Sign of the Unicorn

Chapter 11

…And frying pans without fires are often far between…

We untangled ourselves and rose. I sat down again immediately, on the bottommost stair. I worked the metal hand loose from my shoulder — no blood there, but a promise of bruises to come — then cast it and its arm to the ground. The light of early morning did not detract from its exquisite and menacing appearance.

Ganelon and Random stood beside me.

“You all right, Corwin?”

“Yes. Just let me catch my breath.”

“I brought food,” Random said. “We could have breakfast right here.”

“Good idea.”

As Random began unpacking provisions, Ganelon nudged the arm with the toe of his boot.

“What the hell,” he asked, “is that?”

I shook my head.

“I lopped it off the ghost of Benedict,” I told him. “For reasons I do not understand, it was able to reach me.”

He stooped and picked it up, studied it.

“A lot lighter than I thought it would be,” he observed. He raked the air with it. “You could do quite a job on someone, with a hand like that.”

“I know.”

He worked the fingers.

“Maybe the real Benedict could use it.”

“Maybe,” I said. “My feelings are quite mixed when it comes to offering it to him, but possibly you’re right…”

“How’s the side?”

I prodded it gently.

“Not especially bad, everything considered. I’ll be able to ride after breakfast, so long as we take it nice and easy.”

“Good. Say, Corwin, while Random is getting things ready, I have a question that may be out of order, but it has been bothering me all along.”

“Ask it.”

“Well, let me put it this way: I am all for you, or I would not be here. I will fight for you to have your throne, no matter what. But every time talk of the succession occurs, someone gets angry and breaks it off or the subject gets changed. Like Random did, while you were up there. I suppose that it is not absolutely essential for me to know the basis of your claim to the throne, or that of any of the others, but I cannot help being curious as to the reasons for all the friction.”

I sighed, then sat silent for a time.

“All right,” I said after a while, and then I chuckled. “All right. If we cannot agree on these things ourselves, I would guess that they must seem pretty confused to an outsider. Benedict is the eldest. His mother was Cymnea. She bore Dad two other sons, also — Osric and Finndo. Then — how does one put these things? — Faiella bore Eric. After that, Dad found some defect in his marriage with Cymnea and had it dissolved — ab initio, as they would say in my old shadow — from the beginning. Neat trick, that. But he was the king.”

“Didn’t that make all of them illegitimate?”

“Well, it left their status less certain. Osric and Finndo were more than a little irritated, as I understand it, but they died shortly thereafter. Benedict was either less irritated or more politic about the entire affair. He never raised a fuss. Dad then married Faiella.”

“And that made Eric legitimate?”

“It would have, if he had acknowledged Eric as his son. He treated him as if he were, but he never did anything formal in that regard. It involved the smoothing-over process with Cymnea’s family, which had become a bit stronger around that time.”

“Still, if he treated him as his own…”

“Ah! But he later did acknowledge Llewella formally. She was born out of wedlock, but he decided to recognize her, poor girl. All of Eric’s supporters hated her for its effect on his status. Anyway, Faiella was later to become my mother. I was born safely in wedlock, making me the first with a clean claim on the throne. Talk to one of the others and you may get a different line of reasoning, but those are the facts it will have to be based on. Somehow it does not seem quite as important as it once did, though, with Eric dead and Benedict not really interested… But that is where I stand.”

“I see — sort of,” he said. “Just one more thing, then…”

“What?”

“Who is next? That is to say, if anything were to happen to you…?”

I shook my head.

“It gets even more complicated there, now. Caine would have been next with him dead, I see it as swinging over to Clarissa’s brood — the redheads. Bleys would have followed, then Brand.”

“Clarissa? What became of your mother?”

“She died in childbirth. Deirdre was the child. Dad did not remarry for many years after mother’s death. When he did, it was a redheaded wench from a far southern shadow. I never liked her. He began feeling the same way after a time and started fooling around again. They had one reconciliation after Llewella’s birth in Rebma, and Brand was the result. When they were finally divorced, he recognized Llewella to spite Clarissa. At least, that is what I think happened.”

“So you are not counting the ladies in the succession?”

“No. They are neither interested nor fit. If I were, though, Fiona would precede Bleys and Llewella would follow him. After Clarissa’s crowd, it would swing over to Julian, Gerard, and Random, in that order. Excuse me — count Flora before Julian. The marriage data is even more involved, but no one will dispute the final order. Let it go at that.”

“Gladly,” he said. “So now Brand gets it if you die, right?”

“Well… He is a self-confessed traitor and he rubs everybody the wrong way. I do not believe the rest of them would have him, as he stands now. But I do not believe he has by any means given up.”

“But the alternative is Julian.” I shrugged. “The fact that I do not like Julian does not make him unfit. In fact, he might even be a very effective monarch.”

“So he knifed you for the chance to prove it,” Random called out. “Come on and eat.”

“I still don’t think so,” I said, getting to my feet and heading for the food. “First, I don’t see how he could have gotten to me. Second, it would have been too damned obvious. Third, if I die in the near future Benedict will have the real say as to the succession. Everyone knows that. He’s got the seniority, he’s got the wits, and he’s got the power. He could simply say, for example, The hell with all this bickering, I am backing Gerard, and that would be it.”

“What if he decided to reinterpret his own status and take it himself?” Ganelon asked.

We seated ourselves on the ground and took the tin dishes Random had filled.

“He could have had it long before this, had he wanted it,” I said. “There are several ways of regarding the offspring of a void marriage, and the most favorable one would be the most likely in his case. Osric and Finndo rushed to judgment, taking the worst view. Benedict knew better. He just waited. So… It is possible. Unlikely, though. I’d say.”

“Then — in the normal course of affairs — if anything happened to you, it could still be very much in the air?”

“Very much.”

“But why was Caine killed?” Random asked. Then, between mouthfuls, he answered his own question. “So that when they got you, it would swing over to Clarissa’s kids immediately. It has occurred to me that Bleys is probably still living, and he is next in line. His body was never found. My guess is this: He trumped off to Fiona during your attack and returned to Shadow to rebuild his forces, leaving you to what he hoped would be your death at the hands of Eric. He is finally ready to move again. So they killed Caine and tried for you. If they are really allied with the black-road horde, they could have arranged for another assault from that quarter. Then he could have done the same thing you did — arrive at the last hour, turn back the invaders, and move on in. And there he would be, next in line and first in force. Simple. Except that you survived and Brand has been returned. If we are to believe Brand’s accusation of Fiona — and I see no reason why we should not — then it follows from their original program.”

I nodded.

“Possibly,” I said. “I asked Brand just those things. He admitted their possibility, but he disavowed any knowledge as to whether Bleys was still living. Personally, I think he was lying.”

“Why?”

“It is possible that he wishes to combine revenge for his imprisonment and the attempt on his life with the removal of the one impediment, save for myself, to his own succession. I think he feels that I will be expended in a scheme he is evolving to deal with the black road. The destruction of his own cabal and the removal of the road could make him look pretty decent, especially after all the penance he has had thrust upon him. Then, maybe then, he would have a chance — or thinks that he would.”

“Then you think Bleys is still living, too?”

“Just a feeling,” I said. “But yes, I do.”

“What is their strength, anyway?”

“An endorsement of higher education,” I said. “Fiona and Brand paid attention to Dworkin while the rest of us were off indulging our assorted passions in Shadow. Consequently, they seem to have obtained a better grasp of principles than we possess. They know more about Shadow and what lies beyond it, more about the Pattern, more about the Trumps than we do. That is why Brand was able to send you his message.”

“An interesting thought…” Random mused. “Do you think they might have disposed of Dworkin after they felt they had learned enough from him? It would certainly help to keep things exclusive, if anything happened to Dad.”

“That thought had not occurred to me,” I said.

And I wondered, could they have done something that had affected his mind? Something that left him as he was when last I had seen him? If so, were they aware that he was possibly still living, somewhere? Or might they have assumed his total destruction?

“Yes, an interesting thought,” I said. “I suppose that it is possible.”

The sun inched its way upward, and the food restored me. No trace of Tir-na Nog’th remained in the morning’s light. My memories of it had already taken on the quality of images in a dim mirror. Ganelon fetched its only other token, the arm, and Random packed it away along with the dishes. By daylight, the first three steps looked less like stairs and more like jumbled rock.

Random gestured with his head. “Take the same way back?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said, and we mounted.

We had come by way of a trail that wound about Kolvir to the south. It was longer but less rugged than the route across the crest. I’d a humor to pamper myself so long as my side protested.

So we bore to the right, moving single file. Random in the lead, Ganelon to the rear. The trail ran gently upward, then cut back down again. The air was cool, and it bore the aromas of verdure and moist earth, a thing quite unusual in that stark place, at that altitude. Straying air currents, I reasoned, from the forest far below.

We let the horses pick their own casual pace down through the dip and up the next rise. As we neared its crest, Random’s horse whinnied and began to rear. He controlled it immediately, and I glanced about but saw nothing that might have startled it.

When he reached its summit, Random slowed and called back, “Take a look at that sunrise now, will you?”

It would have been rather difficult to avoid doing so, though I did not remark on the fact. Random was seldom given to sentimentality over vegetation, geology, or illumination.

I almost drew rein myself as I topped the rise, for the sun was a fantastic golden ball. It seemed half again its normal size, and its peculiar coloration was unlike anything I remembered having seen before. It did marvelous things to the band of ocean that had come into view above the next rise, and the tints of cloud and sky were indeed singular. I did not halt, though, for the sudden brightness was almost painful.

“You’re right,” I called out, following him down into the next declivity. Behind me, Ganelon snorted an appreciative oath.

When I had blinked away the aftereffects of that display I noticed that the vegetation was heavier than I had remembered in this little pocket in the sky. I had thought there were several scrubby trees and some patches of lichen, but there were actually several dozen trees, larger than I recalled, and greener, with a clutch of grasses here and there and a vine or two softening the outlines of the rocks. However, since my return I had only passed this way after dark. And now that I thought of it, it was probably the source of the aromas that had come to me earlier.

Passing through, it seemed that the little hollow was also wider than I recalled it. By the time we had crossed and were ascending once more, I was certain of it.

“Random,” I called out, “has this place changed recently?”

“Hard to say,” he answered. “Eric didn’t let me out much. It seems to have grown up a bit.”

“It seems bigger-wider.”

“Yes, it does. I had thought that that was just my imagination.”

When we reached the next crest I was not dazzled again because the sun was blocked by foliage. The area ahead of us contained many more trees than the one we had just departed — and they were larger and closer together. We drew rein.

“I don’t remember this,” he said. “Even passing through at night, it would have registered. We must have taken a wrong turn.”

“I don’t see how. Still, we know about where we are. I would rather go ahead than go back and start again. We should keep aware of conditions around Amber, anyway.”

“True.”

He headed down toward the wood. We followed.

“It’s kind of unusual, at this altitude — a growth like this,” he called back. “There also seems to be a lot more soil than I recall.”

“I believe you are right.”

The trail curved to the left as we entered among the trees. I could see no reason for this deviation from the direct route. We stayed with it, however, and it added to the illusion of distance. After a few moments it swung suddenly to the right again. The prospect on cutting back was peculiar. The trees seemed even taller and were now so dense as to puzzle the eye that sought their penetration. When it turned once more it broadened, and the way was straight for a great distance ahead. Too great, in fact. Our little dell just wasn’t that wide. Random halted again.

“Damn it, Corwin! This is ridiculous!” he said. “You are not playing games, are you?”

“I couldn’t if I would,” I said. “I have never been able to manipulate Shadow anywhere on Kolvir. There isn’t supposed to be any to work with here.”

“That has always been my understanding, too. Amber casts Shadow but is not of it. I don’t like this at all. What do you say we turn back?”

“I’ve a feeling we might not be able to retrace our way,” I said. “There has to be a reason for this, and I want to know it.”

“It occurs to me that it might be some sort of a trap.”

“Even so,” I said.

He nodded and we rode on, down that shaded way, under trees now grown statelier. The wood was silent about us. The ground remained level, the trail straight. Half consciously, we pushed the horses to a greater pace.

About five minutes passed before we spoke again. Then Random said, “Corwin, this can’t be Shadow.”

“Why not?”

“I have been trying to influence it and nothing happens. Have you tried?”

“No.”

“Why don’t you?”

“All right.”

A rock could jut beyond the coming tree, a morning glory twine and bell within that shrubby stand… There ought a patch of sky come clear, a wispy cloud upon it… Then let there be a fallen limb, a stair of fungus up its side… A scummed-over puddle… A frog… Falling feather, drifting seed… A limb that twists just so… Another trail upon our way, fresh-cut, deep-marked, past the place the feather should have fallen…

“No good,” I said.

“If it is not Shadow, what is it?”

“Something else, of course.”

He shook his head and checked again to see that his blade was loose in its scabbard. Automatically, I did the same. Moments later, I heard Ganelon’s make a small clicking noise behind me.

Ahead, the trail began to narrow, and shortly thereafter it commenced to wander. We were forced to slow our pace once again, and the trees pressed nearer with branches sweeping lower than at any time before. The trail became a path. It jogged, it curved, it gave a final twist and then quit.

Random ducked a limb, then raised his hand and halted. We came up beside him. For as far as I could see ahead there was no indication of the trail’s picking up again. Looking back, I failed to locate any sign of it either.

“Suggestions,” he said, “are now in order. We do not know where we have been or where we are going, let alone where we are. My suggestion is the hell with curiosity. Let’s get out of here the fastest way we know how.”

“The Trumps?” Ganelon asked.

“Yes. What do you say, Corwin?”

“Okay. I don’t like it either, and I can’t think of anything better to try. Go ahead.”

“Who should I try for?” he asked, producing his deck and uncasing it.

“Gerard?”

“Yes.”

He shuffled through his cards, located Gerard’s, stared at it. We stared at him. Time went its way.

“I can’t seem to reach him,” he finally announced.

“Try Benedict.”

“Okay.”

Repeat performance. No contact.

“Try Deirdre,” I said, drawing forth my own deck and searching out her Trump.

“I’ll join you. We will see whether it makes a difference with two of us trying.”

And again. And again.

“Nothing,” I said after a long effort.

Random shook his head.

“Did you notice anything unusual about your Trumps?” he asked.

“Yes, but I don’t know what it is. They do seem different.”

“Mine seem to have lost that quality of coldness they once possessed,” he said.

I shuffled mine slowly. I ran my fingertips across them.

“Yes, you are right,” I said. “That’s it. But let us try again. Say, Flora.”

“Okay.”

The results were the same. And with Llewella. And Brand.

“Any idea what could be wrong?” Random asked.

“Not the slightest. They couldn’t all be blocking us. They couldn’t all be dead… Oh, I suppose they could. But it is highly unlikely. Something seems to have affected the Trumps themselves, is what it is. And I never knew of anything that could do that.”

“Well, they are not guaranteed one hundred percent,” Random said, “according to the manufacturer.”

“What do you know that I don’t?”

He chuckled.

“You never forget the day you come of age and walk the Pattern,” he said. “I remember it as though it were last year. When I had succeeded — all flushed with excitement, with glory — Dworkin presented me with my first set of Trumps and instructed me in their use. I distinctly recall asking him whether they worked everywhere. And I remember his answer: ‘No,’ he said. ‘But they should serve in any place you will ever be.’ He never much liked me, you know.”

“But did you ask him what be meant by that?”

“Yes, and he said, ‘I doubt that you will ever achieve a state where they will fail to serve you. Why don’t you run along now?’ And I did. I was anxious to go play with the Trumps all by myself.”

“‘Achieve a state?’ He didn’t say ‘reach a place’?”

“No. I have a very good memory for certain things.”

“Peculiar — though not much help that I can see. Smacks of the metaphysical.”

“I’d wager Brand would know.”

“I’ve a feeling you’re right, for all the good that does us.”

“We ought to do something other than discuss metaphysics,” Ganelon commented. “If you can’t manipulate Shadow and you can’t work the Trumps, it would seem that the next thing to do is determine Where we are. And then go looking for help.”

I nodded.

“Since we are not in Amber, I think it is safe to assume that we are in Shadow — a very special place, quite near to Amber, since the changeover was not abrupt. In that we were transported without active cooperation on our part, there had to be some agency and presumably some intent behind the maneuver. If it is going to attack us, now is as good a time as any. If there is something else it wants, then it is going to have to show us, because we aren’t even in a position to make a good guess.”

“So you propose we do nothing?”

“I propose we wait. I don’t see any value in wandering about, losing ourselves further.”

“I seem to remember your once telling me that adjacent shadows tend to be somewhat congruent,” Ganelon said.

“Yes, I probably did. So what?”

“Then, if we are as near to Amber as you suppose, we need but ride toward the rising sun to come to a spot that parallels the city itself.”

“It is not quite that simple. But supposing it were, what good would it do us?”

“Perhaps the Trumps would function again at the point of maximum congruity.”

Random looked at Ganelon, looked at me.

“That may be worth trying,” he said. “What have we got to lose?”

“Whatever small orientation we still possess,” I said. “Look, it is not a bad idea. If nothing develops here, we will try it. However, looking back, it seems that the road behind us closes in direct proportion to the distance we advance. We are not simply moving in space. Under these circumstances, I am loath to wander until I am satisfied that we have no other option. If someone desires our presence at a particular location, it is up to him now to phrase the invitation a little more legibly. We wait.”

They both nodded. Random began to dismount, then froze, one foot in the stirrup, one on the ground.

“After all these years,” he said, and, “I never really believed it…”

“What is it?” I whispered.

“The option,” he said, and he mounted again.

He persuaded his horse to move very slowly forward. I followed, and a moment later I glimpsed it, white as I had seen it in the grove, standing, half hidden, amid a clump of ferns: the unicorn.

It turned as we moved, and seconds later flashed ahead, to stand partly concealed once more by the trunks of several trees.

“I see it!” Ganelon whispered. “To think there really is such a beast… Your family’s emblem, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“A good sign, I’d say.”

I did not answer, but followed, keeping it in sight. That it was meant to be followed I did not doubt.

It had a way of remaining partly concealed the entire while — looking out from behind something, passing from cover to cover, moving with an incredible swiftness when it did move, avoiding open areas, favoring glade and shade. We followed, deeper and deeper into the wood which had given up all semblance of anything to be found on Kolvir’s slopes. It resembled Arden now, more than anything else near Amber, as the ground was relatively level and the trees grew more and more stately.

An hour had passed, I guessed, and another had followed it, before we came to a small, clear stream and the unicorn turned and headed up it. As we rode along the bank, Random commented, “This is starting to look sort of familiar.”

“Yes,” I said, “but only sort of. I can’t quite say why.”

“Nor I.”

We entered upon a slope shortly thereafter, and it grew steeper before very long. The going became more difficult for the horses, but the unicorn adjusted its pace to accommodate them. The ground became rockier, the trees smaller. The stream curved in its splashing course. I lost track of its twists and turns, but we were finally nearing the top of the small mount up which we had been traveling.

We achieved a level area and continued along it toward the wood from which the stream issued. At this point I caught an oblique view — ahead and to the right, through a place where the land fell away — of an icy blue sea, quite far below us.

“We’re pretty high up,” Ganelon said. “It seemed like lowland, but —”

“The Grove of the Unicorn!” Random interrupted. “That’s what it looks like! See!”

Nor was he incorrect. Ahead lay an area strewn with boulders. Amid them a spring uttered the stream we followed. This place was larger and more lush, its situation incorrect in terms of my internal compass. Yet the similarity had to be more than coincidental. The unicorn mounted the rock nearest the spring, looked at us, then turned away. It might have been staring down at the ocean.

Then, as we continued, the grove, the unicorn, the trees about us, the stream beside us took on an unusual clarity, all, as though each were radiating some special illumination, causing it to quiver with the intensity of its color while at the same time wavering, slightly, just at the edges of perception. This produced in me an incipient feeling like the beginning of the emotional accompaniment to a hellride.

Then, then and then, with each stride of my mount, something went out of the world about us. An adjustment in the relationships of objects suddenly occurred, eroding my sense of depth, destroying perspective, rearranging the display of articles within my field of vision, so that everything presented its entire outer surface without simultaneously appearing to occupy an increased area: angles predominated, and relative sizes seemed suddenly ridiculous. Random’s horse reared and neighed, massive, apocalyptic, instantly recalling Guernica to my mind. And to my distress I saw that we ourselves had not been untouched by the phenomenon — but that Random, struggling with his mount, and Ganelon, still managing to control Firedrake, had, like everything else, been transfigured by this cubist dream of space.

But Star was a veteran of many a hellride; Firedrake, also, had been through a lot. We clung to them and felt the movements that we could not accurately gauge. And Random succeeded, at last, in imposing his will upon his mount, though the prospect continued to alter as we advanced.

Light values shifted next. The sky grew black, not as night, but like a flat, nonreflecting surface. So did certain vacant areas between objects. The only light left in the world seemed to originate from things themselves, and all of it was gradually bleached. Various intensities of white emerged from the planes of existence, and brightest of all, immense, awful, the unicorn suddenly reared, pawing at the air, filling perhaps ninety percent of creation with what became a slowmotion gesture I feared would annihilate us if we advanced another pace.

Then there was only the light. Then absolute stillness.

Then the light was gone and there was nothing. Not even blackness. A gap in existence, which might have lasted an instant or an eternity…

Then the blackness returned, and the light. Only they were reversed. Light filled the interstices, outlining voids that must be objects. The first sound that I heard was the rushing of water, and I knew somehow that we were halted beside the spring. The first thing that I felt was Star’s quivering. Then I smelled the sea.

Then the Pattern came into view, or a distorted negative of it…

I leaned forward and more light leaked around the edges of things. I leaned back; it went away. Forward again, this time farther than before…

The light spread, introduced various shades of gray into the scheme of things. With my knees then, gently, I suggested that Star advance.

With each pace, something returned to the world. Surfaces, textures, colors…

Behind me, I heard the others begin to follow. Below me, the Pattern surrendered nothing of its mystery, but it acquired a context which, by degrees, found its place within the larger reshaping of the world about us.

Continuing downhill, a sense of depth reemerged. The sea, now plainly visible off to the right, underwent a possibly purely optical separation from the sky, with which it seemed momentarily to have been joined in some sort of Urmeer of the waters above and the waters below. Unsettling upon reflection, but unnoted while in effect. We were heading down a steep, rocky incline which seemed to have taken its beginning at the rear of the grove to which the unicorn had led us. Perhaps a hundred meters below us was a perfectly level area which appeared to be solid, unfractured rock — roughly oval in shape, a couple of hundred meters along its major axis. The slope down which we rode swung off to the left and returned, describing a vast arc, a parenthesis, half cupping the smooth shelf. Beyond its rightward jutting there was nothing — that is to say the land fell away in steep descent toward that peculiar sea.

And, continuing, all three dimensions seemed to reassert themselves once more. The sun was that great orb of molten gold we had seen earlier. The sky was a deeper blue than that of Amber, and there were no clouds in it. That sea was a matching blue, unspecked by sail or island. I saw no birds, and I heard no sounds other than our own. An enormous silence lay upon this place, this day. In the bowl of my suddenly clear vision, the Pattern at last achieved its disposition upon the surface below. I thought at first that it was inscribed in the rock, but as we drew nearer I saw that it was contained within it — gold-pink swirls, like veining in an exotic marble, natural-seeming despite the obvious purpose to the design.

I drew rein and the others came up beside me. Random to my right, Ganelon to my left.

We regarded it in silence for a long while. A dark, rough-edged smudge had obliterated an area of the section immediately beneath us, running from its outer rim to the center.

“You know,” Random finally said, “it is as if someone had shaved the top off Kolvir, cutting at about the level of the dungeons.”

“Yes,” I said.

“Then — looking for congruence — that would be about where our own Pattern lies.”

“Yes,” I said again.

“And that blotted area is to the south, from whence comes the black road.”

I nodded slowly as the understanding arrived and forged itself into a certainty.

“What does it mean?” he asked. “It seems to correspond to the true state of affairs, but beyond that I do not understand its significance. Why have we been brought here and shown this thing?”

“It does not correspond to the true state of affairs,” I said. “It is the true state of affairs.”

Ganelon turned toward us.

“On that shadow Earth we visited — where you had spent so many years — I heard a poem about two roads that diverged in a wood,” he said. “It ends, ‘I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.’ When I heard it, I thought of something you had once said — ‘All roads lead to Amber’ — and I wondered then, as I do now, at the difference the choice may make, despite the end’s apparent inevitability to those of your blood.”

“You know?” I said. “You understand?”

“I think so.”

He nodded, then pointed.

“That is the real Amber down there, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” I said. “Yes, it is.”