The Courts Of Chaos tcoa-5 Read online

  I reached the edge of the Pattern, quickly made my way toward its beginning. I glanced back at the cavemouth. Dad, Dworkin, Fiona — none of them had yet emerged. Good. They could never make it in time to stop me. Once I set foot on the Pattern, if would be too late for them to do anything but wait and watch. I thought for a fleeting instant of Iago’s dissolution, pushed that thought away, strove to calm my mind to the level necessary for the undertaking, recalled my battle with Brand in this place and his strange departure, pushed that away, too, slowed my breathing, prepared myself.

  A certain lethargy came upon me. It was time to begin, but I held back for a moment, trying to fix my mind properly on the grand task that lay before me. The Pattern swam for a moment in my vision. Now! Damn it! Now! No more preliminaries! Begin, I told myself. Walk!

  Still, I stood, contemplating the Pattern as in a dream. I forgot about myself for long moments as I regarded it. The Pattern, with its long black smear to be removed…

  It no longer seemed important that it might kill me. My mind drifted, considering the beauty of the thing…

  I heard a sound. It would be Dad, Dworkin, Fiona, coming. I had to do something before they reached me. I had to walk it, in a moment…

  I pulled my gaze away from the Pattern and glanced back toward the cavemouth. They had emerged, come partway down the slope and halted. Why? Why had they stopped?

  What did it matter? I had the time I needed in which to begin. I began to raise my foot, to step forward.

  I could barely move. I inched my foot ahead with a great effort of will. Taking this first step was proving worse than walking the Pattern itself, near to the end. But it did not seem so much an external resistance I fought against as it did the sluggishness at my own body. It was almost as if —

  Then I had me an image of Benedict beside the Pattern in Tir-na Nog’th, Brand approaching, mocking, the Jewel burning upon his breast.

  Before I looked down, I knew what I would see. The red stone was pulsing in time with my heartbeat. Damn them! Either Dad or Dworkin — or both of them — readied through it at this instant, paralyzing me. I did not doubt that either of them could manage it alone. Still, at this distance, it was not worth surrendering without a fight.

  I continued to push forward with my foot, sliding it slowly ahead toward the edge of the Pattern. Once I made it, I did not see how they…

  Drowsing… I felt myself beginning to fall. I had been asleep for a moment. It happened again.

  When I opened my eyes, I could see a portion of the Pattern. When I turned my head, I saw feet.

  When I looked up, I saw Dad holding the Jewel.

  “Go away,” he said to Dworkin and Fiona, without turning his head toward them.

  They withdrew as he placed the Jewel about his own neck. He leaned forward then and extended his hand. I took it and he drew me to my feet.

  “That was a damfool thing to do,” he said.

  “I almost made it.”

  He nodded.

  “Of course, you would have killed yourself and not accomplished anything,” he said. “But it was well done nevertheless. Come on, let’s walk.”

  He took my arm, and we began to move about the periphery of the Pattern.

  I watched that strange sky-sea, horizonless about us, as we went. I wondered what would have happened had I been able to begin the Pattern, what would be happening at that moment.

  “You have changed,” he finally said, “or else I never really knew you.”

  I shrugged.

  “Something of both perhaps. I was about to say the same of you. Tell me something?”

  “What?”

  “How difficult was it for you, being Ganelon?”

  He chuckled.

  “Not hard at all,” he said. “You may have had a glimpse of the real me.”

  “I liked him. Or, rather, you being him. I wonder whatever became of the real Ganelon?”

  “Long dead, Corwin. I met him after you had exiled him from Avalon, long ago. He wasn’t a bad chap. Wouldn’t have trusted him worth a damn, but then I never trust anyone I dont have to.”

  “It runs in the family.”

  “I regretted having to kill him. Not that he gave me much choice. All this was very long ago, but I remembered him clearly, so he must have impressed me.”

  “And Lorraine?”

  “The country? A good job, I thought. I worked the proper shadow. It grew in strength by my very presence, as any will if one of us stays around for long — as with you in Avalon, and later that other place. And I saw that I had a long while there by exercising my will upon its timestream.”

  “I did not know that could be done.”

  “You grow in strength slowly, beginning with your initiation into the Pattern. There are many things you have yet to learn. Yes, I strengthened Lorraine, and made it especially vulnerable to the growing force of the black road. I saw that it would lie in your path, no matter where you went. After your escape, all roads led to Lorraine.”

  “Why?”

  “It was a trap I had set for you, and maybe a test. I wanted to be with you when you met the forces of Chaos. I also wanted to travel with you for a time.”

  “A test? What were you testing me for? And why travel with me?”

  “Can you not guess? I have watched all of you over the years. I never named a successor. I purposely left the matter muddled. You are all enough like me for me to know that the moment I declared for one of you I would be signing his or her death warrant. No, I intentionally left things as they were until the very end. Now, though, I have decided. It is to be you.”

  “You communicated with me, as yourself, briefly, back in Lorraine. You told me then to take the throne. If you had made up your mind at that point why did you continue the masquerade?”

  “But I had not decided then. That was merely a means to assure your continuing. I feared you might come to like that girl too much, and that land. When you emerged a hero from the Black Circle you might have decided to settle and stay there. I wanted to plant the notions that would cause you to continue your Journey.”

  I was silent for a long while. We had moved a good distance about the Pattern.

  Then, “There is something that I have to know,” I said. “Before I came here I was speaking with Dara, who is in the process of trying to clear her name with us —”

  “It is clear,” he said. “I have cleared it.”

  I shook my head.

  “I refrained from accusing her of something I have been thinking about for some time. There is a very good reason why I felt she cannot be trusted, despite her protests and your endorsement. Two reasons, in fact.”

  “I know, Corwin. But she did not kill Benedict’s servants to manage her position at his house. I did it myself, to assure her getting to you as she did, at just the appropriate time.”

  “You? You were party to her whole plot? Why?”

  “She will make you a good queen, son. I trust the blood of Chaos for strength. It was time for a fresh infusion. You will take the throne already provided with an heir. By the time he is ready for it, Merlin will long have been weaned from his upbringing.”

  We had come all the way around to the place of the black smear. I stopped. I squatted and studied it.

  “You think this thing is going to kill you?” I finally asked.

  “I know that it is.”

  “You are not above murdering innocent people to manipulate me. Yet you would sacrifice your life for the kingdom.”

  I looked at him.

  “My own hands are not clean,” I said, “and I certainly do not presume to judge you. A while back, though, when I made ready to try the Pattern, I thought how my feelings had changed — toward Eric, toward the throne. You do what you do, I believe, as a duty. I, too, feel a duty now, toward Amber, toward the throne. More than that, actually. Much more, I realized, just then. But I realized something else, also, something that duty does not require of me. I do not know when or how it stopp
ed and I changed, but I do not want the throne. Dad, I am sorry it messes up your plans, but I do not want to be king of Amber. I am sorry.”

  I looked away then, back — down at the smear. I heard him sigh.

  Then, “I am going to send you home now,” he said. “Saddle your horse and take provisions. Ride to a place outside Amber — any place, fairly isolated.”

  “My tomb?”

  He snorted and chuckled faintly.

  “That will do. Go there and wait my pleasure. I have some thinking to do.”

  I stood. He reached out and placed his right hand on my shoulder. The jewel was pulsing. He looked into my eyes.

  “No man can have everything he wants the way that he wants it,” he said.

  And there was a distancing effect, as of the power of a Trump, only working in reverse. I heard voices, then about me I saw the room I had earlier departed. Benedict, Gerard, Random and Dara were still there. I felt Dad release my shoulder. Then he was gone and I was among them once again.

  “What is the story?” Random said. “We saw Dad sending you back. By the way, how did he do that?”

  “I do not know,” I said. “But he confirms what Dara has told us. He gave her the signet and the message.”

  “Why?” Gerard asked.

  “He wanted us to learn to trust her,” I said.

  Benedict rose to his feet.

  “Then I will go and do as I have been bid.”

  “He wants you to attack, then fall back,” Dara said. “After that, it will only be necessary to contain them.”

  “For how long?”

  “He said only that this will become apparent.”

  Benedict gave one of his rare smiles and nodded. He managed his card case with his one hand, removed the deck, thumbed out the special Trump I had given him for the Courts.

  “Good luck,” Random said.

  “Yes,” Gerard agreed.

  I added my wishes and watched him fade. When his rainbow afterimage had vanished I looked away and noticed that Dara was crying silently. I did not remark on it.

  “I, too, have orders now — of a sort,” I said. “I had best be moving.”

  “And I will get back to the sea,” said Gerard.

  “No,” I heard Dara say as I was moving toward the door.

  I halted.

  “You are to remain here, Gerard, and see to the safety of Amber herself. No attack will come by sea.”

  “But I thought Random was in charge of the local defense.”

  She shook her head.

  “Random is to join Julian in Arden.”

  “Are you sure?” Random asked.

  “I am certain.”

  “Good,” he said. “It is nice to know he at least thought of me. Sorry, Gerard. That’s the breaks.”

  Gerard simply looked puzzled.

  “I hope he knows what he is doing,” he said.

  “We have been through that already,” I told him. “Good-bye.”

  I heard a footfall as I left the room. Dara was beside me.

  “What now?” I asked her.

  “I thought I would walk with you, wherever you are going.”

  “I am just going up the hall to get some supplies. Then I am heading for the stables.”

  “I will go with you.”

  “I am riding alone.”

  “I could not accompany you, anyway. I still have to speak with your sisters.”

  “They’re included, huh?”

  “Yes.”

  We walked in silence for a time, then she said, “The whole business was not so cold-blooded as it seemed, Corwin.”

  We entered the supply room.

  “What business?”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “Oh. That. Well, good.”

  “I like you. It could be more than that one day, if you feel anything.”

  My pride handed me a snappy reply, but I bit it back. One learns a few things over the centuries. She had used me, true, but then it seemed she had not been entirely a free agent at the time. The worst that might be said, I suppose, was that Dad wanted me to want her. But I did not let my resentment on this interfere with what my own feelings really were, or could become.

  So, “I like you, too,” I said, and I looked at her. She seemed as if she needed to be kissed just then, so I did.

  “I had better get ready now.”

  She smiled and squeezed my arm. Then she was gone. I decided not to examine my feelings just then. I got some things together.

  I saddled Star and rode back up over the crest of Kolvir until I came to my tomb. Seated outside it, I smoked my pipe and watched the clouds. I felt I had had a very full day, and it was still early afternoon. Premonitions played tag in the grottoes of my mind, none of which I would have cared to take to lunch.

  Chapter 3

  Contact came suddenly as I sat drowsing. I was on my feet in an instant. It was Dad.

  “Corwin, I have made my decisions and the time has come,” he said. “Bare your left arm.”

  I did this, as his form continued to grow in substantiality, looking more and more regal the while, a strange sadness on his face, of a sort I had never seen there before.

  He took hold of my arm with his left hand and drew his dagger with his right.

  I watched as he cut my arm, then resheathed his blade. The blood came forth, and he cupped his left hand and caught it. He released my arm, covered his left hand with his right and drew away from me. Raising his hands to his face, he blew his breath into them and drew them quickly apart.

  A crested red bird the size of a raven, its feathers all the color of my blood, stood on his hand, moved to his wrist, looked at me. Even its eyes were red, and there was a look of familiarity as it cocked its head and regarded me.

  “He is Corwin, the one you must follow,” he told the bird. “Remember him.”

  Then he transferred it to his left shoulder, from whence it continued to stare at me, making no effort to depart.

  “You must go now, Corwin,” he said, “quickly. Mount your horse and ride south, passing into Shadow as soon as you can. Hellride. Get as far away from here as possible.”

  “Where am I going, Father?” I asked him.

  “To the Courts of Chaos. You know the way?”

  “In theory. I have never ridden the distance.”

  He nodded slowly.

  “Then get moving,” he said. “I want you to create as great a time differential as you can between this place and yourself.”

  “All right,” I said, “but I do not understand.”

  “You will, when the time comes.”

  “But there is an easier way,” I protested. “I can get there faster and with a lot less bother simply by getting in touch with Benedict with his Trump and having him take me through.”

  “No good,” Dad said. “It will be necessary for you to take the longer route because you will be carrying something which will be conveyed to you along the way.”

  “Conveyed? How?”

  He reached up and stroked the red bird’s feathers.

  “By your friend here. He could not fly all the way to the Courts — not in time, that is.”

  “What will he bring me?”

  “The Jewel. I doubt that I will be able to effect the transfer myself when I have finished what I have to do with it. Its powers may be of some benefit to us in that place.”

  “I see,” I said. “But I still need not ride the entire distance. I can Trump through after I receive it.”

  “I fear not. Once I have done what must be done here, the Trumps will all become inoperative for a period of time.”

  “Why?”

  “Because the entire fabric of existence will be undergoing an alteration. Move now, damn it! Get on your horse and ride!”

  I stood and stared a moment longer.

  “Father, is there no other way?”

  He simply shook his head and raised his hand. He began to fade.

  “Good-bye.”
/>   I turned and mounted. There was more to say, but it was too late. I turned Star toward the trail that would take me southward.

  While Dad was able to play with the stuff of Shadow atop Kolvir, I had never been able to. I required a greater distance from Amber in order to work the shifts.

  Still, knowing that it could be done, I felt that I ought to try. So, working my way southward across bare stone and down rocky passes where the wind howled, I sought to warp the fabric or being about me as I headed toward the trail that led to Garnath.

  …A small clump of blue flowers as I rounded a stony shoulder.

  I grew excited at this, for they were a modest part of my working. I continued to lay my will upon the world to come beyond each twisting of my way.

  A shadow from a triangular stone, across my path… A shifting of the wind…

  Some of the smaller ones were indeed working. A backward twist to the trail… A crevice… An ancient bird’s nest, high on a rocky shelf… More of the blue flowers… Why not? A tree… Another…

  I felt the power moving within me. I worked more changes.

  A thought came to me then, concerning my newfound strength. It seemed possible that it might have been purely psychological reasons which had barred me from performing such manipulations earlier. Until very recently I had considered Amber herself the single, immutable reality from which all shadows took their form. Now I realized she was but first among shadows, and that the place where my father stood represented the higher reality. Therefore, while the proximity made it difficult it did not make it impossible to effect changes in this place. Yet, under other circumstances I would have saved my strength until I had reached a point where it was easier to shift things about.