“What is the matter?” I asked.
“We must cross this neck of the desert to reach the Dancing Mountains,” Shask replied.
“And how long a journey might that be?”
“Most of the rest of the day,” he said. “It is narrowest here. We have paid in part for this indulgence already. The rest will come in the mountains themselves, for now we must cross where they are very active.”
I raised my canteen and shook it.
“Worth it,” I said, “so long as they don’t really dance in Richter terms.”
“No, but at the Great Divide between the shadows of Amber and the shadows of Chaos there is some natural shifting activity in play where they meet.”
“I’m no stranger to shadow-storms, which is what that sounds like—a permanent shadow-storm front. But I wish we could just push on through rather than camp there.”
“I told you when you chose me, Lord Corwin, that I could bear you farther than any other mount by day. But by night I become an unmoving serpent, hardening to stone and cold as a demon’s heart, thawing come dawn.”
“Yes, I recall,” I said, “—and you have served me well, as Merlin said you might. Perhaps we should overnight this side of the mountains and cross tomorrow.”
“The front, as I said, shifts. Likely, at some point, it would join you in the foothills or before. Once you reach the region, it matters not where we spend the night. The shadows will dance over us or near us. Dismount now, please, unsaddle, and remove your gear, that I may shift.”
“To what?” I asked as I swung to the ground.
“I’ve a lizard form would face this desert best.”
“By all means, Shask, be comfortable, be efficient. Be a lizard.”
I set about unburdening him. It was good to be free again.
Shask as blue lizard was enormously fast and virtually tireless. He got us across the sands with daylight to spare, and as I stood beside him contemplating the trail that led upward through the foothills, he spoke in a sibilant tone: “As I said, the shadows can catch us anywhere around here, and I still have strength to take us up for an hour or so before we camp, rest, and feed. What is your choice?”
“Go,” I told him.
Trees changed their foliage even as I watched. The trail was maddeningly irregular, shifting its course, changing its character beneath us. Seasons came and went—a flurrying of snow followed by a blast of hot air, then springtime and blooming flowers. There were glimpses of towers and metal people, highways, bridges, tunnels gone in moments. Then the entire dance would shift away and we would simply be mounting a trail again.
At last, we made camp in a sheltered area near to a summit. Clouds collected as we ate, and a few rumbles under rolled in the distance. I made myself a low lean-to. Shask transformed himself into a great dragonheaded, winged, feathered serpent, and coiled nearby.
“A good night to you, Shask,” I called out, as the first drops fell.
“And-to-you-Corwin,” he said softly.
I lay back, closed my eyes, and was asleep almost immediately.
How long I slept, I do not know. I was jarred out of it, however, by a terrific clap of thunder which seemed to occur directly overhead.
I found myself sitting up, having reached out to and half drawn Grayswandir, before the echoes died. I shook my head and sat listening. Something seemed to be missing and I could not determine what.
There came a brilliant flash of light and another thunderclap. I flinched at them and sat waiting for more, but only silence followed. Silence . . .
I stuck my hand outside the lean-to, then my head. It had stopped raining. That was the missing item—the splatter of droplets.
My gaze was attracted by a glow from beyond the nearby summit. I pulled on my boots and departed the shelter. Outside, I buckled on my sword belt and fastened my cloak at the neck. I had to investigate. In a place like this, any activity might represent a threat.
I touched Shask—who indeed felt stony—as I passed, and made my way to where the trail had been. It was still there, though diminished in width, and I set foot upon it and climbed upward. The light source for which I was headed seemed to be moving slightly. Now, faintly, in the distance, I seemed to hear the sound of rainfall. Perhaps it was coming down on the other side of the peak.
As I advanced, I became convinced that it was storming not too far away. I could now hear the moaning of wind within the splashing.
I was suddenly dazzled by a flash from beyond the crest. A sharp report of thunder kept it company. I halted for only a moment. During that time, amid the ringing in my ears, I thought that I heard the sound of a cackling laugh.
Trudging ahead, I came at last to the summit. Immediately, the wind assailed me, bearing a full load of moisture. I drew my cloak closed and fastened it down the front as I made my way forward.
Several paces then, and I beheld a hollow, below and to my left. It was eerily illuminated by dancing orbs of ball lightning. There were two figures within it—one seated on the ground, the other, cross-legged, hanging Upside down in the air with no apparent means of support, across from him. I chose the most concealed route I could and headed toward them.
They were lost to my sight much of the way, as the course I had taken bore me through areas of fairly dense foliage. Abruptly, however, I knew that I was near when the rain ceased to fall upon me and I no longer felt the pressures of the wind. It was as if I had entered the still eye of a hurricane.
Cautiously, I continued my advance, winding up on my belly, peering amid branches at the two old men. Both regarded the invisible cubes of a three-dimensional game, pieces hung above a board on the ground between them, squares of their aerial positions limned faintly in fire. The man seated upon the ground was a hunchback, and he was smiling, and I knew him. It was Dworkin Barimen, my legendary ancestor, filled with ages and wisdom and godlike powers, creator of Amber, the Pattern, the Trumps, and maybe reality itself as I understood it. Unfortunately, through much of my dealing with him in recent times, he’d also been more than a little bit nuts.
Merlin had assured me that he was recovered now, but I wondered. Godlike beings are often noted for some measure of nontraditional rationality. It just seems to go with the territory. I wouldn’t put it past the old bugger to be using sanity as a pose while in pursuit of some paradoxical end.
The other man, whose back was to me, reached forward and moved a piece that seemed to correspond to a pawn. It was a representation of the Chaos beast known as a Fire Angel. When the move was completed the lightning flashed again and the thunder cracked and my body tingled. Then Dworkin reached out and moved one of his pieces, a Wyvern. Again, the thunder and lightning, the tingling. I saw that a rearing Unicorn occupied the place of the King among Dworkin’s pieces, a representation of the palace at Amber on the square beside it. His opponent’s King was an erect Serpent, the Thelbane—the great needlelike palace of the Kings of Chaos—beside it.
Dworkin’s opponent advanced a Piece, laughing as he did so. “Mandor,” he announced. “He thinks himself puppet-master and king-maker.” After the crash and dazzle, Dworkin moved a piece. “Corwin,” he said.
“He is free again.”
“Yes. But he does not know he is in a race with destiny. I doubt he will make it back to Amber in time to encounter the hall of mirrors. Without their clues, how effective will he be?”
Dworkin smiled and raised his eyes. For a moment, he seemed to be looking right at me. “I think his timing is perfect, Suhuy,” he said then, “and I have several pieces of his memory I found years ago drifting above the Pattern in Rebma. I wish I had a golden piss-pot for each time he’s been underestimated.”
“What would that give you?” asked the other.
“Expensive helmets for his enemies.”
Both men laughed, and Suhuy rotated 90 degrees counterclockwise. Dworkin rose into the air and tilted forward until he was parallel to the ground, looking down on the board. Suhuy tended a hand tow
ard a female figure on one of the higher levels, then drew it back. Abruptly, he moved the Fire Angel again. Even as the air was burned and beaten Dworkin made a move, so that the thunder continued into a roll and the brightness hung there. Dworkin said something I could not hear over the din. Suhuy’s response to the probable naming was, “But she’s a Chaos figure!”
“So? We set no rule against it. Your move.”
“I want to study this,” Suhuy said. “More than a little.”
“Take it with you,” Dworkin responded. “Bring it back tomorrow night?”
“I’ll be occupied. The night after?”
“I will be occupied. Three nights hence?”
“Yes. Until then?”
“—good night.”
The blast and the crash that followed blinded me and deafened me for several moments. Suddenly, I felt the rain and the wind. When my vision cleared, I saw that the hollow was empty. Retreating, I made my way back over the crest and down to my camp, which the rain had found again, also. The trail was wider now.
I rose at dawn and fed myself while I waited for Shask to stir. The night’s doings did not seem like a dream.
“Shask,” I said later, “do you know what a hellride is?”
“I’ve heard of it,” he replied, “as an arcane means of traveling great distances in a short time, employed by the House of Amber. Said to be hazardous to the mental health of the noble steed.”
“You strike me as being eminently stable, emotionally and intellectually.”
“Why, thank you—I guess. Why the sudden rush?”
“You slept through a great show,” I said, “and now I’ve a date with a gang of reflections if I can catch them before they fade.”
“If it must be done . . . ”
“We race for the golden piss-pot, my friend. Rise up and be a horse.”
by Roger Zelazny
Hall of Mirrors
Neither of us realized there had been a change until a half-dozen guys tried an ambush.
We had spent the night in the Dancing Mountains, Shask and I, where I’d witnessed a bizarre game between Dworkin and Suhuy. I’d heard strange tales about things that happened to people who spent the night there, but I hadn’t had a hell of a lot of choice in the matter. It had been storming, I was tired, and my mount had become a statue. I don’t know how that game turned out, though I was mentioned obliquely as a participant and I’m still wondering.
The next morning my blue horse Shask and I had crossed the Shadow Divide ‘twixt Amber and Chaos. Shask was a Shadow mount my son Merlin had found for me in the royal stables of the Courts. At the moment, Shask was traveling under the guise of a giant blue lizard, and we were singing songs from various times and places.
Two men rose on either side of the trail from amid rocky cover, pointing crossbows at us. Two more stepped out before us—one with a bow, the other bearing a rather beautiful looking blade, doubtless stolen, considering the guy’s obvious profession.
“Halt! and no harm’ll happen,” said the swordsman.
I drew rein.
“When it comes to money, I’m pretty much broke right now,” I said, “and I doubt any of you could ride my mount, or would care to.”
“Well now, maybe and maybe not,” said the leader, “but it’s a rough way to make a living, so we take whatever we can.”
“It’s not a good idea to leave a man with nothing,” I said. “Some people hold grudges.”
“Most of them can’t walk out of here.”
“Sounds like a death sentence to me.”
He shrugged.
“That sword of yours looks pretty fancy,” he said. “Let’s see it.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” I said.
“Why not?”
“If I draw it, I may wind up killing you,” I said.
He laughed.
“We can take it off your body,” he said, glancing to his right and left.
“Maybe,” I said.
“Let’s see it.”
“If you insist.”
I drew Grayswandir with a singing note. It persisted, and the eyes of the swordsman before me widened as it went on to describe an arc calculated to intersect with his neck. His own weapon came out as mine passed through his neck and continued. His cut toward Shask and passed through the animal’s shoulder. Neither blow did any damage whatsoever.
“You a sorcerer?” he asked as I swung again, delivering a blow that might have removed his arm. Instead, it passed harmlessly by.
“Not the kind who does things like this. You?”
“No,” he answered, striking again. “What’s going on?”
I slammed Grayswandir back into the scabbard.
“Nothing,” I said. “Go bother someone else.”
I shook the reins, and Shask moved forward.
“Shoot him down!” the man cried.
The men on either side of the trail released their crossbow bolts, as did the other man before me. All four bolts from the sides passed through Shask, three of the men injuring or killing their opposite numbers. The one from ahead passed through me without pain or discomfort. An attempted sword blow achieved nothing for my first assailant.
“Ride on,” I said.
Shask did so and we ignored their swearing as we went.
“We seem to have come into a strange situation,” I observed.
The beast nodded.
“At least it kept us out of some trouble,” I said.
“Funny. I’d a feeling you would have welcomed trouble,” Shask said.
I chuckled.
“Perhaps, perhaps not,” I replied. “I wonder how long the spell lasts?”
“Maybe it has to be lifted.”
“Shit! That’s always a pain.”
“Beats being insubstantial.”
“True.”
“Surely someone back at Amber will know what to do.”
“Hope so.”
We rode on, and we encountered no one else that day. I felt the rocks beneath me when I wrapped myself in my cloak to sleep that night. Why did I feel them when I didn’t feel a sword or a crossbow bolt? Too late to ask Shask whether he had felt anything, for he had turned to stone for the night.
I yawned and stretched. A partly unsheathed Grayswandir felt normal beneath my fingers. I pushed it back in and went to sleep.
Following my morning ablutions, we rode again. Shask was taking well to hellrides, as well as most Amber mounts did. Better, in some ways. We raced through a wildly changing landscape. I thought ahead to Amber, and I thought back to the time I’d spent imprisoned in the Courts. I had honed my sensitivity to a very high degree through meditation, and I began to wonder whether that, coupled with other strange disciplines I’d undertaken, could have led to my intangibility. I supposed it might have contributed, but I’d a feeling the Dancing Mountains were the largest donor.
“I wonder what it represents and where it came from?” I said aloud.
“Your homeland, I’d bet,” Shask replied, “left especially for you.”
“Why did you read it that way?”
“You’ve been telling me about your family as we rode along. I wouldn’t trust them.”
“Those days are past.”
“Who knows what might have happened while you were away? Old habits return easily.”
“One would need a reason for something like that.”
“For all you know, one of them has a very good one.”
“Possibly. But it doesn’t seem likely. I’ve been away for some time, and few know I’m free at last.”
“Then question those few.”
“We’ll see.”
“Just trying to be helpful.”
“Don’t stop. Say, what do you want to do after we get to Amber?”
“Haven’t made up my mind yet. I’ve been something of a wanderer.”
I laughed.
“You’re a beast after my own heart. In that your sentiments are most unbeastlike, h
ow can I repay you for this transport?”
“Wait. I’ve a feeling the Fates will take care of that.”
“So be it. In the meantime, though, if you happen to think of something special, let me know.”
“It’s a privilege to help you, Lord Corwin. Let it go at that.”
“All right. Thanks.”
We passed through shadow after shadow. Suns ran backward and storms assailed us out of beautiful skies. We toyed with night, which might have trapped a less adroit pair than us, found a twilight, and took our rations there. Shortly thereafter, Shask turned back to stone. Nothing attacked us that night, and my dreams were hardly worth dreaming.
Next day we were on our way early, and I used every trick I knew to shortcut us through Shadow on our way home. Home . . . It did feel good to be headed back, despite Shask’s comments on my relatives. I’d no idea I would miss Amber as much as I had. I’d been away far longer on countless occasions, but usually I had at least a rough idea as to when I might be heading back. A prison in the Courts, though, was not a place from which one might make such estimates.
So we tore on, wind across a plain, fire in the mountains, water down a steep ravine. That evening I felt the resistance begin, the resistance which comes when one enters that area of Shadow near to Amber. I tried to make it all the way but failed. We spent that night at a place near to where the Black Road used to run. There was no trace of it now.
The next day the going was slower, but, more and more, familiar shadows cropped up. That night we slept in Arden, but Julian did not find us. I either dreamed his hunting horn or heard it in the distance as I slept; and though it is often prelude to death and destruction, it merely made me feel nostalgic. I was finally near to home.
The next morning I woke before sunup. Shask, of course, was still a blue lizard curled at the base of a giant tree. So I made tea and ate an apple afterward. We were low on provisions but should soon be in the land of plenty.
Shask slowly unwound as the sun came up. I fed him the rest of the apples and gathered my possessions.
We were riding before too long, slow and easy, since there would be some hard climbing up the back route I favored. During our first break I asked him to become once more a horse, and he obliged. It didn’t seem to make that much difference, and I requested he maintain it. I wanted to display his beauty in that form.
The Great Book of Amber - Chronicles 1-10 Page 194
