Nine princes in Amber (12 page)

Random said nothing, but he nodded abruptly.

She stuck her scepter upon the arm of her turquoise throne.

“Very well,” she said. “So be it”

And so it was.

We repaired to the chambers she had granted us, there to refresh ourselves. Subsequently she appeared at the door of my own,

“Hail, Moire,” I said.

“Lord Corwin of Amber,” she told me, “often have I wished to meet thee.”

“And I thee,” I lied.

“Your exploits are legend.”

“Thank you, but I barely recall the high points.”

“May I enter here?”

“Certainly,” and I stepped aside.

She moved into the well-appointed suite she had granted me, She seated herself upon the edge of the orange couch.

“When would you like to essay the Pattern?”

“As soon as possible,” I told her.

She considered this, then said, “Where have you been, among Shadows?”

“Very far from here,” I said, “in a place that I learned to love.”

“It is strange that a lord of Amber should have this capacity.”

“What capacity?”

“To love,” she replied.

“Perhaps I chose the wrong word.”

“I doubt it,” she said, “for the ballads of Corwin do touch upon the strings of the heart.”

“The lady is kind.”

“But not wrong,” she replied.

“I’ll give you a ballad one day.”

“What did you do when you dwelled in Shadow?”

“It occurs to me that I was a professional soldier, madam. I fought for whoever would pay me. Also. I composed the words and music to many popular songs.”

“Both these things occur to me as logical and natural.”

“Pray tell me. what of my brother Random?”

“He will marry with a girl among my subjects who is named Vialle. She is blind and has no wooers among our kind.”

“Are you certain,” said I, “that you do the best thing for her?”

“She will obtain good status In this manner,” said Moire, “though he depart after a year and never return.

For whatever else may be said of him, be is a prince of Amber.”

“What if she comes to love him?”

“Could anyone really do this thing?”

“In my way, I love him, as a brother.”

“Then this is the first time a son of Amber has ever said such a thing, and I attribute it to your poetic temperament.”

“Whatever,” said I, “be very sure that it is the best thing for the girl.”

“I have considered it,” she told me, “and I am certain. She will recover from whatever pain he inflicts, and after his departure she will be a great lady of my court.”

“So may it be,” I said, and looked away, feeling a sadness come over me-for the girl, of course.

“What may I say to you?” I said. “Perhaps you do a good thing. I hope so.” And I took her hand and kissed it.

“You. Lord Corwin, are the only prince of Amber I might support,” she told me. “save possibly for Benedict. He is gone these twelve years and ten, however, and Lir knows where his bones may lie. Pity.”

“I did not knew this,” I said. “My memory is so screwed up. Please bear with me. I shall miss Benedict, an’ he be dead. He was my Master of Arms and taught me of all weapons. But he was gentle.”

“As are you, Corwin,” she told me, taking my band and drawing me toward her.

“No, not really,” I replied, as I seated myself on the couch at her side. Then she said, “We’ve much time till we dine.” Then she leaned against me with the front of her shoulder which was soft.

“When do we eat?” I asked.

“Whenever I declare It,” she said, and she faced me more fully.

So I drew her upon me and found the catch to the buckle which covered the softness of her belly. There was more softness beneath, and her hair was green.

Upon the couch, I gave her the ballad. Her lips replied without words.

After we had eaten-and I had learned the trick of eating under water, which I might detail later on if circumstances really warrant-we rose from our places within the marble high hall, decorated with nets and ropes of red and brown, and we made our way back along a narrow corridor, and down, down, beneath the floor of the sea itself, first by means of a spiral staircase that screwed its way through absolute darkness and glowed. After about twenty paces, my brother said, “Screw!” and stepped off the staircase and began swimming downward alongside it.

“It is faster that way,” said Moire.

“And it is a long way down,” said Deirdre, knowing the distance of the one in Amber.

So we all stepped off and swam downward through darkness, beside the glowing, twisting thing.

It took perhaps ten minutes to reach the bottom, but when our feet touched the floor, we stood, with no tendency to drift. There was light about us then, from a few feeble flames set within niches in the wall.

“Why is this part of the ocean, within the double of Amber, so different from waters elsewhere?” I asked.

“Because that is the way it is,” said Deirdre, which irritated me.

We were in an enormous cavern, and tunnels shot off from it in all directions. We moved toward one.

After walking along it for an awfully long while, we began to encounter side passages, some of which had doors or grilles before them and some of which did not.

At the seventh of these we stopped. It was a huge gray door of some slate-like substance, bound in metal, towering to twice my height. I remembered something about the size of Tritons as I regarded that doorway. Then Moire smiled, just at me, and produced a large key from a ring upon her belt and set it within the lock.

She couldn’t turn it, though. Perhaps the thing had been unused for too long.

Random growled and his hand shot forward, knocking hers aside.

He seized the key in his right hand and twisted.

There came a click.

Then he pushed the door open with his foot and we stared within.

In a room the size of a ballroom the Pattern was laid. The floor was black and looked smooth as glass. And on the floor was the Pattern.

It shimmered like the cold fire that it was, quivered, made the whole room seem somehow unsubstantial. It was an elaborate tracery of bright power, composed mainly of curves, though there were a few straight lines near its middle. It reminded me of a fantastically intricate, life-scale version of one of those maze things you do with a pencil (or ballpoint, as the case may be), to get you into or out of something. Like, I could almost see the words “Start Here,” somewhere way to the back. It was perhaps a hundred yards across at its narrow middle, and maybe a hundred and fifty long.

It made bells ring within my head,. and then came the throbbing. My mind recoiled from the touch of it. But if I were a prince of Amber, then somewhere within my blood, my nervous system, my genes, this pattern was recorded somehow, so that I would respond properly, so that I could walk the bloody thing.

“Sure wish I could have a cigarette,” I said, and the girls giggled, though rather a little too rapidly and perhaps with a bit of a twist of the treble control.

Random took my arm and said, “It’s an ordeal, but it’s not impossible or we wouldn’t be here. Take it very slowly and don’t let yourself he distracted. Don’t be alarmed by the shower of sparks that will arise with each step. They can’t hurt you. You’ll feel a mild current passing through you the whole time, and after a while you’ll start feeling high. But keep concentrating, and don’t forget-keep walking! Don’t stop, whatever you do, and don’t stray from the path, or it’ll probably kill you,” and as he spoke, we walked. We walked close to the right-hand wall and rounded the Pattern, heading toward its far end. The girls trailed behind us.

I whispered to him.

“I tried to talk her out of this thing she’s planned for you. No luck.”

“I figured you would,” he said. “Don’t worry about it. I can do a year standing on my head, and they might even let me go sooner, if I’m obnoxious enough.”

“The girl she has lined up for you is named Vialle. She’s blind.”

“Great,” he said. “Great joke.”

“Remember that regency we spoke of?”

“Yeah.”

“Be kind to her then, stay the full year, and I will be generous.”

Nothing.

Then he squeezed my arm.

“Friend of yours, huh?” he chuckled. “What’s she like?”

“Is it a deal?” I said, slowly.

“It’s a deal.”

Then we stood at the place where the Pattern began, near to the corner of the room.

I moved forward and regarded the line of inlaid fires that started
 
near to the spot where I had placed my right foot. The Pattern constituted the only illumination within the room. The waters were chill about me.

I strode forward, setting my left foot upon the path. It was outlined by blue-white sparks. Then I set my right foot upon it, and I felt the current Random had mentioned. I took another step.

There was a crackle and I felt my hair beginning to rise. I took another step.

Then the thing began to curve, abruptly, back upon itself. I took ten more paces, and a certain resistance seemed to arise. It was as if a black barrier had grown up before me, of some substance which pushed back upon me with each effort that I made to pass forward.

I fought it. It was the First Veil, I suddenly knew.

To get beyond it would be an achievement, a good sign, showing that I was indeed part of the Pattern. Each raising and lowering of my foot suddenly required a terrible effort, and sparks shot forth from my hair.

I concentrated on the fiery line. I walked it breathing heavily.

Suddenly the pressure was eased. The Veil had parted before me, as abruptly as it had occurred. I had passed beyond it and acquired something,

I had gained a piece of myself.

I saw the paper skins and the knobby, stick-like bones of the dead of Auschwitz. I had been present at Nuremberg, I knew. I heard the voice of Stephen Spender reciting “Vienna,” and I saw Mother Courage cross the stage on the night of a Brecht premiere. I saw the rockets leap up from the stained hard places, Peenemunde, Vandenberg,
 
Kennedy,

Kyzyl Kum in Kazakhstan, and I touched with my hands the Wall of China. We were drinking beer and wine, and Shaxpur said he was drunk and went off to puke. I entered the green forests of the Western Reserve and took three scalps one day. I hummed a tune as we marched along and it caught on. It become “Auprés de ma Blonde.” I remembered, I remembered . . . my life within the Shadow place its inhabitants had called the Earth. Three more steps, and I held a bloody blade and saw three dead men and my horse, on which I had fled the revolution in France. And more, so much more, back to—

I took another step.

Back to—

The dead. They were all about me. There was a horrible stink-the smell of decaying flesh-and I heard the howls of a dog who was being beaten to death. Billows of black smoke filled the sky, and an icy wind swept around me bearing a few small drops of rain. My throat was parched and my hands shook and my head was on fire. I staggered alone, seeing everything through the haze of the fever that burned me. The gutters were filled with garbage and dead cats and the emptyings of chamber pots. With a rattle and the ringing of a bell, the death wagon thundered by, splashing me with mud and cold water.

How long I wandered, I do not know, before a woman seized my arm and I saw a Death’s Head ring upon her finger. She led me to her
 
rooms, but discovered there that I had no money and was incoherent. A look of fear crossed her pained face, erasing the smile on her bright lips, and she fled and I collapsed upon her bed.

Later-again, how much later I do not know-a big man, the girl’s Black Davy, came and slapped me across the face and dragged me to my feet. I seized his right biceps and hung on. He half carried, half pulled me toward the door.

When I realized that he was going to cast me out into the cold, I tightened my grip to protest it. I squeezed with all my remaining strength, mumbling half-coherent pleas.

Then through sweat and tear-filled eyes. I saw his face break open and heard a scream come forth from between his stained teeth.

The bone in his arm had broken where I’d squeezed it.

He pushed me away with his left hand and fell to his knees, weeping. I sat upon the floor, and my head cleared for a moment.

“I . . . am .
 
. . staying here,” I said, “until I feel better. Get out. If you come back-I’ll kill you.”

“You’ve got the plague!” he cried. “They’ll come for your bones tomorrow!” and he spat then, got to his feet, and staggered out.

I made it to the door and barred it. Then I crawled back to the bed and slept.

If they came for my bones the next day, they were disappointed. For, perhaps ten hours later, in the middle of the night, I awoke in a cold sweat and realized my fever had broken. I was weak, but rational once more.