I drained the glass, put it down, then said to them, “Whatever you do, don’t carve your initials on her.” Then I went and found a sofa in a room to the east, stretched out on it and closed my eyes. Like a bridge over troubled waters. Some days are diamonds. Where have all the flowers gone?
Something like that.
12
There was a lot of smoke, a giant worm and many flashes of colored light. Every sound was born into form, blazed to its peak, faded as it waned. Lightning-like stabs of existence, these—called from, returning to, Shadow. The worm went on forever. The dog-headed flowers snapped at me but later wagged their leaves. The flowing smoke halted before a skyhooked traffic light. The worm—no, caterpillar—smiled. A slow, blinding rain began, and all the drifting drops were faceted. . . .
What is wrong with this picture? something within me asked.
I gave up, because I couldn’t be sure. Though I’d a vague feeling the occasional landscape shouldn’t be flowing the way that it did. . . .
“Oh, man! Merle. . . . ”
What did Luke want now? Why wouldn’t he get off my case? Always a new problem.
“Look at that, will you?”
I watched where a series of bright bounding balls—or maybe they were comets—wove a tapestry of light. It fell upon the forest of umbrellas.
“Luke—” I began, but one of the dog-headed flowers bit a hand I’d forgotten about, and everything nearby cracked as if it were painted on glass through which a shot had just passed. There was a rainbow beyond—
“Merle! Merle!”
It was Droppa shaking my shoulder, my suddenly opened eyes showed me. And there was a damp place on the sofa where my head was resting. I propped myself on an elbow. I rubbed my eyes.
“Droppa. . . . What—?”
“I don’t know,” he told me.
“What don’t you know? I mean. . . . Hell! What happened?”
“I was sitting in that chair,” he said, with a gesture, “waiting for you to wake up. Martin had told me you were here. I was just going to tell you that Random wanted to see you when you got back.”
I nodded, then noticed that my hand was oozing blood—from the place where the flower had bitten me.
“How long was I out?”
“Twenty minutes, maybe.”
I swung my feet to the floor, sat up. “So why’d you decide to wake me?”
“You were trumping out,” he said.
“Trumping out? While I was asleep? It doesn’t work that way. Are you sure ”
“I am, unfortunately, sober at the moment,” he said. “You got that rainbow glow and you started to soften around the edges and fade. Thought I’d better wake you then and ask if that’s what you really had in mind. What’ve you been drinking, spot remover?”
“No,” I said.
“I tried it on my dog once. . . . ”
“Dreams,” I said, massaging my temples, which had begun throbbing. “That’s all. Dreams.”
“The kind other people can see, too? Like DTs á deux?”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“We’d better go see Random.” He started to turn toward the doorway.
I shook my head. “Not yet. I’m just going to sit here and collect myself. Something’s wrong.”
When I glanced at him I saw that his eyes were wide, and he was staring past me. I turned.
The wall at my back seemed to be melting, as if it were cast of wax and had been set too near a fire.
“It appears to be alarums and excursions time,” Droppa remarked. “Help!” And he was across the room and out of the door, screaming.
Three eyeblinks later the wall was normal again in every way, but I was trembling. What the hell was going on? Had Mask managed to lay a spell on me before I’d cut out? If so, where was it headed?
I rose to my feet and turned in a slow circle. Everything seemed to be in place now. I knew that it could not have been anything as simple as hallucination born of all my recent stresses, since Droppa had seen it too. So I was not cracking up. This was something else—and whatever it was, I felt that it was still lurking nearby. There was a certain unnatural clarity to the air now, and every object seemed unusually vivid within it.
I made a quick circuit of the room, not knowing what I was really seeking. Not surprisingly, therefore, I did not find it. I stepped outside then. Whatever the problem, could it spring from something I had brought back with me? Might Jasra, stiff and gaudy, have been a Trojan horse?
I headed for the main hall. A dozen steps along the way, a lopsided gridwork of light appeared before me. I forced myself to continue, and it receded as I advanced, changing shape as it did so.
“Merle, come on!” Luke’s voice, Luke himself nowhere in sight.
“Where?” I called out, not slowing.
No answer, but the gridwork split down the middle and its two halves swung away from me like a pair of shutters. They opened onto a nearblinding light; within it, I thought I glimpsed a rabbit. Then, abruptly, the vision was gone, and the only thing that saved me from believing everything was normal again was several seconds’ worth of Luke’s sourceless laughter.
I ran. Was it really Luke who was the enemy, as I had been warned repeatedly? Had I somehow been manipulated through everything which had happened recently, solely for the purpose of freeing his mother from the Keep of the Four Worlds? And now that she was safe had he the temerity to invade Amber herself and summon me to a sorcerous duel the terms of which I did not even understand?
No, I could not believe it. I was certain he did not possess that sort of power. But even if he did, he wouldn’t dare try it—not with Jasra my hostage.
As I rushed along I heard him again—from everywhere, from nowhere. This time he was singing. He had a powerful baritone voice, and the song was “Auld Lang Syne.” What sort of irony did this represent?
I burst into the main hall. Martin and Bors had departed. I saw their empty glasses on the sideboard near which they had been standing. And near the other door—? Yes, near the other door Jasra remained, erect, unchanged, still holding my cloak.
“Okay, Luke! Let’s have it out!” I cried. “Cut the crap and let’s settle this business!”
“Huh?”
The singing stopped abruptly.
I crossed slowly to Jasra, studying her as I went. Completely unchanged, save for a hat someone had added to her other hand. From somewhere else in the palace, I heard a shout. Maybe it was Droppa still alaruming.
“Luke, wherever you are,” I said, “if you can hear me, if you can see me, take a good look and listen: I’ve got her here. See? Whatever you’re planning, bear that in mind.”
The room rippled violently, as if I were standing in the midst of an unframed painting someone had just decided to give a shake, to crinkle and then draw taut.
“Well?”
Nothing.
Then, a chuckle.
“My mother the hat rack. . . . Well, well. Hey, thanks, buddy. Good show. Couldn’t reach you earlier. Didn’t know you’d gone in. They slaughtered us. Took some mercs in on hang gliders, rode the thermals. They were ready, though. Took us out. Don’t remember exactly then. . . . Hurts!”
“You okay?”
There came something like a sob, just as Random and Droppa entered the hall, the lank form of Benedict silent as death at their back.
“Merle!” Random called to me. “What’s going on?”
I shook my head. “Don’t know,” I said.
“Sure, I’ll buy you a drink,” Luke’s voice came very faintly.
A fiery blizzard swept through the center of the hall. It lasted only a moment, and then a large rectangle appeared in its place.
“You’re the sorcerer,” Random said. “Do something!”
“I don’t know what the hell it is,” I replied. “I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s like magic gone wild.”
An outline began to appear within the rectangle, human. Its form settled and to
ok on features, garments. . . . It was a Trump—a giant Trump—hanging in the middle of the air, solidifying. It was Me. I regarded my own features and they looked back at me. I noted that I was smiling.
“C’mon, Merle. Join the party,” I heard Luke say, and the Trump began to rotate slowly upon its vertical axis.
Sounds, as of glass bells, filled the hall.
The huge card turned until I viewed it edge-on, a black slash. Then the dark line widened with a ripple, like parting curtains, and I saw colored patches of intense light sliding beyond it. I also saw the caterpillar, puffing on a hookah, and fat umbrellas and a bright, shiny rail.
A hand emerged from the slit. “Right this way.”
I heard a sharp intake of breath from Random.
Benedict’s blade was suddenly pointed at the tableau. But Random laid his hand on his shoulder and said, “No.”
There was a strange, disconnected sort of music hanging in the air now; it seemed somehow appropriate.
“C’mon, Merle.”
“You coming or going?” I asked.
“Both.”
“You made me a promise, Luke: a piece of information for your mother’s rescue,” I said. “Well, I’ve got her here. What’s the secret?”
“Something vital to your well-being?” he asked slowly.
“Vital to the safety of Amber is what you’d said.”
“Oh, that secret.”
“I’d be glad to have the other one too.”
“Sorry. One secret is all I’m selling. Which will it be?”
“The safety of Amber,” I answered.
“Dalt,” he replied.
“What of him?”
“Deela the Desacratrix was his mother—”
“I already know that.”
“—and she’d been Oberon’s prisoner nine months before he was born. He raped her. That’s why Dalt’s got it in for you guys.”
“Bullshit!” I said.
“That’s what I told him when I’d heard the story one time too many. I dared him to walk the Pattern in the sky then.”
“And?”
“He did.”
“Oh.”
“I just learned that story recently,” Random said, “from an emissary I’d sent to Kashfa. I didn’t know about his taking the Pattern, though.”
“If you knew, I still owe you,” Luke said slowly, almost distractedly. “Okay, here’s more: Dalt visited me on the shadow Earth after that. He’s the one who raided my warehouse, stole a stock of weapons and special ammo. Burnt the place after that to cover the theft. I found witnesses, though. He’ll be along—any time. Who knows when?”
“Another relative coming to visit,” Random said. “Why couldn’t I have been an only child?”
“Make what you will of it,” Luke added. “We’re square now. Give me a hand!”
“You coming through?”
He laughed, and the whole hall seemed to lurch. The opening in the air hung before me and the hand clasped my own. Something felt very wrong.
I tried to draw him to me, but felt myself drawn toward him instead.
There was a mad power I could not fight, and the universe seemed to twist as it took hold of me. Constellations parted before me and I saw the bright railing again. Luke’s booted foot rested upon it.
From some distant point to the rear I heard Random shouting, “B-twelve! B-twelve! And out!”
. . . And then I couldn’t recall what the problem had been. It seemed a wonderful place. Silly of me to have mistaken the mushrooms for umbrellas, though. . . .
I put my own foot up on the rail as the Hatter poured me a drink and topped off Luke’s. Luke gestured to his left and the March Hare got a refill too. Humpty was fine, balanced there near the end of things. Tweedledum, Tweedledee, the Dodo and the Frog Footman kept the music moving. And the Caterpillar just kept puffing away.
Luke clapped me on the shoulder, and there was something I wanted to remember but it kept slipping out of sight.
“I’m okay now,” Luke said. “Everything’s okay.”
“No, there’s something. . . . I can’t recall. . . . ”
He raised his tankard, clanked it against my own. “Enjoy!” he said. “Life is a cabaret, old chum!”
The cat on the stool beside me just kept grinning.
Roger Zelazny
Sign of Chaos
The Second Amber Pentology - Merlin’s Story: Book 2
Prologue
Reflections in a Crystal Cave —
My life had been relatively peaceful for eight years—not counting April thirtieths, when someone invariably tried to kill me. Outside of that, my academic career with its concentration on computer science went well enough and my four years employment at Grand Design proved a rewarding experience, letting me use what I’d learned in a situation I liked while I labored on a project of my own on the side. I had a good friend in Luke Raynard, who worked for the same company, in sales. I sailed my little boat, I jogged regularly.
It all fell apart this past April 30, just when I thought things were about to come together. My pet project, Ghostwheel, was built, I’d quit my job, packed my gear and was ready to move on to greener shadows. I’d stayed in town this long only because that morbidly fascinating day was near, and this time I intended to discover who was behind the attempts on my life and why.
At breakfast that morning Luke appeared with a message from my former girlfriend, Julia. Her note said that she wanted to see me again. So I stopped by her place, where I found her dead, apparently killed by the same doglike beast which then attacked me. I succeeded in destroying the creature. A quick search of the apartment before I fled the scene turned up a slim packet of strange playing cards, which I took along with me.
They were too much like the magical Tarots of Amber and Chaos for a sorcerer such as myself not to be interested in them.
Yes. I am a sorcerer. I am Merlin, son of Corwin of Amber and Dara of the Courts of Chaos, known to local friends and acquaintances as Merle Corey: bright, charming, witty, athletic. . . . Go read Castiglione and Lord Byron for particulars, as I’m modest, aloof and reticent, as well.
The cards proved to be genuine magical objects, which seemed appropriate once I learned that Julia had been keeping company with an occultist named Victor Melman after we had broken up. A visit to this gentleman’s studio resulted in his attempting to kill me in a ritual fashion. I was able to free myself from the constraints of the ceremony and question him somewhat, before local conditions and my enthusiasm resulted in his death. So much for rituals.
I’d learned enough from him to realize that he’d been but a cat’s-paw. Someone else had apparently put him up to the sacrifice bit—and it seemed quite possible that the other person was the one responsible for Julia’s death and my collection of memorable April thirtieths.
I had small time to reflect upon these matters, though, because I was bitten (yes, bitten) shortly thereafter by an attractive red-haired woman who materialized in Melman’s apartment, following my brief telephone conversation with her in which I’d tried to pose as Melman. Her bite paralyzed me, but I was able to depart before it took full effect by employing one of the magical cards I’d found at Julia’s place. It bore me into the presence of a sphinx, which permitted me to recover so that it could play that silly riddle game sphinxes love so well because they get to eat you when you lose. All I can say about it is that this particular sphinx was a bad sport.
Anyhow, I returned to the shadow Earth where I’d been making my home to discover that Melman’s place had burned down during my absence. I tried phoning Luke, because I wanted to have dinner with him, and learned that he had checked out of his motel, leaving me a message indicating that he had gone to New Mexico on business and telling me where he’d be staying. The desk clerk also gave me a blue-stone ring Luke had left behind, and I took it with me to return when I saw him.
I flew to New Mexico, finally catching up with Luke in Santa Fe. While I waited in the bar
for him to get ready for dinner, a man named Dan Martinez questioned me, giving the impression that Luke had proposed some business deal and that he wanted to be assured Luke was reliable and could deliver. After dinner, Luke and I went for a drive in the mountains.
Martinez followed us and started shooting as we stood admiring the night. Perhaps he’d decided Luke was not reliable or couldn’t deliver. Luke surprised me by drawing a weapon of his own and shooting Martinez. Then an even stranger thing happened. Luke called me by name—my real name, which I’d never told him—and cited my parentage and told me to get into the car and get the hell out. He emphasized his point by placing a shot in the ground near my feet. The matter did not seem open to discussion so I departed. He also told me to destroy those strange Trumps that had saved my life once already. And I’d learned on the way up that he’d known Victor Melman. . . .
I didn’t go far. I parked downhill and returned on foot. Luke was gone. So was Martinez’s body. Luke did not return to the hotel, that night or the next day, so I checked out and departed. The only person I was sure I could trust, and who actually might have some good advice for me, was Bill Roth. Bill was an attorney who lived in upstate New York, and he had been my father’s best friend. I went to visit him, and I told him my story.
Bill got me to wondering even more about Luke. Luke, by the way, is a big, smart, red-haired natural athlete of uncanny prowess—and though we’d been friends for many years I knew next to nothing (as Bill pointed out) concerning his background.
A neighboring lad named George Hansen began hanging out near Bill’s place, asking strange questions. I received an odd phone call, asking similar questions. Both interrogators seemed curious as to my mother’s name. Naturally, I lied. The fact that my mother is a member of the dark aristocracy of the Courts of Chaos was none of their business. But the caller spoke my language, Thari, which made me curious enough to propose a meeting and a trade-off of information that evening in the bar of the local country club.
But my Uncle Random, King of Amber, called me home before that, while Bill and I were out hiking. George Hansen, it turned out, was following us and wanted to come along as we shifted away across the shadows of reality. Tough; he wasn’t invited. I took Bill along because I didn’t want to leave him with anyone acting that peculiar.
The Great Book of Amber - Chronicles 1-10 Page 126