Nine Princes In Amber tcoa-1 Page 10

  I had an advantage over any other person who attempted the walk, however. I knew that I had done it before, so I knew that I could do it. This helped me against the unnatural fears which rose like black clouds and were gone again, only to return, their strength redoubled. I walked the Pattern and I remembered all, I remembered all the days before my centuries on the Shadow Earth and I remembered other places of Shadow, many of them special and dear to me, and one which I loved above all, save for Amber.

  I walked three more curves, a straight line, and a series of sharp arcs, and I held within me once again a consciousness of the things which I had never really lost: mine was the power over Shadows.

  Ten arcs which left me dizzy, another short arc, a straight line, and the Final Veil.

  It was agony to move. Everything tried to beat me aside. The waters were cold, then boiling. It seemed that they constantly pushed against me. I struggled, putting one foot before the other. The sparks reached as high as my waist at this point, then my breast, my shoulders. They were into my eyes. They were all about me. I could barely see the Pattern itself.

  Then a short arc, ending in blackness.

  One, two… And to take the last step was like trying to push through a concrete wall.

  I did it.

  Then I turned slowly and looked back over the course I had come. I would not permit myself the luxury of sagging to my knees. I was a prince of Amber, and by God! nothing could humble me in the presence of my peers. Not even the Pattern!

  I waved jauntily in what I thought to be the right direction. Whether or not I could be made out very clearly was another matter.

  Then I stood there a moment and thought.

  I knew the power of the Pattern now. Going back along it would be no trick at all.

  But why bother?

  I lacked my deck of cards, but the power of the Pattern could serve me just as well…

  They were waiting for me, my brother and sister and Moire with her thighs like marble pillars.

  Deirdre could take care of herself from here on out — after all, we’d saved her life. I didn’t feel obligated to go on protecting her on a day-by-day basis. Random was stuck in Rebma for a year, unless he had guts enough to leap forward and take the Pattern to this still center of power and perhaps escape. And as for Moire, it had been nice knowing her, and maybe I’d see her again some day, and like that. I closed my eyes and bowed my head.

  Before I did so, though, I saw a fleeting shadow.

  Random? Trying it? Whatever, he wouldn’t know where I was headed. No one would.

  I opened my eyes and I stood in the middle of the same Pattern, in reverse.

  I was cold, and I was damn tired, but I was in Amber — in the real room, of which the one I had departed was but an image. From the Pattern, I could transfer myself to any point I wished within Amber.

  Getting back would be a problem, however.

  So I stood there and dripped and considered.

  If Eric had taken the royal suite, then I might find him there. Or perhaps in the throne room. But then, I’d have to make my own way back to the place of power, I’d have to walk the Pattern again, in order to reach the escape point.

  I transferred myself to a hiding place I knew of within the palace. It was a windowless cubicle into which some light trickled from observation slits high overhead. I bolted its one sliding panel from the inside, dusted off a wooden bench set beside the wall, spread my cloak upon it and stretched out for a nap. If anyone came groping his way down from above, I’d hear him long before he reached me.

  I slept.

  After a while, I awakened. So I arose, dusted off my cloak and donned it once more. Then I began to negotiate the series of pegs which laddered their way up into the palace.

  I knew where it was, the third floor, by the markings on the walls.

  I swung myself over to a small landing and searched for the peephole. I found it and gazed through. Nothing. The library was empty. So I slid back the panel and entered.

  Within, I was stricken by the multitudes of books. They always do that to me. I considered everything, including the display cases, and finally moved toward the place where a crystal case contained everything that led up to a family banquet — private joke. It held four decks of the family cards, and I sought about for a means of obtaining one without setting off an alarm which might keep me from using it.

  After maybe ten minutes, I succeeded in gimmicking the proper case. It was tricky. Then, pack in hands, I found a comfortable seat for the consideration thereof.

  The cards were just like Flora’s and they held us all under glass and were cold to the touch. Now, too, I knew why.

  So I shuffled and spread them all out before me in the proper manner. Then I read them, and I saw that bad things were in store for the entire family; and I gathered them all together then.

  Save for one.

  It was the card depicting my brother Bleys. I replaced the others in their case and tucked it into my belt. Then I considered Bleys.

  At about that time there came a scratching In the lock of the great door to the library. What could I do? I loosened my blade in its scabbard and waited. I ducked low behind the desk, though.

  Peering out, I saw that it was a guy named Dik, who had obviously come to clean the place, as he set out emptying the ashtrays and wastebaskets and dusting the shelves.

  Since it would be demeaning to be discovered, I exposed myself.

  I rose and said, “Hello, Dik. Remember me?”

  He turned three kinds of pale, half bolted, and said:

  “Of course, Lord. How could I forget?”

  “I suppose it would be possible, after all this time.”

  “Never, Lord Corwin,” he replied.

  “I suppose I’m here without official sanction, and engaged in a bit of illicit research,” I said “but if Eric doesn’t like it when you tell him that you saw me, please explain that I was simply exercising my rights, and he will be seeing me personally — soon.”

  “I’ll do that, m’lord,” he said, bowing.

  “Come sit with me a moment, friend Dik, and I’ll tell you more.”

  And he did, so I did.

  “There was a time,” I said, addressing this ancient visage, “when I was considered gone for good and abandoned forever. Since I still live, however, and since I maintain all my faculties, I fear that I must dispute Eric’s claim to the throne of Amber. Though it’s not a thing to be settled simply, as he is not the first-born, nor do I feel he would enjoy popular support if another were in sight. For these, among other reasons — most of them personal — I am about to oppose him. I have not yet decided how, nor upon what grounds, but by God! he deserves opposition! Tell him that. If he wishes to seek me, tell him that I dwell among Shadows, but different ones than before. He may know what I mean by that. I will not be easily destroyed, for I will guard myself at least as well as he does here. I will oppose him from hell to eternity, and I will not cease until one of us is dead. What say you to this, old retainer?”

  And he took my hand and kissed it.

  “Hail to thee, Corwin, Lord of Amber,” he said, and there was a tear in his eye.

  Then the door cracked a crack behind him and swung open.

  Eric entered.

  “Hello,” said I, Rising and putting a most obnoxious twang to my voice. “I didn’t expect to meet with you this early in the game. How go things in Amber?”

  And his eyes were wide with amaze and his voice heavy with that which men call sarcasm, and I can’t think of a better word, as he replied:

  “Well, when it comes to things, Corwin. Poorly, on other counts, however.”

  “Pity,” said I, “and how shall we put things aright?”

  “I know a way,” he said, and then he glared at Dik, who promptly departed and closed the door behind him. I heard it snick shut.

  Eric loosened his blade in its scabbard.

  “You want the throne,” he said.

  “
Don’t we all?” I told him.

  “I guess so,” he said, with a sigh. “It’s true, that uneasy-lies-the-head bit. I don’t know why we are driven to strive so for this ridiculous position. But you must recall that I’ve defeated you twice, mercifully granting you your life on a Shadow world the last occasion.”

  “It wasn’t that merciful,” I said. “You know where you left me, to die of the plague. The first time, as I remember, it was pretty much a draw.”

  “Then it is between the two of us now, Corwin,” he said. “I am your elder and your better. If you wish to try me at arms, I find myself suitably attired. Slay me, and the throne will probably be yours. Try it. I don’t think you can succeed, however. And I’d like to quit your claim right now. So come at me. Let’s see what you learned on the Shadow Earth.”

  And his blade was in his hand and mine in mine.

  I moved around the desk.

  “What an enormous chutzpah you possess,” I told him. “What makes you better than the rest of us, and more fit to rule?”

  “The fact that I was able to occupy the throne,” he replied. “Try and take it.”

  And I did.

  I tried a headcut, which he parried; and I parried his riposte to my heart and cut at his wrist.

  He parried this and kicked a small stool between us. I set it aside, hopefully in the direction of his face, with my right toe, but it missed and he had at me again.

  I parried his attack, and he mine. Then I lunged, was parried, was attacked, and parried again myself.

  I tried a very fancy attack I’d learned in France, which involved a beat, a feint in quarte, a feint in sixte, and a lunge veering off into an attack on his wrist.

  I nicked him and the blood flowed.

  “Oh, damnable brother!” he said, retreating. “Report has it Random accompanies thee.”

  “This is true,” said I. “More than one of us are assembled against you.”

  And he lunged then and beat me back, and I felt suddenly that for all my work he was still my master. He was perhaps one of the greatest swordsmen I had ever faced. I suddenly had the feeling that I couldn’t take him, and I parried like mad and retreated in the same fashion as he beat me back, step by step. We’d both had centuries under the greatest masters of the blade in business. The greatest alive, I knew, was brother Benedict, and he wasn’t around to help, one way or the other. So I snatched things off the desk with my left hand and threw them at Eric. But he dodged everything and came on strong, and I circled to his left and all like that, but I couldn’t draw the point of his blade from my left eye. And I was afraid. The man was magnificent. If I didn’t hate him so, I would have applauded his performance.

  I kept backing away, and the fear and the knowledge came upon me: I knew I still couldn’t take him. He was a better man than I was, when it came to the blade. I cursed this, but I couldn’t get around it. I tried three more elaborate attacks and was defeated on each occasion. He parried me and made me retreat before his own attacks.

  Now don’t get the wrong idea. I’m damn good. It’s just that he seemed better.

  Then there were some alarms and excursions in the hall outside. Eric’s retainers were coming, and if he didn’t kill me before they arrived, then I was confident that they’d do the job — probably with a bolt from a crossbow.

  There was blood dripping from his right wrist. His hand was still steady but I had the feeling then that under other circumstances, by fighting a defensive fight, I just might be able to wear him down with that wrist injury going against him, and perhaps I could get through his guard at the proper moment when he began to slow.

  I cursed softly and he laughed.

  “You’re a fool to have come here,” he said.

  He didn’t realize what I was doing until it was too late. (I’d been retreating until the door was at my back. It was risky, leaving myself with no room for retreat, but it was better than sure death.)

  With my left hand, I managed to drop the bar. It was a big, heavy door and they’d have to knock it down now to get in. That gave me a few more minutes. It also gave me a shoulder wound, from an attack I could only partly parry as I dropped the bar. But it was my left shoulder. My sword arm remained intact.

  I smiled, to put up a good front.

  “Perhaps you were a fool, to enter here,” I said. “You’re slowing, you know,” and I tried a hard, fast, vicious attack.

  He parried it, but he fell back two paces in doing so.

  “That wound’s getting to you,” I added. “Your arm’s weakening. You can feel the strength leaving it —”

  “Shut up!” he said, and I realized I’d gotten through to him. This increased my chances by several percent, I decided, and I pressed him as hard as I could, realizing I couldn’t keep that pace up very long.

  But Eric didn’t realize it.

  I’d planted the seeds of fear, and he fell back before my sudden onslaught.

  There was a banging on the door but I didn’t have to worry about that for a while anyway.

  “I’m going to take you, Eric,” I said. “I’m tougher than I used to be, and you’ve had it, brother.”

  I saw the fear begin in his eyes, and it spread over his face, and his style shifted to follow suit. He began fighting a completely defensive battle, backing away from my attack. I’m sure he wasn’t faking either. I felt I had bluffed him, for he had always been better than I. But what if it had been partly psychological on my part too? What if I had almost beaten myself with this attitude, which Eric had helped to foster? What if I had bluffed myself all along? Maybe I was as good. With a strange sense of confidence, I tried the same attack I had used before and I scored, leaving another trail of red on his forearm.

  “That was rather stupid. Eric.” I said, “to fall for the same trick twice,” and he backed around a wide chair. We fought across it for a time.

  The banging on the door stopped, and the voices which had been shouting inquiries through it fell silent.

  “They’ve gone for axes,” Eric panted. “They’ll be in here in no time.”

  I wouldn’t drop my smile. I held it and said: “It’ll take a few minutes — which is more time than I’ll need to finish this. You can hardly keep your guard now, and the blood keeps running — look at it!”

  “Shut up!”

  “By the time they get through, there will he only one prince in Amber, and it won’t be you!”

  Then, with his left arm, he swept a row of books from a shelf and they struck me and fell about me.

  He didn’t seize the opportunity to attack, however. He dashed across the room, picking up a small chair, which he held in his left hand.

  He wedged himself into a corner and held the chair and his blade before him.

  There were rapid footsteps in the hall outside, and then axes began to ring upon the door.

  “Come on!” he said. “Try and take me now!”

  “You’re scared,” I said.

  He laughed.

  “Academic,” he replied. “You can’t take me before that door falls, and then it will be all over for you.”

  I had to agree. He could hold off my blade with that setup, at least for quite a few minutes.

  I crossed the room quickly, to the opposite wall.

  With my left hand, I opened the panel through which I had entered.

  “Okay,” I said. “it looks like you’re going to live — for a time. You’re lucky. Next time we meet, there won’t be anyone to help you.”

  He spat and called me a few traditional vile names, even putting down the chair to add an obscene gesture, as I ducked through the panel and closed it behind me.

  There came a thunk, and eight inches of steel gleamed on my side of the panel as I was fastening it. He had thrown his blade. Risky, if I chose to return. But he knew I wouldn’t, for the door sounded about ready to fall.

  I descended the pegs as rapidly as I could, to the place where I had slept earlier. As I did, I considered my increased skill
with the blade. At first, in the battle, I had been awed by the man who had beaten me before. Now, though, I wondered. Perhaps those centuries on the Shadow Earth were not a waste. Maybe I had actually gotten better during that time. Now I felt that I might be Eric’s equal with the weapon. This made me feel good. If we met again, as I was sure we would, and there was no outside interference — who knew? I would court the chance, however. Today’s encounter had scared him. I was certain. That might serve to slow his hand, to cause the necessary hesitation on the next occasion.

  I let go and dropped the final fifteen feet, bending my knees as I landed. I was the proverbial five minutes ahead of the posse, but I was sure I could take advantage of it and escape. For I had the cards in my belt.

  I drew the card that was Bleys and stared at it. My shoulder hurt, but I forgot it, as the coldness came upon me.

  There were two ways to depart directly from Amber into Shadow…

  One was the Pattern, seldom used for this purpose.

  Another was the Trumps, if you could trust a brother.

  I considered Bleys. I could almost trust him. He was my brother, but he was in trouble and could use my help.

  I stared at him, flame-crowned, dressed all in red and orange, with a sword in his right hand and a glass of wine in his left. The devil danced in his blue eyes, his beard blazed, and the tracery on his blade, I suddenly realized, flared with a portion of the Pattern. His rings flashed. He seemed to move.

  The contact came like an icy wind.

  The figure on the card seemed life-sized now and changed position into whatever stance he presently held. His eyes did not quite focus upon me, and his lips moved.

  “Who is it?” they said, and I heard the words.

  “Corwin,” said I, and he held forth his left hand, which no longer bore the goblet.

  “Then come to me, if you would.”

  I reached forth and our fingers met. I took a step.

  I was still holding the card in my left hand, but Bleys and I stood together on a cliff and there was a chasm to our side and a high fortress to our other side. The sky above us was the color of flame.