Prince of Chaos

Chapter 2

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.

“I knew him,” he said, “long ago, before his troubles. And I do not know whether to rejoice or despair in this. Recovered, he may be working for the greater good. Then again, his interests may be totally partisan.”

“Sorry I can’t enlighten you,” I said. “I find his actions cryptic, too.”

“I’m baffled also,” Mandor said, “by the disposition of the Eye. But it still sounds pretty much a local matter, involving Amber’s relations with Kashfa and Begma. I don’t see that there is anything to be gained at this point by speculation. It’s better keeping most of our attention for more pressing local matters.”

I felt myself sigh.

“Such as the succession?” I suggested. Mandor quirked an eyebrow.

“Oh, Lord Suhuy has briefed you already?”

“No,” I replied. “No, but I heard so much from my father of the succession in Amber, with all its cabals, intrigues, and double crosses, that I almost feel an authority on the subject. I imagine it could be that way here, too, among the Houses of Swayvill’s descendants, there being many more generations involved.”

“You have the right idea,” he said, “though I think the picture might be a bit more orderly here than it was there.”

“That’s something, anyway,” I said. “For me, I intend to pay my respects and get the hell out. Send me a postcard telling me how it gets settled.”

He laughed. He seldom laughs. I felt my wrist prickle where Frakir usually rides.

“He really doesn’t know,” he said, glancing at Suhuy.

“He’s just arrived,” Suhuy answered. “I hadn’t the time to tell him anything.”

I groped in my pocket, located a coin, withdrew it, and flipped it.

“Heads,” I announced, on inspection. “You tell me, Mandor. What’s going on?”

“You’re not next in line for the throne,” he said. It being my turn to laugh, I did.

“I already knew that,” I said. “You told me not that long ago, over dinner, how long the line was before me — if someone of my mixed blood could be considered at all.”

“Two,” he said. “Two stand before you.”

“I don’t understand,” I said. “What happened to all the others?”

“Dead,” he replied.

“Bad year for the flu?”

He gave me a nasty smile.

“There has been an unprecedented number of fatal duels and political assassinations recently.”

“Which sort dominated the field?”

“The assassinations.”

“Fascinating.”

“…And so you three are under black watch protection of the Crown, and were given into the care of your respective Houses’ security.”

“You’re serious.”

“Indeed.”

“Was this sudden thinning of the ranks a matter of many people simultaneously seeking advancement? Or was it a smaller number, removing roadblocks?”

“The Crown is uncertain.”

“When you say ‘the Crown,’ who, exactly, are you referring to, right now? Who’s making decisions in the interim?”

“Lord Bances of Amblerash,” he replied, “a distant relative and longtime friend of our late monarch.”

“I sort of recall him. Could he have an eye on the throne himself, and be behind any of the — removals?”

“The man’s a priest of the Serpent. Their vows bar them from reigning anywhere.”

“There are usually ways around vows.”

“True, but the man seems genuinely uninterested in such a thing.”

“That needn’t preclude his having a favorite, and maybe helping him along a bit. Is anybody near the throne particularly fond of his Order?”

“To my knowledge, no.”

“Which doesn’t mean someone mightn’t have cut a deal.”

“No, though Bances isn’t the sort of man one would approach easily with a proposition.”

“In other words, you believe he’s above whatever’s going on?”

“In the absence of evidence to the contrary.”

“Who is next in line?”

“Tubble of Chanicut.”

“Who’s second?”

“Tmer of Jesby.”

“Top of the line, your pool,” I said to Suhuy.

He showed me his teeth again. They seemed to rotate. “Are we at vendetta with either Chanicut or Jesby?” I asked.

“Not really.”

“We’re all just taking care then, huh?”

“Yes.”

“How did it all come to this? I mean, there were a lot of people involved, as I recall. Was it a night of the long knives, or what?”

“No, the deaths have been occurring steadily for some time. There wasn’t a sudden bloodbath when Swayvill took his turn for the worse — though a few did occur just recently.”

“Well, there must have been some investigation. Do we have any of the perps in custody?”

“No, they either escaped or were killed.”

“What of those who were killed? Their identities might indicate their political affiliations.”

“Not really. Several were professionals. A couple of others were general malcontents, arguably among the mentally ill.”

“You’re saying there are no clues as to who might be behind it all?”

“That’s right.”

“What about suspicions then?”

“Tubble himself is of course suspect, though it is not a good idea to say it aloud. He stood to benefit the most, and now he’s in a position to do so. Also, there is much in his career of political connivance, double-dealing, assassination. But that was long ago. Everyone has a few skeletons in the cellar. He has been a quiet and conservative man for many years.”

“Tmer, then — He’s close enough to generate suspicion. Is there anything to connect him with the bloody business?”

“Not really. His affairs are hardly open. He’s a very private man. But he was never associated with such extremes in the past. I do not know him all that well, but he has always struck me as a simpler, more direct person than Tubble. He seems the sort who’d simply attempt a coup if he wanted the throne badly enough, rather than spend a lot of time intriguing.”

“There could, of course, be a number of people involved, each acting in his own interest —”

“And now that the matter is imminent they’ll have to surface soon?”

“It would seem so, wouldn’t it?”

A smile. A shrug.

“No reason for a coronation to end it all,” he said.

“A crown does not automatically make a person daggerproof.”

“But the successor would come to power with a lot of bad baggage.”

“It wouldn’t be the first time in history. And if you stop to think about it, some very good monarchs have come to power under such a cloud. By the way, has it occurred to you that the others might be speculating along these lines about you?”

“Yes, and it makes me uncomfortable. My father wanted the throne of Amber for a long time, and it really messed up his life. He was only happy when he said the hell with it. If I learned anything from his story, that’s it. I have no such ambition.”

But for a moment, I wondered. What would it feel like to control a massive state? Every time I complained about politics, here, in Amber, back in the States on the Shadow Earth, there was the automatic corollary of considering the way I’d manage situations if I were in charge.

“I wonder?” Mandor repeated.

I glanced downward.

“Perhaps the others are looking into their own saying pools just now,” I said, “hoping for clues.”

“Doubtless,” he responded. “What if Tubble and Tmer did meet untimely ends? What would you do?”

“Don’t even think about it,” I said. “It won’t happen.”

“Suppose.”

“I don’t know.”

“You really should make some sort of decision, just to have it out of the way. You’re never at a loss for words when you know your own mind.”

“Thanks. I’ll remember that.”

“Tell me more of your story, since last we met.”

And so I did, Pattern ghosts and all.

Somewhere near the end the wailing sound began again. Suhuy moved toward the rock.

“Excuse me,” he said, and the rock parted and he passed within.

Immediately, I felt Mandor’s gaze heavy upon me. “We probably only have a moment,” he said. “Not enough time, really, to go into everything I wanted to cover with you.”

“Very private, huh?”

“Yes. So you must arrange to dine with me before the funeral. Say, a quarter-turning hence, bluesky.”

“All right. Your place, or the Ways of Sawall?”

“Come to me at Mandorways.”

The rock phased again as I nodded, and a lithe demonic figure entered, shimmering bluely within a veil of cloud. I was on my feet in an instant, then bowing to kiss the hand she extended.

“Mother,” I said. “I hadn’t anticipated the pleasure — this soon.”

She smiled, and then it went away in a swirl. The scales faded, the contours of her face and form flowed. The blue went away into a normal though pale flesh color. Her hips and shoulders widened as she lost something of height, though still remained tall. Her brown eyes grew more attractive as the heavy brow ridges receded. A few freckles became visible across her now human, slightly upturned nose. Her brown hair was longer than when last I had seen her in this form. And she was still smiling. Her red tunic became her, simply belted; a rapier hung at her left hip.

“My dear Merlin,” she said, taking my head between her hands and kissing me upon the lips. “I am pleased to see you looking so well. It has been quite a while since last you visited.”

“I’ve had a very active existence of late.”

“To be sure,” she said. “I’ve heard some report of your various misadventures.”

“I’d imagine you would have. It’s not everyone has a ty’iga following him about, periodically seducing him in various forms, and making life, in general, very complicated with unwanted efforts at protection.”

“It shows that I care, dear.”

“It also shows that you have no respect for my privacy nor trust in my judgment.”

Mandor cleared his throat.

“Hello, Dara,” he said then.

“I suppose it must seem that way to you,” she stated. Then, “Hello, Mandor,” she went on. “What happened to your arm?”

“A misunderstanding involving some architecture,” he replied. “You’ve been out of sight, though hardly out of mind, for some time.”

“Thank you, if that’s a compliment,” she said. “Yes, I go a bit reclusive every now and then, when the weight of society becomes troublesome. Though you’re hardly the one to talk, sir, vanishing far long stretches as you do in the labyrinths of Mandorways — if that be indeed where you take yourself.”

He bowed.

“As you say, lady, we appear to be creatures of a kind.”

Her eyes narrowed, though her voice was unchanged, as she said, “I wander. Yes, I can sometimes see us as kindred spirits, perhaps even more than in our simplest cycles of activity. We’ve both been out and about a lot of late, though, haven’t we?”

“But I’ve been careless,” said Mandor, indicating his injured arm. “You, obviously, have not.”

“I never argue with architecture,” she said.

“Or other imponderables?” he asked.

“I try to work with what is in place,” she told him.

“Generally, I do, too.”

“And if you cannot?” she asked. He shrugged.

“Sometimes there are collisions.”

“You’ve survived many in your time, haven’t you?”

“I can’t deny it, but then it has been a long while. You seem made of very survivable stuff yourself.”

“So far,” she responded. “We really must compare notes on imponderables and collisions one day. Wouldn’t it be strange if we were similar in all respects?”

“I should be very much surprised,” he answered.

I was fascinated and slightly frightened by the exchange, though I could go only by feeling and had no notion of specifics. They were somehow similar, and I’d never heard generalities delivered with quite that precision and emphasis outside of Amber, where they often make a game of talking that way.

“Forgive me,” Mandor said then, to the company in general, “but I must absent myself to recuperation. Thank you for your hospitality, sir.” He bowed to Suhuy. “And for the pleasure of crossing paths with you” — this to Dara.

“You’ve barely arrived,” Suhuy said, “and you’ve taken no refreshment. You make me a poor host.”

“Rest assured, old friend, there is none could perform such a transformation,” he stated. He looked at me as he backed toward the opening way. “Till later,” he said, and I nodded.

He passed into the way, and the rock solidified with his vanishment.

“One wonders at his deliveries,” my mother said, “without apparent rehearsal.”

“Grace,” Suhuy commented. “He was born with an abundance.”

“I wonder who will die today?” she said.

“I am not certain the implication is warranted,” Suhuy replied.

She laughed.

“And if it is,” she said, “they will certainly expire in good taste.”

“Do you speak in condemnation or envy?” he asked.

“Neither,” she said. “For I, too, am an admirer of grace — and a good jest.”

“Mother,” I said, “just what’s going on?”

“Whatever do you mean, Merlin?” she replied.

“I left this place a long time ago. You sent a demon to find me and take care of me. Presumably, it could detect someone of the blood of Amber. So there was some confusion between myself and Luke. So it settled by taking care of both of us — until Luke began his periodic attempts to kill me. Then it protected me from Luke and tried to determine which of us was the proper party. It even lived with Luke for a time, and later pursued me. I should have guessed at something of this because it was so eager to learn my mother’s name. Apparently, Luke was just as closemouthed about his parentage.”

She laughed.

“It makes a beautiful picture,” she began. “Little Jasra and the Prince of Darkness —”

“Don’t try to change the subject. Think how embarrassing that is for a grown man — his mother sending demons to look after him.”

“The singular. It was just one demon, dear.”

“Who cares? The principle’s the same. Where do you get off with this protective business? I resent —”

“The ty’iga probably saved your life on more than one occasion, Merlin.”

“Well, yes. But —”

“You’d rather be dead than protected? Just because it was coming from me?”

“That’s not the point!”

“Then what is the point?”

“It seems you just assumed I couldn’t take care of myself, and —”

“Well, you couldn’t.”

“But you had no way of knowing that. I resented your starting with the assumption that I needed chaperoning in Shadow, that I was naive, gullible, careless —”

“I suppose it would hurt your feelings if I said that you were going to a place as different from the Courts as that Shadow is.”

“Yes, I can take care of myself!”

“You weren’t doing that great a job of it. But you are making a number of unwarranted assumptions yourself. What makes you think that the reasons you gave are the only possible ones for my taking such an action?”

“Okay. Tell me that you knew that Luke was going to try to kill me every April thirtieth. And if the answer is yes, why didn’t you just tell me?”

“I did not know that Luke was going to try to kill you every April thirtieth.”

I turned away. I clenched my fists and relaxed them. “So you just did it for the hell of it?”

“Merlin, why do you find it so difficult to admit that other people might sometimes know things you don’t?”

“Start with their unwillingness to tell me these things.”

She was silent a long moment. Then, “I’m afraid there is something to what you say,” she replied. “But there were strong reasons for not talking of such matters.”

“Then start with the inability to tell me. Tell me now why you didn’t trust me then.”

“It wasn’t a matter of trust.”

“Is it okay to tell me now what it was?” Another, longer silence followed.

“No,” she finally said “Not yet.”

I turned toward her, keeping my features composed and my voice level.

“Then nothing has changed,” I said, “nor ever shall. You still do not trust me.”

“That is not true,” she answered, glancing at Suhuy. “It is just that this is not the proper time or the proper place to go into these matters.”

“Might I fetch you a drink or something to eat, Dara?” Suhuy said immediately.

“Thank you no,” she replied. “I cannot stay much longer.”

“Mother, tell me, then, something about the ty’iga.”

“What do you wish to know?”

“You conjured it from someplace beyond the Rim.”

“That is correct.”

“Such beings are bodiless themselves, but capable of taking over a living host for their own purposes.”

“Yes.”

“Supposing such a being took over the body of a person at or near the moment of death, making it the sole animating spirit and controlling intelligence?”

“Interesting. Is this a hypothetical question?”

“No. It’s really happened with the one you sent after me. It doesn’t seem able to quit that body now. Why not?”

“I am not really certain,” she said.

“It is trapped now,” Suhuy offered. “It can only come and go by reacting with a resident intelligence.”

“The body, with the ty’iga in control, recovered from the illness that killed its consciousness,” I said. “You mean it’s stuck there now for life?”

“Yes. So far as I know.”

“Then tell me this: Will it be released when that body dies, or will it die with it?”

“It could go either way,” he replied. “But the longer it remains in the body, the more likely it is that it will perish along with it.”

I looked back at my mother.

“There you have the end of its story,” I stated. She shrugged.

“I’ve done with this one and released it,” she said, “and one can always conjure another should the need arise.”

“Don’t do it,” I told her.

“I shan’t,” she said. “There is no need to, now.”

“But if you thought there were, you would?”

“A mother tends to value her son’s safety, whether the son likes it or not.”

I raised my left hand, extending the forefinger in an angry gesture, when I noticed that I was wearing a bright bracelet — it seemed an almost — hologramatic representation of a woven cord. I lowered my hand, bit back my first response, and said, “You know my feelings now.”

“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.”

“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 gone.

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.