Seven Tales in Amber
Stories from the Chronicles of Amber Saga
by
Roger Zelazny
Amber Limited
January 5, 2019
SEVEN TALES IN AMBER:
STORIES FROM THE CHRONICLES OF AMBER SAGA
Copyright © 2019 by Amber Ltd
All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review, without permission in writing from the publisher.
All characters in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
An Amber Limited Book
Cover illustration by Tim White
ISBN-10: 1515439771
ISBN-13: 978-1-5154-3924-0
First printing: January 5, 2019
First paperback printing: January 9, 2019
Printed in U.S.A.
This e-Book edition: July 2019
E-BOOKS by ROGER ZELAZNY
Amber:
The Great Book of Amber
Seven Tales in Amber
Table of Contents
Cover Page
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Prologue to Trumps of Doom
A Secret of Amber
The Salesman’s Tale
Blue Horse, Dancing Mountains
The Shroudling and the Guisel
Coming to a Cord
Hall of Mirrors
About the Author
Acknowledgments
“Introduction” copyright © 2019 by Warren Lapine.
“Prologue to Trumps of Doom” originally appeared in Trumps of Doom Underwood Miller 1985. Copyright © 1985 by The Amber Corporation.
“A Secret of Amber” originally appeared in Amberzine #12-15, 2005. Copyright © 2005 by Ed Greenwood.
“Salesman’s Tale” originally appeared in Amberzine #6, February 1996. Copyright © 1996 by The Amber Corporation.
“Blue Horse, Dancing Mountains” originally appeared in Wheel of Fortune, AvoNova 1995. Copyright © 1995 by The Amber Corporation.
“The Shroudling and the Guisel” originally appeared in Realms of Fantasy #1, October 1994. Copyright © 1994 by The Amber Corporation.
“Coming to a Cord” originally appeared in Pirate Writings #7, Summer 1995. Copyright © 1995 by The Amber Corporation.
“Hall of Mirrors” originally appeared in Castle Fantastic, Daw 1996. Copyright © 1996 by The Amber Corporation.
Introduction
I owe Roger Zelazny a great debt, one which I can never truly repay. Roger Zelazny completely changed my life, twice.
When I was eleven my parents had a financial setback and we moved into one of the worst neighborhoods in our town. I immediately fell in with the wrong crowd and while I didn’t exactly get into a lot of trouble it wasn’t for want of effort. Not one of my friends from that neighborhood made it to college.
As I recall I was the only reader amongst the group. The first science fiction book I ever owned was given to me by one of those friends who stole it just because he could. Once stolen he had no use for it. Since I was the only person he knew who enjoyed reading he gave it to me.
The book was Destination Universe by A. E. Van Vogt. That was my introduction to science fiction; I was 12. At 12 I wanted to quit school, but as my mother pointed out it was against state law for me to drop out until I was 16. So I grudgingly went to school most days, skipped others, and was uninterested in any kind of employment. Hanging out with my friends in the park doing stupid things was all I was interested in, but I still enjoyed reading, and now I was reading some science fiction in addition to the history and mystery books I’d been reading up to that point.
Then one day, my parents got a bit of junk mail from Publisher’s Clearing House. One of its offerings was a charter subscription to a shiny new magazine. Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine. Asimov was a name I knew from the middle school library. I asked my mother to get me a subscription. She refused as I wasn’t much help around the house and had a terrible attitude.
But I really wanted that magazine, so I offered that if she’d get me the subscription I’d go to the newspaper and see if I could get a paper route and pay her back. If that didn’t work I’d clean the house for a month. She agreed. I filled out the forms and stuck all the stickers in the proper places and dropped it into the mail on my way to the Greenfield Recorder, which promptly gave me a paper route. I paid my mother back after my first payday and the magazine arrived shortly thereafter. I enjoyed the magazine; it wasn’t life changing, but I liked it.
Inevitably the Science Fiction Book Club rented my name from Asimov’s. As I recall I was about to quit my paper route as I was not enjoying the experience. But the enticement of 4 free books, and omnibus editions at that, was enough for me to decide to keep the job until I had at least purchased the 4 additional books I was obligating myself to buy. As I recall I chose The Foundation Trilogy by Isaac Asimov, The Dragonriders of Pern by Anne McCaffrey, The Complete Enchanter by Fletcher Pratt and L. Sprague de Camp, and, of course, The Chronicles of Amber Volume I and Volume II.
I remember reading the descriptions of the books over and over again while I awaited their arrival. Even then there was something about the description of the Amber books that captivated me. Even so, or perhaps because of this, I saved the Amber books for last. Reading those first three omnibus editions one after the other during a single weekend was an amazing experience. It quickly became clear to me that from here on out I was only going to read science fiction and fantasy as nothing else that I’d ever read had captivated me as much as these books had.
But as it turned out I was only getting started. The Amber books riveted me to my core. The preceding books made me want to read more science fiction, but Zelazny made me want to write it. With my next paper route money I purchased a used typewriter and several used books by Roger Zelazny. I didn’t realize it yet, but my life had just changed dramatically for the better.
My dad was a sand-mixer at a foundry. There’s nothing wrong with that, but that was the direction my life had been heading in up until I encountered Roger Zelazny and the Chronicles of Amber. With no inclination to further my education and no aspirations beyond sliding through life as easily as I could, I wasn’t on a trajectory to have much of a life. Fortunately, I realized that if I wanted to be a writer I’d need stronger writing skills, and I set out to acquire those skills. My grades immediately picked up, and over the course of my 8th grade year my teachers slowly moved me off of the middle-of-the-road track I’d been on and into the college bound track. Being in classes with a different group of kids meant that my social circle also began to slowly change.
A year after discovering Amber, my life was completely different. I ended up finishing high school rather than dropping out, and I went on to major in English at the University of Massachusetts. At 27 I started a science fiction magazine. Roger Zelazny had had a fanzine so it seemed like a path I should follow. I started my zine just as the desktop revolution hit, so I was able to kick it up a notch or two beyond what had been possible even a few years earlier, so my zine quickly had national distribution.
The first issue of my first magazine, despite having a terrible name made enough of an impression on the field that name writers started sending me submissions. I also started getting invitations to science fiction conventions. At conventions I was able to meet writers and network, which in turn helped the quality of the magazine. But I really did it more to meet my heroes than anything else.…
…
—Warren Lapine
Prologue to Trumps of Doom
&nb
sp; Merlin’s passage through the Logrus.
It was almost too easy. A turning, a twisting, a doubling back …
And then he faced a rough, slanted wall, looked up and saw the shaft. He commenced climbing.
It was no longer easy. A swaying sensation began—faint, then distinct—as if he were mounting into the uppermost branches of a tall tree. His way brightened end then dimmed, repeatedly, in no perceptible pattern. After a time, his eyes ached. Images doubled, wavered …
When the way grew suddenly level he doubted his vision, till his extended hand assured him that there was indeed a choice of passages.
He leaned and moved his head into each of these. The faint musical sound seemed slightly louder in the one to the left, and he followed it. Of that, at least, he was certain.
Now his way rose and fell. He climbed up, he climbed down. The brightening and dimming continued, only now the brightness was brighter and the dimness dimmer.
And the sensations of external movement had not abated. The floor of the tunnel seemed to ripple beneath his feet, the walls and roof to contract and expand. He stumbled, caught himself. Stumbled again …
At the next turning the sounds grew slightly louder, and he realized that they were not a tune, but rather a totally random concatenation of noises.
He climbed. He descended. The passageway shrank, and finally he crawled.
The sensations of movement increased. At times he seemed to be spinning; other times, it felt as if he were falling into an enormous abyss.
The flashes of light now drove nails of pain into skull. He began to hallucinate. Faces and figures. Flames. Or were they hallucinations?
He felt the first faint pulsation upon his left wrist …
How long had he been moving? His clothes were already in tatters and he bled, painlessly, from a dozen scrapes and lacerations.
He descended a well and emerged somehow upward onto a floor. Mad laughter rang about him, ceasing only when he realized it to be his own.
The sounds grew even louder, until it lefts as if he negotiated a gallery of demonic bells—wild, out of phage, their vibrations beating against him.
Thinking became painful. He knew that he must not stop, that he must not turn back, that he must not take any of the lesser turnings where the sounds came softer. Any of these courses would prove fatal. He reduced this to one imperative: Continue.
Again, a pulsing at his wrist, and a faint, slow movement …
He gritted his teeth when he saw that he must climb once more, for his limbs had grown heavy. Each movement seemed as if it were performed underwater—slowly, requiring more than normal effort.
A screen of smoke offered frightening resistance. He drove himself against it for an age before he passed through and felt his movement become easy once again. Six times this occurred, and each time the pressure against him was greater.
When he crawled out, drooling and dripping blood, on the other side of the chamber from which he had entered, his eyes darted wildly and could not fix upon the small, dark figure which stood before him.
“You are a fool,” it told him.
It took some time for the words to register, and when they did he lacked the strength with which to reply.
“A lucky fool,” it went on, darkness flowing about it like wings. (Or were they really wings?) “I had not judged you ready to essay the Logrus for a long while yet.”
He closed his eyes against this speaker, and an image of the route he had followed danced within his mind’s seeing, like a bright, torn web folding in a breeze.
“… And a fool not to have borne a blade and so enchanted it … or a mirror, a chalice, or a wand to brace your magic. No, all I see is a piece of rope. You should have waited, for more instruction, for greater strength; What say you?”
He raised himself from the floor, and a mad light danced within his eyes.
“It was time,” he said. “I was ready.”
“And a cord! What a half-ass-luck!”
The cord, glowing now, tightened about his throat.
When the other released it, the dark one coughed and nodded.
“Perhaps you knew what you were doing—on that count …” it muttered. “Is it really time? You will be leaving?”
“Yes.”
A dark cloak fell upon his shoulders. He heard the splash of water within a flask.
“Here.”
As he drank, the cord wrapped itself about his wrist and vanished.
“Thanks, Uncle.” he said, after several swallows.
The dark figure shook its head.
“Impulsive,” it said. “Just like your father.”
A Secret of Amber
Source text not available at this time
The Salesman’s Tale
Luke flees the Pattern and takes refuge in the Crystal Cave. He and Vialle learn that the redistribution of the spikards will force a confrontation involving Amber and the Courts of Chaos.
Glad I’d planned on leaving Merlin in the Crystal Cave for a long while. Glad he didn’t stay the entire time. As I interrupted our trumped conversation by kicking over my glass of iced tea and shouting “Shit! I spilled it—” I turned over the Trump of Doom in my good hand.
Junkyard Forest. Nice sketch, that. Though it didn’t matter what it depicted, which is why I’d had Merlin fan the cards face down and had drawn one at random. That was for show, to confuse the Pattern. All of them led to places within spitting distance of the Crystal Cave—which had been the real reason for their existence in the first place. Their only purpose had been to draw Merlin into the Cave’s orbit, at which point a blue crystal warning system was to have alerted me. The plan was for me to get there in a hurry and find a way to make him a prisoner.
Unfortunately, I hadn’t gotten the message when he’d drawn the Sphinx to escape from mom. Her neurotoxins had canceled a necessary trigger signal from his nervous system—just one of the many ways she’s messed up my plans without half-trying. Didn’t matter, though, in the long run. I got Merlin there, anyway. Only … everything changed after that.
“Luke! You fool!” The Pattern’s message blasted through me like the closing number at a rock concert. But the Junkyard Forest had already come clear, and I was trumping out, before the Pattern realized that tea rather than my blood was flowing upon it.
I rose to my feet as the Pattern faded, and I moved forward amid the rusty sawblade bushes, the twisted girder trees, the gaily colored beds of broken bottles. I began to run, blood spilling from the slashed palm of my left hand. I didn’t even take the time to bind it. Once the Pattern recovered from its shock and discovered itself undamaged, it was going to begin scanning Shadow for me, for the others. They’d be safe within the ambit of the other Pattern, and that left me. The walls of the Crystal Cave had the effect of blocking every paraphysical phenomenon I’d been able to test them for, and I’d a hunch they’d screen me from the Pattern’s scrutiny as well. It was just a matter of my getting there before it shadow-shuffled this far.
I increased my pace. I’d stayed in shape. I could run. Past rusting cars and swirls of bedsprings, broken tiles, shattered crates … Down alleys of ashes, up trails of bottlecaps and pulltabs … Alert. Waiting. Waiting for the world to spin and waver, to hear the voice of the Pattern announce, “Gotcha!”
I rounded a bend and caught a glimpse of blue in the distance. The Junkyard Forest—result of an ancient Shadow storm—ended abruptly as I entered upon a downward slope, to be succeeded within paces by a wood of the more normal variety.
Here, I heard a few birdcalls as I passed, and the humming of insects, above the steady striking of my feet upon the earth. The sky was overcast, and I could tell nothing of temperature or wind because of my activity. The shimmering mound of blue grew larger. I maintained my pace. By now, the others should be safe, if they’d made it at all. Hell! By now they should be well out of harm’s way. Just a little while in this time-stream was a much longer time back on the main drag. They could be
sitting around eating and joking by now. Even napping. I bit back a curse to save breath. That also meant that the Pattern could have been searching for even longer than it seemed … Larger, even larger now, the blue ridge. I decided to see how well my finishing spurt had held up, and I went into high gear and held it there.
The earth and air were vibrated by what seemed a rumble of thunder. It could be a reaction of the irate design on having finally located me. I could also just be a rumble of thunder.
I kept pumping, and moments later, it seemed, I was braking so as not to smash up against that crystal base. No lightning bolts yet, and I scrambled for hand and toeholds—never having tried climbing this face of it before—as my lungs worked like a bellows and a light rain began to fall, mingling with a layer of my perspiration. I left bloody smears on the stone, but that should soon wash away.
Achieving the summit, I rushed to its opening on all fours and entered feet first, hanging, then dropping into the dark interior despite the presence of a ladder. Haste was all. Not until I stood within that shadowy blueness, still puffing, did I feel at all safe. As soon as I caught my breath I allowed myself to laugh. I had done it. I had escaped the Pattern. I walked about the chamber beating upon my thighs and slapping the walls. A victory such as this tasted good, and I would not let it pass unmarked. I hustled back to the larder, located a bottle of wine, opened it, and took a drink. Then I repaired to a side cavern which still contained a sleeping bag, seated myself upon it, and continued to chuckle as I reenacted in my mind our experience there at the primal Pattern. My lady Nayda had been so magnificent. So had Merlin, for that matter. Now …
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