The Road to Amber (13 page)

DAVID turns back to previous scene. Cars and drivers are gone. MORRIE stands beside a lamp post, petting a dead cat.

Morning, Dave.

Morning. You’re up bright and early.

Thought you might be coming by. When’s she due?

In the spring.

You really want me for godfather?

Can’t think of anyone I’d rather have. Was that the same dream you sent my dad?

No. It’s a remake. I updated it. Been watching some MTV.

Kind of thought so. Care for a cup of coffee?

Don’t mind if I do.

They walk off together.

THE END

Zelazny adapted his short story “Godson” into this three-act musical, a project that excited him. He wrote lyrics to a dozen songs and discussed with Santa Fe musician Bruce Dunlap the possibility that Dunlap would write the music. The manuscript’s first page states, “lyrics by Roger Zelazny and music by Bruce Dunlap,” but no music was ever written. Zelazny performed this play for friends at a party a few months before he died. He chanted the lyrics rather than attempting to sing them.

The phrase
diseases of the rich
in the song “Be a Doctor” recalls Tom Lehrer’s remarks at the beginning of his song “In Old Mexico”. See the afterword to “Godson” for additional remarks.

Zelazny’s final manuscript of
Psychoshop
shows that he intended this poem to end the novel. Evidently Editor John Betancourt deleted the poem, removing a characteristic Zelazny touch that should be restored in a future reprinting of
Psychoshop
.

Mors
is a Roman god of death and counterpart to Thanatos (not to be confused with Mars, the Roman god of war).

Hedonic
refers to pleasure. This poem is one of Zelazny’s contributions to the canon of the Undead.

A
ll the death-traps in the galaxy, and she has to walk into mine. At first I didn’t recognize her. And when I did I knew it still couldn’t be right, her, there, with her blindfolded companion in the sandals and dark kimono. She was dead, the octad broken. There couldn’t be another. Certain misgivings arose concerning this one. But I had no choice. Does one ever? There are things to do. Soon she will move. I will taste their spirits.

Play it again, Alices …

S
he came to him at his villa in Constantinople, where, in loose-fitting garments, trowel in hand, spatulate knife at belt, he was kneeling amid flowers, tending one of his gardens. A servant announced her arrival.

“Master, there is a lady at the gate,” the old man told him, in Arabic.

”And who could that be?” the gardener mused, in the same tongue.

“She gave her name as Alyss,” the servant replied, and added, “She speaks Greek with a foreign accent.”

“Did you recognize the accent?”

“No. But she asked for you by name.”

“I should hope so. One seldom calls on strangers for any good purpose.”

“Not the Stassinopoulos name. She asked for Kalifriki.”

“Oh, my. Business,” he said, rising and passing the trowel to the man, dusting himself off. “It’s been a long time.”

“I suppose it has, Sir.”

“Take her to the lesser courtyard, seat her in the shade, bring her tea, sherbet, melons—anything else she may desire. Tell her I’ll be with her shortly.”

“Yes, Sir.”

Repairing within, the gardener removed his shirt and bathed quickly, closing his dark eyes as he splashed water over his high cheekbones, then his chest, his arms. After drying, he bound his dark hair with a strip of golden cloth, located an embroidered white shirt with full sleeves within his wardrobe, donned it. In the courtyard at a table beside the fountain, where a mosaic of dolphins sported beneath the waters which trickled in small rivers from a man-sized Mt. Olympus, he bowed to the expressionless lady who had studied his approach. She rose slowly to her feet. Not tall, he observed, a full head shorter than himself, dark hair streaked with white, eyes very blue. A pale scar crossed her left cheek, vanished into the hair above her ear.

“Alyss, I believe?” he inquired, as she took his hand and raised it to her lips.

“Yes,” she replied, lowering it. “Alice.” She gave it a slightly different accenting than his man had done.

“That’s all?”

“It is sufficient for my purposes, sir.” He did not recognize her accent either, which annoyed him considerably.

He smiled and took the chair across from her as she reseated herself. He saw that her gaze was fixed upon the small star-shaped scar beside his right eye.

“Verifying a description?” he inquired as he poured himself a cup of tea.

“Would you be so kind as to let me see your left wrist?” she asked.

He shook back the sleeve. Her gaze fell almost greedily upon the red thread that was wrapped about it.

“You are the one,” she said solemnly.

“Perhaps,” he replied, sipping the tea. “You are younger than you would have your appearance indicate.”

She nodded. “Older, also,” she said.

“Have some of the sherbet,” he invited, spooning two dishfuls from the bowl. “It’s quite good.”

I
steady the dot. I touch the siphon and the bone. There, beyond the polished brass mirror, sipping something cool, her remarking in Greek that the day is warm, that it was good to find a shaded pausing place such as this caravanserai, my doorstep, in which to refresh themselves—this does not deceive me in its calculated nonchalance. When they have finished and risen, they will not head back to the street with its camels, dust, horses, cries of the vendors, I know that. They will turn, as if inadvertently, in the direction of this mirror. Her and the monk. Dead ladies, bear witness…

“I
can afford you,” she told him, reaching for a soft leather bag on the flagging beside her chair.

“You precede yourself,” he responded. “First I must understand what it is that you want of me.”

She fixed him with her blue gaze and he felt the familiar chill of the nearness of death.

“You kill,” she said simply, “Anything, if the price is right. That is what I was told.”

He finished his tea, refilled their cups.

“I choose the jobs I will accept,” he said. “I do not take on everything that is thrust at me.”

“What considerations govern your choices?” she asked.

“I seldom slay the innocent,” he replied, “by my definitions of innocence. Certain political situations might repel me—”

”An assassin with a conscience,” she remarked.

“In a broad sense, yes.”

”Anything else?”

. “Madam, I am something of a last resort,” he responded, “which is why my services are dear. Any simple cutthroat will suffice for much of what people want done in this area. I can recommend several competent individuals.”

“In other words, you prefer the complicated ones, those offering a challenge to your skills?”

“‘Prefer’ is perhaps the wrong word. I am not certain what is the right one—at least in the Greek language. I do tend to find myself in situations, though, as the higher-priced jobs seem to fall into that category, and those are normally the only ones I accept.”

She smiled for the first time that morning, a small, bleak thing.

“It falls into that category,” she said, “in that no one ever succeeded in such an undertaking as I require. As for innocence you will find none here. And the politics need be of no concern, for they are not of this world.”

She nibbled a piece of melon.

“You have interested me,” he said.

A
t last, they rise. The monk adjusts the small bow he bears and places his hand upon her shoulder. They cross the refreshment area. They are leaving! No! Could I have been wrong? I realize suddenly that I had wanted it to be her. That part of me I had thought fully absorbed and transformed is suddenly risen, seeks to command. I desire to cry out. Whether it be “Come!” or “Run!” I do not know. Yet neither matters. Not when it is not a part of her. Not when they are departing.

But.

At the threshold, she halts, saying something to her companion. I hear only the word “hair.”

When she turns back there is a comb in her hand. She moves suddenly toward the dot manifestation which hangs brightly upon the wall to her right. As she drops her veil and adjusts her red tresses I become aware that the color is unnatutal.

“N
ot of this world,” he repeated. “Whence, then, may I inquire?”

“Another planet, far across the galaxy from here,” she replied. “Do these terms mean anything to you?”

“Yes,” he answered. “Quite a bit. Why have you come?”

“Pursuit,” she said.

“Of the one you would have me slay?”

“At first it was not destruction but rescue that we sought.”

“‘We’?”

“It took eight of me to power the devices which brought us here, an original and seven copies. Clones.”

“I understand.”

“Really? Are you, yourself, alien to this place?”

“Your story is the important one just now. You say there are eight of you about?”

She shook her head.

“I am the last,” she stated. “The other seven perished in attempting the task I must complete.”

“Which are you, the original or a clone?”

She laughed. Then, abruptly, her eyes were moist, and she turned away.

“I am a copy,” she said, at length.

“And you still live,” he remarked.

“It is not that I did not try, I went in after all ofthe others failed. I failed, too. I was badly injured. But I managed to escape—barely.”

“How long ago was this?”

“Almost five years.”

“A long time for a copy to stay alive.”

“You know?”

“I know that many Cultures which employ clones for a particular job tend to build in some measure against their continued existence once the job is done, a kind of insurance against the…embarrassment…of the original.”

“Or the replacement, yes. A small poison sac at the base of the skull in my case. I believe my head injury did something to nullify its operation.”

She turned her head and raised her hair. There were more scars upon her neck.

“He thinks I am dead,” she went on. “I am certain. Either from the encounter or from the passage of time. But I know the way in, and I learned something of the place’s rules.”

“I think you had better tell me about this person and this place,” Kalifriki said.

T
he Alices are singing their wordless plaint. Now and forever. I build another wall, rings set within it, chains threaded through them. For all of them. Come back, come back, Alice, my last. It is you. It must be. Make the movement that will commit you, that will transport you. Else must I reach forth the siphon, as I have so many times. Even if it be not you, I must know. You resurrect an older self.

“Good,” she says, putting away her comb, turning toward the door.

No!

Then she turns back, lips set in a tight line, raising her hand, touching the reflecting surface. A moment, as she locates the pulses, passes her hand through the activation sequence. As her fingers penetrate the interface the bowman is suddenly behind her, laying his hand upon her shoulder. No matter. He may bear an interesting story within him.

“A
idon,” she said. “He is Aidon.”

“The one you seek?” Kalifriki asked. “The one you would have me kill?”

“Yes,” she said. Then, “No. We must go to a special place,” she finished.

“I don’t understand,” he said, “What place?”