The Guns Of Avalon

We entered the palace, moving toward the nearest stairwell. There were two guards at its head, but they came to attention as we approached and did not attempt to interfere with our passage.

"I'm glad it's true about your eyes," Random said as we headed down. "Do you see all right?"

"Yes. I hear that you are still married."

"Yes. I am."

When we reached the ground floor, we hurried to the right. There had been another pair of guards at the foot of the stair, but they did not move to stop us.

"Yes," he repeated, as we headed toward the center of the palace. "You are surprised, aren't you?"

"Yes. I thought you were going to get the year over with and be done with it."

"So did I," he said. "But I fell in love with her. I really did."

"Stranger things have happened."

We crossed the marble dining hall and entered the long, narrow corridor that led far back through shadows and dust. I suppressed a shudder as I thought of my condition the last time I had come this way.

"She really cares for me," he said. "Like nobody else ever has before."

"I'm glad for you," I said.

We reached the door that opened onto the platform hiding the long, spiral stairway down. It was open. We passed through and began the descent.

"I'm not," he said, as we hurried around and around. "I didn't want to fall in love. Not then. We've been prisoners the whole time, you know. How can she be proud of that?"

"That is over now," I said. "You became a prisoner because you followed me and tried to kill Eric, didn't you?"

"Yes. Then she joined me here."

"I will not forget," I said.

We rushed on. It was a great distance down, and there were only lanterns every forty feet or so. It was a huge, natural cavern. I wondered whether anyone knew how many tu

Long minutes passed. I could see the flickering of the torches and the lanterns below.

"There is a girl," I said, "and her name is Dara. She told me she was Benedict's great-granddaughter and gave me reason to believe it. I told her somewhat concerning Shadow, reality, and the Pattern. She does possess some power over Shadow, and she was anxious to walk the Pattern. When last I saw her, she was headed this way. Now Benedict swears she is not his. Suddenly I am fearful. I want to keep her from the Pattern. I want to question her."

"Strange," he said. "Very. I agree with you. Do you think she might be there now?"

"If she is not, then I feel she will be along soon."

We finally reached the floor, and I began to race through the shadows toward the proper tu

"Wait!" Random cried.

I halted and turned. It took me a moment to locate him, as he was back behind the stairs. I returned.

My question did not reach my lips. I saw that he knelt beside a large, bearded man.

"Dead," he said. "A very thin blade. Good thrust Just recently."

"Come on!"

We both ran to the tu

I sprang through. Random was right behind me. The floor of that enormous room is black and looks to be smooth as glass, although it is not slippery. The Pattern burns upon it, within it, an intricate, shimmering maze of curved lines, perhaps a hundred and fifty yards long. We halted at its edge, staring.

Something was out there, walking it. I felt that old, tingling chill the thing always gives me as I watched. Was it Dara? It was difficult for me to make out the figure within the fountains of sparks that spewed constantly about it. Whoever it was had to be of the blood royal, for it was common knowledge that anyone else would be destroyed by the Pattern, and this individual had already made it past the Grand Curve and was negotiating the complicated series of arcs that led toward the Final Veil.

The firefly form seemed to change shape as it moved. For a time, my senses kept rejecting the tiny subliminal glimpses that I knew must be coming through to me. I heard Random gasp beside me, and it seemed to breach my subconscious dam. A horde of impressions flooded my mind.

It seemed to tower hugely in that always unsubstantial-seeming chamber. Then shrink, die down, almost to nothing. It seemed a slim woman for a moment-possibly Dara, her hair lightened by the glow, streaming, crackling with static electricity. Then it was not hair, but great, curved horns from some wide, uncertain brow, whose crook-legged owner struggled to shuffle hoofs along the blazing way. Then something else... An enormouse cat... A faceless woman... A bright-winged thing of indescribable beauty... A tower of ashes...

"Dara!" I cried out. "Is that you?"

My voice echoed back, and that was all. Whoever/ whatever it was struggled now with the Final Veil. My muscles strained forward in unwilling sympathy with the effort.

Finally, it burst through.

Yes, it was Dara! Tall and magnificent now. Both beautiful and somehow horrible at the same time. The sight of her tore at the fabric of my mind. Her arms were upraised in exultation and an inhuman laughter flowed from her lips. I wanted to look away, yet I could not move. Had I truely held, caressed, made love to-that? I was mightily repelled and simultaneously attracted as I had never been before. I could not understand this overwhelming ambivalence. Then she looked at me.

The laughter ceased. Her altered voice rang out. "Lord Corwin, are you liege of Amber now?"

From somewhere, I managed a reply. "For all practical purposes," I said.

"Good! Then behold your nemesis!"

"Who are you? What are you?"

"You will never know," she said. "It is just exactly too late now."

"I do not understand. What do you mean?"

"Amber," she said, "will be destroyed." And she vanished.

"What the hell," said Random then, "was that?" I shook my head.

"I do not know. I really do not know. And I feel ..that it is the most important thing in the world that we find out."

He gripped my arm.

"Corwin," he said. "She-it-meant it. And it may be possible, you know."

I nodded. "I know."

"What are we going to do now?"

I resheathed Grayswandir and turned back toward the door.

"Pick up the pieces," I said. "I have what I thought I always wanted within my grasp now, and I must secure it. And I ca

"Do you know where to seek it?" he asked.

We turned up the tu

"I believe it lies at the other end of the black road," I said.

We moved on through the cavern to the stairs where the dead man lay and went round and round above him in the dark.