The Great Book of Amber - Chronicles 1-10 Page 5

  When I heard a window break, somewhere off to my right, I was not surprised to hear a growled rumbling and some baying, somewhere off to my left.

  “She’s called her dogs,” I said, “six mean and vicious brutes, which could under other circumstances be after us.”

  Random nodded, and we both headed off in the direction of the shattering.

  When we reached the living room, two men were already inside and both had guns.

  I dropped the first and hit the floor, firing at the second. Random leaped above me, brandishing his blade, and I saw the second man’s head depart his shoulders.

  By then, two more were through the window. I emptied the automatic at them, and I heard the snarling of Flora’s hounds mixed with gunfire that was not my own.

  I saw three of the men upon the floor and the same number of Flora’s dogs. It made me feel good to think we had gotten half them, and as the rest came through the window I killed another in a manner which surprised me.

  Suddenly, and without thinking, I picked up a huge overstuffed chair and hurled it perhaps thirty feet across the room. It broke the back of the man it struck.

  I leaped toward the remaining two, but before I crossed the room, Random had pierced one of them with the saber, leaving him for the dogs to finish off, and was turning toward the other.

  The other was pulled down before he could act, however. He killed another of the dogs before we could stop him, but he never killed anything again after that. Random strangled him.

  It turned out that two of the dogs were dead and one was badly hurt. Random killed the injured one with a quick thrust, and we turned our attention to the men.

  There was something unusual about their appearance. Flora entered and helped us to decide what.

  For one thing, all six had uniformly bloodshot eyes. Very, very bloodshot eyes. With them, though, the condition seemed normal.

  For another, all had an extra joint to each finger and thumb, and sharp, forward-curving spurs on the backs of their hands.

  All of them had prominent jaws, and when I forced one open, I counted forty-four teeth, most of them longer than human teeth, and several looking to be much sharper. Their flesh was grayish and hard and shiny.

  There were undoubtedly other differences also, but those were sufficient to prove a point of some sort.

  We took their weapons, and I hung onto three small, flat pistols.

  “They crawled Out of the Shadows, all right,” said Random, and I nodded. “And I was lucky, too. It doesn’t seem they suspected I’d turn up with the reinforcements I did—a militant brother and around half a ton of dogs.”

  He went and peered out the broken window, and I decided to let him do it himself. “Nothing,” he said, after a time. “I’m sure we got them all,” and he drew the heavy orange drapes closed and pushed a lot of high-backed furniture in front of them. While he was doing that, I went through all their pockets.

  I wasn’t really surprised that I turned up nothing in the way of identification.

  “Let’s go back to the library,” he said, “so I can finish my drink.”

  He cleaned off the blade, carefully, before he seated himself, however, and he replaced it on the pegs. I fetched Flora a drink while he did this.

  “So it would seem I’m temporarily safe,” he said, “now that there are three of us sharing the picture.”

  “So it would seem,” Flora agreed.

  “God, I haven’t eaten since yesterday!” he announced. So Flora went to tell Carmella it was safe to come out now, so long as she stayed clear of the living room, and to bring a lot of food to the library.

  As soon as she left the room, Random turned to me and asked, “Like, what’s it between you?”

  “Don’t turn your back on her.”

  “She’s still Eric’s?”

  “So far as I can tell.”

  “Then what are you doing here?”

  “I was trying to sucker Eric into coming around after me himself. He knows it’s the only way he’ll really get me, and I wanted to see how badly he wanted to.”

  Random shook his head.

  “I don’t think he’ll do it. No percentage. So long as you’re here and he’s there, why bother sticking his neck out? He’s still got the stronger position. If you want him, you’ll have to go after him.”

  “I’ve just about come to the same conclusion.”

  His eyes gleamed then, and his old smile appeared. He ran one hand through his straw-colored hair and wouldn’t let go of my eyes.

  “Are you going to do it?” he asked.

  “Maybe,” I said.

  “Don’t ‘maybe’ me, baby. It’s written all over you. I’d almost be willing to go along, you know. Of all my relations, I like sex the best and Eric the least.”

  I lit a cigarette, while I considered.

  “You’re thinking,” he said while I thought, “‘How far can I trust Random this time? He is sneaky and mean and just like his name, and he will doubtless sell me out If someone offers him a better deal.’ True?”

  I nodded.

  “However, brother Corwin, remember that while I’ve never done you much good, I’ve never done you any especial harm either. Oh, a few pranks, I’ll admit. But, all in all, you might say we’ve gotten along best of all in the family—that is, we’ve stayed out of each other’s ways. Think it over. I believe I hear Flora or her woman coming now, so let’s change the subject. . . . But quick I don’t suppose you have a deck of the family’s favorite playing cards around, do you?”

  I shook my head.

  Flora entered the room and said, “Carmella will bring in some food shortly.”

  We drank to that, and he winked at me behind her back.

  The following morning, the bodies were gone from the living room, there were no stains upon the carpet, the window appeared to have been repaired, and Random explained that he had ”taken care of things.” I did not see fit to question him further.

  We borrowed Flora’s Mercedes and went for a drive. The countryside seemed strangely altered. I couldn’t quite put my finger on what it was that was missing or new, but somehow things felt different. This, too, gave me a headache when I attempted to consider it, so I decided to suspend such thinking for the nonce.

  I was at the wheel, Random at my side. I observed that I would like to be back in Amber again—just to see what sort of response it would obtain.

  “I have been wondering,” he replied, “whether you were out for vengeance, pure and simple, or something more,” thereby shifting the ball back to me, to answer or not to answer, as I saw fit.

  I saw fit. I used the stock phrase:

  “I’ve been thinking about that, too,” I said, “trying to figure my chances. You know, I just might ‘try.’”

  He turned toward me then (he had been staring out of the side window) and said:

  “I suppose we’ve all had that ambition, or at least that thought—I know I have, though I dismissed me early in the game—and the way I feel about it, it’s worth the attempt. You’re asking me, I know, whether I’ll help you. The answer is ’yes.’ I’ll do it just to screw up the others.” Then, “What do you think of Flora? Would she be of any help?”

  “I doubt it very much,” I said. “She’d throw in if things were certain. But, then, what’s certain at this point?”

  “Or any.” he added.

  “Or any,” I repeated, so he’d think I knew what sort of response I would obtain.

  I was afraid to confide in him as to the condition of my memory. I was also afraid to tell him, so I didn’t. There were so very many things I wanted to know, but I had no one to turn to. I thought about it a bit as we drove along.

  “Well, when do you want to start?” I asked.

  “Whenever you’re ready.”

  And there it was, right in my lap, and I didn’t know what to do with it.

  “What about now?” I said.

  He was silent. He lit a cigarette, I think to buy time.<
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  I did the same.

  “Okay,” he finally said. “When’s the last time you’ve been back?”

  “It’s been so damn long,” I told him, “that I’m not even sure I remember the way.”

  “All right,” he said, “then we’re going to have to go away before we can come back. How much gas have you got?”

  “Three-quarters of a tank.”

  “Then turn left at the next corner, and we’ll see what happens.”

  I did this thing, and as we drove along all the sidewalks began to sparkle.

  “Damn!” he said. “It’s been around twenty years since I’ve taken the walk. I’m remembering the right things too soon.”

  We kept driving, and I kept wondering what the hell was happening. The sky had grown a bit greenish, then shaded over into pink.

  I bit my lip against the asking of questions.

  We passed beneath a bridge and when we emerged on the other side the sky was a normal color again, but there were windmills all over the place, big yellow ones.

  “Don’t worry,” he said quickly, “it could be worse.” I noticed that the people we passed were dressed rather strangely, and the roadway was of brick.

  “Turn right”

  I did.

  Purple clouds covered over the sun, and it began to rain. Lightning stalked the heavens and the skies grumbled above us. I had the windshield wipers going full speed, but they weren’t doing a whole lot of good. I turned on the headlights and slowed even more.

  I would have sworn I’d passed a horseman, racing in the other direction, dressed all in gray, collar turned high and head lowered against the rain.

  Then the clouds broke themselves apart and we were riding along a seashore. The waves splashed high and enormous gulls swept low above them. The rain had stopped and I killed the lights and the wipers. Now the road was of macadam, but I didn’t recognize the place at all. In the rear-view mirror there was no sign of the town we had just departed. My grip tightened upon the wheel as we passed by a sudden gallows where a skeleton was suspended by the neck, pushed from side to side by the wind.

  Random just kept smoking and staring out of the window as our road turned away from the shore and curved round a hill. A grassy treeless plain swept away to our right and a row of hills climbed higher on our left. The sky by now was a dark but brilliant blue, like a deep, clear pool, sheltered and shaded. I did not recall having ever seen a sky like that before.

  Random opened his window to throw away the butt, and an icy breeze came in and swirled around inside the car until he closed the window again. The breeze had a sea scent to it, salty and sharp.

  “All roads lead to Amber,” he said, as though it were an axiom.

  Then I recalled what Flora had said the day before. I didn’t want to sound like a dunce or a withholder of crucial information, but I had to tell him, for my sake as well as his own, when I realized what her statements implied.

  “You know,” I began, “when you called the other day and I answered the phone because Flora was out, I’ve a strong feeling she was trying to make it to Amber, and that she found the way blocked.”

  At this, he laughed.

  “The woman has very little imagination,” he replied. “Of course it would be blocked at a time like this. Ultimately, we’ll be reduced to walking, I’m sure, and it will doubtless take all of our strength and ingenuity to make it, if we make it at all. Did she think she could walk back like a princess in state, treading on flowers the whole way? She’s a dumb bitch. She doesn’t really deserve to live, but that’s not for me to say, yet.”

  “Turn right at the crossroads,” he decided.

  What was happening? I knew he was in some way responsible for the exotic changes going on about us, but I couldn’t determine how he was doing it, where he was getting us to. I knew I had to learn his secret, but I couldn’t just ask him or he’d know I didn’t know. Then I’d be at his mercy. He seemed to do nothing but smoke and stare, but coming up out of a dip in the road we entered a blue desert and the sun was now pink above our heads within the shimmering sky. In the rear-view mirror, miles and miles of desert stretched out behind us, for as far as I could see. Neat trick, that.

  Then the engine coughed, sputtered, steadied itself, repeated the performance. The steering wheel changed shape beneath my hands. It became a crescent; and the seat seemed further back, the car seemed closer to the road, and the windshield had more of a slant to it.

  I said nothing, though, not even when the lavender sandstorm struck us. But when it cleared away, I gasped. There was a godawful line of cars all jammed up, about half a mile before us. They were all standing still and I could hear their horns.

  “Slow down,” he said. “It’s the first obstacle.”

  I did. and another grist of sand swept over us.

  Before I could switch on the lights, it was gone, and I blinked my eyes several times. All the cars were gone and silent their horns. But the roadway sparkled now as the sidewalks had for a time, and I heard Random damning someone or something under his breath.

  “I’m sure I shifted just the way he wanted us to, whoever set up that block,” he said. “and it pisses me off that I did what he expected—the obvious.”

  “Eric?” I asked,

  “Probably. What do you think we should do? Stop and try it the hard way for a while, or go on and see if there are more blocks?”

  “Let’s go on a bit. After all, that was only the first.”

  “Okay.” he said, but added, “who knows what the second will be?”

  The second was a thing—I don’t know how else to describe it.

  It was a thing that looked like a smelter with arms, squatting in the middle of the road, reaching down and picking up cars, eating them.

  I hit the brakes.

  “What’s the matter?” Random asked. “Keep going. How else can we get past them?”

  “It shook me a bit,” I said, and he gave me a strange, sidelong look as another dust storm came up. It had been the wrong thing to say, I knew. When the dust cleared away, we were racing along an empty road once more. And there were towers in the distance.

  “I think I’ve screwed him up.” said Random. “I combined several into one, and I think it may be one he hasn’t anticipated. After all, no one can cover all roads to Amber.”

  “True,” I said, hoping to redeem myself from whatever faux pas had drawn that strange look.

  I considered Random. A little, weak looking guy who could have died as easily as I on the previous evening. What was his power? And what was all this talk of Shadows? Something told me that whatever Shadows were, we moved among them even now. How? It was something Random was doing, and since he seemed at rest physically, his hands in plain sight, I decided it was something he did with his mind. Again, how? Well, I’d heard him speak of “adding” and “subtracting,” as though the universe in which he moved were a big equation.

  I decided—with a sudden certainty— that he was somehow adding and subtracting items to and from the world that was visible about us to bring us into closer and closer alignment with that strange place, Amber, for which he was solving. It was something I’d once known how to do. And the key to it, I knew in a flash, was remembering Amber. But I couldn’t.

  The road curved abruptly, the desert ended, to give way to fields of tall, blue, sharp-looking grass. After a while, the terrain became a bit hilly, and at the foot of the third hill the pavement ended and we entered upon a narrow dirt road. It was hard-packed, and it wound its way among greater hills upon which small shrubs and bayonet like thistle bushes now began to appear.

  After about half an hour of this, the hills went away, and we entered a forest of squat, big-boled trees with diamond-shaped leaves of autumn orange and purple. A light rain began to fall, and there were many shadows. Pale mists arose from mats of soggy leaves. Off to the right somewhere, I heard a howl.

  The steering wheel changed shape three more times, its latest version being
an octagonal wooden affair. The car was quite tall now, and we had somewhere acquired a hood ornament in the shape of a flamingo. I refrained from commenting on these things, but accommodated myself to whatever positions the seat assumed and new operating requirements the vehicle obtained. Random, however, glanced at the steering wheel just as another howl occurred, shook his head, and suddenly the trees were much higher, though festooned with hanging vines and something like a blue veiling of Spanish Moss, and the car was almost normal again. I glanced at the fuel gauge and saw that we had half a tank.

  “We’re making headway,” my brother remarked, and I nodded.

  The road widened abruptly and acquired a concrete surface. There were canals on both sides, full of muddy water. Leaves, small branches, and colored feathers glided along their surfaces.

  I suddenly became lightheaded and a bit dizzy, but “Breathe slowly and deeply,” said Random, before I could remark on it. “We’re taking a short cut, and the atmosphere and the gravitation will be a bit different for a time. I think we’ve been pretty lucky so far, and I want to push it for all it’s worth—get as close as we can, as quickly as we can.”

  “Good idea,” I said.

  “Maybe, maybe not,” he replied, “but I think it’s worth the game— Look out!”

  We were climbing a hill and a truck topped it and came barreling down toward us. It was on the wrong side of the road. I swerved to avoid it, but it swerved, too. At the very last instant, I had to go off the road, onto the soft shoulder to my left, and head close to the edge of the canal in order to avoid a collision.

  To my right, the truck screeched to a halt. I tried to pull off the shoulder and back onto the road, but we were stuck in the soft soil.

  Then I heard a door slam, and saw that the driver had climbed down from the right side of the cab, which meant that he probably was driving on the proper side of the road after all, and we were in the wrong. I was sure that nowhere in the States did traffic flow in a British manner, but I was certain by this time that we had long ago left the Earth that I knew.

  The truck was a tanker. It said ZUNOCO on the side in big, blood-red letters, and beneath this was the motto “Wee covir the werld.” The driver covered me with abuse, as I stepped out, rounded the car, and began apologizing. He was as big as I was, and built like a beer barrel, and he carried a jack handle in one hand.