“Not totally,” I said. “He got a message to Random. In fact, he reached me once, weakly.”

  “Obviously not totally, then,” he said. “Sufficiently, however. Until we broke through the defenses.”

  “What do you know of all their byplay with me — confining me, trying to kill me, saving me.”

  “That I do not understand,” he said, “except that it was part of the power struggle within their own group. They had had a falling out amongst themselves, and one side or the other had some use for you. So, naturally, one side was trying to kill you while the other fought to preserve you. Ultimately, of course, Bleys got the most mileage out of you, in that attack he launched.”

  “But he was the one who tried to kill me, back on the shadow Earth,” I said. “He was the one who shot out my tires.”

  “Oh?”

  “Well, that is what Brand told me, but it jibes with all sorts of secondary evidence.”

  He shrugged.

  “I cannot help you on that,” he said. “I simply do not know what was going on among them at that time.”

  “Yet you countenance Fiona in Amber,” I said. “In fact, you are more than a little cordial to her whenever she is about.”

  “Of course,” he said, smiling. “I have always been very fond of Fiona. She is certainly the loveliest, most civilized of us all. Pity Dad was always so dead-set against brother-sister marriages, as well you know. It bothered me that we had to be adversaries for so long as we were. Things returned pretty much to normal after Bleys’s death, your imprisonment, and Eric’s coronation, though. She accepted their defeat gracefully, and that was that. She was obviously as frightened at the prospect of Brand’s return as I was.”

  “Brand told things differently,” I said, “but then, of course, he would. For one thing, he claims that Bleys is still living, that he hunted him down with his Trump and knows that he is off in Shadow, training another force for another strike at Amber.”

  “I suppose this is possible,” Julian said. “But we are more than adequately prepared, are we not?”

  “He claims further that the strike will be a feint,” I continued, “and that the real attack will then come direct from the Courts of Chaos, over the black road. He says that Fiona is off preparing the way for this right now.”

  He scowled.

  “I hope he was simply lying,” he said. “I would hate to see their group resurrected and at us again, this time with help from the dark direction. And I would hate to see Fiona involved.”

  “Brand claimed he was out of it himself, that he had seen the error of his ways — and suchlike penitent noises.”

  “Ha! I’d sooner trust that beast I just slew than take Brand at his word. I hope you’ve had the sense to keep him well guarded — though this might not be of much avail if he has his old powers back.”

  “But what game could he be playing now?”

  “Either he has revived the old triumvirate, a thought I like not at all, or he has a new plan all his own. But mark me, he has a plan. He has never been satisfied to be a mere spectator at anything. He is always scheming. I’d take an oath he even plots in his sleep.”

  “Perhaps you are right,” I said. “You see, there has been a new development, whether for good or ill, I cannot yet tell. I just had a fight with Gerard. He thinks I have done Brand some mischief. This is not the case, but I was in no position to prove my innocence. I was the last person I know of to see Brand, earlier today. Gerard visited his quarters a short time ago. He says the place is broken up, there are blood smears here and there, and Brand is missing. I don’t know what to make of it.”

  “Neither do I. But I hope it means someone has done the job properly this time.”

  “Lord,” I said, “it’s tangled. I wish I had known all of these things before.”

  “There was never a proper time to tell you,” he said, “until now. Certainly not when you were a prisoner and could still be reached, and after that you were gone for a long while. When you returned with your troops and your new weapons, I was uncertain as to your full intentions. Then things happened quickly and Brand was back again. It was too late. I had to get out to save my skin. I am strong here in Arden. Here, I can take anything he can throw at me. I have been maintaining the patrols at full battle force and awaiting word of Brand’s death. I wanted to inquire of one of you whether he was still around. But I could not decide whom to ask, thinking myself still suspect should he have died. As soon as I did get word, though, should it prove he was still living, I was resolved to have a try at him myself. Now this… state of affairs… What are you going to do now, Corwin?”

  “I am off to fetch the Jewel of Judgment from a place where I cached it in Shadow. There is a way it can be used to destory the black road. I intend to try it.”

  “How can this be done?”

  “That is too long a story, for a horrible thought has just occurred to me.”

  “What is that?”

  “Brand wants the Jewel. He was asking about it, and now — This power of his to find things in Shadow and fetch them back. How good is it?”

  Julian looked thoughtful.

  “He is hardly omniscient, if that is what you mean. You can find anything you want in Shadow the normal way we go about it — by traveling to it. According to Fiona, he just cuts out the footwork. It is therefore an object, not a particular object that he summons. Besides, that Jewel is a very strange item from everything Eric told me about it. I think Brand would have to go after it in person, once he finds out where it is.”

  “Then I must get on with my hellride. I have to beat him to it.”

  “I see you are riding Drum,” Julian observed. “He is a good beast, a sturdy fellow. Been through many a hellride.”

  “Glad to hear that,” I said. “What are you going to do now?”

  “Get in touch with someone in Amber and get up to date on everything we haven’t had a chance to talk about — Benedict, probably.”

  “No good,” I said. “You will not be able to reach him. He is off to the Courts of Chaos. Try Gerard, and convince him I am an honorable man while you are about it.”

  “The redheads are the only magicians in this family, but I will try… You did say the Courts of Chaos?”

  “Yes, but again, the time is too valuable now.”

  “Of course. Get you gone. We will have our leisure later — I trust.”

  He reached out and clasped my arm. I glanced at the manticora, at the dogs seated in a circle about it.

  “Thanks, Julian. I — You are a difficult man to understand.”

  “Not so. I think the Corwin I hated must have died centuries ago. Ride now, man! If Brand shows up around here, I’ll nail his hide to a tree!”

  He shouted an order to his dogs as I mounted, and they fell upon the carcass of the manticora, lapping at its blood and tearing out huge chunks and strips of flesh. As I rode past that strange, massive, manlike face, I saw that its eyes were still open, though glazed. They were blue, and death had not robbed them of a certain preternatural innocence. Either that, or the look was death’s final gift — a senseless way of passing out ironies, if it was.

  I took Drum back to the trail and began my hellride.

  Chapter 10

  Moving along the trail at a gentle pace, clouds darkening the sky and Drum’s whinny of memory or anticipation… A turn to the left, and uphill… The ground is brown, yellow, back to brown again… The trees squat down, draw apart… Grasses wave between them in the cool and rising breeze… A quick fire in the sky… A rumble shakes loose raindrops…

  Steep and rocky now… The wind tugs at my cloak… Up… Up to where the rocks are streaked with silver and the trees have drawn their line… The grasses, green fires, die down in the rain… Up, to the craggy, sparkling, rain-washed heights, where the clouds rush and boil like a mud-gorged river at flood crest… The rain stings like buckshot and the wind clears its throat to sing… We rise and rise and the crest comes into view, like the head of a startled bull, horns guarding the trail… Lightnings twist about their tips, dance between them… The smell of ozone as we reach that place and rush on through, the rain suddenly blocked, the wind shunted away…

  Emerging on the farther side… There is no rain, the air is still, the sky smoothed and darkened to a proper star-filled black… Meteors cut and burn, cut and burn, cauterizing to afterimage scars, fading, fading… Moons, cast like a handful of coins… Three bright dimes, a dull quarter, a pair of pennies, one of them tarnished and scarred… Down then, that long, winding way… Hoof clops clear and metallic in the night air… Somewhere, a catlike cough… A dark shape crossing a lesser moon, ragged and swift…

  Downward… The land drops away at either hand… Darkness below… Moving along the top of an infinitely high, curved wall, the way itself bright with moonlight… The trail buckles, folds, grows transparent… Soon it drifts, gauzy, filamentous, stars beneath as well as above… Stars below on either side… There is no land… There is only the night, night and the thin, translucent trail I had to try to ride, to learn how it felt, against some future use…

  It is absolutely silent now, and the illusion of slowness attaches to every movement… Shortly, the trail falls away, and we move as if swimming underwater at some enormous depth, the stars bright fish… It is freedom, it is the power of the hellride that brings an elation, like yet unlike the recklessness that sometimes comes in battle, the boldness of a risky feat well learned, the rush of rightness following the finding of the poem’s proper word… It is these and the prospect itself, riding, riding, riding, from nowhere to nowhere perhaps, across and among the minerals and fires of the void, free of earth and air and water…

  We race a great meteor, we touch upon its bulk… Speeding across its pitted surface, down, around, then up again… It stretches into a great plain, it lightens, it yellows…

  It is sand, sand now beneath our movement… The stars fade out as the darkness is diluted to a morning full of sunrise… Swaths of shade ahead, desert trees within them… Ride for the dark… Crashing through… Bright birds burst forth, complain, resettle…

  Among the thickening trees… Darker the ground, narrower the way… Palm fronds shrink to hand size, barks darken… A twist to the right, a widening of the way… Our hoofs striking sparks from cobblestones… The lane enlarges, becomes a tree-lined street… Tiny row houses flash by… Bright shutters, marble steps, painted screens, set back beyond flagged walks… Passing, a horse-drawn cart, loaded with fresh vegetables… Human pedestrians turning to stare… A small buzz of voices…

  On… Passing beneath a bridge… Coursing the stream till it widens to river, taking it down to the sea…

  Thudding along the beach beneath a lemon sky, blue clouds scudding… The salt, the wrack, the shells, the smooth anatomy of driftwood… White spray off the lime-colored sea…

  Racing, to where the place of waters ends at a terrace… Mounting, each step crumbling and roaring down behind, losing its identity, joined with the boom of the surf… Up, up to the flattopped, tree-grown plain, a golden city shimmering, miragelike, at its end…

  The city grows, darkens beneath a shadowy umbrella, its gray towers stretch upward, glass and metal flashing light through the murk… The towers begin to sway…

  The city falls in upon itself, soundlessly, as we pass… Towers topple, dust boils, rises, is pinked by some lower glow… A gentle noise, as of a snuffed candle, drifting by…

  A dust storm, quickly falling, giving place to fog… Through it, the sounds of automobile horns… A drift, a brief lift, a break in the gray-white, pearlwhite, shifting… Our hoofprints on a shoulder of highway… To the right, endless rows of unmoving vehicles… Pearl-white, gray-white, drifting again…

  Directionless shrieks and wailings… Random flashes of light…

  Rising once more… The fogs lower and ebb… Grass, grass, grass… Clear now the sky, and delicate blue… A sun racing to set… Birds… A cow in the field, chewing, staring and chewing…

  Leaping a wooden fence to ride a country road… A sudden chill beyond the hill… The grasses are dry and snow’s on the ground… Tin-roofed farmhouse atop a rise, curl of smoke above it…

  On… The hills grow up, the sun rolls down, darkness dragged behind… A sprinkle of stars… Here a house, set far back… There another, long driveway wound among old trees… Headlights…

  Off to the side of the road… Draw rein and let it pass…

  I wiped my brow, dusted my shirt front and sleeves. I patted Drum’s neck. The oncoming vehicle slowed as it neared me, and I could see the driver staring. I gave the reins a gentle movement and Drum began walking. The car braked to a halt and the driver called something after me, but I kept going. Moments later, I heard him drive off.

  It was country road for a time after that. I traveled at an easy pace, passing familiar landmarks, recalling other times. A few miles later and I came to another road, wider and better. I turned there, staying off on the shoulder to the right. The temperature continued to drop, but the cold air had a good clean taste to it. A sliced moon shone above the hills to my left. There were a few small clouds passing overhead, touched to the moon’s quarter with a soft, dusty light. There was very little wind; an occasional stirring of branches, no more. After a time, I came to a series of dips in the road, telling me I was almost there.

  A curve and a couple more dips… I saw the boulder beside the driveway, I read my address upon it.

  I drew rein then and looked up the hill. There was a station wagon in the driveway and a light on inside the house. I guided Drum off the road and across a field into a stand of trees. I tethered him behind a pair of evergreens, rubbed his neck, and told him I would not be long.

  I returned to the road. No cars in sight. I crossed over and walked up the far side of the driveway, passing behind the station wagon. The only light in the house was in the living room, off to the right. I made my way around the left side of the house to the rear.

  I halted when I reached the patio, looking around. Something was wrong.

  The back yard was changed. A pair of decaying lawn chairs which had been leaning against a dilapidated chicken coop I had never bothered to remove were gone. So, for that matter, was the chicken coop. They had been present the last time I had passed this way. All of the dead tree limbs which had previously been strewn about, as well as a rotting mass of them I had long ago heaped to cut for firewood, were also gone.

  The compost heap was missing.

  I moved to the space where it had been. All that was there was an irregular patch of bare earth of the approximate shape of the heap itself.

  But I had discovered in attuning myself to the Jewel that I could make myself feel its presence. I closed my eyes for a moment and tried to do so. Nothing.

  I looked again, searching carefully, but there was no tell-tale glitter anywhere in sight. Not that I had really expected to see anything, not if I could not feel it nearby.

  There had been no curtains in the lighted room. Studying the house now, I saw that none of the windows had curtains, shades, shutters, or blinds. Therefore…

  I passed around the other end of the house. Approaching the first lighted window, I glanced in quickly. Dropcloths covered much of the floor. A man in cap and coveralls was painting the far wall. Of course.

  I had asked Bill to sell the place. I had signed the necessary papers while a patient in the local clinic, when I had been projected back to my old home — probably by some action of the Jewel — on the occasion of my stabbing. That would have been several weeks ago, local time, using the Amber to shadow Earth conversion factor of approximately two and a half to one and allowing for the eight days the Courts of Chaos had cost me in Amber. Bill, of course, had gone ahead on my request. But the place had been in bad shape, abandoned as it had been for a number of years, vandalized… It needed some new windowpanes, some roofing work, new guttering, painting, sanding, buffing. And there had been a lot of trash to haul away. Outside as well as inside…

  I turned away and walked down the front slope to the road, recalling my last passage this way, half delirious. On my hands and knees, blood leaking from my side. It had been much colder that night and there had been snow on the ground and in the air. I passed near the rock where I’d sat, trying to flag down a car with a pillow case. The memory was slightly blurred, but I still recalled the ones that had passed me by.

  I crossed the road, made my way through the field to the trees. Unhitching Drum, I mounted.

  “We’ve some more riding ahead,” I told him. “Not too far this time.”

  We headed back to the road and started along it, continuing on past my house. If I had not told Bill to go ahead and sell the place, the compost heap would still have been there, the Jewel would still have been there. I could be on my way back to Amber with the ruddy stone hung about my neck, ready to have a try at what had to be done. Now, now I had to go looking for it, when I’d a feeling time was beginning to press once again. At least, I had a favorable ratio here with respect to its passage in Amber. I clucked at Drum and shook the reins. No sense wasting it, even so.

  A half hour, and I was into town, riding down a quiet street in a residential area, houses all about me. The lights were on at Bill’s place. I turned up his driveway. I left Drum in his back yard.

  Alice answered my knock, stared a moment, then said. “My God! Carl!”

  Minutes later, I was seated in the living room with Bill, a drink on the table to my right. Alice was out in the kitchen, having made the mistake of asking me whether I wanted something to eat.

  Bill studied me as he lit his pipe.

  “Your ways of coming and going still tend to be colorful,” he said. I smiled.

  “Expediency is all,” I said.

  “That nurse at the clinic… scarcely anyone believed her story.”