Guns Of Avalon tcoa-2

by Roger Zelazny

  Through the bars of my visor, I looked down upon it — charred — seeming, desolate, and smelling of decay. I lived inside my visor these days. The men looked upon it as an affectation, but my rank gave me the right to be eccentric. I had worn it for over two weeks, since my battle with Strygalldwir. I had put it on the following morning before I trounced Harald to keep my promise to Lorraine, and I had decided that as my girth increased I had better keep my face concealed.

  I weighed perhaps fourteen stone now, and felt like my old self again. If I could help clean up this mess in the land called Lorraine, I knew that I would have a chance at least to try what I most wanted, and perhaps succeed.

  “So that’s it,” I said. “I don’t see any troops mustering.”

  “I believe we will have to ride north,” said Lance, “and we will doubtless only see them after dark.”

  “How far north?”

  “Three or four leagues. They move about a bit.”

  We had ridden for two days to reach the Circle. We had met a patrol earlier that morning and learned that the troops inside the thing continued to muster every night. They went through various drills and then were gone — to someplace deeper inside — with the coming of morning. A perpetual thunderhead, I learned, rode above the Circle, though the storm never broke.

  “Shall we breakfast here and then ride north?” I asked.

  “Why not?” said Ganelon. “I’m starved and we’ve time.”

  So we dismounted and ate dried meat and drank from our canteens.

  “I still do not understand that note,” said Ganelon, after belching, patting his stomach, and lighting his pipe. “Will he stand beside us in the final battle, or will he not? Where is he, if he intends to help? The day of conflict draws nearer and nearer.”

  “Forget him,” I said. “It was probably a joke.”

  “I can’t, damn it!” he said. “There is something passing strange about the whole business!”

  “What is it?” asked Lance, and for the first time I realized that Ganelon had not told him.

  “My old liege, Lord Corwin, sends an odd message by carrier bird, saying he is coming. I had thought him dead, but he sent this message,” Ganelon told him. “I still do not know what to make of it.”

  “Corwin?” said Lance, and I held my breath. “Corwin of Amber?”

  “Yes, Amber and Avalon.”

  “Forget his message.”

  “Why?”

  “He is a man without honor, and his promise means nothing.”

  “You know him?”

  “I know of him. Long ago, he ruled in this land. Do you not recall the stories of the demon lordling? They are the same. That was Corwin, in days before my days. The best thing he did was abdicate and flee when the resistance grew too strong against him.”

  That was not true! Or was it?

  Amber casts an infinity of shadows, and my Avalon had cast many of its own, because of my presence there. I might be known on many earths that I had never trod, for shadows of myself had walked them, mimicking imperfectly my deeds and my thoughts.

  “No,” said Ganelon, “I never paid heed to the old stories. I wonder if it could have been the same man, ruling here. That is interesting.”

  “Very,” I agreed, to keep my hand in things. “But if he ruled so long ago, surely he must be dead or decrepit by now.”

  “He was a sorcerer,” said Lance.

  “The one I knew certainly was,” said Ganelon, “for he banished me from a land neither art nor artifice can discover now.”

  “You never spoke of this before,” said Lance. “How did it occur?”

  “None of your business,” said Ganelon, and Lance was silent once again.

  I hauled out my own pipe — I had obtained one two days earlier — and Lance did the same. It was a clay job and drew hot and hard. We lit up, and the three of us sat there smoking.

  “Well, he did the smart thing,” said Ganelon. “Let’s forget it now.”

  We did not, of course. But we stayed away from the subject after that.

  If it had not been for the dark thing behind us, it would have been quite pleasant, just sitting there, relaxing. Suddenly, I felt close to the two of them. I wanted to say something, but I could not think what.

  Ganelon solved that by bringing up current business once more.

  “So you want to hit them before they hit us?” he said.

  “That’s right,” I replied. “Take the fight to their home territory.”

  “The trouble is that it is their home territory,” he said. “They know it better than we do now, and who knows what powers they might be able to call on there?”

  “Kill the horned one and they will crumble,” I said.

  “Perhaps. Perhaps not. Maybe you could do it,” said Ganelon. “Unless I got lucky, though, I don’t know whether I could. He’s too mean to die easily. While I think I’m still as good a man as I was some years ago, I may be fooling myself. Perhaps I’ve grown soft. I never wanted this damn stay-at-home job!”

  “I know,” I said.

  “I know,” said Lance.

  “Lance,” said Ganelon, “should we do as our friend here says? Should we attack?”

  He could have shrugged and equivocated. He did not.

  “Yes,” he said. “They almost had us last time. It was very close the night King Uther died. If we do not attack them now, I feel they may defeat us next time. Oh, it would not be easy, and we would hurt them badly. But I think they could do it. Let us see what we can see now, then make our plans for an attack.”

  “All right,” said Ganelon. “I am sick of waiting too. Tell me that again after we return and I’ll go along with it.” So we did that thing.

  We rode north that afternoon, and we hid ourselves in the hills and looked down upon the Circle. Within it, they worshiped, after their fashion, and they drilled. I estimated around four thousand troops. We had about twenty-five hundred. They also had weird flying, hopping, crawling things that made noises in the night. We had stout hearts. Yeah.

  All that I needed was a few minutes alone with their leader, and it would be decided, one way or another. The whole thing. I could not tell my companions that, but it was true.

  You see, I was the partly responsible for the whole thing down there. I had done it, and it was up to me to undo it, if I could.

  I was afraid that I could not.

  In a fit of passion, compounded of rage, horror, and pain, I had unleashed this thing, and it was reflected somewhere in every earth in existence. Such is the blood curse of a Prince of Amber.

  We watched them all that night, the Wardens of the Circle, and in the morning we departed.

  The verdict was, attack!

  So we rode all the way back and nothing followed us. When we reached the Keep of Ganelon, we fell to planning. Our troops were ready-over-ready, perhaps — and we decided to strike within a fortnight.

  As I lay with Lorraine, I told her of these things. For I felt that she should know. I possessed the power to spirit her away into Shadow — that very night, if she would agree. She did not.

  “I’ll stay with you,” she said.

  “Okay.”

  I did not tell her that I felt everything lay within my hands, but I have a feeling she knew and that for some reason she trusted me. I would not have, but that was her affair.

  “You know how things might be,” I said.

  “I know,” she said, and I knew that she knew and that was it.

  We turned our attention to other subjects, and later we slept.

  She’d had a dream.

  In the morning, she said to me, “I had a dream.”

  “What about?” I asked.

  “The coming battle,” she told me. “I see you and the horned one locked in combat.”

  “Who wins?”

  “I don’t know. But as you slept, I did a thing that might help you.”

  “I wish you had not,” I said. “I can take care of myself.”

&nb
sp; “Then I dreamed of my own death, in this time.”

  “Let me take you away to a place I know.”

  “No, my place is here,” she told me.

  “I don’t pretend to own you,” I said, “but I can save you from whatever you’ve dreamed. That much lies within my power, believe me.”

  “I do believe you, but I will not go.”

  “You’re a damned fool.”

  “Let me stay.”

  “As you wish… Listen, I’ll even send you to Cabra…”

  “No.”

  “You’re a damned fool.”

  “I know. I love you.”

  “…And a stupid one. The word is ‘like.’ Remember?”

  “You’ll do it,” she said.

  “Go to hell,” I said.

  Then she wept, softly, until I comforted her once again.

  That was Lorraine.

  Chapter 3

  I thought back, one morning, upon all that had gone before. I thought of my brothers and sisters as though they were playing cards, which I knew was wrong. I thought back to the rest home where I had awakened, back to the battle for Amber, back to my walking the Pattern in Rebma, and back to that time with Moire, who just might be Eric’s by now. I thought of Bleys and of Random, Deirdre, Caine, Gerard, and Eric, that morning. It was the morning of the battle, of course, and we were camped in the hills near the Circle. We had been attacked several times along the way, but they had been brief, guerrilla affairs. We had dispatched our assailants and continued. When we reached the area we had decided upon, we made our camp, posted guards, and retired. We slept undisturbed. I awoke wondering whether my brothers and sisters thought of me as I thought of them. It was a very sad thought.

  In the privacy of a small grove, my helmet filled with soapy water, I shaved my beard. Then I dressed, slowly, in my private and tattered colors. I was as hard as stone, dark as soil, and mean as hell once more.

  Today would be the day. I donned my visor, put on chain mail, buckled my belt, and hung Grayswandir at my side. Then I fastened my cloak at my neck with a silver rose and was discovered by a messenger who had been looking for me to tell me that things were about ready.

  I kissed Lorraine, who had insisted on coming along. Then I mounted my horse, a roan named Star, and rode off toward the front.

  There I met with Ganelon and with Lance. They said, “We are ready.”

  I called for my officers and briefed them. They saluted, turned and rode away. “Soon,” said Lance, lighting his pipe.

  “How is your arm?”

  “Fine, now,” he replied, “after that workout you gave it yesterday. Perfect.” I opened my visor and lit my own pipe.

  “You’ve shaved your beard,” said Lance. “I cannot picture you without it.”

  “The helm fits better this way,” I said.

  “Good fortune to us all,” said Ganelon. “I know no gods, but if any care to be with us, I welcome them.”

  “There is but one God,” said Lance. “I pray that He be with us.”

  “Amen,” said Ganelon, lighting his pipe. “For today.”

  “It will be ours,” said Lance.

  “Yes,” said I, as the sun stirred the east and the birds of morning the air, “it has that feel to it.” We emptied our pipes when we had finished and tucked them away at our belts. Then we secured ourselves with final tightenings and claspings of our armor and Ganelon said, “Let us be about it.”

  My officers reported back to me. My sections were ready.

  We filed down the hillside, and we assembled outside the Circle. Nothing stirred within it, and no troops were visible.

  “I wonder about Corwin,” Ganelon said to me.

  “He is with us,” I told him, and he looked at me strangely, seemed to notice the rose for the first time, then nodded brusquely.

  “Lance,” he said, when we had assembled. “Give the order.”

  And Lance drew his blade. His cried “Charge!” echoed about us.

  We were half a mile inside the Circle before anything happened. There were five hundred of us in the lead, all mounted. A dark cavalry appeared, and we met them. After five minutes, they broke and we rode on. Then we heard the thunder.

  There was lightning, and the rain began to fall.

  The thunderhead had finally broken.

  A thin line of foot soldiers, pikemen mainly, barred our way, waiting stoically. Maybe we all smelled the trap, but we bore down upon them. Then the cavalry hit our flanks.

  We wheeled, and the fighting began in earnest. It was perhaps twenty minutes later… We held out, waiting for the main body to arrive. Then the two hundred or so of us rode on…

  Men. It was men that we slew, that slew us — grayfaced, dour-countenanced men. I wanted more. One more…

  Theirs must have been a semi-metaphysical problem in logistics. How much could be diverted through this Gateway? I was not sure. Soon…

  We topped a rise, and far ahead and below us lay a dark citadel.

  I raised my blade.

  As we descended, they attacked.

  They hissed and they croaked and they flapped. That meant, to me, that he was running low on people. Grayswandir became a flame in my hand, a thunderbolt, a portable electric chair. I slew them as fast as they approached, and they burned as they died. To my right, I saw Lance draw a similar line of chaos, and he was muttering beneath his breath. Prayers for the dead, no doubt. To my left, Ganelon laid about him, and a wake of fires followed behind his horse’s tail. Through the flashing lightning, the citadel loomed larger.

  The hundred or so of us stormed ahead, and the abominations fell by the wayside.

  When we reached the gate, we were faced by an infantry of men and beasts. We charged.

  They outnumbered us, but we had little choice. Perhaps we had proceeded our own infantry by too much. But I thought not. Time, as I saw it, was all important now.

  “I’ve got to get through!” I cried. “He’s inside!”

  “He’s mine!” said Lance.

  “You’re both welcome to him!” said Ganelon, laying about him. “Cross when you can! I’m with you!”

  We slew and we slew and we slew, and then the tide turned in their favor. They pressed us, all the ugly things that were more or less than human, mixed in with human troops. We were drawn up into a tight knot, defending ourselves on all sides, when our bedraggled infantry arrived and began hacking. We pressed for the gate once more and made it this time, all forty or fifty of us.

  We won through, and then there were troops in the courtyard to be slain.

  The dozen or so of us who made it to the foot of the dark tower were faced by a final guard contingent.

  “Go it!” cried Ganelon, as we leaped from our horses and waded into them.

  “Go it!” cried Lance, and I guess they both meant me, or each other.

  I took it to mean me, and I broke away from the fray and raced up the stairs.

  He would be there, in the highest tower, I knew; and I would have to face him, and face him down. I did not know whether I could, but I had to try, because I was the only one who knew where he really came from — and I was the one who put him there.

  I came to a heavy wooden door at the top of the stairs. I tried it, but it was secured from the other side. So I kicked it as hard as I could. It fell inward with a crash.

  I saw him there by the window, a man-formed body dressed in light armor, goat head upon those massive shoulders.

  I crossed the threshold and stopped.

  He had turned to stare as the door had fallen, and now he sought my eyes through steel.

  “Mortal man, you have come too far,” he said. “Or are you mortal man?” and there was a blade in his hand.

  “Ask Strygalldwir,” I said.

  “You are the one who slew him,” he stated. “Did he name you?”

  “Maybe.”

  There were footsteps on the stairs behind me. I stepped to the left of the doorway.

  Ganelon burst
into the chamber and I called “Halt!” and he did.

  He turned to me.

  “This is the thing,” he said. “What is it?”

  “My sin against a thing I loved,” I said. “Stay away from it. It’s mine.”

  “You’re welcome to it.” He stood stock still.

  “Did you really mean that?” asked the creature.

  “Find out,” I said, and leaped forward.

  But it did not fence with me. Instead, it did what any mortal fencer would consider foolish.

  It hurled its blade at me, point forward, like a thunderbolt. And the sound of its passage came like a clap of thunder. The elements outside the tower echoed it, a deafening response.

  With Grayswandir, I parried that blade as though it were an ordinary thrust. It embedded itself in the floor and burst into flames. Without, the lightning responded.

  For an instant, the light was as blinding as a magnesium flare, and in that moment the creature was upon me.

  It pinned my arms to my sides, and its horns struck against my visor, once, twice…

  Then I threw my strength against those arms, and their grip began to weaken.

  I dropped Grayswandir, and with a final heave broke the hold it had upon me.

  In that moment, however, our eyes met.

  Then we both struck, and we both reeled back.

  “Lord of Amber,” it said then, “why do you strive with me? It was you who gave us this passage, this way…”

  “I regret a rash act and seek to undo it.”

  “Too late — and this a strange place to begin.” It struck again, so quickly that it got through my guard. I was slammed back against the wall. Its speed was deadly.

  And then it raised its hand and made a sign, and I had a vision of the Courts of Chaos come upon me — a vision that made my hackles rise, made a chill wind blow across my soul, to know what I had done.

  “You see?” it was saying. “You gave us this Gateway. Help us now, and we will restore to you that which is yours.”

  For a moment I was swayed. It was possible that it could do just what it had offered, if I would help.

  But it would be a threat forever after. Allies briefly, we would be at each other’s throats after we got what we wanted — and those dark forces would be much stronger by then. Still, if I held the city…