by The Chronicles of Amber Short Stories; Prologue to Trumps of Doom (html)
Now, faintly, in the distance, I seemed to hear the sound of rainfall. Perhaps it was coming down on the other side of the peak.
As I advanced, I became convinced that it was storming not too far away. I could now hear the moaning of wind within the splashing.
I was suddenly dazzled by a flash from beyond the crest. A sharp report of thunder kept it company. I halted for only a moment. During that time, amid the ringing in my ears, I thought that I heard the sound of a cackling laugh.
Trudging ahead, I came at last to the summit. Immediately, the wind assailed me, bearing a full load of moisture. I drew my cloak closed and fastened it down the front as I made my way forward.
Several paces then, and I beheld a hollow, below and to my left. It was eerily illuminated by dancing orbs of ball lightning. There were two figures within it—one seated on the ground, the other, cross-legged, hanging Upside down in the air with no apparent means of support, across from him. I chose the most concealed route I could and headed toward them.
They were lost to my sight much of the way, as the course I had taken bore me through areas of fairly dense foliage. Abruptly, however, I knew that I was near when the rain ceased to fall upon me and I no longer felt the pressures of the wind. It was as if I had entered the still eye of a hurricane.
Cautiously, I continued my advance, winding up on my belly, peering amid branches at the two old men. Both regarded the invisible cubes of a three-dimensional game, pieces hung above a board on the ground between them, squares of their aerial positions limned faintly in fire. The man seated upon the ground was a hunchback, and he was smiling, and I knew him.
It was Dworkin Barimen, my legendary ancestor, filled with ages and wisdom and godlike powers, creator of Amber, the Pattern, the Trumps, and maybe reality itself as I understood it. Unfortunately, through much of my dealing with him in recent times, he'd also been more than a little bit nuts.
Merlin had assured me that he was recovered now, but I wondered. Godlike beings are often noted for some measure of nontraditional rationality. It just seems to go with the territory. I wouldn't put it past the old bugger to be using sanity as a pose while in pursuit of some paradoxical end.
The other man, whose back was to me, reached forward and moved a piece that seemed to correspond to a pawn. It was a representation of the Chaos beast known as a Fire Angel. When the move was completed the lightning flashed again and the thunder cracked and my body tingled. Then Dworkin reached out and moved one of his pieces, a Wyvern. Again, the thunder and lightning, the tingling. I saw that a rearing Unicorn occupied the place of the King among Dworkin's pieces, a representation of the palace at Amber on the square beside it. His opponent's King was an erect Serpent, the Thelbane—the great needlelike palace of the Kings of Chaos—beside it.
Dworkin's opponent advanced a Piece, laughing as he did so. "Mandor," he announced. "He thinks himself puppet-master and king-maker." After the crash and dazzle, Dworkin moved a piece. "Corwin," he said.
"He is free again."
"Yes. But he does not know he is in a race with destiny. I doubt he will make it back to Amber in time to encounter the hall of mirrors. Without their clues, how effective will he be?"
Dworkin smiled and raised his eyes. For a moment, he seemed to be looking right at me. "I think his timing is perfect, Suhuy," he said then, "and I have several pieces of his memory I found years ago drifting above the Pattern in Rebma. I wish I had a golden piss-pot for each time he's been underestimated."
"What would that give you?" asked the other.
"Expensive helmets for his enemies."
Both men laughed, and Suhuy rotated 90 degrees counterclockwise.
Dworkin rose into the air and tilted forward until he was parallel to the ground, looking down on the board. Suhuy tended a hand toward a female figure on one of the higher levels, then drew it back. Abruptly, he moved the Fire Angel again. Even as the air was burned and beaten Dworkin made a move, so that the thunder continued into a roll and the brightness hung there. Dworkin said something I could not hear over the din. Suhuy's response to the probable naming was, "But she's a Chaos figure!"
"So? We set no rule against it. Your move."
"I want to study this," Suhuy said. "More than a little."
"Take it with you," Dworkin responded. "Bring it back tomorrow night?"
"I'll be occupied. The night after?"
"I will be occupied. Three nights hence?"
"Yes. Until then?"
"—good night."
The blast and the crash that followed blinded me and deafened me for several moments. Suddenly, I felt the rain and the wind. When my vision cleared, I saw that the hollow was empty. Retreating, I made my way back over the crest and down to my camp, which the rain had found again, also. The trail was wider now.
I rose at dawn and fed myself while I waited for Shask to stir. The night's doings did not seem like a dream.
"Shask," I said later, "do you know what a hellride is?"
"I've heard of it," he replied, "as an arcane means of traveling great distances in a short time, employed by the House of Amber. Said to be hazardous to the mental health of the noble steed."
"You strike me as being eminently stable, emotionally and intellectually."
"Why, thank you—I guess. Why the sudden rush?"
"You slept through a great show," I said, "and now I've a date with a gang of reflections if I can catch them before they fade."
"If it must be done..."
"We race for the golden piss-pot, my friend. Rise up and be a horse."
Roger Zelazny - The Shroudling and the Guisel
Preface from Realms of Fantasy: This story takes up the affairs of Merlin, son of Corwin, from where I left him at the end of Prince of Chaos, the 10th and most recent book in my Amber series. As a Prince of Amber on his father's side and a Prince of Chaos on his mother's, Merlin has some problems—not the least of these being that he finds himself in the line of succession for the recently vacated Throne of Chaos, a position he is not anxious to assume. He had felt himself well-protected from it by the number of claimants ahead of him. Unfortunately, they have been dying off most rapidly, generally by means other than the natural. He suspects his mother, Dara, and his half-brother, Mandor, of having a hand in this. But he recently faced both of them down in a magical duel, and they seem to have had second thoughts about his tractability, should one of them manage to seat him on the Throne. Time will tell. In the meantime, he went off to one of Mandor's guest houses, hoping for a good night's sleep.
* * *
I awoke in a dark room, making love to a lady I did not recall having gone to bed with. Life can be strange. Also oddly sweet at times. I hadn't the will to destroy our congress, and I went on and on with what I was doing and so did she until we came to that point of sudden giving and taking, that moment of balance and rest.
I made a gesture with my left hand and a small light appeared and glowed above our heads. She had long black hair and green eyes, and her cheekbones were high and her brow wide. She laughed when the light came on, revealing the teeth of a vampire. Her mouth held not a trace of blood, making it seem somehow impolite for me to touch my throat seeking after any trace of soreness. "It's been a long time, Merlin," she said softly.
"Madam, you have the advantage of me," I said.
She laughed again. "Hardly," she answered, and she moved in such a fashion as to distract me entirely, causing the entire chain of events to begin again on my part.
"Unfair," I said, staring into those sea-deep eyes, stroking that pale brow. There was something terribly familiar there, but I could not understand it.
"Think," she said, "for I wish to be remembered."
"I...Rhanda?" I asked.
"Your first love, as you were mine," she said smiling, "there in the mausoleum. Children at play, really. But it was sweet, was it not?"
"It still is," I replied, stroking her hair. "No, I never forgot you. Never thought to see you again,
though, after finding that note saying your parents no longer permitted you to play with me...thinking me a vampire."
"It seemed so, my Prince of Chaos and of Amber. Your strange strengths and your magics...."
I looked at her mouth, at her unsheathed fangs. "Odd thing for a family of vampires to forbid," I stated.
"Vampires? We're not vampires," she said. "We are among the last of the shroudlings. There are only five families of us left in all the secret images of all the shadows from here to Amber—and farther, on into that place and into Chaos."
I held her more tightly and a long lifetime of strange lore passed through my head. Later I said, "Sorry, but I have no idea of what a shroudling is."
Later still she responded, "I would be very surprised if you did, for we have always been a secret race." She opened her mouth to me, and I saw by spirit-light a slow retraction of her fangs into normal-seeming dentition. "They emerge in times of passion other than feasting," she remarked.
"So you do use them as a vampire would," I said.
"Or a ghoul," she said. "Their flesh is even richer than their blood."
"'Their'?" I said.
"That of those we would take."
"And who might they be?" I asked.
"Those the world might be better off without," she said. "Most of them simply vanish. Occasionally, with a feast of jokers, only parts of some remain."
I shook my head.
"Shroudling lady, I do not understand," I told her.
"We come and go where we would. We are an undetected people, a proud people. We live by a code of honor which has protected us against all your understanding. Even those who suspect us do not know where to turn to seek us."
"Yet you come and tell me these things."
"I have watched you much of my life. You would not betray us. You, too, live by a code."
"Watched me much of my life? How?"
But we distracted each other then and that moment came to a close. I would not let it die, however. Finally, as we lay side by side, I repeated it. By then, however, she was ready for it.
"I am the fleeting shadow in your mirror," she said. "I look out, yet you see me not. All of us have our pets, my love, a person or place of hobby. You have always been mine."
"Why do you come to me now, Rhanda?" I asked. "After all these years?"
She looked away.
"Mayhap you will die soon," she said after a time, "and I wished to recall our happy days together at Wildwood."
"Die soon? I live in danger. I can't deny it. I'm too near the Throne. But I've strong protectors—and I am stronger than people think."
"As I said, I have watched," she stated. "I do not doubt your prowess. I've seen you hang many spells and maintain them. Some of them I do not even understand."
"You are a sorceress?"
She shook her head. "My knowledge of these matters, while extensive, is purely academic," she said. "My own powers lie elsewhere."
"Where?" I inquired.
She gestured toward my wall. I stared. Finally, I said, "I don't understand."
"Could you turn that thing up?" she asked, nodding toward the spirit-light.
I did so.
"Now move it into the vicinity of your mirror."
I did that also. The mirror was very dark, but so was everything else there in Mandor's guest house, where I had elected to spend the night following our recent reconciliation.
I got out of bed and crossed the room. The mirror was absolutely black, containing no reflection of anything. "Peculiar," I remarked.
"No," she said. "I closed it and locked it after I entered here. Likewise, every other mirror in the house."
"You came in by way of the mirror?"
"I did. I live in the mirrorworld."
"And your family? And the four other families you mentioned?"
"We all of us make our homes beyond the bounds of reflection."
"And from there you travel from place to place?"
"Indeed."
"Obviously, to watch your pets. And to eat people of whom you disapprove?"
"That, too."
"You're scary, Rhanda." I returned to the bed, seating myself on its edge. I took hold of her hand and held it. "And it is good to see you again. I wish you had come to me sooner."
"I have," she said, "using the sleep spells of our kind."
"I wish you had awakened me."
She nodded. "I would like to have stayed with you, or taken you home with me. But for this part of your life you a certified danger bringer."
"It does seem that way," I agreed. "Still...Why are you here now, apart from the obvious?"
"The danger has spread. It involves us now."
"I actually thought that the danger in my life had been minimized a bit of late," I told her. "I have beaten off Dara's and Mandor's attempts to control me and come to an understanding of sorts with them."
"Yet still they will scheme."
I shrugged. "It is their nature. They know that I know, and they know I am their match. They know I am ready for them now. And my brother Jurt...we, too, seem to have reached an understanding. And Julia...we have been reconciled. We—"
She laughed. "Julia has already used your 'reconciliation' to try to turn Jurt against you. I watched. I know. She stirs his jealousy with hints that she still cares more for you than for him. What she really wants is you removed, along with the seven in the running with you—and the others who stand ready. She would be queen in Chaos."
"She's no match for Dara," I said.
"Ever since she defeated Jasra, she's had a high opinion of herself. It has not occurred to her that Jasra had grown lazy and lost by a trick, not by a matter of power. She would rather believe her own strength greater than it is. And that is her weakness. She would be reunited with you to put you off-guard as well as to turn your brother against you once again."
"I am forewarned, and I thank you—though there are really only six others in the running for the Throne. I was number one, but a half dozen pretenders have recently turned up. You said seven. There's one I don't know about?"
"There is the hidden one," she said. "I do not know his name to tell you, though I know you saw him in Suhuy's pool. I know his appearance, Chaotic and human. I know that even Mandor considers him a worthy antagonist when it comes to scheming. Conversely, I believe Mandor is the main reason he removed himself to our realm. He fears Mandor."
"He inhabits the mirrorworld?"
"Yes, though he is not yet aware of our existence there. He found it by a near-impossible accident, but he simply thinks he has made a marvelous discovery—a secret way to go nearly anywhere, to see nearly anything without detection. Our people have avoided his awareness, using curves he cannot perceive let alone turn. It has made him considerably more formidable in his path to the Throne."
"If he can look out—even listen—through any mirror without being detected; if he can step out; assassinate someone, and escape by the same route—yes, I can understand it."
The night suddenly seemed very cold. Rhanda's eyes widened. I moved to the chair where I had thrown my garments and began dressing myself.
"Yes, do that," she said.
"There's more, isn't there?"
"Yes. The hidden one has located and brought back an abomination to our peaceful realm. Somewhere, he found a guisel."
"What is a guisel?"
"A being out of our myth, one we had thought long exterminated in the mirrorworld. Its kind nearly destroyed the shroudlings. A monster, it took an entire family to destroy what was thought to be the last of them."
I buckled my sword belt and drew on my boots. I crossed the chamber to the mirror and held my hand before its blackness. Yes, it seemed the source of the cold.
"You closed them and locked them?" I said. "All of the mirrors in this vicinity?"
"The hidden one has sent the guisel through the ways of the mirrors to destroy nine rivals to the Throne. It is on its way to seek the tenth now: yourself."<
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"I see. Can it break your locks?"
"I don't know. Not easily, I wouldn't think. It brings the cold, however. It lurks just beyond the mirror. It knows that you are here."
"What does it look like?"
"A winged eel with a multitude of clawed legs. It is about 10 feet long."
"If we let it in?"
"It will attack you."
"If we enter the mirror ourselves?"
"It will attack you."
"On which side is it stronger?"
"The same on either, I think."
"Well, hell! Can we enter by a different mirror and sneak up on it?"
"Maybe."
"Let's give it a shot. Come on."
She rose, dressed quickly in a blood-red garment, and followed me through a wall to a room that was actually several miles distant. Like most of the nobles of Chaos, brother Mandor believes in keeping a residence scattered. A long mirror hung on the far wall between the desk and a large Chaos clock. The clock, I saw, was about to chime a nonlinear for the observer. Great. I drew my blade.
"I didn't even know this one was here," she said.
"We're some distance away from the room where I slept. Forget space. Take me through."
"I'd better warn you first," she said. "According to tradition, nobody's ever succeeded in killing a guisel with a sword, or purely by means of magic. Guisels can absorb spells and lashes of force. They can take terrible wounds and survive."
"Any suggestions then?"
"Baffle it, imprison it, banish it. That might be better than trying to kill it."
"OK, we'll play it as it's dealt. If I get into real bad trouble, you get the hell out."
She did not reply but took my hand and stepped into the mirror. As I followed her, the antique Chaos clock began to chime an irregular beat. The inside of the mirror seemed the same as the room without, but turned around. Rhanda led me to the farthest point of the reflection, to the left, then stepped around a corner.