand’s predicament. I also could not help but give some thought to the possibility of his having a hand in Dad’s disappearance. That would have taken some doing and have required a really foolproof trap. But the more I thought of it, the less I was willing to put it past him. I even dredged up some old speculations as to his part in your own passing, Corwin. But, offhand, I could not think of a single thing to do about any of it. Go along with it, I figured, if that’s where the power was. Stay in his good graces.
The Great Book of Amber - Chronicles 1-10 Page 41
