PRINCE OF CHAOS (3 page)

“Merlin,” he said at last, “welcome home.
 
I regret the occasion but rejoice in your presence.
 
Gryll has told you...?”

“Of the passing of His Highness? Yes.
 
I’m sorry.”

He released me and stepped back a pace.

“It is not as if it were unanticipated,” he said.
 
“Just the opposite.
 
Too much so, in fact.
 
Yet there is no proper time for such an event.”

“True,” I replied, massaging a certain stiffness out of my left shoulder and groping in my hip pocket after a comb.

“And he had been ailing for so long that I had grown used to it,” I said.
 
“It was almost as if he’d come to terms with the weakness.”

Suhuy nodded.
 
Then, “Are you going to transform?” he asked.

“It’s been a rough day,” I told him.
 
“I’d as soon save my energy, unless there’s some demand of protocol.”

“None at all, just now,” he replied.
 
“Have you eaten?”

“Not recently.”

“Come then,” he said.
 
“Let’s find you some nourishment.”

He turned and walked toward the far wall.
 
I followed him.
 
There were no doors in the room, and he had to know all the local Shadow stress points, the Courts being opposite to Amber in this regard.
 
While it’s awfully hard to pass through Shadow in Amber, the shadows are like frayed curtains in the Courts-often, you can look right through into another reality without even trying.
 
And, sometimes, something in the other reality may be looking at you.
 
Care must be taken, too, not to step through into a place where you will find yourself in the middle of the air, underwater, or in the path of a raging torrent.
 
The Courts were never big on tourism.

Fortunately, the stuff of Shadow is so docile at this end of reality that it can be easily manipulated by a shadowmaster-who can stitch together their fabrics to create a way.
 
Shadowmasters are technicians of locally potent skill, whose ability derives from the Logrus, though they need not be initiates.
 
Very few are, although all initiates are automatically members of the Shadowmaster Guild.
 
They’re like plumbers or electricians about the Courts, and their skills vary as much as their counterparts on the Shadow Earth-a combination of aptitude and experience.
 
While I’m a guild member I’d much rather follow someone who knows the ways than feel them out for myself.
 
I suppose I should say more about this matter.
 
Maybe I will sometime.

When we reached the wall, of course, it wasn’t there.
 
It just sort of grew misty and faded away; and we passed through the space where it had been-or, rather, a different analogous space-and we were passing down a green stairway.
 
Well, it wasn’t exactly a stairway.
 
It was a series of unconnected green discs, descending in spiral fashion, proper riser and tread distance apart, sort of floating there in the night air.
 
They passed about the exterior of the castle, finally stopping before a blank wall.
 
Before we reached that wall we passed through several moments of bright daylight, a brief flurry of blue snow, and the apse of something like a cathedral without an altar, skeletons occupying pews at either hand.
 
When we finally came to the wall we passed through it, emerging in a large kitchen.
 
Suhuy led me to the larder and indicated I should help myself.
 
I found some cold meat and bread and made myself a sandwich, washing it down with tepid beer.
 
He nibbled at a piece of bread himself and sipped at a flagon of the same brew.
 
A bird appeared overhead in full flight, cawing raucously, vanishing again before it had passed the entire length of the room.

“When are the services?” I asked.

“Redsky next, almost a whole turning off,” he replied.
 
“So you’ve a chance to sleep and collect yourself before then-perhaps.”

“What do you mean, ‘perhaps’?”

“As one of the three, you’re under black watch.
 
That’s why I summoned you here, to one of my places of solitude.” He turned and walked through the wall.
 
I followed him, still bearing my flagon, and we seated ourselves beside a still, green pool beneath a rocky overhang, umber sky above.
 
His castle contained places from all over Chaos and Shadow, stitched together into a crazy-quilt pattern of ways within ways.
 
“And since you wear the spikard you’ve added resources for safety,” he observed.

He reached out and touched the many-spoked wheel of my ring.
 
A faint tingling followed in my finger, hand, and arm.

“Uncle, you were often given to cryptic utterances when you were my teacher,” I said.
 
“But I’ve graduated now, and I guess that gives me the right to say I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”

He chuckled and sipped his beer.

“On reflection, it always became clear,” he said.

“Reflection ...” I said, and I looked into the pool.
 
Images swam amid the black ribbons beneath its surface-Swayvill lying in state, yellow and black robes muffling his shrunken form, my mother, my father, demonic forms, all passing and fading, Jurt, myself, Jasra and Julia, Random and Fiona, Mandor and Dworkin, Bill Roth and many faces I did not know ...

I shook my head.

“Reflection does not clarify,” I said.

“It is not the function of an instant,” he replied.

So I returned my attention to the chaos of faces and forms.
 
Jurt returned and remained for a long time.
 
He was dressing himself, in very good taste, and he appeared to be relatively intact.
 
When he finally faded there returned one of the half familiar faces I had seen earlier.
 
I knew he was a noble of the Courts, and I searched my memory.
 
Of course.
 
It had been a long while, but now I recognized him.
 
It was Tmer, of the House of Jesby, eldest son of the late Prince Rolovians, and now lord himself of the Ways of Jesby-spade beard, heavy brow, sturdily built, not unhandsome, in a rugged sort of way; by all report a brave and possibly even sensitive fellow.

Then there was Prince TubbIe of the Ways of Chanicut, phasing back and forth between human and swirling demonic forms.
 
Placid, heavy, subtle; centuries old and very shrewd; he wore a fringed beard, had wide, innocent, pale eyes, was master of many games.

I waited, and Tmer followed Jurt followed Tubble into vanishment amid the coiling ribbons.
 
I waited longer, and nothing new occurred.

“End of reflection,” I announced at last.
 
“But I still don’t know what it means.”

“What did you see?”

“My brother Jurt,” I replied, “and Prince Tmer of Jesby.
 
And Tubble of Chanicut, among other attractions.”

“Most appropriate,” he responded.
 
“Entirely appropriate.”

“And so?”

“Like you, Tmer and Tubble are both under black watch.
 
I understand Tmer is at Jesby, though I believe Jurt has gone to earth somewhere other than Dalgarry.”

“Jurt’s come back?”

He nodded.

“He could be at my mother’s Fortress Gantu,” I mused.
 
“Or, Sawall did have a second stead-the Ways of Anch, at the very Rim.”

Suhuy shrugged.

“I do not know,” he said.

“But why the black watch-for any of us?”

“You went off into Shadow to a fine university,” he said, “and you have dwelled in the Court of Amber, which I would deem highly educational.
 
Therefore, I bid you take thought.
 
Surely, a mind so well honed-“

“I realize the black watch means we face some sort of danger...
 
“

“Of course.”

“...
 
But its nature eludes me.
 
Unless ...
 
“

“Yes.”

“It has to do with Swayvill’s death.
 
So it must involve some sort of political settlement.
 
But I’ve been away.
 
I don’t know what matters are hot just now.”

He showed me row upon row of worn but still nasty fangs.

“Try the matter of the succession,” he said.

“Okay.
 
Say the Ways of Sawall are supporting one possible successor, Jesby the other, Chanicut the other.
 
Say we’re at each other’s throats over the matter.
 
Say I’ve come back into the middle of a vendetta.
 
So whoever’s giving the orders right now has declared us under watch as a matter of keeping things from getting messy.
 
I appreciate it.”

“Close,” he said, “but it’s already gone further than that.”

I shook my head.

“I give up,” I said.

From somewhere there came up a wailing sound.
 
“Think about it,” he replied, “while I welcome a guest.”

He rose and stepped into the pool, vanishing immediately.

I finished my beer.

It seemed but moments later that a rock to my left shimmered and emitted a bell-like tone.
 
Without conscious intent my attention gathered itself at my ring, which Suhuy had referred to as a spikard.
 
I realized in that instant that I was preparing to use it to defend myself.
 
Interesting, how familiar I felt with it now, how adapted I seemed to have become to it in so short a time.
 
I was on my feet, facing the stone, left hand extended in its direction when Suhuy stepped through the shining place, a taller, darker figure at his rear.
 
A moment later and that figure followed him, emerging into substantiality and shifting from an octopal ape form to that of my brother Mandor, humanized, wearing black as when last I had seen him, though the garments were fresh and of a slightly different cut, his white hair less tousled.
 
He quickly scanned the area about us and gave me a smile.

“I see that all is well,” he stated.

I chuckled as I nodded toward his arm in its sling.

“As well as might be expected,” I replied.
 
“What happened in Amber after I left?”

“No fresh disasters,” he answered.
 
“I stayed only long enough to see whether there was anything I could do to be of assistance.
 
This amounted to a little magical clearing of the vicinity and the summoning of a few planks to lay over holes.
 
Then I begged leave of Random to depart, he granted it, and I came home.”

“A disaster? At Amber?” Suhuy asked.

I nodded.

“There was a confrontation between the Unicorn and the Serpent in the halls of Amber Palace, resulting in considerable damage.”

“What could have occasioned the Serpent’s venturing that far into the realm of Order?”

“It involved what Amber refers to as the Jewel of Judgment, which the Serpent considers its missing eye.”

“I must hear the entire tale.”

I proceeded to tell him of the complicated encounter, leaving out my own later experiences in the Corridor of Mirrors and Brand’s apartments.

While I spoke, Mandor’s gaze drifted to the spikard, to Suhuy, and back.

When he saw that I noted this he smiled.

“So Dworkin is himself once more ...?” Suhuy said.

“I didn’t know him before,” I replied.
 
“But he seemed to know what he was about.”

“...
 
And the Queen of Kashfa sees with the Eye of the Serpent.”

“I don’t know that she sees with it,” I said.
 
“She’s still recovering from the operation.
 
But that’s an interesting thought.
 
If she could see with it, what might she behold?”

“The clear, cold lines of eternity, I daresay.
 
Beneath all Shadow.
 
No mortal could bear it for too long.”

“She is of the blood of Amber,” I said.

“Really? Oberon’s?”

I nodded.

“Your late liege was a very active man,” he observed.
 
“Still, it would be quite a burden of seeing, though I speak only from guesswork-and a certain knowledge of principles.
 
I’ve no idea what may come of this.
 
Only Dworkin could say.
 
Be he sane, there is a reason for it.
 
I acknowledge his mastery, though I’ve never been able to anticipate him.”

“You know him, personally?” I asked.