Nine Princes in Amber

by Roger Zelazny

  I lay there and I paced there, within the numbing darkness. I grew quite sensitive to sounds. I listened to the scurry of rats' feet through straw, the distant moaning of other prisoners, the echoes of a guard's footsteps as he approached with a tray of food. I began estimating distances and direction from things like this.

  I suppose I became more sensitive to odors also, but I tried not to think about them too much. Aside from the imaginable nauseating ones there was, for a long while, what I would swear to be the odor of decaying flesh. I wondered, if I were to die, how long would it be before someone took notice? How many chunks of bread and bowls of slop would go uneaten before the guard thought to check within after my continued existence?

  The answer to that one could be very important.

  The death odor was around for a long while. I tried to think in terms of time again, and it seemed that it persisted for over a week.

  Though I rationed myself carefully, resisting the compulsion, the handy temptation, for as long as I could, I finally found myself down to my final pack of cigarettes.

  I tore it open and lit one. I had had a carton of Salems and I had smoked eleven packs. That was two hundred and twenty cigarettes. I had once timed myself with one, and it had taken me seven minutes to smoke it. That made for a total of one thousand five hundred and forty minutes spent smoking, or twenty-five hours and forty minutes. I was sure I had spent at least an hour between cigarettes, more like an hour and a half. Say an hour and a half. Now figure that I was sleeping six to eight hours per day. That left sixteen to eighteen waking hours. I guessed I was smoking ten or twelve per day. So that meant maybe three weeks had passed since Rein's visit. He had told me it was four months and ten days since the coronation, which meant that it was now around five months.

  I nursed my last pack, enjoying each one like a love affair. When they were all gone, I felt depressed.

  Then a lot more time must have passed.

  I got to wondering about Eric. How was he making out as liege? What problems was he encountering? What was he up to right now? Why hadn't he been around to torment me? Could I ever truly be forgotten in Amber, even by imperial decree? Never, I decided.

  And what of my brothers? Why had none of them contacted me? It would be so easy to draw forth my Trump and break Eric's decree. None did, though.

  I thought for a long while upon Moire, the last woman I had loved. What was she doing? Did she think of me ever? Probably not. Maybe she was Eric's mistress by now, or his queen. Did she ever speak to him of me? Again. probably not.

  And what of my sisters? Forget it. Bitches all, they.

  I had been blinded once before, by a cannon flashback in the eighteenth century on the Shadow Earth. But it had only lasted for around a month and my sight had returned. Eric had had a permanent thing in mind, however, when he had given his order. I still perspired and shuddered, and sometimes woke up screaming, whenever memory of the white-hot irons returned to me-hung there before my eyes-and then the contact!

  I moaned softly and continued to pace.

  There was absolutely nothing I could do. That was the most horrible part of the whole thing. I was as helpless as an embryo. To be born again into sight and fury was a thing for which I would give my soul. Even for an hour, with a blade in my band, to duel once again with my brother.

  I lay back on my mat and slept. When I awakened, there was food, and I ate once again and paced. My fingernails and my toenails had grown long. My beard was very long and my hair fell across my eyes, constantly. I felt filthy, and I itched all the time. I wondered whether I had fleas.

  That a prince of Amber could be brought to this state drew a terrible emotion from the center of my being, wherever that may be. I had been reared to think of us as invincible entities, clean and cool and diamond-hard, like our pictures on the Trumps. Obviously, we were not.

  At least, we were enough like other men to have our resources.

  I played mental games, I told myself stories, I reviewed pleasant memories-there were many of these. I recalled the elements: wind, rain, snow, the summer's warmth, and the spring's cool breezes. I had had a small airplane on the Shadow Earth, and when I flew it I had enjoyed the sensation. I recalled the glistening panoramas of color and distance, the miniaturization of cities, the broad blue sweep of sky, the herds of clouds (where were they now?) and the clean expanse of the ocean beneath my wings. I remembered women I had loved, parties, military engagements. And when all was done, and I could help it no longer, I thought of Amber.

  One time, when I did so, my tear glands began to function again. I wept.

  After an interminable time, a time filled with blackness and many sleeps, I heard footsteps which paused before the door to my cell, and I heard the sound of a key within the lock.

  It was a time so long after Rein's visit that I had forgotten the taste of the wine and the cigarettes. I could not realty estimate its span, but it had been long.

  There were two men in the corridor. I could tell this from their footsteps even before I heard the sounds of their voices.

  One of the voices I recognized.

  The door swung open and Julian said my name.

  I didn't answer right away, and he repeated it.

  "Corwin? Come here."

  Since I didn't have much choice in the matter, I drew myself erect and advanced. I stopped when I knew I was near him.

  "What do you want?" I asked.

  "Come with me." And he took my arm.

  We walked along the corridor, and he said nothing and I'd be damned if I'd ask him any questions.

  From the echoes, I could tell when we entered the big hall. Soon after, he guided me up the stair.

  Up, and into the palace proper we went.

  I was taken to a room and seated in a chair. A barber set to work cutting my hair and my beard. I didn't recognize his voice when he asked me if I wanted the beard trimmed or removed.

  "Cut it off," I said, and a manicurist set to work on my nails, all twenty of them.

  Then I was bathed, and someone helped me to dress in clean garments. They hung loose on me. I was loused also, but forget that.

  Then I was led into another black place filled with music and the odors of good food and the sounds of many voices and some laughter. I recognized it to be the dining room.

  The voices subsided a bit as Julian led me in and seated me.

  I sat there until the trumpet notes, to which I was forced to rise.

  I heard the toast called out:

  "To Eric the First, King of Amber! Long live the king!"

  I didn't drink to that, but no one seemed to notice. It was Caine's voice that had called out the toast, from far up along the table.

  I ate as much as I could, because it was the best meal I had been offered since the coronation. I gathered from conversation overheard that today was the anniversary of Eric's coronation, which meant I had spent an entire year in the dungeons.

  No one spoke to me. and I didn't make any overtures. I was present as a ghost only. To humiliate me, and to serve as a reminder to my brothers, no doubt, as to the price of defying our liege. And everyone had been ordered to forget me.

  It went on well into the night. Someone kept me well provided with wine, which was something, and I sat there and listened to the music of all the dances.

  The tables had been removed by this time, and I was seated off somewhere in a corner.

  I got stinking drunk and was half dragged, half carried back to my cell in the morning, when the whole thing was over save for the cleaning up. My only regret was that I hadn't gotten sick enough to dirty the floor or someone's pretty garments.

  Thus ended the first year of darkness.

  Chapter 9

  I shall not bore you with repetition. My second year was pretty much like my first, with the same finale. Ditto for the third. Rein came twice that second year, with a basket of goodies and a mouthful of gossip. Both times I forbade him ever to come again. The third year he came down
six times, every other month, and each time I forbade him anew and ate his food and heard what he had to say.

  Something was wrong in Amber. Strange things walked through Shadow and presented themselves, with violence, to all and sundry. They were destroyed, of course. Eric was still trying to figure out how they had occurred. I did not mention my curse, though I later rejoiced in the fact that it had come to pass.

  Random, like myself, was still a prisoner. His wife had joined him. The positions of my other brothers and sisters remained unchanged. This bolstered me through the third anniversary of the coronation, and it made me feel almost alive again.

  It

  It! One day it was there, and it made me feel so good that I immediately broke out the final bottle of wine Rein had brought me and opened the last pack of cigarettes, which I had been saving.

  I smoked them and sipped and enjoyed the feeling that I had somehow beaten Eric. If he found this out, I felt it might be fatal. But I knew he didn't know.

  So I rejoiced, smoking. drinking and reveling in the light of that which had occurred.

  Yes, the light.

  I'd discovered a tiny patch of brightness, off somewhere to my right.

  Well, let's take it like this: I had awakened in a hospital bed and learned that I had recovered all too soon. Dig?

  I heal faster than others who have been broken. All the lords and ladies of Amber have something of this capacity.

  I'd lived through the Plague, I'd lived through the march on Moscow.

  I regenerate faster and better than anybody I've ever known.

  Napoleon had once made a remark about it. So had General MacArthur.

  With nerve tissue it takes me a bit longer, that's all.

  My sight was returning to me, that's what it meant- that lovely patch of brightness, off somewhere to my right.

  After a time, I knew that it was the little barren area in the door to my cell.

  I had grown new eyes, my fingers told me. It had taken me over three years, but I had done it. It was the million-to-one thing I spoke of earlier, the thing which even Eric could not properly assess, because of the variances of powers among the individual members of the family. I had beaten him to this extent: I had learned that I could grow new eyeballs. I had always known that I could regenerate nerve tissues, given sufficient time. I had been left paraplegic from a spine injury received during the Franco- Prussian wars. After two years, it had gone away. I had had my hope-a wild one, I'll admit-that I could do what I had done then, with my burned-out orbs. And I had been right. They felt intact, and the sight was returning, slowly.

  How long till the next anniversary of Eric's coronation? I stopped pacing and my heart beat faster. As soon as someone saw that I'd recovered my eyes, I'd lose them again.

  Therefore, I'd have to escape before the four years had passed.

  How?

  I hadn't thought about it much up to this time, because even if I could figure a way to get out of my cell, I'd never make it out of Amber-or out of the palace, for that matter-without eyes or aid, and neither were available to me.

  Now, though. . .

  The door of my cell was a big, heavy, brass-bound thing, with only a tiny grille at a height of about five feet for purposes of looking in to see whether I was still alive, if anyone cared. Even if I succeeded in removing it, I could tell that I couldn't reach out far enough to touch the lock. There was a little swinging gate at the bottom of the door, large enough to push my food through and that's about all. The hinges were either on the outside or in between the door and the jamb, I couldn't tell for sure. Either way, I couldn't get at them. There were no windows and no other doors.

  It was still almost like being blind, save for that feeble reassuring light through the grille. I knew my sight hadn't returned fully. That was still a long way off. But even if it had, it was nearly pitch dark in there. I knew this because I knew the dungeons under Amber.

  I lit a cigarette, paced some more, and assessed my possessions, seeking anything that might be of aid. There was my clothing, my sleeping mat, and all the damp straw I wanted. I also had matches, but I quickly rejected the notion of setting fire to the straw. I doubted anyone would come and open the door if I did. Most likely the guard would come and laugh, if he came at all. I had a spoon I'd picked up at the last banquet. I'd wanted a knife, really, but Julian had caught me trying to lift one and snatched it away. What he didn't know, though, was that that was my second attempt. I already had the spoon tucked inside my boot

  So what good was it?

  I'd heard these stories of guys digging their way out of cells with the damnedest things-belt buckles (which I didn't have)-etc. But I didn't have time to try the Count of Monte Cristo bit. I needed out in a matter of months, or my new eyes wouldn't mean anything.

  The door was mainly wood. Oak. It was bound with four metal strips. One went around it near the top, one near the bottom, right above the gate, and there were two which ran from top to bottom, passing along either side of the foot-wide grille. The door opened outward, I knew, and the lock was to my left. My memories told me the door was about two inches thick, and I recalled the approximate position of the lock, which I verified by leaning against the door and feeling the tension at that point. I knew that the door was also barred, but I could worry about that later. I might be able to raise it by sliding the handle of the spoon upward between the door's edge and the jamb.

  I knelt on my sleeping mat and with the spoon I traced a box about that area which contained the lock. I worked until my hand was quite sore-maybe a couple of hours. Then I ran my fingernail over the surface of the wood. I hadn't scarred it much, but it was a beginning. I switched the spoon to my left hand and continued until it, began to ache.

  I kept hoping that Rein would show up. I was sure I could talk him into giving me his dagger if I really pressed the matter. He didn't put in an appearance, though, so I just kept grinding away.

  Day after day I worked, until I was perhaps half an inch into the wood. Each time I'd hear a guard's footsteps I'd move the pallet back to the far wall and lie down on it with my back to the door. When he had passed, I'd resume work. Then I had to stop for a while, as much as I hated to. Even though I had wrapped them in cloth torn from my garments, my hands had blistered and the blisters had broken. and after a time the raw flesh underneath began to bleed. So I took a break to let them heal. I decided to devote the time to planning what I'd do after I got out.

  When I'd worked my way far enough through the door, I'd raise the bar. The sound of it falling would probably bring a guard. By then, though, I'd be out. A couple of good kicks would break out the piece I was working on and the lock could stay right where it was if it wanted to. The door would swing open then and I would face the guard. He would be armed and I wouldn't. I'd have to take him.

  He might be overconfident, thinking I couldn't see. On the other hand, he might be a bit afraid, if he recalled how I had entered into Amber. Either way he would die and I would then be armed. I gripped my right biceps with my left hand and my fingertips touched. Gods'. I was emaciated Whatever, I was of the blood of Amber, and I felt that even in that condition I could take any ordinary man. Maybe I was kidding myself, but I'd have to try it.

  Then if I succeeded, with a blade in my hand, nothing could keep me from reaching the Pattern. I'd walk it, and when I made it to the center, I could transport myself to any Shadow world I chose. There I would recuperate, and this time I would not rush things. If it took me a century, I'd have everything letter-perfect before I moved against Amber again. After all, I was technically its liege. Hadn't I crowned myself in the presence of all, before Eric had done the same? I'd make good my claim to the throne!

  If only it weren't impossible to walk into Shadow from Amber itself! Then I wouldn't have to fool around with the Pattern. But my Amber is the center of all, and you just don't depart it that easily.

  After, say, a month my hands had healed and I was developing large calluses from
my scraping activities. I heard a guard's footsteps and removed myself to the far side of the cell. There was a brief creak and my meal was slipped beneath the door. Then there were footsteps again, this time diminishing in the distance.

  I returned to the door. Without looking, I knew what was on the tray: a chunk of stale bread. a crock of water, and a piece of cheese if I was lucky. I positioned the mat, knelt on it and felt at the groove. I was about halfway through.

  Then I heard the chuckle.

  It came from behind me.

  I turned, not needing my eyes to tell me that someone else was present. There was a man standing near the left wall, giggling.

  "Who is it?" I asked. and my voice sounded strange. I realized then that these were the first words I had spoken in a long while.

  "Escape," he said. "Trying to escape." And he chuckled again.

  "How did you get in here?"

  "Walked," he replied.

  "From where? How?"

  I struck a match and it hurt my eyes, but I held it.

  He was a small man. Tiny, might be an even better word. He was around five feet tall and a hunchback. His

  hair and beard were as heavy as my own. The only distinguishing features in that great mass of fur were his long, hook nose and his almost black eyes, now squinted against the light.

  "Dworkin!" I said.

  He chuckled again.

  "That's my name. What's yours?"

  "Don't you know me, Dworkin?" I struck another match and held it near my face. "Look hard. Forget the beard and the hair. Add a hundred pounds to my frame. You drew me, in exquisite detail, on several packs of playing cards."

  "Corwin," he said at last. "I remember you. Yes."

  "I had thought you were dead."

  "I'm not, though. See?" and he pirouetted before me.

  "How is your father? Have you seen him recently? Did he put you here?"

  "Oberon is no more," I replied. "My brother Eric reigns in Amber, and I'm his prisoner."

  "Then I have seniority," he told me, "for I am Oberon's prisoner."