Chaos and Amber

by John Gregory Betancourt

  "Present company excepted, of course."

  "Of course." Suddenly he turned and called out, "Boy!"

  My valet from Juniper Castle, Horace-a young man of thirteen or so with close-cropped black hair and a shy demeanor-came bounding over to join us. He must have followed us up the stairs and been watching quietly from the side. I'd been too drunk to notice him before.

  "Here, Lord Aber, Lord Oberon!" Horace said in a high squeak of a voice.

  Aber said, "Oberon is feeling better, but he needs to be watched closely. Stay up with him tonight. Call me if anything happens. Do you understand?"

  "Anything?"

  "Anything unusual or dangerous… anything that threatens his life."

  Horace gulped. "Yes, sir."

  "If you fail in your duty," he went on in a severe voice, " you will be held responsible for anything that happens to your master. By me and by our father."

  "Yes, sir," he said.

  "Nothing will happen," I told Aber firmly. If not for the wine, I thought I could have walked unaided and mostly kept my balance. "At this rate, I'll be back to my old self in a day or two."

  "I hope so, but I'm not taking any chances," Aber said firmly. "Dad doesn't like me the way he does you. If anything happens to you, he'll gladly skin me alive. After I skin your valet."

  Horace gulped audibly.

  "Stop it," I said. "You're scaring him."

  "I meant to."

  "He's just a boy."

  "Don't make excuses." Aber hesitated, looking toward his own room. "Maybe I'd better sit up with you after all. If you think there's any danger-"

  "No, no. Go to your own bed." I made quick shooing motions with my hands. Those movements made the floor tilt alarmingly. "I can tell you're exhausted. More exhausted than me, even. It's been a long day for all of us. Go to bed, I'll do the same, and we'll have breakfast with Dad in the morning. We can all catch up then."

  Still he hesitated.

  "I'll be fine," I assured him. "I'm over the worst of it."

  He finally nodded, gave a last stern look at Horace, and trooped down the hall toward his door.

  Turning, I wandered back into my bedroom trailed by Horace, who shut the door behind us.

  When I glanced over my shoulder, I found Port's face on the inside now, staring at me with a deliberately noncommittal expression. He cleared his throat, and I got the impression I'd forgotten something.

  "What is it?" I asked.

  "Do you wish to leave instructions for me, sir?"

  "Wake me in the morning?"

  "I am not a clock," he said a bit archly. "I am a door. I do not tell time, whistle on the hour, or wake people up. What I meantwas-who should I let into your rooms?"

  "Oh, I don't know." I hesitated. "Aber, my father, Horace here, servants when they need to clean." Then I chuckled, thinking of Rèalla and how she would look in my bed. "And, of course, any beautiful half-dressed women who happen along."

  Port smirked. "Except for Aber, whom Mattus did not trust, those were almost exactly the same instructions your brother left with me."

  I cocked my head thoughtfully. "Do you know why he didn't trust Aber?"

  "Not exactly, Lord Oberon. I believe it involved a woman, however, though I am not aware of the exact details."

  "Did he leave you any other instructions?"

  "Your sister Blaise was allowed in at any time, day or night."

  I found that odd. For some reason I had mentally lumped Mattus into Locke's camp, with the soldiers. My half-sister Blaise, obsessed with spying and wielding household power, struck me as someone who wouldn't have any ready followers in our family.

  "Do you know why?" I asked.

  "No, sir."

  "What about Freda?" I asked. I liked my sister almost as much as I liked Aber, and I wondered where she stood with Mattus.

  "I had no special instructions regarding Freda."

  "Could anyone else come in at will?" I asked.

  "No, sir."

  "Was there anyone else deliberately excluded, the way Aber was?"

  "No, sir."

  Well, it had been worth a try. Aber and Mattus not getting along… probably it had been nothing more than sibling rivalry. There had been a lot of that before, during, and after my arrival in Juniper.

  Having two powerful, conceited, and supremely arrogant brothers in love with the same woman would certainly lead to trouble.

  Yawning, I unbuckled my swordbelt and set it on the desk. Horace had turned down the bed while I talked to Port. If the mattress and pillows had been ripped apart by the hell-creatures, seamstresses had mended both as good as new; they looked soft and comfortable. I plopped down, feeling soft feathers yield beneath my weight.

  Horace hurried forward to help me with my boots.

  "What do you think of this place?" I asked him as he pulled off my right boot.

  He hesitated, and I could tell he did not want to speak his mind.

  "Go on," I said. "I want the truth."

  "Sir… I do not much like it."

  He bent to his task and got my second boot off as quickly as the first. He carried them to the door and set them outside to be cleaned.

  "Why not?"

  Hesitantly, he said, "Nothing is quite right."

  I nodded, knowing what he meant; I felt exactly the same way. A vague sense of wrongness permeated everything. Angles that didn't match my mental geometry, stones that oozed colors, lamps that dribbled their light to the ceiling… it was all very strange and quite unsettling.

  The large lookingglass, turned slightly toward the bed, caught my eye when I began to unlace my shirt. Finally, when I saw my reflection, I understood everyone's concern. My features were gaunt and pale, my hands trembled, and dark circles lined my eyes. I looked like I'd just been through the worst campaign in the history of warfare. Even so, a few days' rest would fix me up. I always healed quickly.

  With a sigh, I pulled off my pants and threw them to Horace- who hung them over the back of the desk chair, along with my shirt-and slid between clean, crisp sheets.

  I snuggled in. This was the good life. Soft pillows, a comfortable bed, a roof to keep out the rain… yes, for a soldier like me, even this weird, mixed-up world offered luxuries. All I needed was a beautiful woman beside me-preferably a lusty widow-and my life would be complete.

  Horace went into the next room and returned with a three-legged stool. He set it down at the end of the bed and perched on top. With his elbows on his knees and his chin cupped in his hands, he proceeded to stare at me. This would be a long night for him. I saw him give a little sigh.

  "Take heart," I said. "I don't think we'll be here very long." When our father found out the house had been searched in his absence, I had a feeling he would be angry enough to abandon the Courts of Chaos.

  "Yes, Oberon. What should I do if something happens?" he asked. "Should I call Lord Aber, as he said?"

  "Nothing will happen."

  I saw him sigh.

  "But if it does," I went on, "try your best to wake me first. Only call Aber as a last resort. After all, I don't want him to skin you alive."

  "Me either!" He looked relieved.

  I closed my eyes. It had been a long, difficult day. Between my sickness, the lateness of the hour, and all the alcohol I had drunk, exhaustion overwhelmed me.

  I slept.

  I dreamed…

  … and felt the dream slide away toward madness.

  EIGHT

  Movement all around me.

  Not a boat this time: a curious sense of drifting in all directions at once, as if I soared, birdlike, high above my body. This sensation had come upon me a number of times before, some distant part of me recalled. It was neither sleep nor dreaming, but a sort of vision… or a visitation… by my spirit to another place. Whatever I saw next would be real, I knew, but happening far away. And I would be powerless to interfere.

  With a growing sense of foreboding, I opened my dream-eyes and looked down. I soar
ed high above a land of ever-changing design and color. Large, rounded stones moved like sheep through high green grass. To the left, trees walked on their roots like men, gathering in circles to talk to one other. I saw no signs of human life.

  Overhead, a dusky red sky seethed with movement. A dozen moons rolled like balls across the heavens. I saw no sign of a sun, and yet it was not dark.

  On I flew, crossing over vast expanses of grass until I came to a tower made of skulls, some human and some clearly not. Here I slowed, drifting like a phantom cloud, unseen and untouchable.

  I had been to this place before. Here, in several other such visions, I had witnessed my brothers Taine and Mattus being tortured and (at least in Mattus's case) killed. It hadn't been pleasant.

  When I stretched out my hand to touch the tower, once more my fingers passed into the wall of bones as though through fog. It was exactly like the last time. I knew I could be nothing more than an observer here.

  Taking a deep breath, I allowed myself to drift through the wall and into the tower. Shadows flickered within. As my eyes adjusted to the gloom, I made out a familiar looking stairway built from arm bones and leg bones. It circled the inside wall of the tower, climbing into a deeper darkness, descending into a murky, pulsating redness.

  I drifted down, and the redness resolved itself into a circle of burning torches. A square slab of rock, shaped like a sacrificial altar, lay in the center of the room. Deep shadows lay before it, and I sensed an unseen presence there, watching and waiting.

  My heart began to pound and the breath caught in my throat. Why had I been summoned here this time? What power had brought me to this place?

  I tried to wake myself from this nightmare vision, tried to force my eyes open in the real world, but it didn't work. Stubbornly, I remained anchored to this place. Apparently I was not yet done here.

  Then I heard the sounds of tramping boots to one side. Four hell-creatures in silvered armor entered through a small doorway. Unlike the ones who had searched our home, these did not have crowns blazed on their chests… but that seemed to be the only difference. Between them they dragged a human-a naked, filthy man with thick iron chains on his legs and arms. Only the slight shuffling movement of his feet as he tried to walk gave any indication of life.

  Long, tangled hair and a matted beard obscured his face, and his head hung limp.

  I tried to see who it was, but couldn't tell. He appeared half dead, and what I could see of his body through the dirt made my skin crawl. Festering sores and wounds, some old but many more that were recent, covered every inch of his arms, legs, chest, and stomach.

  Without saying a word, the four hell-creatures flung him down on the slab of stone. I had to give this fellow credit-when they began to fasten his chains to huge iron rings, he still struggled despite his condition. Unfortunately, he no longer had enough strength to fight much. They shoved him down and finished their job, then stood back at attention.

  From the shadows at the far side of the chamber, where I had sensed a presence before, came a huge serpentlike creature that must have been twenty feet long. Though it slithered on its belly, it held its front end erect. Its almost human torso had two scaled, vaguely human arms that ended in broad taloned hands, one of which held a silver-bladed knife.

  "Tell me what I want to know," the creature said softly, its body weaving left and right, left and right. "Spare yourself, son of Dworkin. Earn an easy death…"

  The man on the table had the strength to lift his head a bit, but he made no reply. As his hair fell back, I saw sunken blue eyes and a familiar white dueling scar on his left cheek, and only then did I recognized him: my half brother Taine. I had dreamed of Taine twice before, and the last time had been less than a week ago as I reckoned time… but from his appearance, he had been here for months-maybe years.

  I swallowed. No, these were not dreams, despite their nightmare quality. These were true visions.

  This was real . I remembered how Aber told me that time in different Shadow worlds moved at different speeds.

  The serpent-creature writhed forward, beginning to chant, the words ancient and powerful. I only half understood them, but they set my skin crawling. Quickly I shut my mind to the sound.

  Though I longed to do something to help poor Taine, I knew I had no form here, no arms to take up weapons nor muscles to swing them. I could be nothing more than a silent spectator to whatever horrors unfolded.

  The silver blade flashed down, opening new cuts on Taine's arms and legs and chest. Thin blood began to flow, but instead of dripping toward the floor, the drops lifted into the air and hung there, spinning slowly, starting to form an intricate crimson pattern.

  I knew that design. I recognized it at once: it matched the Pattern within me , the Pattern that was somehow imprinted on the very essence of my being. I summoned that Pattern to my mind now and compared it to what was being sketched in mid-air.

  No, they were not the same. They were cousins. Close, but not quite a match… the Pattern in the air was flawed and broken, possessing several odd turns and twists that did not belong there. And a small section on the left simply fell apart, becoming a random series of drops.

  And yet I sensed that, flawed thought it was, an immense power radiated from it. A power which made my whole body tingle with pins and needles.

  "Show me the son of Dworkin!" the serpent-creature called again. "Reveal him!"

  Taine lay still, probably unconscious. His blood no longer flowed. A thin line of drool fell from his mouth to the altar's stone.

  But I knew the serpent had not been speaking to him. It spoke instead to the Pattern in the air.

  Slowly the droplets of blood began to spin, around and around, faster and faster. They took on a shimmering, silvery quality, then grew clear, becoming a window.

  Drifting forward, I peered through it with the serpent. We gazed into darkness.

  No, not darkness, but a dark room… a room where a man lay on a high-canopied bed, deeply asleep. A room where a boy stood over the man, trying desperately to shake him awake.

  My room. My body.

  The serpent-creature breathed, "Yes-s-s… he is the one…"

  An odd prickling sensation spread up my neck. I had to do something. I had to find a way to stop it. If the serpent-creature attacked me while I was lying in bed, I had a feeling I wouldn't be able to get back.

  The serpent began to chant again. A strange cloud began to gather in front of the mirror. Tendrils began to reach toward the window.

  Could it be some poisonous vapor? Something else entirely? I didn't know, but it could only mean harm for me. It grew darker, more solid. One tendril passed through the spinning window and reached toward the bed.

  A jolt of horror and fear went through me. I had to stop it. If I didn't do something, I knew I would not live through this night.

  NINE

  I looked frantically around the room. Except for the serpent, its guards, my brother, and the altar slab, it was empty. Then my attention suddenly fixed on the Pattern hanging in the air before us. I saw the Pattern's flaws now, and I knew where it went wrong. And, as I stared at it, I saw through the droplets of blood a series of dark threads that seemed to be holding everything together.

  Yes-maybe I could destroy the window. If the serpent couldn't see me, its spells wouldn't be able to get through.

  Slowly I moved closer, circling the Pattern, studying the threads. Yes … those threads had to be the key. If I could break them and close the window …

  Using my spectral form, I reached out and touched the nearest thread. It had a strange texture, not quite solid but not quite liquid, either. My fingers suddenly burned from the contact, as though I'd touched a hot iron, and I jerked them back.

  The image of my room grew clearer. The largest part of the mist-its body?-began to ooze forward. It was much larger than the spinning window, and slowly, like water pouring through a drain, it began to squeeze through the opening.

  If I did
n't act fast, I'd be too late. Reaching out, ignoring the pain, I began seizing threads with both hands and ripping them apart. They broke with surprising easy, though at each touch I felt a sharp shock of pain from my fingertips to my elbows. Ignoring it, I worked as fast as I could.

  Half of the mist had entered my room. Fortunately, the serpent still had not noticed me or what I was doing. Its attention remained fixed on my bedroom, its chanting, the mist, and whatever dark sorcery it worked against me.

  "No more," I whispered, half to myself, half to the Pattern, willing this thing to be done. More threads snapped and parted. They came apart more easily now. My hands were numb and I barely felt any pain. " You are undone. You are free. This creature holds no power over you."

  Only a dozen more of the threads remained unbroken. A few spinning droplets of blood came loose from the Pattern. They flew off and struck the walls, splattering silently against the bones. Luckily neither the serpent nor its guards noticed.

  Working faster now, I broke the rest of the threads.

  When I finished, the window into my room seemed to ripple and churn, and then the image disappeared. The dark mist, sliced in half, began to fly wildly around the room, twisting and writhing like a thing in agony. I heard a high-pitched scream that went on and on and on. It had been alive. And I had hurt it.

  "What-" the serpent-creature said, its chanting halted.

  Suddenly my brother's blood flew everywhere, striking the serpent-creature and his guards in a red shower. Hissing, they all drew back. The Pattern, bloodless, hung motionless in the air now. It shone with a clear bright light like a powerful lantern.

  Reaching out, I redrew its shape. Its lines moved under my fingers, uncoiling where it was wrong, bending and reshaping. Suddenly it came together again, whole and correct. I recognized it as a true representation of the Pattern inside me.

  Its glow increased. A clear blue light filled the tower. I could see every bone in the wall distinctly now. Still the blaze grew. Individual scales stood out on the serpent's monstrous body as though etched in stone.

  Through the Pattern I saw my room again. Horace bent over me, shaking my shoulders frantically. Don't bother, I thought. Nothing could possibly wake me until I returned to my body.