Guns of Avalon

Chapter 6

Steady movement is more important than speed, much of the time. So long as there is a regular progression of stimuli to get your mental hooks into, there is room for lateral movement. Once this begins, its rate is a matter of discretion.

So I moved slowly, but steadily, using my discretion. No sense in tiring Star unnecessarily. Rapid shifts are hard enough on people. Animals, who are not so good at lying to themselves, have a rougher time of it, sometimes going completely berserk.

I crossed the stream at a small wooden bridge and moved parallel to it for a time. My intention was to skirt the town itself, but to follow the general direction of the watercourse until I reached the vicinity of the coast. It was midafternoon. My way was shaded, cool. Grayswandir hung at my side.

I bore west, coming at length to the hills that rose there. I refrained from beginning the shift until after I had reached a point that looked down upon the city that represented the largest concentration of population in this realm that was like my Avalon.

The city bore the same name, and several thousand people lived there, worked there. Several of the silver towers were missing, and the stream cut the city at a somewhat different angle farther south, having widened or been widened eightfold by then. There was some smoke from the smithies and the public houses, stirred lightly by breezes from the south; people, mounted, afoot, driving wagons, driving coaches, moved through the narrow streets, entered and departed shops, hostels, residences; flocks of birds wheeled, descended, rose about the places where horses were tethered; a few bright pennons and banners stirred listlessly; the water sparkled and there was a haze in the air. I was too far away to hear the sounds of voices, and of clanking, hammering, sawing, rattling, and creaking as anything other than a generalized hum. While I could distinguish no individual odors, had I still been blind I would have known by sniffing the air that a city was near.

Seeing it from up there, a certain nostalgia came over me, a wistful rag-tail of a dream accompanied by a faint longing for the place that was this place’s namesake to me in a vanished shadowland of long ago, where life had been just as simple and I happier than I was at that moment.

But one does not live as long as I have lived without achieving that quality of consciousness which strips naive feelings as they occur and is generally loathe to participate in the creation of sentimentality.

Those days were passed, that thing done with, and it was Amber now that held me completely. I turned and continued southward, confirmed in my desire to succeed. Amber, I do not forget…

The sun became a dazzling, bright blister above my head and the winds began to scream about me. The sky grew more and more yellow and glaring as I rode, until it was as if a desert stretched from horizon to horizon overhead. The hills grew rockier as I descended toward the lowlands, exhibiting wind-sculpted forms of grotesque shape and somber coloration. A dust storm struck me as I emerged from the foothills, so that I had to muffle my face with my cloak and narrow my eyes to slits. Star whinnied, snuffled repeatedly, plodded on. Sand, stone, winds, and the sky more orange then, a slate-like crop of clouds toward which the sun was heading…

Then long shadows, the dying of the wind, stillness… Only the click of hoof on rock and the sounds of breathing… Dimness, as they rushed together and the sun is foiled by clouds… The walls of the day shaken by thunder… An unnatural clarity of distant objects… A cool, blue, and electric feeling in the air… Thunder again…

Now, a rippling, glassy curtain to my right as the rain advances… Blue fracture lines within the clouds… The temperature plummeting, our pace steady, the world a monochromatic backdrop now…

Gouging thunder, flashing white, the curtain flaring toward us now… Two hundred meters… One-fifty… Enough!

Its bottommost edge plowing, furrowing, frothing… The moist smell of the earth… Star’s whinny… A burst of speed…

Small rivulets of water creeping outward, sinking, staining the ground… Now bubbling muddily, now trickling… Now a steady flow… Streamlets all about us, splashing…

High ground ahead, and Star’s muscles bunching and relaxing, bunching and relaxing beneath me, as he leaps the rills and freshets, plunges through a racing, roiling sheet, and strikes the slope, hoofs sparkling against stones as we mount higher, the voice of the gurgling, eddying flow beneath us deepening to a steady roar…

Higher, then, and dry, pausing to wring out the corners of my cloak… Below, behind, and to the right a gray, storm-tossed sea laps at the foot of the cliff we hold…

Inland now, toward clover fields and evening, the boom of the surf at my back…

Pursuing falling stars into the darkening east and eventual silence and night…

Clear the sky and bright the stars, but a few small wisps of cloud…

A howling pack of red-eyed things, twisting along our trail… Shadow… Green-eyed… Shadow… Yellow… Shadow… Gone…

But dark peaks with skirts of snow, jostling one another about me… Frozen snow, as dry as dust, lifted in waves by the icy blasts of the heights… Powdery snow, flour-like… Memory here, of the Italian Alps, of skiing… Waves of snow drifting across stone faces… A white fire within the night air… My feet rapidly numbing within my wet boots… Star bewildered and snorting, testing each step and shaking his head as if in disbelief…

So shadows beyond the rock, a gentler slope, a drying wind, less snow…

A twisting trail, a corkscrew trail, an adit into warmth… Down, down, down the night, beneath the changing stars…

Far the snows of an hour ago, now scrubby plants and level plain… Far, and the night birds stagger into the air, wheeling above the carrion feast, shedding hoarse notes of protest as we pass…

Slow again, to the place where the grasses wave, stirred by the less cold breeze… The cough of a hunting cat… The shadowy flight of a bounding, deerlike beast… Stars sliding into place and feelings in my feet once more…

Star rearing, neighing, racing ahead from some unseen thing… A long time in the soothing then, and longer still till the shivers go…

Now icicles of a partial moon falling on distant treetops… Moist earth exhaling a luminescent mist… Moths dancing in the night light…

The ground momentarily buckling and swaying, as if mountains were shifting their feet… To every star its double… A halo round the dumbbell moon… The plain, the air above it, filled with fleeting shapes…

The earth, a wound-down clock, ticks and grows still… Stability… Inertia… The stars and the moon reunited with their spirits…

Skirting the growing fringe of trees, west… Impressions of a sleeping jungle: delirium of serpents under oil cloth…

West, west… Somewhere a river with broad, clean banks to ease my passage to the sea…

Thud of hoofs, shuttling of shadows… The night air upon my face… A glimpse of bright beings on high, dark walls, shining towers… The air is sweetened… Vision swims… Shadows…

We are merged, centaur-like, Star and I, under a single skin of sweat… We take the air and give it back in mutual explosions of exertion… Neck clothed in thunder, terrible the glory of the nostrils… Swallowing the ground…

Laughing, the smell of the waters upon us, the trees very near to our left…

Then among them… Sleek bark, hanging vines, broad leaves, droplets of moisture… Spider web in the moonlight, struggling shapes within… Spongy turf… Phosphorescent fungus on fallen trees…

A clear space… Long grasses rustling…

More trees…

Again, the riversmell…

Sounds, later… Sounds… The grassy chuckling of water…

Closer, louder, beside it at last… The heavens buckling and bending in its belly, and the trees… Clean, with a cold, damp tang… Leftward beside it, pacing it now… Easy and flowing, we follow…

To drink… Splashing in its shallows, then hockhigh with head depressed, Star, in it, drinking like a pump, blasting spray from his nostrils… Upriver, it laps at my boots… Dripping from my hair, running down my arms… Star’s head turning, at the laughter…

Then downriver again, clean, slow, winding… Then straight, widening, slowing…

Trees thickening, then thinning…

Long, steady, slow…

A faint light in the east…

Sloping downward now, and fewer trees… Rockier, and the darkness made whole once again…

The first, dim hint of the sea, lost an odor later… Clicking on, on, in the nightsend chill… Again, an instant’s salt…

Rock, and an absence of trees… Hard, steep, bleak, down… Ever-increasing precipitousness…

Flashing between walls of stone… Dislodged pebbles vanishing in the now racing current, their splashes drowned in the roar’s echoes… Deeper the defile, widening… Down, down… Farther still…

Now pale once more the east, gentler the slope… Again, the touch of salt, stronger…

Shale and grit… Around a corner, down, and brighter still… Steady, soft and loose the footing…

The breeze and the light, the breeze and the light… Beyond a crop of rock… Draw rein.

Below me lay the stark seaboard, where rank upon rank of rolling dunes, harassed by the winds out of the southwest, tossed spumes of sand that partly obliterated the distant outlines of the bleak morning sea.

I watched the pink film spread across the water from the east. Here and there, the shifting sands revealed dark patches of gravel. Rugged masses of rock reared above the swell of the waves. Between the massive dunes — hundreds of feet in height — and myself, there high above that evil coast, lay a smashed and pitted plain of angular rocks and gravel, just now emerging from hell or night into dawn’s first glow, and alive with shadows.

Yes, it was right.

I dismounted and watched the sun force a bleak and glaring day upon the prospect. It was the hard, white light I had sought. Here, sans humans, was the necessary place, just as I had seen it decades earlier on the shadow Earth of my exile. No bulldozers, sifters, broom-wielding blacks; no maximum-security city of Oranjemund. No X-ray machines, barbed wire, or armed guards. None of these things here. No. For this shadow had never known a Sir Ernest Oppenheimer, and there had never been a Consolidated Diamond Mines of South West Africa, nor a government to approve their amalgamation of coastal mining interests. Here was the desert called Namib in that place some four hundred miles to the northwest of Cape Town, a strip of dunes and rocks ranging from a couple to a dozen miles in width and running along that forsaken coast line for perhaps three hundred miles on the seaward side of the Richtersveld Mountains, within whose shadow I now stood. Here, unlike any conventional mine, the diamonds were scattered as casually as bird droppings across the sand. I, of course, had brought along a rake and a sieve.

I broke out the rations and prepared breakfast. It was going to be a hot, dusty day.

As I worked the dunes, I thought of Doyle, the little wispy-haired jeweler with the brick-red complexion and wens on his cheeks, back in Avalon. Jewelers rouge? Why did I want all that jewelers rouge — enough to supply an army of jewelers for a dozen lifetimes? I had shrugged. What was it to him what I wanted it for, so long as I was able to pay for it? Well, if there was some new use for the stuff and good money to be made, a man would be a fool… In other words, he would be unable to furnish me with such a quantity within a week? Small, square chuckles had escaped through the gaps in his smile. A week? Oh, no! Of course not! That was ridiculous, out of the question… I saw. Well, a quick thanks and perhaps his competitor up the way might be able to produce the stuff, and might also be interested in a few uncut diamonds I was expecting in a matter of days… Diamonds, did I say? Wait. He was always interested in diamonds himself… Yes, but he was sadly deficient in the jewelers rouge department. A raised hand. It might be that he had spoken hastily with respect to his ability to produce the polishing material. It was the quantity that had disturbed him. But the ingredients were plentiful and the formula fairly simple. Yes, that was no real reason why something could not be worked out. Within a week, at that. Now, about the diamonds…

Before I left his shop, something had been worked out.

I have met many persons who thought that gunpowder explodes, which of course is incorrect. It burns rapidly, building up gas pressure which ejects a bullet from the mouth of a shell and drives it through the barrel of a weapon, after having been ignited by the primer, which does the actual exploding when the firing pin is driven into it. Now, with typical family foresight, I had experimented with a variety of combustibles over the years. My disappointment at the discovery that gunpowder would not ignite in Amber, and that all of the primers I tested were equally inert there, was a thing mitigated only by the knowledge that none of my relatives could bring firearms into Amber either. It was much later, during a visit to Amber, after polishing a bracelet I had brought for Deirdre, that I discovered this wonderful property of jewelers rouge from Avalon when I disposed of the polishing cloth in a fireplace. Fortunately, the quantity involved was small, and I was alone at the time.

It made an excellent primer, straight from the container. When cut with a sufficient quantity of inert material, it could also be made to burn properly.

I kept this bit of information to myself, feeling that one day it would be used to decide certain basic issues in Amber. Unfortunately, Eric and I had our run-in before that day arrived and it went into storage along with all my other memories. When things finally did clear for me, my fortunes were quickly cast with those of Bleys, who was preparing an assault on Amber. He had not really needed me then, but had taken me in on the enterprise, I feel, so that he could keep an eye on me. Had I furnished him with guns, he would have been invincible and I would have been unnecessary. More important, had we succeeded in seizing Amber in accordance with his plans, the situation would have become strained indeed, with the bulk of the occupying forces, as well as the officers’ loyalty, his. Then I would have required something to adjust the balance of power more equitably. A few bombs and automatic weapons, say.

Had I been my whole self even a month earlier, things would have been quite different. I could have been sitting in Amber, rather than being scorched, abraded, and desiccated, with another hellride before me and a knot of troubles to be worked out after that.

I spat sand so that I would not choke when I laughed. Hell, we make our own ifs. I had better things to think about than what could have happened. Like Eric…

I remember that day, Eric. I was in chains and I had been forced to my knees before the throne. I had already crowned myself, to mock you, and been beaten for it. The second time I had the crown in my hands, I threw it at you. But you caught it and smiled. I was glad that it was not damaged when it failed to damage you. Such a beautiful thing… All of silver, with its seven high points, and studded with emeralds to beat all diamonds. Two large rubies at either temple… You crowned yourself that day, all arrogance and hasty pomp. The first words that you spoke then were whispered to me, before the echoes of “Long live the king!” had died within the hall. I remember every one of them. “Your eyes have looked upon the fairest sight they ever will behold,” you said. Then, “Guards!” you ordered. “Take Corwin away to the smithy, and let his eyes be burnt from out his head! Let him remember the sights of this day as the last he might ever see! Then cast him into the darkness of the deepest dungeon beneath Amber, and let his name be forgotten!”

“Now you reign in Amber,” I said aloud. “But I have my eyes, and I have neither forgotten nor been forgotten.”

No, I thought. Wrap yourself in the kingship, Eric. The walls of Amber are high and thick. Stay behind them. Ring yourself with the futile steel of blades. Antlike, you armor your house in dust. You know now that you will never be secure so long as I live, and I have told you that I will be back. I am coming, Eric. I will bring me up guns out of Avalon, and I will break down your doors and smite your defenders. Then it will be as it was, briefly, another time, before your men came to you and saved you. That day I had only a few drops of your blood. This time, I will have it all.

I uncovered another rough diamond, the sixteenth or so, and flipped it into the sack at my waist.

As I faced the setting sun, I wondered about Benedict, Julian, and Gerard. What was the connection? Whatever, I did not like any combination of interests which involved Julian. Gerard was all right. I had been able to sleep back at the camp when I had thought that it was he whom Benedict was contacting. If he was now allied with Julian, though, it was cause for increased uneasiness. If anyone hated me even more than Eric, it was Julian. If he knew where I was, then my danger was great. I was not yet ready for a confrontation.

I supposed Benedict could find a moral justification for selling me out at this point. After all, he knew that whatever I did — and he knew that I was going to do something — would result in strife in Amber. I could understand, even sympathize with, his feelings. He was dedicated to the preservation of the realm. Unlike Julian, he was a man of principle, and I regretted having to be at odds with him. My hope was that my coup would be as quick and painless as a tooth extraction under gas, and that we would be back on the same side again soon afterward. Having met Dara now, I also wanted it this way for her sake.

He had told me too little for comfort. I had no way of knowing whether he really intended to remain in the field the entire week, or whether he was even now cooperating with the forces of Amber in the laying of my trap, the walling of my prison, the digging of my grave. I had to hurry, though I longed to linger in Avalon.

I envied Ganelon, in whatever tavern or brothel he drank, whored, or fought, on whatever hillside he hunted. He had come home. Should I leave him to his pleasures, despite his offer to accompany me to Amber? But no, he would be questioned on my departure — used badly, if Julian had anything to do with it — and then become an outcast in what must seem his own land to him, if they let him go at all. Then he would doubtless become an outlaw again, and the third time would probably prove his undoing. No, I would keep my promise. He would come with me, if that was he still wanted. If he had changed his mind, well — I even envied him the prospect of outlawry in Avalon. I would have liked to remain longer, to ride with Dara in the hills, tramp about the countryside, sail upon the rivers…

I thought about the girl. The knowledge of her existence changed things somewhat. I was not certain how. Despite our major hatreds and petty animosities, we Amberites are a very family-conscious bunch, always eager for news of one another, desirous to know everyone’s position in the changing picture. A pause for gossip has doubtless stayed a few death blows among us. I sometimes think of us as a gang of mean little old ladies in a combination rest home and obstacle course.

I could not fit Dara into things yet because she did not know where she fit herself. Oh, she would learn eventually. She would receive superb tutelage once her existence became known. Now that I had brought her awareness of her uniqueness it would only be a matter of time before this occurred and she joined in the games. I had felt somewhat serpent-like at points during our conversation in the grove — but hell, she had a right to know. She was bound to find out sooner or later, and the sooner she did the sooner she could start shoring up her defenses. It was for her own benefit.

Of course, it was possible — even likely — that her mother and grandmother had lived their lives in ignorance of their heritage…

And where had it gotten them? They died violently, she had said.

Was it possible, I wondered, that the long arm of Amber had reached for them out of Shadow? And that it might strike again?

Benedict could be as tough and mean and nasty as any of us when he wanted to be. Tougher, even. He would fight to protect his own, doubtless even kill one of us if he thought it necessary. He must have assumed that keeping her existence a secret and keeping her ignorant would protect her. He would be angry with me when he found out what I had done, which was another reason for clearing out in a hurry. But I had not told her what I had out of sheer perverseness. I wanted her to survive, and I did not feel he was handling things properly. When I returned, she would have had time to think things over. She would have many questions and I would seize the opportunity to caution her at length and to give specifics.

I gnashed my teeth.

None of this should be necessary. When I ruled in Amber, things would be different. They had to be…

Why had no one ever come up with a way to change the basic nature of man? Even the erasure of all my memories and a new life in a new world had resulted in the same old Corwin. If I were not happy with what I was it could be a proposition worthy of despair.

In a quiet part of the river, I washed away the dust, the sweat, wondering the while about the black road which had so injured my brothers. There were many things that I needed to know.

As I bathed, Grayswandir was never far from my hand. One of us is capable of tracking another through Shadow, when the trail is still warm. As it was, my bath was undisturbed, though I used Grayswandir three times on the way back, on less mundane things than brothers.

But this was to be expected, as I had accelerated the pace considerably…

It was still dark, though dawn was not too far away, when I entered the stables at my brother’s manor. I tended Star, who had grown somewhat wild, talking to him and soothing him as I rubbed him down, then putting out a good supply of food and water. Ganelon’s Firedrake greeted me from the opposite stall. I cleaned up at the pump to the rear of the stable, trying to decide where I was going to catch a little sleep.

I needed some rest. A few hours’ worth would hold me for a time, but I refused to take them beneath Benedict’s roof. I would not be taken that easily, and while I had often said that I wanted to die in bed, what I really meant was that in my old age I wanted to be stepped on by an elephant while making love.

I was not averse to drinking his booze, though, and I wanted a belt of something strong. The manor was dark; I entered quietly and I found the sideboard.

I poured a stiff one, tossed it off, poured another, and carried it to the window. I could see for a great distance. The manor stood on a hillside and Benedict had landscaped the place well.

“‘White in the moon the long road lies,’” I recited, surprised at the sound of my own voice. “‘The moon stands blank above…’”

“So it does. So it does, Corwin my lad,” I heard Ganelon say.

“I didn’t see you sitting there,” I said softly, not turning from the window.

“That’s because I’m sitting so still,” he said.

“Oh,” I said. “How drunk are you?”

“Hardly at all,” he said, “now. But if you would care to be a good fellow and fetch me a drink…”

I turned.

“Why can’t you get your own?”

“It hurts to move.”

“All right.”

I went and poured him one, carried it to him. He raised it slowly, nodded his thanks, took a sip.

“Ah, that’s good!” he sighed. “May it numb things a bit.”

“You were in a fight,” I decided.

“Aye,” he said. “Several.”

“Then bear your wounds like a good trooper and let me save my sympathy.”

“But I won!”

“God! Where did you leave the bodies?”

“Oh, they are not that bad off. Twas a girl did this to me.”

“Then I’d say you got your money’s worth.”

“‘Twas not that sort of thing at all. I believe I’ve embarrassed us.”

“Us? How?”

“I did not know she was the lady of the house. I came in feeling jolly, and I thought her some serving wench…”

“Dara?” I said, tensing.

“Aye, the same. I slapped her on the rump and went for a kiss or two —” He groaned. “Then she picked me up. She raised me off the ground and held me up over her head. Then she told me she was the lady of the house. Then she let me fall… I’m eighteen stone if I’m a pebble, man, and it was a long way down.” He took another drink, and I chuckled.

“She laughed, too,” he said ruefully. “She helped me up then and was not unkind, and of course I apologized — That brother of yours must be quite a man. I never met a girl that strong. The things she could do to a man…” There was awe in his voice. He shook his head slowly and tossed back the rest of his drink. “It was frightening — not to mention embarrassing,” he concluded.

“She accepted your apology?”

“Oh, yes. She was quite gracious about the whole thing. She told me to forget all about it, and said that she would, too.”

“Then why are you not in bed sleeping it off?”

“I was waiting up, in case you came in at an odd hour. I wanted to catch you right away.”

“Well, you have.”

He rose slowly and picked up his glass.

“Let’s go outside,” he said.

“Good idea.”

He picked up the brandy decanter on the way out, which I also thought was a good idea, and we followed a path through the garden behind the house. Finally, he heaved himself onto an old stone bench at the foot of a large oak tree, where he refilled both our glasses and took a drink from his own.

“Ah! He has good taste in liquor, too, your brother,” he said.

I seated myself beside him and filled my pipe.

“After I told her I was sorry and introduced myself, we got to talking for a time,” he said. “As soon as she learned I was with you, she wanted to know all sorts of things about Amber and shadows and you and the rest of your family.”

“Did you tell her anything?” I said, striking a light.

“Couldn’t have if I wanted to,” he said. “I had none of the answers.”

“Good.”

“It got me to thinking, though. I do not believe Benedict tells her too much, and I can see why. I would be careful what I say around her, Corwin. She seems over-curious.”

I nodded, puffing.

“There is a reason for it,” I said. “A very good reason. I am glad to know, though, that you keep your wits about you even when you have been drinking. Thanks for telling me.”

He shrugged and took a drink.

“A good bashing is a sobering thing. Also, your welfare is my welfare.”

“True. Does this version of Avalon meet with your approval?”

“Version? It is my Avalon,” he said. “A new generation of people is in the land, but it is the same place. I visited the Field of Thorns today, where I put down Jack Hailey’s bunch in your service. It was the same place.”

“The Field of Thorns…” I said, remembering.

“Yes, this is my Avalon,” he continued, “and I’ll be coming back here for my old age, if we live trough Amber.”

“You still want to come along?”

“All my life I’ve wanted to see Amber — well, since I first heard of it. That was from you, in happier times.”

“I do not really remember what I said. It must have been a good telling.”

“We were both wonderfully drunk that night, and it seemed but a brief while that you talked — weeping some of the time — telling me of the mighty mountain Kolvir and the green and golden spires of the city, of the promenades, the decks, the terraces, the flowers, the fountains… It seemed but a brief while, but it was most of the night — for before we staggered off to bed, the morning had begun. God! I could almost draw you a map of the place! I must see it before I die.”

“I do not remember that night,” I said slowly. “I must have been very, very drunk.”

He chuckled.

“We had some good times here in the old days,” he said. “And they do remember us here. But as people who lived very long ago — and they have many of the stories wrong. But hell! How many people get their stories right from day to day?”

I said nothing, smoking, thinking back.

“…All of which leads me to a question or two,” he said.

“Shoot.”

“Will your attack on Amber put you at great odds with your brother Benedict?”

“I really wish that I knew the answer to that one,” I said. “I think that it will, initially. But my move should be completed before he can reach Amber from here, in response to any distress call that goes out. That is, reach Amber with reinforcements. He could get there in no time at all, personally, if someone on the other end were helping. But that would serve little purpose. No. Rather than tear Amber apart, he will support whoever can hold it together, I am certain. Once I have ousted Eric, he will want the strife to stop right there and he will go along with my holding the throne, just to put an end to it. He will not really approve of the seizure in the first place, of course.”

“That is what I am getting at. Will there be bad blood between you afterward as a result of that?”

“I do not believe so. This is purely a matter of politics, and we have known one another most of our lives, he and I, and have always been on better terms with each other than either of us with Eric.”

“I see. Since you and I are in this together and Avalon seems to be Benedict’s now, I was wondering what his feelings would be about my returning here one day. Would he hate me for having helped you?”

“I doubt that very much. He has never been that sort of person.”

“Then let me carry things a step further. God knows I am an experienced military man, and if we succeed in taking Amber he will have ample evidence of the fact, with his right arm injured the way that it is and all, do you think he might consider taking me on as a field commander for his militia? I know this area so well. I could take him to the Field of Thorns and describe that battle. Hell! I would serve him well — as well as I served you.”

He laughed then.

“Pardon me. Better than I served you.”

I chuckled, sipped my drink.

“It would be tricky,” I said. “Of course I like the idea. But I am not too certain that you could ever enjoy his trust. It would seem too obvious a ploy on my part.”

“Damn politics! That is not what I meant! Soldiering is all that I know, and I love Avalon!”

“I believe you. But would he?”

“With only one arm he will be needing a good man about. He could —”

I began to laugh and restrained myself quickly, for the sound of laughter seems to carry for a good distance. Also, Ganelon’s feelings were involved.

“I am sorry,” I said. “Excuse me, please. You do not understand. You do not really understand who it was we talked with in the tent that night. He may have seemed an ordinary man to you — a handicapped one, at that. But this is not so. I fear Benedict. He is unlike any other being in Shadow or reality. He is the Master of Arms for Amber. Can you conceive of a millennium? A thousand years? Several of them? Can you understand a man who, for almost every day of a lifetime like that, has spent some time dwelling with weapons, tactics, strategies? Because you see him in a tiny kingdom, commanding a small militia, with a well-pruned orchard in his back yard, do not be deceived. All that there is of military science thunders in his head. He has often journeyed from shadow to shadow, witnessing variation after variation on the same battle, with but slightly altered circumstances, in order to test his theories of warfare. He has commanded armies so vast that you could watch them march by day after day and see no end to the columns. Although he is inconvenienced by the loss of his arm, I would not wish to fight with him either with weapons or barehanded. It is fortunate that he has no designs upon the throne, or he would be occupying it right now. If he were, I believe that I would give up at this moment and pay him homage. I fear Benedict.”

Ganelon was silent for a long while, and I took another drink, for my throat had become dry.

“I did not realize this, of course,” he said then. “I will be happy if he just lets me come back to Avalon.”

“That much he will do. I know.”

“Dara told me she had a message from him today. He has decided to cut short his stay in the field. He will probably be returning tomorrow.”

“Damn!” I said, standing. “We will have to move soon, then. I hope Doyle has that stuff ready. We must go to him in the morning and expedite matters. I want to be away from here before Benedict gets back!”

“You have the pretties then?”

“Yes.”

“May I see them?”

I undid the sack at my belt and passed it to him. He opened it and withdrew several stones, holding them in the palm of his left hand and turning them slowly with his fingertips.

“They do not look like much,” he said, “from what I can see of them in this light. Wait! There’s a glimmer! No…”

“They are in the rough, of course. You are holding a fortune in your hands.”

“Amazing,” he said, dropping them back in the sack and refastening it. “It was so easy for you.”

“It was not all that easy.”

“Still, to gather a fortune so quickly seems somehow unfair.”

He passed it back.

“I will see that you are provided with a fortune when our labors are done,” I said. “That should prove some compensation, should Benedict not offer you a position.”

“Now that I know who he is, I am more determined than ever to work for him one day.”

“We will see what can be done.”

“Yes. Thank you, Corwin. How shall we work our departure?”

“I want you to go and get some rest, for I will roust you out of bed early. Star and Firedrake will take unkindly to the notion of draft duty, I fear, but we will then borrow one of Benedict’s wagons and head into town. Before this, I will try to arrange a good smoke screen here for our orderly withdrawal. We will then hurry Doyle the jeweler about his task, obtain our cargo, and depart into Shadow as quickly as possible. The greater our head start, the more difficult it will be for Benedict to track us. If I can get half a day’s lead into Shadow, it will be practically impossible for him.”

“Why should he be so eager to come after us in the first place?”

“He does not trust me worth a damn — and justly so. He is waiting for me to make my move. He knows there is something I need here, but he does not know what. He wants to find out, so that he can seal off another threat to Amber. As soon as he realizes we have gone for good, he will know that we have it and he will come looking.”

Ganelon yawned, stretched, finished his drink.

“Yes,” he said then. “We’d best rest now, to be in condition for the hurrying. Now that you have told me more about Benedict, I am less surprised by the other thing I meant to tell you — though no less discomfited.”

“That being…?”

He rose to his feet, picked up the decanter carefully, then pointed down the path.

“If you continue on in that direction,” he said, “passing the hedge that marks the end of this bower and entering the woods that lie below — and then go on for another two hundred paces or so — you will come to a place where there is a little grove of saplings off to the left, standing in a sudden declivity perhaps four feet lower than the level of the trail itself. Down in it, stamped down and strewn over with leaves and twigs, there is a fresh grave. I found it while taking the air earlier, when I paused to relieve myself down there.”

“How do you know it is a grave?”

He chuckled.

“When holes have bodies in them that is how they are generally called. It was quite shallow, and I poked around a bit with a stick. There are four bodies in there — three men and a woman.”

“How recently dead?”

“Very. A few days. I’d judge.”

“You left it as you found it?”

“I’m not a fool, Corwin.”

“Sorry. But this troubles me considerably, because I don’t understand it at all.”

“Obviously they gave Benedict some trouble and he returned the favor.”

“Perhaps. What were they like? How did they die?”

“Nothing special about them. They were in their middle years, and their throats had been cut — save for one fellow who got it in the guts.”

“Strange. Yes, it is good that we are leaving soon. We have enough problems of our own without getting involved in the local ones.”

“Agreed. So let us be off to bed.”

“You go ahead. I am not quite ready yet.”

“Take your own advice and get some rest,” he said, turning back toward the manor. “Don’t sit up and worry.”

“I won’t.”

“Good night, then.”

“See you in the morning.”

I watched him return along the path. He was right, of course, but I was not yet ready to surrender my consciousness. I went over my plans again, to be certain there was nothing I was overlooking, finished my drink and set the glass on the bench. I rose then and strolled, trailing wisps of tobacco smoke about me. There was a bit of moonlight from over my shoulder and dawn was still a few hours’ distant, as I reckoned it. I was firm in my resolve to spend the rest of the night out of doors, and I thought to find me a good place to sack out.

Of course, I eventually wandered down the path and into the grove of saplings. A little poking around showed me that there had been some recent digging, but I was in no mood to exhume bodies by moonlight and was perfectly willing to take Ganelon’s word as to what he had found there. I am not even certain why I went there. Morbid streak, I guess. I did decide against sleeping in the vicinity, though.

I made my way into the northwest corner of the garden, finding an area that was out of line of sight from the manor. There were high hedgerows and the grass was long, soft, and sweet-smelling. I spread my cloak, sat down upon it, and pulled off my boots. I put my feet down into the cool grass and sighed.

Not too much longer, I decided. Shadows to diamonds to guns to Amber. I was on my way. A year ago I had been rotting in a cell, crossing and recrossing the line between sanity and madness so many times that I had all but rubbed it out. Now I was free, strong, sighted, and had a plan. Now I was a threat seeking fulfillment once again, a deadlier threat than I had been previously. This time I did not have my fortunes tied up with the plans of another. Now I was responsible for my own success or failure.

The feeling was good, as was the grass, as was the alcohol which had now seeped through my system and warmed me with a pleasant flame. I cleaned my pipe, put it away, stretched, yawned, and was about to recline.

I detected a distant movement, propped myself on my elbows and watched for it again. I did not have long to wait. A figure was passing slowly along the path, pausing frequently, moving quietly. It vanished beneath the tree where Ganelon and I had been sitting, and did not emerge again for a long while. Then it continued on for several dozen paces, stopped and seemed to be staring in my direction. Then it advanced toward me.

Passing about a clump of shrubbery and emerging from the shadows, her face was suddenly touched by the moonlight. Apparently aware of this, she smiled in my direction, slowing as she came near, stopping when she stood before me.

She said, “I take it your quarters are not to your liking, Lord Corwin.”

“Not at all,” I said. “It is such a beautiful night that it appealed to the outdoorsman in me.”

“Something must have appealed to you last night, also,” she said, “despite the rain,” and she seated herself beside me on my cloak. “Did you sleep indoors or out?”

“I spent it out,” I said. “But I did not sleep. In fact, I have not slept since I saw you last.”

“Where have you been?”

“Down by the seaside, sifting sand.”

“Sounds depressing.”

“It was.”

“I have been doing a lot of thinking, since we walked in Shadow.”

“I would imagine.”

“I have not done too much sleeping either. That was why I heard you come in, heard you talking with Ganelon, knew you were out here somewhere when he came back alone.”

“You were right.”

“I must get to Amber, you know. And walk the Pattern.”

“I know. You will.”

“Soon, Corwin. Soon!”

“You are young, Dara. There is plenty of time.”

“Damn it! I have been waiting all my life — without even knowing about it! Is there no way I can go now?”

“No.”

“Why not? You could take me on a quick journey through shadows, take me to Amber, let me walk the Pattern…”

“If we are not slain immediately, we might be fortunate enough to be given adjoining cells for a time — or racks — before we are executed.”

“Whatever for? You are a Prince of the City. You have a right to do as you please.”

I laughed.

“I am an outlaw, dear. If I return to Amber I will be executed, if I am lucky. Or something much worse if I am not. But seeing as how things turned out last time, I should think they would kill me quickly. This courtesy would doubtless also be extended to my companions.”

“Oberon would not do such a thing.”

“Given sufficient provocation, I believe that he would. But the question does not really arise. Oberon is no more, and my brother Eric sits on the throne and calls himself liege.”

“When did this occur?”

“Several years ago, as time is measured in Amber.”

“Why would he want to kill you?”

“To keep me from killing him, of course.”

“Would you?”

“Yes, and I will. Soon, too, I think.”

She turned to face me then.

“Why?”

“So that I can occupy the throne myself. It is rightly mine, you see. Eric has usurped it. I am just recently escaped from torture and several years’ imprisonment at his hands. He made the mistake, however, of allowing himself the luxury of keeping me alive so that he could contemplate my wretchedness. He never thought that I would get free and return to challenge him again. Neither did I, for that matter. But since I have been fortunate enough to obtain a second chance, I shall be careful not to make the same mistake he did.”

“But he is your brother.”

“Few are more aware of that fact than he and I, I assure you.”

“How soon do you expect to accomplish — your objectives?”

“As I said the other day, if you can get hold of the Trumps, contact me in about three months. If you cannot, and things come about according to my plans, I will get in touch with you fairly early in my reign. You should have your chance to take the Pattern before another year passes.”

“And if you fail?”

“Then you will have a longer wait ahead of you. Until Eric has assured the permanency of his own reign, and until Benedict has acknowledged him king. You see, Benedict is not willing to do this. He has remained away from Amber for a long while, and for all Eric knows, he is no longer among the living. Should he put in an appearance now, he is going to have to take a position either for or against Eric. Should he come out for him, then the continuance of Eric’s reign will be assured — and Benedict does not want to be responsible for that. Should he come out against him, there will be strife — and he does not want to be responsible for that either. He has no desire for the crown himself. Only by remaining out of the picture entirely can he assure the measure of tranquility that does prevail. Were he to appear and refuse to take either position, he could possibly get away with it, but it would be tantamount to denying Eric’s kingship and would still lead to trouble. Were he to appear with you, he would be surrendering his will, for Eric would put pressure on him through you.”

“Then if you lose I might never get to Amber!”

“I am only describing the situation as I see it. There are doubtless many factors of which I am unaware. I have been out of circulation for a long while.”

“You must win!” she said. Then, suddenly, “Would Grandpa support you?”

“I doubt it. But the situation would be quite different. I am aware of his existence, and of yours. I will not ask his support. So long as he does not oppose me, I will be satisfied. And if I am quick, efficient, and successful, he will not oppose me. He will not like my having found out about you, but when he sees that I mean you no harm all will be well on that count.”

“Why would you not use me? It seems the logical thing to do.”

“It is. But I’ve discovered I like you,” I said, “so that’s out of the question.” She laughed.

“I’ve charmed you!” she said. I chuckled.

“In your own delicate way, at sword’s point, yes.”

Abruptly, she sobered.

“Grandpa is coming back tomorrow,” she said. “Did your man Ganelon tell you?”

“Yes.”

“How does that affect whatever you are about?”

“I intend to be hell and gone out of here before he returns.”

“What will he do?”

“The first thing that he will do will be to get very angry with you for being here. Then he will want to know how you managed your return and how much you have told me about yourself.”

“What should I tell him?”

“Tell him the truth about how you got back. That will give him something to think about. As to your status, your woman’s intuition cautioned you concerning my trustworthiness, and you took the same line with me as you did with Julian and Gerard. As to my whereabouts, Ganelon and I borrowed a wagon and headed into town, saying that we would not be back until quite late.”

“Where will you really be going?”

“Into town, briefly. But we will not be coming back. I want as much of a head start as possible because he can track me through Shadow, up to a point.”

“I will delay him as best I can for you. Were you not going to see me before you left?”

“I was going to have this talk with you in the morning. You got it ahead of time by being restless.”

“Then I am glad that I was restless. How are you going to conquer Amber?”

I shook my head. “No, dear Dara. All scheming princes must keep a few small secrets. That’s one of mine.”

“I am surprised to learn there is so much distrust and plotting in Amber.”

“Why? The same conflicts exist everywhere, in various forms. They are all about you, always, for all places take their form from Amber.”

“It is difficult to understand…”

“One day you will. Leave it at that for now.”

“Then tell me another thing. Since I am able to negotiate shadows somewhat, even without having taken the Pattern, tell me more precisely how you go about it. I want to get better at it.”

“No!” I said. “I will not have you fooling with Shadow until you are ready. It is dangerous even after you have taken the Pattern. To do it before is foolhardy. You were lucky, but do not try it again. I’ll even help, by not telling you anything more about it.”

“All right!” she said. “Sorry. I guess I can wait.”

“I guess you can. No hard feelings?”

“No. Well —” She laughed. “They wouldn’t do me any good, I guess. You must know what you are talking about. I am glad that you care what happens to me.”

I grunted, and she reached out and touched my cheek. At this, I turned my head again and her face was moving slowly toward my own, smile gone and lips parting, eyes almost closed. As we kissed, I felt her arms slide about my neck and shoulders and mine found their way into a similar position around her. My surprise was lost in the sweetness, gave way to warmth and a certain excitement.

If Benedict ever found out, he was going to be more than just irritated with me…