To Rule in Amber tdoa-3 Read online

  She stared at me. “Of course it is! Everyone knows he made it!”

  “He drew it, but it existed long before him. It's in me… and it's in other places, too.” I thought of the ruby hanging around the unicorn's neck. “There are forces at work which I don't understand yet. I think they used Dad to create the Pattern. If he hadn't done it, they would have found someone else… me, probably.”

  “So it was inevitable?” she said, gaze distant. “Is that what you're saying?”

  “I think so. Yes.”

  “But why did it have to be my family?” Her voice rose in a wail. “Why must we suffer for it? I just want to go home!”

  “Look around!” I said, taking her hand and pulling her to her feet. I took in the whole of this virgin world with a sweep of my arm. “Here is a kingdom ripe for the taking. I'm going to build a city here. If you're not happy, there are more Shadows than you can possibly visit in your lifetime. Anything you can dream up exists somewhere out there. You just have to find it. You want to be a queen, or a goddess? Go ahead! You want jewels or riches? Take them! It's your right. You are a creature of the Pattern, just as Dad is… like I am. It's in you, too, at least partly. It's in all of us. I can feel its presence. You might as well enjoy your true heritage.”

  “No!” she cried. “That's not what I want! I didn't realize how much I missed the Courts until I went home!”

  “The Pattern is in your blood!” I said emphatically. “Look within yourself. Can't you feel it?”

  “No!” she cried.

  More gently, I said, “The Pattern is here to stay whether we want it or not. If that means you can't go back to the Courts of Chaos—well, we'll make our own version here. Call them… the Courts of Dworkin.”

  “Don't make fun of me.”

  “I'm not,” I said. She just needed time to get used to the idea of living in Shadows for the rest of her life.

  “Chaos is beautiful… a tide of unending change… music made flesh—and the powers we command there…”

  “Used to command.”

  “You don't understand,” she said bitterly.

  “You're right,” I said, letting a hard note creep into my voice. “I don't understand. I hated every minute of my time in Chaos. The only way you'll get me back there is if I'm dead!”

  “That's why you tied Dad up, isn't it?” she demanded, turning on me suddenly. “He wanted to destroy the Shadows, and you wouldn't let him—”

  I actually laughed at her.

  “Stop that!” she cried. “It's not funny!”

  “Don't be a fool, Blaise. Everything I've told you is true. You can see it, if you'll let yourself. Dad has gone crazy in a dangerous way. He can't help us now. We have to help him.”

  “He must have had a good reason to kill you. You did something to him, or he knew you were a danger to Chaos, or—”

  I sighed. She didn't want to listen to reason.

  “No,” I said slowly and calmly. “As I told you, it wasn't like that. I found him lying unconscious in the middle of the Pattern. He kept saying the same strange thing over and over… 'Thellops.' Does it mean anything to you?”

  She looked startled. “Thellops?”

  “Yes.” I saw the recognition in her eyes. “You know what it is, don't you?”

  “It's not a what, it's a who.” She licked her lips. “Thellops guards the Logrus.”

  Chapter 6

  “A Lord of Chaos.” I snorted. It always came back to our enemies. “I should have guessed.”

  “He is more than that,” Blaise said. “He takes care of the Logrus. It's a sacred trust. After the king, he is the most important man in the Courts.”

  “So he attacked Dad?”

  “No. He's harmless… old and doddering. His mind drifts. Everyone says he's crazy, but no one does anything about it.”

  “He's crazy?” That caught my attention. “How? Like Dad?”

  “He… he talks to the Logrus. Treats it like a person. Wanders around mumbling to it all day long. I've seen him do it. It's… unnerving.”

  Dad hadn't gone quite that far around the bend yet. At least, I knew who Thellops was now. Perhaps the answer lay somewhere close at hand, and I just didn't see it yet.

  “How well do you know Thellops?” I pressed. Maybe she could get him to come here and help us. “Would he take a look at Dad, if we asked? Or would he betray us to King Uthor?”

  “I don't know. I never paid much attention to him before.”

  “But you've met him,” I said. “He knows you?”

  “Yes.”

  “And Dad?”

  “Of course. We've all met him. Everyone in Chaos has. He decides when—and if—you can enter the Logrus. And sometimes he gives you advice, whether you want it or not.”

  That piqued my interest. If magically powerful objects were anything alike, maybe Thellops's advice about the Logrus could be applied to the Pattern, too. If I could only master the Pattern and its powers, I had a feeling everything would be a lot easier for all of us.

  “What sort of advice?” I asked. “What did he say to you about the Logrus?”

  “When my turn came to enter it, he told me to bring a mirror with me. I did, and it became enchanted.” Her voice grew husky. “Though I've lost my mirror now, of course.”

  “Can't you get it back?” Aber, after all, could summon almost anything across vast distances using the Logrus. Something as small as a mirror ought to be fairly easy. And an enchanted one might prove very useful to us here…

  Blaise shrugged. “I will try later. I miss her.”

  “Who—the mirror?”

  “Yes.”

  “What did it do?”

  “She showed me the truth, always. Even when it hurt.”

  Interesting. Unfortunately, truth didn't strike me as particularly useful right now. I already knew the truth: we had a lunatic for a father and no clear way to help him.

  What I needed more than anything else was a plan of action. If there was even a chance that Thellops could help Dad, we had to find a way to get him here. But how?

  I took a deep breath and slowed myself down. It never helped to rush into things. I tried to take a mental step backward. It always helped me to try to look at problems from a different angle.

  Instead of bringing Thellops here… might we somehow bring Dad to Thellops? King Uthor might have a price on our heads, but I could change my appearance at will. From what I'd seen, others in Chaos had that ability, too… maybe even Blaise? If we could disguise our father and smuggle him back to the Courts of Chaos for Thellops to cure…

  Then I almost chuckled out loud. Ridiculous—we couldn't just walk into our enemy's stronghold with a vague hope someone might be able to cure our father. We might as well stroll up to the palace gates and ask to be captured or killed.

  I chewed my lip thoughtfully. Again I tried to take a mental step back. There had to be another way.

  “Tell me more about Thellops,” I finally said. Understanding him better might provide a third solution.

  “Everyone says he's a harmless old man. I don't know what else to add.”

  “Is he Uthor's man?”

  “I don't think so.”

  “Why not?”

  She hesitated. “It's just a feeling I have. The way he's always looked at the king… with more annoyance than respect, I'd say.”

  “If I wanted to talk with him, how would I go about it? Is there a place I might find him alone and unguarded?”

  “Maybe at the Logrus…”

  “Does he ever leave the Courts?”

  “I don't think so.” She hesitated. “He's old. And crazy. Where would he go? Nobody wants him.”

  I started to pace. “Tell me more about the Logrus. Is it guarded? Could I get to it?”

  “It's not guarded… it doesn't need to be.”

  “What about Thellops?”

  “He doesn't carry any weapons, if that's what you mean. Maybe, if you caught him by surprise, you could bring hi
m here before he could stop you. He doesn't look very strong.”

  “You never know. Appearances can be deceiving, especially with creatures of Chaos.” I shook my head. “No, kidnapping him wouldn't work, anyway. We need him in a cooperative mood. Might we appeal to his sense of duty? Or friendship? How well does he know Dad?”

  “Not well, I think. I have never heard Dad mention him before, except off-handedly.”

  “Thellops!” Dad suddenly muttered, as if on cue.

  I glanced down at him. He seemed to be asleep. His arms and legs twitched like a dog chasing dream-rabbits.

  Then another thought struck me.

  “What if Dad was trying to warn me about something?” I said slowly. “Could Thellops have done this to him? It might explain Dad's behavior. He called me Thellops before he tried to kill me.”

  “I don't know…” Blaise hesitated. “Freda might be able to tell. Was Dad ever out of your sight? Could they have met without your knowing it?”

  I remembered how Dad had vanished from the center of the Pattern. Where had he gone? And how long had he been there? I had no way of knowing.

  “It's possible,” I admitted. “We got separated.”

  “How long were you apart?”

  “I don't know. Time got weird.” How long had I been trapped in that gray fog? After Dad redrew the Pattern, I fell and lost all sense of time. It could have been an hour. It could have been days or weeks. I had no way of telling, especially since time ran differently among all the Shadows. At least a month had passed in the Courts of Chaos, according to Blaise.

  With a sigh, Blaise continued, “Thellops is very powerful. He has to be, since he works directly with the Logrus. But, assuming he really is to blame for what happened to Dad, I have to ask—why? It doesn't make sense to me. Why would he attack Dad? And why would he make Dad crazy?”

  Good questions. I wished I had an answer.

  She went on, “Thellops has never been involved in politics, as far as I know. He doesn't carry a sword or fight duels. Why would he interfere? Why wouldn't he let King Uthor and the lai she'one take care of Dad? It doesn't make sense to me.”

  “How about revenge?” I suggested. “No one but Dad and me seems to want the Shadows.”

  “And Aber,” she said, pulling a sour face. They had never gotten along. “And Freda, of course.”

  I nodded. True, they both seemed to love the Shadows as much as I did. We were all more alike that I'd thought… children of the Pattern, all.

  Blaise said, “Besides, many people in the Courts have grown up with the Shadows and enjoy playing in them. But the rest of us…” Her voice trailed off. “The Shadows just don't seem right to me, somehow. They don't belong. I think everyone feels that way now. When the storms came—”

  “But that was years ago!” Aber had told me about the terrible magical storms that swept in from the Shadows after they first appeared, wrecking havoc on the Courts of Chaos and killing thousands.

  “No,” Blaise said firmly. “More storms struck Chaos—a lot more—over the last month.”

  “They must have happened when Dad drew the Pattern again,” I said.

  “I don't know.” She sighed heavily. “They were horrible, Oberon, pounding at the Courts and the Beyond until we thought the universe itself was coming to an end. I never want to experience anything like that again!”

  “I'm sorry about the Shadow-storms,” I said, “but they're gone and nothing can be done about it now. You survive—”

  “No thanks to you!” she said with a snort.

  “—and I find it hard to care about anyone else in Chaos, beyond our immediate family. In fact, I wish the storms had killed off Uthor and Lord Zon and everyone else who stands against us. I'd send more storms, if I knew how!”

  “Don't even think that!” She looked horrified. “You have no idea how horrible they were! I wouldn't wish it on our worst enemy—think of the thousands of innocent people who would die!”

  I snorted. “You have a soft spot in your heart. I would kill our enemies in one quick swipe, if I could. No matter the cost.”

  “You would only make more enemies.” She shook her head. “We're a hardy lot, we Lords and Ladies of Chaos.”

  “Almost as hard to kill as Dad and me.”

  “You'd be surprised at how much it takes to kill a Lord of Chaos.” She shrugged. “The Pattern storms served as a wakeup call. When the Courts are weakened and Chaos itself is threatened, everyone will put aside their differences and join the king.”

  “Against Dad and me.”

  “If you want to put it that way, then yes. Everyone blames Dad, but they want us all dead. You, me, Freda, Dad—everyone. It's in our bloodline, they say… traitors breed more traitors. If we are dead, the problem goes away… or so the reasoning goes.”

  “I think I'm finally beginning to understand,” I said. In a sudden flash of inspiration, the truth came to me. We weren't really fighting over the existence of the Shadows or the devastation caused by Pattern storms. We were fighting over power.

  The Pattern rivaled the Logrus… might even be more powerful than the Logrus. Sure, purebred Lords of Chaos could change their appearance, move through Shadows, and summon objects from far away. But I could do most of that already using just the Pattern. And, unlike Chaos, the Pattern cast a seemingly infinite number of Shadow-worlds across the universe.

  I had to ask myself, If the Pattern holds such power, why would anyone need the Logrus?

  Dad was like the first Lord of Chaos, the one who discovered and experimented with the Logrus, mastering its gifts to forge an empire. This first King of Chaos must have wielded powers unimaginable to all who came before him. And he had used that power to conquer his enemies and create the Courts of Chaos, which he and his descendants had ruled for untold thousands of years.

  A shiver of excitement and anticipation ran through me. I wondered… could the Pattern do the same? Once mastered, would it make Dad—and me!—the undisputed rulers of both Shadows and Chaos?

  I swallowed hard. No wonder King Uthor wanted us dead. He feared not only the Pattern and its powers, but what we might become if we mastered it.

  And he had good reason to fear. If I had the ability to strike, I would have used the Pattern against him without a second's hesitation.

  I had missed part of what Blaise was saying and forced my attention back to her.

  “—can you blame them?” she said. “Those Pattern storms killed hundreds and destroyed a dozen keeps! The Pattern is a menace and must be destroyed for everyone's safety!”

  Half amused, I smiled down at her. She suddenly seemed almost childlike, prattling on about insignificant details in the mistaken belief they might somehow be important.

  “Forget about getting rid of the Shadows,” I said. “I told you, it isn't possible now.”

  “King Uthor will destroy them. And the Pattern.”

  “He can try.”

  She snorted. “Do you really think you can stand against the king?”

  “If necessary. I'm not going to roll over and give up.”

  Blaise shook her head wonderingly. “You're either incredibly stupid or incredibly brave.”

  I grinned. “Maybe a bit of both. Now, about Thellops…”

  She rubbed Dad's forehead gently. “It doesn't make sense. If Thellops wanted Dad dead, why not kill him outright? Why make him crazy?”

  “Maybe Dad escaped. Or maybe Dad won… we have no idea what happened. Or Maybe Thellops thought madness was a better punishment.”

  She shook her head. “Maybe… but it doesn't feel right. I think there's another answer. Something that hasn't occurred to either of us yet.”

  I had to agree. None of it quite fit. Somehow, I had the feeling we had missed an important detail or two.

  Blaise stifled a small yawn. “Anyway, it's best to do nothing if you don't know what the problem is. You might make it worse.”

  “I don't think it can get much worse.”

  �
��I'd say death is worse. Dad is still alive.”

  “True.” She had me there.

  “Wait and see if Dad recovers his senses,” she said. “Then you can ask him why he keeps saying 'Thellops.' Maybe he's dreaming of old friends.”

  “I don't think Thellops is a friend.” I had to smile. “Dad wanted to kill me. And he put a lot of effort into it. Old friends don't generally go around trying to murder each other.”

  “It could be something you said or did to Dad.” Blaise yawned again. “It's nothing a good night's sleep can't fix. Speaking of which…”

  “No!” I raised my hand as if I planned to slap her again, and her eyes flew open.

  “All right, all right!” she snarled, eyes narrowing to slits. “I'm awake now! Honestly, Oberon, you can't go around hitting people. The next time you try, I'll break your arm!”

  “Promises, promises.” I smiled and shrugged. “As I said, you have to stay awake. I can only carry one unconscious relative at a time.”

  “I'm not going to fall asleep.”

  “Uh-huh. Not with me on watch, anyway.”

  I studied her face carefully; her eyelids already drooped. What could be causing her sleepiness? Our proximity to the Pattern?

  Maybe she would feel better if we moved farther away from it. It was worth a try.

  “Come on, let's get moving. We'll find a place where you can rest safely.”

  “All right.” She climbed unsteadily to her feet. “What about Dad?”

  “If you can walk, I'll carry hi—”

  “I will walk.” She sounded determined.

  “All right. Follow me. Shout if you can't keep up. I'll slow down.”

  “Don't worry about me, brother dear.”

  “Fair enough.”

  Picking Dad up, I started for the forest at a brisk pace. A clear destination filled my mind. As I walked, I let my imagination soar, and the landscape around us began to flow and change: a hint of pink around the sun, bunches of white flowers at the curve in the path, a covered bridge spanning a creek. A tame fawn paced us, nuzzling our pockets for treats.