First Draft: Nine for Mortal Men Doomed to Die

by OneTrueStudent

Summary:

And then they all went to live on a lovely farm!

Chapter 1: Forochet

“Three Rings for the Elven-kings under the sky,
Seven for the Dwarf-lords in halls of stone,
Nine for Mortal Men, doomed to die,
One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.
One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them,
One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them.
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.”
~JRRT

Bleys looked to Caine and said, "I never thought I'd see the day."

"You never think. That's your problem."

Bleys winked at him, fiery red hair blowing around a face consumed by its own cleverness. Black-haired Caine looked back as if he expected that wink, he expected the smugness, and had deigned it beneath his dignity to adjust his reply to avoid it.

Snow piled up in cracks in the rocks. Broken stones fallen from the mountain in ages before lay jumbled, wrapped in frost with many years of ice stuck between them. The ice stuck to the rocks, and the rocks were stuck in ice. Gerard had kicked one and said it solid. Now he stood on the eastern face of the cliff, looking down into valleys still orange and gold with sunset.

Gerard stood taller than either of his brothers and smiled less. His beard was short and coarse. The fire had burned it unevenly, and now he was almost clean-shaven on the left jaw and shaggy on the right. Flames in hair burn in patches. Deep wounds to the beard reached his face on both sides, but where he'd sheltered his head with an arm while running, his sideburns reached his neck.

Bleys tried to get Gerard into their joke, and the big man ignored him.

"Oh, come! You have to admit this was unexpected! Benedict defeated?" yelled Bleys, moving forward to the edge of the cliff with his brother.

"Benedict isn't defeated," said Gerard and Caine in eerie unison.

That did surprise Caine, and he looked hard at Gerard. The big man didn't look back.

"Benedict isn't defeated," repeated Gerard. "He retreated. You wouldn't say he lost a boxing match because he blocked a punch instead of attacking."

"It is foolish people who think retreating is defeat that lose wars," agreed Caine, finding a way to still sound like he was arguing. "That's why you don't lead, as if your failure on Kolvir wasn't enough."

Bleys winked at him again.

They dressed as differently as three men with the same tailor could do. But Ersertchiel was the best tailor in Amber, and Amber was the only city that mattered, and no one would wear lesser threads. The stitching, cutting, and seams were all the same, tucked under the fabric and hidden behind their belts.

Red haired Bleys preened in the wind. His red cloak flapped; the tails of his yellow jacket fluttered. He paid a fortune for his shirts to be lyed white and boots blacked. Against the mountainside with spiderwebs of white snow over brown rock, Bleys stood as the sole source of bright color. The ledge looked down on the white bay of Forochet, and Bleys stood alone as the only color in the sky.

Caine wore tall heels to keep his feet out of shit. So long as people dumped their chamber pots in the street, high boots would remain in fashion. Unlike Bleys' red-felt tights and trousers, Caine wore fitted calf leather breeches. He could swim in them if he had to. He could fight in them and often did. His cloak was grey, his shirt was brown, and the only consideration he paid to the biting cold was a vest of the same leather as his pants. He wore long hair back under a three-pointed hat. Both he and Bleys carried swords, solid, one handed things heavier than rapiers. Rapiers let you beat the first guy. It was the other fifty behind him and the rocks, shields, mail, and stray clubs they carried that beat the rapier.

Gerard stood on a higher rock, a round headed boulder stuck to the ledge by ice as must as stone. It formed the highest part of the ledge and yet the most exposed. The big man wrapped himself in fur, and the shapeless ruff made him less of a human figure than a great round ball. Caine's clothing was cut to fit him well, and Bleys' cloak flapped like fire burned. Gerard was just a great mass of ermine and boar hide, bear skin, and perfectly stitched lion. He'd taken to wearing a mane after the previous owner had tried to eat him. Gerard didn't have a sword.

"They move better than we do," said Gerard. "In the cold. It doesn't slow them down as much. Benedict's men retreat carefully, picking their footsteps, but the dark guys run, jump, and fall."

"That's going to make retreating awfully complicated," agreed Bleys.

Gerard ignored him. Caine listened and chose not to reply.

"Gentlemen," said a new voice, their sister Fiona, as she crested the ledge.

A winding stairway of short dwarf-steps climbed these Blue Mountains. In cleverness the dwarves had cut the stairs so the lips rose higher than the creases, and each step slipped a little back, into the stairway. Even with the wind blown snow, only the most exposed parts of the stairway formed an ice-slide down.

Fiona's hair was red as Bleys, and they had the same nose. They might have the same eyes, but hers squinted. Fiona maintained men foolish and skirts provided the best defense against the cold, and in sheer weight of fabric, she was winning against anyone but Gerard. Fiona's outermost layer of mink hide turned the fur out at the seams to show the quality, but the rest of it was fur in. The long dress stopped just above her black leather shoes. Above the waist she was wrapped in silk and wool, magnificently cut in climbing ivy patterns, and as bulky and volumous as Gerard. Her upper body looked like a ball on a cone. Only red hair and white face caught the eye; her red hair flying and her face turning pink.

"Why are you here?" asked Caine.

"You should have trumped me," said Bleys. "I would have brought you in."

"Thank you, but no," she replied to her full-blooded brother. "I chose to walk. How does he do?"

"He's retreating," said Gerard.

"Why?" asked Fiona.

"He's got a reason," said Gerard.

"We don't know," said Bleys. He gave a big grin. "But the enemy is coming very quickly."

"Have they come to the ships?" asked Fiona.

"Look yourself," said Caine.

Fiona did and stood beside Gerard on the great mountain head. He didn't move aside for her, but there was plenty of space. On higher footing she was as tall as Caine or Bleys, and Gerard might as well be more mountain.

Far north the Forochet Sea ground icebergs into each other. Instead of crumbling they stuck together, building into great white masses on the dark ocean. Clouds prevented sunlight from getting through, and the white sea and dark sky marched together to beyond the four's vision. South of the ocean the Forochet Bay intruded into Arnor in a kidney-shaped extension of more water and ice. Most of the bay lay east of them, and that was where the fighting was.

Across the high plains a black snake of the dark guys ran from the south. Every third one carried a smoking torch, black, dirty things that shed little light when they burned for the low hanging smoke they made. These southerners wore heavy iron and hide armor and carried hooked swords. Waist high snow didn't stop them. Mountain winds blowing sleet didn't deter them. They ran from the south, and the four watchers could not see the origin of their lines.

Just south of the bay the plains rose quickly, forming a tall headwall around the sea and eight ships of Amber that lay at anchor. Some distance forward of this headwall, where the ground did not yet slope down, Benedict had built his outer fortifications. Blocks of ice and dirt piled up in walls around the few paths down. Stubby towers watched from the corners. But Benedict's men were fleeing the forts, running quickly but falling often. They had a hard time getting up. White lines on black soil marked the paths, and fallen men were indistinguishable from frozen mud from the ledge.

The black runners hit the outer fortifications and swarmed them. They climbed the walls like spiders. Oily torch smoke built up on the southern side for only a moment, enough to make a great stain over the running fighters. Then ropes pulled the walls down, and wind blew the smoke through. It spilled over the snow and leaked towards the headwall above the bluffs.

"He's fired the forts," said Gerard.

As Gerard said it, the forts burned. The torches were oily, but the fortifications burst into sheets of flame. They burned green, white, and blue. The runners caught fire, rolled, and their mates stormed over them. Their river dwindled to a trickle as the burning forts dammed the horde.

A figure in orange and yellow walked out of the fleeing men, hit the black horde, and slew them. The dark guys tried to flank, but the fort-walls burned. In fury they went over, and the black guys now ran forward in either own reds and blues. The four above were too high to hear the screaming, and the orange and yellow figure stacked bodies while his men ran.

"Who are those guys?" asked Bleys of Caine. He'd lost some measure of insolence.

"They call them orcs," said Caine.

"Are they human?" asked Fiona.

Caine shook his head. "No. They're something else."

"Why don't they carry banners?" asked Bleys.

"They do: the torches. See how each torch is a single red flame? No lids or vanes? That's their banner. The Lidless Eye of Sauron." Caine pointed. His red-headed siblings nodded. Gerard still looked down at the fight.

"I don't think this is a maneuver," said Gerard. "Benedict's being routed."

"Benedict is being routed?" asked Bleys.

He had stayed back from the edge, but now sprang forward and knelt on the lip of the rocks, staring down.

"He's committed himself to the rearguard. He's buying time for the flight. That's not a maneuver. That's Benedict not liking seeing his people die." Gerard finally turned his head to look at Bleys. Now his brother was the one fascinated by the fight below.

"The ships are raising anchors," said Bleys. He pointed into the white and black bay. "They're taking on boats and throwing boarding ropes to land."

"They're pulling people out of the water," said Fiona. "Benedict's people are swimming for the ships. The boatmen are pulling them up."

"In that water," said Caine.

All four of them stood together on the edge of the rock now, looking down from the mountain to the sea.

"Why are the ships going forward?" Bleys demanded, looking at Caine.

"Closer to shore, less distance to swim," Caine replied. "See how they're readying the masts, but most of the crews are at the gunwales? They're in rout."

"I'm going down there. Who's down there?" demanded Gerard. "Julian?"

"Julian," said Bleys, looking down.

"Are you going to trump?" asked Fiona.

"Yes," said Gerard. He frowned at her. "It's the fastest way."

She didn't meet his gaze, but looked up. The cloud-cover lay unbroken. Normal holes and patches of blue sky remained completely absent, and even the wind that blew shapes in the ceiling couldn't break the gloom. It was just past noon and dark as twilight.

"I'll meet you down there," said Fiona. She dragged her gaze from the sky and turned to the stairway down, lifting her dress to run.

Gerard watched her, and his scowl deepened. He spoke to the other two, though. "We should go. He'll need us, unless you're hoping things go badly for him."

Caine and Bleys instantly scowled at each other and volunteered to join Gerard.

From an inner pocket he took a small wooden box, and from it drew a stack of playing cards. They were a little larger than gaming cards, the size of fortune-telling tarots. He shuffled one out and held it before the cloudy sky. Looking north, Gerard's horizon was a line of grey clouds over black water, the line where the icebergs ended. He stared at the green man on the card until he started talking to it, and behind him Bleys and Caine stood close by.

"We're coming," said Gerard, and he turned his body sideways so Bleys could see the card. The red-headed man walked off the ledge and into thin air. He disappeared without falling.

Caine followed, and vanished as well. Then Gerard stuck his hand forward, and his arm ended in a blur like he'd touched a fog. He stepped off the cliff as well.

A bit of rock and snow stuck to his boot, and it tumbled when he walked, thousands of feet to frozen ground and hard soil. It thudded into a snowdrift. There were no bodies.

The ledge stood empty, and on the long stairway down the back of the mountain Fiona carried her skirts and ran.

Chapter 2: Forochet Harbor

Orcs hit the headwall of the bay and died. Benedict dropped bodies down the bluff. The first few only fell a short distance and got caught on crags, for the bluff was steep but not shear. The next slammed into the first. As more dead orcs fell, their weight built up and with their limbs unlimbered from torso's by Benedict's sword, soon masses of them gave way. A pile of a dozen broke an outcropping and slid. They left a black and brown smear on the mud. Another ledge broke on the right, and dead orcs tumbled down pathway. Underneath Benedict the pathway curved back and forth in sharp turns, and half a score of dead orcs crashed into the curve of a sharp turn. The earth gave way behind them, and near frozen dirt fell as well. A cornice shattered, and dumped the bodies in ice. Blood froze.

"Benedict, we're coming!" yelled Gerard and ran through their fleeing sailors.

He harangued the men, called for help, and grabbed people by the shoulders, spinning them around to face the cliff. But their eyes were empty. They uttered no defense. One man, someone Gerard had marked before for fearlessness, he picked up and held before him, trying to reach the sailor by shouting. The sailor did not respond. Slack jawed, in Gerard's hands his head shook and hung on a flaccid neck, but when the bearded man put him down the sailor found his feet and ran.

"They are not princes of Amber," said Bleys, running up behind.

"I know him. His name is Trace. He's no coward," said Gerard.

"But no prince of Amber."

Gerard scowled. Bleys ran ahead, dashing up the twisting pathway towards Benedict, and vaulting over piles of corpses. Gerard followed. Along the way he picked up a sword. Someone had thrown it from the top of the hill, and it stuck in a drift. The blade was short and heavy, meant for close-work below decks. Little dips on the cutting edge remembered old notches, polished out by patience and a whetstone. The leather handle had been worn smooth, and turned black by sweat and palm oil. He took it as he followed Bleys up the bluff.

The corpses were freezing, and the clouds opened into snow. Fat slow flakes turned even blood white. Bleys crawled to the top, and saw Benedict alone, standing on a defensive platform with orcs all around him.

Benedict was tall, whip-thin, one-handed, and so strict of face that he looked gaunt. He wore orange, yellow, and brown, and carried a heavy sword in his left hand. His right arm ended in a stump, wrapped in leather and tan fabric. He looked like none of his brothers except in the power of his gaze. Bleys laughed while he fought and Gerard scowled, but Benedict slew orcs like he solved math problems.

Below the rout had turned mad. Those from land ran screaming into the water and clawed at the ship sides, ignoring ladders as they tried to crawl their way in. The sailors toiled furiously, dragging their comrades aboard. No ship was ready to sail without leaving men in the harbor, but long piers stood empty. Two fresh jetties stuck out from the rock beach, neither more than twenty feet long, but high above water. They were empty.

Bleys looked back at Benedict, and the black mass of orcs.

"Damn, I wish I could put some grace to this," he said, and red-cloaked Bleys charged.

Bleys dashed over the lip, Gerard followed, and three princes of Amber stood on the headwall together. An unending army of orcs marched against them, one the brothers had seen from above stretching across the high plains from lands they did not know were called Eriador. The forts burned down, and orcs crawled over the walls, covered in as much ash as their own filth. Men still clambered into boats in the harbor and fell like stones on the decks, half dead. The skeleton crews worked like madmen, but their crewmates climbed freezing and wet onto the decks as snow fell. The princes of Amber slew orcs.

When dead orcs lay in piles like loose rocks on the high mountains, the princes of Amber killed. When bodies in iron and leather lay so thick on the ground there was no telling blood from dirt, the princes of Amber killed orcs. When the sun had set behind clouds but fallen torches still burned with the red, lidless flame of Sauron, when the orcs unkilled tired, and still Benedict, Bleys, and Gerard slew, finally the horde paused. They drew back, and the three princes of Amber waited. The sun was setting behind the clouds, but they were too thick for its motion to be seen. The gloom merely deepened as the princes waited.

Slowly nine horses picked their way through the crowd. These bloody stallions had fur black as orcs, but shot through it spikes and nails driven through flesh into harness. On their backs hunched shrouded riders. Wind tugged the tatters of the clothes. They wore long cloaks and carried dark swords. Their fists and feet were mailed in cunning black steel. Benedict's fortifications smoldered, and the riders stopped in a line, facing the princes of Amber.

Gerard took a step back and glanced down over the edge. "Whatever madness is down there has taken them. The men on land run in circles and scream. Those on the ship have fallen out of the rigging and they hide below. I see eyes looking up through the hatches. Those were brave men who cower."

Benedict nodded slowly.

The Nine drew their swords and saluted. Their chipped and jagged blades had been magnificent, but the edges sported burred steel, oozing some dark fluid that had crusted in their scabbards and broke on the draw. It matched their tattered robes, and fraying straps of their saddles.

The three returned the salute as one, and the Princes of Amber waited. The Nine lowered their swords. The orcs drew back and watched, holding tall beacons that cast more smoke than light.

It was the horses who screamed first. The black animals shrieked, and the riders spurred them. The Amberites dove in different directions.

Benedict went down between the legs of two horses, cut their forelocks, and the horses crashed into piles. He rolled upright behind as a third dark rider reared before him. The eldest prince of Amber spun his fat blade in midair, and while it hung, Benedict snatched the horse's hooves and yanked as he kicked out the rear legs. The horse fell to De-ashi-barai, landed on top its rider, and Benedict caught his blade to slay them both.

Beside him Gerard simply punched the first horse dead, smashing its face open like a rotten fruit and unseating the rider with his fist in an explosion of gore. He parried another coming at him, spun his blade and trapped the other's, and swung his free hand wide. It passed right through the rider and stove in the horse's skull on the backswing.

Other Nazgul charged, got destroyed, and Bleys stepped through a pile of falling robes as dead men and horses crashed to the ground. He joined Gerard in ganging up on one, cut the rider apart, and by the time they emerged from the pile of dead horses, Benedict was done. Nine horses lay dead, and their riders collapsed into piles.

"They are the rings," said Bleys, reaching down and picking one up with the point of his broadsword. "See this? It is the rider. The rest is shadow and a horse. Take the ring, and they can't reform."

"But don't touch them," said Gerard, holding his fist.

Bleys nodded and started flicking gold rings into a bag with the point of his sword.

Benedict ignored them and looked at the orcs. Frozen in their circle, their torches were dead. The other two princes had collected half the rings before the orcs screamed again, and this time they ran, shrieking, the way they had come. They crashed into the smoldering walls, eschewed the paths, and burned themselves on the few great beams that thus far resisted cold. Benedict waited until the last of them was gone and looked at his brothers.

Bleys tucked the bag under his shirt, and Gerard looked over the bluff edge.

"The people are waking up. The sailors are climbing up above decks," he reported. He looked back at his brothers. "Go easy on them."

Bleys shrugged. "They're not princes of Amber."

"Come. They're retreating, but they'll be back," said Benedict, and he looked down the long plains.

"Orcs," said Bleys. "Caine called them orcs."

The Blue Mountains rose to the east, but they deserved the name gray or brown now. Ash covered their peaks, and molded their frosted heads. Further south the stumps began. First it was pine trees with narrow trunks, but beyond them elm, oak, and beech stumps filled the plain. They looked like a horde themselves, cut with axes instead of saws. The stump tops shot loose splinters into the air, and some of the trees lay rotting among their roots.

Benedict looked back.

"I don't think we're going to find this Cirdan the Shipwright here. I don't think we're going to find any shipwright, and those orcs will be back. They're driven by something, something greater than this—" He poked a horse corpse with his blade. "And that whatever will not stop. Let's go."

The other two didn't argue. Gerard lead the way, and the three princes of Amber trudged down the pathway towards the harbor.

Trumpets blew on the sailboats when they were finally ready to leave.

Before the first ship sailed from Forochet, the first orc came back. Long trails of freezing blood smeared the rocks, and Bleys spotted him, creeping to the edge to watch. More came with night. The scions of Amber got them men ready and put food and water into them. They hung their heads in shame. Gerard shared a kind word and Bleys a joke, but Benedict shared nothing but discipline. They warmed those who had ignored the longboats and landing lines and swum to the ships.

Fiona arrived. She'd run from the high ledge and stopped to examine the battlefield, but otherwise hurried down. Julian and Caine met her. Caine had stayed to get the ships ready, and before Bleys could say anything, Benedict thanked him.

"That was the right thing to do," said tall Benedict. "We handled the fight, and we needed someone of the blood on board."

Bleys thought about saying something and didn't.

Julian dressed in hunter green scales, hardened and anodized in the forges under Kolvir. Each scale lay loose and unpainted, but they turned verdant in any kind off sunlight. Under the clouds they lay dark. is armor rose to points over each shoulder, and mailed gloves hung at his belt. These were dragonscale, made like the rest, but the scales were smaller than fingernails. Like the others he carried a sword, and like Caine, Benedict affirmed him staying with the ship.

"It is correct," said Benedict, and Bleys swallowed hard at that.

A few more orcs appeared on the lip, and the six Amberites gathered to make a command decision.

"I say we abandon this place," said Benedict. "We came here looking for a shipwright, and in the three days we've been here, we've seen no ships. We saw nothing but cut trees and snow until those orcs attacked, and they're up there now."

Gerard nodded. "If this shadow has no ships, there's no reason for us to be here."

"The sooner the better," said Fiona. Since arriving she had watched the sky but would not say what for.

Bleys, Julian, and Caine didn't argue. Benedict announced he was going to trump King Random to tell him they were coming to find Fiona almost snatch his hand. She stopped herself, but stood with both hands open before him.

"Don't use those here," she said.

"Why? They're fine," said Benedict.

"Julian trumped us down from the mountain when the orcs attacked, and nothing happened," added Caine.

"You of all people—" Fiona didn't finish. "Just don't use the trumps here. They won't save much time anyway. I'll shift the shadows, and we can get to Amber harbor as fast as Random could run down to the bay and trump us through himself."

"Why?" repeated Benedict.

Fiona scowled. She didn't have the face for it, and the layers of cold-weather clothing made her look like a disgruntled teenager. She didn't relent.

"I don't know, and I don't like it. Let's just leave."

They didn't argue much, and soon the eight vessels of Amber put to sea. The few watching orcs did nothing. Lt Admiral Dracken told Benedict that they had lost no one. Many had taken sick of the cold; none had died.

As soon as they put to sea, Fiona brought the darkness. Night was already falling, but in an instant the sea turned pitch black. It spread behind and on either side until they sailed through a void marked by a single bright blue star in front. Each ship captain steered for the star while Fiona looked aft at the harbor, already gone to darkness.

"I want to be gone before real night hits," she admitted to Bleys. All of the others had other things to do and had gone to do them.

"Why?"

"Because I don't like those nine corpses."

"Don't worry." Her brother patted his pocket. "They were just shadows of their rings, and I've got the rings. The nine can't hurt us."

"Going to throw the rings overboard?" asked Fiona.

Bleys shrugged. "Probably."

"Do it in Amber," she said, indicating the black tunnel. "Where the seas are deep and shadows have no power. We'll be there in less than an hour."

Bleys nodded. "I'll hold onto them until we get there."

Fiona nodded, and the Amberite fleet sailed through darkness.

Chapter 3: Shadow

Three hours from Forochet harbor the fleet still sailed through a dark tunnel, and the bright blue star dead ahead remained elusive.

Five princes of Amber gathered on the steerage of the Elise with two mortal officers, Lieutenant Admiral Dracken and Captain Armist, all facing princess Fiona. All of the eight ships used coal-fired cressets over their prows, great metal baskets on stubby pillars that could be overfed and burned like furnaces. The rest of the ship usually ran dark unless a particular need for navigation required lanterns or candles. Amber spared no expense, but her crews often spared themselves inconvenience. Now the Elise ran four lamps fueled by wax and paraffin on the steerage. They bathed the wheel in light, and Fiona, steering, stood at the center of a warm and rich glow. Crewmembers had piled coal in the cresset until the metal frame glowed dull orange.

The Elise ran with a skeleton crew. Those who had tried to swim Forochet Bay remained below. Their hands and feet didn't work; they couldn't stand or work the rigging. Many thrashed deliriously, and their comrades bundled them in blankets before tying them down. Those who had been onboard during the flight did not suffer physically, but they moved timidly and said little. Many worked with their heads down.

Amber reserved the rank of Lieutenant Admiral for infantrymen who transitioned to naval service. Knighted in the battle of Breggresh by Eric, a dead prince of Amber who would briefly be king, Dracken had lead the Fourth Regimental Dragoons until a lance shattered his pelvis. The bones healed wrong. He would never ride a horse without pain again and never well under any circumstances. He took his knighthood and hero pay, bought a ship, and joined Amber's navy as a privateer, receiving honors and rank from Gerard. He was short with a big gut, had a great bristly beard, and now smoked a short cob pipe. His arms and shoulders stretched his jacket with muscle, but he stood on thin little legs. As always, his right foot pointed out. He walked with a left step, right drag, left step, right drag, and the sailors called him Old Broke.

Armist was a little taller than Dracken with hair pulled back and pinned under a three corner hat. The captain wore a purple jacket and blue breeches, red shirt, and saber. Her gloves and ruff were white. She steered the ship occasionally, when she could get close to the wheel without this, that, or the other prince of Amber pushing her out of the way to steer themselves. Fiona had done it last, and this was not better.

LtA Dracken had observed the red-haired princess take command but not intervened. Cpt Armist could not complain; Fiona outranked her. Armist stood on both feet with her weight even, watching, and swallowing bile.

"Well, sister?" asked Caine, in the group around Fiona as she steered. "We're still here."

"I noticed," she replied. "Maybe you should try swimming."

Fiona breathed deeply. All of them had discarded their winter clothing, and now the red-haired princess wore a four-paneled dress. The front and back were green, embroidered with red and amber threads, while the sides were a pale sheer silk. Bands of green circled her arms from shoulder to wrist, stitched onto more of the near translucent white. She looked at Benedict.

"Something is holding us back," she said. "The wind is constant and the sailing easy. What did you find out when you attempted to contact Random via trump?"

Benedict's face betrayed nothing. He looked the same as before, but wore a lighter jacket and had lost the cape. The bandage around his hand did not seem to encumber him.

Benedict parried. "Thus far I have followed your advice and refrained."

She looked at him for only a moment, then her eyes snapped to Caine.

"I told him we were coming, and he asked what the hold-up was," Caine replied. Like Benedict he'd lost his cape and jacket. He wore a leather vest over white shirt and kept the tri-corner hat. "Since you're taking the long way around."

"This is why I hate boats," said Julian. He hadn't even removed his mail. Turning to Cpt Armist he said, "Take a sounding and see how fast the water is moving. Tell me if we're in a current."

"Yes, sir," she replied and turned to go. Julian snapped twice to hurry her to the prow.

Bleys spoke to Julian as if the diversion with the captain hadn't happened. "I don't know with your bloodline, but with ours, we'll arrive." He made a gesture between Fiona and himself.

Captain Armist did not see or hear the end of that exchange because she was choking on bile. She strode to the foredeck, realized the sounding line was below, and refused to go back past the Amberites to get it. While no one could see her, she glowered into the veil of shadow.

Armist knew what shadow was. Like all of Ambers naval officers who paid the least attention, she understood that the glorious city of Amber was one pole of existence and cast infinite shadows. All worlds, all creation, and all of space was merely shadows of amber. The cresset beside her burned with good anthracite coal, but the waves illuminated were not constant.

As a child, Armist had played games with clouds and waves, spotting patterns in them. Clouds were easy. Waves were hard, but she'd done a lot of sailing at night since then. Now the patterns of foam and breaker in rays of coalfire became horses and riders, castles, people, and crowds. She saw armies and the ships of the wee sea people. That was, Armist understood, shadow. But Amber cast shadows of such power that the images were not phantasms in the mind, but real places, real worlds, filled with real people who did real things. Such was Amber. The daughters and sons of the king before last, Oberon, could walk between shadows as easily as she walked on land, or lead navies through worlds with the force of their will. Such were the scions of Amber.

She also knew that there was another pole, opposite Amber and across from it, separated by all of Creation. It was the Courts of Chaos, and she'd never been there. Dracken had. Old Broke had gone there, broken, as a waggoneer. He was a Lieutenant Admiral, and he'd driven a wagon to be with the force. Armist thought of Dracken somewhat like an expired wad of dip, cast to the waves, but she had a respect for the sheer bloody-mindedness of the man.

Most of the Amberites' conversation she had followed. Fiona and Bleys knew something and did something, for they traversed shadow unlike anyone else. Armist had gone shadow-sailing before with Gerard in command, and knew that it was a process of slow, gradual changes until they arrived at a new world. Getting anywhere usually took days. This was different. It was supposed to be brutally fast, and the royals were complaining because it had taken three hours. Armist wanted to stab someone.

She could go back, past the royals, and get the sounding line. The hatch down wasn't on the steerage, but the Elise wasn't a vast ship. They'd see her go, and wonder why she hadn't sounded yet. Someone would say something. Julian... would... snap—

Or she could signal another ship and have them take the sounding. If anyone asked, she was confirming.

Armist lit a pair of ship's candles and flagged the Vi beside her.

Ship's candles were long pine branches dipped in kitchen tallow. The navy used red pines that grew on Kolvir because they carried a thick sap that burned clean. Cookie dipped them in his lard pots, and they gave a distinctive white light envelope around an orange core. A basket of them lived underneath the cresset.

She flagged the Vi and told them what she wanted, but signalmen on the Ashe and Jinx replied as well. Armist remembered the fear. They were probably waiting for instructions. After a moment she passed orders to the whole of the small fleet and waited for soundings.

When she got her answers she made the other vessels confirm them, and that done, reported results to the royals and Dracken.

"His Majesty's Vi reports twelve knots of back current," said Armist, climbing the stairs.

"That's nice," said Julian, but Caine observed, "That's a lot."

Armist continued, speaking to Caine. "The Jinx reports sixteen. Ashe found fourteen, and Caitlin reported eight and eighteen."

Everyone had been arguing about something, but they paused.

Armist pointed. "That's the Caitlin, holding firm off the starboard bow. She's reported eight and eighteen knots. That's the Ashe, in formation ahead of her. Fourteen. Jinx is behind her reporting sixteen knots, and Vi leads at twelve. The Sej, Diana hang in position outside. They hold firm off port. Notice how close they ride in formation. Sej reports twenty six knots of back current, and Diana reports three. Morgana lies dead astern, and she reports eleven." One by one she pointed out ships while she spoke.

"What did you get?" asked Julian.

She looked him dead in the eye. "Different numbers each time. I was going below to get the better sounding line and repeat."

"Then go!" and he snapped again. But this time Armist smiled.

When she returned to the prow Gerard was there to watch. He was one of Armist's favorite princes. Gerard didn't say much. One of his arms was thickly wrapped with gauze, but he stood with arms crossed by the figurehead, observing with his mouth closed.

The sounding line was twenty fathoms of cord, knotted at each fathom. On the end was a stoppered bottle. She threw it forward and took in the cord, counting. She got nine knots.

"Again," said Gerard.

She'd expected that and did so. Ten knots.

Caine arrived and said, "Do the full ship."

The full ship was more accurate. Instead of throwing the bottle, she dropped it and let it play out. She counted time for the bottle to bob from the front to the rear and got thirteen knots.

Caine opened his mouth but before he could talk, she handed him the bottle. He noticed. He looked sideways at her, and Armist didn't meet his gaze, but he took the bottle.

Caine got fourteen knots. Gerard got three by forward toss. Bleys arrived and tested it himself, and the current outpaced the ship, rushing forward and nearly snatching the cord from his hands.

Caine checked a wind vane on a dipped cord. The cord had been immersed in a Golden Circle wax, slowly at the very edge and very quickly where the vane was tied off. It resisted spinning gradually. By watching how well the vane spun, they could tell the wind speed, relative to the ship.

"Eight knots forward," he announced. He glanced at Armist. She was already signaling the others. All reported eight knots.

Dracken looked out at the rest of the small armada and announced, "We're not splitting up," just to hear it said.

This was an insurmountable truth. The small fleet stayed in formation.

As one they returned to the steerage where Fiona still clung to the wheel. She'd found the best light on the vessel, noted Armist to her herself, and the red-headed princess was making use of it. She didn't gloat, though. When the others told her about their speed, Fiona started shooting glances quickly between her brothers, saying nothing.

If that didn't mean they were probably going to die, Armist would have been pleased. But if they did die in this shadow of Fiona's making, the captain intended to gloat first.

"Bring everyone together," said Princess Fiona, holding the wheel with her fingertips. It never wavered. The wind stayed strong, but the wheel handled like a ship becalmed. "Then run lines from vessel to vessel, until we are all connected."

"In a column, rank, or gaggle?" asked Benedict.

"It doesn't matter."

"It'll matter if we don't want their sails fouling our wind," said Caine to himself, loud enough the others could hear. They didn't respond. Gerard, Benedict, and Caine went to the fore and took ship's candles. Caine signaled while the other two talked.

Armist noticed they both had bandaged hands and wondered how that had happened.

Julian remained with Fiona and Bleys on the bridge, but the two red-heads ignored him.

"Like the black road," said Fiona quietly.

"If you're thinking what I think you're thinking, that's not possible," said Bleys, and Fiona finally snapped.

Her loose grip on the wheel tightened as she snatched wood, and her face twisted. "Then why don't you get out and push!" she yelled.

Julian visibly startled. Bleys did as well. The conversation at the front of the ship stopped, and the Amberites and Dracken, who'd gone ahead with them, looked back.

No one said anything. Fiona turned back to the wheel, and Bleys stepped behind her. Julian watched them coldly.

The other ships fell in around the Elise in a cluster and ropes flew between them. Soon they were lashed together, and the forward four, Amberites and Dracken, crossed over to explain matters. There was little to explain.

Fiona and Bleys stayed quiet and suddenly Armist noticed both of them straining. Fiona's makeup ran with perspiration, and Bleys started heavy mouth-breathing. He smiled, but his grin twisted as Fiona's hands clawed the wheel. The wind died and came back, and the roar of passing water rose until speech was all but impossible.

Fiona wasn't glowing; that bitch sweated like a pig, thought Armist. Her gown stuck to her back, and under her arms the sheer silk turned transparent. It hugged her breasts and curves like mist.

The captain looked up to see Julian staring ahead, eyes bent on the star before them.

The water shook and trembled. The boats lurched, and their ropes creaked. Deck and plank groaned, and the masts themselves complained. Sails ached. The main-mast braces, great steel angle-fixtures that bolted the towering mast to the deck bend at their corners and the deck bulged.

A filigree of red lines spread from the Elise, wrapped her sisters, and dove under the sea. Armist knew the lines. They reminded her of something she couldn't quite put her finger on, and tasted the memory on her tongue. She was sweating too. The blue star danced like it stood on the other side of steam.

Then the darkness broke, and the world ripped. The red tracing under the water shot out in all directions and broke. The sea itself ruptured, and they were falling, falling, and—

—splashed into the sea of Amber, not half a nautical mile from Amber Harbor. The sky was blue, the sun shone, clouds floated, and gulls came to investigate the new arrivals.

Fiona sagged against the wheel and said nothing, and Bleys stretched like his body was in agony. He trudged down the short ladder from the steerage to face his Majesty's Caitlin, lashed to their port where his brothers and Dracken stood.

"See? We were basically here anyway, but if my dear brothers have a lack of patience, we are happy to oblige!" Bleys bowed like an actor on stage and stalked to the front of the ship. Sweat glued his clothes to him. His white shirt was transparent, and his pants stuck to his legs and buttocks like a soggy skin. He dropped something behind him.

"You. Captain. Steer," said Fiona, and she tottered off as well.

"Ma'am—" but Fiona was gone. Like Bleys, she'd sweated through her gown, and now the green straps connecting front and back were visible around her hips. The silk was thin as tissue, caught by those modesty straps against her skin. Armist hoped they chaffed like mad.
She bent over, picked up the small bag Bleys had let fall, and felt a number of small round things. They were hollow coins or about that size. Julian left the steerage after Fiona, and Armist thought about how imperiously Fiona had acted. She'd left the wheel unattended. She'd disrespected the ship, the navy, and Armist's service.

Drinking deep of her fury the captain shoved the bag in one of her pockets to give to the Amberite later and took the wheel. For a moment she felt better. This was where she should be. It was what she deserved.

The other vessels unlashed themselves and sailed free, one by one entering port under a fair sky with a following wind.

Chapter 4: City Amber

When all others from His Majesty's Elise were gone, Captain Armist labored. Other crews had come to carry off the casualties, but they didn't stay for docking chores. Many sailors weakened by swimming in the cold Forochet remained catatonic, and the other ships sent stretchers and boards. Non-shipmates carried silent people to the hospitals, but that done, they left. In Amber's Navy each ship was a country to herself.

Most of Elise's crew fled as soon as they landed, dropping belongings and scattering over the sides to scuttle up the docks and into the underbelly of Port Amber. Armist didn't know if she would see them again.

Armist remained. She tied off the anchor and set the bumpers, furled sails with winches, and climbed the rigging. Teams should do that together with one person holding the sails in position and another lashing them together. She tied the sails into tight cigarette bundles by inching along the booms on her stomach, rubbing her chest and stomach raw with salted cord. It was an eight man job, and it took her four hours. Twice she saw crews on His Majesty's Zoe watching her, but her rigging wasn't their problem.

She finished, dropped to the deck, and shut the hatches. MPs walked the docks, but things should be locked. Amber's blue skies betrayed nothing of storms, but she checked every hole. She sealed and secured crew quarters and stowage. She coiled lines and stripped rigging. She ate a dinner of bitterness and fury when the sun finally set and hours of work lay before her. The crew was long gone, the royals had left a mess and nothing else, and no one helped. Even Old Broke was gone who knows where. Armist seethed, and whispered quiet, terrible profanity in the hold. Somehow three tallow pots had fallen over and spilled grease across the wooden floor. It begged for a dropped candle to go up in flames. Armist mopped rendered fat in the dark because fire would kill her ship, and swore, and swore, and swore.

"And damned Bleys for leaving me this mess, and helping his worthless sister for taking my ship, and even dropping his bags of shit—" and only after saying that did Armist recall that Prince Bleys had indeed dropped a bag of shit. She still had it.

Captain Armist paused and considered that it couldn't actually be shit. It had to be something.

She'd finished mopping and stood in a passageway. The Elise was a bit different from other three masters with a ring passageway circling beneath the main deck, all compartments interior to that. In the passageway regular portholes on the starboard side let in moonlight. Armist could see even without fire well enough if she got right in the beam, so she did and rummaged around in her pockets looking for Bleys' little bag. She found it. It clinked. She poured nine gold rings onto her palm and admired them by moonlight.

Nine unremarkable rings lay in a small pile. They felt dry. She weighed them with a few lifts of her palm, and the rings didn't move. They didn't skitter or fall about on her palm. They felt heavy. They might be gold. They might be worth something.

Curiously Armist caught one ring with her middle finger against her palm, and poured the rest back into the bag. She meant to examine it, but it fit naturally around her finger like it was sized. The Captain examined it anyway, holding her hand up to moonlight by the porthole.

It was a nice, simple, unremarkable little ring. The only interesting aspect of it was how well it fit her middle finger. It sat snuggly on her first digit without being tight, and she pulled it up to her nail to make sure it wouldn't be stuck. It wasn't.

Armist wasn't sure what to do with it, so she let it slip back down to its natural position and put the bag back in her hip pocket.

Bleys had dropped the bag of rings.

Ah, the hell with him. He didn't need them. He wore too many rings for an unmarried man anyway.

Bleys needed a wife. That would straighten him out. A wife wouldn't put up with his nonsense, would keep that damned redheaded sister of his from disrespecting Armist's ship, was exactly what Bleys needed. He wasn't bad looking either. Some idiot would like a royal husband and put him sensible. Old Oberon had taken a few wives, but they'd been royal ninnies. Bleys needed someone level headed.

Armist went back to work, and the ship turned to under her hand. Ropes found their right coil, and mops gathered spillage like they drank it. Before midnight she'd put the Elise ready for harbor. Pleased, the captain examined her work from midships, judged it good, and found an MP.

"We had some bad luck out there. Crew's down, lots of casualties. Keep a sharp eye on her," ordered Armist.

The MP rolled his eyes and prepared to say something flat, but he stammered. The words tripped on his tongue. Instead he replied, "Yes, ma'am. I'll keep an eye on her myself."

And Armist nodded. That was how it should be.

Naval shipping moored on the east side of Amber Harbor, but by constraint ships docked on both sides of every pier. Old service members complained of this failing of standards as ships docked on the starboard side, but Armist had never sailed in a vessel with a steering oar instead of a rudder.

She mused that Amber still had one. They used it for river traffic, she thought.

Either way, docking vessels on both sides of a pier and often three or four per side resulted in great piles of cargo and equipment stacking up around the too-thin walkway. Even though the moon shone unblocked in a fine black sky swept with stars as seafoam glittered on black seas, shadows lurked in cargo piles and hid in line coils. A cluster of barrels emanated faint wispy darkness under the otherwise clean white moonlight, shadows that got in the cracks of the docks and pits in boards, and lay there underfoot.

Armist paused to sniff the barrels. Pickled fish. Armist knew pickled fish well. She hurried away.

A high fence circumscribed the navy yard with guard towers. Armist played a mind game where she tried to guess which of the fourteen towers were manned, if any. One over the main gate was, she decided, for she smelled cigarette smoke, and the sailor who held a lantern to her face and asked her name in sleepy tones didn't smell of it. They usually had at least one more. She turned uphill towards City Amber, or informally Lower City Amber, and leaned forward against the hill. It didn't feel as steep as usual, for she was going home after a long voyage.

Half a mile from the yard she got mugged, and they didn't bother asking for her money first.

It was a blind, sudden happening nothing like she expected. Armist never expected to be mugged, but she wasn't foolish enough to think it couldn't happen. She just thought she'd see it coming, or at least know it was happening. She thought she'd react and the moments would be indelibly written in her mind. None of that occurred.

Fast footsteps came behind her, she moved to the side of the street to let them by, and pain blossomed in her sides. The knife wasn't that sharp. Hands groped her, took her wallet, took her dagger, and groped her chest and groin incidentally. Armist was falling. Her legs gave out, and she hit the cobblestones, smashing her knee. She didn't understand why she couldn't stand, because she hadn't been stabbed that bad. Hands held her down. They found her belt-knife, and the dagger she hid in her back. The found the bag of rings.

She called for help, and she couldn't breathe.

Someone would come along. The thieves worked fast, which meant they were scared, which meant they were scared of someone, and the city had many people. Someone would come along and help her, drive the thieves off. Amber was the perfect city at the center of the universe. The King and Princes of Amber ruled creation. They would save her.

No one did. The thieves left her bleeding in the gutter.

#

Old Broke found her when morning had burned the darkness from the city but left Captain Armist bleeding in it.

LtA Dracken was stumbling home from a long night. Nearly half of his old unit had found him in a unlicensed bar, one which stayed open until the drunks stopped coming in, and served a peculiarly Amberite drink, black-eyed rye: rye whiskey in coffee. Dracken's dragoons had tried to drink him under the table to defeat 'his new navy blood.' He was tail-wagged, unable to sit down, too drunk to walk, and fallen out of the bar and up a hill on legs that should have dropped him. Driven by caffeine and alcohol, he could only fall in the direction of his house. Every pace went from step, drag to step, drag, crash as he fell from wall to wall.

Leaving the bar had wreaked some change on his mental state, and he was able to recognize Captain Armist, lying in a gutter where rainwater ran red below her and brown above. Passers by said nothing and kept going. Old Broke did not. He shouted, and half a dozen equally wrecked dragoons thought their old officer was being murdered. They came running. Near incompetent with drink, they hoisted and dragged her to a hospital.

Armist woke up stitched together in white muslin. Under a blanket she could feel the bed through the butt-notch in her gown. She was in more pain than she understood, and everything was gone. Her clothes were cut apart, her shoes were gone, and even the ring on her hand had vanished. Her organs hurt inside.

She dozed to escape the pain, but it came back, waves beating against the sides of her head. She dreamed she was the Elise, moored so her broadsides faced a storm, and waves beat her into the pier until the pillars of the dock stove in her hull. She was taking on water and dying. She woke up, and she was dying, and there was nothing the doctors could do. She fell asleep again, and sank into black waters under the blue of Amber Harbor.

She woke up again in agony, and again with a fever, and again when the fever broke. Three days after getting stabbed a nurse told her she was going to live. Armist didn't believe him until Old Broke came in and confirmed it himself.

"You got mugged," the Lieutenant Admiral said, heaving himself down on her visitor's chair and shifting his belly so it rested on his thighs. "As far as we can tell, they did it for your wallet. They took everything but your clothes, and the surgeon cut those open to get at you. You've still got you boots, but they're drenched in blood. I don't know if I'd wear them."

"And I'm going to live?" Armist asked again.

"Yes."

"Can I get a second opinion?"

"No." Dracken chuckled and sighed. "Think of it like free leave. You were transferred out of my command when we got back from that goat-rope, but I told Gerard's Rear Admiral about you. I'll even do the paperwork as a going away present."

"Thank you, sir," she said and let the bed hold her. After a moment she noticed something. "You told the Second Fleet?"

"Aye."

"Why did you tell them? Shouldn't the hospital do that?"

"They would, eventually, but I found you. It sounds like a coincidence, but I imagine it isn't much of one. Bering Hill is almost all naval officers anyway, so one of us was likely to find you. It happened to be me."

"Oh. Oh." She nodded. Bracing herself, she asked, "How did you find me?"

Dracken answered slowly. "You'd been there for a while. I was coming back, and people were detouring around you. I'd been drinking with a few men from my Army days, and they helped carry you here."

"They detoured around me? People? Civilians?" Armist couldn't believe him.

"Civilians." Dracken nodded. "Sailors. Some people I knew. No, I won't tell you who they are. Ever had a problem you could have avoided by being an asshole? You were that problem, Captain. Don't worry. We got you in."

"Bastards."

Dracken shrugged. "That's how it is. Sleep well, Captain. Get back on your feet."

Armist thanked him, and the LtA rose to shuffle out. Before he could leave, she called, "Why you, sir? Why weren't you home with your wife? Why were you drinking with Army-men after a float?"

Dracken paused in the doorway, and his face hardened. Under his beard she could see him grind his teeth. "We're not together," he said. "She left after Breggresh when we had a problem she couldn't get over. Go to sleep, Captain. My problems aren't yours."

He left and shut the door on her reply.

#

In a warehouse in Helene District a man and woman emerged naked from a warm but wet pile of blankets. Their names were Obrecht and Tatianna, and neither had been born in Amber.

For a while Obrecht sat on the edge of the crates on which they'd built their nest. He rested his heels on a either side of an X-shaped pair of struts that reinforced the crate wall, leaning over to put his elbows on his thighs. When he leaned forward his stomach made rolls, but hunched shoulders brought out dock-handler muscles. He was a thick man. The thinness of his youth had gone long ago, taken by long days of moving cargo in and out of the navy yard. The same lean that made his stomach bulge stretched his back, long muscles reaching over ribs and knotted up behind his arms as he ran a hand through his hair. He looked back at the woman.

Tatianna had slithered out the other side and wrapped herself in a sheet. They'd kicked it to the ground previously, and she tied it about herself like a toga. Her hair fell in a disheveled mess, an unruly river of glossy black on umber skin. Walking around the crate-bed and sitting down beside him, Tatianna stretched herself against his back. She slipped halfway out of the sheet, and it fell around her lap. Her body conformed to him, and she stroked his chest. Obrecht rubbed the top of her head with his chin.

Outside the warehouse the sun peaked, and holes in the ceiling cast spears of daylight. Inside the warehouse the air was musty. Piles of sawdust lay on otherwise bare rock, sometimes letting motes fly free to wander through the shafts of daylight. The crate they'd made a bed was one of many. Some fully boxed their contents, but most were just frames. Uncured animal hides and rough woodworking spilled out of frame boxes; barrels that smelled of salt or vinegar sat on round ends in the corner. The front door was locked from outside, but a small hole in the rear wall spilled more daylight, tinged green and accompanied by creeping mulberry leaves. Two huge boxes of a rare alfalfa looked monstrously heavy, but either Obrecht or Tatianna could move them alone. Those boxes were pushed open like barn doors before the hole in the wall, and leather pull handles hung on the sides that would face the wall.

In the blanket nest, Tatianna played with Obrecht's skin. "How are you?" she asked.

"Good, good. Hungry?"

"Soon. Not yet."

"That's fine."

Obrecht waited, and she lay on his side. He felt her breathing, the subtle pressure of her collar bones and arms, the warmth of her breasts. She was still slightly aroused, and her nipples touched him enough to remind him they were there. He put a hand through her toga and felt her wet thighs. Pride rose within him.

"We should check the take," he said.

"It hasn't been a week," she replied.

"Yes, but the heat didn't appear. No one cared."

"If you want to," said Tatianna and continued stroking his flesh. She sounded sleepy.

"I'm serious. No one cared. I thought for sure they'd say something about a captain taking it in the naval district. Those are all old salt-squid anyway. But no one cared. They didn't even pick her up when they walked past. We can check the take."

She didn't say anything, and for a while he sat content, hand on her legs. Her skin upwards of her knee was smooth as velvet. But the take lay hidden under a stone, and suddenly he rose, letting her slump back into bed in a spill of black hair. He admired her briefly, his woman, eyeing the way her robe fell down below her stomach and fit the notches of her hips. Her breasts spread under gravity as had her legs, beautiful legs, that emerged from clean sheets onto soiled blankets and—

"Ah," groaned Obrecht, and he stumbled away naked, taking mincing steps on cold flagstones.

Tatianna smiled and waited, and let air dry sweat from her skin.

He moved to a far part of the warehouse where sawdust covered the floor under cases of manufactured shingles. Eight shingles on one wooden pole, twenty poles in a stack, four poles wide to a case, and these bound within a crate framework, not a box, the shingles snowed a light sawdust as he pushed the boxes aside. This darker area had a better roof, and no beams of sunlight found a way through. Underneath the boxes small heavy flagstones fit together like puzzle pieces, but repeated falls of sawdust filled in the cracks until the stones resembled carpet. Obrecht worked angles from the walls and rafters, calculated position with his hands, before finding the spot. Only there he kicked away sawdust, and it vanished into the rest without a mark. One stone lay just like the others. He worked it out with his fingertips, took out a burlap sack, and let the stone thunk back into place. He returned to the naked woman.

Her indolence didn't vanish, but she did roll up on one elbow, and both breasts hung to her left. Noticing this, Tatianna pulled the sheet back up to her shoulders. It pulled high below, exposing skin from thigh to the curve of her hip. Obrecht noticed as well and leered, but sat down on the edge of the bed in space she had left. Instead of laying against him, she slithered around behind to see their take on his lap.

Obrecht took out Armist's wallet, and counted blue and green royal bills of Amber. He gave half to Tatianna. Two knives he offered her, but she declined, so he put them both back in the bag. Rummaging around more, he took out a naval class ring, and this she scooped out of his fingers.

It was a fat, heavy ring, emblazoned with the crown of Amber and unicorns rampant on either side, the carving worked so their horns supported an emerald. It fit her dark finger perfectly, and Obrecht pulled it off.

"No. We are not avoiding heat to have you wearing a stolen sailor ring in public."

"Ah, it fits me."

"I don't care. In the bag with the knives, and I'll have my cousin melt them down."

"Ugh," groused Tatianna and flopped backwards onto the bed away from him. Her toga fell open, and after a moment she looked over to see if he noticed.

Obrecht hadn't. He found another little bag, something finely worked with silk stitching on good wool. The dockman stroked the material between two fingers.

"This is cashmere," he said in something like awe.

Tatianna sat up a little and propped herself forward on both elbows. The sheet had almost fallen to her middle again but caught on the shelf of her breasts and posture. Obrecht didn't notice that either.

"Cashmere?" she asked.

"Rich people fabric."

"I know what cashmere is," she snapped. "What's in it?"

Instead of looking, he held up the bag. "Why would a ship's captain have a cashmere bag?"

"She's rich. She's an officer."

"She's not that rich," he argued. "I cased her house. It's nice, but she took command recently. This is her first deployment. This is her first time making big money, and she hasn't gotten paid for the float yet. Why would she have a cashmere bag? That's some royal shit."

"What's in it?" whined Tatianna.

"Nothing, probably. Money it feels like or— rings." Obrecht poured them out in a jumble.

Eight gold rings, heavy and thick, unadorned, round as the moon, lay on his palm. They were heavy. Gold must be heavier than he thought, for the eight of them pulled his hand down. The weight of them put his knuckles against his thigh when he wasn't thinking about hold them up. Eight gold rings without inscription or marking.

Tatianna's hand slithered between Obrecht's arm and his side and snatched one. He tried to snatch her, but she rolled free, coming up naked with the ring on her finger.

"It fits," she said, hold her right hand up. The ring lay around her index finger, a plain, unimposing band. It gleamed bright yellow against dark skin.

"Put it back," he demanded.

"I'm keeping it! Half the take is mine, and I couldn't have the one with the stone!" Tatianna snorted, and squirmed away as Obrecht rounded on her. She added, "See if one fits you,"

Distracted by her movement from the rings, for a moment he just watched her. The pile of seven rings lay in his fist.

He opened his left hand, and one of the rings fell around his thumb as naturally as if it was made for him. It lay without wiggling or shifting, and sat on his middle knuckle. Obrecht took his eyes off her to watch it. The ring gleamed.

"We should melt down the others," he said. He stared at his thumb. "We should have Elroy melt them down with the others."

"If he melts all six of those, we'll have to split the gold with him. Those are simple rings. They've got no markings or gems. We could keep them," Tatianna said, leaning back on her hands. Her right, the one with the ring, was hidden under sheets and wet blankets.

"We could," said Obrecht.

"Elroy has to melt the knives anyway, and that big navy ring. He's getting a good take. We should keep the simple rings. They're easy to fence."

"We should," said Obrecht.

"After all, you did all the work. You took them, and I watched. No one saw your face, and no one saw mine. Even the captain didn't. We should keep the rings and let Elroy melt the other stuff."

"We'll keep the rings," agreed Obrecht. He shook himself suddenly. "We'll keep these but don't make a point of them. Don't wear all four of yours at once. In fact, I'm going to keep all of them, except the one you're wearing."

"The hell you are," said Tatianna and threw herself upright. The toga reappeared, wrapped around her from neck to knees. She sat on her heels with knees together, facing him. She jabbed her finger at the cashmere bag. "Three of those are mine, and we're splitting the loot now."

"No, because you'll wear all four of them at once!" snapped Obrecht. "One ring is nothing. They have no markings. Four rings? Gold rings? At once? That will attract suspicion."

"You said no one cared!"

"If the guard dog sleeps, you don't wake him!"

The warehouse was dark and still. Shadows lengthened in the corners, for outside night was falling. Inside only cracks in the roof allowed sunlight to pass. Tatianna and Obrecht glared at each other for a moment, but then Tatianna smiled.

"Oh, darling," she said. Rolling her shoulders back, the toga slipped. It didn't fall all the way but slid down until tension caught it over her chest again. Obrecht's eyes gravitated towards her cleavage. She spoke slowly, breathing between almost every word. "Baby. I'll do whatever you want to do. You marked and cut the pretty rich bitch. You were so brave. I only kept watch, and you were so brave."

Obrecht panted too.

"Come here, baby," whispered Tatianna.

He crawled towards her on hands and knees, the cashmere bag clutched in his fist. She leaned back as he approached, staying out range his kisses, until she'd fallen all the way back underneath him, and one of his rough hands scraped the old sheet away. It fell off the crate bed again.

"Come here, baby," whispered Tatianna.

Obrecht lowered himself on top of her, and she caught him between her thighs. She constricted his waist like a python, and wet skin clung to his dry sides. She pressed her torso against him and splayed her right hand against his back. The plain gold ring dug into his skin.

Her left hand happened to find the bag he dropped and tucked it away in a crevice under the blankets. Inside the warehouse the shadows gathered before night fell outside, and soon it was dark as pitch.

Chapter 5: A Warehouse in Amber

"Get the f--- out!" screamed Vor of Megrin and started throwing rocks.

Obrecht sat up naked and took two small stones to the shoulders before he rolled behind the crates. Tatianna bolted for the other side, paused, and tried to go back to the sheets. Vor caught her with a sidearm in the boob, which he thought was a shame because he was aiming for her head. Tatianna forgot about whatever she had left in the sheets and fled.

"Get out!" screamed Vor.

Obrecht shot a hand out for his pants. His face peaked beyond cover to see where they were, and Vor caught him on the forehead. Screaming, Obrecht got his pants and ran, trying to hide behind stray crates as he hopped into his trousers, ducking away from Vor's arm.

Tatianna couldn't even do that and wrapped herself again in the old sheet. She dashed after Obrecht, and Vor hurled stones, catching her in the shoulders and back. The dockworker bolted out the tiny hole and she followed, Vor coming after with yet more rocks.

"Damn kids!" yelled Vor, kicking the wall.

He turned around and his helpers beamed at him with smiles wrapped around their faces. One of them pantomimed grabbing butts. Vor had no time for that. He set on the five of them with more curses and shouts, but even his yelling couldn't subdue their smirks. They threw the doors open and heaved great boxes from wagon-back, putting them on runners and sliding them up skids to the warehouse.

Outside clouds blotted out the sky, a thick overcast that veiled the sun. Inside the warehouse was indistinguishable from twilight even with the doors open wide. Vor yelled a few more times, which the laborers ignored, and stomped through his warehouse to the lover's nest to see if they'd stolen anything.

A quiet voice spoke behind him. The laborers roared, shouting in their native tongue Jesbana. The quiet reply answered in the same, and they roared again.

"Je te! Je te!" said the one voice with false impatience that couldn't hide his smile in the words, and the laborers laughed. Half continued heaving large boxes down onto two wooden rails and sliding them up a partial ramp to the warehouse, the rails mounted to steps instead of ties. The other half began heaving other crates from inside down another set of rails, and staging them by the wagons.

Bleys in gold and red walked through the doors, laughing and calling out for the Megrindin. "Vor! I had a feeling I needed to come here, and I see the call was right! They tell me you found two birds in their nest?"

"Two pigeons in my warehouse! Look! They cut a hole in the back. I bet they're thieves." Vor replied. He had passed the makeshift bed with little more than grumbling. Now he stood at the back wall, glaring at the hole and the manner in which it had been concealed.

"Truly, this is the first time in all of history two lovers went someplace they shouldn't to sleep together. We shall write of you in history, Vor," said Bleys.

"Laugh if you want, but if they stole your merchandise, I'm not paying for it!"

Bleys picked up Tatianna's shirt, thrown aside some time before. He drew his court sword, a rapier of silver and adamant with jewel-studded hilt and filigree of gold, and with the point picked up Obrecht's small clothes. They lain under a very short skirt.

"Somehow, I doubt they escaped with much."

Bleys and Vor talked in Thari, and Vor used a pidgin mixture of that and Jesbana to talk to the crew. The crew largely ignored him. The stock manager didn't believe Bleys and began a visual inventory, checking this and that. Bleys looked bored and called something to the workers. They waved him off.

"Go back to bothering lovers, prince! Leave the real work to real men!" They laughed.

"My goodness," said Bleys under his breath. "Why I don't think those men meant prince with any respect at all."

Chuckling, he poked through the lover nest again. Something urged him on.

"The shingles at least are all right. But we need a carpenter to come and fix the wall," reported Vor.

"Uh huh," agreed Bleys. He threw the blankets and sheets aside. There was nothing there. For somewhy he kept looking.

"They had sex on my chair!" yelled Vor.

"Just making subjects," murmured Bleys and kept looking.

He didn't notice but Bleys began pawing through boards and stacks of loose knife-blanks faster, shoving things aside. Unsharpened metal clattered, and crates banged. Bleys grabbed a farrier's anvil by the carrying boards, strapped on wood to keep the spike sharp, and heaved it aside. It fell with a boom.

Where it had been, under the bedding where only a small hand would be able to reach, Bleys found a small cashmere bag. He knew that bag, because he'd dropped it before. He picked it up and poured six rings out onto his palm. For a moment he sighed and smiled, and breathed deep of relief.

Then he counted, and his face went flat. His eyes narrowed. He thumbed through the rings again. One, two, three, four, five, six, he counted again, and a terrible fury crept into the prince of Amber's heart. He squeezed the rings in a fist until any reasonable gold would be crushed into a non-shape and glared at the holes in the ceiling above.

One ring just happened to slip over his right pinky finger. It fit like it was made for him.

Bleys turned to Vor, who watched him with wild eyes. The laborers did as well.

'Te shan,' they whispered. 'Te shan.' The anvil.

"Where did they go?" demanded Bleys.

"Out the back?" said Vor, but uncertainty made it sound like a question.

"Lock this place up and fix that wall."

The prince ran to the back and ducked out the small hole.

#

The back of the warehouse abutted a low spur of rock that came from one of Kolvir's feet and ran to the bay. Between warehouse and rock wound a small alley. The building made a square but the rock didn't run straight, so a grassy aisle ranging from less than a foot to twenty feet wide separated the wall from the ridge.

Obrecht stopped in a medium opening just before the corner of the building. Here a road terminated at a small construction site. A baker was having a cellar quarried into the rock, but right now it was just a partially erected building and piles of gravel. Obrecht checked that no one was watching, and fixed his pants. He'd put them on backwards.

"You asshole! You left me!" swore Tatianna as she arrived, holding her sheet on.

Obrecht didn't have anything to say, so he didn't.

"What do we do now?" asked Tatianna.

"We run."

"We run? That's your plan? I thought you were a great thief who—"

"Hasn't died yet!" interrupted Obrecht in a yell and hissed to himself. He peaked around her and the aisle behind them was clear. He put one hand around her and the other over her lips.

"Yes, Tatianna. Yes. You know why I came to Amber? Because I know when to run. That isn't the mark of a coward; it's the mark of a thief who doesn't want to die. Because we left the wallet, and you know what that means? They're going to figure out we stole that from the navy woman. They're going to find the loot and the rings except the ones we're wearing. And they're going to find anything you brought with you. Your keys, your wallet, your purse if you carry one, everything. We're naked. We have nothing. So I'm going to run. And Tatianna," He looked over her shoulder again and back into her eyes. His fingers still covered her mouth. "Good luck."

Tatianna went from impatient to angry to scared in rapid order, and Obrecht leaned around her to check the aisle again. She spoke through his fingers.

"Baby, baby I need you," she said, but Baby wasn't listening.

Bleys had stepped through the hole in the wall, and Obrecht saw his foot as the prince bowed to get around the mulberry bush.

Obrecht ran. Tatianna whirled around and saw Bleys. Bleys saw her. For an instant they locked eyes before she ran after Obrecht, lifting the sheet up high on her legs.

She was fast but he ran faster. The streets formed rough blocks with the edges marked off by ridgelines of the mountain. Obrecht out distanced her along the dead end that traced the wall of the warehouse, and as soon as he hit the main road, he turned left, away from the front of the warehouse and dashed ahead, weaving around crowds of people. The laborers by the wagons paused to see him go and sent up a cheer when mostly naked Tatianna appeared after him. She snarled but followed Obrecht. Other people stopped to gawk at her as she ran, bottom hanging out on the high-street with pedestrians halting. She turned into the first alley with a backward glance.

Bleys followed, running with both hands pumping and hands flat. She was naked in public. Everyone was looking at her, and she couldn't hide. Obrecht had gone.

Tatianna gave in to old fear and ran like the wind.

Chapter 6: Tenthet

The shadow Tenthet could only be reached over mountains. Which mountains did not matter, but to walk there through shadow, the path required mountains. Julian discovered this in confusion riding Morgenstern and exploited it later, keeping Tenthet for his own among. His siblings had all of shadow, but they could not walk easily into Tenthet.

Tenthet was the domain of conjurers, magicians who evoked, created, and drew their form from other substance. Melies specialized in oil on paper and drew magnificent artifacts from painted forms. He did not require his own work though he preferred it, and on the morning of Julian's dawn, the first the prince of Amber arrived in the city on a carpet of rose pedals, Melies conjured for him a gift.

He used Ledes's last painting, the one he had died for. It was seven feet tall and three wide, oil on canvas, and done in a cocaine mania of four days that took the painter's life. He captured Atiana of Terriana as he had viewed her, dark skin as he dreamed, long hair as he fantasized of running his fingers through, body divine, and lips soft. She was his Atiana, and his students called her the Tatianna. They sold the work to Melies to pay their master's debts.

Melies drew her forth. In oil Atiana of Terriana had rested on marble fountains, wrapped in a dress without sides that lay jumbled between her thighs, and wore a necklace of connected circles. One hand dangled fingers into the fountain waters, casting ripples in wide circles, and the other reached to the viewer. She asked to be lifted or beckoned to be joined depending on point of view. Melies chose the later. He worked magic of shadow, pulled threads of power, and took her hand in the painting. In his studio he pulled her from the canvas and let her stand on his oil-speckled floor. The gown hugged the curves of a full woman, and Tatianna spoke Thari.

"You're not Ledes," she said, confused and hesitating.
Melies was not. He wasn't fat, but compared to Ledes's coked-thinness, he looked positively corpulent. He had thick, curly hair and a straggly beard. His nose was too small for his face. Unlike Lefes who had lived and died in near perpetually artistic ecstasy, Melies maintained a discontented expression and little patience.

"No, he's dead. I am Melies, this is Tenthet, and you are Tatianna, Ledes's Tatianna in his memory of Atiana of Terriana. Your name is hers." He slapped two separated fingers together as the parts of her name.

"I'm their child?" she asked.

"Hers and Ledes, or his and his muse's, which is much the same thing. You know how we name children?"

"No," she said, but added, "Yes," and a moment later, "It comes to me, but I don't know how or from where."

"From Ledes," Melies decided. He shrugged. "If he had the power to put that knowledge in you, he was a greater painter than I thought. But he's dead now. You killed him."

"Oh, dear God," she whispered and sat down.

Melies looked unmoved. "Don't think about it. He was brilliant, but everyone dies. You are going to Julian of Amber, who is our new God, and hopefully he will find you worthy. That will mean great things for me. You're ample enough. If he likes such things. Your sex is largely useless, but I hear you're good for ornamentation."

Tatianna looked up through her fingers. The conjurer caught her hands and pulled them away so he could look over her again. "At least you're already made up. Come. We're leaving."

"Can I have a moment?" she asked, and Melies said, "No."

They took a carriage to the Kraviset where the crowds grew so thick they couldn't drive and walked the rest of the way. Tenthet grew among the mountains. The thrust of stone pushed buildings out of dirt, and erosion carved stairwells and streets. Avalanches cleared parking lots and tumbled rocks over deep ravines to fall together like bridges. Humans came behind and merely inhabited what the range had made. Two deep river canyons merged and together poured their life down a great cliff, the Omnigral Face, against which the city grew. Denizens of Tenthet called the houses, buildings, and roads growing from the Omnigral the Krav, and the roadway up it, a treacherous series of switchbacks and sharp turns, the Kraviset. Throngs had gathered to see Julian, and the prince sat in white on a high balcony, sipping wine, and accepting gifts.

Melies fought his way through the crowd and up, dragging Tatianna along with one arm. She got whistles and looks. Her dress hung from her necklace of circles, and more circles linked the front and back. Dark skin moved under cream silk. Melies pushed upwards and finally got close enough to the front that the guards recognized him, and they made a path. The two trekked upwards past kings and emperors.

The building Julian had taken was a broad white orb that resembled an eye. It jutted from a yellow vein of schist over a granite intrusion almost perfectly round. Two heavy wrappings on top and bottom broke the hemispherical perfection but looked like eyes, and in their center opened a deep cavern. From the outside the darkness in the middle of the white rock made the entrance to the cavern a perfect black disk, and from the inside one could see all the city. The king and several local mayors were controlling who could enter and see Julian, but Melies was somewhat known. The mayors looked at Tatianna and sighed, and they hurried the conjurer and his gift to the front of the line. Inside the Kravisorb the air was cold.

"Now make a good impression. Don't speak unless spoken too. Don't make eye contact unless he does first, but then smile. Jiggle a little There are men who like that," said Melies, not looking at her. "Call him sir. Or master. But make a good impression."

"Yes, Melies," said Tatianna with her eyes down.

"You'll do," he said and added, "You'd better."

And the king of Tenthet took them in to see Julian of Amber.

The cavern itself was round and flat-floored, and its circumference intercepted the eye's pupil making a window. The room was known and usually used as a tourist spot. A marble bench stood just inside the eyeball and on this Julian sat. Piles of gold lay here and there. Fragrant cedar boxes lay open with gems, and bolts of silk languished in heaps. Melies brought Tatianna to the edge, and she appeared to those below as a white dress against the shadow. Her skin was too dark to see.

"My Lord Julian," said Melies, instinctually knowing this was what to call him. "I am honored to be in your presence."

"Good," said Julian.

Melies rose and looked at Julian longingly, admiring the way his armor resembled nothing of the world, and the way the king and emperors hungered after his words. "Yes. I have a gift for you, an act of conjuration I brought from my own craft into the world, and I give it to you. This, My Lord Julian, is the work of the conjurers of Tenthet. This is Tatianna."

He bowed again and pushed her forward.

Tatianna did not bow but looked down as instructed. The sun caught her and turned her silk translucent, but against the shadowed background her body appeared as a ghost wrapped in mist. Black hair fell over her shoulders. Silver circles gleamed around her neck. Julian watched her.

"My Lord," said Tatianna when the silence dragged.

Julian stared for a while. Echoes of the crowd crept into the cavern and echoed, but otherwise the room was quiet. The noble functionaries hung at the back of the cave and waited, while Melies remained bowed. With his eyes down and his hair hanging forward, he gritted his teeth. Sweat beaded on his nose.

"Are you a conjurer, Tatianna?" asked Julian.

"No, I— Yes, My Lord. I have some of that power."

"Conjure something, Tatianna," Julian ordered.

"I need a form," she said. "I need a thing to be drawn."

"Drawn? You need a thing to be drawn as in conjured, or a thing drawn on parchment so you can conjure it?" asked Julian.

"Either, My Lord. Both."

Julian reached up and stroked his chin hairs, short and stiff from several days without shaving. After a moment he took a small bronze coin from his pocket and flipped it to her. It flew up, out of the light, and fell back in a spinning flicker. She looked up to catch it and looked at Julian where he sat with eyes half-lidded and betraying nothing.

Tatianna examined the coin. It was a three sestertii coin with an unevenly milled outside. The front had a picture of the sun and the back a dagger, and the whole thing could fit on her thumb. She looked back at Julian. He was still examining her with a cold, inscrutable expression and suddenly unsure, she looked over at Melies. He was sweating hard with his face the same level as his waist, apparently examining the floor.

"Yes, My Lord," said Tatianna, and she drew the knife.

She pulled it with her thumb, brushing it against the edge of the coin. The knife turned and cut her, and she pushed again. The handle protruded from the coin edge, through a small crack in the raised lip. She switched hands and pushed, and the knife moved further until blade followed handle, and it dropped into her other hand, covered in her blood. The blade was longer than her hand and the handle almost as big with a pommel larger than the coin.

She offered it to Julian.

"Is it worth anything?" he asked.

"Three sestertii," she replied.

Julian laughed. "And what use do I have for a three sestertii knife?" he asked.

Tatianna saw his smile. She saw his smirk and saw the nobles in the corner. They sweated like Melies now, beads of it dropping down their faces and falling onto stone. She saw her conjurer, and he had cracked his head sideways a fraction of a degree so he could look at her. His eyes were furious. He ground his teeth and clenched his shoulders.

Julian waited, and Tatianna understood. She had conjured a knife, Melies's back lay open, and Julian waited for entertainment.

She tried to put the knife back, but it wouldn't fit onto the coin. Instead she merely drove the blade through the small sestertii piece, and it wrapped around the blade like a split clam. She tossed both back to Julian.

He laughed and said, "Rise, Melies. Take Tatianna back with you and teach her something of conjuration. Teach her everything you know."

And in a different tone he added, "Learn something I haven't seen already. Show me in Amber."

#

Melies hadn't known what to make of the situation and took Tatianna home with little more than occasional suspicious looks for conversation. When travel called for vocalization, he grunted.

They arrived home, Melies walked ahead to his studio, and Tatianna followed to sit on a massive crystal of heterogenous stone. In Melies's style of conjuring he often required mass, and the rude cube contained quartz and granite, marble, schist, shale, slate, and basalt. So many different colors came together they formed an earthy brown with sparkling crystals in the matte faces, and Tatianna's long legs formed the same brown, gleaming with sweat instead of mica. Melies didn't know what to scowl at, so he scowled at the world.

"Who's Julian?" asked Tatianna.

"Guardian of the pathways to Amber," said Melies. "Prince of Order. God."

Tatianna waited while Melies did not explain. Her smile sharpened.

"What's Amber?" she asked.

"Don't you know anything?" Melies demanded.

"No," she replied.

"You– oh. Right." Melies sighed and rubbed his face. "Amber is the center of everything. From there Julian draws all order from chaos, form from nothing. You will discover you need light to work, and Amber itself is Julian's light. It is the glorious city on a mountain that shows the world itself.

"To get to Amber, you need to go through Julian, for he guards the way. He is the way. He is perfect," said Melies and paused in thought, his mouth slightly open. The conjurer remained transfixed while Tatianna waited, and when he remembered himself he shook like waking up. Melies wetted his lips with his tongue and continued.

"And he wants you to learn something of conjuring. Everything I know. I doubt you can learn all that, but I can at least teach you something. If you can learn, Julian might accept you."

And he taught her the nature of forms. Melies taught Tatianna that any image could be summoned, and taught her to draw, to sketch, and to sculpt. He taught her the harp until she drew rain from the falling scales. The boys who came to his studio taught her to dance and bake, and soon Tatianna learned to evoke apples, cinnamon, and barely from the air as well as drums and even running horses from her footsteps.

After the beginning he paid little attention to her himself, leaving her to his visitors. When he did notice his conjuration, he said only, "Study so that Julian will be impressed."

Time in Tenthet flowed its own way. It did not run slow and straight, but bounced down the mountains and sprayed nights into wild summers and deepened winter in mountain pools, sometimes plunging until cracks in the rock until they forgot the light of day. Tatianna drew sunlight with a dance, and finally, demonstrated her greatest work: the Horseman. She danced like Morgenstern, and the great horse clapped its hooves. She loped on all fours like Stormhounds in chase, and they bayed behind the music. She spread her arms and swayed as hawks in flight, and the cries of high raptors echoed from the ceiling like birds of prey that nested among the mountains. The looming image of Julian appeared, and Melies lost his voice. The boys judged her dance ready.

They left for Arden along the highest pathways of the world where mountains became trees, and their white leaves melted into the fine wisps of cloud that winds drew from snowcaps. The road sank into green fields. Melies said that long ago the Devil Corwin had claimed this place for his own evil lusts. Tatianna did not understand, for they had taught her little of Corwin. But she nodded, and they continued, and Tatianna rode a hippogryph whose rear hooves sounded of her tap shoes and wingbeats echoed her arms in loose clothing. In time they found Julian.

Under a yew tree with elves in armor, Julian lay on a pile of fir branches doing little at all. He had wine and a pile of dogs, but otherwise didn't even join the foresters in roasting a boar. They'd spitting it through the mouth, and took turns spinning it while scooping basting gravy from a soup-caldron. Julian smelled the boar and scratched the dogs, and lay staring at the sky through clusters of flat spines. The Stormhounds lifted their ears at Melies's coming, but the elven foresters and Julian himself paid them little attention.

"Um, excuse me, My Lord Julian," said Melies and threw a deep bow.

Julian looked at him, sipped his red, and went back to staring at the sky. It was blue on blue, deep ocean reflected from the horizon, and winds scuttled evergreen boughs across it instead of clouds.

Melies waited.

The boar turned.

The conjurer stood back up and straightened his shirt.

Melies said, "My Lord Julian, I have brought you the greatest creature of my artifice, Tatianna, whom I presented to you in Tenthet to your great interest."

Julian replied, "Uh huh."

One of the elves took a basting syringe and injected melted butter and wine into the roasting pig. The others continued to drink.

"My Lord?" asked Melies.

Stirring very little, Julian lifted himself enough to displace two of the great dogs that lay on his chest. One took only a few steps before flopping in a pile with his brothers, but the other trotted over to the conjurer and the dancer. Up close its jaws crackled like static, and its teeth were cold metal. Its fur rose in silver spikes. The Stormhound approached Melies, passed him, and circled once around Tatianna with its head at level with her waist. It pushed her around with its body and stopped, sniffing her butt.

Tatianna said nothing lest God hear her thoughts and wondered if the beast was carrying Julian's presence in some manner. She did not understand why he would sniff her butt if so. She knew this was normal for dogs, but deeply uncomfortable for a woman meeting the Conjurer of Order.

"Well?" asked Julian. "Do it, whatever it is you're going to do."

The dog sat down, scratched his ear, and waited. Tatianna noticed the Stormhound was male. Was it Julian? She turned back to the Prince of Amber.

"Dance!" ordered Melies.

"I need music or—" but Melies interrupted her.

"Then play!" and he tossed her a harp.

Tatianna tuned the harp on a fallen log. When she was finished and Melies again sweating, she began with a falling scale, beginning her piece on rain. Her hands found the strings up by her head and wandered downwards, away from her body while never going quickly. They hit notes in falls, and even as her hands moved, her fingers ran laps around her palms.

Tatianna played rain and called it, and the sky remained calm. She played rivers and called them, and the ground stayed dry. She called wind, beasts, and birds, and only sounds of one small harp walked among the trees of Arden. Finally, crying, she played the sound of bubbling water and men laughing, and drew it out with all her power.

When she finished, the glade of Arden was unchanged. Elves turned the boar and Stormhounds waited, and she knew she had failed.

"Nice, but I don't care. I told you to learn something of conjuration," said Julian.

Tatianna couldn't reply through her tears.

"And you, Melies of Tenthet, have failed too. She's too dark for me, and her skills insufficient. Begone and don't return unless you have something worthwhile."

Melies drew into himself slowly. His face narrowed, starting with his eyes. Crows feet appeared at the corners of his eyelids, and his brows clenched. He pulled his lips together until they turned white. He had difficulty breathing. Melies turned on Tatianna and grabbed her by the hair before dragging her back to the hippogryph. Without a word he threw her on it and climbed onto his own horse. His fingers found his knife, and he told her to ride back to Tenthet.

Tatianna knew she was going to die. Julian watched with the same expression she had seen before. He waited to be entertained. Behind them one high mountain rise to the south and east with a castle on top and a city stuffed into its cracks. Amber glowed in the afternoon sun. To the west rose the many peaks through which she had come. Melies pulled his horse that way and rounded on her, stabbing his finger at the ground beside him.

Tatianna took off, riding hard to the east, until the hippogryph took flight. Julian laughed, Melies swore, and the hounds bayed.

#

That was how she came to Amber where now Bleys pursued her with death on his mind.

Chapter 7: Outside the City of Amber

Castle Amber sat on top of Kolvir and Port Amber occupied the mountain's foot, but the city of Amber hid everywhere.

Outside the fortress houses and small cafes clustered by the gates, and further out among the lesser peaks gem houses and banks waited. Along the windy road down tap houses, cobblers, tailors, and even inns sprang up. By the harbor row houses lined the foothills. Guild halls, craftsmen's shops, and the shipyards stuck to the sea, but like barnacles rising out of the water as a ship hull rose on a wave, little cottages clung to flat spots on the mountain everywhere. There was no line on the mountain where one could say, 'This is the edge of the city!' Even the vale of Garnath where great Arden Forest rose, much of it new growth after the fires of the war, did not mark a sharp end of human habitation. Julian's rangers built houses among it, and those houses continued until one could not see human life from home, yet there was no true end of City Amber.

To Tatianna, that meant she couldn't get away.

Clutching the cashmere bag of gold rings, Bleys pursued her through piles of trash or flimsy walls. He kicked apart ramshackle houses built upslope of the warehouses. People who hiked home every evening didn't pay for thick walls in Amber's eternal summer. They built light. The prince didn't care, and smote bricks to the ground as he ran.

He gained on Tatianna, and her bare-feet hurt. Her lungs burned. She clung to the sheet as her only protection from nudity like it would shield her from Bleys, and the terrible swing of his longsword, but her legs were weak and her arms slack. Blind panic drove her on beyond when she should fall, and she did not noticed clutching the small gold ring about her right index finger.

She ran through a tavern and leaped out an open window, but instead of grass landed on the old sign. The bar had changed its name after the Battle of Arden, for it stood on a hill that had overlooked the carnage. Now it was The Pipes, and on a door a minstrel played two flutes for children. But it had been the Dragon, and behind the building, where Tatianna fell, lay the old sign of a great black wyrm, wingless and terrible, and slain with a black sword.

Bleys sprang out and landed beyond her, cutting off her flight. But Tatianna could run no more. In breaking the window she had cut herself to the bone, and shards of leaded glass jutted from her skin. She lay against the building, and deep red blood spread across the old sign. Her blood followed the carved scales of the dragon, and the ring glittered. The morning sun shone brightly, but this westward part of the building lay in shadow.

"Thief," said Bleys.

"Why don't you laugh, prince of Amber?" asked Tatianna quietly. "You are the laughing prince. Even when you attacked, when you fought up the side of Kolvir, the men said you laughed. They told stories of your jokes. I think that's what scared them the most. Your jokes. They say you laughed when you slew them. Can't you laugh for me?"

Bleys looked her over. Bleeding and beaten, she had a hard time moving. His ring gleamed on her finger. The dragon under her foot turned bright red as her blood seeped between its scales. For some reason he tossed his sword like a knife, and it slammed through the old sign point first, impaling the wood to the ground.

"Thief," repeated Bleys. "I'll kill you, but you won't laugh about it."

"I know," said Tatianna quietly. Her bare feet bled from light scratches. "I know. I'm just tired, and I wanted you to laugh a little."

Bleys put a foot on the sign. It shifted underfoot. He drew his knife.

"Nothing for a thief," whispered Bleys.

He stood up again, and the boards shifted. The loose wooden hooks on the left side clattered. Even consumed by despair Tatianna tried to retreat, and her feet kicked uselessly at the black-eyed dragon, moving it. It's scales ran red with blood, and the sword of Bleys jutted out of one broken leg.

Bleys tried to take another step, and the sign shifted treacherously underfoot. He shook, waving his arms. Sure-footed Bleys, home on land or sea, master of a thousand places who had run through the City of Amber without ever stumbling, suddenly could not keep his feet as the sign shifted and slid. He flailed his arms and somehow dropped the bag of rings.

Tatianna kicked the sign, trying to make it knock him over. "It's just when you don't laugh, I remember what a bully you are. What all you princes are. All-powerful with infinite worlds at your fingers. I wish something bigger than you could make you suffer like I did. You take my ring and make me fall on glass, and I just wish something of shadow or the rings or born of the shadow of the rings could come that's bigger than you are! Meaner! More filled will malice than you and your princes when you treat the flesh of humans like so much meat!"

She kicked the sign again, banging her feet against it like a child having a temper tantrum. The gold ring on her finger gleamed, and the dragon bounced and shook underfoot.

Bleys tumbled and fell. He landed on his face, rolled over, and looked for his cashmere bag of rings. One remained on his finger.

"Laugh, damn you!" yelled Tatianna.

"No!" swore Bleys.

The sign laughed. Slow, deep, and powerful, it laughed in old evil and ancient malice. The sign chuckled with a voice like a dying smoker, nearly consumed with cancer and still gasping in ancient fury. Emerging from the sign of the Dragon, the beast laughed.

Bleys rolled away, and the wingless black dragon with scales of blood and a royal sword of Amber in its arm climbed from the old sign. It slithered out of worm-eaten wood turned black with ancient rot and mildew, and towered over The Pipes like an insult to the sky.

Bleys was neither stupid nor paralyzed. He did not look the dragon in the eye, but leaped to his feet and ran. The dragon pursued him, and the soil of Amber turned dead and black where it tread.

Tatianna slumped and lost consciousness. Like Captain Armist she lay bleeding. But unlike the captain, for her help came swiftly.

Random and Gerard came riding on horseback, and Fiona rode with them. Benedict came too. His good arm was bandaged into a stump, like Gerard's left hand, but the Weapons Master of Amber rode with hints of pressure between his knees. Caine was there as well, cold eyed and suspicious. Even Florimel rode with them, blond, beautiful, and at the king's side. They rounded the tavern and found Tatianna, bleeding on a plain board.

King Random the First, Son of Oberon, King of Amber, Master of Everything, Lord of the Pattern and Conqueror of Chaos, demanded, "The hell is going on here?" He was a wiry little man with straw-colored hair and a crown hanging partway out of his saddlebag. It had been clipped down to keep it from falling out.

"Oh, save me, my king," whispered Tatianna and fell over. Her sheet fell, and bloodstains dripped down her naked flesh.

"Well, yes, but...someone get her and cover her up!" yelled the king.

Fiona and Gerard did, swinging out of saddles and converging on the injured woman. Benedict trotted a few yards forward, paused the horse, and leaned over, staring at a black trail of blighted soil that wound down the hills of Kolvir toward the forest of Arden.

"It went this way," he announced. "It came from her and went this way."

"Then definitely bring her with us," added Random. "What's that?"

He pointed at a small bag in the weeds. Caine got it.

"Rings," replied the ship-captain and dumped them onto his hand. He handed one to Random and looked at one himself.

"Fiona, how bad is she?" asked Random.

Fiona had already completed her triage assessment. "Bad. She's lost a lot of blood, and she's from shadow. I don't have anything that will match her in the castle."

"Well, she's bleeding at the spot a dragon appeared, so we don't want her dead. Can you get her to a decent medic in shadow?"

"Easily. Before she dies? Possibly."

"Do it. Take Gerard. Gerard, if anything tries to happen to them, stop it. Stop it hard and with great finality."

Gerard nodded. "Yes, Random. Come Fiona. I think we've done this before."

"Be nice," ordered the redheaded princess. They began talking swiftly of shadow and how to carry Tatianna without moving her.

"May I see one of those?" asked Flora to Caine.

He grunted and handed her a ring. Like Random, she examined it.

"Heading toward Arden!" yelled Benedict, pointing his stump.

Far away down the hill they saw it, the scaled wyrm chasing Bleys towards the forest. It moved like a freight train on a twisted railroad. If the impalement of one arm slowed it down, its true speed would be terrifying. Before it ran a read-headed figure in robes of orange, unable to get away, but fast enough that the wyrm couldn't catch up.

"Let's go! No more brothers die!" yelled Random, and put his heels to his horse. Benedict was already away, and Flora matched the king's pace, at his side and just a little behind. Caine leaped into the saddle without using the stirrups and rode hard in pursuit.

Gerard, Fiona, and Tatianna were left behind.

"Where do you want to go?" asked Gerard.

"I have a shadow nearby. Magic can't work there, but wounds heal quickly. Can you carry that?"

"Easily, but if I carry it alone, I'll dump her. You have to get you side," replied Gerard.

"Ugh," said Fiona, and the two of them walked around the corner, facing each other over Tatianna's body on the blank signboard. Fiona's two hands made a triangle with Gerard's one. They passed the edge of the tavern and did not come around the far side.

#

Thundering in the vale of Garnath rode four scions of Amber. Their horses wore barding, and the princes carried spears. A trail of dead grass lead the way, shadowed by trees with withered limbs and dead leaves. Corpses of rabbits slumped in the mouths of their burrows, and sparrows fell out of the air. Benedict noted constrictors emerging from the underbrush to scavenge the dead. He said nothing but rode on.

They burst from cover into a wide glade, for there Bleys had turned to stand against the dragon. On the east, toward the sea, a bit of river cut into the glade and had created an oxbow pond, an arch of still, brackish water that mirrored the curve of the river itself. On the west grew tall elms and thick yew. Shrubs and young trees covered most of the ground, but here and there old, burned stumps and the spires of charred pines stuck out of low foliage.

Bleys had taken position on top of a fallen giant, a redwood of immense side and girth that ended in the root cluster. The roots themselves implied no sense of depth, and lacked a taproot. They spread out in what would have been shallow depth. On top of these stood Bleys, cackling and laughing as Tatianna had said, and before him reared the blood-scaled dragon, breathing acrid fumes.

"Distract it," judged Benedict.

"Get 'im!" yelled Random and crouched his spear.

Random, Caine, and Flora put heels to their beasts and charged, forming a wedge with Random at the point. All three leaned forward over their lances. Caine lost his hat in an instant, and it shot off his head like it was tied to the trees by invisible line. Flora's blond hair streamed. Benedict stopped his horse and turned it sideways with his knees, one arm ending in a stump and the other bandaged until it might as well have been. The horse had no reins.

The dragon's name was Spiat, and it had been whispering to Bleys before it ate him. When his brothers arrived, he stood initially transfixed, and did not move. The dragon did. No sooner did the other Amberites appear and charge than the dragon whirled. It could move like a sidewinder and threw loops of itself away from the dashing horses. Random did not pursue, but put himself between Bleys and the beast, and Flora stayed with him. Caine advanced, and the dragon retreated.

"Bleys, how are you?" asked Random, not looking backwards. He lifted his spear, but kept the horses flanks to his brother so he could watch the dragon.

"What?" asked Bleys.

"Bleys! Wake up! How are you?"

"What?" said Bleys again.

Spait moved sideways, and found itself against the oxbow pond. This old course of the river was far deeper than it looked. Reed and root grew in from the side, but the fires of the war had killed the plants that could grow deeply. Into the pond slithered Spait, and his head initially disappeared. Caine trotted sideways, and Spait's long snout emerged. The wyrm's eyes were black, without pupil or iris.

"Are you bewitched?" demanded Random. "And where's Julian? Shouldn't he be out here?"

"Julian?" repeated Bleys. "Julian's the whole problem!"

Random turned around. "He is? Why?"

"Julian's the one who summoned the girl! Spait told me that. He's the one who brought her, and she summoned— YOU STOLE MY RING!"

He screamed like madness: uneven, broken, furious. Random flinched back, and Flora sideways so she could see him. Even Caine whirled around.

Bleys stared at them, and his eyes burned. His head flushed and eyes bulged. "You all have them! You're in it with the dragon! You've stolen my rings!"

"What the hell are you talking about?" asked Random.

"Thieves!" screamed Bleys. "Thieves! Thieves! Thieves!"

He screamed again and again, and each shout echoed more shrilly than the last. As he yelled he faded, and the other princes of Amber felt like they were seeing him from an immense distance. Bleys retreated. He didn't shrink in size, but suddenly he was farther away than before. The roots he stood on were lost in darkness though the sun still rose. Flame-haired Bleys stood at the center of darkness and screamed, "Thieves! Thieves! Thieves!" until he was gone.

Random said something interrogatory involving procreation.

Caine heard laughter and whirled, but it was the dragon, lunging over the narrow bank between the pond and the river. Chuckling, Spait crested the bank and sank underwater with hardly a ripple.

A horn sounded brassy and challenging, and soon thereafter Julian appeared in brilliant mail. With him loped scores of Storm hounds, and hawks circled above.

"Too late, brother," said Random like it was a curse. "Too late.

Chapter 8: The Forest of Arden

"Go after it!" yelled Random to Caine, waving at the receding dragon. Tall Caine in black and green stared imperiously at his little brother for a moment, but the king had already turned to the others.

"Julian, can you follow Bleys?" asked Random.

"If he's left Arden—" replied Julian when Benedict cut him off.

"Of course he has. Can you do it?" their eldest brother asked.

Julian considered him with an expression like the face of murder. "How do you expect me to track him? Do you see boot prints?"

Random continued swearing, ending with, "Help Caine track the dragon. If it's a dumb beast, kill it. If it's a menace to Amber, kill it. Otherwise find out what it was doing in the city and where it came from."

Turning away from the two sons of Rilga, he took a small deck of tarot cards from his pocket and shuffled out Fiona. Connection came almost immediately.

"How is she?" asked Random.

"She's been sedated and is currently receiving intravenous fluids. It's been fourteen hours here. We're not out of danger, but she lives."

Around his half-sister's head, Random could see white walls and low, uncomfortable chairs. A sign beside her indicated Receiving was down a hall to the left, and Out-Patient Services was around the corner. Fiona sat with her hands folded, and an old magazine in her lap. The title read, "Women in Modern Art."

"She went through a window, so that's to be expected," admitted Random.

"Random, she's wearing a ring."

The king paused. "That's nice?" he said, accenting it like a question.

Fiona looked displeased. "Random, her ring came from the shadow of Cirdan the Shipwright, from which we recently returned. Nine wraiths attacked us and were slain. Bleys took their rings. That was the fight where Gerard and Benedict got injured. Speaking of Gerard, he's here and getting examined for his hand. He's exhibiting signs of leprosy without showing any pathogen, which is downright odd. But the girl is wearing one of the Nine rings. Bleys said he was going to throw them into the sea. How is that possible?"

"About Bleys, you know that dragon? It was chasing him. We found them before he came to harm, but he started screaming something about thieves and disappeared. He vanished like Brand used to do, Fiona. How did he do that?"

"He can't. Neither he or I went through the living trump ritual."

"He did."

Fiona had long ago developed the sexy stare and used it instead of a blank expression when she was thinking. Her lips pursed artfully, and her face smoothed. Random hated it. He wasn't pleased to see her doing it now.

She asked, "Was he wearing a ring?"

"Probably. You know your brother. He likes flashy things."

Random glanced down. He wore Vaille's ring on his left hand, and his right thumb didn't either. He couldn't see his right fingers because they were behind the trump, a large card more than twice the area of a playing card.

He added, "I can ask the others."

"Please do."

"Why don't you come through? We need to find Bleys, and while I understand he can't do what he just did, he did it anyway."

"I can do that if you want," said Fiona. Random mouthed, 'but' even as she said it. "But time here flows faster—"

"It will be fine. You can return," and Random offered his hand.

In shadow, Fiona rose in the waiting room and reached into the air before her. She stepped and disappeared, and her magazine fell to the ground.

Fiona stepped into Arden, took Random's other hand, and flipped them both over. His wedding ring was simple and elegant, gold with a single piece of jade. It had worn a spot on his finger, and his hands were tanned around it. On Random's right hand he wore an even less adorned ring about his ring finger. It was a plain gold band with no ornamentation at all.

"It's lovely," said Fiona. "Where did you get this?"

He stared into space for a moment before saying, "I don't remember. Shadow?"

"It's very nice." Fiona released his hand.

She turned around and saw Benedict and Florimel. The other brothers had already gone. Fiona walked directly to Benedict and said, "Gerard is being investigated for loss of feeling in his arm. No results are in, but they're looking at his hand."

Benedict nodded. "I'll ask him about it."

"Certainly." Fiona turned to Flora, smiled warmly, and took her hand. Without a change in expression, she flipped Florimel's hand over and revealed a small, unadorned gold ring around her right middle finger.

"It's lovely dear. And you weren't wearing it when we set out this morning," said Fiona.

"Is this an elaborate way to ask to borrow it, sister dear?" asked Flora.

"Oh God, no."

"This is nice and all," interrupted Random. "But I still want to know where Bleys went."

"And I tried to tell you I don't know, and I can't find out easily."

"Try harder," instructed Benedict.

Fiona turned to him with a beautiful smile. She looked over his shoulder. "Where did he disappear?"

"On top of the redwood. Where the root's spread," said Random.

Fiona hiked up her skirts and leaped up the tree, skipping from branch to trunk. Ridges in the bark formed steps under her feet, and on top, she walked to the root-mass and sat down. She pulled out her own deck of trumps and started casting fortunes. Benedict joined her and stood watching with his bandaged arm folded before him.

Fiona drew and cast The Tower five times.

#

The brothers Caine and Julian had left before Fiona arrived. Putting his hounds to the chase, Julian rode great Morgenstern while his hawks flew above, and Caine rode Flow, one of the stable yard animals. They settled quickly into an old argument as the hounds split up to watch both sides of the river, heading downstream towards the ocean.

"You need to get your own horse, Caine," said Julian, watching the river surface for indications of particular depth. The hawks circled above.

"They're useless animals. Big, dumb, and useless on a ship. Don't we need to go upstream?"

"No. This is the Mellengroth. It shoals not half a mile upstream of here, and a dragon wouldn't be able to cross without surfacing. I came from that direction, and the hounds didn't scent. They'd hit on a dragon."

"Is it in the river?" asked Caine.

"Not here. There are some pools up ahead it could hide in. How big did you say it was?"

"Ten to twelve feet around the breast, a hundred feet long. Most of that is tail. It's built like a serpent with four legs. No wings. One of the legs has Bleys's sword in it, and I didn't see the beast run with it."

"If it's that size we can be sure it's not here," repeated Julian. "But we'll need to check the pools up ahead. Any sign it had gills?"

"Couldn't tell," admitted Caine.

Julian nodded.

"Here," said Caine, giving Julian something.

Julian took it curiously in gauntleted fingers. It was a small ring, gold and unmarked.

He looked over.

"We found them earlier. I have three more. Flora and Random each took one."

"I'm not much for jewelry," said Julian, and Caine shrugged.

"Do with it as you will. Throw it in the river if you want. I won't be offended."

Testing him, Julian did, and it plopped into a standing ripple. Caine laughed, and they kept riding.

#

While Fiona glared at her trumps, Random asked Benedict of Forochet. The eldest brother had told the king this before, but with a special emphasis on the nine wraiths, Benedict repeated himself. He had gotten to the point where he, Bleys, and Gerard had slain all nine of them when Fiona interrupted.

"No, you slew eight," she said.

For a moment Benedict regarded her. "They were all pretty dead," he said.

"Correct. There was one Bleys fought who did not immediately die. I struck him with a word of power from the mountainside," she said.

"And what material difference does that make?" asked Benedict. "Do you want a sticker for helping?"

Fiona looked up and regarded him with a warm, gentle smile. "Aside from matters of veracity, the low and dumb tactics might interest you. The wraith was manipulating outcomes. Bleys inflicted two mortal wounds while I watched, yet the ringbearer was unharmed. It manipulated shadow, dear Benedict. It was shadow, and it manipulated it like we do."

"Yes, you are aware of evil forces that manipulate shadows," agreed Benedict.

"And unlike the Courts of Chaos where you successfully executed the plan of our father, in Forochet that these forces of shadow defeated you," replied Fiona.

"Both of you— God damn, people." Random stroked his face. "Fiona, do you think the wraiths could travel through shadow?"

"I don't know. They didn't; they only controlled themselves," she replied.

Random sighed and shuffled out another trump. After staring at it for a while without saying anything, he put it away.

"I tried," said Fiona. "While I was trying to figure out where he went."

"So we don't know where he is, we don't know what happened to him, he's acting like a loony, and you think someone else in shadow has our own power?" demanded Random.

Fiona raised a hand. "Everything but that last part. I don't think the rings let one traverse shadow, merely control it within themselves."

"There is a place where shadow cannot go," said Benedict. "We keep it in the basement."

All three, Random, Fiona, and otherwise silent Flora, looked at him.

Benedict continued, "I have been thinking I need to walk the Pattern anyway. I want to speak with Gerard and see how he does, but I do not believe medicine of shadow will cure him. You imply these rings can manipulate shadows over themselves? Let us eliminate that."

Random thought for a while before nodding. He turned to Flora and held out his hand. "Give it up, or be prepared to walk the Pattern with it yourself."

Without speaking she dropped the ring on his palm. Random took off the one he wore and handed them both to Benedict. "I'll walk you down. Now is as good a time as any."

The tall Amberite nodded.

"Fiona, go to shadow and get whatever ring our witness wears. If she's awake, bring her too. Benedict, walk with her. You can speak with Gerard."

And Fiona nodded. She stood up, slapped fragments of bark off her hands, and descended the fallen tree-trunk with far more care than she'd scampered up. Benedict stepped from branch to branch as if walking across a wide field. The two of them walked around the base of the tree where the root-structure had been ripped from the soil by the redwood's falling. They did not emerge from the other side.

Random trumped Caine. "Caine, I need those rings. We're going to purge them in the pattern."

"Are you going to destroy them?" asked Caine.

"No. I'll give them back if you want. But we're going to wipe them with the Pattern to be sure they don't have any evil influences."

"As you will," and Caine handed him a small bag. With a bit of reluctance he also took the ring from his finger and gave that to Random as well. The king thanked him and broke contact.

Random now carried four rings in the little cashmere bag in his pocket.

Chapter 9: The River Mellengroth in Arden

Summary:

Renamed from 'The Forest of Arden' to avoid confusion with chapter 8.

Before surrendering the rings to Random, two of the sons of Rilga rode through Arden and talked as they often had before. Julian had already discarded one into the river, and though Caine didn't show it, he was surprised again to see how lackadaisically Julian hunted before the quarry had been spotted. Julian hummed. On either side of the river great packs of dogs sniffled through the underbrush, throwing branches aside. Fallen trees posed no problems; the hounds lifted and dragged burned trunks of old pines like they were nothing. The trees often broke, but the hounds merely dragged them about in more pieces. Sometimes the Stormhounds bayed to their comrades across the Mellengroth, who bayed back excitedly, but the calling of dogs dwindled when they didn't find their quarry. They sniffed and searched the steep banks of the river, finding nothing.

Likewise Julian's hawks circled, some high, some low, and often sailed so close to the rippled surface of the fast moving river that their wingtips cast dovetails of spray. They perched, called, and only once did Caine see one dive.

Without looking Julian said, "Fish."

Caine waited, and the bird emerged with a silver-scaled perch. It ate on the bank, and a few others, brown-feathered with black bands, joined it for a meal.

If the woodsman guided mighty Morgenstern with the reins, Caine didn't see it. The sailor didn't even think Julian used his knees. The horse, big enough that Caine's head was level with Julian's stomach, seemed to know his own pace and followed the dogs. His eyes were black, his mane white, and Flow seemed skittish beside him.

At the first set of deep pools Julian dismounted and explored the depths with a silver lance. The hounds did not stop and searched in widening circles. Julian explored the south bank of the river and remounted to cross north, letting Morgenstern find a pathway through rapids. On the far side he probed the depths again and returned.

"That's something to keep in mind," said Julian, rejoining Caine. "That ford, there? The water pulls sediment as it lifts over those rocks, so the darkened patches of the river look deeper than they are. I don't know if our brothers know you can cross there."

Caine nodded. "I forget some times how well you know this place."

Julian shrugged. "I live here. I go to Amber but live here. The rest of you live in Amber and visit shadow. Only Llewella and I have truly left."

"What about Martin and Merlin?" asked Caine.

Julian snorted. "Hardly even of the blood, and just enough of Oberon in them to be rightfully traitors. Random may associate with such ilk. It's a sign of weakness."

"And yet the Unicorn gave him the Jewel," replied Caine.

Julian halted like a stick had been jammed through his bike spokes. Twice he attempted to reply, and each time ground to halt with involuntary muscle twitches moving his face. His eyes widened and squinted; his cheeks tightened to open his mouth, but that didn't come. Julian was still groping for an answer when Caine continued.

"Random's also the only one of us who's married. To a blind girl. Odd, isn't it? She's some Rebma bloodline."

"His marriage means nothing," said Julian, struggling.

"Oberon was married many times," said Caine as if he was agreeing with his brother. "Ruled Amber for years. Random got married, and the Unicorn gave him the Jewel and throne. I don't think any of the rest of us ever did, even in jest. Given what I see of my sailors, I'd expect one of us, Gerard or Corwin maybe, to have gotten drunk and put a ring on a stripper at least once."

He added like he was thinking out loud, "Probably Gerard. The fleet remoras would love him: big, powerful, stupid."

"You're not speaking highly of the institution," said Julian with his cheeks pursed together.

"I'm not a fan of it. I'm also not the King of Amber."

"Maybe you're just not a fan of women."

If Julian had sought to get a reaction, he failed. Caine rode on, and the only energy he expended was keeping his horse pointed in the right direction.

"Where are you going?" demanded Julian. "You've got something on your mind."

"One hundred percent of my kin who have been married have been the kings of Amber. If that insane story from insane Dworkin is accepted, then the father of the Pattern and sire of us all was never king of Amber. He mounted the unicorn, wrote the Pattern, and never wore a crown. But he never married.

"Random is nothing, nothing!" —he paused– "But King of Amber, and the only thing that little shit has ever done is put a ring on some remora from Rebma," yelled Caine, and echoes of his words fell away into the trees and river.

When Julian did reply, it was a cautiously mild statement. "You speak like being unmarried is keeping you from the throne."

"No, no," said Caine. He sighed. "That merely bothers me. I don't like Random, and I don't like this notion you get married or you're gay. I understand continuation of the bloodline, but there's quite a few of us, so I don't think Oberon's lineage is in danger."

He sighed again. "In honesty, I'm disappointed our trip to Cirdan the Shipwright failed. More than half our navy was destroyed when Corwin the idiot tried to take Amber, and the shipyards, both ours and our allies', will not replenish our fleets for a century. It takes between ten and twenty years to lay a keel if you include all the planning, and half the shipbuilders in Amber are lazy fools, useless, and good only for skimming a bid for two percent. I'd heard great things about Cirdan. In the way rumors can move even through shadow, he was always spoken of as an artisan.

"Ships can be had, and when we're done here, I'll sail through shadow for an armada at anchor, waiting to be found. But artists matter. A route to this Cirdan would bring vessels worthy of Amber to the navy when I'm away.

"Corwin never thought about that. Bleys never thought about that. They were fools. You can find anything in shadow if you go looking, but having a supply of it come to Amber by itself makes the True City great."

Caine looked at Julian. "What about you? Most of your forest is burned. Do you want to find trees from shadow?"

Julian waved a hand. "Forests burn down. Arden's burned before and will burn again. One tree's about the same as another; it's the growing individual I care about. I have nothing but time."

Caine received a trump then and surrendered the bag of rings and the one he wore to the king. Somehow he forgot to mention the one cast into the Mellengroth.

Ahead one of the dogs yipped. To Caine it was no different than the other thousand yips a pack of hounds makes every half hour, but Julian waved a hand for silence. The other dogs yipped back. Caine waited. No great rush of baying erupted, just yips and barks. Julian frowned.

"Let's go see what they found."

Forward the trees thickened, and to Caine Arden seemed to grow dark. More and more burned hulks of ancient growth stood as testaments to the fires that had ripped through Garnath during the Patternfall war. These black skeletons defied moss and mold, and reached with scaly branches into their living brethren around them. The living drew back from the dead.

The pack of Stormhounds had broken into three basic groups, but Caine struggled to guess proportions. Maybe half of the total ranged the far bank of the Mellengroth, the north, and of the left, a bunch stayed close to Julian. A bigger bunch had gone ahead, and these set up the yipping. As the brothers rode along, the dogs who stayed with them ran forward to the rest of the pack, sometimes baying, but after joining them would stop. Some ran back, and these hid behind Morgenstern's hooves and whined. Their ears sagged; their tails drooped.

Julian's hawks dropped, one by one, and clustered on the branches of a great dead elm. For a moment Julian stared at them, and Caine had the oddest impression his brother was glaring at the birds. Julian went so far as to draw his horn and blow. A faint, quickly smothered, yelping went up from the hounds, but the raptors didn't move. They hid their heads under their wings and shook on the leafless branches.

Julian tightened his gloves and adjusted straps on the mail around his waist. Caine loosened his sword in its sheath. With his horn hanging and the lance in his hand, Julian took Morgenstern's reins from where they hung on the saddle bow and lead the way forward.

The woods darkened, and even the living trees looked black. A spreading oak cast a shadow over the brothers, but before them they spotted bright daylight. As they rode, clouds passed overhead. By the time they got to the edge of the tree's shadow, a thick nimbus cloud turned the bright sun to shade, and they rode into darker shadow from there. Behind them the sunlight returned and made their forward path among the pines seem darker. Caine noted an abundance of beetles and centipedes on the ground, and wondered if this was normal for the woods. If it was, it was why he preferred ships.

Forward still more, and they found dogs whining, hiding, and soiling themselves in fear. They passed the last line of trees to emerge onto the riverbank.

Here the Mellengroth had dug a circular lagoon with high rocky banks. The river tumbled down a set of step rapids, but the foam died upon hitting the pool. Instead thick lilies and lily pads covered the surface with tiny ferns between them, so thick the water itself was nothing more than a black field under the green. Wasps, spiders, and snakes nested around the clearing. For a moment Caine thought the place had somehow managed to catch a snow until he realized that only spiderwebs dusted the water plants, and fat cocoons dotted the surface of the lake. Some of them still struggled with spider-prey.

Julian looked at the river for a long while before saying, "This was not like this before."

Sticking out of a floating log in the dead center of the mere rose a gold-handled sword. Spiders were already hard at work on it, but Caine recognized it anyway. Bleys had carried it that morning, and he'd seen it in the dragon later.

Caine nudged his brother and pointed. Julian nodded.

"Good morning, my lords, Princes of Amber!" whispered a voice without a source, emanating from the air or water or earth underfoot. "Sons of Oberon, Lords of Order, Great and Glorious of Amber, true North Star for all Creation!"

The voice was so deadly serious that Caine at once thought it was laughing at him. He squinted his eyes and waited.

"Yes," agreed Julian, nodding.

"Please bear my deepest regards to your king," whispered the lake itself.

Caine did not react but Julian went white. The bugs scuttled underfoot, and one touched Morgenstern. A great rat-eating centipede brushed the white horse's hoof with long pincers. Morgenstern killed it with a stomp, leaving its fore and aft body segments sticking up from the hole like a splash of endoskeleton.

"I'll let him know," said Julian.

"Tell me, Lords of Amber, what bidding of his brings you here to see me?"

"Show yourself, wyrm. Rise," said Caine.

After he spoke the lake remained quiet save the clicking of bugs and the buzz of their wings. The floating log with Bleys's sword suddenly turned and sank, jerking webs and lilies after it. More rushed in, and scattered greenery over the black water until it was as before. Spiders set to dusting it white.

Julian nudged Caine and pointed. A long disturbance pushed the pond-life and vanished. Caine nodded and pointed to the other side of the black mere. Another floating log had arisen, and it wore wide ferns like a hat.

"Hello, wyrm," said Julian.

The log rose further, streaming water and dirty pond creepers, hanging roots from surface flowers, and muck. It rose entire, and underneath the water fell in rivulets. Then the pong bulged and the dragon's bottom jaw rose to meet the top. Dead shark-eyes blinked.

"Hello, Lords of Amber," whispered the dragon, and the spiders fled its presence.

Caine looked down. The centipedes had gone underground, and the wasps hid in their paper hives. Beetles climbed dead trees and found shelter in crevice and bore holes. None of Julian's dogs had entered this ring of foliage, and even the hawks stayed away from overhead. A malignant weight pressed down on the lake and its environs. It pushed against Caine like foul will. It reminded him of a trump which sough contact when he had blocked his mind. Around the edges of his mental shield he felt skittering anxiety that came before dread, and knew that to pay attention to them would only open the door. Instead he looked at the dragon. Fear tried to get around his shields like the claws of dirty beasts, and he thought of the centipede pincers under Morgenstern's hoof. Those, he realized, were still waving and wiggling unnaturally.

"I am Spait," said the dragon. "And honored to meet you. Are you Julian the Great, Lord of Arden, rider of Dread Morgenstern, Master of the Stormhounds, and Keeper of the Pathways to Amber, and Caine?"

#

Julian knew Caine would not let himself be baited so; not icy composured Caine. He didn't even look sideways, and therefore did not see Caine's nostrils flare, his eyes widen, and sturdy but bland Flow shift in place.

After all, thought Julian, this is Caine. He's not going to let some semi-articulate lizard get to him.

Julian said, "Lizard, shut up. Come out of the pond if you can speak for yourself."

"Oh, Julian, Great and Mighty, I am not so great as you. I will remain here, out of range of your terrible spear, unless you cast it aside—"

"No, you dumb lizard!" snapped Julian. "Don't be stupid. Caine, the dragon wants to eat us, and I think it thinks it's being clever."

Caine stared at him for several seconds before saying, in an utterly mundane tone of voice, "Yes. Let's kill it."

It was impossible to tell the focus of Spait's black, featureless eyes, but Julian thought it likely the dragon was looking between the two of them. The vile beasts of the forest remained hidden. They had their uses, but none in this quantity and not so many above ground. A number of them should be preying on each other, and they weren't doing that.

The easiest thing to do, thought Julian, would be damn the river upstream. He could then ride in and put a lance through the wyrm. This thing calling itself Spait needed killing.

"Oh, peace, gentle Lords of Amber, great ones of the world. Perhaps my own powers can give you something of worth, something that will restrain your hand," the thing Spait said.

Julian ignored him. The rapids flowed fast but shallow. First he'd need a coffer dam across the falls, and that would only take a day or so. Large trees could be felled and floated downstream by the river. East of here the river widened and grew shallow, and hounds or hunters would notice the dragon leaving.

Spait continued, "Let me tell you of mallorn trees, the greatest foliage of Middle Earth. Their leaves turn gold in autumn but do not fall until spring, when new life comes forth. Mighty Julian, will they not make Arden great and glorious?"

Julian paused in contemplation of hunting and damming. Something in him hungered for gold-boughed trees in a way he had never felt before, and called to him of high forests along ridges. Spait's words had a power Julian had never felt before, a power of images poured directly into his mind, and Julian saw forests of gold with houses wrapped around trees. He saw massive cities held in white branches, and tiny living spaces, nothing more than platforms and windscreens, built on the crests of gold-wearing trees. He saw gold also in the hair of the woodsmen, and their long robes and gentle movements. Something great and old spoke to him in that forest, and a named appeared in his mind. Loth Lorien, the forest of mallorn.

"You see them now," whispered sibilant Spait. "You see Loth Lorien and the elves. These were Cirdan Shipwright's people. Do you see the woods? He crafted ships beyond compare, ships of mallorn, a white wood, and from it made the greatest vessels of Middle Earth. I can tell you, Caine of the Sea, how to get Cirdan's ships and his forests, and if you spare my life, I will tell you something even greater. I will tell you of the White Tree of the Lineage of Nimloth, the trees of the great shipbuilders of Númenor. I can tell you of a seedling."

Surreptitiously Julian glanced over at Caine and saw him staring hungrily at the dragon.

"These mallorn trees?" asked Caine. "Cirdan used them for his ships?"

"Yes," said Spait. "They are why his ships were beyond compare. Worthy of Amber."

"This White Tree, Nimloth. You know where a seedling is?" asked Julian.

"Oh, yes," said Spait.

In eerie unison the princes Caine and Julian leaned forward and asked, "Where?"

"Middle Earth, Lords of Amber. Middle Earth under the reign of Mairon the Wise, King of Gondor."

Chapter 10: Amber

Obrecht watched beetles scavenge old cow droppings while he hid. Brown-shelled with black feelers, they bored small holes in the dairy-yard fence and rolled in marbles of dung. Obrecht tried to stay focused on the road, but the beetles would crawl on him with their filthy feet. Then he shimmied and danced while swatting the little bugs and tried to move as little as possible. The beetles ignored him but wouldn't avoid him, and he yanked his attention from the Forest of Arden to dung beetles and back.

He'd missed the dragon appearing, a feat he didn't understand himself, but had seen it scuttling down the hillside and entering the woods. He'd seen the king and his brothers and sister ride after it, and heard the brassy challenge of Julian's horn. He waited, and no one emerged. Beetles rolled cow-shit over his legs, and he smacked and swatted until an army could have marched from Garnath to Castle Amber unseen.

Paranoia only has to pay off once, thought Obrecht, and he crept over the back wall of the cow-pasture. The wall was old stone, waist high at best and knee-night mostly. It served to deter cows not people, and it did little for him. The thief slipped away.

This place called itself Greentown, and it existed within the City of Amber by virtue of clinging to Kolvir. Nowhere did Greentown touch metropolis, but if the roads didn't dead-end in some farm or factory, they wound about the hillside until drawn into the great thoroughfares of Amber. People just seemed to appear, spawned from the ether with their own backstories. Obrecht walked downhill on an empty road, and the first man he saw was yelling angrily at a bird with a hat. Obrecht assumed there was a reason.

Back down by port, he stopped to think again. Bleys hadn't seen Obrecht's face, hopefully, and he hadn't given chase. I won't take risks with the Princes of Amber, he decided, but after an hour of hiding, Obrecht thought he was clear. He didn't know where Tatianna was.

He hiked southward along the coast, found a deserted place to wash in the ocean, and sat in the sun while he and his clothing dried. He didn't return to his apartment. He had no shoes or money. The sun shone warm, the waves beat eternal, and the thief from Amber allowed the wind to tug his hair. Waves beat rocks twenty feet below him, and Obrecht stared across the sea to a homeland that wasn't in this world. He couldn't get there from here. He didn't notice when he started twisting the ring on his finger.

Nor did he hear footsteps, for there were none. Bleys wasn't there, and then he was and yanked Obrecht off the ground to dangle in the air over the ocean, feet kicking at nothing. The prince spun his round in one hand to face him.

"Hello, thief," said Bleys with eyes narrow and smile wide.

Obrecht said nothing. He gurgled, trying to swallow around Bleys' hand. All his weight rested on his jaw, and pressure on the nerves screamed up through his spine. He felt consciousness waver. With both hands he grabbed the red-haired prince's one wrist and heaved, trying to get his head up.

Bleys looked at Obrecht's fingers and noted which one wore the ring. He smiled at the thief again, took his hand, and twisted Obrecht's pinky finger off before dropping him to bounce against rock and splash into the ocean.

A moment later the prince threw the ripped finger down after him, and Bleys wore two rings of Middle Earth.

Bleys strode from rock to sea-shore in one step, twenty feet down and into a sucking tide that pulled his feet. Obrecht had landed on his shoulder and held his bleeding hand, crying. Fine leather boots splashed water in his face.

"Nine rings there were, but the bag had six. You wore one, your wench a second. There is another. Thief, listen to me. I used to laugh because laughter infects like a disease, so listen thief. Listen to me. There is another ring.

"I want you to know something. I want the knowledge to infect you. I want you to incubate a mind infection of old Dworkin's lore. The curse is a skill, thief. Corwin's curse unleashed the Courts of Chaos upon us, and Eric mired them in bickering. Eric did what he thought was best for Amber, but Corwin was a fool. The curse isn't a club, thief. It's a syringe, and Corwin used it to inject his own poison into the blood of Amber, which is the world. Listen, thief," demanded Bleys and grabbed Obrecht with one hand, yanking him upright. Two glittering rings shown on Bleys's fingers, pressing into the flesh of his throat, but the prince held the thief's shirt with his other hand. He wanted Obrecht to listen.

"Thief! Feel it. Feel the yearn for it. The ring, thief. Feel how much I want it, shadow-child. Thing. Image. The blood of Amber inflicts you with this yearn. There is another ring, thief. Desire it until my curse is your madness, and let you fever dreams be of my ring. Sweat with how bad you want it. Ache for it. Burn for it. Demand it. Thief. There is another ring. And I curse you with my own infection. Crave that ring, thief."

And as he spoke, clutching Obrecht's face and tilting his head towards the red-faced prince of Amber, Obrecht saw something emerge from Bleys's mouth like a black fume. It was between a gas and a shadow, oily, thick, and yet it floated on air. It reached out of Bleys's mouth while he spoke, drifted, waited. The fume reached for Obrecht.

"Breathe it, thief! Inhale my curse!" and Bleys screamed at him, squeezing until Obrecht's jaw shattered. The human tried to scream, and the gas filled his mouth. He tasted oil and bitterness. He felt dirty, wet air. It forced its way in, clawed into his mouth, fouled his teeth and throat, and squirmed down his neck, jiggling and squiggling as it entered him.

"The ring, thief. The ring," said Bleys and dropped Obrecht.

The man who had worked Amber's docks hit the rocks and screamed, then gagged. His jaw shrieked in pain. His side throbbed. His finger had been ripped off. Obrecht convulsed and cried, and when he finally mastered himself, Bleys was gone.

Obrecht lay still in agony. His insides writhed. He was ruined, his face broken, his hand destroyed, his body worthless. He would die. Nothing could save him now.

Of course, Obrecht knew of someone else who had lived beyond any possibility of survival. Left bleeding in an alley, the captain Armist with her body stabbed and organs penetrated, she had lived for hours. Last Obrecht had heard, she had survived.

And from Armist he had first stolen the rings.

There was one more.

His insides squirmed, and the unnatural feeling of terrible movement within horrified him. It compelled him up. Salt burned his wounds. Rocks scraped his bare feet. Obrecht climbed to the roadway and walked back to Amber.

#

In a cavern under the Castle of Amber, scions of Oberon gathered to watch one of their own do something all of them had done before yet remained the one thing they unilaterally feared. Gerard and Benedict spoke in the corner as the bigger one took off his cloak and jacket. Random stood nearby, and took Gerard's clothing as the son of Rilga removed it. Benedict told Gerard to be wary, talking about what he should do if the rings attempted to attack him The Master of Arms of Amber mentioned where the rings could be discarded safely and where the footing would be secure if they tried to wrap illusions around Gerard's feet.

"It shouldn't be possible. The sparks that rise when you walk the Pattern should burn any shred of illusion away. But if they don't, and you look here, we can guide you with lanterns," said Benedict.

"And I'll be watching through the Jewel," said Random.

"Yes, yes," muttered Gerard.

"Did you eat enough breakfast?" demanded Vialle, poking him in his big belly. "But not too much? Are you hungry? Before you go, would you like a snack?"

"Remember this is the work of Dworkin and Oberon, and no power of shadow can interfere with you," repeated Benedict.

"I'm going to put some snacks in your pouch. There's fish jerky in here and some water," said Vialle.

Random didn't laugh. He smiled gently, an odd expression of tolerance wrapped in deep affection that looked unnatural by the blue glow of the Pattern of Amber. Gerard pushed them away, firmly with Benedict to show the tall, lanky man that his younger brother had power of his own. He shoved Random casually with something like competition. He tried not to knock Vialle over as she stuffed food in his belt pouch. The king smiled again and pulled Vialle away to stand beside him.

"They're in there," Vialle assured Gerard.

The big man nodded. Random handed him the small cashmere bag, and Gerard wrapped it in his sleeve, forming a band of fabric between his left bicep and shoulder. Nodding to Benedict, he walked to the start of the pattern, breathed, and waved his left arm, bandaged in gray felt until it looked like a stump. Benedict saluted with his own left, equally wrapped. Gerard put foot to the Pattern, and within his first three steps sparks rose about his ankles.

#

In another part of Castle Amber Fiona lead Tatianna into a high room in a tower overlooking the sea. Calm waves rolled to shore as all things come to Amber, and the roil of the sea turned the ocean green. Far away a rain squall sat on the horizon, dumping its contents on the unmindful ocean.

"She should be in the dungeon," said Julian, following Fiona and Tatianna into the tower room. He crossed to the window that faced the ocean, floor to twelve-foot-ceiling glass that curved as the round wall of the tower circled. Curtains hung from the ceiling, pulled back, and tied in silk.

"We'll keep her here," said Fiona.

Fair-skinned and Fiona stood facing the others with the sunlight at her back, and it poured through the windows and turned her flame-kissed hair to an amber halo. The sun was crossing the zenith above, but the brilliance of the day and ocean climate flooded the room with refracted sunlight. She wore emerald green to set off her eyes, eyes the same color as the sea. Fiona was a small one, five foot two, and Julian standing tall beside her in green and white mail made her look even smaller.

"You can think of it as a very nice dungeon," said Tatianna.

Standing back from the window, and the high tower that overlooked a steep drop down a mountain, her mocha skin turned to espresso roast, light in the hands and face, but loamy brown around her shoulders and neck. Faded traceries of scars lay almost invisible on her skin, patterns of burnt wood on walnut. She wore a hospital gown over scrub pants, both shapeless in an ugly little pattern of generic flowers. Curvy as she was, no one's body defeated scrubs and hospital gowns. She could have the body of a boy, a girl, or a walrus under there. It had been Fiona's hospital, and Tatianna did not forget.

"Very nice and dungeon don't go together," said Julian, still looking out the window and standing close to Fiona.

The last occupant of the room had said very little. Caine wore his colors, green and black, and a scowl as totemic as emerald and ebony. Fiona had noted that Caine, since returning with Julian from their hunt, had said very little.

Fiona considered bringing him into the conversation and realized she'd never liked Caine.

She addressed Tatianna. "You will remain here. You have your own personal area" –Fiona indicated a small bathroom tucked behind a screen– "if you're familiar with such areas."

"Thank you. I'll be fine." Tatianna smiled at her.

Caine glanced back and forth between them and left.

For a moment no one spoke. Julian tried to angle himself so he could see Arden, and Tatianna waited. Fiona looked like she would go on but developed a listening manner.

Her brother noticed. "What is it?"

"He's begun, and it's ringing."

"Ringing?"

"Ringing. There a resonance–" Fiona paused. She looked suspiciously at the prisoner. "Everything is going fine. Why don't you keep an eye on her?"

With that suggestion she left, and Julian followed her out the door. They spoke briefly on the landing, Julian looking for information and Fiona not giving him any, before she departed, and he walked back in. He looked over the prisoner disinterestedly.

"Anything you want to confess or secrets you want to reveal?" he asked.

"Do you remember me, Julian?" asked Tatianna.

The prince glanced at her but Tatianna didn't think he saw her. He hadn't really seen her yet.

"I didn't call you Julian then. I called you My Lord. I met you once in Tenthet and once in Arden."

"I meet a lot of people in Arden. I live there," replied Julian.

The prince shut the door and stared out the window.

"What are you guarding me from, my prince?" asked Tatianna.

"Nothing. You're on your own," he replied.

"Then is there something to be guarded from me?" she asked. "I promise I don't bite."

"A dragon very nearly promised me the same thing," replied Julian and continued looking out the window with his back turned to her.

Tatianna watched him. With his back to her and face canted to the north side of the window, Julian's black hair hung long down his back to a knife-edge trim above his neck. His scaled armor gleamed. The prince of Amber wore a sword-belt studded with diamonds and ebony in platinum settings. His sword-hilt was embossed with Unicorns rampant.

The prisoner reached behind her and found one of the cotton ties that held the back of her hospital gown closed. She pulled it, and the top slumped. While Julian ignored her she took off her scrub pants. Her black legs looked shadowy under the garish multicolored gown. When Tatianna stood up her gown fell down, caught on her breasts, and she had to walk very straight to keep it from falling off entirely. She arched her back for tension.

"Are you sure you don't remember me?" she asked the Prince of Amber. "I remember you. You were so tall and rode a horse so white. In Arden you lorded over the trees, and your rangers made a royal feast. You were master there and in Tenthet."

"I am always a master of Arden," said Julian. "It is mine. Tenthet I recall. It is a shadow of mine, in the mountains. The people are wise, the cities high. Instead of trees, their skies have mountains and–"

Julian turned around and paused.

Tatianna walked to him slowly, but she didn't walk as he knew the word. Her hips swiveled while her feet stepped heel to toe. Only the line of tension between the gown sleeves kept the backless robe on, and that that line of tension came from just above her elbows. Tension and a fold of hospital gown crossed round breasts. She swayed more like slithering than walking and entered his personal space.

Defensively Julian put his hand up, and she stepped into it. His forefinger found her nipple as it poked against the fabric and she stretched with her next step, up and down. His hands received her as if he had not control over them. She stopped with her hands on Julian's waist and him cupping her breast.

"Prince of Amber," she whispered and looked up through black lashes both innocent and wicked. He could feel her breathing.

"Yeah?" said Julian. He was suddenly aware of how hard he was breathing himself.

"I came to you, Prince of Amber. Won't you come to me?" Her eyes were dark through thick eyelashes: Ledes's greatest work.

Julian put his other hand on her, and she yielded, dropping the rest of the gown. He carried her back to bed and mounted her at the top of Castle Amber. His mail made a silver and green pile on the carpet. In the distance the raincloud moved toward the city.

#

Obrecht collapsed in the doorway to Central Navy Receiving Hospital.

His face was ruined, his hand mangled, the man had walked ten miles on a broken leg, finally dragging himself along until paving stones ripped out his fingernails. He had passed two general hospitals, but with the sudden rainstorm sweeping out of the sky, no one had seen him. If they had, they hadn't done anything.

Nurses screamed. There is an odd way receiving people nerve themselves towards the horrors that can be visited upon the human body. None of the ER personal would have thought twice should Obrecht have arrived on a stretcher, nor did they shriek earlier when services brought in half a man bisected by a millstone. Yet Obrecht falling through the door unexpected, blood diluted in rainwater splattering the entryway tile like a red flood, shocked them. One fainted dead, and another shrieked twice.

They got over it quickly. Amber was the city at the center of creation, and it didn't have inferior healthcare.

With technology of the middle ages but knowledge of present day Earth, they ran blood bags and saline while wrapping him in bandages sanitized in boiling water. Doctors cut his face open and rebuilt his jaw, dosing him with obba leaves from the shadow Menrath and jbu beans from Lo Ra. A surgeon pulled his jaw out entire, molded it with clay from a shadow that has no name in any of the tongues of men, and put the ceramic structure back into Obrecht's face in a single operation. He lay like the dead. Sometimes the nurses put a glass cup to his chest to hear his heart, and they noted that his heartbeat and breathing seemed to hiss. Either he had snakes for organs or a hive of bees lived inside his chest.

It went down on the chart, the chart hung from his bed, and two big men, Corpsmen, carried the patient on a backboard to his room. Brutus and Hector, the staff called them. Brutus was an anesthesiologist finishing his residency and Hector an Infantry bonesaw in Navy Pediatrics. Brutus hated necessary suffering, and Hector wanted to see his patients live. They both liked weights. They transitioned Obrecht from board to bed so smoothly his raspy breathing never varied and stole out the door on tiptoes. In Amber there was no machinery to monitor his breathing nor beep to break the silence. Other than the fury of rain that drowned noise, but also kept admitting quiet, the hospital was silent.

Obrecht's eyes snapped open, and he sat up like hurricane door on a hinge. His head turned to the door, his legs swung over the side, and his knees bent to put his feet on the ground. He stood up.

The hallway was quiet. Two nurses watched the floor from their station, but they had paperwork to do. The trauma patient waited. Soon he bent over and ran along the hallway, peering into doors one by one. There was no central air conditioning, so each room had a fireplace. From a cold one, he took a metal poker.

Armist lay sleeping and knew nothing until the slap of a four-fingered hand over her mouth shocked her awake. Rain slammed the windows. The captain tried to gasp, but she couldn't move. Obrecht silenced her while the rain shower built into a storm.

When he checked her dead hands for rings she wasn't wearing one.

Chapter 11: The Pattern Hall

Gerard was young and getting beaten by his father.

He was sixteen, and Random had fallen on the Pattern. Sparks washed over the little boy, himself not thirteen, angry, rebellious, furious their father kept this thing from him. Gerard couldn't see anything but blue fire and a black shadow within it, fallen down on the Pattern. Random was on his hands and knees, and he wasn't moving. Stopping on the Pattern was it. Gerard's little brother was going to die.

"Good," said Oberon, their father. The King hadn't wanted to be here and showed up late. "Maybe the next one will believe me when I tell them they're not ready. Maybe the next one will be ready."

"I don't think he's going to make it, Dad," said Gerard. Almost as scrawny as Random, the brown-haired youth chewed his lip.

"He won't. If he wanted to walk it, he would have trained instead of drumming all day like an idiot." Oberon looked down at his favored son. "Remember that, kiddo. You're not ready yet, so don't throw your life away. You'll walk the Pattern when you're twenty or so. Maybe thirty."

"But Dad, I don't think Random's going to get up."

The cave of the Pattern hadn't changed in all that time. Gerard knew Random the King watched him with Vialle, she who kept hiding snacks in his pouches. Benedict was there. Oberon wasn't. But the cave was the same, a great hemisphere with a ceiling as craggy and twisted as inverted brain matter cut out of rock and a floor as smooth as glass. It could be treacherously smooth if one wasn't ready.

In memory, that wasn't Random's problem. He hadn't slipped. He'd just laid down, halfway through the Grand Curve, and he was so close Gerard could have reached him. His black shadow didn't move, and the sparks spiraled as they rose, coming to a disk of spinning light. Already the sparks had formed a triple helix with another strand brewing.

"Tell your brothers," said Oberon. "Tell them I know my business, and if they disobey me–" he waved at Random.

And Gerard understood, a boy of sixteen hearing his father explain his baby brother was going to die. He understood, and yet his mind rebelled. He made a choice of ignorance over truth, and he stopped understanding. His head stopped. In an instant of decision, Gerard no longer got it.

"I'm going after him!" yelled Gerard and he dashed for the starting point, the tail of the Pattern that stuck out into plain rock. He'd circled with Random, staying close, and ran back, thirty degrees around the outside circle, forty five, sixty, and Oberon caught him by the barrels where they put their lanterns.

"The hell you're not!" yelled their father and snatched Gerard about the neck, slamming his head down. Gerard's skull bounced off the cask like his father's fingers formed a hinge. Oberon raised his right hand and dropped it, open-palmed, and Gerard saw more sparks than rose from the Pattern.

"Dad, he's going to die!"

"Who gives a shit?" asked Oberon. "Children are easy! You're worth ten of him, because he's just a warning to the others. Now stand up and say you're going to be smart."

"No, Dad. He's going to¬¬–" and the hand of Oberon caught Gerard again. His skull bounced off old planks.

"He's dead!" yelled Oberon.

"No, Dad! Not yet, he's not dead–" and Oberon hit him again, breaking barrels with Gerard's face, and smashing the boy to the ground. "Now I hope you've learned something."

"Yes, Dad," whispered Gerard on the ground.

"Good."

Oberon walked back towards the door. He got to the Grand Curve again where Random died slowly. The helix of Pattern-fire reached for him, and it was so dense the boy's slight form was nothing. Blue light burned the silhouette even from Oberon's eyes.

The King of Amber turned his back on the Pattern and made for the door.

"I learned I'm stupid," said Gerard quietly.

Oberon paused and looked back. Gerard had put his foot down on the Pattern, and the blue sparks washed over his feet.

Oberon watched his son make it to through a few easy curves, low sweepers and hit the First Veil. His motion slowed to nothing, and to Oberon it looked like both of his kids had halted.

"You idiot," whispered the King and left, shutting and locking the door behind him.

The idiot strove. Time was agony. Gerard saw his sixteen years of play, almost as little as his brother by Paulette, playing with him as bastards in the courtyard while Oberon's real kids played in the library. He was whip-thin, underfed, and yet somehow Dad's favorite. Random was smaller, smarter, and filled with rude words. Sometimes the two boys sat in a corner and just swore, cursing, until Gerard ran out of vocabulary and Random could talk a mile a minute. That was how Gerard learned what a damn was, who a shithead was, and how to fuck. The cooks beat them with spoons, but Oberon snuck Gerard a few toys on the side. Random got kicked and learned more swear words.

Gerard broke through the First Veil, and he knew something again. He got it. He understood. Gerard was not ready for the Pattern. Corwin, Caine, and Julian had waited until they were decades old. Benedict was already older than centuries, maybe millennia. Gerard was sixteen and what Random called a pissant. He was going to die too.

Gerard got stupid and kept walking.

The Second Veil was murder because Oberon didn't love him. Oberon had use for another son, one he could raise right to show those bitches he was better than them. Their kids came out wrong, but Gerard was going to be right, and it was all Clarissa's fault, whose family hated Corwin's legitimacy. It was Moins, some piece of fish-ass, who somehow thought bearing a kid, a useless daughter at that, gave her airs. Dybele, who at least knew she was just a lay and would shut-up about it. And Paulette, who dumped her kid when she learned Random wasn't going to get his mother a queenship or even a princess consort.

Gerard came out stupider, because he didn't know nothing mattered any more, and he walked for Random.

Into the Grand Curve the air no longer burned in his but kissed his lips with fire. The sparks of Pattern-fire were no more harmless but scalded him. They got in his eyes, burned his fingers, tore his hair. They shredded his face. A vortex burned, one Gerard unlearned even scared Oberon, a force more powerful than their father at the center of the universe. It burned in a circle and consumed Random. The little boy would ran didn't run any more, but lay on the ground, crying. Their father was gone.

Gerard stormed the helix of Pattern-fire, picked Random up, and bludgeoned his way through the wall of the Unicorn's power with nothing but sheer, stupid will. On the far side Random was still crying and Gerard wasn't strong enough to carry him, but he did it anyway and hit the Third Veil.

He saw the future. In walking the Pattern, Gerard was remade in his own will, and he was remaking himself without knowing the truth. He wasn't defying a reality he understood; he was turning it off in his mind. Oberon wouldn't love him, their family didn't matter, and Gerard was making himself ignorant by doing so. He was making himself less in his head, and his father only respected power.

"If I refuse to be great, than I shall be Gerard the lesser, least of he who walked in and he who walked out. But I'll be a goddamn tank," whispered the big kid to his crying brother, and charged the Third and terrible Final Veil.

Random had never admitted he heard that, and they'd never spoken about it since.

Like in his memories, Gerard exited the Grand Curve. He'd forgotten it all. Stupidity made him forget things. He'd forgotten how his family worked, how they thought, who they were, and who they weren't. Stupidity and delusion are closely tied, and he had found them when he wanted them, his first time through the Pattern.

"Hey, Random!" yelled Gerard between gasps. He'd soaked his shirt and trousers. His steps slowed even as the resistance lifted. The pause between the Grand Curve and the Third Veil wasn't like between the earlier veils, just an instant of breathing space and a few steps between agonies. Gerard took the moment to talk as his feet plodded. "You remember the last time we did this?"

There was a long silence.

"I remember," called Random slowly.

"Do you remember?" repeated Gerard.

"Yeah. I remember," said Random.

Benedict glanced at them but deemed it beneath his notice. He turned back to gasping Gerard striving for the center of the Pattern. Vialle understood something else, but didn't know what. She put her hand on her husband's arm.

He took it in both of his and put his fingers through hers.

"I know what he's asking, and yeah, I remember," he told her in a voice so low he was talking to himself. Vialle understood then that inside Random's self, she was there.

"Good!" yelled Gerard.

Random said nothing but squeezed Vialle's fingers.

"How is your hand?" asked Benedict.

Gerard held it up, and the bandages had rotted away. His skin steamed with blue mist. Fires jumped from the pattern to his body and sizzled over flesh, burning in fractal lines like wildfires on the prairie. Underneath the searing of skin lay fresh pink flesh.

"It hurts, like frostbite is wearing off and I'm feeling again. Imagine pins and needles, where the pins are on fire, the needles red hot, and they've got razors for friends. But I feel my fingers again!" and Gerard wiggled his fingers.

"What an odd way to put it," said Benedict to Random, but the brothers did not further discuss.

The sparks were over his head now. He was within them seeing nothing but what he'd brought to the pattern. He had memories and his family. Defy it as he would, on the Pattern the blood of Oberon was who he was. What he had done on the Patten was him. Now he kept walking, and resistance built in the final test, the Third Veil. Resistance built until it felt as if Gerard had planted himself before a wall and tried to walk into it. He moved by atoms, the uncertainty of his position, whether he was moving at all, spread forward and within it Gerard's will pushed against the final veil. He was who he was, his family was who they had always been, and he had nothing but what he brought with him. And what he had brought with him was a bag of gold rings.

A power lay on Gerard that didn't try to fight him. It didn't overpower the strongman of Amber, nor wrap him in orcish metal. It lied to him and showed him power by visions, and as the Pattern burned the gold, rings begged him to listen to what they had to say.

Gerard said no. He stumbled out the far side, fell like Random had to his hands and knees, and made a gasping table in the center of Dworkin's work, the Pattern of Amber.

For a while he breathed.

"Are you dead?" asked Random.

"Let's not do this again!" replied Gerard.

Gerard thought about rings. He took the package out and lobbed it across the pattern. It smacked onto the floor and slid nearly to Random's feet. But Gerard was still thinking.

Nine there had been, and five there were here. Bleys had one. The girl from where the dragon had arisen had had another, but that one was in the bag now. Three others remained at large.

Fiona entered the cavern running, dress lifted. This was, she would never admit under torture, the failing of dresses. She had to hike them up to get anywhere, and in that moment, her gut said, Don't Trump! But she arrived while Gerard lay at the center of the room, and Benedict watched, thinking of his own hand and the Black Breath of which his hand was inflicted though he didn't know the name. Random yelled Gerard needed to do more cardio, like the big lug he was, and Vialle yelled encouragement.

"You just did cardio! Have a snack!" yelled Vialle, and the king of grim Amber wrapped her in his arms from behind.

"Is he done?" asked Fiona. "Are they cleaned?"

"Hell if we know. There're the rings," replied Random and pointed at the bag on the ground.

Fiona didn't touch it. She stared.

"How's your arm?" repeated Benedict.

"Good, good. Throbs a little. Feels like I hit a wall with a hammer. The rest of me feels like I hit a wall too, but the arm isn't bad. It's not numb like before."

Fiona looked back and forth, and her eyes narrowed. Her beautiful face turned suspicious and hard, but almost instantly turned back to a practiced smile, one of such clever work its mastery was in how untrained it looked. No one saw her intermediary expression for Fiona was not an amateur. Corwin had glimpsed this skill of hers but never understood it, never employed it himself, and anyway, he was gone.

A sense of presence came, and Fiona refused it, blanking her mind. Her face betrayed nothing. The attempted trump call vanished.

One thing Fiona had taught young Flora, many years, feuds, and a few murders ago, was that one could think very hard while smiling, and other people had a tendency to ignore this possibility. Smiling took one out of their time. No one else thought one could think while being attractive, and Fiona had often thought Flora had refused to learn this until noticing that through the regencies of Eric and Corwin, Flora had somehow always wound up on the winning side. What's more, she'd done so while never doing more than being pretty.

Fiona often wondered if she was as blind as her brothers, or if awareness of their blindness had blinded her as well. She knew she played mind games with herself, but this one she wasn't sure if she was winning.

Outwardly smiling while Gerard gasped and her brothers watched him, inwardly she decided the rings were the most important problem for her to deal with and inspected them without touching. From her purse she took a small mirror with an intricate tracery behind the glass, a silver pattern within the silver backing that reflected light so finely it was normal invisible. Now, in the presence of the Pattern of Amber, that silver pattern on her mirror glowed like submerged phosphorescent algae under breaking waves. Fiona examined the ring bag from all directions.

Finding nothing, she took a small stylus from her purse as well and teased the cashmere bag open. She examined the rings once more or, more accurately, examined their reflection in her mirror.

Again finding nothing, she took a deck of trumps from her purse as well, and slid them under the rings one at a time. Instead of the major arcana, those bearing the faces of her family and home, she used intricately painted cards of the minor arcana. She ran through the deck right-side up and reversed.

By the time she was done her siblings had come over to watch, and Fiona grimaced to realize they would learn something of her methods. It was unavoidable. She met Random's gaze and glanced at Vialle's blind eyes. She noted Benedict's clinician's expression, and exhausted Gerard. The Pattern had taken something out of him.

"They're clean," Fiona reported.

"You don't sound confident," observed Benedict.

"How much confidence to you expect?" she demanded, putting her accoutrements away and standing up. "It is magic out of shadow, and there was an evil will on them before. I've never trusted them. The will is gone."

"Would you wear one?" asked Random.

In a fit of pique Fiona reached down and very nearly grabbed them in a fistful, all five at one time. A vision of Bleys hit her, her brother carrying a bag of nine gold rings in shadow, one for each of her brothers in Amber.

#

It rained in the City of Amber. The storm didn't seem to come with a source, but engendered itself in water and cold, dumping nothing but chill and bitterness on the city. Wind threw muddy spray at the buildings. Dogs whined until their masters let them in. It fell on the just and unjust alike.

Pandemonium raged through Central Navy Receiving Hospital when LtA Dracken arrived. Civilian and military police argued jurisdiction in the hallways, doctors yelled at administrators, and two of the nurses were crying. Dracken pulled rank and bullied his way into Armist's room, stopping in the doorway.

"Oh, Captain," whispered Old Broke, soft and mourning. The big man on little legs slumped over, and he leaned against the wall.

"You all right, sir?" asked one of the military police asked, a younger Seaman. Seaman Ransky had worked morgue duty for years and transferred out on a 'Peace of Mind' reassignment. That got him gigs like this. He squatted by the bedside with the victim, taking notes and sketches. He didn't move anything, not even Armist's hand that hung from under the covers and dangled by the dark space under the bed.

The room was in bad shape. Armist had thrashed and fought before she died, and tied herself in knotted sheets. Her arms and legs had turned purple and bulged around the ties. Brain-splatter covered white linen. The fireplace poker lay next to her, still crusted with the Captain's skull. Seaman Ranksy hadn't moved it, and Dracken intuited the metal poke with a hook like half a fleur de lis had been discarded, its job done. Armist had survived Forochet, she'd survived the float, she'd come home and survived the knife attack, and–

It was worse in harbor or in garrison. It hurt Dracken's soul when he thought his sailors were safe.

"I thought she was going to make it," whispered the LtA. "After that attack and her getting mugged, and somehow she survived, and– Ah, jeez."

The old sailor looked crumpled. Ransky saw Dracken as his uniform, a shirt fallen off a hanger and standing on starch and ironing alone.

"Yes, sir. Yes, sir, we– Yes, sir."

Dracken knew the cops, any of them, had nothing to say, so he walked out and leaned against the wall. A pair of nurses had another patient on a wheeled chair, less sophisticated than what Dracken had seen in shadow, but more comfortable. The boy in it looked like hell. Better than Armist, but as close to dead as a man could get and live.

The patient looked up at Dracken. His eyes were dead and flat.

"You all right, son?" asked the Lieutenant Admiral.

"You're dripping," said the dead-eyed patient.

Dracken looked down. He was. His rain-gear was soaked, and he's splattered dirty rainwater on the floor. His gloves felt like bags of water.

"Aye, son. I am. I walked, and it's raining out there."

"Old Broke, right?" asked the patient. "I worked the docks. They called you Old Broke?"

"Do not call me that, sir," snapped Dracken with excess formality.

"You walked here from the Navy yard, Old Broke?" asked the patient, and something caught in Dracken's chest. His heart felt like it forgot how to beat.

The patient looked down at Dracken's soaked shoes and even mud splatters on both sides. He looked up. Dracken noticed his eyes weren't so dead any more. Before he'd looked like a corpse, but now something animated those holes in his head.

Windows to the soul, the words came unbidden to Dracken's mind.

The patient looked down at Dracken's soaking wet gloves, dripping on the fresh-mopped floor.

"You walk well, Old Broke," whispered the patient with bright, cold eyes.

Maybe it was the wind and chill outside seeping in, or Armist's corpse, beaten to death, but Dracken felt cold: terribly, terribly, cold. A nurse wheeled the patient away but for some reason took him backwards.

Obrecht stared at LtA Dracken as the nurse took him to a different room, away from the excitement. He never looked away until Dracken turned and ran outside into the cold rain.

Chapter 12: Under the Sea

Caine was neither immune to the dangers of the dragon nor terrified of them. That the large creature was intelligent, powerful, and evil did not bother him. However Caine avoided swimming with sharks and sailing into hurricanes. Leaving the tower where Julian and Fiona kept the prisoner he paused in a window alcove to think and have a cigarette, and the thought inhabiting his mind was dragons.

The ground levels of Castle Amber still perched on the high sides of Kolvir, and where Oberon's house didn't rise into turrets, the ground falling away could provide the same effect. This alcove was an enlarged casement, double window panes set into the outer wall some four hundred feet up a cliff on one side and down a short flight of stairs from the kitchens on the other. Cutting of the stone made benches on either sides of the window, and housekeeping covered the seats with old embroidery. Caine didn't think the seats cushions, folded blankets really, had been washed in some time.

He smoked menthol cigarettes and flicked the butts into space. Winds tried to creep in his open window, and he let it because the wind blew clean and mild. It was warm with afternoon. He wedged a wax candle between the window and the frame so he didn't have to keep sparking matches and stared at the rainstorm attacking the harbor far below.

The dragon Spait hid in Arden, but Caine couldn't see it. He didn't know which ribbon of silver was the Mellengroth. None had black pustules of fetid growth like Spait's mere had developed, but there were hills in the way. Julian would know which hill was which. Caine finished his cigarette and flicked it spinning out the window, harder than before, with power. It plummeted into the gray haze over the City of Amber, and Caine felt pleased he didn't have to live down there, in the city, unless he wanted to.

He lit another and stared again at Arden. He did see dark bits of forest, but many of them. Did trees grow black? Probably. Surely some kind did. Julian would know.

Impatient with his own ignorance, he took out his trumps and shuffled them.

Gerard walked the pattern. The trump felt cold, but it sparked around the edges. Sympathetic fires gleamed within his cigarette cherry, turning it from red to blue.

Caine forgot about Calling Julian and breathed for a while, the card in his hands, and his sense of self fading. Caine felt his mind slow. When the smoke died he did not light another. He breathed in stillness, and the cards lay heavy, and his fingers dealt and shuffled them as if he wasn't involved. His mind opened, allowing stray thoughts to wash in and out.

Sparks leaped from Gerard's card to Random's. He put his little brother aside. Benedict gleamed too. Caine shuffled his crippled brother out. He shuffled and shuffled, forming bridges and collapsing them, and dealt hands of nothing to shuffle them back in. He lost himself in movement of his hands while sitting against the castle walls.

He was completely unprepared when the card of Gerard flashed a final, brilliant time like captured lightning, and the deck itself screamed.

His hand burned, his ring-finger itched, and he felt he was about to go mad until a splitting pain, a migraine come without warning and into him who'd never suffered from them before, shrieked and died. The agony boiled out of him, and the cry evaporated from the card. It wailed, but distantly, vanishing, and when it finally uttered no more, the cry didn't end with a coup de gras, but rather as if it ran out of breath. The cards went silent.

Caine opened his eyes shaking and lit another cigarette. It fell out of his mouth and burned his hands, and he dropped his deck out the window too while smacking the butt off his skin. Trumps tumbled over the cliff face, spreading out and spinning edge on, knifing into the storm. Trembling like an old alcoholic, he beat the flame out of the candle with the last cigarette of the pack and broke it in half at the filter. He couldn't move his hands right, and he couldn't think.

A maid found him lying on the floor like a stone. Her screams filled Castle Amber, and medics came running.

#

In the center of the Pattern Gerard sat back on his heels. He'd amazed many old and experienced coaches with that move. To say nothing of the splits, few people he'd trained with over the years had expected that simple and casual flexibility, even in places where sitting on one's heels was the way sitting was done.

If there was something that disappointed a son of Oberon about creation, it was that in all of shadow the ancient masters of combat rarely won against young man-hippos. It was so disillusioning. Old sifus on mountains should be masters of all forms of combat and obliterate young, foolish mortals. They rarely did. Young hippos won. Could anything be sadder?

Gerard was now older than any of his senseis, and he was still a man-hippo. Such was the difference of substance over shadow.

Thinking back he only had about five hundred years of really serious hand-to-hand training. Maybe eight hundred if he included physical training because there's a technique all its own in throwing trees at people. But in the spinning disillusionment carousel of life, Gerard wanted to find someone who truly demonstrated the superiority of technique over youth.

Ganelon had. Gerard laughed. That had been perhaps an unequal fight. Good. The old wolf had known something. Gerard lamented his father's passing, and in his stomach guilt wrapped a shoot of happiness.

He knew his mind wandered because he did not want to make the choice in front of him. He sat at the center of the Pattern, and with a thought, albeit one tied to a definitive act of will, he could order the Pattern to send him anywhere. In substance or in Shadow, the Pattern was an omnidirectional trump without need for another end. He could order it to send him to a shadow of his desire, perhaps where short dark-haired women yearned to sleep with large bearded men.

Or, he thought, he could do his job.

Corwin and Bleys had sank half Caine's fleet in their doomed attempt on the throne, and much of the rest had been destroyed by creatures of the black road. Officers and sailors had been butchered. Amber needed ships.

Gerard, knowing himself not a terribly smart man, had learned fighting by finding someone better at it than he and asking. He aimed to improve the Navy the same way. Legends of one Cirdan the Shipwright bubbled through shadow until reaching his ears, and the prince thought nothing of seeking him. That had not ended well.

"Benedict, a question for you," called Gerard, still seated in the black center of the Pattern.

The other four, Benedict, Random, Vialle, and Fiona, paused with the redheaded woman reaching for the rings on the floor. Benedict spoke.

"Ask!"

"Do you have any interest in heading back to Forochet?" called Gerard.

Silence invaded the Pattern hall, or perhaps reclaimed its home. This place measured dialogue in words per century.

"The original purpose of going there was to speak to the Shipwright," said Random when Benedict didn't swiftly respond. "You've all said there were no trees where you went. Nor did you see any signs of shipping."

"Yes," agreed Gerard. "But we came at it from the north. We left from Messemar's arctic forests when they said they could lay ten keels that year and deliver the first vessel ten years hence. We didn't bother to come round to temperate climes because Julian and Caine wanted Fiona to demonstrate how quickly she could traverse shadow.

"But so we arrived in the north. Forochet was almost icelocked, and one wouldn't expect to find a shipwright up there anyway. Rumors put this Cirdan someplace called Beleriand, but we didn't find that, and heading east we landed in Forochet because it was convenient. There the orcs found us before we found Cirdan.

"My point is that we still need ships. Corwin and Bleys sank half of ours, and the Courts of Chaos did their best to get the rest. Fiona has immense powers of shadow walking, I'll not dispute, but I can just tell the Pattern to take me to Cirdan!"

After a long pause among the others Benedict said, "Yes, but not alone."

Now Random and Fiona looked to their tall eldest brother.

"Gerard is correct. We do need ships, and we should seek out the greatest ship makers of shadow to make them. Cirdan may be one. But do not go alone, Gerard. Wait."

Gerard nodded but looked impatient.

"Then let me find the rest of those rings. Nine there were. Six are in the bag. I'll have the Pattern send me to one of the others," he suggested.

"Don't– don't do that," said Fiona, waving her hand. "In Forochet I spoke with Bleys and he said he was going to get rid of them. If he's dropped them into the ocean, you'll accomplish nothing but dying if the Pattern sends you there."

"But Bleys was wearing one in Arden," replied Gerard. "And he disappeared much as Brand used to. If the ring gives him power, there's no reason he would discard it."

"It is shadow, and unlikely to affect someone of Amber blood," replied Benedict.

Gerard dismissed him. "If I, a son of Amber, eat, I'm full whether the food is of Amber or shadow. If I'm too hungry to walk the shadows and eat food of shadow, can't I then walk shadow again? Amber and shadow are not wholly different, or have you forgotten what we learned of Dworkin? Are we not, after all, only first of shadows but among them?"

The Amberites outside the Pattern glowered at this, and Gerard was treated to identical expressions on two of his brothers and his sister. Only Vialle looked different, but her expressions were always hard for him to read.

"You're unusually savvy, Gerard," grumbled Random.

And Gerard replied, "Thank you," blandly.

The big man added, "But I don't think we should waste the effort I've expended walking this thing. We still don't know where or if Cirdan lives, nor if these rings are actively malicious or merely dangerous elements out of shadow. I have no idea where Bleys is. There's a dragon in Arden, though that's the least of our concerns because Julian will take care of it as soon as he finishes screwing around. We're still wrapped in problems, so I think I should–"

"You're right," interrupted Random.

Gerard stopped talking, confused.

"You're right, Gerard. Go to a shadow of desire and find out what's wrong with your arm. If it's cured, walk to a place to prepare an expedition to Forochet, one undertaken with seriousness. Benedict, go down and find men and women who went with you last time. Rally up a crew and meet Gerard. If his arm is well, you'll walk the Pattern next. If not we have a more important issue than ships. Fiona, go with them. Find out what malice or danger is inside these rings, and I expect you'll need to go to their place of origin to find out. Bleys has one. Two are missing. Find out what they are. And Gerard!"

"What?" the other yelled back.

"Don't die!"

They vanished from the Pattern hall, and the fires of the tracery burned low, embers under the castle.

#

With rain on the surface the sea of Amber lay dark, and below the surface the shelf of the land fell sharply. Where Garnath came to the beach the ground dipped slowly underwater, but not far out, less than a mile at low tide, the edge of the continent formed a great escarpment. Below this cliff sunlight did not reach far on the brightest of days, and under the sudden squall that lashed the port of Amber, the ocean was blacker than night.

This purity was marred in one place. Comparatively shallow, less than a thousand feet deep, a great twisted stairway descended under the water and every so many yards an a pillar of stone illuminated the darkness with a single brilliant flame, burning in and of itself without fuel.
One man walked down the stairway alone. Red was his hair, and the water twisted and pulled it upright until even in the subnautic gloom, he seemed fire-headed. Red also was his beard and the rubies on his clothes. Gold threads, silver buckles, and diamonds, emeralds, and sapphires the buttons on his coat. He walked down the stairs. He did not float, but stuck to the steps. His clothes hung though stray currents toyed with them like strong winds. On his lips played a dreadful smile.

Bleys walked into Rebma, Amber under the sea, and met the guards at the gate asking for Queen Moire. They told him she was present in the throne room and lead him on.

Rebma mirrored Amber underwater, but did so with trickery. It would show the One True City reflected left to right, and elsewhere as it was, left to left. Bleys knew it intimately, and felt his blood call to the buildings and roads, the lesser pathways and longer highways within. The people wore swimming trunks scaled like fish, some with wide belts, some with harness across the chests like divers. They breathed the water as Bleys. Both men and women went topless, and the water was far warmer than it should have been at that depth. Tropical fish flitted around like birds. More pillars rose, breaking the image of Amber, but revealing it as well as their lights burned in and of themselves, a few feet tall, a few inches above the pillars, and completely without wood or coal.

Moire met Bleys in her throne hall as she had met Corwin some years earlier and regarded the red-headed prince with deep skepticism. Her face was heart-shaped under green hair with green eyes, crowned with a white-gold crown. She wore silver trunks with an emerald belt, and nothing else. Her breasts floated many undergarments pretend, kissed by currents. She met his eyes without embarrassment, for this was their way. Bleys looked on her and felt pressure in his loins before remembering Corwin had been here, and suddenly he hated her.

"Why have you come to Rebma, Prince of Amber?" asked Moire. She spoke with a soft lisp. "Your kind come and go. They take what they will. Rarely does it work out well for others. What do you desire now?"

And Bleys hated her twice for being a cripple and daring to rule in an image of Amber. He decided to kill her, and that made him smile.

"Moire," he said, omitting titles. "I'm here to see you. A change has come over my thinking recently. It's like I've rounded a corner with the sun in my eyes and have finally begun seeing clearly. With peace in Amber and the queen from Rebma, I've come here to speak with you. And I'd like to give you something. I ask nothing in return, but a bit of your time."

She looked at him skeptically, but Bleys smiled warmly. He had observed her, and she knew something of the Princes of Amber.

"What is your gift?"

Bleys took a ring off his own hand, a simple thing of yellow gold. He balanced it on his index finger and thumb before flipping it like a coin. It made an orb as it spun. In spite of the water the spinning coin arched perfectly to Moire and she didn't even have to catch it, merely hold out a hand for it to fall into.

"A gift, for the Queen of Rebma, the reflection of Amber," said Bleys. "Yours."

Moire looked at it closely. The ring was small, plain, and did not seem to have any markings or writing. She pinched it between two fingers.

"And what exactly is the meaning of this?" she asked.

"It's a gift!" he replied.

"So there's no meaning to it. You walked to Rebma to give me a ring and don't mean anything by it. We've never met. And it's a gift." None of her statements were questions but each one sounded like a demand.

"No, Moire of Rebma. I only want a little of your time," he replied.

Moire stared at him. Bleys smirked. He wore an identical ring on his own finger. Several others were big things, ornate and jeweled, but he wore a plain one on the ring finger of his left hand.

"I'll think about it," Moire replied. She put the ring down but didn't put it on.

"I appreciate that." Bleys winked. "Now on an entirely unrelated note, is Llewella here? I have a matter of family business to put before her."

Moire scowled. She nodded once and spoke to a guard, a blue-haired fellow with big muscles and a trident. She told the guard to escort Bleys to a waiting room, to tell Llewella her brother was looking for her, and to prepare herself for a visitor. The guard nodded and left. Bleys followed, and the throne-room was briefly silent.

Several men and women around the courtroom waited to resume business, but Moire watched Bleys leave. Her face looked torn. She distrusted and yet did not look away until he was gone, and once he was, she inspected the plain gold ring like it had answers. Her courtiers waited. She clenched the ring in her fist as they returned to business.

#

Llewella put on a bit more clothes than the locals and met Bleys in drawing room. Two open windows allowed fish to swim in and out, and one of Rebma's fuelless fires inhabited the hearth. Two felt-wrapped whicker chairs with high backs and wide arms faced the windows with the fire behind them, and Llewella sat in one, gesturing to Bleys to take the other, when he arrived.

She wore white silk to set off her green hair, for like the queen Llewella's hair and eyes were green. The princess's eyes were a lighter color than the deep jade of Moire, closer to sky blue though flecked with gold. Over her trunks she wore double long white draperies that hung to golden sandals and climbed her back to a gold torc. They curled in undulating piles between her thighs. In front the silk dress was cut in an ancient style. Two white panels of silk met a gold band around her torso, cupping her heavy breasts.

She was thinking of how different Amber's dress was from Rebma's and second guessing her wardrobe, modest here, when Bleys strolled in. He tumbled into the open whicker seat without upsetting it and greeted the sister he hadn't seen in years.

"Llewella, you look damp."

"That happens under water. I hear you had a personal matter for me?"

"Several. First, Random is putting on his king hat, and he's giving out rings. He has a handful. This one's for you," said Bleys and casually handed her the ring from his finger. "He gave me another one, but I, shall we say, have some reservations about accepting Random's sovereign gifts."

"If you understated that any more, you'd be mumbling." Llewella took the ring and slipped it on with a measure of disdain.

Bleys seemed to be paying more attention to being indignant than her, so she admired it to make sure he knew. It was nice and plain, and fit well.

"What else?" she asked.

"I'm waiting for someone from Amber, but I have something to do in Arden. I'd like you to welcome this agent of mine when he gets here, and keep an eye on him. He's injured. Try not to let him die."

"That would be a significant imposition," said Llewella. "What's in it for me?"

"I just gave you a ring!"

"You said Random gave me this ring."

"I carried it! Sister, Llewella, greatest and most noble of my sisters, which is a statement I mean somewhat as Fiona's being a shit, give to me this boon, I beg of you."

"Please do not mix slang and formality. I understand you think you're being funny. You are not."

"Ach, tough crowd. Fine. Will you do it? I just need you to keep an eye on him."

She hemmed and hawed, but ultimately agreed. "What's his name? And there is only one, correct?"

"Yes. His name's Obrecht. He's harmless." Bleys grinned at her.

#

The nurses said Obrecht was doing really well, just really well. One Maria, a heavyset Spanish woman who called everyone baby, said, "Oh, baby, you're doing so well. You'll be healthy in no time. I never doubted."

"Thank you," hissed Obrecht.

Obrecht remembered Maria screaming when he arrived, but he said nothing.

No one could tell day from night as rain fell on Amber, relentlessly drowning the city until the streets turned to rivers and stairways to rapids. In lower neighborhoods mud encroached on stone-paved roads. It formed a veneer over the flat stones that Oberon's architects had used to pave the roads centuries before. The wealthy, men and women, owned shoes with tall platforms under the toe and heel for just such weather, while the middle class merged with the poor by going barefoot. Barefoot people walked where they would, holding their shoes under the coats if they had them. Rich stepped from wide flat mud to wide flat mud, for most of the time those flats meant a great flagstone lay an inch underwater, and the nobility wouldn't dirty their boots unnecessarily. Sometimes there wasn't, and they sank into puddles.

It was Navy policy that patients got at least an hour of 'sunshine' every twelve, so while the military police cordoned off the hall where Captain Armist lay dead, Maria wheeled Obrecht to the terrace. An inch outside the roof water fell in a cataract. Beyond that the courtyard was dark with night.

Obrecht sniffed, and nurse Maria wondered if he suffered from nasal blockages. There was nothing to smell, for the deluge washed all scent from the air outside. Air inside the hospital was muggy with old smells Maria had long since tuned out: blood, cleaners, and rotting wood.

"Enjoy your sunshine, baby," said Maria. "We have singers coming by tomorrow, and I'm sure they'll want to visit you."

"Singers?" hissed Obrecht.

"Oh, yes. Singers. Because you're doing so well. You're going to be healthy in no time."

"Thank you."

Nurse Maria left him to his sunshine.

#

In the forest of Arden a black spot grew among the trees, webbed by spiders, infested by vermin, and soaked by rain. At its center a curve of the River Mellengroth made a black lake far deeper than it appeared. The banks fell sharply like cliffs.

In the middle of this lake the dragon Spait appeared to sleep, floating on the surface like an innocent log. He stuck about the water nostrils to the back of his head, and other coils of dragonflesh wound about the pool, seemingly unconnected to the head. All lay still. Webbing frosted the water surface.

One eye cracked open just a slit.

"I thought you were faking, old wyrm," said Bleys, standing on the bank.

The dragon eye rolled over him, and over the undisturbed cobwebs behind him. No living thing but a spider could have moved through that without disturbing it, and Bleys was four legs short.

"Hello, mighty Prince of Amber," said Spait. He kept his mouth underwater, and his words bubbled up, seeming to come from everywhere in the lake all at once.

"I am. Now a little bird told me something, Spait. It told me your name, and it told me of your kind. It told me of your immense and insatiable hunger. It told me that it is hunger that dominates you and your ilk, and you will put all your immense power and guile to work to satisfy it. Now tell me, wyrm: do you hunger for the flesh of a Prince of Amber or two?"

"Oh great and noble prince, I am limitlessly curious about what else this bird has told you," said the dragon, and his words threw the lake into froth.

Chapter 13: LtA Dracken's House

Lieutenant Admiral Dracken ran past his house in the concealing rain. He didn't miss it; he knew where it hid. Rain covered the flat thing like a high tide over shoals. One story and spread out over four plots, it could have been four houses for four families that could climb stairs. It was a great, broad rich house for Admirals with money, titles, and broken hips. Dracken ran away from it.

Uphill where the poor people lived he dashed up roads his feet knew without conscious thought. His feet leaped between wide flat circles of water over sinking pavestones without needing his attention, the way they had years ago before Sir Dracken had become LtA Dracken, before he was Old Broke. Before Sarise left.

Sarise wouldn't admit she had needs because women who needed to get laid are sluts. But she needed to get laid after a good, long float, and Sarise didn't get laid because–

Dracken's feet kept running while his head was thirty years ago.

Sarise didn't get laid because he was Old Broke then.

So it had been something else. Sarise hadn't minded the shattered pelvis because he was a war hero. He'd been knighted. She liked being a Lady. But he didn't put the dishes away right, and that was something. He came home tired and that boiled into a fight, and that was something and it wasn't really anyone's fault. Everyone gets into fight. But they couldn't make up like they used to, because Old Broke was broken in bed, so they made up with words neither of them believed.

If you go looking for a fight with someone, you can always find one. And if Sarise wanted a fight bad enough to be a reason by itself, the old infantryman in Dracken would give her something. Sarise had wanted one of two things, to be taken by the power of an Amberite war hero, or a fight bad enough she could leave and it wasn't her fault.

Dracken had risen to the occasion. He had called her a whole load of shit, and no one blamed her for leaving. In Amber people cared. He told Sarise he'd been out with his old company, and she was mad he went out, and she twisted the screws and he got mad and twisted them right back. She rose, he rose, and in yelling he'd told her she was jealous because she'd like to service a company herself. That was enough, but it wasn't the first time he'd crossed that bridge.

The Separation Arbiter, amazing name for a divorce judge, asked Dracken under oath if he'd ever said that before. He had. He'd spoken about the tension, the building fights between them, and the Arbiter asked why a history of fighting was an argument that Sarise ¬shouldn't be granted a divorce.

"Because it was her fault!" he'd yelled in arbitration.

And that was something the Arbiter had heard before.

"Then I'm going to spare you from her, Sir," said the Separation Arbiter, and he separated them.

Old Broke kept a house with too many stairs, and he left it up a hillside because he hated Sarise and he hated the fact that he couldn't live there. He moved closer to work, made rank like he had nothing else in his life, and bought a spreading blot of a house with no stairs to climb. He'd passed it just now, on the left, going uphill as his legs ran like they remembered how to do, like he hadn't ran in thirty years– since five days ago.

The ring had just fallen onto his hand.

God, Armist had been in a bad way. Dracken knew it, knew the way knife-work looked. He remembered her. And his dragoons knew it too. They knew the injuries, and they were good lads. They were the right kind of stupid. They got into problems they could have avoided because half of them had been stabbed at least once, and too drunk to care, too wired to sleep, they'd carried Captain Armist on their shoulders at a run, and Old Broke had tried to keep up.

But he had kept up. He was drunk too, so maybe he just didn't notice the pain. But examining her before yelling for his old company, the ring had just fallen onto his hand while he took her pulse. And he ran after his men and meant to give it back, but hospitals are chaos, and he hadn't had the time. So he decided to check on her the next day, or every day thereafter to see when she woke up, and give her back the ring. And he had.

The next day he woke up as he hadn't for thirty years. Morning blessed him as infantrymen salute the dawn, as morning hadn't since the lance broke his pelvis.

That day Dracken had visited Armist in her coma, as he'd promised himself, but kept the ring since there was no sense in leaving it with her if she was asleep.

And the next morning he woke up like old again, and he could run though his legs ached with disuse. Armist still slept. The next day was even better, and on a lark the LtA had flirted with girls in bars and a few flirted back. Dracken could have taken one home. His body told him it was ready, but his head wasn't. So he winked and danced, and in the slow Sa Sa Sa-Ra of Amber's dance halls, a pretty girl had stroked him with her hip, and he felt it.

So he forgot about the ring when Armist finally woke up. He wore gloves.

And that thing in the hospital that had been a man recognized it instantly. And Dracken was scared.

His little chicken-legs ran up the foothills of a mountain, throwing his big body with his big belly upwards and never flagging. He didn't recall if he had run like that when he was young, but he bet he had. He leaped between the flats, stepping only in the regular puddles that marked the flagstones. His feet never lost their footing, and his leaps never missed. He ran like a gazelle, like a young man, like he used to, but he ran because he was terrified as he never had been before. Up the foot of Kolvir to the tall rowhouses ran Dracken, sweating with fear that turned to icy water in the cold, heavy rain.

Dracken's townhouse hadn't been occupied in thirty years, but he had a couple people from the Home Harbor Office come every now and then. They dusted, cleaned a bit, and replaced any windows that needed it. The house faced the street on two thick stone legs separated by an arch. There was no door in front. The arch had an ornate gate, but it only opened into the courtyard in the back. Dracken hadn't needed his key in twenty years, and the Home Harbor Office copy got more use than his. But he kept the key on his ring, and the lock opened quickly in the rain. He locked the gate behind him and passed under the legs of his old house.

On either side of Dracken's house, occupied townhouses with bright windows and crackling fires breathed piney woodsmoke into the air. Some of their gates stood open, welcomingly.

#

Central Navy's veranda looked into rain like submerged portholes looked underwater. The heavens waged war on dry land, and their armies fell on the hospital. An inch past the veranda railing the downpour was a curtain. Obrecht's nurse left him in his wheelchair for his Navy Mandated Sunshine (1 hour every 12, Naval Hospital Regulation #670-1) and left him. Obrecht looked like death. They didn't think he could walk, and didn't bother to buckle him in. He was the only one out there.

Obrecht didn't stand. He crawled upright, clutching the railings of the empty veranda. He squirmed his torso over his legs, slithered his legs out of the chair's stirrups, and creeped up the roof-pillars until the line between his head and feet was vertical.

Obrecht didn't stand straight. He was twisted. His body arched, his wrists turned unnaturally. When he walked to the edge of the veranda, he didn't step. His feet slid, his toes dragged. He lurched.

Against the railing the thief put his hand into the curtain of water, and at full extension, even bent as his arm was, he couldn't see his fingers. The water was just too thick, the rain too heavy. He sniffed.

Obrecht wormed over the railing and vanished from Central Navy Receiving Hospital.

#

Around back of Dracken's townhouse the courtyard merged with the back yard, and beyond the back fence the ground remembered it was up a mountain. The bluff fell four hundred feet not far off vertical into river and rapids. Spiky grass, thorns, and gorse overgrew the bluff to the knee-high fence that marked the edge of the yard. Thorn-bushes climbed the restraining wall and had taken ten yards of the yard in the year since the Home Harbor people had been here. Dracken didn't inspect, because no human was going to creep through that without flensing his skin. Dracken thought of Obrecht and wished the thorns grew longer.

Tall walls separated the yards of the row, and the two on either side of Dracken's yard were both fifteen feet high. His easterly neighbors had a stables in the back, and their property was twice the width of his. On the west, towards high Kolvir and Castle Amber, Dracken's neighbor had been a hatter. He was quite mad. Now he kept dogs.

The two legs of the house were small rooms. The one on the north, to the left as one faced the house from the road, was nothing more than a storage area. Back when Dracken had ridden he'd kept his tack in there and thought it might still remain. The other room was a rain-foyer. It had a big formal door with metal studs forming a grid on the timbers. In old days Dracken had left it unlocked. Now the Home Harbor people drew the small bolt, which could be jimmied with a knife. Dracken entered, shut the door, ran the small bolt, the large, the bar, and then took a bench from the wall and shoved it between the latch and the Tir Nog Stoop.

This little rain room was big enough for a bench and a few people to shuck their coats. It smelled of feet. Pegs and hooks stuck out from the walls, and holes under metal grates drained the floor. Dracken heard rushing water underground. Most of the room was dominated by the stairway up to the body of the house. The lower three stairs were one block of granite and part of the floor, what Amber called a Tir Nog Stoop, but the rest were timber. In total they rose fourteen feet to the floor of the next level.

One room dominated the next level, one half the kitchen and one half the common area. The tack room on the level below only occupied half of that part of the house, and the rest was a solid rock pedestal. The oven was built on his, and by intricate work of stonecraft had air-intakes in the arch below. A great bay window faced the street at the midpoint of the house, and another one matched it one each of the two floors above. All had hoisting poles. Dracken locked the door to the foyer and ran the bolt. Again he braced the door with a bench, and his wet hands turned dust to mud. He closed the shutters and latched them, then double and triple checked every window. His fingers shook in the cold, for there was no firewood and the rain was not letting up.

Dracken stopped to listen. It sounded like the rain was getting worse. Up here it had been a little dryer than down by the harbor, but the beat of rain on the shutters had begun a slow crescendo.

It was probably just the acoustics of the shutters taking the rain instead of the window-panes, Dracken lied to himself, and told himself he believed it.

Another door, small as a closet, opened into a stairway stacked on top of the entrance stair, and it led to the next floor, the floor of offices, spare bedrooms, and a room Dracken and Sarise agreed would be first child's bedroom. They didn't have enough stuff to use it for storage, so it collected dust. Dracken rushed up and set to checking windows and shutters. By then the rain was inarguably louder.

#

In his head Dracken labelled the first floor the kitchen level. Below that was the outside, even inside the two little rooms. The second floor contained the spare rooms and unused bedroom. All those windows were shuttered tight, even the hoisting window. The third floor held a master bedroom, a necessary room, and what would be a servant's room if Dracken had ever gotten servants. Through the conjoined ceiling ran the pipes of the row. Amber had running water, dropped from cisterns high on Kolvir's sides, that ran clean and cold as the peaks. A tap in the unused servant's room fed a boiling cauldron. Every floor had fireplaces on either side, backing the fireplaces of their neighbors. None of them had firewood.

Rain falling through the open third-floor hoisting window as Dracken wrestled the shutters against the wind drenched him and the floor behind. The wind picked up, banging shutters into his face. They smashed like fists. Dracken fought, got one shut, and the wind changed, yanking the shutter wide to slam against the outside wall. The LtA had nothing to latch the one he'd caught closed with, and stood for a moment, looking into the teeth of the gale as rain beat him and left welts on his face. Outside the window he could see for perhaps ten feet. When he'd arrived he'd been able to see across the road, and even his ten feet was dropping fast.

The rain turned cold. Slithering up the long street in the pouring rain crawled a bent, twisted figure, sniffing at each door. Dracken saw it. Somehow his ring burned, and his eyes pierced the weather, seeing nothing but shadows and this one creeping thing. Lights in far houses were nothing but gray on black. Rain beat him and tried to claw into his mouth. Dracken looked at the slithering thing in hospital clothes, turned black with mud, and on the ground, in the terrible storm, the figure looked up at him.

There was no possible way it could have seen him through the weather. The winds should have blown rain straight into Obrecht's face. But Dracken knew it was Obrecht, and the thing on the ground hissed. It scuttled to the arch under Dracken's house and vanished under the overhang.

Fear emasculated Dracken, and soaked by rain he didn't know if he wet himself or the sky did it for him. Terrified he grabbed the useless shutter and almost fell to the street. He slammed them together and dropped the hooks into eye-holes. With the windows shut, the rain should have quieted. But it rained harder.

Dracken sprinted down to the first floor and peered through the slats of the front shutters. He didn't see Obrecht. He peered out the back. He saw nothing. Over the rain suddenly he heard dogs barking like they were tortured, howling in madness.

"Hello, thief," hissed a twisted voice, and Dracken screamed as he turned.

Obrecht smiled from within the oven and slithered into the kitchen, spilling black ash mud.

Chapter 14: Mellengroth Mere

Bleys said to the dragon, "Inhale, and taste the breath of Amber." He exhaled towards the spiderwebbed pond, and Spait the submerged dragon lifted his long head to sniff.

The great reptilian eyes rolled back in something close to pleasure, and inner lids stretched from his nose to the outward cracks where his massive armored scales came together. For an instant the beast's black eyes, all pupils or perhaps none, were filmed over by veinous clear membranes. Spait held his breath and sighed.

"That is a prince of Amber. One of them. An easy one. Go get him." Bleys winked.

"I am not your hound to go fetch, princeling," growled the great wyrm.

"No?" Bleys smirked and blew again, off to the side like a smoker exhaling away from his companion's face.

Spait glared at him, and the evil dragon's heart pumped thudding blood. Those beating veins within his third lids pulsed as his tail lashed the crusted surface of Mellengroth Mere. The nameless lake appeared on no map but the one Julian carried in his head, yet Bleys was beginning to think of it so named.

The prince of Amber waited and his lips pulled back from his teeth in a cool, self-satisfied grin. Spait challenged him, and the will of the dragon reached out to this man.

It met the will of Amber, and spiders fell dead from trees around them.

Suddenly the dragon lurched sideways and caught Bleys's air before it hit the pool. He gathered it up in both nostrils and held it greedily. By the time the wyrm exhaled, all scent of Amber was gone under the breath of the three-legged dragon.

"Go fetch, hound," whispered Bleys.

"You," replied the dragon, audible hatred escaping his scaled mouth with the words and fumes. The first leaped at Bleys, who caught them smirking. The second fell in a black gas and polluted the mere. The crusted webbing rustled in a wind that didn't exist as its webspinners fled the malice of Spait. "You order me at your peril, for hate is long and low banked in my heart."

"Fetch, dog!"

"I'll not go hunting for anyone, not even a Prince of Amber!" roared the dragon, and for the first time emerged fully from the lake. His body rose like a snake, his head cocked to strike, and his tail lashed the surface as it sank to the bottom of the mere. The dragon's eyes went gray as the veinous third lid closed them again, and he readied to strike.

But Bleys was smiling, and the dragon had breathed the Prince of Amber's curse.

For a moment the lake lay frozen, and the immobile beast glared at the grinning man. The icy water was only cobwebs and the icicles in the trees dead arachnids hanging from their behinds or bound up prey. Behind Bleys to the south the rainstorm vented fury over the port of Amber and grew as it raged, building a thunderhead that climbed towards Castle Amber on the mountain.

The breast of Spait rebelled and the dragon fell, crushing spiderwebs and splashed black, filthy water against the banks of the mere.

"You bastard!" bubbled the dragon's fury from underwater. The bubbles popped here and there and released his curses.

"Legit, actually. Clarissa. One of the few," replied Bleys. He winked at the dragon.

Impelled by some terrible force the beast climbed out of the water on three legs, and slithered over the low drainage to slide into the river downstream. Bleys waited and smirked as Spait disappeared, soon nothing more than a little head with a snakelike row of fins behind it. Its effect on the water was nothing more than a wave and a brown stain.

Once the dragon was gone Bleys took a few deep breaths into his cupped hands. Opening them, he held a small thing like a metal hand, only instead of a wrist it had a great brass ring. Its fingers were black as iron, its nails white as silver, and its body carbon steel. It sat on his hand patiently as he took a bit of cord from his pocket and put the metal hand on a leash.

Bleys threw the thing into the water and sat down with the patience of an old fisherman. The cord dropped, pulled this way and that, and began a slow expanding circle. With the dragon's departure the webs were thrown against the banks, trapping even the lily pads to the sides. The Prince of Amber discovered he had a bit of gum in one pocket, Barron's Spearmint, and he popped it in his mouth while the underwater hand searched Mellengroth.

#

Benedict, Master of Arms of Amber, currently one-handed and that hand inflicted with the Black Breath, climbed the stairs with his half-brother Random, King of Amber, his half-sister Fiona, a sorceress of some skill, and Vialle, Queen of Amber. They did not talk.

Random thought. Benedict heard his deep thought in the uncharacteristically slow and methodical placement of his feet. Usually the little bastard scampered, but now he strode. Vialle walked at his side and had taken his hand. Benedict wasn't sure if Random noticed. His gait hadn't changed when she did.

Fiona walked next to Benedict and neither of them said anything to each other. She walked in nonsensical finery, the ultimate indulgence of appearance over function. Earlier she'd used her hands to hold her clothing while she ran. Fiona was the sort of twit to have boobs smithed into her armor before going into battle. She carried a cashmere bag of rings of power from shadow.

Benedict thought that if these rings of power, or any, truly were as dangerous as they appeared, someone would have sought them out in shadow and used them long since. He also distrusted that supposition. Applied to an invention like the stirrup, that train of logic said that stirrups were useless because if two little footholes of leather and iron were useful, they would have been invented before the chariot.

At the top of the stairs Random paused. "Can I make one request of you two before the next crisis hits? Can you please try to get along for once?"

"We are," said Benedict.

"Do you think you have telepathy to know our thoughts?" asked Fiona.

"Your Majesty, Caine lies dead and the Courts of Chaos bring storms like the Black Road to Amber! We're doomed!" screamed the first butler who saw them.

"Goddammit, I ask– that was not a request!" yelled Random at nothing. He turned swiftly on Fiona and demanded, "Is he dead?"

She shuffled out her trumps again and found Caine's card. Her fingers brushed it. "No."

Random looked fast between the everyone, exempting only his wife from suspicion. He glared at the butler. "What do you mean a storm from the Courts of Chaos comes?"

"It rains in Amber!" yelled the butler.

"But what's Chaotic about it?" demanded Random.

"It's really bad!"

In a language unknown to Amber, Vialle whispered softly to Random, "No murder."

Random glowered at her too. Being blind, she didn't see, and if she knew, she ignored him.

The king turned to Benedict. "Go down to the city and find out what's going on with this storm. I'll tell you what happened to Caine."

With a vaguely dispeptic grunt, Benedict nodded. He didn't relax beyond perfect posture, but he lowered his shoulders just enough that his posture remained merely perfect and not insultingly so. He turned to the redhead. "If I may remind you of something, Fiona, in the spirit of getting along."

Fiona budged not at all. "Yes," she said.

"Great swordsmen attack uphill and win. Great generals make sure they don't attack uphill."

"Thank you for your wisdom," she replied.

"Trump me if Caine is actually dead this time," said Benedict and left.

The tall Master of Arms took himself to his chambers and slipped on a hook. It was a blunt, utilitarian thing that fit over his stump, the standard issue to Amberite servicemembers who needed one. He cinched it on with his teeth. The hook had no blades and a point as sharp as a pair of pliers, but like pliers it split in two. He could grab small things, pens, paper, a tea cup, and controlled it with small muscle movements in his forearm. With the hook and his numb hand, he swam into a sealskin cloak and produced a personal trump, one of the Second Naval Headquarters of Amber. First Headquarters was up here and served as more of liaison office than anything else. It was four rooms in a suite. Second was five buildings, two yards, and eight piers separated from the rest of the harbor by jetties. About the time Bleys and Spait talked in Mellengroth Mere, Benedict stepped from the castle into a rainstorm out of legend.

#

Benedict processed information quickly and thoroughly, rapidly coming to several conclusions.

1: "Rain" was a phenomena wherein water fell from the sky. It did this from time to time completely without interference of the Courts of Chaos.

2: Rain also made the sky dark. The water got in the way of sunlight. Furthermore the sun was setting, and the period of darkness that would follow was called "night."

3: Captain Armist, who had joined them on the expedition to Middle Earth and currently lead his mental list of officers to bring back, had been murdered. This had nothing to do with the rain.

"How did she die?" asked Benedict of an MP Lieutenant JG, the one briefing him.

"Beaten to death in the hospital. Terrible, really. She got attacked the day after she got back from the float and almost died. She hadn't even made it home yet, attacked leaving the Navy Yard. They took her into the hospital and that's where she got killed. Beaten to death with a fire poker."

"Who took her to the hospital?" asked Benedict.

"Lieutenant Admiral Dracken. He's been visiting her."

Benedict thought a moment. "Where is he now?"

"Maybe the hospital?" The Lieutenant hesitated. "I can find out."

"What hospital?" demanded Benedict.

He was on the road in seconds, striding rapidly through the rain.

#

Dracken screamed, an inarticulate, wordless shriek of terror as Obrecht slithered out of the oven. He descended with hands and feet spread out. His fingers grasped anything he touched, staining the floor and old, dusty carpets with ash mud.

The LtA fled upstairs and slammed doors behind him, but these interior doors had privacy locks not heavy bolts. Near mad the fat man dumped chairs in front of doors. He kicked apart Sarise's little hall-table when he fell over it, and dashed up another flight. In the top floor he dragged the cauldron from the servants' room and managed to wedge that into the stairway door. It couldn't be opened.

Rain battered the shutters. Dracken drew his pocket knife and waited.

Utter darkness took the old master bedroom. Dracken had no wax candles here, and roaches or rats ate the tallow ones years ago. There was nothing else. Fists of rain beat the shutters, and Dracken heard his own breathing. He heard himself panting and gasping. He waited.

The doorway to the stairs rattled. The hinges groaned. Something heavy pressed the stairs and Dracken heard another set of breathing. It sounded like it was in the bedroom with him. It stopped, and silence returned. The door did creak any more.

As Dracken waited with his short, utilitarian knife clutched in both hands, he realized he didn't know if the door was open or not. Visions came unwelcome of Obrecht crawling through the bedroom with him, and he attempted to dispel them with an act of his own will. But fear and something else stopped him, and fear and something else brought the feeling of movement to him. The short curly hairs on his neck felt wind from Obrecht crawling behind him. In the beating of weather on the roof he heard the verminous dock-worker's hands and feet on the floor. Nearly unmanned with fear Dracken clutched the ring which had brought him his vigor back, and his panic intensified a thousandfold.

He crept towards the door at the head of the stairs. In the dark he knew every inch of this house. He knew this room like his body. He took steps barely lifting his feet and put them down slow. He eased around a corner where the pipes ran from the ceiling down through the wall and listened. Rain pounded and distant thunder roared. He heard nothing inside.

For a moment his fear diminished for he was doing something. With the knife he reached out and poked the door. It rested closed against the frame.

Lightning finally arrived and broke the sky into fragments of daylight. They fell, leaving darkness and the roar.

Fingers and toes climbed over Dracken's shutters, outside, and probing for weakness: long thin fingers and toes that climbed like a lizard. Lightning came again, and the toes were gone. Next door the dogs of the old mad hatter sent up a terrified baying.

Dracken cried, quietly, and waited.

A splatter of rain fell into the bedroom fireplace and splashed ashes in the hearth. It stopped a moment later. Dracken thought of the hats on top of his chimneys that kept the rain out, narrow metal things with vanes to ward against the wind. He listened.

Something slithered down his chimney, and Obrecht decided to kill him.

Chapter 15: The Streets of Amber

Summary:

Dark

A madness gripped Dracken as the scuffling thing fought its way down the chimney, a weight of fury and derangement. Dracken felt fey in a way unlike anything before. Even in the bloodlust of old battle when death had not stalked him but lined up in ranks and files to wreak his doom, fury and terror had not been so intertwined as within his old bedroom where his wife and he had lain together.

Rain beat the shutters. No lights burned. No daylight made it through the deep storm, though already the sun would be behind Kolvir, heading west. The struggling thing hit the log basket and bolted free, and Dracken fell on it with his tiny knife slashing.

The thing thrashed, and Dracken stabbed. He cut; he slashed. It screamed and bit, but the fey wildness of knife-work in the dark overcame the Admiral. He cut it until it was ribbons, and the last yelp died. Only then did Dracken notice it was furry.

Part of the Admiral's soul died. Obrecht hissed horrible, deep laughter from up above, and his malice and glee slipped down the chimney to Dracken's horror.

The LtA knew what had happened, but a need consumed him. He opened the shutters a sliver, and waited for the lightning.

One of his neighbor's dogs lay slashed apart on his floor. It was one he knew, a kind and gentle thing that hadn't barked. Outside, beyond the lightning, the other dogs howled as if they knew.

"I'm going to tell," sang Obrecht. "I'm going to tell! I'm going to tell them all you killed the dog, I'm going to tell, I'm going to tell, you killed the dog." His lizard-rasp slithered down the chimney, and the poor animal lay shredded. Its fur stuck to the carpet with blood.

Like a whipsaw the madness returned, but now fear vanished. Dracken needed to kill Obrecht: to keep the secret, to survive himself, because Obrecht needed killing. The fat man threw open the hoisting window, the central bay window that protruded into the street. He tore the shutters aside and let them bang in the wind. He wanted Obrecht to know. Above the window a post stuck out, and from it hung an old, unused rope. Dracken threw himself up, caught the post, and climbed. His arms were still mighty, and his legs recalled their strength. He saw death and bloodshed. Dracken hauled himself onto the steep roof with the knife in his teeth, and the bitter iron-taste of dog blood burned like the fire in his mind.

Obrecht waited on hands and feet, curled around the chimney with an empty leash. Lightning tore the sky.

"Got you out," whispered Obrecht.

Dracken stood upright on rain-slicked shingles. The roof canted steeply and dumped rain like the flood. He palmed the knife in his hand. Dracken remembered knifework from long ago, before the lance, before his hips were ruined, before Sarise had left, when he was field-commissioned and his wife still loved him. When he had lived by the knife and sword.

The old, fat man stepped wide and stayed low, and kept the knife behind him, slipping it up and down, forward and reverse grip, so Obrecht wouldn't know what was coming. Dracken scrambled up the roof on two feet and one hand, bent over like a bitter, twisted thing. Obrecht waited and hissed, sticking his tongue out to lick the rain. He spun the leash like a lasso. Thunder and lightning made war in the sky.

The old man charged, Obrecht slithered aside, and Dracken slashed underhanded, a great power shot driven by strength beyond even Dracken's memory. The hand with the ring leaped at the twisted dockworker and threw sprays of splattered rain. He missed. The twisted man lurched wide and jumped, crashing into Dracken's head. They crashed together and rolled. Dracken stabbed again and again, sometimes hitting flesh, and sometimes in his madness tearing shingles from the roof. Obrecht screamed and bit. He wrapped the leash around the Sailor's throat like a garrote, strangling and biting. They rolled down the precipitous roof.

The hoisting pole smashed Dracken's face and made him spin. He lost his grip on Obrecht and knife, and flipped with the impact. The leash caught him, devilishly worked around the hoisting pole. Dracken fell, the leather thong snapped, and the old fan man broke the leash with his neck.

Obrecht had no such luck, and plummeted to wet earth, smashing onto cobblestones and breaking bones. Dracken smashed down beside him, trailing the dogleash like a comet's tail. For an instant of impact, the rain seemed to stop as if the storm itself wanted to see what ruin had happened. Then it dropped rain like it wanted to smite them and drown their bodies from memory.

Dracken sat up. He gasped and wheezed, but his eyes opened wide. Nothing but hatred existed in him. He looked at Obrecht.

The dockworker slithered into curling, like a fetal position but with erect head. He hissed.

Dracken's legs were broken, but he crawled. Obrecht could not make himself flee. He retreated, lifted up, and struck Dracken while the other clawed at him, and the Admiral caught him by the throat. Obrecht tried to bite the ring off, and Dracken stabbed and stabbed until he couldn't recall the difference between the man and the dog. Rain drowned them both. The wildness left with Dracken's senses and possibly his life, and two twisted bodies wrapped around each other in the street, bleeding.

The power of the ring was not to be denied.

Before morning a lean man in orange and brown, a sealskin cloak, a hook for a hand on his right arm and a ball of wrappings and bandages on his left, came looking for Dracken's old house. Benedict strode uphill as rain cut the warmth out of his clothing, seeming to find holes and crevices like enemy knives and jumping in to chill his flesh. Where it struck his face the droplets felt like tiny bullets, and where they dribbled under his clothes they felt like blood. With his wrapped right-hand in front of his face like a shield, Benedict lurched up the hill and checked house-numbers on either side of the street.

He found the one he was looking for with inert bodies in the street, an open-window banging overhead, and part of a broken dog-leash wrapped between the two forms. He yanked Dracken over with his hook, and the sailor gasped. He blew bubbles as he breathed, and the other end of the leash wrapped his neck. Benedict turned on Obrecht and rolled him over. The worker lay still.

If anything the rainstorm grew worse, and became artillery, battering earth and houses. The gutters flooded. Mud surged downhill. The rainstorm was a roar.

If nothing could be heard, then Benedict must have heard nothing, yet he lifted his head and stared to the north, towards the row-houses such as Dracken's. Beyond them lay a hillside. Beyond that Kolvir. Beyond that Garnath.

Benedict stood up straight and dropped the Admiral. He looked into gated archway the old knight had bought and the darkness beyond.

"Hello, Lord of Amber," whispered another voice, a true dry lizard's voice that defied wind, rain, and creation. This was the low, deadly murmur Obrecht's broken lungs had attempted. It was a voice deep as the black spaces under mountains and dark as the halls of Utumno's forbidden corridors.

"Hello, wyrm," said Benedict.

In spite of darkness black-eyes of Spait looked through the iron bars at Benedict. For the first time those eyes showed color. Orange and red embers burned within, and yellow and gold fires reached upward, ignoring wind and rain as lesser forces. The dragon's teeth glistened like bars before a terrible cage as the beast whispered.

"Rejoice, Prince of Amber. I mean you no harm," whispered Spait. "The thought of hills lies topmost in your mind. You think of battle up and down the hill. I do not seek to fight you. You may go."

Benedict glanced at Dracken. The LtA lay insensate, and only occasional splatter of his breathing under the relentless deluge indicated he was alive. The other man lay still as well, and Benedict wondered if he was the one the hospital staff named Obrecht. That patient had disappeared soon after Dracken arrived, and now they were together. Armist was dead. One of Benedict's sailors was dead, soon after the patient Obrecht appeared at the hospital, and soon before he disappeared. Now Dracken, Benedict's Dracken through Army and Navy, Land and Sea, lay on the edge of death.

"You think of land, but remember talking to your sister of hills. Be the smart general, Lord Benedict of Amber, and do not seek a fight uphill. Be smart. I mean you no harm," whispered Spait.

Benedict guarded his thoughts and clicked his hook. Its two pieces tapped each other as he adjusted the muscles in his stump. A few years on since Lintra took his hand, and he had a wrist again. A knob on his arm held bumps that might become fingers.

"Be smart, Prince of Amber, like those who saw Armist and left her." The dragon's eyes burned, and his snake-lips stretched wide.

Benedict lifted his eyes slowly and let the rain fall against him.

"Be smart. A yearning lives within you to undertake some effort, and it will heal your arm. All you have to do is wait. This one is just a shadow of an Old Broke man." The dragon's words put images in Benedict's head, pictures of Armist bleeding in the street as her charts had told him, and of Dracken, fat, broken, bleeding Dracken, who lay in a pile like tenderized meat. The dragon purred and even in the rain his breath stank of something acrid like bile.

Benedict clicked his hook twice. "Come, beast. Come."

The dragon charged, and Benedict hurled himself at it.

Smashing iron-wrought gates as it tore them from the stone, Spait rushed forward. It struck as snakes do, all speed. Yet Benedict's charge was a feint, and he flapped his cloak before the beast as it struck. Huge teeth ripped the sealskin apart. The Prince of Amber floated sideways as his feet slid on slicked paving-stones, the dragon passing him like a dance partner gone too far, and Benedict drew Bleys's sword from the wyrm's haunch as it passed.

Spait roared. Benedict tried to hold the blade in his hook and failed, having to discard it. The tail of the wyrm followed its head into the street and curled up. The prince spun the sword with one of his feet, and using the same hurled it at Spait. It shattered on his teeth. The wyrm formed an S with his neck and struck again, staving in the stone walls of Dracken's tack room.

The prince partially dodged. He didn't get hit and nor did the dragon's jaws tear him through the wall, but in dodging, Benedict underestimated the terrible force of the dragon. Stones flew like shrapnel. He had been too close, trying to get within hooking range. Spait tore through the building and thrashed his tail, catching the lean Master of Arms at the midriff nearly accidently but still throwing him a hundred feet up the roadway. A lesser man would have died. Benedict merely fell, as mud between the great flat paving stones betrayed his footing.

The prince got up. His ribs were bruised, maybe broken. Spait slithered up and over the house as dogs went mad. The rain proved no cover. Benedict couldn't see, but suddenly two flares raged into brilliance, staring right at him. The dragon came running, and Benedict retaliated again.

It snapped, he dodged once more, and as teeth crashed together with clatter of bone on bone, Benedict reached out with his hook and ripped open the dragon's gums. It tried to scream, and Benedict leaned away, turning to run for cover.

His hook betrayed him. It got stuck in the dragon's jaw, and somehow the releases jammed. Baffled, for a moment the Master of Arms of Amber yanked at his arm as his stump stuck into the very mouth of the beast. Spait spasmed and threw him. Again Benedict flew and this time landed poorly, crashing to the flagstones on his side.

Spait struck. Its eyes were fire, its breath poison, and everything went wrong for the lean prince. The dragon evaded his ripostes and snapped at his head. It used its great bulk to swim over the wet road while the prince struggled and clawed for every bit of footing. He lost his effortless movement and struggled until Spait caught him with his tail, striking him down. On the ground the prince tried to roll, and again partially dodged the wyrm's snake-strike. This time one of the little legs caught him, tore his clothes and skin, and threw him spinning across the street. The harness for his prosthesis broke.

Tactically, thought Benedict, I'm going to die. I have no weapon. I cannot move in the rain. The dragon fights with a limp. The sword Bleys left in him was not the first one, and that poses a possibility. But I can't hold it, my hook is gone, and this damn numbness that's hung on since Forochet and those riders and their rings–

For no particular reason at the moment Benedict thought 'rings' he happened to glance at Dracken. Bitemarks marred the Lieutenant Admiral's hands, and one was gloved. The other glove was ripped away. That hand wore a ring on its ring finger, and Benedict recalled Dracken had given up his wedding ring when Sarise divorced him. The slab of the Admiral's unconscious flesh lay desolate and alone in the street.

They do just turn up, thought Benedict, and he ran for Dracken.

Spait charged again, Benedict lurched to safety, but the bloodprice of the dragon was slashes on his back. The wyrm's tail beat him. Already his muscles rebelled where Spait had smacked him. Benedict risked greatly and dashed across open ground, through a veil of rainwater thick as a brick wall, with his eyes locked on the tiny band of gold on Dracken's finger. His own numb hand burned. Spait missed a charge and that was enough, for Benedict stood up with his ruined hand unwound, a gold band around his fingers.

The Master of Arms calculated.

Form: long serpent. Body-type meant better footing.
Primary danger: head.
Front right foreleg injured: Bleys's sword.
Bleys's sword: ruined. Somehow just contact with the beast had wrecked it.
The dragon has evil magic. So be it.
Hing legs intact, but exhibited a stiffness at the right hindlock. Where the hip would be if it had them, there was a region of immobility.
Spait rose and hissed.

"You've been stabbed before," observed the Master of Arms. "And that sword lies within you. Does it eat at you, dragon? Does it cut within your flesh? Do you still burn with an old injury, one dealt by an old enemy, who remains to haunt you¬¬–"

"Enough, Lice of Amber!" screamed Spait, and the dragon charged, roaring so houses shook. Kolvir roared back with echoes, and Benedict stepped forward, leaned down, and walked through the twisting coils.

His hand reached into a dimple on the scales and drew an elvish sword from the dragon's side, severing flesh and scale as the weapon emerged. On the blade's side old runes of Noldor read Telcrim, the name of an elf from the War of Wrath. He had perished in the breaking of the Girdle with his blade lodged in his enemy's flank. Almost Telcrim had survived, but even then a younger Spait had been too much for him, and the elf who had seen Valinor died under Melkor's gloom.

The prince did not understand the language, but his hand knew a sword. He threw off the weight of darkness and lightning burned the sky behind him. Spait arranged himself to attack, but he bled black fluid that smelled of bile. Years hence, this part of the street would turn black and stink when it was wet.

Benedict waited. Spait roared. Shouts of fear echoed from nearby houses, and behind Dracken's neighbor the dogs fell silent, struck by fury and terror beyond their understanding. Only Kolvir roared back, throwing echoes of the dragon's below back at it. Benedict stood tall as the mountain and waited.

Spait charged, Benedict swept his jacket off to throw as a diversion and tried to slip aside. Yet at the last moment something caught his leg. The dragon came on!

Benedict looked away from his target and saw Obrecht, broken and nearly dead, but sprawled on the ground behind him with his bent hands wrapped around Benedict's leg.

Spait struck, Benedict blocked, and his hand betrayed him. The blade Telcrim caught the beast's snout crosswise, glancing off iron-hard scales. Spait bit Benedict from hip to shoulder, and with ripping teeth and terrible strength, tore the Prince of Amber apart. His arm tumbled free with the sword. Spait swallowed his body without chewing, throwing his head back and engulfing him. Then it turned and snatched the legs off the ground. It wolfed them down.

Under the curtain of rain Obrecht slithered to the sword, yanked it from the hand, and pulled a plain gold band from the dead finger. Grinning madly, he put it on his own finger and threw the arm to Spait. The dragon caught it out of the air and consumed it.

The thing Obrecht and dragon Spait regarded each other.

"You are a twisted, poisonous thing," whispered Spait. "And it pleases me to see you suffer. But there are more tempting morsels here. Begone, thing. Begone."

The dragon turned and ripped open the first house, crushing rocks with his teeth. At once the city of Amber was filled with screaming, but under the veil of the rain, no one heard.

Chapter 16: Rebma

Obrecht wore a ring.

The little gold thing fit around the fourth-finger of his right hand, above the missing stub where Bleys had twisted off his pinky. It felt like a battleship. It weighed him down as tons of bricks and gave him the strength of teams of horses to lift it. It was power, beauty, and grace, and the circular band with no beginning or end promised the ring would never betray him. It was with him forever. It was his. It loved him.

#

A few year ago the forces of Chaos had pushed into Garnath along the Black Road. The so-called Siege of Amber described about five years wherein an osmosis of evil beings beset the city on Kolvir, always defeated, and yet never repelled. No enemy commander could be killed for no one commanded. No lord ruled the invasion to be a target for assassination. The Siege of Amber allowed a drift of malice from all of shadow to the city.

In the pubs and bars Amberites wondered what brought the besiegers. They wondered who had opened the way and what had closed it later. They wondered why the rest of the shadow felt such envy at the one true city they manifested a gestalt hatred that often meant their deaths.

Obrecht sat in the bars and listened as he drank. He didn't have an answer; he'd just come with the rest.

In a shadow called Ballire not without similarity to eighteenth century France Obrecht had killed two men and stolen their money. It was his first killing, unexpected and unintentional, and only his third robbery. It was never supposed to go like that. Obrecht had starved and eaten grass from his yard until it made him sick. He'd stolen grass from his neighbor until the old rich woman invoked the police because he was stealing food from her cows. The court jailed him, billed him for jail, and took his hovel to pay his bills. And Obrecht had undertaken crime.

The first robbing was a businesslike affair that went professionally well without preparation. On impulse he drew a knife on an old man in the dark streets of Ballire, and the other exchanged his wallet for his life. They'd gone their separate ways. Obrecht lived for two months on that one mugging, staying to the central districts where the city could pay for gas in the lamp posts. He ate like he had, only better. His sickness vanished, his bowels stilled, his teeth no longer wiggled in his head.

But he ran out of money and sank into the dark streets of outer Ballire to surface again, ate well again, and live again under the whitish gold flame of gas light in dirty lamps. Another two months passed. The third time something went wrong.

The mark walked alone, but Obrecht didn't know his friend walked behind him, briefly delayed. Obrecht never learned why. Still lean but not starving, Obrecht jumped out of a darker alley to the dark street and presented arms, demanding money or a life, and the mark started screaming.

Obrecht tried to shush him. The mark wouldn't be shushed. They struggled.

Another voice took up the shout from behind.

"Antietam!"

"It's the Night Killer!" yelled Antietam the mark, and at once jumped on Obrecht, catching his knife arm.

Obrecht struggled and tried to run, but the mark held him like a vise. His friend was almost coming, and the friend drew a long, heavy sword that reflected starlight as if it flickered. Obrecht tried to run, slipped and fell, and the Antietam climbed on top of him, letting go of Obrecht's arms to rain punches on his fist.

Obrecht struck, and the knife passed up below the rips, unlimbering the lungs. Antietam gasped, and his mouth fell open.

"Murder!" screamed Waltnath, the name the police would give the second victim later. "The Night Killer has murdered Antietam!"

Obrecht rolled out from under the dying man and ran, and Waltnath leaped over the body to chase into the alley.

In the alley blades flew, in darkness where both were blind as luck. Obrecht lived, Waltnath died, and the thief ran away starving. He never got the money.

Witnesses who hadn't come help described the killer to the police. The State put a thousand crowns on the Night Killer's head for the murder of Antietam and Waltnath, and connection to nine other killings of the same sort.

A pathway opened up in the unlit quarters of Ballire. It was a black road that some cops never found and others walked easily. It carried Obrecht away from the posters with his face and took him to Amber. In a battle in Garnath Julian lead the gleaming forces of Amber against the dirty horde, and Obrecht just left.

He got a job and an apartment. He found a girl who would keep watch so no second mark arrived. He cased his targets carefully and picked the rich ones, because Tatianna was not cheap. His cousin arrived and worked metals, and a ring is a necklace is a coin after it's melted into a bar. A little extra money stretched dockworker wages a long way, and eventually he marked one Captain Armist, took her money and her rings, and ran into a bit of difficulty thereafter.

But now he wore a ring again.

The dragon Spait turned his great tail on the thing Obrecht to attack the row houses on either side of Dracken's. The people tried to flee, but their yards abutted a steep hill. Tall privacy walls kept them apart. Dragon teeth ripped walls as easily as flesh.

Obrecht wore a ring, and he left a dark city again. It was time to be gone.

There was no particular direction to his footsteps, but he walked easily. The illness that had beset him in Navy Central Receiving vanished. He could run or walk, and as rain fell like the wrath of God, he even danced. Half a mile downhill Spait was nothing but a memory, and a mile further and the row houses stopped. Obrecht just happened to be on the southern side of town, and the way out just happened to go along the beach, and Obrecht walked with no particular destination in mind until he just happened to find a cairn in the sand, miles from the city, and wondered how much wetter he could be underwater than in this rain.

He turned smartly to his left and walked confidently into the ocean until it closed over his head.

#

As Rebma mirrored Amber, a monster attacked the city.

The city of Rebma stood like a glowing city on a hill over the depths of the Sea of Amber. The stairway from the beach lead down much as the stairway from Tir-na Nog'th lead down to the castle itself, and like Amber on Kolvir, Rebma sat on Rivlok, a great seamount. The stairway of Rebma made its own moonlight in the form of flames on spires, and these duplicated into countless multitudes within the city. It gleamed within the dark. The city Rebma seemed not to reflect the harbor and harbor cities below the mountain.

It may have. There were no lights down there, and the people of Rebma did not venture into the deeps. The toes of Rivlok hung into the depths called Trey Kray's Chasm, named for Moire and Llewella's mother's father, who had ventured down and not returned. The people of Rebma noted that Rebma seemed like two cities: a city on a hill spreading light to the darkness, and an anglerfish's lure sitting just above the Chasm. They wondered if anglerfish ever got scared of what might rise to take their bait.

From the depths came the serpent Rog. At the instant Spait slew Benedict the serpent darted upwards, giving no warning and making no sounds. It swam like a serpent, all head and body. If there was another city down Rivlok's side, perhaps Rog came from the point mirroring Benedict's death. Perhaps it came from somewhere deeper and darker.

Rog smashed into the rear gates of the city, those that warded a narrow path down the upper slopes of Rivlok where the mermen harvested shellfish. This gate faced the roads in Amber. Rog could have gone over easily, but it tore through iron bars rendered impenetrable to seawater by the nature of the place and scattered them. The first to die was a woman running for her life as an impromptu spear tumbled from the shattered gate to smash in her skull. Screams, cries, and the ringing of swords on shields met Rog. The serpent laughed. It swam through the gatehouse and over the city, and darted down to seize a green-haired man in giant teeth. The man could not cry out before Rog crushed him. Blood spread through the water over Rebma and leaked from the serpent's gills at it swam on.

In the throne room messengers came running to Queen Moire, and she guided the defense. Llewella came running as well.

"What can you do?" asked Moire of Llewella. "Princess of Amber. Daughter of Oberon?"

"Call the boys," she replied and drew her trumps. "Benedict is one of the hero types."

Try as she might, she could not reach him.

"Gerard perhaps," she said.

He was far in shadow, and contact did not come swiftly. They spoke as if through a fog, and not one word in ten made it through. Soon she lost contact, and attempted to try again when breaking stone echoed through the throneroom.

Llewella's concentration failed her, and she crouched low. Moire sat frozen on her throne. Both looked up.

The stone ceiling rose in vaults. Arches linked the pillars and demarcated spaces wherein great paintings of Amber decorated stone. They showed Oberon triumphant, Amber majestic, and Kolvir tall, and the people of Rebma had not replaced them. But in their own way the ceiling of Moire's throne room took on the aspect of its place. The white spaces were filled in, and blue skies redone in navy and green to become seas. Trees in the forest of Arden were accented to become depths of Sargasso, and panels showing storms that raged behind the unicorn rampant above people were split with a sea surface, that it was people under the sea, green people wit hair of brown, blue, and navy, looking up at the unicorn. Moire never spited Amber, and yet the ceiling of her throne room was her own.

Above the stone something fell. A great crash echoed above, leaking through the pillars until the vast chamber tolled like a bell ringing doom.

"The roof is broken," whispered Moire. "It is among the forest. It is descending."

The spaces between roof and ceiling echoed again. A huge panel of stone showing Oberon's head cracked and fell. Crashing, it threw waves that hurled courtiers against the walls. Rog's eye glowed like the fires of the devil and looked down. Now Oberon's body had the serpent's burning eye, and for an instant Llewella saw her father with the monster's power. It vanished and its teeth savaged the ceiling. The stone began to crack and fall. The serpent was breaking through.

"I have no time," whispered Llewella. "I need time." The eye of the serpent fell on her again, and the trumps tumbled from her hand. The beast's eyes filled her mind with visions of ruin and death.

Moire twisted the ring on her finger. "Amber will come. What happens here is mirrored in Amber, and they must certainly know. They must see this and will come. They must come."

And she twisted the ring Bleys had given her, praying for Amber.

#

Tatianna watched Julian dress while pretending to sleep. She had been asleep, but his gentle movements from under her had awoken her. He seemed content to believe she still slept, and she was content to watch him dress.

The building rain echoed against the lower walls of the castle, but the high window overlooked the storm. Evening twilight sat on a rainstorm. To the east the sky turned black. Low stars had already appeared, but at the top of the window some traces of deepest blue remained. There was little to see outside. Tatianna had eyes for none of it but Julian.

He was stronger than Obrecht. His bones were bigger, his arms cut more powerfully. Years of riding that thing Morgenstern gave him legs of a god.

Julian liked to be ridden. She had been surprised. The first time he had held her down, on hand on her breast teasing her nipples with his callouses, one hand on the throat. He'd taken her so hard she'd been as frightened as aroused, pushed to the limits of being hurt as the master horseman rode her. But the second and third times had been slow. After grazing her body, he'd rolled over to put her on top. He'd guided her with hands on her hips.

Tatianna didn't prefer being on top. She had large breasts and preferred the way they looked in clothing, the thinner the better, but thick enough to give structure and keep her from flopping around. Julian had disagreed. When she sat on his stomach, he'd simply scooped her up with on hand on her buttock, lifting her as if she was nothing, adjusted himself, and eased her down. He was amazingly hard and thick.

Panting, Tatianna had leaned forward with the first thrust, and he caught her with a hand to the sternum, straightened her up, and put his hands back on her hips. His fingers pressed furrows in her skin, and she would have bruises later. But if he wanted her straight, Tatianna arched her back with her hands on her hair thinking her chest flopping around like that couldn't be sexy.

He had clearly disagreed and disagreed again thereafter to be sure.

Now he got dressed, and his little butt stepped into pants with light flexing. She should have bitten him.

Tatianna lay still in a bubble of contentment, warm all over, and filled with a sense of deep satisfaction. She was certain he felt the same. But she needed something more, and in spite of her pleasure, sought about in her mind for a way to catch this one so he couldn't get away.

Julian snuck out the door, but his footsteps didn't go away. After a moment Tatianna crawled out of the warm bed and listened.

"What is it you wanted?" asked Julian, barely audible over the rain. It was louder on the landing.

This tower was a stack of rooms circumnavigated by a stairway, and the stairs brought the sound of rain from below. It must be really hitting the lower parts of the castle. Tatianna's room was mostly circular, with about a third of the outside notched by the rising stairway. That notch met another where the necessary was divided from the main room. They had running water in there, which she understood but had never had. The last third of the wall was her great bay window, and by listening at the door it was out the bay window, down at the rising rainstorm and up at the clear evening stars to the east her head turned.

"I'm in the castle. What do you want?" asked Julian.

Tatianna listened. She didn't hear a reply. She heard nothing, then a bit of buckling.

"I see. Bring me through."

Silence returned and did not leave.

When her curiosity overrode her desire for stealth, she squeezed her chest and cracked open the door. No one was there. She glanced down the old wood stairs. There was no way a man would have walked down there silently. She slipped back inside the room before someone caught her standing naked on the stairway, but not before noticing that her door could be locked from within or without. But she hadn't been locked in yet.

Freely and of her own will, Tatianna shut the door behind her. She wanted to think hard, but she was naked and stank of sex. Inspiration hit, and she realized that the royals might have running water for bathing. In the necessary room her idea of wealth exploded, for not only did the royals have piped water for bathing, they had hot water, unlimited, without need for buckets, cauldrons, or fires. She sank into the first effortless warm bath of her life with the lesser soaps, casual shampoos, toiletries the Amberites had left in here suitable for a holding room just barely above a prison. Fiona, whom Tatianna began to think of as her jailer, had provided conditioner, comb, and brush because the princess wasn't a savage. Tatianna's understanding of comfort changed forever.

In warm water up to her neck Tatianna decided she was going to catch a Prince of Amber.

#

Julian stepped into the library on Random's trump. Caine lay on a couch with a leather thong between clenched teeth, mostly still. He twitched occasionally. Fiona sat in a corner by the fireplace, swirling red wine in a glass and watching it crawl down the sides. Flora sat with her in resplendent black and gold. Both of them wore long dresses, but Flora's hung to the floor in condition for a formal party. Fiona hadn't changed out of the riding skirts she'd worn this morning when the dragon had attacked Bleys. That was only this morning. Julian sat down and had a cigarette.

"Are you sure it's Caine?" asked the huntsman of Arden.

"No," said Random. "Got a plan to find out?"

"Take him to the basement and make him bleed on the Pattern."

"Last time we did that, Dad died fixing it. Are you volunteering to make the walk this time?" asked Random.

Julian didn't reply. He regarded the black-haired patient coldly. "Any marks or wounds?"

"None. I checked him. You and Fiona were the last to see him awake. Fiona ran down to speak us in the Pattern Hall. She says she ran the whole way. Did you see her leave?"

"Running," said Julian. "She could have ran down the stairs, trumped, and finished running."

"Absolutely," agreed Random. "And where were you?"

"In the tower with the girl from the dragon attack," said Julian.

"And what were you doing up there?"

"Her."

Flora blinked and looked over. Random did not seem surprised.

Julian allowed himself awareness of Fiona. In the city they toasted Florimel as the great beauty, and Julian appreciated the truth of it in clinical fashion. Red-haired Fiona, red as her brothers Bleys and Brand, didn't smile as readily and her face never lost composure. Where Flora unleashed her million-dollar smile, Fiona allowed people to amuse her. Her skin was fair, Tatianna's dark like her hair. Julian didn't look at Clarissa's daughter, his half-sister, but his awareness told him she did not express a response when he said he'd slept with the prisoner.

Random continued, saying, "That gives you an interesting alibi: the girl who appeared with the dragon, wearing one of the rings out of shadow. If you say so, I'm sure you did sleep with her, but there's a wide open window of time."

"Who is she?" asked Flora.

"Her name is Tatianna. She's from a shadow called Tenthet. It's my shadow. I found her out there some years ago, and she learned a form of shadow magic involving conjuring. She herself was conjured by shadow from art. A few years later she came looking for me in Arden, and I turned her away. I hadn't spoken to her inbetween or since. Caine, Fiona, and I escorted her to a holding area. They left, I remained to keep an eye on her, and the rest¬– happened." Julian stared at Random like he wanted his little brother, the King, to blink first, and held his gaze the whole time.

Random didn't blink. He did twist a jewel around his neck and Julian recognized it. He also suddenly noticed Random wore his crown. He didn't say anything and decided he'd known they were there all along.

Random spun the Jewel of Judgement between his fingers, an immense, irreplaceable ruby, or at least a stone that looked like one. The crown was a plaything of emeralds on seven points, gold and diamonds mashed together because he had to wear a symbol at formal affairs. The people expected it. The Jewel hung from a steel chain around his neck, and the weight of it hurt him. He wished Vialle was here.

"Where's Benedict?" asked Julian.

Random waved vaguely towards the city. "He went down to get things ready. Gerard walked the Pattern to cure his arm, and it may have worked. If it did, Benedict will walk soon. In the meantime he's gathering resources and a crew experienced with that shadow you visited, Middle Earth, for your return."

"Return?" repeated Julian.

Random nodded. "You have work to do."

Julian thought of the crown and the Jewel, and chose not to argue.

Instead he said, "Kingship has bestowed Dad's temperament on you."

Random grunted.

"How does Vialle feel about that?" Julian continued.

And Random caught that too.

Chapter 17: The Shadow of the Ring Makers

Before the serpent attacked Llewella and Moire had been talking about Llewella's choice of clothing. Bare-breasted Moire had asked about the tunic that her half-sister put on after meeting Bleys, as by tradition and comfort underwater everyone in Rebma went topless. Up until earlier that day Llewella had as well. Then her brother had visited. She'd gone from a trunks to a light dress to tunic and pants.

"He's sending an agent of his to see me," explained Llewella before the serpent Rog was yet visible from the walls of Rebma. "And meeting visitors of Amber makes me self-conscious. It's one of many reasons I don't like to do so. Bleys has a way about him of imposing for favors, so I assented to meet this Obrecht."

"But why did you change?" asked Moire.

Llewella didn't immediately answer.

"You are so odd," said Moire. "You've lived here how many years, and taken refuge so many times. Yet in times of stress, even receiving visitors, you revert to upwater custom."

"No, no," replied Llewella. "Well, perhaps, but not this time. It's Bleys. There was something odd about him. His mannerisms weren't–" she struggled "–right."

"He seemed fine to me."

Llewella looked over at her sister the Queen. "I noticed you noticing. Are you going to wear it?"

Moire looked down at the ring in her fist. "This?"

Llewella nodded. Green hair waved.

"Does it mean something in Amber?" asked Moire.

"Not necessarily. It can, but it doesn't always."

"Amber doesn't have customs about rings?" asked Moire.

At this moment Rog was swimming upwards like a scaled torpedo, cutting through the water towards Rebma. In instants it would hit the gates, and the denizens of the underwater city were just spotting the great sea serpent, not yet even possessed of themselves enough to shout.

"If you're speaking of wedding rings, I remind you custom in Amber descends from Oberon, and he was open about the meaning of marriage. Wedding rings aren't quite as established upwater as rumor makes them," replied Llewella. She was hiding a smirk but not well.

Moire made a face at her and slipped the ring on.

Rog hit the gates, smashed them, and by the time the people started screaming, the first citizen of Rebma died. Simultaneously, above water, Spait crushed the walls of a townhouse and ripped Dracken's mad hatmaker neighbor limb from limb. The wyrm's presence infected his dogs with madness, and they leaped off the ledge behind the houses into a deep ravine. Their howls dwindled before vanishing in the rain.

Moire flinched from screaming in her city, and Llewella recoiled. Chaos erupted through the castle. The queen was calling for information and sending runners when the ceiling cracked, and all at once Rog was there. The Princess of Amber tried to call her brothers via trump and failed. Rog broke through the ceiling. Its long body undulated, yet shattered walls and pillars as it came. The tip of the serpent's tail sheared through rock in a manner unnatural.

Llewella threw a pebble at it, blue with a stripe of green, about as big as a thumb, tip to knuckle. Rog attacked with an open mouth and the pebble flew right in.

The queen tackled Llewella and rolled under Rog's great jaws. They bit the throne in half, crushing ornate corral inlaid with gold. The serpentine body chased the head, and Rog smashed into a corner, breaking more pillars and walls while gold-crusted gravel fell from between long teeth. Moire and Llewella ran.

Rog chased them down the throne hall like a freight train bent on murder. They cut sideways through a stately line of pillars, and the huge beast slalomed. It moved terribly quick. They ran as if the water was ether, but it swam through the ocean that permeated the structure. When it was almost on them, Llewella gave Moire a shove and threw herself sideways. Rog missed the Amberite by a hair.

It moved ever so slightly slower than before. The long body wrapped the pillars, holding back its bullet-shaped head. It had to struggle to get beyond the stone, which did not break as effortlessly as moments ago. Coral fragments shot out its gills.

"Run!" yelled Llewella and she put her words to practice, dashing across the throne room to grab one of the ancestral spears from a wall. This weapon had killed the Boars of Sunrise, flame beasts that had attacked Amber itself centuries ago when Gerard had accidently opened a way to their homeland expanding the trade lanes. The spear had a cross-brace up by the point, a brass beam a yard wide and verdigrised green as the deep sea. Llewella took it and waited, and Rog approached.

Serpentine, it coiled in the middle of the throne hall, and tapestries ruffled as if they were trying to flee. Some current pulled her hair, and it too waved. Like a banner the green-hair of the Princess of Amber flew behind her. The butt of the pole-arm slipped into a pocket between her back foot and the floor.

"You will die!" screamed Moire. The queen had run to the door, but halted when her half-sister had not joined her.

Rog vomited bits of broken throne and reared high. Llewella waited. The beast struck, and she drove the spear into its mouth. The crosspiece caught its jaws, and smashed the brass spearbutt through the stone, plowing a furrow in granite as if the throne-room was floored in loam. Llewella left it and ran. The beast pursued less fast than she, and when she grabbed Moire and pulled her out a side door, it had not yet crossed the central nave.

They shut a door and barred it, and Rog smashed twice against it. The impacts shattered rock. Then it paused and hit again, and this time the door only creaked. It hit again and again, and each time the impact weakened.

When the guards arrived, Llewella took another spear and told them, "Stay here." She unbarred the door and reentered the hall.

Rog was near dead and gasping. With a thrust through the gills she finished it, and the thing fell to ground.

Llewella opened the door for the others, and they clustered around the snake. She'd taken back her trumps, and organized and shuffled the cards to put them back in a small box.

"What was that thing you threw?" asked Moire. Her voice was soft in the hall.

"The Sea of Geth. It's a freshwater ocean I keep, kept, in a pocket." Some of the cards lay face-up and some face-down, and she went through them card by card to get orientation and facing correct.

The Rebmen and their queen looked at her.

Llewella looked up. "Smell that? Or rather the absence of it? Freshwater. I imagine it will continue leaking for days. Try not to let anything in it, because until the plume mixes with the sea, it'll kill the fish."

"But if you had that, why attempt to contact Benedict?"

"Because I could fight a sea serpent with a personal ocean or with a personal ocean and Benedict," replied Llewella.

She finished her task and took out Random's card. Contact came slowly between Rebma and Amber. She had to stay focused and not let the frustration get to her, and even when contact did come, Random saw her through a skein like an aquarium wall.

"Sister," he said cautiously and suspiciously.

"A monster has attacked Rebma. Does a similar one attack Amber? Reflections of one are real in the other," she said, instantly disliking his tone.

"Thank you for telling me that. I wouldn't have known," he replied, equally annoyed. "I'll check."

"Do." She passed her hand over the card and broke contact. The gold ring glittered. The airless flames that lit the pathways to Rebma burned in the throne-hall, and watching them, Llewella saw a column of freshwater rising from dead Rog, visible in a diffraction gradient between them. Two sets of torches danced when she moved her head. Her ring itched, and she twisted it absently.

Moire also twisted her ring. "You brother? You warned him about Rog?" she said like a prompt.

"I did. Little ass. He never should have taken the throne." She shook her head. "Amber needs to know. What happens here is reflected there, so they're probably having, or will have, some problem. Hopefully not as bad as that." She indicated the dead serpent with her head.

Moire nodded.

#

Random left the contact in an uncharacteristically foul mood, one strange enough he paused to examine it. Why was he so annoyed at Julian and now Llewella?

Because his relatives were infuriating.

He examined that and judged it to be objectively true. His relatives were infuriating.

King Random had left the library for the eastern terrace. A low round balcony of natural limestone jutted from the second floor, hanging out over one of Kolvir's cliff faces. A lip overhead kept the rain out, and that would be necessary, he thought, as the building rainstorm creeped up the mountain's flanks. Night had fallen and the moon risen. Random thought of Tir-na Nog'th which would be visible right now, though not for long. That rainstorm had an oddly menacing air.

He'd taken Llewella's call, and thinking past his sudden frustration knew that she had a point. Events in Amber cast reflections into Rebma. He couldn't see the low city, but it was possible some minor problem was going on down there, one that could invoke a sea serpent in Rebma.

It was probably nothing.

He went looking for Vialle and told her his train of thought.

"You mean like the dragon that attacked earlier?" his wife asked.

He blinked at her repeatedly.

"You're not saying anything," said Vialle. "Does that mean you agree with me or do you disagree with me and are trying to let me down easily?"

"Neither. I'm trying something new. I've never swooned before and wanted to give it a shot."

They spoke in what Oberon had called his coffee room. Random had never felt quite comfortable in Oberon's quarters, an entire floor of the sweeping High Wing. Everything reminded him of his father, and those were memories Random did not always desire. He'd inspected the suite after returning from Choas, and moved into three small near the entrance. The coffee room was part foyer, a moderately sized drawing room with a few tables, chairs, and a coffee service. The water from the taps was shy of boiling but not by much, and one even spewed steam under pressure.

One became Vialle's studio. She inhabited it, and Random went in some times. He borrowed it occasionally. He didn't spend much time there. The pragmatic reason was this was Vialle's room, her personal area, and he had to be mindful not to move stuff around. There were other reasons he didn't think about.

Another became their bedroom. It was an unused study, initially filled with boxes, crates, and meaningless bric-a-brac. Random's father had muttered about cleaning it out since Random was born, never done so, and the room was mostly unused. It had no memories.

The rest of the suite remained as Oberon had left it, and the new king knew he had to clean it eventually, if only for therapeutic purposes. He had not yet done so, and wondered inwardly if it would become his own bric-a-brac room.

Now he and Vialle spoke in the coffee room, and somewhat by habit he touched her side. He liked the feel of her. She wore blue silk, and he felt her side, the curve of her back, the hint of ribs under skin. It also let her know where he was if he wasn't talking.

"Random, is something bothering you?" asked Vialle.

"A dragon, apparently," he replied.

"That's not what I mean. You're being sarcastic. You usually aren't, and just today you've gotten more and more sardonic. There's an edge in your voice I'm not used to. Is something bothering you?"

When he answered, he said something profoundly un-Amberite. "I'm sorry. I didn't notice. I'm not making fun of you."

"I'm not offended. You're just being different."

She felt his thumb touch her side, stroke her, and stop.

He sighed. "Be that as it may, there probably is something going on in the city. I have to take care of it. Can we talk later?"

"Of course."

Random took out his cards. Benedict didn't answer. Concerned, he took out a special trump he had of Port Amber. Vialle had put a hand on his side and felt him lift the card to obtain contact.

"Be careful," she urged him. "Don't leave for long."

He hesitated on the verge of making contact. "I won't," he said.

"Promise me."

Random cocked his head. "I promise. I won't leave for long. Not like the taking of the Courts of Chaos."

Vialle didn't see him, and her sightless eyes stared through to nothing. In old tongues chaos meant nothing, and Random wondered if that's what she saw. She was a very small person, dressed in silk befitting her, but Random didn't see it. He saw her worried mouth. He saw her nose that turned up just a little.

Very unmajesticly, he brushed her nose from forehead to tip. She let him without scrunching it up.

"I'll be back soon. It's probably nothing," he said.

Vialle nodded.

Random made contact with the lower city and stepped into a rainstorm.

#

After Rog attacked Rebma but before things got much, much worse, Bleys pulled a hand out of the lake, and on that hand was a small gold ring.

He had a length of silk cord from shadow, woven by hunting spiders in the jungles of Ba Jein. The cord could easily be mistaken for string. One end was knotted about a brass ring at the wrist of the hand, which attached to nothing else. On the iron-black middle finger of the hand it wore a simple gold ring, unadorned. Bleys did not take the ring off the hand.

In fact, he didn't touch the hand. He fished it out of the round pool where Spait had slept by the cord, and taking care not to let it touch him, dropped it into a leather bag. He dropped the cord in after. Even in rich Amber leather bags were a bit unusual, and the fine stitching of this one was normally reserved for clothing. Bleys put that bag in a chain-mail bag, put that in another, wrapped the growing bundle in a few squares of linen, and tied them off. He took out a small card and stared at it, and stepped through from vermin-infested blight to a comfortable office. The Mellengroth faded behind him as if the world got trapped in a card, and this became a small window. Bleys drew the curtains.

A fireplace crackled cheerfully, and beside it sat a small crucible of lead. He put that over the flame, tonged large blocks of black charcoal into the fireplace, and drew a glass shield. He walked to a desk, opened a drawer, and dropped the linen bundle in. The office had beautiful wooden walls, covered in shelves from floor to ceiling, lit by hanging candelabra. Every wall had a window revealing mountains, oceans, forests, or rivers, and none so much as implied a rest of the building. Nor did the office have a door. It had walls, a fireplace, a desk, and a chair, and seemed detached from all other parts of the world. It was, for it was a very small shadow.

Bleys sat down, breathing hard. He was a good-looking man who put the same care into his appearance as his brothers put into warfare. His short beard was meticulously lined-up, top and neck. The border between hair and skin ran straight as a mason's line. The hair accented his jaw and gave his head a bit of size so the thick shirts and jackets he wore didn't make him resemble a pinhead. Everything he wore was finely made, often silk, and he favored gold thread for ornamentation. Three huge rings, ruby, emerald, and sapphire, ornamented his hands, and of a craftsmanship utterly unlike that of the small ring he'd pulled out of the river. Close inspection would reveal intricate Celtic knots.

After a bit the Amberite opened another drawer and took out a silver and emerald box. He opened the thing to reveal hand rolled cigarettes, cedar papers, and white pine matches. He struck a match, lit a cedar, and used that to light his smoke so the residue of phosphorous wouldn't touch him.

He took out the linen bundle, undid it until he was down to the chainmail, and with some wire, snippers, and a steel rod, made more chainmail until the ring-bag was encased in metal without drawstring or clasp. By then the lead had melted. He redid the bundle, sealing every layer with molten lead stamped with a knife through a crown. Done, he replaced the bundle and locked it with something other than a key. He gestured with one finger and outlines of the drawer gleamed bright red before fading away.

He leaned on the mantle and smoked, flicking butts into the fire. The fireplace had a long, deep opening like the tunnel to a furnace, thought which light poured in shimmering oranges and red. Candles lit the walls. Bleys smoked and rested, and the crackle of the fire echoed from wood-paneled walls until the office rumbled with the implication of distant furnaces.

When he was ready he used a card to step into another place.

Here the furnaces were not matters of implication. In a hall so long the ends vanished into gloom, great pillars of stone and steel rose from polished floors. Some supported the ceiling and some delved through it. The latter opened mouths filled with golden fires. Their roar was thunder.

Dwarves filled the hall and in the nature of dwarves, toiled. Some plunged ingots of iron or brass in the furnaces, and others pulled them out. They filled quench buckets and sharpened tools. Only a few truly worked the metal, and all others gave way before them. These short masters labored with hammers and files, worked with tongs on anvils, and the efforts of ten souls for each smith kept them relentless at their tasks. Their hammers made lightning out of sparks to go with the thunder of the furnaces.

Bleys walked down and the dwarves knew him. Some greeted the prince but most were too busy, and this was the way of dwarves too. Bleys did not take offense. He caught aside water carrier and asked a quick question, getting a point and a nod for a response. Bleys went down that way.

Many dwarves clustered around another human, who was working intricately with a very small mold and crucible. The human explained something as he worked, and dwarf smiths nodded quietly. Their beards glowed umber in the forgelight. Bleys joined them from the side, and was noted.

"Welcome, Ithwaith of the Ered Lune," said the human to Bleys.

Bleys nodded as if this was his name. "Thank you, Noble Anatar. What do you teach today?"

"Rings, Master Ithwaith. The making and magnificence of the rings of power."

"Excellent, as I was hoping. Please continue."

Anatar nodded like a bow, and resumed his lecture. Bleys, Ithwaith here, smiled as he stood among dwarves and listened carefully.

Chapter 18: The Defile of Kolvir

Random stepped into bitterly cold rain, unlike the storms that beset Amber at this time of year. Normally they came west from the Chainlink Ocean. Out there, where trade routes met in Amber from a hundred shadows, storms built over oceans unimaginable to man. The deep red seas of Phlogistron never rained, but cycled their alkaline fluids by throwing waterspouts into the sky. They recovered volume in the sheets that fell as one, ballooning or tenting with trapped air as clouds ablated single great layers at a time. Elsewhere the crystal-clear waters of shadow Hyphons fell in invisible rain on near invisible seas. Often Gerard had spoken of the hazards of Hyphons, who's waters were so clear that ships often dropped anchor in ten thousand fathoms of depth. One could find land by looking down at the ocean floor and following the ravines between continents but must beware the seamounts that raised summits miles below the surface. Hyphons blew hot rain. Temmeraie, a shadow there the oceans stacked like pancakes, rained cold and from the left. In Lesse the rains stalked the oceans like titans, and beat ships with aquatic fists, kicked them with tsunami feet, and roared angry challenges at Amberite sea-captains in voices like the boom of breaking waves. The rains of Tollos were rum, and crews without immaculate discipline rarely survived the crossing. Corwin had found that one. Random was not surprised.

This storm was cold, relentless, and sharp, having that peculiar property of raindrops that stung the skin. Random wished he had a coat, but didn't want to go back and bother Vialle for one. He instantly knew she'd be quite happy to get him a coat, and he was being silly, but then he'd have to leave again. Recognizing himself for being absurd, he decided no prince of Amber would retreat in the face of a little water in the face, and he grinning at his pun. His mood improved a thousand-times by leaving the castle, and he assumed it was because he could fight the cold with will.

He could also get rid of the storm with the Jewel of Judgement but didn't think this called for that. The Jewel killed people. Fiona suspected it had done Eric in. Random wasn't sure, but Fiona wasn't stupid.

Oberon had had a few secret trumps in his office, cards that Random hadn't known about but wasn't surprised to discover. The one he'd stepped through on lead to an alcove between a rough bit of Kolvir's foot and a jetty, near the north seawall of the harbor. Rain lay over the city like a blanket of malice, and as Random emerged from the concealed grotto, he intuited that it was getting worse. Oberon had left a few knives hidden in the grotto, a sword, some armor, and a crossbow. He also had a vial prophylactic ninroot. Random did not want to think about the latter, but he took a knife and the sword, and went looking for trouble. There probably wasn't any beyond the rain.

He realized he was wrong when the horde of screaming people ran down the street, every voice shrieking about dragons.

Random pulled out his trumps and decided to call for help, yet when his fingers touched the deck he scowled. Thinking back to Brand's imprisonment, Random put his cards away and took off running. He caught someone and yelled until they gave him directions and kept going. Someone said Benedict had gone that way. They didn't know where he was now. The king dashed up the hillside toward his keep, though far closer than the castle-crowned summit he expected to find his problem.

Something finally went right for Random. He did!

On a rain-washed hillside between rows of demolished houses, Random of Amber found Spait the dragon. The wyrm was halfway through a house, chasing someone out a rear window, when the reptilian turned towards the street. Rain fell like God cried, and washed sound from the air. The pound of droplets on stone and mud flooded the street with ambient noise and drowned Random's footsteps. Yet the wyrm turned and looked, for he had powers too.

The beast was, Random decided, somewhat larger than he remembered. Built like an immense lizard yet with small legs, it rose up by the house it was despoiling, head near a smashed-out wall. Its tail pressed against the far side of the street, damming the street until water leaked over the top, finding spaces between a ridge of dorsal scales. Worst were its black eyes, without iris or white. By all means they should see nothing, yet Random found himself convinced they looked at him.

That was the worst until it spoke.

"Hello, Lord Random, King of Amber," whispered the lizard, and Random saw himself as King of Amber, wearing Oberon's clothes, wearing Oberon's crown, and terribly, taking Vialle on Oberon's bed. His skin crawled under the relentless assault of rain.

"Die, wyrm," said Random, and he charged.

The dragon struck and Random dodged, hurling himself sideways and somehow staying upright on the mud-slicked road. Spait's immense head smashed the ground, pulverizing rock, and yet recoiled faster than Random could swing the sword. Spait retreated and lanky Random dashed after him as the wyrm reared like a cobra preparing to strike. He slashed once, cutting Spait's triangular snout open from side to side, and the wyrm screamed, lashed his tail, and fled.

Random sprinted across the rain. His feet didn't touch the ground but caught raindrops like stones in a pond. The sword Oberon had left in the hidden grotto gleamed, and King Random felt suddenly consumed with power. Even though his footing vanished underneath him with every step, the power of the sword bore him aloft so he could chase the fleeing dragon. The blade sang when it cut.

And Random, King of Amber, chased the dragon Spait out of the city. It fled faster than a man could run, even a Lord of Amber, yet it did not escape him. A power lay on Random, and he ran on the wind until the wyrm fled no more. It rounded on itself in a canyon like a defile to face the King. When he stopped running the rain fell from under his feet, dropping him to the rocks.

Then Random would have to go into the defile to get Spait out, and before he did that, Random hesitated. The walls loomed close overhead. Clouds painted the night-sky black. The dragon itself was dark as shadow, and from shadow it had come. Within the canyon, it was oil on black canvas.

Random put his first step down towards the beast, and it whispered, "Be careful, King of Amber. This is what your brother Benedict did, before the end."

Of course Random knew it played for time.

Yet the words of a dragon bring images unbidden to the mind of the listener, and Random saw his tall brother with a hook for a single hand facing a dragon through the bars of a tall gate. Random saw a fat human lying insensate in the rain, and a small one crawling about. Random saw Benedict look at a street and the fallen Admiral, saw Benedict's eyes as cold as flint, and yet read a calculation behind them. Random saw Benedict assess the dragon and his chances too flee.

Nothing entered the canyon, not even light, and Spait's eyes were orbs of darkness. But Random saw them as pits in a black field, ebony marbles on coal dust, evil in hell. The eyes of Spait watched him from shadows infesting the foot of Kolvir. And Random would have to go in there to get him out.

Or he could leave. And Spait would immediately attack the city.

Random stepped back from the canyon. Spait watched him. Shadows lay heavy between the toes of Kolvir.

#

In dwarven halls of Gundabad which had never fallen to orcs Anatar the Gift Giver taught the making of rings of power. Fathers of the seven dwarf families learned from him and also Bleys of Amber. Two lines of furnaces marched down the hewn cavern. Their chimneys rose through rock until dumping smoke at the mountain's broken crown. Many who watched thought the ancient volcano had come to life again as dwarves and men forged rings.

"Nothing in Middle Earth is truly neutral, so everything that is added to the ore, or not removed, must be known. Gold brings with it magnificence, but the gold must be of deepest purity."

"What about mithril?" asked Dain Ironfoot.

"Mithril is too powerful for the making of rings," said Anatar, smiling wisely. "One cannot use mithril, for it overwhelms what artifice we employ, and one will get only a mithril ring: a great thing, but not a thing of great power. Some weakness is necessary."

They talked where the other dwarves could not hear over the ring of hammers on metal. Bleys heard but said nothing.

#

Fiona found some excuse to leave Julian alone. The creepy sexed-up asshole of the family remained with his equally creepy sexed-up brother, the latter unconscious, and his attempts at conversation had been juvenile and disgusting. The excuse she hit upon was asking to see where Caine had been found, and Flora left at the same time, as if the two sisters were going together.

They did not. Florimel asked Fiona if the redhead needed help, and Fiona didn't. Flora expressed regret, they came very close to actually touching with pretensions of sadness, and Flora went somewhere else.

Fiona considered going anywhere else as well, but she'd said she wanted to see where Caine had had his attack, so she felt obligated to look in. A bit of detective work with the house staff and Fiona found the alcove overlooking a blur of clouds. This wasn't a spot she frequented, but she knew it. Normally the view was lovely. It smelled like smoke right now, and the open window was letting rain in on the duvet seat. She shut the window. The alcove still stank of smoke. She kicked an empty cigarette box. A minion could pick that up; princesses of Amber were above picking up litter. The alcove was dark enough that the trash was nearly invisible, and someone could come in the morning or with a candle.

Fiona was about to walk away when she noticed that there was a candle, one that had propped open the window, and it was almost gone.

Now Fiona did bend over and rummage around for the cigarette box. It was empty. That didn't mean anything; it had been knocked over. She rummaged around looking for cigarettes and found something much more interesting: cards. An entire deck of trumps lay scattered on the ground.

She lit the candle and searched. Bits of loose tobacco had fallen into the cushions. No burned butts, and she found only one cigarette, broken in half and unlit. The candle had burned most of the way down, but when Caine had been found, the sun was still out and the clouds rising. He'd smoked an entire pack with his trumps out. She'd gathered his cards up wearing gloves, and she put them in a little pouch on her belt. Her dress only had one pocket, and it held rings. Instead of going to her rooms, she walked to a different alcove and thought.

#

"King of Amber," whispered Spait, and Random again saw images of himself, ruling, and Oberon, greater. "I'm so glad we finally have a chance to talk."

"Don't speak, wyrm. Lizard. Dragon. Hide in your hole in silence."

"Oh, but Lord of Amber, until you come down here, I am trapped by your illustrius power, and must hide from you. Only until you join me, and gift me your royal hospitality."

And Random saw himself plunging into the cavern to seek out Spait in the hole whence he dwelled. He saw himself winning fame and glory, and all recognized his power and united behind him.

"Where's Benedict?" asked Random, trying to ignore the visions.

"He's in here, King of Amber. In here with me."

And Random saw the death of his oldest brother. He saw Benedict die in quick bites before the still form of one of his Admirals.

"I am going to kill you, wyrm."

"Yes, my lord. You will." And the visions came stronger, Random plunging gloriously into darkness and bringing with him the bright sword of Oberon. He would do what Benedict had failed to accomplish, and his fame would be greater.

"You're playing the wrong game, lizard. I am uninterested in that kind of fame."

For a while rain made the only sounds.

"What do you desire, King of Amber?" whispered the dragon.

Random didn't tell him.

Here the mountain came down to form a crescent hill that eons ago a river had bisected. Upstream the river had been diverted to run mills. Amber had never built its wealth on industry, but rather in the transport of others throughout shadow. Yet ships needed repair. So long as no great calamity beset the navy, such as Corwin and Bleys had unleashed in their doomed play for the throne, Amber did retain enough building power to keep its fleets sailing.

That proved a double edged sword, for the industries of Amber knew how far they were from replenishing their ships. They pushed the crown to find replacements.

Random waited in the center of the hillside crescent. It swooped around him like horns, and behind him a broad and easy valley lead outwards to Garnath. He could see the mountain above the hill, a broad plain of alpine meadow. Time had sowed wildflowers over the plains and erased the signs of the river. The only remnant of the rushing course that had cut the hill in half was the defile itself. The cut looked empty, even when the voice of Spait spoke from within.

"Do you perhaps desire to rule justly?" asked the dragon. In image Amber flourished as it never had under Oberon, ruled by a king more interested in peace and prosperity than his sexual conquests.

"You won't give it to me," said Random. His meaning was not clear.

"No, King of Amber, but if you come in here with me, I can take that future from you." The words themselves smiled. A dragon's self-satisfaction echoed in every word, and Random saw the beast smirking.

Trying not to think of what he heard and saw, Random instead focused on developing a plan. He didn't know how well Spait could see him, and therefore thought of trumps with suspicion. Even as Fiona stared out at the rainstorm he suffered under, she considered the deck at her belt and the rings in her pocket. Random did not know this, but remembered her recent hesitancy to use the cards.

"The city needs its king," said Spait. "For more of us are coming when Bleys calls."

That echoed in the king's mind.

"Your statement is noted," said Random.

"Did you take the woman he summoned me with? His lieutenant? She is a fine one, isn't she? You've noticed that, King of Amber?"

And Random saw himself again, but this time as Oberon. He saw himself with Vialle at his side and Tatianna waiting for when she was busy. He saw himself as Oberon did, with a fine piece in a high tower.

Random ground his teeth, for the images went beyond visions of Tatianna clad. He saw her under him, begging for him, and–

"The queen is blind, isn't she?" whispered Spait, his voice full of dragon smiles. "She'll never see what you don't show her."

And Random snapped, took the sword in hand, and charged into the dark canyon where the dragon lay waiting.

Chapter 19: The Fall of Amber

Into the canyon of the dragon ran Random Barimen. A hot mist wrapped around his head while the bitter cold of the rain froze his body. Onto Amber night fell and with it brought darkness unbroken by stars. The absent crescent moon could not appear through the clouds. Another crescent, this one of hills, rose from the ground by Mount Kolvir's foot, sliced in half by a dead river. In the slice lay a dark canyon, inhabited by a shadow and a terror unlike even the night. In that canyon lay Spait the dragon, a wingless ground wyrm. Spait had spoken to Random, and now the King of Amber charged into the shadows with a small sword. Madness took him.

He dove into canyon and screamed his challenge at the dragon, slashing with a bright-sword of Oberon. The blade glinted even down there, and reflected an old power. It was not enough. Random thought he saw the dragon and attacked. He swung with all his strength and shattered the blade against a rock. Spait coiled on the rocks above the small king, and in the breaking of his blade, fell on Random from above.

Quickfooted, Random had jumped back to avoid fragments of his own broken sword. Spait thus missed his initial pounce somewhat, hitting Random with the wyrm's side instead of engulfing him in teeth. The impact struck the king unconscious and drove him to the ground, while spinning shards of the broken sword flew from the boulder. They lodged between the dragon's teeth and shredded his gums. Spait roared, made to eat the fallen king, and cut his mouth apart. He screamed again.

The dragon's stubby legs were too short to reach his mouth. Spait gnashed his teeth and now dibbled acrid blood from his torn lips.

By a high window of Castle Amber, Fiona suddenly looked up from reverie. She shook of the paralysis as intuition bit her.

"A curse of the blood is invoked," whispered the princess and then words unbidden escaped her. The same intuition that broke her bizarre immobility forced her to speak when she would have otherwise remained silent. "Amber is going to fall."

And she knew she had spoken a prophecy.

For all that dark night wrapped the city and gloomy storms stuffed the eyes up with shadow, something saw through the unnatural and unseasonable storm to watch Spait's rages over fallen Random. That thing did not move itself, but shortly figures appeared within the cavern. They gleamed with corpselight, and their shrouds hung wet. They appeared from nowhere and faced the dragon before throwing back their hoods as one. Each wore a great ring on the fourth finger of their left hands, rings with huge gems. They were elves, and they emitted the light of Valinor. Yet they were blind, their eyes burned out and empty.

"Hail, Spait," said the Lady Galadriel.

"Hail, dragon!" echoed her comrades, Elrond and Glorfindel.

"We come from the Dark Lord himself, and offer you a trade. This city, and all who dwell here, for that mortal that lays on the ground before you," she said.

"He is mine!" roared Spait.

"But you cannot eat him," said Elrond.

"Your pain prevents you," said Glorfindel.

"But we will let you feast on the city if you give our Dark Lord this one small thing," urged Galadriel.

And the three dark elves bowed.

All three of the elves carried with them an air of immense and yet broken power. Graceful in their movements even with their eyes plunged out, they stood like ancient kings. Older than Random they were in the time of their people. Galadriel was tall and beautiful, yet too thin. Her face gaunt and her form perfected, yet partially eaten and stretched. Her once long hair hung in a few strands. Elrond carried himself like a warrior of power, yet his arms were thin as sticks. His joints bulged. A circlet of power, golden, wrapped Glorfindel's head. His blind eyes could not see it. He and Galadriel both radiated a warm light. They had been blinded by irons. Elrond stood in darkness, and his aura was one of burning corpse-fumes over ancient battlegrounds where the dead had rotted for eons and would continue for eons more.

The dragon complained. "I can feast on what I want. You cannot stop me."

"We've no desire to stop you," said Galadriel.

"Indeed, we would give you gifts to aid you in your work," said Elrond.

"Take the city," whispered Galadriel.

"Consume the people," agreed Elrond.

"Break them. Burn them," whispered the elf-queen.

"Gnash them. Slash them," urged Glorfindel.

"Kill them without mercy, and eat until your hunger slakes and you curl up on a bed of everything they possessed," said Elrond. "For do you not deserve everything?"

Their rings glittered. The elves advanced.

Spait looked agitated, and turned side to side, trying to keep all three within sight at once.

"I have no need of rings!" roared the dragon.

"Agreed," said Elrond.

"The Dark Lord, the ringmaker, knows this and does not offer you rings," said Galadriel.

"He offers you something else. Something better," whispered Glorfindel, and his ring lit up with flames like a beacon. "The Dark Lord offers you fire."

"Be no more a wyrm, Spait, but a drake. Be Spait the Firedrake, and burn all of Amber!" offered Galadriel.

Glorfindel threw a great plume of fire into the wet air between them, and for a moment the canyon burned like noontime. It was a small and weak defile. The walls were not so high. The shadows not so dark. The rocks lay still without the power to dance and threaten in the cloak of shadow. But Glorfindel created flame and Galadriel worked her craft on it, and soon the shadows did move. The rocks did creep and hide. The walls grew and the darkness gathered. The pillar of fire danced before Spait like a beacon.

The dragon gave in to temptation and ate the fire.

Snap! And it was gone. Suddenly Spait's eyes burned orange. The darkness of his irisless eyes blossomed with tongues of flame, licking against the eyeballs from the inside. His blood sizzled. Rain beat his scales and skittered as it boiled. The dragon threw his head back and roared, and his malice and hunger defied rain and storm to echoe against the sky, bounce from cloud to sea to mountain, and even in high Kolvir the terrible lust of the dragon's fury shook the castle foundations.

Fiona, at her window, knew then that her prophecy would be true, and ran to save what she could.

Random must be dead, she thought.

Spait did not wait, for thought he desired the flesh of the king, impatience and hunger for all people and all their gold infected his blood. It breathed through his lungs. Spait turned on the city and charged. His fire lit the hillside, and for an instant the people of Amber saw his coming like a rainbow, diffracted by storm and rain. Then they saw his fire and the terror of his black claws. Fear took them, and they screaming fled.

#

The perverse rainstorm that hid Spait's attack on the lower city of Amber also drenched the roads leading up. There were two main paths of ascent. The first, the stairway that Corwin and Bleys had assaulted, became a river, and to climb that in the downpour was as good as death. The second, King Oberon's Highway, wound up side of Kolvir. Unpaved, it had become another river. It flowed less rapaciously than the stairs, but thicker and deeper. Messengers from below had to struggle up the waters. Of course there were no phones. Normally the city denizens used pigeons if they must, but pigeons could not fly in the weather. They froze in midair and fell out of the sky dead.

Around the time the first terrified people arrived at the Castle, having climbed Kolvir in the dark, wet, and malice-filled storm, Fiona met Vialle.

"Amber is fallen, and Random is dead," said Fiona. "I'm sorry for your loss."

Fiona stood taller than Vialle, dressed in emerald gemstones and fabric. Her hair lit the room, for without her husband, Vialle did not often set fires. The queen, small with downcast eyes, couldn't rival her for beauty. The only thing she wore that Fiona envied was a small circlet of topaz and jade, and this burned in the princess's vision.

When Fiona spoke, Vialle sat down on a low divan and put her hands around herself. "Oh. Oh, no," she said in an even smaller voice. "Oh, no, no, no." and each word shrank after the last. Finally she was just mumbling.

Fiona saw the crown and nothing of the person who wore it. "Get ready to leave. We're fleeing the city."

She left and took messages from the first arrivals. Everything they said struck her like deja vu. They sounded like the echoes of words already spoken in her head. Fiona nodded.

She commanded the guards prepare to defend the castle. She sent messengers to Julian, and had Caine prepared to be moved. She considered defense, but the grip of prophecy clutched her. Fiona did not imagine Amber might be saved, but rather knew it was going to fall. She knew with the conviction of a fanatic, and did not think to question the source of this adamance.

#

Elsewhere, three hooded elves carried Random up a hillside. His eyelids glowed, and sometimes he cried out in sleep. He tried to wake, but something bound him to his dreams. By his lashing and shaking, these tormented him.

The elves carried him to the edge of the city, which even now had started to burn. The rain couldn't put out the fires, or perhaps didn't try. But the elves took the king to a small board beside a bar, an old sign, that now was nothing but vacant wood. The inhabitant was elsewhere.

Approaching the sign as a gateway, the elves walked through, carrying their prisoner. It's vacancy opened before them, and on the other side waited an army of creatures more foul. Orcs stood there, beyond numbers. Armed and armored in crude iron and black leather, they waited in silent malice.

In some way the elven kings who wore Sauron's rings and the orcs resembled each other. The elves stood tall, and two of them carried the light of Valinor. Random thrashed, fighting to wake, and he could not.

"The way is open," said Galadriel.

"Go forth," said Elrond.

"Destroy everything," said Glorfindel.

Unleashed, the orcish hordes poured through the pathways of shadow to Amber.

Chapter 20: Battlefields before the Castle

By the time screaming people began filling the doorways to Castle Amber, orcs of the Red Eye attacked the lower city, and Amberite infantry engaged them in the streets. Their numbers did not speak of reason. Pikemen struggled in the hills above the harbor. Swordsmen took over. In the beginning the battle was merciless and swift, and once the Amberite forces committed their vanguard, the orcs died in huge numbers.

But an ill wind blew from the cracks in the mountains, and the chill rain froze the hearts of even Amber's warriors. Infantrymen threw down their weapons and ran. Soon the orcs pushed those who still fought back in battles raging between the houses and through the alleys. Those who cowered in their homes orcs killed, but things beyond orcs emerged from the mountain. Rumors of trolls, tall as houses, spread among the poor districts, and things that ran on four legs but fought on two, flapped bat-like wings, things that had no true form beyond a distillation of night and shadow, things unseen that left bodies with no fatal wound, or things undescribed attacked as well. To Amber Castle the rumor came that the city was falling to shadow.

"Where the hell is Benedict?" demanded Julian.

"Dead," said Fiona. "Like Random."

"You know this?" asked Julian.

"The city is fallen, and I cannot raise them on trump. Figure it out," she replied.

They rushed to the great main gates, unbarred since Corwin's doomed attack on the city almost two decades ago, and brought with them the elite soldiers of Amber. These were the warriors of Oberon stationed in the castle itself, different from the expeditionary army down below. They were hard-bitten men. The fey voice of prophecy whispered in Fiona's ear, and she took the lead with Julian, leaving Florimel to begin evacuating the castle. It would not hold.

The half-siblings stood waiting.

A gleam like a lampost in a fog glittered down the mountainside. The rain tried to infect them with its chill. The legion stood quiet behind them. The gleam grew larger.

"What is that?" asked Julian, pointing to the growing flare. The first distant echoes of screaming reached them. The cries were soft and far away, a gentle sound of horrible fear and death.

"I don't know," said Fiona. "But the voice that has been warning me against my trumps says it is coming, and it is terrible."

Julian nodded.

After a moment Fiona gave him a ring, purified by Gerard's walk of the Pattern.

"This may do more harm than good, but it is tied to that, down there, and what is coming for us. Wear it."

Julian seemed initially to refuse. Fiona held her arm out to the side, but she watched the oncoming flare, not him. She didn't see his unbrotherly look. Rain drenched her, plastered her hair down, painted her gown on her. Fiona carried a long spear and rested a heavy shield against her leg. She wore no armor. The spearpoint shone with white-light, and within waved an intricate pattern of curves that never crossed.

Her brother took the ring, putting it on under his mail without a word.

The first plume of fire that resolved itself through the rain billowed upwards. Fiona slipped her arm through the shield-straps. Julian lowered his visor and swung up onto Morgenstern. He jerked a long spear, the mate of Fiona's from the ground and readied it.

The fire on the mountain side approached, and they saw Spait behind the veil of rain. The dragon's eyes burned red, and flames splattered from lacerated jaws. Slices and cuts in the scaled face plumed blow-torch fires. It saw them through the curtain of rain.

There is nothing of sentience in it, thought Fiona. It is a mad beast. Its power has been taken by something older and eviler, and it comes like a rabid dog.

She sorrowed for reasons she could not understand, for a terrible harm had befallen an evil creature, and vileness against a vile subject did not make the world better. Spait and whatever was done to him had made the world worse, and his killing would not improve Amber nor save it. The alien voice of prophecy which had come with the rain said put on a ring to kill the dragon, and she did.

Rain had turned the roads to rivers, but the drake came swimming, lashing its tail as a serpent moves through water. Where it bled fires smoldered underwater, and sank into the cracks between flagstones. The road took on a three-tiered look, water on top, then stones, and beneath them burned dim lights, deep reds and oranges. The world looked like it weakened over a deep burning pit. Spait came on with flares burning above and the mountain burning below.

Out of the water it emerged where Kolvir lifted and Castle Amber stood. Julian put heels to Morgenstern and charged, passing the drake at an oblique angle. The dragon turned on him to chase, tracking the rider with an immense blast of fire, but Morgenstern ran like thunder before the flame.

Fiona leaped in while the drake followed Julian and drove her spear into the beast's guts.

It erupted into flame and innards. Rotten flesh sundered at the cut, spewing blood and ichor. Intestines released from bondage and inflamed with poison and fire exploded. Ribs vanished. The drake blasted outwards in all directions, and flames washed over Fiona. Julian screamed.

And terrible, Spait screamed, for in the epicenter of his own death, the drake was not yet dead.

"Sauron, you have betrayed me!" shrieked the howling dragon-skull, bulging with tumorous growths that expanded a million-times faster than life. They burned and opened crevices in the scares to reveal more fire and more poison within. "Mother, you must save me!"

And from the high tower from whence Julian had so recently came Tatianna yelled back, "NO!"

In dying Spait released flames and fuelled them with his life, a raging pillar of death and fire that stabbed across the rain-swept castle. His blast took the tower and slagged it. It melted and lava flowed down the solid parts like wax on a tall candle. From within came screaming and then silence.

In the moment afterwards Spait said nothing more, nor ever would again. The beast lay dead.

Julian rode through gore as if wading a muddy river and heaved over Fiona's shield. She was unharmed.

For the first time Julian noticed her shield too was worked with the sigil of the Pattern. It glowed silver and blue, and the ichors of Spait that burned elsewhere could not touch it.

"Ah, thank God you live," whispered Julian. He sighed.

"Good distraction," she replied.

They had a moment of pause. The world shrank around them and Fiona felt Julian's attention. She looked away first. Her world expanded, but they were still alone. The elite soldiers of Amber had fled.

The orcish horde was coming. Their torches burned in the rain and made a snake of fire down the mountain, on roads that still smoldered under rainwater. On each of their heads a single great red eye stared out, lidless and wreathed in flame.

They fled the city for the castle. No more refugees left high Amber, burning with dragonfire.

#

When dawn came to the city the storm remained, but joined now with an ash cloud that turned the rain into falling mud. Brown and acrid, the weather poisoned them. Orcs ravaged the city. They did not come to take prisoners. Some of the sharp-toothed raiders ate, man, beast, or plant they didn't care, but many still looted and burned.

In the harbor every ship that could sail had put to sea, and a great flotilla formed on the deep ocean. They remained outside the land. From the city, in rivers and streams, the ashes mixed with water to turn the runoff brown or gray. A spreading pool of dungy water expanded from fair Amber.

In Rebma the runoff from the burning city above had formed a sludge that creeped under the seawater. It flooded along the ocean bottom, strangling coral, killing seaweed, killing fish. The bottom of Rovlik seamount was gone in brown sludge. In the city things were better. Llewella and Moire still ran their city, and they'd managed to take a few refugees. One of them named Obrecht had been found by Llewella and offered her hospitality. He gratefully accepted.

And in Castle Amber the people waited for the royals to begin an evacuation. But Fiona, Julian, and Florimel had retreated in the library, and no word emerged. The castle had provisions and a history of siege. As recently as the assaults of the Moonriders, Castle Amber had endured terrible privations. The walls would hold.

Inside the library the stacks waited as bookstacks do, saying little and knowing much. The people reversed it, yelling much and knowing little, and their yelling consisted of what they didn't know. Julian began.

"Would someone please explain to me, Trump Sorceress, what exactly is wrong with these damn cards?" yelled Julian at Fiona.

"You know as much as I!" she yelled back.

"But you've been speaking of them since we went to Forochet. You've avoided them. Why? What do you know, and what are you hiding, you sneaky bitch?"

Fiona inhaled, held it, breathed out.

"I had an intuition they should not be used. I avoided them. Where they found Caine, his trumps lay spilled out. Now I hear you cannot raise Gerard. We cannot even speak to Llewella, and she's merely downhill. I don't know why," she said.

"So we're stuck in here, trapped, until those orcs shatter our walls and we die," snapped Julian.

"Probably. But you should definitely shut up about it first."

Chapter 21: Act 2: Reflections between Rebma and Amber

By cruel magics Random awoke at Sauron's feet. Three blinded elves stood behind him, an army of dark creatures hooted in the shadows, and behind the Lord of Middle Earth rose a spire of rock a hundred feet tall. Near the pinnacle two great thin spars reached down and held a black orb. Above it hung a thick black sky of volcanic ash across which spiders of lightning crawled. Random felt bitterly cold and his head ached.

"Behold the King of Excellence," said Elrond as Random lifted himself to hands and knees.

"Mairon, Lord of Middle Earth," said Glorfindel as the king of Amber raised his head.

"Master," said Galadriel.

All three spoke with limitless pride and eagerness, yet Random saw tears cutting through dirt on their faces in well trod paths.

Sauron, Dark Lord of Middle Earth, stood thirty seven feet tall. He was the most beautiful man Random had ever seen, in shadow or in Amber. Black hair framed a fair-skinned face. His jaw was perfect, finely made, and came to an elegant chin. His eyes implied wisdom and kindness. Sauron had the aquiline nose of emperors and soft cheekbones under those all-knowing eyes. Random could not discern their color, but he always thought of them as black. The Dark Lord wore gold and black, a mantle of mithril, and boots of ebony. On his right forefinger he wore one plain ring, the smallest of rings, save it fit his hand as if it was made for him.

There was something beyond perfect about him. Sauron's skin defied the painted marble of great sculpture as flawed. He was symmetric, and his hair fell exactly where it meant to. Seeing him, Random felt a pressure on his mind to give into the all-powerful Lord of Middle Earth and accept his grace, and felt ashamed for being so little in his presence. He rebelled against it, but the thought faded before his arguments and memories, even in his head and left him fencing shadows with a Oberon's rapier. Random felt bad about that too.

The thought came unbidden that perhaps this was whom Vialle wished she'd married.

Robed in mail and cloaked with shadow like the wings of balrogs, Sauron kicked Random over with a mithril boot. He stepped on him like a bug, and Randoms arms and legs stuck out around the foot. Sauron leaned low.

"Your city is fallen, and your people destroyed." The perfect voice spoke slowly, breaking the news with compassion. "I will flense the skin of your family, take your lands, and kill your loved ones. You will die with their deaths in your eyes."

Gentle Sauron looked down with concern, and Random gasped at his magnificence. Up close he was even more beautiful.

"Tell me the way to Valinor, and I will kill you first."

Glory hit him like fists. Perfection of being overwhelmed his senses. Strength crushed his lungs. Cold stole his fingers and insinuated numbness into his face and toes. The pressure bore down on him and broke his ribs, but Random could not cough. Wracked and pressed, he swallowed blood and gagged.

"You think a lot of yourself, don't you?" asked the King of Amber.

"I am Mairon the Admirable," replied the other as if that explained everything.

It didn't, but it gave Random something he wanted. It gave Random a name.

And Random spoke a black curse with blood in his mouth from the breaking of his lungs. He called powers down for the Doom of Sauron, self-styled Lord of Middle Earth, and bade hell, horror, and were on him.

Even in that bleak place, the words of Random chilled the air. The hooting orcs fell silent, and the elves grasped. Lightning crackled within the black clouds and died. Sauron, immortal and perfect, shuddered. Then thunder roared and the earth cried, and the misshapen lungs of ten thousand orcs lifted up a scream for blood and suffering.

"Bind him to the Pillar," ordered Sauron and stepped away. "Put the Orb of Angmar before him so it sears visions into his head even when he closes his eyes, and let him suffer as no mortal has suffered since the First Age. Let him ruin his hope and family as did that other."

But Random smiled. For if he was to work the ruin on his hope and family, they could not yet be ruined.

The orcs leaped to obey. Random struggled, but they were legion. They climbed the pillar and tied Random to it.

"Look into the last and greatest of the Palantir, mortal, and weep," said Sauron.

Before him hung the black Orb of Angmar, an ebony sphere of incredible perfection. Within it swirled images, clouded by condensation, and always the parts Random wanted most to see were dark or blurred. Sauron's curse was fulfilled too, for Random discovered that at this proximity, even when he closed his eyes the images of Orb burned through his eyelids and assaulted his brain.

In desperation Random turned from the visions of the Orb to the thing itself. Something in the making of the Orb distracted him from his suffering for a little while, a thing so slight he almost missed it. Within the black sphere wound a tracery of white that hid behind the mists and clouds of Sauron's malice. Random knew the tracery well. The maker of this Palantir had used the artifices of Trump Artistry, yet turned it savagely cruel. No matter how the King of Amber tried, he could not contact those he viewed and only howled at them from Mordor.

Cold bit him and winds beat him, and bindings tore his flesh and skin. The Orb began in darkness, but slowly it resolved pictures of Amber, his city, and people, his family, and unto them fell terrible hardships.

#

On the morning of the first day of the Siege of Amber, the dawn after the city fell, a withered figure awoke under wreckage and rubble. Ruined Tatianna of the shadow Tenthet lay in the molten remains of a high tower, blasted by dragonfire yesterday. The evil in the rain had done something and extinguished the flames, creating pools among the rocks. Castle Amber was not built as lesser fortifications, but existed as a part of the mountain as Oberon envisioned it. It contained peaks within its walls, used mountain-walls as its curtain, and opened gates through the high kols that notched the ridges atop Kolvir. When Tatianna's tower fell, it had tumbled into a steep-sided vale within the outer walls, throwing her into trees.

Tatianna awoke craving water like nothing else in shadow, and dragged herself to a pool. She drank deeply and only then looked down.

The pool filled a marble pit, a natural grotto perhaps thirty feet deep at most, and between the bright blue sky and the white stone, created a mirror. The beauty who had tempted Julian could look at herself.

Her flesh boiled and steamed. Fumes rose from her head and shoulders. Every bit of her skin from eyelids to fingernails looked as if someone had dragged furrow through volcanic soil, streaked with the marks of falling rocks and Spait's gift. Her ribs pressed against the remains of her skin.

Spait had given her his eyes. Hers, soft, complicated brown with gold and hints of amber, burned in red and orange. She had no whites, only black irises on black eyeballs like the eye had become one pupil. Across and over that eyeball washed waves of flame, brilliant sizzles of tear-drop fires. Sometimes they burned from tear-duct to corner, and others merely pinpricks from distant lanterns with storm-vanes shut. But always they burned.

Tatianna stared at herself for a long time before going back into the wreckage of the tower. She found an emerald gown with a black cowl she could pull low over her head, green shoes, and a black cape. She wrapped herself in Amber's clothing and went looking for a ring.

#

"It is merely difficult, not impossible," said Fiona to her least pleasant sibling, Julian. Of those alive she detested him the most and often regretted his standing in their number.

They stood in the throne-room, again, and the throne stood empty. The guards made themselves scarce. Overhead the ceiling showed intricate scenes of Oberon and Amber, save one hole where stones from the fallen tower had broken through. They lay about the throne itself, and the hole cast a bar of sunlight against the western wall.

"I don't see how it can be done," said Julian.

"Because Amber is not truly real, it is merely first among shadows. The real difficulty is movement, but we can negotiate that. I'll just walk circles around the keep until it is whatever we need."

Julian lifted two fingers. "First, you will probably not succeed in moving the keep. You'll move yourself to another shadow where the keep is what you will, or those outside are what you will, or whatever you desire."

Fiona half-lidded her eyes. "You are correcting me about walking shadow."

"Yes. Because you're wrong."

She waited. He did not continue.

"Your other point?" she asked in a tone that did not encourage input.

"Amber is not merely first among shadows, it is the epicenter of shadow or close enough to it to matter. And if Amber falls to these forces, that will be reflected in all other places. If you walk and find yourself elsewhere, or even if you succeed and bring the castle elsewhere, then nothing will remain here. And that will be reflected everywhere."

Fiona opened her mouth to argue but felt forestalled by this unexpected line of attack. Not that everything fell with Amber. She knew that. But rather Julian admitting, or rather implying, that he cared about anything that happened elsewhere or here. In fact, Julian just implied he cared about anything other than Julian. She needed a moment to grok that.

"Perhaps I can assist you," said a voice Fiona recognized and Julian was pretty sure he knew.

Tatianna walked in like a shy ghost, proceeding down Oberon's red carpet to the edge of daylight. The Amberite's paused their argument to look at her.

"How?" demanded Julian.

"I am a conjurer of some power. I can bring whatever you need here," she replied.

Julian flicked his eyes from her to his sister and shrugged. He recognized her now.

"Very well. Get me a company of archers," he said.

"I can, but to do so, I need something. I need a ring of power."

"I've got several," said Fiona. She looked between Julian and Tatianna. She remained impassive, but he could see the gears clicking behind her eyes.

"I don't want it from you," said Tatianna. She turned to Julian. "I want it from you. And I want everything that goes with it."

Julian looked at her for a moment, wrapped in green and black, so nothing could be seen. He took the ring Fiona had given him when they slew Spait from his hand, and flipped it to her like a coin.

"This is Amber, sweetheart. Nothing goes with a ring."

The ring hit her in the cloaked chest, tumbled, and fell. It bounced like it weighed a thousand pounds.

"And I wouldn't give it to you if it did. Take the ring." And Julian turned and walked away, gleaming white and green mail vanishing into the same shadows as Tatianna but in a different part of the throne-hall. He left.

Fiona said, "You seek much, and I don't think you'll get it from him. But that is a ring of power. Can you get them? A company of archers?"

Her face unseen, the wrapped figure reached down and took the band off the floor. She put it on under her robes.

"Yes. I just need something to work with. Paints and canvas would be fine."

"That can be arranged," said Fiona. "Please follow me."

Leading the way Fiona took out a small mirror, like a makeup compact, and examined her face in it. Accidently, she also examined Tatianna. Putting it away she lead the newcomer to one of the castle's studios and presented her with paint and canvas. The stranger said this would be fine.

Fiona smiled and left, saying, "You'll have privacy in here. Take your time."

#

Orcs took the stairway to Rebma and descended, but the waves broke their headlong charge. Instead of the mad rush along the beach, axes and crooked swords waving, orcish cries, and the screams of fugitives who didn't run fast enough, they picked their way down, coming down the stairs sideways and trying to look in all directions. Lines of burning torches marched on pillars towards the city under the sea, the torches more constant than the creeping orcs.

Far from shore and deep under the surface the warriors of Moire lined up behind their arch. By rule and custom they did set one foot beyond. They hastened to help the stragglers, though, leaning far over the line of the arch, linking arms so some could swim out to grab those who needed it while themselves but one toe beyond the arch and touching no stair above it.

But the orcs came on, and even slowly, they came faster than many could run.

A few stairs down one of the refugees had not descended. A great fat man with huge arms and little legs, terrible bruises to his shoulders and side, a bristly beard, and dark circles under his eyes stood behind the green-skinned soldiers of Rebma. He was unarmed and barehanded.

A final cluster of runners, the last to escape Amber and still remain ahead of the orcish attackers, took the stairs. They would not make it. The Mermen yelled.

LtA Dracken's eyes reddened, but underwater there were no tears.

Turning to one of the soldiers, he asked, "May I borrow a weapon?"

"What do you need it for?" asked a swordsman. This one had reddish hair and skin so dark it became blue, scaled trunks, and bare feet. Most importantly, his belt carried a longsword.

"Because Amber is fallen, and Benedict slain," said Dracken. "The former could not happen without the latter, and the latter is my fault."

"I don't see what good it will do you," said the merman.

"No, you should give him your sword," said another human, also from upwater.

They looked and saw a young man with a smiling face. He wore an easy smile. Dracken was sure he'd never seen this young man before, and yet recognized him from twice over. The young man wore a ring.

"Give him your sword," said Obrecht to the soldier, and for some reason the soldier did.

Dracken and Obrecht locked glances, and behind them women and children realized they would not make it to the gate on time.

"You know how this ends," said Obrecht, smiling. The merman would later say he'd never seen so evil and malicious a grin. "You've been here before, Lieutenant. You don't have to make Benedict's mistake, but if you don't, they will die. And if you do repeat Benedict's error, his folly will be for nothing. But you have a sword, Dracken. What will you do?"

And Dracken replied, "If I was of the blood, worm, I would spend my last breath cursing you."

Obrecht winked and Dracken walked past the guards beyond the arch. He was two steps outside their furthest reach when they noticed him.

Step, drag, step, drag, LtA Dracken limped up the stairway towards Amber, orcs, and death. He saluted as the runners broke around.

Chapter 22: Act 2: Within the Attack

Old Broke hobbled up the stairs.

On either side of the sunken entryway to Rebma burned torches without fire or fuel. They stood on high pillars. Deep enough within the Chainlink Sea that the only sunlight was blue and thin, the stairway gleamed in rainbows, red, green, and gold underneath those unburning fires. They raised no smoke nor, as Dracken expected without knowing why, bubbles.

The healthy stragglers had made it beyond the arch, but the weak, the old, the sick, and infirm still fled the orcs. Some who could escape didn't. Dracken saw a healthy woman turn and run back, away from safety, when she realized a weak man had fallen over. His leg hung in a sling at an odd angle. Dracken considered her position, the oncoming orcs, and how fast he expected the man could run.

You're going to die, he thought to her as he passed, limping up the stairs.

Step, drag, step, drag, he pawed at the water, half swimming as he walked to take a bit of strain off his good leg.

The first of the orcs came down the last bit of gradient. It took them all the time in the world. Every moment filled Dracken with a slow, exquisite joy. He felt no fear. He saw the lights dance as the small amount of water between him and them moved. He saw currents waft bits of sediment in spirals. The red of the stairway was the reddest red he'd ever seen. The charging orcs came so slow. First they took one step, then another, and all the while the people behind him hurried.

Dracken realized that his next thought would be his last, and he spent it on, "If you exist, God, thank you for every moment in Amber."

The first orc hit the second stair from him. Dracken took the borrowed sword in two hands, lifted the point, and stepped beyond conscious thought.

It launched a brutish, crude attack with two hands and an overhead swing, signaling the strike like semaphores on a distant ship. Dracken lunged in deep water, and while the orc still raised the beaked sword for power, Dracken took its throat. On the recoil he took its arm, and the violent release of tension spun the orc backwards leaving comet tails of blood.

Dracken parried the next, trapped blades, and took a head. Someone checked him and knocked him down. On his back the LtA took an orcish knee and the head that followed. He rolled and kicked the stairs, rising upward while the longsword danced before him. In water he unlimbered an orc's hips as once someone had taken his, but in water the blood spread instead of splattered. It became a fog of oily blood and bitter fluids. The orc fell. Dracken took a head. More came. They died.

Their armor was worthless, and they trusted it too much. He took legs off bodies, severed arms, and cut throats. They tried to jump, and the moment their feet left the stone they floated before him. Dracken filled the water with floating corpses, sliced open bags of rotten flesh. When they hit the border of the stairs and the pressure of the deeps took them, it squeezed their filthy bodies like bananas in a steamroller. Orc-guts shot across the stairway, intestines spun through the water, bones ricocheted across the stairs like bullets. The other orcs drew back in fear, but Dracken knew he was here to die. The old swordsman advanced.

Step, drag, and his blade fell as stars, burning bright in torchlight, and cut an orc in half. Step, stumble, drag, and he made two half-orcs from one, severed flesh from loin to shoulder. Thin Mordor armor with the Lidless Eye did nothing for its wearer as the merman's blade made Sauron blink. Limp, stumble, fall, roll, and Dracken cut two down to fall with him. They bounced off the stairs and floated, torsos spinning slowly while legs spun in the reflected direction below. Dracken tried to get up, and an orc smashed him in the side.

He bounced too and flailed in midair. Orcish knives worked. They cut his hands and his arms, opened his guts, and even cut his throat long after he could fight no more. Lieutenant Admiral Dracken's body pieces floated over the sides of the rail and pressure smashed them. In an instant he was no more than the gore that already floated on the stairway.

The way unblocked, the orcs saw the last of their victims escaping beyond the archway and the soldiers there. The orcs attacked, and within the water, the denizens of Rebma went to work on them.

#

Obrecht sleazed his way down into Rebma. A guard taking names and directing people pointed him towards some castle police. He gave them his name, and they hustled him towards the castle.

Obrecht had never seen Amber Castle up close. From the foot of Kolvir it gleamed by sunlight, and in the evening it caught the last light of the dark sky when the sun hid behind the mountain. It was distant, pale, and existed in the way sunlight broke into a cross against the battlements or gained a halo on the peak. The castle had always looked like a bit of mountain, but Obrecht had been too busy to see it up close. Once he'd gone to the high part of City Amber, but the night had been especially dark and moonless. That was why he'd come. Castle Amber remained unseen. Rebma's left-handed image of it met his every expectation.

The castle was the mountain. Peaks and ridges formed its bulwarks, spires its towers, and summits the rooves of its halls. Where snow should lie in the heights burned the fires of Rebma torches. Obrecht looked up at a sky of sea, the same sea he walked through, that turned from black to blue to green and back around the subaquatic torches. Guards walked the battlements of soaring aretes wide as ant-paths and looked to the battle on the stairway to the west. One spire rose topless, broken near the peak, and one of Obrecht's escorts said the serpent Rog had done it. Fortunately no one was hurt.

Obrecht nodded.

From the highest peak, a plume of something rose, and in it danced rainbows from a dozen high fires. The visitor could not make out what it was, but it looked like the great hall burned.

They took him to Llewella, who waited.

Green-haired Llewella looked mournful and sad, standing by a casement that looked down on the battle on the stairs. Without any glass the casement allowed water to waft in and out, pulling her hair as it flowed. She wore a gown of seafoam, parted in the front while notched together by small loops of ribbon hiding a line of pale green skin from collar to her navel. Below there eddying waters drew the fabric together, concealing the merging of the gown while implying any bit of movement might expose her viscerally.

She would be, decided Obrecht, a push-over.

"Why have you come to Rebma?" asked Llewella, not offering her hand or him a seat.

"Amber is taken. The enemy has it. I've come in fear," replied Obrecht. "Orcs have taken the harbor and the low city. They run in packs through the middle, and nothing I've ever seen describes them. You can see them on the stairway. They're not men. They're like animals, but for the way they bark and growl at each other. They eat human flesh, and I, I saw it.

Obrecht put his hands up. "I saw them drag women and children into the streets and eat them. I saw the killing of the old. I saw men surrender and get cut down with beaked swords.

"I lived in the low city, close to the ports, for I work on the merchantmen. I haven't been here long. When they came, I didn't know if I should run, hide, or surrender, and I watched from my window. The guardsmen fought them in the street, but the guards turned craven and ran. Some surrendered. Some begged. The orcs ate them. They ate them raw and squirming, and not always did they wait for them to finish dying first. I saw flesh torn from–"

Llewella interrupted here. "Then why did Bleys tell me you were coming before the city fell?"

Obrecht had fallen to his knees with his hands before his face in pain, and when the princess spoke, he froze. She waited. Obrecht looked up. Llewella stood exactly the same as she had when he'd arrived, one hand on the window sill, and her other hanging. She looked down at him.

The guest got up and flopped down onto a chair without asking.

"Bleys wanted a pair of eyes in the city. I'm here to spy on you."

"You're still lying," said Llewella.

"Sure," said Obrecht. He shrugged.

They waited, and the moment dragged out between them.

"So why are you here?" she repeated.

"I told you; I'm here to spy on you. I had a great cover, but the orcs did attack, and I did run. Want to hear the cover story? It's a good one. Favors, marital indiscretions, knife fights. I put a fair bit of work into it, but the city's on fire."

"Why didn't you lead with that?" she demanded.

"Because I wouldn't run to Rebma, where no one would look for me, if half of Amber also ran to Rebma to get away from the orcs," said Obrecht.

Llewella's expression didn't change, but she didn't throw him out.

"Are you healthy?" she asked.

He held up his right hand, four-fingered. His pinky had been ripped off. "And let me tell you, saltwater hurt like a bitch. I don't feel it now. Also legs. Foot-soles. My side."

But Llewella wasn't listening. She looked at his hand and saw only the small gold ring on his index finger. She turned back to the window, and thought hard.

Bleys had given her the ring. This Obrecht wore one close enough to be its twin.

Did knowing Bleys mark his ledger up or down?

She turned around again, and the unctuous little man had spread his arms on the back of the couch, taking up three seats, and put his feet up on her table.

Down, obviously. From that.

"You're here to spy on me?"

"Mm hmm." Obrecht nodded.

"Very well. If you spy on me, you will spy for me. Come here." She turned back to the window, and fished something out of an inner pocket.

Obrecht slithered upright with a lot of pelvic motion and strolled over. She turned sideways, right-hand towards him, and pointed with her left out the window, leaning backwards. He leaned towards her anyway and looked down her arm. She put her arm behind her and grabbed something.

"See that?" she asked, pointing to the pathways leading down the side of Rivlok with her other arm.

He leaned in close, pressed his shoulder against her. It pulled the split down the middle of her dress taught. His face touched her arm.

"Beautiful ring," said Obrecht as he laid his cheek against her hand.

"Go look down the pathway for serpents," said Llewella and tipped him out the window.

Obrecht gasped, struggled for balance, and thrashed as he floated. Llewella slapped an iron manacle around his ankle and pushed, heaving him heels over forehead. A instant later Obrecht was falling a hundred feet.

He sank more than he fell, and instead of plummeting to his death, he fell with startling speed to slap onto the ground. His feet hit first, and he quivered, astounded for the moment he was alive.

Far above Llewella made a shooing motion and vanished from the window. A few guards looked but lacked context. They looked away.

Obrecht stroked his face with his right hand, smearing his skin with his fingers and palm. He rubbed his nose, jaw, and eyes. Underneath glittering torchlight his gold band turned a fantastic array of colors as he pressed it to his face, and all the while his head remained fixed on Llewella's window.

"Ah, moon of my life, my darling, my love, I will come for you. You are the air I breathe, the butterflies in my stomach, and the fire in my veins. I will have you, my darling," whispered Obrecht. "My-"

"Move!" yelled a guard, and several people came by with a wagon, shoving him out of the way.

Obrecht smiled with a lot of teeth and tongue, and ran for the pathways down the mountain. Behind him, orcs assailed the walls.

#

To the gates of Amber came orcs beyond number, bringing with them a thick fog. The sun was defied that day, and the battle on the high walls of Amber knew darkness and mist. The sun rose, but it was merely a lightening of the dim. Within their cloaking weather, the forces of the Lidless Eye attacked.

Julian manned the battlements. Orcish ladders slammed against the soaring walls, and he was there to throw them down. Grabbing one, he heaved it and a dozen climbers off the ground, tipped them over, and tossed them down. Darts and crooked javelins bounced off his mail. He charged through the iron rain to the next ladder with his right arm up, chin tucked towards his armpit, and a hundred archers and slingers launched their missiles against him. They plinked.

By the second ladder a mass of swordsmen fought orcs. Julian charged in with his blade in his left hand, bludgeoning people with the flat or edge as he could. Missiles followed him and smashed into the invaders. Grabbing a body as a shield, he kicked the next ladder over, threw the warrior of the Lidless Eye down after his comrades, and ducked behind a tower.

"Thank you, sir," whispered a gasping soldier. His shoulders were covered in blood. "Thank you¬-"

"Yes, yes. Find a medic. Go!" Julian ignored him and looked.

More ladders swung into place, and several had latching pincers.

Julian took his helmet off, wiped his face with a filthy cloak, and put the helmet back on. He looked around for a shield and found one.

With a gasp of breath he got up with the shield over his head and charged out again.

As soon as he hit the walls the missiles rained against him, the one white figure on the wall. Julian ignored them. Slings and bows pelted him, their stones and arrows glanced off him, and hand thrown spears and javelins tripped him up. The Master of Arden kept running. The first ladder had set its teeth well when it landed. Those pincers bit into stone. More black figures with crudely painted red eyes were jumping over the wall, so Julian hit the lot of them, killed five, and skewered the top climbed so he slumped over and his fellows had to climb over. Ripping the pincers from the rock broke the ladder, and it fell with screams above and below. Julian cleaned the bits stuck to the walls, saw his next target, and charged.

For hours he just did not stop. They shot him, stabbed him, beat him, and his mail broke spears, swords, and even rocks. Halfway through a fight he realized his sword's hilt-wrappings had been twisted round, the blade turned sideways, and he wasn't even slashing any more, just beating orcs to death. He didn't remember when it had happened. An orc got in his face, and the blunt pommel of his sword smashed the fangs back down its mouth. Julian hurled him down to meet his comrades, slew those who had made the ascent, and broke their ladders so splinters fell on smoking orc-torches.

And there was another ladder, and the elite guards of Amber fought, but their knees weakened and their courage failed. Orcs had made it up again. It was always orcs. Julian hit the pack of them from behind. Their bodies fell evenly outside and within the walls.

"Thank you, sir," whispered a terrified man. His rank said sergeant. His face said fear. He huddled around a corner of the battlement with his sword before him, crying in shame.

Julian picked him up with one hand and put him down standing. "On your feet. Form a squad. Go."

More ladders. Julian hit them alone and cleared the walls.

Amber's outer fortifications were built so that each tower opened towards its right, and from the wall, the occupants could only enter that same door, coming as they would on their left. In the other direction the castle walls met dead-ends, the high and unopening sides of a tower. This gave the advantage to right-handed defenders.

Julian hit the next pack, most of a dozen, as they rushed for the tower, and they had to come one at a time. The battlements stood on their right, inhibiting their beaked orcish swords, while Julian swung from the direction of within the castle. He had all the space in the world. He hewed them like wood and dropped dead orcs in a grisly rain, kicked down their ladders, and ignored the archer's rain.

Turning around, more ladders had appeared behind him. He shielded himself with his right arm again and charged back. By the time he made it to the tower there were no more ladders on this part of the wall, but the segment near the gates was infested with orcs.

It was always more orcs.

Julian raced down the stairs to the courtyard inside the curtain, crossed, and dashed up the next tower. When he finished, another joint of wall had nearly fallen, and Julian ran there too.

In the afternoon the fog lifted. Warm air blew up Kolvir's side and broke apart the unnatural cloudbank, the same thick mist that had remained since blowing off the ocean yesterday. With the breaking of the mist came sunlight, and for once the orcs paused. They drew back.

Julian, having cleared another wall, leaned over the edge of the battlement and looked for the ladders, but there weren't any. Nor did any siege towers roll towards the city. There was only blood and dead orcs, and Julian thought for sure, even in shadow, there could be no more.

He looked over the walls, and the ruined city was full of them. He hadn't even dented their numbers. They waited in houses and hid in gardens, and glared evilly at the burning sun. The Lidless Eye peered at him around trees and up from the sewers. It gazed from broken windows. The orcs hissed at sunshine and waited. Overhead the sun burned clear, but it sank to the west. Evening was coming.

The prince felt his beatings and panted.

Three figures emerged from the swamp of orcs and approached the main gate. Tall they were and fair. Two seemed to glow with an inner light. But they were blind, and they picked their way carefully. They stood straight, but tears streaked the dirt of their faces.

Julian leaned over the gatehouse wall and breathed.

"Hail, Denizens of Castle Amber. Hail, the dead, the doomed, and the dying. We have come for your surrender, from the Lord of Middle Earth," said one in front, a woman.

She was a little too tall and too blond for Julian's tastes: too blind and weeping unseen tears. But she was pretty, he thought. And that was too bad.

He called back, "Capital! I believe I have one in the gatehouse. Come look for it in the murder hole."

"Mortal Man, do not deny the peril that Lord Mairon the Wise–"

"Then have him come look for it! Tell him I look forward to his presence so I can hand deliver the message myself. Now scamper, little birds, and get your master. You are unworthy of speaking with a Prince of Amber!"

The three elves retreated. Julian checked the sun. He didn't have much time until nightfall.

A faint chuckling caught him, and he looked down. One of the guards, half-mad with fear, was laughing and trying not to, smothering his giggles with a fist.

Julian reached over, slapped his shoulder, and hurried down the stairway.

"Where's my sister the witch?" he demanded of everyone he came across. "I've got a problem for her–" he checked the sun "–and not much time to solve it."

Shadows lay short but growing in the corners. The western sides of the courtyard already looked like different stone as that in the light, and those shadows reached out of the corners and around the base of towers to reach towards the gatehouse. Julian ran for the keep, yelling for Fiona.

Chapter 23: Act 2: The Two Castles

The room: small, neat, and dark. Two doors opened, one to a bedroom, the other the hall. A vanity table with a tall mirror and four oil lamps, all out, stood against a stone wall. Over the table hung a silk lace cloth, ruffled a few inches above the floor, and its top bedecked with cosmetics, toiletries, and a bottle of strong vodka (Vodraka, 112 proof). The lone chair had a back with maple branches bent into concentric hearts.

Elsewhere in the room stood a lone table and a pair of chairs, both of which carried tall piles of clothing, but only clothing that didn't require hanging or pressing. Socks lay intermingled with slacks; a velvety sweater that was really made of cashmere draped over the pile, adhering more socks and some underwear by static. A set of shelves six feet high held forty three pairs of shoes and one lone slipper.

Flora stood, as she had often before, staring at the slipper, wondering how it was possible to lose one slipper. She looked around curiously. The room wasn't that big. She stepped into the bedroom, and stared at nothing. The bedroom had two doors as well, and the one she wasn't standing in only went to the water closet. She walked between the rooms confused.

From the floor up, she wore leather boots and steel greaves, leggings of hide reinforced with steel discs, and a waist skirt. The skirt would be a mini skirt if it wasn't steel lamellar. It barely reached mid-thigh, and at her belt hung the Wavendir, a short sword between a cutlass and a machete. The skirt was one piece with a jacket, also lamellar, with heavy sleeves of leather covered in steel plates. She did not yet wear her helmet, and blond hair spilled down her back, falling over the bindings of her armor and forming chaos like white-water rapids done in gold. She'd tucked gloves into her belt and carried her helmet by the straps, twisting back and forth as she looked for her slipper.

Outside Julian killed orcs, and the elves had not yet asked for his surrender. Far below Llewella had just thrown Obrecht out a window and erred grievously in letting him live. Flora looked for her slipper. It wasn't a bunny or anything silly, just a good, warm slipper, and she never wore it outside her rooms. How had she lost a slipper?

A knock at the door and she said, "Come in."

She remembered suddenly she carried her helmet. A long bow and quiver lay on her bed, the former set for a two-man draw and the latter filled with yard-long shafts, fitting weapons for a Princess of Amber. She had not the back but the lineage to pull the bow effortlessly.

Someone entered, shut the door, and Flora picked up her bow. It felt heavy. The handle met the limbs with no appreciable thinning. Broadhead arrows filled the quiver. She slid the quiver onto her back and hefted the bow. The helmet she left off. She breathed once.

"Sergeant, thank you for being prompt," said Florimel and strode out of her rooms armed and armored.

Bleys waited for her, an easy smile on his face.

If one didn't mind red hair and did mind brooding, Bleys was her most attractive brother. He grinned. Bleys almost always grinned, smirked, smiled, or occasionally leered. He wore his red beard long enough to accent his jawline, his hair stayed ruffled. One could put a comb through Bleys's hair, and he'd look disheveled a moment later. Now he sat at her vanity, infinitely at ease, and waiting.

"Where have you been, Bleys?" asked Flora.

"Out and about. I'm here now, looking for you. Your sergeant is a floor down talking to a maid, so we have a moment to talk."

For a long moment Flora hesitated before saying, "No, I don't think we do."

"Ah, Florimel, it's not like that. I'm here to give you something. You see, sis, I know what lies at the center of your heart of darkness, and its name is Fiona.

"Sis, I'm here to give you a favor. More specifically, I'm here to take something from you as a favor. And that is Fiona. You've hated her since the moment you were born, and I've read it in every card-cold smile, beautiful and frosty as the trumps. Caine mentioned it to me, once, shortly after Random came back wearing that crown. He said he caught a thought in your head, and it seethed the name of Fiona.

"The king is gone, and peace vanished. Would you like to do something about her?"

Flora stood with the bow in one hand, her helmet in another. "Perhaps you should explain more. I've been taken in once by subtlety and do not desire to be so conned again."

Bleys threw an arm back, and cocked his right ankle up on his left knee. "Good thinking, sis. I'll be plain. The witch has got to go. Permanently, via murder. However I don't mean to cause her harm, and neither should you. We've all got curses, and recent events showed us those curses are far more bitter things than we expected. But I've got just the thing.

"I need you to get Fiona on a trump. She slipped up and admitted she tried to contact Random and Benedict, and both of them failed to answer, so for all her concern, she's not immune to our habit of the cards. I even have just the trump for you."

He tossed a card down snowing a windswept plain of ash and dead mountains, a great tower, and above it all a lidless eye wreathed in flame. Flora did not touch the card, lodged between her second favorite hairbrush and a steam rack for rollers.

"She may notice," she said.

"Ah, but she won't." Bleys grinned, a smug glowing smile to put all his previous to shame. He tapped the card and it changed, showing him. "The front is a bit misleading. It will show me, you, or anyone else. All you have to do is put it in Fiona's hands, and it will find it's way to the front of her deck when she makes contact via trump. It will find its way because it is the card that will find such a way I found out in shadow. I just need it in her hands, and your beloved and behated sister will trouble you no more."

"And what's in it for me? Will you remember your poor blond sister when your plan comes to fruition?"

"Of course, Flora. Unlike the others, I actually like you."

"What are you trying to do?" she asked.

"I'm trying to control the fall-down. Someone kicked over the house of cards when I wasn't looking, and Benedict and Random are gone. Corwin's been gone since Chaos, and if it's been twelve years our time, that's millennia, eons, chaos time. I won't count him dead, but from listening to him at the Courts of Chaos, I think he's honestly and truly sick of the family, never to return.

"So, put in this position, I see Julian, an incompetent unworthy for the crown, Gerard, same, you, me, and Fiona. Fiona has never been the friend of mine we've maintained, for she needed control. She wanted it badly, and when we were together, it was her control over me. Did you ever wonder why I fled after that doomed attack with Corwin? Why, if she, Brand, and I were together, did I leave and not tell her or Brand? Not because she's evil. Frankly, I think we all can claim that honor. Because she's controlled me since we were growing up, and I wanted to be free of her.

"So, dear sister, have you. You've despised her, and it was her plan that put Brand in contact with Chaos that set the fire to the fuse. She has to go. I'm going to get an army that can defeat this Mordor, and I expect it to be a long and terrible hellride, but I am the master of such. I will return, defeat this pedestrian Sauron, and take Amber. Like Corwin, I will crown myself king. And frankly, I will give you whatever you want, in this shadow or another, if you take care of the one thing that can stop me. Fiona."

He looked at her, she at him, and into his grinning face she replied, "I'll take care of it. Leave the card."

"Beautiful, Flora. You always were my favorite sister." Bleys winked like the devil, and got up. "Your sergeant is coming, and I have a mighty hellride before me. I'll see you soon."

He departed into a corridor already shifting, and as he walked the castle of Amber, Flora could see the carpet grow like grass and the paintings dribble out of their frames. Bricks pressed down on each other until they squashed themselves into striations of rock. She ducked back into her room before being pulled after him.

True to Bleys's word, moments later a sergeant of the elite royal guard appeared.

"I'm pleased to see you're ready. General Torn is manipulating the defenses while Julian fights, and he has asked to position you with the other archers overlooking the gates. Shall we go?"

"Yes, but not to him. Take me to Fiona."

"Ma'am-"

"Now."

After a moment he said, "Yes, ma'am. She's in the library."

#

To the library they went. The red headed prince sat between bookshelves with a fire backing her, watching both a map and a mirror. The latter showed a swaddled figure Florimel did not recognize, heavily wrapped in black and green, and working with paint at an easel in the solarium.

"Flora, why are you here?" asked Fiona.

"Do you remember when you looked at my ring but said you didn't want it? Now you have it. I'd like it back, please."

Fiona looked up. "The ring? Why?"

"Because I go to battle, sister, and I want the power of the cleansed ring. Gerard walked the Pattern for it. I intend to give his efforts meaning."

Cautiously and slowly, Fiona undid a pouch at her side and took from a jumble one gold ring, unadorned. She handed it to Florimel. "Is there anything else I can do for you?"

"No, not yet. Thank you."

And Flora walked out.

#

The guard tried again to direct her to General Torn, but she dismissed him.

"Tell Torn I'll come swiftly, but I have something to take care of. I will meet you, promptly, at the wall overlooking the gatehouse. Thank you."

He didn't want to go, and he sucked his lips in trying not to argue. Flora did not wait. She walked quickly away, and entered a side chamber, shutting the intervening door firmly behind her.

The side chamber lead to the kitchens, and Flora went directly to the office of Peter Shumacher, who was, curiously, actually a shoe maker as well as a chef. He was doing books. Flora shut the door behind her and put the ring on his desk.

"Peter, I've missed you. How have you been?" she asked, smiling warmly.

"Gay," he replied, looking up at her. "Very, very gay."

"That's why we get along so well, Peter. I want my favor. You have been activated."

Peter looked at her, the ring, her, and swept it off the desk. It hit his hand heavily. He put it on. "Who?"

"Bleys. It doesn't need to look like an accident but make sure it can't be traced to me."

"Princes of Amber don't contract easily. They keep kicking," said Peter.

"That, dear Peter, is why I'm activating you." Flora leaned forward over the desk and purred at him.

"That's not what I mean. I'm not going to finish this contract without a lot of help."

She gestured toward the ring. "That is a lot of help. I've also noticed that two of your family members have entered the House service. Activate them. Or activate that little thing you talk to, the blond one who likes to sit on your lap and eat pastries. She looks like a less pretty version of me. Gay, aren't you?"

"Very."

"Good." Flora winked. "Bleys, Peter. I believe he is around here and doesn't think anyone knows."

The chef drummed his fingers on the table, then tapped the ring against the boards. It rapped sharply on the wood, and inexhaustible remnants of flour jumped at the impact.

"Anything else?" asked Peter.

"If he knows who does it, he will curse them with the Blood of Amber. That would be bad. Either he should think he knows, or his final moments cannot involve him speaking. Water in the lungs. Maybe he'll pass gently in his sleep. Be creative."

"Something will be worked out."

"Thank you, Peter," whispered Flora. "I so look forward to seeing you again."

"Very, very gay," said Peter.

Florimel winked at him and hurried to the wall. Peter sat and sweated in his office for several minutes, fanning himself with his hand, before stalking off looking for someone with quick, agitated steps.

#

While Flora stood on the gate and rained clothyards on orcs, Peter Shumacher had fast sex with a blond maid. It lasted less than a minute. Obrecht watched to the pathways leading from the downwaters of the Chainlink Ocean to Rebma, and saw a brown sludge rolling from Amber's port and rivers creep along the bottom, drowning everything. Obrecht smiled. Fiona worked with cards in the library, trying to understand a puzzle of which she missed many pieces. Beside her a mirror displayed the shrouded figure of Tatianna working with paint at an easel. She worked in colors without lines, layering paint on paint as arches emerged from the canvas. Tatianna showed no skin.

In distant shadow Random cried. Tears were the last relief available to him, and the Orb of Angmar showed only one thing: Vialle grieving. Even Sauron's ministrations had difficulty turning the great palantir from her, but seeing the anguish it caused the King of Amber, the Dark Lord ceased to interfere. Vialle wept in her rooms. Her sobs filled their suite with agony, and while Random could not hear them, he felt her. He felt her shoulders shake. In Mordor he wept too, and below him the orcs laughed and capered.

Three other creatures wept in Mordor, but they were not men. Oldest, proudest, fairest of all living creatures in Middle Earth, Galadriel and Glorfindel glowed with the light of Valinor, and could not see it. Long ago orcs had plucked out their eyes.

Elrond half elven stood with them, smaller in stature, deprived of the light of Valinor, and lesser. He knew the greatness of the others allowed only Sauron to torture them more cruelly, yet he envied them for it. This tortured him as well. On his finger he wore one great ring, carrying the sigil of an opening rose in an opal. It glowed as Galadriel and Glorfindel did, and yet less. Elrond could not see it either. His eyes had not been spared, yet he knew.

After their meeting with Julian, they returned to Mordor and told their Lord all.

The perfect being stood above them, tall as castle walls and fair as sunlight. None present with eyes had seen anything more fair than Sauron in his power, for nothing yet lived in Middle Earth that rivaled him.

"That woman, Fiona, seeks to break the power of the madness that lies on the city. She does not know it yet and has told no one, but she labors to defeat the fog of vanity and fury I have gone to such lengths to instill. She thinks it broken with the rings, but not all of them did they ruin.

"Go to Amber, retrieve my rings, and kill this Princess Fiona. Madness and fear will win if my orcs do not, and if you struggle–"

Sauron paused.

"I give to you the services of one balrog, Gogomoth."

Chapter 24: Act 2: The Homefront Upwater

Summary:

There's a little explicit language in here. This was a particularly difficult chapter.

In the library of Amber Fiona had failed for thirteen hours. She felt like she was looking through a fog. Her mind ran slow; she built connections between cause and effect with difficulty.

The princess sat in an armchair before a desk littered with papers, cards, and a chicken skeleton. Three porcelain cups held coffee grounds and lipstick marks, the faint pink she'd taken a liking too. Two small towers of books performed overwatch on her coffee and lunch, open as if knowledge spilled out of the page like Julian dashed from stone-tower to parapet. The quilted leather armchair set off her gown of green and white, and made her feel powerful.

She had accomplished precisely nothing.

One time long ago in a rare moment between the siblings, a very young Fiona and a somehow younger Gerard had sat with Benedict after a day of knife-play and archery. Their eldest brother had taken a liking to them. Lean Benedict said little as he inspected and improved the knots on Gerard's sword-hilt. Fiona sat between them, dwarfed by the tall, old man who already dwelled within his second millennium, and Gerard, who worked out playing tug-of-war with draft horses.

"You've got me beat," said Gerard to Benedict.

Fiona hadn't expected old Benedict to reply, but he looked up from the sword and over her head. Gerard looked surprised, and she didn't think he'd expected a reply either. When their old brother faced him, big Gerard flinched.

"Practice," said Benedict. "I don't didn't beat you with knives this afternoon, I beat you centuries ago in an old dojo. But this is where you can win, Gerard. Age and practice isn't everything. Wise practice beats training errors into the bone. You're learning well, and I can guide you past most of the mistakes I spent a few decades perfecting."

He looked down at her. "You too. Practice."

Gerard waited, and Benedict turned back to the hilt. Fiona expected something else. Beside her, Gerard unclenched, and even though he sat a bit apart, she felt the air around him move as he did. His cape veiled him, but it hinted at mountainous changes in posture of the big man. He already outweighed anyone in their family but Dad.

"I don't know if practice will make me faster," said Fiona. "You know how slow you feel when you run or fight in a dream?"

At the same time as Gerard said, "Yes," Benedict said, "No," and both of the younger siblings paused.

"You don't?" asked Fi.

"No. What do you mean?" asked Benedict.

Gerard said, "Well, when you're fighting someone in a dream, and you can't move? It's like you're underwater. You swing, and your arm goes slow, and you can't fight. You know?"

"No," said Benedict.

When the other two didn't reply and just stared, Benedict shook his head once and returned to tying knots.

Fiona thought of this moment in the library. She often had.

Sometimes she thought of Gerard and Benedict because she trusted both of them, and they were, in a broken way, the family she'd looked for growing up under Oberon. Eric and Corwin had been too proud, top angry, too brash. They'd fought too hard, laughed too loud, and their games had always had nasty twists for a young girl. They played to win.

Deirdre had been an adult by then, younger than Eric and Corwin, but older than young sisters. She had discovered boys and cared about them more than Fi. Corwin had to prove he was better than any of the boys who liked Deirdre, Eric had to be better than Corwin, and Deirdre somehow knew this made her better than them. They were, the three of them, old and well schooled in the pathways of Oberon's thought.

For most of her early life she, Bleys, and Brand had all hated each other. Clarissa had had little use for fashion accessories that deterred men, and nothing made the field harder to play than little boys and a little girl. For a long time Fiona had thought this was her brothers fault. If Mom had only had her and no brothers, than men would love her and love Fiona too, for what was better than a beautiful woman and a beautiful girl? But the doubt gnawed at her, and she took it out on Bleys and Brand.

She had been so horrible to him: Brand. Bleys had been older, but it had been so easy to torment the littlest kid. She could pick on him and kick him around, and like a puppy he came back, looking for love and she could withhold it or give it, and wrap him round her finger. Everything wrong with Brand, she had done, and laughed because it made her feel better.

Caine and Julian were savage and mean, but Gerard was safe. Gerard protected her and Random. She was older, but he was bigger. She played her nasty games on him and made a fool of him, but he didn't hit back. He invited her along as a big sister, looked up to her, and helped her when he could.

Looking back at her life, she was an insufferable bitch, and she wondered if the others ever thought the same thing, either about her or themselves.

Corwin had, she thought. He'd hated her with a passion, and he'd been absolutely right. She wondered if he really had left everything forever, cut this horrible family from his life, and moved on to another universe, one made of his own Pattern. Was that what he was doing now? Creating a world not built on shadows of Oberon's malice and their broken, twisted family, but something resembling human decency. He claimed to have learned it on that Shadow Earth. She had laughed about it. She'd been drunk and high on anxiety, having stabbed Brand amidst all her siblings and all their power, and both gotten away with it and not succeeded, and knew suddenly that she would have to flee Amber that very night, and maybe never see any of them again. She'd tried to make a play for Corwin's affections, for he scared her badly, and equally badly fumbled the play.

At the time she didn't think she might ever see him again, not unless dread Corwin came for her.

Corwin walked, thought Fiona. He pursued like fate. He was the furies, the evil distillation of all their malice, and she'd made him with all the evil she'd done to Brand. He had walked and killed, and never stopped. Even now, she feared Corwin as she feared no one else, not Brand, not Oberon, not the Courts of Chaos.

And he and Gerard were the only ones of them that were halfway decent, but Corwin had been evil and redeemed himself. He was better than her, and that scared her too.

Fiona made herself stop thinking about Corwin. His trump was warm and dead. He was gone these many years, albeit again. Even her contacts in Chaos did not know where he was. Merlin was gone too, and that frightened her. What if they came back together, and–

Fiona made herself stop thinking about Corwin again before her thoughts turned to a cascade of catastrophe, and made herself think of Gerard and Benedict.

She thought of fighting in dreams. She thought of how slow she moved, for she'd often run from monsters of her own creation, and they had ran faster than she.

She thought like that. She thought slow. Some resistance applied to thoughts, and the little voices in her head that came swiftly with the answers mumbled and argued, bickering over problems. She heard them speak through bubbles.

Even in the silences of her own mind, Fiona did not allow weakness in, for thoughts became words, words became actions, actions habit, and weakness in thought became weakness in will. But the thoughts came slow, like fighting in a dream, and when they arrived, they arrived twisted, broken, and wrong. She felt drunk, only with none of the fun parts.

Weakness slipped between cracks in her control of her mind, and Fiona thought, "Fuck."

And in an unpleasant moment of honesty, she admitted something she'd long realized. She thought of Corwin because she was scared. Not the other way around, not right now, but because she was scared because Julian was going to lose. She couldn't solve this problem. She wasn't smart enough, Julian wasn't strong enough, and she was going to die. She was just scared, and her brave brothers, Gerard and Benedict, were gone. The trumps no longer reached outside Amber, and she feared to use them.

For an unknown reason, she went looking for Vialle.

#

The Royal Suite had an old door, one grim and forbidding that Oberon liked because it deterred company. Great brass-bound oak planks stacked together three deep, running vertical, horizontal, and vertical again, under the same style of bands that dungeon doors used. But the dungeon doors weren't as thick as this one. Between the bands nails held the door together, nails nine inches long, so a dagger's worth of metal stuck out into the hallway. There was no easy place to knock.

Fiona regarded the door like she might regard an non-anesthetized crocodile needing dentistry, but she knocked anyway. She had to work her arm in sideways to get past the spikes. Then she waited.

She thought about announcing herself, but the door was thick as a vault. Unless she screamed Vialle wouldn't hear her, and possibly not then.

Vialle, Fiona decided, wouldn't answer the door. She would want to be alone in her grief. Fiona was intruding. She should leave.

The door opened and the blind queen stood there.

"Hello, and welcome."

"Hello, Vialle. It's Fiona. I came to check up on you. How do you feel?"

That was the stupidest damn question conceivable. Fiona was stupid and should shut up.

"I've been better," replied Vialle softly. "Thank you very much for asking, and please come in."

That weakness-word that started with an F entered Fiona's head again, but war required sacrifice and Fiona entered the Royal Suite behind the bereaved queen.

The main room formed a small receiving area. Vialle urged Fiona to sit and set about making tea. Fiona didn't argue but watched.

The queen kept everything in place. Spoons lay in exactly the right bins in a small wooden utensil box. The kettle sat under the red tap, the one on the left, and Vialle reached for it exactly, with no fumbling or questing of her hand. Fiona noticed that Vialle stood so her hip just brushed a table. That table had wooden stops on the floor so it wouldn't move.

Those wooden stops, realized Fiona, were made of broken drumsticks.

Vialle assembled, brewed, and arranged, and Fiona did not offer to help. The queen didn't say anything, and Fiona intuited that Vialle needed the silence. She recognized the need, for she needed time to compose her face and bearing.

The suite had a few other doors. One cracked door, a normal looking one with no spikes, showed a slit of a bedroom, and another showed a sculpture studio. A spiked door in the back lay firmly shut, but the spikes had pool-noodles on them. Fiona had to regard that and laugh. The front door had the same from inside. This room contained an eclectic mix of chairs and tables, and one of those rubber drum-sets. Music lay in piles on a gold-embossed throne facing the drumset, and spilled over the sides. Fiona could just see title of one tablature, 46&2, and annotations covered it.

When Vialle set the service and sat down, Fiona decided she should break the ice.

"I like the foam noodles on the door," she said.

"Thank you," said Vialle. "It's a solution to a problem."

"Wouldn't you like new doors?" asked Fiona.

"I would, but–" and Vialle slowed to a halt, throwing herself down on a spike in a slow, deliberate suicide by impalement. She wasn't able to finish. "It has not been done."

Oh fuck-ass, bitch, shut up, thought Fiona, and she tried to think of something else to say.

"Something troubles you," said Vialle. "May I know what?"

"Ah," said Fiona as her head told her to stay silent.

"In honestly, I'm being a bit selfish," continued Vialle. "I would very much like a distraction."

"Oh, you're not selfish, Vialle," said Fiona. Random had been luckier than any of them knew.

"Than I would very much like to hear about you," Vialle replied.

"I don't know if I should pile more on you," said Fiona.

"My dear, I am still the queen unless you and your siblings have had a meeting without me."

And slowly Fi lost herself to a spreading, sad smile that robbed her of pride and inflicted a terrible heartache.

Random, thought his sister, you were a luckier bastard than any of us deserved to be.

Chapter 25: Act 2: Two Conversations About the Past

Princess Fiona sat with Queen Vialle as they drank tea and talked of the end of the world.

"Julian leads men at arms, and Flora fights with him. But something is holding us back. Gerard mentioned it at Forochet. I feel it now. Fear is stalking us as the gaze of this lidless eye sends crude footsoldiers against us. Vialle, to tell you about it sounds like arrogance, but you must trust me on this. These things that look like men are not the equals of Amber. They're weak, thick, and stupid. They should be dispensed with like a spray of foam on a hot flying pan, quick for a moment and perhaps a longer moment than one would expect, but still soon gone. They do not.

Fiona swallowed. "We lose our courage, Vialle. Men hide. They have never felt something like this before. Amber should be proof against the forces of shadow, and yet the shadows that come with these things seep into the heart. They're different than Chaos. They're less real and yet driven by something more evil.

"It must be fear of this lidless eye sigil. Sauron, I've heard him named. It must be fear of this Sauron."

"You sound like you're avoiding something," said Vialle.

The sitting room of the King, Oberon's first, then Random's, now Vialle's, served as a common nexus for the royal suite while remaining separate from the castle, a residence within a residence. More than twenty of Oberon's sons and daughters did or had lived in his house, six wives and girlfriends of enough status to reside within while several of both never received the promotion to live within. The women of Oberon had sometimes taken his decisions with poor tact. The outer door of the suite was a gate itself, oak and steel, bound with metal and nailed with spikes.

Inside Vialle felt the touches of the old man in the walls and ceiling. Heavy wooden furniture of straight lines, thick beams, and feet that looked like animal paws filled the room. She'd smuggled in an end-table that didn't look like a feudal lord's coffin when Random had moved his drums. Someone had needed to rearrange things, and Oberon's coffee table, a sarcophagal-monolith of dead wood and brass, had been lost. Random didn't notice, or didn't saw anything, and Vialle hadn't mentioned it.

She also brought in a coffee service of aluminum and lacquered wood, because there was no sense in living upwater without coffee. Random and coffee made living out of the sea worth it.

Vialle didn't try to avoid thinking of Random. She didn't bother. She'd cried herself out twice, and now a deep emotional weariness blocked her grief. She listened to Fiona and heard something missing.

"I don't know what you mean," said Fiona.

"Are you scared of this Sauron?"

"Absolutely not. He's of shadow."

"You said fear is stalking us, but you're not afraid of Sauron. What are you afraid of, Fiona?"

Rustling like a woman in elegant dresses drawing back on a leather couch.

That couch was almost blasphemy. It was the upholstered equivalent of malice. Somehow Oberon had stuffed it so the leather seats were rock hard and yet noisy. They stuck to bare skin, creaked with any movement, and managed to support nothing. The back cushion arched so it met the back near the shoulder-blades, and completely missed the lumbar region. The bench cushion curved down too far from the back, so the buttocks slid into a divot between the two pieces. Sitting on it was miserable.

Random said if she ever wanted to understand Oberon, that couch was his autobiography in furniture. He had then made a pun about butts. He wouldn't let her throw the terrible couch out.

She liked Random. She liked his jokes. They weren't funny, but they were safe. Sometimes he traced her knuckles when he wasn't looking, and she thought he didn't know he did it.

He had a tendency to get her attention by poking her with a drumstick. That would be a humorous euphemism. It wasn't. Random needed to be disarmed of the 5B.

He had been, of course.

"Oh, I'm scared of the usual things," said Fiona. The leather cracked like breaking boards, startlingly loud. Vialle guessed her sister-in-law was gesturing. "Heights, the dark, some kinds of spiders."

And Vialle would have laid money that those were exactly the things Fiona feared the least.

"Those are such reasonable fears. Spiders I've never feared, but I never met one until I grew up. I think there's something primal in arachnophobia that cannot be introduced later. It starts in childhood, and there are no spiders in Rebma."

Fiona sounded sufficiently distracted. "Of course, you've never seen one. Ever touched one?"

"Once. Random acquired one, a tarantula. They came up in conversation, and he let one crawl over me. It was creepy," Vialle said. "But I expected it, and it didn't harm me."

"Obviously there's no connection between childhood and fear," said Fiona.

"Oh?" asked Vialle.

"Obviously. One can develop a fear of something at any time. Childhood is simply when one is the most frightened, but there's no other connection," said Fiona.

Oberon's terrible couch groaned and creaked. Leather complained in agony. Vialle sat on cotton upholstery wrapped over a maple chair. She had stolen it from the dining room.

"What was your childhood like?" asked Vialle. "Were you and Random close?"

"No, he was much younger than I was most of the time. Briefly he was older when we lived in different shadows, but most of the time he was just a squirt. I didn't know him well until he was grown, and we were never close. You'd have to ask Flora."

Such a wonderous thing to say, thought Vialle, and you toss it off so casually.

"I grew up with Gerard of course. Benedict liked me." She sounded proud. "Oberon had little time. Bleys sometimes." Pause. "Sometimes Brand."

Vialle waited.

"Not Brand much, of course. He just came around sometimes. Mostly Bleys. We were a few years apart, but studied together under old Dworkin. Gerard was younger than me, but much bigger. Bleys was younger still. Brand was just a baby."

Vialle listened to Fiona as her voice seemed to wander.

"He cried an awful lot when Mother yelled at him. If he cried too much, and she swore and cursed him until at least he shut up, and went upstairs to his room to weep. And Dad said that crying like that was useless, so he'd hide in the closet when Mom took guests. And I would have to find him, and take him elsewhere, and tell him that no one wanted to listen to him, no one cared, and he had to toughen up so Dad would want to spend time with him.

"He should have spent time with Dad. He was a boy. I should have stayed with Mom, and Brand should have stayed with Dad. That way we wouldn't have had to deal with him. It was for his own good. Dad was better with boys.

"But he didn't want to go with Dad. He wanted to stay with Mom until he was way too old, almost until he walked the Pattern the first time, and she had to shoo him, yell at him like he was a little kid again, so he'd leave us alone. He was a squirt too. He'd never let me and Mom spend time together, and sometimes I needed to talk to her alone, and she had guests so often."

And then Fiona said, like out of Vialle's own head, "But he's dead now, so it doesn't matter."

"How much younger was he?" asked Vialle.

And Random's wife knew his sister's face was smooth, her voice level, and she was crying.

"He was so small. Mom used to tell him to shut up. She swore at him when he stood in his crib and cried, and Dad never came upstairs. He only saw Mom when he called her here, and Brand would stand in his crib crying, and Mom screamed shut up, shut up, shut up, so he would lie down and she could go see Oberon. And at first I was only sixteen, and I'd sneak into his room so he wasn't alone, but they told me to stop, and I did, and he stood alone in his crib and cried, and Mom told him to shut up.

"And I thought that was what you did with kids, so I did it too, when he grew up and wanted someone. So I yelled at him and told him to shut up, and when he hid in his closet to cry, I found him and screamed at him until he shut up then too. Because then I was big, like Mom."

There was no trick to sitting silently on Oberon's god-awful sofa, and it screamed at Vialle. But she sat down next to Fiona, and held her, and for the first time felt the pressure, something violent pressing down on them, as Fiona stayed perfect and beautiful until she cried.

That same terrible pressure drove Fiona to talk. She talked about she made fun of him. She used to get Brand excited about something and talk him into telling Dad, and then when Oberon didn't care, Fiona would start laughing at Brand and tell him it was because he was stupid. When Clarissa, their mother, got thrown out of the castle and refused to take the three siblings, she and Oberon had fought in the hallway because neither of them wanted the little ones. And Fiona told Brand that it was his fault that he kept getting excited about such stupid stuff, and that was why neither Mom of Dad wanted any of them. And then she told him to shut up and stop crying, and screamed at him when he didn't. Brand was seven at the time. His head was too big for his body, his eyes too big for his head, and he stuttered and cried, and his cheeks were too round for his tears so they ran to the sides of his face where years later he would grow his beard.

"And I held him still in the Courts of Chaos for Caine to kill, because I never hit him myself. I only made other people do it, when he yelled too much," and Fiona lost everything and wept.

#

In the hallway outside no guards passed, nor did servants. Everyone who could hold a sword lined the walls or carried arrows, and the cooks and cleaners brought food. On the walls they discovered the meaning of fear, and while the fighters hid, the servers followed them, bent double and quaking.

Within the halls, at Oberon's door, stood Bleys wearing many rings. His gleamed with huge diamonds, sparkled with rubies, and glittered in emeralds. Not one ring lacked ornament. The spikes on the door jutted far into the hallway, but there was a trick to listening, a way of positioning oneself that Bleys knew. He was too tall to do it just right now, but if he sat down so he was the height of a ten-year old, Bleys could hear what Oberon didn't want heard and listened to Fiona weep. For Bleys remembered well.

Equally long as Fiona wept, Bleys sat still. Bit by bit his jaw clenched until lines of tension ran up under his beard. His skull and face wore different shades of red hair, the top fiery, and the front more umber than red. Around his mouth and chin he got a bit shaggy, but between temples and jaw he clipped it short with scissors. There his beard stayed thin enough the bulging clench of his jaw pushed the hairs up so it resembled waves of goosebumps.

Bleys drew his knife and even pulled the door, silent as death, but Oberon had built his house well. The door did not open, and would not do so silently.

"You were so much worse," whispered Bleys to himself. "You were so much worse. You were bigger than us, with Benedict and Gerard to teach you, and we had no one until later."

Bleys whispered something black and terrible under his breath, something that warped the oak beams and twisted iron nails. Something bred of hate and malice from deep in his heart and memory, and it mirrored Sauron's aegis, the silent, invisible wrap of the Dark Lord's will that infested the halls of Amber.

No one could say if Bleys would have done the same otherwise, but he did then. In the deepest reaches of Bleys's heart and through everything in him, one single thought pulsed in him. It filled his nose, clouded his eyes, and turned his fingernails black as he squeezed his knife. His knuckles turned white as bleached bone.

You deserve this, whispered certainty in Bleys to Bleys, and he spoke the curse of a scion of Amber.

He left unable to kill her then, but the words could not be unsaid.

#

In another place a man named Gary waited for blood-tests to come back from a lab.

The hospital faced a beach where short, brown-haired girls walked in bikinis and skirts. The wind blew from the north-west and brought waves against the beach. A break some distance out cracked the waves so perfect surf washed over a wide, shallow pool. The tide never rose too high nor sank too far. A line of palm trees dropped perfect coconuts onto beach of a peculiar golden shade, almost like amber.

Gary, six foot eight, three hundred pounds, and built of muscle wrapped in muscle under muscle, sat with a hospital gown around his waist. It didn't fit over his upper body. A very small nurse flattered him outrageously. He sat on a hybrid examining bed, one that could be repositioned, and now acted as tall chair. It had two padded armrests that unfolded into place, and on one of them the NP had his arm pinned so she could look closely.

"Look at this! Look at it!" the nurse told him. "Do you know how straight your veins are? I could stick you there. Or there. You see this whole line of vein? I could hit it with a juice-box straw!"

"Gary" looked down at the small, dark-haired woman and smiled.

"You must be very strong," said Miranda NP. She looked up. "Nice veins."

"Sometimes," he replied as if that contained a personal joke. "I'm glad you appreciate me for more than my veins."

Miranda inhaled carefully. "No, it's mostly your veins," she said. "Do you need to give blood? I'll stick you if you want. I'll stick you right now."

The big man breathed heavily. Miranda held his left arm on a padded armrest with both of her little hands, and with her fingertips touching, her thumbs didn't quite close.

Gary reached out with his right and tucked her hair behind her ears. She had short, page-boy hair. Once behind her ears it stayed until she moved her head.

"Oh?" asked Gary.

Miranda took an equally deep breath, but hers was startled. She did not move away. "Mr. de Monoceros," she chided him.

Gary de Monoceros drew his hand down behind her ear, brushed her neck, and then drew his fingertips forward to the tip of her jaw. Miranda hissed and closed her eyes. He paused with his index finger under her chin and his thumb stroking her lips. He paused with his thumb-tip touching her philtrum like he was silencing her.

Miranda opened her mouth and gently sucked his thumb. He felt her tongue slide over his knuckles. He felt every slight movement. She lowered her eyes but glanced up to be sure he watched, and when he was, looked back down. Gary adjusted the way he sat on the table.

Before anything else happened the door rattled, and Miranda translocated to standing by a desk. Gary suddenly looked tense.

Into the bland examining room stepped a white-haired woman and a young man, both in white. Their scrubs told Gary they didn't see many patients, but they had 'Doctor' tags on lanyards around their necks and stethoscopes.

"Mr. de Monoceros, I'm Dr Tamllia Ubu, MD, PhD, and this is Dr Jose Manessas, also MD and PhD. We have your bloodwork."

She smiled, but did not offer to shake his hand. Gary smiled back, putting his fingers to his elbow pit as if he had just gotten a stick. He'd palmed a bit of cotton to hold against his skin.

"Before we begin, you look a little flushed. Are you all right?" asked Dr Manessas.

"The bloodthirsty one was admiring my veins. I feel a little uncomfortable," said Gary, hiding a smirk.

"Don't let her frighten you; the phlebotomists are all like that," said Dr Manessas.

Miranda lifted her nose and sniffed at him. "Thank you, Mr de Monoceros, I'll leave you to the doctors." But she smirked as she left.

Gary drew himself up and waited, and the doctors got to the point.

"We've found no indications of nerve damage. Nor did we find any of the pathogens we looked for. Your reflexes are not just good, but exceptional, and there seems to be no damage to your arm other than moderate bruising. You're in remarkable health," reported Dr Ubu. "However we wanted to talk to you about your bloodtype. We've never seen anything quite like it."

"I'd like to use you as a casefile," said Dr Manessas. "With your permission, of course, we would like to examine your blood and publish."

Gary looked deadpan for a moment before saying, "Please do. Knock yourselves out."

As if they both expected a fight, the Drs smiled.

"Oh, lovely," said Ubu.

"I can't tell you how much we appreciate this. Your blood acts like AB, but very distinctly isn't. I've never seen anything like it," said Manessas.

"Imagine that," said Gary. "But as to the issue I came in for. You said there's nothing wrong?"

"None whatsoever. We couldn't find anything to indicate the kind of numbness and cold you mentioned feeling earlier. If it was as bad as you say, you probably received a pinched nerve with all the bruising. Those can be quite startling and seem indicative of serious health problems, but work themselves out. You did the right thing by coming in, as that sort of numbness can sometimes indicate a MCE, or mini-stroke. Please don't take this as an excuse to avoid doctors in the future, but it seems to have worked itself out." Dr Ubu spoke with practiced ease.

You practice 'normal-people-talk' guessed Gary. He smiled but didn't say anything.

"Regarding the casefile, we do need some further sampling. If Miranda didn't frighten you, she can take the rest of the blood we need, and you'll be on your way," said Manessas.

"It's the little ones," said Gary. "They like to bully me."

Dr Ubu just started laughing at him and placed a folder on the table beside him. The younger doctor invited him to get dressed once they had left, and told the patient where to find the nurse's station. Obviously pleased they left, talking excitedly.

Gerard needed a moment, and sat still, flexing his fingers and reveling in the way they felt exactly the same. While he sat, the door opened and Miranda returned. She shut the door firmly behind her.

"It turns out that the floor-staff is doing rounds with Dr Advago, which means the residents will all be with him. He's also a bit of a terror, which means the nursing staff is going to take this opportunity to take their bathroom breaks, lunch breaks, or anything else while the getting is good. No one should be back here for quite some time." Miranda told him, walking over to the examining table where Gerard still sat, naked save for a gown around his waist.

The big man reached out and put his hands on her sides, stroking up around the curve of her breasts. She wore a two-piece scrub in teal, and Gerard caught it, lifting up so he could see her white knitted cotton shirt. Her nipples pressed through the fabric of her shirt and bra. Gerard pulled off her scrub-top and teased her with his thumbs.

For a few thumbs circles she panted before pushing his gown aside. His erection waited, so hard it almost hurt.

"Nice veins," whispered Miranda and lowered her mouth around him. She'd had a glass of water during his meeting with the doctors, and her mouth was warm, wet, and soft. Again he felt every motion of her tongue and massaged her breasts through her shirt.

Someone called via Trump, and Gerard was in no condition to answer.

Chapter 26: Act 2: The Stairs to Rebma

Summary:

Bridge chapter. I wanted to get all my cards on the table so my threads aren't so dispersed.

Only the orcs' own cowardice came to Moire's aid in the battle of the stairs. Those of Sauron's forces that committed during the night, while refugees from Amber poured in, fought after the sun rose, for deep underwater the sun dwindled to a pale green light, and did not frighten them. But another great fear of the orcs did, that of deep water. They fought a battle that mirrored that above, yet the reversal did not end at the environment. Orcs feared the water, fought through a malaise of pressure and dread, and died at the hands of the mermen of Rebma.

By evening the last minion of the Lidless Eye lay dead, piled up in a mound before the great arch of Rebma. Here and there littered corpses marked great pushes of foul enemies, and they came several times almost to the gates of the city. But the mermen had endured where orcish courage faltered. The last orc killed by Rebmen died under the arch and fell within the armspan of the first.

The warriors breathed and waited, and their gasps threw bubbles like rainbow plumes. They leaned on spears and tridents, bent over to rest their hands on knees and let swords flop in unwatched hands. They bandaged wounds and made bad jokes. But the invasion had failed, and Rebma endured.

Upwater on the stairs, orcish corpses lay beyond the arch. The body of their killer did not, for beaked swords had reduced Dracken beyond recognition. A warrior named Orak, alternating between leaning forward almost to the ground and standing tall to stretch his aching sides, noticed the unorcish sword lying among the bodies. A Rebma blade, Orak remembered, for Dracken had asked for a sword before going out to die.

"He asked to borrow it," added Orak, calling forward the leader of his troop to see the weapon. "The human did. The one with the limp. He asked to borrow the sword, and that means it must come back to us. It's right there."

"I don't begrudge it to him," replied Almandine Troop Leader Plyssin, a younger man that had risen on a near fanatical devotion to duty. Orak enjoyed wine and song a little too much to be promoted quickly, and had expected to dislike Plyssin immensely. He'd been shocked to find out he hadn't. The two rarely saw eye-to-eye, but agreed profoundly on the subject of not getting killed. Still Orak often felt as he did not, that he and the troop leader spoke different languages that happened to use the same words.

"No, no," said Orak. "I don't mean that. We're bound by old oaths to Oberon not to pass this arch under arms, and I don't intend to stain Rebma's honor. Besides, the man died a hero. I want that sword. It did great things, or the upwater one did great things with it, and anyone who walks out to die like that is a stubborn cuss who doesn't quit when he should anyway. I want the sword. It will bring me luck."

"Who's was it?"

"Fthelig's," said Orak.

They both turned and looked towards Rebma. Human bodies with skins of green and blue lay here and there among the orcs. Not so many of the defenders had died as the attackers, but the corpses had names. Orak and Plyssin knew Fthelig. He had marched in Opal Troop, a young man aiming to make a name and career, make a family and a home, and would now do none of those outside the marbled-halls of Rebma's dead.

After a long moment Plyssin said, "Fthelig was a stubborn shit. Good with a sword, though. He might had lived, if he'd had his."

"And a lot of refugees would have died. I don't see Fthelig and say, that's what you get for helping people. I remember talking with him once, a long time back, when I was again a little deep into a wine-bottle, and asked him if he was really willing to die for Rebma, or if he just said that because the job is decent work and everyone looks good in a uniform."

Plyssin didn't say anything. That wasn't the sort of conversation one had sober, and Plyssin had made his rank by not sinking into cups like Orak had. Yet as such, he'd never asked those questions nor got answers based on the truth in wine. He frowned at Orak thoughtfully and did not interrupt.

"He said he hoped he would," said Orak. "And he did."

Almandine Troop Leader Plyssin nodded slowly. His first attempt to reply ending in bubbles and a grunt, but the second time he said, "He did."

"And I want that sword. They both did great things-"

"As did you," interrupted Plyssin. "As did we."

"Yes, but I want to be a part of that. Because I stayed behind the arch by duty, and I want to believe that if things were different, if I had to do what the fat upwater one did, I'd do it too. And the people running on the stairs would make it because I'd be the one stopping the attackers."

"I'm not going to fault you for that," said Plyssin. "But the oath remains, and you can't go past the arch under arms. So I don't know what you're going to do about it."

"Oh, I was getting to that. With your permission I'll go find an Amberite and have them get it for me. I don't imagine too many of them would be willing to walk through a pile of bodies, but we need to clear the stairs anyway, and we can't do that with all those orcish swords lying around. We'll need someone from upwater to help. Possibly a few people. It's a bad job, and a few hands will make it lighter."

Plyssin frowned again but let it go with a shrug.

"I can't argue with that either. Go down to the city and see if you can find a few people."

"As you say, sir," said Orak, and he turned to go.

"Warrior," said Plyssin, and Orak turned to look. "Don't get confused. You didn't get that battle. You got this one, the battle on the stairs behind the arch. That's what the Unicorn gave you. I was here too. If you want to know what you'd do in an unfair battle on the stairs, don't wonder. Remember. You did right. That's what they mean when they talk of honor."

"I'm not so sure anyone knows that they mean when they talk of honor," said Orak.

Plyssin didn't reply, and Orak turned to go. He hustled down the stairway into Rebma.

#

Crossing into the curtain of rainbow light within Rebma flipped a switch in him. With the taking of one step a weight of exhaustion settled on him like all the pressure of the water otherwise alleviated by the city's magic.

People watched, but not people to do what he needed done. He walked through alleys and back streets. Not the right people stood in doorways and windows, looking back. He walked up stairs and down hills.

Orak looked for something, he realized, that had to be here but he didn't know where it was. A hint of song up ahead, or a bit of different color among the multichromatic city waved him on, and the tired warrior followed hints through streets and spiral stairways. In a city he'd lived in for a hundred years, he found new streets that interlaced new pathways over new blocks of houses and shops. Someone called him to sit down and he did at a table holding a full spread the Rebma way. Cold meat and impermeable cheese, raw vegetables, bottles with layers of drought stacked up under seawater. The saltwater that he breathed tempered everything he ate.

His host watched and waited, stroking a ringed hand through a short red beard. The host always seemed to be smiling. He said his name was Bleys.

Orak felt drunk. Weariness combined with the richness of the food made the city waver. He felt he could see the currents twisting around the buildings. High walls leaned down and retreated.

He remembered Bleys saying something, thought it was congratulations for a job well done, and the friendly man giving him a ring from his own fingers. But as Orak thought about it, it might not have been from his fingers. It could have been on the table. Orak didn't know.

When the food did its job and settled his stomach, Bleys had left. Orak struggled upright and went about his job.

#

That was the last event of the day. Much further upwater in Amber, Julian went looking for Fiona to break the power against the guardsmen, but did not find her. Flora watched from the walls. The trumps of Amber could not reach outside the city on Kolvir.

In Rebma, Moire and Llewella stayed close to talk strategy with lords of war, but Llewella's thoughts resided elsewhere. She thought of a man from Amber, one Obrecht, that Bleys had asked her to watch. He'd made a point of saying this Obrecht was harmless. Llewella wondered, and did not know Orak existed, much less his name, and even less than he wore a plain gold ring.

In the shadow known as Middle Earth three blind elves gathered forces from the cracks under mountains. They pulled into their service vile things that had dwelled in the dark spaces underground since before the first rising of Elves or Men. And they went to the hidden caverns under Angmar where the last remnants of the Mountains of Iron remained. Weeping, they descended into the low places where they quaked with fear.

In long ages past great holes had been eaten through the roots of the mountains like worms in wood, and through these caverns guttered fires that cast no warmth. The air down there froze the heart and Galadriel's tears froze on her face. Freezing brought her memories of turning her back on light, and she wept anew.

An answering flame greeted them, and a roar echoed below the mountains.

Chapter 27: Act 2: The Battle on Kolvir

Summary:

Trying to improve the pacing a little. If you're just tuning in, this should be a reasonably good chapter to start.

Julian and Florimel watched the dying of the light from the gatehouse of Castle Amber. In pools of shadow through the city, orcs gathered. The streets turned to rivers of darkness, full of yellow and orange eyes. The keep itself stood tall over the crystal towers, and like memories they reflected starlight. At their feet glittered the Lidless Eye, a red sigil on leather armor, and clattered boots grinding down on flagstones.

"Do you think this would have happened if Dad hadn't died?" asked Julian. He still wore mail, but dirt covered the old greenish brilliance.

"He did," said Florimel. "I do not think in such hypotheticals."

"You never wonder?" asked Julian. He glanced over at her.

Florimel in armor looked like a tree-stump with golden leaves. The long skirts of lamellar merged formlessly over her torso. She could be big or small, thick or slender under there, and it was all the same. She looked like armor. Carrying a bow and standing by a table where broadhead arrows lay arranged before her, a bit of gold hair spilled out her helmet over her shoulders.

"You're not smarter because you wonder about things you can never know, Julian," said Flora. "You're only tired and make mistakes more easily."

Julian snapped his head away and stared at the city. He ground his teeth. The sun dipped towards Kolvir.

They didn't have enough time left for anything.

"Then what will you do?" he demanded.

"Fight. If I could walk through shadows, I would, but can't now. I've tried and have not succeeded. I tried with the Pattern in my mind until it burned my head and my vision darkened in the corners. I tried, and I've done it before. I've walked the shadows in Amber before, Julian, and I cannot do it now."

"You tried just now? You would have left us here?"

"Yes."

Julian laughed and hissed, "Ah, hell and buckets."

The orcs gathered. In the streets facing the castle they grouped under the shadow of buildings. More accreted every minute like an accumulation of barnacles on rocks over deep water.

In the castle, the warriors of Amber had already lost. Their courage broken by some power they didn't understand, Amber's unstoppable army hid. They dropped their swords and wept. The castle's walls towered over a wide killing-field, but only one archer stood on the wall to use it. Flora waited for orcs. The mortal men of Amber waited to die.

The sun hit the peak of Kolvir, and from the orcs mustered the first hints of a chant. It had no words. In unison a grunt emerged from different street corners, but not yet matched up. The sun sank further. The chant became a grunt, a stomp, and a crack of beaked-sword on hard leather. Various factions in different neighborhoods chanted and heard each other, all in asynchronous rhythm. Yet they fell into rhythm. The sun was now just a sliver. Most of the orcs found a shared beat.

An iron-bound doorway opened from the gatehouse to the higher keep. Often referred to synonymously, the keep itself was the inner fortification, ringed by the outer wall. The gatehouse had a connection to the keep via geometry; at this point the two lines of fortification approached each other, but the keep's gate opened some half a mile to the south and the road ran clockwise along the keep's wall. Nothing sheltered the road, and the keep defenders could drop anything they chose one those below. Here too the wall was thick, and its foot was great stones. Should the path be set on fire, the keep's walls would endure.

The small gate from keep to outer-wall gatehouse opened, and Fiona and Vialle walked out. Both Flora and Julian looked immediately at their sister.

"You've picked up a new piece of jewelry," said Julian.

Flora nodded. "The Jewel of Judgement. Why are you wearing it?"

"Yes, why?" asked Julian.

"I think it can be of help to us. You know it controls the weather. It also has effects over the Pattern–"

"Yes, yes, we remember," interrupted Julian. "But outside of weather its effects are theoretical and metaphysical. Unless you want to fight orcs in the rain–"

Fiona interrupted him too. "That is what Random and told you, and we lied. Julian, after the Patternfall War, even Random, who earnestly believed we had put our old ways behind us, wanted to keep the Jewel a secret. I supported him fully. Only Vialle disagreed¬–" Fiona paused to look at the blind queen.

"And I allowed Random his way. My memories of you didn't incline me to trust you enough to sway Random." Vialle's voice caught the first time she said the name Random, but the next was smooth and practiced.

Fiona spoke. "Julian, the fear, it's real. It's not ours, but it is a real weapon. I don't have time to explain, but something is out there, attacking our minds, and it is making us scared, angry, and it made me think slower. Did you even recall the Jewel, or are you justifying not remembering it now?"

Julian did not at once answer.

Flora did. "So be it. What can you do to halt that?"

She pointed at the city. A hair of sun rose above Kolvir, and orcs in the deep shadows roared. Their rhythm of grunt, stomp, smash, repeated from every voice in the horde. It seemed the city had awoken to fight for the Lidless Eye. Either with echoes or orcs, the walls howled Sauron's battle cry. The streets raged for fire and blood. The crest of Kolvir rang with Mordor's echoes.

Fiona said, "Take hands and hold the Pattern in your minds!"

They did, save Vialle.

Flora and Julian brought the Pattern up quickly, for the image had been burned into them cell by cell, atom by atom, down to their inalienable substance by the Pattern itself. And on their images of the Pattern, one and the same and yet colored by memories, Fiona appeared. She put her foot to the glowing line in vision and walked. In their heads, she walked it too.

The sun sank over Kolvir. Night fell.

The chorus of the orcs exploded into one scream of myriad throats, and unleashed the savage tide of Mordor. Orcs charged the castle walls, screaming. Now more of them came than before, for Sauron had learned the lesson of Julian well. Unlike the attacks of before, unorganized and individual, driven by each orc's hunger and greed, now they came as a flood. Flotsam ladders and jetsam rams floated among the great tide of orcs, some to smash into the gates, and some to fly high and crash against the walls. Dark-armored orcs bearing the scarlet of the Lidless Eye swarmed the walls. They beat the doors.

In the minds of her siblings, Fiona walked. Around her feet rose sparks, a horde of fireflies. She lifted her arms without stopping.

Orcs hit the curtain road, the clear space outside the wall for archers to take a butcher's toll. Not one arrow fell. Steel nails in their boots struck sparks on the cobblestones. They slammed ladders against the walls, and cunning hooks swung down to bite into the wall. Sparks jumped from those hooks and the biting claws that grasped the wall. Orcs charged the ladders, and now sparks leaped from boot on iron rungs.

Fiona hit the First Veil, the god-awful agony of the Pattern, and in vision still held up her arms. Sparks rose around her in vision and flowed over the guards of Amber. Blue light from dirty orc feet, blue as the deep sea, brought a second flood before the Mordor horde. Another blue flood fell from Fiona. Blue sparks leaped from torches and lanterns. They fell on the guards of Amber and gleamed.

The first of the orcs crested the wall and bellowed. Instead of a sword it carried a cruel hook with rusted steel and jagged pits, built for the slaying of men and not fighting them. The orc captain's name was Oljarat of Marg's company, and Oljarat saw them men down, wreathed in fire, and laughed for the Lord of Rings and the Lidless Eye was with him. He charged for the gatehouse.

Very nearly to the towers he reached when a man turned to statue by fear suddenly rose up and cast off a cloak. On him burned a thousand points of light, and in his hand gleamed a long sword from which fires leaped and sizzled in air.

Yelling for the Master of Mordor, Orljarat swung his hook to gut the mortal and begin the slaughter.

Instead his old steel met young, a weapon of the smith's of Amber, and the blade shattered. Jym was the man's name, and he slew Orljarat and threw his body over the side to crash down among his fellows.

The next orc came, and Jym slew him too. A guardsman arose wielding a heavy axe, one that cared nothing for the poor steel of orcish weapons or the inferior metal of orcish armor. The man took the top of the ladder, threw two climbers down to their doom, and smote the ladder into pieces. Dozens more orcs fell screaming.

Another man got up and fought. Another followed. Everywhere the sparks burned, and it seemed that some dark shadow that fell on the Castle burned with them. A skin of fire covered the stonework.

In a moment the walls of the castle exploded into violence, the orcs ambushed by their own confidence, and guardsmen arose everywhere, wielding the perfected weapons of Amber. To the orcs it was like the elves of old, those who still saw Valinor, arose against them. Even the orcs did not remember that luminous city, but they died as if it remembered them. Their leaders died, their ladders were thrown down, and the rest either fought and were killed, or fled, leaping over the tower and crashing to their deaths.

Below them the orcs broke the first gate.

They did not yet understand what occurred on the walls, and at the shattering of the steel portcullis before their many rams, they ran in expecting wholesale slaughter. They found it, but not like they wanted.

Dark-skinned dour-handed arches met them with a steel rain. Broad arrows sheared flesh from bones and limbs from bodies. While the pack behind shoved to get through, those before died, and those in the middle turned coward to flee. The archers gave them neither mercy nor respite. Arrows took them, and a woman wrapped in green and black so not a shred of skin could be seen lead them. Bowmen cleared the front gate, the soldiers took it, and the bowmen ascended to the walls to take the unpaid butcher's price of Amber's killing ground.

The woman in black and green joined the siblings of Amber on the gatehouse. They did not respond, for some power laid about them, and all three burned with fires of sapphire. The woman gasped and bit back a word, turning instead to the battle.

But Fiona knew and did not stop her work. And Sauron had run out of neither tricks nor orcs.

#

Caine awoke in the castle, feeling like something had crawled into his head and died.

He couldn't remember ever feeling drunk like this. He was on a stretcher.

He looked around.

He was on a stretcher in the castle's infirmary, and no one was here.

He was naked.

Caine stumbled up and flopped around. His legs didn't work too well, and his sense of balance seemed to think left was down. He found some pants and a shirt as well as sandals, and managed to get up consistently in the right direction by the time he finished dressing. That took more out of him than it should, so since none of his relatives could see, he sat down and held his head until the throbbing stopped.

Footsteps, the door-knob rattled, and Caine stood by the bedside with one hand down for balance. His face took a sneer of its own accord. The doctor entered, and Caine waited.

"You're awake!"

"A brilliant observation," said Caine. "Why is there no one here? What happens to call the doctors from a house of illness?"

"An army of orcs besieges the castle," replied the doctor. "The city of Amber is sacked, we are under attack, and Benedict and the King are dead."

"Don't speak back, man."

Instead of answering directly, the doctor raised his eyebrow. "Are you going to the battle with your siblings, or do you need more rest?"

"I need nothing but proper clothing. Where is the stuff I was wearing when I came in?"

"I can find it around here somewhere," said the doctor, and he left.

After the doctor left Caine finally thought about what the doctor said. Random and Benedict dead?

The prince of Amber had not moved when the doctor reappeared briefly with his clothing, and he did not change quickly. Caine moved slowly, putting on his garments with care and precision. He noticed his trumps were missing, but the one hidden in his boot was not. It had not been a thorough search, merely a convenient one.

Caine held up a card of his flagship, the Corpuscant. Soon the waves broke against the frame and the infirmary smelled of sea spray. She seemed to sail and her rigging boomed. Caine stepped forward and landed on the ship to discover she was sailing.

"My Lord!" yelled Captain Jagganon. "You've come!"

"Of course," said Caine. "How are we?"

"Not good. The harbor is taken, and half our reduced fleet didn't get out in time. We're at a fraction of strength, sire."

"Does the enemy sail?"

"Not that we can see, sire. They're burning the Navy Yard and the city, but haven't yet taken to the water."

"Good, good," said Caine. "Gather the ships and begin putting together boarding parties. We'll raid them, and I bet we know our lands better than any of them. Rally men, and prepare to get the bastards!"

At his yell the sailors responded with one of their own. Caine rushed to the steerage to take the wheel, while Captain Jagganon ran to the flag-watch.

Caine saw they sailed the Chainlink Sea, where years ago Corwin had come, and Caine had stopped him. He smelled the salt air and nodded. This was right.

#

Fiona finished her walk and gasped. Julian stumbled and started swearing. Only Flora awoke like Alec's Geniviéve, graciously rising to consciousness like a nymph though water, and yet swaddled in arms and armor.

Vialle had remained with them and rushed to them immediately. Julian tried to wave her off.

"You've got more important things to worry about than me," he said and groaned.

"No, Julian," she replied quietly. "It is because I do not wish to worry about other things I worry about you."

Julian looked at her for a moment and then said, "Oh."

Meanwhile Fiona lifted up the Jewel of Judgement and looked out into the city. Motion rattled out there. Things moved. Behind old houses and around street-corners, things banged and clanged. Orcs did not often embrace subtlety and never unintentionally. These reveled in the sounds of smashing.

She looked to the others. "There will be another attack. Perhaps with siege engines, and we are still outnumbered."

"But not by as many," said Julian, who looked desperate to escape Vialle. He saw Tatianna's archers, and then saw her, watching them from a nearby tower. Her eyes burned between her veil and hood, and Julian felt his hackles rise.

"See if the trumps work," said Flora.

"No," said Fiona. "I've felt something dangerous on the trumps before and won't lightly risk it now.

"I want all of us to risk it together, with the Jewel, with Vialle. If there is a malicious force, let it deal with the lot of us at once."

After a moment Flora nodded, and Julian, trapped between Vialle and Tatianna, nodded as well.

Outside in the darkness orcs labored, and on the gatehouse, three scions of Amber and a queen joined to reach through a card.

Chapter 28: Act 2: Downwater

Rebma lay in for a peculiar siege.

Queen Moire's throne faced the dead serpent Rog. From his gills and wounds rose a plume like inverted rainbows. Subacquatic fires of the type that lit all Rebma lit Moire's throneroom, casting their multicolored light on the alabaster floors, Rog's corpse, and Oberon's ceiling, redone by generations of Rebmen artists to distinguish it from its upwater reflection. Only when eddies of dirty water drifted through the great hall did the air itself or lack of it betray their location underwater. Then the dirty currents caught the light and turned to prisms.

But from Rog seeped the endless plume of Geth. Llewella had kept a freshwater ocean in her pocket like a bauble and in battling Rog, threw it down his throat and unbound Geth's enchantment. It drowned him, burst his tissues, froze his guts, and desiccated him all at once as pure, oxygenless freshwater ripped the seawater from his cells and nutrients from his gils. Now Geth raised a plume, endlessly, that created a shifting chimney for itself through the saltwater. Where the light hit the halocline on one side, it broke into component rays of violet, rose, and daylily, brought to glorious and ever moving visibility on the far side. This twisting and treacherous plume rose from Rog, and Llewella said it might do so for months or years. No servants could approach Rog lest the erratic movements of the beautiful, but dangerous, water encapsulate them, and a technical effort with winches and ropes couldn't be undertaken during the orcish attack.

Moire had only just truly accepted this orcish attack would take a long, long time, and this first assault was but an hors d'oeuvre before the endless meal of Sauron's malice.

The queen, her half-sister Llewella, and her officers of war met at the throne, and two young sentries stood with their backs to the august party, watching the shifting pillar. All of them wore Rebman style clothes: scaled trunks from the waist to mid-thigh, sandals, and carried long knives. Tridents formed a stack by the door. Moire sat, Llewella stood at her right hand, and the fickle currents teased their hair and flesh. Moire wore her crown and the ring Bleys had given her, a ring like the one Llewella wore too.

Rings in Amber had no special significance, Llewella had said, given Oberon's amorphous view of marital bonds. However Moire wondered if the ring had had some significance. She'd noticed Bleys gave one to his sister too, so she puzzled.

Rings didn't necessarily mean anything in Rebma either, thought Moire. It was just that if they had a meaning, it was always the same meaning.

Except the Vancian people which used rings as bonds of fealty, she corrected herself.

Pay attention, she added.

She blinked and looked at Warlord Thyrome.

Thyrome hadn't noticed, for he argued viciously with Lightbringer Mrejyn.

Thryrome marshalled his voice to the border of yelling, but did not technically invade. "I'm merely pointing out–"

"–Which we all already know, which everyone already knows, which drunk men falling off barstools into delusion and cite as their friends like a brilliant strategy–" interrupted Mrejyn.

Thyrome's border incursion into yelling began with thrown weapons but his forces retained plausible deniability. "-THAT the oath says no force from Rebma may advance beyond the arch ON THE STAIRS! We're UNDER WATER!"

Around the point Thyrome said 'arch' Mrejyn began talking too. "And you're forgeting that OBERON IS NOT STUPID!"

"He's DEAD!"

"RANDOM ISN'T STUPID!"

"BUT THE OATH SAYS STAIRS!"

"THAT'S NOT WHAT THE OATH MEANS!" She finally yelled over him. "If we send a few detachments to the surface to swim to shore, they'll claim we violated the oaths, and while our lawyers make brilliant pedantic arguments, Random will send Benedict with armies and enforce the law of power!"

"But we're trying to help them!" retaliated Thyrome.

"It's illegal!" screamed Mrejyn.

They were married these forty four years.

Llewella wondered if they knew she was here. She told herself she'd been truly accepted as Rebmen, and not that they just yelled at each other until they forgot her presence. "The Arch of Samphire¬–" Samphire being her and Moire's mother –"lies at least five hundred feet below the surface. No swimmer could make it up."

Both of the lords of war turned on her.

"It's been considered," said Mrejyn.

"It can be done," said Thyrome.

"But it hasn't," said Moire with a vague hint of amusement. "Purely theoretical."

"And it won't be done," added Mrejyn.

"We can save Amber!" yelled Thyrome.

"You can damn us all!" screamed Mrejyn.

Hostilities exploded at the shouting-border, with both sides slinging arrows.

Moire tapped Llewella and raised an eyebrow.

"I'm worried these orcs will just pile large rocks on a ship, go to sea, and bombard us," admitted Llewella. She tried to speak low, but Thyrome heard.

"EXACTLY!" he screamed.

"That would be somewhat more difficult than you think," replied Moire as if he hadn't. "Rebma lies deep, and the currents above us are treacherous and strong. See how the plume of Rog twists. Nor is the stairway straight. Its causeway bends and curves as it descends to Rivlok. Its builders proofed it from any but a most deliberate surveying, which we have not allowed to transpire. There is no reason to believe the orcs would know exactly where we are."

"Making treason unnecessary," opined Mrejyn.

Llewella ticked off points on her fingers. "They come under the sigil of a Lidless Eye. We should expect them to have vision we would not otherwise expect."

The married couple stopped yelling. By their expressions, they hadn't thought about that.

"There are a lot of rocks on Kolvir, enough to replicate aerial bombardment, and bombing doesn't rely much on accuracy." Llewella ticked off her second point.

"What is bombardment?" asked Thyrome.

"A form of warfare from shadow. The primitive form of it relies on quantity over accuracy. They call it saturation bombing," explained Llewella. "Unpleasant things are dropped on cities, people, and armies until they die."

"But the rocks would miss," said Mrejyn softly.

"The first shipful? Certainly. The Chainlink Ocean is broad. The second shipful? Probably. The tenth? The thousandth? The millionth? If they take the shore and the surface, why would they ever stop?"

"Amber would allow no such thing," said Moire.

Llewella looked at her coldly and ticked off another finger. "I have been unable to raise anyone via trump. I spoke to Random after killing Rog. Before then I failed to reach either Benedict or Gerard. Now I'm unable to contact anyone upwater. Rebma overflows with refugees from the city. You assume the city is under assault, but in the keep, they are victorious, that this is merely a raid of unusual size and danger. I assume no such thing."

"What do you want to do?" asked Moire.

"I think Lightbringer Mrejyn is right now, and think Warlord Thyrome might be right soon. But we need to know what is happening in Amber. I will use the path of Corwin to send myself there, explore, and return via the stairs."

The lords of war blossomed into argument, both disagreeing with Llewella and somehow still managing to disagree with each other. The queen interrupted them.

"Leave us. I wish to speak with my sister."

They did. The throne room went silent save for currents and the soft squeak of freshwater escaping Rog.

"You usually only speak with me in private when you intend to argue," said Llewella. The green-haired princess sat back to regard the green-haired queen, jade vs emerald, and put her hands behind her back. There and unseen, she twisted her ring.

Moire shrugged. "Do not do this thing."

"Why not?"

"Because you will die," said Moire.

Llewella raised one eyebrow and waited.

Moire said, "In watching you I have often been amazed at both how little you resemble your siblings and yet how like them you are. I think you are the wisest of them. Yet in some ways you are all so similar as to be indistinguishable. You are just like them now.

"Llewella, you aim to use the power which is only available to scions of Amber to go to Amber, into an army which besieges us even now. Of your own report you cannot contact any of the great warriors of your family, yet you will go alone. Our divisive warlords argue too much, but they are competent. They prepare forces to do exactly what you want to do, yet you will go alone because you are of Amber and we Rebma. I see so much of your family in you."

The sister off the throne and yet the daughter of Oberon cocked her head sideways. "I'm not sure you're reading me as much as projecting my family onto me."

"Maybe. Am I wrong?"

"No, no. Not wrong, but misleading. I'm doing these things because I'm a daughter of Oberon, but I'm doing them for Rebma.

"Thyrome and Mrejyn say the ascent can be done. They've done it. Yes, yes, in public we will say they're talking theory only, but in private they've done it. Once, maybe? Twice? Now we're talking about a strike force from the depths, rising in what we should expect to be enemy held waters, far out to sea with no return.

"You realize that, don't you? Unless we get inland and to head of the stairs, there is no return? Think of two things: navigating an unfamiliar sea shore in order to precisely hit a stairway you said yourself was curved and treacherous, and the pressure. It's five hundred feet deep.

"Moire, to swim back the Rebmen will dive past the point they can hold their breaths. If they don't hit it exactly, down here where there is no light, they will not be able to return to the surface. Most of those men have never gone upwater. They will have never seen the shore, never navigated by landmarks.

"They did it once. They probably broached on the surface, got their wind back, and dove just as they came. They had no landmarks to worry about, no lost sense of direction, no drift. Moire, this is a suicide mission for them."

"You think too little of them," said Moire.

"I think too much of their lives," replied Llewella.

The sisters locked eyes. Moire's green hair bore speckles of grey, for Rebma did not offer the length of life of Amber. Yet she had lived eleven centuries and still possessed the vitality fitting the queen of the first shadow of Amber. Her skin was smooth and taught, her face not unduly lined. Even submersion in saltwater didn't age her, for such was the magic of the place. She wore comfort in her own skin like a translucent gown. She sat straight and spoke from the throne directly.

Llewella, three years younger, could pass for her daughter. She lacked the queen's confidence, but emitted power. Her family had never noticed. Corwin was a force of will and malice. Benedict had been cold and austere as a gun in a case or a sword on the hip. Bleys flashed smiles, Gerard loomed, and Fiona seemed to know all. Llewella had not Flora's face or Random's energy. Among them she had been a small girl and hid what she could.

But in Rebma she was power. The people spoke of her killing Rog alone, sending the queen to flee so she could battle the serpent that smashed stone and soldiers. They looked to the plume of freshwater rainbows as totemic. Llewella's body never rivaled her sister's sensuality, but she was stronger, moved easier, the water bent itself to her will. Moire curved on the throne, and Llewella stood facing her.

Both of them wore unassuming gold rings.

"You will lead Thyrome's people to shore and back. Am I understood?" asked Moire.

And a long time later Llewella replied, "Perfectly."

Oberon's daughter strode out, leaving Moire with an empty throne room and a dead serpent.

Chapter 29: Act 2: The Backdoor to Rebma

In an ill-fated coincidence Princess Llewella met Guardsman Orak leaving the throne room of Rebma.

She did not notice him before their meeting. Most of Llewella's attention wrapped around the issue of not muttering to herself in public. Walking in Rebma the seawater acted as air, and one could not stomp accidentally. Movement without deliberateness of intent smoothed into flowing. She didn't stomp, didn't stride, and only walking quickly towards her chambers to prepare, she didn't see the guardsmen until almost walking him down.

Orak noticed her. Jade eyes, jade hair, soft skin that looked tan through the filter of thick deepwater, Orak noticed quite a bit of her. She went bare-breasted in the Rebman way, and in the equally Rebman way, he noticed.

When angry in Amber, Llewella hid. She shrank and hunched, stood crooked, and avoided others. Yet in Rebma she stood straight. Now with shoulders back and eyes flashing, she saw nothing but the folly that infected Moire, and the arrogance of this woman of shadow attempting to order her, a daughter of Oberon, and righteous lord of shadow. Did Moire forget that she had wed Vialle to Random on his name and lineage alone, and Vialle had been greater for it, even if the little quirt hadn't ascended to true power? Or if their marriage had gone as expected, and ended in a year and a day? And now the half-sister attempted to order her? To get men killed?

It was her skin, thought Orak. He saw so much of it, soft, smooth, and supple under the water. In the water her breasts floated as sculpted planets and as she walked, jiggled. The awareness of her infected him, and while he knew of her, they had never met.

She would, he realized, be the perfect solution to his problem.

"Ma'am, a moment," he said, hand up, stepping before her, eye contact.

Llewella's vision zoomed out of the past and to his face, and for an instant she wondered who this mortal was who interrupted her. She considered smacking him.

"Yes?"

"Orc bodies litter the stairway to upwater. We cannot clear them for our forces would go under arms, and the oaths inhibit us. May I ask your help?"

"You can ask whatever you want, and your people ask much!"

Orak stared at her for several seconds, entranced, beguiled, infected with a perception of her presence that defied him. His heart beat out of rhythm. Blood rushed in his head. The sea water was very warm.

"Then will you help me?"

Her lips parted, soft and thick. They would slide over his skin.

"No. Goodbye." She walked off.

And in Orak an idea was born. It began, not innocently, as they'd met, and screamed its first words then. It matured as she departed, and he watched the pivot of hip and side. Her legs flexed with each step, and her pelvis rocked from side to side as her upper body remained ramrod straight. Her thighs moved down below. And the idea in Orak grew and set its roots within him. He watched her go and a nervous tension built, until he twisted the newly acquired ring he was not yet used to.

"You want a moment?" asked someone.

Orak turned and spotted two other guards standing right there, watching him like the main event at a circus.

"No," he said.

They did not smile. In fact Orak knew that expression. It meant they were not smiling so hard they were about to lose consciousness.

Orak pivoted on a heel and departed. He had a job to do.

#

Llewella left Orak hot and bothered. He fidgeted. He adjusted his trunks five or six times, retied his sandals, and finally removed the ring he didn't quite remember getting and tucking it into his belt pocket.

Many Rebmen carried their coinage in their belts, especially guardsmen, and Orak did as well, a long, wrap-around pocket that followed the contour of his sword belt. The ring clinked against his wages until he buckled the belt again, and then it rode silent and flat.

That done he went on, looking for someone who could speak on behalf of the refugees. One of Moire's warlords caught him and voluntold Orak to report to the queen. Soon he stood at attention between the throne and dead Rog, explaining the dilemma.

"Leaving us with a simple but intractable set of problems," said Orak after describing the issue. "The orcs dead on the stairs have left their swords. We can remove their bodies, but their weapons? That may violate our oaths."

"Leave them," interrupted Moire. "Leave the stairs littered with the blades of our enemies as a warning."

"That... could cut the hell out of someone," said Orak.

"They must be wary," she replied.

Orak watched Moire's eyes flash, and noticed how far deeper were her greens than Llewella's. The Amberite's eyes showed the color of surface waves and the endless sea, reflections of sunlight on waters thick with life and algae. Queen Moire's eyes burned with deepwater power. In her was the dark algae that never rose to the air.

The queen did not sound inclined to take constructive criticism.

"I will convey your orders. But the matter of Fthelig's sword remains."

"I said leave it," said Moire.

"Fthelig was one of ours, Majesty. He gave the upwater man his blade to go where he could not, and he may of died for it."

"Why am I beset with argument today?" demanded Moire. She stood up to yell at him. "I said leave the sword! Leave all of them on the stairs. Throw the bodies over the wall so the deep creatures can eat them, but obey the oaths of Oberon in word, exactly as written. Leave his sword! It does not concern you. Bury Fthelig with all due honor and leave the sword."

The muscles in Orak's jaw bulged. "Yes, Majesty."

"Now make it happen."

Orak nodded and left, in an equal rage as Llewella had, and equally unable to stomp. By the viscosity of their environment grace was forced upon them.

#

No sooner had he left Moire's throne room than that idea came back. It emerged from the back of his mind dripping notion, bestrewn with increasingly fanciful ideas bordering on fantasy, but underneath all that it grinned with bright, sharp teeth. Orak thought of Llewella of Amber and sought her out.

She sort-of recognized him the second time, though a few minutes and brisk walking had mollified her. Llewella stood in her rooms assembling clothing for her trip. She'd not yet spoken to anyone about Moire's instructions. Now she wore the same thing but had a robe of saffron over her shoulders and on a table laid out boots, pants, and gloves. When Orak knocked on her door, it was open, and she had a mask of gray mesh in hand.

"You again. Yes?" she asked.

He stared at her, and while his heart beat like thunder in his ears, it played a rhythm of frustration with the queen. That's what he told himself. Orak crossed his arms and stood equally on both feet.

"Would you be willing to disobey a direct order for a good cause? I cannot."

Llewella put down the mask. "What order?"

"As I said before, Pthelig has lost his sword on the stairway and I cannot retrieve it. I'm sworn as a son of Rebma to obey Rebma's oaths. Queen Moire has told me to leave it there, and that galls me."

"Who's Pthelig?" asked Llewella.

"A good, dead, man."

"I don't see what this has to do with me."

"Because you're from Amber! You're Amber royalty! I must obey my queen, and I must carry Rebma's honor and her oaths, but you can just walk ten, twenty steps, pick up the sword, and maintain all bonds!" Orak flexed his hands like he clawed at invisible bonds, and subconsciously, Llewella checked him for rings. She didn't see one.

"That's not what your queen told you to do," said Llewella. She half-lidded her eyes.

"I'm obeying her every instruction! I'll leave the sword alone, and I'll certainly uphold Rebma's oaths." He stared at her, hungrily.

Llewella considered. "Want to come to Amber?"

Orak had not considered that. "Yes," he replied.

"There will be orcs."

Orak thought back to what he'd said to Plyssin. "Definitely. What shall I do?"

"We do. I'm going, and I need to take someone of Rebma. Queen's orders. You understand."

Orak smiled. "I'm at your disposal, Lady Llewella."

"Get other clothes, clothes like they wear upwater. A shirt, pants, boots. Are you familiar with the details?"

"No, but many refugees are here. I can get clothing."

"Good."

Within an hour they met at the arch, and Orak told Plyssin Moire's orders regarding the orcish bodies and orcish swords.

"And Pthelig's blade?" asked Plyseen.

"I won't touch it," said Orak. His stoic bearing cracked, and a hint of a smirk lifted the corners of his lips. Orak obviously thought he wasn't smiling. "Neither should you."

The Troop Commander looked between him and her, and said nothing.

She wore black pants, a white shirt, and a black vest. Her hair lay pinned back under a tricornered hat. Orak wore something baggy that exposed his chest and arms, hanging off his shoulders from threadbare straps of fabric. Llewella smiled as she started up the stairs, him following. Along the way she picked up a bright, clean sword, and carried it until they passed out of sight up the winding pathway to Amber. Fires on pillars cast a thousand shades of light.

#

Somewhat south of Kolvir and Amber the beach cut westward toward the forest of Arden.

"Arden is not a single shadow," explained Llewella. "It's a primal forest that grew in the long presence of the sons and daughters of Amber, their walks and journeys, Julian's hunting, and the start of most of all of our shadow journeys, at least those on land."

"I don't understand," admitted Orak. "I know you can walk through shadow, but otherwise you've lost me."

The two of them watched the beach from the breaking waves. A low tide pushed the breaking point of the breakers to the edge of the shore below a wide beach, and the nature of the stairway down to Rebma allowed Llewella and Orak to hide in the water, watching the shore. Right now they watched orcs. Under the full moon a party of orcs ranged down the beach. They did not move quickly, and seemed to hide occasionally from the moonlight. The two spies waited and watched.

Llewella pointed out Kolvir, which Orak admitted he had seen only once. He would have known it otherwise, for it rose as the lone great mountain in the range, its feet in the water and its head in the clouds. At the summit brilliant lights tore up the sky. Red and dirty oranges mixed with blues and greens. Powers smashed into each other like the fists of polychromatic gods, a notion Llewella called not-inaccurate. The crest of the mountain gleamed in moonlight, and no clouds dwelled in the sky above.

"We won't go there," she said, head under water and talking by the power of Rebma. On the stairs they breathed seawater. "We need to explore Arden." Then she explained the forest, and Orak asked for clarification.

"When we say we walk through shadow, we speak literally," said Llewella. "We can sail, but I prefer to walk. I've swum, but that's more trouble than its worth, and Random flies. The walking is literal, one foot in front of the other. It is out power from Oberon, and only those his blood can do it."

"But other people can follow you. That's how the Chainlink Ocean gets its name," said Orak. He felt beguiled by this woman in black. The ocean turned her shirt translucent and filled his head with memories. She spoke effortlessly of powers of a god. Only the water kept pressure from building between his legs, and even now wanted to think of her more and deeper than the mission allowed. He argued to keep his head straight.

"Yes, that's the trick to Arden. A normal person can follow an Amberite if the trail is recent. My brothers, and I, set the sailing routes through shadow and anchored them. We have traversed them so many times and Gerard and Caine sail them regularly still. The sea paths are well mapped.

"In Arden no such thing was done, but the pathways remain. Trees and forest animals followed them. Roots and branches keep the pathways open. The forest itself grows in many shadows, and binds them together. But these shadows are different. Gunpowder is the main difference. It works far away but not here. Have you heard of that?"

"No," admitted Orak.

"It wouldn't work in Rebma anyway-" she stopped to second-guess herself but didn't offer a correction "–so it's not an issue. Nor will we go that far. But if you get lost, try to find a major pathway and follow that back to the sea. Don't attempt to go overland. The direct way back may not exist, and you can find yourself in a shadow far different from this one. I've explored many. Most are uninteresting. Some...can be dangerous."

"Arden isn't in Amber?" asked Orak.

Vaguely annoyed, Llewella clarified. "Not all of it. By Amber's seaside it is, but it touches the ocean in places not in Amber."

Orak nodded. He didn't understand, but he committed 'follow the paths' to memory.

"They're past us now," he said of the orcs. "We can move along the coast in the water and get behind them."

"We will," Llewella agreed. "We're going to head up to the city, Amber. Been there?"

"No. It's a reflection of Rebma, right?"

"No, Rebma is a reflection of it," said Llewella.

Orak sniffed indignantly.

She ignored him. "Come along. Stay silent."

They left the stairway and had to start breathing air, a phenomenon Orak found unpleasant. He took care because he didn't want to embarrass himself, but this state where he couldn't just breathe water normally struck him as vaguely insulting. Llewella didn't seem phased. She guided them around a point of sand, beyond whence the orcs came, before heading inland and out of the sea. There Orak moved more uncertainly.

Llewella gave him the sword she'd been carrying. "We're off the stairway now. Keep it ready."

Orak nodded, and they headed towards Port Amber. The silhouettes of houses existed on one side, ugly red and sooty brown, and waves charging to the shore glittered in orange.

#

On the side of Rebma that faced the deeps, the pillars cast light on silent water. Down here little stirred. In normal times the Rebman might sally down to collect volcano pearls and ibis coral, a black gem that grew in reefs that never saw the sun. Sometimes they collected saltwater crystals. No one had gone below since the coming of Rog. Waves didn't break against the shore in loneliness. Rebmen monitored the sea, and only occasionally did messengers from the battle on the upwater side come with messages.

A man named Rexis commanded the small detachment of watchers, and Rexis looked around unhappily. Three gateways opened on the netherdepths, and at two good Rebman stood, leaning on pikes and watching the pathways down. At all three a high pillar lifted from the sinking seamount, each one lower than the gateway and yet a hundred yards above the pathway it illuminated. At the third gateway there was no guard but Rexis, and for this he scowled. This gateway had no gate, the walls smashed open, and stones as big as sunfish lay scattered across the city within. Something immense had burst through here, and the rocks of the downwater-side wall had not yet grown colonies of small fry or weeds. Clean mortar lay here and there, and a boulder faced the cavernous hole at the end of a long furrow. On this Rexis sat and grumbled.

Not long after the shift began an upwater man arrived, and one of the other guards sent him to their commander. The newcomer introduced himself as Neeblin in Thari and said he had been instructed by Llewella to join their watch.

"You won't find any glory here," said Rexis. He stood up to give the newcomer his seat. "We watch these pathways for serpents which do not come, and the real glory happens on the stairs."

Neeblin had a confident, easy manner about him, and sat down on Rexis's chair with pleasure. He looked happy to be off his feet. Yet in spite of his pleasant manners, Rexis somehow thought of him as oily. He noticed the newcomer had neither weapons nor proper clothes, wearing the thicker stuff of Amber. He had a little jewelry, but nothing Rexis considered important.

"You want to be part of the battle on the stairs?" asked Neeblin.

"All true sons of Rebma do. I have no interest in fighting, but I hate that others must fight for me, and I can do nothing for them." Rexis sighed. "I watch pathways for serpents."

"Do the others feel this way?" asked Neeblin.

"We all do. We would join the battle if we could, but our job is here, facing nothing."

"I am here now, and I am happy to take this position. I will watch the deep pathways closely. Why don't you go to the battles and find out what's going on?" suggested Neeblin, by all appearances being ready to wait for some time. "Rebma needs men such as you in more important places than here, and I will ward these approaches."

Rexis could not argue, for there was nothing coming up the dark ways. He took himself upwater quickly, and Neeblin, once called Obrecht, waited alone.

Chapter 30: Act 2: One City Fallen, One Sunken, and One Still Fighting

Summary:

I've had some problems using special characters in AO3, so I'm omitting a few accent marks from names here.

Orcs roved south of port Amber on the discontiguous beach, long sand carpets broken by stone. Some of these peninsulas of the mountain reached from Kolvir and its family to the Chainlink Ocean, like the one where Obrecht had his fateful meeting with Bleys. Others rose from nothing and ended overlooking the sea, the dying in the same place as stone-flows with great lineages.

Llewella and Orak made their way inland along a narrow draw between two such massifs. Orcs to the south of them watched the forests. They did not see the scouts move up a bit of rock that rose from nothing and died, nor see them climb up a high ridge of Kolvir. The orcs kept moving. Llewella and Orak moved towards the city.

It would have been a bright night, with a waxing moon casting three quarters glow on the world, but the introduction of flashing, violent light high up the mountain made the moon's cool radiance seem dim. On Kolvir blue battled red. Fires like radiant smoke tried to burn pillars of sparks from the sky. Sapphire sparks like fireflies flashed in brilliance and charged a crimson bloodstain on the black velvet of night. The towers and walls of Castle Amber itself turned one color and another as the battle overhead painted the masonry like a 3D picture. Neither Orak or Llewella had the glasses.

About a quarter mile from the stairs, still several miles from Amber, the scouts noticed a party of orcs coming down the shore. Six orcs moved together in a run, and the Rebmen noticed that orcs always ran. Even the earlier group that had watched the forest in concern had run along, run back, and paused to run in circles. This little group was no different, and stormed along the southward going road at a lope.

"We could take them," said Orak.

After a moment Llewella nodded. "Yes. Let's."

Orak snapped his head around. "Seriously? You mean the two of us and the six of them?"

"Yes." She looked at him. "Why?"

Orak blinked and looked back at the orcs. "Nothing. Call it."

The princess drew a machete, and Orak drew Pthelig's blade.

"When they cross that rock," she said.

The orcs did, and the scouts hit them. It took a little under a minute.

Llewella's short, heavy sword had one edge and a blunt point. She used it two handed to smash orcish iron weapons. Sometimes their armor blocked the edge, but Orak watched her stave in bones with heavy, chopping motions. Orcs crumpled and fell. He had hit one with surprise, and then fenced with two, while she'd simply beaten down three and then annihilated one of the others. The last orc had tried to run and not been fast enough.

"I've never seen a blade like that," admitted Orak, who felt foolish in comparison and more foolish for his earlier statement. Inwardly his pride bristled for reservations about two attacking six had not been foolish, and yet it had.

She nodded. She offered him the two-handed machete, saying, "There's nothing like it. Oberon made the Wavecleaver for me. Sheath that, and I'll show you."

When he had taken the thing, he very nearly dropped it. The point slammed into dirt, and Orak needed both of his to lift it. The weighting was all wrong, and the balance off.

""My father had opinions about his daughters learning to swordfight," said Llewella. She didn't seem surprised at Orak's difficulties, and while his pride ruffled, waiting for her to make fun of his strength, she stared into space. "He wouldn't teach us. Benedict gave me a few tips, but it wasn't until I went deep into shadow that I got serious training. I took an easy way out.

"That thing is a steel club. I can't fence with it, but no one else can block it. Against people like Gerard, it's bloody useless, but I've come to realize there just aren't that many people like Gerard. Just one, really. There aren't many people like our family. Eric and Corwin always got caught-up in the elegance of fighting, and they used lighter weapons. I suppose they're good enough they can. But they're also into fighting in a way I'm not, and I usually just want the damn conflict over as soon as possible. My brothers and I never saw eye to eye, but Dad had words for them and different opinions about me."

She looked over at Orak, who had the sword up but held it with both hands, blade down, and she took it back. It slid into a heavy sheath with the back open. She wrang out her shirt, realizing suddenly they were both dripping.

"You're deadly with it. You took four men!" said Orak.

"Orcs," said Llewella. She looked at the sky and the shadows between stars. "Not men. Orcs."

They continued moving towards Amber, and Orak asked, "And what exactly is an orc? Don't point and say that."

Llewella, who was pointing, laughed. "Creatures of shadow. I've seen them here and there, more dangerous than these and smarter, but never so well guided and driven by such a force. Orcs are creatures to extend a master's rule. They're beings to serve a will. Someone is behind these ones," she finished.

"We should kill him," said Orak.

Llewella nodded. "Yes. But if his will is a measure of power– Some things, even in shadow, are easier said than done."

Port Amber burned. Ships that hadn't sailed burned in the harbors, and here and there charred rigging rose from the bay water. Llewella thought of mangrove trees, and Orak wondered what they looked like below. Warehouses smoldered. Row houses acted as fire conduits, bringing blazes through the city. The rolling hills bled flames out of neighborhoods. The living, breathing city Llewella remembered died of a thousand wounds and massive trauma. An oily smoke-cloud hung low overhead, capped by a higher raincloud, and turned air and mud into black sludge.

"Oh, baby," whispered Llewella. "Baby, you were so beautiful."

Orak looked for orcs.

They infested the city, peculiarly resistant to flame and soot. Orcs wandered about breaking already broken rubble with kicks and swords, smashing unburnable things like fountains and stone park benches, and what they could not break they upturned and ruined. A pack of them made its way along a street between high walls of smoldering townhomes ripping the flagstones out of the street and tipping them over. They crawled into basements and cellars to catch hiding pets, killed and ate dogs, and skinned cats. They ripped trees from their roots in parks and stuffed them into wreckage to reignite the fires, then danced in obscene circles of glee around the rebuilt blaze.

The Amberite and the Rebman retreated behind a spur of rock and took counsel.

"I need to send some messages. Keep watch," said Llewella.

Orak nodded.

First she drew her cards and tried to call her family. She went through the trumps one by one.

Llewella held Benedict's warm card and did not cry. She shuffled it back into her deck. At Random's card, warm as the air and collecting smoke, she whispered, "No, no, no."

Orak didn't know what to do, peering over the rock at the cavorting orcs. He put a hand down on her shoulder and kept watch.

Llewella kept shuffling. Julian's card was icy cold to the touch, but only a card. She could not make contact. Fiona and Florimel's cards felt the same. With Gerard Llewella did think she felt a presence, but he didn't reply. She had to release him with only a sense of memory. She recalled his big hands and brown eyes, the way his face usually fit into a grin, and the smell of clean clothing over violent exercise. She spoke to his memory but did not expect him to hear. Corwin's card raised nothing. She dealt out Bleys.

The sense of presence arrived almost immediately and then hung. She held the card and waited, and Bleys stood still in the frame. His hair waved in a wind she didn't feel, and his free hand swirled wine in a goblet. Llewella watched pinot noir race up the golden sides of the cup and creep back down. He wore many rings, big fat things with jewels and ornamentation. She pushed for contact.

Connection came suddenly, and Bleys said, "Llewella! Is Rebma safe?"

"Bleys, you're alive."

"I am. You are too, but you should be safe there."

"I'm not. I'm in Amber. Bleys, the city burns."

"Ah, you shouldn't have gone back. Not yet. The orcs have taken it."

"I know, I'm there now! Where are you?"

"I'm in a shadow called Numenor raising an army to liberate Amber. If I go far enough out to raise forces in a day, I'll need weeks to march them back. If I stay close, time moves like it does in Amber, and it will take months or years to build forces. I'm trying to split the difference. In this shadow a force like those orcs was defeated by these guys, so they're close to being ready."

Bleys paused. "Do you need escape? Do you want me to bring you through?"

She looked over his shoulder and saw ships at harbor. Where Bleys stood daylight fell on his shoulders. The wineglass of the trump was replaced with a spyglass, and he had replaced his finery with unadorned silk. She saw trimasted sailing vessels with sunbursts on their sails at anchor, and towers on a sea wall. Bleys had an arm towards her, but his wrist went beyond the odd window of perspective that bore him, reaching both behind her and stopping in front. He looked like he was holding up a camera to take pictures of himself, and she was looking at such a picture.

"How long?" asked Llewella.

Bleys picked up his smile and put it on, but she saw cracks in his facade.

"I don't know. The other time it took a while, but that was with Eric working against us with the Jewel of Judgement. I don't know where the Jewel is now. I've thought about this a lot, Llewella. A lot since Corwin and I failed. My heart says hurry, but memory and my head say go slow. I think I'm going to follow my head."

"How long?" repeated Llewella.

"Weeks at least, and more likely months. Maybe years. I have an army to build, and this shadow lies far from Amber. None of the pathways come close. Further, I don't know what Eric did with the Jewel. After he died, Corwin had it, and Corwin knew what forces meant Amber harm. I don't know what traps Corwin left for me. I won't hurry a slow job. I tried that once, and we know how it ended. Take refuge in Rebma and wait."

"Could you come faster if you had the Jewel?" asked Llewella.

"That would change things," Bleys admitted. "I'd need to attune to it, but I could meet you in Rebma for that. Then I could change the timestream here, and not just change it but accelerate the change, and sail to Amber under clear skies with following winds. But I don't have it, and I can't imagine Amber would fall if Random still had the Jewel. It may be lost."

"Random's card is warm, Bleys," said Llewella.

Bleys let his smile slip a little. "Benedict? Gerard? Corwin?"

"Benedict is warm. Corwin cannot be found. Gerard's card is cold, but I can't contact him." She suddenly thought of something. "In fact, how did I contact you?"

"I'm boosting the signal from my side. I felt the contact earlier and couldn't answer, so I shuffled out your trump and I'm using it too. Do you know what's blocking trumps?" he asked.

"No. I didn't know that was possible."

"It means something is attacking the Pattern. I don't know what that could be," he said, adding, "But we've seen this before. I can guess."

"Could you fix that with the Jewel?" asked Llewella.

Again Bleys seemed to think. "Yes. Maybe. I don't know. The Jewel is immensely powerful, and I don't know it's limits. As long as you understand the real answer is I don't know, my heart says yes."

Llewella lifted herself just enough to peek over the rock and see the Port of Amber burning. High above colors and lights fought in the sky over the castle.

"I'll see what I can do. Be ready with my card if I need your help," she said.

"Of course, Llewella. Of course. Stay as safe as you can."

She nodded and passed a hand over the card. Contact faded.

"Orak, we're going to get something called the Jewel of Judgement. I think it's in the Castle, where the lights are battling. Are you ready?"

She expected a smirk, a wink, or a joke. He gave none of them.

"Call it," he said.

"The highway is beset. We'll take the stairs. Let's go."

She put away her cards and headed inland. Orak followed.

#

Bleys lowered a piece of paper scrawled with labyrinthine circles and bent squares. That which curved had angles, and lines twisted back on themselves. He put the paper down and turned to his desk.

The Prince had created a work station at the Numenor harbor-master's stand, a roofed, open-walled pavilion of four pillars and a ceiling over a set of desks. At one desk Bleys sat down and drew, quickly sketching a figure with all the features of a rat as well as a man. The artist circumscribed the subject in rings within rings, before trimming the sketch down to a small circle. Bleys put the circle in the middle of his rat's nest of twisted lines. Holding it up he focused as Llewella had and soon made contact.

"Who are you?" demanded Obrecht, now calling himself Neeblin.

"Your master. Have you found my ring?"

"No," said Obrecht.

"Work harder. I believe the Queen Moire has it. I want that ring, worm."

"The queen- has a ring of power?" asked Obrecht. He cocked his head in surprise.

"That is for you to find out. I want that ring, worm, or else I'll take your blood." Out of sight Bleys used his thumb to twist one of his own rings, a fat, silverish thing with a jewel of black opal.

Obrecht flushed. He suddenly started breathing faster, and his skin turned red. Veins rose in his neck.

"The ring, worm. Get me the ring," said Bleys and broke connection.

On the golden isle of Numeor Bleys sat and thought, and contemplated his work, intricate drawings on his desk, and plans. His most recent work was a painting of a king, golden-haired on a golden field, wearing a glorious crown. Bleys sat and thought, and bent his mind on both his cards and his word until the air seemed to bend and warp around him. A dozen small rings rattled on his desk, and the wind whipped the tops of waves into foam. Bleys thought, and his thoughts bent on Amber.

Chapter 31: Act 2: The Valley of the Dragon

Near the shore of the Chainlink Ocean mansions and row houses lined the beach. Now they smoldered. Their smoke trails met the growing black cloud overhead, compressed by the heat of the burning city below and the cold rain cloud that sat above, and created a slurry of gas and soot. Over thick clusters of the townhomes the ash cloud burned hot, and rain that fell vaporized before it hit the ground. There the weather formed a boiling circle of black rain, rising in smoke to cool and fall again, and turned the sky a vile shade of gray. Elsewhere over wide-spread mansions, the blot on the sky cooled. Rain made it to earth.

Where it hit Orak and Llewella, the rain tasted of ash. The air smelled of smoke. The ground cracked with it. Fires had raged hot enough to glass sand, plating the dirt and beaches with a thin crust that shattered underfoot. When the soot-rain fell, it vaporized on the cut glass leaving only the soot. The beaches looked scabbed over like the sea and shore had bled.

Orak hit the point where he feared Llewella as a force of nature, a human wrecking ball that stove in orcs, wargs, and twisted flapping creatures with her double-handed blade the Wavecleaver. He understood what she meant about the easy way out, for Llewella could not parry. Swinging took too much effort. She couldn't block, and often dodged orcish strikes by hiding on the other side of her blade. The shear mass of it made lighter and badly forged orcish weapons toothpicks against it, and when she swung, the forces of Mordor could not parry either. They couldn't run. They rarely dodged. Their armor did nothing. Llewella hewed through them.

And she should have died the first time she fought two and a third tried to get behind her, except the orcs feared this jade-haired, melancholy woman with the tsunami blade, and in the face of fear, they forgot about the blue-skinned man whose clothes didn't fit.

Llewella charged five orcs, smashed two, and the others tried to triangulate her. Orak, four steps behind, watched a fang-toothed beast with a red Lidless Eye looking back at him from the orc's helm try to flank the princess. The orc fixated on her to the point of turning Orak his back, and the Rebman simply unlimbered his head from shoulders. Llewella hit another, not cutting him from crown to pelvis, but smashing all bones, organs, and armor between entry point and exit. Guts splattered melted glass, and bits of armor shattered it. The other orc tried to run. Orak ran faster, cut his legs out, and dropped him.

Panting, Llewella leaned on the sword, and Orak watched. Violent exercise brought definition to her muscles. Her thighs, her legs, her butt, they pressed against the dirty, wet clothing of Amber. He could pick out the delineation of her gluteal muscles. Adhesion between wet cloth and skin painted her shirt to her stomach and breasts. Orak saw the curvature of her chest as he watched her behind.

The problem Orak confronted was his terror of Llewella conflicted with near maddening desire, and his brains idly noted this was not a healthy distraction in combat.

"You're breaking a bunch of rules," he said, distracting himself from the way she breathed.

"What do you mean?"

"I'm not criticizing. I'm laughing at the rules, because they aren't written for a Princess of Amber."

"I'm still confused."

Orak explained with a hint of wry smile. "It's the way you fight. You sprint in, fight as hard and fast as you can, and swing like mad. For anyone else I'd say you're wasting energy. But you Amberites had depths of energy I can't relate to. You don't flag."

She looked up, jade eyes, a tragic expression hiding a hint of amusement. Orak smiled back.

"You're keeping up."

Orak winked at her and looked away.

Kolvir rose in scarlet vestments, shrouded in smoke and fire, crowned in halos. The summit burned. Bolts of lightning jumped from spire to peak.

"We should keep moving," said Orak.

They crossed the city and entered the woods on the north side. Sometimes they hid orcish bodies behind them but more often left Sauron's dead rotting in the open. Sometimes it rained. The sky wept nothing but sludge. Orak lost sight of where he was or where they went. Llewella claimed to know the way. She stopped, here and there, and grime dribbled down her. She gained black tear-streaks from dry eyes, blinking away the muck of the black cloud overhead.

They ranged wide north of the city before coming back around, and as they approached noticed the orcs appear more and more often. Driven by the Lidless Eye, the orcs still did not move quickly or in formation. They argued, fought, and malingered. The two from Rebma entered the woods, moved closer to the mountain when Llewella ordered them to pause.

"I need to check something," she said.

She didn't want to be, but was right anyway.

Over a hill Llewella saw the burned out bar where she'd found Bleys, Tatianna, and the dragon. The tavern rose like a scaffolding hung with fire, and from it dangled the tavern-keeper and his family. It burned, and their bodies burned, and the foul power of Sauron lay on them. The hanged men burned and were not consumed.

She saw the sign on the ground, and from the sign issued the forces and power of Mordor. In two long files marched forth unending forces of the Lidless Eye. So long as she stared, they did not cease. They poured from the tavernkeeper's sign and over the southward hills toward Amber.

Llewella looked back at Orak, who had come the whole way this far without complaint.

"There is something I have to do," she said.

"Good. I'll follow you."

"No. You stay here."

"Of course I will. Tell me how that works for you," agreed Orak without even attempting to hide the falsehood.

"I'm giving you a direct order!"

"Woman, I am going to be on you the whole time."

Llewella paused and squinted at him.

Orak kept a stone-face.

"I'm not sure that's what you meant to say," said Llewella suspiciously.

"Are we going?" he asked.

"Oh, damn it all to hell," replied the Princess, and she drew the Wavecleaver. "Any other comments?"

"Llewella, you just keep doing what works for you," replied Orak, and he drew the blade of Pthelig.

He stared at his sword and stared at the endless army that poured from the sign. Within the green field where the Dragon had roosted and now stood only a few words symbolizing the old name of a ruined bar, a pit into a dark place yawned and vomited up Mordor's armies.

"May I say one thing?" asked Orak, taken back.

"Yes?" Llewella wasn't sure what she was agreeing to.

"Thank you."

She stared at him and did not understand.

"Call it," he said.

She looked back.

Time crystalized. Every orcish step resounded on the board. Every lick of flame that danced on the building pirouetted slowly, and the drumbeat of orcish legs made a complex music that would last him forever. Fractions of a breath tasted sweet in his lungs. Starlight on rainclouds, even black with pollution, created rainbows and sigils of beauty. Orak inhaled air instead of water, and it tasted sweeter than all the breaths of his life below the sea.

"Go," said Llewella.

They hurdled the hillside and charged. Half a league to the tavern, half a league to the sign, half a league onward, all in the valley of the Dragon ran Llewella and Orak.

Swift Llewella took the head.

"Go for the sign," she said.

Into the valley of the Dragon ran Llewella and Orak.

#

In silence and under the black cloud, the two from Rebma crossed a hundred yards as unseen as ghosts. In another hundred yards an orc sat sullenly, watching the others match to burning Amber, and cast not a glance behind him. Llewella crushed him, and the Wavecleaver turned him inside out. Another hundred yards and they ran as ghosts again. They leaped small rivulets and crossed thickets of wild gorse brush. They traversed rock and stream. Another dozen yards and an orc drew his sword before raising the alarm. He did not raise the alarm. Another ten yards to an orc her looked to see what happened to the last. Three yards on and finally one of the yrch screamed before Orak killed him.

The Princess of Amber and Orak of Rebma were still a mile from the black placard, and the issuance of the hordes of Mordor.

"Goodbye," whispered Llewella, and for the first time, Orak saw her run.

She outdistanced him almost instantly and abandoned all shreds of subtlety. A line of orcs challenged her, and she discarded them in splatters and spray. Guards stood on towers, cobbled boards from broken houses, and those boards ruptured before the fell coming of the Princess of Amber as their antecedents had fallen before the orcs. She shattered bulwarks and tore down ramparts, and always Llewella ran for the issuance of darkness.

One by one orc-horns lit up the silence of the night. They blew deep notes of broken stone and tearing trees. Their cries ululated as twisted and warped as their issuers, and the limitless power of Mordor looked to the north from the portal into Amber. Llewella came, and her hair was black, her skin dappled, and her dress seemed as shadows. Uncleaned gore coated her blade, turned black as the ash-fall rained down, save for a single brilliant gleaming edge. Only in the cutting point, near blunt but suitable for a Princess of Amber, gleamed, and to the orcs she came with a sword of white lightning.

They turned on her, and Llewella did not turn around them. She hit the armies of Sauron running, and slew them. Bodies flew as spray, and the river of Mordor tried to drown a rock of Amber.

Heads she took from champions. The short, squat orcs of Mordor had a few taller and more powerful than the rest. Glurag Morthaga was one, and he expired in blood. She cast his body to bonfires and kept running. Jan Drogomach lead his company out of the Mountains of Shadow on Mordor's southern border, where he had raided the Khandmen and Haradim. Their subservience to Sauron had not spared him their wrath, but his did not spare him Llewella's. She unlimbered his legs so black orc blood splattered the ground, and the passing of Wavecleaver delved caverns in his guts. He bled out, and Llewella did not look back.

Finally the orcs brought pikes forward and crouched a forest of thick spears. For the first time she turned to the side, running around the formation and hitting them from the side. Even quick-footed and shifty eyed orcs of Mordor struggled to follow her. She hewed the back of the formation apart and cast them down, and ran on towards the Dragon inn with its gallows frame and hanged bodies like candles.

At her coming the orcs finally turned and fled, and cowardice erupted from their hearts. No more did they fight her, but threw down broken swords and hid.

She crossed the last distance, a final hundred yards, and the orcs beyond the plaque refused to appear. They cowered on the far side of the wooden portal. Llewella ran. A disturbance moved through them, and she raced it, fast as a dark wind, and fell and terrible. Through a route of terrified orcs, she dashed up the hillside so fast the wind chased her, and at the summit, raised Wavecleaver in two hands to break the portal.

She swung, and a blade that did not shatter blocked the sword of Oberon.

Llewella looked up into the haunted, driven eyes of Elrond half-elven. On his hand burned a ring of white power with a stone like an orchid. In his hands danced a sword lined with elf-runes, forged and quenched by elvish hands. Its name came from its first master, Feanor.

Elrond blocked the sword of Llewella like a mountain breaking clouds.

"For the glory of Mordor, the Lord Sauron, Master of Middle Earth," whispered Elrond.

"For Amber," whispered Llewella.

She recoiled, swung again, and he stopped her effortlessly. She advanced, he retorted, and the assault of Wavecleaver broke against his Noldor blade.

And Llewella realized she was outmatched by the power in his sword, and his skill defied her strength, and in her mind a foul voice like prophecy said she would die.

Mordor cannot be stopped, whispered prophecy. And you will die.

Chapter 32: Act 2: The Valley of the Dragon 2

Most of the orcs in the Valley of the Dragon fled, but cockroach-like a few seemed to remain. Their misshaped heads emerged from pits, rivulets, streambeds, and badger holes. They peered over low ridges. Greentoe Mountain, a distended ridge from the real peaks that terminated against the flank of another ridge, marked the west edge of the valley and send ripples down towards the flats. Orcs peered over it or around it. Red-painted Lidless Eyes watched Llewella duel Elrond.

The valley itself had a bumpy, rippled floor. Alluvian hills and runoff still marked the valley from when Oberon tore the mountain out of Shadow. In that long gone age the world had been nothing but prismatic color bent back on itself, and the sea, sky, and land had been one. One had been able to, and in certain other shadows nearby still could, watch the flow of sky reach out to the furthest reaches of horizon to arc down and become the ground, stretching in to support your feet. Sea and land differed only in stillness vs movement, but their topography and geometry had been the same. Oberon bent the world, separated ground from sky, put binders on the oceans, and done it all like making a canvas. Then he pulled mountains through the veils of shadow.

Kolvir burst through the horizon to his north, casting shards of sky and perspective around, and the mountain rushed to stand under Oberon's foot. Its coming plowed a deep valley, and that valley he called Garnath. The mound of earth and soil it pushed before it fell when Kolvir stopped. It scattered both the shadow of Amber and the image of distant peaks Oberon imported with the mountain, and where it lay, he summoned trees, streams, and rivers from the ground. That became Arden, where his children would later visit, several love, but only Julian would truly live.

Then Oberon set to his work, and delved into Kolvir's heart to make a chamber for his Pattern, the first of all Shadows. He wanted it deep and protected, and Kolvir itself became his vault. He dug with power and will, the Jewel of Judgement was his spade, and gouged a borehole to the heart of the mountain.

When finished, he emerged and summoned dwellers. They came from forest lands and lived in Arden. They came across the sea and clustered on the shore. They came from high peaks, and he built a city for them. Every dweller brought something of Shadow. They who would become the rangers of Arden brought seeds and leaves, tiny animals in their clothing and packs, and colonized the primal forest with birds, bugs, and lesser plants. From the sea the sailing people brought winds to drive their ships, they brought waves that break in lines, they brought sea foam and fish, gulls, kelp, and bottom dwellers. Some came on ship, and some swam behind.

But the mountain people brought cold, and glaciers that wrapped Oberon's city. They brought storms and snow, and deep ice shrouded his work until it wrapped the city and froze it. His palace and castle had become bugs trapped in amber. With the Jewel Oberon broke the glaciers and let them flood the mountain.

When all was done, the mountain had gained a form from its primeval perfection. Ridges stood tall over scree fields. The forests of Arden sent wanderers to cloak it in green. Ocean rainstorms nourished its sides. The people mixed and spread. Where they came together, the cities and the shore, they became one. Where they went deep, Rebma and Arden, they became reflections of their environs. Some went high, and for them Oberon built a third city after Rebma. However even his power found its limits in Tir-na Nog'th, and his inner psyche stalked the floating city. From there his citizens did not return, and he sent no more.

In one valley, carved by wind, rain, and flood in the epochs of Oberon's rule, harbor dwellers from Amber went uphill looking for cheap houses, and built a neighborhood. One of them built a bar. He called it the Dragon and hung a great sign of a black beast on painted wood. Years later he thought it wasn't bringing the business he wanted, and after the Battle of Arden, when times grim and terrible lived to closely in everyone's memory, he renamed his bar the Pipes. He took down the sign and laid it out back.

From the sign later came the orc hordes of Morder, and they burned the Pipes and hung the barkeep. They burned the cheap houses. They killed their inhabitants. More orcs marched in twisted ranks from the cold land of Mordor out of the sign of the Dragon to bring ruin and damnation on the city.

And then Llewella, and a mortal, attacked, scattered the orcs, and she came to the sign, seeking to break it.

The Green Queen had ruled Rebma since inception. No one could say whence she came, but the city flourished under her. Many eons later, when the beginning of the city was fading from memory as a stone dropped into muddy water, she bore Moire. Her people began to talk of the Dynasty of Rebma, a lineage as old and long as that of Oberon's Amber. And the king on the mountain heard. He paid a visit to the Green Queen and later that year she bore him a daughter. The queen named her younger daughter Llewella, a Rebman name, and raised her children together.

When Llewella turned fifteen, Oberon called her to his castle in Amber to see if she was truly of his line. The Green Queen refused, and within a week took ill. Her disease was as relentless as it was unprecedented, and she died within days. Great difficulties beset the undersea city. Queen Moire needed help, and Oberon offered, and in exchange Llewella went to Amber.

There she walked the Pattern and lived. She stayed in comfort. Some of her siblings spoke with her. But Llewella was always outside their family and their games, and Oberon denied her both the upbringing of the others and the warmth of her undersea home. Moire soon asked for her sister to return, and deals were made between a strong king who had ruled for millenia and a young queen.

Rebma was always attacked until Moire surrendered to Oberon's will and gave him what he wanted. One such point was no force of arms could pass an archway on the Concourse of Rebma going toward the shore. Moire acceded. Llewella returned to Rebma and did not visit Amber much. Her siblings did not think of her often.

Llewella stood five feet eight with jade eyes and hair. The latter never dried in Rebma, and in the Valley of the Dragon remained wet with seawater. But it had turned dark from the thick smoke of burning Amber and become a deep, dark emerald that hid ebony secrets. She ran swiftly and fought with a two-handed blade. She called it the Wavecleaver, and it was a terrible, single edged thing of steel, now turned black with orc blood. Corpses lined the pathway from the edge of the valley to here, and their marks lay on her sword.

Against her stood Elrond Half-elven. Taller than she, he had been fair but his face was marked with unending grief and ruin. Of the three living Elven Lords, only he had eyes, but they had looked their last when Sauron triumphed over Middle Earth. Now his eyes showed him nothing but revealed to Llewella his anguish and the flogging impetus of Sauron's will. The last thing Elrond had ever seen was the victory of Sauron over Middle Earth, and in his mind visons of it haunted him.

In his hand he bore a sword named Feanor, but Feanor had named it Akallabeth when a fey mood had fallen on the elf-lord. Elrond renamed it when he came to serve Sauron. Akallabeth stopped the heavy blade of the Wavecleaver as Llewella had sought to break the portal that connected Amber and Middle Earth, and Elrond used it as if his blind eyes opened onto the future and he could see her every move.

On his hand he wore a ring of gold with a great stone, shaped like an orchid. It sat on the heart-vein of his hand. Runner of disease like gangrene stretched up his body from the ring, and turned his nails black. His skin looked waxen and gray.

Llewella too wore a ring, but it had no ornament nor stone. Her brother Bleys had given it to her, and it pressed against the handle of the Wavecleaver.

The sign through with the armies of Middle Earth attacked lay flat on the grass a dozen feet away. Elrond stood between her and it. Through the portal she saw a horde of orcs beyond number waiting for their champion to defeat her. Then they would come through and finish the sacking of Amber.

High Kolvir glittered with light as the battle on top of the mountain became one of power and magic.

The two lords of power moved apart that they could regard each other. Llewella saw the ruin of a beautiful person, and Elrond, as always, saw only his dark master. She saluted, but he did not reply.

As she closed, Llewella swung the Wavecleaver high and wide, a false attack at air long before she'd closed range with Elrond. He seemed to recognize the attack but did not react. Her blade swung back and around, and then she dipped the tip into the ground and hauled it through dirt as easily as an oar tip in water. Closing range now, she hauled it up with a plume of soil, gravel, little bits of ash, and the detritus of orc trash. Elrond parried to the side with all of his strength, and the blade Feanor smote the side of the Wavecleaver, knocking it aside from the wooden sign.

Elrond's blade chased the Wavecleaver through a wide arc. The elf stood on the edge of the sign and warded it, pressing Llewella's attack aside, and when she passed in a shower of light rocks, he slashed at her head. The subtle Feanor shot past her heavy sword.

Llewella dropped her blade and let it spun, ducking the elf-strike and going low. Elrond finished his thrust, twisted it and tried to slash down, but the Amberite had closed almost to his feet. She stood under his guard, and the elf had to jump to the side to get enough space to strike again.

She grabbed the sign and hurled it upwards at her sword. The two hit in mid air, the boards ruptured, and splinters shot everywhere.

Elrond struck through her upraised arm, and Feanor cut bone and flesh. He lopped off her hand at the wrist, cut her shoulder open, and finally hit concealed mail underneath her jacket. The elf blade cut that too. Llewella looked shocked as he sliced her open down to the hip. She fell, he stepped forward, and the blade Feanor descended again.

It struck and shattered Pthelig's sword, cleaving steel to the handguard.

Orak gasped, as shocked as Llewella, and Elrond stepped forward and through to swing again. The mortal tried to parry, sort of did, and instead of being bisected the broken handle of Pthelig turned Feanor's edge so Elrond hit him with the flat. He cast Orak a dozen feet to smash into loose turf and slide another twenty, throwing up a wake of torn grass.

Llewella leaped to her feet and ran. In the opposite direction as Orak, heading for high Amber, and holding her severed hand, Llewella abandoned Orak and fled with all the speed of her blood. Even Elrond could only watch her vanish.

The elf sheathed Feanor and walked to Orak, still alive, out of air, and near death. The Rebman braced himself for death, but Elrond only spoke.

"Do you see how she betrayed you?" asked Elrond.

He did not immediate respond. Elrond pointed to swift Llewella, vanishing across the valley floor.

"Do you see her leaving you to die?" asked Elrond.

His dead eyes locked on Orak's, and the Rebman had to look after Llewella. He had to see her fleeing, and he had to watch her go, not looking back.

Elrond reached down and took Orak's hand in his. His great ring with the jewel like an orchid touched Orak's small one, a plain gold band on his third finger. Elrond's words bent Orak's ears to him.

"Do you see her run? Do you see her flee? Do you see her betray you and leave you to death?" demanded Elrond.

"Yes," whispered Orak.

"Good. It is right for you to see things as they truly are," said the blind elf, and he squeezed Orak's hand. The gangrenous veins in his arm thudded with a thick pulse. The orchid turned black and foul, yet seemed to blossom. "Did you love her?"

"Yes," said Orak.

"And she has spurned you," whispered Elrond. "Tell me, where is she going?"

"To the peak of Kolvir to get the Jewel of Judgement. It is their hope."

The elf nodded. "You make excuses for her. She runs to get away and leave you to die."

"No," said Orak.

"Do you see her betrayal?" demanded Elrond.

"No," said Orak but softly.

"Do you see her leave you to die?" insisted Elrond.

And instead of saying a word, Orak sighed in agony.

"Come, young ring-bearer. The Lord of Middle Earth is a true and just king. He does not seek betrayal or conspiracy. He is not pleased that she has left you. You showed bravery to be met with cowardice. You showed faithfulness to be met with betrayal. Come with me, and let me show you to the Lord of Middle Earth. He will want to meet someone as brave and valorous as you."

And Orak sighed again, like in agony, before saying, "Yes."

Chapter 33: Act 2: The Stairway Up Kolvir

Llewella tourniquetted the stump of her left wrist with her belt and stuffed her severed hand into her pocket. Elrond's cut from her shoulder to hip was beyond her skills. Already the wound edges looked wooden, and her shirt had turned red. Blood filled in the circles of her mail where Elrond hadn't severed them. She fled the Valley of the Dragon with her only arm holding her chest closed and praying inwardly for the vitality of Oberon's children to carry her. She didn't know if he would do anything himself, even if he lived, but Llewella ran toward Kolvir clawing at the mortal wound on her chest. Blood coagulated on her hand, save where a small gold ring on her index finger gleamed. It reflected light as if bloodshed polished it.

Orcs had gone south and north, most westward up the streets of Amber to the glorious city that now gleamed with a battle of ancient powers. Very few of Sauron's minions had gone northwest, along the slope of the mountain to a hidden staircase. The stair wasn't a secret, but few people knew about it, and fewer of them endeavored to climb a mountain. Bleys had tried and failed, Llewella knew. Corwin had succeeded and failed. She came to the first step, one of a flight of twelve before a square landing, and started running.

She felt her heartbeat through her ribcage. Llewella climbed stairs. Climbing the stairway had taken her brothers an afternoon during a battle, and she didn't have that much time. Her pulse weakened. She raced upward to fire dancing across the sky.

Things did not go well.

Llewella ran too fast. Her pulse drummed in her ears, and she ran to meet its terrible demand, the fading of her blood pressure and the coming of lightheadedness like altitude sickness. She could only go faster. Below her the lowlands crawled with orcs. She wavered on each step. More and more often she struggled to put her feet down correctly, and the stairway seemed to dance underfoot as the fires overhead did.

The fires tangoed. They dueled in the sky, following a confrontational beat to music she could not hear, but Llewella saw the dance. Blue fire pressed forward, and thrust itself into the space of the orange. Orange recoiled and yet wrapped the blue. Thick flesh of scarlet and saffron wrapped thrusting azure, engulfed it, and consumed it. Leaning forward the amber and rose penetrated the sapphires. They were absorbed in turn.

Yet the treacherous stairs danced with none of that grace, for they were orc stairs, and they danced like orcs. Under Llewella's feet the stairway cavorted. It dodged, tried to get away, and she had to chase it with her steps. Orc drums banged a terrible war-music, and to this staccato, arrhythmic beating of Azathoth's drum the only way to Amber and safety danced to defeat Llewella. She leaned, swayed wide over falls beyond the mountain where more orc fires burned down below.

How many orcs had made it into Amber?

She had left Orak.

She took another turning and could no longer see if the stairs had turned or if her eyes betrayed her. She climbed. Her only hand looked white and waxy. She took another twist, and she was more than halfway up the mountain when she ran full into the back of an orc battalion.

She crashed full into the rearguard of the Lidless Eye, an immense troll as big as boulders and made of the stuff of mountain. Her understanding left her in bloodloss and madness, and she screamed. It did not matter. The orcs cried, and the troll, cried, but its reflexes were matters of hate and deep-sown malice. Before thinking, it struck, and dancing with the treacherous orc stairs, Llewella had no room to dodge.

A troll-club hit her like a freight train and threw her.

She bounced off the mountain itself, soared between the rock walls which rose like uneven pillars, and hit another stone. To this one she stuck. Orcs hooted and howled, but smash occurred so quickly their simple orc minds didn't yet understand what had happened. They asked the troll and had as much success as asking the mountains of which it was made.

But it was enough. Llewella was only a few yards away, around a bit of peak, and could have hid there if she would not have died from Elrond's wound. If the troll club hadn't broken more of her flesh.

In a peculiarly wandering frame of mind she'd heard about but never understood in the victims of horrific trauma, Llewella thought of her family. She hid a thought from herself, and thought of her family. She thought of all she'd accomplished, the breaking of the gateway to Amber from the Lidless Eye's demesnes, defending Rebma against Rog, and yet thought most of the family that long ago turned its back on her.

Ah, but why? They had abandoned her and her them to live in Rebma, yet in Rebma she had kept Rebmen away to live as a recluse of Amber.

Llewella realized she was about to die as she lived, alone, and her life had been one pushing of all people from herself. And because it was too late now, she wished she had not done that. Because she had no time to fix anything, she desired to try.

She lay on the rock, and blood painted the stones. Her hand abandoned her chest, and the wound opened to spread her life on uncaring Kolvir. Soon she would abandon it, and in death fall down to the orc-plains below.

Llewella drew her trumps with her one hand and shuffled out cards. They stuck together in with some scarlet glue that covered her fingers. It turned the cards to a block. Llewella giggled as her mind bifurcated. She felt both the fear of her family and the yearning for it, for anyone of her blood to take care of her, and reached through bloodstained trumps. Her delirious mind was a reaching void, searching for contact. She expected nothing.

She got two somethings, and one brought a third.

Security arrived, and huge, grim, terrible Gerard stepped onto the stone massif of Kolvir's face, catching Llewella as she fell forward. In the night she couldn't see the difference between him and the mountain, but his hands were big and strong. They cradled her against the fall.

Fear came as well, and black-clad with a silver rose at his neck, Corwin walked out of Trump and onto Kolvir. He was taller than she remembered, quieter, and even as Gerard caught Llewella, Corwin caught Gerard.

With her dread bother came her nephew, the one she'd never really met. Merlin was his name. He looked like his father but somehow softer, more gentle. He did not have the lines of terrible cruelty and pride.

Yet Corwin too had softened, and the viciousness of him was less.

Abandoning herself, Llewella said, "I'm sorry, brothers. I failed."

"Merlin, can you get us down?" asked Corwin.

"I have nothing racked for here," said the boy. He was a man of decades, yet to the princess of millennia, he was a boy.

"Gerard?" asked Corwin.

Gerard looked at his missing brother. "Where have you– Tell me later. I can't climb with her like this. Trauma's set in. I think we're on the stairs, though."

"We are. I remember this place well. We're above them. Can you downclimb with her?"

"Can I? Yes. Will she survive? Probably not."

Corwin nodded. "Merlin, make it work."

Merlin didn't argue but set at once to some labor Llewella did not understand. She did not understand the world anymore. Her understand had all turned inward.

"I failed, Corwin. I need you to fix it."

Her frightening old brother leaned forward. "You haven't failed, Llewella. We're going to help you. Gerard has you. He saved Brand, and he'll save you."

"No, you don't understand. Not me. Orak."

Corwin glanced back at Merlin, who's lips moved with his eyes closed. He looked up at Gerard. The big man crouched on the mountain like a gargoyle, and examined their sister with the smooth-quickness of immense, well trained competency. First he held up her left arm that ended in a stump, showed it to Corwin and tapped the tourniquet to draw his attention to it, before tucking her arm between them. His fingers examined her, found the hand in her pocket, and the gash across her chest.

Mortal, he thought. For a mortal.

Gerard glanced at Merlin's work, and he too did not understand. He examined Llewella quickly, looking for severed arteries. Did she die of something specific or merely ungodly trauma? Expectedly the patient fought when he started poking her injury, and the night was too dark for an examination by sight.

When she started fighting with Gerard, Corwin leaned in and tried to distract her.

"Who's Orak?" he asked.

"He's the boy, and I messed up. I didn't have time!" Llewella wailed, but she no longer struggled. Gerard motioned Corwin to keep going, but Llewella was the one talking.

"I thought I'd have time! That was the glory of Amber, you've got time to do it later. I was supposed to have time to talk to Dad later, but I didn't. I was supposed to have time to talk to you, but you left. I was supposed to have time, and what's the point of living forever if you never have any time? If you can't fix it later?

"I wouldn't have done it if I had time to think about it, because I could have gotten him out, but I didn't have any time! And now I don't have any time because the elf cut me, and Amber is falling. They've won, and we're going to lose. I had to run, because the trumps don't work."

Corwin and Gerard glanced at each other. The big one kept working, and the dark one asked, "Who is Orak?"

"He's the boy. Moire said I had to take a Rebman with me into Amber, even though I wanted to scout alone, and I took Orak. I didn't want to because I was scared he was going to die, and he did. We found the gate, and I broke it. They can't keep coming in. But the elf was there, and he was better than me, and he cut me, and I ran."

"You should have run," interrupted Corwin, but Llewella ignored him.

"No, I shouldn't have, because I could have gotten Orak and I'd be dead except for him. But it happened so fast, and I was running, and I realized later I could have gotten him, but I didn't because I just didn't have any time! I had time then, and I don't now."

"Llewella, I don't think you could have gotten him," said Corwin.

She thrashed, and Gerard growled at him. Having discovered that there was no single major severed artery or vein, merely all of the little ones in her front, Gerard undid his cloak and wrapped it around her, applying pressure with his body.

"No, Corwin, I could have. I need you to get him. I need you to fix it."

"I got a flimsy," interrupted Merlin. "It will get us to the stairs, but not to the top. We're going to have to hike."

"Can't you use more power or something?" asked Gerard.

"It's a construct of chaos, and we're in Amber. I'm not going to win a fight with the entire Pattern, and frankly, I'm not going to drag the fight out long enough to matter. As soon as I pull the flimsy through it's going to unravel, and there's nothing I can do about it unless you have the Unicorn in your pocket," replied Merlin.

"It will get us down¬–" he eyeballed the drop to the stairs "–thirty yards. That's it, and we have to move. Ready?"

"Ready. Move," said Gerard.

Merlin spoke words of power, and the air crackled. A thing like a bridge of gossamer appeared, solidifying out of mist, and Merlin jumped while it still seemed to congeal. Corwin followed his son. Gerard hesitated, thinking that it a moment it might finish arriving, but realized an instant later that it wasn't arriving, it was vanishing already. It dissolved into air like sugar in water. Gerard jumped, Merlin flew down to the stairs, and they didn't so much land as crash slowly.

Up above orcs saw them and screamed. One drew a horn and blew, and a chorus answered from below.

"I'll fix it, Llewella," said Corwin, and he looked past Gerard to the stairway. She went silent, and consciousness lost her.

"Can you get her up?" Corwin asked. "If Merlin goes with you?"

"You're going back?" asked Gerard.

Corwin nodded.

"Why? Didn't you make a few promises like that the last time you were here? They didn't bother you much then."

Corwin closed his eyes, bit back a lot of things to say, and opened them again. "You are correct. Can you make it up without me, or must I stay?"

Gerard scowled, and Merlin tried to smooth over the argument.

"There's not that many above. It's a little party. But there's a lot coming from below. They heard the horns."

"I've dealt with orcs before," said Gerard. "They're always where you don't want them, and they always hear the horns when you wish they didn't."

Corwin waited, and Gerard blurted, "Yes, damn it, I can make it up. Any idea how many, Merlin? In numbers?"

"Less than twenty? Five of the really big guys, the ones with clubs." Merlin hated guesstimating but whatever.

"From below?" asked Corwin.

"Oh, lots," said Merlin.

"Go with him," Corwin told his son. "No one will come up behind you, but you go in front so he can carry–"

"You carry her," interrupted Gerard, and gave Llewella to Merlin. He reached down a picked up part of the stairway, a stone that formed five steps together, wide abreast as a man's arms, and thick as the paving flagstones they used in roads. "We'll get up. Damn fool time for you to discover honor," he said to his brother.

Again Corwin swallowed something bitter.

"You are correct," he said. Then he looked to his son, put his hand on the boy's shoulder above where Llewella rested her head against his chest and said, "Thank you. I'm proud of you, and I will see you again."

Merlin took that much less awkwardly than Corwin did while Gerard wondered if he'd contracted trauma delirium by contact.

"Sure thing, Dad," said Merlin. "Besides, I might actually be able to do something for her with magic.

"But you should know what she said, that the trumps don't work, she's right. It's part of my workup. It doesn't work. If I could have used that, I could either step us to the top or pull a stronger flimsy."

Corwin nodded. "When you get to the castle, figure out why. Gerard, you have everything you need up there?"

The big man nodded.

Corwin nodded again, squeezed Merlin's shoulder, and released him to walk down the stairs. An army of orcs came running.

Gerard carried a wagon's worth of masonry and started up the stairway to Amber with Merlin behind him. Orcs attacked from both directions, and from both directions cave trolls lead the way.

#

Merlin had accurately estimated the number in the lead party, but didn't know about the five parties beyond that one. Each had roughly the same numbers. In these groups Sauron sent his living siege weapons, cave trolls, to shatter the walls of Castle Amber while his other masters battled with sorcery.

Gerard didn't say much. He grumbled something like, "Your father isn't the bastard mine was, but I think he's close," to Merlin, but otherwise stayed silent.

Merlin caught the inflection there flatfooted, without a ready comeback. While he was having l’esprit de l’escalier the first of the trolls, the one that had smote Llewella, came around a turning of the stairway and saw them, the orcish warband behind him.

Gerard hit him with the stairway. Then he hit the orcs with the stairway. Then he stepped over the other orcs, hit the trolls behind them with the stairway, and jumped on and smashed the other orcs. Those orcs hadn't really understood the problem until too late, and Gerard did not give them time for reflection.

This was because Gerard was having his own l’esprit de l’escalier, for in all seriousness, he'd just said something nasty to someone else about their father being a jerk.

Chapter 34: Act 3: Foothills

Summary:

It's not midnight here!

The armies of Mordor ascended the stairway, and Corwin drew Grayswandir.

First up the stairs came a great cave troll, wrapped in iron vestments, and wielding a tree trunk of a club. It died, and Corwin threw it from the mountain. Behind it an orc attacked and died. Another orc attacked and died. One tried to charge the stairs while another climbed the cliffs of Kolvir, and both died. They tumbled over the edge in pieces.

Another orc attacked and died. Five more stood between Corwin and the next landing, and when he'd taken the flight of stairs, all had died. Orcs scuttled up the next flight of stairs, screaming garbled orc cries, and Corwin slew them. At the next landing two trolls stood side-by-side, and they died in unison. The orc forces on the stairs could not see what came around the corner for them. They saw only a thick-bodied man in black and silver with a rose at his collar, and the sword with traceries of Pattern on its blade. Orcs attacked. They died. More replaced them. He slew them. Corwin walked down the stairway to the Valley of the Dragon, and orcs got in his way.

The man briefly crowned king of Amber, Corwin began to think of himself as a landscaper. He was the man behind the mower. He thought of his small house in that shadow earth where his lawn was overgrown and realized he had forgotten it. He had forgotten his yard, his garden, and the compost pile which had held the fate of the world. That compost pile had hid the fate of the world longer than he'd been crowned king of Amber; perhaps with timeflow, it had held the Jewel of Judgement longer than he. Corwin didn't know. He remembered Bill of Shadow, whom he owed an explanation for everything.

Several hundred yards down from where he met Llewella and Gerard the stairway crossed between two massifs on an arch. As finely made as Oberon's ancient craft had allowed, the span reached from the left side of one great chunk of mountain to the right side of another. Between them it soared. Corwin stood a moment and looked.

The port burned. A few ships still smoldered, but most had gone down. Their masts reached above the waves twig-like and naked. The warehouses, townhomes, mansions, and hovels burned. Fires leaped between them. A cap of smoke under a layer of rain kept the ash from rising. Orcs ran from house to house, carrying ripped things, and ripping them further in the streets. Bodies lay in the mud or dragged through windows. In squares and intersections, the orcs assembled wooden effigies from looted boards, and crowned their statues with wicker. On the walls they drew red lidless eyes and ignited the houses around their runes.

Corwin stared for a while, thinking nothing, before returning to his labor. He was still high above the land.

Orcs climbed the stairway to Castle Amber and on the stairway they found Corwin, wrapped in old recriminations, his guilt, and carrying a silver sword. Orcs died. Corwin descended into the Valley of the Dragon.

#

He broke contact briefly near the base of the stairs. The orcish forces heading up had paused and milled about the base, undergoing some argument among themselves, and Corwin simply darted over the edge and climbed down the rocks. He landed a short distance away, hidden from the cluster of black-clad figures, each with their misshapen eye symbol.

The eyes had been painted by themselves, Corwin decided. The irregular figures didn't resemble actual eyes much, other than an oval with a slit-pupil down the center. It was the sensation behind the drawings that instilled knowledge, and he suspected it. Somehow looking at the crude drawings made Corwin know that they represented the Lidless Eye. The feeling reminded him of Eric's attack on him so long ago, and napalming his brother's brain.

I was in the wrong then, Corwin thought. I might– and he thought of Amber burning and orcs digging through the wreckage.

So maybe I'm wrong again. I've been in the wrong so many times I have a rental agreement.

He crept along a rivulet, one channel of a broad wash that followed the alluvial courseway from the mountain to rivers north of Kolvir. Somewhere north of him the Mellengroth wove through Arden to the sea. Orcish squabbling aided him as much as stealth.

Crossing a line of low hills, Corwin came to the Valley of the Dragon itself. He looked over the crest of a low ridge, unknowingly not far from where Llewella and Orak had initiated their attack, and saw two non-orcish figures.

The first, non-human and non-orcish, carried a slender weapon with a curved blade embossed with runes and glyphs. The creature holding it walked slowly and carried himself carefully, testing each step before taking it. Corwin guessed he was blind. Tall and slim, black haired, crowned in a circlet of silver foliage, he could pass for a human. But he wasn't.

His companion wasn't either, but Corwin knew his kind: Rebman, changed by long endurance underwater and by the nature of that place to suit it better. The figure had darkish skin and hair, probably green or blue. He walked with head down, and the other walked next to him, talking quietly, and at each word the Rebman sighed. Bit by bit through the exchange the Rebman slumped. His shoulders drooped a little more, and his head hung lower. The other kept talking.

Llewella had been damp when they found her and not just with blood. She'd smelled of salt. Orak was a Rebman name. Was the other one the "elf?"

A tolerable number of orcs surrounded them.

"Hey, ORAK!" yelled Corwin, and the Rebman looked up.

The elf turned blind eyes to Corwin, and Corwin knew the elf couldn't see. He also knew the elf knew he was there. A sense of presence hit him such as he hadn't felt since Lorraine the shadow when Lorraine the person had drawn his father's face in the floor. The presence was weaker yet filled with more malice.

And Corwin had failed Lorraine, and for this she had died. She had left him, so it wasn't really Corwin's fault– but Llewella had left this Orak.

For a moment he understood a sister he'd never spoken too much.

Having not sheathed Grayswandir since the stairs, he didn't have to draw it, and charged across the valley.

Elrond commanded the orcs to attack, but their courage fled and they left the elf-lord to the prince of Amber.

They met across blades and Feanor blocked Grayswandir, showering them both in sparks. Those that fell on Corwin turned to black ash and seared his skin, while those that fell on Elrond burned with the blue power of the Pattern. Corwin attacked, Elrond parried, and they crossed blades a dozen times.

It was like fighting Benedict. Corwin knew instantly Elrond had a thousand years of experience and a foundation of exquisite skill. Attack and defense dwelled perfectly within him. Elrond's mind was locked, but his initial assault came steeped in arrogance and expected to wash away Corwin's defenses. Blocked, the elf explored Corwin's swordcraft. He feinted, blocked, beat, and moved high to low seeking an error. The prince of Amber gave him nothing. After the orcs which this elf seemed to rule, Corwin expected brute strength and tactlessness, and expected to win via more strength and skill. But that peculiar blade stopped his assault and caught much of his power, leaving the elf to fence him.

The valley formed a natural arena, and each moment the orc-eyes on them gained numbers. Sauron's hordes pulled back from the stair and left the city. They came up from the harbor and coast. Trolls stood sentinel on the valley rim, mountain-fists themselves and watching the human fight the elf.

Elrond's hand burned with the power of the ring. Grayswandir danced like lightning. Between the silver tracing the blade was darker than Elrond's eyes, and on the elf's hand glowed a power brighter than Corwin's sword.

Corwin stepped in, feinted right, feinted-left, Elrond thrust, Corwin stop-parried and locked corps-a-corp. He dropped low and tried to throw the elf, but his strength flowed against the blade Feanor to no success. Corwin would have better luck trying to push over the ocean.

So he kicked Elrond in the knee.

Elrond dodged, and Corwin jammed a thumb in his eye. The elf tried to take a hand, Corwin guarded with Grayswandir, snatched Elrond's sword hand, and with his kicking leg still under the elf's lead leg, executed a glorious tai-otoshi that tossed thirty yards up the hill. The elf landed badly on his head.

"Llewella sends her apologies and her brother," said Corwin to Orak. "I've come to get you."

"I won't fall for Amberite treachery again!" said the Rebman.

"No?" asked Corwin and decked him.

Orak crumpled. Corwin picked him up and ran.

Orcs watched as they had watched the Amberites flee Forochet. Elrond rose and gave chase, but stopped almost as soon as he reached the site of their duel.

On the ground lay shivered wood, black painted and spread wide over grass. Among them Elrond paused. Corwin fled, carrying a grown man, and even he needed some time to cross the half league to the hillside. It would be more to the stairs, and between him and those stairs would be many orcs. Perhaps he'd need another route.

Corwin looked back over his shoulder.

The fragments of sign on the ground had begun to glow as if lit by underground fires. Dawn was still hours away, and the luminescence cast a thousand shadows through the blades of long grass. Those shadows rose, and cast brighter lights on the smoke clouds over the city. Corwin saw a distant forest or a broken colonnade.

Or a black road, he thought.

As the orcs feared him, he slowed his run. He didn't stop, but he kept an eye open behind him.

A sound rumbled up through the earth, a sound like "Doom." Red light painted all the ground around Elrond. The earth burned in orange and red, and smoke began to leak out of the soil.

Elrond's ring gleamed, and one on Orak's finger glowed to match it, deep red.

Deep was the word Corwin thought. Deep, deep red.

Corwin looked no more behind him and ran.

The elf watched the prince of Amber flee. The ground smoked, and it heated. Elrond had to dance and step aside. The orcs saw something greater than all their fears, and they shrieked and ran for the burning port.

Corwin reached the upslope on the far side of the valley and climbed.

The earth buckled. It mounded up as if boiling, and burst with splatters of dirt and grass.

From a thousand fragments of a sign, an elf walked. Glorfindel radiated the light of Valinor, and his blind eyes saw nothing. His had been burned from his sockets, not merely blocked as Elrond, and he was denied the death of despair. Existence continued forever, and he endured it for he could not escape. On his finger burned a red ring of power.

Galadriel walked behind him, blind, burned, and illuminated as well. She retained some shred of her ancient beauty, but it was ruined with cruelness of the eyes and hollowness of flesh. She walked with another ring, a gold band that lit up the night.

Elrond raised his orchid ring and saluted. The others replied in kind.

Then Elrond lifted a second ring on a hidden chain, one crafted of mithril. It bore no jewel or embossment, but it was not one piece. Like a dozen bands of silver woven together, it was innumerable rings in one. His movements sent them dancing, and they laid out strange patterns that burned blue.

Galadriel and Elrond raised their other arms and saluted him with similar rings. All burned blue.

They spread out around the fragmented sign and waited, arms high. The ground cracked.

An arm of fire, thick around as a dragon's head, reached through with a sword of flame. Another appeared carrying a burning spear that cast only shadows, not light. From the thousand ruptured pieces of signage, a thing arose wrapped in shadows and smoke, and standing taller than all others.

"Retrieve the mortal's ring," said Elrond, and his orchid ring gleamed. "Kill the one who bears him."

"Gogomoth," said Galadriel.

"Gogomoth," repeated Glorfindel.

"Doom," said the balrog in the tongue of his own kind, a language of venting furnaces and boiling seas.

"Doom," said they all.

The beast turned and ran faster than foul news after Corwin.

Chapter 35: Act 3: To the Castle Grounds

Orcs attempted to stop Gerard's climb to Amber. They succeeded in getting in his way. Soon Gerard and Merlin, the latter carrying his aunt Llewella, reached the outskirts of the true City of Amber.

The city which cast all shadows and from whence the form of Creation reflected burned. Orc hordes infested it. From the top of Kolvir light its sooty flares reached out over the Chainlink Ocean and the Vale of Garnath. Arden lay black and red around the mountain's foot. Further peaks to the east stood in crimson silhouettes. The fires of Amber cast little light, for they flickered and danced, leaped and gyred, and their burning threw shadows on the sea, sky, and land. A storehouse of winter wheat caught fire suddenly, and the conflagration threw a pillar at the sky. The sooty-red fist smote high Tir'na Nog'th from the heavens when it blotted out the moonlight. For a while the world lay red and burning. But orc-lights burn out quickly, and the darkness that followed the wheat-fire was grimmer than that which came before. The smoke-cloud remained, drifting upwards, and the city in the clouds did not reappear.

Gerard sighed and said nothing. Merlin, arms full of Llewella, thought of the way she bled. He shouldn't move her. He should keep her warm, comfortable, and safe on the stairs, where she would certainly die. Instead he carried her into the city of his father.

A paved road lead from the stairway, and through broken buildings, wreathed in flame, Gerard saw Castle Amber wreathed in a power of its own. Archers on the walls volleyed. Their arrows burst into fireworks of white and sapphire, dropping a burning curtain beyond the wall. Gerard did not see what they fired at.

In buildings around the castle grounds, the highest and most expensive properties where lords of Amber and the Golden Circle lived, orcs hung from windows and balconies. Some buildings themselves looked as burned out husks, dotted with the red sigil of the Lidless Eye on a thousand helmets and breasts. Others burned as candles, and yet the Lidless Eye itself opened from their flames. Candle-flames carried a black bisection down the middle, and the envelope of red and orange about a bright yellow center followed the shape of iris and pupil. Gerard saw his city surrounded and watched by enemies. The orcs bore small eyes. The burning city bore the large.

Gerard put the segment of stairway down and retreated below the level of the pavestones. He wore a tailored suit in the American style of gray herringbone and underneath his jacket a lighter gray vest. The jacket had two vents and made of blended silk and wool that stretched as he moved. He wore an open-collared white shirt. The suit smoothed out Gerard's musculature so he looked like a boulder, and the dark gray on light gray added to that effect. The only contrast he wore was a blue tie, untied and hanging down under the vest, and two leather holsters for his pistols. Merlin noticed a fitting for an absent sword.

In the conflict of styles shadow-walkers often find Merlin wore linen slacks, a knee-length tunic, tan keffiyeh, and shooting gloves. A hard plastic plate covered his knuckles, and his index fingers were bare. Desert boots rose over his ankles, and when he moved, the outlines of them pressed through his pant-legs. He carried both broadsword and bolt action rifle with iron sights. Around his neck hung heavy goggles with polarized lenses, but they were black and impenetrable now. Some change from Shadow to Amber interfered with the lenses and rendered them useless. Merlin laughed in the back of his head.

Gerard opened his mouth to say something and saw Llewella. Whatever he had been about to say changed.

"How is she?"

"Weak. She needs a transfusion. We have a little time to reattach her hand, but with the smoke, the fire, and the heat, I don't know how long. You have medical supplies in the castle?" asked Merlin.

"Lots. A whole ER. I'd bet my hide a few of my siblings do too, kept secret. We also have the Pattern down there, and while I don't know why the Trumps don't work, I don't think any power can stop the Pattern of Amber itself. We could take her somewhere with better care if necessary."

"What could stop them?" asked Merlin.

"I have no idea! You're the wizard. Brain damage blocked Corwin for a time, and some power of Bleys and Fiona locked Brand in that crystal tower. Don't you know how that was done? They were your people!"

"Gerard, you implying I know the actions of the whole Courts because they're my people is like me asking you why Brand did what he did because he's your brother."

"Ach," said Gerard. Then, "But I do know why he did what he did. Because we were terrible to him, and he's what happens. Sometimes I'm glad Oberon's finally dead."

Merlin nodded in a way that didn't say anything.

"We've got to get her in there," said Gerard finally. "I'm not fighting my way through that. What can you do?"

"As I said before, not much. I can't work a conjuring here. Dad told me that this is merely the first of shadows, but the first is close enough. You saw how quick the flimsy faded."

"Because it's a flimsy. Can't you get a solid?"

Merlin answered carefully, "That's not quite the way that works. A flimsy is what we call anything that traverses space like that. They're not flimsies as in weak. When Llewella called us–

"And how exactly did she do that if we can't use the trumps? Have you tried again?"

"Not since–"

"Try now. Try again. Here. The Library. Take us here."

Gerard took out a card and held it up so they could both see it. Merlin held Llewella and obliged, focusing on the card. Gerard glared at it and chewed his beard. The trump turned red about the edges and soon dripped burning fluid, fluid that tumbled onto Gerard's hands and burned as wax. His eyes narrowed and his nose flared, but he did not relent. They bore their will against it, and in direct correlation to their concentration, the card burned brighter and brighter until Merlin smelled ash and ruin. Gerard's sleeves went up. Corwin's son finally broke off his concentration and threw his cape about his uncle's hand.

"I can handle a little fire," scolded Gerard.

"But she can't, so we're not getting anywhere!"

The uncle grumbled. His fingers turned pink, and Merlin smelled burning hair.

"Second time in a few weeks this Sauron or his armies set me on fire. I'm not a fan," he said.

Merlin tried to reestablish focus. "How do we get in? Do you know any secret ways?"

"No. Of? One. The way Corwin escaped the dungeon, which he's never explained to me–"

"He told me in Chaos. It won't work."

Gerard stared at Merlin flatly and did not respond.

"It was told to me in confidence, so I won't give it away, but it won't work," said Merlin.

"Well, dammit, can't you do some sorcery or something?"

"Not in Amber! I need some Shadow to work with–"

"The whole city burns! There's shadow everywhere. Wrap us in shadow, and we'll sneak in!"

Merlin tried to let him down gently with, "I don't know if that's a thing."

"Try!" demanded Gerard.

Merlin rolled his eyes at him and gave Llewella to Gerard's care so the magician could draw on the ground. He put lines together and plotted.

Gerard recognized the type of movements. His professors had acted the same way. Gerard did not discuss it with his siblings but several times over his self-improvement career he'd received advanced degrees. Once even on that Shadow Earth where Florimel had lived. He'd never told her of his presence, for Florimel seemed to revel in someone less bright than her. But he'd gotten PhDs in Mathematics and Chemistry from some shadow place called Harvard. It amused him to no end his 'smarter' sister had lived less than an hour away and never known his presence.

But Corwin had lived there longer, and Gerard hadn't known of his. As before, Gerard reminded himself that he was the dumb one of the family and should not put on airs.

None the less he recognized what Merlin was going about if not the particulars of what the boy was doing. He started with a fairly complex series of equations and simplified. A two vector became a four-by-four matrix. Merlin eliminated some terms and simplified. He did something with a transpose. He eliminated more terms by applying boundary conditions.

"Actually, you're right, and I'm wrong. It will work just fine," said Merlin, staring at his dirt. "It just isn't going to work long. So we're going to have to move quickly. But not too quickly. We could outrun it and leave the envelope behind."

Gerard thought. "So we don't have much time, we can't run–"

"And we won't be able to see. Not far. Ten to twenty meters?"

"Thirty to sixty feet," said Gerard to himself.

"If you'd rather but feet and furlongs are dumb!" snapped Merlin.

Gerard's voice chilled. "Thank you. I know how to multiply by three point three."

"Not exactly!" repeated Merlin again.

The two stared at each other. A line of ice and fire went from eye to eye between them.

"Will they be able to see us?" demanded Gerard.

"Not at the same range. I can make it unfair, but they will be able see us to if they get close enough." Merlin smiled so hard his face hurt.

On Llewella's severed hand glittered a golden ring.

"Let's go," said Gerard.

They set out, and Gerard put a set of steel knuckles on his left hand. His right he kept free. Merlin wove a spell that fell around them. From Gerard's head to about five feet out he could see just fine and watched dust motes and dirt particles fall out of the air. Beyond that five feet the world went fuzzy. Either the ash fell in blizzarding proportions around them, and the eye of the storm followed them however they might walk, or Merlin's spell filled the air with dust and obscurations. Around the border of his clear vision tiny dust-devils stirred up the ground and scattered the ash-drifts. Their footprints vanished as if they had never been.

They neither ran nor loitered. Gerard knew the city organically and waved turns with one hand, indicating alleys or streets and skipping others. Most of the time he directed them swiftly. But the fires that ravaged the city defeated him sometimes too, and they would retreat and try other paths.

Orcs roved everywhere. Bands of them picked over the city or moved toward the castle, ebbing and flowing instead of marching. The horde of them thrived in wreckage. Merlin saw orc heads popping out of broken windows and up from cavernous basements, all as natural in ruin as rats in midden. They gave him a terrible feeling of vulnerability to see them conform to their environment, or it to them, and know they could see far beyond him.

Merlin saw nothing. The streets of Amber sprawled, and from the center he could not see either side. Gerard walked as if his feet knew their own ways, crossing gray expanses at seemingly random, and yet sometimes he was wrong. Sometimes a building collapsed or orcs built a stray barricade of wreckage, and then they were trapped or cut off. Gerard would backtrack, wind through pathways he had known hoping war had spared something from his memory, but to Merlin, all was a blank and terrible void.

It was the smell he remembered. The smell of burned houses and burned people. Neither appalled him the way he expected, and he didn't sweat. Thick as the odor was, carried on the ash that protected him, he never gagged. But he remembered it. He knew instantly which of the odors was burned human being, and it burned his nostrils. It was all the smells of dead flesh: bile, stomach acid, shit, bone, and not as much burned meat as he expected. He expected to be overcome with horror or simply tough it out, and neither occurred. Merlin was just aware of it and would remember.

Finally Gerard stopped.

Before them was the gray expanse, but overhead blue and red flares made it through the cloak. Gerard turned his back on the phantasma of distant power to face Merlin. He raised an eyebrow and pointed at his lips.

"Quietly," whispered Merlin.

"We're at the border of the castle grounds. There's half a mile of open space between us and the outer keep. All the orcish army is between us and there. Can I leave the–" Gerard pointed around them "–envelope and look around?"

"No," said Merlin. "It's anchored to you and me. If you leave it will pop like a bubble. If we can hide someplace, I can drop it and rebuild it."

"For the past three blocks every building is either a burned hulk or filled with orcs. There is no shelter. If we stop on the street, we'll have no idea if someone is watching us from right outside our range," said Gerard.

"Yep," said Merlin.

"Ah, damn. Easy now. Ready that sword. If an orc blunders into us, kill it fast before it can yell. And if the archers of Amber volley, try to take it where you can make it to the castle before dying."

"And the power?" asked Merlin hoarsely, pointing to the shards of red and blue light that clashed above and before them, far outside the range of their vision and yet painfully clear. That much power forced itself upon their vision in a way mere stone and orc could not.

"I was hoping you could tell me," said Gerard.

"What is it you said? Ah, damn?" asked Merlin.

Gerard breath-laughed. He turned to the open expanse reaching towards the castle. With his fingers he counted down, three, two, one, and set off blindly across the battlefield. Merlin followed, carrying Llewella.

Chapter 36: Act 3: The Lord of Mordor

Before the Ladies and Lord of Amber knew the assault of Sauron's they broke was but his vanguard, when clouds still filled the dark sky before power mixed swirling paints of red and blue to drown the stars, when the warriors of Amber stood with archers of Tenthet and hoped that Tir'na Nog'th might yet show this evening and omen good things, the queen of Amber, two princesses, and a prince joined around a red jewel and packs of cards. The conjurer Tatianna watched. Orc armies retreated and waited for reinforcements which yet streamed through a gateway in the Valley of the Dragon. Trollish castle-breakers rushed up the highways and climbed the stairs on Kolvir, but the mountain stood tall. Even trolls, born of mountains, could not climb all of Kolvir in a moment. Llewella and Orak had not yet spoken to Bleys and only just seen the ruins of Port Amber. Oberon's children and his heir's wife decided to try the trumps and battle whomever contested their call.

"But who?" asked Julian. "We should only call someone who will help us. We don't start a fight just to win it. There are real enemies out there, and I won't waste my strength for no reason when I'll need it later."

Julian wore mail like the scales of a serpent, closely fitting. It was said bullets couldn't pierce his armor, but it was not said when that had been tested. Swords could mark it, and orcs had tested that a great deal. His previously immaculate green and white armor looked aged, worn as the skin of desert-dwellers. Pitted from a dozen swords, cut with knives, and smashed with clubs, it remained intact. He carried a heavy sword without a name. Julian considered people who named their swords overly dramatic.

"Who would help you?" asked Fiona.

The redhead stood apart from Julian with the jewel. She and it radiated power. It was cut and polished, and she usually was too. Now she looked weary. Perfect hair and circles under her eyes; elegant lip gloss and no mascara; a gorgeous dress of silk and emeralds, stained with sweat and hanging limp.

The jewel never changed. It remained impassive as its judgements, and Julian thought of it as the Chaosians had, as the Eye of the Serpent. The terms converged. That jewel looked and judged.

"Gerard," said Julian. "Benedict more, but his card went warm before the trumps fell." He didn't look at Vialle or say the name Random. "Gerard would help."

"If the power refuses to fight, we contact Gerard and he can aid us," said Fiona. "If it fights us, we know our enemy."

She glanced at Flora, but the blonde said nothing.

Florimel and Vialle stood somewhat outside Fiona and Julian. Those two talked to each other, Julian aggressively, Fiona confidently, and the two other women stood beyond the conversation line.

Blind and bereaved Vialle said, "I don't know what I will do against your enemies."

Fiona looked away from Florimel to Vialle. "You're not here to hurt our enemies. You're here to help us."

The children of Oberon drew cards and shuffled out Gerard. Vialle stepped behind Fiona and put her hand on the redhead's shoulder.

They did not contact Gerard. They found Sauron.

On a frigid plain of choking ash and ground dust, pulverized sand reduced to fines, a figure as tall as Amber's walls stood before a bleak tower. He was beautiful beyond reason. Dark haired, fair skinned, his face had been sculpted by the greatest of Middle-Earth's old powers. Armor of steel wrapped him, and he carried a great mace. Its head exploded in spikes and blades. On Sauron's head he wore an iron crown with three high spires, one shorn off, and the other two missing gems in wide settings.

"Hello, children," Sauron greeted them, and waved his ringed-hand invitingly.

For a moment the Amberites stood frozen. Even Fiona gaped at the power to grasp control of her trumps from her as she wielded the Jewel of Judgement. Flora gasped. In her shock, Fiona did not break contact immediately, and with her holding the Jewel, Julian waited a critical instant too long.

"Shall I show you my trophy?" asked Sauron.

Something deep in Julian said no. He began to push the card back into his deck of trumps, yet he fumbled with it. His hands slipped over the cards and he felt a sideways resistance. Something slippery pushed him away.

"Shall I show you your king?" asked Sauron.

Flora tried to break contact and threw her mind away. The power of Sauron's ring would not be denied. He caught her as he made a fist.

"Shall I show you power?" asked Sauron.

Fiona reached into the jewel. Something blocked her.

"Shall I show you RANDOM, LORD OF AMBER?" thundered Sauron.

In the castle flagstones cracked. Brilliant flares leaped from the scions of Oberon to the sky, blue flames swaddled in red. Mordor's power sang.

"SEE YOUR KING!"

And they did.

Stripped to the waist and bound by chains, Random hung limp on the spire. Named the Spike of Thangorodim in honor of torments of old, it held Random by chain and hook. Veins strained in his neck. Before him the Orb of Angmar glowed in terrible power, and painted him green and yellow.

And in that moment Sauron struck the weakest of them all as the Amberite's tried to break contact. The will of Sauron wrapped up in the One Ring, and consumed with the desire to dominate others and inflict upon then his cruelty, leaped through their trumps and fell on Vialle. It burned her sightless eyes. It penetrated her ears, and grabbed her tongue. In that instant, Vialle knew everything Sauron meant to do to her husband, and the sufferings the Dark Lord of Middle Earth had learned to inflict from his own master, Morgoth.

Vialle screamed. Random cried. Sauron laughed and poured out his will against them.

#

On the walls of Castle Amber the blue of the Pattern fought with the red Lidless Eye. Plumes of power reached the heavens. Orc trumpets sounded, and trolls climbed the stairway.

On the walls the guardsmen breathed slowly and shared a bit of water. The time of running had passed. They saw creatures of stone and mountains, born in twisted perversion of the ents, rise to break their walls. But the power of Sauron on the guards had broken, and they readied their axes and swords.

Tatianna ordered her archers be ready. They prepared. She did not know, but Sauron spied her. His gaze pierced flesh and robes. He saw her wearing one of his rings, and within him the inferno of spite that he carried for a heart conceived of an ill plan. Sauron gave a message to his crebain servants and sent them to find her.

All of this he did while battling the scions of Amber, for in Vialle's heart she yearned for Random. Sauron held him before her and laughed, and the blind queen of Amber served his power.

Chapter 37: Act 3: Mordor

As Bleys told Llewella he planned to raise a navy and return, their siblings faced Sauron. She was not yet injured, Gogomoth not yet unleashed, her brothers did not yet flee up the stairway towards Amber and the delusion of safety. The portal to Mordor lay open and orcs poured through in numbers measureless to man. At the summit of Kolvir the horde attacked, and Tatianna's archers repelled them. By the gatehouse, the scions of Oberon saw their enemy for the first time, and they tried to break contact and flee him.

But the Lord of Middle Earth would not be denied.

Sauron wore the One Ring and Morgoth's crown, the former small and nigh insignificant, the latter tall and grim, bearing three points with one cut off. The least of his powers was Thuim, his mace. Nine blades Sauron had taken from the prior lords of Middle Earth and forged into one weapon. His greatest was the ring. Into it Sauron had poured much of himself, bound himself to it, and through it increased his will.

Fiona bore the Jewel of Judgement, and through her eyes Vialle saw Random. Julian wore one of Sauron's rings, one Gerard had born through the Pattern. Florimel carried a bow. As one they tried to close the contact, and Sauron overmastered them.

On a spire behind him Random watched. Bound with chain and subjected to the visions of the Orb of Angmar, one of the great Palantir now under the Dark Lord's control, the King of Amber looked past his family to his wife Vialle. She saw him with Fiona's eyes, and understood his pain with her heart. He ached for her. She felt his agony.

And Sauron used them as ready-made tools.

"King Random, I have brought you someone. Do you think she is ready for my touch?" asked the Dark Lord.

"No," whispered Random.

Sauron's perfect face smiled, as a mask of flesh expressed delight. Sauron was beautiful. His nose ran straight and thin; his eye-brows arched. The swords of his mace lacked the sharpness of his jaw, the steel lacked his complexion's purity, and the deep finish of iron was not as deep as his soft eyes. Sauron's lips were gentle. His forehead rose unlined, and his hands were strong. In Florimel and Fiona, something stirred when Sauron smiled at them.

"Ah, but look upon your love," said Sauron to Random.

The Amberites strained to break his control. They failed.

"Do you see how your failure has brought her to you, and that on her your suffering is now matched?" asked Sauron. "Do you see, Woman of Rebma, how your failures as a wife drove Random to the port of Amber? Do you think, blind girl, that he would have gone down there alone if you had seen a wiser path? Do you not delight woman that I have given him something you could not make, visions of the world? He gazes longingly into my Orb. It is a power, something you also lack.

"Lament, thing close to human and yet not, that you were not enough for him." And the power of the ring inflicted her with Sauron's delight.

Vialle broke down and wept. From her the Dark One dragged a single high and shaking note of screaming pain, one his will carried up to Random and drove through his ears, into his mind, and pulled through his heart and soul. With the doorways to the mind of Oberon's Heir opened by the force of the Orb of Angmar, Sauron filled him with Vialle's weeping and guilt. Random pled with her, but Sauron took his voice.

"Ringbearer, why don't you leave?" asked Sauron. "You cannot? You cannot pass your hand over the trump? But you do block the card so you cannot see me, and yet I stand before you. How? Is there some other connection between us, one that does not rely on sight? Must that connection also be snuffed out, cut down, so you can flee? Is there an unseeing bond wrapped between you and something here, a bond of unbreakable love and pain, that ties us together? Son of Oberon, is any bond unbreakable to a good sword?"

Julian looked up from his card and saw Sauron. The ring on his finger glittered, and he looked sideways to Vialle. Her blind eyes wept, and her scream rose to Random.

Julian's ring-hand rested on his sword hilt; his other held his trumps.

"Beautiful one," said Sauron to Flora. "Glorious as the elves of old. Like Melian you come from outside my world and girdled in beauty like her, bring forth a longing from me. She was a queen, of course. Someone with her power deserved to be. She ruled in Doriath. It is too bad you are not a queen. Melian rebuilt the empires of the elves and took power for them. You did not. She protected her people, her daughter, from terrible dangers. Do you know what that is like? She found a husband worthy of her, and all other women of Doriath knew she was better. They knew she deserved to rule, and Thingol, the man at her side, who knew her wisdom and deferred to her in all things, reminded them all of such. But you have no such husband. How old are you and alone?"

Florimel didn't say anything. Sauron lifted a perfect eyebrow to give her a hint of a smile. He waited for her alone, and his words to Julian never reached her. They were together then, through the trump, Florimel and Sauron. She had served Eric faithfully on Earth and received nothing. She had served Corwin and merely been allowed to stay in her home. Sauron's beauty overwhelmed her. Awareness of him infected her. He was so tall and strong, and he smiled at her as warm as summer days.

"And Fiona," whispered Sauron. "I know your name. I know who you are. I know what you've done. Do you remember, Fiona? Do you remember what you've done?"

And his will hit her beyond the powers of a fist and bore memories of Bleys.

But she didn't see herself only in her own memories. Her memories mixed with Bleys, and she saw herself as a younger brother might look up to his big sister. She saw herself as tall and knowledgeable. She was older and wiser, a student of Dworkin. She knew the world. She was so much stronger than Brand or Bleys, and they needed her so much as Clarissa sought other men or Oberon, and Oberon sought nothing of them.

And Fiona betrayed them. She saw her games, and the humiliation of Brand. She saw Bleys desperate for her approval, or the affection Clarissa didn't have, and she saw herself, as strong and capable as an adult, give him nothing.

Bleys was a big-headed little kid. It took him years to grow into his skull. Now the ladies liked him, but when they were young, Bleys walked around like a beach-ball on a scarecrow. He was an awkward, shy little kid with brilliant orange hair. Not till he finished growing did it darken to the bright red he had now. Before he learned to be charming, Bleys used to follow Fiona around with his shirt untucked and his hair uncombed.

God, he was so annoying. She had to send him to Corwin and Eric with stupid questions so they would laugh at him just to get some time to herself. And the little idiot would come back to her, in awe of how smart she was even while he hurt from being foolish, and beg for attention. And sometimes she gave it to him, because he was little and she was big, and when he looked up to her he made her feel powerful.

Through Bleys's eyes she was a power of herself. She knew things, and ancient Dworkin liked her. Through her own she was scared and cruel, and took it out on Bleys and Brand to make herself feel better. How terrible had she been to them that Brand had turned out like that? And in her living brother's memory, the one that she hadn't ruined, she saw herself cruel and hate-filled, and consumed with guilt.

And she knew that Sauron had all of Bleys's memories, and she would endured every one, unless she could break the trump. With the Jewel of Judgement she saw Vialle holding it open, and the will of the Lord of Middle Earth reaching through.

The three Amberites looked at each other and looked at the one who wasn't one of them. Random wailed. Vialle cried. Sauron waited, and the ring glittered on his finger.

Chapter 38: Act 3: Mordor 2

In the cold deserts of Mordor it rained ash instead of water. The furnaces of Barad Dur burned day and night. Fire and smoke choked the sky. They rendered true the Mountains of Ash and Mountains of Shadow, the first in their being, and the second in their effects, and over the plains of Gorgoroth spewed blackness and ruin.

The Lord of Middle Earth called himself Mairon the Wise and sometimes the King of Excellence, but his enemies called him Sauron the Abomination. He was building an army after he had conquered the world, for Sauron had something left to destroy. Valinor, opposed to and separated from Middle Earth, stood unvanquished. It existed. Morgoth's great enemy lived. Arda, High Earth, the Earth of the Valar, something that did not submit to Sauron's will and even now mocked him, defied him, insulted him in existing unbowed, remained beyond the curvature of Middle Earth.

His black-sailed vessels had scraped the horizons and come around to the far easterly lands. His corsairs returned on foot, having burned the lands where Elves and Men first awoke in the age of Starlight. They brought him despoil and tribute. He deserved it all.

But Sauron saw beyond the arc of the sky for Morgoth had trained his powers in the dawn times. With his ring and his palantíri, Sauron bend his will westward and he saw it. Sauron saw Valinor. It loomed over the horizon but a few leagues on, and yet his ships could not reach it. The world curved, Arda soared, and when he sent his ships far enough, they looked up at the sky and did not see Valinor.

Always, when he bent his will to the west, Sauron saw Valinor. He saw it in the sky, and wrapped in the sea mists. He saw Elendil's star before it, leading the way. To sail after it was to be wrapped in mazes of Valinor's power. The endless sea wrapped around the world, and Sauron conquered all of it. Sauron had won. He was the Lord of Middle Earth!

And in the palantír, he could see Arda, and watch the Valar sit in council within the Ring of Doom. He saw the elves live unending in the light undying. He saw them with such detail their songs lived indelibly in his mind, clear as the song of Iluvatur he still heard, ringing across the world. In Mordor Sauron laid palantíri out as the Valar sat in the Ring of Doom with his throne as the seat of Manwe. He sat thus at the head of his own council of Valar with him as their master and called it the Concordance of Glory.

Later, most curiously a mortal appeared when all mortals had been destroyed. A Man somewhat stronger and more powerful than the rest walked out of the shadows of his land and came seeking a bargain. Sauron had been perplexed. The Man confronted orcish hordes with a smile, haunted by a laughter and a hint of devilry. The Man had hair red as a Rohirrim, but all the horse people lay dead, their steeds butchered, and orcs fattened by Men and Horse. And the Mortal Man asked Sauron if he, the Dark Lord Triumphant of Middle Earth, wanted to go sailing towards the far land.

"It is," Bleys had said that while ago. "Hidden in shadow, and not shadow such as you are used to. Shadow such as I. Would you like to visit it, Lord Mairon of Middle Earth? Would you like to sail to Valinor? Would you like me to tell you how to get there?"

And Sauron saw something he had not seen since the long defeat, the ruination of Numenor, the fall of Elves and Men, the breaking of the world, and the death of Ents, Hobbits, and the birds and beasts.

This little man was trying to deceive Sauron the Deceiver. He wasn't lying, but his heart sang of trickery. Sauron, with the One Ring, the Crown of Melkor, Lord of All Middle Earth, was being told half-truths and flattered.

Sauron stared at him, perfectly, and Bleys winked.

"Tell me!" urged Sauron.

"Of course, Dark Lord, of course," said Bleys, but first the Mortal Man asked, "Do you have anything around here to drink?"

Orcs brought couches, and trolls brought wine of fallen Numenor. Sauron was beyond such things. Fell Beasts fanned the Man with their wings. He threw his legs up on a torture rack, swirled wine in a skull-glass, and produced, from some inner pocket of his own, a fire and fire-stick. Bleys sparked a cigarette, drew it in, inhaled, and sipped the last vintage of Ar-Pharazôn. With wine, a smoke, and the devil in his eye, Bleys had chatted with Sauron.

The first thing Sauron noticed was not that this Bleys wore rings. He wore three of them now, big fat things with emeralds, rubies, and diamonds. No, Sauron saw something that was not there, but had been present recently. Quite recently this Man had worn one of his rings, rings the Dark Lord had made for Mortal Men doomed to die.

Sauron reclined on his throne of obsidian on a dais of basalt, and behind him the spike of Barad Dur rose to the black scab of the heavens.

The Man spoke. "You see, Dark One, this whole realm? A shadow. And this shadow? Broken into parts."

Bleys discovered that he had to block the top of his wine-glass lest ash fall in, and flipped the cup in his hand. He held it with his palm to the opening and fingers wrapped around the vessel like a claw. The back of his hand turned black.

"Splendid work. My highest compliments to the breakers. Shadow breaking is startling hard to do. But that does you little good, tall and handsome, because you want to get from one side to the other, and if I can level with you like the ocean won't, you can't get there from here."

Wyverns beat their wings and ash swirled. Bleys smoked. Sauron waited.

"My brothers and I rolled in here a wee-bit ago, up northways, in the part of the world you call Fornost? I do suppose you've heard of our arrival?"

"Perhaps," said Sauron.

"I do hope so. I wouldn't want to hear your sentries are asleep at the job. You have properly motivated them, I hope?" asked Bleys.

Sauron waited as a pristine sculpture.

"Not going to dignify that with a response?" asked Bleys. "Ouch. Tough crowd. Anyway, Mary, we rolled in, strolled about, and exited stage left. The coming was a bit tricky for someone, these Valar presumably, have wrapped your shadow in fire. Fenced in, I believe. Inconvenient." Bleys realized he'd left his cigarette alone and showed it some love.

"The Girdling of the World in the First Song," said Sauron quietly. "It was¬– His work."

"Well, we sailed through. Burned my brother's beard off. That's who we are," said Bleys.

Sauron waited.

Bleys exhaled smoke. "And then we left. And we took your rings. Missing any? Nine of them, perhaps?"

Sauron waited.

"Big Mary, you're getting some splendid material here," said Bleys.

"Continue," said Sauron.

"Ach! Anyway, Mairon, let me lay it down easy. We departed the same way we came. Across shadows. I can traverse them freely, you understand. You know how that works, don't you? Because if you didn't, you've be trapped outside that sparkly place in the sky that you've been looking at– Oh, that's right. You are. Ouch. Don't worry, Big Mary. I hear they award silver for second place."

Orcs, trolls, and Fell Beasts, at least those sentient enough to understand words, looked between the Lord of Middle Earth and Bleys with expressions of some confusion. Trolls wore it naturally, orcs often, and Fell Beasts rarely had enough thought to be confused. But all regarded the Dark Lord and his guest with such perplexity as they could comprehend.

"You can... traverse these shadows?" asked Sauron.

"Casually. And I can open up pathways between them. Would you like me to show you how it's done, Mairon the Wise and stranger to the High Lands? Would you like me to open an avenue for you? Do you want me to build you a path?"

"And what do you want?" asked Sauron.

"Why Mary! A little thing, so little it will barely take you any time at all. The smallest of things. I want you to work a bit of mischief on a few people I know, inconvenience them somewhat, and possibly conquer them, their lands, and leave them ruin. You can do that, can't you?"

Bleys sipped his wine and lit another cigarette.

Sauron's perfect face smiled.

"Casually," said Sauron.

And laid bare before him, he saw all the guile and treachery in this Prince of Amber's heart.

#

Some time later, not long as Amber considered, long as time lay in Mordor, Sauron squeezed Queen Vialle's heart like a sponge and dripped pain on her husband, King Random. From his land of Mordor he interrupted children of Oberon attempting to contact one of their own and attacked their wills with his. Sauron stood tall and looked down on them such that behind him rose the spire with Random bound to its peak. In one hand the Lord of Middle Earth carried a great mace, and on the other he wore a ring.

The Amberites saw Sauron as an image on a card, and yet the borders of the image spread far beyond the card. Fiona, Julian, and Flora held cards before them with Vialle's hand on Fiona's arm. Sauron's sculpted features showed instead of Gerard's rough ones. Around him they saw Mordor and felt the cold. They saw Random chained to the Spike of Thangorodim, named for Morgoth's mountain of torment of old. And in the edges of their vision, they saw Amber, and the resumption of the battle. They saw orc armies as shadows outside the terrible vision of Sauron the Deceiver.

Sauron saw them as images at the center of his Concordance of Glory. Projected by the power of the palantíri he saw them standing alone as small and weak figures. He saw Julian's pride and showed him Amber besieged. Only Julian had saved it before. Trapped in the contact with Random, Julian could do nothing to save his city until breaking free, and Sauron reminded him that their contact relied on Vialle. Amber needed Julian, and with the ring, Julian could save them all.

Flora saw herself as less. The Deceiver showed her the Queen of Amber, born of shadow, that reigned over Flora. Sauron showed her subjugation to a daughter of Rebma, a blind one, and that Flora remained unworthy of the throne. He reminded her what it had felt like to wear the ring.

And he inflicted his hate, his guile, and his vision on Fiona, the guilty, who possessed two but had never put one on her finger. Memories of Brand and Bleys overwhelmed her as narrated by Sauron, and she saw her failures and cruelty that lead to their deaths and estrangements. Fiona wept.

The four of them, Amberites and Queen, stood on the gatehouse of Castle Amber. Around the periphery of their vision, they saw a slow build of the orcish assault. Now the castle's defenders fought bravely, and Tatianna's archers fire overhead. The orcs approached under linked shields. But mostly the Amberites saw Sauron, a giant that dominated their vision, and beyond that he dominated their attention via the trump.
On his throne in Mordor Sauron held them fast, and their anguish was finer than the wine he served their brother.

Julian looked slowly to Vialle. Random saw him turn, and he saw Julian's jaw clench. He saw the mailed hand on the bright sword.

Fiona turned to run, and there was nowhere to run. She remembered everything with the will of Sauron, and he brought her images of herself. There was only one escape. Fiona looked at Vialle too. Random wept.

But Flora, standing alone, with her hands clasped together, barely moved. She had stood with her hands together, left over right, and in that moment she flipped them, right over left.

Julian drew his nameless sword to slay Vialle, and Fiona drew from the Pattern. He smashed into flowers of sapphire petals and froze.

"We have underestimated this creature of shadow," said Fiona slowly. "We have erred badly. It is not Bleys we should fear; it is this shadow. It is–"

"Mairon," the Dark Lord said. He smiled warmly. His eyes were soft and deep. "Lord of Middle Earth."

"And we need to leave him to return to the siege of Amber!" whispered Julian between frozen teeth, startling Fiona. "He distracts us!"

"We will not kill Vialle!" Fiona intended to shout, but strain dragged her voice down in whispers. For a moment she wondered.

But Julian wore a ring, and the balance of power was different between him, with the blood of Oberon, and her, with his jewel now. He strained to kill the queen and she ached to stop him.

Sauron laughed and gifted Julian with power. Red fires leaped from Julian and blue flames poured from the Jewel of Judgment. Fiona demanded strength of it again and again, and Julian reached deep into the ring. Cold winds cut their faces with ash. The walls of Mordor loomed high and dark. The plain lay open, scared and riven with cracks, and marked by orcish footsteps.

In his moment of triumph Sauron saw Flora looking small and unobtrusive, and initially he marked her as a lesser being. He considered her paralyzed by jealousy and bent only a fraction of his power on her. That all changed in one instant when Flora reached up and brushed a trace of ash off her face.

Mairon the Wise froze. He laid his will against the cold of Mordor, and a chill wind blew again. It rippled her golden hair.

And Sauron understood. Through the power of their trumps the images of the palantíri were made manifest.

They were not but images. They were gateways. Sauron could reach whatever he could see, and around him the seven seeing stones displayed the Ring of Doom in Valinor. If he had but trumps. Three Amberites held theirs aloft.

The Dark Lord took up his mace and strode to the Amberites. Under his foot the rock cracked, and spiderwebs of frost infected the breakages.

Chapter 39: Act 3: The Bringer of War

Ash fell. Mixed with soil and rock, soot turned the earth black until Mordor stretched between mountains as a stained pit. The air blew cold. The winds cut more than winter in Amber. In the city on Kolvir the ocean mollified the chill. In dry Mordor under a sky of soot, nothing protected anyone who lived there.

Sauron dwelled there, and the cold was his lover. It worshipped him, submitted to him, and he beat it with will and power. He wore a ring, and as he was the ring, he and the cold were one. It mirrored him.

Orcs endured the cold and labored under it. In Barad Dur they crafted implements of war by furnaces, and the heat of the blasts and the chill of the sky fought among the smithies. It was known for orcs to burn to death while frozen, and charred corpses with their backs covered in ice were carried to high turrets and thrown over. Crebain fought to eat the corpses like big greedy crows.

No longer did the Lord of Middle Earth make his domicile in Barad Dur, though he hadn't left it. The demesne of Mairon the Wise lay between the black tower and Mount Doom on a flat stretch of land. His throne rose with the volcano at its back, belching flame and soot, while Barad Dur faced him, belching more flame and more soot. They strove together to kill the sky, and tall, fair, and beautiful Sauron reigned over them. Far away to his left rose the black gates of Udun, fanged and forever watched even now, and to his right stretched dead land to mountains that ringed his home. Fumes cloaked the crests. To stare in that direction was to see the flat, heavy sky come to meet the ground, and the great open spaces of Mordor looked as close as deep caves. From it rose a great spike to which King Random of Amber hung bound. Around the field of before Sauron's throne lay the seeing stones of Numenor, the palantíri.

In a few places cracks opened in the dour soil. Most lay dead, but to peer into a few, as orcs rarely did, was to see distant fires deep underground. The orcs did not go there. They did not know what or who burned.

Mairon the Wise, Sauron the Foul, Melkor's Heir, Morgoth's spawn, and the Lord of Middle Earth had visitors. They had not come willingly. Before his throne and within the seeing stones lay the space for a conclave as the Valar had done so in Valinor, but unlike the Ring of Doom where they met, Sauron the Deceiver sat usually alone. Now he did not. Four figures stood before him.

The first was blind Vialle, queen of Amber, and love of Random. Sauron inflicted their pain on each other and rejoiced in it as his heart still could. Beside Vialle stood princesses and a prince of Amber, Random's brothers: Fiona, Flora, and Julian. They held cards. Julian also held a sword, and strove to kill Vialle with all his power. On his hand he wore a ring like the one on Sauron's finger, but he did not move.

Fiona stood against him, and she carried a red stone, carved into a thousand faces, and inset in a steel chain. Amberites called it the Jewel of Judgement. Denizens of Chaos termed it the Eye of the Serpent. The Serpent herself remained mute on the subject. With it Fiona bent her will against her brother and dominated him into immobility.

Dominion of the will was Sauron's territory as much as Mordor. Julian wore the Dark Lord's ring, which Fiona had given him. He fought to kill Vialle and shocked Fiona with his strength.

The other princess was Florimel, sister Flora, golden-haired, lithe, and beautiful. She expected to be the center of attention among men and ignored among her siblings. She was correct again. Julian and Fiona, possessors of conflicting feelings for each other, fought to kill or dominate. Neither paid her any mind. Vialle's grief wrapped her around Random, as she felt him through the trumps, and no one else existed for her. Only one person saw Flora.

Sauron, tall as trees, strong enough to rule Middle Earth, consumed with power, saw her. Sauron saw Flora brush a flake of ash from her brow. He saw her hair dance in his foul wind. Until then Sauron had thought them but apparitions and yearned for them, wherever they were, to kill each other. Now he knew them at least partially here in vulnerable flesh. Sauron rose and lifted his mace.

In the moment of distraction, Flora had an epiphany. Realization wasn't enough. So long as they wore the rings, Sauron could attack them, confuse them, and even though Fiona and Julian knew what was going on, Julian still had a ring. Fiona did too.

They just had to get rid of the rings.

In a motion of perfect fluidity, Flora drew an arrow, notched it, and shot Julian's hand off. The trump wouldn't leave her hand, and through she couldn't stop looking at Sauron, so she had to take aim sideways, bow held out before her in absurd form, and aim by sound. Her instructors would have yelled at her.

Julian did because she shot his hand off.

"What did you–"

She judged the rest of what he had to say wasn't going to be important and shot the trump out of his other hand.

He screamed and vanished.

Flora shot the trump out of Fiona's grip, tore it in half in a perfect shot, and the arrow ripped apart Sauron's beautiful face. He screamed like the devil.

Fiona vanished, and Vialle went with her.

The trumps went dead, and she lurched forward. Sauron screamed as Julian had. Flora sheathed her trump, drew again, and shot him between the soft, luminous eyes. He lurched, and her next arrow meant to take his head. It shattered Morgoth's crown.

Flora's bow was made of yew and horn, built with complex layers in the arms and trickery in the string. It had a four hundred pound draw. She used steel arrows because lighter wooden ones shattered from the firing shock. As Sauron lurched and gurgled, Flora drew again, took careful aim, and shot his Adam's Apple out the back of his throat. He couldn't even scream.

The Lord of Middle Earth fell, and Florimel walked past him to the Spike of Thangorodim where Random hung in agony. Orc chains bound him to the spire. She shot him down and caught him before he hit.

"How do you feel?" she asked Random.

"Terrible."

"You look it."

She put him on his feet, noting that Random had lost an unhealthy amount of weight. His cheeks stretched inwards underneath his cheekbones. His eyes carried deep black pools.

But when she put him down, the King of Amber struggled to his feet and in spite of his privations managed to climb upright. He stood weakly beside her. Flora stood several inches taller than Random, hair waving like a banner. He refused her help, and she did not insist.

"You changed your hair," he said suddenly.

"I added highlights. You noticed!"

"Marriage," Random grunted. "We need to leave."

"His minions seem to have deserted him, and I've shot him in the head and throat. That's very fatal."

"No, he's getting up."

Florimel looked at Random before turning, and Sauron was.

He'd climbed to his hands and knees with a blood waterfall pouring from his neck and forehead. It dwindled while they watched. On the ground the broken crown of black iron lay drenched in blood, and pools of it collected in the mounts for the Silmarils long empty. Sauron lifted his head and saw them.

Flora handed Random her trumps and said, "Exit, please."

He shuffled and drew. A moment passed. Sauron climbed to his feet. Flora shot him again, but he blocked with his mailed arms. Steel plates he had made himself with the techniques of ancient Utumno in the north deflected Flora's arrows. She looked unphased.

"Exit, please," she said again.

"I can't get out! There is no contact!" yelled Random. "It was like that orb he inflicted me with. There is no contact."

Florimel stopped launching useless arrows into Sauron, and took her eyes off him. Bleeding, hideous, and ruined, the Dark Lord rose to his feet. Flora looked at Random.

"Then we Hellrun."

"Agreed," he said.

They took off.

Sauron raised his fist. From the walls of Udun Gate came trolls, and from the spires of the Ash Mountains came fell beasts. From the deep cracks in the hard caked ground flames leaped. His orc hordes ceased their cowering and came running.

The Amberites took off running, and all of Mordor's power ran after them.

#

On the walls of Castle Amber, Julian clutched his stump and Fiona blinked. Vialle stilled her weeping.

"Get him," she whispered. "We must get him."

"Ah–" said Fiona.

Outside the walls the lords of Sauron's armies blew orc horns, and the brassy, vulgar notes roared across the valley. Julian had lost his sword hand. His lips were pale, and his fingernails blue.

"Get him," said the white-mailed lord of Arden. "I will attend the castle. Get Random."

Fiona had no reply but a nod. With Vialle she bent her will back against the stone. Soon blue sparks rose and orange fires fought them, and orcs without number attacked. Into the fight of power and fury Gerard and Merlin came in a cloak of shadow with their sister Llewella, and unknown to all, Corwin raced up the stairs towards them, carrying Orak and pursue by a demon of the ancient world: Gogomoth.

Chapter 40: Act 3: The Unveiling of Mordor

A surge of orcs slammed into the castle walls to tumble back, rent with arrows. Long since out of oil, the defenders dumped boiling water from their cauldrons. Most had a thin veneer of oily residue on the lips, so Gerard could smell it on the burned orcs. Sometimes Sauron's minions lay down to die. Other times their comrades killed them in fury for being wounded.

The assault stopped the Amberites. They hid behind a portable wall of stripped building timbers. Orc iron bands held them together, wrapped over broken joints. Merlin could see where old residents had carved their names on the sides. On one beam a line of marks rose next to names. Alvin was the shortest. Carson rose a little taller. Then Alvin was taller again. He and Carson rose in unison to a mark for 'Mom.' 'Dad' was somewhat taller than either, except for a single uneven notch for Alvin high above everyone. The broken top of the beam had been charred above that.

Dead orcs fell back on either sides of the wall, tumbling into the sight as they passed the veil. A few feet in any direction Merlin's world loomed as a gray nothing. Gerard could reach both sides with his outstretched hands. Dead orcs fell through like appirations. Sometimes living orcs stumbled back. If they ran, they lived. But if they noticed the three hiding behind the wall, Gerard slew them and added them to the rest.

Llewella turned blue in the lips. Her face, normally olive colored, looked like wax fruit. She did not speak and breathed fast. Merlin held her.

Around them screamed orcs and killing. Merlin didn't have to worry about being overheard.

"We have to get in. Soon," he said.

"I don't know where on the wall we are. And I don't know if- If we climb and there's an assault, we could get killed by orcs from below or the defenders above."

"Is there a gate?"

"They're got to be all barred."

"Can you overcome the bars?" asked Merlin.

Gerard stammered. "Yes, but then we've opened a hole in Amber's defenses."

"Well, she's not going to make it much longer," said Merlin.

Gerard nodded slowly. He looked at the blankness of Merlin's invisibility spell.

Merlin, thinking Gerard despairing, tried to find an immediate next move. "We've just got to get over the wall somehow," he said.

The bearded man looked at him. "Do you have an axe?"

"No?" said Merlin like as question.

"A pity. I have an idea. Give me your hand."

Merlin stood up and reached out, thinking his big uncle was going to take his hand and lead him through the magical veil. Gerard did not. Gerard reached past the hand to grab Merlin by the shoulder and with his other seized the boy's hip.

The boy's hip. Merlin was thirty or forty, Gerard almost a thousand. Gerard felt his age.

"What-" asked Merlin but Gerard interrupted him.

"Hold her tight."

He stepped back from the castle, turned, and keg-tossed Merlin and Llewella backwards over the wall. They sailed above an arrow flight and appeared with a pop, Merlin panic-shouting magic words as fast as he could. When they sailed over the curtain wall Gerard lost sight of them.

Mordor's army startled to see meat appear among them.

"Good evening, gentlemen," said Gerard.

He grabbed the plank-wall with one hand and swung it, throwing a wake of orcs as if a stone splashing into water.

#

Merlin did not die on impact. He didn't feel good, but he survived.

Gerard had hurled him and Llewella from outside the foss lawn, where in olden times the Castle of Amber had a deep dry moat lined with stakes. As the courtyard around the castle turned from its defensive purpose to the only available open space for markets, the foss had been filled in. It had not been paved. Oberon had often grumbled than in a pinch 'one of their abilities' could just pull the dirt out, but his children either hadn't marked the statement or heard it. Now the foss lawn stretched twenty to thirty yards, depending on wall construction and position, to the paved courtyard.

Merlin cleared it, cleared the curtain wall, and hit the inner keep wall at least twenty feet above ground. He'd been spitting magic, but the impact knocked the wind out of him and his final word of sorcery became a scream as the spell blew up in his face.

On fire and yelling Merlin crashed into a pile of beams and metal spikes. The defenders had not had time to erect hourds, so the timbers and fastenings remained in covered piles by the curtain. They were not soft.

"Go find out what that is," said Julian as the figure appeared and flew overhead. He saw it crash, but didn't have attention to devote to it once he established it wasn't an orc.

Wherever the orcs went, they burned things. Something about Mordor fires let them burn with little light. They cast only shadows. Oily smoke rose from clean wood. It lay across the battlefield until looking down gave Julian the same problems as seeing a lake-bottom through cloudy water.

He'd tied his stump off, switched his sword to his left hand, and gained a deep respect for Benedict. He hoped his brother wasn't really dead. There was no time.

A formation of Olog Hai trolls amassed in plain sight on the courtyard. The afternoon sun beat down on their black craggy skins, pitted with age. They were built like mountains. Most stood at least ten feet tall and a few twenty, but they stood hunched over like bears or apes. Most rested with their knuckles on the ground. He couldn't tell how tall they would be standing up or climbing the walls. Orcs ran around them, darting between arms and bodies as if the space under their shoulders were arches.

Something happened down below, and Julian tried to understand. Eddies of smoke swirled over the disturbance. A wind gusted up and yet avoided the cloud over the one thing he wanted to see. Elsewhere it revealed orcs without number and trolls coming. The wind died. Julian didn't let it touch him.

The orcs screamed shrill and cracking. Their voices broke and dropped. The trolls roared deep and low. Vast war horns sounded, but the troll-cries fit underneath those great instruments. War-drummers played madly.

"Get ready," said Julian.

His defenders, already almost overwhelmed by orcs and their ladders, could not reply.

The hammer of Mordor struck. Trolls smashed into the walls, reached up with hands of the stuff of mountains and grabbed the battlements. Axes swords glanced off stony skin. The first thing heaved itself up, and its round head, split by a jagged mouth and eyes gouged into pits, heaved over the side. Julian struck, and his sword glanced off.

Tatianna's archers raked it. Their arrows meant nothing.

Down below under the cloak of smog Gerard saw the beasts scrambling at the walls. The bigger ones grabbed the wall tops, and the smaller ones climbed the bigger. They had no order; all merely clawed at the walls in a mad rush to get on top. Gerard saw Julian's white mail flashing. He saw the unnamed sword rise and fall a dozen times, and the troll smash him with an open paw. Julian vanished.

Gerard tried to charge. Too many orcs spoiled his footing. He smashed them with the plank-wall until it broke and took axes and swords from the ground. Orcs in the backline volleyed into their own ranks, dropped a dozen arrows all around him. Two pierced his shoulder, one his left arm tucked up to covered his head, and several his side. A dozen orcs hit him, and he struck with fists and a club, shattering bone and flesh before going down underneath a pile of foul gray skin.

#

On top of the gatehouse Fiona scried with the Jewel of Judgement and discovered a few simple things. The first was the sharp time differential between Amber and Middle Earth, similar to the one between Amber and Chaos, which made trump contact equally difficult. This was not a matter of power or ill will, but simple mechanics of the trumps, things she knew well. She understood instantly that contacting Random and Flora would be a monolithic endeavor.

Secondly, while she remained submerged in the Pattern, she saw through the hordes of Mordor as if they were phantasms. They meant nothing to her. She saw Gerard go down underneath an army, and saw him thrashing and kicking as bodies piled up on top of him. She saw Julian thrown from the wall, and saw his soldiers fighting the attacking trolls as if they were children fighting shadows. Tatianna's archers volleyed, but they were shadows themselves.

She also saw Merlin and Llewella. Both lay grievously hurt and anointing herself Regent of Amber, she decided they did not have time to worry about such things. Fiona abandoned Random and Florimel. With the Jewel in hand she leaped from the gatehouse to the ground three stories below and ran to Merlin.

"Get up."

"Yeah, yeah, I'm getting, I'm-"

"There's no time for that!" Fiona cut him off. "Where's your father?"

"He's coming. He had to rescue someone; Llewella ask it."

"Ah, he would." She shook her head. "The enemies are not just at the gates but climbing over them. Never in my memory has any force out of shadow come so close to taking Amber as these orcs may, never save once. When the Courts of Chaos attacked the city along the Black Road, only then did anyone have this kind of power. Who is behind this?"

"That was your doing!" said Merlin. He wheezed when he tried to breathe. "We broke with the Courts of Chaos during that. And you were the ones who made the deal anyway, and goaded my Dad until his curse opened up a way to attack."

"I would never take part in Corwin's blinding, so don't quibble over history. Who's behind this?"

"I don't know!" protested Merlin. "Dad and I have been exploring his Pattern ever since the war. I have no idea who's doing what now." The volume of his words dropped from his initial exclamation to ending in a bare whisper.

"Bah! Shape shift your wounds closed, you big baby. Corwin never whined this much." She left him and turned to Llewella.

"Hey!"

For a moment so indignant he wanted to refuse, Merlin did start shifting his injuries closed. Flesh knitted. Tendons separated from his shattered ribs, dragged them into place, and held the ends together as marrow flowed. It steeped him in agony. Merlin hissed and patted himself down for a pack of cigarettes. He found one, but they were all broken.

Llewella lay in terrible shape. The traumatic amputation of her hand at the forearm coupled with the deep incision across her body had let a lot of blood out. The edges of her concealed armor curled around and jutted into the wound. Her pulse fluttered irregularly, and she couldn't open her eyes. Fiona dragged one of her eyelids down and flicked her in the eyeball, but Llewella barely reacted.

Vialle came running up with a guard leading her, and Fiona took her from the mortal. "She's cut on the arm and chest, shoulder. Here." She put the queen's hands on Llewella. "She can sustain the infection if we keep her alive but not the blood loss."

"I'll work," said Vialle quietly and started exploring the patient with her fingers.

Merlin was still slacking around with his punctured lungs, so Fiona ran for Julian.

The mailed prince in white and green had sat up. He stared around blinking and bewildered. Several yards away his helmet lay on the ground, and Julian did not understand why it wasn't on his head. When Fiona approached he said, "Hi, Fi! Did you know you're my favorite sister?"

"That's a shame," she replied. She grabbed him by one mailed arm and dragged him to his feet. "I've never liked you much."

"Aw," said Julian.

"You won't remember it," she said.

Once Julian could stand upright, Fiona left him to pick up his helmet and put it on. He fumbled with the straps until she batted away his hands and did it herself. Julian stood obligingly still.

Fiona could look up without leaning and see his chin, and when he started swaying side to side, she put one of his arms around her. He stopped moving. She slipped the chin buckle into place, doubled it back, and wiggled the armor to see if it stuck. It did.

"How do you feel?" she asked.

"My hand itches."

She looked at his stump.

"You'll get over it."

She left to get his sword, and Julian could tentatively walk when she returned. Merlin arrived about this time.

"If you're right, and I don't think you are, but if you are, that doesn't help matters much. They outnumber us, and you may want to consider a tactical retreat."

Fiona looked at Merlin calmly. He was shorter than his father but had the same face. His build was slimmer, but had the same proportions. Where Corwin had great shoulders and thick arms, Merlin moved quickly. His hand and leg motions belied a fencer's speed.

Merlin saw her flushed face and brilliant green eyes. He saw the gown in seafoam that set off her hair. She was all at once terribly alive and freezing, retreating into something chill while her face flushed. Ever breath made her nostrils flare almost invisibly, but he would have noticed as a tell were they fighting.

"No," said Fiona. She turned back to Julian. "You have to get back on that wall. The orcs are coming. Fight them."

"Yeah, yeah," muttered Julian. His voice echoed hollowly behind the helm. "Where's my sword?"

They looked around for a moment, but it was lost in the litter of bodies and dropped gear across the inside of the curtain wall.

"Here," said Merlin. He gave Julian his own. "I'll draw another. It's name is-"

"I don't care," said Julian. He took the blade, tested it, and turned back to the wall.

Coming over the crest the trolls had now taken the catwalk, and Amber's defenders kept them at bay with long spears. More climbed up behind them, and already a dozen great troll heads peered over the battlements.

"I wish we had artillery," said Fiona.

"Let me see what I can do," said Merlin.

His redhaired aunt glanced at him, and Merlin began to slouch. He leaned forwards, and put his hands on his knees. His breathing deepened and slowed.

Fiona looked up at the trolls, and behind them gleamed the dying afternoon of Amber. Twilight had almost arrived.

Chapter 41: Act 3: Gerard of Amber

The surge of day walking Olog Hai trolls shoved the defenders back along the walls. They fought without warhammers or axes to pierce thick troll skin. Stone-fisted trolls learned they could shatter spears by laying into them with rocklike flesh. Julian passed warriors on the stairs who chaffed to get to the fight but lacked the weapons, sending them to a storeroom for heavier gear. He shoved his way to the top.

Overhead the twilight of Amber darkened. More than a dozen Olog Hai had climbed the walls, and above them smoke mixed with rainclouds to blot out the stars. Ocean winds spun the smog to froth.

In the west the sun sank. In the east the moon hid. Bits of Tir'na Nog'th appeared and vanished as moving clouds blocked and released rays of moonlight the castle defenders could not see. Often the castle would appear in the reflection in the sky with towers missing their summits, looking broken, or the stairway out appear with huge gaps. Sometimes the smog would blow across Tir-na Nog'th itself, too thin to block the moonlight but thick enough to be seen, and it rose from the city in the sky like it burned.

Julian stepped past the last guard on the tower stairway. At a small landing the way to the catwalk was barred by a heavy steel-banded door. The only ways onto or down from these catwalks were the towers and their righthanded stairs. Every catwalk lay exposed to archers from the rear, and when orcs or trolls made it over the walls, they still faced a thirty foot drop under a rain of withering arrows or an assault against a narrow door and a right-handed stair.

But to give up the walls was only a delaying action. Ladders and ropes Sauron's horde had in quantity.

A heavy troll pawed at the door. It had managed to block the guards from closing it, and they stabbed its thick fingers as it reached for purchase. Its skin reminded Julian of petrified tree bark. It got a grip on the door and started pulling, and the hinges groaned against the troll's strength.

"Lock the door behind me," said Julian to the guards. He charged the Olog Hai.

Wind blew smoke up over the wall, clinging to the cold stone under the hot air. White and gray flowed over the ramparts and catwalk. Julian couldn't see his feet. The troll leaned back against Amber-steel hinges, fat troll feet finding purchase on the stonework, and Julian jumped up to shoulder-check it in chest. It tumbled backwards and fell. Guards shot the bolts behind him. It was thirty feet down to pavestones, and Julian wore more than half his bodyweight in mail.

Unconsciously he tossed his sword from left-hand to right, forgetting he didn't have that hand, and damn near dropped Merlin's blade off the wall. He had to snatch it with his left, lost his balance, reclaimed it, and the troll attacked.

The troll club, a shipping timber with a boulder for a head, smashed Julian and threw him up against the wall. He hit the tower over the door and fell. The troll swung again. This time Julian blocked. Another wave of confusion washed over the troll when the little human stopped his strike. Mailed in white and green, Julian stepped in a impaled the troll to the hilt, finding no organs, and withdrew and ran the troll threw again.

Fire rolled over the catwalk and bathed them both. Julian ignored it.

He switched to plan B, stabbing the troll a third time and still not finding vitals. With the full blade stuck inside the Olog Hai's torso, Julian stepped through and got his hip under, and hurled the thing off the wall. He ripped the blade out as it fell trailing black troll blood.

It didn't just die; it splashed. Impact ripped it apart. Troll-flesh erupted through every break in the skin. The thing exploded like blood-pudding in a blender. The eggshell of its ribcage lay smashed open, and hidden vitals tumbled half-out.

"They do have guts," observed Julian, looking down. "Huh."

Merlin was there. Julian didn't remember Corwin's spawn arriving but wasn't surprised. Merlin was also breathing fire. He probably did that sort of thing.

Julian noticed he had the boy's sword.

I bet the fool named it, thought Julian and attacked the next Olog Hai.

The prince of Amber worked like a lumberjack. He felled trolls, tossing them equally off the catwalk inside and over the parapet. The rain of trolls on orc heads terrified them. Julian did miss his right hand sometimes when he tried to grab something and wound up punching it with his stump.

Guardsmen down below helped with grappling hooks and harpoons. They ripped Sauron's shock-trolls from the curtain to falls to their deaths. Merlin washed the walls in fiery breath. Each gout blew more hot than the last, and soon set troll-skin blazing. They fell like comets. The boy's bottom jaw seemed to have detached and hung twelve inches below his top, both marked with great incising fangs. His head was noticeably snakish. He also had wings.

Always got to be pretty, thought Julian. He cleared the wall, walked back to the tower, and knocked on the door.

After three seconds of impatient silence, he knocked on the door again.

"It's me. Open up."

When nothing happened immediately, Julian said, "Now," helpfully.

The bolts rode back open, and guardsmen stared at him.

"Don't try stabbing them in the guts. Their ribs are strong, and their organs small. Whomever created them built them for combat. They're weak against falls though, so try to knock them off the walls. A mere thirty foot drop kills them pretty thoroughly," Julian instructed.

A soldier stared at him with an inscrutable expression, blinking.

Taking that for confusion, Julian added, "Try judo if you know any. If not, set them on fire. That seems to work too."

"Yes, sir. I'll keep that in mind," said the soldier.

Julian nodded and slapped him on the shoulder with his stump a few times. "Are they making it over any place else?"

"The Lesser Gatehouse wall, sir," said the soldier.

"Ah, damned, of course. That is my least favorite section of wall. Handle this," said Julian. He shook his head and strode down the steps, passing lines of Amberite guardsmen who watched him in silence.

The Lesser Gatehouse wall was just badly designed. It was inferior wall. Julian cursed his father for building it. Kolvir's natural contours lifted the north part of the wall, the defender's left, high above the ground but the south part was only ten or so feet from the foss clearing outside.

Julian mounted Morgenstern and apologized to the horse for leaving him alone. Julian forgot his missing hand on horseback, for he and Morgenstern had long since moved past reins. They charged past the gatehouse from the north and saw Amber's forces losing the battle before swinging around. Ten feet was nothing. In a leap the white horse and white knight landed on the catwalk itself, and Julian cleared the wall.

The Olog Hai crouched fifteen to twenty feet tall, and down low their organs were armored by thick muscle with the strength of granite. Even the veins that carried black blood to their bodies were protected. But their making hid a weakness, for Sauron had not conceived of a force that could attack down at them. Julian reached necks and heads from the saddle. Morgenstern kicked trolls from the wall. Even when the mighty Olog Hai stood tall, Julian's horse leaped to the parapets and danced over the crenels, allowing the Warden of Arden to strike heads from shoulders when silver-shoed hooves did not stave in their skulls.

When the last of the trolls lay dead and orcs below pulled back in fear a dragon landed on one of the segment towers. It's body black and features armored, one of the two-legged and winged variety which crawled on their wing joints for hands, it spoke to him.

"Julian, they have taken Gerard," said the dragon.

"Merlin," guessed Julian.

"Oh, yes. I am."

"Glad you've finally made yourself useful."

The dragon stared at him with burning yellow eyes, and Julian noticed that heat-shimmers rose from the eyeballs themselves.

After a moment Merlin replied, "Your brother," and pointed with one wing.

Julian looked over the wall.

Terrified orcs had drawn back out of bow-range, and tall and bright Julian, sitting like a target, drew no fire. At the base of the wall lay troll corpses with Morgenstern's hoofprints in their skulls and sword-wounds across their bodies.

Further out the orcs descended into turmoil. Some fled the killers of the Olog Hai. Arrows harried them from the archers on the high walls. But some carried a great burden of a still form, and they rushed towards Sauron's army.

Julian stared. The orcs were put to rout, yet they carried Gerard back as a captive. More came running. Sauron's army spread like a disease across Amber's central marketplace. Pockets turned this way and that, some toward Amber and resuming the attack and some toward flight. For no reason that Julian understood, he glanced to the distant north where the stairway up Kolvir's face ended. From that direction Corwin had attacked long ago. Now he saw nothing for the lights of orc fires burned thick over there. He looked back at Merlin.

"Let's go get the big ass," he said. "He'd do the same for us. "

Merlin spread his wings and heaved himself upwards, transforming from an ungainly bulk to a lithe beast. Once in the air the Chaos-born dragon flew as easily as fish swam. Julian looked down. The lowest part of the crenellated parapet was but a dozen feet from the ground.

"I am going to get some stonemasons out here, and we are going to do something about this inferior wall," Julian told Morgenstern. "There is no reason the greatest city in all creation should have sub-par walls."

The horse did not respond.

A nudge and a leap, and Morgenstern landed on Olog Hai corpses outside the curtain of Amber. Like fire he charged the routed orcs, and Julian slew them as he overtook them. Soon the white horse and rider were a single point of color among a dirty black crowd.

#

An old orc established one pocket of order among Sauron's horde. This orc had crags in his face from ancient years, and broken teeth in a loose-lipped mouth. Eons had passed since his birthing in Utumno before the first rising of the sun. A film covered his eyes. His hands were burred with ancient callouses. But this orc of the name Glaggatch had served his master's master well, and Sauron took him willingly into his service when Morgoth fell. Glaggatch had existed in Angband and Barad Dur as a creature of power. One did not rule in Angband or Barad Dur unless one was named Mairon the Wise, but Glaggatch had been one orc among many, a leader among equals, and gone to the sacking of Amber with more power than a few.

Just how old this orc was was a thing few knew, for Glaggatch had kept it secret from those as old as he, of whom only Galadriel and Glorfindel still lived. They did not ask orcs question, and he did not seek them out. But muddy, wrinkled, and yet fell handed and ancient, Glaggatch drew orcs to him on the battlefield with his willingness to bend them to his will and orcish willingness to be bent.

To Glaggatch orcs brought Gerard, and seeing the dragon coming and the Julian, white mailed with trimming of green on a silver horse that dashed through all the armies of Mordor, the wizened orc initially meant to slay the Prince of Amber quickly. His arm had lost some of its strength, but Gerard lay unto death, pierced by many arrows, beaten by many clubs.

It was the arrows that paused Glaggatch. They sparked a memory in his evil mind of great cruelties done long ago. From Gerard leaped the blue sparks of Fiona's distant fire where she used the powers of the Pattern to blot out Sauron's madness, and some twist of that briefly lifted a fog from the orc mind. Glaggatch did something not encouraged by Mairon the Wise; Glaggatch thought. His thought was a memory, and in twisted orc speech he asked, "Galdor?"

Gerard too had a stroke of memory, one suppressed, hidden, and denied by him. It was one of being surrounded by orcish faces, lanced with arrows, and laying at the door of the final halls. Gerard recalled them, the gateway to death, and remembered them as the Doom of Men. And in pain Gerard recalled Glaggatch.

"Yes, yrch," he said in an ancient tongue, spun from Thari into a tongue known as Sindarin. "I was called that."

"I slew you at the battle of the Drowning Water," said Glaggatch in an ancient and forgotten tongue of orcs.

"No, worm," said Gerard in the same. "You did not. I survived, though I had to flee that shadow. I never returned."

Thinking unnerved Glaggatch. It was a temptation his master did not encourage nor allow, and the curl of Fiona's power that unlocked it within him put him off his balance. Some other curl of power, perhaps a curse by the King of Amber bound to the Spike of Thangorodim echoed in the old mind as well.

"But you died, and your body fell into the Drowning Water. We ended your line. Your son we bound to the walls of Thangorodim and burned his mind with the Will of the Great Master. Your other son we killed. Your line we twisted back on itself and destroyed so Hurin, your son, the Troll-killer, could feel the ultimate pain: the death of both his children and the ruination of his people."

In pain, Gerard said, "No, I looked. They died harmlessly, and did not pass on the blood. I had no reason to retirn to -Beleriand." He paused as he said the forgotten name.

"Ah, but do you not understand that our power is the twisting of scrying? Haven't you learned that after all this?" Glaggatch pointed to the walls of Amber and the battle before them. "You only of all Men the lord Melkor feared, and when you looked for your children, he lied to you. His power like Mairon's is deceiving your sight.

"I want you to know this. Your last thought should be pain. Your sons did not die harmlessly. One we shot, and another suffered beyond the torments of all other Men." Glaggatch struck Gerard through the breast with a black Morghul blade, and Gerard gasped and ceased to breathe.

Chapter 42: Act 3: Gogomoth

In dragon form Merlin strafed the orcish lines with long, continuous waterfalls of fire. Within him the Logrus changed air to flame before pouring it out his mouth. It splashed when it hit the ground.

Orcs screamed. The white-hot column of fire branded their dark-adjusted vision with black bars. They missed the dimmer plumes of red and orange that bounced back skyward after hitting. Waves of flame lapped over orc hides. Orcish screams of dragon-fear mixed with orcish screams of rage, fury, and orcish nature. Panic turned their battle lines into melees. Sauron's forces fell on each other and slaughtered themselves.

Some survived. Julian hit them. On mighty Morgenstern a hundred yards behind Merlin, he charged down a long scorched aisle, slashing burning orcs. Merlin's blade became his hand. Morgenstern was his feet. The dragon burned an furrow through enemy lines to the very cluster that held Gerard, and when the Chaos-dragon lifted and soared past, Julian hit them in the pause. His arrival shattered limbs and threw a wake of yrch.

Merlin looped around and ringed Julian in fire. Orcs outside fled, and those within fell upon each other. Julian rounded on Glaggatch, the ancient orc with his brother.

A black orc-knife jutted from Gerard's chest. He did not breathe. Some manner of Mordor-devilry turned Julian's big-brother's skin white and put dark lines in the paths of blood. Glaggatch rose and brandished his scimitar, and Julian cut him down where he stood.

#

About this time Corwin entered stage left, pursued by balrog. The stairway of Amber was about five Manitou Springs Inclines stacked on top of each other, and he'd taken the latter three at a dead sprint. He carried Orak, an adult Rebman who had woken up halfway through the climb and kicked, punched, and slapped the Prince of Amber to little avail. Corwin paid him equally little attention. His attention was focused on avoiding the balrog.

He crested the stairway, saw a knight on a white horse, and thought, Julian. At once Corwin ran for him, and the brothers met on amidst the carnage.

"We have to stop meeting this way," said Corwin after jumping through a ring of fire. The orcs had fled, and Julian had dismounted to lift Gerard onto the saddle.

Julian looked up. He considered Corwin for a moment but turned back to his labors. "Indeed. It's Gerard this time, not Eric."

"Ah, hell," he said. "Does he live?"

"He's not breathing, and I'm not going to work on him here." Julian leaped into the saddle. "Pass him up."

Corwin handed Gerard up.

"Take this one too," he said, holding the faintly struggling Orak.

"Who is he?"

"Someone I resolved to protect."

"I won't slow down a brother for a shadow–" said Julian and Corwin interrupted "–Gerard would."

"Damn your eyes, I'm getting sick of you returning from Shadow like this, Corwin."

Julian tucked Gerard onto the saddle before him, and Corwin stuffed Orak onto Morgenstern's behind. The horse disliked him and tried to kick, but a whisper and a nudge from Julian still the beast. Morgenstern tolerated Corwin at his hindquarters but complained with a whimper and spit.

"Go!" shouted Corwin, and Morgenstern sprang away

Corwin looked around.

Kolvir had several summits. On one the City of Amber adjoined the castle, though the former extended in discontinuous spots down to the harbor below. This was a mere levelling of the mountain, and two higher peaks overlooked it. Behind them rose several more. The castle itself could be considered a summit, for Oberon had built it as part of the mountain in the same summoning that ripped Kolvir itself from shadow and stuck it over the Pattern.

All lay in ruin under black clouds of smoke. The city burned, and what was beautiful lay broken. Orc fires leaped from windows. No water leaped in broken fountains.

For an instant Corwin thought of the other times he'd been here. He thought of coming with Bleys's army and falling. He could see the place he went down. It had been that square, and those buildings turned to torches had held citizens watching. He'd attacked along the Canyon of Heroes, a wide street between high buildings, and the people of Amber had thrown rocks on his misled troops. They had applauded his defeat.

He thought of his return with guns out of Avalon and coming in pomp with his siblings. The people had applauded. It had been the same crowds in the same city, and he wondered where they were now.

A note filled the air, deeper than the sounds of men or war. It was not a cry of air from lungs but the breakage of power in an ancient being. It sounded like 'Doom,' and Corwin felt it more than he heard it. His knees ached, and his ears hurt. Pain spread to his temples.

Among the burning Canyon of Heroes a light appeared that choked out the grim lights of orc fires. It was not brighter but merely more powerful, a dark fire that sucked the power out of lesser flame and spread shadows. A second layer of smoke began to roll over the cobblestones from the edge of the summit. It flowed like oily water, spreading faster than it rose. Orcs screamed and fled it.

Corwin ran for Castle Amber.

#

The gates lay open, and the people cheered. Archers volleyed around him. Corwin ran through the main gatehouse, one he'd been carried through, marched through, paraded before, and once chased out, to celebrations and tired intensity. There is a feeling unlike anything else when men release their fears of combat in shouts and applause. The breaking tension explodes. Tears are shed and throats yelled hoarse, and for an instant the guards of Amber yelled more intensely than they had in combat. Their strength faded quickly. But as Corwin passed under the gate he got the greeting he desired.

And in the far side of the great courtyard before Castle Amber, Gogomoth appeared.

He stood as a shadow wreathed in flame, a dark being tall and terrible in a corona of orange and red. The balrog stood both taller than buildings and warped them around him. Instead of smoke the exhaust of his power was darkness. It poured from his shoulders wetly, soiled the earth, and created the flood of choking gases that covered the ground. The high balconies of the Canyon of Heroes crumbled near him. In his right hand Gogomoth carried a sword of red light, and it too dripped something foul and black from its blade. In his left he carried a whip, one that soiled the ground and caused the stones to rupture. The orcs fled in terror and vanished like rats into the ruined city.

The family of Amberites, Fiona, Julian, and Corwin gathered on the gatehouse. Tatianna stood with them. Their queen attended to the injured below. Men lined the walls. Archers distributed arrows and waited.

Gogomoth advanced.

Corwin said, "I've got guns hidden downstairs. I'm going to get them."

"Please do," said Fiona.

"Yes," said Julian.

Corwin nodded and took off.

Julian and Fiona stood on the gatehouse alone. Tatianna stood with them, but neither considered her.

"I've bent the Jewel in aid to Flora and Random," said Fiona. "They're taking the long way back, a hellrun, and that creature Sauron is bending all his will to stop them. He's only a shadow, but a strong one."

"They'll make it," said Julian.

Gogomoth crossed the midpoint of the courtyard. A dread fell on the castle, less terrible and more than the touch of Sauron. That had been ensorcelment. This was but fear.

"Fiona–" said Julian.

"Don't speak." She cut him off. "I don't care, and I don't want to break your heart."

"That wasn't what I meant–"

"I've always known," interrupted Fiona again. "And no. You were amusing. Nothing more."

Julian turned from her to the coming balrog. Stone shattered underfoot. Ancient timbers buried in the soil caught fire. The prince turned to the descending stairs. "I should be mounted."

Fiona watched him go and said nothing else.

The balrog finally arrived.

Chapter 43: Act 3: Tir'na Nog'th 1

A few seconds before the balrog arrived, Amberite soldiers saw Julian's downcast eyes and hollow cheeks as he descended. He mounted Morgenstern and looked over the curtain wall, where great Gogomoth's head advanced over the crest of the wall. Shadow and flame leaped from his shoulders and fell from his knees. Julian said little.

"You look worried, sir," said one man. "I've never seen you worried before, not even when the trolls took the wall."

Julian replaced his helmet and looked at him through slits in his visor.

"It's nothing. This thing is nothing. It is merely of shadow, and we are of Amber."

"Then why is Gerard dead, Benedict gone, the city sacked?" asked another warrior.

"Gerard isn't dead," said Julian reflexively. "The queen works on him. Discipline, guardsman, recall your discipline."

Through the gate they watched the oil of the balrog's darkness spill over rock and pavestone. In the centuries of the courtyard's use old timbers had been laid and forgotten. Tentpoles sank into dirt and got left. These burned. Fires reached out of the ground, and the courtyard seemed to break up over a great and burning pit. Gogomoth advanced. His legs took up all the gateway. His head towered over the wall. The chain of the whip tore a furrow in the earth. His sword dripped fires like seedlings into it.

Julian looked out at his soldiers, his castle, and on the high gatehouse, his sister.

He said to the soldiers, "Stay here. I'll go deal with this. It's only shadow, and there is no reason to be concerned with any one thing when I am a son of Oberon."

Morgenstern shook in readiness. The men watched Julian step into the saddle as if it was nothing. With Merlin's blade in his left hand, Julian put his foot on the stirrup and the horse shrugged as the prince moved, slinging him up without need for the missing hand. Julian made it look as easy as sitting on a barstool. The balrog grew bigger on the far side of the wall, and now the span over the gateway seemed to cut Gogomoth in two as if a belt. Julian waved to the soldiers, and as they cheered, he rode out to meet the demon.

Merlin soared low and slow overhead as mutters ran through the Amberite forces.

"The dragon's on our side?"

"The dragon's on our side."

"The dragon's on our side!" passed from lip to ear, repeated, believed, disbelieved, in a mishmash of credulity until Tatiann told her archers to refrain from shooting the beast.

Overhead Merlin watched. The balrog was bigger than he. The Prince of Chaos grew slightly but wobbled in the air. Stabilizing himself, he suddenly lost lift and settled in a great clatter of wing and tail to sit on the highest wall of the castle. He shrank a little, fluttered his wings, and shrank a little more. He took off again the same size he'd initially been.

Julian seemed to suffer no such uncertainty as he nudged Morgenstern from dead at the balrog to a little to the devil's left. He held Merlin's sword wide. Overhead hawks circled, but the high and noxious cloud of smoke from orc fires kept them away. Only Tir'na Nog'th dominated the skies, and the inconsistent moonlight created it broken and incomplete.

Inside Julian's helmet and protected from the world he said, "Shadow. One red fiend among an infinite number of shadows," and in sudden, violent fury spurred Morgenstern directly at Gogomoth.

Gogomoth swung his flaming sword overhead and catching some of the wrath that burned around him. Julian parried as if it was nothing. Waves broke from the balrog's red blade like water droplets, washed over Morgenstern, and did nothing to stop the white animal and rider from tearing close to the demon's legs. Julian swung and severed flesh near the hoofed left ankle as he shot close and charged away. The beast roared.

The whip fell, Morgenstern pranced, and the ground shattered as deep-buried stones ruptured. Julian looped wide, and inside his helmet, hidden from the world, he smiled. The balrog jumped then as no living thing could. On outstretched wings he soared after Julian, and from the air the whip lashed. It scored the earth again and set more fires. Morgenstern shifted suddenly to the right, the balrog overshot horse and rider, but landed and leaped again. Whip and sword mixed fire and cloud until the air overhead burned a sooty orange.

On the castle wall Merlin paused. Wings partially outstretched, the dragon that was Merlin halted. Before the walls Gogomoth chased Julian, leaping and slashing with whip and chain. The sword wreaked havoc on ground and buildings; the whip seemed to chase the rider of its own accord. Merlin watched. His head turned sideways.

"What are you waiting for?" yelled Fiona from the gatehouse. The Jewel of Judgement gleamed in her hands.

Merlin looked at her. "Who is that thing?"

"It's a thing of shadow! Who cares?" she replied.

"Is he?" asked Merlin.

Draconic intonation is deep. Merlin spoke in octaves that brushed the lower boundary of Fiona's hearing, and yet she caught something in what he said. "He?"

"The living flame. The one with the whip that dances like a tongue of the Logrus–" and Merlin looked aside from the battle of Julian vs the balrog.

Merlin looked at Amber burning. He saw the city sacked. He saw a Rebman injured, and Gerard and Llewella dead or close to. Smoke filled the sky, and Tir'na Nog'th portended the fall of a pole of creation. From the heights he saw an army of orcs massing to assault the stairway to Rebma. Merlin saw Mordor's armies in the vale of Garnath. Foul clouds stained the sky and layered Amber in darkness like the shadow of Mordor lay over all the city.

He thought of his father Corwin revealing guns to his siblings and the secret of their location in Amber. Things had gotten so bad Corwin was about to trust his family.

"How did a shadow do all this?" demanded Merlin of the sorceress Fiona.

"Well, it's a shadow and it–" and she paused.

Fiona, carrying the Jewel who's powers raged against Sauron, was suddenly struck by the oddest and inconsequent notion: Merlin had never worn a ring of Mordor.

"It's been like that from the beginning," she said suddenly. "When we attacked Forochet we were defeated, but we had not brought the armies for an assault nor were we unified behind them. Benedict thought it reasonable. But when we left, I struggled to walk the shadows. I had to bear the image of the Pattern before me like I did against the Black Road."

Merlin thought. Deep-set lizard eyes shifted in cavernous sockets. Fiona regarded the battlefield where Julian on Morgenstern seemed evenly matched against Gogomoth. They both looked to Vialle.

With intuition they did not understand, the queen lifted her head from Gerard when they looked at her. "He may live. He whispers that the orcs have killed his children, and it inspires him to fight for his life."

Merlin stared at Fiona. Sweat marked trails on her face as droplets collected soot and ash from the air.

"Julian has my sword," said Merlin quietly. "It is not a Patterned blade. It is of the Logrus, and he strikes the balrog with it. Chaos feeds on itself. Conflicting Orders destroy themselves, but Chaos feeds."

"Always he has sought to muddle us with uncertainty," said Fiona. "From the very beginning we struggled with divisions, and since that moment we have labored under deceptions."

Sauron's power lay like a fog around the city.

"Can he do that?" asked Fiona. "Can any of you from the Courts of Chaos do that? Sow confusion with your will?"

"God, yes," said Merlin. "It's like our thing."

Merlin realized a few different 'he-s' were floating through Fiona's train of conversation, so he asked, "Who knows the most about the enemy?"

"King Random. He and Flora are hellrunning this way, but Sauron's using his power to stop them."

And Merlin had absolutely no doubts. "There aren't too many people who can interfere with an Amberite using the Pattern, and everyone who can is related to me on my mother's side." And my father's, but a little further back, he thought. "Get out there and save Julian's life. My sword will make that fire-demon even more powerful, and Julian is hacking it to bits. I'm going to see what I can do for Random."

Merlin took off and flew into clouds. He did not appear in Amber's sky on the far side.

Fiona looked out at the battlefield. Julian hit and faded before the balrog. Gogomoth had not yet scored a hit of his own. Yet every time Merlin's sword cut the beast, it caused the balrog's injuries to spew fire. The monster was itself a flame.

Himself, corrected Fiona. That is a person.

A person chasing Julian.

And she'd just answered the question that she and he had both been cooperating on ignoring for several hundred years. Her life would be much more convenient if the balrog killed him.

And Fiona wondered who put that thought in her head.

Ah! Stop ruminating! she told herself. With the Jewel of Judgement glowing like a beacon, Fiona raced down the stairs and took the first horse she found. She dashed out the gatehouse toward Julian.

Tatianna watched having heard all, and who knows what voices whispered in her head?

#

Julian juked right, the balrog landed left, and Morgenstern pirouetted to put ballet dancers to shame. The whip struck and thundered, the earth broke, and the white horse leaped upon the burning chain and raced upwards. Gogomoth struck with a battering-ram of a sword, a monolith with a handle, a blade that marks history instead of being wielded, and Julian parried up and over his head before riding white Morgenstern up the balrog's arm and slashing him across the face. Cataracts of flame poured from the wound, up, down, and outward, and joining with the growing corona about Gogomoth's form. Inside his armor Julian sweated, but he laughed in mad delight. Then down the back of the balrog ran Morgenstern, black wings beating on either side, and across the lashing to tail to get away. The balrog turned and struck again, but too late, too slow, and Julian rode circles around the blazing terror.

"I hope you don't run," said Julian. "I haven't had this much fun in years."

And for the first time the balrog spoke.

"You fool." His voice was deeper than that of dragons. Both Merlin and earlier Spait had voices befitting low places. They spoke like cracks in the earth, and the dark holes where in ancient times powerful banes had hid in service to Morgoth. Gogomoth was such a bane.

"You have fed me richly, and I am fat with power. You a fool to let yourself be beguiled with my pretensions of weakness. And you are a fool to leave the safety of your walls. I will fulfill the prophecy of my master and assure the death of you who has worn a ring."

Julian was not prepared for his quarry to talk back, and paused more startled than concerned.

"So the beast can talk," he said before asking Morgenstern, "Shall we see how he can die?"

The horse whinnied, and Gogomoth struck with the whip.

It shot high, Julian swung his sword up to parry as the horse danced left, but the whip danced itself. Flame-wreathed steel chain looped around Julian's sword, snatched the horse in a fist of metal, and seized Julian's legs. Gogomoth heaved Julian to the air, and cast him into the black sky.

"Hold!" yelled Fiona and unleashed the power of the Jewel of Judgement like a spotlight.

"Your attention is split, and your power is broken," said the balrog as he cracked his whip and leaped upwards. His wings unfurled. First of all balrogs to fly, Gogomoth laughed. He caught Julian in the air and carried him to a feast in Tir'na Nog'th.

Chapter 44: Act 3: Tir'na Nog'th 2

Summary:

Some violence and gore

The balrog held Julian in one immense mitt, a hand large enough to hold both him and Morgenstern. Through the mail Julian could feel the heat of it searing his skin. Morgenstern screamed. The white horse thrashed and kicked in the balrog's grip top the sound of laughing above. Horses scream across octaves, going up and down the registers unlike a human being. Julian gritted his teeth.

"I know, great one. I know." Julian gritted his teeth against the noise.

The balrog laughed again.

They were a thousand feet high. Clouds wrapped Kolvir's summit below them. The twisted spiral of Tir'na Nog'th's stairways rose nearby, but the part closest to them was invisible, the moonlight blotted out, and the nearest stone lay far below. The horse kept screaming. He just kept screaming, and Gogomoth's fire-shrouded hands burned through horseflesh. Julian could smell it. His own skin burned, but he gritted his teeth. Morgenstern screamed up and down the scales.

The balrog laughed, and Julian knew he laughed because the prince of Amber gritted his teeth against his own horse's pain. Julian had his sword, but they were a thousand feet above stone.

And the balrog dropped them anyway.

In space Julian lost Morgenstern. He didn't lose the noise. They fell. The cloak spun Julian round, twisted him right-side up, and choked him as he looked down. White fur was charred black. The stairs did not appear. They fell.

Gogomoth laughed. The ill-wind across the clouds moved them clear. From nothing into moonlight the stairs of Tir'na Nog'th appeared reaching upwards, and man and horse fell onto masonry. It was terrible for the knight in armor. For Morgenstern it was worse.

Bones shattered. Barding ruptured. The wrong side of weight and gravity ripped Morgenstern apart, and Julian swore he looked up before he hit. Julian saw his eyes. He saw Morgenstern's great soft eyes–

In mail Julian fared little better. He probably broke something, several somethings, but kept a grip on the sword. His helmet kept his brains inside. Somehow after landing and tumbling he didn't lose consciousness, and when Gogomoth alighted below him, Julian could see the fire beast and knew what it was. He lay on his back with his feet shot forward from under him. Everything from back to shoulder-blades ached and some screamed in pain.

Gogomoth luxuriated. He stretched his legs and spread his wings, delighting in flight and wind. The long whip of chain swayed like a cat-tail. The beast didn't have feet, but long hooves. It pranced with joy.

Toes, thought Julian, thinking of horse hooves and hating himself for it. Those are toes.

"I am the first of all my kind to fly, thing," said Gogomoth. "Do you know that? Gothmog could not fly. Melkor the True Great denied it to us when we took form, saying he did not wish our cowardice to overcome us. He forbade us to take flight from battle. He forbade us to speak lest we speak treason. I am now the greatest of all my kind, thing, and you have done this for me. I look forward to killing you."

"Sounds great, pal," said Julian and rolled over onto his hands and knees. He got up.

Gogomoth, Chuckles as Julian began to think of him, giggled like a small child and ascended the stairs. They vanished before him, and he leaped across with wingbeats supplementing his legs.

The ephemeral stairs themselves were dark mountain stone shot through with veins of white quartz. They vanished under consideration. This was not a problem for Julian, as his head didn't hold most thoughts for long, skittering away from Morgenstern and around the balrog. On either side of the soaring stairway rose pillars like those that held light for Rebmans. From what and to where they rose resolved improperly.

Julian had climbed Tir'na Nog'th many times and not often recalled the climb. It was the entryway to a dream, an environment that existed in transition. But this served his purpose. Upon starting to climb, he moved, and even fleet-footed Gogomoth revelling in his unbound wings did not catch him quickly.

Oh, the balrog tried, but the nature of the place meant to deposit Julian into its guts. They came to the flying city without truly knowing how they got here: Julian not recalling and Gogomoth not caring.

The red whip smashed the street, the edge of the Canyon of Heroes, that broadway between the castle and the stairway on the flank of Kolvir. Ghostly people or their images died, rent and burned. The balrog pounced; a black cloud of Mordor smoke passed before the moon, and Gogomoth plummeted into the abyss over the mountain.

The nothing of Tir'na Nog'th chased Julian, and he had to run. He couldn't. Too many broken bones even for his vitality. The nothing, the black place in the city where the shadow of the moon hid buildings and roads, bore down on him. It looked like just a simple shadow.

Morgenstern whinnied and nudged Julian's shoulder.

It was a nightmare.

This wasn't the horse of Julian's memories. This was the horse after the hit, after bones shattered, after insides came out. The white coat was savaged. Leg-bones jutted out of leather hide. Hooves splayed out like shredded bamboo. Morgenstern existed in agony

But only a silver bullet could kill Morgenstern, and he wanted Julian to ride. Julian mounted. Clouds chased them with abysses for shadow. Gogomoth appeared, shooting upwards out of black chasms, slashing with whip and blade. The demon chased Julian through the city of dreams, and from below they saw the red comet of the beast's power. Mount and rider dashed forward and sideways, dodging ghosts, omens, and demons, under silver moonlight.

At first they rode through another white city, one Julian did not recognize. A great prow of mountain rose through seven rings, and at each ring stood a high wall. The city was white marble. Morgenstern ran from the outer rings to the top of the prow in the manner of dreams, passing a dead white tree. Balrogs and dragons clustered on the edge of the prow as vultures, and they did not see Julian.

As they passed the dead tree, the city changed. More dead trees appeared, but they were bigger and straighter, though equally skeletal. In the moonlight flat leaves covered the ground. They hadn't curled like leaves in Arden did at the coming of autumn. Many lay burned or ripped. The trees themselves had been chopped and left. Logs of good wood lay untouched. Wide platforms lay shattered. Julian saw bodies, sometimes under the trees and sometimes around them. Few wore armor.

Behind him the balrog paused, then walked slowly through the ruins of the forest. He laughed and laughed. Julian said nothing and Morgenstern understood, running fast and away. The balrog stood like a flame, and even in the dream of Tir'na Nog'th, the fallen trees began to burn. Julian did not know if this was memory or magic.

#

Finally the orcs of the Lidless Eye drew back from Castle Amber. They refused to return. Fiona retreated to the walls and bent her will on the Jewel of Judgement, but soon noticed three figures walking alone across the courtyard.

All stood tall and fair, but two were blind. One of the unseeing, a woman, lead the way, and her movements did not seem human. Something in her grace without sight spoke of effortlessness and not learned care. She carried a sword, and wore armor of something white and something black. She and the figure on her right had had their eyes burned out and clearly not possessed the powers of Corwin.

The man on her left could see, but Fiona was certain he was no human. His eyes were wrong, his face too symmetric. He too carried a sword.

The blind man on the woman's right was taller than either, and somehow greater and less. He carried a spear with a pennant of the Lidless Eye.

They stopped out of bowshot, and the one who could see stepped forward to talk.

"A rumor has passed through Mairon's army that one known as Gerard, or Galdor, is among you," said Elrond. Winds of soot delighted to carry his words. "Come forth. I am the end of your line."

At first nothing showed from within the wall. A silence fell on the battlefield. It seemed all men and orcs held their breaths. The army outside heard movement, then a disturbance, and finally Gerard of Amber, wounded beyond anything a man could take and live, appeared in the gateway.

"You lie," said Gerard.

Of the six arrows once in him, Vialle had removed three. Of his knife wounds, she'd bandaged one. Of his broken legs, she hadn't set any. But Gerard stood in the gateway. A heavy portcullis still barred the entrance, but he pressed himself against it. Trolls had failed to lift it.

"You lie," he repeated.

"Your son was Huor, and he died to orc arrows. His son was Tuor, and he died in the sack of Gondolin. His son was Eärendil, my father. He sailed the oceans of the world until Mairon the Wise cast him down and killed him. I am the last of your blood. And I am here to see you. Come forth and speak with me." At Elrond's side hung the fell blade Feanor, and he wore elf-mail in mithril and tarnished gold.

"He's lying," said Fiona. She had no sooner returned through the gate than Gerard passed her to speak with his claimed great-grandson. She dismounted and ran back to stand next to him.

"Some of what he said is true. I had a son they would call Huor–"

"And some is not! He's wrapping lies in truth."

"Ah, but I must know," said Gerard. He looked back through the portcullis.

"Test me," demanded Elrond. "I have your blood in my veins."

Gerard grabbed the portcullis. Ponderously the steel and iron lifted, and winches creaked as if ships were breaking on reefs.

Vialle got up and shouted, "Gerard, you have been shot! Put the portcullis down right now!"

On the great gatehouse of Amber, the big one that loomed over the curtain and reached nearly the height of the inner keep, someone yelled back, "I will test you!"

On the summit stood a dour man in a dragon helm. He held a black sword. Tatianna stood behind him with paints and paper, but the man did not see her.

The dragon-helmed man looked only to Elrond. "You have my blood in you, old elf, and I want to see it."

Elrond knew him. Grief and malice spread across his face so intermingled that even Fiona could not separate them, but it was malice that spoke.

"Then come forth," said Elrond. "Bring your cursed blade and join me."

Chapter 45: Act 3: Tir'na Nog'th 3

The moon over Amber: pale, white, and ancient beyond its years. Epochs of craters lay in black maria between lunar ridges. One face looked down on the Eternal City.

Tir'na Nog'th: Ephemeral, high, and not all there. It existed within moonlight. As clouds of ash dissolved in those of rain, they blocked out the moonlight, leaving gaps in the high city. Towers of alabaster in moonlight rose to voids. Through the voids the smoke of burning Amber rose. Here and there it wound around hanging foundations or climbed through wells. The city hung burned and broken.

Julian: Not yet terrified, but suddenly understanding that the fear was there. With his armor seared, his cloak burned, and his ribs and legs cracked, he was losing. He rode Morgenstern who could only be killed by silver, and the city in moonlight did not suffice. Yet Morgenstern was beyond Julian's injuries. Avulsions revealed his organs. Every leg was shattered. The white horse ran on.

Gogomoth: laughing.

In childish delight the balrog flew after Julian, darting down through the emptinesses where shadows annihilated the city. He flew under the city and surfaced, spinning, with the great chain whip swinging wide behind him. Against the star-speckled sky lay the white city, and before the white city flew the red balrog, and before him rode the knight in white and green on the horse of red and white. The white had been fur. Then Morgenstern's blood had all been inside.

Gogomoth swung the red whip against the white stone. Marble shattered. White roofing tiles crumbled. The whip did more than destroy with physical force as it caused stones to immolate. With each impact the nature of Tir'na Nog'th ruptured. Pouring from the cracked stones came dreams and nightmares, and little of them obeyed the laws of the city.

Foremost of all spread black caterpillars leaving long white threads. Gogomoth struck a tower and broke a window, the rider fled, and looping wide around a great square, later he saw the same tower encased in a tent. Inside it the stone looked weak. It wavered, and every passing blankness of cloud-blocked moonlight ended with the tower weaker on reappearance. The balrog struck with his sword, and trees fell. They shattered releasing wood-worms. Termites ran for new hives. Julian knew these things and buried his head in Morgenstern's bloody mane.

But also the strikes of the burning whip unleashed other dreams he did not recognize. A city of seven walls around a great mountain with a dead tree on the crest had been one, overcome by demons of the ancient world. The ruining of a forest of gold trees had been another. It had not been Arden. Julian would have known Arden even ruined.

The balrog struck the road. Flames leaped from whip to the fallen trees of his nightmares, which burned with balrog-fire. Low flames cast no light, but they smoked and sputtered. An oily stain flowed from them across the road. Gogomoth ran after Julian, leaping and laughing, and the horsemen rode down a black-road much like one he remembered.

Indeed he remembered it too well for Tir'na Nog'th was a place of dreams and memories. Julian remembered the black road well, and as Morgenstern tried to outrun the balrog, the white buildings on either way gave way to white trees, alabaster in moonlight. Fountains gave way to waterfalls, pools to lakes, and long road through Amber became something Julian did not recognize. But Tir'na Nog'th was a place of memories, and he and Gogomoth were the only ones here.

The Canyon of Heroes in the Amber of Tir'na Nog'th became a canyon of trees. Gogomoth's strikes brought forth beasts of savage natures, and they lined the road, staring at Julian with eyes glowing in the dark. The path became narrow and uneven. Morgenstern leaped over logs and small bundles of shadows on the pathway. Overhead the moonlight faded. The road branched suddenly, and Julian looked back to estimate the location of their pursuit. Gogomoth stood burning amidst the road, not chasing them. And Julian knew that the dream-city's power of memories had beguiled even the balrog.

Morgenstern whinnied and danced, but Julian whispered, "Hush, great one. Hush." A thought had occurred to him.

In this place Julian knew that to leave the pathway was to leave Gogomoth's memory. That would be bad. Turning Morgenstern the rider in white mail drew his long green cloak around the horse's breast and went back towards the beast they had fled.

Gogomoth stood watching fourteen little shadows make their way down the path. Morgenstern had leaped them without Julian even noticing, but the balrog had halted. His shoulders pressed into the trees on either side, trees thick with spiderwebs and small dark figures. The forest did not seem to notice the burning monster. The whip hung limp, the sword down, and Gogomoth merely watched.

The little shadows paused to talk, and Julian separated them into two groups. Thirteen were largely– large as a dwarf can be –the same. They had big beards and multicolored cloaks. Some carried weapons. One, a great fat one, was sleeping, and the others hauled him behind them. The other figure, alone, had no beard and no cloak. He wore pants and a shirt, a vest that extended loosely over his plump belly as if it had been tailored for a much fatter belly. A pocket-watch on a silver chain rested in his pocket. He had no shoes and big, hairy feet.

"Since entering this accursed forest, we've followed the wizard's advice and followed this path," said a dwarf. By moonlight and balrog fire Julian thought his hood was blue, clasped with a gold chain around his neck. "It has taken us no where. This forest path may as well be a dead end."

"I don't see what you want me to do about it," said the littler one.

"You must climb a tree and look around, Mr. Baggins. Find out where we are, and how much more of Mirkwood we have to cross," said the dwarf.

The other dwarfs in hoods and scowls agreed, murmuring and grumbling. A few stomped their feet. The fat one slept.

"This is the end," said Gogomoth softly too himself. He spoke as if he'd never had words before, and the art of constraining his thoughts from his voice was alien to him.

"Fine, fine, fine," said the little person, even smaller than the dwarves. "Stay here, and I'll see what I can see."

His assent seemed to still the grumbling, and a few of them congratulated him with words like, "Good show, Bilbo," and "No doubt we're almost out."

So the little one, Bilbo Baggins Julian surmised, moved to a tree to the edge of the path and scrambled right up, moving quickly. Gogomoth leaped and hovered, so high above the closing of trees over the path turned him to ugly red and orange glows behind black leaves. Smoke fell off the beast and vanished before it hit the ground.

Down below, Julian looked hard at the route ahead and thought of fleeing. He chewed his bottom lip and waited.

The dwarves grumbled and waited, their earlier optimism gone. Things Julian did not recognize cried in the woods. He saw the marks of giant spiders further out, long threads of webbing high up, and here and there a mark of a light foot like his rangers left.

"Well?" yelled up one dwarf.

"It goes on forever!" called Bilbo down. "I don't see any end of it at all! But the sun is bright up here! The wind is clean!"

The dwarves immediately set to complaining and not a few criticized Bilbo for failing to bring back good news. The leader that had ordered the little one to climb the tree seemed to have sympathies with this camp, though all he said was, "You have to see something!"

"I do see one thing. A black road," called Bilbo. "It goes through all the dark parts of the forest, black areas where the trees look ill and sick. It heads south, straight as an arrow."

"And is there anything that way?" demanded the dwarf leader.

"Maybe. Maybe far away I see something. I can only see it when I follow the other road, the dark path, but it seems like the road heads to a high tower on a little peak. I see lights on over there. Yes, I definitely see lights."

"Come on down so we can decide what to do!" said the dwarf.

And when this Bilbo did, they argued and fought with many mentioning that some wizard had argued vehemently against going to the south of Mirkwood. But they were out of supplies.

"Besides, that's why we have a burglar," said one of the others, the fat one who had just woken up. "And we won't go looking for a fight. Mr. Baggins nips in, steals a little food, and nips out quiet as a housecat."

And Bilbo patted a pocket over his stomach, a gesture the dwarves did not notice, and said, "I think I can go right in without anyone being the wiser."

"No," said Thorin. "No, we will head straight on. Gandalf may have left us, but I think we'll regret ignoring his advice more than our hungry bellies. On!"

And complaining, the small party of Thorin and Co kept going east.

Gogomoth did not reappear. Julian, expecting to be chased, looked upwards. The balrog took a mighty leap and hurled himself southward, heading towards the tower on the peak that Bilbo had seen.

In silence on his horse Julian thought. The balrog took no roads, nor would his tracks appear in this image of memory. Tir'na Nog'th did not concern itself with such mundanity.

In fact, Tir'na Nog'th did not concern itself with many of the things Julian expected. And he did not know why it showed fourteen lost midgets in the woods.

"Easy, great one. Easy," whispered the rider to horse and turned south, off the pass, following the flying balrog.

Chapter 46: Act 3: The Fall of Middle Earth

Mirkwood lay under a thick blanket of spiderwebs, and Dol Guldur stuck up out of the rotting forest like an infected tooth. Appearing on a low bluff with an awareness of arriving but not memory, Julian saw the balrog circling low around the tower. The black road ran to the warped tower from the north east. From a distance it went as straight as Bilbo Baggins had said. Up close it wound around faerie circles of tall mushrooms and spiderwebbed forests. As Morgenstern put a hoof on it and followed the pathway to the tower, Julian noticed that the road ran straight and it was the forest that warped around it. He thought of an elastic band through thick fabric.

Julian entered the tower by a low, seemingly-abandoned gate, and on the other side a party of orcs lay in wait. They didn't see him. He rode through orc-sized halls without ducking his head in the nature of Tir'na Nog'th. Morgenstern climbed stairs. Feeling like a ghost he arrived at the abandoned heights before delving into a great pit. A stairway encircled it winding down, and on every side other, darker holes opened up, full of orcs, spiders, and other things. Some walked, some crawled, and some hung from the walls. Julian did not investigate.

In the deeps he found Gogomoth. The balrog had descended to the lowest levels of the vast pit and watched two figures talking. The first stood as tall as Gogomoth but barely existed. His form was weak. Wrapped in a cloak with a deep hood, the titan seemed to waver in and out, and Julian could not see within the hood to tell his form. The Amberite didn't think that was because of his perspective. Only one eye looked out of the hood, red and lidless, wreathed in flame.

The other figure was Kradditch Kotel, and Julian knew her. He'd killed her in Arden years ago, during the Patternfall War. She dressed herself in snakes, or was snakes and stood in the form of a woman wearing a clay head. Morgenstern had struck the clay head with a hoof, and she'd burst into flame, crumbling and melting as she died spitting curses at Amber. But her curses were weak. Now, or in this then, she faced the giant in fluttering robes, and they talked. By the power of Gogomoth's memory Julian heard them just as they mentioned balrogs.

"We will unleash all of your powers locked within this earth," said Kradditch Kotel. Her face didn't change as she talked. None of her words moved her lips or eyes. But the snakes moved, and slithered and hissed. Long forked tongues tasted the air.

"And for what?" asked the tall figure.

"Mairon, how suspicious are you! Do you not recall your friends in House Damlock?"

"Well," said Mairon.

Kradditch Kotel's lips laughed, her face never changed, and the serpents around her waist hissed as they tasted air. Rattles clattered behind her back.

"It has been eons since Melkor vied for the seat of the house and lost. It has been eons since you and the other traitors who threw in with him were cast out. I shall admit that we thought you dead. Assassins searched for you in every shadow open to the Courts of Chaos, and more than one reported success. But Melkor was a great shaper, and for him, and you, to come this far is amazing.

"We saw his effects. A wall is built around this place. Middle Earth? It is as clearly Melkor's work as if it had his name. He took all of you this far into shadow and then walled it off, and only the breaking of the way from Chaos to Amber would let us in.

"But Melkor's treason is an old crime, Mairon! Damlock forgives! And to show you we mean forgiveness, I'm here to give you a gift. I will unlock all of his powers in the deep earth and all creatures of chaos that followed him here."

"What a gracious and noble gift," said Mairon.

"You're welcome," said Kradditch Kotel. Her snakes hissed and rattled.

The one eye of Mairon, Sauron thought Julian, turned away. It played over the pits where orcs labored. With picks and shovels, or with their bare hands, the little bent things dug. Where Mairon stood, the pit was dark and filled with shadows. Where orcs cleared dirt, a faint red glow emanated from quartz veins in the rock.

Mairon looked back at the emissary of Chaos. "And I am delighted to accept your offer. I was naive then, a fool to listen to Melkor's promises. Am I to return to Chaos?"

"Oh, yes," promised Kradditch Kotel. "As soon as you unleash this place, we'll take you right back."

"Delightful," said Mairon.

"I know you're watching, Amberite," said Gogomoth. The fire-giant stood beside shadowy Mairon and serpentine Kradditch Kotel. His wings seemed to shroud them and bring them close. "Do you know these are my memories? I laid in Utumno when this happened. The fall of great Melkor revoked what little awareness I had, and I slept beneath the earth. Yet even then I could look around. I didn't think. I had no consciousness. Melkor and later Mairon thought consciousness unnecessary for us, and over years they stripped it away piece by piece. I never thought that my thoughts were reduced, for they were very skilled.

"But I could watch. I watched this moment and did not understand it. Mairon had been digging here for thousands of years, trying to raise banes that his master had hidden under the earth before the First Age. They called him the Necromancer because he meant to raise the dead. He did, but meant to do it with scaffolds and shovels, not sorcery. I wasn't down there, but Jargothun was. A great balrog, Jargothun."

"Why are you showing me this, balrog?" asked Julian.

"Because I have thoughts again and have not thought since leaving the Courts of Chaos eons ago. Melkor rebelled against Damlock. I was with him. We did not succeed. We fled here. This shadow was far from Chaos. We can't walk the shadows as you do. We need points of weakness, places where the shadows overlap, though we can bend our wills against shadow itself. I believe we can manipulate shadow better than you but not walk it as easily, and Amber lies so far from Chaos we never would have found a way across until the wounding of your Pattern made a door for us."

"Why are you telling me this?" repeated Julian.

"Because I am tired of being betrayed. Melkor raged against Damlock, and I served him loyally in our combined treachery. But I trusted a traitor, and when I came to Middle Earth he took my mind. He stole my thoughts, Julian. Can you imagine that? He stole who I was from me."

Julian's eyes opened very wide. An awesome thought hit him, one that raised pins and needles on his flesh. He shivered though the memories of the pit of Mairon the Necromancer were warm.

"I am tired of being betrayed. Do you want to see forward? Mairon accepted Kradditch Kotel's gift, and she unlocked Jargothun. He had an army now of the ancient world, and nothing on Middle Earth could stop him. A few weeks later one of his allies, a firedrake in the north called Smaug, was beset by dwarves and hobbits and men and elves, and called for help. In that moment the wizards attacked.

"I don't know who they were. They had powers not like those in Middle Earth, and seeing my memories again, I wonder if these wizards were Damlock's assassins, chasing Melkor, Mairon, and I after all these long years. But they raised an army and attacked Dol Guldur. Would you like to see it?"

Julian didn't have to reply for Gogomoth's thoughts jumped forward. They jumped upwards. When the dream cleared, Julian and the balrog stood on top of the tower of Dol Guldur.

Against the forested tower marched an army of elves. Julian recognized Galadriel, tall and fair, but she could still see. She wore something in silver that looked like mail but moved like silk. The elflord Glorfindel marched with her. They had been such glorious beings. The two held the light of Valinor as they approached, driving back the darkness. Spiderwebs flared and burned, leaving behind healthy trees. Mushrooms that engulfed the trunks of old oaks withered back into the ground. The soil turned dark brown.

With the leaders of the elvish host were two men or man-like creatures, one in white and one in gray. Both carried long staves and wore long beards, tall pointed hats, and robes of flowing style. One carried a sword and one did not.

Another elf made the last of the leaders, and he Julian recognized too. It was Elrond, and he did not carry the light of Valinor. But Julian saw something of Benedict in him. The half-elf carried his blade as Benedict had. He watched the battlefield as Julian's eldest brother had.

And Julian remembered all of them as they came to the gates of Amber just yesterday, and how far they had fallen. Now, in Gogomoth's memory, even the balrog recalled them as proud and capable.

Gogomoth said, "Look at them, all of them, and how they died. We were so great then."

Around the high tower of Dol Guldur lay a shallow depression filled with vile creatures and natural creatures turned to vileness by Sauron's power. Webs frosted the ground. Mushroom circles overlapped each other as they should not do. Dead trees, felled for no purpose, lay everywhere. Yet at the approach of the elves, the corruption of the place burned aside. They stopped outside bow range, and Galadriel herself came forward.

"We know you, Sauron!" she declared. She didn't yell, but her voice sounded through Dol Goldar's twisted halls. "You have hidden behind your guise as this Necromancer, but we know you for who you are. Sauron the Deceiver! That is a new name for you. Gorthaur the Cruel, I knew you in an elder age! And like your foul master, you were beaten then. Come out, and pay for turning the Greenwood black!"

Sauron did not reply. Gogomoth remembered him as little more than a wraith then, not the powerful being Julian had met in Mordor. From the windows and turrets of the high tower, orcs peered. They looked down from the edges of rooves and up from deep pits around the tower's base. But Sauron did not come out.

Galadriel retreated to her host, and they made ready. The orcs watched. Soon the elves attacked with arrows, and the two old men in robes drew aside. They didn't do anything other than watch the gates of Dog Guldur, but Julian saw their hands shifting on their staves and feet shifting on the ground.

After the first volley the elves ranged in and laid arrows against the walls without letup. Some orcs fired back. Their shorter, crooked bows couldn't reach the elvish line. Some of the elves switched from arrows to grapnels, and they launched hooked lines into the spy holes now cleared of orcs.

From the crest of the tower, Julian looked down and saw the gates closed and barred. From the depression to the gateway climbed a long, curved path, and standing down there the elves couldn't see red light leaking out from under the gate. Elvish grappling hooks caught the gate and went taught, while other archers drove the orcs deep inside their walls.

"This was how it would have gone without Kradditch Kotel," said Julian. "If she hadn't appeared."

"But she did," said Gogomoth.

The army of the White Council set their arrows and pulled taught their elvish ropes. The gates strained. Many hands heaved in unison. The gates ripped from the walls and fell, revealing Jargothun.

The balrog charged, and every arrow that struck him burned. The wizards gasped. Wielding double axes, he shattered the front line of elves and wizards, and scattered them. Orcs erupted from the tower, streaming out of secret doors and up from hidden pits. Vampires launched themselves from the roof. Warg-riding mountain goblins and werewolves too big to be ridden rushed out of the woods, and all would have been enough had not the balrog rampaged through the elvish lines and cast their discipline into chaos.

The elf Glorfindel whispered to himself, "Again, again," and Julian heard sadness.

The two of them met in the eye of the melee, surrounded by a ring of elves and them beset by a storm of orcs. No one aided them. Galadriel and Elrond each marshalled half their forces lest they be overwhelmed. The two wizards made ready to attack, but a cloud poured from the tower and pits of Dol Guldur and robbed the elves of strength. Arches and swordfighters fell. At once the wizards set to countering Sauron's magic, but no one helped Glorfindel and he fought the balrog alone.

For three hours they fought while Sauron poured all the malice, all the dark magic, and all his forces into the battle. The greater part of all elves in Middle Earth who had ever seen Valinor died. It was almost all. In their moment of defeat, Galadriel left the battle line and joined Glorfindel fighting Jargothun, and together they slew the balrog and broke his weapons. His death strokes blinded them both. The shock of the killing threw down their armies. And Sauron charged from the front hall of his tower and fled through the ranks of elves with his nine riders, and ran south faster than any could follow.

The elves had won. But when they collected themselves, they found the bodies of Galadriel and Glorfindel gone.

Gogomoth's memories rushed ahead.

In a tunnel between high passes a little person and a thing crawled along. Julian recognized the spider's webs as being indicative of Middle Earth, but did not know who the individuals in memory were. The one behind looked much as the Baggins had: smaller than a dwarf, no beard, not armored.

The one in front was about the same size. It had no hair, it's body was twisted, and it crawled on hands as often as walking. It spoke to the rear one near constantly, and as the passageway got darker, it spoke to itself. Soon the spiderwebs lay as thick as Mirkwood. The one in front stopped talking so loud, and then stopped talking at all, and in sudden quick movements, leaped aside and hid. The other walked right past him.

Julian knew but he didn't understand. Soon thereafter he spotted the great spider stalking the little Baggins-looking person. It had coarse hair and an elongated body, stalking legs and a huge abdomen. Sometimes things like this came to Arden, and Julian slew them. It was nasty work. Best to do with arrows from range.

The little person grew worried and drew a sword, and Julian knew.

In the darkness of Cirith Ungol the spider Shelob stalked Frodo, and in the gloom took him with her sting. She wrapped him up in silk for eating later.

Soon thereafter another small Baggins-like person arrived and raced in after the first. For a moment Julian thought he would succeed, for he found the first quickly.

But the spider found him, and in the darkness took him too. It consumed them, and much later, the creepy little thing crawled in while the spider slept. It searched the corpses and took something, a small ring, and cheered in delight. It danced and capered. Almost it woke up the great spider, but then it slipped the ring on and disappeared. Even to Julian's eyes, it vanished. It was invisible.

And leaving Cirith Ungol, a rider in black found the creature with the ring. It came on a fell beast, a thing that flew on bat wings with lizard scales, and landed where the small creature hid. Eight others circled over head, and Julian heard bells ringing in a white tower that guarded the pass.

Julian watched Gollum waiting, thinking itself invisible, but the Witch King of Angmar existed with it. It slew Gollum and took the ring back to its master.

Gogomoth's memories leaped a final time.

In the throne room of Barad Dur the Witch King gave Sauron the ring. The cloak filled in. Wisps of fabric wrapped ghostly legs that strengthened. Muscles knitted over shadow. And perfect Mairon the Wise stepped forth to lead his armies against all of Middle Earth.

He won.

The memories ended, and Julian and Gogomoth stood in Tir'na Nog'th. Still wrapped in flames, the balrog looked at nothing. The white city reminded Julian of Amber and something else, but he thought of the beast before him.

Gogomoth still carried both weapons, the sword and the whip. They twitched in his hands, but he didn't strike. But he was rousing himself from contemplation, and Julian who had walked Tir'na Nog'th many times before knew the numbness that came from reliving memories outside his head. He would certainly not know the feeling of having another ride his memories, something even Amberites hated. And Gogomoth was new to thinking again.

Julian squinted.

"You know," said Julian. "He could have given you your thoughts back."

"What?"

"Mairon the Wise won. He won. He defeated his enemies. He could have given you your thoughts back, if he took them to make you a warrior."

Gogomoth looked over at him. His burning eyes were as large as Morgenstern's head. "What difference would it have made?"

"Because Kradditch Kotel could have returned and opened the pathways back to Chaos for you," said Julian. He thought of killing her at the head of a Black Road raid. "She's probably living easily in Chaos right now."

"No, she's probably dead."

"No, she betrayed you like everyone else. Isn't your entire history one of traitors? Didn't you support Melkor in treason, and have your mind ripped away for it? Sauron did the same? Even after his victory, he left you mindless? He took from you you?"

Gogomoth snarled, and Julian thought fast. Anger was good, but it often found the wrong targets.

"Help me," said Julian. "And I will ask only one thing of you. The killing of Sauron the Betrayer. And in return I will take you back to the Courts of Chaos as you are with all your powers intact."

Chapter 47: Act 3: The End of the Battle

This was, Fiona guessed, the last draw. The orcish horde had fled. Their morale was broken. The soldiers of Amber had seen them off and now hunkered behind the castellations watching. They gripped fresh weapons in tired hands, but none of them wavered. Fiona had burned Sauron's fear away. Mounds of dead trolls lay before the keep. Orcish dead already stank. But Julian was gone, taken by that thing Gogomoth to high Tir'na Nog'th.

Outside the gate stood three elves, two blind, and around them the shadows moved. The dead lay everywhere, the moon cast white lights, but the corpses cast shadows that skittered. Fiona thought of insects crawling in mud. Outside were only three elves, only three, and inside the curtain wall waited the army that had beaten them, Corwin coming with his weapons, and they of the high blood.

Merlin had returned in dragon-form to sit on the walls. Corwin would be getting guns. Somehow, he'd never quite gotten around to telling them where his arsenal in the castle was. It wasn't in his rooms or in known storehouses. The conjurer from Julian's shadow Tatianna stood on the gatehouse with her, and she wore a ring of power. She'd used it to summon a stranger. Fiona did not know why.

The summoned one descended the stairway of Castle Amber's main gatehouse, and unlike Julian before him, this swordsman wore black mail and a helm with a dragon crest, carried a dark blade, and found no horse.

"Don't go out there," said Fiona before he could fully descend. "Who are you? Why would you go out there?"

"The Blacksword," he said. "And your kin are coming." He pointed over the wall with a blade named Gurthang.

Random appeared, on fire and screaming, running for his life. He appeared out of a burned out bakery, but the fires he'd brought with him. Long since everything flammable in the bakery had gone.

Flora emerged a moment later and paused to fire three times behind her before breaking contact and fleeing after Random. The two of them went hell for leather at the Castle Amber. She was less on fire but bleeding.

Galadriel and Glorfindel turned to face them, and leaving Elrond alone, the two moved to intercept the king and princess.

"This is a trap," said the man in the dragon helm. "I have watched from the Halls of Mandos waiting for Melkor, and I know this Sauron. I knew his master. It's personal. He's lost, but his final stroke will be one of malice so you remember his name."

Fiona touched the Jewel, and the Blacksword revealed his face.

As a salute, he drew off his helmet, and long dark hair spilled out. He had Gerard's eyes and something of his face, but not the beard. Nor was he the mountain her brother was. It was his face that captivated her and spoke of half-memories, and she searched it for where he began and her brother stopped. Her brother laughed more than he scowled, but the stranger looked like he rarely smiled. Gerard's eyes had turned to something injured and proud.

Through the Pattern of Amber, she saw a black mass roiling over his head. It was a word of ill will. He exhaled it and breathed it in; it threw tendrils around his neck and squeezed his throat.

You are cursed, she agreed, staring at the strange utterance of power. It was a curse unlike anything she knew, and yet–

He put the dragon-helm back on and continued down the stairs, not at all like her brother Julian.

"Then he is a fool, and you don't know us. Merlin, Random's coming! Make yourself useful!" she yelled.

The dragon on the wall looked at her and huffed, great dragonish huffs that shook his whole body. Somehow indignantly, Merlin took off and swooped low over the battlefield. The swordsman paused and watched, but did not understand.

Elrond looked up, and his last words were lost in dragonfire and ruin. Galadriel and Glorfindel turned as well, spreading their arms, and welcomed the embrace of flame.

Random and Flora ran past without a glance.

At this moment a point of fire appeared in the sky, up among Tir'na Nog'th and descending. It was white and red mixed with soot and ash, a comet that wavered as it fell. The floating city appeared and vanished before it.

Fiona stilled the clouds and waited.

Random and Flora tore through the gatehouse, and fell over gasping and rolling. Guards jumped on them with blankets and cloaks, and over it all Vialle heard the name of her husband she started yelling. Underneath the pile Random yelled back, recognizing her in spite of everything.

"He comes!" yelled Flora.

"Who? Sauron?" asked Fiona.

Gerard propped himself up, trying to look through the gate.

"No, someone else. He was waiting outside Middle Earth," said Florimel.

The guards finally extinguished Random of that mysterious fire, an odd set of flames that resisted their efforts. They had to douse and smother him, and the king emerged looked somewhat less than noble.

"Random!" called Vialle.

"Love!" Random tried to break away from the soldiers, laughing and smacking him on the back.

The falling star landed, and Gogomoth and Julian appeared. Morgenstern stood in ruins but he lived. He charged back to the to the others.

"Good news. Gogomoth's going to kill Sauron if we take him back to Chaos," said the white-mailed prince.

He got several seconds of silence.

And the bakery exploded. It tore itself apart in an explosion that buckled rock and hurled stone. Foundations of the building ripped through Castle Amber's walls. Darkness leaped from empty air, and the sky gave way.

Two figures appeared, one bigger than the other, and the larger one dwarfed the walls of the Keep of Amber. It looked taller than the buildings of the City. Its iron crown scrapped the clouds, until they dripped black ash and rain. The heavens opened up and bled.

In the figure's right hand it held Sauron by the neck and struggling.

"Melkor," said Gogomoth in something like despair or love.

"Morgoth," said the Blacksword.

"Doom." The word came unbidden to them all.

Melkor advanced on Castle Amber as the shadow of Godzilla. He had neither shape nor form, but his presence was darkness and fear. Sauron was like a marionette in his hands.

Corwin appeared at this point with a good sized machine gun, an M260 of Earth, and looked up at the being who's head reached the heights of Tir'na Nog'th. Corwin stared as did they all.

Melkor lifted the hand with Sauron in it and dropped him. The giant hit the ground with a smash, just outside the gatehouse.

"This is the creature who thought himself the Lord of Middle Earth," said Melkor. "Remember him."

For a long moment the denizens of Amber waited. Melkor regarded them, saw Gogomoth, and his eyes passed over the flaming beast.

And then the giant turned around and walked back, through the path he had traveled chasing Random, and vanished from Amber.

All that was left was Sauron on his face in the dirt. He looked up slowly and confronted all of Castle Amber. Smeared, bloody, and weak, he lifted his hands slowly.

"I yield," he said, and it sounded like a question.

Chapter 48: Act 4: The Dining Room

The royal family of Amber avoided Oberon's throne room to convene in the cafeteria. Corwin suggested the library, but Random overruled him.

"Besides, we can eat as we talk. You're always hungry," the king told his older brother.

"You're spreading rumors about me," said Corwin and glanced over Random's head at Vialle.

"You do eat a lot." Random shrugged.

In the three days since the battle of Amber, Vialle rarely released her death grip on Random's arm. His shrug had rocked her upper body but not dislodged her. Those two and Corwin lead the way toward one of Amber's dining halls.

The formal dining hall for affairs of state was the throne-room, a vast chamber with a high ceiling. The floor was laced with ceramic hot-water pipes. Random hated it, and most of his siblings did too.

The family dining room was on the third floor, not far from the king's apartments, stuffed under the Northeast Tower. Lesser kitchens adjoined it, used mostly for late night snacks. It had been hundreds of years since Oberon required his family to attend him all together. Some had never received such a summon. Years later, centuries ago, it morphed into a cafeteria for the night-shift, a bar for everyone, and a meeting place for musicians Random brought out of shadow or substance. Now a twelve-piece setup for a big band stood in the corner, missing only instruments and players.

Random and Llewella had been two to never sit at a 'family dinner,' thought Corwin, and that brought him back to his missing sister.

She and Gerard had been taken to the medical room. They'd been replaced by Caine. Corwin would rather be there with them. He liked Gerard, though he understood his bigger little brother never liked him, and curiosity was bugging him about who this Orak was that Llewella had worried so much about. He'd risked his life to save the Rebman, so he felt he deserved an introduction at least.

But instead he got Caine, dour faced and condescending.

Random wanted something to eat. In the cafeteria he took bread and meat from a literal icebox, and extricated himself from Vialle. She grumbled at him. Corwin explored the wine-board and offered a glass to his son. Merlin said he'd prefer a little whiskey. They fell into an old argument, one Vialle listened to with her hand on the small of Random's back.

"Son, Chaos has done you wrong if you like that stuff," said Corwin. He had a bottle of Sharra '43 under his nose.

"Dad, it's okay that you weren't raised as tough as I was," replied Merlin, looking with his fingers through a few decanters of single-barrel.

"Oh, God," said Corwin, rolling his eyes. He put the Sharra back and found some Lovelace, volcanic grapes from out in shadow.

"Seriously, Dad, it's okay. You were brought up here and spoiled like I wasn't. You didn't need a stiff drink." Merlin found something he liked and poured it over chilled rocks.

Corwin just stared at him as he filled his own glass. Vialle heard Merlin's smirk, Corwin's snort, and Random's irritation that someone had eaten all the good tomatoes. Corwin and Merlin didn't tap glasses, but they sipped in unison and took seats.

Caine avoided wine and food. He'd drawn an empty chair beside his near one of the great foundation walls of Amber Castle. It radiated chill. Since leaving the same medical facility Gerard and Llewella now occupied, Caine had changed into his naval uniform of no-heel boots, breeches, and a white shirt and vest. In the city he wore heels to keep his feet out of horse shit. Onboard he wore none to walk easier across hatches. He kept the seat beside him empty with his tricorner hat, and arms-crossed sat waiting.

He looked stern, cold, and exhausted. Underneath Caine's dour eyes hung big black bags. Salt plastered his hair back like crystalline gel. Random noticed that blisters on his palms, over the pads by the fingers where cutlass work leaves its mark, had ruptured, healed, and risen again. His clothes were clean, and he smelled of the sea.

"Sweat-salt and sea-salt," whispered Vialle.

Random looked down at her. He wasn't tall but she was tiny, and standing mostly behind him, her head didn't come far over his shoulders. She wasn't looking at Caine, but why would she?

Untwisting his neck, Random considered his older sister Fiona and younger Flora.

Fiona, the witch of the family, seemed to want to talk to Corwin but was put off by Merlin's presence. She stared at the sideboard near the wine display with perfect posture and an effortless smile, but still seemed vaguely confused. No one offered her a glass.

Being Random's oldest sister, he regarded her with something a cynical bit of him called kicked-puppy syndrome. Benedict hadn't had much use for little Random other than a detached appreciation for music as a form of weaponized conflict. Sword and drum are not dissimilar, he'd once said. Eric and Corwin had indulged in their feuds with Deirdre until deaths of two of the tripod's three legs. Fiona had been older, beautiful, and cruel, using Brand and Bleys for attention and cutting them loose for the same. She'd ignored Random, and he'd wanted attention.

Gerard had paid attention to him. Random wished he was in the medical rooms with the bearded one now.

Fiona, Random understood objectively, was beautiful. The fire in her hair belied the ice in her heart. That was the way she set herself up and expected him to think of her. Random refused.

Florimel who wanted attention, got it, and was more democratic in her worshippers than Fiona's elitism, was talking to a servant about getting a different kind of bread. The servant seemed struck dumb, and Flora enjoyed ever moment of it.

And that was it. No Benedict, thought Random.

Vialle squeezed him.

Gerard and Llewella in intensive care.

He sighed.

Julian returned to Arden on Morgenstern. The horse should be dead. It endured as a ghost, a vision of gore. But Julian said he would do something, and the trumps worked now. He'd return from Arden when he could. Random thought of the empty seat by Caine.

And of course in the dungeons lay a prisoner who had been continuously shrinking. Sauron was now less than a dozen feet tall. They'd stripped him of his ring which Random carried in his pocket, and Sauron had turned so light any of them could have lifted the Dark Lord one handed. It was a task to enshackle him, and they didn't know if it could be done. Would he continue to reduce until like a ghost, he'd float away through the bars of a cell? Must he be kept in a bottle?

Random thought of a quick end with a knife or gun.

The king of Amber didn't know.

And finally, among absent relatives–

"Caine!" said Random, and the side-conversations stopped. "You've had that child of Gerard's with you on the ship. Word is he enjoys the killing of orcs. Who is he? What's his story?"

Caine considered. "He does kill orcs well. He enjoys it, at least. He calls himself the Blacksword, but I managed to pry his name out of him though he desires to keep it quiet. His birth name is Turin, and he claims his father was Hurin, son of Gerard who he knew as Galdor."

Caine thought a moment. "It could be true. He fights like it."

"Why isn't he here?" said Random.

"Because he may be of the blood, but he might not. There's only one way to check, and this Blacksword hasn't walked the Pattern yet. In the meantime he's on ship."

"With an affection for gulls," said Random.

Caine looked at him and betrayed no expression.

Random allowed a hint of a smile to escape and looked away. "Draw up seats, everyone. Come close enough to listen. During the hostility before, Corwin you mentioned you'd wished you had heard my story of attempting to rescue Brand some time ago. Let's avoid repeating that little problem. I'm going to tell you all how Flora and I escaped from Mordor, and the hellrun with Sauron at our heels that lead us to Melkor and the veils around Middle Earth.

"We need to decide what, if anything, we're going to do about that shadow and about the prisoner in the basement. And I'd like to avoid half-assing it if we can."

The others drew their chairs in save for Caine and Flora. He stayed exactly where he was, and Random let it slide. She stayed standing. Fiona finally poured her own wine and sat down, and Random took a seat near the center.

As usual, he talked with his hands, and soon shook off Vialle's attempt to hold on. The blind woman tried to scowl at him, but she wasn't a good scowler. Instead the queen put a hand on Random's back as he sat on the drummer's stool and stayed out of the way of wild gestures.

Chapter 49: Act 4: The Black Chase

"The first thing we need is some damn trees," said Flora to Random.

"Why? You don't like running across a barren killing field pursued by archers?" asked Random.

He or she zigged right, and the other followed, turning hard to the side as yet another vast thrum of orcish bowstrings loosed an iron rain. They turned and ran so tightly that who turned first was unclear. Arrows began to slam into frozen hard-pan behind them, first centered on where they had been, and expanding in chaotic circles as less accurate orcs fired further and further after the barking cries of their leaders. It was these less accurate ones that nearly got them. Hundreds, then thousands of arrows fell, many nowhere close to the aim point. By then Random and Flora were far from the aim point, and hook-headed orc-shot nearly took them.

Flora hid the ground in a shallow trench, not five feet deep and narrow enough she brushed both sides with her armored shoulders. Random fell on top, smaller because he wore nothing but rags and chain. In their scramble to get up, she took the lead.

"Not at all," she said. "That's why we need trees."

"You know I'm being sarcastic?" he asked.

"Why would you be sarcastic? You don't want trees?"

Flora rounded a corner and the small trench rounded back towards the black horde that chased them, screaming and clawing at the ground, drooling, waving beaked swords and curved axes as if their smiths knew nothing of straight forgery. Flora volleyed in rapid speed, body barely canted and bow almost perpendicular to her body. They were terrible shots at less than a quarter power, but in this shadow, the bow she used acted like it had a quarter-ton draw. The mass of her target was Charlemagne's sea. He'd been dead before she knew his world. She fired into the orcs and her arrows plowed furrows in them.

"Of course I want trees! That's why I'm-" Random breathed. "I'm working on trees, and I'm not getting them."

"Then stop thinking about sarcasm and think about trees," said Flora.

Thoom, thoom, thoom, Amberite arrows tore apart the orcish horde, but more of them boiled over the sides of the trench. She turned, planted a foot, and shot well for once, an arrow that blasted through Sauron's forces like det-cord laid across sand. They exploded into the air.

And more came. There were so many more.

Random actually stopped thinking about trees at all and started thinking about cracks in frozen hardpan. He found one behind them, tracing back through Mordor in the direction they'd been running, away from the orcs. He grabbed Flora and ran. She disengaged instantly.

A hurricane of black arrows swept the trench behind them, massacring another wing of the orcish army that had gotten ahead. More orcs started firing up and tried to arc their shots in, but took a butcher's price from the others.

Florimel and Random ran, bent over, and rained on by shards of rock and slivers of metal. Random played with shadow. The trench deepened. The walls grew. No more arrows fell on them, but they still shredded the tops of the walls. Orc screams echoed from behind, not falling back.

"No trees yet," observed Flora.

The king whispered unkingly things and kept running.

He ignored the orcs. He ignored his sister, Florimel, behind him in the same heavy armor she'd worn during the Patternfall war and wielding that same bow. He ignored how weird it was that of all the weapons in Oberon's castle, she'd picked the one that required the most brute strength and somehow it had worked for her. He ignored the bitter cold of Mordor. He ignored the trench. Random ignored everything and thought of a tree, one tree, a tree he'd seen in Arden many times near where Julian rested with his rangers. He thought of that one tree, one single tree, and held it in his head until his sides ached and Flora had to guide him on with a hand on his shoulder.

He achieved nothing. The barrens of Mordor were hard and empty. Flora paused, fired half her quiver, and urged him back to running.

They fled, the orcs chased, and the trench curved. Suddenly it dipped, and their feet splashed in black liquid that burned their nostrils. Random suddenly jumped for the wall and climbed, and Flora hurled herself up after him. On the wall outside they stood, and all the world they could see was orcs to the north of them and ice to the south.

"Got anything that burns?" asked Random.

"Yes."

"Light that." He pointed back into the trench.

Flora's hand dipped into a pocket and she pulled out a bit of cloth wrapped in string. She pulled the string and threw it into the trench.

The world caught fire as the oil seep Random had unleashed ignited. The saturated air above it sucked down Flora's spark and blazed in all directions. Mordor shook, and spires of flame a hundred feet tall ripped out of the earth.

"Is that what you think a tree is?" asked Flora.

"Shut up about trees," said Random. "We can't get trees. Shut up. The only thing I can get is worse."

"Worse what?" demanded Flora.

"I don't know! I don't know if it's that specific! I can't get anything unless I go looking for some shred of shadow that's worse than Mordor!"

"Oh, that's good! Because we're still in Mordor, we're still chased by orcs, but now they're on fire!"

"You discovered sarcasm!" Random smiled.

Flora decided to kill him.

The king of Amber took off running, and she followed.

To the north at the grim pinnacle of Barad Dur, Sauron saw a new fire rise in Mordor. It was a challenge to his power. Inky red flames rose in spires that threatened his towers. They cast soot into the sky like his mountains of ash.

Sauron lifted his hands and summoned forth his elder forces. He called vampires from the mountains and werewolves from caves. His power turned the skies dark and blotted out the sun.

And Random reached for a power he had once possessed but didn't have now. The Jewel of Judgement lay in shadow he couldn't get too from here, but he stretched out his will for it. He had just an inkling of where it was, and the way to it was dark.

So into the dark Random went, and Flora followed.

The skies turned grim. Gray clouds swirled red fires, twisting into whirling dervishes. Things began to fly above. The orcs ran behind. Random sought a pathway to Amber, but his memories of the gleaming city betrayed him. They were too glorious for the strange power that girdled Middle Earth.

So Random sought the darker parts of Amber, the forests of Arden spread across many shadows themselves. In the more deadly glades the trees would move. Moss covered dead bodies, skeletons frozen trying to pull the moss itself from their faces. He sought the hanging willows of the saltwater fens, the deep mires that covered their drowning pools with lily pads, and the strange lights that danced far away over bogs. And Random found them.

"Still orcs," said Flora.

"But trees!" replied Random.

And the scored plains of Mordor sank down into crags where between them grew tall black things with branches like skeleton fingers. From them hung vines and moss that thrashed with no wind. Creepers reached out as the Amberites advanced.

Behind them Sauron's forces ran, flew, hopped, and crawled, but many of them came after the siblings.

They ran into the looming darkness, lit by oil fires, and finally the broken ground gave way to earth and soil. But they were only a few yards in when they noticed pale bodies hanging between the branches. Their skin was thin and white, but their eyes were bright and red.

"Random, you assed-up the trees."

Stop being so picky, thought Random, but he kept going.

Among the deeper foliage Flora paused to take shots with more care. At first Random thought she never aimed, but realized that her taking a somewhat formal stance and raising the bow was all the aiming that she required.

He paid more attention to the pathway ahead. By holding on the image of dark places between crags, he could get his mental fingers into the stuff of shadow. In any other place, the world would be spinning around them here, but in this place, it took all of his effort just to get small changes. But the howls of Sauron's werewolves and the shrieks of something airborne followed them. Random allowed the bog-lights and will o wisps to flourish into roving creatures of fire and light. The bodies in the trees hung low, and the orc horde behind them crashed into the hanged dead. Random reached out and grabbed Florimel by the belt as he moved.

"What are you doing?" she demanded.

" I'm taking the low road, one I've thought about but never tried before. If we can move by the royal way, it stands to reason we can go across the bleak parts of shadow too. We won't get a carpet of rose pedals, but at least we're out of Mordor."

"No, I mean why are you touching me?" said Flora.

"Because if we get separated, you'll die. I'm using the Jewel, though I don't exactly know how."

"But you don't like me."

Random actually paused at that. "Do you really think just because I don't like you I'm going to let them kill you?"

She stared at him.

"Does no one listen when I tell people to stop killing each other?" demanded Random.

"No," said Florimel.

A sudden shattering of dead trees and mossy vines on their left sent foliage tumbling down around them. Random and Flora took off running at once, while some monster rose. Orcs screamed. Wolves howled. Something bellowed in a deep chords, the lowest of which neither of the Amberites could hear. The sound reached below their ears to put an ache in their jaws. Random sought the Jewel and tried to pull it to himself or himself to it.

The pathway got darker, and on the trees the corpses began to sing in high, girlish voices. Flora shot one, and it screamed. The other hanging corpses laughed, and their red eyes twinkled. She did not shoot another.

On the right a chasm opened, and a bog drained into it, spilling black water on which danced bright lights. They begged for help as they fell. Another opened on the left, and another beyond that, until the trees stood on pillars. The sky was black and red. No stars burned, but the clouds did, and their fire was like lava falling into a black sea. A wind moved through the branches, and the creaking of wood sounded like agony. The hanging children all laughed now, and sometimes they squealed in high pitches. Random couldn't figure out if they were pleased or pained. The road went on, and they came to a great chase of moss, rotting logs, and skulls.

Over it hung a shadow, and Random pointed through.

"The way goes through that."

"You mean the trap. The way goes through the trap," said Florimel.

"Yes," said Random.

Behind them things of Sauron pursued. Some the woods killed, and some survived. Behind them all Random and Flora felt a sign of power, and heard footsteps like the beat of an ancient drum. Something more terrible than the woods drove Sauron's creatures on.

Before them lay the black path, a dark road, and a shadow. Somewhere beyond that lay Amber.

"Random, tell me, seriously, do you know what a tree is?" asked Flora. "When I say trees, is this what you think of?"

"How did Fiona do it?" Random asked, ignoring her and looking at the way ahead. "She brought ships here, and they didn't say anything about this. How did she get through?"

"She is the witch of shadow," said Flora.

"Her and Bleys. Her and Bleys, and they were both on that expedition." Random sighed. "I hate this stuff. The Unicorn should have picked Gerard. He'd flex the shadows apart and make Sauron dance on his biceps. Hell, I supported Corwin. He'd feel right at home here. Somehow this never would have come to me if I hadn't taken the Jewel which I don't even have."

"Can I have it?" asked Flora.

Random looked at her for a second before shaking his head. "Oh, just come on. How many more arrows do you have?"

"The quiver never empties so long as it's in shadow. However right now, I have three."

"I wish I knew what the hell was going on," muttered Random.

They walked forward and descended into the trap that lay across all ways out of Mordor.

Chapter 50: Act 4: The Black Chase 2

Kingship had taught Random few things as strongly as that he usually didn't know as much as he thought he did. He wished it focused on things more useful, like how to balance the royal budget and why he lost so many drumsticks. But kingship seemed far more interested in his humility, and something about that galled Random.

It was Oberon's blood, he thought. His family hated being reminded of their limits.

What he really should do, he added, was go off to shadow somewhere and get a few degrees in things like economics. He actually had an MD and MSes in Electrical and Acoustic Engineering. He should probably do one in economics. Take Vialle. Start a Noise band.

He stared at the dark tower. Trees climbed its walls. Not still trees that happened to grow on its walls. Trees climbed the walls like spiders. Their rootmasses sought purchase on granite blocks, and worm-like crawled up and down the walls.

More sluglike, Random considered. They hauled their trees behind them.

The trees were the problem. Not their habits of locomotion, but the way white-skinned corpses dangled from noose-branches, red-eyed with blue skin drawn back from their fingernails and teeth, singing.

"Seven-eight and nine-eight," he said abstractly to Flora. "They're singing in a form of skip tempo. You can tell by the downbeats."

Flora had turned her back to the tower of writhing forestry to consider the horde that pursued them.

"I think the big one leads them," she said. "Mary? Maryon? Sour-Mary. I see him above the others."

"What bothers me about this," said Random, nominally to her but mostly to himself. "Is that there is a way around the tower. Fiona and Bleys didn't go through the tower, nor did the expedition they lead. So if I could find it, I could get around the stupid thing."

Flora looked back.

Since leaving the plains of Mordor, Random had failed at every attempt to walk the shadows but one, trying to make them worse. From the barren and lifeless plains, he'd found trees strewn with corpses. Deep bogs had lain in wait with ferns covering their surfaces. No road through the forest meant he and his sister had been pathbreaking, and the ground itself wanted to kill them. Deep ravines opened with cunning stealth until Random did not, could not, make himself believe the geography of this place was earnestly a coincidence. Someone had manipulated it.

They had come to this. On either side of them, the forest ended at a monumental escarpment. They couldn't see the bottom. The deeps were mist-filled and abyssal, and the horizon was another black arch from straight down, up past level, to far overhead where it curved backwards towards the woods behind. Only one way forward existed.

Directly in front of the Amberites, a long peninsula of stone covered in climbing trees reached out over the sea of nothing. It narrowed as it went out. By the time it got to the tower, there was nothing on either side but cliffs, and on those cliffs climbed hanging-trees with their corpse-girl singers.

In the dead center of the tower opened a cheery door. It had little torches on either side. The door lay open. Warm golden light spilled out.

It was so obviously a trap Random wanted to wave his hands in the air and yell. Fiona and Bleys hadn't gone through this!

Behind them Mordor's hordes and master charged through the brush. Having paused to examine the tower, the Amberites had ceded some of the time they'd gained earlier. Now Sauron and his orcs had almost caught up.

Shifting shadow to anywhere else just didn't work. That wasn't supposed to be possible, except it had happened to Random once before. He'd ended up in New York with Flora, oddly enough.

"Ah, hell. Come on," Random told Flora. "If I spend any more time trying to work with shadows, I'm going to go mad."

The wiry little king ran ahead with his sister following, one of her last three arrows notched to her bowstring.

Up close something like a pathway traced the rocks along the peninsula. On either side the trees wandered up and down their cliffs. As the two Amberites ran along, the hanged corpses jumped up to grab at them. Dead little girls laughed, sang, and snatched at their feet. Random kicked for their heads while Flora poked them with an arrow. They didn't slow. Soon the doorway became an inviting refuge. Random noticed that the pathway up there stretched out on either side too widely for the dead things to reach out and grab them.

The singing dead things shifted to an arcane fugue. Unconsciously Random tried to count time. The measures didn't match up, diverging into impossible time-signatures.

"Wake up!" yelled Flora.

"What?"

"Wake up! Run!"

"I was awake–" Random stopped talking and ran.

They cleared the stone pathway down the peninsula of matter. It stuck out over nothing, reminding Random of how Corwin described Fiona's pathway between shadows. He assumed she'd taken the expedition to Middle Earth the same way. His siblings had said she took them back to Amber that way, through a black void much like the one that reached everywhere now, but his tight-lipped kin hadn't mentioned how they got there. It was either a redundant detail or them just being paranoid. He wouldn't have given odds either way.

Up the stone and through the front door, they darted. Inside the tower was not what he expected. Instead of a normal building with rooms and hallways, or even a pedestal with rooms on top, the inside was a cavity. There was nothing there save a ghostly feeling of presence and immense manacles. The manacles did not hang flat against the wall. They hovered in space.

Random and Flora put their backs to the door and slammed it. The floor stretched out, seemingly further than the mere walls allowed. It formed a rough circle, about the size of the Pattern chamber under the castle, and the room reached up at least ten stories. That wasn't a ceiling; it just got too dark to see above that. Other than chains and manacles, some huge and some human sized, the area was empty.

"Ssh," whispered Random.

Flora, gloriously, sshed.

They heard breathing: slow, deep, and labored.

Random put his finger to his lips, and Flora nodded like he was being absurd to need to gesture. That was her problem. The two of them listened to the screaming outside, the cries of agony from inside, and above all, breathing. It echoed. It was above and below. Walls captured the sound of inhales and exhales, and whipped them around in a vortex of respiration. It was everywhere, but they saw nothing, and–

"Hey, wake up!" yelled Flora.

"I am awake! Stop yelling!"

She hissed at him, and Random shook his head angrily.

The breathing woke up. It rumbled, hissed, and went back to a slow, measured pace. But now it was undeniably conscious. In the darkness, Flora and Random could feel something watching them.

Looking around, they saw only emptiness and manacles, suspended as if in air.

Random set off along the wall, following it clockwise, with Flora in tow.

The darkness was near complete. For all that both of them thought eyes watched their every step, they also could barely see anything. The tiniest of cracks in the front door allowed torchlight in. Other than the king's fingers on the wall, Flora might as well be in a void.

About a quarter of the way around what would be a full rotation, the orcs finally arrived at the door behind them and smashed the doors. Axes and clubs went to work. With every impact, the rustling and clinking that followed the breathing increased in volume. Random hustled, still peering for a way out, when they saw fragments of light on the far side.

The Amberites broke from the wall and ran.

The door shattered under orcish axes.

The floor in the center of the chamber dropped, and black stone in a dark chamber gave no warning. Random and Flora, running together, tumbled face first into a nest of something, and at once iron clinked. Metal clamps shot out on all sides, awoken from their own slumber, and grabbed the Amberites.

The door caved in, and Sauron himself stormed the main entrance.

Random remembered this distinctly: the silent breathing caught and hissed, and that hiss was somehow more than sound. It was emotion. It was fury and rage. It was very much alive and very aware.

"Kill them!" yelled Sauron, and the orcs charged.

Random yelled and tried to pull his arms free, but the manacles that held them would not let go. They were made in ancient times in Valinor, and even the strength of Amber failed against them.

"Tefer al Assa," said Flora, and the chains dropped.

Random shouted and ran. Flora fired two times into Sauron. The giant stood perfectly silhouetted in the doorway, but her arrows vanished without revealing if she'd hit. Whirling, she fired over Random's head, and blew the far door off its hinges.

Something shouted too loud and too deep for human hearing. Random felt it in his jaw. Flora screamed. Sauron shrieked, and as the Amberites darted out the back door, an immeasurable and infinite rage ripped the tower apart.

On the far side the king found a green path. An instant later Flora appeared, and he kicked her dead in the stomach. She gasped, wavered, and he caught her arm and swung his hips underneath her. He landed on her back with her own knife at her throat.

"Are they yours, Florimel?" asked Random quietly. "Is it you?"

"Do you remember when we were young and played a game of passwords? You were a little younger than us, but it was the only game I played with Clarissa's children. Do you remember?"

For a long moment Random did not reply. When he did, he didn't waste words. "Yes."

"That was Bleys's favorite password. I've suspected. Now I know. They're his."

The king thought, and the knife against Flora's neck was sharp as Amber's smiths could make it. She could cut hair with it. She had several times. And Random sat on her back with the blade to her throat.

"Get up," he said suddenly and stepped off. "We run."

"Random, either as my brother or king, you must understand–"

The tower ruptured, and Melkor appeared, Sauron dangling like a puppet in his fist.

Random took off running and Flora followed again.

#

"So, siblings," said Random in the side dining room of Castle Amber. "That's what happened. And now I want to talk about what's going on."

Chapter 51: Act 4: Mice Make Plans in Amber/The First Council of Random

"I remember exactly the last time we were taken to the limit like this," said Random. "It was all the armies of Chaos. They had help from a civil insurrection, and very nearly won."

He rolled his eyes at Corwin, who shrugged. Both gestures came without hostility. That was the way it was.

Random continued, "But I think there's something more important going on. This is the first time we've been attacked seriously without Dad."

His relatives non-reacted in various ways. Vialle sat with him without outward reaction. Corwin sipped his wine, and Merlin touched his whisky to his lips. Caine sat alone, smiling faintly with hard, unfriendly eyes. Flora, sitting with Random on other side of Vialle, seemed mostly interested in perfecting the shape of one nail. Fiona watched all and said nothing.

After a moment without interruption, Random continued.

"I spoke to some of the refugees. Several of them say they saw Benedict die. They claim the dragon finished him. Since then I've tried to raise him on trump several times, and the cards do work now in all other ways. It's possible he's merely hiding. I hope that's it. Since we haven't found a body, we'll create a formal cenotaph by the harbor, and if we finish construction without being interrupted, we'll have a funeral for him then."

"The mountains are nice," said Corwin quietly. "I like mine up there, and I came back to it. It would be a good place."

"No. From what I heard he died saving an Admiral. One called Dracken. If he's dead, if, his tomb will be a monument by the harbor, out on the jetty that demarcates Naval moorage from civilian."

No one spoke but Caine who said, "It is fitting."

Random nodded and addressed Corwin again. "I spoke to the Rebman you saved, and that Orak said Dracken died on the stairs, covering a retreat. We're going to look into that, and if so, we'll make a monument for him where the stairway rises. Far enough from the beach that the next tide won't drag it away but near to Rebma." After he got nods, Random added, "What happens to Orak is Llewella's affair. He's in Amber now, and I want to know what happened with him and that ring he had.

"Which takes us to the prisoner Sauron. He doesn't like the name, and therefore I like it quite a bit. He calls himself the Lord of the Rings, and it was with rings that all these problems came to a head. Whatever being that Melkor was, it was Sauron who we have and Sauron who sent the army that almost killed us. This Melkor is probably just like him, but we're going to take care of them one at a time. I want Sauron dead.

"I've been thinking a great deal about how to handle him. He obviously knows things even we don't, but I think he's too dangerous to handle. Nor do I want to learn the powers he has. He's half ghost now, and if he's like that Melkor thing, he's probably not enough of a person to hang. I don't think poisoning him will work either.

"After listening to Julian's story, I think he's an old creature of Chaos with all of their weaknesses. Corwin, do you understand?"

The dark prince nodded. He didn't touch Grayswandir on his side. He didn't need to.

"That brings us back to Julian and Gogomoth. Julian says he made a deal with Gogomoth to kill this Sauron, but I don't trust the balrog and I want him gone. I aim to hold that deal moot, and to make certain of it, after the self-styled Lord of the Rings is dead, someone is going to take Gogomoth back to Chaos." He looked at Fiona.

She smiled charmingly.

"And now back to Middle Earth. From what I've been able to piece together, Gerard's bloodline has been living there for thousands of years, their time, and a host of Chaotic spirits as well. Bleys either did or does as well. Without learning something of the timestream we can't be certain, but its entirely possible that Middle Earth is very nearly as old as Amber, at least in its own timestream.

"Tactically, I don't want this Sauron-like Melkor in command of a shadow that spawned an army that nearly defeated us. Politically, they could make an argument for being the first of all shadows, and therefore Amber needs a say. Filially, if Gerard's kin lived and maybe died there, he'll want to know. And personally, I just do not like these guys.

"We're going to take Middle Earth, kill Melkor, and secure it."

"You missed something, Random," said Fiona, still smiling.

"Oh?" Random didn't sound surprised.

"Bleys. If what you said of Bleys is true, than he either helped Melkor, made him a shadow, or at the very least brought him in." Her smile had a lot of teeth. "What exactly do you mean to do about him?"

Random stared at her for a long time before saying, "Nothing. It's over. Way back, when the Black Road ran to the foot of Kolvir, the suggestion was raised that one of us, Brand then and I think we all knew it, might have made a deal with forces outside our control and they became too dangerous. I think that happened to Bleys. So nothing happens to Bleys. No vendettas, no revenge. If Benedict– if a dragon really did get Benedict, then it's the damned dragon's fault and you and Julian killed the lizard. It's over. I'm drawing a line under this. Do you understand?"

"Of course." Fiona dropped a short burst of her machine gun smile.

"Tell anyone you know who you think might need to know," said Random.

She didn't answer but smiled into his scowl.

"It's over," said Random again and stood up. "Caine, bring me this Turin, please. Does anyone else have any questions?"

No one did. They parted ways in the cafeteria, leaving the king to his drum set.

Chapter 52: Act 4: The Casement over Arden

Merlin and Corwin walked out of the cafeteria, but instead of going either upstairs or down, they stopped in an alcove that looked out from Kolvir's south face. Oberon had built the castle as the mountain. The lower levels bored through the peak. Winds blew waves into shore out to sea and continued over the forest of Arden, white-foam breaking into black and green. Corwin smoked. Merlin merely watched a cloud layer pass beneath him.

"Do you fly a lot?" asked Corwin, apropos of nothing.

Merlin nodded. "As a hawk or a eagle sometimes. Often as a gull. I'm working on my albatross, but I prefer mountains to the sea."

"You're working on your albatross?"

"Each form is different. The weight and balance is different, how much thrust and how much work I have to do for each wingbeat, tailfeathers. Tailfeathers are a big deal," said Merlin, looking up.

"I'll take your word for it, but I am curious," said his father.

"It's hard to explain. Tailfeathers and eyes. Hawks and eagles see so much more; it's like a different world. But tailfeathers control how you move through it, and the forms have to be balanced. Even the slightest change throws everything off. I've got to learn the form and spend hours in each one."

"Hmm," said Corwin.

"I assume we're talking about this because you're looking at the clouds?" asked Merlin.

"Sort of. I was thinking about Random. He said he liked to shadow-walk by gliding, you know, unpowered planes, sailplanes, that sort of thing, and he said it's all texture. I'm looking down at the wind blow waves off the ocean and into the trees, and I know Arden in my blood, but I've never tried to shadow-walk by the way the treetops blow in the wind. I've looked down from this window a hundred times and saw the way hills catch clouds and break them up until foam spills between them, but I've never shadow-walked through it. I wondered if you had."

"A little. Not much. It's easier for us to manipulate shadows than walk between them. You'd have to ask Random about it." Merlin looked back down.

"I should," said Corwin.

A silence both awkward and comfortable passed between them.

"So," said Merlin with exaggerated casualness, "Since you brought up Random–" he paused.

"Oh, did I? I hardly noticed," said Corwin.

Father and son smirked at each other.

"He's adapting to the crown well," said Merlin.

"He's worn it long enough." Corwin lit another cigarette and pulled hard.

"You don't sound like you believe that," said Merlin.

And Merlin, who was used to seeing his father as something close to a force of nature, heard a long, vague groan that sounded like a car turned on before the belts warmed up.

"Eeeehh," squealed the elder Amberite, and the younger said nothing.

Merlin didn't smoke but took out a stack of cards, slightly bigger than Bicycle's standard but unmistakeable, and started cutting and shuffling with the fingers on his left hand.

As if that was a signal the two of them sat down. They fell instantly into a bit of rhythm, for Corwin took the window and cracked it. The alcove had a trapezoidal bench with the narrow side against the window. Architecturally it resembled an arrow slit but the glass was too wide. No bow known to them would be able to throw an arrow up here anyway. Yet there was an iron grate against one wall, just in case, and Corwin leaned against the other with his back to old wooden paneling.

Merlin drew a chair to the opposing wall, where the eddies from the open window wouldn't pull the cards out of his fingers. Both wore swords, Corwin's Grawswandir as silver and black as the rest of him, and Merlin's Abbess in blue and white. The son wore linen pants in tan and a white shirt of muslin, open at the color. He wasn't as big as his father, and the wind that couldn't pull the cards from his hands could blow his collar and expose his chest. Merlin liked to show a little chest. His father kept making fun of him for it. Merlin ignored him.

"Now seriously, Dad, explain yourself. You introduced Random so deviously why it's almost like you didn't mean to direct the conversation to him."

"I'm a master schemer," said Corwin.

"Oh, yes." Merlin gave him an exaggerated nod.

"Boy, where did you get such a smartass?"

Merlin stared at him with something very much like scorn.

"Don't look at me in that tone of voice," said Corwin, but after saying it his smile faded. "He was very formal, wasn't he? Random? You do this. You do that. Very official, and little room for discussion. Very kingly," said Corwin, talking to the window.

"He is a king," said Merlin.

"He is," agreed Corwin. "But he's also my little brother. I picked on that son-of-a-bitch terribly, and I think something that gives me strength from day to day is that he turned out all right. I wonder how much Vialle has to do with it, and I'll probably never know. But Random was always a little guy, in stature and in thought. He thought about little victories and little gains. Morganthe and Martin, I've told you the story, was a dick thing to do by a little boy scared of his responsibilities, and that was Random. That was Random," he repeated with heavy emphasis.

"But it's been a decade or so. Heavy is the head that wears the crown, et al," said Merlin. "You have to have expected him to grow up."

"Expecting it and seeing it are two different things," said Corwin. "And especially seeing him now, King Random almost fully formed, without a glimpse of his development. I'm looking for my little brother and seeing him echoing my father, and I'm not sure if that's such a good thing. Where I see Random, I don't know if that's really him or just me seeing my memories. It's damned hard to see someone you know and not see your memories of them."

Merlin waited but Corwin stared out over Amber, First Among Shadows, and smoked his cigarette so his own cloud blew with the winds, mirroring that one over Arden far below.

When the silence grew till it wasn't a pause, Merlin spoke. "I think he's doing well. He laid out his purpose clearly. I think he nipped any vendettas against Bleys before they could bloom, and laid out his plans for that Middle Earth. All things considered, it sound like it deserves attention in force. Are you edgy about killing this Sauron?"

Corwin snorted. "I'm going to level with you, Sauron was going to die. I heard what's what, and he and I had an appointment long before Random said anything. I wasn't sure if I had to do it discretely or not."

Merlin shrugged.

"But did you notice Random didn't actually say it?" asked Corwin.

"He was pretty clear," said Merlin.

"He was. But he didn't say, Brother, go kill the prisoner. And there was no discussion of a trial." Corwin scowled. "Like I said, I was going to do it anyway, but the manner of it, insinuations instead of orders, strikes me wrong."

"Would you have taken an order from Random?" asked Merlin.

"Hell, I don't know," admitted Corwin, and neither knew what to say after that.

Another long silence joined them, sat down, and stretched its legs.

"Fiona likes you," said Merlin.

"Well, I hope so," said Corwin. "We are related."

"No, Dad," said Merlin.

"Oh, shut your little mouth, boy. You and I are not talking about this."

With a fluttering sound the cards collapsed into a block of a deck, and disappeared from Merlin's hands.

"First of all, I'm from the Courts and marrying and procreating with weather phenomena is almost the norm there. You know I have an uncle that's a lightning bolt? Not a storm, a bolt. One bolt. He crackles. So don't act like this is some big taboo because frankly Dad, you're all a little provincial compared to Uncle Fzzsht." He said the name with a crack and sizzle, and his breath smelled like ozone.

"How did you shoot sparks out of your tongue?" demanded Corwin.

"I'm a shapeshifter from the Courts of Chaos. Come on, old man. Try to stay out of your dotage."

Corwin flicked his dead butt into an ashtray like a bullet, giving Merlin a look that eclipsed the boy's earlier scorn.

"Secondly, and I say this as your son who wants as little to do with your romantic entanglements as possibly, humanly, demonically, or other, your dating history is the sort of thing gets mentioned between natural and ongoing catastrophes. All you do is hyperdramatic dumpster-fires or meaningless flings."

"Boy, you don't know what you're talking about."

"What happened when you broke up with Stacy?" demanded Merlin.

"Nothing!" said Corwin.

Merlin waited.

"We talked it out like reasonable adults!" said Corwin.

Merlin waited.

"She told me she was probably going to die of a broken heart, I fought the waiter, which he started, I might add, and then she tied her underwear around a rock and tried to break my windshield as I drove away."

Corwin crossed his arms and sat down ready to outwait Merlin.

"Look, you and I have kind of a weird relationship," said Merlin. "I was around forty when we met, and I'd actually been married once already. So it's not like I was a little kid looking up to his father. But you are my Dad, and I do appreciate the last decade or so. I've always loved the shadow game, and exploring the shadows of your Pattern, finding something new no one has ever found before, and developing it was great. Dad, I do appreciate that."

And Merlin paused and waited until Corwin, deeply uncomfortable, said, "Good. So did I."

"But it's different, right? We met as adults. Neither of us is super touchy-feely, so I think that works, but we've shared a shadow for the last decade and even if you had the Tiphrax continent and I stuck to the Merriondale cluster, we were on the same planet. Hell, you introduced telephones and I introduced texting, so it's not like we were complete strangers for all we lived on either side of the globe. And I was happy to come when you got that call. How did that work, by the way?"

"Oh, Oberon gave me the idea. He once told me he could work time, which I've tried since then and never figured out how to do. He also had a way of blocking trumps. I made our shadow so that no one could trump me without true need. It couldn't involve any kind of selfish interest. And we never got a call," said Corwin.

"I need to try that," said Merlin, vaguely impressed.

"Do they use trumps in Chaos? I've actually never asked that, and I keep meaning to."

"Sort of. Not like you do, but sort of," said Merlin.

"Who did you marry?" asked Corwin without attempting to hide his curiosity. He craned his neck forward and squinted.

"Oh, girl from shadow. Nothing came of it." Merlin waved his hand and looked away.

Corwin said nothing but nodded slowly. He lit another cigarette. Merlin's cards came back out.

"So you think Random's changed," said Merlin.

"I do. And I think Vialle has something to do with it. I saw the first traces of her work long ago, and I think I'm seeing more now."

"Have you considered talking to them? You know, meeting your brother?"

Merlin had tried to keep the sarcasm out of his voice and failed, and his father obviously heard it.

"I have," said Corwin, and stood up while tossing the half-unburned cigarette into the butt-can. It hit the lead cylinder hard enough to knock it rattling, and the lid fell with a clang. "But I've got to go kill someone. I don't want to hear anything out of you about your nonsensical Fiona ideas."

"Yeah, sure."

"I'm serious," said Corwin. "We are adults, and I'm doing my damnedest to recognize that. But either as my kid or as my friend, you're not being respectful to me if you interfere with my life, and especially not with my sister."

"Dad-"

"Shaddup."

Merlin waved him off, a fan of cups and staves into Corwin's pointing finger.

The elder Amberite held still for a moment before his hand down.

"But I do have work to do, and frankly, I think Random was right about this. I don't know if he's as confident as he appeared, but you may have something about me not taking orders much. Either way, the end result is the same."

"He's just being respectful," said Merlin, putting his hands up.

"Maybe. I'll find you again later."

"Later," said Merlin.

Corwin walked off, and Merlin took the other side of the casement seat, close to the window and watching clouds across the forest below.

Chapter 53: Act 4: Elsewhere in Amber

While father and son, Corwin and Merlin, talked by a window the king drummed. Vialle had departed briefly but returned, and sat bending a bit of wire. Often she stroked the metal as it deformed. Random watched, his mind working backstage. In the front of his mental house, he kept time on the simple kit: one bass, one snare, three toms, and a pair of hats. Out in the hall echoes of his work told the staff and his siblings where he was, and that while he could be found, he would prefer not to be.

Those same echoes ran to the infirmary. Llewella lay on a medical cot under an IV bag. Her arm had been reattached; her chest sewn shut. She slept with a vicious tincture of saffron and violet flowing into her veins. The medicines did not mix within the IV bag, nor did they find an even equilibrium. Each nudge of air, every doctor's footstep, and the irregular breathing of the other patients set the two colors swirling. Like snakes they wrapped themselves around each other in patterns. She tossed in her sleep.

Orak lay quietly. He had no equipment to beep, hiss, or chime. Underneath the sheet, he had broken bones, bruised ribs, and sprained joints. Nothing should be fatal. Yet Orak did not heal. The doctors did not understand, but they talked about his multicolored skin and now gray hair. It looked faded.

And Gerard lay like a shrouded mountain. Into him ran a dozen tubes. There was hardly any person visible under the wrappings of bandages. He had not awoken.

While the drumbeats rolls through the doorway, setting Llewella's IV bag to fractious dancing, a black mist flowed under the door. It barely crossed the flagstones but hid in the cracks between them. A shift nurse for the three patients alone sat nearby, but she was carefully filling out a spreadsheet of medications. She didn't notice the tainted air coming up.

The mist eased past Llewella, caressed the legs of her cot, and went on. It climbed the legs of Orak's adjustable bed and slipped over the sides of his mattress. It searched his sheets, his bedding, and even his pillows before it stopped under the covers over his right hand. The black mist found a small gold ring Orak wore and engulfed it.

A drumbeat rolled down the hallway with more force than usual, and the smear of dirty air evaporated. Like dry ice onto water, it poofed and was gone.

A little bit later someone knocked on the door. The nurse got up and opened it, to find a handsome, smiling man waiting outside. He winked at her.

"Good afternoon, ma'am. My name is Obrecht, and I'm from Rebma to make sure Llewella and the soldier who came with her were all right. Moire sent me. May I come in?" He had a big warm smile that didn't touch his eyes, but those were deep blue and cold. One could cut themselves on his jawline, and he had thick lips.

The nurse blinked twice.

This Obrecht was almost alarmingly good looking.

"Of course you can. Come on in," she said.

"Thank you." He hit her with the smile again and waited for her to open the door. She pushed it all the way wide, turning her back to him in the process.

Obrecht smiled wider, and this time it touched his eyes.

#

Oberon had skimped on many things in life including love and affection for his children, but he hadn't skimped on dungeons. He had a lot of them. He had dungeons under Amber, dungeons in true Amber, and dungeons that straddled the boundaries between shadow and Amber much like Arden lay across a dozen shadows on the path to Amber.

One of these dungeons of impeccable dungeonness contained all the appropriate fixings. The door was thick; the air was stale. It was dark as a hole. Inside dungeon it opened up surprisingly wide, forming a large room roughly circular, thirty paces in diameter, with an arched ceiling. The crest was a little lower than a hemisphere would reach, but Sauron didn't touch it in his new, smaller form.

He was barely more than eyes in the dark, robed in slashed gold and mithril. Mithril became pyrite in Amber, and crystals of it disintegrated out of his mail leaving dirty brown streaks on him and the floor.

He had been here for three days now. His meals stacked up uneaten in trays. His bucket contained nothing. He was smaller than he had been, only human sized but very thin, too thin for a living man. His joints bulged. His eyes lacked fire. Sauron lay as still as Orak did above him, and the footsteps outside his door did not wake him.

The jingle of the latch did. The creak of hinges lifted his head. Sauron sat up and looked, and saw an Amberite appear.

"Hello, Prince Bleys," said Sauron the Deceiver.

"Good evening, Mary," said Bleys with a great big smile. He walked in, left the door open behind him, and slipped into an effortless slouch on a cloth chair he'd brought with him. He sparked flint with cheap steel coins and set a couple candles around him. "How are you doing, big buddy?"

"Poorly used by your family," said Sauron. "I feel like they don't understand how much I'm willing to help you, nor what I can give you in terms of secrets."

"And that, Big Guy, is why I'm here," said Bleys.

The prince took a bag out of his pocket, one made of chainmail, and woven with an inner core of many-layered wool. Bleys undid the strings and uppended them all, spilling gold rings across the floor. They jingled into corners.

"So, Mairon the Wise, Prisoner of Amber, let's talk," said Bleys. "Would you like a little wine?"

"I would, please."

"Beautiful."

And Bleys poured them both a draught while gold rings sparkled by candlelight.

Chapter 54: Act 4: Bleys and Sauron

Notes:

Sorry, everyone, but nightschool and work have taken it out of me. I'll try to do something big this weekend.

In a dark and dirty hole between Amber and the Primal Pattern, Sauron and Bleys shared a fine red wine.

Bleys liked to swirl his drink in his glass. Even in the dim light of the two candles he brought with him, the Aberge Red straining down the golden sides of his cup turned the metal to a glorious amber. He wore fur and silk. His boot-tops turned down in sealskin. His beard was perfectly disheveled. Bleys regarded Sauron the shadow with an expression constructed of amusement, interest, boredom, and let pinot noir from Amber herself, not shadow, form a vortex in his cup.

"I have just undertaken a truly ingenious bit of stealth under the noses of my family. I have acquired three rings from the field before Amber. Their previous wearers were burned by dragon-fire, but I have the rings," said Bleys.

"Truly, wise prince, you are magnificent," said Sauron.

The thing that had been Mairon the Wise did not drink. It consumed. Bleys had provided a glass less ornate than his, mere silver with mere pearls, and topped it up a little below halfway. In the dark the thing's hands seemed no more than impressions around the glass which never lifted it to his lips. But Mairon or Sauron had eyes that burned always, for the shadow had no lids to close them. The wine slowly lowered in the cup as if its nature was reduced.

"I am," agreed Bleys. He drank.

The thing Mairon's wine dwindled in stillness.

An insignificant crack in Bleys's smile appeared, a flickering of the smirk to a frown, and vanished. The redhead smiled again.

"And I thought to myself, Mairon, what would be the best use of these three rings? You see, they're a bit unlike the others. I found means of imitating the others. You do see, don't you?"

Bleys spread his hand over the golden rings that lay untouched on the ground.

Again Sauron seemed to barely notice them, and again Bleys's smile slipped. But the dungeon was dark, and surely no one would notice.

"Those are magnificently made," said Sauron.

"Yes."

"You are a creature of the Courts of Chaos?" asked Bleys. "Like Gogomoth and Melkor?"

"I was. Long ago."

"What are you now?"

"Only your prisoner, Prince of Amber."

The shadows of the ceiling loomed oppressively thick. The rings glittered like gold-rimmed holes in darkness, empty stars, tiny pits in the floor.

Bleys continued. "For so many scions of Chaos in one shadow, that Middle Earth you appeared to rule, you cast few shadows. I was able to find and form them, but so many of you should have cast echoes across the shadow and time. You did not."

And Sauron replied, "You are the master of Middle Earth. You must have had much experience with it from Valinor."

And Bleys stopped and craned his head.

"I remember you of old," said Sauron quietly as the wine decreased in his cup. "Old beyond time and reason. Before the bending of the shadows. I could not undo it, for Melkor took that power from me long ago. But I remembered that it existed. And when the Valar bent the world that my forces could not leave Middle Earth, I knew it was a working of shadow. But not the power I had lost. It was something different."

Bleys stared at him.

"Melkor remembers you, prince of the Valar. Do you remember him?"

"You speak nonsense," said Bleys no longer smiling.

"No, I don't. Melkor remembers you well. Too well to ever forget. He remembers being dragged in chains before the Ring of Doom, and meeting Manwe, the lord of the Valar, in the form of a redhaired man with powers he did not understand. Melkor told me everything. He spoke of you in madness and in fury. You have no idea as to his ruminations, but he remembers you too well. I never visited Arda, but Melkor told me of his imprisonment and the Ring of Doom with all the powers of the Lord of Chaos. I can see his words. He remembered you. And he told me all he saw in the shadow of your desires that was Arda.

Bleys said nothing.

"Melkor has the power to unbend your shadow working, and cross the Unbroken Sea," said Sauron.

"That is little to me. I've left that shadow long ago."

"Good. Soon Valinor will be destroyed. Melkor will take my army and using his power, take it across the encircling sea to Arda. There will be war. He will win. I've made sure of it. Anyone or anything you left in Valinor will be destroyed." Sauron lay back and let his wine become less.

Bleys performed several rapid mental calculations. "And what makes you think that would make me care about you?"

"Was I not his lieutenant for several thousand years?" suggested Sauron. "I assembled the army he will lead. And I can tell you why Melkor cannot be defeated while Middle Earth exists."

"That is nonsense. I defeated him once already."

"And he lived." Sauron reached up and stroked his absent face, and for the first time Bleys noticed the ring on his finger. It looked exactly like every one of the rings on the ground, yet it offered more portent. In the dark it gleamed.

"No, no, you lie," said Bleys and turned toward the door.

"It is himself," said Sauron. "I've been thinking of artifice, and the most powerful craft of Middle Earth is the pouring of the maker's life into a thing. Melkor was not the kind to originate that idea. He learned it. Who would he have learned it from?"

"I neither know nor care," said Bleys.

"Then the destruction of Middle Earth will not harm you, and the unmaking of it will not hurt you," said Sauron. "Because surely the shadow itself is not your totem of power. Even though that is how all the great magics of Middle Earth were forged in a shadow you created, surely it is just coincidence."

Bleys paused in the doorway and looked back.

"However in Chaos we were masters of shadow, and a tool was built to change the warp and weft of it as nowhere else. Oberon stole it, because he could walk the shadows, but not manipulate them as us. The Eye of the Serpent has powers over shadow beyond anything else. With it, someone who poured too much of themselves into shadow could break that connection.

"But you would need to be quick, for Melkor left me here days ago, and he should be close to finished with his walk back. My army awaits him, and he will take Arda near instantly. Then your shadow will be destroyed, and with it, you."

"I have a way of breaking any connection to shadow I might have," said Bleys. He turned away from Sauron.

"Then it is merely the shadow that will be destroyed. You lived there for how long? It is probably nothing to you."

Chapter 55: Act 4: Intermission 4

And it was that Julian arrived at the Vale of the Mountain Kings, the shadow of his desire.

Old mountains rolled across the earth, worn down from eons of wind and rain. River valleys wound between them. Carpeted in thick grass, the exposed bedrock had long since gained covering soil. Down in the valleys the trees grew so thick among the shadows of the arching ridges that their leaves showed green as the deep sea shows blue. Higher on those ridges waves of grass beat before the wind. Only a few of the highest old hills wore a bald head where even moss and lichens couldn't reach.

In one valley ruins of ancient castles faced each other across a wide dell. Three immense walls lay in ruins with scattered stones tumbled into the grass before them. Remnants of old streets lead from one to the other, and between them lay squares of brick. Fir trees and aspens spilled out of a high pass into the vale, and the dark green pines and orange aspens formed a spilling riot of color. It had been centuries since the castles fell, but even now the trees had only just returned. Among the vale ran wild horses, and for these Julian had come.

The bloodhounds began roving in expanding circles with their noses to the ground. They wagged their tails and shook their heads, throwing streamers of slobber like comets, but did not bark. Julian took that to mean there were no people. One of the dogs finally let up a yip, and the others responded, but it was only a fresh stream. They drank and expanded their search. Julian left them to it.

The mountains had been worn down and castle denizens erased, but the horses still ran free. White and lightning, gray and silver, black as night on a moonless night, horses such as no where else in shadow roved this world for Julian had wound up thinking of horses and let the ground under their feet sort itself out. He stood for a while on a ruined arch, watching the herds watch him. They cropped grass that grew between housing stones. Julian stared for a while until his hounds noticed he'd left and set up a baying as they chased their master. The horses turned and fled, and nothing ran as them as he'd ever seen.

The dogs arrived and scented the horses. For unknown reasons, perhaps boredom, he urged them on. Once they had something to chase the bloodhounds set to it gleefully, and Julian followed them at a trot. The afternoon was still young, and the sun several hands above the ridge it set towards. Even after setting there would be an hour of evening, the Amberite judged. He had plenty of time.

He had all the time in the world, for the sons of Oberon lived until they were killed. They did not weaken or forget.

Julian followed the dogs after the horses.

In an instant the horses vanished, but the four trackers followed them easily, brown shapes that jiggled and drooled, running low across the ground. Julian stayed ten, fifteen feet behind them to avoid canine fragmentation. They began down a wide alpine meadow that tilted suddenly until it was nearly vertical, and then Julian had to put the animals on leashes so they didn't tumble. The horses had negotiated it at a run, and he had to shrug to himself. But the dogs trailed them without a problem until near the bottom, the pack split and started barking in confusion.

They'd hit on a separate trail, one that wound around the craggy nadir of the meadow where huge stones rose out of the hyperbolic pasture. At first Julian thought they were more castle detritus, but up close he could see these rocks hadn't been shaped. They broke in great cubes with sharp cleavage. The hounds scented a route that went down the saddle-nadir towards a deeper part of the valley, but they barked at a trackless depression that hugged the rock. Julian had only taught them to bark at people.

After a moment he followed the barking, and the dogs gave chase.

They didn't scent the ground, which surprised him. They fell into a pack and all rushed along closely together, not breaking off as if the trail was confusing, but they ran with their noses in the air. After a bit Julian detected a nearly infinitesimal wind blowing towards him from the rock, and the dogs seemed to be following that until they hit on a grim cavity, little more than a tall slit. Beyond this they would not go, and now Julian smelled something.

It was faint, old, and dead, and more than that he could no say. The hounds rolled over and whimpered, and wouldn't enter the crack. Julian passed them and figured they would be fine roving the dell without him as he stepped into the cave.

Men had smoothed the floor and paved it. They'd carved sconces for torches. Julian didn't have one, so he walked on with a hand on each wall until the cave rounded a sharp turn, and he looked down on titans, frozen and immobile with brilliant glowing eyes.

They were extremely dead. The smell of it hit him. But they'd been dead so long the smell had dried out. Each one stood fifty feet tall, boxed between the walls of the cave that widened into a chasm but retained its vertical-slit appearance. The titans stood at attention, and their eyes burned red. He saw the skulls of those in front of the back rank, and the skulls of those in front of them. They stood facing the wall in desiccated ranks. They should have fallen over or had scaffolding, but they had neither. They just stood there, rotting.

The entrance cavern opened up a little above their head height. Julian stood thinking, listening, and counting, and came to the number fourteen of them: all dead, all still, twenty eight eyes burning red, and all facing a wall. A bit of a catwalk followed the cavern around, and drawing his sword, Julian followed it to the point the titans watched.

Two more knelt in front with their eyes gouged out. Julian only found them when he climbed down. The ground here had been paved by human efforts as well, but these two blind titans had frozen clawing at the rock. They tired to get in, and had ripped a hole. Red eye-light showed a bigger cavity within, and the opening looked like an iris if one was diplomatic about it. Julian stepped through.

Beyond, the final cavern opened tall and wide as if the mountain's heart had been hollowed into a silo. One giant, bigger than all the rest, stood upright with his hands clenched together as if he prayed. His eyes burned, and his flesh stank. For a moment Julian regarded him, and then realized, the titan wasn't praying. The titan held something in his interlaced fingers. He was crushing it. The burning red light of the giant's eyes outlined his hands and nothing else, for the cavern inside the mountain seemed to have no roof or walls.

Julian blinked a few times before deliberately kicking the giant in the heel. He stood at eye-level with the ankle.

The hands shook. Something clattered.

Julian kicked again.

The thing inside the hands struggled.

"Ah, this is not my business," muttered Julian quietly and climbed the giant's rotting flesh.

At the knee he thought of saying, "Let me take that out of your hands."

At the waist, he decided that was at best gauche.

At the shoulder he thought of, "It's a red evening," but didn't know quite where to go with it. The giant seemed to ignore him as he scrambled up. Julian felt a terrible sensation of observation. He got to the wrists and kicked a few more times, and something inside struggled and kicked back.

Julian hacked with his sword, and the thing inside the hands went wild. He chopped until a wrist weakened, but before he could tell the whatever to wait, it kicked free, broke both the giant's wrists, and fell a hundred feet to the ground of black gabbro. It was something white and crashed.

Julian climbed back down, and the stupid thing was a horse. Then he met Morgenstern, and Morgenstern kicked him in a the face. It bolted, managed to scamper up the rock walls of the titan's chamber, and vanished before Julian could pull his head out of stars and a spinning black sky.

When the unnatural rotation stopped, red eyes above looked down at him, and shattered hands dropped foetid blood. Outside the tiny iris from one cavern to another, fourteen titans crowded around a tiny opening, and their eyes burned behind the silhouettes of their rotting skulls.

The giant above moved slowly, as if stiff from eons, and reached down for the Amberite.

Notes:

I'm going to keep this open so if I get swamped again, I can break out something simple. My test tomorrow got pushed back a week. I think I'm ready for it, but I want to see what the new material is. My big assignment is nearly done, and the next hasn't dropped yet.

Anyway, Julian in shadow. Lighthearted fun.

 

 

Amazon Page

Chapter 56: Act 4: The Last Chance

Corwin rounded a corner to Sauron's cell and found his brother Bleys standing in the darkness, staring at nothing and having a cigarette.

The prince in silver and black thought that he should be surprised. He wasn't, but he felt like he should be. Bleys in red and gold didn't hear him coming, and Corwin had the drop on him.

Bleys looked older and more tired. The devil still danced within his eyes, but Old Scratch's footprints left dark bags. Bleys' beard wasn't as thick; his hair didn't jump in the same way. He smoked with one hand as he always had, without seeing the flame. All of Bleys resembled flames: hair, beard, clothing, face, and action.

Corwin stared for a while, trying deliberately to see Bleys now, not the Bleys who had been. He tried to overwrite his brother, his history, and their past with his eyes.

Deliberately the elder put a foot down loudly and stepped out of the side passage. Bleys startled and looked up. Corwin paused in the archway of a side passage, and somewhere in the back of his head a gong chimed and beyond doubt Corwin knew¬ this was it.

"Long time no see," said Corwin.

Bleys stared at him for a while, and the effortless smile didn't appear. Another one did, struggling. Bleys smiled vaguely.

"It has been. Corwin."

"Bleys."

They shook hands, but the elder brother held it. Ravens cried in his memories, and beyond anything else, the words reappeared, 'This is it. This is the last chance.'

"May I thank you for something?" asked Corwin.

"Always." The smile firmed a little.

"Thank you for living. Thank you for catching the cards on the stairway up Kolvir. I was down here in the dark once before, soon after that, and when I thought of you falling, I felt it. I felt the dread. And seeing you here as at the Courts, knowing you're alive now, I want you to know that purely selfishly, I appreciate it. So thank you."

Bleys stared at him for a while and did not reply. The handshake had gone cold. The ravens whispered one last time, 'This last chance and nevermore,' and Corwin realized he'd always hated Edgar Allen Poe.

"I don't know what to say," said Bleys oddly. "I don't know how to reply."

"I'm not playing a game, and I'm serious." Corwin squeezed his hand again and let go. He offered his brother a cigarette to replace the dead one and Bleys gave him a light, and the two stood outside Sauron's door and smoked.

"Random says all is done," Corwin continued. This silent, tired Bleys bothered him. "Everything. He reminded us all of a meeting in the library, one you didn't make, but before we knew the truth of you, Brand, and Fiona. He said it's over. I think he'd like to talk to you, but he made a point of putting this out to everyone. Whatever happened is done, and there will be no vendettas."

"I heard Julian wouldn't take that oath because he thought someone had killed Caine," said Bleys.

And Corwin thought of Benedict. "Random talked about that. He said no. It's done. And he wanted you to know."

"Thank you for telling me," said Bleys quietly. "And thank you for throwing the cards."

Corwin nodded.

"He's inside if you want to speak with him." Bleys flicked his head at the cell door. He dabbed out the cigarette. "Good tobacco. From shadows of your Pattern?"

"Yes. I have a few. Come see me, and I'll give you a carton."

"I may. Goodbye, Corwin," said Bleys.

"See you later, Bleys," said Corwin.

The brothers parted. Bleys left in the direction Corwin had come, and Corwin went in to see Sauron.

Chapter 57: Act 4: The Infirmary

The twisted little man stabbed nurse Reinette through the left lung. Wind sighed out of her. Instead of screaming she made an empty gasping sound around the knife. The lips of the cut fluttered, the knife twisted, and Obrecht dragged it down and sideways, parting ribs and spine like hard gristle. When he cut the spine she dropped. He caught her hair and chopped twice, severing her head messily, and discarding it onto the pile of her body.

The curtains didn't flutter. Wooden panels covered the stone walls, and someone had added felt insulation between the boards. The floor had been tiled and sealed, but underneath the walking floor small pebbles of pine and cedar filled the spaces within the floor. They killed sound. When Reinette died, she fell partially through the door, but she did so silently, hitting the low step between the hallway and inside. Obrecht dragged her into the room behind him, leaving only a bloodstain outside.

Llewella lay against one wall, Gerard another, and Orak a third, all three making an open U facing the doorway. Between them tables held medical supplies. The wall with the door had a wider table and a few racks, IV stands, and supplies of saline, tubing, and a sharps trap.

Obrecht approached Llewella and lifted her bare hand. Other than that she didn't move. On one finger gleamed a gold ring untouched by blood or dirt, and Obrecht pulled it off. His fingers twitched. He shuddered and shifted like he couldn't stand still. It fit on his hand perfectly matching another: a gold band around each index finger.

He sighed. His body eased. Obrecht stood taller and seemed to weigh less. Llewella didn't move at all, one arm hanging off the bed where he left it. Obrecht's bloody handprints from killing Reinette stained her skin, and on the white bedsheet she looked like a murder victim. EKGs didn't work in Amber, and the sound-killed room went back to quiet.

Obrecht looked at Orak. He sniffed, and his chest squirmed. Underneath his shirt the skin moved. Right then left, and then up and down, wiggling, his vibrated like boiling water under a cloth or insects under sand. Obrecht sniffed again. He walked over to the patient and exposed his right hand, bare, and his left, finding a third ring.

The Rebman's hand had swollen. His fingers puffed up, and the skin and callouses pressed out around the gold. Just distal to the ring, his hand had turned green. Obrecht took him by the fingers as if he was shaking hands with a weak grip, and flipped the bloody knife in his other hand so he could saw with it.

Orak woke up screaming as Obrecht chopped off his fingers, for the twisted man didn't cut straight. His hands jerked side to side, shredding tendons and flesh. Orak hit him, but his fist did nothing and the creature out of shadow cut faster. Weakly the Rebman pulled away, and Obrecht let him, holding onto a fistful of fingers.

The Rebman startled and looked outside, over the door with the body. He sniffed again. Orak summoned up the energy to scream, and Obrecht crouched low, knife wide.

Bleys stepped around the doorway and looked over Reinette's body. Llewella's bloody hand hung limp, Gerard didn't move, and Orak screamed.

"Oh, too damn late," Bleys whispered.

"Just in time!" said Obrecht.

He stood straighter, smiled brighter, and his teeth gleamed. He dropped fingers too the floor as the ring slid onto his hand of its own accord.

But Bleys just sighed. "Oh, you asshole, Corwin just told me I could have talked my way out of anything but that."

Metal slammed as a compound bow fired. Two feet of wood shot from up the hall and stapled Bleys to the wall. It sank through the doorframe and shattered the rock underneath, sending frag ripping through the spaces within the wall. Now Bleys screamed.

But Obrecht didn't even startle. Obrecht sniffed again and leaned towards the doorway.

The prince jerked himself off the wall taking a fair bit of the wall with him. He rolled inside the room, and fumbled with his pocket. Immediately running footsteps echoed down the hallway. Bleys's fingers didn't work. The shaft had pierced his lung, and every time he breathed he squirted. He fumbled at an easy pocket with a simple button-in-loop closure. Underneath the fabric a card pressed through the cloth, but Bleys couldn't get at it. He hadn't had this many problems falling off Kolvir. The prince tried to gurgle, but as the nurse had found out, even cursing is impossible after someone opened up his lungs.

A cook with a bakery tray stepped around the doorway, and took in Bleys, the patients, and Obrecht in one glance. Obrecht took in him and saw the ring on the chef's finger. The twisted thing pounced, and Peter Shumacher jerked a poignard out of a hollow roll. The two of them hit the wall fighting.

Chapter 58: Act 4: The Infirmary 2

Summary:

This is the same chapter as The Infirmary 1.

Adrenalin that hit Orak drowned the pain. He sat up. The stump of his right hand squirted through four jagged holes. His thumb wiggled.

Orak felt a high-intensity daze, an overwhelming surge of energy in a fog of drunk, power and incomprehension, and he saw without understanding. He lay in a sick-room. He reached over the blankets so he wouldn't drip blood on them and shoved his arm into a stack of bandages. He just shoved it in like he was fighting. White gauss seemed to leap onto his injuries, and he didn't understand this upwater phenomenon. He stuck more over the others and thought about sharks.

Not five feet away Peter Shumacher and Obrecht fought. Orak knew nothing of that kind of closeness. Shumacher fought with his open hand and feet, stomping knees, smacking ears, and throwing shots that would bounce off armor or mail. But Obrecht wasn't mailed, and the twisted thing moved like a piranha.

Orak knew piranha. A saltwater form of the fish lived downwater of Rebma. They were slow, lazy creatures most of the time, but in swarms they turned the seas a red froth. It was said one could walk through a swarm of them so long as one went quietly, but a spoken word meant death.

Knives flashed. The baker tried to advance and cut Obrecht across the legs, the face, and the chest, but the other didn't retreat. Nor did he fall. His arms shot forward and flung blood, the baker ducked, and Obrecht filleted him open from navel to collar-bone. Shumacher gasped. Obrecht stabbed him in the lung. The baker swung and decked Obrecht with a closed fist, throwing him into Gerard's sleeping form and knocking them both over, in a pile of bed against the wall.

Under the heap Gerard finally woke up, saying, "Hey?" in a diffuse, unconcentrated tone.

The baker reached down, grabbed Bleys by the red beard, and stabbed him a dozen times in the neck and chest, his blade moving faster than Orak could see. The Rebman gasped.

Shumacher noticed him.

Orak saw cold, dead shark's eyes. The baker blinked twice, the first time normally, and the second horizontally as an inner membrane stretched from the nose to the corners and back over black, dead, pupilless eyes.

In the pile on the other side of the room Orak's knife flashed, and then Gerard screamed. The bed went flying, smashing into Llewella. Gerard stood up, screaming, bleeding, and throwing wild fists.

The baker vanished around the corner.

Obrecht had flown with the bed into Llewella, and he tried to get up. Orak threw himself at the other's feet. The two of them went down. Pain blossomed across the Rebman's back, and then Gerard got his hands on Obrecht.

The big man ripped off the little man's arms, threw them into the hallway, and then beat his head against the floor. The twisted thing's neck snapped like a broken carrot, and his ears touched his chest. Gerard wavered for a second and toppled, bleeding from everywhere.

Adrenalin and bloodloss made a mess of the Rebman's mind, and he couldn't think straight. He sat down and gasped, trying to understand, until people came screaming down the corridor, carrying all sorts of knives, broom-handles, and one with a chair.

The Rebman stared at them, looking like death, as servants and Amberites rushed into the room.

Llewella had never awoken.

#

Corwin opened the cell door with Grayswandir in his hand.

Inside the cell Bleys's candles still burned, and Sauron leaned against the back wall. He stood no bigger than Corwin now, and the prince noticed they dressed the same. Silver and black on both, though Sauron's mithril looked tarnished in the gloom. Two wine-cups rested on the ground. Corwin observed them only.

"I don't suppose you're interested in a throne?" asked Sauron.

"'Fraid not, Charlie," said Corwin.

He took in the barren floor, the empty walls, the arched ceiling. He saw no traps, nor a place for allies.

Sauron said, "Can I ask you a final question?"

"Ask away," said Corwin.

The Amberite reached behind him to shut the door, thought hard, and pressed it so the lock caught outside. He stared at the figure in chains. For a moment he fidgeted with the key, before pointedly throwing it out the cell window. It rattled and clinked across the hallway, coming to rest against the far wall. Corwin tested the door. The drop-bolt had fallen.

"Do you think there's a worse feeling than being worried about someone and not being able to do anything for them?" asked Sauron.

Corwin blinked several times. That itself he noticed, but for a moment the confusion had him.

"Don't really care," said Corwin.

"But in a place like this, in the dark, where you could be trapped and forgotten, do you not think of what you could do? And don't you hate the feeling of not being able to do it?" asked the Dark Lord.

Corwin opened his mouth, shut it, and clenched his teeth so hard his jaw ached. Grayswandir rose between them like the fencer meant to parry Sauron's words. He didn't reply. The chamber floor stretched forty feet between them.

Corwin took a step. The floor danced underfoot. As firm as the mountain's foot, yet it vibrated.

Sauron paused for a second. Corwin took another step.

And Sauron smiled.

"You don't want to win?" the Dark Lord asked. "So me you're better than I? Beat me at words?"

Corwin did not reply. The room was dancing underfoot, but his eyes betrayed him. His inner-ear felt the movement, but his eyes didn't see it. His feet reported both movement and firmness.

"Did I ever tell you of Melkor, Morgoth as he was in the Courts of Chaos?" said Sauron.

It's the words, thought Corwin. He's pulling a Brand. He's talking and¬–

And then Corwin thought something that started with an F and rhymed with duck. For the door was locked behind them, and the key outside. Sauron kept talking.

"When you were in the Courts of Chaos, I've gleaned that much, did you ask about our Logrus? We manipulate shadow better than you but cannot traverse it nearly as well. Melkor took much of that from me, and took it with him to the Outer Voids. Take a step, Corwin. Fell shadow dance."

"You can't shift-" and Corwin caught himself talking. He took another step with his lips clamped together.

"Not quickly, not swiftly, and not well," said Sauron. "Keep walking. I need you at the center of this room, where I've been imprisoned for days."

Corwin froze, unfroze enough to take a step, and froze again.

Many more candles burned around them than Corwin remembered, and the black stone of the floor faded. The amber glow of fine wax fires reflected in the ceiling. He seemed amidst a sea of stars.

The burning desire to say something came over him again, and Corwin gave in briefly, "If you could do something with shadow, here, I can stop that too!"

He reached down and drew Grayswandir across the floor with a hint of a smile until the stones blazed and burned. Sparks from the blade meeting the stone flared up and smoldered. The candle-fires doubled.

"A Pattern blade?" asked Sauron. "Then perhaps you have a chance."

"I'm not here to talk," said Corwin.

"And yet you're talking. Come to me, Amberite. Come listening, or come talking, but come to me. Come through the center of the room."

Corwin's eyes flicked side to side, and tiny movements flowed through his neck, down his arm, until the point of Grayswandir, almost but not quite, perfectly still broke its stillness to dance against the black stone. Every ping burned, and now the floor blazed.

The fires, noticed Corwin, flowed like water, and they formed a circling whirlpool in the center of the cell.

"You fools. You imprisoned me in darkness," hissed Sauron.

Corwin heard pride in there, malice, something he didn't recognize. Fury he knew, but a depth of it he didn't, and yet it sounded awfully familiar. He decided he didn't recognize it at all. It was just the room, the cell under Amber, that made him think those things.

"Now Corwin of Amber, know that I see your name in your own mind, tell me this. Right now blood is being let by knives in the hands of my ringbearers. Your kin die. I can save them."

"No, no, no lies," whispered Corwin.

Like when he'd burned the path through the Primal Pattern, he put Grayswandir on the floor before him and it clove to the stone. A wake of flame rose up, like the Pattern's, but different. These burned. Corwin thought of the assault on Kolvir, the fires in the woods of Arden where his skin burned. He thought of the arrow through his arm. The floor burned, but Corwin advanced. He burned and his skin blistered, but he advanced.

"Corwin of Amber, I know what my Ringbearers do. I know of your sister and your brother, and the thing that collects my rings. One of them, a woman, green hair, might live but the big one that looks like Edain will die. He was injured before, exerted himself mightily, was injured again, and exerted himself again. Do you fear for him, Corwin of Amber?"

Step after step too the dark prince in silver in black forward. Grayswandir traced a route around the whirlpool, seeming like it meant to skirt it, but turned suddenly and plunged radially into the vortex's very center. Corwin followed the blade. At the epicenter, the floor rose in a maelstrom of red and yellow flames. They burned, and the ashes slashed his skin. He bled from a hundred wounds. He stepped out the other side with his hair smoldering and his eyebrows gone.

Sauron lay against the wall, his eyes very large. They were perfect, Corwin knew, save only that they burned.

"Corwin, your brother is going to die! And the one who spoke with me is nearly dead! He has taken a dozen wounds, and he will not live! The library, your head speaks, the library, my Ringbearers hear, and it is by the library he will die in treachery. Your brother Bleys is dying, Amberite!"

By biting his tongue until he tasted blood, the prince of Amber kept walking. The tidal bore of fire passed behind him, and suddenly Corwin stood over Sauron with naked Grayswandir swinging free of the floor.

Corwin looked down at Sauron as the Dark Lord blathered something, and the Amberite realized he was on fire. Not with dark magic, but his clothes burned. He smelled his own burning hair.

He raised the sword and the Trump contact came screaming, carrying with it a message of 'Wait!'

But was that just Sauron?

Chapter 59: Act 4: The Many Shadows of Arden

Shortly after the meeting in the cafeteria, roughly an hour before Corwin met Sauron, and the brothers Bleys and Gerard distributed their blood across the floor, two other brothers met in the conjoined shadows of Arden.

"Why didn't you come?" asked Caine, stepping through a trump contact to moss floor.

"We found more," said Julian, clarifying, "Orcs."

"Of course you found more. They're everywhere!"

Julian sighed and shook his head.

He stood on the moss as well, and it absorbed the weight of his boots without allowing for footprints. Julian and Caine attired themselves typically, Caine in white and black with a long green cloak, and Caine more colorfully with leather high-heels, breeches, and a tri-corner hat.

"Arden is all shadows. It's the pathway. If they get loose in here, they can go anywhere, and Arden will be the carrier of that disease," said Julian.

"So?" asked Caine.

Julian looked at him for a moment before shaking his head again. "I stopped them. The hounds hit on the spore, and we ran them down. I've got hawks out looking for more. Your man was with me. Turin. He's competent."

"If you say so," said Caine.

They turned and walked a short distance under moss-wrapped trees. The trees of this part of the forest dangled long stems of Spanish moss, what in Thari is called jyst, to a greenish ground where true moss created rolling divots. Dead orcs lay in the cavities between bumps. Some bore cuts, but hounds had ripped many apart. Caine rolled one over with a toe, and confirmed it was dead. Without a face and its chest open, it was.

Not far away they found the Blackhelm.

Armored like Julian, he wore all black. Where Julian wore scale, Turin wore plate. He was as tall as Julian or Caine and bigger too, built more like Eric than either. When Caine arrived, Turin took off his Dragonhelm and looked at them, and Caine was suddenly impressed an image of Rilga.

"He has Gerard's nose," said the Admiral. "Your nose too."

"Our nose," said Julian. "He's the spitting image of us."

"He's not as big as Gerard," said Caine. "His hair's longer. No beard."

"Caine," said Julian flatly.

The other looked off.

"What did you find?" asked Julian of Turin.

"Living orcs. I left dead ones," said Turin. "But there's a demon in these woods. One of Melkor's creatures."

Julian interrupted him. "Correct. His name is Gogomoth. He was cursed by Melkor and then Sauron, and I'll return him to Chaos if he helps us kill the dark one."

Turin stared at Julian. "You made a deal with Morgoth's creature?"

"Yes. A useful one."

And Turin did not respond. He didn't shake his head or speak, but his gray eyes met Julian's blue.

The Master of the Pathways of Arden did not look away first. Nor did the dour black clad Turin. Caine looked between them a moment, and a hint of a smile creeped out of hiding in the corners of the sailor's lips. He waited as something very much like fire linked the white and black armored men's eyes.

"Do you think you know better than us, shadow-dweller?" asked Caine. "We who have lived in Amber for ages?"

"I know Morgoth's creatures better than anyone," said Turin. "And his will. And his malice."

Caine opened his mouth but waited an instant. Julian spoke first.

"Did you learn by losing?" he asked.

"Know your betters, shadow-dweller," said Caine. He smiled. "Walk away."

"From the brothers foolishness and bad judgement? I will."

Caine's smile went cold.

"Random wants to speak with you. Walk towards Amber," said Caine.

Julian whistled, and the stormhounds set up a baying. The Lord of Arden waited.

"You are both fools," said Turin and turned his back on them. He started walking, not towards Amber.

"Perhaps I did not find him," said Caine quietly.

"Lot of orcs around here," said Julian.

Caine sighed theatrically, and Julian went walking after Turin.

Chapter 60: Act 4: Knifework

Summary:

The first part is a little gory

He'd had his arms ripped off, his neck broken, and his chest staved in, but when King Random, Fiona, and half a dozen attendants rushed into the sick room, Obrecht only just began to die. As family rushed into the room, he laughed.

Bleys didn't move. Blood bubbled through holes in his neck. His hand was lost in a pocket, the other outstretched towards the door. Gerard lay gasping with the lips of a second mouth open to his lungs. Every time he inhaled his chest fluttered. Orak had lost consciousness from shock and bloodloss, and Llewella never awoke. Nurse Reinetta lay dead.

And Obrecht laughed.

Random felt like he was watching a movie with the sound and video disconnected. That had happened to him once in shadow. It had been a bit of professional courtesy. A house-band he supported sometimes had done an arthouse soundtrack, so he'd watched it. The projectionist had mislinked the audio file. "House of a Thousand Killers" he had seen, and "Little House" he had heard. House of a Thousand Killers was typical arthouse horror, far over the top and basically a red-paint splatter fest. In Little House the kitchen untensils came alive to teach a little boy the joy of cooking. The projectionist had figured it out before the opening roll, but that scene before the credits had been grindhouse-cannibalism with singing cutlery and pans.

He stood in the doorway, and things just happened around him. Fiona ran past to Gerard and grabbed him. She slapped her palm over his wound and with her other ripped open a plastic bag of bandages. Instead of the bandages, she used the bag, and Random just turned his head sideways.

One of the nurses pushed him out of the way and went to Orak. Another ran to Llewella. Four or five had gone to work on Reinetta. That was hopeless. She didn't have any blood left in her, but the nurses didn't stop. They wrapped, taped, and blocked. One slapped both hands on the side-wound and leaned forward until her rear-end came off the ground. Knuckles turned white. The dead nurse's lips had turned blue and her face white, but the others went to work on one of their own.

Random turned and saw the people in the hallway like impressionist pointillism, faces detached from bodies, smudges of color against white and green wall paper. Had all these people been there in the cafeteria? Where had they come from?

"Go tell Lord Rein his daughter is dead," said the king. His voice had reverb like a badly micced guitar. He added, "He's Corwin's friend," like the messenger wouldn't know Lord Rein.

The person didn't move.

"Go tell Lord Rein his daughter is dead," said the king.

The person didn't move.

"GO TELL LORD REIN HIS DAUGHTER IS DEAD!" screamed Random and a pounding headache tore through him. Veins bulged in his head.

The reverb faded. Random realized he hadn't spoken before; the first two were just thoughts.

Someone was laughing.

Random looked down.

Someone with his arms ripped off and his neck broken was laughing. For some reason the nurses had avoided him. A sudden all consuming desire hit the king to reach down and smother this thing's nose and mouth, to silence him forever, but Random smothered the impulse instead. He knelt down by Obrecht and tried to straighten his neck so the injured man could breathe. He looked around for help too.

"Don't laugh. Just breathe. You're going to be fine. You're going to–" and Random saw Obrecht's arms.

They lay crossed in the hallway. The king had stepped over them.

On three of the dismembered man's fingers rested unadorned golden rings. And Random knew those rings.

Random stood up from the laughing thing and took two steps to Llewella's side. She wasn't wearing one. She was sleeping easily; unnaturally deeply, but Random didn't know if she'd been drugged. Her breathing came deep and regular.

The nurse that had checked on her had moved to Orak, and the king followed. They worked on Orak's ruined hand with shocking speed, both talking constantly and yet someone understanding the other. They wrapped him, bandaged him, and moved aside when King Random reached past them without seeming to notice his Majesty. Random picked up a couple of discarded fingers. One had a green ring on it, like a stain from verdigrised brass.

Obrecht was laughing, and Random understood. He knew he was missing a few pieces, but he knew enough. Gerard lay in the corner, stabbed, and Gerard could rip a man's arms off after being stabbed. But Gerard was slow to anger.

Random walked back to Obrecht and dragged him into the hallway, away from the workers, past the doorway, past his own ripped off arms, and ten feet from the terrified crowd watching the ruin. He dropped the thing, went back, took the rings off his fingers, and put two in a pocket. He crouched down by Obrecht's head and held up the third golden ring.

Obrecht stopped laughing.

Random opened his mouth, paused, and realized he had nothing to say. Something terribly important needed to be said, but Random didn't know it. He hesitated. Obrecht licked his lips. His neck bulged. Spinal disks moved under the skin.

"How are you still alive?" demanded Random.

"That's my ring," whispered Obrecht.

"Answer the question! I said, how are you alive!"

"That's my ring."

And Random said, "Oh!"

#

Down by the Pattern chamber underneath the Castle of Amber lay a few corridors that most of Random's siblings had never investigated. The brilliant, the powerful, and the wise had ignored them for other, more pertinent learning. Benedict had been out in the field. Eric and Corwin competing, and Dierdre joined them as the object of their game. Fiona, Brand, and Bleys had been busy learning the lore of Dworkin, not wandering the pathways underground, and Gerard, Caine, and Julian wanted to learn Amber itself. They mapped the boundaries of the one true world, wrapped in the shadow of Arden, many shadows itself on the west, and the seas of the Chainlink Ocean on the east. Llewella hated the castle, her family, and her non-place in it, and went under the seas, no underground. Of all of them, only Random had really wandered the secret passages of Castle Amber itself.

He'd found a peculiar set of rooms on the same hallway as the Pattern. Recessed so they were lower in the ground and made of different stone, Random had noticed the difference when he was a boy but not given it much thought. A few centuries later when he discovered that Amber was only first among shadows and there was a true world nearby, he realized that by some artifice of old lore yet unknown, those few dark rooms weren't in Amber at all. Oberon, Dworkin, or someone unknown, had delved them from the tunnels under Amber into the true world. He'd mentioned them to a few people, his wife, Corwin, people he trusted either wisely or not, and when they'd captured Sauron, stuffed him down in there.

It had been a vague argument about whether or not Corwin could have escaped his cell, even blind, if he'd known Amber itself was a shadow. He and Vialle had kicked it around a few times, and she took the notion Corwin would not have been able to.

"The madness he described as power wasn't. It was merely a poison. By telling himself there was nothing he could do, he made it true," she'd said.

"But if he hadn't done that either," said Random.

"He did," she replied.

The king grumbled at her and had the argument with Fiona after that.

Fiona thought that Corwin would have been able to escape if he'd known. After capturing Sauron, Fiona had also speculated that the Dark Lord, not having the false impression Amber wasn't in shadow, would be able to escape if they just jailed him. Random mentioned the cells, and the two of them decided to incarcerate Sauron down there. Results, Corwin discovered, were mixed.

Having been told all this between the assault on Amber and the meeting in the cafeteria, Corwin knew how to get to Sauron when Random indicated he wanted the Dark Lord dead. In the cell there had been some excitement, and Sauron had not been as powerless as they'd hoped. Now Corwin stood over him, and someone tried to call Corwin via trump, and Corwin had an instant to answer or refuse.

The cell burned with shadow-working. Sauron existed as eyes and power. Almost underneath the one true Pattern, none of that should have been possible, but Corwin felt something he hated in the dark. He felt a fear of Sauron, the menace of a power that he did not understand, and thought suddenly of the Eye of the Serpent. Taken from Chaos, it had powers to manipulate chaos, and it seemed these Chaosicians could do that better than he. They couldn't walk shadows like he could, but they could shape them easier. Corwin didn't know if he'd be able to work the shadows down here.

Corwin had wondered the same thing Random had asked Vialle and Fiona about: would he have been able to escape if he'd known to try? He didn't like thinking about it, but he thought that he could.

And that meant Sauron might be able to, even here.

A heartbeat passed, and the trump contact screamed.

Corwin cut Sauron from the crown of his head to the joining of his legs and took the trump call as the shadows burned with Pattern fire. Robes of mithril and darkness immolated themselves. The edges of his gauntlets turned up to race backwards towards his fingers. His cloak flared, and the red eyes flashed once before being overcome with silver flames. A crown of iron fell out of nothing and rang hollowly on the ground, denting itself against the stone.

"Yes?" said Corwin to the trump contact.

"Don't kill Sauron!" screamed Random.

"I just did."

In the hallway the watchers saw Random run his fingers through his hair and say quietly, "The next time I have any luck will be the first time."

Chapter 61: Act 4: Deathbed

"There's been a problem, Corwin. Come through."

Random reached through the trump and Corwin took his hand, stepping into the infirmary.

Random's words tumbled over themselves trying to get out. "Gerard's stabbed, Llewella's unconscious, Bleys's dead, Reinetta is dead, Orak, the guy you saved, had his hand cut in half–"

"Wait, Bleys is dead?" interrupted Corwin.

"Yeah," said Random. "He's right–"

Bleys wasn't there.

Random blinked and bolted down the hallway to the infirmary. There was no Bleys there either.

The king had called Crowin from the hallway, and Obrecht lay there, injured beyond comprehension and alive. In the doorway lay an immense blood-stain, with drag marks from it to Reinetta. It filled the doorway. No one lay in it.

Random returned.

"Actually, the squirrelly little bastard is gone."

And from a deep part of his soul, Corwin smiled.

"Gerard?"

"Fiona's working on him," said Random. "She isn't asking for help, and I'm not going to stick my oar into that pond."

"I'll follow your lead, oh Wise King," said Corwin. "Now, who is this guy? Why isn't anyone working on him?"

"Because I will bet my crown against a donut this is the guy who did it," said Random. "Everything. I think Gerard ripped his arms off."

"Why is he laughing?"

"Do you know anything of malice, princes of Amber?" asked Obrecht.

He bled from his mouth, and double lines of red smeared down his cheeks. Mixed with spit, the blood turned pinkish as it creased on his lips.

"Something," said Corwin as Random replied, "Yes."

"Give me my ring, and I will spit my last breath against the person who made me this way." Obrecht smiled.

Corwin shot a look at Random with one arched eyebrow, but the king didn't look back. Without hesitating he took one of three rings out of his pocket and put it on Obrecht's chest. The bitter thing sighed.

"Fire your cannon, Ahab," said Corwin.

Notes:

It just didn't work tonight. I'll see if I can fix this and polish it up on Sunday.

Chapter 62: Act 4: The River Narn

Summary:

Rewritten 11/10

Turin wandered the woods of Arden talking to himself. Somewhat south of Kolvir and heading west, further inland, he walked through parts of the forest that grew steadily wilder. The ground fell quickly from the feet of the northern mountain to a worm's-nest of twisting dells. At their lowest points the sub-valleys contained swamps. Immense trees further up the slope drank heavily of the moisture. Yew and beech grew thick as wagons. Uphill, to his right, the forestry thinned as it climbed alluvial flows of the mountain. Here the soil was thinner and rocky, but pines flourished. Dark green with white needle-tips, paler green with brown boles, and sometimes blue, the variated pines reminded him of Doriath.

Behind him the summits of Koryak and Kolyma rose above river-cut valleys. Streams of high snowmelt cut Vs down the mountains but did not wind as they willed. Harder rock turned the ever-flowing rivers. Stream and mountain managed to find some pathway for the water everywhere, but the snowmelt flowed first this way and then that. Waterfalls poured of soaring cliff faces a thousand feet high into those twisting swamp valleys. Clouds boiled out of thick trees. Turin saw little of it.

"The mad gods are a worthless bunch," said Turin to himself. "They're all fools for working my destiny to bring me to this place."

So said he and much more of the same when he came to a small river divided into two. The river Narn fell from a glacial lake west of Amber, and by the time it arrived in the lowlands of Arden, it ran brown and gray with silt. At the curve Turin found an immense chunk of basalt regolith upthrust through the stream. Behind this gray rock a sandbar reached some hundred feet before the limbs of the Narn came back together. Soon after it fell into swamps.

On the rock sat a woman with her legs crossed wrapped in green robes with a deep hood. Turin saw none of her skin. She wore clean silk shoes with sharp toes that curled up in slight points. Long gloves covered her hands from up her sleeves. She'd veiled her eyes, but at the moment Turin walked out of the underbrush she looked dead at him, and on the bank he froze. The woman in green waited. He noticed a diamond pattern sewn into her clothing and her velvet-wrapped thighs disappear under her heavy dress.

"Hello, Turin son of Hurin," said she. "Do you remember me?"

He stared back at her, and his breath didn't come. His sides hurt like he'd been running.

"No."

Her fingers traced patterns of water on stone that he did not understand.

"I remember you," she said. Turin heard a smile in her words he couldn't see. "I remember you from the battle of High Amber, where you went forth to meet Elrond alone. I remember when you challenged him for your bloodline. I remember you well, Turin Hurin-son."

"Turambar," corrected Turin. "That's what the elves of Doriath wrote on my headstone."

The woman in green nodded slowly, and Turin noticed a faint movement of the veil. He guessed she sounded out 'Turambar' from a language she didn't know. So she was not a wood-elf for all she wrapped herself in green. All these people spoke the Elvish of the Noldor, brought back from Valinor, but somehow spoke the language of Valar and heaven informally.

"Your death must have been greatly exaggerated," said the Emerald Woman as he was beginning to think of her. "You're looking well."

"No, I died. My Doom was put on hold so I can speak with Melkor one last time at the end of the world."

"Were you killed for being argumentative?" she snapped.

"No, I wasn't," and his head finally caught up with his mouth.

For a moment the two stared at each other, the Emerald Woman sitting still on a gray rock, Turin facing her feet widespread on the shore.

"Yes," he admitted. "Not directly, but yes."

"I can see why."

"You're no elf maid," said Turin. "You're a woman."

And the Emerald Woman growled. "Yes. Who are these elves you speak of?"

For several long seconds Turin stood with a hand out, about to explain and gesture, but saying nothing.

"Who are the elves?" he repeated. "They're like us as we see ourselves, and like us as others see us. They are good people when they're not terrible."

"I know a family just like that," said the Emerald Woman.

"I imagine they're just dim reflections of the madness of the elves," said Turin.

Now the Emerald Woman struggled to say anything. She ultimately chose, "Let's not address that. I would like you to come with me. What can I offer you?"

Their conversation dragged another long silence out before Turin replied, "Nothing. I want nothing. I want the dead back, but that cannot be done. It is to me a taunt. I want my father back, and my mother, but I saw them pass in the halls of Mandos and he Himself told me that they cannot return. He called me tied to this world in a way no other human of Middle Earth was, and in me is the breaking of the rule, but with that I am taunted by the way my father, my mother, and Nienor¬¬–" stone-faced Turin sighed "–are gone, beyond the pale, and will not to return. They are in Iluvatar's hands, now. You can't bring them to me."

"No," she said. "I can get you a great number of things, but not them. I thought you might wish riches or power?"

"I don't see what good riches would do me. Even assuming you could give me power, I would be better at wasting it than using it wisely. Emerald Woman, I don't think there is anything I want."

"You sound like a man years dead," said the Emerald woman. She did not completely hide her irritation, but Turin didn't seem to notice.

"Ages," he agreed.

She thought. "Will you come with me anyway? There is nothing keeping you here."

"Perhaps," he said. "I do like these woods. They remind me of home. The mountains are not so tall, but they rise as sharply. Rivers fall from them like Sirion over the ledges. It would be a pleasant place. There are orcs to hunt." He looked around, shooting a vaguely satisfied frown. "Where do you wish to go?"

"To the northern woods of Arden, on the other side of the mountain, where a dragon once lived."

Turin turned to her with glacial slowness, and his eyes burned.

"A new one is there. He is promising things that cannot be given. Let me tell you what I care about Turin, and I want things that can be given. I want a bed. I want to drink water that never makes me sick, walk on floors instead of in muddy streets, and bathe in privacy and warmth. Amber has quite recently had a great problem with a dragon, and I think King Random will do well by anyone who eliminates this one. I know you don't care, but think hard about how nice pleasant living could be."

Turin leaned forward. "Take me to the dragon."

"So do we have a¬–

"Just take me to the dragon!" interrupted Turin. "Do you know it's name? Is it Glaurung? Is it a wyrm or a drake? Does it breathe fire?"

The Emerald Woman leaned back even as Turin leaned in. "I don't know. It speaks, and it speaks in lies. It came just recently, and we can reach it first, before even news comes to the high castle."

Through clenched teeth, he said, "Take me to the dragon." One hand fidgeted on his sword; the other massaged the black dragon on his helmet, especially its neck and throat.

"If you don't want–" she started to say but shifted to "–Indeed. Right this way, Turin."

The Emerald Woman stood open and gestured, where a wave of the river rose to her hand. Cast around the sides of the basalt rock, it had been a standing wave. At her command, it stood higher until the wave formed a long ramp between the shore and her. Her other hand gestured with something as well, something that Turin did not recognize. It was small, about the size of a cup, but flat as a dinner plate. It had a picture on one side.

For a moment he looked distrustfully at the ramp, but thrust the helmet down around his head and strode up. The water caught him and did not part. On the rock, the woman motioned with the card and indicated he should go before her, stepping forward off the rock into nothing.

"Tell me one more thing of the dragon," demanded Turin. "Give me some proof."

"It asks about you by name. Calls you Turin, son of Hurin, and asks how your family died," said she.

He walked off the rock without another glance, and the woman in Emerald followed. They did not fall on the other side.

Not long after Julian arrived with his hounds and hawks, and found Turin's trail simply end. He searched up and down the stream before sitting down with a bit of grass in his mouth, thinking hard as well.

Chapter 63: Act 4: Valinor

For an instant Bleys saw nothing but light and pain, but the light receded and the pain approached, bringing with it consciousness and vision.

He lay on a heap of dull brown earth, dirt mixed with ash. Volcanic, sharp, and dark as the night sky between stars, the ash cut his skin. The dirt drank his blood. There were no trees. There was no sun.

Bleys lifted his head and looked around, and saw a hill with fourteen ruined chairs. A final chair stood above the rest. Riven from the stone hill, it had neither been carved nor crafted. It had been drawn. Someone had dragged the broken bones of the mountain from deep underground, and stretched them upwards to form a black seat. In it Bleys saw stars. In the obsidian's razor edges, he saw orcs and creatures older and fouler. Sitting on it, he saw Melkor.

"Hello, Manwe," said the sinuous form of evil. "Were you expecting someone else?"

Bleys looked around.

Everything was dead but Melkor and his legions.

Morgoth it had been, and its shorn helmet scraped the sky. Melkor he was now again. The passage of stars crashed into his skull like clouds over mountains, but instead of parting and moving on, they shattered and fell. Melkor's feet burned the earth. Between his toes cracks in the black earth stank of sulphur and glowed with magma. He held a mace and a sword, and his body was that of night and a tempest. His form seethed.

Bleeding and dying, Bleys looked for Varda to be sure. She wasn't there. This place was too dead for Varda to live either.

"You've come again to the Ring of Doom," said Bleys quietly. He had little air.

"I have taken it, as I said I would," replied Melkor. "Manwe, you have some power in this place. You lie also on the edge of death, a land I know well. Let me give you a choice. You may try to pronounce my death as you promised me. We shall see if you can speak your judgement before I can crush you. Or you may bow to me as your master and live.

"Think carefully, Manwe, for death is long, and I will break this world. You will not live again."

In this place Bleys had met and married Varda. She had been so beautiful. Bleys was just a boy, filled with visions of women unbound from reality, and he had found her in Middle Earth.

She'd woven the stars into her hair. The black locks of it fell off her right shoulder from behind her ear, cascading down her back to end in shadows and phantasms. Aule smithed rainbows into earrings. Her fingers had touched him gently, and her skin had been warm and soft. She had listened to him when he was a boy, a man physically, but untaught by anything but Fiona's jealousy and Clarissa's disdain. She could heal anything.

Blood bubbled at his neck. Bleys laughed.

"I'd been so smart," he whispered. "I found someone who loved me, could heal anything, and built an escape route back here. And then I left her.

"Ah, Unicorn, I was an idiot."

Melkor didn't reply, and Bleys wondered if Melkor understood. He wondered if Melkor could. He didn't think so. Melkor had long ago chosen not to be able to understand such things.

"Submit or die, Manwe."

"I uttered your death long ago, Morgoth, and Turin will–"

Melkor leaned close to Bleys and whispered, "They are not yet dead."

Bleys froze in the act of prophecy.

The Dark Lord could not smile, but he could whisper. "All of them: Varda, Aule, Tulkas, and Yavanna. They are not yet dead. They dwell in the Halls of Awaiting. Think of those that live here, Manwe. None of them were mortal. None of them walked the Doom of Men. When that minion of mine took Middle Earth, he extinguished the Men, but I took Valinor. Your kind: the Valar, the Elves, spirits? They were not destroyed. They went to Namo's demesne.

"If you speak your curse, I will slay you, and I know the enchantments you've put on Valinor. I will break this world and ride its fall back to Middle Earth. But then the Halls of Awaiting will die with you. And all your curse will have accomplished is spite, which–"

And Melkor tried to smile, but the shadows of his face made only darkness.

"No," said Bleys. "You will do nothing for them."

"If you try to speak your curse, I will kill you, and with you dies this world. Know that is true," urged Melkor.

"You won't save them if I swear to you," said Bleys again, fainter. The air barely came to his lungs.

"I will kill them if you don't," said Melkor. "Or your death will. It will please me that their end will be your fault."

"Nothing pleases you. You don't have the capability."

Melkor tried to smile again and failed. His face dripped shadows and wind. The orcs and trolls that danced in Valinor jumped and capered. Their shadows leaped in a great circle around the Ring of Doom.

Bleys thought of Corwin, who had left Avalon and never returned after its fall.

"Why would you want my oath?"

"Because I will have conquered God."

Chapter 64: Act 4: The Hallway

"This was all your fault," Obrecht told Corwin.

"Shocking how it always seems to start that way," replied Corwin.

"But it was you. I've looked into Bleys's mind and seen his thinking, and at the heart of it is your fault."

Corwin made a 'keep it rolling' gesture.

Random said, "So it was Bleys?"

"Of course it was Bleys. It was always Bleys. He did this to me. I want him to suffer, as I have. He ripped off my fingers to steal my ring."

"Gerard ripped off your arms. Get over it," instructed Random.

Obrecht glared at him, but the king didn't seem phased.

"Bleys sent me here to kill Llewella, Gerard, and the other one, and take their rings. He means to use the power of the rings to enhance his own shadow-walking powers a hundredfold. For they were made by creatures of Shadow in Middle Earth, his shadow, and he knows something of them."

Obrecht paused as if waited for a response, but this time neither of the Amberites gave him one other than Random, a grunt. It sounded like 'mm hm?'

"He's playing with the ultimate power. It is uppermost in his mind that when you use Oberon's power, something he associated with your blood, you strength shadows and make them in turn more difficult to walk. But when the creatures of shadow do the same, they make their shadows more malleable until they fall apart. Bleys aimed to use his powers to stabilize the shadows and other powers more flexible, and he aims to do it with the rings."

"Why did he let you keep one?" asked Corwin.

"I expect he meant to kill me and take it, but in the mean time, I needed it. I was more with it than I was: faster, smarter, the words came easily. I healed faster. I could do everything better.

"But he cursed me with it. He put a need in me for it. He took my ring and put a need in me for another. But while I wore it, I could see his thoughts a little bit."

"I think you're lying more than a little bit," said Random. "Copying our powers–"

"And then how am I still alive?" demanded Obrecht, and the king had no answer.

Their conversation happened in a hallway in the Castle Amber. Down the hall opened the doorway to the infirmary where Gerard lay dying or close, Orak the warrior from Rebma the same, and Llewella slept. Rein's daughter lay dead, and Random wondered if Corwin would recognize her. Doctors and their siblings worked on the injured, and where they were, the two living Amberites to have worn the crown could hear low currents of medical babble. Calls of 'Pressure!' echoed out the hallway, someone wanted something pinched off before 'exsanguination' happened, and Fiona kept demanded more light.

Random and Corwin were largely unhurt. Obrecht had been ruined, before and again. The twisted thing he was had both arms ripped off and the stumps lay untreated. He did not bleed. His head was bent back on a neck like a stretched slinky, his eyes bled, and his broken teeth cut his tongue. But he talked, and he laughed, and he smiled like the damned.

"Could one of you live through this?" demanded Obrecht.

For a moment they paused before Random said, "No."

"Living through this is not guaranteed," said Corwin. He drummed the handle of Grayswandir.

"Ah, but I want to live, and I will tell you something to let me live. Bleys has a thing."

"Good for him," said Random.

"A useful thing."

Corwin grunted at Random and tapped Grayswandir. Random shook his head.

"A thing of power."

Corwin lifted an eyebrow, looked at Obrecht, tapped Grayswandir again, and looked back at Obrecht.

"No," said Random. He looked down. "Who are you? What is your name?"

"Obrecht."

"Then get to the point, Obrecht. What's Corwin's fault? What does Bleys have? What-"

"A stone he calls a palantir. Bleys feels terrible guilt and fury at Corwin, for at some time past, Bleys fell, and Corwin saved him from his own weakness. It drives him mad."

Corwin, at the point of drawing his sword and being very, very sorry later for stabbing Obrecht eight or nine times, took his hand off the handle and looked down.

"It is in his mind, a curse of weakness, that he wouldn't have fallen if not for Corwin," continued Obrecht. "So he made something. Something so he won't need Corwin again.

"He was showing off for you. He did some great act to show you. Did you know that? He wanted to impress you. He hates the thought, and accuses himself of fearing his brother, but he thought he did his best, and yet you saved him. It galls him, Corwin. It drives him mad."

"Oh," whispered the prince in black and silver roses, and that gasp brought a long, deep sigh. Corwin seemed to settle into himself.

"So what did he do?" demanded Random. The king spared a glance at Corwin, but when the older brother only closed his eyes and winced, Random turned back to Obrecht.

"He made a thing. Somewhere far away, he made a thing, and it was a thing of power, such that he would never need Corwin's aid again. Corwin, you gave him something, didn't you? Bleys thinks of it, and he will never need it again for he has the palantir."

None spoke. Corwin and Random both crouched by the casualty's side, but Corwin slumped and put his knees down. His hands blocked off his face. Random also thought back, but Random thought of Mordor and the torments of Sauron.

When the self-styled Dark Lord, now thankfully dead at least, had captured and tortured him, Sauron had bound him to a spike and put before him a round stone. He called it the Orb of Angmar. Random had recognized the Pattern within it. Sauron had controlled it-

Random paused.

-someone had controlled it, and the Orb had shown him terrible things, likely whatever would hurt him the most. Random certainly believed that. He'd watched Vialle grieving for hours and listened to her weeping. He'd seen her in the dark and alone, in their bed and crying for him, and he had felt as close as a ghost. But he had also seen the Pattern in the Orb, and it had defied his will.

Maybe his will had been broken as Vialle had suspected Corwin's during the blinding. Random didn't know.

He looked down at Obrecht.

"What's the purpose of this thing? How does it work?"

"It lets him come and go as he will, without paying the prices of the Mad Prince." Obrecht smiled, cutting his lips and tongue, and blood turned pink with saliva drooled out of his mouth.

"And the rings?" asked Random.

"They let you live," said Obrecht. He leered. "If you can pay the rings' price."

"And that is?" pressed Random.

"Domination by the will of Sauron!" said Obrecht as if Random was not bright. "Sauron's mind is pressed against you, forever, and in your weak moments, you are never free."

Obrecht collapsed into coughing.

"You killed him?" asked Random to his brother.

"No, he's breathing," said Corwin. The older pointed down at Obrecht, who did gurgle.

"No, I-" Random switched to English. "Sauron. In the basement. You killed him? He's dead?"

"Oh, yes. Very. He caught fire and burned. Blood of shadow, Grayswandir, et cetera," said Corwin in the same language.

"We'll see." Random grunted and stood up. "Don't hurt him. Don't help him but don't hurt him. Unless you think he's going to escape or be taken. Don't let that happen."

Corwin sighed in agony but opened his eyes and nodded.

Obrecht winked.

In the back of the royal head, Random decided he wouldn't take straight odds on Corwin not-killing him, but that was what it was. Random turned around and walked back into the infirmary.

Controlled madness lived in the forms of people, blood, and bandages. Llewella somehow slept through it. Orak had five doctors on him, and Gerard had six, one of them Fiona. Nurses still worked on Rienna. She was- Ah, but would they stop? Random didn't think so.

Random smiled without showing any teeth, and somehow looked sadder and more broken than before.

Stepping past Fiona he shouldered someone aside to get to Gerard. The medic, Random didn't know the level, yelled something with both his hands shoving gauss into Gerard's throat.

The king picked up one of Gerard's meat-slabs of a hand and slipped a tiny gold ring over the fat finger. It should have barely fit, but it slipped on and stayed. Then Random walked away.

He did the same to Orak and walked back into the hallway. Before going ten feet, the medic that had yelled at Random yelled again.

"I've got the vein! It's stopped! I got the bleeding stopped!"

And Random hung his head and sighed, walking back to Corwin.

Chapter 65: Act 4: Dirty Moments in Kingship

"Yes, damn you, yes," said Bleys.

Melkor came the closest to smiling as he ever had, and something like clouds swept over his face. The ancient being stood dark and indistinct against the sky of Valinor. Stars crashed into his crown and fell screaming. Orc hordes capered in a broad circle. The soil of Valmar seethed, and cracks propagated through the Ring of Doom. Deep underground rock broke.

"Yes," said Bleys. "I submit."

"As you should. May your suffering be legendary, and stretch beyond the edges of this world."

The Prince of Amber lifted his head and said, "You're really not selling this."

"Ah, jokes. Manwe, you remember the words you said when you bound me in this place and chained me for three Ages? You mocked me. You told me you would never beg, even were you bound, and called me a fool for valuing my life so highly as to submit for it.

"But Manwe, in that moment you looked at Varda, when she and all the Valar looked at me, and I knew, Manwe, that you pride was stronger than your life, but not as strong as your love of this place. You loved this world, Manwe. And I knew I could break you by breaking it."

The titanic form of Melkor tried to laugh, but it had no appendages for it. Whatever part of the vague cloud made noise, it did not make merry. Bleys felt his life fading. The stab wounds the baker left in him deprived him of his wind, and the Amberite couldn't lift his head any more. He fell down in parts, to his knees and elbows first, and then to sprawl in the ruined muck.

"Ah, well, my asshole brother was smarter than I was. He cut ties when Avalon fell," said Bleys. "This was your plan? Make me submit and let me die?"

Melkor could not smile.

"I thought so. But I have a soft spot for lost causes, and- heh." Bleys chuckled. His head sank. "I lost this one. Romantic stories aren't supposed to end in muck."

Bleys realized his next words would be his last and tried desperately to come up with some devastating insult. He found, "The Silmarils were just pale imitations of the Jewel of Judgement."

And lay silent in the mud.

#

"Random, do we kill him, or do we send the medics after him?" asked Corwin in English to his brother. "Judgement time, kingy."

Random rubbed his face, and looked past the other, down the hallway, to the mortally injured Obrecht who didn't finish dying.

"What was that business about Bleys about? The jealousy and showing off? You understood him, but I didn't." Random raised an eyebrow.

"That doesn't seem germane to killing him or not," argued Corwin.

"I'm trying to get all the information! He's obviously lying a little, but by your reaction, he wasn't lying about that."

Corwin took a deep breath and let it go with a sigh. "He was talking about Bleys and I attacking Amber. In the final moments, we attacked the stairway. It was Bleys and I together. He went first, and fought about a third of the way up. He acquitted himself well as a prince of Amber that day, and looking back, I think he was showing off. Bleys is almost always showing off, so it's hard to tell, but I think there was some truth to that. But he lost eventually, fell off the stairs, and I threw him my trumps. Obrecht-"

"Who is lying," interrupted Random.

"-About some things," agreed Corwin. "Said Bleys holds it against me, and he built a palantir trump, which I don't understand, but I take it to mean a thing that lets him jump around without trumps. It would make sense." Corwin shrugged.

"But Obrecht said it was your fault all along. This is nothing more than support of that."

"Maybe." Corwin grunted. "Anyway, it doesn't change anything. It he's lying, we should kill him, and if he isn't, we should kill him."

"That's what Dad would do," said Random with an edge. He looked up.

Corwin didn't seem to notice. "I can't think of a reason not to kill him."

"How about because it's what Dad would do?" asked Random.

"He did have a method," admitted Corwin. "But here, with him-"

"Do you remember when you told me the story of meeting Ganelon in the land Lorraine?" At Corwin's nod and squint, Random continued, "Do you ever wonder why she left? Lorraine?"

"Ah, well, I guess she heard part of the story about my shadows in that place and-"

"You're making excuses for her, because you secretly think it's all your fault. What if Dad told Melkin to take her, because he didn't want you to stay and you couldn't rule Amber with a whore at your side? So she gets taken away or goes willingly, and then gets murdered, and suddenly that loose end is all tied up. Is that what Dad would do?"

Corwin overtopped Random by about a head, but the little straw-haired man glared down his nose as his bigger brother.

"Exactly like he did in Benedict's Avalon," added Random.

"Or maybe it gave him the idea-"

"Gave Dad the idea of murdering someone?" demanded Random.

Corwin spoke very slowly, looking at the ceiling. "Maybe. Why are you bringing this up?"

"Because you want me to kill Obrecht to tie off a loose end, and I swear I'm the only one who sees this."

"Random, it's not so much to tie off a loose end as he's about the purest embodiment of an enemy of Amber imaginable. You said yourself you think it's all his fault. Have you seen him? He's not going to die on his own. Either he dies, or the enemy of Amber remains."

"Just like Dad would have done," said Random. "And he did. To Benedict's servants. Finndo. Osric. Maybe a few others."

"But Random, you can't be paralyzed by memory-"

"I can't be paralyzed of killing people? Like your trucker, how many years ago? Or armies out of shadow? Or Benedict's servants, our brothers, Lorraine?" Random leaned forward and jutted his chin out.

"Offing Sauron was the right call," said Corwin.

Random opened his mouth to argue, and Corwin could see how much his little brother wanted to. Veins bulged on Random's forehead. He threw blond hair back to yell properly- and just didn't.

"Sauron is- was unequivocally a creature of evil actively at war with Amber. He had to go," said Random.

"Agreed," said Corwin.

"Obrecht-"

"Is unequivocally a creature of evil at war with Amber. Or anyone who holds the rings. Which if I saw your bag, you do," interrupted Corwin.

Random made a noise like a cat throwing up. Corwin gave him a cigarette. They burned a pair, standing in the hallway watching Obrecht.

"I will be a better king than Oberon. Maybe not more powerful, but certainly better," said Random finally.

"Being king is a dirty job. That's why I didn't want it," said Corwin. "But the Unicorn picked you, so here we are.

"That thing needs to die. Not in secrecy or to establish your grip on the throne. Because it tried to kill Gerard, and only time will tell if it succeeded. It tried to kill Orak, and I'm liable to take that personally. It killed Rienna, and Rein's going to take that personally, and I'm going to take it worse.

"But you are the king. I turned the job down, so I'm not going to try to take it back. What do you want to do? Either he dies or we send him to the medics. We can send him to the medics in jail, if you want, but no matter what, that's always an open thread. I got out. Him? I don't know. Call it."

And Corwin leaned back against the wall, smoking a cigarette and waiting.

"I hate these dirty little moments," said Random quietly, smoke pouring out of his mouth with every word. "I had it down in the cafeteria. I practiced. I was so kingly!"

Corwin looked over and smiled in spite of himself. "You really did. We were all impressed."

"You should have been! Vialle and I practiced it!" he repeated.

"Good on you!" Corwin laughed. "And good on her. You're good together."

"Of course we are," Random grumbled.

The devil whispered in Corwin's ear, and he said, "Obrecht killed Rienna to get to the rings. You have one, maybe more. He will kill Vialle if she stands between him and you."

Random looked up, and serpent tails of smoke rose from his cigarette.

Corwin shrugged. "I didn't practice that, but I'm sure of it."

His Royal Majesty took the butt out and snuffed it against the wall. "Do it. I'm going to see how the others are."

Corwin nodded, and they parted.

Corwin walked back and knelt beside Obrecht. The ringbearer said, "There is another thing, Corwin. Of Moire. She has a ring. I can tell you-"

Grayswandir cut a second smile below his broken teeth and when he gurgled, lopped Obrecht's head clean off. The thing twitched, and Corwin scooped up the ring. It fell onto his finger as if of its own volition. Obrecht still squirmed, so Corwin made sure. With so many blood splatters in the hallway, one more would be invisible. Within an hour Obrecht was bagged in sailcloth, weighted down with chains, and sinking towards a part of the Chainlink Ocean where Rebmen never came.

Chapter 66: Act 5: One Ring to Rule Them All

Summary:

I'm baaaaack.

The previous chapter was moved to the end of Act 4. It fit better there.

I make no promises about a update schedule!

Random sat in an office and stared at a drumkit he could barely see under paperwork.

He would not be a good architect. A manilla folder hung off the snare, easing towards the floor with only a thicker, high-friction leather folder on top of it, keeping it still. It was a marbled leather with red veins, and Random felt it sticking to his hands as ghosts of memory.

The tax department, he thought. Customs and tariff taxes. They use red leather.

The king of Amber thought about drumsticks and recalled the feel of tax documents, sweat-sticking to his palms when the humidity coming off the Chainlink Ocean turned them to adhesive.

Aware of the discontinuity and unsurprised, he wondered for a moment why he wasn't having some kind of culture shock. But he knew the answer to that. He kept having miniscule culture shocks like this, seeing his drum set covered in documents, until the shock was barely a vibration. He thought of opening an office in another shadow where the time moved like wildfire. He would have enough hours in a day to work and play and be done by close-of-business Amber time.

Vialle wouldn't mind. Maybe one of the redheads would figure out how to make her a non-visual trump. They said they were working on it.

No consideration of not taking Vialle, he self-reflected. Married, didn't even think of leaving the wife, and only thinking of leaving because he had too many documents on his drum kit.

Random felt another non-shock, and as before noted with only amusement that this was who he was.

King Random, First of His Name, Lord of Amber, and Haver of Opinions of Nonstandard Time signatures smiled, looked down, and unsmiled. The paper on his desk was a death-toll of the orcish assault. Thousands dead. Hundreds of homes incinerated by dragon fire.

And the paper wasn't even a ghastly reflection of the tragedy. It was just a cost statement for a royal subsidy on funerals. The budget would have line items for Funerals, Burial at Sea, Intact Body, and Funerals, Burial at Sea, Body Missing or Incomplete.

That hit him with the culture shock.

Not the death. He'd seen death. He'd never seen the line items for it.

Random realized he'd looked away from the paper to his kit and forced his eyes back down. He did math. The numbers might be padded. How many sovereigns for an incomplete corpse? More or less than a full one, hacked apart? Should he add a stipend for canvas sheeting if no one could bear to look at the remains?

Hell and blazes, what in the Unicorn's Name was the runt of the family doing?

Adding line three to line four to make sure the funeral directors weren't padding their numbers.

Ah, Random felt something inside him die a little and did math.

For a long time he played a game with the scratching of a pen. They didn't work quite as well as quills in Amber; the ink got clogged up on the ball and didn't write as nicely as elsewhere. Random liked them because they were still cleaner, and he liked a flat desk instead of an inclined one. His drafting table for signing documents that needed a quill rested against the wall behind him. Very deliberately, he moved it so it blocked his sight of the kit.

Random's office was an unused room on the third floor, several doors down from his royal suite. It had an excellent window that showed the mountains west of Amber and Arden, the crest of high, folded hills that would lead one towards Garnath. It smelled of the sea. But the office wasn't that easy to get to, and a kink in the hallway made the door awkward. The room was laid out like an uneven angled bracket, but the door opened near the central point. Random kept his desk and papers on the side with the door, and the smaller half of the room held his drumkit. One couldn't drum without moving things, and Vialle could come to his desk without passing too close to the kit itself and possibly tripping over a snare or cymbal.

That had been the strangest fight.

You can't drum without moving things! Different pieces need a different arrangements. It's how drumming works!

Every time you move your drumkit, I trip over it! she'd yelled.

They'd fought off and on for months. Was that normal? Did normal people have those fights?

One day without knowing why, he'd just moved his kit further down that side of the room so the path from the door to desk didn't come near it, and the fight just...went away.

Random reflected that his opinion of what would be a normal marital fight was probably a bit skewed.

Tap-tap-tap went his door.

"Come in," he called, and before she opened the door enough to be seen added, "What brings you here?"

"I was in the crafthall for a scouring pad, and the short way back is through the kitchen," said Vialle, finishing opening the door and stepping in. "The cook asked if your lunch was to your liking because you didn't eat it, and I asked if he'd left it outside your door."

"Ah, shoot! He did, and he didn't disturb me, but I never thought about– Careful, I moved the desk. Put your right hand out. Yes, there. –completely forgot there was lunch."

"It's a wonder you and Corwin are related."

Vialle put the tray down on his desk, seemingly finding space where none existed. Random reached out an put a hand on her side, guiding her too him. He noticed, not the first time, that she walked as he lead so as not to hit the drafting desk. She slid her fingers over the tray, touching glass and silver cases, and a kettle.

"The coffee is still hot. The sandwiches are cold. I think they're supposed to be," she said.

He still had his hand on her.

"And that is my bottom," she added.

The door had swung shut on angled hinges. Random took his hand off his wife's posterior and moved a seat for her.

"Right behind your knees, a round stool."

She sat down and plated his sandwich.

"If you're done exploring my rear-end–"

"Oh, I am not!" interrupted Random.

"–then eat this and stop smirking."

"I'm not smirking."

"I can hear you smirking."

"Smirks are silent."

"Yours aren't!"

Random squeezed her butt again, right where it curved from her sitting on it, and Vialle sniffed.

She did not, however, say stop.

In fact, she put the sandwich plate on his desk so he didn't need his hands to take it either, and Vialle did not make such oversights idly. The smell of mustard, ham, and spicy peppers caught him, and after a moment of sweet agonizing indecision, he used both hands on the sandwich.

"You're smirking," he said quietly.

"Maybe."

She poured herself coffee. The kitchen always gave him extra. Random knew he didn't really drink that much coffee himself.

"What are you working on?" she asked.

Vialle was a short, neat woman with distinctly green skin. Life above water was giving her skin pinkish, and now she looked ever so slightly brown on the cheeks, forehead, and nose, but still Rebman green around the neck and eyes. She was wearing a smock, so she'd been in her studio.

Of course, she'd said she went to the crafthall.

Random looked up and saw feathery curls of marble in her hair. He left them there.

"Thinking of you, actually."

"Thinking what?"

"How sweet you are."

"Aw, that's lovely." She smiled. "But really, what?"

Random opened his mouth and realized he'd completely forgotten. He had been thinking of Vialle, but he had no idea why.

"I don't remember," he admitted. "It couldn't have been important. Did you send Moire the card?"

"I did. Isn't your emissary there?"

"He is, but she does have a birthday, and that's easy to get lost. Keep got terms with the neighbors, et al. She's never liked me, and I wouldn't mind softening that disposition in Amber's closest ally."

Vialle nodded. "I had Martin take it. Moire's very fond of him."

"Ah, good thinking." Random nodded, ate, and finally said, "Things are what they were, but perhaps they can be a little different in the future."

A heavy silence who's name was Morganthe hung over them both, until Vialle resumed her earlier line of questioning.

"So what are you doing?"

Random breathed heavily, then spoke with little emotion. "I'm examining a funeral subsidy for those killed by orcs."

"Oh," said Vialle quietly.

"Undertakers have been known to take advantage of such situations, so I have to read their proposals carefully. I don't think I'll ever get used to it."

"You shouldn't have to," she replied.

"Oh, I should. They're like everyone but Amberites: most of them are decent, but the bad ones hide among the rest. With all the grief, the bad undertakers may try to rip us all off."

Vialle sipped her coffee, but to Random it looked like she hesitated. "I meant, you shouldn't have to get used to it. I don't think the city of Amber has ever been sacked before. You won't have to look forward to this again."

"I don't?" asked Random.

Vialle didn't answer.

"We have no idea," he said. "None. We have no idea how life is going to go now that Oberon is gone. When he was alive and missing, the Black Road lead to Garnath burning, Corwin taking troops into our city. Now orcs have burned the city and the port. Before, we took the Courts of Chaos so that's done, but this Morgoth isn't dead, we don't even know Sauron's dead–"

"I thought you said Sauron was dead," interrupted Vialle.

Random noticed that. She didn't interrupt often.

"We don't know that."

Vialle replied, "Corwin said he killed Sauron. He said he was sure."

Random bit into his sandwich and chewed.

"Corwin would know if he killed someone," said Vialle.

"Ah, but not necessarily. Caine pulled one on him. Corwin says this Sauron is dead, but we don't know that."

"But you can check, right? You've had the room sealed?"

Random grunted.

Vialle waited.

Random chewed, swallowed, and grunted again, and somehow managed to bite his sandwich angrily.

"You don't think Sauron is dead?" asked Vialle.

Random gulped, realized he'd finished that sandwich, and exhaled explosively. "It hit me the night Corwin said he'd done Sauron in. I was lying in bed, and suddenly something hit me. What if Sauron wasn't dead? I tossed and turned all night. I've been thinking about it ever since. Corwin says he got him: Grayswandir, burning creature of shadow, all that, and yet some strange, alien thought preys on me. What if Sauron isn't dead? How would we know?

"Of course with all the death, chaos, and murder, I can't do anything about it. But it's driving me crazy, and of all the worries I have about Corwin, him screwing up a killing, or letting Sauron off alive and lying about it isn't one of them. But I wonder, and I can't stop wondering, and I don't know why."

Random ate a pickle.

"It's driving me crazy."

The queen sat without speaking for a long time. "That's an odd thought for you."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, you're usually so pragmatic. Now you're ruminating on something, and I don't understand why. Why don't you just go check?"

"Check?"

"Check. Go to the dungeons. See if he's dead."

"Err, if Corwin smuggled him out, he'd be gone–"

"But Corwin couldn't have smuggled him out. He didn't have time. Right after the killing, that Obrecht attacked and Corwin was here for that."

"But later."

"Corwin hasn't gone down into the dungeons since. He's been in the Port of Amber helping."

"Why are you trying to get me to go into the dungeons?" Random asked.

"I'm not. I just don't like this rumination of yours. I've noticed you haven't been sleeping well, and I thought it was because of the attack. But if you're worried about Sauron, just go make sure he's dead. Isn't that the family joke you told me? You're all such pragmatic people?"

"Yeah, well, I don't know if I want to–Oh, what am I say, of course you're right."

Random stood up, swore to himself, and took his sword.

"You're right. I'm running myself ragged about for no–"

And to Vialle, Random's breathing changed again. He sighed, but a tension went out of him.

"I am a king of a city that burned. My people are dead. My brother Benedict, the immortal, unkillable, unstoppable Benedict is dead. Gerard wounded, Llewella taken nearly to death, and everything I thought I knew, our power, our glory, is ruined. You know what's going on Vialle?" Random smiled, but it was a sad, silent smile that his wife couldn't hear in his voice.

"What?"

"I don't want to think about how terrible everything is, how we're all a lot more mortal than I thought, and how bad things could be. I don't what to think about the fact that now I have to be king, and there are so many papers on my drum set, I can't see the snares. I'm avoiding it, in a silly, utterly human way. I'm worrying about something impossible. Sauron is dead. Corwin said so. It's Morgoth we need to worry about, but I don't want to worry about him, so I'm worrying about something else.

"Something I know I don't need to worry about. I guess it's a coping strategy."

"That's okay," said Vialle and touched his chest. "Being king after a war is not an easy job. Are you okay?"

"I will be," he promised. "I will be."

They stood like that for a while.

"Do you still think I should check?"

"I don't think you need to, but you boys do like doing things, even if it's just to do something. Why don't you go look, put your mind at rest, and then come talk to me in our rooms.

"Random, you haven't really talked to me about this either, and I'm much more worried about that."

"It will give me time to think," Random said. "You're right. Have dinner sent to our rooms, make the necessary excuses, you're right. We do need to talk about this. I don't know what to say, but I can think in a dungeon just as easily as anywhere else."

"Yes, Random," said Vialle.

He put his hands on her and guided her up to standing, then squeezed her. Random's head fit perfectly against her neck, and Vialle put her hands on his shoulder blades, upper arms pressed against his sides. Random felt like she was squeezing him towards her, and he squeezed back, trying to wrap the feeling of her, gritty with rock dust but soft, around his head. He wished he could have written that sensation into the Pattern of Amber instead of sparks, fire, and resistance.

They would've have all been better people.

In spite of everything, Random felt safe.

"I'll see you in a bit. You're right. I should do this, close the chapter, and start facing what I should worry about: Morgoth. And we need to talk about it."

"You need to talk about it too," said Vialle.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah." He grumbled at her, squeezed her tight for a pulse, and let go. "I'll see you in a bit."

#

The only part of the castle untouched by the war was the dungeon, and Random couldn't figure out if that was good or bad. He said hello to the guard at the base of the long, spiraling stair, took a lantern, and before leaving, asked about other visitors.

"Not a one," said Phillip.

"Prisoners?"

"Aren't any. Not since the one you brought down after the fight, and he's silent as the tomb."

Random looked at him.

"Is that a joke?"

"He isn't there. After Prince Corwin escaped, we checked the cell. No drawings or burned thatch. Prince Corwin made a comment leaving. He said, 'Don't worry about that guy.' There's no way out of here, Sire. The prisoner's dead."

"That's what they tell me," Random said. "I'm going to check."

"Yes, Sire."

Random muttered something kingly at him, took a lantern, and left.

The cell door was a thick thing, banded in steel, without a window. Dust had accumulated on the latch and the tray door at the bottom. Random checked it for trip wires. He examined the dust. People had come and gone, but none recently.

Random unlocked the door and swung it open with the tip of his sword.

The cell was a different type than Corwin had been given. It was as big as an aboveground room in the shape of a cross. The ceiling arched down to the floor at each of the four apexes. It looked like someone built a cathedral, chopped the ceiling off right where it began to curve, and slapped it on flat ground. It was a lot bigger than Corwin's cell.

It was also very empty. Random's lantern cast shadows within, and nothing else stirred.

Sword before him, Random walked through the door.

The cell remained quiet.

Random waited.

Nothing happened.

The king said something involving procreation and buttocks, sheathed his sword, and turned around once, slowly, so the light picked out every corner of the room. He saw manacles hanging empty in the corner. He saw shreds of clothing and armor, the ransom of kings, Sauron had said. Random poked the shirt of mithril chain rings with his toe. He could get a dozen of these out in shadow. The shirt rolled over, empty. Random kicked it.

A small gold ring bounced out of the pile. It was the least of rings and meaningless compared to the glorious work of the mithril shirt. For a moment Random was captivated by it in contrast with the staggering opulence of Sauron's armor. It looked like a cheap wedding ring, something a near-beggar might buy or wear.

On an impulse, Random took it to remind himself that Sauron was dead, really dead, dead forever, and not coming back. The ring fit over his finger like it was made for him.

"I'm worrying over nothing," said Random.

He walked out, shut the door, and started trying to put words to feelings, because he was going to explain to Vialle why being king of a burned city was hard, and that was just going to be murder.

Chapter 67: Act 5: One Ring to Find Them

Summary:

I wanted to show how innocuous the manipulations of the rings are. We see Bilbo and Gollum after immense time with the rings, and Frodo only really starts showing the influence when he's close to Mordor. I wanted to show how things look when the rings are far away. When everything is 'safe.'

Princess Llewella of Amber entered the undersea throne room of Queen Moire of Rebma. Her throne and Amber's were mirror images of each other. The queen lay with her legs over the side, wearing fish-scaled leggings and a smock of baleen silk. She'd been lying still for so long the filmy materials sank to her skin. Even the bubbles were gone. She stared through a gold ring at the ceiling and other than mere rotations of the band, didn't move.

Guardsmen watched their queen, and Llewella felt a hint of envy. They didn't look at her like that.

Tightening her grip on the identical small ring in her pocket, she accidentally put it on. All the feelings vanished, and she felt much better.

"Moire, did you ever decide what you thought I should do?" she asked.

The queen looked down. She had deeper green hair and skin than Llewella's. She also curved more. The hall was big enough to maintain faint currents, and her thin robes wrapped around her figure, fluttering over her waist and tight around the breast. She lay with her feet pointing west, the ring lifted above her knees, also pointing west. A westward city on a hill would be directly in her sights.

"Why wouldn't you just go to Amber?" Moire asked Llewella.

"Because it's to meet Fiona, and regardless of our blood, I hate her."

Moire cleared her throat. "I've gotten that impression from her."

Llewella's eyes went flat. There were a couple ways to read Moire's statement.

"But you should help her if you can. Go to Amber," Moire continued.

"Do you say that because you think I should–"

"I say that because Amber is the greatest power around, and dead orcs line my stairs. The guard is pulling shifts kicking corpses off the Lae Bonnin Bella Stair. They can't go all day because once over the lip, the dead cause the sharks to frenzy. So they discard orc corpses until the seas go mad, and run for safety to wait.

"Llewella, the iron hand of Oberon is gone. Amber nearly fell, and we have a tenth of their power. They have Oberon's totems. They have you, his blood line. And Amber nearly fell. Orcs took the port and lower town. They attacked the fortress itself. A serpent struck us and a dragon them. They have armies out of shadow, lead by Benedict, and Benedict is dead. Amber nearly fell.

"And Rebma is a shadow of Amber."

Llewella, who was about to describe exactly why she hated Fiona, didn't.

"I know that. I fought orcs in the city. I was in the battle at the fortress. Orak lies up there¬–"

"Yes, Llewella, but Amber nearly fell!" The queen flipped her feet down, sat up, and leaned forward on her throne. Her green knuckles turned dark as she gripped her armrests. "Think. If Rebma is only a shadow cast of Amber, but no longer being cast, perhaps the city can survive if Amber falls. But can our armies? Can we defeat orcs that nearly took Amber?"

"No," said Llewella. Her earlier vacillating disappeared, and she looked Moire dead on.

"And Rebma isn't just a shadow once cast of Amber. It the flickering silhouette of a shadow still being cast. If Amber falls, we are doomed. The strength of our armies, the power of Lae Bonnin Bella won't save us."

"How did you learn this?" asked Llewella.

"I have read it," said Moire. The ring vanished to her pocket. "Corwin spoke a little when he was here. I listened."

"Who else told you?"

Moire smiled.

The princess turned to the guards. "Leave us."

The guards looked to the queen. She waved them off. Moments later they were in the throne hall alone.

The hall was long and wide, somewhat bigger than a football field. Water flowed through the deep shadows among the columns, and eddies swirled in the open spaces. The apex of the roof held elaborate mosaics of history: Oberon founding, Thymedea creating, the city being born. The tiles were polished to a mirror shine because if Rebma was the backwards city to Amberites, it was the City of Mirrors to everyone else. Mirrors hung on the columns. Mirrors lay in the floor. Mirros hid in the ceiling. Everything but the throne had mirrors save Moire and Llewella themselves.

"How did you learn that, Moire? Who told you of the ways of shadow?" Llewella spoke quietly. Her hair floated.

"I listen, and–"

"You forbade anyone from speaking of it after Corwin left. You were furious at him. Random always kept his mouth shut to outsiders. I don't talk about shadow, and Eric certainly wouldn't during your fling. This is more than knowing that the events of Amber are reflected here. Who told you how the shadows link?"

"Oh, Llewella, your father told me."

Oh God, thought Llewella.

Moire continued. "The night before he died, when all he could think of were shadows and what he must do the next day, he came to me to take his mind off the future."

Oh God, thought Llewella.

"I'd not thought of it until now because of the way Oberon beguiled me. Amber carries his legacy. I simply trusted him, even after he died, that Amber would live on. That it's equal to anything. That his blood, you, could protect us from anything."

"And we did!" Llewella spoke fast, expecting to be cut-off.

Moire tried. "This time! Amber nearly fell! Orcs burned the city and port. They clogged my stairway with their dead, and Benedict died! Oberon is dead! Your blood alone isn't enough. Oberon and Benedict were of an older time, and they're greater than those of his blood that live. But those that live are all we have. If Amber nearly fell, it may in the future."

"Thank you," said Llewella.

Moire froze and rolled back the conversation in her head. She winced.

"My sister, we can't be idle." Moire pressed on. "We need a say in matters of Amber. We need to know their intelligence and share their planning. As you pointed out, you're a tight lipped family. We need to know if an attack of these orcs could happen again. I need to know."

Llewella waited. Moire did not continue. The princess decided the queen was done.

"So I should go meet Fiona why?"

"Bring her back to Rebma," said Moire.

An angry, unpleasant silence stretched out, ending in, "You want me to live with the bitch."

Moire suddenly felt the horrible weight of knowledge that her next effort would fail even though it shouldn't. It made everything feel crushingly futile.

"I will give you the west wing. We'll kick everyone out. The wing is basically its own palace–"

"NO!" interrupted Llewella, indignant, annoyed, and shocked Moire would even suggest it. "How is a palace with no Fiona bigger than a whole city with no Fiona? Here I have the most important thing in life: no relatives, and not only do you want to ruin that, you want to ruin it by bringing in Fiona!"

Moire decided she needed to educate Llewella why Fiona was important.

"My sister," said Moire. "I feel nothing but gratitude for Amber defeating the main horde of orcs. I hear the enemy hit their city with ten times the number they sent against us. Amber did struggle. They had a dragon. We had a serpent–"

"Which I killed."

Moire froze again. The sails of her ship of thought deflated in a fluttering noise as Llewella sliced open their bellies.

"You were saying. The weaker Amberites, my generation, couldn't do it. You got to talking about the serpent. That I killed. Right there." As she got angrier her sentences shortened into barely multisyllabic exclamations, ending with her pointing towards a stretch of floor.

Some of the flagstones were disks of polished quartz, resembling mirrors. They were mixed with others to form geometric patterns. But one set was broken and jagged, scored by fin, claw, and weapon. Llewella stabbed at the broken area with her finger.

Moire looked side to side to find a distraction.

Llewella kept her stoneface for a few seconds but lost it when she swallowed. She unclenched her teeth.

"Yes," said Moire. "We intended to have a victory celebration and make that the centerpiece. We'd have a night to celebrate you. When would you like?"

The Amberite winced. "Please don't do that. That is the worst possible– other than bringing Fiona to Rebma, that is the worst possible thing to do to me. Your gratitude is graciously accepted, and you are very welcome. No party necessary. If you have one, I'll come as a guest."

"But you could be so much more than a guest!"

"God, no! Not if it gets me that! Not if I'm going to have everyone looking at me!"

Llewella hugged herself with both arms and looked away. Moire forgot what she was going to say. Another silence stretched.

"Okay, we won't," said Moire in Thari, but enunciating it as if it was a Chaocian dialect instead of her native tongue. Seeing Llewella near paralyzed, she asked, "If Amber falls to force of arms, and by force of arms Rebma doesn't, are we still doomed? Will merely our connection to Amber damn us, even if otherwise we could endure?"

"That's not how it works. If Amber falls, Rebma will fall. If an earthquake strikes Amber, perhaps a volcano will open on Rivlok. An army upwater might be mirrored by a plague down here. The details may be different. But if Amber falls, Rebma will too."

"Can that be changed?"

"No."

"No it can't be changed, or no you don't know?"

"I know how shadows work," said Llewella, turning back to the queen on her throne.

"But you don't know everything. Not like Fiona, who knew how to destroy the world. She could cut shadows, and wove a prison for Brand which he could not escape."

"Is she one of the elder Amberites too?" asked Llewella. Her voice came down a little hard on the last word.

The tide shifted and now Moire looked intensely uncomfortable.

"I see this is going to be a fight, so let's talk about something else for now," said the queen.

Llewella's lips twitched, insinuating amusement but not happiness.

The queen asked, "How is Orak? I hear you visited him."

The princess thawed slightly but noticeably. "He sleeps. I saw him this morning. He hasn't woken up yet, but his heart is strong. He's breathing well. We took him through shadow to get something called an ethereal lifeforce scan, as well as X rays, CAT scans, had his blood dowsed, and hired a nurse/nutritionist. We're feeding him by tube, so she's going to take care of that."

"Thank you." Moire smiled and gave a slight nod. "You sound like you're taking care of him well, and he is one of mine. Thank you for your care."

Llewella searched for a trap, and felt half like a stupid fish taking bait and half like an ungrateful bitch.

"You're welcome."

"The scans? The doctors? Any diagnosis?" Moire prompted.

"He got stabbed a lot, beaten a lot, mostly died, and there's nothing to do but wait and see if he finishes."

"Again, thank you."

"You're welcome."

Moire looked away. "I do apologize, but I feel I answered, or at least you decided, what you're going to do about Fiona's invitation?"

"Oh, I've decided."

"You are an honored hero in Rebma for Rog and Orak. Rebma and I hold you in the highest regard. You've done so much for us, more than anyone's highest expectations or requests. I'll talk to Orak's family. They'll fell better knowing a princess of Amber, and as high as any, is looking our for their son.

"Would you like to meet them?"

"Ahhhhh," groaned Llewella.

"They would also like to visit him in Amber. Is that possible?"

"Yes, yes- well-" and Llewella's mind caught up with her mouth. Rebmen in Amber in a time of war. That might be complicated. She answered in a rush. "I'll be happy to make arrangements."

"Thank you," said Moire.

Llewella left. They had both thanked each other a lot, and yet Llewella didn't feel thankful.

#

In Random's office she explained the situation to him. It had been eight days of absolute madness, six since she woke up, and earlier that morning had been her throne-hall talk with Moire.

"I mean, it sounds pretty reasonable his parents want to visit him. God knows ours wouldn't, but that's probably what normal families do," said Random. He sat at his drums and ran his hands through his hair. He looked like he'd changed his wedding ring. This one was a simple affair.

"But they are Rebmen, and this is a time of war, and they are banished, punishable by death," she pointed out.

"Why, exactly?"

"Dad."

"That's not really an answer, but I guess it kinda is." Random flammed. "We've all heard about it, but I've never looked into it. Did he issue a proclamation, order a decree, stand on his balcony and shout that if any of those watery bitches every came back during war, we'd kill every one of them?"

"In a dirty t-shirt and shorts," said Llewella.

"I mean, he could." Random nodded. "He was that kind of king¬–"

And he grunted as something bone-deep hurt him. He put his left hand to his heart.

"I don't know," she admitted. She looked away and tried to pretend she was suddenly fascinated by a row of pedals.

The pain passed. Random continued. "Orak's family can come and go. I'll get you something to give to them. If you find out why the Rebmen are banished, I'd like to know and I'll work that too, but it's not my top priority. The city caught fire, you know? You'll have to look into it."

"If I look into it, will you fix it?"

"Yes."

"Okay." She nodded.

"How is he?"

"Orak?"

Now Random nodded.

"He's still breathing. I'm going to go see him."

"Good. Give him my best."

Random walked to his desk, got some paper, and half wrote something out before looking back at Llewella. She looked cold, lonely, and damp.

"But they're underwater, so I can't just give them a writ of passage on a piece of paper?"

"No." She shook her head.

"That is a problem I never thought I would have," he exclaimed like he'd won something. Tossing the paper into a bin, he pulled open a drawer. Dozens of rings with signets and crests lay in there in a jumble. He pulled out a pair of big, ostentatious things with diamonds and crusts of rubies on prancing unicorns. They sparkled like stage props. "Give them each one of these. Tell them to show the guards. That's not a signing signet, so don't try to sign my name to anything, but with those they can come or go as they may."

"Thanks," she said, and Random, you're doing well, she thought.

Badump went the drums.

She left.

#

The medical room managed to be as white as antiseptic smells. They both hurt the senses. The white walls and brilliant, unceasing magelight hurt her eyes as the burning smell of potent cleaners stung her nose. Fresh air reduced the cleaning agents to a hint, but she smelled ammonia and chemicals from deep in shadow. Agatha Wainsbury sat by his bed in the corner. Gerard's was being packed up. Hers was already gone.

"Gerard is walking?" she asked Agatha in Komenini. Komenini was far, far out a hellride into shadow.

"No," said Agatha. "He sits in a chair. His spine is broken."

"He'll be fine soon. Maybe in a few years, but soon. Corwin healed his eyes."

"Eyes compared to the spine are drizzt.

Drizzt didn't really translate to Thari, but Llewella understood.

"How is Orak?" asked the green-haired princess.

"He's alive. He breathes."

"You say that so specifically."

"Because he doesn't always. I didn't see you this morning, but I meant to tell you. He stops breathing. He does it mostly at night, but this morning was the first time he's stopped during the day. He lay there until I applied Lyman's Method."

"What's Lyman's Method?"

"I shook him until he started breathing."

Agatha didn't frighten Llewella but did intimidate her. Llewella wasn't sure why. The far younger but time-bound nurse from shadow sat with a book, Principles of Ear, Nose, and Throat Surgery Convalescence, by Orak's bedside, and into her care all the bags, tubes, and vials of medicine had been placed. Llewella hadn't read the book but didn't think it was directly germane to Orak's condition. On the other hand, she thought the kind of nurse that read ENT convalescence literature to pass the time was extremely germane to Orak's condition. Yet she worried.

"Did he stop breathing again?"

Agatha had entered each incident in a log book. Orak stopped breathing forty seven times last night, thirty three of which required the Lyman Method. Most of those came after midnight, and after three AM every instance of apnea required intervention. It had all gone away at dawn. It had done the same for the last three nights.

Until 11:43 AM today. Five hours ago. He'd stopped breathing, needed shaking, and gone back to snoring.

"So he steadily got worse at night?" Llewella asked.

"Yes. Until dawn. After sunrise, the patient breathed easily until 11:43, whereupon he stopped for twelve seconds. Twelve seconds is the threshold between snoring and apnea. He didn't restart on his own. I shook him. He coughed, inhaled, and slept on. Nothing obstructed the patient's airway. His condition otherwise did not change."

Llewella stopped breathing for twelve seconds. It didn't seem long. It was longer than she normally went without breathing, and suddenly she worried about how she breathed while she slept.

"Does he usually have sleep apnea?" asked Agatha.

The princess focused on answering exactly correct. "Before his injury, I have never been present when he was asleep. I only met him a few days ago. What do we do?"

"I don't think he can take the trip you used to bring me here. I don't suppose you found a DPE, Determinant Pattern Encephalagraph?"

"No. You mentioned it when you arrived, so I looked into it. They don't work around here."

Agatha waved her hand. "It would be nice but won't tell us anything we don't already know." She looked around. "This is a good place to recover. No other patients. Small chance of infection. Let the body do its work."

The princess nodded. They talked for a bit. Orak breathed lightly when he slept using shallow breaths. When she matched him, it felt like an uncomfortable way to breathe. She asked how being above the water affected him, and Agatha told her everything of bifurcated Komenini where dryland doctors took care of semiamphibious Loma people. The Loma people looked identical to Rebmen.

Llewella's speaking tone dropped a few notes. "He'll be fine. You're here. I went looking for a doctor who would see him survive and found you. He'll be all right."

"I'll do everything I can," said Agatha.

But Llewella smiled without amusement or happiness. "I have made sure of it."

Now they both said thanks. On her way out, one of the doctors asked Llewella in Thari if the patient was someone special to her. She told him never to speak to her again.

#

Gerard sat before a wall of glass. Outside the slopes of Kolvir fell toward burned out Arden, but the ruins of the city were hidden by the shoulders of the mountain. Red and gold diamonds alternated on the carpet, and lines of empty lantern scones marched down the walls. Dust lay on the baseboards.

A valet in gray pointed him out to Llelwella and vanished into the corridors back towards the rest of the castle. She didn't think she'd ever come here, and many of the passageways between here and the main halls were dark tunnels. She walked out of the gloom and into the light of the windows by Gerard.

"Hey, buddy," she said.

Her attempt at casualness failed so hard neither spoke for a long, almost violently uncomfortable, pause. She bulled on.

"How are you?"

"Paralyzed," Gerard said. He folded his hands in his lap. Everything below his waist was wrapped in a cashmere blanket with stripes of brown and tan. The chair had high wheels on either side with handles on the wheels so he could push himself. "From about the belly button down. They say I partially severed my spine and the swelling broke it."

"Oh, well, you'll get better. Corwin lost his eyes, you know."

"Yes, I recall."

Gerard sat in what was generally called the Delved Wing of the castle. Castle Amber resembled a mountain itself, and sitting on top of Kolvir, many wouldn't recognize it was different from the peak. It had shoulders, valleys, and passes. Worked cleverly into the stone, additional hallways, tunnels, and rooms hid among the rocks such as the long dark ones she'd followed to get here. Most people stayed to the main passages. The tunnels were a long walk, and in Amber, one had to carry a candle or a torch. There were no light switches.

Yet Gerard had come by twisting pathways and long dim halls to this forgotten point. Until she'd arrived, he had looked through tall glass windows over Arden and the vales.

"What brings you here?" she asked.

"This is the furthest part of the first floor. It's not level, but there are no stairs between here and the Great Hall. The kitchen, medical center, and side doors are all available without climbing stairs. I'm moving down here for a few years, but only a few years." His grim tone faded, and he said, like he was offering a compromise, "Corwin did grow his eyes back."

That was beginning to sound like a ritual, but she nodded and smiled. She told him of Agatha Wainsbury and Orak.

"You said you went looking for a shadow and found her?"

"I went looking for her in shadow. I hellrode for a doctor who would save Orak. Have you thought of walking the shadows to find a cure for your legs?" She stood by the windows. The expanse of glass made the wall look like it was an open door to the high reaches. The highest part of Arden was a thousand feet below, and that was dead and lifeless.

Gerard asked, "Do you think we can be found in shadow? If we're unique, can I go looking for my cure? Would it be mine, or simply the best fit. If you've ever gone looking for one of us in shadow, you know what it's like. You can find someone like us, but not exactly. I don't know if close-enough is good enough for my spine."

With a weight of despair falling on her, Llewella said, "I don't know either."

And the other actor read his prompted line in the twisted play.

"You know who would know?" asked Gerard. "Fiona."

"Fiona," Llewella repeated like she'd lost a bet with the devil. "Fiona would know."

Gerard perked up a little. "I'll go ask her."

And because her doom was already written, Llewella said, "I'll go with you."

Chapter 68: Part 2: To Bring Them All

Summary:

The beginning of Amber vs Melkor

"Do you remember Theo?"

Corwin asked the question seated at the mourner's bench by his tomb, smoking a cigarette and eating a ham on rye sandwich. He used too much mayonnaise. Fiona made a superior sandwich with the correct amount of mayonnaise, very little, and inspected her brother's taste in wine. Acceptable, but worthy of no praise.

"He died before I was born," she said.

"Oh. Right." Corwin blinked. "But you know of him?"

"Your younger brother? Got into a fight with Father and died shortly thereafter? Rumors put him in the class of Osric and Finndo." She recited as if the words meant nothing to her and seemed to pay no attention to Corwin. Corwin seemed to pay no attention to her. He ate his despicable sandwich, and she concluded the red wine, a merlot from a volcanic shadow to the south, would be tolerable.

"Yes. The rumors have no basis. Dad told him not to go out in winter because we were having a blizzard, and Theo told him to auto fellatiate. Dad, perhaps still feeling blowback from Faiella's family over his refusal to recognize Eric, and certainly annoyed by the same, didn't do much other than telling Theo our blood didn't make him immortal, and a cold storm was a cold storm. Theo called him an ass and left. Froze to death in a blizzard. Truly asinine state of affairs. Dad actually stopped the first blizzard, and Theo went out looking for another one."

"Interesting," said Fiona as if she hadn't heard that before. Corwin didn't believe her.

"I was around thirty at the time. The death of a younger sibling didn't shock me as much as I expected. Theo could be a little off-putting. But he was a sibling, and we mourned him, and I never thought much about it other than this, if you want to get yourself killed, you can do it."

Fiona replied with a cock of her head and a shrugged shoulder.

No blizzard threatened Kolvir now. An east wind carried the smell of salt water and smoke, the smell of pine forests as old as the mountains and burned cities. Buildings keep an odd smell of ash and wreckage long after the flames have died. Funeral pyres of orcs still stained the beach below. Some had risen three or four stories high, layers of dead yrch interposed with wooden platforms. Random had ordered the wooden platforms to be set in double layers of crisscrossed logs. Now the ashen pillars didn't fade away, but somehow stood like the dead orcs had been transmuted into cement. A rainstorm yesterday had eroded the pyres somewhat, and they leached into the sea like vast bloodstains on sand.

Lower Amber, the city by the harbor, lay empty. Upper Amber, outside the castle, seemed the same. But between the destroyed buildings, people walked here and there. Wagons like beetles stood between vast piles of ruin.

Corwin and Fiona had been among them for three weeks, and the work was not yet truly begun. They didn't know how much needed to be replaced, what needed to be fixed, nor even the numbers of the dead. Caine sailed southward and sent back great fleets of supplies, but the harbor was ruined. Now he sailed for landsmen to work the ports, but the shadows of Amber were themselves ruined in reflection of the one true city. He had to go far afield. The two sitting by Corwin's tomb had been with him.

But Corwin had something on his mind.

He handed her a small gold ring from his finger.

"That's one we got from that shadow, the shadow of Sauron and now this Morgoth. It's been through the Pattern. What can you tell me about it?"

Fiona took it with a bit of cheesecloth and didn't touch it with her skin. She regarded it. Corwin watched her eyes. The sculpted neutrality faded into intense concentration behind a faint smile, one so practiced it appeared by default. She had hair of fire, green eyes in this light, and the very tip of her nose turned up like a young woman's.

Corwin saw something of Bleys and Brand in her. The devil behind her eyes wasn't Bleys'. Hers played games with people. Brand's intellect dwelled there, but without the madness and contradictions. There was something else that had driven her too into the arms of Chaos.

"You're sure this Sauron is dead?" she asked.

"Very."

"Where's the body?"

"There isn't one. He burned. Creature of Chaos met Grayswandir, fire ensued, nothing remained. I watched until he was gone."

Fiona nodded. "Where?"

"One of the cells under Amber. The jailers can point you to which one."

She nodded again.

"Why are you asking, and why did you mention Theo?" She put the ring in cheesecloth down.

"Because I'm quite certain Theo didn't think he was going to his death when it was obvious to the rest of us he was, and I'm equally certain this ring is just a ring, purified by the power of the Pattern."

"And yet you suspect."

"Suspicion is the family boardgame, Fi. You didn't touch it, and you didn't say anything."

Fiona finished her sandwich, patted her lips dry, and checked herself in the wine bottle. She wore a pale pink lipstick she'd found in a shadow called Fairn. It lacked oomph but stayed on well through eating, drinking, and sweating. "It may be purified, but pure poison is no better for you. If you would like me to look into it, I'd like you to do a favor for me."

"What favor?" asked Corwin. He set to work constructing another sandwich.

"How long has it been for you since Brand died?" she asked.

That stopped him, and he held a knife still over the mayonnaise jar. Instead of transferring it to the bread, he put the knife back in, took a cigarette, and lit it. He inhaled deeply. "Time has been a little inconsistent but about eighteen years."

"When was the last time you saw Bleys?"

"A few weeks. I saw him just before I killed Sauron, and before Obrecht nearly killed him." Corwin thought. "I thanked him for living and mentioned Random said all vendettas were over. I haven't seen him since. Random thinks he's alive. Is he?"

"I don't know," she said.

Corwin smoked and Fiona drank wine. She asked, "Would you find out?"

"That sounds like a Random problem, if not one well suited to your skills. You're the master of scrying across shadow, not me."

"Because I know where he went. He returned to Middle Earth, that shadow of his, and I can't pierce the veil he put around it. Bleys is quite skilled."

"What does Brand have to do with this?"

"Because we were all very cavalier about dead relatives until quite recently, and you got me thinking about them when you mentioned Theo. I think you did everything you could have done for Theo. I don't know what could have been done for Brand. But I would like to do something for Bleys, if something can be done."

Corwin didn't look moved. He held a terrestrial cigarette in two fingers as smoke rose like a white path in invisible fields. It went out without him taking another puff, and then he looked at it like he meant for that to happen. He went back to constructing a sandwich.

"I still don't see why you wouldn't be better at that than I am, and if it's on your mind, why don't you do it?"

"You would have Merlin with you. He knows the Logrus. He might be able to get around Bleys's veils in a manner I could only fight through."

"That is possible," acknowledged Corwin.

"And I think it would be good for you. You're at your best when there are great things that need doing."

"Suppose I believe your flattery," said Corwin. "And ask again, why you're not going yourself?"

Fiona pronounced each word distinctly. "Because I would like to talk to Llewella and see if I can mend things between us. Perhaps I can shut a few doors or open new ones before things get out of hand." She smiled, unsmiled, and put her glass to her lips.

"Sounds like it could wait."

"I've waited extremely well for many years." Her enunciation was so precise she seemed to bite her words. "And I could wait for another thirty or five hundred. I would like you do a favor for me in return for examining your ring, and my favor is go find Bleys."

Corwin ate his sandwich. They finished the bottle of wine. He smoked; she drank. His tomb was quite lovely with a regal statue of him looking noble, raw wind and rock exposed to the elements, and a high spur of Kolvir running jagged against the sky. Down below the air was thick with smoke and ash. Much of Arden had burned. Up here, he smelled nothing but the high winds from the ocean and whatever he'd brought with him.

With an odd feeling of momentousness, Corwin said, "All right."

"Thank you." She constructed a smile like a work of artifice, wore it, and discarded it. Her expression was hard and tense. Corwin saw the tightness in her jaws, the rigidity of the veins running down her neck, flexed shoulders, and white-knuckled fingers on her crystal glass. She was very, very unlike herself.

"Shall we ride back down? I'll find Merlin. I might be able to badger him into coming, or at least having his trumps on hand for the next few weeks."

"Yes. Let's go," she said.

They rose, packed their trash, and left on horseback.

#

"I'm going to go find out if my brother Bleys is dead. If he isn't, he might be in trouble and I'm going to help him. Do you want to come?"

"Sure."

Corwin paused. Merlin pushed back a plate of sailfish and clams, and stood up. The palace's main dining hall served the lunch banquet, but in side rooms such as this one, one could get individual sit-down service. Bales of dry-good building supplies from basement storage waited to be sent to the city, and the room was small and quiet. Merlin closed Random's book on poker strategy and kept his place with a finger between pages. Corwin, fresh from his ride and lunch with Fiona, carried trail dust on his boots and rested his hand on Grayswandir at his belt.

"Do you want to go right now, or can I shower and pack some clothes first?" asked the son.

"Oh, yes, you can take some time. Get a shower. I'll pick out horses for us. It's been a couple weeks since anyone's seen him, so we're too late for an emergency, but I would like to get moving. Today would be best."

"Then I'll finish this and pack a bag. Meet at the stable yard in two hours?" asked Merlin.

Corwin stood still a moment more, oddly nonplussed. "Yes, that's fine."

"You want a seat? This is pretty good. Harbormaster special." Merlin pointed at his plate, pulling it back towards him.

"No, no, I'm going to¬–" Corwin paused. He looked at Merlin. "Right. We're going. I'll meet you at the stable yard in two hours."

"Sounds good. I'll be there. Go to the armory and get me a sword, will you?"

Corwin said, "Yeah. Yeah," as he went out, and Merlin finished his meal. Even the main dining hall in the palace of Amber held few people, and he bussed his own plates.

#

The vales of Garnath had grown wild. Trees carried more spiderwebs than leaves, and within deep ruts in the soft loam, things with many eyes looked out at Corwin and Merlin as they rode. They saw claw marks on fallen logs, trunks scored by the talons and flames of dragons, and in densely wooded dells, the ancient pines lay flat under a coating of cinders.

With his brother and nephew rode Julian, quiet and dour as always, but occasionally making short remarks or gesturing with a spear. He was, thought Merlin, making an effort, and Corwin responded in kind.

The youngest of the three thought back to Corwin's description of their last real meeting when Corwin rode for the Jewel of Judgement before the Patternfall war, the fall of Brand and Dierdre, and the end of the Black Road. The brothers were alike enough that their distinctions seemed huge. Corwin loved the trees and rives, the forests, and the long views down to the Chainlink Ocean, the great sea that went from Amber to beyond the edge of shadow and touched a thousand cities in a million worlds. Corwin spoke in short fragments of poetry that seemed utterly out of character for the grim old man, dressed all in black and carrying a fell sword Grayswandir. Julian loved the woods as well and thought not of metaphor, but the cutting and clearing of dead wood. He talked about where the prey animals had fled, and investigated a dead wolf, noting that it had been taken by its own kind.

"There is something deeply wrong when a pack turns on itself. Even in famine, the wolves of Amber do not engage in cannibalism," said Julian, remounting Morgenstern. He wore white armor that could ignore a gunshot and rode a massive horse that shrugged off bullets the same. He frowned before putting Morgenstern to a trot.

"Too many evil things around here," said Corwin. He rode a horse named Sapphire from the palace stables, a dappled stallion loaded with bags. He, as usual, wore silver and black with roses at his collar.

Julian glanced over at him and swallowed a frown. "Maybe," he said.

Merlin's horse, Tapdancer, did not like these woods. Merlin thought this showed his horse had good sense and trusted him completely. Morgenstern, the great warhorse, towered over them, and even Corwin on his courser overlooked the chaos magician. But of the three only Tapdancer was a true race-bred sprinter, and if he couldn't match Morgenstern for speed, he wasn't eighteen hands high either. Merlin carried a sword, a dagger, and a bolt-action Barret. Occasionally the two older Amberites felt stirrings of power about him. He'd explained only that he was getting ready.

"You probably want to put that in a case," said Julian to Merlin, gesturing towards the huge gun with the pommel of his lance. He kept the point skyward, which Corwin noticed and recognized. "It won't do you any good until you're well away from here."

"Bet your life on that, Uncle Julian?" Merlin grinned.

Julian scowled at him.

Corwin interrupted. "How is Arden? Does it grow wild like this?"

"Not like this," said Julian. "It grows, but it didn't burn like Garnath, either from the Black Rode or from Sauron's attacks. I've seen orcs in the forest, but we hunt them and drive them out. I have little use for orcs."

"What of the monster Gogomoth?" asked Corwin.

"It is being watched." Julian frowned again. "There is no one that hunts the foul creatures more relentlessly, nor with more viciousness. Orcs, drakes, or wolfish-things, Gogomoth pursues and destroys them. It's a thing itself. It burns and smokes, and the smoke does rise but sinks into the soil and stains it. I thought at first it might burn the trees.

"But the thing has some control. Even among the dry woods, it sets no fires. It knows the orcs like it can read their minds, and if I could get a pack of hounds to follow it, it would be a deadly hunt-master.

"You, Merlin, you're from Chaos. The thing speaks. Do you know it?"

"Gogomoth?" repeated Merlin, startled. "Certainly not. He's been gone thousands of years since before I was born."

"Hmmm." Julian looked like he tasted something foul.

"Chaos is a lot bigger than Amber," added Merlin. "I wouldn't expect to know everyone there anyway. Amber has just the family of you, but in Chaos, we've got few more millennia's worth of family members, their family members, and extended families, clans, peoples, and nations that a random spouse has brought along. There's a lot of us, so it's unlikely I'd know someone like him anyway."

"Him?" asked Julian.

"Gogomoth. He's a him."

"Maybe," grumbled Julian again.

They rode in silence for a while. Corwin quoted the Song of Forrest Dwellers, which Julian neither criticized or supported. The white knight observed a long, sinuous track with clawed footprints on either side as markings a wyrm had passed. Corwin nodded. Tapdancer shied away from the tracks, and Merlin patted him and complimented the horse's common sense. Morgenstern snorted.

"Wasn't Morgenstern badly injured in the battle?" asked Corwin.

"He was," said Julian.

Corwin waited. Julian kept riding. The matter passed.

At that moment the path they followed crested a sharp ridge and silhouetted them against the sky. Corwin urged Sapphire on to get off the crest, but Julian and Merlin paused for a moment. The sky had a sooty orange filter over it which stuck to the heavens like an oil stain, and the sea breezes had only barely wiped it away. Orc fires left their marks for a long time. Julian looked at the rolling hills going north where the trees grew thick, but burns turned the green hide of the earth piebald. Merlin looked around too, and hissed to get the other's attention.

"There! On the hillside east of us! A rider in black!"

Julian looked, and Corwin snapped his head in that direction through the veil of trees.

There was a rider on a grim black horse, and both of them had a wild, wispy look. The rider's cloak was tattered and cut, and edges of fabric waved on the winds like hair in water. The horse was too shaggy and black. Horse and rider stood on a notch between moss-wrapped willows, and the lengthening shadows of the trees blended with the shadows of the beast. The rider was cloaked and hooded, and from the ridge several miles away, there was no visible face instead of dark fabric. There was no way to tell where the rider was looking.

"He's watching us," said Merlin.

"I see him too," agreed Corwin.

"And I," said Julian.

The wind blew. The rider was gone.

Julian and Merlin rode slowly off the crest but stopped once they entered Corwin's copse of oak and elm.

"Who was that?" asked Merlin. "Anyone recognize him?"

The other two shook their heads.

Julian said, "He's riding in Amber's forests. He needs permission from the family to do that."

"Would it take you away from your duties to ask him?" asked Corwin.

"Perhaps my duty is to ask him," replied Julian.

Corwin smiled, and Julian allowed the corners of his lips to edge upwards.

"Then I think I will leave you here and go hunting," said Julian. "When Random and Florimel came this way through shadow, fleeing Mordor where Random was capture, they left a trail. It's been weeks, so the trail is old and cold. But between you"–Julian shrugged–"You'll find it down this ridge and north along the Taff River. I've followed it as far as a pool under cliffs, where waterfalls tumble from both sides, and stones stand up from the water. It would be beautiful if the trees weren't dead and the game gone, and I had to return to my duties in Arden. I'll be about those now."

"Thank you, Julian. Arden is better for your care," said Corwin.

Julian squinted at him, and when Corwin didn't react, the white knight nodded cagily and rode off in the direction of the black rider.

Once they were alone, Corwin said quietly, "I feel like an idiot every time I say something nice to one of them, and I can never quite figure out why."

"You shouldn't. Think Julian will find the other guy?"

"If the other rider can be found, yes. If he's only a ghost or shadow, probably."

"I shoulda shot him," said Merlin.

"That gun won't stop Julian."

The son looked at his father. "No, Dad. The other rider. Not Julian. I should have shot the other rider."

"Oh. Right."

A salty east wind blew in and brought a silence with it. The pause left with the wind too.

Corwin said, "Let's hurry. Time is the enemy when you're tracking someone through shadow, and this trail is going to be an old trail. If Bleys fled to Middle Earth, I'd like to try to sneak in before we break through the walls around shadow. That might be like ringing a doorbell."

"I've got some tricks," said Merlin.

Corwin nodded, and they rode on.

Notes:

So this is it. If I can't this to work, the last bit had a fairly decent ending, and I'm going to wrap it up there. I don't think every personal interaction and plot thread needs closure. If the story is done, it's done.

But I would RATHER all the personal interactions and plot threads have closure, so I'm going to take a stab at it!

Chapter 69: Part 2: The Binding

The wood had turned wild and fey. Many trees lay dead, but Corwin and Merlin found no cause. With the point of Grayswandir, Corwin cut open one rotting trunk to unleash a swarm of spiders. According to Julian, this area had been green and growing a few weeks ago. The tree looked like it had been dead for years.

They found the pool as Julian described. It was an oblong thing about fifty feet wide and a hundred long, deep in the center but shallow ten feet out from the banks before descending. From these shallows rose the standing stones. Most were rough cylinders of no particular shape, but some seemed carved, either by hand or fracturing. Merlin thought he saw faces in them. The center of the pool was too deep to see the bottom, and neither Amberite expressed any interest in swimming.

Further west, two high bluffs came together where the steep sides of grass-covered ridges fell to the valley floor. Larger rocks had fallen, and scree fields piled against the valley walls. Even though they were grass covered, the walls rose nearly vertical. Between them, a narrow defile cut between the ridges. Up top they looked like they met, but a close look revealed they twisted and turned without quite touching. A fallen stone some thirty feel across lay caught between the walls of the defile, forming something like a cave mouth. It too was carved by hand or erosion, but the wind blowing behind it whispered and moaned. The Amberites decided not to cross the threshold when they arrived. While it was still day, the high walls wrapped them in shadow.

They cleared a wide campsite but found all the dry wood loaded with vermin. Upon being thrown onto a fire, every log, stick, and twig cracked open to release centipedes, scorpions, or odd multilegged worms. After a few pieces they abandoned collecting firewood.

"Could you do something?" asked the son of the father. "With your Pattern?"

Corwin nodded. "I could. But it would ruin the trail, and our path will already be difficult. The clearer the path the better, and I think this foulness is his track."

"All this?" Merlin asked, waving at dead trees tented in webs, black ground, and cracked soil.

Corwin nodded again. "I'm going to pour salt around our campsite. That should keep the visitors away."

They set up their bags and shared cold packed food. Corwin smoked as he looked at the stars, and Merlin read. It was too early to sleep. For a while they made no sounds.

Finally Corwin said, "This reminds me an awful lot of the black road."

"You think it runs to Chaos? Or there's some injury to the Pattern?"

"No, neither. But it's peculiar how this place is changed."

Merlin marked his place with a finger and closed the book. "It's similar."

"What were the mechanics of that from your end?" asked Corwin, opening a door to a mental room he'd held with great curiosity. "What did it mean to Chaos?"

"You know it was opened before I was born, right?" asked Merlin, vaguely amused.

"Yes, but I'm sure you know more about it than I do."

Merlin smiled in the dark. He replaced his finger with a bit of felt and put the book down. "You're familiar with the Logrus? Heard of it, at least?"

Merlin heard his father nod. "Yes."

"It gives us immense power over shadow, but not walking through them like you can. That, as far as I know, is unique to the royal family of Amber. We have the shadows of Chaos. There are many, but there are many of us too. I can walk through shadows because I walked your Pattern, but I think I do that differently than you.

"What the Logrus does is let us manipulate shadow with much finer control than you do. When you or your family change shadow, you often wind up falling into a neighboring shadow. We don't do that unless the Adept is very new. The Logrus lets us grab shadow itself, bend it, move it, stretch and reknit it. Thinking back to the way Oberon worked that shadow Lorraine, I wonder sometimes if he ever stole into Chaos and walked the Logrus in secret. It seems like something he would do. If not, the skills may simply be the end results of Pattern mastery. Changing time to us is a difficult if simple task, sort of like lifting a heavy weight, and the problem with Chaos is so many people have tried it the timestreams are anything but flat. That's why I could grow up in a few of your weeks in Chaos while you visited Chaos for a few minutes and were gone from Amber for days."

"Flat?" asked Corwin. "Is that the term for it?"

"That's the Thari equivalent. I would say thiddish."

"Thiddish," Corwin repeated to himself.

"It's slang. We speak Thari, but everyone speaks their own Thari."

"Two nations separated by a language," said Corwin.

Merlin asked, and Corwin explained something of America and the United Kingdom of Earth. Merlin nodded along.

"Your curse weakened the pathways between shadows. We could open it up. Your curse also put gates on passage. There are no shortage of terrible bastards in Chaos, don't get me wrong, but the people who weren't terrible bastards couldn't make it through. No offense."

"None taken."

"The black road itself was a shadow manipulation. Your curse punched a hole between shadows. We sanded the edges down."

"But that's difficult for you normally, correct? Crossing shadows?"

Merlin nodded and then said, "Yes," out loud.

"However, if someone who could walk through shadows did so, you could follow them. And if the path was firm enough, you could make it permanent. We've done that across the Eastern Ocean, the Chainlink, to a hundred cities in a thousand shadows." Corwin looked up to see his son's reaction.

"Plausible," said Merlin. "But again, the Logrus isn't the Pattern only wavier. With the damage to the Primal Pattern, some Lords of Chaos were able to move armies down the black road, but only then. The first time Brand showed up looking to talk, they sent a good sized army after him. This was before he could cross shadows effortlessly. He left a trail and they followed it, but it was a small one, ripe for one person. The whole thing collapsed and the army fell into ruin. That was something the others, Fiona and Bleys, did to earn trust. They found the lost army and brought it back. The point is that a Logrus user can use a trail between shadows, widen it a little, and maybe make it a bit straighter. Take it down from a hellride to a hellwalk. If Random and Flora left a pathway, it will carry us, maybe a few more people, but no army."

"Then how did this Sauron get through in the first place? No one opened a trail for him," said Corwin.

"I don't know," admitted Merlin. "If Melkor is questionable history, Mairon, as he was known then, is a rumor. He was a master crafter, but weak, evil, and easily dominated. Sad bastard. I'm not happy he's dead, but I wouldn't want him alive."

Corwin hissed. He changed topics immediately. "And this Melkor or Morgoth. He was a creature of Chaos?"

"That's what I hear. There are Chaos figures that could be him from history. Again, they were long before my time. Melkor was the name of a terrible lord from centuries before I was born. Millenia in some places. If I recall what you told me of Earth history correctly, it's a bit like finding out Vlad the Impaler is alive and lord of his own shadow."

Corwin grumbled something. His cigarette had died, and he sparked another. They sat in silence.

"So the pathway can be broken by the same method as the black road. Hold the Pattern firmly in mind and cut through," the elder Amberite said, thinking out loud.

"Possibly," said Merlin.

Corwin grunted in the interrogative.

"The black road existed because of your curse and blood on the Pattern," said Merlin. "Fixing it was thus a matter of the Pattern. This, if you're right, is Melkor's work on a pathway opened by Random and Florimel. They didn't burn holes in the Pattern to do it. We don't know if they're exactly the same."

Corwin grunted again.

The cigarette burned in the night and died. Flint rasped on steel, and red sparks jumped against the black felt of a cloudy night. Merlin saw his father's face, lined, grim, and dark in the light of the cigarette cherry, a fire with a heartbeat of its own.

"You know who would know?" said Merlin. "Martin."

Corwin, who had been laying down, sat up. "Martin?"

"Martin. He's more pragmatic than I am. I'm a bit of a theorist. He's the experimentalist. During the War of Aggression, he was always exploring the black road to find new places. He's seen most of creation by now."

"The War of Aggression?" asked Corwin. Merlin heard his smile.

"Dad, quite literally, you started it."

The elder Amberite laughed. "Aye, I did. I did."

Merlin said nothing.

For a while the silence returned, until oddly, Corwin broke into a low, quiet song. It took Merlin by surprise. His father had a soft baritone, obviously trained, and he drummed on Grayswandir's scabbard to give himself a simple beat.

"Dawn is breaking in the east,
Over the warriors, black turns red,
The ships set sail from portside
Gone is their wine and bread.

Does the Ocean flowing,
Know if they'll be home again?
Glory be to Amber,
Home will find them then."

It went on for several more verses wrapped around the same refrain, and Merlin listened until Corwin went silent. Only when the next cigarette was lit, he asked, "Is that yours?"

"No. That was my brother Bleys. We have stylistic differences. He's more fond of the slant rhymes and metaphor than I," and after another pause continued, "But I've been thinking about it. You said Martin is skilled in following trails?"

"Very."

"Do you have a card for him?"

"I do."

"We'll call him in the morning."

Merlin nodded. "There's a dragon in the woods over there, watching us. You want to do something about it?"

"Live and let live, I always say."

"You have literally never said that before."

"I have too!"

"Bah." Merlin stretched out and in the shadows of the veiled moon, got bigger. Soon the younger man was hill-sized, wrapped in scales, and snoring through immense nostrils that breathed smoke and traces of brimstone.

"Good night, son," said Corwin quietly, as if to himself, and he fell asleep.

The dragon in the woods huffed and wandered off.

#

Elsewhere, Julian had been making terrible time.

Since splitting with the others to pursue the strange rider, everything that could go wrong did. Things that couldn't go wrong did too. Morgenstern stepped in a gopher hole and fell. A fat spiderweb took Julian from the saddle. He lost the trail at a riverbank and lost hours finding it again on the other side. A hillside he needed to traverse caught fire. The bridge over the Canyon of Painted Rocks fell down.

On the western side of the Painted Rocks, the side he had come from, the white knight of Amber stared at the gorge, the ruins of the bridge at the bottom, and the rushing water that was even now bearing it away. Julian took a slug of whisky from a bottle in his saddlebag, whistled for his falcon, and said, just once, "Shit."

Morgenstern whinnied and moved underneath.

"No, it's not a problem," Julian replied. "It's a moderately impassible chasm, but it doesn't exist everywhere and this part of Amber lies across many shadows. It's only an inconvenience. The problem is that someone else is manipulating shadow to stop me, and that means I have to take more elaborate precautions."

The horse said nothing.

"It's a deterrent, that's what it is," added Julian. "It's like all these damn orcs. I turn around, orcs. You pause for a drink, orcs. I'm going to hunt down and murder this rider, because I cleaned these woods of orcs and now I'm finding them again. It's like he put his dirty feet on my couch."

Morgenstern snorted.

"That's because you don't have a couch," said Julian.

The rider put the bottle away, mounted, and rode away from the canyon.

Two twists of the trail back the way they'd come, the first tree on the right carried a full complement of leaves under the spiderwebs, and around another corner, all the forest crescendoed into an autumn rainbow of colors and smells. Every tree had blossoms, and the scent of wildflowers floated heavy on the air. Bees bumbled. What spiders there were were small and appropriate, catching flies only. The sun broke through a gloom and cast the world in the bronze of sunset.

Julian turned left and a path opened before him. He rode back by a twisted way, and crossed a narrow stream at a shallow ford, where Morgenstern's forelocks didn't get wet as he walked across the silty bottom. On the far side Julian turned again and again. The world grew darker. Trees lost their leaves. He found a barren path through broken terrain, and behind him a river echoed as it tumbled through a canyon.

Julian looked up, and saw the pathway rising to a shallow crest. On that crest sat a rider on a black horse. The rider watched them. Julian saluted.

The other rider turned and rode on.

Julian grinned.

From distant Arden, a falcon dropped from the sky, and up through the underbrush came great hounds. The falcon found Julian's wrist and waited. The hounds bayed, their teeth gleamed, and their footsteps sounded like thunder.

The white knight of Amber put the horn to his lips and blew to start the hunt.

Morgenstern took the bit, and they charged onwards. Hounds bayed. Up and down the rough territory, the wild hunt rode and overhead the falcon soared. Up a nearby incline Julian came upon his lance, buried point first into the dirt, and he seized it in passing.

Night began to fall, and about the time Corwin and Merlin bedded down, Julian's pack crested a ridge and found the forest bursting into flames. Spider webs caught on every tree. Beyond that, a pair of trolls lurked beyond the path. The pathway collapsed into pitfalls and canyons. Julian rode through, around, and over, left his lance in a black-hearted worm, and found it once again standing in the pathway waiting for him. His hounds took a wyrm in its burrow as it posed to strike. The sky turned and burned. A dozen orcs lay waiting. Julian slew them without pause.

Twice he caught the rider looking back, each time hurrying onwards. He left scant tracks, and as night fell, he existed only as a pair of eyes and a shadow against the stars. The stormhounds never lost the scent. Julian chased him to the foot of Kolvir, where the Vale of Garnath opened on the north side of the great mountain and poured its rivers onto the beach. The ruins of Lower Amber, the port of the city, stood in desolation. The air stank of cremated orcs. The trail took them a little uphill to the Grove of the Unicorn, and Julian bristled to think the phantom rider would bring him here.

The stormhounds leaped forward, hit on a target, and stopped. One by one they sniffed a small thing on the ground, a bundle of cloth, and sat down.

Julian watched for a trap but didn't see one. Morgenstern came close, halted, and Julian jabbed the bundle with his lance. Nothing happened. He dismounted and kicked it over.

Bleys tumbled out of the shrouds and lay bleeding in the dirt.

And in that moment, Julian swore. He swore on his name and on his blood, he swore on the Unicorn who's grove he stood in, and wept for there were none of his brothers around to see. The hounds cowered before him, and the falcon hid. A weight went out of Julian, a spark of some strange power, and it left his blood in the air of his breath to be carried upwards by the wind. Where it went, Julian did not know, but he would learn. Julian had sworn an unbreakable oath of revenge.

Chapter 70: Part 2: Mortal Men

Julian thought it fitting to carry Bleys to Amber in a litter, and at dawn the white-clad prince rode through the front gates with his dead brother. He had been noted on the way, and his cargo as well. Random met him at the stableyard, and Julian laid the burlap wrapped corpse on a wooden table.

"I've done this before," said Random quietly.

"Yes," agreed Julian. His face looked like a study of cynicism, carved from stone. He drew aside the burlap.

"Ah, dammit," whispered Random.

A small crowd of onlookers had gathered, but the three Amberites ignored them. Random gritted his teeth.

"You're sure, you checked for a pulse," the king said.

"He wasn't whispering on the ride back," said Julian.

Random looked up, and his eyes were hard. Julian's cold face was no softer.

"Yes, he's dead," said Julian.

"We'll have an undertaker make him ready, and we can do a autopsy. He looks like he was crushed, but we can get confirmation. You, come with me, and tell me how you found him."

"I didn't find him. He was given to me," said Julian.

Random sent a servant to take care of the body. The living Amberites went inside, and in the library sat and spoke for a long time. Julian had not slept in a day, but he gave Random the story of finding Bleys without much emotion. Random drank coffee and thought.

#

Around the same time that Julian came to Amber bearing his brother, another of his brothers, Corwin, and nephew, Merlin, rose and struck their camp. Corwin followed the traces of an old trail to a narrow path between the two cliffsides, one that zigzagged between the walls. Only a few dozen feet along, it ended in a blank wall. Silver-clad with roses at his collar, Corwin tested the stone with his fingers before turning back to Merlin.

"There's a way here, but three weeks is extremely old. You said Martin might be able to help?"

"He's good at this sort of thing."

Corwin nodded. Merlin withdrew a trump, made contact, and talked to someone Corwin couldn't see. They broke contact, but shortly later Martin stood before them, carrying a black duffel bag.

The crown prince of Amber was a little shorter than Merlin and leaner. He had Random's hair and height, but shocking blue eyes. They looked technicolor, and his pupils were very narrow. Several piercings in his ears were slowly healing up, and he had fading tattoos on his wrists that disappeared under long black sleeves. He wore a knit shirt, black pants, and low-heeled boots.

He examined the wall and opened the duffel. It had side zips and unfurled into an extremely complete set of thieves tools. Corwin, who thought himself quite familiar with the seedy job, realized he knew less than half of what was in there, and many things he did recognize had varieties he didn't. Martin had stethoscopes and picks, but also oddly cut shims, an array of knives, rolls of felt, rope, strings, beads, and labelled vials of fluid. Merlin looked up, saw his father's wide eyes, and smirked at him.

Caught, Corwin tried to frown but gave up in a vague smile.

"Fair point, Merlin. Fair point," said Corwin.

"I think that's the third one of those you've ever admitted," said Merlin.

"Don't push your luck, kid."

"You want some light?" Merlin asked Martin. Vaille would be able to hear the smile in his voice.

Martin shook his head. "No, this was done in the dark. Has to do with the way the shadows were shifted. You see how the texture of the wall here shifts, even though it looks identical? That means someone was working this by feel, probably with their eyes closed."

"Hmm," said Corwin.

Martin took out some white powder and blew it around. It fit into rough patches on the walls and floor, and Martin teased footprints out of the stone, footprints that came from within the blocked canyon, going the way they had come. He also found hoofprints of an unshod horse.

The middle-aged one of the three looked at the hoofprints and asked, "One of you is keeping an eye out behind us, right?"

"That will be my job," said Corwin, and he removed himself to the mouth of the canyon.

In the opening where they had slept, a figure sat on a shadowed horse over Merlin's bivouac. It had no eyes or face under a black hood, and the reins vanished into tattered sleeves. It waited.

Corwin drew his sword and waited as well. After a moment, the rider left, going slowly into the web-shrouded forest.

Back inside the canyon, Martin started doing something with string. He had a number of short threads, and he licked them so they would extend mostly straight before poking them into crevices in the rock. Merlin stayed back, but asked, "So what have you been up to? You're looking well."

"I was actually breaking into a museum when you called." Martin fit another thread into the stone. "I have a shadow called Arcadia that I had to leave for several decades. I used to paint there, and I'd achieved a bit of renown. Upon leaving, long story, not very interesting, that Jaylin woman was involved, someone went through my house and took all my stuff for back taxes. Now I don't mind the house and cars, but some of those paintings were good work. I got a little miffed."

"Why don't you just buy them? Hell, buy the museum," suggested Merlin.

"Because they're my paintings!" Martin snorted, stood up, and heaved the entire slab of rock inwards. It receded into darkness. "They stole them!"

"But you're stealing them too, and I thought you said they took them for back taxes."

Martin set to replacing his equipment in the duffel. "My back taxes are no concern of the museum's. Now I think you owe me a favor. My Father says his generation isn't fond of losing, and I just gave you a big point."

"Oh, you did. Want me to talk to Jaylin for you?"

"There's nothing to be done on that score."

"That isn't what I asked," said Merlin. "Remember, I'm a magician."

"No, and no," said Martin. "But are you still talking to that Ahri girl?"

"I'm not, but I have her number."

"I would like that."

Merlin rolled his eyes, called for Corwin, and the latter appeared shortly.

The way was open and silent, and beyond it a tunnel of rough rock and dead grass extended into deeper shadow.

"I'm going to leave you here," said Martin. "I think you'll have problems making contact once you go in there, and I don't want to be away from that business right now. This is mixed work, though. The way it's refined, a Logrus user has been about. They stretch things out, and this wasn't a stable pathway to begin with. You might want to go in single file, and if the going gets tricky, rope yourselves together. I think if you put too much strain on this path, it'll break."

"What exactly would happen then?" asked Corwin.

Martin shrugged. "No idea. Nothing good."

"We'll be careful," said Merlin. He had dug through a notebook of his and handed Martin a folded paper.

Martin put it inside his jacket. He lifted the duffel bag over a shoulder, and said, "There may be watchers. Be very careful."

"You said that already," said Merlin. "As soon as I'm done I'll look you up. I owe you drinks at Blye Water."

"They closed four years ago."

"Ah, biscuits," said Merlin, and they shook hands. "Fairweather House, then."

"Fairweather," agreed Martin.

He turned to Corwin, and the elder reached to take his hand, but ended suddenly with a pause and an upraised finger. He stared into space, and space flooded him with rainbows.

The two third-generation Amberites waited for a moment. Recognizing the trump call, Merlin asked Martin, "Really? Blye Water closed? Argus was one of the last true mad-scientist chefs. His cooking was nearly blasphemous sometimes, but god, when he hit it..."

Martin nodded. He produced a deck of his own trumps and shuffled out card of a green hillside, marked by tall white towers and silver trees. "Out of business. Something about money, but I hear that he needed help managing money more than money itself."

Merlin scowled. "I liked Blye Water. I wonder if Argus would take a partner."

"From what I hear, if you wanted–"

Corwin sighed, as if in deep agony, said, "I understand. I'll see you in a bit," and broke contact.

The other two waited, Martin with the card in his hand.

"Bleys is dead," said Corwin.

For a moment dead silence prevailed.

Martin gasped, "Oh, no," and vanished into his trump.

Corwin nodded at the empty space and looked at his son. "I'm heading back to Amber. This is a lower priority now, but it's also certain. If this Morgoth killed Bleys, I will visit a fury on him, and it will be personal. I saved Bleys. I was blinded for Bleys. I spent years in the darkness, blind, alone, and mad for Bleys. I swear on the heavens and the absent God who lives within them, I will do the devil's work on Morgoth."

The black air throbbed.

"Jesus, Dad," whispered Merlin softly.

Corwin's eyes were wide and yet dark. Merlin saw something terrifying he had rarely seen before and rushed to get away.

"Yeah, I just–If we're going back, let me sketch this place. If we shut the door but I have both sides of it, I can bypass it myself, and I don't think we want this doorway open if no one's here."

"Good thinking," said Corwin.

Merlin set at once to some drawing. They'd already packed their camp and loaded the horses, which stood within the canyon behind them. The younger indicated he could open the way on his own, and they returned via trump to Amber.

#

In an antechamber to the garrison where the human dead of Battle of Amber still lay, Bleys lay with them on a frosted bier. By some work of Oberon's power in ancient times, this place was always cold. Flora's breath steamed. Caine wore a peacoat, and his gloves. Random stood over Bleys, and the rest waited for him to say a few words but Random lowered his head. Julian had an expression that looked vaguely human, something of pain and a grim, unpleasant smile. Corwin and Merlin stood together by the door. Gerard, in his wheel chair, slumped over like a weathered mountain. Fiona smiled beautifully as tears froze on her face.

"Do you, ah, want a coat?" asked Merlin of his aunt.

She hit him with the million-dollar look. "No, thank you. I'm fine."

"Um, okay."

Llewella looked like she was chewing on something and stood by Gerard. His chair had handles, but he wouldn't let anyone push him around. He would let Llewella open doors, sometimes, and that was it.

"Ah, family," said Random finally. Vialle stood behind him with her hand on his back. "So, we're here again, and this is pretty bad. I wish we didn't keep meeting like this."

He paused. No one filled the silence.

"Oh God, Bleys. Ah, buddy, I'm so sorry," said Random. He took a deep breath. "Family, we've come here again on our saddest job, one I thought we'd all avoided for a long time. When we found Bleys alive again after Dad died, I thought we'd made it past the dark times. I remember the grief of knowing Bleys had fallen, but even then there was hope. With Benedict gone, mighty Benedict, and the orcish attack, I still had hope that the rest of us would make it through. Benedict was a warrior, and the best warrior of us all, and his end was as he chose it. Bleys...was not the same."

Bleys had been crushed. His body lay mangled. His chest was staved in, his wounds dry, the edges of his severed flesh black with dirt. Somehow his face had remained intact, but it wore an expression of terrible mirth. Bleys was grinning on his coffin slab, and his cold eyes still held memories of a sparkle.

Random stared at his brother's body. "But in a way, Bleys did go out like a warrior. I think he died laughing, spitting a curse, telling a joke-"

And Random halted, dry-throated and coughing.

They heard movements among the troops outside. Various undertakers and morticians worked in this room, for there were still many dead from the orcish attack, but now all had withdrawn outside. Random's second halt was long enough that the gathered Amberites heard the workers outside talking in low tones. There was a peculiar business-like attitude among them, and Corwin felt vaguely assuaged to hear gravesites, funerals, and wakes, addressed in such a manner. To Fiona it was like nails were being driven through her ears, and she felt each word stabbing her brain. Her eyelids had frozen so she couldn't blink, and her cheeks hurt. Her teeth were cold. She wanted to kill someone.

"Okay, so Bleys was a good guy, and I'm sorry about this," said Random. He looked done. Vialle scratched his back. "I just figured we should meet once before things get all formal–"

The door slammed open. Martin stormed in carrying the Jewel of Judgement.

"He's not dead."

Random instantly talked about anything other than his brother. "How did you–"

"I stole it. Bleys. He isn't dead."

"Martin," said Gerard. "I can see my breath. I can see yours. I listened for his heart. I took his pulse, checked his vitals, and scanned his brain. It's okay."

"It is, and I'm going to prove it!" said Martin, shoving rudely past Julian and Llewella to Random's side. "None of those things mean anything. All you showed is that he doesn't have a pulse, that he isn't breathing, that his brain isn't doing anything¬-"

"Martin, that means something," said Corwin quietly, and Martin cut him off, yelling.

"No, it doesn't, because I'm not going to get stabbed again!"

He put the Jewel down right on Bleys's chest and took two stomps back. He slipped and nearly fell, but caught his balance.

"Hit it," Martin told them. "Both of you. Father. Corwin. Hit the Jewel."

They looked at him.

"Hit the Jewel?"

"Put yourself into it. Power. Dump power into it. You know how you can draw energy from it? Do the reverse. Hit it."

Martin reached forward and shoved the Jewel of Judgement into one of Bleys's open wounds. It gleamed by the slim torchlight, and they remembered Eric after the last Battle of Amber.

"Do it," said Martin.

"Martin, I–"

"Do it! Do it now, or I will go downstairs, walk the Pattern, and do it myself. Damn you, do you want your brother to die? Hit the damn Jewel!"

Fiona reached up and wiped the frost out of her eyes. She had to peal the ice from her lashes, and it came out in tiny scales, lined by mascara.

"Martin," she said. "We checked him. We examined him. I understand, I understand so much, but Martin, we made sure."

He looked at her with wide open eyes, and unlike the rest, Martin's breath didn't steam. It was because his jaws were smashed together. The cold air froze the wind his mouth before he could speak.

"This is what he does. This is Melkor. When you first told me was attacking"–Martin spoke to his father–"I looked into him because I wanted to know something none of you did. While you defended Amber, I looked at him. I looked at Sauron and found some inkling of who he was in the ancient histories of Chaos, because I was going to be the one who saved everything like you did"–now he spoke to Corwin like he was spitting daggers–"when Eric died. And none of it mattered because you saved Amber without me. But I remember, and put it aside, but I know something now, something none of you do, because I was going to be right and you were wrong, and now, I will be.

"Hit the stone, or I swear, I swear on¬–"

"Enough," said Random.

He reached out, slammed his hand onto the Jewel of Judgement, and grunted. His eyes flashed, and for a moment the veins in his whites, the ripples in his irises, turned blue and glowed with the Pattern.

Corwin slapped his hand on top of Random's.

Fiona burst into tears, grabbed both of their hands, and the saltwater that froze in her eyes again showed the signs of the Pattern.

After a moment, a pressure began to build in the room. Gerard's chair creaked. Llewella, who had crossed her arms around her middle, dropped her hands as they became heavy, before deliberately lifting them to cross them again. Caine's boots crunched the hoarfrost underneath. Julian's armor creaked.

The weight grew.

The first torch broke. The shank of the torch was split and wrapped with tar-soaked cloth at the head, reinforced with copper wire. The head broke off and fell, going out instantly when it hit the ground. Another followed, and then the third torch went out, ripping its sconce free of the walls to hit the ground in a clatter. The room went dark except for two dim lanterns, and they sputtered.

Julian had to step wide, and when his feet began to slip, braced them against stones.

The first of Gerard's tires popped with a bang! The second followed. His chair ruptured and dumped him onto the floor. Merlin and Llewella tried to help him up, but leaning over, they suddenly lost their balance. Both crashed to the icy floor as well.

Corwin dropped to a knee. Vialle's feet shot out from under her, and she fell silently. Random screamed. Pain lined his face. Fiona was still weeping and dropped to both knees at Bleys's side like she was praying. The Jewel burned, and though the hands of the Amberites wrapped it, their fingers turned red and translucent. Their bones stood out as black lines under red flesh, and the swimming lines of Pattern-fire glowed within. The very shadows of the chamber danced.

Something, somewhere, screamed. Its cry was like a shadow itself, and vanished as if it fled through the cracks in the doors.

Bleys gasped, choked once, and bolted upright before falling back, coughing.

The weight vanished. Random fell over gasping, and the others staggered upright. Bleys lay sleeping on the stone.

"You sons of bitches," whispered Martin, and something very much like madness looked out of his eyes. "I remember when you thought Bleys dead before, and I got stabbed, and I won't have that again. But that's not enough for you. I've heard it in your voices. I've seen it in your expressions. You look at me, and your damned ice-cold smiles tell me that that's nothing. You act like me getting stabbed doesn't matter. If I mention something, you ask me how I can worry about getting stabbed ONCE! Like once doesn't matter! And I won't have it again!"

He'd built up to screaming, and at the end, he glared at all of them before turning and storming back out of the room, much like he'd come.

An entirely different awkward silence arrived as he left, save for Fiona who began to desperately work on her brother.

Chapter 71: Part 2: The Second Council of Random

Summary:

Not dead yet!

See the end of this chapter for cites. As always, following the first Chronicles of Amber by a couple decades, more or less depending on what shadow you're in, and ignoring the second chronicles because I wanna write my own Logrus and events.

Notes:

What has gone before:

Sauron invaded Amber and very nearly won. Dragons slew Benedict. The living Amberites captured Sauron, but Morgoth is free of his ancient prison.

Random ordered Sauron's death, and Corwin wrought that doom, beating Sauron in a battle of wills, striking him with Greyswandir, and setting him on fire. Sauron was utterly consumed. Later, Random had an odd worry that Sauron wasn't really dead and went down to the dungeon to make sure. He didn't find Sauron, but he did find a small gold ring, one he accidentally put on. Morgoth captured Bleys and returned him. Martin stole and used the Jewel of Judgement before storming out of the castle.

It is apparent that Middle Earth is Bleys's shadow, but how much the others know is unknown. Sauron's nine rings are also present in Amber, but their location has been lost. No one's quite sure who's wearing them. But Sauron's dead, right? No worries.

It will be fine.

Corwin met Julian outside the a brass-bound door. Julian had arrived not moments before, and he was still stomping mud off his boots when Corwin showed up. The door, a dark-oak thing in a doorframe so thick it resembled a tunnel, opened onto the Tower Courtyard, a little used quadrilateral of dead grass and flagstones. Tall walls ringed it, and by chance, none of their windows looked into the Courtyard. It was a chance of construction that made the Courtyard useful, for it wasn't secret, yet few people knew what was going within.

"Julian," said Corwin.

"Corwin."

They stood for a moment. Suddenly Julian stuck out his hand, and Corwin took it. They shook firmly but quickly, a rise and some of a fall before they released by mutual agreement. Julian finished stomping off his boots. Corwin knocked.

After a pause Fiona opened it. She wore light green scrubs with goggles pushing back sunfire hair. Red pressure-marks resembled a raccoon around her eyes. She smelled like blood.

"Corwin. Julian. Come in," she said and stepped aside.

They did.

The black knight led the white through the door Fiona held, into a cold stone corridor. Hoarfrost climbed the cracks between stones, and sent white fractal legs across their faces. The floor was slick with ice. She shut the door behind them and bolted it. Some distance in, the corridor climbed eight wide stairs, and they passed through a pair of similarly fortified doors. Each one opened as silent as a whisper, and streaks of a yellow oil ran down the hinges. They formed an airlock for heat, and beyond the pair, Fiona lead them to a room which was almost warm.

Bleys lay on a bier in the center of a domed oval, the focus of a hundred lights behind a hundred lenses. The dome itself wore a silver coating, and it bathed them in an intense, shadowless light. Their brother was mostly naked, wearing only a modesty loincloth, and his skin was elaborately marked with paint pen. He slept, or seemed to, and his slight breathing made the only noise in the room. The directionless light gave him an illusory look, like he was a bad render or a quick sketch. The sleeper lay on a bed of canvas fabric like an unwrapped mummy.

Merlin stood at a chalkboard, but instead of scrawling diagrams or medicine, the young man had drawn Bleys in astounding accuracy and detail. The chalkboard covered half the circumference of the room, and Merlin had used the curvature of the wall to give his work a lensing effect. In white chalk only, he'd drawn a giant of Bleys, thirty feet from head to toe, and included every mole, freckle, and scar. From the red-headed prince's curls to about his knees, as far as Merlin had thus far gotten, the sleeper was presented in nearly perfect detail.

Gerard sat in a corner, his wheelchair mostly covered by a tartar blanket. He had a yellow legal pad, mechanical pencil, and several books of anatomy. He looked up when his brothers arrived. Merlin stopped his drawing.

Fiona stopped by the edge of the bier, asking "Is Random coming?"

"No, he's kinging," said Corwin.

"Caine?" she looked to Julian.

He shook his head. "Caine's trying to find timber and carpenters, stone and masons, and a million other pairs to rebuild the city. I caught him in shadow, but he was in the middle of a fierce gale. He won't make it."

"I did think Llewella was coming, but if she isn't here already, I don't know where she is," said Corwin. "I asked Flora. She said she might make it, but-" He didn't finish.

Julian opened his own mouth to keep going and then...didn't.

At the same moment, everyone in the room thought about Benedict, Brand, Deirdre, Eric, and even Oberon. An unpleasant pause reached out.

"Couldn't find Martin either," said Corwin. "Merlin?"

"Haven't heard of him. He's not answering his trumps," said the artist, wiping chalk off his fingers with a washcloth.

"And that's it. That's all that's left," said Gerard. He wheeled himself forward. "Let's get started."

Fiona sighed. "Bleys is wrapped in shadow. I've never seen anything like it. There's a shadow, but it's bent. It's around him. And he's dead in it. He's alive, but in the shadow, he's not. Here. I'll show you."

She pulled Corwin aside and made him crouch down next to the bier.

On the stone, Bleys lay in his coma, but when Corwin crouched down enough that he looked at the table almost edge-on, he could just barely see Bleys as he had been in the morgue: cut, wounded, and undeniably dead. Slivers of dead Bleys lay among the canvas bandages. Corwin lifted his head an inch. Bleys lay sleeping. He crouched. His brother lay dead. The image folded.

He stood up and frowned. Julian conducted the same experiment to similar results.

"The Jewel broke it," said Merlin. "I noticed it in the morgue. There was a cracking, and the shadow parted."

"But there's more in there. In him. It's coming out of him," said Fiona. She made jutting motions towards her face, fingers stabbing away from her palm. "There's shadow in Bleys."

"Isn't that, by-definition, impossible?" asked Corwin.

"Not if he's a shadow. How do we know this is Bleys?" asked Julian. "The real one. Our blood brother."

All three of the investigators, Gerard, Fiona, and Merlin, looked at each other. Gerard and Merlin both cocked their heads and turned to Fiona, who smiled. Her smile was a tight thing.

"There are a few ways. The first of which would be to let him bleed a little onto the Primal Pattern. If he damages the Pattern, he's real. And the Pattern is damaged. And the only person to every try to fix the Pattern, Father, died in the attempt."

"Let's make that plan B," said Corwin.

"It's plan A if you go first," said Julian.

Corwin stared at him for a moment. Julian smiled at their sister. "You said a few methods?"

"Take him out into shadow, a fast shadow, and leave him there for a few centuries local time. See if he casts any shadows of his own. If he does, he's real."

"But you'd want to go to a weak shadow with a fast time flow," said Merlin. Gerard nodded along, and the newcomers felt like they were setting foot into an old discussion. "So the Courts of Chaos."

"And that isn't wise because in the meantime, there's still shadows of him being dead in him, and we're not going to leave that in him for a few centuries!" said Fiona to Merlin.

"It doesn't destroy the Pattern," said Merlin, holding out both hands as if he was putting something down.

Corwin interrupted. "Any others?"

Merlin and Fiona were still staring at each other, she smiling and him intense, and Gerard spoke. "Sure. We go to Middle Earth and find out what happened. Which is what Morgoth wants us to do."

The newcomers looked at him.

"We all know it's a trap? The trap. This shouldn't be possible, but Morgoth is one of the great masters of shadow-working. He's¬–" Gerard paused, searching for words. "–Fiona good. And he was in Middle Earth, and according to you, Julian, he dropped Bleys off at the foot of Kolvir. He's calling us out. This is obviously a trap.

The other four had been looking at him without moving their feet. Julian's toes pointed at Fiona, Fiona faced father Corwin and son, and both of them had been facing her. But when Gerard started talking, they all rotated around to look at the big man in the wheelchair. Now, one by one, they shuffled around to face him directly.

"He wrapped Bleys in the shadow of his own death and left him there. No one, no one, but us could have found out that was a fake. Even we nearly didn't, if not for Martin, and I want to talk to him about that." Gerard looked pointedly at Merlin, who waved his hands. This was obviously another ongoing argument. "But why do that?

"Because A, we poke him on the Pattern and weaken Amber. Like what happened in the Patternfall, and Morgoth is a creature of Chaos. And then we still don't know how to cure him.

"B, we take Bleys to Chaos itself. And we still won't know how to cure him.

"Or C, we go after him. Morgoth. To Middle Earth. Where we'll have to go anyway, to find a way to cure Bleys. Where we went once before and were defeated."

Gerard looked at all of them and suddenly feeling the weight of their attention, wrapped his blanket around the wheelchair.

"You make it sound like this Morgoth knows an awful lot about us," said Corwin.

"Yeah. I do."

#

Corwin, in black, silver, and red, swung down off his horse. The chestnut stallion was named Titos, and streaks of dry foam made him look mad. Corwin wore something similar. Salt stained his tunic, under the arms and down his back. He lead Titos to the stable-pen and brushed him down. The horse stood almost still, ignoring his trough, and shaking under the Amberite's hands and brush. Save for tremors, he looked like a statue. Corwin moved the stiff-bristled brush gently and talked as he did.

Random met him before he was finished, and Corwin realized there must be watchers. So be it. This was Amber.

"That blood?" asked Random, pointing to Corwin's shirt.

"Yep."

"How is the guy who left it on you?"

"Tired and brushing down a horse."

Random blinked.

Corwin said, "Yes, it's mine. It's old. I've been out for nearly two weeks as I figure it. How long has it been here?"

"Less than a week. What happened to you?"

"Someone told you what Merlin, Fiona, and Gerard told Julian and I?"

"Yes."

The older brother nodded. "If Gerard's right, the way into Middle Earth Merlin and I were following was a trap. Titus and I hellrode for it. That's how I got the blood. That's what happened to me. You said you had some problems when Flora and you escaped?"

Random nodded. "You could say that."

"I found 'em. Big guys with too many teeth. Things that looked like walking trees with little dead girls hanging from the branches. The dead girls had too many teeth too. Orcs. Uglier, darker, stronger orcs. The latter plus the teeth. Things like pools of shadow. Fires. Evil-tempered things on four-legs, six, and eight. Ever seen angry spiders? They gave me a new respect for ants."

"Damn fool thing for you to do," said Random, turning away. "At the very least you should have told someone."

Corwin's brush stopped moving. His eyes tightened, and his knuckles whitened. He resumed brushing.

"You knew I was going for Middle Earth. A hellride shouldn't have been a surprise."

Random's teeth clenched. Muscles knotted along his jaw for an instant.

"Ah. Maybe. It's been a tiring week. Did you make it through?"

Corwin brushed for a while. Titos stopped shaking and discovered his feedbag.

"No," said Corwin. "Even with all that, I hit a place where the shadows went black. True black. Pitch black. I couldn't see anything. I couldn't get a handle on it to work with. It was the quietest shadow I've ever visited, like those silent rooms. Ever been to one?"

"The places where you can hear your heartbeat? Hear yourself breathe?" asked Random.

"The same. I could hear the blood in my veins, sloshing around. I hit it with the Pattern, but it was like shadow boxing and expecting to score hits. There wasn't anything there. I turned around, rode back through the horrors, and sloshed a little more of my blood around."

After a moment he added, "They burned when they died."

#

"That was something we talked about," said Fiona. "When we were kids. We knew you had to move to play games with shadow. But you also have to have something. Terrain, sights, a forest. Even out at the extremities of Chaos, you have to have something. Bleys wanted to see if he could do it blind."

The sky swung wide and purple overhead, coming down like a dome to meet a sea of the same. They stood amidst an orb of oddly planar rocks, totemic images of stones piled high. It looked like the Olympus of Earth's ancient Greeks, a pure sphere and a mountain rising from the base to the dead center of the sphere. This one didn't hold Zeus's Olympians. It held the image of a squiggly line graven within rock, and the scions of Amber stood around it.

They stared at the primal Pattern. Julian looked for the gryphon and couldn't find him.

"Did he?" asked Merlin.

"I don't know, but everything I've heard points to yes," Fiona replied. The redhead sighed. "We had a little friction after that point, and I didn't see him for a while."

"But you took us through the first time," said Julian. "The very first trip, the one that set all this off. You, me, Benedict, and Bleys, Gerard was there, and Caine. We were all there. And you went through.

"And I nearly didn't get us out," said Fiona. "Bleys was with us. I got in by passing through the shadows of shadows. Have you tried that? Finding a shadow that takes you to another shadow?"

"A shadow that crosses shadow?" said Gerard quietly.

The waking scions of Oberon gathered at the scene of his death. Fiona stood by the Pattern she had tried to destroy. Corwin sat on a rock. He'd washed up and eaten, but not slept. He looked like hell. Merlin was poking at the odd rocks, all planes and shattered vertices. They looked more mathematical then geological. Flora stood by Random. Even Llewella joined them. Dressed in slacks and something like a green suit, she wore tinted glasses against the strange purple glare. A red sun burned overhead. Caine tapped his buckled shoe.

Fiona replied, "If we can find anything through shadow, we can find shadows that cross shadows. Dworkin said that was proof we create shadows as we cross them. I thought it was proof we didn't. Shadows between shadow can be found or made. It's just tricky."

"Is that why we're here?" the big man asked.

Random looked up from the Pattern, something he'd been staring at. "You brought us here, Gerard. You said yourself Morgoth knows us. He has a Palantir made with the Pattern, a variable Trump. Perhaps Bleys made it for him, or he took it. I don't know if a creature of Chaos can scry us here, but if he can, I bet it's unpleasant. Or have you forgotten that too?"

Gerard recoiled slightly, enough to shake his wheelchair, and looked away. Random turned back to the Pattern and stared at it as if he was lost in its line.

Llewella sighed and crossed her arms around her middle.

"How did you get out?" asked Caine of Fiona.

"Bleys helped. We pushed through."

"Is that all you did?" he pressed.

Fiona met his expression levelly. "It's Bleys's private shadow. He abandoned it years ago, centuries, but lived there long enough to impart something of himself to it. Even through the barriers, it was strong enough to cast shadows of its own. Did he have some secret? Almost certainly. And did he share it with me?

"No. He didn't. Perhaps he wanted to keep something hidden for himself."

"I thought you two were thick as thieves," said Caine, smiling.

She retaliated in mirth. "I loved him like a brother."

"Okay, okay," said Gerard. "So can we get in?"

"Of course we can, brother," said Random. He pointed at the Primal Pattern. "We walk that."

"And we go in alone, with no idea what we're getting into, into what we all agree is Morgoth's trap," said Merlin.

"Ah, look. The kid is trying," said Random, still staring at the Pattern. "That's so precious."

Chapter 72: Part 2: The First Crack

In a fell mood, Julian slew orcs until black blood pooled among the roots of Arden.

When no one was around, the white knight started talking to himself. He muttered behind his visor when his rangers drove bipedal prey from the bushes. Yrch didn't flee. When the green-clad rangers and thunder-footed stormhounds pushed them from places of ambush, the scarred and crudely armored invaders attacked with beaked swords. Julian killed with his lance until orc hides befouled it, and then drew his sword to kill more. It was brutish work. There was no skill in the hunt. Orcs followed paths of downed trees and dead animals. Sometimes the orcs fed, but as often they'd take prey and leave the carcasses to rot, befouled as well in their own secretions. Julian strained to keep his temper in control, and the killing did little to help him.

The tracks of a small pack, five little ones with two bigger ones in front, lead him to a pool among the foothills. On the south side of the great mountains, a pair of steep ridges fell from the ridgeline, and between them lay a water-cut dell named Greenheart. The valley floor was mostly underwater, and the walls rose nearly shear. Here and there pines found a way to grow from the rock itself. Julian knew the pool as a deep cold thing, fed by meltwater year round. In the heat of summer a carpet of waterfern covered it, but just a few feet beneath that the water was always shocking cold and clear. The orcs had gone in the main entryway, and Julian thought of the orcs fouling his pool. He drew his sword and set the stormhounds to ward the entryway as he went in alone.

He found them, but not as he expected. The orcs had come down with the bleeding sickness, and its late term symptoms, dismemberment and beheading, had taken the lot. His brother Corwin was stacking bodies while nephew Merlin yelled about Random. They stopped when Julian arrived.

"No, no. Continue," said Julian. He swung off Morgenstern. "You were saying Random's a bastard."

Merlin and Corwin looked at each other cautiously.

"It's a technical term," said Julian. "He objectively is."

Corwin raised a finger to object. "He decreed himself legitimate. It must be good to be king."

"He can say that," said Julian, looking sideways up the valley walls, and seeing only brown rock and green trees. Up high the orcs hadn't defiled anything. The ridges protected them from the ash clouds as well. "Can we burn them a little further into the open? This place seems untouched by war, and I'd like to keep it that way, even from the pyre smoke."

Merlin and Corwin glanced at each other again, and a wall broke. Corwin said, "Sure," and started hauling corpses out of the small valley. Merlin started carrying trees after him. Julian observed Merlin picked trees that were already dead, and pleased, he joined Corwin carrying dead orcs.

"Good work," he said. "Seven of them?"

"Yep. They were quarrelling just past the notch. I think they thought they could get through, but when they realized it was a box valley they got to fighting and didn't even post a watch." Corwin nodded. "Nasty little fight. I didn't enjoy it as much as I expected."

"I know exactly what you mean," agreed Julian.

Merlin remained a little tense, so the trio worked mostly in silence until the pyre was built. The chaos wizard ignited it with spoken words and drawn runes. It burned slowly, and the smoke chased them. Anywhere they stood, the plume followed them as if it was seeking them out. Merlin, who'd said less than the other two, finally judged it with an obscenely sexual term, one that left Corwin laughing and Julian just confused. When the white knight asked how the act was possible, Merlin said, "Shapeshifting," like a curse and the elder let it go. The stormhounds came, sniffed everyone, and flopped down to sleep.

"So what did you think of that little meeting Random had yesterday?" Julian asked.

"I think he's a bastard," Merlin repeated his earlier sentiment.

But Corwin said, "I think he's getting to be more like Dad every day, and right now he seems to be taking more of the old man's bad sides than his good."

"Why do you say that?" asked Julian.

"Couple of things," said Corwin and picked a rock to sit on. He took his time about it, finding one far from the dirty, oily smoke of the orc pyre.

Morgenstern started complaining about Corwin's presence, so Julian lead the white beast a few score yards into the valley and picketed him there. The valley was unspoiled. The small tarn was too cold for waterfern right now, so the water showed the rocky bottom some dozen feet down. The grass beside the bank was tall and green. Julian gave Morgenstern somewhat of a looser lead than usual, patted him, and returned to the others carrying his saddlebag. Merlin had started sketching. Corwin had a pack and a half of cigarettes and seemed prepared to go through them all. Julian offered the others some wine, a tolerable red, and they drank, smoked, or drew as their wont.

Corwin finally continued, "I noticed it the first time when I came back from a hellride to Middle Earth. I had a feeling we were building towards walking the Pattern, but before that I wanted to try it the slow way. I couldn't make it. There's a void around Middle Earth like nothing I've found. There's no sight, no sound, no smell or taste. It's empty. I couldn't get through, and I couldn't easily get back. I had to follow my tracks and guess, and that was a more treacherous bit of shadow walking than I've found recently. On the way in I kept the notion of 'Middle Earth' constant while leaving everything else to spin, but when I hit that void, there was nothing to spin. No shadow to get a handle on. So I pushed away from it and got out. Tricky.

"How this ties into Random is when I got back to Amber, I told him, and he told me it was a damn fool thing to do. Those were almost exactly Dad's words when I tried to take the Jewel of Judgement and walk the Primal Pattern before the end."

"You never told me that," said Julian quietly. "You tried before Dad did?"

"Yep."

"You knew what it would do?"

"Yep."

Corwin breathed deeply, and the cigarette burned brilliant orange and red.

"Well done, you damn fool. Well done." Julian raised his glass and drank, but did so in a way that just hinted at toasting Corwin. Equally vaguely, Corwin seemed to nod but might just be stubbing out a butt and taking another.

Julian continued, "But that's not Random. What else?"

"He's gotten imperious. Demanding. You remember when we had that meeting in the dining hall? He gave out some orders, and he meant them to be complete. He's acting like Dad."

"How long did you stay after I left?" asked Merlin.

Julian answered with another question. "Where you there for the yelling?"

"Not really. Random called me precious, and I felt like nothing useful was going to happen after that."

"Oh, you left right when it started. You didn't miss much. Gerard left right about the time you did, when Caine told Random to stop being a little shit, Random was a little shit, and Flora came to Random's defense. Were you there for any of that?" Julian asked Corwin.

"No, I left with him." He pointed to his son.

Julian watched clouds pass blue sky like foam rushing across a deep sea. "There was shouting."

He fast-forwarded in his head. "More shouting."

He paused again. "Llewella backed Random too, which I didn't see that coming. That put Caine and I against the three of them. Fiona took our side, and we were winning when Random started yelling about the throne, the Jewel, and Amber. He said the right things, but he was such an asshole about it I wanted to argue. Caine-" Julian paused. "-Caine had a few things to say, and it was time for us to leave before he said them. You know how hard it is shifting shadow near the first Pattern, but Fiona took us out."

Julian smiled. "It was delightful. I'll put the moment on my Midwinter cards."

"About what I expected," said Corwin.

Julian went serious again. "You're wrong though. He's not acting like Dad. Dad never would have allowed things to go like that. He'd have been in control the whole time."

"Dad was much better at manipulating people than Random, and I think we should all be grateful for that," answered Corwin.

Merlin continued sketching. He was drawing dragons among the trees, rising like sharks in shallow waters.

"The joys of family aside, what are you doing out here?" asked Julian after finishing his glass. He shook the wineskin to estimate the remainder and got half a glass. He poured it for himself.

"Looking for the balrog," said Merlin when Corwin didn't.

Julian turned his head. The wineskin emptied itself on its own, and Julian held it there, catching drops, as he examined Merlin.

Merlin continued. "Everything else being...irrelevant, the balrog is the only one who actually knows Morgoth. The balrog was Morgoth's lieutenant. I'm not blind to the fact that the thing¬–"

"Gogomoth," said Julian.

"–Gogomoth is a literal fire demon, but I know people like that. He knows the enemy. He was the enemy! I want to talk to him and find out what he knows."

Merlin stared at Julian, waiting for the argument.

"Hell, boy, I brought the thing from Tir-na Nog'th for just such a purpose," said Julian, waving the wineskin to shake the last few drops to the grass. "Let's find him, find out what he knows, and hit Morgoth with the vengeance he deserves. I don't like Bleys much, but that doesn't mean I'm going to let some shadow-puppet out of nightmare kill him. I'll kill Morgoth myself. To murder!" toasted Julian.

"I mean...Yeah!" said Merlin, astounded to be in agreement, and the younger man lifted his own glass as well.

Corwin just laughed, lifted his own glass, and said, "To murder!" with chuckles falling out of his lips. They drank deeply.

#

Julian asked Merlin, "In the battle of Amber, Flora said she couldn't walk through shadow. We all had difficulty with our Trumps. Was that Sauron's doing?"

They'd let the funeral pyre burn, and afterwards took spades to the bare earth. They not only spread and buried the orcish ashes but turned fresh soil into the fire-scored part. Julian had scowled at the corpse fire and the remains of the invaders, but judged, "Not this close to Amber." That had lead him to an old line of thought.

"Possibly," answered Merlin. "It's an established technique."

"But it doesn't work well," said Corwin. He lead his own horse, Titos, out of the trees to stand some distance from Morgenstern. "They used it through the Black Road, and I defeated that with the Pattern. Flora knew the trick."

"That was what? Two days hellride from Amber, and two weeks from Chaos?" asked Merlin. He drew forth a card and called forth a horse of his own, a black creature with stars for hooves. Julian raised and eyebrow and swallowed his comment.

"There abouts," said Corwin.

Merlin shrugged. "Long distance from Chaos, across all of shadow. The Logrus has such power, but even it can be spread thin across infinity. Sauron came after you himself."

"If that was thin," muttered Corwin and saddled up.

Julian swung up as well, and Merlin shimmied into his saddle. "It's established. It's called dropping the bottom out of the well, and it works in shadow. It changes the influence of certain things, changes how they work on each other. Long story short, a veteran shadowmaster like Morgoth or Sauron could do it. They could make walking shadows nigh impossible, dampen your Trumps, so forth."

"Does it apply to everything? Would it reduce their own powers?"

"Not if they're careful." Merlin looked over. "Isn't that the purpose of a weapon? To give yourself an unfair advantage in a fight?"

"That doesn't sound like Borel," said Corwin.

"Borel..." Merlin sighed with faint exasperation. "He was Borel. I knew the guy. I liked him. Let's not get into that."

And Julian was surprised to see Corwin nod and say nothing else.

The stormhounds pressed close as the three Amberites left the small valley. Greenheart, Julian said it was named, and Corwin mentioned he'd known it years ago. It was one of thousands. They didn't dawdle.

A few weeks ago, shortly after the Battle of Amber, Gogomoth had retreated into the Forest Vertiginous, a shadow joined to Amber through the forest of Arden. It was a dark forest on rotating spires of rock suspended eternally over a slow drop into a spinning galaxy. Rocks, twigs, and stray travelers that fell from the paths would sink in agonizing slowness that increased as one descended beyond the last handhold. Below tree-covered needles of rock, there was no escape and an eternity of falling. But among the spires grew baobab trees and banyans, who's long branches and hanging roots would bind the spinning rocks together for a time. For that time, the stones would strain to resume their motion until ripping branch from trunk, they tore free of the chaining forest and danced again. It was a dark and dangerous bit of Arden.

But it rained much, trees could grow by starlight from above and below, and there was something in the hanging rocks that fed greenery at the root. Life burst from rock and crevice with a chaotic vitality unlike the rest of Arden. Broken trees hung from the revolving rocks, and some lived, sending out shoots and leaves, and reaching for other stones like they wanted to climb back up. In the slow fall beneath the forest, leaves, flowers, and buds made another spiral like a galaxy of foliage, sinking into the red hot center of the one below. It was dangerous but beautiful.

Gogomoth had gone here, and the Amberites rode after him with a thundering pack of hounds.

#

Random, King of Amber, walked into his wife's studio forgetting to walk heavy. Instead he sat down in near silence, far less than the erratic sounds of coral files on gray clay.

There was a type of clay from Amber that could be fired twice. The first time gave it a consistency like wood or bone, but it came apart more easily than either. It did so without a grain. A second firing hardened it into something like glass. Vialle had discovered it years ago and recently turned multibladed coral files to it. She wielded nearly a dozen curved files in turn, letting the idle ones rest in a basin of saltwater. In brine the once-fired clay slowly dissolved. She worked now with a large blank, a roughly humanoid lump that was about two feet high. It was just starting to have a head and arms.

"Who's it going to be?" asked Random.

Vialle threw the file at him. "Gahh!"

He caught it out of the air. "Ah, you too?" he said, half smiling but half not.

"You snuck up on me!"

"I did." Random nodded, which even after all this time, he did often while speaking with her. "I forgot to tap my feet. I-I don't know. I just didn't."

"Well, tap your feet!"

Random breath-laughed but sank back into quiet. After several seconds Vialle asked, "Did I get you? Are you okay?"

"Did you–Oh, no. No, I caught it. Here. Want me to put it in the basin with the others?"

"If you would, please."

Vialle heard the tap of his steps as he rose. They tapped closer, and from their direction a hand took her shoulder. Random didn't guide or move her, but rested his fingers on the border of her smock and bare skin. His shirt rustled right in front of her face, and the file plopped into water. He smelled like old sweat. His smell receded but he held on for a while before retreating with tapping footsteps to the small round stool.

"Have you slept?" she asked. She spun around on her own stool, which screwed into the base and the spin gave her an additional bit of height. She folded her hands into her lap.

"No, not since last morning. Night before last. You were there."

"What did you do last night? You said you were someplace nearby but couldn't arrive."

"Yeah, yeah." Random spoke slowly. He sounded tired. "I was right here, properly. Remember the Primal Plane, the true Pattern, all that?"

"Yes."

"I was there. Trumps between here, and there don't work well."

"Our contact was sort of odd."

"Yeah. I was there. Had a meeting with the family. Had some stuff to think about, and got to walking around that realm. Demesne? Demesne sounds good. I realized I didn't know if Tir-na Nog'th appears there in any semblance, it doesn't, and then I checked for Rebma. Rebma doesn't either. Nor does the Palace, so that makes sense."

She could hear him talking at his usual tired tone, but his voice was softer. She decided he must be facing away. Moving slightly side-to-side, he sounded a little louder to her left, which meant he was looking out the window. It was a very nice window: warm when the sun hit the glass. She'd set a chair at the polishing table there.

"How did the meeting with the family go?" she asked.

He went silent, and she lost his breathing. Random could breathe very quietly when he wanted too. Vialle sometimes thought that silence to her was like darkness to Random. When he stopped talking and breathed quietly, he was lost to her.

"Amberish," he said from darkness.

"They are Amberish. How are you?"

"Tired," he said. He went silent again. "I didn't go anywhere; I just walked in circles. Were you worried? I'm sorry."

"Maybe not worried but definitely concerned. I do appreciate you telling me you wouldn't make it home."

"I try. I try."

"You do. Thank you."

"Yeah." A long, long breathless silence dragged out. "Sometimes if I feel like at least I'm nice to you, I can keep it at bay. I'm not quite sure what it is, what I'm keeping back. Amberishness, maybe? The darkness of this place, the throne, and Dad's will still hiding in the rocks, the dark holes, and the dirty little moments. It's a nasty place, Amber. It makes nasty people. You ever feel it?"

And Vialle let a long pause grow before answering. "Not like that. I like it here. I like you."

"Hmm," said Random.

That silence returned. Vialle began to think of it as its own person, the third figure in their conversation. She decided, quite uncomfortably, to interrupt that silent person.

"I've never heard you talk like that before," she told him.

"I haven't? Oh. It's been hard since Sauron attacked. The last few weeks have been bad. We're at the part of rebuilding where there's nothing to be done but the slow toil, and I feel like nothing I do matters. We took down two hundred burned houses in the last week, and there are thirteen thousand more. Two hundred is two hundred, but it's about one percent of those left. And the port needs to be rebuilt because the ships carrying more timber won't be able to get in, and Caine's doing that but he's an ass and now he's screwing around off somewhere and nothing is getting done. People are still dying, and there's nothing I can do about it. Death by cold, death by hunger, death by infection, death, death, death-"

Vialle stood up, followed his voice, and walked into Random.

He sat with his elbows on his knees with his feet off the ground on the spars between the stool's legs. He'd hunched forward and twisted his head to the window. Vialle simply walked into him, and once she'd found him, she put her hands around his back and fit herself against his chest. He had the same shirt on she'd laid out yesterday, and his hair was a little oilier. His face was scratchy. Random lost his train of thought when she embraced him. They didn't move for a while.

"It can't be all bad, Random. Name something good."

"It's over."

"No, Random. Name something good."

"Eeayugh blah," he replied, nearly yelling, and wrapped his arms around to her to squeeze her tightly. "Everything's terrible. It's going to be terrible forever."

"No, no, no," she said quietly, and when he released her enough she could move, she started stroking his back. Random had nice back muscles. It was all the drumming. "Say something good."

"Ugh." He sighed. "Llewella stood up with me. I thought all of them were going to gang up together, but she stood with me. Flora, of course. It was three against three, once Merlin, Corwin, and Gerard left."

"So Julian, Caine, and Fiona argued with you?"

"Yeah. Bunch of Amberish BS. Exact same stuff as before, so no use getting into it. Caine's a little pissed he didn't get the throne, so he went off... Oh, that's not good. Llewella and Flora backed me up. That felt nice. I'd like to avoid more cabals and triumvirates, but I was happy not to be alone again."

"You're not alone. I'm here."

"You are. I'll have the next family shouting match in your studio. Careful, we throw things."

"I throw things."

"Yes, and with the whole family around, we'll throw more things! Did I ever tell about the time Gerard threw Corwin through a wall?"

"No. What happened?"

"Corwin was an ass, Gerard got sick of it, and Gerard threw Corwin through a wall. Corwin definitely deserved it. It didn't hurt him. It was a thin wall."

Vialle leaned back and put Random's voice directly in front of her.

"Why are you making faces at me?" Random grumbled. He sounded like he was just hinting at smirking.

Vialle kissed him. He felt smirkish.

"We're not having our next meeting in here. Maybe you should come, though," he said.

"I'll come if you want."

"Ugh, I don't know." He squeezed her, kissed her, and moved her back a little so he could stand up. "Fine. Do we have anything to eat around here?"

"Quite a bit. I have sandwich things in the other room. If you'd like to make us both something, I'll wash my hands."

"I will."

Random was quiet for a while, but it was a loud-breathing silence, one full of irritable grumbles, several exasperated sighs, and subvocalized muttering. He wasn't exactly embracing Vialle any more, but his right arm fit over her left shoulder so his hand fit against her back. Vialle leaned against him and defensively put her right hand on his left arm, the free one. That way she had a warning if Random's gestures got a little wild. He was always very sorry when he waved his hands so much he whapped her in the nose.

"All I have to say is that my family can be pretty frustrating!" declared her husband suddenly, when the arm waving hit its crescendo and the grumbling peaked into a near shout.

"Correct," said Vialle.

She could actually feel him squinting at her. She tried to look innocent, and she thought she did great.

Notes:

Chapter 51 is the First Council of Random
Chapter 75 is the Second Council of Random

Series this work belongs to:

• Part 1 of The Nine