The courts of chaos (7 page)

He smiled crookedly.

“I ought to have something for my pains, oughtn’t I? I will be risking my life with this, and the odds are not all that good.”

I smiled back at him.

“Considering the payoff, what is to prevent me from taking the gamble myself?” I said.

“The same thing that prevented Dad from succeeding-all the forces of Chaos. They are summoned by a kind of cosmic reflex when such an act is begun. I have had more experience with them than you. You would not have a chance. I might.”

“Now let us say that you are lying to me. Brand. Or let us be kind and say that you did not see clearly through all the turmoil. Supposing Dad did succeed? Supposing there is a new Pattern in existence right now? What would happen if you were to do another, here, now?”

“I . . . It has never been done before. How should I know?”

“I wonder,” I said. “Might you still get your own version of reality that way? Might it represent the splitting off of a new universe-Amber and Shadow-just for you? Might it negate ours? Or would it simply stand apart? Or would there be some overlapping? What do you think, given that situation?”

He shrugged his shoulders.

“I have already answered that. It has never been done before. How should I know?”

“But I think that you do know, or can make a very good guess at it. I think that that is what you are planning, that that is what you want to try-because that is all you have left now. I take this action on your part as an indication that Dad has succeeded and that you are down to your last card. But you need me and you need the Jewel for it. You cannot have either.”

He sighed.

“I had expected more of you. But all right. You are wrong, but leave it at that. Listen, though. Rather than see everything lost, I will split the realm with you.”

“Brand,” I said, “get lost. You cannot have the Jewel, or my help. I have heard you out, and I think that you are lying.”

“You are afraid,” he said, “afraid of me. I do not blame you for not wanting to trust me. But you are making a mistake. You need me now.”

“Nevertheless, I have made my choice.”

He took a step toward me. Another. . .

“Anything you want, Corwin. I can give you anything you care to name.”

“I was with Benedict in Tir-na Nog’th,” I said, “looking through his eyes, listening with his ears, when you made him the same offer. Shove it. Brand. I am going on with my mission. If you think that you can stop me, now is as good a time as any.”

I began walking toward him. I knew that I would kill him if I reached him. I also felt that I would not reach him.

He halted. He took a step backward.

“You are making a big mistake,” he said.

“I do not think so. I think that I am doing exactly the right thing.”

“I will not fight with you,” he said hastily. “Not here, not above the abyss. You have had your chance, though. The next time that we meet, I will have to take the Jewel from you.”

“What good will it be to you, unattuned?”

“There might still be a way for me to manage it-more difficult, but possible. You have had your chance. Goodbye.”

He retreated into the wood. I followed after, but he had vanished.

I left that place and rode on, along a road over nothing. I did not like to consider the possibility that Brand might have been telling the truth, or at least a part of it. But the things he had said kept returning to plague me. Supposing Dad had failed? Then I was on a fool’s errand. Everything was already over, and it was just a matter of time. I did not like looking back, just in case something was gaining on me. I passed into a moderately paced hellride. I wanted to get to the others before the waves of Chaos reached that far, just to let them know that I had kept faith, to let them see that in the end I had tried my best. I wondered then how the actual battle was going. Or had it even begun yet, within that time frame?

I swept along the bridge, which widened now beneath a brightening sky. As it assumed the aspect of a golden plain, I considered Brand’s threat. Had he said what he had said simply to raise doubts, increase my discomfort and impair my efficiency? Possibly. Yet, If he required the Jewel he would have to ambush me. And I had a respect for that strange power he had acquired over Shadow. It seemed almost impossible to prepare for an attack by someone who could watch my every move and transport himself instantaneously to the most advantageous spot. How soon might it come? Not too soon, I guessed. First, he would want to frazzle my nerves-and I was already tired and more than a little punchy. I would have to rest, to sleep, sooner or later. It was impossible for me to go that great distance in a single stretch, no matter how accelerated the hellride.

Fogs of pink and orange and green fled past, swirled about me, filling up the world. The ground rang beneath us like metal. Occasional musical tones, as of rung crystal, occurred overhead. My thoughts danced. Memories of many worlds came and went in random fashion. Ganelon, my friend-enemy, and my father, enemy-friend, merged and parted, parted and merged. Somewhere one of them asked me who had a right to the throne. I had thought it was Ganelon, wanting to know our several justifications. Now I knew that it had been Dad, wanting to know my feelings. He had judged. He had made his decision. And I was backing out. Whether it was arrested development, the desire to be free of such an encumbrance, or a matter of sudden enlightenment based on all that I had experienced in recent years, growing slowly within me, granting me a more mature view of the onerous role of monarch apart from its moments of glory, I do not know. I remembered my life on the shadow Earth, following orders, giving them. Faces swam before me-people I had known over the centuries-friends, enemies, wives, lovers, relatives. Lorraine seemed to be beckoning me on. Moire laughing, Deirdre weeping. I fought again with Eric. I recalled my first passage through the Pattern, as a boy, and the later one when, step by step, my memory was given back to me. Murders, thieveries, knaveries, seductions returned because, as Mallory said, they were there. I was unable, even, to place them all correctly in terms of time. There was no great anxiety because there was no great guilt. Time, time, and more time had softened the edges of harsher things, had worked its changes on me. I saw my earlier selves as different people, acquaintances I had outgrown. I wondered how I could ever have been some of them. As I rushed onward, scenes from my past seemed to solidify in tile mists about me. No poetic license here. Battles in which I had taken part assumed tangible form, save for a total absence of sound-the flare of weapons, the colors of uniforms, banners and blood. And people-most of them now long dead-moved from my memory into silent animation about me. None of these were members of my family, but all of them were people who had once meant something to me. Yet there was no special pattern to it. There were noble deeds as well as shameful; enemies as well as friends-and none of the persons involved took note of my passage; all were caught up in some long-past sequence of actions. I wondered then at the nature of the place through which I rode. Was it some watered-down version of Tirana Nog’th, with some mind-sensitive substance in the vicinity that drew from me and projected about me this “This Is Your Life” panorama? Or was I simply beginning to hallucinate? I was tired, anxious, troubled, distressed, and I passed along a way which provided a monotonous, gentle stimulation of the senses of the sort leading to reverie. . . . In fact, I realized that I had lost control over Shadow sometime back and was now simply proceeding in a linear fashion across this landscape, trapped m a kind of externalized narcissim by the spectacle. . . . I realized then that I had to stop and rest-probably even sleep a little-though I feared doing so in this place. I would have to break free and make my way to a more sedate, deserted spot. . . .

I wrenched at my surroundings. I twisted things about. I broke free.

Soon I was riding in a rough, mountainous area, and shortly thereafter I came to the cave that I desired.

We passed within, and I tended to Star. I ate and drank just enough to take the edge off my hunger. I built no fire. I wrapped myself in my cloak and in a blanket I had brought. I held Grayswandir in my right hand. I lay facing the darkness beyond the cavemouth.

I felt a little sick. I knew that Brand was a liar, but his words bothered me anyway.

But I had always been good at going to sleep. I closed my eyes and was gone.

I was awakened by a sense of presence. Or maybe it was a noise and a sense of presence. Whatever, I was awake and I was certain that I was not alone. I tightened my grip on Grayswandir and opened my eyes. Beyond that, I did not move.

A soft light, like moonlight, came in through the cavemouth. There was a figure, possibly human, standing just inside. The lighting was such that I could not tell whether it faced me or faced outward. But then it took a step toward me.

I was on my feet, the point of my blade toward its breast. It halted.

“Peace,” said a man’s voice, in Thari. “I have but taken refuge from the storm. May I share your cave?”

“What storm?” I asked.

As if in answer, there came a roll of thunder followed by a gust of wind with the smell of rain within it.

“Okay, that much is true,” I said. “Make yourself comfortable.”

He sat down, well inside, his back against the righthand wall of the cave. I folded my blanket for a pad and seated myself across from him. About four meters separated us. I located my pipe and filled it, then tried a match which had been with me from the shadow Earth. It lit, saving me a lot of trouble. The tobacco had a good smell, mixed with the damp breeze. I listened to the sounds of the rain and regarded the dark outline of my nameless companion. I thought over some possible dangers, but it had not been Brand’s voice which had addressed me.

“This is no natural storm,” the other said.

“Oh? How so?”

“For one thing, it is coming out of the north. They never come out of the north, here, this time of year.”

“That’s how records are made.”

“For another, I have never seen a storm behave this way. I have been watching it advance all day-just a steady line, moving slowly, front like a sheet of glass. So much lightning, it looks like a monstrous insect with hundreds of shiny legs. Most unnatural. And behind it, things have grown very distorted.”

“That happens in the rain.”

“Not that way. Everything seems to be changing its shape. Flowing. As if it is melting the world-or stamping away its forms.”

I shuddered. I had thought that I was far enough ahead of the dark waves that I could take a little rest. Still, he might be wrong, and it could just be an unusual storm. But I did not want to take the chance. I rose and turned to the rear of the cave. I whistled.

No response. I went back and groped around.

“Something the matter?”

“My horse is gone.”

“Could it have wandered off?”

“Must have. I’d have thought Star’d have better sense, though.”

I went to the cavemouth but could see nothing. I was half-drenched in the instant I was there. I returned to my position beside the left wall.

“It seems like an ordinary enough storm to me,” I said. “They sometimes get pretty bad in the mountains.”

“Perhaps you know this country better than I do?”

“No, I am just traveling through—a thing I had better be continuing soon, too.”

I touched the Jewel. I readied into it, then through it, out and up, with my mind. I felt the storm about me and ordered it away, with red pulses of energy corresponding to my heartbeats. Then I leaned back, found another match and relit my pipe. It would still take a while for the forces I had manipulated to do their work, against a stormfront of this size.

“It will not last too long,” I said.

“How can you tell?”

“Privileged information.”

He chuckled.

“According to some versions, this is the way that the world ends-beginning with a strange storm from out of the north.”

“That’s right,” I said, “and this is it. Nothing to worry about, though. It will be all over, one way or the other, before too long.”

“That stone you are wearing . . . It is giving off light.”

“Yes.”

“You were joking about this being the end, though-were you not?”

“No.”

“You make me think of that line from the Holy Book-The Archangel Corwin shall pass before the storm, lightning upon his breast. . .. You would not be named Corwin, would you?”

“How does the rest of it go?”

“. . . When asked where he travels, he shall say, ‘To the ends of the Earth,’ where he goes not knowing what enemy will aid him against another enemy, nor whom the Horn will touch.”

“That’s all?”

“All there is about the Archangel Corwin.”

“I have run into this difficulty with Scripture in the past. It tells you enough to get interested, but never enough to be of any immediate use. It is as though the author gets his kicks by tantalizing. One enemy against another? The Horn? Beats me.”

“Where do you travel?”