Roger Zelazny - Amber 10 Prince of Chaos

180 Pages·2016·0.54 MB·English

by  Zelazny Roger

quite--to the death with my mad brother Jurt but a few hours be-
fore. As Amber's only representative at the event--albeit of, techni-
cally, unofficial status--I was accorded a ringside standing-place,
and eyes were often drifting my way. So I had to keep alert and
mouth appropriate responses. While Random would not permit
formal status to my presence at the ceremony, I knew he'd be irri-
tated if he heard that my behavior was less than diplomatically
sound.
So I wound up with hurting feet, a stiff neck, and colorful gar-
ments soaked
with sweat. That's show biz. Still, I wouldn't have had it any
other way. Luke
and I go back through some of the damnedest times, and I
couldn't help but think
of them--from sword's point to track meets, from art galleries
and into
Shadow--as I stood there sweltering and wondering what would
become of him now
he wore a crown. Such an occurrence had changed my uncle
Random from a
happy-go-lucky musician, footloose and degenerate, into a sage
and responsible
monarch--though I've only my relatives' reports when it comes to
knowing about
the first. I found myself hoping it wouldn't mellow Luke out all
that much.
Still--again--Luke was a very different person than Random, not
to mention ages
younger. Amazing what years can do, though--or is it just the
nature of events?
I realized myself to be a lot different than I had been not so very
long ago,
then, part of the diplomatic arrangement between Jasra and the
Begmans. It
didn't work out, though--the diplomatic part, that is--and the
rest kind of fell
by the wayside. The principals had sort of forgotten about the
marriage, too,
till recent events served as a reminder. Neither had seen the
other in years.
Still, the record showed that the prince had been married. While
it was an
annullable thing, she could also be crowned with him. If there
were anything in
it for Kashfa.
And there was: Eregnor. A Begman queen on the Kashfan throne
might help
smooth over that particular real estate gab. At least, that had
been Jasra's
thinking, Coral told me. And Luke had been swayed by this, par-
ticularly in the
absence of the guarantees from Amber and the now-defunct
Golden Circle Treaty.
I held her. She was not well, despite what seemed an amazing
postoperative
recovery. She wore a black patch over her right eye and was
more than a little
reactive should my hand stray near it--or even if I looked at it for
too long.
What might have led Dworkin to replace the damaged eye with
the Jewel of
Judgment, I could not even guess. Unless he somehow consid-
ered her proof against
a Trump
contact feels. Only it's with me all the time, and I'm not going
anywhere or
talking to anyone. It's as if I'm standing in some sort of gateway.
Forces are
moving about me, through me."
In an instant I was at the center that was the gay ring with its
wheel of
many-spoked reddish metal. From the inside, here, it was like a
great web. A
bright strand pulsed for my attention. Yes, it was a line to a very
potent force
in distant Shadow, one that might be used for probing. Carefully,
I extended it
toward the covered jewel she wore in her eye socket.
There was no immediate resistance. In fact, I felt nothing as I
extended
the line of power. An image came to me of a curtain of flame,
however. Pushing
through the fiery veil, I felt my extension of inquiry slowing,
slowing, halted.
And there I hovered, as It were, at the edge of a void. This was
not the way of
attunement, as I understood it, and I was loath to invoke the
Pattern, which I
understood to be a part of it, when employing other forces. I
pushed forward and
felt a terrible coldness, draining the energies I had called upon.
Still, it was not draining the energy directly from me, only from
one of
the forces I commanded. I pushed it farther, and I beheld a faint
patch of light
who was making the sounds. She seemed to have slipped into a
trance state. "You
are denied the higher initiation."
I drew back on my probe, not eager for any demonstrations that
might come
my way along it. My Logrus sight, which had remained with me
constantly since
recent events in Amber, gave me a vision of Coral now fully en-
folded and
penetrated by the higher version of the Pattern.
"Why?" I asked it.
But I was riot vouchsafed a reply. Coral gave a little jerk, shook
herself,
and stared at me.
"What happened?" she asked.
"You dozed off," I replied. "No wonder. Whatever Dworkin did,
plus the
day's stress..."
She yawned and collapsed back on the bed.
"Yes," she breathed, and then she was really asleep. I pulled off
my boots
and discarded my heavier garments. I stretched out beside her
and drew a quilt
over us. I was tired, too, and I just wanted someone to hold.
How long I slept I do not know. I was troubled by dark, swirling
dreams.
Faces--human, animal, demonic, moved about me, none of them
bearing particularly
cheerful expressions. Forests fell and burst into flame, the
ground shook and
split, the waters of the sea rose in gigantic waves and assailed
the land, the
The wind rose from a shriek to a roar, and I heard crashing
sounds from without,
as of trees falling, towers toppling....
"Merlin, Prince of the House of Sawall, Prince of Chaos, rise up,"
it
seemed to say. Then it gnashed its fangs and began again.
At the fourth or fifth repetition it struck me that I might not be
dreaming. There were screams from somewhere outside, and
steady pulses of
lightning came and went against almost musical rolls of thunder.
I raised a protective shell before I moved, before I opened my
eyes. The
sounds were real, as was the broken shutter. So was the crea-
ture at the foot of
the bed.
"Merlin, Merlin. Rise up, Merlin," it said to me--it being a long-
snouted,
pointed-eared individual, well-fanged and clawed, of a greenish-
silver cast of
complexion, eyes large and shining, damp leathery wings folded
against its lean
sides. From its expression, I couldn't tell whether it was smiling
or in pain.
"Awaken, Lord of Chaos."
"Gryll," I said, naming an old family servant from the Courts.
"Aye, Lord," it replied. "The same as taught you the bonedance
game."
"I'll be damned."
"Business before pleasure, Lord. I've followed the black thread a
long and
horrid way to come calling."
it
happen, anyhow?"
I pulled on my boots, donned the rest of my garments, buckled
on my blade.
"I am not privy to any details. Of course, it is common knowledge
that his
health was poor."
"I want to leave a note," I said.
He nodded.
"A brief one, I trust."
"Yes."
I scrawled on a piece of parchment from the writing table, Coral,
Called
away on family business. I'll be in touch, and I laid it beside her
hand.
"All right," I said. "How do we do this?"
"I will bear you upon my back, Prince Merlin, as I did long ago."
I nodded as a flood of childhood memories returned to me. Gryll
was
immensely strong, as are most demons. But I recalled our
games, at Pit's-edge
and out over the darkness, in burial chambers, caves, still-
smoking
battlefields, ruined temples, chambers of dead sorcerers, private
hells. I
always seemed to have more fun playing with demons than with
my mother's
relatives by blood or marriage. I even based my main Chaos form
upon one of
their kind.
He absorbed a chair from the room's corner for extra mass,
changing shape
"That's life."
A dark thread lay upon the wide sill. He reached out and
touched it as he
launched himself.
There came a great rushing of wind as we fell downward, moved
forward,
rose. Towers flashed past, wavering. The stars were bright, a
quarter moon just
risen, illuminating the bellies of a low line of clouds. We soared,
the castle
and the town dwindling in an eyeblink. The stars danced, be-
came streaks of
light. A band of sheer, rippling blackness spread about us, wid-
ening. The Black
Road, I suddenly thought. It is like a temporary version of the
Black Road, in
the sky. I glanced back. It was not there. It was as if it were
somehow reeling
in as we rode. Or was it reeling us in?
The countryside passed beneath us like a film played at triple
speed.
Forest, hill, and mountain peak fled by. Our black way was a
great ribbon
heaving before us, patches of light and dark like daytime cloud
shadows sliding
past. And then the tempo increased, staccato. I noted of a sud-
den that there was
no longer any wind. Abruptly, the moon was high overhead, and
a crooked mountain
range snaked beneath us. The stillness had a dreamlike quality
to it, and in an
"I am but a servant," Gryll responded, "and not privy to the
councils of
the mighty."
The world continued to brighten, and for as far ahead as I could
see our
black ribbon rippled. We were passing high over mountainous
terrain. And clouds
blew apart and new ones formed at a rapid rate. We had obvi-
ously begun our
passage through Shadow. After a time, the mountains wore down
and rolling plains
slid by. Suddenly the sun was in the middle of the sky. We
seemed to be passing
just above our black way, Gryll's toes barely grazing it as we
moved. At times
his wings hardly fluttered before me, at other times they
thrummed like those of
a hummingbird, into invisibility.
The sun grew cherry-red far to my left. A pink desert spread be-
neath us....
Then it was dark again and the stars turned like a great wheel.
Then we were low, barely passing above the tops of the trees....
We burst into the air over a busy downtown street, lights on
poles and the
fronts of vehicles, neon in windows. The warm, stuffy, dusty,
gassy smell of
city rose up about us. A few pedestrians glanced upward, barely
seeming to note
our passage.
Even as we flashed across a river, cresting the house tops of
suburbia, the
and in the middle distance. Dry and uncrushed, the black way
protected us.
"It is as major an upheaval as the death of Oberon," Gryll volun-
teered.
"Its effects are rippling across Shadow."
"But Oberon's death coincided with the re-creation of the Pat-
tern," I said.
"There was more to it than the death of a monarch of one of the
extremes."
"True," Gryll replied, "but now is a time of imbalance among the
forces.
This adds to it. It will be even more severe."
We plunged into an opening in a dark mass of stone. Lines of
light streaked
past us. Irrregularities were limned in a pale blue. Later--how
long, I do not
know--we were in a purple sky, with no transition that I can re-
call from the
dark sea bottom. A single star gleamed far ahead. We sped to-
ward it.
"Why?" I asked.
"Because the Pattern has grown stronger than the Logrus," he
replied.
"How did that happen?"
"Prince Corwin drew a second Pattern at the time of the con-
frontation
between the Courts and Amber."
"Yes, he told me about it. I've even seen it. He feared Oberon
might not be
able to repair the original."
"But he did, and so now there are two."
"Yes?"