And that had been pretty much it.
But these latest manifestations seemed evidence that there was something else at play here also, something that wanted to drag me off in yet another direction. I had Ghost’s testimony that it was strong. I had no idea what it really represented. And I had no desire to trust it. This made for an awkward relationship.
“Hey, kid!” came a familiar voice from down the slope. “You’re a hard man to find. You don’t stay put.”
I turned quickly, moved forward, stared downward.
A lone figure was toiling up the slope. A big man. Something flashed in the vicinity of his throat. It was too dark to make out his features.
I retreated several paces, commencing the spell which would restore my blasted wards.
“Hey! Don’t run off!” he called. “I’ve got to talk to you.”
The wards fell into place, and I drew my blade and held it, point lowered, at my right, entirely out of sight from the cave mouth when I turned my body. I ordered Frakir to hang invisible from my left hand also. The second figure had been stronger than the first, to make it past my wards. If this third one should prove stronger than the second, I was going to need everything I could muster.
“Yeah?” I called out. “Who are you and what do you want?”
“Hell!” I heard it say. “I’m no one in particular. Just your old man. I need some help, and I like to keep things in the family.”
I had to admit, when it reached the area of firelight, that it was a very good imitation of Prince Corwin of Amber, my father, complete with black cloak, boots, and trousers, gray shirt, silver studs, and buckle—and even a silver rose—and he was smiling that same quirky sort of smile the real Corwin had sometimes worn on telling me his story, long ago. . . . I felt a kind of wrenching in my guts at the sight. I’d wanted to get to know him better, but he’d disappeared, and I’d never been able to find him again. Now, for this thing—whatever it was—to pull this impersonation . . . I was more than a little irritated at such a patent attempt to manipulate my feelings.
“The first fake was Dworkin,” I said, “and the second was Oberon. You’re climbing right down the family tree, aren’t you?”
He squinted and cocked his head in puzzlement as he advanced, another realistic mannerism.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Merlin,” he responded. “I—”
Then it entered the warded area and jerked as if touching a hot wire.
“Holy shit!” it said. “You don’t trust anybody, do you?”
“Family tradition,” I replied, “backed up by recent experience.”
I was puzzled, though, that the encounter had not involved more pyrotechnics. Also, I wondered why the thing’s transformation into scrollwork had not yet commenced.
With another oath, it swirled its cloak to the left, wrapping it abut its arm; its right hand crossed toward an excellent facsimile of my father’s scabbard. A silver-chased blade sighed as it arced upward, then fell toward the eye of the ward. When they met, the sparks rose in a foot-high splash and the blade hissed as if it had been heated and were now being quenched in water. The design on the blade flared, and the sparks leaped again—this time as high as a man—and in that instant I felt the ward break.
Then it entered, and I turned my body, swinging my blade. But the blade that looked like Grayswandir fell and rose again, in a tightening circle, drawing my own weapon’s point to the right and sliding straight in toward my breast. I did a simple parry in quarte, but he slipped under it and was still coming in from the outside. I parried sixte, but he wasn’t there. His movement had been only a feint. He was back inside and coming in low now. I reversed myself and parried again as he slid his entire body in to my right, dropping his blade’s point, reversing his grip, fanning my face with his left hand.
Too late I saw the right hand rising as the left slid behind my head. Grayswandir’s pommel was headed straight for my jaw.
“You’re really . . . ” I began, and then it connected. The last thing I remember seeing was the silver rose.
* * *
That’s life: Trust and you’re betrayed; don’t trust and you betray yourself. Like most moral paradoxes, it places you in an untenable position. And it was too late for my normal solution. I couldn’t walk away from the game.
I woke in a place of darkness. I woke wondering and wary. As usual when wondering and wary, I lay perfectly still and let my breathing continue its natural rhythm. And I listened.
Not a sound.
I opened my eyes slightly.
Disconcerting patterns. I closed them again.
I felt with my body for vibrations within the rocky surface upon which I was sprawled.
No vibes.
I opened my eyes entirely, fought back an impulse to close them. I raised myself onto my elbows, then gathered my knees beneath me, straightened my back, turned my head. Fascinating. I hadn’t been this disoriented since I’d gone drinking with Luke and the Cheshire Cat.
There was no color anywhere about me. Everything was black, white, or some shade of gray. It was as if I had entered a photographic negative. What I presumed to be a sun hung like a black hole several diameters above the horizon to my right. The sky was a very dark gray, and ebon clouds moved slowly within it. My skin was the color of ink. The rocky ground beneath me and about me shone an almost translucent bone-white, however. I rose slowly to my feet, turning. Yes. The ground seemed to glow, the sky was dark, and I was a shadow between them. I did not like the feeling at all.
The air was dry, cool. I stood in the foothills to an albino mountain range, so stark in appearance as to rouse comparison with the Antarctic. These stretched off and up to my left. To the right, low and rolling toward what I guessed to be a morning sun, lay a black plain. Desert? I had to raise my hand and “shade’ against its . . . what? Antiglow?
“Shit!” I tried saying, and I noticed two things immediately.
The first was that my word remained unvoiced. The second was that my jaw hurt where my father or his simulacrum had slugged me.
I repeated my silent observation and withdrew my Trumps. All bets were off when it came to messing with sendings. I shuffled out the Trump for the Ghostwheel and focused my attention upon it.
Nothing. It was completely dead to me. But, then, it was Ghost who’d told me to lie low, and maybe he was simply refusing to entertain my cal.. I thumbed through the others. I paused at Flora’s. She was usually willing to help me out of a tight spot. I studied that lovely face, sent out my call to it. . . .
Not a golden curl stirred. Not a degree’s drop in temperature. The card remained a card. I tried harder, even muttering an enhancement spell. But there was nobody home.
Mandor, then. I spent several minutes on his card with the same result. I tried Random’s. Ditto. Benedict’s, Julian’s. No and no. I tried for Fiona, Luke, and Bill Roth. Three more negatives. I even pulled a couple of the Trumps of Doom, but I couldn’t reach the Sphinx either, or a building of bones atop a green glass mountain.
I squared them, cased them, and put them away. It was the first time I had encountered a phenomenon of this sort since the Crystal Cave. Trumps can be blocked in any of a number of ways, however, and so far as I was concerned, the matter was, at the moment, academic. I was more concerned about removing myself to a more congenial environment. I could save the research for some future bit of leisure.
I began walking. My footsteps were soundless. When I kicked a pebble and it bounced along before me, I could detect nothing of sound to its passage.
White to the left of me, black to the right. Mountains or desert. I turned left, walking. Nothing else in motion that I could see except for the black, black clouds. To the lee side of every outcrop a near-blinding area of enhanced brightness: crazy shadows across a crazy land.
Turn left again. Three paces, then round the boulder: Upward. Over the ridge, Turn downhill. Turn right. Soon a streak of red amid rocks to the left . . .
Nope. Next time then . . .
Brief twinge in the frontal sinus. No red. Move on.
Crevice to the right, next turn . . .
I massaged my temples when they began to ache as no crevice was delivered. My breath came heavy, and I felt moisture upon my brow.
Textures of gray to green and brittle flowers, slate-blue, low on the next talus slope . . .
A small pain in my neck. No flowers. No gray. No green.
Then let the clouds part and the darkness pour down from the sun . . .
Nothing.
. . . and a sound of running water from a small stream, next gully.
I had to halt. My head was throbbing; my hands were shaking. I reached out and touched the rock wall to my left. It felt solid enough. Rampant reality. Why was it treading all over me?
And how had I gotten here?
And where was here?
I relaxed. I slowed my breathing and adjusted my energies. The pains in my head subsided, ebbed, were gone.
Again I began walking.
Birdsong and gentle breeze . . Flower in a crannied nook
No. And the first twinge of returning resistance . . . What sort of spell might I be under, that I had lost my power to walk in Shadow? I had never understood it to be something that could be taken away.
“It’s not funny,” I tried saying. “Whoever you are, whatever you are, how did you do it? What do you want? Where are you?”
Again I heard nothing; least of all an answer.
“I don’t know how you did it. Or why,” I mouthed, and thought. “I don’t feel as if I’m under a spell. But I must be here for a reason. Get on with your business. Tell me what you want.”
Nada.
I walked on, continuing in a halfhearted fashion my attempts to shift away through Shadow. As I did, I pondered my situation. I’d a feeling there was something elementary that I was overlooking in this entire business.
. . . And a small red flower behind a rock, next turn.
I made the turn, and there was the small red flower I had half consciously conjured. I rushed toward it to touch it, to confirm that the universe was a benign, essentially Merlin-loving place.
I stumbled in my rush, kicking up a cloud of dust. I caught myself, raised myself, looked about. I must have searched for the next ten or fifteen minutes, but I could not locate the flower. Finally, I cursed and turned away. No one likes to be a butt of the universe’s jokes.
On a sudden inspiration I sought through all my packets, should I have even a chip of the blue stones upon my person. Its odd vibrational abilities might just somehow conduct me through Shadow back toward its source. But no. Not even a speck of blue dust remained. They all were in my father’s tomb, and that was it. It would have been too easy an out for me, I guess.
What was I missing?
A fake Dworkin, a fake Oberon, and a man who’d claimed to be my father all had wanted to conduct me to some strange place—to compete in some sort of struggle between the Powers, the Oberon figure had indicated, whatever that meant. The Corwin figure had apparently succeeded, I reflected as I rubbed my jaw. Only what sort of game was it? And what were the Powers?
The Oberon thing had said something about my choosing between Amber and Chaos. But, then, it had lied about other things during the same conversation. The devil with both of them! I didn’t ask to get involved in their power game. I had enough problems of my own. I didn’t even care to learn the tales to whatever was going on.
I kicked a small white stone, watched it roll away. This didn’t feel like something of Jurt’s or Julia’s doing. It seemed either a new factor or an old one which had transformed itself considerably. Where had it first seemed to enter the picture? I guessed it had something to do with the force which had come rushing after me on our attempt to reach Coral. I could only assume that it had located me and this was the result. But what might it be? It would first, I supposed, be necessary that I learn where Coral lay in her circle of fire. Something in that place, I presumed, was behind my current situation. Where then? She had asked the Pattern to send her where she ought to go. . . . I had no way now of asking the Pattern where that might be—and no way at the moment of walking it, to have it send me after her.
It was time, therefore, to resign the game and employ different means to solve the problem. My Trumps having blown a circuit and my ability to traverse Shadow having encountered a mysterious blockage, I decided it was time to up the power factor by an order of magnitude in my favor. I would summon the Sign of the Logrus and continue my shadow walk, backing every step that I took with the power of Chaos.
Frakir cut into my wrist. I sought about quickly after any approaching menaces, but I saw nothing. I remained wary for several minutes longer, exploring the vicinity. Nothing occurred, though, and Frakir grew still.
It was hardly the first time her alarm system had been improperly cued—whether by some stray astral current or some odd thought of my own. But in a place like this, one could not afford to take chances. The highest stand of stone in the vicinity stood at about fifteen to twenty meters, perhaps a hundred paces uphill, to my left. I made my way over to it and commenced climbing.
When I finally reached its chalky peak, I commanded a view over a great distance in every direction. I did not behold another living thing in this strange silent yin-yang universe.
So I decided that it had indeed been a false alarm, and I climbed back down. I reached once again to summon the Logrus and Frakir practically behanded me. Hell. I ignored her, and I sent out my call.
The Sign of the Logrus rose and rushed toward me. It danced like a butterfly, hit like a truck. My newsreel world went away, black and white to black.
Chapter 4
Recovering.
My head ached, and there was dirt in my mouth. I was sprawled face down. Memory made its way home through the traffic, and I opened my eyes. Still black and white and gray all about. I spit sand, rubbed my eyes, blinked. The Logrus Sign was not present, and I could not account for my recent experience with it.
I sat up and hugged my knees. I seemed to be stranded, all of my extramundane means of travel and communication blocked. I couldn’t think of anything to do other than get up, pick a direction, and start walking.
I shuddered. Where would that take me? Just through more of the same—more of this monotonous landscape?
There came a soft sound, as of a throat being gently cleared.
I was on my feet in an instant, having inspected every direction on the way up.
Who’s there? I inquired, having given up on articulation.
I seemed to hear it again, very near at hand.
Then, I’ve a message for you, something seemed to say within my head.
What? Where are you? Message? I tried asking.
Excuse me, came the muffled voice, —but I’m new at this business. To take things in order, I am where I’ve always been—on your wrist—and when the Logrus blasted through here, it enhanced me additionally, so that I could deliver the message.
Frakir?
Yes, My first enhancement, that day you bore me through the Logrus, involved sensitivity to danger, mobility, combat reflexes, and a limited sentience. This time the Logrus added direct mental communication and expanded my awareness to the point where I could deliver messages.
Why?
It was in a hurry, could stay in this place for only an instant, and this was the only way for it to let you know what is going on.
I didn’t realize the Logrus was sentient.
Something like a chuckle followed.
Then, It is hard to classify an intelligence of that order, and I suppose it doesn’t really have much to say most of the time, came Frakir’s reply. Its energies are mainly expended in other areas.
Well, why did it come through here and blitz me?
Unintentional. It was a by-product of my enhancement, once it saw that I was the only means of reaching you with more than a few words or images.
Why
was its time here so limited? I asked.
It is the nature of this land, which lies between the shadows, that it be mainly inaccessible both to the Pattern and the Logrus.
A sort of demilitarized zone?
No, it is not a matter of truce. It is simply that it is extremely difficult for either of them to manifest here at all. This is why the place is pretty much unchanging.
This is a place they can’t reach?
That’s about the size of it.
How come I never heard of it before?
Probably because no one else can reach it too readily either.
So what’s the message?
Basically, that you not try calling upon the Logrus again while you’re here. The place represents such a distorting medium that there’s no assurance how any projected energy might manifest outside some convenient vessel. It could be dangerous for you.
I massaged my throbbing temples. At least it got my mind off my sore jaw.
All right, I agreed. Any hints as to what I’m supposed to be doing here?
Yes, this is a trial. Of what, I can’t say.
Do I have a choice?
What do you mean?
May I refuse to participate?
I suppose. But then I don’t know how you get out of here.
So I do get released from this place at the end, if I play?
If you’re still living, yes. Even if you’re not, I’d imagine.
Then I really have no choice.
There will be a choice.
When?
Somewhere along the way. I don’t know where.
Why don’t you just repeat all of your instructions to me?
Can’t. I don’t know what all is here. It will surface only in response to a question or a situation.
Will any of this interfere with your strangling function?
It shouldn’t.
That’s something, anyway. Very well. Have you any idea what I’m supposed to do next?
The Chronicles of Amber Page 152
