The Courts Of Chaos tcoa-5 Page 4

  Now, now though, the need for haste lay upon me. I would have to exert myself, to rush, to do my father’s bidding.

  By the time I reached the trail leading down the southern face of Kolvir, the character of the land had already changed. I looked upon a series of gentle slopes, rather than the steep descent which normally marked the way. I was already entering the shadowlands.

  The black road still lay like a dark scar to my left as I headed downward, but the Garnath through which it had been cut was in slightly better shape than that which I knew so well. Its lines were softer, from flocks of greenery which lay somewhat nearer the dead swath. It was as though my curse upon the land were slightly mitigated. Illusion of feeling, of course, for this was no longer exactly my Amber. But, I am sorry for my part in this, I addressed everything mentally, half-prayer like. I ride now to try to undo it. Forgive me, O spirit of this place. My eyes moved in the direction of the Grove of the Unicorn, but it was too far to the west, masked by too many trees, for me even to glimpse that sacred glade.

  The slope grew more level as I descended, becoming a series of gentle foothills. I let Star move faster as we crossed them, bearing to the southwest, then finally the south. Lower, lower. At a great distance to my left the sea sparkled and shone. Soon the black road would come between us, for I was descending into Garnath in its direction. No matter what I did with Shadow, I would not be able to erase that ominous presence. In fact, the fastest course I could follow would be one that paralleled it.

  We came at last to the floor of the valley. The Forest of Arden towered far to my right, sweeping westward, immense and venerable. I rode on, working what changes I could to bear me even farther from my home.

  While keeping the black road on hand, I stayed a good distance from it. I had to, since it was the one thing I could not change. I kept shrubs, trees and low hills between us.

  I reached out then, and the texture of the land changed.

  Veins of agate… Heaps of schist… A darkening of the greenery…

  Clouds swimming — across the sky… The sun shimmering and dancing…

  We increased our pace. The land sank lower still. Shadows lengthened, merged. The forest retreated. A rocky wall grew to my right, another to my left… A cold wind pursued me down a rough canyon. Strata streaks — red, gold, yellow and brown — flashed by. The floor of the canyon grew sandy. Dust devils spun about us. I leaned farther forward as the way began to rise once again. The walls slanted inward, grew closer together.

  The way narrowed, narrowed. I could almost touch either wall…

  Their tops came together. I rode through a shadowy tunnel, slowing as it darkened… Phosphorescent designs burst into being. The wind made a moaning noise. Out then!

  The light from the walls was blinding, and giant crystals rose all about us. We plunged past, following an upward trail that led away from this region and through a series of mossy dells where small, perfectly circular pools lay still as green glass.

  Tall ferns appeared before us and we made our way among them. I heard a distant trumpeting noise.

  Turning, pacing… Red now the ferns, wider and lower… Beyond, a great plain, pinking into evening…

  Forward, over pale grasses… The smell of fresh earth… Mountains or dark clouds far ahead… A rush of stars from my left… A quick spray of moisture… A blue moon leaps into the sky… Flickerings among the dark masses… Memories and a rumbling noise… Stormsmell and rushing air…

  A strong wind… Clouds across the stars… A bright fork spearing a shattered tree to my right, turning it to flame… A tingling sensation… The smell of ozone… Sheets of water upon me… A row of lights to my left…

  Clattering down a cobbled street… A strange vehicle approaching… Cylindrical, chugging… We avoid one another… A shout pursues me… Through a lighted window the face of a child…

  Clattering… Splashing… Storefronts and homes… The rain lets up, dies down, is gone… A fog blows by, lingers, deepens, is pearled by a growing light to my left…

  The terrain softens, grows red… The light within the mist brightens… A new wind, from behind, a growing warmth… The air breaks apart…

  Sky of pale lemon… Orange sun rushing toward noon…

  A shudder! A thing not of my doing, totally unanticipated… The ground moves beneath us, but there is more to it than that. The new sky, the new sun, the rusty desert I have just now entered — all of them expand and contract, fade and return. There comes a cracking sound, and with each fading I find Star and myself alone, amid a white nothingness — characters without a setting. We tread upon nothing. The light comes from everywhere and illuminates only ourselves. A steady cracking noise, as of the spring thaw come upon a Russian river I had once ridden beside, fills my ears. Star, who has paced many shadows, emits a frightened sound.

  I look all about me. Blurred outlines appear, sharpen, grow clear. My environment is restored, though with a somewhat washed-out look to it. A bit of the pigment has been drained from the world.

  We wheel to the left, racing for a low hill, mounting it, halting finally at its summit.

  The black road. It too seems denatured — but even more so than the rest. It ripples beneath my gaze, almost seems to undulate as I watch. The cracking noise continues, grows louder…

  A wind comes out of the north, gentle at first but increasing in force. Looking in that direction, I see a mass of dark clouds building.

  I know that I must move as I have never moved before. Ultimates of destruction and creation are occurring at the place I visited — When? No matter. The waves move outward from Amber and this, too, may pass away — and me along with it. If Dad cannot put it all back together again. I shake the reins. We race southward.

  A plain… Trees… Some broken buildings… Faster…

  The smoke of a forest afire… A wall of flame… Gone…

  Yellow sky, blue clouds… An armada of dirigibles crossing…

  Faster…

  The sun drops like a piece of hot iron into a bucket of water, stars become streaks… A pale light upon a straight trail… Sounds dopplered from dark smears, the wailing… Brighter the light, fainter the prospect… Gray, to my right, my left… Brighter now… Nothing but the trail my eyes to ride… The wailing heightens to a shriek… Forms run together… We race through a tunnel of Shadow… It begins to revolve…

  Turning, turning… Only the road is real… The worlds go by… I have released my control of the sets and ride now the thrust of the power itself, aimed only to remove me from Amber and hurl me toward Chaos… There is wind upon me and the cry in my ears… Never before have I pushed my power over Shadow to its limit… The tunnel grows as slick and seamless as glass… I feel I am riding down a vortex, a maelstrom, the heart of a tornado… Star and I are drenched with sweat… There is a wild feeling of flight upon me, as though I am pursued… The road is become an abstraction… My eyes sting as I try to blink away the perspiration… I cannot hold this ride much longer… There comes a throbbing at the base of my skull…

  I draw back gently upon the reins and Star begins to slow…

  The walls of my tunnel of light grow grainy… Blotches of gray, black, white, rather than a uniformity of shading… Brown… A hint of blue… Green… The wailing descends to a hum, a rumble, fading… Gentler the wind… Shapes come and go… Slowing, slowing…

  There is no path. I ride on mossy earth. The sky is blue, the clouds are white. I am very light-headed. I draw rein. I —

  Tiny.

  I was shocked as I lowered my eyes. I stood at the outskirts of a toy village. Houses I could hold in the palm of my hand, miniscule roads, tiny vehicles crawling along them…

  I looked back. We had crushed a number of these diminutive residences. I looked all around. There were fewer to the left. I guided Star carefully in that direction, kept moving until we had left that place. I felt bad about it — whatever it was — whoever dwelled there. But there was not a thing that I could do.
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  I moved again, passing through Shadow, until I came to what seemed a deserted quarry beneath a greenish sky. I felt heavier here. I dismounted, took a drink of water, walked around a bit.

  I breathed deeply of the damp air that engulfed me. I was far from Amber now, about as far as one ever need go, and well on my way to Chaos. I had seldom come this far before. While I had chosen this place for a rest stop because it represented the nearest thing to normalcy I could catch hold of, the changes would soon be getting more and more radical.

  I was stretching my cramped muscles when I heard the shriek, high in the air above me.

  I looked up and saw the dark form descending, Grayswandir coming by reflex into my hand. But the light caught it at a proper angle as it came down, and the winged form took fire on its way.

  My familiar bird circled, circled, descended to my outstretched arm. Those frightening eyes regarded me with a peculiar intelligence, but I did not spare them the attention I might have on another occasion. Instead, I sheathed Grayswandir and reached for the thing the bird bore. The Jewel of judgment.

  I knew by this that Dad’s effort, whatever it had amounted to, was finished. The Pattern had either been repaired or botched. He was either alive or dead. Choose a couple from either column. The effects of his act would be spreading outward from Amber through Shadow now, like the ripples in the proverbial pond. I would learn more of them soon enough. In the meantime, I had my orders.

  I drew the chain over my head and let the Jewel fall upon my breast. I remounted Star. My bloodbird emitted a short cry and rose into the air.

  We moved again.

  …Over a landscape where the sky whitened as the ground darkened. Then the land flared and the sky grew black. Then the reverse. And again… with each stride the effect shifted, and as we moved faster it built to a stroboscopic series of still-shots about us, gradually growing to a jerky animation, then the hyperactive quality of a silent film. Finally, all was a blur.

  Points of light flashed past, like meteors or comets. I began to feel a throbbing sensation, as of a cosmic heartbeat. Everything began to turn about me, as though I had been caught up in a whirlwind.

  Something was going wrong. I seemed to be losing control. Could it be that the effects of Dad’s doings had already reached the area of Shadow through which I passed? It seemed hardly likely. Still…

  Star stumbled. I clung tightly as we went down, not wishing to be separated in Shadow. I struck my shoulder on a hard surface and lay there for a moment, stunned.

  When the world came together about me again, I sat up and looked around.

  A uniform twilight prevailed, but there were no stars. Instead, large rocks of various shapes and sizes drifted and hovered in the air. I got to my feet and looked all about.

  It was possible, from what I could see of it, that the irregular stony surface on which I stood was itself but a mountain-sized boulder drifting with the others. Star rose and stood shivering at my side. An absolute silence contained us. The still air was cool. There was not another living thing in sight. I did not like this place. I would not have halted here of my own volition. I knelt to inspect Star’s legs. I wanted to leave as soon as possible, preferably mounted.

  As I was about this, I heard a soft chuckle which might have come from a human throat.

  I paused, resting my hand upon Grayswandir’s hilt and seeking the source of the sound. Nothing. Nowhere.

  Yet I had heard it. I turned slowly, looking in every direction. No…

  Then it came again. Only this time, I realized that it had its source overhead.

  I scanned the floating rocks. Shadow-draped, it was difficult to distinguish — There!

  Ten meters above the ground and thirty or so to my left, what appeared to be a human form stood atop a small island in the sky, regarding me. I considered it. Whatever it was, it seemed too far off to pose a threat. I was certain that I could be gone before it could reach me. I moved to mount Star.

  “No good, Corwin,” called the voice I least wanted to hear just then. “You are locked here. There is no way you can depart without my leave.”

  I smiled as I mounted, then drew Grayswandir.

  “Let’s find out,” I said. “Come bar my way.”

  “Very well,” he replied, and flames sprang from the bare rock, towering full circle about me, licking, sprawling, soundless.

  Star went wild. I slammed Grayswandir back into the scabbard, whipped a corner of my cloak across Star’s eyes, spoke soothing words. As I did this, the circle enlarged, the fires receding toward the edges of the great rock on which we stood.

  “Convinced?” came the voice. “This place is too small. Ride in any direction. Your mount will panic again before you can Shift into Shadow.”

  “Good-bye, Brand,” I said, and I began to ride.

  I rode in a large counterclockwise circle about the rocky surface, shielding Star’s right eye from the flames about the periphery of things. I heard Brand chuckle again, not realizing what I was doing.

  A pair of large rocks… Good. I rode on by, continuing the course. Now a jagged hedge of stone to my left, a rise, a dip… A mess of shadow the fires cast, across my path… There. Down… Up. A touch of green to that patch of light… I could feel the shifting begin.

  The fact that it is easier for us to take a straight course does not make it the only way. We all pursue it so much of the time, though, that we tend to forget that one can also make progress by going around in circles…

  I could feel the shift more strongly as I neared the two large rocks again. Brand caught on about then, also.

  “Hold it, Corwin!”

  I threw him a finger and cut between the rocks, heading down into a narrow canyon speckled with points of yellow light. According to specifications.

  I drew my cloak away from Star’s head and shook the reins. The canyon cut abruptly to the right. We followed it into a better-lighted avenue which widened and brightened as we went.

  …Beneath a jutting overhang, sky of milk shading to pearl on its other side.

  Riding deeper, faster, farther… A jagged cliff crowned the upper talus to my left, greening in twisted sign of shrubbery beneath a pink-vouched sky.

  I rode until the greenery was bluery beneath a yellow sky, till the canyon rose to meet a lavender plain where orange rocks rolled as the ground was shaken beneath us in time with our hoofbeats. I crossed there under wheeling comets, coming to die shore of a blood-red sea in a place of heavy perfumes. I rode a large green sun and a small bronze one out of the sky as I paced that shore, while skeletal navies clashed and serpents of the deep circled their orange and blue-sailed vessels. The Jewel pulsed upon me and I drew strength from it. A wild wind came up and lofted us through a copper-clouded sky above a wailing chasm which seemed to extend forever, black-bottomed, spark-shot, fuming with heady scents…

  At my back, the sound of thunder, ceaseless… Fine lines, like the craquelure of an old painting, abreast of us, advancing, everywhere… Cold, a fragrance — killing wind pursues…

  Lines… The cracks widen, blackness flows to fill… Dark streaks race by, up, down, back upon themselves… The settling of a net, the labors of a giant, invisible spider, world-trapping…

  Down, down and down… The ground again, wrinkled and leathery as a mummy’s neck… Soundless, our throbbing passage… Softer the thunder, falling the wind… Dad’s last gasp? Speed now and away…

  A narrowing of lines, to the fineness of an etching, fading then in the three suns’ heat… And faster yet…

  A rider, approaching… Hand to hilt in time to my own… Me. Myself coming back? Simultaneous, our salutes… Through one another, somehow, the air like a sheet of water that one dry instant… What Carroll mirror, what Rebma, Tir-na Nog’th effect… Yet far, far to my left, a black thing writhing… We pace the road… It leads me on…

  White sky, white ground and no horizon… Sunless and cloudless the prospect… Only that thread of black, far off, and gleaming
pyramids everywhere, massive, disconcerting…

  We tire. I do not like this place… But we have outrun whatever process pursues. Draw rein.

  I was tired, but I felt a strange vitality within me. It seemed as though it arose from within my breast… The Jewel. Of course. I made an effort to draw upon this power again. I felt it flow outward through my limbs, barely halting at my extremities. It was almost as if — Yes. I readied out and lay my will upon my blank and geometrical surroundings. They began to alter.

  It was a movement. The pyramids shuffled by, darkening as they passed. They shrank, they merged, they passed to gravel. The world turned upside down and I stood as on the underside of a cloud, watching landscapes flash by beneath/above.

  Light streamed upward past me, from a golden sun beneath my feet. This, too, passed, and the fleecy ground darkened, firing waters upward to erode the passing land. Lightnings jumped up to strike the world overhead, to break it apart. In places it shattered and its pieces fell about me. They began to swirl as a wave of darkness passed.

  When the light came again, bluish this time, it held no point source and described no land.

  …Golden bridges cross the void in great streamers, one of them flashing beneath us even now. We wind along its course, standing the while still as a statue… For an age, perhaps, this goes on. A phenomenon not unrelated to highway hypnosis enters through my eyes, lulls me dangerously. I can to accelerate our passage. Another age goes by. Finally, far ahead, a dusky, misty blotch, our terminus, growing very slowly despite our velocity.

  By the time we reach it, it is gigantic — an island in the void forested over with golden, metallic trees…