“Thanks. If that guy puts in an appearance again and you sense him before I see him, give me the high sign.”
Right. Actually, this entire place has the feeling of one of those constructs. Every stone here has a bit of Pattern scribble to it.
“When did you learn this?”
Back when we first tried the exit. I scanned it for danger then.
As we came to the periphery of the outer circle, I slapped a stone. It felt solid enough.
He’s here! Frakir warned suddenly.
“Hey!” came a voice from overhead, and I looked up. The black-and-white stranger was seated atop the stone, smoking a thin cigar. He held a chalice in his left hand. “You interest me, kid,” he went on. “What’s your name?”
“Merlin,” I answered. “What’s yours?”
Instead of replying, he pushed himself outward, fell in slow motion, landed on his feet beside me. His left eye squinted as he studied me. The shadows flowed like dark water down his right side. He blew silvery smoke into the air.
“You’re a live one,” he announced then, “with the mark of the Pattern and the mark of Chaos upon you. You bear the blood of Amber. What is your lineage, Merlin?”
The shadows parted for a moment, and I saw that his right eye was hidden by a patch.
“I am the son of Corwin,” I told him, “and you are — somehow — the traitor Brand.”
“You have named me,” he said, “but I never betrayed what I believed in.”
“That being your own ambition,” I said. “Your home and your family and the forces of Order never mattered to you, did they?”
He snorted.
“I will not argue with a presumptuous puppy.”
“I’ve no desire to argue with you either. For whatever it’s worth, your son Rinaldo is probably my best friend.”
I turned away and began walking. His hand fell upon my shoulder.
“Wait!” he said. “What is this talk? Rinaldo is but a lad.”
“Wrong,” I answered. “He’s around my age.”
His hand fell away, and I turned. He had dropped his cigar, which lay smoking upon the trail, and he’d transferred the chalice to his shadow-clad hand. He massaged his brow.
“That much time has passed in the mainlines…” he remarked.
On a whim, I withdrew my Trumps, shuffled out Luke’s, held it up for him to see.
“That’s Rinaldo,” I said.
He reached for it, and for some obscure reason I let him take it. He stared at it for a long while.
“Trump contact doesn’t seem to work from here,” I said.
He looked up, shook his head, and handed the card back to me.
“No, it wouldn’t,” he stated. “How… is he?”
“You know that he killed Caine to avenge you?”
“No, I didn’t know. But I’d expect no less of him.”
“You’re not exactly Brand, are you?”
He threw back his head and laughed.
“I am entirely Brand, and I am not Brand as you might have known him. Anything more than that will cost you.”
“What will it cost me to learn what you really are?” I inquired as I cased my cards.
He raised the chalice, held it before him with both hands, like a begging bowl.
“Some of your blood,” he said.
“You’ve become a vampire?”
“No, I’m a Pattern-ghost,” he replied. “Bleed for me, and I’ll explain.”
“All right,” I said. “It’d better be a good story, though,” and I drew my dagger and pricked my wrist, which I’d extended to a position above his cup.
Like a spilled oil lamp, the flames came forth. I don’t really have fire flowing around inside me, of course. But the blood of a Chaosite is highly volatile in certain places, and this, apparently, was such a place.
It spewed forth, half into and half past the cup, splashing over his hand, his forearm. He screamed and seemed to collapse in upon himself. I stepped backward as he was transformed into a vortex — not unlike those following the sacrifices I had witnessed, only this one of the fiery variety — which rose into the air with a roar and vanished a moment later, leaving me startled, staring upward and applying direct pressure to my smoking wrist.
Uh, colorful exit, Frakir remarked.
“Family specialty,” I responded, “and speaking of exits…”
I stepped past the stone, departing the circle. The darkness moved in again, intensified. Reflexively my trail seemed to brighten. I released my wrist, saw that it had stopped smoking.
I broke into a jog then, anxious to be away from that place. When I looked back a little later, I no longer saw the standing stones. There was only a pale, fading vortex, drawing itself upward, upward, then gone.
I jogged on, and the trail began, gradually, to slope until I was running downhill with an easy, loping gait. The trail ran like a bright ribbon downward and off into a great distance before it faded from view. I was puzzled, however, to see that it intersected another glowing line not too far below. These lines quickly faded off to my right and my left.
“Any special instructions pertaining to crossroads?” I inquired.
Not yet, Frakir answered. Presumably, it’s a decision point, with no way of knowing what to base one on till you get there.
It seemed a vast, shadowy plain that was spread below, with here and there a few isolated dots of light, some of them constant, others appearing, then fading, all of them stationary. There were no other lines, however, than my trail and the one which intersected it. There were no sounds other than my breathing and that of my footfalls. There were no breezes, no peculiar odors, and the temperature was so clement that it claimed no notice. Again there were dark shapes at either hand, but I’d no desire to investigate them. All I wanted was to conclude whatever business was in progress and get the hell out and be about my own affairs as soon as possible.
Hazy patches of light then began occurring at irregular intervals, both sides of the trail, wavery, sourceless, blotchy, popping into and out of existence. These seemed like gauzy, dappled curtains hung beside the trail, and I did not pause to examine them at first, not till the obscure areas grew fewer and fewer, being replaced by shadings of greater and greater distinction. It was almost as if a tuning process were in operation, with increasing clarity of outline indicating familiar objects: chairs; tables; parked cars; store windows. Before long, faded colors began to occur within these tableaus.
I halted beside one and stared. It was a red ’57 Chevy with some snow on it, parked in a familiar-looking driveway I advanced and reached toward it.
My left hand and arm faded as they entered the dim light. I reached to touch the left fin. There followed a vague sensation of contact and a faint coolness. I swept my hand to the right then, brushing away some of the snow. When I withdrew my hand, there was snow upon it. Immediately the prospect faded to black.
“I intentionally used my left hand,” I said, “with you on the wrist. What was there?”
Thanks a lot. It seemed a red car with snow on it.
“It was a construct of something picked from my mind. That’s my Polly Jackson painting, upscaled to life size.”
Then things are getting worse, Merle. I couldn’t tell it was a construct.
“Conclusions?”
Whatever’s doing it is getting better at it, or stronger. Or both.
“Shit,” I observed, and I turned away and jogged on.
Perhaps something wants to show you that it can baffle you completely now.
“Then it’s succeeded,” I acknowledged. “Hey, Something!” I shouted. “You hear that? You win! You’ve baffled me completely. Can I go home now? If it’s something else you’re trying to do, though, you’ve failed! I’m missing the point completely!”
The dazzling flash which followed cast me down upon the trail and blinded me for several long moments. I lay there tense and twitching, but no thunderclap followed. When my vision cleared and my mu
scles stopped their spasms, I beheld a giant regal figure posed but a few paces before me: Oberon.
Only it was a statue, a duplicate of one which occupied the far end of the Main Concourse back in Amber, or possibly even the real thing, for on closer inspection I noted what appeared to be bird droppings upon the great man’s shoulder.
“Real thing or construct?” I said aloud.
Real, I’d say, Frakir replied.
I rose slowly.
“I understand this to be an answer,” I said. “I just don’t understand what it means.”
I reached out to touch it, and it felt like canvas rather than bronze. In that instant my perspective somehow shifted, and I felt myself touching a larger than life-size painting of the Father of His Country. Then its borders began to waver, it faded, and I saw that it was part of one of those hazy tableaux I had been passing. Then it rippled and was gone.
“I give up,” I said, walking through the space it had occupied but moments before. “The answers are more confusing than the situations that cause the questions.”
Since we are passing between shadows, could this not be a statement that all things are real — somewhere?
“I suppose. But I already knew that.”
And that all things are real in different ways, at different times, in different places?
“Okay, what you are saying could well be the message. I doubt that something is going to these extremes, however, just to make philosophical points that may be new to you but are rather well worn elsewhere. There must be a special reason, one that I still don’t grasp.”
Up until now the scenes I’d passed had been still lifes. Now, however, a number occurred which contained people; some, other creatures. In these, there was action — some of it violent, some amorous, some simply domestic.
Yes, it seems to be a progression. It may be leading up to something.
“When they leap out and attack me, I’ll know I’ve arrived.”
Who knows? I gather that art criticism is a complex area.
But the sequences faded shortly thereafter, and I was left jogging on my bright trail through darkness once again. Down, down the still gentle slope toward the crossroads. Where was the Cheshire Cat when rabbit hole logic was what I really needed?
One moment I was watching the crossroads as I advanced upon it. An eye blink later I was still watching the crossroads, only now the scene was altered. There was now a lamppost on the near right-hand corner. A shadowy figure stood beneath it, smoking.
“Frakir, how’d they pull that one?” I asked.
Very quickly, she replied.
“What do the vibes read?”
Attention focused in your direction. No vicious intent, yet.
I slowed as I drew near. The trail became pavement, curbs at either hand, sidewalks beyond them. I stepped out of the street onto the right-hand walk. As I moved along it, a damp fog blew past me, hung between me and the light. I slowed my pace even more. Shortly I saw that the pavement had grown damp. My footsteps echoed as if I walked between buildings. By then the fog had grown too dense for me to discern whether buildings had actually occurred beside me. It felt as if they had, for there were darker areas here and there within the gloom. A cold wind began to blow against my back, and droplets of moisture fell upon me at random intervals. I halted. I turned up the collar of my cloak. From somewhere entirely out of sight, high overhead, came the faint buzzing sound of an airplane. I began walking again after it had gone by. Tinily then, and muffled, from across the street perhaps, came the sound of a piano playing a half-familiar tune. I drew my cloak about me. The fog swirled and thickened.
Three paces more, and then it cleared, and she was standing before me, back against the lamppost. A head shorter than I was, she had on a trench coat and a black beret, her hair glossy, inky. She dropped her cigarette and slowly ground it out beneath the toe of a high-heeled black patent-leather shoe. I glimpsed something of her leg as she did so, and it was perfectly formed. She removed from within her coat then a flat silver case, the raised outline of a rose upon it, opened it, took out a cigarette, placed it between her lips, closed the case, and put it away. Then, without looking at me, she asked, “Have you a light?”
I hadn’t any matches, but I wasn’t about to let a little thing like that deter me.
“Of course,” I said, extending my hand slowly toward those delicate features. I kept it turned slightly away from her so that she could not see that it was empty. As I whispered the guide word which caused the spark to leap from my fingertip to the tip of the cigarette, she raised her hand and touched my own, as if to steady it. And she raised her eyes — large, deep blue, long-lashed — and met mine as she drew upon it. Then she gasped, and the cigarette fell away —
“Mon Dieu!” she said, and she threw her arms about me, pressed herself against me, and began to sob. “Corwin!” she said. “You’ve found me! It has been forever!”
I held her tightly, not wanting to speak, not wanting to break her happiness with something as cloddish as truth. The hell with truth. I stroked her hair.
After a long while she pulled away, looked up at me. A moment or so more, and she would realize that it was only a resemblance and that she was seeing but what she wanted to see. So, “What’s a girl like you doing in a place like this?” I asked.
She laughed softly.
“Have you found a way?” she said, and then her eyes narrowed. “You’re not —”
I shook my head.
“I hadn’t the heart,” I told her.
“Who are you?” she asked, taking a half step backward.
“My name is Merlin, and I’m on a crazy quest I don’t understand.”
“Amber,” she said softly, her hands still on my shoulders, and I nodded.
“I don’t know you,” she said then. “I feel that I should, but… I… don’t…”
Then she came to me again and rested her head on my chest. I started to say something, to try to explain, but she placed a finger across my lips.
“Not yet, not now, maybe never,” she said. “Don’t tell me. Please don’t tell me more. But you ought to know whether you’re a Pattern-ghost.”
“Just what is a Pattern-ghost?” I said.
“An artifact created by the Pattern. It records everyone who walks it. It can call us back whenever it wants, as we were at one of the times we walked it. It can use us as it would, send us where it will with a task laid upon us — a geas, if you like. Destroy us, and it can create us over again.”
“Does it do this sort of thing often?”
“I don’t know. I’m not familiar with its will, let alone its operations with any other than myself.” Then, “You’re not a ghost! I can tell!” she announced suddenly, taking hold of my hand. “But there is something different about you — different from others of the blood of Amber…”
“I suppose,” I answered. “I trace my lineage to the Courts of Chaos as well as to Amber.”
She raised my hand to her mouth as if she were about to kiss it. But her lips moved by, to the place on my wrist where I had cut myself at Brand’s request. Then it hit me: Something about the blood of Amber must hold a special attraction for Pattern-ghosts.
I tried to draw my hand away, but the strength of Amber was hers also.
“The fires of Chaos sometimes flow within me,” I said. “They may do you harm.”
She raised her head slowly and smiled. There was blood on her mouth. I glanced down and saw that my wrist was wet with it, too.
“The blood of Amber has power over the Pattern,” she began, and the fog rolled, churned about her ankles. “No!” she cried then, and she bent forward once more.
The vortex rose to her knees, her calves. I felt her teeth upon my wrist, tearing. I knew of no spell to fight this thing, so I laid my arm across her shoulder and stroked her hair. Moments later she dissolved within my embrace, becoming a bloody whirlwind.
“Go right,” I heard her wail as she spun away from me, her ci
garette still smoldering upon the pavement, my blood dripping beside it.
I turned away. I walked away. Faintly, faintly, through the night and the fog I could still hear the piano playing some tune from before my time.
Chapter 6
I took the road to the right, and everywhere my blood fell reality melted a little. I heal fast, though, and I stopped bleeding soon. Even stopped throbbing before too long.
You got blood all over me, boss.
“Could have been fire,” I observed.
I got singed a little, too, back at the stones.
“Sorry about that. Figure out what’s going on yet?”
No new instructions, if that’s what you mean. But I’ve been thinking, now I know how to do it, and this place gets more and more fascinating. This whole business of Pattern ghosts, for instance. If the Pattern can’t penetrate here directly, it can at least employ agents. Wouldn’t you think the Logrus might have some way of doing the same?
“I suppose it’s possible.”
I get the impression there’s some sort of duel going on between them here, on the underside of reality, between shadows. What if this place came first? Before Shadow, even? What if they’re been fighting here since the very beginning, in some strange metaphysical way?
“What if they have?”
That could almost make Shadow an afterthought, a by product of the tension between the poles.
“I’m afraid you’ve lost me, Frakir.”
What if Amber and the Courts of Chaos were created only to provide agents for this conflict?
“And what if this idea were placed within you by the Logrus during your recent enhancement?”
Why?
“Another way to make me think that the conflict is more important than the people. Another pressure to make me choose a side.”
I don’t feel manipulated.
“As you pointed out, you’re too new to this thinking business. And that’s a pretty damned abstract line of thought for you to be following this early in the game.”
Is it?
“Take my word for it.”
What does that leave us with?
“Unwelcome attention from On High.”
Better watch your language if this is their war zone.
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