The Great Book of Amber

by Roger Zelazny

  “Benedict, Benedict,” said Brand, smiling, “of what use is the finest swordsman alive if he cannot move to take up his blade? I told you that you were a fool. Did you think I would walk willingly to my slaughter? You should have trusted the fear you must have felt. You should have known that I would not enter this place helpless. I meant it when I said that I was going to win. You were a good choice though, because you are the best. I really wish that you had accepted my offer. But it is not that important now. I cannot be stopped. None of the others has a chance, and with you gone things are going to be much easier.”

  He reached beneath his cloak and produced a dagger.

  “Bring me through, Benedict!” I cried, but it was no use. There was no response, no strength to trump me up there.

  I seized Brand's Trump. I recalled my Trump battle with Eric. If I could hit Brand through his Trump, I might be able to break his concentration sufficiently for Benedict to come free. I turned all of my faculties upon the card, preparing for a massive mental assault. But nothing. The way was frozen and dark.

  It had to be that his concentration on the task at hand, his mental involvement with the Jewel, was so complete that I simply could not reach him. I was blocked at every turn.

  Suddenly, the stairway grew paler above me and I cast a quick glance at the moon. A limb of cumulus now covered a portion of its face. Damn!

  I returned my attention to Benedict's Trump. It seemed slow, but I did recover the contact, indicating that somewhere, inside it all, Benedict was still conscious. Brand had moved a pace nearer and was still taunting him. The Jewel on its heavy chain burned with the light of its use. They stood perhaps three paces apart now. Brand toyed with the dagger.

  “...Yes, Benedict,” he was saying, “you probably would have preferred to die in battle. On the other hand, you might look upon this as a kind of honor-a signal honor. In a way, your death will allow the birth of a new order...”

  For a moment, the Pattern faded behind them. I could not tear my eyes from the scene to examine the moon, however. There, within the shadows and the flickering light, his back to the Pattern, Brand did not seem to notice. He took another step forward.

  “But enough of this,” he said. “There are things to be done, and the night grows no younger.”

  He stepped nearer and lowered the blade.

  “Good night, sweet Prince,” he said, and he moved to close with him.

  At that instant, Benedict's strange mechanical right arm, torn from this place of shadow and silver and moonlight, moved with the speed of a striking snake. Thing of glinting, metallic planes like the facets of a gem, wrist a wondrous weave of silver cable, pinned with flecks of fire, stylized, skeletal, a Swiss toy, a mechanical insect, functional, deadly, beautiful in its way, it shot forward with a speed that I could not follow, while the rest of his body remained steady, a statue.

  The mechanical fingers caught the Jewel's chain about Brand's neck. Immediately, the arm moved upward, raising Brand high above the floor. Brand dropped the dagger and clutched at his throat with both hands.

  Behind him, the Pattern faded once again. It returned with a much paler glow. Brand's face in the lantern light was a ghastly, twisted apparition. Benedict remained frozen, holding him on high, unmoving, a human gallows.

  The Pattern grew dimmer. Above me, the steps began to recede. The moon was half-occluded.

  Writhing, Brand raised his arms above his head, catching at the chain on either side of the metal hand that held it. He was strong, as all of us are. I saw his muscles bunch and harden. By then, his face was dark and his neck a mass of straining cables. He bit his lip; the blood ran into his beard as he drew upon the chain.

  With a sharp snap followed by a rattling, the chain parted and Brand fell to the floor gasping. He rolled over once, clutching at his throat with both hands.

  Slowly, very slowly, Benedict lowered his strange arm. He still held the chain and the Jewel. He flexed his other arm. He sighed deeply.

  The Pattern grew even dimmer. Above me, Tir-na Nog'th became transparent. The moon was almost gone.

  “Benedict!” I cried. “Can you hear me?”

  “Yes,” he said, very softly, and he began to sink through the floor.

  “The city is fading! You've got to come to me right away!”

  I extended my hand.

  “Brand...” he said, turning.

  But Brand was sinking also, and I saw that Benedict could not reach him. I clasped Benedict's left hand and jerked. Both of us fell to the ground beside the high outcrop.

  I helped him to his feet. Then we both seated ourselves on the stone. For a long while, we did not say anything. I looked again and Tir-na Nog'th was gone.

  I thought back over everything that had happened, so fast, so sudden, that day. A great weight of weariness lay upon me now, and I felt that my energies must be at their end, that shortly I must sleep. I could scarcely think straight. Life had simply been too crowded recently. I leaned my back against the stone once more, regarding cloud and star. The pieces ...the pieces which it seemed should fit, if only the proper jiggle, twist, or flip were applied... They were jiggling, twisting, and flipping now, almost of their own accord...

  “Is he dead, do you think?” Benedict asked, pulling me back from a half-dream of emerging forms.

  “Probably,” I said. “He was in bad shape when things fell apart.”

  “It was a long way down. He might have had time to work some escape along the lines of his arrival.”

  “Right now it, does not really matter,” I said. “You've drawn his fangs.”

  Benedict grunted. He was still holding the Jewel, a much dimmer red than it had been so recently.

  “True,” he finally said. “The Pattern is safe now. I wish ...I wish that some time, long ago, something had not been said that was said, or something done that was not done. Something, had we known, which might have let him grow differently, something which would have seen him become another man than the bitter, bent thing I saw up there. It is best now if he is dead. But it is a waste of something that might have been.”

  I did not answer him. What he had said might or might not be right. It did not matter. Brand might have been borderline psychotic, whatever that means, and then again maybe not. There is always a reason. Whenever anything has been mucked up, whenever anthing outrageous happens, there is a reason for it. you still have a mucked-up, outrageous situation on your hands, however, and explaining it does not alleviate it one bit. If someone does something really rotten, there is a reason for it. Learn it, if you care, and you learn why he is a son of a bitch. The fact is the thing that remains, though. Brand had acted. It changed nothing to run a posthumous psychoanalysis. Acts and their consequences are the things by which our fellows judge us. Anything else, and all that you get is a cheap feeling of moral superiority by thinking how you would have done something nicer if it had been you. So as for the rest, leave it to heaven. I'm not qualified.

  “We had best get back to Amber,” Benedict said, “There are a great number of things that must be done.”

  “Wait,” I said.

  “Why?”

  “I've been thinking.”

  When I did not elaborate, he finally said, “And..?”

  I riffled slowly through my Trumps, replacing his, replacing Brand's.

  “Haven't you wondered yet about the new arm you wear?” I asked him.

  “Of course. You brought it from Tir-na Nog'th, under unusual circumstances. It fits. It works. It proved itself tonight.”

  “Exactly. Isn't the last a lot of weight to dump on poor coincidence? The one weapon that gave you a chance up there, against the Jewel. And it just happened to be a part of you-and you just happened to be the person who was up there, to use it? Trace things back and trace them forward again. Isn't there an extraordinary-no, preposterous-chain of coincidences involved?”

  “When you put it that way...” he said.

  “I do. And you must realize as well
as I do that there has to be more to it than that.”

  “All right. Say that. But how? How was it done?”

  “I have no idea,” I said, withdrawing the card I had not looked upon in a long, long while, feeling its coldness beneath my finger tips, “but the method is not important. You asked the wrong question.”

  “What should I have asked?”

  “Not 'How?' but 'Who?' “

  “You think that a human agency arranged that entire chain of events, up through the recovery of the Jewel?”

  “I don't know about that. What's human? But I do think that someone we both know has returned and is behind it all.”

  “All right. Who?”

  I showed him the Trump that I held.

  “Dad? That is ridiculous? He must be dead. It's been so long.”

  “You know he could have engineered it. He's that devious. We never understood all of his powers.”

  Benedict rose to his feet. He stretched. He shook his head.

  “I think you have been out in the cold too long, Corwin. Let's go home now.”

  “Without testing my guess? Come on! That is hardly sporting. Sit down and give me a minute. Let's try his Trump.”

  “He would have contacted someone by now.”

  “I don't think so. In fact-Come on. Humor me. What have we got to lose?”

  “All right. Why not?”

  He sat down beside me. I held the Trump where both of us could make it out. We stared at it. I relaxed my mind, I reached for contact. It came almost immediately.

  He was smiling as he regarded as.

  “Good evening. That was a fine piece of work,” Ganeton said. “I am pleased that you brought back my trinket. I'll be needing it soon. "

  The Courts Of Chaos

  CHAPTER 1

  Amber: high and bright atop Kolvir in the middle of the day. A black road: low and sinister through Gamath from Chaos to the south. Me: cursing, pacing and occasionally reading in the library of the palace in Amber. The door to that library: closed and barred.

  The mad prince of Amber seated himself at the desk, returned his attention to the opened volume. There was a knock on the door. “Go away!” I said.

  “Corwin. It's me-Random. Open up, huh? I even brought lunch.”

  “Just a minute.”

  I got to my feet again, rounded the desk, crossed the room. Random nodded when I opened the door. He carried a tray, which he took to a small table near the desk.

  “Plenty of food there,” I said.

  “I'm hungry, too.”

  “So do something about it.”

  He did. He carved. He passed me some meat on a slab of bread. He poured wine. We seated ourselves and ate.

  “I know you are still mad...” he said, after a time. “Aren't you?”

  “Well, maybe I am more used to it. I don't know. Still... Yes. It was sort of abrupt, wasn't it?”

  “Abrupt?”

  I took a large swallow of wine.

  “It is just like the old days. Worse even. I had actually come to like him When he was playing at being Ganelon. Now that he is back in control he is just as peremptory as ever, he has given us a set of orders he has not bothered to explain and he has disappeared again.”

  “He said he would be in touch soon.”

  “I imagine he intended that last time, too.”

  “I'm not so sure.”

  “And he explained nothing about his other absence. In fact, he has not really explained anything.”

  “He must have his reasons.”

  “I am beginning to wonder, Random. Do you think his mind might finally be going?”

  “He was still sharp enough to fool you.”

  “That was a combination of low animal cunning and shapeshifting ability.”

  “It worked, didn't it?”

  “Yes. It worked.”

  “Corwin, could it be that you do not want him to have a plan that might be effective, that you do not want him to be right?”

  “That is ridiculous. I want this mess cleared up as much as any of us.”

  “Yes, but wouldn't you rather the answer came from another quarter?”

  “What are you getting at?”

  “You do not want to trust him.”

  “I will admit that. I have not seen him-as himself-in a hell of a long time, and...”

  He shook his head.

  “That is not what I mean. You are angry that he is back, aren't you? You hoped that we had seen the last of him.”

  I looked away.

  “There is that,” I finally said. “But not for a vacant throne, or not just for it. It is him, Random. Him. That's all.”

  “I know,” he said. “But you have to admit he suckered Brand, which is not an easy thing to do. He pulled a stunt I still do not understand, getting you to bring that arm back from Tir-na Nog'th, somehow getting me to pass it along to Benedict, seeing to it that Benedict was in the right place at the proper moment, so that everything worked and he got the Jewel back. He is also still better than we are at Shadow play. He managed it right on Kolvir when he took us to the primal Pattern. I cannot do that. Neither can you. And he was able to whip Gerard. I do not believe that he is slowing down. I think he knows exactly what he is doing, and whether we like it or not, I think he is the only one who can deal with the present situation.”

  “You are trying to say that I should trust him?”

  “I am trying to say that you have no choice.”

  I sighed.

  “I guess you've put your finger on it,” I said. “No sense in my being bitter. Still...”

  “The attack order bothers you, doesn't it?”

  “Yes, among other things. If we could wait longer, Benedict could field a greater force. Three days is not much time to get ready for something like this. Not when we are so uncertain about the enemy.”

  “But we may not be. He spoke in private with Benedict for a long while.”

  “And that is the other thing. These separate orders. This secrecy... He is not trusting us any more than he has to.”

  Random chuckled. So did I.

  “All right,” I said. “Maybe I would not either. But three days to launch a war.” I shook my head. “He had better know something we don't.”

  “I get the impression that it is more a peremptory strike than a war.”

  “Only he did not bother to tell us what we are preempting.”

  Random shrugged, poured more wine.

  “Perhaps he will say when he gets back. You did not get any special orders, did you?”

  “Just to stand and wait. What about you?”

  He shook his head.

  “He said that when the time comes, I will know. At least with Julian, he told him to have his troops ready to move on a moment's notice.”

  “Oh? Aren't they staying in Arden?”

  He nodded.

  “When did he say this?”

  “After you left. He trumped Julian up here to give him the message, and they rode off together. I heard Dad say that he would ride partway back with him.”

  “Did they take the eastern trail over Kolvir?”

  “Yes. I saw them off.”

  “Interesting. What else did I miss?”

  He shifted in his seat.

  “The part that bothers me,” he said. “After Dad had mounted and waved a good-bye, he looked back at me and said, 'And keep an eye on Martin. ' “

  “That is all?”

  “That is all. But he was laughing as he said it.”

  “Just natural suspicion at a newcomer, I guess.”

  “Then why the laugh?”

  “I give up.”

  I cut a piece of cheese and ate it.

  “Might not be a bad idea, though. It might not be suspicion. Maybe he feels Martin needs to be protected from something. Or both. Or neither. You know how he sometimes is.”

  Random stood.

  “I had not thought through to the alternative. Come with me now, huh?” he said. �
��You have been up here all morning.”

  “All right.”

  I got to my feet, buckled on Grayswandir.

  “Where is Martin, anyway?”

  “I left him down on the first floor. He was talking with Gerard”

  “He is in good hands, then. Is Gerard going to be staying here, or will he be returning to the fleet?”

  “I do not know. He would not discuss his orders.”

  We left the room. We headed for the stairway.

  On the way down, I heard some small commotion from below and I quickened my pace.

  I looked over the railing and saw a throng of guards at the entrance to the throne room, along with the massive figure of Gerard. All of them had their backs to us. I leaped down the final stairs. Random was not far behind me.

  I pushed my way through.

  “Gerard, what is happening?” I asked.

  “Damned if I know,” he said. “Look for yourself. But there is no getting in.”

  He moved aside and I took a step forward. Then another. And that was it. It was as if I were pushing against a slightly resilient, totally invisible wall. Beyond was a sight that tied my memory and feelings into a knot. I stiffened, as fear took hold of me by the neck, clasped my hands. No mean trick, that.

  Martin, smiling, still held a Trump in his left hand, and Benedict-apparently recently summoned-stood before him. A girl was nearby, on the dais, beside the throne, facing away. Both men appeared to be speaking, but I could not hear the words.

  Finally, Benedict turned and seemed to address the girl. After a time, she appeared to be answering him. Martin moved off to her left. Benedict mounted the dais as she spoke. I could see her face then. The exchange continued.