Fi extended her hand and smiled, and I left them there while I went back to fetch Drum. A few minutes later, I led him forth.
“Bill,” I said, “I am sorry to have wasted your time. My brother has the thing. We are going after him now. Thanks for helping me.”
I shook his hand.
He said, “Corwin.” I smiled.
“Yes, that is my name.”
“We have been talking, your sister and I. Not much I could learn in a few minutes, but I know it is dangerous. So good luck. I still want the whole story one day.”
“Thanks,” I said. “I will try to see that you get it.”
I mounted, leaned down, and drew Fiona up before me.
“Good night, Mr. Roth,” she said. Then, to me, “Start riding, slowly, across the field.”
I did.
“Brand says you are the one who stabbed him,” I said, as soon as we had gone far enough to feel alone.
“That’s right.”
“Why?”
“To avoid all this.”
“I talked with him for a long while. He claimed it was originally you, Bleys, and himself, together in a scheme to seize power.”
“That is correct.”
“He told me he had approached Caine, trying to win him to your side, but that Caine would have none of it, that Caine had passed the word along to Eric and Julian. And this led to their forming their own group, to block your way to the throne.”
“That is basically correct. Caine had ambitions of his own—long-term ones—but ambitions nevertheless. He was in no position to pursue them, however. So he decided that if his lot was to be a lesser one, he would rather serve it under Eric than under Bleys. I can see his point, too.”
“He also claimed that the three of you had a deal going with the powers at the end of the black road, in the Courts of Chaos.”
“Yes,” she said, “we did.”
“You use the past tense.”
“For myself and for Bleys, yes.”
“That is not the way Brand tells it.”
“He wouldn’t.”
“He said you and Bleys wanted to continue exploiting that alliance, but that he had had a change of heart. Because of this, he claims you turned on him and imprisoned him in that tower.”
“Why didn’t we just kill him?”
“I give up. Tell me.”
“He was too dangerous to be allowed his freedom, but we could not kill him either because he held something vital.”
“What?”
“With Dworkin gone. Brand was the only one who knew how to undo the damage he had done to the primal Pattern.”
“You had a long time to get that information out of him.”
“He possesses unbelievable resources.”
“Then why did you stab him?”
“I repeat, to avoid all this. If it became a question of his freedom or his death, it were better he died. We would have to take our chances on figuring the method of repairing the Pattern.”
“This being the case, why did you consent to cooperate in bringing him back?”
“First, I was not co-operating, I was trying to impede the attempt. But there were too many trying too hard. You got through to him in spite of me. Second, I had to be on hand to try to kill him in the event you succeeded. Too bad things worked out the way they did.”
“You say that you and Bleys had second thoughts about the alliance, but that Brand did not?”
“Yes.”
“How did your second thoughts affect your desire for the throne?”
“We thought we could manage it without any additional outside help.”
“I see.”
“Do you believe me?”
“I’m afraid that I am beginning to.”
“Turn here.”
I entered a cleft in a hillside. The way was narrow and very dark, with only a small band of stars above us. Fiona had been manipulating Shadow while we had talked, leading us from Ed’s field downward, into a misty, moorlike place, then up again, to a clear and rocky trail among mountains. Now, as we moved through the dark defile, I felt her working with Shadow again. The air was cool but not cold. The blackness to our left and our right was absolute, giving the illusion of enormous depths, rather than nearby rock cloaked in shadow. This impression was reinforced, I suddenly realized, by the fact that Drum’s hoofbeats were not producing any echoes, aftersounds, overtones.
“What can I do to gain your trust?” she said.
“That’s asking quite a bit.”
She laughed.
“Let me rephrase it. What can I do to convince you I am telling the truth?”
“Just answer one question.”
“What?”
“Who shot out my tires?”
She laughed again.
“You’ve figured it out, haven’t you?”
“Maybe. You tell me.”
“Brand,” she said. “He had failed in his effort to destroy your memory, so he decided he had better do a more thorough job.”
“The version I had of the story was that Bleys had done the shooting and left me in the lake, that Brand had arrived in time to drag me out and save my life. In fact, the police report seemed to indicate something to that effect.”
“Who called the police?” she asked.
“They had it listed as an anonymous call, but—”
“Bleys called them. He couldn’t reach you in time to save you, once he realized what was happening. He hoped that they could. Fortunately, they did.”
“What do you mean?”
“Brand did not drag you out of the wreck. You did it yourself. He waited around to be certain you were dead, and you surfaced and pulled yourself ashore. He went down and was checking you over, to decide whether you would die if he just left you there or whether he should throw you back in again. The police arrived about then and he had to clear out. We caught up with him shortly afterward and were able to subdue him and imprison him in the tower. That took a lot of doing. Later, I contacted Eric and told him what had happened. He then ordered Flora to put you in the other place and see that you were held until after his coronation.”
“It fits,” I said. “Thanks.”
“What does it fit?”
“I was only a small-town GP in simpler times than these, and I never had much to do with psychiatric cases. But I do know that you don’t give a person electroshock therapy to restore memories. EST generally does just the opposite. It destroys some of the short term ones. My suspicions began to stir when I learned that that was what Brand had had done to me. So I came up with my own hypothesis. The auto wreck did not restore my memories, and neither did the EST. I had finally begun recovering them naturally, not as the result of any particular trauma. I must have done something or said something to indicate that this was occurring. Word of it somehow got to Brand and he decided that this would not be a good thing to have happen at that time. So he journeyed to my shadow and managed to get me committed and subjected to treatment which he hoped would wipe out those things I had recently recovered. This was just partly successful, in that its only lasting effect was to fuzz me up for the few days surrounding the sessions. The accident may have contributed, too. But when I escaped from Porter and lived through his attempt to kill me, the process of recovery continued after I regained consciousness in Greenwood and left the place. I was remembering more and more when I was staying at Flora’s. The recovery was accelerated by Random’s taking me to Rebma, where I walked the Pattern. If this had not occurred, however, I am convinced now that it would all have come back, anyway. It might have taken somewhat longer, but I had broken through and the remembering was an ongoing process, coming faster and faster near the end. So I concluded that Brand was trying to sabotage me, and that is what fits the things you just told me.”
The band of stars had narrowed, and it finally vanished above us. We advanced through what seemed a totally black tunnel now, with perhaps the tiniest flickering of light a great distance
ahead of us.
“Yes,” she said in the darkness before me, “you guessed correctly. Brand was afraid of you. He claimed he had seen your return one night in Tir-na Nog’th, to the undoing of all our plans. I paid him no heed at the time, for I was not even aware you still lived. It must have been then that he set out to find you. Whether he divined your whereabouts by some arcane means or simply saw it in Eric’s mind, I do not know. Probably the latter. He is occasionally capable of such a feat. However he located you, you now know the rest.”
“It was Flora’s presence in that place and her strange liaison with Eric that first made him suspicious. Or so he said. Not that it matters, now. What do you propose doing with him if we get our hands on him?”
She chuckled.
“You are wearing your blade,” she said.
“Brand told me, not all that long ago, that Bleys is still alive. Is this true?”
“Yes.”
“Then why am I here, rather than Bleys?”
“Bleys is not attuned to the Jewel. You are. You interact with it at near distances, and it will attempt to preserve your life if you are in imminent danger of losing it. The risk, therefore, is not as great,” she said.
Then, moments later, “Don’t take it for granted, though. A swift stroke can still beat its reaction. You can die in its presence.”
The light ahead grew larger, brighter, but there were no drafts, sounds, or smells from that direction. Advancing, I thought of the layers upon layers of explanations I had received since my return, each with its own complex of motivations, justifications for what had happened while I was away, for what had happened since, for what was happening now. The emotions, the plans, the feelings, the objectives I had seen swirled like floodwater through the city of facts I was slowly erecting on the grave of my other self, and though an act is an act, in the best Steinian tradition, each wave of interpretation that broke upon me shifted the position of one or more things I had thought safely anchored, and by this brought about an alteration of the whole, to the extent that all of life seemed almost a shifting interplay of Shadow about the Amber of some never to be attained truth. Still, I could not deny that I knew more now than I had several years earlier, that I was closer to the heart of matters than I had been before, that the entire action in which I had been caught up upon my return seemed now to be sweeping toward some final resolution. And what did I want? A chance to find out what was right and a chance to act on it! I laughed. Who is ever granted the first, let alone the second of these? A workable approximation of truth, then. That would be enough. . . . And a chance to swing my blade a few times in the right direction: The highest compensation I could receive from a one o’clock world for the changes wrought since noon. I laughed again and made sure my blade was loose in the sheath.
“Brand said that Bleys had raised another army—” I began.
“Later,” she said, “later. There is no more time.”
And she was right. The light had grown large, become a circular opening. It had approached at a rate out of proportion to our advance, as though the tunnel itself were contracting. It seemed to be daylight that was rushing in through what I chose to regard as the cave mouth.
“All right,” I said, and moments later we reached the opening and passed through it.
I blinked my eyes as we emerged. To my left was the sea, which seemed to merge with the same-colored sky. The golden sun which floated/hung above/within it, bounced beams of brilliance from all directions. Behind me, now, there was nothing but rock. Our passage to this place had vanished without a sign. Not too far below and before me—perhaps a hundred feet distant—lay the primal Pattern. A figure was negotiating the second of its outer arcs, his attention so confined by this activity that he had apparently not yet noted our presence. A flash of red as he took a turn: the Jewel, hanging now from his neck as it had hung from mine, from Eric’s, from Dad’s. The figure, of course, was Brand’s.
I dismounted. I looked up at Fiona, small and distraught, and I placed Drum’s reins in her hand.
“Any advice, other than to go after him?” I whispered.
She shook her head.
Turning then, I drew Grayswandir and strode forward.
“Good luck,” she said softly.
As I walked toward the Pattern, I saw the long chain leading from the cave mouth to the now still form of the griffin Wixer. Wixer’s head lay on the ground several paces to the left of his body. Body and head both leaked a normal-colored blood upon the stone.
As I approached the beginning of the Pattern, I did a quick calculation. Brand had already taken several turns about the general spiral of the design. He was approximately two and a half laps into it. If we were only separated by one winding, I could reach him with my blade once I achieved a position paralleling his own. The going, however, got rougher the further one penetrated the design. Consequently, Brand was moving at a steadily decreasing pace. So it would be close. I did not have to catch him. I just had to pick up a lap and a half and obtain a position across from him.
I placed my foot upon the Pattern and moved forward, as fast as I was able. The blue sparks began about my feet as I rushed through the first curve against the rising resistance. The sparks grew quickly. My hair was beginning to rise when I hit the First Veil, and the crackling of the sparks was quite audible now. I pushed on against the pressure of the Veil, wondering whether Brand had noticed me yet, unable to afford the distraction of a glance in his direction just then. I met the resistance with increased force, and several steps later I was through the Veil and moving more easily again.
I looked up. Brand was just emerging from the terrible Second Veil, blue sparks as high as his waist. He was grinning a grin of resolve and triumph as he pulled free and took a clear step forward. Then he saw me.
The grin went away and he hesitated, a point in my favor. You never stop on the Pattern if you can help it. If you do, it costs a lot of extra energy to get moving again.
“You are too late!” he called out.
I did not answer him. I just kept going. Blue fires fell from the Pattern tracery along Grayswandir’s length.
“You will not make it through the black,” he said.
I kept going. The dark area was just ahead of me now. I was glad that it had not occurred over one of the more difficult portions of the Pattern this time around. Brand moved forward and slowly began his movement toward the Grand Curve. If I could catch him there, it would be no contest. He would not have the strength or the speed to defend himself.
As I approached the damaged portion of the Pattern, I recalled the means by which Ganelon and I had cut the black road on our flight from Avalon. I had succeeded in breaking the power of the road by holding the image of the Pattern in my mind as we had gone across. Now, of course, I had the Pattern itself all around me, and the distance was not nearly so great. While my first thought had been that Brand was simply trying to rattle me with his threat, it occurred to me that the force of the dark place might well be much stronger here at its source. As I came up to it, Grayswandir blazed with a sudden intensity which outshone its previous light. On an impulse, I touched its point to the edge of the blackness, at the place where the Pattern ended.
Grayswandir clove to the blackness and could not be raised above it. I continued forward, and my blade sliced the area before me, sliding ahead in what seemed an approximation of the original tracery. I followed. The sun seemed to darken as I trod the dark ground. I was suddenly conscious of my heartbeat, and perspiration formed on my brow. A grayish cast fell over everything. The world seemed to dim, the Pattern to fade. It seemed it would be easy to step amiss in this place, and I was not certain whether the result would be the same as a misstep within the intact portions of the Pattern. I did not want to find out.
I kept my eyes low, following the line Grayswandir was inscribing before me, the blade’s blue fire now the only thing of color left to the world. Right foot, left foot . . .
Then suddenly I was
out of it and Grayswandir swung free in my hand once again, the fires partly diminished, whether by contrast with the reilluminated prospect or for some other reasons I did not know.
Looking about, I saw that Brand was approaching the Grand Curve. As for me, I was working my way toward the Second Veil. We would both be involved in the strenuous efforts these entailed in a few more minutes. The Grand Curve is more difficult, more prolonged than the Second Veil, however. I should be free and moving more quickly again before he worked his way through his barrier. Then I would have to cross the damaged area another time. He might be free by then, but he would be moving more slowly than I would, for he would be into the area where the going becomes even more difficult.
A steady static arose with each step that I took, and a tingling sensation permeated my entire body. The sparks rose to midthigh as I moved. It was like striding through a field of electric wheat. My hair was at least partly risen by then. I could feel its stirring. I glanced back once to see Fiona, still mounted, unmoving, watching.
I pressed ahead to the Second Veil.
Angles . . . short, sharp turns. . . . The force rose and rose against me, so that all of my attention, all of my strength, was now occupied in striving against it. There came again that familiar sense of timelessness, as though this was all I had ever done, all that I ever would do. And will . . . a focusing of desire to such an intensity that everything else was excluded . . . Brand, Fiona, Amber, my own identity. . . . The sparks rose to even greater heights as I struggled, turned, labored, each step requiring more effort than the previous one.
I pushed through. Right into the black area again.
Reflexively, I moved Grayswandir down and ahead once more. Again, the grayness, the monochrome fog, cut by the blue of my blade opening the way before me like a surgical incision.
When I emerged into normal light, I sought Brand. He was still in the western quadrant, struggling with the Grand Curve, about two thirds of the way through it. If I pushed hard, I might be able to catch him just as he was coming out of it. I threw all of my strength into moving as quickly as possible.
The Chronicles of Amber Page 69
