“Benedict,” I said, “have you ever looked upon the Courts of Chaos?”

  He raised his head and stared at the blank wall of the tent.

  “Ages ago, when I was young,” he said, “I hellrode as far as I might go, to the end of everything. There, beneath a divided sky, I looked upon an awesome abyss. I do not know if the place lies there or if the road runs that far, but I am prepared to take that way again, if such is the case.”

  “Such is the case,” I said.

  “How can you be certain?”

  “I am just returned from that land. A dark citadel hovers within it. The road goes to it.”

  “How difficult was the way?”

  “Here,” I said, taking out the Trump and passing it to him.

  “This was Dworkin’s. I found it among his things. I only just tried it. It took me there. Time is already rapid at that point. I was attacked by a rider on a drifting roadway, of a sort not shown on the card. Trump contact is difficult there, perhaps because of the time differential. Gerard brought me back.”

  He studied the card.

  “It seems the place I saw that time,” he said at length. “This solves our logistics problems. With one of us on either end of a Trump connection we can transport the troops right through, as we did that day from Kolvir to Gamath.”

  I nodded.

  “That is one of the reasons I showed it to you, to indicate my good faith. There may be another way, involving less risk than running our forces into the unknown. I want you to hold off on this venture until I have explored my way further.”

  “I will have to hold off in any event, to obtain some intelligence concerning that place. We do not even know whether your automatic weapons will function there, do we?”

  “No, I did not have one along to test.”

  He pursed his lips.

  “You really should have thought to take one and try it.”

  “The circumstances of my departure did not permit this.”

  “Circumstances?”

  “Another time. It is not relevant here. You spoke of following the black road to its source…”

  “Yes?”

  “That is not its true source. Its real source lies in the true Amber, in the defect in the primal Pattern.”

  “Yes, I understand that. Both Random and Ganelon have described your journey to the place of the true Pattern, and the damage you discovered there. I see the analogy, the possible connection —”

  “Do you recall my flight from Avalon, and your pursuit?”

  In answer, he only smiled faintly.

  “There was a point where we crossed the black road,” I said. “Do you recall it?”

  He narrowed his eyes.

  “Yes,” he said. “You cut a path through it. The world had returned to normal at that point. I had forgotten.”

  “It was an effect of the Pattern upon it,” I said, “one which I believe can be employed upon a much larger scale.”

  “How much larger?”

  “To wipe out the entire thing.”

  He leaned back and studied my face.

  “Then why are you not about it?”

  “There are a few preliminaries I must undertake.”

  “How much time will they involve?”

  “Not too much. Possibly as little as a few days. Perhaps a few weeks.”

  “Why didn’t you mention all of this sooner?”

  “I only learned how to go about it recently.”

  “How do you go about it?”

  “Basically, it amounts to repairing the Pattern.”

  “All right,” he said. “Say you succeed. The enemy will still be out there.”

  He gestured toward Garnath and the black road.

  “Someone gave them passage once.”

  “The enemy has always been out there,” I said. “And it will be up to us to see that they are not given passage again — by dealing properly with those who provided it in the first place.”

  “I go along with you on that,” he said, “but that is not what I meant. They require a lesson, Corwin. I want to teach them a proper respect for Amber, such a respect that even if the way is opened again they will fear to use it. That is what I meant. It is necessary.”

  “You do not know what it would be like to carry a battle to that place, Benedict. It is — literally — indescribable.”

  He smiled and stood.

  “Then I guess I had best go see for myself,” he said. “I will keep this card for a time, if you don’t mind.”

  “I don’t mind.”

  “Good. Then you be on with your business about the Pattern, Corwin, and I will be about my own. This will take me some time, too. I must go give my commanders orders concerning my absence now. Let us agree that neither of us commence anything of a final nature without checking first with the other.”

  “Agreed,” I said.

  We finished our wine.

  “I will be under way myself, very soon now,” I said. “So, good luck.”

  “To you, also.” He smiled again. “Things are better,” he said, and he clasped my shoulder as he passed to the entrance. We followed him outside.

  “Bring Benedict’s horse,” Ganelon directed the orderly who stood beneath a nearby tree; and turning, he offered Benedict his hand.

  “I, too, want to wish you luck,” he said.

  Benedict nodded and shook his hand.

  “Thank you, Ganelon. For many things.”

  Benedict withdrew his Trumps.

  “I can bring Gerard up to date,” he said, “before my horse arrives.”

  He riffled through them, withdrew one, studied it.

  “How do you go about repairing the Pattern?” Ganelon asked me.

  “I have to get hold of the Jewel of Judgment again,” I said. “With it, I can reinscribe the damaged area.”

  “Is this dangerous?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where is the Jewel?”

  “Back on the shadow Earth, where I left it.”

  “Why did you abandon it?”

  “I feared that it was killing me.”

  He contorted his features into a near-impossible grimace.

  “I don’t like the sound of this, Corwin. There must be another way.”

  “If I knew a better way, I’d take it.”

  “Supposing you just followed Benedict’s plan and took them all on? You said yourself that he could raise infinite legions in Shadow. You also said that he is the best man there is in the field.”

  “Yet the damage would remain in the Pattern, and something else would come to fill it. Always. The enemy of the moment is not as important as our own inner weakness. If this is not mended we are already defeated, though no foreign conqueror stands within our walls.”

  He turned away.

  “I cannot argue with you. You know your own realm,” he said. “But I still feel you may be making a grave mistake by risking yourself on what may prove unnecessary at a time when you are very much needed.”

  I chuckled, for it was Vialle’s word and I had not wanted to call it my own when she had said it.

  “It is my duty,” I told him.

  He did not reply.

  Benedict, a dozen paces away, had apparently reached Gerard, for he would mutter something, then pause and listen. We stood there, waiting for him to conclude his conversation so that we could see him off.

  “…Yes, he is here now,” I heard him say. “No, I doubt that very much. But —”

  Benedict glanced at me several times and shook his head.

  “No, I do not think so,” he said. Then, “All right, come ahead.”

  He extended his new hand, and Gerard stepped into being, clasping it. Gerard turned his head, saw me, and immediately moved in my direction.

  He ran his eyes up and down and back and forth across my entire person, as if searching for something.

  “What is the matter?” I said.

  “Brand,” he replied. “He is no longer in his quarters. At least, most of him isn’t. He left some blood behind. The place is also broken up enough to show there had been a fight.”

  I glanced down at my shirt front and trousers.

  “And you are looking for bloodstains? As you can see, these are the same things I had on earlier. They may be dirty and wrinkled, but that’s all.”

  “That does not really prove anything,” he said.

  “It was your idea to look. Not mine. What makes you think I —”

  “You were the last one to see him,” he said.

  “Except for the person be had a fight with — if he really did.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “You know his temper, his moods. We had a small argument. He might have started breaking things up after I left, maybe cut himself, gotten disgusted, trumped out for a change of scene — Wait! His rug! Was there any blood on that small, fancy rug before his door?”

  “I am not sure — no, I don’t think so. Why?”

  “Circumstantial evidence that he did it himself. He was very fond of that rug. He avoided messing it.”

  “I don’t buy it,” Gerard said, “and Caine’s death still looks peculiar — and Benedict’s servants, who could have found out you wanted gunpowder. Now Brand —”

  “This could well be another attempt to frame me,” I said, “and Benedict and I have come to better terms.”

  He turned toward Benedict, who had not moved from where he stood a dozen paces away, regarding us without expression, listening.

  “Has he explained away those deaths?” Gerard asked him.

  “Not directly,” Benedict answered, “but much of the rest of the story now stands in a better light. So much so, that I am inclined to believe all of it.”

  Gerard shook his head and glared down at me again.

  “Still unsettled,” he said. “What were you and Brand arguing about?”

  “Gerard,” I said, “that is our business, till Brand and I decide otherwise.”

  “I dragged him back to life and watched over him, Corwin. I didn’t do it just to see him killed in a squabble.”

  “Use your brains,” I told him. “Whose idea was it to search for him the way that we did? To bring him back?”

  “You wanted something from him,” he said. “You finally got it. Then he became an impediment.”

  “No. But even if that were the case, do you think I would be so damned obvious about it? If he has been killed, then it is on the same order as Caine’s death — an attempt to frame me.”

  “You used the obviousness excuse with Caine, too. It seems to me it could be a kind of subtlety — a thing you are good at.”

  “We have been through this before, Gerard…”

  “…And you know what I told you then.”

  “It would be difficult to have forgotten.”

  He reached forward and seized my right shoulder. I immediately drove my left hand into his stomach and pulled away. It occurred to me then that perhaps I should have told him what Brand and I had been talking about. But I didn’t like the way he had asked me.

  He came at me again. I side-stepped and caught him with a light left near the right eye. I kept jabbing after that, mainly to keep his head back. I was in no real shape to fight him again, and Grayswandir was back in the tent. I had no other weapon with me.

  I kept circling him. My side hurt if I kicked with my left leg. I caught him once on the thigh with my right, but I was slow and off-balance and could not really follow through. I continued to jab.

  Finally, he blocked my left and managed to drop his hand on my biceps. I should have pulled away then, but he was open. I stepped in with a heavy right to his stomach, all of my strength behind it. It bent him forward with a gasp, but his grip tightened on my arm. He blocked my attempted uppercut with his left, continuing its forward motion until the heel of his hand slammed against my chest, at the same time jerking my left arm backward and to the side with such force that I was thrown to the ground. If he came down on me, that was it.

  He dropped to one knee and reached for my throat.

  Chapter 9

  I moved to block his hand, but it halted in midreach. Turning my head, I saw that another hand had fallen upon Gerard’s arm, was now grasping it, was holding it back.

  I rolled away. When I looked up again, I saw that Ganelon had caught hold of him. Gerard jerked his arm forward, but it did not come free.

  “Stay out of this, Ganelon,” he said.

  “Get going, Corwin!” Ganelon said. “Get the Jewel!”

  Even as he called out, Gerard was beginning to rise. Ganelon crossed with his left and connected with Gerard’s jaw. Gerard sprawled at his feet. Ganelon moved in and swung a kick toward his kidney, but Gerard caught his foot and heaved him over backward. I scrambled back into a crouch, supporting myself with one hand.

  Gerard came up off the ground and rushed Ganelon, who was just recovering his feet. As he was almost upon him, Ganelon came up with a double-fisted blow to Gerard’s midsection, which halted him in his tracks. Instantly, Ganelon’s fists were moving like pistons against Gerard’s abdomen. For several moments, Gerard seemed too dazed to protect himself, and when he finally bent and brought his arms in, Ganelon caught him with a right to the jaw that staggered him backward. Ganelon immediately rushed forward, throwing his arms about Gerard as he slammed into him and hooking his right leg behind Gerard’s own. Gerard toppled and Ganelon fell upon him. He straddled Gerard then and drove his right fist against his jaw. When Gerard’s head rolled back, Ganelon crossed with his left.

  Benedict suddenly moved to intervene, but Ganelon chose that moment to rise to his feet. Gerard lay unconscious, bleeding from his mouth and nose. I got shakily to my own feet, dusted myself off. Ganelon grinned at me.

  “Don’t stay around,” he said. “I don’t know how I would do in a rematch. Go find the trinket.”

  I glanced at Benedict and he nodded. I returned to the tent for Grayswandir.

  When I emerged, Gerard still had not moved, but Benedict stood before me.

  “Remember,” he said, “you’ve my Trump and I’ve yours. Nothing final without a conference.”

  I nodded. I was going to ask him why he had seemed willing to help Gerard, but not me. But second thoughts had me and I decided against spoiling our fresh-minted amity.

  “Okay.”

  I headed toward the horses. Ganelon clapped me on the shoulder as I came up to him.

  “Good luck,” he said. “I’d go with you, but I am needed here — especially with Benedict trumping off to Chaos.”

  “Good show,” I said. “I shouldn’t have any trouble. Don’t worry.”

  I went off to the paddock. Shortly, I was mounted and moving. Ganelon threw me a salute as I passed and I returned it. Benedict was kneeling beside Gerard.

  I headed for the nearest trail into Arden. The sea lay at my back, Gamath and the black road to the left, Kolvir to my right. I had to gain some distance before I could work with the stuff of Shadow. The day lay clean once Gamath was lost to sight, several rises and dips later. I struck the trail and followed its long curve into the wood, where moist shadows and distant bird songs reminded me of the long periods of peace we had known of old and the silken, gleaming presence of the maternal unicorn.

  My aches faded into the rhythm of the ride, and I thought once again of the encounter I had departed. It was not difficult to understand Gerard’s attitude, since he had already told me of his suspicions and issued me a warning. Still, it was such bad timing for whatever had happened with Brand that I could not but see it as another action intended either to slow me or to stop me entirely. It was fortunate that Ganelon had been on hand, in good shape, and able to put his fists in the right places at the proper times. I wondered what Benedict would have done if there had only been the three of us present. I’d a feeling he would have waited and intervened only at the very last moment, to stop Gerard from killing me. I was still not happy with our accord, though it was certainly an improvement over the previous state of affairs.

  All of which made me wonder again what had become of Brand. Had Fiona or Bleys finally gotten to him? Had he attempted his proposed assassinations singlehanded and been met with a counterthrust, then dragged through his intended victim’s Trump? Had his old allies from the Courts of Chaos somehow gotten through to him? Had one of his horny-handed guardians from the tower finally been able to reach him? Or had it been as I had suggested to Gerard — an accidental self-injury in a fit of rage, followed by an ill tempered flight from Amber to do his brooding and plotting elsewhere?

  When that many questions arise from a single event the answer is seldom obtainable by pure logic. I had to sort out the possibilities though, to have something to reach for when more facts did turn up. In the meantime, I thought carefully over everything he had told me, regarding his allegations in light of those things which I now knew. With one exception, I did not doubt most of the facts. He had built too cleverly to have the edifice simply toppled — but then, he had had a lot of time to think these things over. No, it was in his manner of presenting events that something had been hidden by misdirection. His recent proposal practically assured me of that.

  The old trail twisted, widened, narrowed again, swung to the northwest and downward, into the thickening wood. The forest had changed very little. It seemed almost the same trail a young man had ridden centuries before, riding for the sheer pleasure of it, riding to explore that vast green realm which extended over most of the continent, if he did not stray into Shadow. It would be good to be doing it again for no reason other than this.

  After perhaps an hour, I had worked my way well back into the forest, where the trees were great dark towers, what sunlight I glimpsed caught like phoenix nests in their highest branches, an always moist, twilight softness smoothing the outlines of stumps and boles, logs and mossy rocks. A deer bounded across my path, not trusting to the excellent concealment of a thicket at the right of the trail. Bird notes sounded about me, never too near. Occasionally, I crossed the tracks of other horsemen. Some of these were quite fresh, but they did not stay long with the trail. Kolvir was well out of sight, had been for some time.