The Great Book of Amber - Chronicles 1-10

by Roger Zelazny

  Feeling Random beside me, I drew him along as that familiar shape grew and its starting point became apparent. As we were moved in that direction, I once again tried to encompass the totality of this Pattern and was lost once more in what seemed its extra-dimensional convolutions. Great curves and spirals and knotted-seeming traceries wound before us. The sense of awe I had felt earlier swept over me, and from somewhere nearby I was aware of this in Random, also.

  We progressed to the section of the beginning and were swept into it. There was a shimmering brightness all about us flashed through with sparks as we were woven into the matrix of light. This time, my mind was entirely absorbed by the process and Paris seemed far away. . . .

  A subconscious memory reminded me of the more difficult sections, and here I employed my desire—my will, if you like—to hurry us along the dazzling route, recklessly drawing strength from Random to accelerate the process.

  It was as if we negotiated the luminous interior of an enormous and elaborately convoluted seashell. Only our passage was soundless, and we ourselves disembodied points of sentience.

  Our velocity seemed to increase constantly, as did a mental aching I did not recall from the previous traversal of the design. Perhaps it was related to my fatigue, of to my efforts to hurry things so. We crashed through the barriers; we were surrounded by steady, flowing walls of brightness. I felt myself growing faint, dizzy, now. But I could not afford the luxury of unconsciousness, nor could I permit us to move more slowly with the storm as near as I remembered it. Again, regretfully, I drew strength from Random—this time just to keep us in the game. We sped ahead.

  This time, I did not experience the tingling, fiery sensation of somehow being shaped. It must have been an effect of my attunement. My previous passage through it might have rendered me some small immunity in this regard.

  After a timeless interval, it seemed that I felt Random falter. Perhaps I represented too great a drain upon his energies. I began to wonder whether I would leave him with sufficient strength to manipulate the storm if I leaned upon him any further. I resolved not to draw upon his resources any more than I already had. We were well along the way. He should be able to continue without me, if it came to that. I would simply have to hang on as best I could now. Better for me to be lost here than both of us.

  We swept on, my sense rebelling, the dizziness recurring. I set my will to our progress and forced everything else from my mind. It seemed we were nearing the terminus when a darkening began which I knew was not a part of the experience. I fought down panic.

  It was no good. I felt myself slipping away. So close! I was certain we were almost finished. It would be so easy to—

  Everything swam away from me. My last sensation was a knowledge of Random’s concern.

  It was flickering orange and red between my feet. Was I trapped in some astral hell? I continued to stare as my mind slowly cleared. The light was surrounded by darkness and . . .

  There were voices, familiar . . .

  Things cleared. I was lying on my back, feet toward a campfire.

  “It is all right, Corwin. It is all right.”

  It was Fiona who had spoken. I turned my head. She was seated on the ground above me.

  “Random . . . ?” I said.

  “He is all right, also—Father.”

  Merlin was seated off to the right.

  “What happened?”

  “Random bore you back,” Fiona said.

  “Did the attunement work?”

  “He thinks so.”

  I struggled to sit up. She tried to push me back, but I sat up anyway.

  “Where is he?” She gestured with her eyes.

  I looked and I saw Random. He was standing with his back to us about thirty meters away, on a shelf of rock, facing the storm. It was very close now, and a wind whipped his garments. Lightning trails crissed and crossed before him. The thunder boomed almost constantly.

  “How long—has he been there?” I asked.

  “Only a few minutes,” Fiona replied.

  “That is how long it has been—since our return?”

  “No,” she said. “You have been out for a fairly long while. Random talked with the others first, then ordered a troop withdrawal. Benedict has taken them all to the black road. They are crossing over.”

  I turned my head.

  There was movement along the black road, a dark column heading out toward the citadel. Gossamer strands drifted between us; there were a few sparks at the far end, about the nighted hulk. Overhead, the sky had completely reversed itself, with us beneath the darkened half. Again, I felt that strange feeling of having been here long, long ago, to see that this, rather than Amber, was the true center of creation. I grasped after the ghost of a memory. It vanished.

  I searched the lightning-shot gloom about me.

  “All of them—gone?” I said to her. “You, me. Merlin, Random—we’re the only ones left here?”

  “Yes,” Fiona said. “Do you wish to follow them now?”

  I shook my head.

  “I am staying here with Random.”

  “I knew you would say that.”

  I got to my feet as she did. So did Merlin. She clapped her hands and a white horse came ambling up to her.

  “You have no further need for my ministrations,” she said. “So I will go and join the others in the Courts of Chaos. There are horses for you tethered by those rocks.”

  She gestured.

  “Are you coming. Merlin?”

  “I will stay with my father, and the king.”

  “So be it. I hope to see you there soon.”

  “Thanks, Fi,” I said.

  I helped her to mount and watched her ride off.

  I went over and sat down by the fire again. I watched Random, who stood unmoving, facing the storm.

  “There are plenty of rations and wine,” Merlin said. “May I fetch you some?”

  “Good idea.”

  The storm was so close that I could have walked down to it in a couple of minutes. I could not tell yet whether Random’s efforts were having any effect. I sighed heavily and let my mind drift.

  Over. One way or another, all of my efforts since Greenwood were over. No need for revenge any longer. No. We had an intact Pattern, maybe even two. The cause of all our troubles. Brand, was dead. Any residue of my curse was bound to be wiped out by the massive convulsions sweeping through Shadow. And I had done my best to make up for it. I had found a friend in my father and come to terms with him as himself before his death. We had a new king, with the apparent blessing of the Unicorn, and we had pledged him our loyalty. It seemed sincere to me. I was reconciled with my entire family. I felt that I had done my duty. Nothing drove me now. I had run out of causes and was as close as I might ever be to peace. With all this behind me, I felt that if I had to die now, it was all right. I would not protest quite so loudly as I would have at any other time.

  “You are far from here. Father.”

  I nodded, then smiled. I accepted some food and began eating. As I did, I watched the storm. Still too early to be certain, but it seemed that it was no longer advancing.

  I was too tired to sleep. Or something like that. My aches had all subsided and a wondrous numbness had come over me. I felt as if I were embedded in warm cotton. Events and reminiscences kept the mental clockwork turning within me. It was, in many ways, a delicious feeling.

  I finished eating and built up the fire. I sipped the wine and watched the storm, like a frosted window set before a fireworks display. Life felt good. If Random succeeded in pulling this one off, I would be riding into the Courts of Chaos tomorrow. What might await me there, I could not tell. Perhaps it might be a gigantic trap. An ambush. A trick. I dismissed the thought. Somehow, right now, it did not matter.

  “You had begun telling me of yourself. Father.”

  “Had I? I do not recall what I said.”

  “I would like to get to know you better. Tell me more.”

  I ma
de a popping noise with my lips and shrugged.

  “Then this.” He gestured. “This whole conflict. How did it get started? What was your part in it? Fiona told me that you had dwelled in Shadow for many years without your memory. How did you get it back and locate the others, and return to Amber?”

  I chuckled. I regarded Random and the storm once more. I took a drink of wine and drew up my cloak against the wind.

  “Why not?” I said then. “If you’ve a stomach for long stories, that is. . . . I suppose that the best place to begin is at Greenwood Private Hospital, on the shadow Earth of my exile. Yes . . .”

  14

  The sky turned, and turned again as I spoke. Standing against the storm, Random prevailed. It broke before us, parting as if cloven by a giant’s axblade. It rolled back at either hand, finally sweeping off to the north and the south, fading, diminishing, gone. The landscape it had masked endured, and with it went the black road. Merlin tells me that this is no problem, though, for he will summon a strand of gossamer when the time comes for us to cross over.

  Random is gone now. The strain upon him was immense. In repose, he no longer looked as once he did—the brash younger brother we delighted in tormenting—for there were lines upon his face which I had never noticed before, signs of some depth to which I had paid no heed. Perhaps my vision has been colored by recent events, but he seemed somehow nobler and stronger. Does a new role work some alchemy? Appointed by the Unicorn, anointed by the storm, it seems that he had indeed assumed a kingly mien, even in slumber.

  I have slept—even as Merlin now dozes—and it pleases me to be, for this brief while before his awakening, the only spot of sentience on this crag at the rim of Chaos, looking back upon a surviving world, a world that has been scoured, a world which endures. . . .

  We may have missed Dad’s funeral, his drifting into some nameless place beyond the Courts. Sad, but I lacked the strength to move. And yet, I have seen the pageant of his passing, and I bear much of his life within me. I have said my good-byes. He would understand. And good-bye, Eric. After all this time I say it, in this way. Had you lived so long, it would have been over between us. We might even one day have become friends, all our causes for strife passed. Of them all, you and I were more alike than any other pair within the family. Save, in some ways, Deirdre and myself. . . . But tears on this count were shed long ago. Good-bye again, though, dearest sister, you will always live somewhere in my heart.

  And you Brand . . . With bitterness do I regard your memory, mad brother. You almost destroyed us. You nearly toppled Amber from her lofty perch on the breast of Kolvir. You would have shattered all of Shadow. You almost broke the Pattern and redesigned the universe in your own image. You were mad and evil, and you came so close to realizing your desires that I tremble even now. I am glad that you are gone, that the arrow and the abyss have claimed you, that you sully no more the places of men with your presence nor walk in the sweet airs of Amber. I wish that you had never been born and, failing that, that you had died sooner. Enough! It diminishes me to reflect so. Be dead and trouble my thinking no more.

  I deal you out like a hand of cards, my brothers and sisters. It is painful as well as self-indulgent to generalize like this, but you—I—we—seem to have changed, and before I move into the traffic again I require a final look.

  Caine, I never liked you and I still do not trust you. You have insulted me, betrayed me and even stabbed me. Forget that. I do not like your methods, though I cannot fault your loyalty this time around. Peace, then. Let the new reign begin with a clean slate between us.

  Llewella, you possess reserves of character the recent situation did not call upon you to exercise. For this, I am grateful. It is sometimes pleasant to emerge from a conflict untested.

  Bleys, you are still a figure clad in light to me—valiant, exuberant and rash. For the first, my respect, for the second, my smile. And the last seems to have at least been tempered in recent times. Good. Stay away from conspiracies in the future. They do not suit you well.

  Fiona, you have changed the most. I must substitute a new feeling for an old one, princess, as we have become for the first time friends. Take my fondness, sorceress. I owe you.

  Gerard, slow, faithful brother, perhaps we have not all changed. You stood rock-like and held to what you believed. May you be less easily gulled. May I never wrestle you again. Go down to your sea in your ships and breathe the clean salt air.

  Julian, Julian, Julian . . . Is it that I never really knew you? No. Arden’s green magic must have softened that old vanity during my long absence, leaving a juster pride and something I would fain call fairness—a thing apart from mercy, to be sure, but an addition to your armory of traits I’ll not disparage.

  And Benedict, the gods know you grow wiser as time burns its way to entropy, yet you still neglect single examples of the species in your knowledge of people. Perhaps I’ll see you smile now this battle’s done. Rest, warrior.

  Flora . . . Charity, they say, begins at home. You seem no worse now than when I knew you long ago. It is but a sentimental dream to regard you and the others as I do, toting up my balance sheets, looking for credits. We are not enemies, any of us, now, and that should be sufficient.

  And the man clad in black and silver with a silver rose upon him? He would like to think that he has learned something of trust, that he has washed his eyes in some clear spring, that he has polished an ideal or two. Never mind. He may still be only a smart-mouthed meddler, skilled mainly in the minor art of survival, blind as ever the dungeons knew him to the finer shades of irony. Never mind, let it go, let it be. I may never be pleased with him.

  Dara, voulez—vous venir avec moi? No? Then goodbye to you too. Princess of Chaos. It might have been fun.

  The sky is turning once more, and Who can say what deeds its stained-glass light might shine upon? The solitaire has been dealt and played. Where there had been nine of us now there are seven and one a king. Yet Merlin and Martin are with us, new players in the ongoing game.

  My strength returns as I stare into the ashes and consider the path I have taken. The way ahead intrigues me, from hell to hallelujah. I have back my eyes, my memories, my family. And Corwin will always be Corwin, even on Judgment Day.

  Merlin is stirring now, and this is good. It is time to be about. There are things to do.

  Random’s last act after defeating the storm was to join with me, drawing power from the Jewel, to reach Gerard through his Trump. They are cold once more, the cards, and the shadows are themselves again. Amber stands. Years have passed since we departed it, and more may elapse before I return. The others may already have Trumped home, as Random has done, to take up his duties. But I must visit the Courts of Chaos now, because I said that I would, because I may even be needed there.

  We ready our gear now. Merlin and I, and soon he will summon a wispy roadway.

  When all is done in that place, and when Merlin has walked his Pattern and gone to claim his worlds, there is a journey that I must make. I must ride to the place where I planted the limb of old Ygg, visit the tree it has grown to. I must see what has become of the Pattern I drew to the sound of pigeons on the Champs-Elysees. If it leads me to another universe, as I now believe it will, I must go there, to see how I have wrought.

  The roadway drifts before us, rising to the Courts in the distance. The time has come. We mount and move forward.

  We are riding now across the blackness on a road that looks like cheesecloth. Enemy citadel, conquered nation, trap, ancestral home . . . We shall see. There is a faint flickering from battlement and balcony. We may even be in time for a funeral. I straighten my back and I loosen my blade. We will be there before much longer.

  Good-by and hello, as always.

  by Roger Zelazny

  Prologue to Trumps of Doom

  — from Amberzine #4, August, 1993

  It was almost too easy. A turning, a twisting, a doubling back . . .

  And then he faced a rough, slan
ted wall, looked up and saw the shaft. He commenced climbing.

  It was no longer easy. A swaying sensation began—faint, then distinct—as if he were mounting into the uppermost branches of a tall tree. His way brightened end then dimmed, repeatedly, in no perceptible pattern. After a time,

  his eyes ached. Images doubled, wavered . . .

  When the way grew suddenly level he doubted his vision, till his extended hand assured him that there was indeed a choice of passages.

  He leaned and moved his head into each of these. The faint musical sound seemed slightly louder in the one to the left, and he followed it. Of that, at least, he was certain.

  Now his way rose and fell. He climbed up, he climbed down. The brightening and dimming continued, only now the brightness was brighter and the dimness dimmer.

  And the sensations of external movement had nit abated. The floor of the tunnel seemed to ripple beneath his feet, the walls and roof to contract and expand. He stumbled, caught himself. Stumbled again . . .

  At the next turning the sounds grew slightly louder, and he realized that they were not a tune, but rather a totally random concatenation of noises.

  He climbed. He descended. The passageway shrank, and finally he crawled.

  The sensations of movement increased. At times he seemed to be spinning; other times, it felt as if he were falling into an enormous abyss.

  The flashes of light now drove nails of pain into skull. He began to hallucinate. Faces and figures. Flames. Or were they hallucinations?

  He felt the first faint pulsation upon his left wrist . . .

  How long had he been moving? His clothes were already in tatters and he bled, painlessly, from a dozen scrapes and lacerations.