Chapter Three: The Mountaintop
CHAPTER THREE

Its eyes — the first visible detail — were pale green. Curled up, its shape was difficult to discern. A small black hand, like a raccoon’s, pushed the flap farther aside. Though the digits were distinct, even human-like, the points of five retracted claws suggested feline origins. The vertical pupils dividing the eyes also suggested this. A raccoon’s cousin from another planet? No, for now followed the sleek head, swept back from a snout so narrow that the skull could pass for the sharp end of a spear or something local tribes once shaped from flint. And there was something about its black mane...

An otter with feathers?

In a sudden spring, it shot upward, leaving both pack and table behind, gliding through an opening in the ring of onlookers, disappearing behind Merlin. A moment later, it appeared again upon Merlin’s shoulders, its probing green gaze luminous with intelligence.

Yes, gliding.

Stretched between the extended limbs and narrow body like black sailcloth there had been, no, not wings exactly. But something.

“What on God’s green—”

Maio had actually jumped.

“Jinx.”

Merlin’s head was turned toward that of his companion, and he said, “Jinx,” again, but more softly as the two regarded one another. Whether the word denoted an epithet, a name, or a species, it had been spoken with affection. In response, the creature stretched its neck a little to touch its nose to Merlin’s, making a small noise as it did so.

“The two of you seem to be friends,” I observed.

Merlin reached forward, slipped fingers between the glittering black feathers, lifted something which flashed at the animal’s throat. A blue crystal with flecks of red light caught in its corners. Turning it slowly, he caused it to shift, briefly becoming a red crystal splintered with blue lines and points, then back to blue again.

“Jinx is my oldest friend.”

My son’s pet was a riddle too deep to unravel just then. So I returned to the more immediate question concerning the contents of his pack. One at a time, I withdrew the items, placed them on the table:

A folded cloak, like a quilt on one side where it was sewn with panels, gray and blue and marked with some design on the other;

An unusual dagger, shaped like a plus-sign, hilt as long as the blade, carved of green wood, like a stage prop, cut with runes on blade and hilt, completely harmless in appearance;

A slender ivory tube, marked up as though someone had played tic tac toe on it with a meat cleaver;

A wide collapseable cone, half-open, composed of telescoping segments, alternately silver and black — an optical instrument, something for eating ice cream out of?

“Okay, we’re going to get to the bottom of this,” I announced. “Right here, right now.”

They looked at me. Flora, beautiful and baffled. Maio, smiling, curious, and as caught up in the mystery as anyone there. Merlin, starting to seem like his old self again, posture erect and confident, gaze only now torn from the four things removed from his pack, a faint smile playing on his lips. Jinx, who had joined Merlin in contemplation of the table display, glancing at me before returning its attention to the mystery objects.

“Everyone,” I continued, “please have a seat.”

They sat. But I didn’t. I felt close to something important. And knew I had become a hunter again, though I did not know what it was that I hunted. And it’s harder to hunt sitting down. It’s also hard to hunt when you can’t see very well; dusk had arrived, so I walked over to the doorway, switched on the overhead chandelier. One of those adjustable affairs, so I settled for something a little stronger than firelight, deciding good atmospherics might be useful at this juncture.

Then I walked around the table, seeing the dagger, the mica-and-obsidian telescope thing, the cloak and the tube from different angles, seeing the faces of those seated there each in turn. I stopped when I reached the place opposite my sister.

“Flora, we’ll start with you.”

Her hand crept up toward her throat, an involuntary movement suggesting apprehension and surprise.

“Me? I don’t know anything.”

“We’ll see about that. For now, let’s start with those trucks parked outside. ‘Tarot Trucking’?”

The hand moved downward, the tightness around mouth and brow relaxed a little, and what she said next was uttered in a lower, calmer voice.

“Oh. You mean Random’s project. You mean Amberline Enterprises.”

“Random’s?” That took me a little by surprise. “Isn’t that Gérard’s operation?”

Flora shook her head.

“Perhaps that is what you were told, Corwin. And I suppose that is how it could seem. I guess it’s even true in a sense. May I ask where you got that idea?”

I thought back. Where had I gotten that idea? It was upon my return to Amber, that much I knew.

“I’m not sure. Things I heard from Julian, Random and Vialle. Flora looks to imports from the Shadow Earth — had that from Julian. And both Random and Vialle affirmed Gérard enjoyed, if not his old position as master of the navy and the man in charge of Amber’s port, then an expanded role where trade is concerned. Are you telling me I was misinformed?”

Flora swallowed, and it was then that I knew she was not quite as stupid as I had once thought. She understood the implications of what I was saying well enough to consider her next words carefully.

“Perhaps not fully informed, then. I don’t know how much input Gérard may have had, but it was Random’s decision. Everyone then followed their orders. Including Gérard, of course, being a loyal servant of the crown.”

“Yes, yes. Faithful Gérard, doing what is expected of him. You’re right, nothing unusual there. The King’s will is law, and all that. So this was really Random’s idea. Interesting. So now I guess I am asking why Random’s trucks are parked outside. What’s the story, Flora?”

“Bandits.”

“Say again?”

“Bandits. Pirates,” she said, and paused a moment before adding, “They prey on shipments moving from here to Calyddon.”

“Calyddon? Never heard of the place.”

“The Tecys,” Merlin said.

Flora turned toward Merlin. We all did. Except for Jinx, who, after registering everyone’s reaction, went back to keeping watch over his possessions.

Keeping watch.

That was it, of course. And doubtless correct. The animal, whatever it was, was not merely a pet. It was specially trained, which explained how it had remained quiet and unnoticed in the pack for as long as it had. And that training plainly included keeping an eye on items valuable to Merlin. Specifically, the things spread out upon the table before us. Mystery solved: Jinx was a watch-otter. Flying version.

Merlin seemed surprised by the quiet which had descended, by the impact of his words. The half-smile he had earlier flirted with came back, went away. With thumb and forefinger, he pushed at the cone, turning it first one way and then another, a safecracker searching for some combination that would unlock its secrets.

“The Tecys. Benedict’s friends. Martin’s friends.”

Now with his left hand he picked up the segmented cone, shook it, so that it telescoped open. Like a fat spyglass, an eroded sandcastle, an overturned ziggurat.

“My friends.”

The name was very familiar. My mind scrabbled after the memory, and in short order produced it: People trusted by Benedict in an unfrequented and, in keeping with Benedict’s strategic approach to things, therefore secure slice of Shadow. My brother had allowed that trust to include Martin, whom he had taken under his wing at the time, and had introduced the Tecys to Martin. Dear now-departed brother Brand had used Martin as a human sacrifice upon the Pattern — thereby precipitating the whole bloody business of the Black Road, the sporadic attacks and then open war waged by Chaos against Amber, all of which had culminated in the defeat of Chaos, the deaths of family-members and the recasting of the Pattern by our father Oberon. Martin, however, had survived the murder attempt, subsequently recuperating in the care of the safest people he knew: the Tecys.

“For an amnesiac, you are suddenly suffering from an embarrassment of remembrances,” I commented, walking around the table to stand at my son’s shoulder. “What does Calyddon have to do with the Tecys?”

Glancing up at me, Merlin answered simply, “They live there.”

I reached for his left hand, turned it over.

Gleams, glints, and glass. Crystals, lenses, facets. Concave, a hollow shell. Yeah, a crushed kaleidoscope, a geode for accordion-players, a shiny bowl.

I released his hand.

“So what is this thing, Merlin? Some kind of toy?”

His eyes went to the dagger. Maio, next to him, saw the look and picked up the useless weapon, then peered more closely at the object Merlin held, a small smile occurring on his face as some notion opened before him. With the dagger he pointed at the thing of metal and glass.

“The blade and the chalice,” Maio declared with a certain air of triumph. “Standard alchemy.”

“He’s right,” Merlin concurred. “I might show you. But not here. Many things don’t work here. This is a special shadow with special rules. That’s why great-grandpa said this was such a dangerous place.”

“I lived here for a very, very long time. Flora, too,” I pointed out. “So what’s so dangerous? What makes this shadow different from any other?”

Merlin frowned up at me, seeming puzzled.

“This is a place where the influences of Chaos and Amber nearly cancel each other out. There is no other world in Shadow that I’ve found where the powers of both are so weak. But you would know that better than anyone.”

Maio, studying the dagger’s runes, looked up, glanced at Merlin, then turned to me.

“‘Shadow’? Your name for the Otherworld? Shadow,” he repeated, tasting the word, smiling. “Yeah, I kinda like it.”

Flora spared Maio a swift side-glance, then looked at me, brows drawn together. We were breaking family protocol by discussing such things openly in front of an outsider.

“It’s okay, Flora,” I told her, “He knows.” To Maio, I said, “Better to use the plural in this case: ‘Otherworlds.’”

Whatever scent my mind had caught, I realized then that I had lost it. Maybe I had all the pieces of the puzzle with simply no clue how they might fit together? There was relief in me that Merlin had not lost all his memory, and there would be time to fish after whatever of value he still knew before our return to Amber. Most I would try to extract this evening. Meanwhile, goods moving from Earth to Amber passed through Benedict’s territory. News to me, but from a security standpoint, an excellent idea. Yet raids were being conducted on the route protected by the most formidable of all my kin. Why, and how? Was Benedict absent, confronting some greater menace elsewhere? A change in regime was either about to occur in the Courts of Chaos or had already occurred. Had Benedict been dispatched by Random, as now seemed likely, to the far end of Shadow to bear witness to the transfer of power and to prepare for what would follow? The dissolution of the Amber Accords and a renewed war on Amber. A war which, whether anyone besides Merlin, Bleys and myself knew it or not, King Zirlar had promised. Still on my undercover mission to find out what was going on in Chaos and what had befallen Merlin and Martin, I had been lying low. But it was becoming more and more apparent that the mission had failed and was over. More pointedly, I had failed. With the exception of finding my son, I had little to show for my pains. Worse, when I reported in, I would not merely be reporting on my failure. I would be admitting to my complicity in a plot against Amber, in — for all intents and purposes — treachery. I had aided the enemy by handing over three new allies to them. Along with the artifact known as the Dreaming Diamond. Earning imprisonment for myself, memory-loss for Merlin, and an unknown and unhopeful fate for Bleys. Angrily, I fought a wave of despair as the extent of my defeat descended upon me, seeking some balance between my thoughts and emotions.

Resignedly seating myself in the remaining chair, I stared across the table to see the flying otter staring back at me. Merlin was watching me, too.

“You understand how this place is different?” my son asked me.

“No,” I replied. “That is, not the way you seem to. We’re in a sanctuary, not a death-trap.”

Flora chimed in with, “I know I feel safer here than in many other places.”

“Yes,” I agreed. “More technologically advanced than most other worlds, doctors and hospitals do a better job patching you up. Phones and computers supplement our Trumps, so almost anyone in this locale can be reached quickly, easily. Cars and planes also make getting to other locations around here simpler. Hell, Random and I drove a certain Mercedes from here most of the way to Amber—”

“My brothers, the car-thieves,” Flora interrupted with a laugh.

Grinning, I finished, “And bullets tend to be faster than blades.”

Reflecting my mood, Merlin regarded me with a curious mix of amusement and amazement.

“But all those things you talk about—each one works against the higher abilities that are the birthright of a Prince of Amber. Or Chaos. You see it, don’t you? Why Uncle Random sent us here so many times? And why...”

What began as a look incorporating amusement and amazement changed then, all trace of the former going away as he let the sentence trail off.

“Yes?”

“Why you were left here to die.”

“To—? Oh, got it.”

Right between the eyes. The guy who had lost much of his memory was reminding me of something I’d momentarily forgotten. My brother Eric had left me in this shadow with just one expectation in mind: Corwin should die here. And had happily deposited a grievously wounded version of me in the middle of London in a year of the Plague.

“You’re right. It cuts both ways. What works against an enemy here also works against anyone using this place for a refuge. I can defend myself with an automatic weapon. Or be killed by one. You make a good point.”

Maio was muttering something.

“What’s that you’re saying?” I asked the old man.

“I said either all of you are brujos. Or you’re all crazy as Saturday night.”

“Why must it be an either-or question?” I asked, chuckling, “I’d say a little from Column A, a little from Column B.”

At that moment, a phone rang.

Reaching into a pocket, Merlin pulled out something that looked for all the world like a Star Trek communicator. He flipped it open and started talking into it.

“Hey, thanks for calling me back. No, I’m where you are, right here in Connecticut.... A Bose-Einstein condensate? You think that’ll work? You know I was thinking a rubidium beam, too. But using a hot plasma medium instead. Ah, there’s another call, got to go. Okay, talk to you soon.... Hello...? In Connecticut. With my Dad.... Tomorrow, I think.... I’ll put him on.”

He skidded the shiny thing across the table toward me. I lifted it to my ear.

“Hello?”

“Carl?” the familiar voice coming through the phone asked. Not just a familiar voice, a friend’s voice, one I recognized right away.

“Bill? Bill, it’s been a long time. Too long. Good to hear your voice again. How are you? And how are Alice and the kids?”

I heard a short laugh.

“Carl. Carl Corey. You still go by that?”

“When circumstances dictate. Today, though, and for the foreseeable future, I’m stuck being Corwin. Just don’t tell the front desk at my hotel.”

“Hotels aren’t sticklers for getting names right where I come from. Especially if you pay with cash.”

“Which,” I cheerfully rejoined, “by a strange coincidence, I do.”

“Just the word I would use for a Napoleon expert who drives cars into lakes, leaves priceless jewelry in compost heaps, gets hospitalized with nearly fatal stab wounds, is featured on a pack of Tarot cards, vanishes into thin air before startled nurses, reappears over twenty years later asking how my family’s doing. Just like there’s nothing out of the ordinary about such things. That’s the word for it: strange.”

That set me back a little.

“Over twenty years? It’s been that long?”

“Who was President last time we saw each other?”

I cast my mind back, to what events had been transpiring in America and the world then. A troubled time, to be sure. The OPEC oil embargo, coming on the heels of Nixon taking the dollar off the gold standard, had contributed to inflation and a persistent recession. The Vietnam War had only worsened the financial picture and had just ended, a political and military disaster, leaving the Cold War in high gear. There is always another military conflict, of course, and there had been new ones in Cambodia and Angola, along with the war between Egypt and Israel. Nuclear arms control was a major issue; the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty between the U.S. and Soviet Union had just been signed. The SALT agreement was the last big thing I could recall from that period of upheaval. Sonny and Cher had split up, the Eagles had made Winslow, Arizona, famous, Pink Floyd had been looking at the dark side of the moon, Stephen King was making horror interesting again, and Spielberg had made people afraid to go into the water.

So I answered, “Ford. No, wait, there was a new guy from Dixie, right? Farmer?”

“Carter. There have been four presidents since then, Corwin, and a couple hung on for two terms. Remember those twin grandsons I showed you last time? One’s in trucking school and the other is doing grad work at RIT designing videogames.”

Regret hit me in the gut, followed by the usual accompanying kidney-punch delivered by the other fist, guilt. My throat had become a little dry; I swallowed.

“Bill, I—”

“Have a life?”

“No,” I said, the truth blindsiding me, smarting as it always does, “I don’t. And am having trouble remembering the last time it was when I did. That’s the sad part.”

“You know what’s better than being sad?”

“Being happy?”

“Meeting me tomorrow for breakfast. There’s a place I know down in the City. You game?”

“Bill, this whole not having a life thing—”

“It’s not really working for you? So you’ll be there?”

It was crazy. The entire universe, or multiverse, whatever you want to call it, was under threat from the Courts of Chaos, from witches, from long-lost — though probably not too sorely missed — relatives. Memories had been stolen from my son. Amber’s foreign minister, the most well-informed link between the two ends of existence, was a prisoner in the heart of Chaos, or worse. And my nephew, heir to Amber’s throne, was missing, possibly deceased. If there was a right time for renewing old friendships, this surely wasn’t it.

So I said, “What time?”

He laughed and said, “Great. Bring that boy of yours along, too. Very smart kid. A little strange at times, but the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, does it? Okay, let me give you the directions.”

Once I had the directions, and we had settled on a time, we said our good-byes. And I handed the phone back to Merlin, who ended the call.

I looked at Flora.

“Where are the drivers for those Peterbilts?”

“Caine is sending someone.”

“When?”

“In a day or two, I think. Why do you ask?”

“Because I’ve got an anti-pirate detail lined up to escort them. Which you are not to mention to Caine when you hear from him. People think I’m dead? Let’s leave it like that for a little while longer. Hey, what’s that I smell?”

Maio pointed behind me, said, “Dinner.”

Turning, I saw Anya wheeling a food-laden cart out onto the porch.

Merlin’s stuff was returned to the purple backpack to make the necessary room. Little was said during the meal, and what got said was mostly along the lines of, “Pass the salt.” Which was fine, as I chewed and thought about events down the road. And the more I thought about it, the more I liked the idea of seeing Bill the next day.

Bill Roth was my closest remaining friend from my old days, when I dwelt in this shadow. Realizing that truth made me keen not to lose him and that had been my initial reason for deciding to see him. He was also an attorney, had taken care of selling off my house for me. A pretty big favor for which I owed him. And he had helped me track down the whereabouts of the Jewel of Judgment when it had briefly resided here, before Brand had absconded with it. Also good reasons for seeing my old friend again.

There was another reason, though. He obviously had been in some way party to Merlin’s and Martin’s activities here. He was therefore important as a potential source of information. So, on this occasion at least, sentiment and expediency would go hand in hand when we had our breakfast. Whatever was left of my mission, it was back on track, and I resolved to put off my questions for Merlin till then. We had already covered a fair amount of ground in what had been an interesting day, and a long one.

When we finished up, there was a final drink, along with a round of small talk. Flora surprised me by interrupting a discussion of the Thimble Islands to mention my walking the Pattern in Rebma, which had restored my memory. She then suggested this might serve as a remedy for whatever had been done to Merlin’s mind. Indeed. Another reason to follow up tomorrow’s breakfast with a very long trip through Shadow, as far we could go.

All the way.

Merlin expressed concern for the shipping difficulties, pushing Flora for her thoughts on conducting actual shipping, using the nearest major wharf, back in New Haven. For whatever reason, Flora frowned on the idea. Probably worried this would draw genuine pirates into the Sound and within view of her idyllic retreat. Maio paid no attention to any of the talk of either Rebma or the New Haven wharf, using every opportunity to engage Anya in conversation.

Afterward, four tired persons found beds in Flora’s mansion, since three of them would be leaving for Manhattan before dawn. Anya wrote something down on a piece of paper for Maio before she left on her drive home.

Which is why I drifted off to sleep wistful, sad, yet also oddly pleased. The old character who had so much knowledge of living on the edge of things, of music, of harps, might be a little off-the-wall (though who was I to call a kettle black?), but he had something I had lost. He had a life.

One day soon, I would too. Perhaps it was that thought which sent me off into dreams and the dark, smiling and happy. More probably though, it was just the wine.

[...to be continued...]

copyright © 2009 Lokabrenna @ Blogger (JTB)  ¶ 3:50 PM 0 comments

  Chapter Two: The Shore
CHAPTER TWO

“I know you,” my son said.

Whoever had hung around past the retirement of the Tarots, whoever had missed the finality with which the harp had been laid aside — anyone left could see something personal had begun, a private affair. These were New Yorkers, naturally, blessed with a reputation for being pushy and unsympathetic, too self-centered to be nice. Somewhat true, of course, as it is for so much of humanity. Overlooked, maybe, is their willingness to give you your space in what at various times has been the most crowded place on Earth. People near us moved on and left us alone.

“Perhaps better than I know you,” I answered. “My activities may have gotten better coverage than yours. Your uncles Random and Bleys only said you’d gotten close to something. Close enough for lives to be very much at risk, including your own. The picture so far is incomplete, with two people missing from it, maybe gone forever. An artist is needed to fill the rest in.”

Someone in the park had begun playing a guitar. Cooing nearby, some pigeons anxiously flapped their wings as they hurried along the ground, frightened, but not enough to take to the air. Over the city, possibly down by the harbor, a helicopter’s blades slapped the sky. All part of the context in which the two of us were embedded, and all but ignored by us in the tension of an increasingly overstretched moment.

“Which would be you,” I prompted. “To avoid any confusion on the point, in the present conversation, you are the artist. And I am the critic. So dazzle me.”

Somewhere in some other history of Corwin, among the worlds that might have been — should have been — words tumbled forth from my son, marvelously meaningful in their import, signifigant, bearing directly on all our problems, full of the promise of solutions. Sadly, as is usually the case, the best of all possible worlds wasn't in today. And who could blame anyone for that? A gorgeous summer day, ordered up expressly for taking time off.

No, instead something else happened.

“Carl Wynne!”

That was the name I’d adopted this time around.

“Carl Wynne, I’m callin’ you out!”

There he was. Big guy, long yellow hair falling to his broad shoulders, carrying a bit of a beer belly, but otherwise in admirable shape, the beach bum who kicked sand in the face of the 98-pound weakling in the old get-in-shape ads. Boldly shirtless, sporting a gold cowboy hat studded with rhinestones, high-topped gold-bossed cowboy boots seamed with flashing diamonds (or zircon — who would know?), otherwise covered only in gold lamé underwear. He carried an old banjo over his right shoulder, and gripped the neck of a big golden guitar (comfortably perched on the afore-mentioned gut) as if it were a weapon. Which he probably thought it was.

He was pointing a finger straight at me.

The Guitar-slinger.

I stood up, and faced him.

“Are you talking to me, Slinger? Because I don’t see anyone else here. So you must be talking to me.”

The Guitar-slinger threw his head back to yell his answer.

“Oh, yeah, I’m talkin’ to you!”

Some people had started to turn our way.

So I shrugged, said, “Okay.”

“What?!”

“So talk,” I elaborated. “Say something.”

He puzzled over that answer. But only for a moment. Then he bellowed.

“Why don’t you take your cards and shuffle off!”

For some reason, that pissed me off. Maybe because it was not a bad comeback.

“Yeah, why don’t you put some clothes on?”

“It’s Summer!”

“Well, not for much longer!”

Lame, I know. Hadn’t had my Wheaties that morning, and was still waiting for my sandwich. So I tried again.

“At least put on a wife beater, you narcissistic, over-compensating Bengals reject!”

He blinked rapidly a few times, then shouted:

“You’re on my pitch!”

“Haven’t seen your name on any park benches around here,” I observed.

“You’re on my pitch!”

“So what are you going to do about it?”

“This!”

He strummed the guitar.

“‘Devil went all the way to New York,
Lookin’ for a musician’s pitch to steal!’”

I turned for my guitar. Merlin surprised me by handing it to me. I passed the guitar-strap over my head, struck a chord.

“‘Devil was a Kentucky boy from the swamp,
Who had some trouble keeping it real.’”

The Guitar-slinger curled his lip in a convincing Elvis snarl.

“‘Then the Devil came upon a golden Guitar Hero from the South—’”

Grinning, I windmilled the guitar, and tossed off:

“‘And the Devil said, “Country boy, you sure got a real purty mouth!”’”

There was laughter at that, and I saw the Guitar-slinger go beet red. Then he took three long strides in my direction, and I was pretty sure he was ready to forget the musical duel so he could try his best to beat the crap out of me.

“Hey, that’s my banjo!”

It was Maio, as furious as I’d ever seen him, that crazy light in his eyes which I had only seen once before, charging through the crowd, heading straight for my rival.

The gilded cowboy took one look at his accuser, his expression one of stark surprise.

Then he turned and ran like hell.

While I stood there agape with my own version of surprise, the crowd clapped loudly. They’d figured the whole thing for a staged performance, I gradually realized. Unhooking the guitar, I passed it back to Merlin, who laid it back where it had been. To my amusement, bystanders dropped bills and change into the case. The fame was predictably fleeting, and after about a minute — no second act to the duel showing any sign of being in the works — the audience dissipated.

“Thanks,” I acknowledged belatedly, with that word including both Merlin and those kind enough to offer donations, as I sat back down. “And where were we? I think I’d asked you to impress me with your artistic talents, to fill in the blank canvas. And you were saying?”

Waiting, I contemplated the man who was my son. Merlin resembled me in certain ways, of course. Dark hair, light eyes, and (whatever may be said of his father) not a bad-looking youth. But in other ways different, as might also be expected. Slim build, which likely came from his mother, fair complexion — not much sun in the land of his birth (or, really, any at all). Yet he might be more at home here in Washington Square than I was, more a chess-player, less a swordsman. Which could be a good thing.

Today he carried a maroon pack on his back, the same we’d tracked through city streets the day before. He seemed at ease in the jeans he wore, his shirt the color of red wine. Symbolically stepping into the role of a young man in any city anywhere on the shadow Earth, he even had on a pair of sneakers. It was the sneakers that made me smile.

“I know you,” Merlin repeated, “but I don’t...remember.”

His eyes were on mine, searching for something.

“You don’t remember?” I heard myself say. “Gods, Merlin! What did they do to you?”

He glanced up at the sky, and I followed his gaze, where a large bird soared on the wind, very high up.

“Merlin...yes, my name is Merlin.”

I stared at him, wanting words, finding none. With my right hand, I reached out, gripped his shoulder, squeezed a little, as though hoping to wake him.

“There is a place where the ground moans,” he went on. “Your mind burns. Like fire...and then ashes, ashes. Thoughts go away, and don’t come back. You forget.”

“But you found me, Merlin,” I reminded him, watching my artist metaphor fall in tatters, trying to fill in the gaps myself. “How did you manage that? What do you remember?”

He was shaking his head.

“I followed the dog,” Merlin said, and drew his brows together. “Or I followed something. Through shadows and mists, until we came to this sky.”

“Which still doesn’t explain how you found me.”

“I don’t remember much about you. I remember the song about the place with the silver towers.”

“Avalon.”

“I remember Avalon. I think...I think I’ve been there.”

“You have. Your” —for a heartbeat, I hesitated— “uncle Benedict watches over the place.”

Running footsteps coming toward us. I looked. It was Maio, cutting across the square, clutching a paper bag.

“We gotta go!” was all Maio said.

Maio snatched up his harp, grabbed his other stuff. I hoisted my guitar case onto my shoulder, held out my hand to my son.

“Come.”

Merlin got to his feet. We started walking fast, to catch up to my friend.

“Maio!” I called out. “What’s the trouble?”

He whipped his head around and pointed behind me. So I turned for a look. They were pushing through the crowded park, looking for something. Or someone.

New York’s finest.

I began to move more quickly.

Maio waited for us at the edge of the square. When we got there, I took another look at what was going on. The cops had stopped some of the students, were questioning them.

“So what is this?”

“Class B misdemeanor.”

“What the hell’s a class B misdemeanor? Unfiltered smokes?”

“Unlicensed fortune-telling.”

“Oh.”

Maio was walking again. At a brisk pace. Before I followed him, I chose to take one more gander at the boys in blue.

They were looking our way.

Maio yelled, “Hey, c’mon!”

Deciding he had the right idea, we fell in behind him, merged with the other people moving along the sidewalk. Without checking to see if we were following him, Maio brandished the stained white paper bag in the air.

“Hey, c’mon!” Maio said again. “I got lunch!”



At first, the heat made the air on the highway undulate, as though the sun were shaking it out like a rug, scattering brilliance rather than dust. Because we did not leave till that afternoon, the airy rug was permitted to settle back onto the landscape when the sun tired of the chore and grew restless, hurrying west. And, in our way just as eager to cover ground, we put the departing sun at our backs as Maio hurtled us across Fairfield County in his little white sedan.

Events hadn’t progressed quite as I had envisioned, but at least they were progressing.

The idea of Maio as the man behind the wheel had seemed a good one at the time. Freeing Merlin and I to talk or sleep, so we’d be rested and up to speed by the time we got where we were going.

Then we got to Maio’s place and had a look at his car.

“Hey,” I had said right away. “I’ve just had an idea. We can rent a car. That way, we avoid putting any hard miles on your own vehicle.”

My friend had frowned and asked, “What do you wanna waste your money for? I just changed her oil this week, and she doesn’t get driven much anyways. A road trip is just what she needs.”

I noticed he’d referred to his car less as an inanimate object, and more as a pet.

“That’s not a four-cylinder model, is it?”

Merlin, who had been mostly quiet up till then, had volunteered, “Two-liter engine.”

His remark had surprised me a little. Until I’d remembered he had spent time in this Shadow before, hunting gadgets and ideas for Random.

“Two-point-two!” Maio had chimed in. “This car don’t need much power, on account of her size. I get great mileage. Get in!”

“Not sure I can fit.”

Maio’s pet was a Chevy Cavalier. Two-door.

He had scrunched his face into a skeptical expression, giving me a bemused half-smile.

“Maybe you’re not so big as you think. The bigger door makes it easier getting in and out. I’m going inside. Back in a minute.”

Merlin had walked over and pulled open the passenger door, climbing into the back. With a sigh, I had decided to follow him, taking the passenger seat in front.

In my mind, I had replayed the day so far while sitting there, smiling as I kept getting stuck on my friend chasing the Guitar-slinger out of the park. Probably because that image was more pleasant than the other, the one my imagination supplied, where memories were somehow burned out of Merlin’s mind. Something similar had been tried on me once, and I’d been fortunate enough to recover most of my lost memory. But some of it was gone forever, and I sometimes wondered what had been taken from me.

After a few minutes, the shaman of Washington Square had emerged from the small yellow house, jumped in and started up the car. And that had been when the front door had flown open, and a young woman — curvy in her lavender halter top and pink skirt, blonde, nearly as tall as I was — had come running out to the car to pass a mini-cooler through the window to our driver.

“You almost forgot!” she had said, laughing.

She had favored Merlin and I with a friendly glance, giving us a radiant smile. Then she had run back inside, and Maio had backed the car out onto the road and started us on our way.

I had looked my question at him.

“My daughter,” he had told me around his grin, and then had begun chuckling at my expression.

“Doesn’t look much like you.”

“Takes after her mom. Strawberry blonde when she was little, swear to God.”

I’d seen enough of my friend and his ways to know that anything was possible, that he might well be lying. He could really turn on the charm when so inclined, and was still quite fascinated by the fairer sex, old though he might be. In the short time I’d known him, I had already seen him squiring around two of his girlfriends.

I had shrugged. Whatever, it was none of my concern. So I had returned my attention to the course he’d begun charting out of the Bronx. And had realized one thing as he leaned on the gas, working the stick-shift like a toy: Whatever Maio drove, he’d be driving it fast.

The Cavalier carried us along the road less traveled, up the Merritt Parkway, thereby avoiding the snarl of I-95. Privately, I questioned this choice. The Merritt wasn’t built for modern congestion. And also took us out of our way, as we were aiming for the shore.

So the sun rolled west, and we rolled east. And we passed through the pretty towns.

Maio sometimes hummed, sang songs, patted the steering wheel to the beat of rhythms running through his head. He was frequently interrupted by the demands of contending with other drivers. When I glanced behind me, I saw Merlin either dozing, or staring out the window, in the quiet company of his thoughts.

It had been a long time since I’d been out this way, where New England begins. Made me wish for some smokes, but they had been left behind back at the Square during our hasty exit. It was nice to do nothing for awhile, though, just take in the scenery.

So it sort of snuck up on me until I noticed it, and then, once noticed, commanded my attention.

“Do you hear it?” I asked, after listening for several minutes, to be sure I was hearing what I was hearing.

“What?” asked Maio, looking concerned. “Is it the brakes?”

“No. Listen, listen carefully. Do you hear...music?”

“Radio’s off.”

“I know. So you don’t hear it?”

Maio cocked an ear, frowned.

“What’s it sound like?”

“Like an orchestra warming up. Lots of strings, maybe some winds. Instrumental, though possibly with some choral accompaniment. Very faint, rising and falling. Classical, if I had to guess, but it also sounds a little like Christmas music heard at a distance. When it’s coming from a different store, somehow carrying itself over the noise. You don’t hear it?”

Merlin was sitting up now, listening for it, too.

“I’m not sure,” my son answered slowly.

“There’s not enough of it to get what style it is,” I added, trying to help. “The way it seems to oscillate, it’s almost as though it were coming from something spinning, like a carousel. The notes of instruments, minus most of the structure. Romantic, or impressionistic, maybe the intro to a rock opera.”

Maio’s right eyebrow was raised. He had one eye on the sky as he drove, as though trying to look beyond it into some other dimension where music danced naked.

“The treads biting the road?” my friend tried. “Maybe a little of the brakes? ‘Cause maybe I hear something, I dunno.”

“It reaches you like a breaking wave — there’s more behind it your ear can’t quite catch,” I tried one more time, deciding to give it a last shot. “It starts to build toward something, subsides a little, comes back stronger again, while never fading out. Like a far-off flag waving in the wind.”

“Do you hear it?” Merlin asked from the back seat. “Do you hear it right now?”

They were quiet while I sat still to listen.

“Yes.”

In fact, I noticed, so long as I reserved some portion of my awareness for it, that it could still be heard under the noises of the car, the highway, our voices.

Very odd, I decided.

“Well, forget about it,” I suggested. “Probably a result of my recent re-infatuation with music. And I could doubtless use more sleep. Chalk it up to tiredness.”

Maio was giving me a sidelong look.

“What?” I asked.

“Warriors sometimes hear this music.”

“What do you mean?”

“Right before battle. Or ambush. Death comes close to the warrior, close enough for him to hear the music.”

“What music is that?”

“The song of the Otherworld, the voices of the ancestors.”

“We’re not going into battle.”

“Then it’s an ambush.”

“Or I’m just hearing things.”

Maio shrugged, kept driving.

We crossed the Sikorsky Bridge, the bird's-eye view of the Housatonic doing its best to give us the feeling we were ourselves up in one of Igor's helicopters. The connector to I-95 was right after that. Merlin dug into the cooler and split the last sandwich with me as we merged with the Interstate. The New Haven skyline loomed ahead, backed by a long ridge and traprock cliffs. Maio mentioned some deal the Quinnipiac had made with the Puritan settlers (around the time I'd arrived in London, I realized) as we raced right up against the city's southern flank. It struck me that New Haven was like an iceberg broken from the metropolitan floe we had left behind us. Then the old town was disappearing in the rearview mirror.

“Damn,” I cursed, more with mild regret than any real anger.

Maio glanced my way, asked, “What’s wrong?”

“It’s nothing. It’s just that I lost my cigarettes and could really use a smoke about now.”

Behind me there was movement. Turning, I saw Merlin holding an object out toward me. It was a pipe. With his other hand, he offered me a tobacco pouch.

“Thanks,” I said, taking the items, filling the pipe, lighting it.

After I got it going and drew on the thing a few times, I sighed happily.

“Ah, that’s much better.”

“There’s cigarettes here somewhere,” Maio informed me as I puffed. “Maybe under the seat.”

Smiling, I shook my head to let him know I was fine. And kept puffing, saying nothing for a minute or so, thinking.

Then I said, “Merlin, I see you’ve gotten some tattoos.”

Actually, I had noticed the tattoos on his forearms back when we’d shared our sandwich. But hadn’t realized how far they extended till he gave me the pipe.

They ran right out onto his palms.

“You didn’t have them before,” I continued. “When did you get them?”

The muscles around his eyes tightened as he squinted at the memory.

“We got them a couple of years ago.”

“‘We’?”

“Martin and me.”

He had answered me automatically, without troubling to search his mind. Encouraged by this, but not wanting to call attention to it just yet, I said simply, “Let me see.”

My seat was already as far back as it would go, but I reclined the back just a bit before turning to my left. He turned his hands up, leaning forward as he did, and I reached over to take hold of his right wrist.

The design was indeed curious. Starting near the inside of his elbow, a long slender branch, wound about with ivy, budding with blossoms, stretched down to his palm, where it spread out a fan of five oval leaves.

On each leaf was the picture of a place.

Releasing his right wrist, I now reached for his left, looked over the design imprinted on that arm and palm.

The same thing, only on each leaf of the left palm there was instead a face. I recognized all of them. After all, one of them was me.

“Martin’s are the same?”

“Yes, they are.”

“Your idea?”

“No, but we thought it was clever. Maybe even better than mine.”

“Whose then?”

“I...don’t know.”

“Random’s perhaps,” I suggested, overtaken by a sudden wave of affection that swept over me, causing me to delay for the barest moment my letting go his arm.

Then Maio said, “Which way?”

We were at the bottom of an exit ramp, sitting at a red light.

When I had departed Earth what seemed like ages ago — the ‘70s — to make good my claim on Amber’s throne, there had been computers. Big, clunky machines that filled air-conditioned rooms, using for memory in their giant drives disks nearly the size of spare tires, critical files backed up on spools of tape, information often fed into them on punch-cards. A network originally put in place for the DoD — the ARPANET, sometimes called DARPANET — had allowed computers to communicate over large distances at slow speeds, using phone-lines.

Those days lay far in the past.

In my Manhattan hotel room there was a connection to the ARPANET’s much faster successor, which I had learned was now known as the Internet. For any guest’s personal portable computer. There was also a business center, where I could use a computer provided by the hotel to access the Web of computers that stretched across the entire world, linked together by the Internet. For Earth’s inhabitants, this had all become unremarkable, a normal part of life as the Millennium came and went. For me, however, it still blew my mind that the world’s libraries, newspapers, magazines, art, music and more could be browsed with ease from a hotel, a home, or an Internet café. A laptop computer carried like a small briefcase was all that one needed.

In my time, there had been talk of colonies on the Moon, in orbit, even on Mars and the moons of other planets. Progress in spaceship technology had nearly ground to a halt, though. Instead, the computers which had, at least in part, been developed to handle the complex calculations required by space missions, had moved out into every corner of life, expanding their presence at the same rate they had shrunk in size.

The future had not turned out as expected. But it had sure made getting the phone number and directions a lot easier.

“Turn right,” I said, and fished out of my pocket the folded piece of paper with the directions printed on it.

Down the twisting old roads — showing their age all too well, not being in such wonderful shape. Was Connecticut having trouble funding its Department of Transportation? Maio assured me this was not so, and offered a one-word explanation: winter. Craftsman style houses, Colonials, Tudors, as well as more modern dwellings, went by as we wound our way toward the shore. Past a big awning the color of Merlin’s shirt and a wide breezy porch hung on a long brown clapboard building — “Antiques,” “Bakery,” “Pizza,” and “Market” under the awning or off the porch — the village center. The place did feel like it had been minted around the same time as New York. Still very much in evidence was the presence of the Old World in this part of the New, joined in time though separated by three-and-a-half thousand miles of ocean. We bumped along, me reciting directions, Maio sharing a couple of tidbits of history, Merlin singing softly to himself in the back seat.

The sun was rappelling down the walls of the world, generously scattering fistfuls of heavier, dimmer coppery rays, as a king would toss pennies at the feet of the commoners in the street. The sun went down, and we coasted up the driveway. And it was strange to see two eighteen-wheelers parked along one side of it. Things were somewhat cleared up by the lettering on the sides of the trailers: Tarot Trucking.

But it was still on the strange side.

Maio let out a wolf whistle. No pretty girl was in sight, but the pale blue old Victorian up ahead sure was something to stare at, with her turrets, cupolas, conical roofs, and impressive stature, proof a man’s home — or a woman’s — sometimes really is a castle.

A greensward stretched before the place, hemmed by pines to either side — for privacy more than a love of trees, I guessed. The drive split in two, wrapping about a small grassy hill crowned by a white gazebo. At the top of the loop, where a walk led up to the front door, the drive widened to surround a low circle of stone holding enough dark soil for a bed of white roses and one apple-tree.

We pulled up across from the apple-tree, next to the walk. Maio shut off the engine, and we got out, striding up the walkway toward the mansion.

I rang the bell.

A dark-haired woman opened the door and asked, “How may I help you?” in a thick accent that was Polish, or possibly Russian.

“If the lady of the house is in, you can let her know we’re here.”

“And you are?”

“Her brother Carl.”

She looked past me.

“And her nephew Merlin.”

“But who is he?” she wondered, still looking behind me.

“A friend.”

“Please come in,” she said, and we did, stepping into the oval-shaped vestibule where the chandelier divided the sunlight into pretty colors and cast them upon the cream-colored walls.

“Is she expecting you?”

“I always like to think so.”

“Please wait here.”

The woman went into another room, and I took a look around. A curving stairway to our left swept up to the next floor. The ceiling was high. Lots of windows. To our right was a large sitting room with a wide fieldstone fireplace, stiff-backed furniture, low tables, shiny bare wood floors, some Persian rugs, and a grand piano.

A moment later, the gal returned, said, “She will be right down,” gestured toward the sitting room in almost exactly the same way showroom models used to indicate Door Number Three on an old game show, and added, “You may wait in there,” before departing again.

Maio was walking in a slow circle, taking everything in. I heard him say, “Nice place,” as he peered through the arch into the room where we had been told to wait. Then he turned in my direction, squinting at me with his head tilted to one side.

“Why are we here again?”

We never got to hear my snappy comeback (something about Maio being ten minutes late for the Bertrand Russell seminar down the hall on the left).

She was descending the staircase. The short sleeveless dress matched the blue in her eyes. It was a revealing number with a plunging neckline, arousing a twinge of brotherly disapproval in me. Her orange-blonde hair wasn’t as long as I remembered, just touching her shoulders.

This time Maio’s soft whistle had nothing to do with anything old or Victorian. Though she was wearing blue.

“Corwin,” she said, smiling, stepping off the bottom stair.

Coming toward me, she opened her arms, embraced me, kissed me on the cheek. I kissed her back.

“Miss Evelyn Flaumel,” I said, stepping back from her, “May I call you Flora?”

“Is there any way I can stop you?”

“Indulge my eccentricities, and I will indulge yours.”

Then she went past me to Merlin, threw her arms about him, hugged him tightly, pinning him for almost a minute. Well past the ref’s count of three. While I was mentally giving her the victory on the metaphorical wrestling mat, I turned to admire a painting on the wall, amused by my own surprise. Selfish, vain Florimel, overcome by fondness for my son? Giving up the painting, a reproduction (or was it?) of Music in the Tuileries, I regarded them again. She was just pulling away, and, with her arms still about him, she drew him down to plant a wet kiss on his forehead.

“They’re saying you’re dead!” she announced. Then, looking from Merlin back to me again, she added, “You, too!”

“And you believed them? Hyperbole and the subject of my demise have often dined together before, and always leave without paying the check. Don’t you know by now that we princes of Amber are insured against the Grim Reaper?”

“Oh, is that so? When was the last time you told that to Eric? Or Brand? And what about Osric and Finndo?”

“They weren’t smart enough to take out policies,” I answered with a shrug. “But you are. That’s why you’ve helped me in the past. And why you’re going to help me now.”

Eyebrows lowered, shaking her head slowly to give me a scolding look, she said in a low voice, “You never change.”

“You sound disappointed, Flora. And I have changed. I’m not here for me.”

My glance flicked to Merlin, then back to Flora again.

Her expression relaxed a little, and she said, “Come with me,” leading us into the sitting room. And then through it, down a hallway, through a small parlor, down another hallway lined with doors and French windows, and out onto a screened-in porch. A table spread with a white table-cloth was waiting there, white chairs arranged about it. Toward the back, near the screen door leading outside, was a green divan, a low coffee table, a sofa, and three red upholstered chairs. Beyond the porch I saw a lawn, a line of shrubbery, then beach and after that the Sound. Waves lapped the white fifty-foot caramaran moored to the private dock. The porch — like the beach, sea and clouds beyond — was soaked in the waning glow of the departed sun.

“Please sit,” Flora said, tucking a leg beneath her as she lowered herself to the divan that was canted a bit toward the beautiful scene outside.

“By the way,” I told her, waving toward Maio as I took one of the chairs, “This is Maio, a friend of mine. He’s a musician, also part bloodhound, who helped me find Merlin.”

“Maio?” Flora asked. “Is that your first name?”

“Last,” he replied, grinning. “Now you’re gonna ask what’s my first, right?”

“Well, I...all right, what is your first name?”

“Raffy,” Maio said, his grin, if anything, widening.

Flora drew her brows together, puzzled as to the source of Maio’s amusement.

“Short for Raphael?” she guessed.

“For ‘riff-raff,’” I told her flatly.

Too late, though. Flora had been sucked in, barely sparing me a glance as she stayed focused on Maio, waiting for whatever he would say next.

“For ‘raffle,’” my friend said, laughing. “Carl never gets it right. Funny story, too. See, my dad grew up in the back end of nowhere, place called Kayenta. Ran off to Vegas soon as he was old enough—”

“Ignore him,” I instructed, catching Flora’s eye, “I don’t know how funny the story is, but it’s always a different one. The name of his family’s old village, Riofrío, in his ancestral Portugal. He rode a raft as an infant, just like Moses — ‘raft,’ ‘Raffy.’ He’s even tried telling people he was named after Iranian president Rafsanjani.”

Flora’s dark-haired employee reappeared just then, stepping out onto the porch with a crowded tray. She hesitated near the table, but Flora cleared things up with, “We will take our drinks here, Anya.” So she brought the tray over, parked the drinks on coasters she efficiently distributed one-handed upon the coffee table, rotated the tray out of the way, and asked, “Will there be anything else?”

“Dinner in one hour, please.”

Anya jerked her head once in the affirmative and then turned to go. But not before Maio had won a shy smile from her with one of his conspiratorial winks.

Merlin opened a bottle and poured four glasses of wine, then passed one to his aunt.

Not interested in standing on ceremony (neither Merlin nor Maio had their glasses ready), I reached for the glass nearest me, raised it toward Flora.

“To your health.”

“And yours.”

We both drank. Good stuff.

“Corwin,” Flora said, after taking another slow sip, “Why have you come here, now?”

“‘Corwin’?” Maio repeated.

It was the second time she had called me by my real name.

“That’s right,” I admitted, seeing no point in denying it, while also realizing I had my own “princes of Amber” remark to answer for. “I have as many names as some have stories about how they got theirs. You wouldn’t understand—it’s a shaman thing.”

Maio laughed, leaned forward, reached past the wine to pour himself a whiskey, and said, “Okay,” before tossing it down.

“Hey, don’t forget your friends,” I reminded him.

“You’re drinking wine.”

“For now.”

Mystified, he shook his head, but complied and poured a glass for each of us. He knew nothing of the stamina of Amberites, and Flora, Merlin and I weren’t even the best examples. My brothers Caine and Gérard could, individually, empty a cask of the storied Amontillado before feeling a buzz.

“I know,” I chuckled. “It’s a wonder some of us still have working livers. Sorry, Flora. You were saying?”

She’d wrinkled her nose, as though she smelled something of which she disapproved — time wasted with Maio? — and had me in the cross-hairs of that scowl.

“Everyone’s saying you’re dead. You could have gone anywhere. Why here? Why me?”

“‘Why,’ Flora? That’s the question? Lots of reasons. How about: People really are dying? And I don’t feel like joining them just yet.”

Her, “We tried your Trump,” sounded defensive.

“Really? Starting when?”

Flora frowned a moment, thinking back.

“A week ago. It was Saturday.”

“Only a week ago? I’ve been out of the game a whole lot longer than that. What prompted the sudden concern?”

She was staring at me, lines appearing on her brow, at the corners of her eyes.

“I don’t understand.”

“Who is ‘we’? Who brought up the fascinating subject of Corwin? Who said whatever it was that was said for you to want to try my Trump?”

She pouted. I’d pushed too hard.

“I don’t know why you are so upset, Corwin,” she protested, her voice higher than it had been, miffed. “You are alive. Merlin is alive. You’re both fine!”

My own temper rising, I set the wine-glass down on the table between us before answering. When I did respond, I spoke softly.

“‘Fine’? That’s how you think things are, have been? Fine? Let’s start with me, then. My own personal hell began considerably before a week ago. Months in the outside world, at least. For me, though, an eternity in a studio apartment. One-room efficiency. Big window, no doors. The ultimate in simplified plumbing: a wooden bucket in the corner. Prime location, too—the bottom of a lake.”

She blinked.

“Well, none of us knew that. I didn’t know that.”

“Hang on, there’s more. Has anyone heard from Martin?”

“He and Merlin are working on something for Random. Aren’t they?”

“No,” I said, shaking my head. “Not anymore. Martin’s not been seen for, well, years.”

“Oh, my.”

“Then there’s Bleys. Any news on him?”

She didn’t say anything, began to slowly shake her head.

“I thought not. I’ve been avoiding the Trumps myself. Which is part of the answer to your question as to ‘why you.’ You’re closest. But I have tried the Trumps. Twice. Once for Bleys, once for Martin, for an hour each time. No answer. They’re either dead or in hiding.”

“Corwin—” she began.

“Hear me out, Flora. We’re almost at the end of my little speech. Lastly, there’s Merlin. Look at him. And tell me what you see.”

Now she set her glass down, too, getting up and slowly walking to where my son sat beside me. She held out her hand to him. He hesitantly extended his own hand in response, and she clasped it in hers.

“Merlin?” she asked quietly. “Merlin, are you all right?”

He studied her face, concentrating.

“You are Flora, my aunt,” Merlin said after a moment. “I know I have been here in your house before. But it’s faded for me, like an old dream. You fed me, too. And someone else was there.”

Flora’s mouth opened, closed. And then, instead of speaking further, she leaned closer to Merlin and hugged him. Merlin seemed puzzled by her response. He began to put his arms around her to hug her back, but she straightened then and calmly resumed her seat. She regarded me.

“He’s you.”

“As I was when I visited you that time at your old place in Westchester? Yes.”

“I am?” Merlin wondered, turning to me. “You went there, too? Beyond the river of smoke and steam, to the lake’s fiery shore?”

“In a manner of speaking, yes,” I said, understanding better this time why he searched my eyes, what he hoped to find. “Except my lake was cold, wet, and meant to permanently solve the problem known as Corwin. And, instead, my dip in it signaled my good-bye to amnesia. The key similarity between the two, however, is that both lake encounters brought us here.”

“But now that you are here,” I heard Flora say, “What will you do?”

Facing Flora again, I reached for my glass on the table. Not the wine this time. The whiskey. And threw it down the hatch. Placing the glass back on the table, I stood.

“We’re doing it right now,” I informed her.

“What we are doing?”

“Stimulating his memory.”

“How are we doing that?”

“It’s simple, Flora,” I said, walking over to the screen door to stare across the glimmering waves into the blue-gray-yellow dusk, noticing the houses anchored to small islands out in the harbor, then turning. “When I came to you years ago, being around you, talking to you, seeing your Trumps — everything — sped the recovery of memories I didn’t know I had. This time, it’s Merlin who stands in need of such triggers.”

Flora was looking toward Merlin now. He was very still, and held his wineglass before his eyes, peering into it, seeing something there that was not in the room.

“It won’t work, Corwin. With you, it was different.”

“No, it’s very much the same,” I countered, adding as I walked to the other side of Merlin’s chair, “And it’s already worked.”

“But he barely remembers me, Corwin,” Flora protested. “I cannot tell you the number of times he and Martin have stayed here, running errands for Random. Staying up late, loud music playing, strange phone-calls, professors, students from universities, C.I.A. agents, and...”

“Yes?”

“Beer bottles everywhere!”

“Can she back any of this up, Merlin?” I asked, bending down to pick up the backpack resting on the floor by his chair.

“I don’t know.”

I was already walking away from them. When I got there, I dropped Merlin’s baggage upon the white tablecloth. I untied the leather laces — no zippers anywhere, though some of the pockets were sealed with strips of gray burrs, stuff like Velcro.

“As the oft-misquoted saying goes, ‘The proof is in the purple backpack.’”

They got up, walked over and joined me at the table.

With everyone gathered round and looking on, I opened the pack up. As all of us had expected, there was stuff inside.

Some of it was alive.

copyright © 2009 Lokabrenna @ Blogger (JTB)  ¶ 5:54 AM 0 comments

  Chapter One: The Hunt
CHAPTER ONE

The lion to the left of me stared straight ahead, fascinated by something I could not see. So I angled off down the steps to the right. Turning my head, I met the blank and pitiless gaze of the lion to the other side of me. An understanding passed between us, as we two recognized the inevitability of time, flowing unheeding past us both like the river of human traffic into which I was moving.

Keeping to the right — with the current, against it, who could say? — I savored sights, smells, sounds, and even the feel of the sidewalk under my feet. Vibrations reached me through the soles of my shoes, woven somehow with the steady noise from the street, with words torn from overlapping conversations, with shouts and laughter, with colors and styles of dress, with faces of all types, with cool disdain, with smug self-satisfaction, with grim determination, with glaring rage, with careless joy.

One fashionable young lady walked by, oblivious to everyone, openly weeping. Then a thin black man, arm draped around the shoulders of a young Asian gentleman (they both looked like students) laughed loudly at what his friend said as they moved briskly past. Yet it all merged together, the sharp smells, air dense with sound, the shifts and swirls of movement — cars, people, birds, bits of paper. It was as if somewhere there was a maestro conducting this wildly spontaneous and complex concert, and everyone — me included — was a member of the orchestra, all (unable to contain ourselves) dancing as each of us played his instrument: car-horn, laugh, squealing brakes, blaring radio, slammed cab door, angry yell, barking dog on a leash, delighted shriek, throat-clearing cough.

Energy, energy, energy. It was everywhere, and it was impossible to stand apart from it. That energy got into you, even as you gave it right back. The flux swept up into it everything that wasn’t nailed down or formed of concrete.

The day was bright and hot. The summer sky above was blue. And, like every day in New York, there was magic in the air.

Today, though, just might be the day.

Which would be good, since something bad was going to happen. Soon. But before things got started, there was something I had to do first.

Another right, this one taking me out of the main flow. Not much farther, just one more right turn to go.

Big beautiful oak door. A pub allegedly built for playwrights, according to the sign. Lots of people, lots of movement, lots of noise. The only difference from outside: Here, at least, you could take a rest, sit down, absent yourself from the demanding push of the street. There was a price, of course, not that I minded paying.

There was an empty stool at a small table near the door. I took it.

Seconds later, a smiling Hispanic kid — himself barely old enough to serve alcohol, much less drink it — was asking me, “Is there anything you would like to order at this time, sir?”

“A pint of Guinness would hit the spot.”

“I’ll be right back with that.”

While I waited, I took off the guitar case I’d been carrying on my back. Lowering it, I let one end rest on the floor, the neck leaning against the wall next to me. And I gave my surroundings a closer look. Crowded and narrow, and deep. A door opening onto stairs to the second floor lay a little further up along the wall on my side of the room. Already busy, this place would be standing-room-only later in the afternoon. And louder, as it was geared toward the younger crowd.

She noticed me right away — a twenty-something blonde girl. (Me, in case you’re wondering, I can pass for mid- to late-thirties.) And came right over, putting on a bright smile along the way.

“Do you play?” she asked, glancing at the guitar.

“Opinions are divided on that point,” I answered, meeting her smile with one of my own. “Not all the reviews are in, and the kindest description of those received so far would be: mixed.”

“Cute,” she commented, leaving me uncertain whether I’d been complimented or not. “Will you play a little bit? We’ll turn down the music.”

Without waiting for a response, she moved past me to prop open the door. Then, turning, she offered a kind of half-wave, which gesture I interpretted as encouragement to begin playing. She folded her arms across her chest and leaned against the doorway. Studied the walk outside, looked back at me.

Well, she’d been warned. With a shrug, I reached for the case, opened it, lifted out the guitar. From my meager repertoire, I selected something I couldn’t ruin too badly. Something manageable, if scaled back a little.

“‘As I walked by the dockside one evening so fair...To view the saltwater and taste the salt air...I heard an old fisherman singing his song...’”

She listened till I was done, her head moving slightly to the guitar-rhythms.

“Nice. Play some more.”

“Well...you work here?”

She dipped her head sharply, adding, “I’m your hostess,” delivering the last word with a note of irony and another small smile.

“And you are called...?”

“Alicia.”

“Alicia. Many years ago, I composed a few songs. Many years ago. When it comes to performing, however...”

“‘When it comes to performing’?”

“The sounds I make may drive away more customers than they attract.”

She shrugged.

“Live entertainment brings people in. Doesn’t matter how good it is.”

“Well, thanks for the vote of confidence, but...”

“Entertainment gets free beers.”

I raised my glass then, drained the last bit of stout.

“In that case, you’ve got yourself some ‘entertainment,’ such as it is.”

She smiled again, yelled, “Luis!” And beckoned to my server. Then she went to her station, a stool behind a tiny desk with the sign “Hostess” propped up on top. A little after that, Luis returned with a fresh Guinness. I was into a mainly instrumental take on “Late November” by then (I might’ve been humming a little, but couldn’t recall the lyrics of Miss Denny’s mad and moody myth). Only two customers seemed to be paying any attention to my struggle with the guitar-strings. They smiled, tossed asides toward each other, sometimes tapped feet.

Unhappy with my sad efforts, I returned the guitar to its case, packed it away.

“I’ll pay for this one,” I told Luis, holding up my glass.

Luis looked puzzled, but not so puzzled that he questioned the ten-spot I handed him.

“Try a Harp,” said someone to my left.

A short wiry man sat on the stool next to me. Wearing jean cut-offs and a yellow shirt bearing on the front a print of a rambling building overhung with a placard proclaiming "Inn" (the back of the shirt, I knew, showed a narrow outhouse with a crescent moon window cut into the door on which hung a sign with the word "Out" sloppily painted on it — one of his jokes). An ear-ring, a teardrop of red and yellow jasper bound in gold wire, decorated his right ear. He smiled from under the drooping mustache adorning the lined brown face.

“No, thanks, pal. I’ll stick with what I’ve been drinking.”

He laughed.

“No, buddy. Keep sucking down that black brew, if you want. Was talking about this.”

With that last word, he hefted an item of green luggage up onto his lap, unbuckled it, sprung it open.

“Celtic harp. You two were made for each other.”

She was carved of pale wood, strings golden, frame wrought with intricate and indecipherable Celtic symbols.

“Pretty. Maio, I thought you knew me better. I’ve never been much for blondes. I doubt we have much of a future.”

“You need to broaden your horizons, try new things. You’re young, got your whole life in front of you.”

“So they tell me.”

“So spread your wings. Live a little. You can’t learn about life in a library, you know. Got to get out into the world, take some chances.”

“I thought that’s what I’ve been doing.”

“Nah, still playing it safe. Unless...today’s the day?”

“Today...” I began, letting the word hang out there.

“Yes?”

“Probably isn’t the day.”

A snort, a shake of the head. I was disappointing him.

“So,” I tried, aiming perhaps for a small measure of redemption, “You brought this thing all the way from where you live—”

“The Bronx. Told you that twenty times.”

“—Right, from the Bronx. To this place, just to convince me to try a new thing?”

“By thunder, I think you’ve got it.”

“And now, if I don’t try your harp here, your feelings will be hurt?”

“You will have offended me. And my family,” he announced, very serious. “I may have to kill you.”

“Really? That’s all? I think I can live with that.”

He was shaking his head.

“No, I don’t think you can. And there’s always the fate worse than death.”

“And that is?”

“No monkey-stick. No hat.”

“Give me the damn harp.”

Grinning, he passed it over.

Experimentally, I plucked a few of the strings. And laughed miserably.

Maio couldn’t tolerate even that much of my incompetence. He got up and repositioned the harp so that it sat directly on my stool.

“Embrace her like a lover, Carl. You know? C’mon, do you make love one-handed? Don’t answer that. Both hands now. A harp is like two guitars in one. You’re playing two guitars.”

“Problem,” I notified him, “I can barely play one guitar.”

“So? Now you’re playing two.”

With my fingers, I tried finding my way among the many strings. The thing sounded pretty, even as I stumbled through my pass at “Out on the Ocean.” The tune was not even recognizable. Still sounded kind of pretty, though.

“You need to be more loose.”

“Did you recognize the song?”

“‘Barbara Allen’?”

“Thank-you for making my point. There’s ‘loose.’ And then there’s ‘lose.’”

“No, no, wrong. You just need to try looser material. Know any jazz?”

I didn’t. So I tried a little of “The First Arabesque.” It was terrible.

“Debussy?”

Shocked by his guess, I looked up from the bright quivering strands. My glance swept past the doorway on the way to Maio’s aged countenance. I saw the question on his face as I thrust the harp back at him. Snatching up the guitar case, I jumped off the stool and ran out the door.

There! Disappearing into the wave of humanity pushing east toward Fifth Avenue. Wasting no time with the crowd, I went out into the street, ran past them.

At the corner, I looked left, then right.

Maio had caught up to me by then.

“Your quarry?”

Without answering, I stretched out my senses. And pushed at the boundary between worlds, that which my people call Shadow. Put a different color hat on that one, look to see a limo over where a truck should be, a crying kid clutching his mother’s hand in place of the young couple who had paused to admire something in a window. Trade the clear sky for the intrusion of a thin rib of herringbone cloud. Blur the outlines the slightest bit — this way, then that — give the Etch-a Sketch a gentle shake.

A couple of those subtle shifts showed me other versions of my target. Not precisely the same, but close enough. Nearby, in neighboring worlds, they were moving away from me on my left, not quite out of sight.

I had fiddled. Now I unfiddled. The fellow who had worn a Yankees baseball hat — only for an eyeblink — found himself securely back in Red Sox fandom and standing out in a crowd which nevertheless took almost no notice of him at all. The world was again as it had been. With no one the wiser, unless they had been standing right next to me, looking at all the little things I was looking at.

Now...North!

I started hoofing it. Who knew how much of a lead had been opened up? Three blocks later, in front of Lord & Taylor, I slowed to a walk. And again reached out.

Sirens. A firetruck and ambulance muscled their way through the cars and trucks. Enough? Too much?

“Hey,” Maio got out, as he came up next to me, panting. “Slow down for an old man! Got any respect for the elderly?”

“When I meet someone elderly, you’ll find out.”

I searched faces as some heads turned to regard the firetruck, whose driver was repeatedly sounding its horn.

Nothing. I’d overdone it.

Next to me, Maio pointed.

“Over there! Other side of the street. Half-way between 39th and 40th!”

He was right. And also lucky. A quick glance over the shoulder, that was all the object of our hunt had offered, head briefly turned — yet Maio had caught it. He had to have been looking at just the right place at just the right moment.

“Good eye.”

“Eagle scout. Also, these eyes are used to spotting feds, cops and narcs. Which is why I use both of ’em.”

The firetruck had broken through the gridlock — unavoidably one-way here as it was on almost every other street and avenue on the Island — and gone. Traffic surged in its wake, a flood of careening metal. Potentially lethal, but I was past caring as I took a step out into the roaring intersection of 39th Street and Fifth Avenue.

I felt Maio’s hand on my shoulder, an essentially symbolic attempt to hold me back. Ignored, it fell away as I leaped in front of a Mercury Cougar, threw both hands out and onto its hood, vaulted to the other side. A cab was waiting in the space into which I landed. Instead of slowing for the madman trying to get himself killed, the cabbie accelerated and swerved into the lane to his right. The car that was in his way shot forward, the driver screaming obscenities. For half a second I occupied an illusion of empty space, a delivery van bearing down on me. I took a step forward, stopped as a white pick-up followed hard behind the cab. The pick-up shifted right a little, seeming to graze a parked car, even as I felt the wind of the van at my back. The way was clear, and I ran forward.

I was running past a bank, but across the street from me (I knew without looking) was the Mid Manhattan Library. Now I looked. If the one I was chasing thought at all like me, that was a likely destination.

Just behind me, I heard Maio say, in between audible breaths and as if reading my thought, “No, not in there — other side of 40th!”

And on the west side of Fifth now — our side — there was our moving target, wearing some shade of maroon, across 40th, heading west and once more merging with the other pedestrians. The eastbound traffic was simply moving too fast for another life-threatening crossing. So we stood, waiting and watching.

“What about a cab?” Maio suggested helpfully.

A sour laugh escaped me.

“No way. At least, not until I know where we’re going.”

“What? We get in a cab and follow. It’s easy. Hey, I’ll even pay.”

“Okay,” I allowed, openly skeptical. “As soon as you can find me a cabbie willing to go west on 40th, let me know.”

That shut my companion up for the moment. Good timing, too, since the cars were all sliding to a stop. We cut across.

“So where do you think he’s going?” he asked, reminding me he couldn't be kept quiet for long.

We were on the other side now, and looking at the south wing of the New York Public Library. Full circle already today, and so far without getting anywhere. I felt like a rat on a wheel. Or in a maze.

“My guess? North, and west. The way we’ve been going all along.”

We were jogging beside each other, while I scanned ahead, right to left, seeking. As we were drawing abreast of the Radiator Building, I sighted our target again and broke into a run. People glared and shouted epithets as I shoved through the crowd, heedless of whom I jostled.

Right turn at Tesla’s Corner, as expected. Again, I moved off the walk, recklessly racing vehicles to my left on Sixth Avenue. Sad thing was, sometimes I was moving faster than they were. And the lucky thing was that no one hit me. Though I was sure some wanted to — they sure leaned on their horns like they were thinking about it — and got back on the sidewalk a little before I reached 41st.

Bryant Park on my right. And was that a flash of maroon clothing up ahead, not far from 42nd Street?

I was betting on it.

At the corner I hesitated, and Maio caught up to me again.

My mind’s eye was already taking in everything around me, imagining tiny alterations of this, that and the other, beginning to find its way among the Shadows. But the feeling was too strong, intuition and more.

Instead of moving either north or west, I turned east, toward Fifth Avenue again. And heard Maio groan behind me.

Then I was leaping down the steps, three at a time, into the subway station entrance there. Impatiently, I fished out my Metrocard, while Maio, in an unexpectedly spry move, swung up and over the turnstile. Growling an expletive, I ran after him. We raced down to the platform, where a train was just leaving.

“Which one?” Maio wondered out loud.

“The Seven. For Times Square,” I answered, without hesitation, undaunted by the fact we were being led toward the busiest subway complex in the biggest city in the world.

We got on the next train.

“Where to next?”

Again, I answered without hesitating.

“The A.”

“And then?”

“Stay on the A. Right to the end of the line.”

“How do you know?”

“Northwest, remember?”

“Sure?”

“Sure, I’m sure.”

At the Times Square station, we ran through the maze with fellow rodentia, and then — literally — took the “A” train. Hanging onto a pole, each of us shifting weight on our feet as the train rocked and rattled beneath us, as passengers moved past us, neither gaining ground nor losing any with respect to the one we imagined we hunted, we drifted through the stops along the way. Our heading: northwest.

How, you may be expected to ask, could I chance upon any one special person in a city of millions? And then track that one through the multitude in the streets?

Easy, comes the answer. Any prince of the immortal city could do it. Or princess. Being born to Amber is all that is really required. Best, of course, if born to the royal family, where the power is strongest. The power to move between worlds, the power to find one’s heart’s desire.

And lately my attention had been rather focused, as my heart knew but a single overriding desire.

Until two days ago, I had not even known if he still lived. Repeated attempts at contact had failed. My search for him out in Shadow, among the countless worlds, had come up dry. I had looked for him, but not found him.

But then he had come looking for me.

I had dreamed about him, you see.

And in those dreams he had been looking for me. Now I was going to make sure he found me.

How had he located me? By the same means through which I had learned he was moving north up Fifth Avenue, no doubt. I had played with probability, begun shifting into nearby worlds, where things were nearly identical, yet not quite. In some of those places other beings bearing a passing resemblance to the one whose blood gave him the same power that flowed in my own veins — quasi-doppelgangers, if you will — were taking a similar route. That is, most of his shadows in the nearest worlds had been heading uptown. Presumably, the same trick had brought him close enough to me that he had walked right by the pub on 35th where I had been sitting with Maio.

My Earth is not necessarily your Earth. Separated they might be by a microsecond of time, the beat of a butterfly’s wing, the thinnest sliver of a dimension, a trivial decision. I had been reading about such things in the New York Public Library that morning. Superstrings, supergravity, D-branes, p-branes, F-theory, M-theory, Freund-Rubin compactifications, Kaluza–Klein reductions, universes of 7, 9, 10, 11 or 12 dimensions. Whatever they might truly be, the master of such lore, Dworkin, had called such separations shadow veils. And so did we, his grandchildren. The ability to use a power-tool does not require full understanding of the forces and engineering which permit it to function. Mine could slice the stuff of Shadow.

On the long ride up the A line, I thought of all that had brought me here, going right back to the beginning. When my brother Eric and I had been rivals, competing in everything, whether it might be in a fencing match or in the pursuit of the same woman at a party. This had culminated in the contest for the ultimate prize: Amber’s throne. Losing the first round of that game had proven quite costly to me. Eric had left me to die of the Black Plague in London. Where I had suffered the loss of my memory, remaining on the Shadow Earth for four hundred years. While only a century and a half had passed in Amber, where time moved more slowly. Perhaps, aged more rapidly by Earth’s swift years, stripped of my identity and past, living much like other men, my life in that Shadow had changed me. The experience had surely aged me, if nothing else. And had also made Earth my home, a place special to me. Not that I could love a Shadow as much as I loved Amber, but I was fond of the place. This was known to members of my family, of course. And now one of them had followed me here.

Hunter and hunted had switched places, however. He seemed unaware that I followed him. Though perhaps that was not entirely true. Tracking me in worlds close by, he may have concluded that my course was northwest, that I would even be taking the subway. Leading to an intriguing philosophical question: If I had chosen this course because his doppelgangers had done so, and if he had chosen the same route because my Shadow selves had done the same, then who was chasing whom? Who had made the original choice? Both? Neither? And were our doubles pursuing each other in those other worlds, in some cases mine following his, in others his following mine?

These were the sorts of thoughts that passed through my head as the train sped up, slowed down, sped up, slowed down, taking us inexorably where we had to go.

Then we were there, the train slowing for West 190th.

“This ain’t the end of the line,” Maio protested, seeing me move toward the doors.

The doors opened, and I said, “Let’s go,” stepping out onto the platform.

I knew this was the right stop. Remembered it, actually, from a recurring dream.

Charging up the stairs, we reached the top quickly. Maio was gasping when we got there. The metal and glass of the passing cars gave back the blinding sun. People walked and talked, laughed and yelled. Like a herd of wild horses they suddenly seemed to me, tossing their manes in the bright air.

“Hey, hold up a minute,” I heard Maio next to me. “Still ain’t recovered from all those blocks we ran.”

“That was how long ago? An hour? And five of those were short blocks on Fifth. You’re not that old.”

“Yeah, but I smoke. Unfiltered.”

“What you smoke doesn’t come with filters. Look,” I said, automatically turning my head left, then right, taking in the scene, dazzled by the sunlight, not seeing any close relatives. Nor really expecting to. “Look,” I repeated, becoming aware of the mild rebuke in the way Maio was regarding me from beneath lowered brows. “Fort Tryon Park’s just up the street beyond Corbin Plaza. Stay on the main path till you reach the museum building. The trail ends there. Look for me, and look for him. If you find him before you find me, just stay on him, keep him in view, okay?”

Then I was running again.

Beyond the final leg of Fort Washington Avenue was the park. Maybe my favorite in Manhattan. But I had no eyes for the shimmering lawns, quiet old trees or nodding flowers. My attention was on the people walking the paths, sitting on the benches, sprawled on the grass. This was just me being thorough. As I’d already told Maio, I knew the trail ended on the other side of the people, grass, flowers and trees.

During my jog up the drive, I reflected on my new friend. That he’d shown up with a harp today hadn’t come as the surprise it might have been. When I’d first met him, he’d been playing a variety of instruments — tin whistle, fiddle, harmonica, bongos, dulcimer. That had been at the subway station by Washington Square. I’d liked his selections and style, and so had given to his cause. We’d gotten to talking, and I’d let it drop that I had once entertained pretensions of being a musician. Well, he’d offered to share his spot with me if we also shared the take. Which was more than fair, as he had been quick to point out, since he was the one who had paid for the license to perform there and had no idea if I was any good or not. This worked out well for me, too, as I needed to be out in the city, waiting for another of my dreams to come true. In particular, the dream that was coming true today.

There up ahead, from a spot where you could see the Washington Bridge run out to the Jersey shore, on a wide hilltop overlooking the northwest corner of Manhattan from its lordly perch, the closest thing to a medieval monastery a man was likely to see anywhere in North America: The Cloisters.

I slowed to a walk. The moment called for it. Things had fallen into a familiar rhythm. This was something I knew, remembered, and now my part was finally unfolding. And I was at last right where I needed to be.

Merging with the crowd, I caught whiffs of this and that — food, perfume, halitosis, clothing, soap. And sweat. Mostly me, I abruptly realized. I was drenched, trousers and shirt sticking to me. That’s what I get for running around Manhattan at the start of September. It was an aromatic herd of humans that I was part of, slowly moving up the steps.

Paid ten bucks donation, stepped into the big heavy space, walked around.

Obeying the tug of the foot traffic, I soon found myself walking past the Romanesque columns framing a flower garden. I went in among the roses and wildflowers, made it over to the shade on the other side, stepped into the arcade there.

The herb garden was just up the way. Peering across it, something besides the heat held me back. So I took a seat on a stone bench, pondered the strangeness of it all. Was I chasing a phantom? Maybe, maybe not. Then where was the path? Play the probability game? Pointless here, useless. And unnecessary. For this was the place, the time.

Cloisters they were indeed, from far-away France, from some other century.

Like me.

What was I doing here? There was an obvious place to wait. And this wasn’t it. I stood, got moving again, navigating through the parents, couples and children, checking walls and doors for useful signage. Trod the stairs and came to the place where kids were pointing, laughing, crying, teens and grown-ups digging into purses and wallets.

The Gift Shop.

Posting myself just outside the door, I watched people going in, coming out, passing me by.

“Carl, c’mon!”

Maio was standing at the corner off to my right, gesturing.

“I’m fine here.”

“He’s here. Other side of the Cuxa. Follow me!”

That was the big one, the cloister central to the whole complex. I had a notion as to where we were going, so I shook my head and pointed toward the entrance hall where the stairs were. And cut straight across it, pretty sure Maio would follow my drift.

He did, and we wove our way through the folk scattered throughout the Gothic hall on the other side. We were very close now, and the excitement had my pores tingling with chill anticipation. At the end of the hall we bore to the right.

Into the hall of the Unicorn Tapestries.

I saw him step toward the wall before him, where one of the tapestries hung, called out his name, now that he could hear it at last.

“Merlin!”

And saw Merlin, my son, vanish into thin air.



“So he is a brujo,” Maio finally said.

From the moment I had grimly turned my back on the tapestries, he had been silent. Neither of us had spoken a word as we had negotiated a path through the museum-goers and back through Fort Tryon Park. During the long ride on the subway afterward, we’d each been preoccupied with our private thoughts.

It was only when we were again part of the madding crowd ambling along the sidewalks, blinking in the sunlight, baking in the heat, gratefully accepting the shade of buildings we passed, that I had thought about where we were going.

People were lounging in this park, too. Much less grass here, more pavement. Students, people playing chess, two young ladies entertaining a large group of children and several adults with comical puppets. All in the shadow of trees, NYU, and the grand Washington Square Arch. From a spot on a concrete bench across from the fountain, almost beneath a lamp post, we had a clear view across the square of that Arch, so reminiscent of its elder cousin at the head of the Champs-Elysées.

Saying nothing, I separated the guitar from its case, began tuning it softly.

“There is more to your story today,” Maio suggested, not taking the hint, “than there was yesterday.”

“True,” I agreed, tightening a string.

“Thought we knew each other,” Maio went on, shaking his head, dramatic and sad, full of pathos.

“Hardly,” I said, plucking the tightened sting, listening to its new sound, trying to guage how close I’d gotten. “What’s a brujo?”

“Witch,” he answered simply. “Sorceror. Shaman.”

“Strong words. You lose somebody in a museum, and suddenly there’s sorcery involved.”

“You trying to piss me off? I know what I saw.”

“Yeah, a brujo,” I said, bent over the guitar, but hearing the scowl in his voice. Then I decided to look up, just to check.

Maio was glaring at me. And scowling. I hadn't anticipated the glaring.

“So what’s that, anyway? Some Portuguese slang?”

“This here’s only part Portuguese. Rest is Navajo.”

“You’re a regular citizen of the world then, aren’t you?”

“You know it. So tell me: What are you?”

“Not a citizen of the world,” I told him, and lowered my head as I resumed the guitar-tuning.

“‘Course not,” he countered, “‘Cause you’re a brujo, too.”

With a sigh of resignation, I put down the guitar.

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“I’ve got eyes.”

“But I’ve left you in the dark?”

A nod.

“And now you want my story?”

Another nod.

I couldn’t resist a chuckle. His gaze was unblinking, and I’d swear his eyes had taken on a yellowish flavor, fierce and feral. This determined and unyielding fellow before me was a stranger. Until this moment, I had only been familiar with mellow, easy-going and fun-loving Maio. While taking in this new aspect of my friend, I got some words ready.

“Fine, okay, whatever you like. You’re right. I’m from a place nobody’s ever heard of. It’s out of the way, not part of the mix. What of it? That makes me a sorceror?”

He nodded one more time.

“You’re crazy,” I told him. “And what about you? Sorcerors, right! If I believed in such things, I’d say, ‘Takes one to know one.’”

“Maybe so.”

“So what is this? I show you mine, you’ll show me yours?”

“Works for me.”

I glanced at the people sitting at the edge of the fountain. Some kids were bouncing a rubber ball back and forth between them, missing it as often as they caught it. As I watched, the girl with the pony-tail ran toward us, retrieved the ball, turned around and sent it on a ricochet back to her partner.

“She was rich and spoiled, of course,” I began, settling on what I hoped would be a believable version of the true story. “The place was called Avalon—”

“The hotel?”

“No. The town of Avalon. Out on Catalina Island. There’s a ranch there with some prize-winning Arabians. We met while riding, and again later on at the kayak rental, where we relaxed by the water with our Piña Coladas.”

“Piña Coladas? You?” Maio gave a skeptical snort.

“It was what they were serving. Anyway, to shorten the story, we have a son.”

His eyes were wide.

“Who? Not the brujo?”

“The one you and I were following? Yes, he is my son.”

“Nah, he’s too old.”

“To be my son?” I laughed. “Thank-you for that. It means I’m older than I look.”

“Show me that drawing again.”

Reaching into a pocket, I pulled out a folded piece of heavy parchment, handed it over. And watched Maio spread it out on the bench between us, smoothing down the creases with his hand.

“Looks like you,” he decided after a moment, “But I thought this was a nephew or cousin.”

“Your guess was close.”

“Few years since you’ve seen each other.”

“What makes you say that?”

With his chin, he indicated the parchment.

“Drawing. No photo. Like a police sketch or something. You gave a copy to a P.I., right? Messy divorce?”

“Not really. There was never a marriage. You got the years part right, though.”

“Whatcha gonna do when you find him?”

“Talk.”

Maio smiled.

“You got lots of catching up to do.”

“True enough. And now you’re up. You’re a brujo?”

My friend’s smile widened a little.

“I know many ways. The drum. The dance. The fast. The peyote. The smoke. There are many roads to the Otherworld. Which one is yours?”

Now it was my turn to smile. I took back the drawing, folded it up, put it away. Out of a different pocket I withdrew a new item, a rectangular case. The case was somewhat worse for the wear, singed and scorched in places. Maio watched with keen interest as I opened it and removed what was inside. Then I spread them out on the space between us.

The cards.

My half-Navajo shaman friend studied them for nearly half a minute, then looked up at me.

“Tarot?”

“It’s the only way I know.”

“Where does it take you? What do you see?”

“Possibilities. Probabilities. Hints and suggestions.”

“Truth?”

“Always, but the truth can look different to different people. We see the truth we’re prepared to see. Which would be the secret of the cards, if it had to be put into a sentence.”

He began to reach for them, but I interposed a hand.

“Touching them affects what they reveal. Likewise, their touch also affects you.”

“Two-way street, eh?”

“Think of it as Newton’s Third Law extended to the metaphysical plane. Or an expression of Bell’s Theorem.”

“Alexander Graham?”

“No, different guy. Spent time thinking about how two objects, once in contact, thereafter remain connected, no matter how separated in time and space they may become.”

“Every brujo knows that,” Maio said, underwhelmed by the information. “Amulets and spells could not work without it.”

“Are those Tarot cards?” asked a new voice.

The voice belonged to a short, stout, middle-aged woman clutching a shopping-bag.

“Yes,” I replied, wishing I had moved faster to put them away.

“Isn’t one of those―you?”

“I can see you’re an observant person. And you’re right. These were prepared by a member of my family.”

“Well, whoever-it-was is an excellent artist. Looks just like you.”

“He’d be pleased by the compliment,” I informed her, belatedly gathering up the cards.

“Can I have a reading?”

In a well-practiced move, I’d already squared the cards one-handed, opening the case with my other. Goal: make the cards quickly disappear.

Giving the woman a rueful, self-deprecating smile, I shook my head and opened my mouth to say, “No.”

Instead of “No,” however, I heard, “Thirty-five dollars.”

I have it on good authority that a shaman said this, and not me.

“Thirty-five?” the flabbergasted shopper repeated.

I looked at Maio. He was holding up the harp he’d gotten me to try earlier.

“Suggested donation. Harp accompaniment provided at no extra charge. Sets up the right vibrations, you know.”

“What?”

“Egypt,” Maio answered right away, settling the harp squarely between his knees, sweeping hands over the strings to elicit a pleasant glissando.

“Egypt?”

“Yeah, Tarot comes from Egypt. World’s oldest harps, too. Pharoahs had harps play when the Priests of On used the cards to tell the future.”

“Really? I’ve never heard that.”

“My friend Carl here knows what I’m talking about. Most of the secret tradition of the Tarot isn’t written down. Only given to seventh sons.”

She looked at me.

“Is that true?”

“Maio is Navajo, and a shaman. I’ve never known him to say anything that’s not true.”

“I’ve been having my fortune told for years. No one’s ever mentioned any of this.”

“What about the incense?” Maio demanded immediately.

“I don’t know. What does incense have to do with it?”

“Sacrifice. When a reading was done for a pharoah, a holy animal was sacrificed so the gods would breathe truth into the cards. So now it’s incense.”

“You’ve confused me.”

“Incense smoke has replaced the smoke of the animal sacrifice.”

“And that works? That deceives the gods?”

“Don’t ask me, I’m not the expert. Ask him.”

She was looking at me again.

Clearing my throat, I said, “Well, not exactly. The gods are not deceived. But holy incense can be substituted for sacrificial smoke, yes. But the scents, whatever they are, must please the Powers That Be.”

“Well, where’s your incense?”

“You’re right,” I instantly agreed. “A reading in a spirit true to the origins of the Tarot is not possible without smoke. Oh, well, sorry to have wasted your time.”

Then I watched as Maio produced an incense stick, lit it, and took up the harp.

I took a breath, then slowly let it out.

“So...do you have a question for the cards?”



The next morning, I grabbed breakfast at my hotel over in Murray Hill. Maio met me there in the lobby, where he scarfed toast, grapefruit, and a couple of cans of orange juice from the continental. He was excited after the previous day’s big haul, and couldn’t wait to get started.

The shopper who had been our first customer hadn’t coughed up the suggested thirty-five bucks. She’d given my companion a five for his harp-playing, however. And had rewarded me with a twenty — not bad for fifteen minutes of dealing out Amber’s Tarots and finding meanings in how they fell.

Several onlookers of that first reading had found irresistible the prospect of glimpsing the future through a set of cards, beautiful, unique, magical and strange. One person after another elected to sit with me at the edge of the square, placing their trust in the otherworldly Tarots and the big bearded lout — Yours Truly — who revealed their mysteries one dramatic turn at a time.

Yeah, I’d never gotten around to taking off the beard I’d had since before Mirata. Gave me a kind of Biblical look, conveniently in keeping with working alongside Maio for whatever pocket-money passing New Yorkers were willing to part with for a scrap of song. Or — now — a bit of fortune-telling.

As we’d gotten a late start the other day, the goal this time was to spend most of the day in Washington Square. And hopefully raking it in. As usual, we would spell each other, covering our staked-out turf in shifts. When together, the idea was for one of us to take the lead, with the other providing back-up and — most critically — keeping an eye on donations tossed into Maio's hat (a wide sombrero) and my guitar-case.

There were always one or two unscrupulous sorts willing to pilfer the take when the performer was distracted by the audience. This was the monkey-stick-and-hat leverage Maio had employed on me in the pub. Only rarely did he ever bring out the stick, a thing rigged with bells and colorful ribbons, waved and shaken to call attention to our activities. But the hat (which term also broadly applied to anything used to collect gratuities) was an integral part of our operation. Maio claimed that in the past he’d lost a flute, drumsticks, a banjo, over sixty dollars, and a loaf of fresh-baked bread while responding to honest spectators. A second set of eyes was good to have.

Well before noon, as I was shuffling the cards between readings, my cohort stood up abruptly, alert. He was watching someone nearby intently.

“What is it?” I asked.

He closed his eyes, flared his nostrils, sniffed the air.

“Ham and swiss. On rye. With mustard, but also...some horseradish. And a dill pickle.”

“Really? You can tell all that from just a whiff of someone's sandwich?”

He opened his eyes, looked at me and shrugged.

“Does it matter? I’ve gotta get something to eat.”

“Pick me up something, too, then. A BLT would be a nice finish to that light breakfast.”

He waited till I handed him some money. When he took the cash, he handed me the damned harp.

“You should practice, you know. Put the Tarot away for now. Be a walk-by act while I’m gone. That way, you can chow down soon’s I get back.”

“I’ll think about it,” I said, not particularly liking what sounded like someone trying to give me orders. The prickly prince-of-Amber ego thing, I suppose. His argument, however, was persuasive, as all this talk of food had made me hungry. So I set the harp down beside me, going back to my shuffling.

“Only way you’ll get any better,” he commented before walking off.

As soon as he was out of sight, I put away the cards and picked up the thing. Realistically, it would take years of steady practice before I could claim to be a passable harpist. I was frankly embarrassed to try playing it with people around. Then, thinking about it just a second or two longer, I decided I didn’t care. Maio's schtick was making money from music. My cash reserves were holding up just fine, and I reminded myself I was out in the open for an entirely different reason. So I positioned the harp near the middle of my body as I had seen Maio do, lightly ran my hands over the strings. It was a pretty thing, and sounded sweet even at the touch of my unschooled fingers.

Looking around the square, I noted the guy over by the fountain, juggling small water-balloons, entertaining the kids just as much when he dropped one (for the comedy, and not by accident, or so it seemed to my eye) as when he expertly kept three in the air. There was a person completely covered in white, almost unmoving, made up like George Washington — a living statue. What looked to be a potato sack hung from his left hand, and with his right he periodically reached into it, moving quite slowly, removing fistfuls of cherry blossoms which he scattered at his feet. Earlier, I had seen him pull out a bunch of black cherries instead, offering them to passersby. Facing him a short distance away stood a woman completely covered in green make-up, a diminutive Statue of Liberty, also moving at inchworm speed, alternately distributing printed copies of the Declaration of Independence and a poem. Both stood on sturdy wooden pedestals, and I had only seen them take one break that morning. There was also a lively young man who swallowed a sword, or sometimes fire, while riding a unicycle.

I was hopelessly outclassed, but didn’t mind. That other more professional acts would draw the lion’s share of the park's visitors suited me very well. The spectators of the last reading I had given stood about uncertainly. When a couple put themselves forward, hoping to be next, I smiled and shook my head, which I then lowered for a better view of the strings.

There was a time, so long ago that I can no longer claim to even know when it was, that my grandfather Dworkin had tried to rein in the latest boy prince a little by giving him lessons in playing the harp. It had kept me from running all over the palace and the grounds, where I had demonstrated a precocious talent for annoying both family and staff. This memory came back to me now, so unexpected, so suddenly strong, that I felt my eyes sting. Other memories followed hard on its heels as I slowly moved from glittering brass wire to glittering brass wire, each humming and glowing, bright and transparent like rays of the sun. One refulgent note after another rippled around me like a timeless breeze. The shining strings held my gaze, while the sounds they made opened up forgotten vistas in my mind.

I was moved to sing. Softly they came at first, the words. And I let them come.

“After the River of the Blessed, the sea.
There we sat down, yea, we wept
when we remembered Avalon.
Our swords were shattered in our hands
and we hung our shields on th’oak tree.”

From the way a kind of quiet had begun to hover about the music, I knew someone’s ear had been caught. I played on.

“In the enchanted wood no more hang
the golden apples, said the minstrel
on his way back from Avalon.
Of the leaves which once turned there
and the city on the hill he sang:”

Someone stood close by. I could not trust myself to look up, not yet. The song would have its way with me first, and then we would see.

“‘The silver towers were fallen
into a sea of blood.
How many miles to Avalon?
None, I say, and all.
The silver towers are fallen.’”

The song was done. I set down the harp and was quiet for five heartbeats. Then I looked up and saw him there among those who had come close to hear my song. And I was not surprised.

“So you’re done chasing mythical beasts. And traded them in for a certain Prince Corwin. Good. Bleys told me you and Martin located the other realms prior to your disappearance. Then we met as prisoners right before you and Bleys were to be hurled into the abyss. Yet here you are. So have a seat. It’s time you told me a story.”

Not actually looking at me right away, but seeming focused on something far off, Merlin sat down beside me. He sat down there in the park on that bright, beautiful, sunny day. To me, he seemed a sleepwalker, a man lost in a dream. One, however, who was slowly waking. And, after awhile, he began to talk.

copyright © 2008 Lokabrenna @ Blogger (JTB)  ¶ 4:00 PM 0 comments

  Bailout: Save Our Starbucks!
Starbucks Reveals Locations Of Stores to Be Closed by Janet Adamy (Wall Street Journal)

Fannie Mae? Freddie Mac? Chrysler?

So why not Starbucks?

And why not DeLorean, for that matter? Much cooler cars than anything to come out of Chrysler! Oh well, what's done is done, and, sadly, there will not be any trips "back to the future." The Tucker Torpedo (1948's very cool innovative auto, the DeLorean of its day) is gone, too - only the fat cats get saved, that's how this game is played.

But Starbucks isn't a David bucking some collusion-ridden monopolistic industrial triumvirate (i.e., isn't a small newcomer going up against the Big Three in automaking or anything else). In the world of coffee, Starbucks is the big kid on the block. And it's about to flush 600 stores.

So, Uncle Sam, while you're busy throwing billions of taxpaid dollars/debt at mega-corporate pals of America's wealthy elite, why not open the door to a fresh face? Sure, Starbucks hasn't been around long enough to be a fixture in the corporate establishment and a part of Bush's "base" (remember his "some call you super-rich the elite, I call you my base" comment?). But a bailout would certainly help to ensure that one day it might be.

S.O.S, Sam! Save Our Starbucks!

(I'm losing my favorite, located at the center of a local outdoor mall, where the shoppers have too much money, but the people-watching and outdoor venue make it more than worthwhile to be there. Also, the staff at that store is great - but that's not really so unusual for Starbucks now, is it?)  ¶ 12:34 PM 0 comments

  Three Kings of Chaos
So that's it. The story is now laid out in ten chapters, as had been envisioned from the beginning. Each image in the text of each title, embodied in the pix I've lifted from here and there around the Web, could be part of a set of Trumps. The summit of Kolvir, the palace grounds, the all-important library, Tir-na Nog'th, the Grove of the Unicorn, the brink of the abyss before the Courts of Chaos, the Floating City within the Courts forever rearranging itself upon the Lake of Sleep, Ygg, the infernal tower where even Brand's powers could be checked, the well at Mirata, the power center on the Shadow Earth known as Manhattan - all excellent subjects for a Master of the Line to tackle in the course of producing a deck of intriguing Trumps powered by the Pattern.

Still looking for a title for this messy fan fiction erected in the memory of Roger Zelazny. Three Kings of Chaos will have to do till something better comes along (maybe The Call of Chaos, All in for Chaos...?). Meanwhile, there may be some rewriting ahead, some punching up of the material.

If, in some fashion, you are a fan - either of Zelazny, fantasy, or stolen writing materials - then wish me well. I will probably be back. And - who knows? - maybe I'll find the fire to tackle other parts of Corwin's later years, as he steps up perhaps for the last time to rediscover his ideals, the life sleeping in his soul, and what he truly loves in this world. Even someone who has been around a thousand or more years is never too old to learn something. If you're not in the mood to wish me well, then consider wishing Corwin luck as he forges ahead, trying to learn what's truly at the bottom of the machinations cooked up in the Courts of Chaos. The mystery is a bigger knot than he realizes and will take all his resources to untie. With enough luck, some cunning and courage, and a little help from his friends, though, he just might succeed. Or get close enough for government work.

Then again, the journey of the hero, especially the aging hero, is not just about discovering all the things he can (and should) do, but sometimes is about discovering some of the things he can't (and, maybe, shouldn't) do. Not every game at the stadium ends with a victory for the home team. Put another way, the first series of Amber books ended with a victory for Amber over Chaos, but what sort of a "victory" was it really? And if Amber were to lose in some continuation of that conflict, would losing necessarily be such a bad thing?

Food for thought, perhaps.

Chronicles of Shadow ~ BOOK ONE:

Chapter One: Kolvir

Chapter Two: The South Garden

Chapter Three: The Library

Chapter Four: Tir-na Nog'th

Chapter Five: Grove of the Unicorn

Chapter Six: The Abyss

Chapter Seven: The Lake of Sleep

Chapter Eight: The Tree

Chapter Nine: The Pit

Chapter Ten: The Well

For the entire thing in just two windows:

Beginning and End

Amber-related posts:

Chronicles of Amber

Chronicles of Shadow?

Which Amberite Are You?  ¶ 12:09 PM 0 comments

  Chapter Ten: The Well
CHAPTER TEN

In my youth, in better days long past, I’d visited these mountains and this valley with my brother Brand. I knew the Bandarnath Temple and the well, whose fame ran out from this place to the ends of the Shirai, to Keshwar where the river finally surrendered itself to the sea, to the holy city of Arkand off in the mountains at the river’s headwaters. There was a time when kings and conquerors would not go into battle without first entering the temple to implore the favor of the Old Ones, the earliest generation of the gods of this land. The kingdoms to either side of the Shirai, however, had not gone to war in an age, and no ruler had visited the temple in centuries.

A drink from the well was supposed to confer a blessing. All I knew, though, standing there in heat that made the air flinch, was that I was thirsty. So I started up the path through the temple grove. Many things were turning in my head, so I didn’t hurry.

I was free.

But I was not where I had hoped to be. How had this happened? Perhaps, considering where I’d been held, the unpredictable forces of Chaos were responsible? There was also, I realized, the remote possibility of an Amberite performing some sort of operation on the Trumps. But it would have to be truly global, so all Trumps everywhere, even mine in my cell, were affected.

The chances of such a thing occurring at all, and occurring whilst I was testing out one of my homemade jobs, would normally be rather low. But if Chaos and Amber were now openly at war, almost anything could be happening.

Or I had simply screwed up, somehow focused on the wrong Trump. Entirely possible, given my oddball setup for getting them to work.

The temple grove behind me, I had come abreast of the terraced vegetable garden, and could see the way ahead more clearly.

There was a woman sitting by the well. I hadn’t noticed her before because her robes, like the well, were white.

Intrigued, I shifted my meanderings toward the back of my mind.

A few minutes of hiking at a renewed pace brought me within the circle of trees. Turning, I looked down toward the temple, which stood at the west end of town, overlooking a deep and sweeping valley. Clouds left soft blemishes on the green and yellow slopes below, grays which were almost blue. Probably a trick of the sudden widening of the sky there. Dust-choked roads ran through it, carrying merchants, farmers, travelers, and their carts, wagons and carriages, many following the banks of the gleaming Shirai. A view I had not seen in several hundred years, and it was good to see it again.

“A drink, traveler?”

She was seated in a chair draped in fine cloth of dark purple dye. The screen of a parasol painted with gods and heroes striving within the wheel of time stood over her. As she sat in the shade, it seemed logical the parasol offered protection from debris falling from the trees rather than an excess of sun. Either way, it was a nice decoration.

“A drink would be good, yes.”

“You have alms?”

“In days of old, a simple task performed on behalf of the temple was known to suffice. But that was all on the honor system. Back then, no one waited at the well.”

She lifted the brim of her thin silk hat — thin as gauze, so that I could see through it a little. And slowly looked me up and down. Blue eyes, red hair that made no secret of its treasure of silver, laid out in streaks found near the temples. Though she smiled, her gaze was strangely intense and searching.

“That was a very long time ago.”

Gesturing over my shoulder with my eyes and a slight turn of my head, I assented to that.

“Longer than I’d have guessed. The view’s changed.”

Her look suggested the question. So I answered it:

“The Sadar Gate no longer guards against the valley.”

She seemed to accept that.

“A long time,” she agreed. “What brought you here on that other occasion?”

“More of a ‘who.’ My brother liked to paint when he entered one of his bad spells, and this region was one of his favorite subjects.”

“You came to test its beauty against his paintings?”

“No, I came for his own protection. I was worried about him. But was glad I came. Yours is a pleasant and peaceful land.”

“You loved this brother, who perhaps no longer walks in this world?”

I realized I had spoken of Brand in the past tense.

“Sometimes. You know how brothers can be.”

“And now something else brings you here. And you wish to drink once more from the sacred well, though you have no alms.”

I glanced down at myself. My uncombed beard fell to my chest, and the hair hanging down to my shoulders was in no better shape. I was barefoot, but as the excess of my water ration had been invested in my art project, little had been left over for cleaning purposes. The truth was that I was filthy. If anything, I imagined I resembled a beggar or a prophet.

So why would a sweet old lady insist I pay for a drink of water?

I gave myself another look. The trousers were of good weave and my light jacket suggested that — once, perhaps — I might have enjoyed a better life. Did she think me some nobleman in disguise, wandering the land as one of its poor, learning how it went with the people? An old story, and a rather trite one. But not unheard-of. If such was her thought, however, wouldn’t she prefer the good opinion of someone in power?

Not necessarily. She might consider honoring temple rules and divine law to be of such great importance as to override all other considerations.

Whatever, I was here to play the beggar, and the beggar I would be.

“Is it still possible, as it was in days of old, to earn a drink with basic labor?”

“It is easier than that,” she answered, keeping her eyes on mine. “A simple kiss will do.”

“What?”

“A kiss. On the mouth,” was her matter-of-fact response.

“I —”

“Yes?”

An unusual request, though certainly fair. I’d kissed baronesses at a few of Dad’s state functions, many of them much older than the woman before me. Yet…a strange request all the same. Still, what the hell? If she wanted a kiss from a hairy old beggar, I supposed I could oblige.

Before I could make answer, she added, “You are a very handsome young man, you know.”

“Really? Because I haven’t checked, but I may have fleas.”

She laughed.

“Very well, then. Your name, a kiss, and the water is yours.”

“You need my name?”

“You come here skulking and shame-faced, then you are unworthy of the well’s blessings. What does your soul tell you? Are you brave and good? Or too proud, or perhaps ashamed, to reveal yourself to the gods of the temple, the well and the grove? Can you tell me your name?”

“Well, I’m not too sure about the ‘good.’ Or the brave part either, come to think of it.”

“But you will give me your name?”

She was watching me closely.

It was silly of me to object. Who knew of Prince Corwin of Amber in this outback of Shadow? What could be the harm? There was trade with Amber, however, through the port of Keshwar, so the possibility existed that a few of our wretched crew were known here (though it was most likely that the best of our number, Gérard, was the only prince of Amber known in these parts — he dealt with captains from Shadows far and wide). Otherwise, though, her arguments were reasonable.

“I might lie. We beggars are known for our lies.”

“You won’t. So I can expect to hear a name?”

“All right.”

She got to her feet, very slowly. And something happened.

This lady was older than I — at least older than I looked. And there was a power in her. No wonder she did not care if I came from high or low. The low-born could not do anything to her, of course, but, then, I didn’t think the high-born could either.

She held out her hand to me, as though we might embark upon a pavane. Very formal, and confident.

There was something of the air of enchantment here. I sensed it strongly now. Three times she had demanded my name, weaving the charm. And I had granted her the right to require it of me. Her power was real enough.

But she was trying to use it on a prince of Amber. I was out of her league.

Her boldness and her imminent failure both made me smile as I took her hand and bestowed a gentle kiss on her dry lips.

And, prepared as I was, she still surprised me. There was more to her than I’d guessed. A moment passed while my surprise registered, and she pressed her mouth — not so dry, after all — firmly against mine, with the sort of passion a lady might show a lover.

Just as I was about to draw back, she pulled away, her smile having much in common with cats who do terrible things to canaries.

“And now?”

There, I caught it. An accent she’d nearly lost. I could almost place it.

“After the drink, I’ll tell you.”

She inclined her head in response and moved over to the well.

“You don’t need to do that. I’ll be happy to haul up the water.”

“I will do it.”

She did, and I realized she was strong, stronger than any old lady I could recall. And perhaps not as old as I had thought. That well probably went over one hundred feet down. Yet the rope flew through her hands. In no time, the bucket rested beside the well. From within her robe, she produced a simple stone cup, filled it, and offered it to me.

I reached for it, but she shook her head.

“This is the temple’s cup. It cannot leave me.”

“And you’d like my name?”

“That, too.”

I wanted to lie to her, but I had just witnessed her feat of strength. More was surely going on than was meeting the eye. So I hedged.

“You were somewhat interested in my earlier visit here. And I freely gave up a lot of information about myself. I’m attempting to travel anonymously at this time — some bad people are after me. So how about this? Will you settle for my brother’s name instead?”

She didn’t hesitate.

“Yes.”

“His name was Brand.”

And she nodded, as if she’d known it all along. Then she stepped close and held the cup to my lips.

Greedily, I drank.

She gave me two more cupfuls of the well’s sacred water.

It had not been all that long since I’d consumed some of my water ration, but what came from that cup was cold, sweet, pure. Surpassed only, as far as I knew, by that found in the Grove of the Unicorn.

She put away the cup, took my hand in hers, began leading me back down the path.

“Where are we going?”

“You are hungry.”

Once she said it, I knew that I was. Famished, actually. For real food, not prison fare.

“The High Priestess of Bandarnath will give you a meal and help set you on your way.”

“She will?”

The woman in the white robe glanced up at me as she drew me along.

“I am the High Priestess of Bandarnath.”



And that is how, after more than five hundred years, I came again to the well at Mirata.

And she was as good as her word. She led me up to the porch on the second floor and left me sitting by a table, staring off into space. It was a moment before I really saw the gift she’d given me. Because I was still seeing the first floor temple interior through which we’d just passed.

It had been a corridor bisecting other corridors down which we’d walked. No doors, and everything speaking of unstinting opulence. Every bit of the walls and ceilings were intricately carved (of wood, I assumed), and overlaid with ivory and gold. The floor an elaborate mosaic I had not tried to unravel. Lamps and braziers burned everywhere, again causing me to wonder if the interior were truly carved of wood — if so, then the temple was an inferno which hadn’t gotten around to igniting just yet.

I’d waited till we’d left the flickering, glittering space, so as not to disturb the priestesses, acolytes, worshippers and others moving through their rituals, quietly seeking a better understanding of the wisdom of their gods. As we had ascended toward the upper deck, though, I’d asked my question.

“My memory is hardly reliable, but wasn’t this place once consecrated to the Bright God, the Lord of the Stone?”

“It still is.”

“Were there priestesses here then? I can’t recall any.”

“The temple was destroyed, the priests killed. Our order rebuilt it. We are the living female energy to the god's transcendent male energy.”

“Ah, I see.”

Which explained the upgrade from the simpler and more airy temple space I’d remembered — “This Temple Under New Management.”

The gift she’d arranged for me was a slightly altered version of the prospect across the valley I’d been afforded from the well. Then the food started coming, and I was distracted again. Vegetables, beans and grains prepared in a variety of ways, most of them spicy and hot, all of them good. That no meat touched the table didn’t surprise me too much; it was not their way, these folk who valued all life. When I’d demolished the main courses, out came the desserts of fruit, which I doggedly wiped out. All presented very prettily, I might add, but I showed none of the foodstuffs a trace of mercy. The meal tested my appetite just the same, and I lost track of the courses they served, slowing only when I realized they’d truly filled me up.

In short, they fêted me like, well, like a prince.

I was sad, though again, not surprised, when wine, beer, or any other head-spinning stuff failed to put in an appearance.

So I enjoyed the tea.

And I noticed things. Like the golden girl with the long dark hair and long dark eyes, who could not keep the look of consternation out of those eyes as she took away the party-sized bowl of noodles and vegetables which I’d emptied. And the beautiful girl with dark gleaming skin, who used both hands to carry away the wide fruit basket I’d lightened, mouthing an “Oh” as she rounded the table. And the gray-eyed elven lass who brought out the after-dinner tea — and a small pot of honey — who, seeing the astonished girl heading back to the stairs with the empty fruit basket, allowed a corner of her mouth to quirk upward.

“Plenty of diversity in this region,” I observed. “Rarely have I seen its like, save in my own land.”

“History has already happened here,” she acknowledged, setting down her cup with a jiggle, looking down at the rippling surface, watching (I supposed) the tea leaves dance. “Every way imaginable to kill and torture each other has been used here in the service of all mannner of societies, religions and governments. From one side of the continent to the other. And once the rulers and warlords had exhausted all the possibilities, they would go back to the beginning and start the whole business over again. Diversity has been a curse to us, though it was through our many peoples and their many ways that we finally found a remedy. And peace.”

“So what was the cure?”

“The Harp of Harmony. The Cup of Contentment. The Sacred Song. The Light of Love. The Dance of Duality. The Grace of the Grail. The Lyre —”

“Crap,” I said, and watched her patiently steeple her fingers, letting them rest against her lips. Her eyebrows lifted a little, inquiringly. That I suspected her to be holding back a smile made me burn a little, but I checked my natural responses right there. Because I’d belatedly remembered my manners.

“I shouldn’t have said that. Please allow me to apologize.”

“Why?” she asked, seeming surprised.

“Because they’re your beliefs.”

“And you were about to state yours,” she said. “I wish you would.”

“Okay,” I said, taking a deep breath. “Well, why does this system of beliefs require so many aliases? If a belief system with that many names wrote me a check for my soul, I’d expect to have some trouble cashing it.”

Then she really caught fire. When it came to verbal sparring, she held her own just fine. And it quickly became obvious that she enjoyed people who disagreed with her. She let me know that not only did the continent contain every race, and a hundred or more kingdoms, but that there were also thousands, even millions, of gods. She claimed the multiplicity of religions was one of the reasons for the many names for their underlying truth.

“With that many gods hanging around,” I said, “it stands to reason there’s a fair chance of bumping into one or two on your way to the bathroom. Must happen all the time.”

Her eyes widening appreciatively, her expression very serious, she agreed, “It is sometimes necessary to ‘hold it’ all day, due to the line. And getting mirror time can be a real problem.”

“Then I won’t shave,” I announced. “And I’ll stop eating and drinking. Problem solved.”

She burst out laughing then, so that I couldn’t help a chuckle myself.

The conversation wound its way through all manner of topics — music, something this old city was known for in particular, renowned as it was for its manufacture of musical instruments, and art, astronomy and cartography — before she introduced a certain subject. And the whole time, though both of us were having fun, it was a conversation between two people without names. She seemed to enjoy calling me “Brand’s brother,” while I had little choice but to call her “High Priestess.”

“Brand’s brother, where will you go when you leave here?”

“Back whence I came, High Priestess.”

“And where is that?”

“Jail.”

“That is a very strange answer.”

“I know.”

She sighed.

“Well, perhaps I can help you. Do you require provisions of any kind?”

“I do.”

“Name them for me.”

“Art supplies and a small room in which to work.”

“That answer is stranger than the other.”

“I know.”

“I will help you, if you will do something for me in exchange.”

“And what would that be?”

“Allow me to watch. And to help you, if I can.”

“Your answer is as strange as mine, I think. But, yes, I won’t mind either a spectator or a critic, or both.”

“Then we are agreed, brother of Brand?”

“We are agreed, Priestess who is Most High.”

That got me an odd look, so I pointed to her teacup.

“I was just beginning to wonder if the acolytes were having a little fun, maybe, spiking the tea with something. No? Well, of course not. Just a joke. No offense taken, I hope? I’m still getting my art supplies?”



She kept her sense of humor, and I got my art supplies.

My studio consisted of a small shed, open on one side, roofed with cloth stretched over the two crosspieces overhead, with just enough room for me and my stuff. It was situated only a few yards away from the well, from which vantage she liked to watch the valley, the traffic going into and out of Mirata, and, of course, the approach of those who desired the blessings of the well.

When no one was around, she would watch me work. And offered small doses of praise, tempered by simple constructive suggestions. Never more than one suggestion at a time. Her advice being remarkably insightful on the whole, I found myself implementing most of her ideas, always with good results.

Also, because we were alone with each other for long stretches, she gave me her name.

“‘Claire’ is what those who know me well call me. You may call me ‘Claire.’”

“That name belongs in Mirata about as much as I do. But I already had you pegged as an expatriate from somewhere else. As for me, I’m known to some as ‘Corey.’ You can call me that, if you like.”

“What makes you want to go back to jail, Corey?”

“An attack of conscience. I don’t feel I’ve finished paying my debt to society, you see.”

Thinking I heard a chuckle, I turned my head away from my canvas (where a half-decent study of the valley was taking shape) to glimpse the expression on her face.

She was serious and serene, her hands folded neatly in her lap.

Perhaps I’d imagined the chuckle. I returned to the canvas.

“How noble of you,” she remarked. “You know, our kalsha” — the golden tree-topper that completed the temple's spire — “is not fixed very securely. The next big storm will knock it down, and beggars and thieves less honest than you will try to make off with it. You could repay some of your debt to society by better securing it to the tower.”

“How will that help society?”

“Stealing from a temple is a serious crime. You will be helping other unfortunates avoid a lot of trouble. And, as society paid for that kalsha, you will be sparing society needless additional expense.”

“You are very wise, High Priestess.”

“Another benefit,” she continued. “Sir Corey will be furthering his spiritual development, which may also be good for society.”

“Or at least not as harmful as the alternative,” I tried.

“It is as though you are reading my mind.”

That time I was able to turn quickly enough to catch her grin.

It turned out she liked to draw, paint, make things. She showed me a woodcut she’d done of the well years ago, and I was impressed. As I’d already surmised, she had obviously had another life in some other place before coming to Mirata, the City of Music. She never spoke of it, though, and I never asked. I was grateful for what she was willing to share of that other time and place — namely, her expertise in art.

So I got better. Much more quickly than I’d have done on my own, of that I was sure. Still, nowhere near quick enough. Though I was burning with impatience, with the urgency to come to Amber’s aid, I remained convinced that this was what I needed to do. The old Corwin had miscalculated in the past, and paid a terrible price, without any benefit accruing to Amber. I was not about to charge into the middle of things without being ready. And I wasn’t ready.

But I was aching with curiosity. How were things going at home? To find out, I’d only have to hellride out to the Forest of Arden, see how close I could get. Easy enough, as so many mistakes are. If the place were embroiled in full-scale war, I could very quickly find myself at the mercy of whatever was happening there. And then what? Without a set of Trumps, or some other special advantage, I could lose my freedom and much else besides.

So instead I chose to spend a few weeks in the company of an attractive older woman, whose humor and intelligence delighted me, while I practiced drawing and painting. In the mornings I rose and put myself through some basic physical exercises. Checking with the acolytes of the temple, I would inquire after any chores that I could take on. (And I did fix the kalsha — a wedge, rope, some crosspieces and a few rocks did the trick.) They trusted me enough to send me into Mirata to purchase oil for the lamps, spices they were unable to grow on the premises, ingredients for their medicines, paper, and other sundries.

A couple of times, I yielded to the temptation to take a detour off into Shadow, where various temple necessities happened to be readily available (because I willed them to be, of course), returning to the temple with the items and the unspent funds, which I suggested be put back into the till. This earned me a few strange looks. Word naturally got back to the High Priestess — Claire — who never troubled to mention it to me.

Though she did help me with my painting, my skill in drawing showed more promise. As soon as I felt ready, I attempted my first Trump, an Eiffel Tower. Didn’t work, of course.

Seeing my frustration, she asked, “What is wrong?”

“I’m trying to create a special effect, but it’s not working.”

“A special effect?”

“Yes, an image hidden within the drawing, which I’m trying to keep in the background. But there’s a problem.”

“What is the problem?”

“I need to give the hidden image added depth, greater dimensionality. Yet if I draw too much attention to that image, it threatens to overwhelm the actual subject.”

“That is a difficult problem.”

“Yes, I’m at a loss.”

“Try trees.”

So I did. I tried for a stretch of trail in Arden. It was easy to hide the Pattern in the sea of leaves. She showed me how to stagger the image, so that it was echoed in more than one place, found in more than one line.

I set the drawing down on a page in the artist's notebook/sketchpad I was developing.

And this time, when I felt for the place on the other side of the image, something was there.

Arden waited for me, and I knew how to make Trumps.

I wanted a Trump for Rebma, and Claire showed me how to use the waves. My Trump for the Eiffel Tower offered places for the Pattern in the steel beams, in the delineation of city skyline, in the shadings of the sky itself.

Each subject offered a different challenge; you had to be creative about it each time.

Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying it was easy. There were definitely a few tricks to it. For one, when it came to working the Pattern into an image, the best approach for me was a bit like automatic writing, or Ouija. It worked better if I relaxed and let things flow. Also, I found it helped if I had a representation of the Pattern to one side or the other of the space where I was working, even on both sides. Its presence at the periphery of my vision seemed to make things go better. Don't know if that was some conditioning left over from my time in my cell, the place Airu had called Murtuya. But it worked.

I couldn’t yet produce genuine Trumps, pasteboards imbued with the power of the Pattern. Mine were several times larger, and laid out on stiff sheets in my sketchpad. Not as easy to carry, or to use and then put away, as one of Dworkin's decks. None of that mattered, of course, so long as they worked.

So, slowly, carefully, I labored to produce the Trumps I thought I needed.

And then I was ready.

“I’m ready,” I told her.

“To go back to your jail?”

“That’s right. Your help has been invaluable to me. Thank you for everything.”

“Thank you for the donation you left with the temple this morning. May I ask where you came into possession of such a fortune in jewels? And how?”

“By honest means, rest assured. The temple need not worry about tainted wealth. I’m an amateur geologist; there’s a place by a waterfall I know of, off in the mountains. That’s where I went yesterday.”

A small lie. I had gone away the day before, but to a sleeping volcano in another Shadow where corundum in the rough could be chipped from exposed rock, and also could be found in the stream running down its slopes. There had even been a waterfall close by. A jeweler in Mirata had cut the stones for me, keeping a few for himself as payment.

“It is the largest gift we've received in the living memory of the temple.”

“And still less than you and the temple deserve. I’ve rarely been so well looked after, or so at peace. And the art instruction you've given has been priceless.”

“Stay one more night,” she said unexpectedly.

“Why?”

“If I have helped you,” said she, gentle yet insistent, “then stay one more night.”

I owed her too much, and so did not refuse. That night I fell asleep on my pallet as I had dozens of times. This time, though, I woke sometime after midnight, restless, and went to stand outside my hut. The moon shone bright and strong on the mountainside and made the valley glow. Tigers sometimes prowled here, so I waited. But I heard no tiger. After awhile, I went back inside.

Someone was there.

She was stretched out on the place where I slept. A daughter of the temple? A girl from the town? It wasn’t like I hadn’t had offers. Nevertheless, I had worked hard to cultivate the persona of a monk. So I was still rather surprised.

She sat up as I came closer, leaning back on her elbows. Even in the dark, I could see her smile. Slowly, she reached out toward me, and I leaned closer to her as she did. She placed a finger on my lips and sat all the way up, putting her other hand around my neck. The heady scents of flowers, herbs, and other things made a forest of her hair and a country of her skin, lighting up my senses, sparking my brain. Her face moved toward mine.

We kissed.

The touch of her lips made me think I might be dreaming.

“Corwin,” she breathed, and a part of me wondered that she knew my name. But I was already on the bed with her, and she was already drawing me closer.

I answered so softly that she might not have heard the word: “Yes.”

“Love me,” she whispered back.

Her hands were sliding beneath my clothing. Her skin was cool where it touched mine. She kissed my ear, ran fingers through my hair. Cool skin, and I had goosebumps, a thrilling skein woven wherever she touched.

And I caressed her, covered her with kisses of my own. The world went away as I held her, breathed her, tasted her.

Loved her.



When I woke the next morning, she was gone, my only company the questions she had left behind. Slowly, I dressed and got my things together. Stepping outside my hut, I took a look around.

The High Priestess had taken her place beside the well by this time as she always did. Seeing me, she looked up and smiled. With my sketchpad in one hand and pack in the other, I descended toward the well.

There was so much unspoken, and so little of it which I was prepared to say. Though I hadn't meant to let her get so close, in that moment I understood just how important to me she had become. So I simply said, “You never told me why.”

“The kiss?” she asked, her smile widening.

“We could start there.”

She turned her gaze up toward the leaves above her, then looked down toward the temple before she made her reply.

“As High Priestess, one of the roles I play is that of teacher. The kiss was both a lesson and a test. It was really no different from my helping you with your drawing. If you gained by it, then you learned something.”

“I will never be a real artist,” I confessed, while turning her words over for their full meanings, “but, thanks to you, I can see into my own mind better. And show what I see. You have been an excellent teacher.”

“I did have another student once,” she let me know, thoughtfully regarding me once more.

“Then I feel I’ve benefitted from the teaching practice he — or she — provided. I suppose you’ll always have another vocation available to you, if you should ever tire of temple life.”

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “That part of my life is over. It was nice revisiting it again with you, but Mirata is where I belong, at its temple. And now I will share with you a secret, if you would like to hear it.”

“I’m all ears,” I said, as I folded away the sketchpad, stowing it in the backpack I’d purchased with my new funds. I had also picked up some new clothes, not to mention a pair of boots. Ready for travel. It was another day hot enough to make the air shimmy and shake. My gaze wandered westward beyond the Temple of Bandarnath. The valley below beckoned, and I was eager to be on my way.

“I enjoy meeting those who come to the well,” she began. “Different things bring people here, and some come from distant lands, very far from here. Other worlds, I hear. There is a land called Avalon, very, very far away, and very hard to find, hidden somewhere in the Western Sea. Beyond it, they say, is a place even farther off, where our boldest sailors sometimes go…”

“Amber?”

“You know it? It is not a myth?”

“No myth,” I answered, straightening and hoisting the pack onto my shoulder. “I’ve been there. The city on the Mountain that Faces the Dawn truly surpasses description. But I will try. The streets sparkle, as though embedded with chips of diamond. Much of the city is of white stone, like your well here. The towers, green and gold, soar upward like shafts of light. The palace rises up from the mountainside, a dream of pale marble born from the mind of a madman or a genius. And there are those who say he is both. A stair cut into the mountain's eastern face wends back and forth across it in a journey that takes those yet-uncounted steps on a breathless descent from the city to the sea. Mountains rear behind that jewel, the mountain of light, in a long march to the north, clothed in the most magnificent wood that has ever been, the Forest of Arden. To the south the Vale of Garnath opens, divided by the great river Oisen, which runs down swift and strong from Jones Falls. And somewhere between Garnath and the summit of the mountain called Kolvir, cradled upon a ledge on the western slopes, it is said there is a place called the Grove of the Unicorn. A nook tucked into the mountainside that is supposed to eclipse the beauty of the palace gardens, whose splendor is a fable in many worlds.”

“A madman and a genius,” she whispered, staring across the valley as I had done just moments before, but seeming not to see it as her mind wandered down old paths. “There is always one, sometimes more than one, in every land. Before your first visit to Mirata, I knew such a one. He taught me my craft as an artist, and was truly a master.”

Before my first visit? Briefly, I hung on those words, wondering if she knew what they really meant. I hadn’t noticed any funny ears on her, but perhaps she was one of those half-elven folk, many of whom could be found in these parts. Like Amberites, they were very long-lived.

I took a step toward her, knelt, extended my hand.

“Fair lady, Claire, High Priestess, I thank you, verily from the depths of my heart, for all you have done, which is more than you can know.”

She slowly put out her hand, which I took, lifting it to my lips for a kiss.

“He was called Dworkin,” she said. “Perhaps you have heard of him?”

“Even in my land, we know that name,” I answered, releasing her hand.

“You never asked me the name of my other student.”

“I think we both know what his name was,” I said, rising. “And now I must be going. Farewell.”

And I walked down the path toward the temple without looking back.



Now that I was finally on my way, there was no rush. I made my way down into the valley, walking the dusty road with others bound for the Shirai. Inside of three hours, I was on the river's banks, stripping for a swim. When I emerged, refreshed, I dried off, dressed, and found a place off the tow-path, where the last trees leaned over the water.

There I took out the sketchpad, flipped it open to the proper page, and concentrated on the image there.

It took only a few moments, and then the place was real enough to touch. So I turned the picture away, reached for the fully realized actuality.

And I was back in my cell. I returned the pad to my pack.

The thunder bucket was gone. No one was here, but someone had been, and therefore knew of my escape. I was pleased no new tenant had been forced to take up residence. Slowly, I turned to examine the wall. My engravings were untouched, which was all I really cared about.

So now I would try it again. The chaotic landscape, littered with smoke and fire, the tower crouching on the hill, the swarm of flying rocks.

There was no peculiar jolt this time, no unpremeditated headlong plunge into Shadow. Ready for anything, I took the fateful step. Right away, the fumes burning my nostrils let me know I had gotten it right this time. I saw I was standing in a ruined heap of cables, struts, torn pieces of wing. Much of the crashed vehicle's red paint had been worn away. The twisted bits of metal and fiberglass were singed and scorched. The ground was hot; I was suddenly grateful I hadn’t gotten through on my first try. I’d have been barefoot.

Looking up, I could see billows of smoke, swirls of gas, jets of flame. Then, lowering my gaze, I spied the tower. There was something sinister about that place, the way it overlooked this infernal region. It loomed too close for my comfort, and I hoped I wouldn’t have to travel out to it.

But no. Half an hour of searching, first within the pile of wreckage itself, and then on the steaming ground around it, turned up what I was after. It was on the side of the broken sailplane facing away from the tower, half buried in sand, one corner visible. It was while I was scuffing up the soil around the grave of Random’s flying machine that I kicked it loose.

I had what I had come for, so I slipped it into my pocket. And took out the sketchpad again (concerned a little, I’ll confess, that a stray bit of ash or ember might alight upon it at any moment).

The drawing of the limbo I had only just left felt cold to my touch, a dramatic and exaggerated sensation given my current environs.

Time to go.

Leaving the realm of Brand’s tower behind, I let the hand holding the sketchpad fall to my side, and was once more within the cell which could no longer hold me.

This time I would depart through another door. I’d dismissed its value before as a refuge, as a base from which to rebuild ruined plans, as a strong suit in the current game. Things had changed, though, and I now knew a different game was being played. Old skills were called for and new players needed to be brought in. I had made up my mind early on during my stay in Mirata what to do if I ever found myself in Murtuya again. So no time was wasted wondering what to do now.

My mind took hold of the image on the wall, and then it took hold of me. The cell fell away as that other place and I moved toward one another. Then the engraving was gone, superceded by the reality — trumped by it, some might say. I took stock of my new surroundings.

People. In a rush on their way from a million anywheres to a thousand somewheres. I stood on a sidewalk, pedestrians pushing past, some giving me looks, others seeming unaware of me except as another obstacle. The human traffic competed with that of the cars, cabs, trucks and buses — noisy, pungent, frenetic. Exhaust fumes fell upon me, fell back, intermittently mingling with the aromas of pretzels, hot dogs, pizza. Along with the food, street sellers hocked clothes, gadgets, tchotchkes, music, magazines, postcards, brochures, books. Every door opened onto a shop, a restaurant, a bank, a hotel, even a church. The very air was charged with vitality, a transformative energy, the feeling of something on its way to becoming something else. Yet the buildings, tall and small, new and old, metal and glass, stone and concrete, modern and Gothic, effortlessly embraced centuries, surrounding all the relentless motion and change with a kind of timelessness. Witnesses, those buildings, monumental and discrete, to hundreds of years fluttering past like leaves in the late summer breeze.

The sign above the shop next to me had three words on it, and they made me smile: Bagel, Deli, Salad.

I had done it, I had gotten to Gotham.

As for Mirata, there were questions in my mind, questions needing answers. One day soon, I would have to go back, learn the truth about Claire and her connection to Dworkin and Brand, and perhaps other things. Was there something besides the scenery that had drawn Brand there in days gone by? It now seemed likely there had been. If so, I would have to find out what it was. Too much of Brand’s story remained unknown.

The mystery girl who had come to me last night was still very much on my mind. Just a chance encounter, an adventurous girl from town? Or was there something more? Perhaps Claire could provide answers here, too. Something told me she knew what had happened, might even have set it up.

Yes, I would be paying the well at Mirata another visit.

But other matters would have to come first. Bleys I would have to rescue, and I was now certain that I could do it. With Bleys at my side, we would get the lay of the land, spy on Amber, spy on the Courts, learn what was really going on.

And we would rescue Merlin. I would make sure of that.

Finally, there was the still-unsolved puzzle of my dreams. The future they had seemed to represent had entered the present. Whatever process was at work, it had moved into a new phase. And that process, as I had feared, did indeed somehow tie in to the disaster which had befallen Chaos, which now threatened Amber. The Arena of Doom had made that obvious enough.

A host of challenges and unknowns lay before me, but I was filled with confidence. I had done much, and there was much left to do. But I felt good.

I was alive, healthy, in good spirits and standing in the heart of the Big Apple. And in that moment it struck me that Sinatra had gotten it right. If you can make it there, you can make it anywhere.

I started walking up Fifth Avenue toward the Empire State Building, whistling as I went.

END OF BOOK ONE

copyright © 2008 Lokabrenna @ Blogger (JTB)

Labels: Brand, End

  ¶ 2:34 AM 0 comments

  Chapter Nine: The Pit
CHAPTER NINE

The fishbowl became my new home.

When consciousness returned, that’s where I was, lying on the squishy pallet where I had lain when “dead.” Each day a basket of food and drink was lowered through a cylindrical shaft down into my cell. Day-Glo fish swam beyond the encircling transparent wall.

No one came to call, to interrogate, to torture.

Solitary confinement in a place where time was almost meaningless. All the same, I marked each delivery of a meal on one of the white ribs running up the sides of the jug-shaped chamber.

When I wasn’t pondering various unworkable schemes for escape, I thought of Merlin, and of Bleys. Had they really been tossed into the abyss? Raum was more rational than Zirlar. As royals of Amber, my kin could be useful as bargaining chips. And if my ability to employ Trumps could advance the plans of Amber’s enemies, the same could be said for my son and my brother. Finally, as former agents of the crown, they held information which could be used by the other side.

I was heartened by my own continued existence. If “the bottom of the sea” euphemistically referred to my confinement in a bottle-shaped aquarium, then perhaps “hurl them into the abyss” could be taken at something other than face value. That thought was my rock and I clung to it like the drowning shipwreck victim that it almost seemed I was.

Despair came at me from several directions, but my guard was up. I lived. There would be no despair. Bleys possessed knowledge and resources beyond my own, and had survived worse situations in the past. If I lived, then my guess was that he did, too. A certain amount of denial is probably necessary in most grasps for hope, and I was well aware of the possibility that I was only kidding myself. Still, I hoped Bleys lived and chose to believe it all the same.

As for Merlin, this was his turf. Having been raised in the Courts, he obviously could access native lore beyond the ken of either Bleys or myself. His connections in this place, besides conferring hidden advantages, might also provide unlooked-for allies. In point of fact, if I were placing odds on any of the three of us living through this mess, I’d be giving myself the lowest score. Merlin’s chances were at least as good as Bleys’, and better than mine.

We were far from out of commission. This surely was check, but not yet mate. There was indeed room for hope, hope that was something other than self-deception. Room for hope, if not optimism. When Eric had me immured in the dungeons beneath Amber, I had been deprived of my eyes. Yet I had escaped and lived to tell the tale. I would escape to tell this one.

Down, but not yet out.

Still, despair was not so easily turned aside. Days went by, then weeks, then months. Eventually, I raged against Martin. This was all his fault. Somehow, he had messed up, gotten Merlin and himself in over their heads, so that Random had sent me after them. Had I not come to the Courts as a result, there would never have been talk of people inhabiting abysses or sea-bottoms.

I burned with the urge to confront him with his crimes, teach him a proper lesson. So strongly that I eyed the wall of my prison, wondered how deep underwater I was, how easily that wall could be broken. Escape, track him down, make him understand the enormity of the disaster he had precipitated, the harm he’d done his cousin Merlin, his uncle Bleys, me, and Amber herself. I believe I actually saw red, wallowing in my wrath.

Sometime later, after the anger had burned down and something like rationality returned, I forced myself to recognize the youth and inexperience of my nephew and my son. They were going to make mistakes; it was unavoidable.

So I blamed Random.

But that, too, passed. And, when I had no one left to accuse, I blamed myself.

I had not made an effort to be a part of my son’s life. Instead, I had given him the barest minimum of myself, told him the story of how I had come to his homeland, how before that I had simply come home (really not so simple), how I had come to be his father. And kept my promise to see him walk the Pattern. Then, as if fulfillment of that promise relieved me of all my duties as a parent, I had taken the first opportunity to go as far from Amber and Chaos as I could get, losing myself among the Shadows. My rationale had been my search for the Pattern I had drawn. But now I knew that quest for what it had truly been: my excuse. For, somehow, I had known all along that my Pattern was not part of the web of worlds stretched between the two known poles of existence. It lay somewhere else. Bleys and Fiona had said as much, and in the core of my being I had known they were right.

So why had I fled the home and family I’d fought so hard to save? The pain of losing Deirdre and my father? The awesome scope of Brand’s treachery? The rejection by a certain Princess of Chaos?

All of that, I decided. And more. Just as it had seemed I would take my place in a ready-made family of my own, the mother of my son had declared her hatred for me. And that son had turned out to be a being who, while resembling me on the surface, was in truth very different, almost alien, raised in a realm I still only barely comprehended.

And even if all of that had not been there, further complicating the picture, even a normal family — whatever that was — would have been complicated enough. The truth was, though I might have done a little growing up during the succession intrigues, I still had some left to do. I just hadn’t been ready. Those responsibilities had scared me, and I’d chickened out. I’d run, and now I was ashamed. And not just ashamed. Guilty. For now it was clear that others would pay for my unwillingness to face responsibilities which were mine, and mine alone.

My fault.

If I ever got out, I resolved to do things differently. If Merlin still lived, I’d find him, get to know him better, make myself available. And I’d cease avoiding Amber. Though I had sworn my loyalty to Random along with everyone else that day on the verge of the abyss, I had not rendered service as they had.

As for the rest, with so much time to think, sooner or later every connection suffered a review. Dara was the mother of my only son. Perhaps I had given up on her too easily, avoiding a serious commitment for all the reasons I was now finally willing to acknowledge. She had made it easy, by rejecting me first. The only way to know if there could be anything there would be for me to make the first move, test the waters. If those waters were still posted “No Swimming, No Fishing,” then at least I’d know that, and know I’d tried.

And Moire…what to say? She’d seemed happy enough to call the troublesome prince her consort. But had I chosen to reside with her in the city beneath the sea for her sake, or for the sake of the city itself? There I had been able to be in Amber without any of the complications of actually being in Amber. Self-imposed exile in an underwater limbo? After hundreds of years of exile, exile was what I knew best. An existence which had frustrated me, but which had also become a part of me. Frustrating, but also — not so unexpectedly — freeing.

I’d lost my passion for living. Without it, there’d be no point in escape.

I laughed bitterly. I’d chosen the beautiful prison of Rebma, willingly placed myself in the power of its lovely warden. And now where was I? Underwater again, in a funny little jail, a genie trapped in a lamp. As there was no beautiful mistress of this latest incarnation of the Stony Lonesome, and the cell was considerably smaller, on the whole it would have to be said that I had traded down. Even if the essentials had hardly changed.

And now, of course, the new conditions, having worsened somewhat, came with their own costs. Things were happening outside my collapsed existence, but what things?

The three mystery men I’d brought into the game, how mysterious were they? They were almost certainly family-members, and obviously long-lost ones. I’d seen their faces before, but I knew even less about them than I did about Osric and Finndo. These three, therefore, had to be their elders, from the time of Oisen and Isolde, if not earlier. From Amber’s earliest days then. We’d been taught they were among the deceased, but, clearly, this was not so. The witches had known this, of course, and for reasons of their own had chosen to share this information with Swayvill’s foes.

But why now?

Because Swayvill’s war on Amber had failed, that was why. He was a defeated monarch. And therefore vulnerable. Now those who had quietly plotted his downfall for millennia at last saw their chance. And had chosen to act. I marveled at their patience.

But perhaps they hadn’t been as patient as all that. It would be naïve to assume this had been their first and only attempt.

The witches themselves were obviously the key to everything. They had known more about the new Pattern than I. Not just more than I knew, more than anyone knew, more than Bleys, more than Fiona. Possibly even more than Dworkin himself.

Dworkin!

If the witches were the key to the other side’s power, Dworkin was ours. As soon as I managed to learn Merlin’s fate and, hopefully, find him alive somewhere, finding Dworkin would be my next order of business. Then I’d have to learn the story behind the witches and our three new relatives. And report any findings to Random.

The mission would still be completed. It would just end up taking a little longer than anticipated, that’s all.

Still leaving me with the problem of escape.

There were two ways out, as I saw it. One: Up through the chimney above. Two: Out through the broken wall into the waters outside. Assuming I was being held under Haylish, I would emerge in the midst of the city. From there I could make my way to the Street of the Beggars, masquerading as one (easy enough, one would hope, for a bedraggled escaped convict), learning what I could of the situation prevailing in Amber and the Courts.

What, for instance, was the cover story circulating about the disappearances of Yours Truly, the visiting prince, and Bleys, the resident ambassador? At some point, though, I’d have to make contact with Swayvill, work my way over to Thelbane, gain a private audience. From there we would have to unravel where Merlin and Bleys were being held, mount a rescue. If possible, I’d get in touch with Dworkin, secure his help. With my grandfather on board, locating the still-missing Martin should be less of a problem. Then back home to Random with solid results and, all going well, Swayvill’s opposition already dispatched.

Optimistic, me?

But there was a distinct possibility of drowning if I literally broke out. The other option, using the rope by which the food basket was lowered, wasn’t much better since whoever passed me my meals would be at the other end, able to cut or release the rope any time he chose.

The matter required yet more thinking. So I looked out through the aquarium wall, watched the fish swim by.



The old green-bearded fellow had been paying me another dream visit, shouting to be heard above a roaring wind. It had seemed I could almost make out the words.

“Lord Corwin!”

Suddenly awake, I sat up with a start and looked around. Still a lone fish in a bowl. The shifting light filtered through the waters and wall showed a round cell devoid of all but my sleeping mat and the thunder bucket against the other wall (the chamber pot that got hauled up the rope once a day).

The words had come to me in a loud whisper. A fragment of my dream?

“Lord Corwin! Are you awake?”

After a pause, I answered, “Yes.”

“Are you all right?”

“Things are going swimmingly down here. So to speak.”

A girlish giggle reached my ears. So I got up, moved to the center of my chamber, tilting my head to peer up the shaft. There was, far, far up, framed against a featureless field of green light, an outline of someone’s head and shoulders.

“I’m not supposed to be here. So I have to be careful and talk softly.”

“Okay.”

“It’s great to finally talk with you.”

“Same here. I don’t get many visitors. In fact, you’re the first.”

“Aren’t you curious who I am and why I’m here?”

“I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t.”

“I’m Airu.”

“Delighted to make your acquaintance, Airu.”

“You have to escape,” she informed me.

“Now that you mention it, that’s not a bad idea. Easier said than done, however.”

“Bad things have been happening.”

“Somehow this news comes as no surprise.”

“Very bad things. King Swayvill no longer rules Chaos.”

“Who’s in charge then?”

“The lords of Chaos no longer heed Swayvill. They are calling for Zirlar to claim the Greenstone Throne.”

I’d actually been expecting something like this.

“How is Zirlar managing this coup d’état?”

“Many are unhappy with Amber’s victory. They blame Swayvill.”

“And support Zirlar?”

“He has promised victory over Amber.”

“What of Raum?”

“Zirlar’s ally.”

“He doesn’t mind sitting backstage while Zirlar takes the bows and has flowers thrown at his feet?” I wondered, a little incredulous. “Zirlar gets the glory, not to mention the power? And what does Raum get out of it?”

“Raum has said many times that he has never wanted the throne. All of Chaos knows that.”

“Really? If Swayvill knows that, though, then why doesn’t he make common cause with Raum against Zirlar? And then reward Raum with the number two spot he now holds? Doesn’t make sense.”

“I don’t know. But now that Swayvill’s reign is over, Chaos is mounting an attack against Amber.”

There it was.

“Right now?”

“Yes.”

They’d had months to prepare. I should have seen this coming, too. Still, I was curious how they were pulling it off.

“Without a road through Shadow?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“I’ve got to escape.”

“That’s what I’ve been telling you.”

“Can you help me?”

“Maybe. What will you do when you’re free?”

“Defend Amber, of course.”

“I knew that already,” she announced, her tone carrying what might have been a mild note of rebuke, annoyance at the very least. “What else will you do?”

“I don’t know. I had some ideas, but they may have just changed.”

“If I help you, you have to promise to help me.”

“Help you? How?”

“We’re prisoners, too. You have to help us get away.”

“And yet you walk free.”

“We are not free. We cannot leave this place, and none of us can walk between worlds as you do. They keep you down there because they think if they didn’t that you’d be able to leave and help Amber.”

“Well, I can’t help you unless you first help me.”

“Promise first.”

“Very well. After you help me escape, I will do what I can to help you and your friends get out of here. And, by the way, where are we?”

“Murtuya. So we have a deal?”

“We have a deal.”

“Good. Oh —!”

“What?”

The head-and-shoulder outline above vanished. A minute later, the helmed head of one of my captors appeared in its place. Another minute passed before the rope snaked down. I tied the thunder bucket to it, then tugged the rope twice. The bucket slowly rose up the shaft, carrying with it my hopes and life’s inevitable consequences.



Airu’s visit had effected a change in my thinking. I couldn’t say exactly how, but she had reinspired me, helped me to focus on the problem.

With the right tools, I could gain the shaft. With the right tools, I could pierce the walls of my prison. The problem, obviously, was tools. Maybe Airu would show up tomorrow with what I needed. Maybe a month hence. Maybe never. With an endless sentence stretching before me and no guarantees, there was no time like right now for getting started.

So what did I have?

Fortunately, I’d only been relieved of the obvious items which might aid in a possible escape attempt. Grayswandir was gone, naturally, as well as my deck of Trumps. The jewel from Tir-na Nog’th — that which had been dubbed the Dreaming Diamond — had also been confiscated.

Still, I’d been allowed my clothing and most of what I’d had on my person, minus the dangerous and/or useful things. Cloak, light jacket, shirt, belt, trousers, gloves, boots.

Most valuable, of course, was the belt, silver and steel, like my sword and other fine cutlery. And the cloak offered an ample supply of sturdy cloth.

Classically, my escape would consist of cutting the cloak into a couple of long strips to be twisted into a serviceable rope. With said rope I’d ascend the shaft to freedom.

And I did consider this. The shaft, however, looked too long, fifty, sixty feet or more in length, only about five feet wide. Even using my belt as a grapnel, I had serious doubts about hurling it straight up through the center of the shaft all the way to the top.

The floor of my cell was of stone so closely joined that no mortar was visible between the blocks. And I suspected none had been used at all, that the blocks had either been cut perfectly or formed through some natural process, like that which had created the slabs on the seafloor near Bimini. Perhaps they appeared blocks on the surface, but were merely imprinted thus on one side and in actuality a single continuous sheet of rock? However that might be, from what I could make out of the shaft’s interior, which began about fifteen feet overhead, and of the ceiling itself, a similar process had wrought the rest of this dried up well. The place might have begun long ago as some sort of lava tube within a seamount, or as some similar natural feature, but had at least been modified to the extent that a wraparound band of glass had been created where I was, down at its bottom. And it was otherwise unfurnished, with the exception of the pallet on one side and the necessity of the bucket on the other.

Could the pallet be used to gain the shaft?

No, I decided, as it was shapeless and soft, devoid of any frame or rigidity, like a water mattress or beanbag.

But perhaps structure and rigidity could be provided by employing other available resources?

Again, no. My boots and belt would not suffice for a frame ten or more feet tall.

Then perhaps my only hope for escape was the intervention of an unexpected benefactor, as when I had been held in the dungeons of Amber? And I would be forced to wait things out until fate dealt me the wild card of a Dworkin or an equally powerful ally?

But there was no time for that. And I felt, ever since the visit of the mysterious Airu, that I was on the verge of some realization which would culminate in my freedom. But what else did I have for resources?

Dworkin wasn’t coming this time. So there was only one thing to do.



Parts of the cloak were sacrificed first.

The edge of my belt buckle, sharpened against the edge of a block of stone in the floor, was my cutting tool cum burin. At first, my left boot provided the basin into which some of my water ration was poured. When I had enough water put aside, I set to soaking strips of my cloak, which were then repeatedly squeezed and wrung out.

In my impatience, it wasn’t long before I also resorted to the right boot. So if I succeeded it would be as a barefoot escapee. Whatever, I eventually had useful quantities of the black sludge I wanted.

There would be at least two versions, I decided, and more if I could manage them.

My material resources were limited, so I’d have to take it slow. As for my mental resources, these also had their limits, so, for that reason too, it would be slow going.

I began by recalling the Pattern, the necessary starting point, since without it the rest of my efforts would be for nought. First, small attempts, little petroglyphs, each scribbled on an individual block of stone. A Pattern here, a Pattern there. My first renditions were messy and crude, as I grew accustomed to my materials and refined my recollections of the glowing symbol locked away in Amber’s basement. Each time I drew a better one, I rubbed out any less worthy versions, smudging the images.

It got so that I would wake up and scratch out an image of the Pattern. The Pattern began to appear in my dreams. And, when it came right down to it, it was the image I knew best, at the center of everything. So it was not long before I could draw it without much trouble.

Then I practiced laying down a square of black and scratching a Pattern into it. As I carefully and deliberately performed one experiment after another on alternate stone blocks, the floor under my mat (where I began my work so it could be covered up and hidden from view should anyone peer down to see how I was doing) acquired a checkerboard design. What would anyone make of it if I managed to depart? Corwin had lost his wits? Or merely decided to decorate?

When I felt I had sufficiently mastered the technique, I moved to the walls. The cell was about fifteen feet wide. If I worked at eye-level, I reckoned my work would not be clearly discernible to anyone above.

Small trials at first, just as before. Only now I was more ambitious. Simple renderings of simple subjects, invariably towers. They could have been towers anywhere, in the beginning. But I got better. As with the Pattern, I began with regular drawings, then moved on to my anti-contour engravings, as I thought of them, elaborated silhouettes carved into panels of dried black goop. There were many failures, as I tried to infuse my efforts with more character and identity.

All of those sprung from the line of Oberon, of the blood of Barimen, are, after all, artists. To walk in Shadow, to imagine and visualize other places well enough for them to have the necessary richness and depth, and what might be called self-consistency, cultivates the artist within. And not just visualize — taste, smell, feel. If not born to be creative in this way, sooner or later all members of my family become so. All part and parcel of the whole Pattern-mastery gig.

Time went by, well over a month. When I finally felt I was ready, I checked my remaining supply of boot-sludge and cloak. And hoped there would be enough.

Three rectangles of black went up at three different places on the glassy wall. Each was about three feet tall, two feet wide.

Within the first rectangle I strove with a subject well known to me: the Lighthouse of Cabra. What emerged was not Michelangelo, but it at least met with my satisfaction. Then I inscribed two different towers within the other rectangles, saving the most difficult for last. As always, this took time, but when at last the work was done all three met with my approval.

Then I labored to incorporate the Pattern into the three murals, as a light overlay. I worked long and hard at this.

And failed.

With all my will, I felt for the power of the Pattern, but felt nothing. Either I was in a place where the Pattern had no power whatsoever, or my renderings were inadequate. My horrible feeling was that it was both.

For a time, I wept.

Then, the very next day, grimly, bitterly, I tried again.

Deciding my approach had been misguided, I smeared over my previous efforts and began with the Pattern this time. That was not so hard, as it had become second nature. The difficult part came when I tried again to execute the drawings. My efforts seemed doomed to failure, but I forced myself to press on.

My efforts failed.

Again, I wept.

Well, what now? I obviously could not do what Dworkin had done. What he had accomplished in minutes, I could not do, even with weeks, or months.

There was no escape.



Then I knew real despair.

Each time I woke my eyes stung with unshed tears, haunted by visions of towers and the Pattern, of Amber burning, of Merlin’s broken body lying in some ditch, of my brothers and sisters in torment and sentenced to an eternity of imprisonment. Several times, I considered suicide. The one change for the better was that the green-bearded fellow no longer troubled my sleep.

Each time that I considered suicide, I told myself there was still a chance that Airu would come.

But she didn’t come.

What had I done wrong? What secret of Dworkin’s art did I lack? Brand had known how to draw Trumps, even for people he had never met. Merlin had created Trumps, and done so without the benefit of Dworkin’s tutelage.

Sighing heavily, I got to my feet.

Though I might never discover the secret of drawing Trumps, I had all the time in the world to figure it out. Descended from the Unicorn, somewhere within me the power lay, waiting to be unlocked.

So I returned to drawing, erasing, drawing again. As I still preferred the notion of a contre-jour engraving backlit by the diffused light of my aquatic surroundings, I stuck with that. Fish swimming into a drawing as I was trying to focus on some distant place, I decided, would be distracting. That part, at least, I felt I had right.

But I also decided to broaden my range, if only a little. So I practiced other towers, too. The Eiffel Tower came readily to mind, so I gave it a go. My Empire State Building? Honestly, not my best work, even though it had been done as a regular drawing rather than as an engraving. Once more, the Lighthouse of Cabra went up, and this time I tried to incorporate the Pattern into it as I went, a method pioneered in my homage to Eiffel. I was neither surprised nor disappointed when it didn’t respond to my will.

Every so often, I put up another big Pattern on the wall, as a divider between one subject and the next. And laughed morosely as I did, imagining the report of Corwin’s descent into madness as he covered his window space with Patterns and towers — doubtless an attempt to block out the unchanging underwater seascape.

Then one day I looked up to see that my sludge was very low and my wall was covered. Six virtually identical versions of the Pattern, six towers. Cabra, Eiffel, Empire State, Thelbane…

Still unhappy with King Kong’s favorite skyscraper, I took it down, opting to try it as an engraving this time. It was unlikely there would be more drawings after this, so my tribute to New York would be my last.

The thought made me sad. When I had begun my project, I had viewed it as a time-consuming chore. Somewhere along the way, though, those very qualities which had caused it to settle on me like a burden had made it a boon. Instead of waking to wonder what I was living for, for weeks I had woken to a plan and a purpose. There were times when I had been so absorbed by my endeavors that I had forgotten where I was, when I’d briefly become, in a sense, free.

So I determined to put forth a supreme effort, and a slow one. I would make this final sketch last as long as it could be made to last.

And it did. It took about three weeks.

Then it was done, and I set aside my belt buckle.

Over the next few days I contemplated all that had led me here: exile on Earth, taking Amber, drawing my own Pattern, losing some whom I’d loved, gaining a son and then losing him. To end as a kind of shadow of Dworkin, a Dworkin wannabe, a half-crazed (only half?) artist and a failed one at that.

Finally standing there in the center of the chamber, admiring my handiwork while also despairing of it, baffled by my inability to fuse the Pattern with an image, my weary gaze faltered, unfocused, saw double images. The subjects on the wall, so poorly held by my relaxed and overstrained eyes, seemed to float over each other and merge.

It was as if a door had opened. And, indeed, one had.

The Pattern to the left of the engraving of Thelbane seemed to drift till it hovered over the tower. As it did, the Pattern almost seemed to rise up from within Thelbane, overlaid as it now was upon the Pattern that had so painstakingly been woven into the representation of the tower. At the same time, the tower acquired a sudden sense of depth. Like wearing 3-D glasses at the movie theater.

And the image continued to move toward me, for the power of the Pattern had now begun to pull the place out of the image.

I was looking through a Trump!

Inexpressible joy burst within me. Tears ran down my cheeks while at the same time I laughed.

Turning in a slow circle, I tried the trick on each of my engravings, letting eyes go out of focus till the Pattern beside a tower image lay atop the Pattern residing within the image. And each time, after a few moments and much effort, I could feel the tug of the place beyond.

I had created six Trumps!

Overwhelmed by the prospect of imminent freedom, by the shock of such a success after having despaired of any success at all, I slid my sleeping mat into the center of the room. And then sat cross-legged upon it, staring at the wall which was no longer a wall. Now that the door — make that doors — stood open, I hesitated to go through.

My future waited on the other side of one of those doors.

But which one?

There were reasons why it made sense to make use of any one of the six Trumps. And also reasons why not to. An hour went by as I reviewed the pros and cons. And the more I thought it over, the more clear my choice became.

Very well, then.

I stretched out my legs, massaged the ankles and calves a little to take out the stiffness, got to my feet. And stood before the drawing.

Smears, squiggles and shadows telling of gases, veils and trails of smoke, torn bits of gray cloud, and confusing lighting effects left everything a muddle where the horizon should be, seeming to do away with the line between land and sky. In the middle distance, squatting on a jutting shelf of rock, stood a tower, wide, tall, and dark. Like the horizon, portions of the tower were obscured by founts and spurts of smoke and flame. A race-course of dark objects, adrift in the air over the fiery and pock-marked landscape, orbited about the tower — rocks, large and small, the bigger ones smudges showing less detail due to the greater velocity with which they moved. A few random edges and angles at the bottom of the engraving hinted at the jumble of wreckage in the foreground that was needed to complete the picture. Complicated, but crude — almost abstract — to me it most closely resembled some student's random doodle on the back of a notebook.

It was my masterpiece.

I lay my will upon the image, drew upon that force which at last I thought to feel in the image, which was also part of my own being, in my very blood.

Though I’d never been there, I’d briefly seen the place through a Trump — twice, actually — and through a piece of epic story-telling provided by Random. Viewed via Trump, I’d seen the interior of the tower, only glimpsing through a window the wild and sulphurous region surrounding it. Would such piecemeal information be enough? Even as I wondered this, the lines wandering through the unseen limits of the far background blurred, almost violently, and the lines defining the tower and the hill that held it up suddenly telescoped toward me, so that the tower was lost within the effect of abrupt magnification. A peculiar lurching sensation which I could not recall experiencing with a Trump before. But that tower stood at the limits of Shadow, and I stood in a place even stranger and more remote, so the unexpected was to be expected. The coldness was there and a place hovered before me, just out of reach. Placing my trust in the system of Trumps as I always had, I barely hesitated. And took a step toward freedom, feeling the warm breath of air waiting for me before my foot even touched the ground.

The soil underfoot was dusty and hot, the wind blowing across my body a parched and dirty thing. Slowly, I raised my eyes and beheld a white four-sided tower narrowing to a needle-nose extended by a golden antenna-like spire, soaring up from a wide open-air two-story structure, looking for all the world like some alchemist’s mixed-up notion of a rocket resting on a fairy-tale launch-pad. Off to the right, the slope of a hill rose at the temple’s back. An ancient well of white stone stood on the hillside, gleaming where the rays of the sun broke through its retinue of shade-trees.

The sun. It burned fiercely in the sky that seemed to go on forever beyond the frozen white peaks of far-off mountains into an infinitely unfolding universe of ever-deepening blue.

Striding across all intervening Shadows through the doorway of a Trump, as my foot had passed over a thousand or more worlds, bringing the rest of me behind it, something unprecedented had occurred.

I had misstepped.

copyright © 2008 Lokabrenna @ Blogger (JTB)

Labels: Dworkin Barimen, End

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