“It is all right, Corwin. It is all right.”
It was Fiona who had spoken. I turned my head. She was seated on the ground above me.
“Random…?” I said.
“He is all right, also.”
“Father.”
Merlin was seated off to the right.
“What happened?”
“Random bore you back,” Fiona said.
“Did the attunement work?”
“He thinks so.”
I struggled to sit up. She tried to push me back, but I sat up anyway.
“Where is he?” She gestured with her eyes.
I looked and I saw Random. He was standing with his back to us about thirty meters away, on a shelf of rock, facing the storm. It was very close now, and a wind whipped his garments. Lightning trails crissed and crossed before him. The thunder boomed almost constantly.
“How long has he been there?” I asked.
“Only a few minutes,” Fiona replied.
“That is how long it has been since our return?”
“No,” she said. “You have been out for a fairly long while. Random talked with the others first, then ordered a troop withdrawal. Benedict has taken them all to the black road. They are crossing over.”
I turned my head.
There was movement along the black road, a dark column heading out toward the citadel. Gossamer strands drifted between us; there were a few sparks at the far end, about the nighted hulk. Overhead, the sky had completely reversed itself, with us beneath the darkened half. Again, I felt that strange feeling of having been here long, long ago, to see that this, rather than Amber, was the true center of creation. I grasped after the ghost of a memory. It vanished. I searched the lightning-shot gloom about me.
“All of them — gone?” I said to her. “You, me. Merlin, Random — we’re the only ones left here?”
“Yes,” Fiona said. “Do you wish to follow them now?”
I shook my head.
“I am staying here with Random.”
“I knew you would say that.”
I got to my feet as she did. So did Merlin. She clapped her hands and a white horse came ambling up to her.
“You have no further need for my ministrations,” she said. “So I will go and join the others in the Courts of Chaos. There are horses for you tethered by those rocks.”
She gestured.
“Are you coming. Merlin?”
“I will stay with my father, and the king.”
“So be it. I hope to see you there soon.”
“Thanks, Fi,” I said.
I helped her to mount and watched her ride off.
I went over and sat down by the fire again. I watched Random, Who stood unmoving, facing the storm.
“There are plenty of rations and wine,” Merlin said. “May I fetch you some?”
“Good idea.”
The storm was so close that I could have walked down to it in a couple of minutes. I could not tell yet whether Random’s efforts were having any effect. I sighed heavily and let my mind drift.
Over. One way or another, all of my efforts since Greenwood were over. No need for revenge any longer. No. We had an intact Pattern, maybe even two. The cause of all our troubles. Brand, was dead. Any residue of my curse was bound to be wiped out by the massive convulsions sweeping through Shadow. And I had done my best to make up for it. I had found a friend in my father and come to terms with him as himself before his death. We had a new king, with the apparent blessing of the Unicorn, and we had pledged him our loyalty. It seemed sincere to me. I was reconciled with my entire family. I felt that I had done my duty. Nothing drove me now. I had run out of causes and was as close as I might ever be to peace. With all this behind me, I felt that if I had to die now, it was all right. I would not protest quite so loudly as I would have at any other time.
“You are far from here. Father.”
I nodded, then smiled. I accepted some food and began eating. As I did, I watched the storm. Still too early to be certain, but it seemed that it was no longer advancing.
I was too tired to sleep. Or something like that. My aches had all subsided and a wondrous numbness had come over me. I felt as if I were embedded in warm cotton. Events and reminiscences kept the mental clockwork turning within me. It was, in many ways, a delicious feeling.
I finished eating and built up the fire. I sipped the wine and watched the storm, like a frosted window set before a fireworks display. Life felt good. If Random succeeded in pulling this one off, I would be riding into the Courts of Chaos tomorrow. What might await me there, I could not tell. Perhaps it might be a gigantic trap. An ambush. A trick. I dismissed the thought. Somehow, right now, it did not matter.
“You had begun telling me of yourself. Father.”
“Had I? I do not recall what I said.”
“I would like to get to know you better. Tell me more.”
I made a popping noise with my lips and shrugged.
“Then this.” He gestured. “This whole conflict. How did it get started? What was your part in it? Fiona told me that you had dwelled in Shadow for many years without your memory. How did you get it back and locate the others, and return to Amber?”
I chuckled. I regarded Random and the storm once more. I took a drink of wine and drew up my cloak against the wind.
“Why not?” I said then. “If you’ve a stomach for long stories, that is… I suppose that the best place to begin is at Greenwood Private Hospital, on the shadow Earth of my exile. Yes…”
Chapter 14
The sky turned, and turned again as I spoke. Standing against the storm, Random prevailed. It broke before us, parting as if cloven by a giant’s axblade. It rolled back at either hand, finally sweeping off to the north and the south, fading, diminishing, gone. The landscape it had masked endured, and with it went the black road. Merlin tells me that this is no problem, though, for he will summon a strand of gossamer when the time comes for us to cross over.
Random is gone now. The strain upon him was immense. In repose, he no longer looked as once he did — the brash younger brother we delighted in tormenting — for there were lines upon his face which I had never noticed before, signs of some depth to which I had paid no heed. Perhaps my vision has been colored by recent events, but he seemed somehow nobler and stronger. Does a new role work some alchemy? Appointed by the Unicorn, anointed by the storm, it seems that he had indeed assumed a kingly mien, even in slumber.
I have slept — even as Merlin now dozes — and it pleases me to be, for this brief while before his awakening, the only spot of sentience on this crag at the rim of Chaos, looking back upon a surviving world, a world that has been scoured, a world which endures…
We may have missed Dad’s funeral, his drifting into some nameless place beyond the Courts. Sad, but I lacked the strength to move. And yet, I have seen the pageant of his passing, and I bear much of his life within me. I have said my good-byes. He would understand. And good-bye, Eric. After all this time I say it, in this way. Had you lived so long, it would have been over between us. We might even one day have become friends, all our causes for strife passed. Of them all, you and I were more alike than any other pair within the family. Save, in some ways, Deirdre and myself… But tears on this count were shed long ago. Good-bye again, though, dearest sister, you will always live somewhere in my heart.
And you Brand… With bitterness do I regard your memory, mad brother. You almost destroyed us. You nearly toppled Amber from her lofty perch on the breast of Kolvir. You would have shattered all of Shadow. You almost broke the Pattern and redesigned the universe in your own image. You were mad and evil, and you came so close to realizing your desires that I tremble even now. I am glad that you are gone, that the arrow and the abyss have claimed you, that you sully no more the places of men with your presence nor walk in the sweet airs of Amber. I wish that you had never been born and, failing that, that you had died sooner. Enough! It diminishes me to reflect so. Be dead and trouble my thinking no more.