“What are we waiting for?” Dara asked. “Confirmation?”
“Yes,” I replied.
Random began to pace. Benedict seated himself and tested the dressing on his arm. Gerard leaned against the mantelpiece. I stood and thought. An idea came to me just then. I pushed it away immediately, but it returned. I did not like it, but that had nothing to do with practicalities. I would have to move quickly, though, before I had a chance to talk myself around to another viewpoint. No. I would stick with this one. Damn it!
There came a stirring of contact. I waited. Moments later, I regarded Fiona again. She stood in a familiar place that it took me several seconds to recognize: Dworkin’s sitting room, on the other side of the heavy door at the back of the cave. Dad and Dworkin were both with her. Dad had dropped his Ganelon disguise and was his old self once again. I saw that he wore the Jewel.
“Corwin,” Fiona said, “it is true. Dad did send the attack order with Dara, and he expected this call for confirmation. I—”
“Fiona, bring me through.”
“What?”
“You heard me. Now!”
I extended my right hand. She reached forward and we touched.
“Corwin!” Random shouted. “What’s happening!”
Benedict was on his feet, Gerard already moving toward me.
“You will hear about it shortly,” I said, and I stepped forward.
I squeezed her hand before I released it and I smiled.
“Thanks, Fi. Hello, Dad. Hi, Dworkin. How’s everything?”
I glanced once at the heavy door, saw that it stood open. Then I passed around Fiona and moved toward them. Dad’s head was lowered, his eyes narrowed. I knew that look.
“What is this, Corwin? You are here without leave,” he said. “I have confirmed that damned order, now I expect it to be carried out.”
“It will be,” I said, nodding. “I did not come here to argue about that.”
“What, then?”
I moved nearer, calculating my words as well as the distance. I was glad that he had remained seated.
“For a time we rode as comrades,” I said. “Damned if I did not come to like you then. I never had before, you know. Never had guts enough to say that before either, but you know it is true. I like to think that that is how things could have been, if we had not been what we are to each other.”
For the barest moment, his gaze seemed to soften as I positioned myself. Then,
“At any rate,” I went on, “I am going to believe in you that way rather than this way, because there is something I would never have done for you otherwise.”
“What?” he asked.
“This.”
I seized the Jewel with an upward sweeping motion and snapped the chain up over his head. I pivoted on my heel then and raced across the room and through the door. I drew it shut behind me and snapped it to. I could see no way to bar it from the outside, so I ran on, retracing the route through the cave from that night I had followed Dworkin along it. Behind me, I heard the expected bellow.
I followed the twistings. I stumbled only once. Wixer’s smell still hung heavy in his lair. I pounded on and a final turning brought me a view of daylight ahead.
I raced toward it, slipping the Jewel’s chain over my head as I went. I felt it fall to my breast, I reached down into it with my mind. There were echoes in the cave behind me.
Outside!
I sprinted toward the Pattern, feeling through the Jewel, turning it into an extra sense. I was the only person other than Dad or Dworkin fully attuned to it. Dworkin had told me that the Pattern’s repair might be effected by a person’s walking the Grand Pattern in such a state of attunement, burning out the smear at each crossing, replacing it with stock from the image of the Pattern that he bore within him, wiping out the black road in the process. Better me than Dad, then. I still felt that the black road owed something of its final form to the strength my curse against Amber had given it. I wanted to wipe that out, too. Dad would do a better job of putting things together after the war than I ever could, anyway. I realized, at that moment, that I no longer wanted the throne. Even if it were available, the prospect of administering to the kingdom down all the dull centuries that might lie before me was overwhelming. Maybe I would be taking the easy way out if I died in this effort. Eric was dead, and I no longer hated him. The other thing that had driven me—the throne—seemed now to have been desirable only because I’d thought he had wanted it so. I renounced both. What was left? I had laughed at Vialle, then wondered. But she had been right. The old soldier in me was strongest. It was a matter of duty. But not duty alone. There was more. . . .
I reached the edge of the Pattern, quickly made my way toward its beginning. I glanced back at the cavemouth. Dad, Dworkin, Fiona—none of them had yet emerged. Good. They could never make it in time to stop me. Once I set foot on the Pattern, if would be too late for them to do anything but wait and watch. I thought for a fleeting instant of Iago’s dissolution, pushed that thought away, strove to calm my mind to the level necessary for the undertaking, recalled my battle with Brand in this place and his strange departure, pushed that away, too, slowed my breathing, prepared myself.
A certain lethargy came upon me. It was time to begin, but I held back for a moment, trying to fix my mind properly on the grand task that lay before me. The Pattern swam for a moment in my vision. Now! Damn it! Now! No more preliminaries! Begin, I told myself. Walk!
Still, I stood, contemplating the Pattern as in a dream. I forgot about myself for long moments as I regarded it. The Pattern, with its long black smear to be removed . . .
It no longer seemed important that it might kill me. My mind drifted, considering the beauty of the thing. . . .
I heard a sound. It would be Dad, Dworkin, Fiona, coming. I had to do something before they reached me. I had to walk it, in a moment. . . .
I pulled my gaze away from the Pattern and glanced back toward the cavemouth. They had emerged, come partway down the slope and halted. Why? Why had they stopped?
What did it matter? I had the time I needed in which to begin. I began to raise my foot, to step forward.
I could barely move. I inched my foot ahead with a great effort of will. Taking this first step was proving worse than walking the Pattern itself, near to the end. But it did not seem so much an external resistance I fought against as it did the sluggishness at my own body. It was almost as if—
Then I had me an image of Benedict beside the Pattern in Tir-na Nog’th, Brand approaching, mocking, the Jewel burning upon his breast.
Before I looked down, I knew what I would see. The red stone was pulsing in time with my heartbeat. Damn them!
Either Dad or Dworkin—or both of them—readied through it at this instant, paralyzing me. I did not doubt that either of them could manage it alone. Still, at this distance, it was not worth surrendering without a fight.
I continued to push forward with my foot, sliding it slowly ahead toward the edge of the Pattern. Once I made it, I did not see how they . . .
Drowsing . . . I felt myself beginning to fall. I had been asleep for a moment. It happened again.
When I opened my eyes, I could see a portion of the Pattern. When I turned my head, I saw feet.
When I looked up, I saw Dad holding the Jewel.
“Go away,” he said to Dworkin and Fiona, without turning his head toward them.
They withdrew as he placed the Jewel about his own neck. He leaned forward then and extended his hand. I took it and he drew me to my feet.
“That was a damfool thing to do,” he said.
“I almost made it.”
He nodded.
“Of course, you would have killed yourself and not accomplished anything,” he said. “But it was well done nevertheless. Come on, let’s walk.”
He took my arm, and we began to move about the periphery of the Pattern.
I watched that strange sky-sea, horizonless about us, as we went. I wondered what w
ould have happened had I been able to begin the Pattern, what would be happening at that moment.
“You have changed,” he finally said, “or else I never really knew you.”
I shrugged.
“Something of both perhaps. I was about to say the same of you. Tell me something?”
“What?”
“How difficult was it for you, being Ganelon?”
He chuckled.
“Not hard at all,” he said. “You may have had a glimpse of the real me.”
“I liked him. Or, rather, you being him. I wonder whatever became of the real Ganelon?”
“Long dead, Corwin. I met him after you had exiled him from Avalon, long ago. He wasn’t a bad chap. Wouldn’t have trusted him worth a damn, but then I never trust anyone I don’t have to.”
“It runs in the family.”
“I regretted having to kill him. Not that he gave me much choice. All this was very long ago, but I remembered him clearly, so he must have impressed me.”
“And Lorraine?”
“The country? A good job, I thought. I worked the proper shadow. It grew in strength by my very presence, as any will if one of us stays around for long—as with you in Avalon, and later that other place. And I saw that I had a long while there by exercising my will upon its timestream.”
“I did not know that could be done.”
“You grow in strength slowly, beginning with your initiation into the Pattern. There are many things you have yet to learn. Yes, I strengthened Lorraine, and made it especially vulnerable to the growing force of the black road. I saw that it would lie in your path, no matter where you went. After your escape, all roads led to Lorraine.”
“Why?”
“It was a trap I had set for you, and maybe a test. I wanted to be with you when you met the forces of Chaos. I also wanted to travel with you for a time.”
“A test? What were you testing me for? And why travel with me?”
“Can you not guess? I have watched all of you over the years. I never named a successor. I purposely left the matter muddled. You are all enough like me for me to know that the moment I declared for one of you I would be signing his or her death warrant. No, I intentionally left things as they were until the very end. Now, though, I have decided. It is to be you.”
“You communicated with me, as yourself, briefly, back in Lorraine. You told me then to take the throne. If you had made up your mind at that point why did you continue the masquerade?”
“But I had not decided then. That was merely a means to assure your continuing. I feared you might come to like that girl too much, and that land. When you emerged a hero from the Black Circle you might have decided to settle and stay there. I wanted to plant the notions that would cause you to continue your Journey.”
I was silent for a long while. We had moved a good distance about the Pattern.
Then, “There is something that I have to know,” I said. “Before I came here I was speaking with Dara, who is in the process of trying to clear her name with us—”
“It is clear,” he said. “I have cleared it.”
I shook my head.
“I refrained from accusing her of something I have been thinking about for some time. There is a very good reason why I felt she cannot be trusted, despite her protests and your endorsement. Two reasons, in fact.”
“I know, Corwin. But she did not kill Benedict’s servants to manage her position at his house. I did it myself, to assure her getting to you as she did, at just the appropriate time.”
“You? You were party to her whole plot? Why?”
“She will make you a good queen, son. I trust the blood of Chaos for strength. It was time for a fresh infusion. You will take the throne already provided with an heir. By the time he is ready for it. Merlin will long have been weaned from his upbringing.”
We had come all the way around to the place of the black smear. I stopped. I squatted and studied it.
“You think this thing is going to kill you?” I finally asked.
“I know that it is.”
“You are not above murdering innocent people to manipulate me. Yet you would sacrifice your life for the kingdom.”
I looked at him.
“My own hands are not clean,” I said, “and I certainly do not presume to judge you. A while back, though, when I made ready to try the Pattern, I thought how my feelings had changed—toward Eric, toward the throne. You do what you do, I believe, as a duty. I, too, feel a duty now, toward Amber, toward the throne. More than that, actually. Much more, I realized, just then. But I realized something else, also, something that duty does not require of me. I do not know when or how it stopped and I changed, but I do not want the throne. Dad. I am sorry it messes up your plans, but I do not want to be king of Amber. I am sorry.”
I looked away then, backdown at the smear. I heard him sigh.
Then, “I am going to send you home now,” he said. “Saddle your horse and take provisions. Ride to a place outside Amber—any place, fairly isolated.”
“My tomb?”
He snorted and chuckled faintly.
“That will do. Go there and wait my pleasure. I have some thinking to do.”
I stood. He reached out and placed his right hand on my shoulder. The jewel was pulsing. He looked into my eyes.
“No man can have everything he wants the way that he wants it,” he said.
And there was a distancing effect, as of the power of a Trump, only working in reverse. I heard voices, then about me I saw the room I had earlier departed. Benedict, Gerard, Random and Dara were still there. I felt Dad release my shoulder. Then he was gone and I was among them once again.
“What is the story?” Random said. “We saw Dad sending you back. By the way, how did he do that?”
“I do not know,” I said. “But he confirms what Dara has told us. He gave her the signet and the message.”
“Why?” Gerard asked.
“He wanted us to learn to trust her,” I said.
Benedict rose to his feet.
“Then I will go and do as I have been bid.”
“He wants you to attack, then fall back,” Dara said. “After that, it will only be necessary to contain them.”
“For how long?”
“He said only that this will become apparent.”
Benedict gave one of his rare smiles and nodded. He managed his card case with his one hand, removed the deck, thumbed out the special Trump I had given him for the Courts.
“Good luck,” Random said.
“Yes,” Gerard agreed.
I added my wishes and watched him fade. When his rainbow afterimage had vanished I looked away and noticed that Dara was crying silently. I did not remark on it.
“I, too, have orders now—of a sort,” I said. “I had best be moving.”
“And I will get back to the sea,” said Gerard.
“No,” I heard Dara say as I was moving toward the door.
I halted.
“You are to remain here, Gerard, and see to the safety of Amber herself. No attack will come by sea.”
“But I thought Random was in charge of the local defense.”
She shook her head.
“Random is to join Julian in Arden.”
“Are you sure?” Random asked.
“I am certain.”
“Good,” he said. “It is nice to know he at least thought of me. Sorry, Gerard. That’s the breaks.”
Gerard simply looked puzzled.
“I hope he knows what he is doing,” he said.
“We have been through that already,” I told him. “Good-bye.”
I heard a footfall as I left the room. Dara was beside me.
“What now?” I asked her.
“I thought I would walk with you, wherever you are going.”
“I am just going up the hall to get some supplies. Then I am heading for the stables.”
“I will go with you.”
“I am riding alone.”
/>
“I could not accompany you, anyway. I still have to speak with your sisters.”
“They’re included, huh?”
“Yes.”
We walked in silence for a time, then she said, “The whole business was not so cold-blooded as it seemed, Corwin.”
We entered the supply room.
“What business?”
“You know what I mean.”
“Oh. That. Well, good.”
“I like you. It could be more than that one day, if you feel anything.”
My pride handed me a snappy reply, but I bit it back. One learns a few things over the centuries. She had used me, true, but then it seemed she had not been entirely a free agent at the time. The worst that might be said, I suppose, was that Dad wanted me to want her. But I did not let my resentment on this interfere with what my own feelings really were, or could become.
So, “I like you, too,” I said, and I looked at her. She seemed as if she needed to be kissed just then, so I did.
“I had better get ready now.”
She smiled and squeezed my arm. Then she was gone. I decided not to examine my feelings just then. I got some things together.
I saddled Star and rode back up over the crest of Kolvir until I came to my tomb. Seated outside it, I smoked my pipe and watched the clouds. I felt I had had a very full day, and it was still early afternoon. Premonitions played tag in the grottoes of my mind, none of which I would have cared to take to lunch.
Chapter 3
Contact came suddenly as I sat drowsing. I was on my feet in an instant. It was Dad.
“Corwin, I have made my decisions and the time has come,” he said. “Bare your left arm.”
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