Zelazny, Roger - Amber - 07 - Blood of Amber

by Blood of Amber [lit]

  But I did not wish to chase after some will-o'-the-wisp and spend my night beating the bushes. I checked various lines of sight back to my camp. My small fire was barely visible even from this distance. I circled my camp, entered and sprawled again. The fire was already dying and I decided to let it burn out. I wrapped my cloak about me and listened to the soft sounds of the wind.

  I fell asleep quickly. For how long I slept, I do not know. There were no dreams that I can recall.

  I was awakened by Frakir's frantic pulsing. I opened my eyes the barest slits and tossed, as if in sleep, so that my right hand fell near the haft of my blade. I maintained my slow breathing pattern. I heard and felt that the wind had risen, and I saw that it had fanned the embers to the point where my fire flared once again. I saw no one before me, however. I strained my hearing after any sounds, but all I heard was the wind and the popping of the fire.

  It seemed as foolish to spring to my feet into a guard position when I did not know from which direction the danger was approaching as it did to remain a target. On the other hand, I had intentionally cast my cloak so that I lay with a large, low-limbed pine at my back. It would have been very difficult for someone to have approached me from the rear, let alone to have done so quietly. So it did not seem I was in danger of an imminent attack from that direction.

  I turned my head slightly and studied Smoke, who had begun to seem a little uneasy. Frakir continued her now distracting warning till I willed her to be still.

  Smoke was twitching his ears and moving his head about, nostrils dilated. As I watched, I saw that his attention seemed directed toward my right. He began edging his way across the camp, his long tether snaking behind him.

  I heard a sound then, beyond the noise of Smoke's retreat, as of something advancing from the right. It was not repeated for a time, and then I heard it again. It was not a footfall, but a sound as of a body brushing against a branch which suddenly issued a weak protest.

  I visualized the disposition of trees and shrubs in that direction and decided to let the lurker draw nearer before I made my move. I dismissed the notion of summoning the Logrus and preparing a magical attack. It would take a bit more time than I thought I had remaining. Also, from Smoke's behavior and from what I had heard, it seemed that there was only a single individual approaching. I resolved, though, to lay in a decent supply of spells the first chance I got, both offensive and defensive, on the order of the one I had primed against my guardian entity. The trouble is that it can take several days of solitude to work a really decent array of them out properly, enact them and rehearse their releases to the point where you can spring them at a moment's notice-and then they have a tendency to start decaying after a week or so. Sometimes they last longer and sometimes less long, depending both on the amount of energy you're willing to invest in them and on the magical climate of the particular shadow in which you're functioning. It's a lot of bother unless you're sure you're going to need them within a certain period of time. On the other hand, a good sorcerer should have one attack, one defense and one escape spell hanging around at all times. But I'm generally somewhat lazy, not to mention pretty easygoing, and I didn't see any need for that sort of setup until recently. And recently, I hadn't had much time to be about it.

  So any use I might make of the Logrus now, were I to summon it and situate myself within its ambit, would pretty much amount to blasting away with raw power-which is very draining on the operator.

  Let him come a little nearer, that's all, and it would be cold steel and a strangling cord that he would face.

  I could feel the presence advancing now, hear the soft stirring of pine needles. A few more feet, enemy. . . . Come on. That's all I need. Come into range. . . .

  He halted. I could hear a steady, soft breathing.

  Then, "You must be aware of me by now, Magus," came a low whisper, "for we all have our little tricks, and I know the source of yours."

  "Who are you?" I asked, as I clasped the haft of my blade and rolled into a crouch, facing the darkness, the point of my weapon describing a small circle.

  "I am the enemy," was the reply. "The one you thought would never come.

  9

  Power.

  I remembered the day I had stood atop a rocky prominence. Fiona--dressed in lavender, belted with silverstood in a higher place before me and somewhat to my

  right. She held a silver mirror in her right hand, and she looked downward through the haze to the place where the great tree towered. There was a total stillness about us, and even our own small sounds came muffled. The upper portions of the tree disappeared into a low-hanging fog bank. The light that filtered through limned it starkly against another pile of fog which hung at its back, rising to join with the one overhead. A bright, seemingly self-illuminated line was etched into the ground near the base of the tree, curving off to vanish within the fog. Far to my left, a brief arc of a similar intensity was also visible, emerging from and returning to the billowing white wall.

  "What is it, Fiona?" I asked. "Why did you bring me to this place?"

  "You've heard of it;' she replied. "I wanted you to see it."

  I shook my head. "I've never heard of it. I've no idea what I'm looking at.

  "Come," she said, and she began to descend.

  She disdained my hand, moving quickly and gracefully, and we came down from the rocks and moved nearer to the tree. There was something vaguely familiar there, but I could not place it.

  "From your father," she said at last. "He spent a long time telling you his story. Surely he did not omit this part."

  I halted as understanding presented itself, tentatively at first.

  "'That tree," I said.

  "Corwin planted his staff when he commenced the creation of the new Pattern," she said. "It was fresh. It took root."

  I seemed to feel a faint vibration in the ground.

  Fiona turned her back on the prospect, raised the mirror she carried and angled it so that she regarded the scene over her right shoulder.

  "Yes," she said, after several moments. Then she extended the mirror to

  me. "Take a look," she told me, "as I just did."

  I accepted it, held it, adjusted it and stared.

  The view in the minor was not the same as that which had presented itself to my unaided scrutiny. I was able to see beyond the tree now, through the fog, to discern most of the strange Pattern which twisted its bright way about the ground, working its passages inward to its off-center terminus, the only spot still concealed by an unmoving tower of white, within which tiny lights like stars seemed to bum.

  "It doesn't look like the Pattern back in Amber," I said.

  "No," she answered. "Is it anything like the Logrus?"

  "Not really.The Logrus actually alters itself somewhat, constantly. Still, it's more angular, whereas this is mostly curves and bends."

  I studied it a little longer, then returned her looking glass.

  "Interesting spell on the mirror," I commented, for I had been studying this also, while I held it.

  "And much more difficult than you'd think," she responded, "for there's more than fog in there. Watch."

  She advanced to the beginning of the Pattern, near the great tree, where she moved as if to set her foot upon the bright trail. Before it arrived, however, a small electrical discharge crackled upward and made contact with her shoe. She jerked her foot back quickly.

  "It rejects me," she said. "I can't set foot on it. Try it."

  There was something in her gaze I did not like, but I moved forward to where she had been standing.

  "Why couldn't your mirror penetrate all the way to the center of the thing?" I asked suddenly.

  "The resistance seems to go up the farther you go in. It is greatest there," she replied. "But as to why,I do not know."

  I hesitated a moment longer. "Has anyone tried it other than yourself?"

  I brought Bleys here," she answered. "It rejected him too."

  "And he's the onl
y other one who's seen it?"

  "No, I brought Random. But he declined to try. Said he didn't care to screw around with it right then."

  "Prudent, perhaps. Was he wearing the Jewel at the time?"

  "No. Why?"

  "Just curious."

  "See what it does for you."

  "All right."

  I raised my right foot and lowered it slowly toward the line. About a foot above it, I stopped.

  "Something seems to be holding me back," I said.

  "Strange. There is no electrical discharge for you."

  "Small blessing," I responded, and I pushed my foot a couple of inches farther downward. Finally, I sighed. "Nope, Fi. I can't."

  I read the disappointment in her features.

  "I was hoping," she said as I drew back, "that someone other than Corwin might be able to walk it. His son seemed the most likely choice."

  "Why is it so important that someone walk it? Just because it's there?" "I think it's a menace," she said. "It has to be explored and dealt with."

  "A menace? Why?"

  "Amber and Chaos are the two poles of existence, as we understand it," she said, "housing as they do the Pattern and the Logrus. For ages there has been something of an equilibrium between them. Now, I believe, this bastard Pattern of your father's is undermining their balance."

  "In what fashion?"

  "There have always been wavelike exchanges between Amber and Chaos. This seems to be setting up some interference."

  "It sounds more like tossing an extra ice cube into a drink," I said. "It should settle down after a while."

  She shook her head. "Things are not settling. There have been far more shadow-storms since this thing was created. They rend the fabric of Shadow. They affect the nature of reality itself."

  "No good," I said. "Another event a lot more important along these lines occurred at the same time. The original Pattern in Amber was damaged and Oberon repaired it. The wave of Chaos which came out of that swept through all of Shadow. Everything was affected. But the Pattern held and things settled again. I'd be more inclined to think of all those extra shadow-storms as being in the nature of aftershocks."

  "It's a good argument," she said. "But what if it's wrong?" "I don't think it is."

  "Merle, there's some kind of power here an immense amount of power."

  "I don't doubt it."

  "It has always been our way to keep an eye on power, to try to understand it, to control it. Because one day it might become a threat. Did Corwin tell you anything, anything at all, as to exactly what this represents and how we might get a handle on it?"

  "No," I said. "Nothing beyond the fact that he made it in a hurry to replace the old one, which he'd figured Oberon might not have succeeded in repairing."

  "If only we could find him."

  "There still hasn't been any word?"

  "Droppa claims that he saw him at the Sands, back on the shadow Earth you both favor. He said he was in the company of an attractive woman, and they were both having a drink and listening to a music group. He waved and headed toward them through a crowd, and he thought that Corwin saw him. When he got to their table, though, they were gone."

  "That's all?"

  "That's all."

  "That's not much."

  "I know. If he's the only one who can walk this damned thing, though, and if it is a menace, we could be in big trouble one day."

  "I think you're being an alarmist, Aunty."

  "I hope you're right, Merle. Come on, I'll take you home."

  I studied the place once more, for details as well as feeling, because I wanted to be able to construct a Trump for it. I never told anyone that there had been no resistance as I had lowered my foot, because once you set foot into the Pattern or the Logrus there is no fuming back. You either proceed to the end or are destroyed by it. And as much as I love mysteries, my break was at its end and I had to get back to class.

  Power.

  We were together in a wood within the Black Zone, that area of

  Shadow with which Chaos holds commerce. We were hunting zhind, which are horned, short, black, fierce and carnivorous. I do not much like hunting because I do not much like killing things I don't really have to. However, it was Jurt's idea, and since it was possibly also my last chance to work some reconciliation with my brother before I departed, I had decided to take him up on the offer. Neither of us was that great an archer, and zhind are pretty fast. So with any luck at all nothing would get dead and we'd have some chance to talk and perhaps come away on better terms at the end of the hunt.

  On one occasion when we'd lost the trail and were resting, we talked for a long time about archery, court politics, Shadow and the weather. He had been much more civil to me of late, which I took for a good sign. He'd let his hair grow in such a fashion as to cover the area of his missing left ear. Ears are hard to regenerate. We did not speak of our duel, or of the argument that had led up to it. Because I would soon be out of his life, I felt perhaps he wished to close this chapter of his existence in a relatively friendly fashion, with both of us going our ways with a memory we could feel good about. I was half right, anyway.

  Later, when we had halted for a cold hail lunch, he asked me, "So, what does it feel like?"

  "What?" I said.

  "The power," he answered. "The Logrus power-to walk in Shadow, to work with a higher order of magic than the mundane."

  I didn't really want to go into detail, because I knew he'd prepared himself to traverse the Logrus on three different occasions and had backed down at the last moment each time, when he'd looked into it. Perhaps the skeletons of failures that Suhuy keeps around had troubled him also. I don't think Jurt was aware that I knew about the last two times he'd changed his mind. So I decided to downplay my accomplishment.

  "Oh, you don't really feel any different," I said, "until you're actually using it. Then it's hard to describe."

  "I'm thinking of doing it soon myself," he said. "It would be good to see something of Shadow, maybe even find a kingdom for myself somewhere. Can you give me any advice?"

  I nodded. "Don't look back," I said. "Don't stop to think. Just keep going."

  He laughed. "Sounds like orders to an army," he said.

  "I suppose there is a similarity."

  He laughed again. "Let's go kill us a zhind," he said.

  That afternoon, we lost a trail in a thicket full of fallen branches. We'd heard the zhind crash through it, but it was not immediately apparent which way it had gone. I had my back to Jurt and was facing the forward edge of the place, searching for some sign, when F'rakir constricted tightly about my wrist, then came loose and fell to the ground.

  I bent over to retrieve her, wondering what had happened, when I heard a thank from overhead. Glancing upward, I saw an arrow protruding from the bole of the tree before me. Its height above the ground was such that had I remained standing it would have entered my back.

  I tamed quickly toward Jurt, not even straightening from my crouch. He was fitting another arrow to his bow.

  He said, "Don't look back. Don't stop to think. Just keep going," and he laughed.

  I dove toward him as he raised the weapon. A better archer would probably have killed me. I think when I moved he panicked and released the arrow prematurely, though, because it caught in the side of my leather vest and I didn't feel any pain.

  I clipped him above the knees, and he dropped the bow as he fell over backward. He drew his hunting knife, rolled to the side and swung the a . weapon toward my throat. I caught his wrist with my left hand and was cast onto my back by the force of his momentum. I struck at his face with my right fist while holding the blade away from me. He blocked the punch and kneed me in the balls.

  The point of the blade dropped to within inches of my throat as this blow collapsed a big piece of my resistance. Still aching, I was able to turn my hip to prevent another ball-buster, simultaneous with casting my right forearm beneath his wrist and cutting my hand in the proc
ess. Then I pushed with my right, pulled with my left and rolled to the left with the force of the turn. His arm was jerked free from my still-weakened grasp, and he rolled off to the side and I tried to recover-and then I heard him scream.

  Coming up onto my knees, I saw that he lay upon his left side where he had come to a stop and the knife was several feet beyond him, caught in a tangle of broken branches. Both hands were raised to his face, and his cries were wordless, animal-like bleats.

  I made my way over to him to see what had happened, with Frakir held ready to wrap about his throat in case it were some sort of trick he was playing.

  But it was not. When I reached him I saw that a sharp limb of a fallen branch had pierced his right eye. There was blood on his cheek and the side of his nose.

  "Stop jerking around!" I said. "You'll make it worse. Let me get it out."

  "Keep your damn hands off me!" he cried.

  Then, clenching his teeth and grimacing horribly, he caught hold of the limb with his right hand and drew his head back. I had to look away. He made a whimpering noise several moments later and collapsed, unconscious. I ripped off my left shirt sleeve, tore a strip from it, folded it into a pad and placed it over his damaged eye. With another strip, I tied it into place there. Frakir found her way back about my wrist, as usual.

  Then I dug out the Trump that would take us home and raised him in my arms. Mom wasn't going to like this.

  Power.

  It was a Saturday. Luke and I had been hang gliding all morning. Then

  we met Julia and Gail for lunch, and afterward we took the Starburst out and sailed all afternoon. Later, we'd hit the bar and grill at the marina where I bought the beers while we waited for steaks, because Luke had slammed my right arm flat against the tabletop when we'd wrist wrestled to see who paid for drinks.

  Someone at the next table said, "If I had a million dollars, tax free, I'd ..." and Julia had laughed as she listened.

  "What's funny?" I asked her.