The Road to Amber (53 page)

I would use a spell to alter my appearance, I decided. When I left here I would have dark hair and a beard (over the beginnings of a real beard), gray eyes, a straight nose, higher cheekbones, and a smaller chin. I would seem taller and a lot thinner. I would switch from my usual bright ones to dark garments. Not just some light, cosmetic spell either. It would have to be a strong one, with depth and substance to it.

Musing upon this, I got up and went in search of food. I found some tinned beef and biscuits, and I used a small spell to heat a can of soup. No, that was not a violation of the physical laws of the place. The crystal walls block sendings in and out, but my spells came in with me and operated as normal in the interior.

Eating, I thought again of Nayda, of Merlin, and of Coral. Whatever was happening to them—good or bad—time was favoring them in getting it done. Even if I stayed here for but a short while developments back home would be incommensurate with time’s apparent lapse here. And what kind of time did the Pattern really keep? All of them, I supposed—that is to say, its own—but I also felt it to be especially keyed to the mainline of its flow in Amber. In fact, I was almost sure of it, since that’s where the action was. So if I wanted to be back in action quickly I should just stay here long enough for my hand to heal.

But really, how badly could the Pattern want me? How much would I actually matter to it? What was I in its view? King of a minor Golden Circle realm. Assassin of one Prince of Amber. Son of the man who had once sought to destroy it… I winced at that, but reflected that the Pattern had let me live my entire life up to now without reprisal for dad’s actions. And my part in the current business had been minimal. Coral had seemed its main concern, and then Merlin. Perhaps I was being ultra-cautious. Likely, it had dismissed me from its main considerations the moment I had vanished. Still, I wasn’t going to step out of here without that disguise.

I finished eating and sipped at the wine. And when I did step out? What exactly would I be about then? Numerous possibilities tumbled through my mind. I also began yawning and the sleeping bag looked very good. Lightning flashed, blue wave through the walls. Then the thunder came, like surf. Tomorrow then. Tomorrow I would plan…

I crawled inside and got comfortable. In a moment, I was gone.

I’ve no idea how long I slept. On rising, I made the rounds to establish a security habit, ran through a vigorous routine of exercises, cleaned myself up, then ate a leisurely breakfast. I felt better than I had the day before, and my hand had already commenced healing.

Then I sat and stared at the wall, probably for hours. What was my best course of action?

I could rush back to Kashfa and the kingship, I could hunt after my friends, I could simply go underground, lie low, and investigate until I learned what was going on. It was a question of priorities. What was the most important thing I could do for everybody concerned? I thought about it till lunchtime and then I ate again.

Afterwards, I took up my small sketchpad and a pencil and I began recalling a certain lady, feature by feature. I fiddled with it all afternoon, to pass the time, though I knew I had her right. When I knocked off for dinner the next day’s activities had already taken shape in my mind.

The next morning my injury was considerably diminished, and I conjured myself a mirror upon a smooth surface of the wall. Using an oil lamp so as not to waste an illumination spell, I conjured that tall, dark, lean figure upon my own form, cast those aquiline features upon my own—complete with beard—and I looked upon my work and saw that it was good. I transformed the appearance of my garments then, also, to keep the new me company—this latter a single spell. I’d have to fetch real garments as soon as I could. No use wasting a high-powered working on something that trivial. I did this all first thing, because I’d wanted to wear the guise all day, let it soak in, see whether there were any hidden weaknesses to my working. Then I wanted to sleep in it, for the same reason.

That afternoon I took up the sketchpad again. I studied my previous day’s work, then turned to a fresh page and executed a Trump. It felt exactly right.

The next morning, following the usual routine, I reviewed myself in the mirror again, was satisfied, and mounted the ladder to emerge from the cave. It was a damp, cool morning with a few blue breaks in the cloud cover high overhead. Could rain again. But what the hell did I care? I was on my way out.

I reached for my pad, then paused. I was reminded of other Trumps I had dealt with over the years, and of something else. I withdrew my deck of cards. Uncasing them, I moved slowly through until I came to the sad one—dad’s. I had kept his card for sentiment’s sake, not utility. He looked just as I remembered him, but I hadn’t sought it for purposes of reminiscence. It was because of the item he wore at his side.

I focused on Werewindle, by all accounts a magical blade, in some way related to Corwin’s Grayswandir. And I recalled Merlin’s telling me how his father had summoned Grayswandir to him in Shadow, following his escape from the dungeons of Amber. There was some special affinity between him and that weapon. I wondered. Now that the pace had quickened and new adventures were looming, it would probably be advisable to face things prepared with the appropriate steel. Though dad was dead, Werewindle was somehow alive. Though I could not reach my father, might I somehow reach his blade, its whereabouts, of last report, somewhere in the Courts of Chaos?

I focused my attention upon it, calling it with my mind. It seemed that I felt something, and when I touched it the spot it occupied on the card seemed to be growing cold. I reached. Farther. Harder.

And then there was clarity and nearness and the feeling of a cold, alien intelligence regarding me.

“Werewindle,” I said softly.

If there can be the sound of an echo in the absence of a prior sound this is what I heard.

“Son of Brand,” came a reverberation.

“Call me Luke.”

There was silence. Then, “Luke,” came the vibration.

I reached forward, caught hold of it, and drew it toward me. The scabbard came with it. I drew back.

I held it in my hands then and I drew it. It flowed like molten gold around the design it wore. I raised it, extended it, executed a cut. It felt right. It felt perfect. It felt as if enormous power lay behind its every movement.

“Thanks,” I said, and the echo of laughter came and went.

I raised my pad and opened it to the appropriate page, hoping it was a good time to make the call. I regarded the lady’s delicate features, her unfocused gaze that somehow indicated the breadth and depth of her vision. After a few moments, the page grew cold beneath my fingertips, and my drawing took on a 3-dimensional quality, seemed faintly to stir.

“Yes?” came her voice.

“Your Highness,” I said. “However you may perceive these things, I want you to know that I have intentionally altered my appearance. I was hoping that—”

“Luke,” she said, “of course I recognize you—your own Majesty now,” her gaze still unfocused. “You are troubled.”

“Indeed I am.”

“You wish to come through?”

“If it is appropriate and convenient.”

“Certainly.”

She extended her hand. I reached forward, taking it lightly in my own, as her studio came clear, banishing gray skies and crystal hill. I took a step toward her and I was there.

Immediately, I dropped to my knees, unclasped my swordbelt and offered her my blade. In the distance, I could hear sounds of hammering and sawing.

“Rise,” she said, touching my shoulder. “Come and be seated. Have a cup of tea with me.”

I got to my feet and followed her to a table in the corner. She took off her dusty apron and hung it on a peg on the wall. As she prepared the tea I regarded the small army of statues which lined one wall and bivouacked in random cluster about the enormous room—large, small, realistic, impressionistic, beautiful, grotesque. She worked mainly in clay, though a few smaller ones were of stone; and there were furnaces at the room’s far end, though these were cold now. Several metal mobiles of unusual shape were suspended from ceiling beams. When she joined me again she reached out and touched my left hand, locating the ring she had given me.

“Yes, I value the Queen’s protection,” I said.

“Even though you are now a monarch yourself from a country on friendly terms with us?”

“Even so,” I said. “So much so, in fact, that I wish to reciprocate in part.”

“Oh?”

“I’m not at all certain that Amber is aware of recent events to which I have been party or of which I have knowledge, which may affect her welfare. That is, unless Merlin has been in touch recently.”

“Merlin has not been in touch,” she said. “If you have information vital to the realm, though, perhaps you ought to give it to Random direct. He’s not here just now, but I could reach him for you via Trump.”

“No,” I said. “I know he doesn’t like me at all or trust me, as his brother’s killer and a friend of the man who has sworn to destroy Amber. I am sure he would love to see me deposed and some puppet on the throne of Kashfa. I suppose I must have things out with him one day, but this isn’t the day. I’ve too much else going on just now. But the information transcends local politics. It involves Amber and the Courts of Chaos, the Pattern and the Logrus, the death of Swayvill and Merlin’s possible succession to the throne in the Courts—”

“You’re serious!”

“You bet. I know he’ll listen to you. And he’ll even understand why I told you. Let me avoid him this way. There are big events in the offing.”

“Tell me,” she said, raising her cup.

So I did, including everything Merlin had told me, up through the confrontation at the primal Pattern and my flight to the Crystal Cave. We went through the entire pot of tea in the process, and when I was finished we just sat for a time in silence.

Finally, she sighed.

“You have charged me to deliver major intelligence,” she said.

“I know.”

“Yet I feel it is but a small part of much greater developments.”

“How’s that?” I asked.

“A few small things I have heard, known, guessed at, and perhaps dreamed—and a few, I suppose, I simply fear. Hardly a coherent shape. Yet enough, perhaps, to query the powers of the earth I work with. Yes. Now that I have thought it I must try it, of course. At a time such as this.”

She rose slowly, paused, and gestured high.

“That shall be the Tongue,” she said, and a draft stirred one of the mobiles causing it to produce many tones.

She crossed the studio to the righthand wall—small figure in gray and green, chestnut hair down to the middle of her back—and ran her fingers lightly over the sculpted figure that stood there. Finally, selecting a broad-faced statue with a narrow torso, she began pushing it toward the center of the room.

I was on my feet and moving in an instant.

“Let me do that for you, Your Highness.”

She shook her head.

“Call me Vialle,” she said. “And no, I must position them myself. This one is named Memory.”

She placed it below and somewhat to the northwest of the Tongue. Then she moved to a knot of figures and selected a thin one with slightly parted lips, which she placed to the south on Tongue’s compass.

“…And this is Desire,” she stated.

Quickly locating a third—a tall, squinting figure—she placed it to the northeast.

“Caution,” she went on.

A lady, her right hand boldly extended, went to the west.

“Risk,” she continued.

To the east she positioned another lady, both arms spread wide.

“Heart,” she said.

To the southwest went a high-domed, shaggy-browed philosopher. “Head,” she said.

… And to the southeast a smiling lady—impossible to say whether her hand was raised in greeting or to deliver a blow.

“Chance,” she finished, fitting her into the circle which had come to remind me both of Stonehenge and of Easter Island.

“Bring two chairs,” she said, “and place them here and here.”

She indicated positions to the north and south of her circle.

I did as she’d said, and she seated herself in the northern-most chair, behind a final figure she had placed: Foresight. I took my place back of Desire.

“Be silent now,” she instructed

Then she sat still, hands in her lap, for several minutes.

Finally, “At the deepest level,” she said, “what threatens the peace?”

From my left, Caution seemed to speak, though the Tongue chimed his words overhead.

“A redistribution of ancient powers,” he said.

“In what manner?”

“That which was hidden becomes known and is moved about,” answered Risk.

“Are both Amber and the Courts involved?”

“Indeed,” answered Desire, from before me.

“‘Ancient powers,’” she said. “How ancient?”

“Before there was an Amber, they were,” stated Memory.

“Before there was a Jewel of Judgement—the Eye of the Serpent?”

“No,” Memory responded.

She drew a sudden breath.

“Their number?” she said.

“Eleven,” Memory replied.

She grew pale at that, but I held my silence as she had instructed.

“Those responsible for this stirring of ashes,” she said then, “what do they wish?”

“A return to the glory of days gone by,” Desire stated.

“Could this end be realized?”

“Yes,” Foresight replied.

“Could it be averted?”

“Yes,” said Foresight.

“At peril,” Caution added.

“How might one begin?”

“Query the guardians,” Head stated.

“How bad is the situation?”

“It has already begun,” Head answered.

“And the danger is already present,” said Risk.

“So is opportunity,” said Chance.

“Of what sort?” Vialle inquired.

There came a sound from across the room as my scabbard and blade slid to the floor from where I had leaned them against the wall. Vialle stared.

“My weapon,” I said, “just slipped.”

“Name it.”

“It was my father’s sword, called Werewindle.”