The Chronicles of Amber

by Roger Zelazny

  “I’m sorry my mother put you under that spell to protect me—all those years ago. Are you really free of it now? If you’re not, perhaps I can—”

  “I’m free of it.”

  “I’m sorry you had so much trouble fulfilling its terms—not knowing whether it was Luke or me you were supposed to be guarding. Who’d have known there’d be two Amberites in the same neighborhood in Berkeley?”

  “I’m not sorry.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I came for directions. I want to know how I can find Luke.”

  “Why, in Kashfa. He was just crowned king the other day. What do you need him for?”

  “Hadn’t you guessed?”

  “No.”

  “I’m in love with him. Always was. Now that I’m free of the geas and have a body of my own, I want him to know that I was Gail—and how I feel. Thanks, Merlin. Good-bye.”

  “Wait! ”

  “Yes?”

  “I never said thanks for your protecting me all those years—even if it was only a compulsion for you, even if it got to be a big bother for me. Thanks, and good luck.”

  She smiled and faded away. I reached out and touched the mirror.

  “Luck,” I thought I heard her say.

  Strange. It was a dream. Still—I couldn’t awaken, and it felt real. I—

  “You made it back to the Courts in time for all the scheming, I see”—this from a mirror three paces ahead, black-bound and narrow.

  I moved to it. My brother Jurt glared out at me.

  “What do you want?” I asked.

  His face was an angry parody of my own.

  “I want you never to have been,” he said. “Failing that, I’d like to see you dead.”

  “What’s your third choice?” I asked.

  “Your confinement to a private hell, I guess.”

  “Why?”

  “You stand between me and everything I want.”

  “I’ll be glad to step aside. Tell me how.”

  “There’s no way you can or will, on your own.”

  “So you hate me?”

  “Yes.”

  “I thought your bath in the Fountain destroyed your emotions.”

  “I didn’t get the full treatment, and it only made them stronger.”

  “Any way we can forget the whole thing and start over again, be friends?”

  “Never.”

  “Didn’t think so.”

  “She always cared more about you than me, and now you’re going to have the throne.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. I don’t want it.”

  “Your desires have nothing to do with the matter.”

  “I won’t have it.”

  “Yes, you will—unless I kill you first.”

  “Don’t be stupid. It’s not worth this.”

  “One day soon, when you least expect it, you will turn and see me. It will be too late.”

  The mirror grew entirely black.

  “Jurt!”

  Nothing. Aggravating, having to put up with him in dream as well as waking.

  I turned my head toward a fire-framed mirror several paces ahead and to my left, knowing—somehow—it was next on my route. I moved toward it.

  She was smiling.

  “And there you have it,” she said.

  “Aunty, what’s going on?”

  “It seems to be the sort of conflict generally referred to as `irreducible,’” Fiona replied.

  “That’s not the sort of answer I need.”

  “Too much is afoot to give you a better one.”

  “And you’re a part of it?”

  “A very small one. Not one who can do you much good just now.”

  “What am I to do?”

  “Learn your options and choose the best one.”

  “Best for whom? Best for what?”

  “Only you can say.”

  “Can you give me a hint?”

  “Could you have walked Corwin’s Pattern that day I took you to it?”

  “Yes.”

  “I thought so. It was drawn under unusual circumstances. It can never be duplicated. Our Pattern would never have permitted its construction had it not been damaged itself and too weak to prevent its coming into being.”

  “So?”

  “Our Pattern is trying to absorb it, incorporate it. If it succeeds, it will be as disastrous as it would have been were the Pattern of Amber destroyed at the time of the war. The balance with Chaos will be totally upset.”

  “Isn’t Chaos strong enough to prevent this? I’d thought they were equally potent.”

  “They were until you repaired the Shadow Pattern and Amber’s was able to absorb it. This increased its strength beyond that of Chaos. Now it is able to reach for your father’s against the power of the Logrus.”

  “I don’t understand what is to be done.”

  “Neither do I, yet. But I charge you to remember what I have said. When the time comes you must make a decision. I’ve no idea what it will involve, but it will be very important.”

  “She’s right,” came a voice from behind my back. Turning, I saw my father within a shining black frame, a silver rose set at its top.

  “Corwin!” I heard Fiona say. “Where are you?”

  “In a place where there is no light,” he said.

  “I thought you somehow in Amber, Father, with Deirdre,” I said.

  “The ghosts play at being ghosts,” he answered. “I have not much time, for my strength is low. I can tell you only this: Trust not the Pattern, nor the Logrus either, nor any of their spawn, till this matter be settled.”

  He began to fade.

  “How can I help you?” I asked.

  The words “ . . . in the Courts” came to me before he vanished.

  I turned again.

  “Fi, what did he mean by that?” I asked her.

  She was frowning.

  “I get the impression that the answer lies somewhere in the Courts,” she replied slowly.

  “Where? Where should I look?”

  She shook her head and began to turn away.

  “Who would know best?” she said.

  Then she, too, was gone.

  Voices were still calling to me, from behind, from ahead. There was weeping and laughter, and my name being repeated. I rushed ahead.

  “Whatever happens,” Bill Roth said, “if you need a good lawyer, I’ll handle it—even in Chaos.”

  And then there was Dworkin, squinting at me from out of a tiny mirror with a twisted frame.

  “Nothing to be alarmed about,” he remarked, “but all sorts of imponderables are hovering about you.”

  “What am I to do?” I cried.

  “You must become something greater than yourself.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Escape the cage that is your life.”

  “What cage?”

  He was gone.

  I ran, and their words rang around me.

  Near the end of the hall was a mirror like a piece of yellow silk stretched upon a frame. The Cheshire Cat grinned at me from within.

  “It’s not worth it. The hell with them all,” he said. “Come to the cabaret, old chum. We’ll tip a few brews and watch the man paint.”

  “No!” I cried. “No!”

  And then there was only a grin. This time I faded, too. Merciful, black oblivion and the sound of the wind, somewhere, passing.

  Chapter 3

  How long I slept, I do not know. I was awakened by Suhuy’s repeating my name.

  “Merlin, Merlin,” he said. “The sky is white.”

  “And I’ve a busy day,” I answered. “I know. I’d a busy night, too.”

  “It reached you, then.”

  “What?”

  “A small spell I sent, to open your mind to some enlightenment. I hoped to lead you to answers from within, rather than burden you with my guesswork and suspicions.”

  “I was back in the Corridor of Mirrors.”

  “
I knew not what form it might take.”

  “Was it real?”

  “As such things go, it should have been.”

  “Well, thanks—I guess. It reminds me that Gryll said something about your wanting to see me before my mother did.”

  “I wanted to see how much you knew before you faced her. I wanted to protect your freedom of choice.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “I’m sure she wants to see you on the throne.” I sat up and rubbed my eyes.

  “I suppose that’s possible,” I said.

  “I don’t know how far she’s willing to go to effect this. I wanted to give you a chance to know your own mind before you’re exposed to her plans. Would you care for a cup of tea?”

  “Yes, thanks.”

  I accepted a mug he proffered and raised it to my lips. “What are you saying about her—beyond a guess at her wishes?” I asked.

  He shook his head.

  “I don’t know how active her program might be,” he said, “if that is what you mean. And whether she was connected with it or another, the spell you came wearing has faded now.”

  “Your doing?”

  He nodded.

  I took another swallow.

  “I never realized how close I’d gotten to the head of the line,” I added. “Jurt is number four or five in the succession, isn’t he?”

  He nodded.

  “I’ve a feeling it’s going to be a very busy day,” I said.

  “Finish your tea,” he told me, “and follow me when you would.”

  He walked away through a dragon tapestry on the far wall.

  As I raised the mug again, the bright bracelet on my left wrist came free and drifted before me, losing its braided outline, becoming a circle of pure light. It hovered above the steaming brew, as if enjoying its cinnamony aroma.

  “Hi, Ghost,” I said. “Why’d you weave yourself about my wrist that way?”

  “To look like that piece of rope you usually wear,” came the reply. “I thought you must be fond of the effect.”

  “I mean, what were you up to the whole time?”

  “Just listening, Dad. Seeing how I might be of help. These people are all your relatives, too?”

  “The ones we’ve met so far, yes.”

  “Is it necessary to go back to Amber to speak ill of them?”

  “No, it works here in the Courts, too.” I took another sip of tea. “Any special ill you have in mind? Or was that a general question?”

  “I don’t trust your mother or your brother Mandor, even if they are my grandmother and uncle. I think they’re setting you up for something.”

  “Mandor’s always been good to me.”

  “ . . And your uncle Suhuy—he seems eminently stable, but he reminds me a lot of Dworkin. Might he be sitting on all sorts of internal turmoils and ready to flip out anytime?”

  “I hope not,” I said. “He never has.”

  “Oh—oh, it’s been building, and this is a time of stress.”

  “Where are you getting all this pop psychology, anyway?”

  “I’ve been studying the great psychologists of the Shadow Earth. It’s part of my ongoing attempt to understand the human condition. I realized it was time I learned more about the irrational parts.”

  “What brought all this on?”

  “The higher order edition of the Pattern I encountered in the Jewel, actually. There were aspects of it I simply could not understand. This led to considerations of chaos theory, then to Menninger and all the others for its manifestations in consciousness.”

  “Any conclusions?”

  “I am wiser therefor.”

  “I mean, concerning the Pattern.”

  “Yes. Either it possesses an element of irrationality itself, like living things, or it is an intelligence of such an order that some of its processes only seem irrational to lesser beings. Either explanation amounts to the same thing from a practical standpoint.”

  “I never had the opportunity to apply some of the tests I’d designed, but can you say from self-knowledge whether you fall into such a category yourself?”

  “Me? Irrational? The notion never occurred to me. I can’t see how it could be.”

  I finished my tea and swung my legs over the side of the bed.

  “Too bad,” I said. “I think some measure of it is what makes us truly human—that, and recognizing it in ourselves, of course.”

  “Really?”

  I rose and began dressing myself.

  “Yes, and controlling it within oneself may have something to do with intelligence and creativity.”

  “I’m going to have to study this very closely.”

  “Do that,” I said, pulling on my boots, “and let me know your findings.”

  As I continued dressing, he asked, “When the sky turns blue you will breakfast with your brother Mandor?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “And later you will take lunch with your mother?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Later still, you will attend the late monarch’s funeral?”

  “I will.”

  “Will you need me to protect you?”

  “I’ll be safe with my relatives, Ghost. Even if you don’t trust them.”

  “The last funeral you attended got bombed.”

  “That’s true. But it was Luke, and he’s sworn off. I’ll be okay. You want to sightsee, go ahead.”

  “All right,” he said. “I do.”

  I rose and crossed the chamber, to stand before the dragon.

  “Can you tell me the way to the Logrus?” Ghost asked.

  “Are you joking?”

  “No,” he stated. “I’ve seen the Pattern, but I’ve never seen the place of the Logrus. Where do they keep it?”

  “I thought I gave you better memory functions than that. In your last encounter with the thing, you pissed it off in the max.”

  “I suppose I did. Do you think it would hold a grudge?”

  “Offhand, yes. Upon consideration, yes. Stay away from it.”

  “You just advised me to study the chaos factor, the irrational.”

  “I didn’t advise you to commit suicide. I put a lot of work into you.”

  “I value myself, too. And you know I have a survival imperative, the same as organic beings.”

  “It’s your judgment I wonder about.”

  “You know a lot about my abilities.”

  “It’s true you’re good at getting the hell out of places.”

  “And you owe me a decent education.”

  “Let me think about it.”

  “That’s just stalling. I suppose I can find it myself.”

  “Fine. Go ahead.”

  “It’s that hard to locate?”

  “You gave up on omniscience, remember?”

  “Dad, I think I need to see it.”

  “I haven’t the time to take you there.”

  “Just show me the way. I’m good at concealing myself.”

  “I’ll give you that. All right. Suhuy is Keeper of the Logrus. It lies in a cavern—somewhere. The only way I know to it begins in this place.”

  “Where?”

  “There are something like nine turnings involved. I’ll lay a seeing upon you, to lead you.”

  “I don’t know whether your spells would work on something like me—”

  I reached out through the ring—pardon me, spikard—superimposed a series of black asterisks upon a map of the ways he must follow, hung it in the space of my Logrus vision before him, and I said, “I designed you, and I designed this spell.”

  “Uh, yes,” Ghost replied. “I feel as if I suddenly possess data that I can’t access.”

  “It will be presented to you at the appropriate times. Form yourself into the likeness of a ring upon my left index finger. We will quit this room in a moment and pass through others. When we are near the proper way I will indicate it by pointing. Proceed in that direction and you will pass through something along you
r route which will conduct you into another place. Somewhere in that vicinity you will find a black star indicating the next direction you must take—to another place and another star and so on. Eventually, you will emerge in a cavern that houses the Logrus. Conceal yourself as completely as you can and make your observations. When you wish to retreat, reverse the process.”

  He shrank himself and flew to my finger.

  “Look me up later and let me know your experiences.”

  “I was planning to,” came his tiny voice. “I would not wish to add to your probable present paranoia.”

  “Keep it up,” I said.

  I crossed the room and entered the dragon.

  I emerged in a small sitting room, one window looking out over mountains; the other, a desert. There was no one about, and I stepped out into a long hallway. Yes, just as I recalled.

  I moved along it, passing a number of other rooms, till I came to a door on my left, which I opened to discover a collection of mops, brooms, buckets, brushes, a heap of cleaning cloths, a basin. Yes, as I remembered. I pointed to the shelves on my right.

  “Find the black star,” I said.

  “You’re serious?” came the small voice.

  “Go and see.”

  A streak of light proceeded from my index finger, grew distorted as it neared the shelves, folded itself into a line so thin it was no longer present.

  “Good luck,” I breathed, and then I turned away.

  I closed the door, wondering whether I had done the right thing, consoling myself with the thought that he would have gone looking and doubtless located the Logrus eventually, anyway. Whatever was to be on this front, would be. And I was curious as to what he might learn.

  I turned and took myself back up the hallway to the little sitting room. It might be my last opportunity at being alone for a time, and I was determined to take advantage of it. I seated myself on a pile of cushions and withdrew my Trumps. A quick run through the deck turned up the one I had hastily sketched of Coral on that recent hectic day back in Amber. I studied her features till the card grew cold.

  The image became three-dimensional, and then she slipped away and I saw myself, walking the streets of Amber on a bright afternoon, holding her hand as I led her around a knot of merchants. Then we were descending the face of Kolvir, sea bright before us, gulls passing. Then back in the cafe, table flying against the wall. . . .

  I covered the card with my hand. She was asleep, dreaming. Odd, to enter another’s dreams that way. Odder, to find myself there—unless, of course, the touch of my mind had prompted unconscious reminiscence. . . . One of life’s smaller puzzles. No need to awaken the poor lady, just to ask her how she was feeling. I supposed I could call Luke and ask him how she was doing. I began searching for his card, then hesitated. He must be pretty busy, his first few days on the job as monarch. And I already knew she was resting. As I toyed with Luke’s card, though, finally pushing it aside, the one beneath it was revealed.