The Courts Of Chaos

The way narrowed, narrowed. I could almost touch either wall...

Their tops came together. I rode through a shadowy tu

The light from the walls was blinding, and giant crystals rose all about us. We plunged past, following an upward trail that led away from this region and through a series of mossy dells where small, perfectly circular pools lay still as green glass.

Tall ferns appeared before us and we made our way among them. I heard a distant trumpeting noise.

Turning, pacing... Red now the ferns, wider and lower... Beyond, a great plain, pinking into evening...

Forward, over pale grasses... The smell of fresh earth... Mountains or dark clouds far ahead... A rush of stars from my left... A quick spray of moisture... A blue moon leaps into the sky... Flickerings among the dark masses... Memories and a rumbling noise... Stormsmell and rushing air...

A strong wind... Clouds across the stars... A bright fork spearing a shattered tree to my right, turning it to flame... A tingling sensation... The smell of ozone... Sheets of water upon me... A row of lights to my left...

Clattering down a cobbled street... A strange vehicle approaching... Cylindrical, chugging... We avoid one another... A shout pursues me... Through a lighted window the face of a child...

Clattering... Splashing... Storefronts and homes... The rain lets up, dies down, is gone... A fog blows by, lingers, deepens, is pearled by a growing light to my left...

The terrain softens, grows red... The light within the mist brightens... A new wind, from behind, a growing warmth... The air breaks apart...

Sky of pale lemon... Orange sun rushing toward noon...

A shudder! A thing not of my doing, totally unanticipated... The ground moves beneath us, but there is more to it than that. The new sky, the new sun, the rusty desert I have just now entered-all of them expand and contract, fade and return. There comes a cracking sound, and with each fading I find Star and myself alone, amid a white nothingness-characters without a setting. We tread upon nothing. The light comes from everywhere and illuminates only ourselves. A steady cracking noise, as of the spring thaw come upon a Russian river I had once ridden beside, fills my ears. Star, who has paced many shadows, emits a frightened sound.

I look all about me. Blurred outlines appear, sharpen, grow clear. My environment is restored, though with a somewhat washed-out look to it. A bit of the pigment has been drained from the world.

We wheel to the left, racing for a low hill, mounting it, halting finally at its summit.

The black road. It too seems denatured-but even more so than the rest. It ripples beneath my gaze, almost seems to undulate as I watch. The cracking noise continues, grows louder...

A wind comes out of the north, gentle at first but increasing in force. Looking in that direction, I see a mass of dark clouds building.

I know that I must move as I have never moved before. Ultimates of destruction and creation are occurring at the place I visited-When? No matter. The waves move outward from Amber and this, too, may pass away-and me along with it. If Dad ca

A plain... Trees... Some broken buildings... Faster.. .

The smoke of a forest afire... A wall of flame... Gone...

Yellow sky, blue clouds... An armada of dirigibles crossing...

Faster.. .

The sun drops like a piece of hot iron into a bucket of water, stars become streaks... A pale light upon a straight trail... Sounds dopplered from dark smears, the wailing... Brighter the light, fainter the prospect... Gray, to my right, my left.. . Brighter now... Nothing but the trail my eyes to ride... The wailing heightens to a shriek... Forms run together... We race through a tu

Turning, turning... Only the road is real... The worlds go by... I have released my control of the sets and ride now the thrust of the power itself, aimed only to remove me from Amber and hurl me toward Chaos... There is wind upon me and the cry in my ears... Never before have I pushed my power over Shadow to its limit... The tu

I draw back gently upon the reins and Star begins to slow...

The walls of my tu

There is no path. I ride on mossy earth. The sky is blue, the clouds are white. I am very light-headed. I draw rein. I—

Tiny.

I was shocked as I lowered my eyes. I stood at the outskirts of a toy village. Houses I could hold in the palm of my hand, miniscule roads, tiny vehicles crawling along them...

I looked back. We had crushed a number of these diminutive residences. I looked all around. There were fewer to the left. I guided Star carefully in that direction, kept moving until we had left that place. I felt bad about it-whatever it was-whoever dwelled there. But there was not a thing that I could do.

I moved again, passing through Shadow, until I came to what seemed a deserted quarry beneath a greenish sky. I felt heavier here. I dismounted, took a drink of water, walked around a bit.

I breathed deeply of the damp air that engulfed me. I was far from Amber now, about as far as one ever need go, and well on my way to Chaos. I had seldom come this far before. While I had chosen this place for a rest stop because it represented the nearest thing to normalcy I could catch hold of, the changes would soon be getting more and more radical.

I was stretching my cramped muscles when I heard the shriek, high in the air above me.

I looked up and saw the dark form descending, Grayswandir coming by reflex into my hand. But the light caught it at a proper angle as it came down, and the winged form took fire on its way.

My familiar bird circled, circled, descended to my outstretched arm. Those frightening eyes regarded me with a peculiar intelligence, but I did not spare them the attention I might have on another occasion. Instead, I sheathed Grayswandir and reached for the thing the bird bore. The Jewel of judgment.

I knew by this that Dad's effort, whatever it had amounted to, was finished. The Pattern had either been repaired or botched. He was either alive or dead. Choose a couple from either column. The effects of his act would be spreading outward from Amber through Shadow now, like the ripples in the proverbial pond. I would learn more of them soon enough. In the meantime, I had my orders.

I drew the chain over my head and let the Jewel fall upon my breast. I remounted Star. My bloodbird emitted a short cry and rose into the air.

We moved again.

...Over a landscape where the sky whitened as the ground darkened. Then the land flared and the sky grew black. Then the reverse. And again... with each stride the effect shifted, and as we moved faster it built to a stroboscopic series of still-shots about us, gradually growing to a jerky animation, then the hyperactive quality of a silent film. Finally, all was a blur.

Points of light flashed past, like meteors or comets. I began to feel a throbbing sensation, as of a cosmic heartbeat. Everything began to turn about me, as though I had been caught up in a whirlwind.