“Sure,” Random said. “No trouble. Is that all?”
“Yes. Haste is all.”
We moved toward the horses.
I patted Star a few times and then mounted.
“We’ll see you in Amber,” Random said. “Good luck.”
“In Amber,” I said. “Thanks.”
I turned and headed toward the place of the stairway, treading my tomb’s lengthening shadow eastward.
Chapter 13
On the highest ridge of Kolvir there is a formation which resembles three steps. I sat on the lowest of these and waited for more to occur above me. It takes night and moonlight to do this, so half of the requirements had been met.
There were clouds to the west and northeast. I was leery of those clouds. If they massed sufficiently to block all moonlight, Tir-na Nog’th faded back to nothingness. This was one reason why it was always advisable to have a backup man on the ground, to Trump you to safety should the city vanish about you.
The sky overhead was clear, however, and filled with familiar stars. When the moon came up and its light fell upon the stone at which I rested, the stairway in the sky would come into being, sweeping upward to a great height, taking its way to Tir-na Nog’th, the image of Amber that rode the night’s middle air.
I was weary. Too much had occurred in too brief a time. Suddenly to be at rest, to remove my boots and rub my feet, to lean back and rest my head, even against stone, was a luxury, a pure animal pleasure. I drew my cloak together before me against the growing chill. A hot bath, a full meal, a bed would be very good things. But these assumed an almost mythic quality from that vantage. It was more than sufficient simply to rest as I was, to let my thoughts move more slowly, drifting, spectatorlike, back over the day’s happenings.
So much… but now, at least, I had some answers to some of my questions. Not all of them, certainly. But enough to slake my mind’s thirst for the moment… I now had some idea as to what had been going on during my absence, a better understanding of what was happening now, a knowledge of some of the things that had to be done, of what I had to do… And I felt, somehow, that I knew more than I realized, consciously, that I already possessed pieces that would fit the growing picture before me, if I were only to jiggle them, flip them, rotate them properly. The pace of recent events, particularly today’s, had not allowed me a moment’s reflection. Now, though, some of the pieces seemed to be turning at odd angles…
I was distracted by a stirring above my shoulder, a tiny effect of brightening in the higher air. Turning, then standing, I regarded the horizon. A preliminary glow had occurred out over the sea at the point where the moon would ascend. As I watched, a minute arc of light came into view. The clouds had shifted slightly also, though not enough to cause concern. I glanced up then, but the overhead phenomenon had not yet begun. I withdrew my Trumps, however, riffled them, and cut out Benedict’s.
Lethargy forgotten, I stared, watching the moon expand above the water, casting a trail of light over the waves. A faint form was suddenly hovering on the threshold of visibility high overhead. As the light grew, a spark limned it here and there. The first lines, faint as spider webbing, appeared above the rock. I studied Benedict’s card, I reached for contact…
His cold image came alive. I saw him in the chamber of the Pattern, standing at the designs’ center. A lighted lantern glowed beside his left foot. He became aware of my presence.
“Corwin,” he said, “is it time?”
“Not quite,” I told him. “The moon is rising. The city is just beginning to take form. So it will only be a little longer. I wanted to be certain you were ready.”
“I am ready,” he said.
“It is good that you came back when you did. Did you learn anything of interest?”
“Ganelon called me back,” he said, “as soon as he learned what had happened. His plan seemed a good one, which is why I am here. As for the Courts of Chaos, yes. I believe I have learned a few things —”
“A moment,” I said.
The moonbeam strands had assumed a more tangible appearance. The city overhead was now clear in outline. The stairway was visible in its entirety, though fainter in some places than in others. I stretched forth enough to slake my mind’s thirst for the moment…
Cool, soft, I encountered the fourth stair. It seemed to give somewhat beneath my push, however.
“Almost,” I said to Benedict. “I am going to try the stairs. Be ready.”
He nodded.
I mounted the stone stairs, one, two, three. I raised my foot then and lowered it upon the fourth, ghostly one. It yielded gently to my weight. I was afraid to raise my other foot, so I waited, watching the moon. I breathed the cool air as the brightness increased, as the path in the waters widened. Glancing upward, I saw Tir-na Nog’th lose something of its transparency. The stars behind it grew dimmer. As this occurred, the stair became firmer beneath my foot. All resiliency went out of it. I felt that it might bear my full weight. Casting my eyes along its length, I now saw it in its entirety, here translucent, there transparent, sparkling, but continuous all the way up to the silent city that drifted above the sea. I raised my other foot and stood on the fourth stair. If I’d the mind, a few more steps would send me along that celestial escalator into the place of dreams made real, walking neuroses and dubious prophecy, into a moonlit city of ambiguous wish fulfillment, twisted time, and pallid beauty. I stepped back down and glanced at the moon, now balanced on the world’s wet rim. I regarded Benedict’s Trump in its silvery glow.
“The stair is solid, the moon is up,” I said.
“All right. I am going.”
I watched him there at the center of the Pattern. He raised the lantern in his left hand and for a moment stood unmoving. An instant later he was gone, and so was Pattern. Another instant, and he stood within a similar chamber, this time outside the Pattern, next to the point where it begins. He raised the lantern high and looked all around the room. He was alone.
He turned, walked to the wall, set the lantern beside it. His shadow stretched toward the Pattern, changed shape as he turned on his heel, moved back to his first position.
This Pattern, I noted, glowed with a paler light than the one in Amber — silvery white, without the hint of blue with which I was familiar. Its configuration was the same, but the ghost city played strange tricks with perspective. There were distortions-narrowings, widenings — which seemed to shift for no particular reason across its surface, as though I viewed the entire tableau through an irregular lens rather than Benedict’s Trump.
I retreated down the stairs, settled once again on the lowest step. I continued to observe.
Benedict loosened his blade in its scabbard.
“You know about the possible effect of blood on the Pattern?” I asked.
“Yes. Ganelon told me.”
“Did you ever suspect — any of this?”
“I never trusted Brand,” he told me.
“What of your journey to the Courts of Chaos? What did you learn?”
“Later, Corwin. He could come any time now.”
“I hope no distracting visions show up,” I said, recalling my own journey to Tir-na Nog’th and his own part in my final adventure there.
He shrugged.
“One gives them power by paying them heed. My attention is reserved for one matter tonight.”
He turned through a full circle, regarding every part of the chamber, halted when he had finished.
“I wonder if he knows you are there?” I said.
“Perhaps. It does not matter.”
I nodded. If Brand did not show np, we had gained a day. The guards would ward the other Patterns, Fiona would have a chance to demonstrate her own skill in matters arcane by locating Brand for us. We would then pursue him. She and Bleys had been able to stop him once before. Could she do it alone now? Or would we have to find Bleys and try to convince him to help? Had Brand found Bleys? What the hell did Brand want this kind of power for anyhow? A desire for the throne I could understand. Yet… The man was mad, leave it at that. Too bad, but that’s the way it was. Heredity or environment? I wondered wryly. We were all of us, to some degree, mad after his fashion. To be honest, it had to be a form of madness, to have so much and to strive so bitterly for just a little more, for a bit of an edge over the others. He carried this tendency to its extreme, that is all. He was a caricature of this mania in all of us. In this sense, did it really matter which of us was the traitor?