The Great Book of Amber - Chronicles 1-10

by Roger Zelazny

  “I see,” I said, taking a seat off to his right. “Actually, time was running faster for me than it was for you, so from where I am sitting I have hardly been away. You are probably further recuperated from your puncture than I am from mine.”

  He smiled faintly and nodded.

  “That is something, anyway,” he said, “for my pains.”

  “I have had a few pains myself,” I said, “so don’t give me any more. You wanted me for something. Let’s have it.”

  “Something is bothering you,” he said. “Perhaps we ought to discuss that first.”

  “All right,” I said. “Let’s.”

  I turned and looked at the painting on the wall beside the door. An oil, a rather somber rendering of the well at Mirata, two men standing beside their horses nearby, talking.

  “You’ve a distinctive style,” I said.

  “In all things,” he replied.

  “You stole my next sentence,” I said, locating Martin’s Trump and passing it to him.

  He remained expressionless as he examined it, gave me one brief, sidelong look and then nodded.

  “I cannot deny my hand,” he said.

  “It executed more than that card, your hand. Didn’t it?”

  He traced his upper lip with the tip of his tongue.

  “Where did you find it?” he asked.

  “Right where you left it, at the heart of things—in the real Amber.”

  “So . . .” he said, rising from the chair and returning to the window, holding up the card as if to study it in a better light. “So,” he repeated, “you are aware of more than I had guessed. How did you learn of the primal Pattern?”

  I shook my head.

  “You answer my question first: Did you stab Martin?”

  He turned toward me once again, stared a moment, then nodded sharply. His eyes continued to search my face

  “Why?” I asked.

  “Someone had to,” he explained, “to open the way for the powers we needed. We drew straws.”

  “And you won.”

  “Won? Lost?” He shrugged. “What does any of this matter now? Things did not come about as we had intended. I am a different person now than I was then.”

  “Did you kill him?”

  “What?”

  “Martin, Random’s son. Did he die as a result of the wound you inflicted?”

  He turned his hands palms upward.

  “I do not know,” he said. “If he did not, it was not because I did not try. You need look no further. You have found your guilty party. Now that you have, what are you going to do?”

  I shook my head.

  “I? Nothing. For all I know, the lad may still be living.”

  “Then let us move on to matters of greater moment. For how long have you known of the existence of the true Pattern?”

  “Long enough,” I said. “Its origin, its functions, the effect of the blood of Amber upon it—long enough. I paid more attention to Dworkin than you might have thought. I saw no gain to be had in damaging the fabric of existence, though. So I let Rover lie sleeping for a long, long while. It did not even occur to me until I spoke with you recently that the black road might have been connected with such foolishness. When I went to inspect the Pattern I found Martin’s Trump and all the rest.”

  “I was not aware that you were acquainted with Martin.”

  “I have never set eyes on him.”

  “Then how were you aware he was the subject of the Trump?”

  “I was not alone in that place.”

  “Who was with you?”

  I smiled.

  “No, Brand. It is still your turn. You told me when last we talked that the enemies of Amber hied all the way from the Courts of Chaos, that they have access to the realm via the black road because of something you and Bleys and Fiona had done back when you were of one mind as to the best way to take the throne. Now I know what it is that you did. Yet Benedict has been watching the black road and I have just looked upon the Courts of Chaos. There is no new massing of forces, no movement toward us upon that road. I know that time flows differently in that place. They should have had more than enough time to ready a new assault. I want to know what is holding them back. Why have they not moved? What are they waiting for, Brand?”

  “You credit me with more knowledge than I possess.”

  “I don’t think so. You are the resident expert on the subject. You have dealt with them. That Trump is evidence that you have been holding back on other matters. Don’t weasel, just talk.”

  “The Courts . . .” he said. “You have been busy. Eric was a fool not to have killed you immediately—if he was aware you had knowledge of these things.”

  “Eric was a fool,” I acknowledged. “You are not. Now talk.”

  “But I am a fool,” he said, “a sentimental one, at that. Do you recall the day of our last argument, here in Amber, so long ago?”

  “Somewhat.”

  “I was sitting on the edge of my bed. You were standing by my writing desk. As you turned away and headed toward the door, I resolved to kill you. I reached beneath my bed, where I keep a cocked crossbow with a bolt in it. I actually had my hand on it and was about to raise it when I realized something which stopped me.”

  He paused.

  “What was that?” I asked.

  “Look over there by the door.”

  I looked, I saw nothing special. I began to shake my head, just as he said, "On the floor.”

  Then I realized what it was—russet and olive and brown and green, with a small geometric pattern. He nodded.

  “You were standing on my favorite rug. I did not want to get blood on it. Later, my anger passed. So I, too, am a victim of emotion and circumstance.”

  “Lovely story—” I began.

  “—but now you want me to stop stalling. I was not stalling, however. I was attempting to make a point. We are all of us alive by one another’s sufferance and an occasional fortunate accident. I am going to propose suspending that sufferance and eliminating the possibility of accident in a couple of very important cases. First though, to answer your question, while I do not know for certain what is holding them back, I can venture a very good guess. Bleys has assembled a large strike force for an attack on Amber. It will be nowhere near the scale of the one on which you accompanied him, however. You see, he will be counting on the memory of that last attack to have conditioned the response to this one. It will probably also be preceded by attempts to assassinate Benedict and yourself. The entire affair will be a feint, though. I would guess that Fiona has contacted the Courts of Chaos—may even be there right now—and has prepared them for the real attack, which might be expected any time after Bleys’s diversionary foray. Therefore—”

  “You say this is a very good guess,” I interrupted. “But we do not even know for certain that Bleys is still living.”

  “Bleys is alive,” he said. “I was able to ascertain his existence via his Trump—even a brief assessment of his current activities—before he became aware of my presence and blocked me out. He is very sensitive to such surveillance. I found him in the field with troops he intends to employ against Amber.”

  “And Fiona?”

  “No,” he said, “I did no experimenting with her Trump, and I would advise you not to either. She is extremely dangerous, and I did not want to lay my self open to her influence. My estimate of her current situation is based on deduction rather than direct knowledge. I would be willing to rely on it, though.”

  “I see,” I said.

  “I have a plan.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “The manner in which you retrieved me from durance was quite inspired, combining the forces of everyone’s concentration as you did. The same principle could be utilized again, to a different end. A force such as that would break through a person’s defense fairly easily—even someone like Fiona, if the effort is properly directed.”

  “That is to say, directed by yourself?”

 
“Of course. I propose that we assemble the family and force our way through to Bleys and Fiona, wherever they may be. We hold them, locked in the full, in the flesh, just for a moment or so. Just long enough for me to strike.”

  “As you did Martin?”

  “Better, I trust. Martin was able to break free at the last moment. That should not occur this time, with all of you helping. Even three or four would probably be sufficient.”

  “You really think you can pull it off that easily?”

  “I know we had better try. Time is running. You will be one of the ones executed when they take Amber. So will I. What do you say?”

  “If I become convinced that it is necessary. Then I would have no choice but to go along with it.”

  “It is necessary, believe me. The next thing is that I will need the Jewel of Judgment.”

  “What for?”

  “If Fiona is truly in the Courts of Chaos, the Trump alone will probably be insufficient to reach her and hold her—even with all of us behind it. In her case, I will require the Jewel to focus our energies.”

  “I suppose that could be arranged.”

  “Then the sooner we are about it the better. Can you set things up for tonight? I am sufficiently recovered to handle my end of it.”

  “Hell, no,” I said, standing.

  “What do you mean?” He clenched the arms of the chair, half-rising. “Why not?”

  “I said I would go along with it if I became convinced that it was necessary. You have admitted that a lot of this is conjecture. That alone is sufficient to keep me from being convinced.”

  “Forget about being convinced then. Can you afford to take the chance? The next attack is going to be a lot stronger than the last, Corwin. They are aware of your new weapons. They are going to allow for this in their planning.”

  “Even if I agreed with you Brand, I am certain I could not convince the others that the executions are necessary.”

  “Convince them? Just tell them! You’ve got them all by the throat, Corwin! You are on top right now. You want to stay there, don’t you?”

  I smiled and moved toward the door.

  “I will, too,” I said, “by doing things my way. I will keep your suggestion on file.”

  “Your way is going to get you dead. Sooner than you think.”

  “I am standing on your rug again,” I said.

  He laughed.

  “Very good. But I was not threatening you. You know what I meant. You are responsible for all of Amber now. You have to do the right thing.”

  “And you know what I meant. I am not going to kill a couple more of us because of your suspicions. I would need more than that.”

  “When you get it, it may be too late.”

  I shrugged.

  “We’ll see.” I reached toward the door.

  “What are you going to do now?”

  I shook my head.

  “I don’t tell anybody everything that I know, Brand. It is a kind of insurance.”

  “I can appreciate that. I only hope that you know enough.”

  “Or perhaps you fear that I know too much,” I said.

  For a moment a wary look danced on the muscles beneath his eyes. Then he smiled. “I am not afraid of you, brother,” he said.

  “It is good to have nothing to fear,” I said. I opened the door.

  “Wait,” he said.

  “Yes?”

  “You neglected to tell me who was with you when you discovered Martin’s Trump, in the place where I had left it.”

  “Why, it was Random,” I said.

  “Oh. Is he aware of the particulars?”

  “If you mean, does he know that you stabbed his son,” I said, “the answer is no, not yet.”

  “I see. And of Benedict’s new arm? I understand that you somehow got it for him in Tir-na Nog’th. I would like to know more about this.”

  “Not now,” I said. “Let’s save something for our next get-together. It won’t be all that long.”

  I went on out and closed the door, my silent regards to the rug.

  8

  After visiting the kitchens, compiling an enormous meal and demolishing it, I headed for the stables, where I located a handsome young sorrel which had once belonged to Eric. I made friends with him in spite of this, and a short while later we were moving toward the trail down Kolvir which would take us to the camp of my Shadow forces. As I rode and digested, I tried to sort out the events and revelations of what, to me, had been the past few hours. If Amber had indeed arisen as the result of Dworkin’s act of rebellion within the Courts of Chaos, then it followed that we were all of us related to the very forces which now threatened us. It was, of course, difficult to decide how far anything Dworkin said might now be trusted. Yet, the black road did run to the Courts of Chaos, apparently as a direct result of Brand’s ritual, a thing which he had based on principles learned from Dworkin. Fortunately, for now, the parts of Dworkin’s narrative which required the greatest credulity were those things which were not of any great moment, from an immediate, practical standpoint. Still, I had mixed feelings about being descended from a unicorn—

  “Corwin!”

  I drew rein. I opened my mind to the sending and the image of Ganelon appeared.

  “I am here,” I said. “Where did you get hold of a set of Trumps? And learn how to use them?”

  “I picked up a pack from the case in the library a while back. Thought it a good idea to have a way of getting in touch with you in a hurry. As for using them, I just did what you and the others seem to do—study the Trump, think about it, concentrate on getting in touch with the person.”

  “I should have gotten you a pack long ago,” I said. “It was an oversight on my part which I am glad you’ve remedied. Are you just testing them now, or did something come up?”

  “Something,” he said. “Where are you?”

  “As chance would have it, I am on my way down to see you.”

  “You are all right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Fine. Come ahead then. I’d rather not try bringing you through this thing, the way you people do. It is not that urgent. I will see you by and by.”

  “Yes.”

  He broke the contact and I rustled the reins and continued on. For a moment, I had been irritated that he had not simply asked me for a deck. Then I recalled that I had been away for over a week, by Amber’s time. He had probably been getting worried, didn’t trust any of the others to do it for him. Perhaps rightly so.

  The descent went quickly, as did the balance of the journey to the camp. The horse—whose name, by the way, was Drum—seemed happy to be going somewhere and had a tendency to pull away at the least excuse. I gave him his head at one point to tire him a bit, and it was not too long afterward that I sighted the camp. I realized at about that time that I missed Star.

  I was the subject of stares and salutes as I rode into camp. A silence followed me and all activity ceased as I passed. I wondered whether they believed I had come to deliver a battle order.

  Ganelon emerged from his tent before I had dismounted.

  “Fast,” he observed, clasping my hand as I came down. “Pretty horse, that.”

  “Yes,” I agreed, turning the reins over to his orderly. “What news have you?”

  “Well . . .” he said. “I’ve been talking to Benedict . . .”

  “Something stirring on the black road?”

  “No, no. Nothing like that. He came to see me after he returned from those friends of his—the Tecys—to tell me that Random was all right, that he was following a lead as to Martin’s whereabouts. We got to talking of other matters after that, and finally he asked me to tell him everything I knew about Dara. Random had told him about her walking the Pattern, and he had decided then that too many people other than yourself were aware of her existence.”

  “So what did you tell him?”

  “Everything.”

  “Including the guesswork, the speculation after Tirna Nog’t
h?”

  “Just so.”

  “I see. How did he take this?”

  “He seemed excited about it. Happy, I’d even say. Come talk with him yourself.”

  I nodded and he turned toward his tent. He pushed back the flap and stepped aside. I entered.

  Benedict was seated on a low stool beside a foot locker atop which a map had been spread. He was tracing something on the map with the long metal finger of the glinting, skeletal hand attached to the deadly, silver-cabled, firepinned mechanical arm I had brought back from the city in the sky, the entire device now attached to the stump of his right arm a little below the point where the sleeve had been cut away from his brown shirt, a transformation which halted me with a momentary shudder, so much did he resemble the ghost I had encountered. His eyes rose to meet my own and he raised the hand in greeting, a casual, perfectly executed gesture, and he smiled the broadest smile I had ever seen crease his face.

  “Corwin!” he said, and then he rose and extended that hand.

  I had to force myself to clasp the device which had almost killed me. But Benedict looked more kindly disposed toward me than he had in a long while. I shook the new hand and its pressures were perfect. I tried to disregard its coldness and angularity and almost succeeded, in my amazement at the control he had acquired over it in such a brief time.

  “I owe you an apology,” he said. “I have wronged you. I am very sorry.”

  “It’s all right,” I said. “I understand.”

  He clasped me for a moment, and my belief that things had apparently been set right between us was darkened only by the grip of those precise and deadly fingers on my shoulder.

  Ganelon chuckled and brought up another stool, which he set at the other end of the locker. My irritation at his having aired the subject I had not wanted mentioned, whatever the circumstances, was submerged by the sight of its effects. I could not remember having seen Benedict in better spirits; Ganelon was obviously pleased at having effected the resolution of our differences.

  I smiled myself and accepted a seat, unbuckling my sword belt and hanging Grayswandir on the tent pole. Ganelon produced three glasses and a bottle of wine. As he set the glasses before us and poured, he remarked, “To return the hospitality of your tent, that night, back in Avalon.”