The Dawn of Amber

I had to chuckle. “That’s exactly how I feel right now,” I told him. “Lost in the dark. Or perhaps found but still in the dark.”

I reached out to take the card, but he said, “Sorry, it’s not quite dry yet,” and carried it back on the writing table.

Taking another sip of brandy, I felt its warm glow spreading through my belly. Maybe there were some advantages to belonging to this crazy family after all. A last-second rescue by a brother I’d only met the day before… it was the sort of thing a bard could easily spin into a heroic song.

Frowning, I thought back to King Elnar and my fellow lieutenants, all dead now, their ensorceled heads smashed to pulp. If only the story had a happy ending… 

Aber had taken a blanket from the bed and now handed it to me.

“Get out of those wet things and dry yourself off,” he said. “I’ll bring you another set of Mattus’s clothes. As soon as you’re up to it, you must see Dad. He’s worried sick about you.”

“Thanks,” I said gratefully.

Aber returned in short order with shirt, pants, and undergarments, plus my valet. Horace looked half asleep and I guessed Aber had dragged him from bed to help me.

It didn’t take them long to get me changed and cleaned up. I found myself moving slowly; after all I’d been through, the lateness of the hour, and the effects of the brandy, my arms and legs felt like lead weights, and my head began to pound. I wanted nothing more than to crawl into bed and pass out for the next day or two.

Aber had a spare pair of boots, but they proved several sizes too small. Horace went out and soon returned with a larger pair—I didn’t ask where he’d found them, but I suspected he swiped them from another of my brothers. Not that I cared at this point.

“You’ll do,” Aber said finally, looking me up and down. “Just try not to collapse.”

“I feel better,” I lied.

“That’s just the brandy. You look terrible.”

“Could be.” I took a deep breath and turned toward the door, swaying slightly. Time to visit our father, I thought. I couldn’t put it off any longer. I said as much.

“Do you want me to go with you?” Aber asked suddenly, steadying my arm.

“No need,” I said. “He’ll want to see me alone. We have a lot to discuss.”

“You’re right, he never wants to see me. But still…” He hesitated.

“I know the way,” I said with more confidence than I felt.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll just wish you luck, then.” He glanced at Horace. “Go with him,” he said, “just in case.”

“Yes, Lord,” Horace said. He stepped forward, and I leaned a bit on his shoulder.

“Thanks,” I said to Aber, “for everything.”

“You don’t know how lucky you are!”

“Sure I do.” I gri

“Go on, get out of here. Dad’s waiting.”

Horace helped me into the corridor, where I took a deep breath and forced myself to stand on my own two feet. I thought I could make it successfully downstairs on my own. I didn’t want the other servants to see me limping and leaning on Horace—rumors of some personal catastrophe would be all over Juniper before daybreak.

With Horace trailing, I made my way unerringly downstairs and through the maze of corridors, past two sleepy looking guards, and straight to Dworkin’s workshop.

I didn’t bother knocking, but pushed the door open and went in. Dworkin had been seated at one of his tables tinkering with a four-armed skeleton.

“What happened? Where have you been?” he demanded, leaping forward. “You just—vanished!”

I swayed a little, and Horace leaped forward to steady me. I leaned on his shoulder as he helped me to a chair.

“That will be all,” I told him.

“Yes, Lord,” he said, and he bowed and hurried out.

Slowly I told my father everything that had happened to me: my sudden unexpected appearance at the battlefield north of Kingstown, the heads of King Elnar and his lieutenants and how they had betrayed me, my flight from the hell-creatures, and how I discovered the town had been burned.

“Aber saved me,” I said. “He made a trump to check on me, then used it to bring me back here.”

“Then it worked,” he said, awed. “The jewel really does carry a true image of your pattern. You are now attuned to it, and it to you.”

“I don’t understand.”

He smiled kindly. “You traveled to Ilerium on your own, drawing on the pattern within you. You can master Shadows now.”

I felt stu

“Yes!”

“Like the Logrus?”

“Yes!”

I sighed with relief, “Good…”

“The very nature of Chaos lies in the Logrus,” he said. “It is a primal force, alive and vibrant. It is incorporated into the very essence of the Lords of Chaos, from King Uthor on down to the smallest child who shares his blood.”

“Including you,” I said. “And everyone of your blood… except me.”

“That’s right.”

“But why not in me?”

“Oh, I know the answer to that now,” he said with a laugh, “but we must save it for another day. Come, I have a bed in one of the back rooms for when I work too long here. Lie down, sleep. You will be the better for it tomorrow.”

I still had a thousand questions—how had I transported myself to Ilerium without a Trump? Did I need the ruby to work magic? Would it take me to any Shadow world I could envision, even ones I’ve never been to before?—but I didn’t have the strength to argue. Rising, I followed him through several different rooms than the ones I’d seen before, all equally cluttered with magical and scientific devices, until we came to one with a small bed pushed up against the wall. A pair of mummified lions sat on top of the covers, but he tossed them into the corner and pulled back the blankets for me.

“In you go, my boy.”

Without bothering to undress, I threw myself down.

Dreams came quickly, full of weird images of burning patterns encased in ruby light, talking heads, and Dworkin cackling as he loomed over me, pulling strings like a mad puppeteer.

Chapter 14

I don’t know how long I slept, but when I finally awoke the next day, I felt groggy and out of sorts with the world. Dworkin had vanished. Slowly I sat up, stretched, rubbed my eyes, and I climbed unsteadily to my feet. My muscles ached and my head pounded.

I wandered out of the workshop, past two new guards on duty in the corridor, and into the banquet hall. Perhaps food would help, I thought.

Blaise and a couple of women I’d never seen before were eating what looked like a cold lunch at one end of the table. I nodded politely to them, but took my own meal at the other end. They barely seemed to notice me, going on about various people I’d never heard of.

“How may I serve you, Lord?” a servant asked, appearing at my side.

“A bloody steak, half a dozen fried eggs, and beer.”

“Yes, Lord.”

He returned five minutes later with plates filled with the food I’d ordered, plus a basket of fresh bread, a cake of butter, a salt cellar, and a large bowl piled high with fruit. I recognized apples and pears, but most of the others—strange knobbed balls of green and yellow, mottled reddish-orange blades, and puffy white globes the size of my fist—I had never before seen.

I ate in silence, thinking back to events of the previous day. It all seemed distant and unreal, as though someone else had voyaged to Ilerium. And yet I could still hear King Elnar and his lieutenants’ voices—

Traitor!

Murderer!

Assassin!

It sent a cold knife through my heart.

After eating, I felt much like my old self. I had slept well past noon, I realized. I couldn’t spend the whole day lounging around the castle, so I went in search of Anari. He had set up a whole day of appointments for me with tailors and the like, but unfortunately, between Dad and everything else, I hadn’t kept a single one. Perhaps, I thought, he could reschedule them for later.