Prince of chaos tcoa-10 Read online

  “I knew them a long time ago,” she said. “Let us dine at the Ways of Sawall, half a turning hence, purplesky. Agreed?”

  “Agreed,” I said.

  “Till then. Good turning, Suhuy.”

  “Good turning, Dara.”

  She took three paces and was gone, as etiquette prescribed, out the same way by which she had entered.

  I turned and strode to the pool’s edge, stared into its depths, felt the muscles in my shoulders slowly unknot. Jasra and Julia were down there now, back in the citadel of the Keep, doing something arcane in the lab. And then the strands were flowing over them, some cruel truth beyond all order and beauty, beginning to form themselves into a mask of fascinating, frightening proportion.

  I felt a hand on my shoulder.

  “Family,” Suhuy said, “intrigues and maddens. You are feeling the tyranny of affection at the moment, are you not?”

  I nodded.

  “Something Mark Twain said about being able to choose your friends but not your relatives,” I answered.

  “I do not know what they are up to, though I have my suspicions,” he said. “There is nothing to do now but rest and wait. I would like to hear more of your story.”

  “Thanks, Uncle. Yeah,” I said. “Why not?”

  So I gave him all the rest of my tale. Partway through it, we adjourned to the kitchen for further sustenance, then took another way to a floating balcony above a lime-colored ocean breaking upon pink rocks and beaches under a twilit or otherwise indigo sky without stars. There, I finished my telling.

  “This is more than a little interesting,” he said, at last.

  “Oh? Do you see something in it all that I don’t?” I asked.

  “You’ve given me too much to consider for me to give you a hasty judgment,” he said. “Let us leave it at that for now.”

  “Very well.”

  I leaned on the rail, looked down at the waters.

  “You need rest,” he said after a time.

  “I guess I do.”

  “Come, I’ll show you to your room.”

  He extended a hand and I took hold of it. Together, we sank through the floor.

  And so I slept, surrounded by tapestries and heavy drapes, in a doorless chamber in the Ways of Suhuy. It might have been in a tower, as I could hear the winds passing beyond the walls. Sleeping, I dreamt…

  I was back in the castle Amber, walking the sparkling length of the Corridor of Mirrors. Tapers flickered in tall holders. My footsteps made no sound. The mirrors came in all manner of shapes. They covered the walls at either hand, big ones, little ones. I passed myself within their depths, reflected, distorted, sometimes re-reflected…

  I was halted before a tall, cracked mirror to my left, framed in tin. Even as I turned toward it I knew that it would not be me whom I regarded this time.

  Nor was I mistaken. Coral was looking at me from out of the mirror. She had on a peach-colored blouse and was not wearing her eyepatch. The crack in the mirror divided her face down the middle. Her left eye was the green I remembered, her right was the Jewel of Judgment. Both seemed to be focused upon me.

  “Merlin,” she said. “Help me. This is too strange. Give me back my eye.”

  “I don’t know how,” I said. “I don’t understand what was done.”

  “My eye,” she went on, as if she had not heard. “The world is all swarming forces in the Eye of Judgment, cold — so cold! — and not a friendly place. Help me!”

  “I’ll find a way,” I said.

  “My eye…” she continued.

  I hurried by.

  From a rectangular mirror in a wooden frame carved at its base in the form of a phoenix, Luke regarded me. “Hey, old buddy,” he said, looking slightly forlorn.

  “I’d sure like to have my dad’s sword back. You haven’t come across it again, have you?”

  “’Fraid not,” I muttered.

  “It’s a shame to get to hold your present for such a short period of time. Watch for it, will you? I’ve a feeling it might come in handy.”

  “I’ll do that,” I said.

  “After all, you’re kind of responsible for what happened,” he continued.

  “Right,” I agreed.

  “…And I’d sure like to have it back.”

  “Yeah,” I said, moving away.

  A nasty chuckle emerged from a maroon-framed ellipse to my right. Turning, I beheld the face of Victor Melman, the shadow Earth sorcerer I had confronted back when my troubles were beginning.

  “Son of perdition!” he hissed. “’Tis good to see you wander lost in Limbo. May my blood lie burning on your hands.”

  “Your blood is on your own hands,” I said. “I count you as a suicide.”

  “Not so!” he snapped back. “You slew me most unfairly.”

  “Bullshit,” I answered. “I may be guilty of a lot of things, but your death is not one of them.”

  I began to walk away, and his hand emerged from the mirror and clutched at my shoulder.

  “Murderer!” he cried.

  I brushed his hand away.

  “Bugger off!” I said, and I kept going.

  Then, from a wide, green-framed mirror with a greenish haze to the glass, Random hailed me from my left, shaking his head.

  “Merlin! Merlin! What are you up to, anyway?” he asked. “I’ve known for some time that you haven’t been keeping me abreast of everything that’s afoot.”

  “Well,” I replied, regarding him in an orange T-shirt and Levi’s; “that’s true, sir. Some things I just haven’t had time to go into.”

  “Things that involve the safety of the realm — and you haven’t had time?”

  “Well, I guess there’s something of a judgmental factor involved.”

  “If it involves our safety, I am the one to do the judging.”

  “Yes, sir. I realize that —”

  “We have to have a talk, Merlin. Is it that your personal life is mixed with this in some way?”

  “I guess that’s true —”

  “It doesn’t matter. The kingdom is more important. We must talk.”

  “Yes, sir. We will as soon as —”

  “‘As soon as,’ hell! Now! Stop screwing around at whatever you’re up to and get your ass back here! We have to talk!”

  “I will, as soon as —”

  “Don’t give me that! It verges on the traitorous if you’re withholding important information! I need to see you now! Come home!”

  “I will,” I said, and I hurried away, his voice joining a continuing chorus of the others, repeating their demands, their pleas, their accusations.

  Out of the next one — circular, with a blue braided frame — Julia regarded me.

  “And there you go,” she said, almost wistfully. “You knew I loved you.”

  “I loved you, too,” I admitted. “It took me a long time to realize it. I guess I messed up, though.”

  “You didn’t love me enough,” she said. “Not enough to trust me. And so you lost my trust.”

  I looked away.

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “Not good enough,” she responded. “Thus, we are become enemies.”

  “It doesn’t have to be that way.”

  “Too late,” she said. “Too late.”

  “I’m sorry,” I repeated, and I hurried away.

  Thus, I came to Jasra, in a red, diamond frame. Her bright-nailed hand reached out and caressed my cheek. “Going somewhere, dear boy?” she asked.

  “I hope so,” I said.

  She smiled crookedly and pursed her lips.

  “I’ve decided you were a bad influence on my son,” she said. “He lost his edge when he became friends with you.”

  “Sorry about that,” I said.

  “…Which may make him unfit to rule.”

  “Unfit or unwilling?” I asked.

  “Whichever, it will be your fault.”

  “He’s a big boy now, Jasra. He makes his own decisions.”

&nb
sp; “I fear you’ve taught him to make the wrong ones.”

  “He’s his own man, lady. Don’t blame me if he does things you don’t like.”

  “And if Kashfa crumbles because you’ve softened him?”

  “I decline the nomination,” I said, taking a step forward. It was good that I was moving, for her hand shot out, nails raking at my face, barely missing. She threw expletives after me as I walked away. Fortunately, they were drowned amid the cries of the others.

  “Merlin?”

  Turning to my right again I beheld the face of Nayda within a silver mirror, its surface and curled frame of a single piece.

  “Nayda! What are you down on me for?”

  “Nothing,” the ty’iga lady replied. “I’m just passing through, and I need directions.”

  “You don’t hate me? How refreshing!”

  “Hate you? Don’t be silly. I could never do that.”

  “Everyone else in this gallery seems irritated with me.

  “It’s only a dream, Merlin. You’re real, I’m real, and I don’t know about the others.”

  “I’m sorry my mother put you under that spell to protect me — all those years ago. Are you really free of it now? If you’re not, perhaps I can —”

  “I’m free of it.”

  “I’m sorry you had so much trouble fulfilling its terms — not knowing whether it was Luke or me you were supposed to be guarding. Who’d have known there’d be two Amberites in the same neighborhood in Berkeley?”

  “I’m not sorry.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I came for directions. I want to know how I can find Luke.”

  “Why, in Kashfa. He was just crowned king the other day. What do you need him for?”

  “Hadn’t you guessed?”

  “No.”

  “I’m in love with him. Always was. Now that I’m free of the geas and have a body of my own, I want him to know that I was Gail — and how I feel. Thanks, Merlin. Good-bye.”

  “Wait!”

  “Yes?”

  “I never said thanks for your protecting me all those years — even if it was only a compulsion for you, even if it got to be a big bother for me. Thanks, and good luck.”

  She smiled and faded away. I reached out and touched the mirror.

  “Luck,” I thought I heard her say.

  Strange. It was a dream. Still — I couldn’t awaken, and it felt real.

  “You made it back to the Courts in time for all the scheming, I see” — this from a mirror three paces ahead, black-bound and narrow.

  I moved to it. My brother Jurt glared out at me.

  “What do you want?” I asked.

  His face was an angry parody of my own.

  “I want you never to have been,” he said. “Failing that, I’d like to see you dead.”

  “What’s your third choice?” I asked.

  “Your confinement to a private hell, I guess.”

  “Why?”

  “You stand between me and everything I want.”

  “I’ll be glad to step aside. Tell me how.”

  “There’s no way you can or will, on your own.”

  “So you hate me?”

  “Yes.”

  “I thought your bath in the Fountain destroyed your emotions.”

  “I didn’t get the full treatment, and it only made them stronger.”

  “Any way we can forget the whole thing and start over again, be friends?”

  “Never.”

  “Didn’t think so.”

  “She always cared more about you than me, and now you’re going to have the throne.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. I don’t want it.”

  “Your desires have nothing to do with the matter.”

  “I won’t have it.”

  “Yes, you will — unless I kill you first.”

  “Don’t be stupid. It’s not worth this.”

  “One day soon, when you least expect it, you will turn and see me. It will be too late.”

  The mirror grew entirely black.

  “Jurt!”

  Nothing. Aggravating, having to put up with him in dream as well as waking.

  I turned my head toward a fire-framed minor several paces ahead and to my left, knowing — somehow — it was next on my route. I moved toward it.

  She was smiling.

  “And there you have it,” she said.

  “Aunty, what’s going on?”

  “It seems to be the sort of conflict generally referred to as ‘irreducible,’” Fiona replied.

  “That’s not the sort of answer I need.”

  “Too much is afoot to give you a better one.”

  “And you’re a part of it?”

  “A very small one. Not one who can do you much good just now.”

  “What am I to do?”

  “Learn your options and choose the best one.”

  “Best for whom? Best for what?”

  “Only you can say.”

  “Can you give me a hint?”

  “Could you have walked Corwin’s Pattern that day I took you to it?”

  “Yes.”

  “I thought so. It was drawn under unusual circumstances. It can never be duplicated. Our Pattern would never have permitted its construction had it not been damaged itself and too weak to prevent its coming into being.”

  “So?”

  “Our Pattern is trying to absorb it, incorporate it. If it succeeds, it will be as disastrous as it would have been were the Pattern of Amber destroyed at the time of the war. The balance with Chaos will be totally upset.”

  “Isn’t Chaos strong enough to prevent this? I’d thought they were equally potent.”

  “They were until you repaired the Shadow Pattern and Amber’s was able to absorb it. This increased its strength beyond that of Chaos. Now it is able to reach for your father’s against the power of the Logrus.”

  “I don’t understand what is to be done.”

  “Neither do I, yet. But I charge you to remember what I have said. When the time comes you must make a decision. I’ve no idea what it will involve, but it will be very important.”

  “She’s right,” came a voice from behind my back. Turning, I saw my father within a shining black frame, a silver rose set at its top.

  “Corwin!” I heard Fiona say. “Where are you?”

  “In a place where there is no light,” he said.

  “I thought you somehow in Amber, Father, with Deirdre,” I said.

  “The ghosts play at being ghosts,” he answered. “I have not much time, for my strength is low. I can tell you only this: Trust not the Pattern, nor the Logrus either, nor any of their spawn, till this matter be settled.”

  He began to fade.

  “How can I help you?” I asked.

  The words “…in the Courts” came to me before he vanished.

  I turned again.

  “Fi, what did he mean by that?” I asked her.

  She was frowning.

  “I get the impression that the answer lies somewhere in the Courts,” she replied slowly.

  “Where? Where should I look?”

  She shook her head and began to turn away.

  “Who would know best?” she said.

  Then she, too, was gone.

  Voices were still calling to me, from behind, from ahead. There was weeping and laughter, and my name being repeated. I rushed ahead.

  “Whatever happens,” Bill Roth said, “if you need a good lawyer, I’ll handle it — even in Chaos.”

  And then there was Dworkin, squinting at me from out of a tiny mirror with a twisted frame.

  “Nothing to be alarmed about,” he remarked, “but all sorts of imponderables are hovering about you.”

  “What am I to do?” I cried.

  “You must become something greater than yourself.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Escape the cage that is your life.”

  “What cage?”

  He was g
one.

  I ran, and their words rang around me.

  Near the end of the hall was a mirror like a piece of yellow silk stretched upon a frame. The Cheshire Cat grinned at me from within.

  “It’s not worth it. The hell with them all,” he said. “Come to the cabaret, old chum. We’ll tip a few brews and watch the man paint.”

  “No!” I cried. “No!”

  And then there was only a grin. This time I faded, too. Merciful, black oblivion and the sound of the wind, somewhere, passing.

  Chapter 3

  How long I slept, I do not know. I was awakened by Suhuy’s repeating my name.

  “Merlin, Merlin,” he said. “The sky is white.”

  “And I’ve a busy day,” I answered. “I know. I’d a busy night, too.”

  “It reached you, then.”

  “What?”

  “A small spell I sent, to open your mind to some enlightenment. I hoped to lead you to answers from within, rather than burden you with my guesswork and suspicions.”

  “I was back in the Corridor of Mirrors.”

  “I knew not what form it might take.”

  “Was it real?”

  “As such things go, it should have been.”

  “Well, thanks — I guess. It reminds me that Gryll said something about your wanting to see me before my mother did.”

  “I wanted to see how much you knew before you faced her. I wanted to protect your freedom of choice.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “I’m sure she wants to see you on the throne.” I sat up and rubbed my eyes.

  “I suppose that’s possible,” I said.

  “I don’t know how far she’s willing to go to effect this. I wanted to give you a chance to know your own mind before you’re exposed to her plans: Would you care for a cup of tea?”

  “Yes, thanks.”

  I accepted a mug he proffered and raised it to my lips. “What are you saying about her beyond a guess at her wishes?” I asked.

  He shook his head.

  “I don’t know how active her program might be,” he said, “if that is what you mean. And whether she was connected with it or another, the spell you came wearing has faded now.”

  “Your doing?”

  He nodded.