I remembered my life on the shadow Earth, following orders, giving them. Faces swam before me—people I had known over the centuries—friends, enemies, wives, lovers, relatives. Lorraine seemed to be beckoning me on. Moire laughing, Deirdre weeping. I fought again with Eric. I recalled my first passage through the Pattern, as a boy, and the later one when, step by step, my memory was given back to me. Murders, thieveries, knaveries, seductions returned because, as Mallory said, they were there. I was unable, even, to place them all correctly in terms of time. There was no great anxiety because there was no great guilt. Time, time, and more time had softened the edges of harsher things, had worked its changes on me. I saw my earlier selves as different people, acquaintances I had outgrown. I wondered how I could ever have been some of them.
As I rushed onward, scenes from my past seemed to solidify in tile mists about me. No poetic license here. Battles in which I had taken part assumed tangible form, save for a total absence of sound—the flare of weapons, the colors of uniforms, banners and blood. And people—most of them now long dead—moved from my memory into silent animation about me. None of these were members of my family, but all of them were people who had once meant something to me. Yet there was no special pattern to it. There were noble deeds as well as shameful; enemies as well as friends—and none of the persons involved took note of my passage; all were caught up in some long-past sequence of actions. I wondered then at the nature of the place through which I rode. Was it some watered-down version of Tirana Nog’th, with some mind-sensitive substance in the vicinity that drew from me and projected about me this “This Is Your Life” panorama? Or was I simply beginning to hallucinate? I was tired, anxious, troubled, distressed, and I passed along a way which provided a monotonous, gentle stimulation of the senses of the sort leading to reverie. . . . In fact, I realized that I had lost control over Shadow sometime back and was now simply proceeding in a linear fashion across this landscape, trapped m a kind of externalized narcissism by the spectacle. . . . I realized then that I had to stop and rest—probably even sleep a little—though I feared doing so in this place. I would have to break free and make my way to a more sedate, deserted spot. . . .
I wrenched at my surroundings. I twisted things about. I broke free.
Soon I was riding in a rough, mountainous area, and shortly thereafter I came to the cave that I desired.
We passed within, and I tended to Star. I ate and drank just enough to take the edge off my hunger. I built no fire. I wrapped myself in my cloak and in a blanket I had brought. I held Grayswandir in my right hand. I lay facing the darkness beyond the cavemouth.
I felt a little sick. I knew that Brand was a liar, but his words bothered me anyway.
But I had always been good at going to sleep. I closed my eyes and was gone.
5
I was awakened by a sense of presence. Or maybe it was a noise and a sense of presence. Whatever, I was awake and I was certain that I was not alone. I tightened my grip on Grayswandir and opened my eyes. Beyond that, I did not move.
A soft light, like moonlight, came in through the cavemouth. There was a figure, possibly human, standing just inside. The lighting was such that I could not tell whether it faced me or faced outward. But then it took a step toward me.
I was on my feet, the point of my blade toward its breast. It halted.
“Peace,” said a man’s voice, in Thari. “I have but taken refuge from the storm. May I share your cave?”
“What storm?” I asked.
As if in answer, there came a roll of thunder followed by a gust of wind with the smell of rain within it.
“Okay, that much is true,” I said. “Make yourself comfortable.”
He sat down, well inside, his back against the righthand wall of the cave. I folded my blanket for a pad and seated myself across from him. About four meters separated us. I located my pipe and filled it, then tried a match which had been with me from the shadow Earth. It lit, saving me a lot of trouble. The tobacco had a good smell, mixed with the damp breeze. I listened to the sounds of the rain and regarded the dark outline of my nameless companion. I thought over some possible dangers, but it had not been Brand’s voice which had addressed me.
“This is no natural storm,” the other said.
“Oh? How so?”
“For one thing, it is coming out of the north. They never come out of the north, here, this time of year.”
“That’s how records are made.”
“For another, I have never seen a storm behave this way. I have been watching it advance all day—just a steady line, moving slowly, front like a sheet of glass. So much lightning, it looks like a monstrous insect with hundreds of shiny legs. Most unnatural. And behind it, things have grown very distorted.”
“That happens in the rain.”
“Not that way. Everything seems to be changing its shape. Flowing. As if it is melting the world—or stamping away its forms.”
I shuddered. I had thought that I was far enough ahead of the dark waves that I could take a little rest. Still, he might be wrong, and it could just be an unusual storm. But I did not want to take the chance. I rose and turned to the rear of the cave. I whistled.
No response. I went back and groped around.
“Something the matter?”
“My horse is gone.”
“Could it have wandered off?”
“Must have. I’d have thought Star’d have better sense, though.”
I went to the cavemouth but could see nothing. I was half-drenched in the instant I was there. I returned to my position beside the left wall.
“It seems like an ordinary enough storm to me,” I said. “They sometimes get pretty bad in the mountains.”
“Perhaps you know this country better than I do?”
“No, I am just traveling through—a thing I had better be continuing soon, too.”
I touched the Jewel. I readied into it, then through it, out and up, with my mind. I felt the storm about me and ordered it away, with red pulses of energy corresponding to my heartbeats. Then I leaned back, found another match and relit my pipe. It would still take a while for the forces I had manipulated to do their work, against a stormfront of this size.
“It will not last too long,” I said.
“How can you tell?”
“Privileged information.”
He chuckled.
“According to some versions, this is the way that the world ends—beginning with a strange storm from out of the north.”
“That’s right,” I said, “and this is it. Nothing to worry about, though. It will be all over, one way or the other, before too long.”
“That stone you are wearing . . . It is giving off light.”
“Yes.”
“You were joking about this being the end, though—were you not?”
“No.”
“You make me think of that line from the Holy Book—The Archangel Corwin shall pass before the storm, lightning upon his breast. . .. You would not be named Corwin, would you?”
“How does the rest of it go?”
“. . . When asked where he travels, he shall say, ‘To the ends of the Earth,’ where he goes not knowing what enemy will aid him against another enemy, nor whom the Horn will touch.”
“That’s all?”
“All there is about the Archangel Corwin.”
“I have run into this difficulty with Scripture in the past. It tells you enough to get interested, but never enough to be of any immediate use. It is as though the author gets his kicks by tantalizing. One enemy against another? The Horn? Beats me.”
“Where do you travel?”
“Not too far, unless I can find my horse.”
I returned to the cavemouth. It was letting up now, with a glow like a moon behind some clouds to the west, another to the east. I looked both ways along the trail and down the slope to the valley. No horses anywhere in sight. I turned back to the cave. Just as I did, however, I heard Star’s whinny fa
r below me.
I called back to the stranger in the cave, “I have to go. You can have the blanket.”
I do not know whether he replied, for I moved off into the drizzle then, picking my way down the slope. Again, I exerted myself through the Jewel, and the drizzle halted, to be replaced by a mist.
The rocks were slippery, but I made it halfway down without stumbling. I paused then, both to catch my breath and to get my bearings. From that point, I was not certain as to the exact direction from which Star’s whinny had come. The moon’s light was a little stronger, visibility a bit better, but I saw nothing as I studied the prospect before me. I listened for several minutes.
Then I heard the whinny once more—from below, to my left, near a dark boulder, cairn or rocky outcrop. There did seem to be some sort of turmoil in the shadows at its base. Moving as quickly as I dared, I laid my course in that direction.
As I reached level ground and hurried toward the place of the action, I passed pockets of ground mist, stirred slightly by a breeze from out of the west, snaking silvery, about my ankles. I heard a grating, crunching sound, as of something heavy being pushed or rolled over a rocky surface. Then I caught sight of a gleam of light, low on the dark mass I was approaching.
Drawing nearer, I saw small, manlike forms outlined in a rectangle of light, struggling to move a great rocky slab. Faint echoes of a clattering sound and another whinny came from their direction. Then the stone began to move, swinging like the door that it probably was. The lighted area diminished, narrowed to a sliver, vanished with a booming sound, all of the struggling figures having first passed within.
When I finally reached that rocky mass all was silent once again. I pressed my ear to the stone, but heard nothing. But, whoever they were, they had taken my horse. I had never liked horse thieves, and I had killed my share in the past. And right now, I needed Star as I had seldom needed a horse. So I groped about, seeking the edges of that stony gate.
It was not too difficult to describe its outlines with my fingertips. I probably located it sooner than I would have by daylight. When everything would have blended and merged more readily to baffle the eye. Knowing its situation, I sought further then after some handhold by which I might draw it. They had seemed to be little guys, so I looked low.
I finally discovered what might have been the proper place and seized hold of it. I pulled then, but it was stubborn. Either they were disproportionately strong or there was a trick to it that I was missing.
No matter. There is a time for subtlety and a time for brute force. I was both angry and in a hurry, so the decision was made.
I began to draw upon the slab once again, tightening the muscles in my arms, my shoulders, my back, wishing Gerard were nearby. The door creaked. I kept pulling. It moved slightly—an inch, perhaps—and stuck. I did not slacken, but increased my effort. It creaked again.
I leaned backward, shifted my weight and braced my left foot against the rocky wall at the side of the portal. I pushed with it as I drew back. There was more creaking and some grinding as it moved again—another inch or so. Then it stopped and I could not budge it.
I released my grip and stood, flexing my arms. Then I put my shoulder to it and pushed the door back to its fully closed position. I took a deep breath and seized it again.
I put my left foot back where it had been. No gradual pressure this time. I yanked and shoved simultaneously.
There was a snapping sound and a clattering from within, and the door came forward about half a foot, grinding as it moved. It seemed freer now, though, so I got to my feet, reversed my position—back to wall—and found sufficient purchase to push it outward.
It moved more easily this time, but I could not resist placing my foot against it as it began to swing and thrusting forward as hard as I could. It shot through a full hundred and eighty degrees, slammed back against the rock on the other side with a great booming noise, fractured in several places, swayed, fell and struck the ground with a crash that made it shudder, breaking off more fragments when it hit.
Grayswandir was back in my hand before it struck, and I had dropped into a crouch and stolen a quick look about the corner.
Light . . . There was illumination beyond . . . From little lamps depending from hooks along the wall . . . Beside the stairway . . . Going down . . . To a place of greater light and some sounds . . . Like music. . .
There was no one in sight. I would have thought that the godawful din I had raised would have caught someone’s attention, but the music continued. Either the sound—somehow—had not carried, or they did not give a damn. Either way . . .
I rose and stepped over the threshold. My foot struck against a metal object. I picked it up and examined it. A twisted bolt. They had barred the door after themselves. I tossed it back over my shoulder and started down the stair.
The music—fiddles and pipes—grew louder as I advanced. From the breaking of the light, I could see that there was some sort of hall off to my right, from the foot of the stair. They were small steps and there were a lot of them. I did not bother with stealth, but hurried down to the landing.
When I turned and looked into the hall, I beheld a scene out of some drunken Irishman’s dream. In a smoky, torchlit hall, hordes of meter high people, red-faced and green clad, were dancing to the music or quaffing what appeared to be mugs of ale while stamping their feet, slapping tabletops and each other, grinning, laughing and shouting. Huge kegs lined one wall, and a number of the revelers were queued up before the one which had been tapped. An enormous fire blazed in a pit at the far end of the room, its smoke being sucked back through a crevice in the rock wall, above a pair of cavemouths running anywhere. Star was tethered to a ring in the wall beside that pit, and a husky little man in a leather apron was grinding and honing some suspicious-looking instruments.
Several faces turned in my direction, there were shouts and suddenly the music stopped. The silence was almost complete.
I raised my blade to an overhand, epee en garde position, pointed across the room toward Star. All faces were turned in my direction by then.
“I have come for my horse,” I said. “Either you bring him to me or I come and get him. There will be a lot more blood the second way.”
From off to my right, one of the men, larger and grayer than most of the others, cleared his throat.
“Begging your pardon,” he began, “but how did you get in here?”
“You will be needing a new door,” I said. “Go and look if you care to, if it makes any difference—and it may. I will wait.”
I stepped aside and put the wall to my back.
He nodded.
“I will do that.”
And he darted by.
I could feel my anger-born strength flowing into and back out of the Jewel. One part of me wanted to cut and slash and stab my way across the room, another wanted a more humane settlement with people so much smaller than myself; and a third and perhaps wiser part suggested that the little guys might not be such pushovers. So I waited to see how my door-opening feat impressed their spokesman.
Moments later, he returned, giving me wide berth.
“Bring the man his horse,” he said.
A sudden flurry of conversation occurred within the hall. I lowered my blade.
“My apologies,” said the one who had given the order. “We desire no trouble with the like of you. We will be foraging elsewhere. No hard feelings, I hope?”
The man in the leather apron had untethered Star and started in my direction. The revelers drew back to make way as he led my mount through the hall.
I sighed.
“I will just call it a day and forgive and forget,” I said.
The little man seized a flagon from a nearby table and passed it to me. Seeing my expression, he sipped from it himself.
“Join us in a drink, then?”
“Why not?” I said, and I took it and quaffed it as he did the same with the second one.
He gave a gentle b
elch and grinned.
“ ‘Tis a mighty small draught for a man of your size,” he said then. “Let me fetch you another, for the trail.”
It was a pleasant ale, and I was thirsty after my efforts.
“All right,” I said.
He called for more as Star was delivered to me.
“You can wrap the reins around this hook here,” he said, indicating a low projection near the doorway, “and he will be safe out of the way.”
I nodded and did that as the butcher withdrew. No one was staring at me any longer. A pitcher of the brew arrived and the little man refilled our flagons from it. One of the fiddlers struck up a fresh tune. Moments later, another joined him.
“Sit a spell,” said my host, pushing a bench in my direction with his foot. "Keep your back to the wall as you would. There will be no funny business.”
I did, and he rounded the table and seated himself across from me, the pitcher between us. It was good to sit for a few moments, to take my mind from my journey for just a little while, to drink the dark ale and listen to a lively tune.
“I will not be apologizing again,” said my companion, “nor explaining either. We both know it was no misunderstanding. But you have got the right on your side, it is plain to see.” He grinned and winked. “So I am for calling it a day, too. We will not starve. We will just not feast tonight. Tis a lovely jewel you are wearing. Tell me about it?”
“Just a stone,” I said.
The dancing resumed. The voices grew louder. I finished my drink and he refilled the flagon. The fire undulated. The night’s cold went out of my bones.
“Cozy place you’ve got here,” I said.
“Oh, that it is. Served us for time out of mind, it has. Would you be liking the grand tour?”
“Thank you, no.”
“I did not think so, but ‘twas my hostly duty to offer. You are welcome to join in the dancing, too, if you wish.”
I shook my head and laughed. The thought of my cavorting in this place brought me images out of Swift.
“Thanks anyway.”
The Great Book of Amber - Chronicles 1-10 Page 78
