The Great Book of Amber

“Go ahead.”

As he drifted off, I thought of my recent interview with my mother. I was reminded of everything Mandor had said or implied, of the conflict between the Pattern and the Logrus, of my father as the champion of the Pattern and intended king in Amber. Had she known this, known it as fact rather than speculation? I imagined she could have, for she seemed to enjoy a special relationship with the Logrus, and it would surely have been aware of its adversary's more prominent decisions. She'd admitted that she did not love the man. It seemed

as if she had sought him for whatever genetic material had so impressed the Pattern. Had she really been trying to breed a champion for the Logrus?

I chuckled as I considered the result. She had seen me trained well in arms, but I was nowhere near Dad's league. I'd preferred sorcery, but sorcerers were a dime a dozen in the Courts. Finally, she'd shipped me off to college on that Shadow Earth the Amberites favor. But a degree in Computer Science from Berkeley didn't much qualify me to uphold the ba

I thought back to my childhood, to some of the strange adventures for which this place had served as a point of departure. Gryll and I would come here, Glait slithering at our feet, coiled about a limb or riding somewhere amid my garments. I would give that odd ululant cry I had learned in a dream, and sometimes Kergma would join us, come skittering down the . folds of darkness, out some frayed area of twisted space. I was never sure exactly what Kergma was, or even of what gender, for Kergma was a shapeshifter and flew, crawled, hopped, or ran in a succession of interesting forms.

On an impulse, I voiced that ancient call. Nothing, of course, happened, and I saw it moments later for what it was: a cry after a vanished childhood, when I had at least felt wanted. Now, now I was nothing-neither Amberite nor Chaosite, and certainly a disappointment to my relatives on both sides. I was a failed experiment. I'd never been wanted for myself, but as something that might come to pass. Suddenly my eyes were moist, and I held back a sob. And I'll never know what sort of mood I might have worked myself into because I was distracted then.

There came a flare of red light from a point high on the wall to my left. It was in the form of a small circle about the feet of a human figure.

“Merlin!” called a voice from that direction, and the flames leapt higher. By their light, I saw that familiar face, reminding me a bit of my own, and I was pleased with the meaning it had just given to my life, even if that meaning was death.

I raised my left hand above my head and willed a flash of blue light from the spikard.

“Over here, Jurt!” I called, rising to my feet. I began forming the ball of light that was to be his distraction while I readied the strike that would electrocute him. On reflection, it had seemed the surest way of taking him out. I'd lost count of the number of attempts he'd made on my life, and I'd resolved to take the initiative the next time he came calling. Frying his nervous system seemed the surest way to ice him, despite what the Fountain had done for him. “Over here, Jurt!”

“Merlin! I want to talk!”

“I don't. I've tried it too often, and I've nothing left to say. Come on over and let's get this done-weapons, hands, magic. I don't care.”

He raised both hands, palms outward.

“Truce!” he cried. “It wouldn't be right to do it here in Sawall.”

“Don't give me that scruples shit, brother! “ I cried, but even as I said it I realized there might be something to it. I could remember how much the old man's ap-proval had meant to him, and I realized that he'd hate to do anything to antagonize Dara here on the premises. “What do you want, anyway?”

f “To talk. I mean it,” he said. “What do I have to do?”

“Meet me over there,” I said, casting my ball of light to shine above a familiar object that looked like a giant house of cards made of glass and aluminum, bouncing light from hundreds of planes.

“All right,” came the reply.

I began walking in that direction. I saw him approaching from his, and I angled my course so that our paths would not intersect. Also, I increased my pace so as to arrive ahead of him.

“No tricks,” he called out. “And if we do decide we can only take it to the end, let's go outside.”

“Okay.”

I entered the structure at a point around the corner from his approach. Immediately, I encountered six images of myself.

“Why here?” came his voice from somewhere near at hand.

“I don't suppose you ever saw a movie called Lady from Shanghai?”

No.

“It occurred to me that we could wander around in

here and talk, and the place would do a lot to keep us from hurting each other.”

I turned a corner. There were more of me in different places. A few moments later, I heard a sharp intake of breath from somewhere near at hand. It was followed almost immediately by a chuckle.

“I begin to understand,” I heard him say.

Three steps and another turn. I halted. There were two of him and two of me. He was not looking at me, though. I reached out slowly toward one of the images. He turned, he saw me. His mouth opened as he stepped back and vanished.

“What did you want to talk about?” I asked, halting.

“It's hard to know where to begin.”

“That's life.”

“You upset Dara quite a bit...”

“That was quick. I only left her ten, fifteen minutes ago. You're staying here at Sawall?”

“Yes. And I knew she was having lunch with you. I just saw her briefly a little while ago.”

“Well, she didn't make me feel too good either.”

I turned another corner and passed through a doorway in time to see him smile faintly.

“She's that way sometimes. I know,” he said. “She tells me the Logrus came by for dessert.”

“Yes.”

“She said it seems to have chosen you for the throne.”

I hoped he saw my shrug.

“It seemed that way. I don't want it, though.”

“But you said you'd do it.”

“Only if there's no other way to restore a certain balance of forces. It's a last resort sort of thing. It won't come to that, I'm sure.”

“But it chose you.”

Another shrug.

“Tmer and Tubble precede me.”

“That doesn't matter. I'd wanted it, you know.”

“I know. Seems a pretty dumb career choice.”

Suddenly, he surrounded me.

“It does now,” he admitted. “It was getting that way some time, though, before you got designated. I ought I had the edge each time we met, and each time'

a came a little closer to killing me.”

“It did keep getting messier.”

“That last time-in the church-in Kashfa, I was certain I could finally take you out. Instead, you damn near did me in.”

“Say that Dara or Mandor removed Tmer and Tubble. You knew you'd have to take care of me yourself, but what about Despil?”

“He'd step aside for me.”

“You asked him?”

“No. But I'm sure.”

I moved on.

“You always assumed too much, Jurt.”

“Maybe you're right,” he said, appearing and vanishing again. “Either way, it doesn't matter.”

“Why not?”

“I quit. I'm out of the ru

“How come?”

“Even if the Logrus hadn't made its intentions clear,

I was begi

Mandor or Dara. I'd wind up a puppet, wouldn't I?”