Roger Zelazny - Amber 04 The Hand of Oberon

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2024-11-30 0 0 462.62KB 120 页 5.9玖币

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we had come was, by the law of precedence and configuration, the real Amber.

I turned to a smiling Ganelon, his beard and wild hair molten in the merciless light.

"How did you know?" I asked him.

"You know I am a very good guesser, Corwin," he replied, "and I recall

everything you ever told me about how things work in Amber: how its shadow and

those of your struggles are cast across the worlds. I often wondered, in thinking of

the black road, whether anything could have cast such a shadow into Amber itself.

And I imagined that such a something would have to be extremely basic, powerful,

and secret." He gestured at the scene before us. "Like that."

"Continue," I said.

His expression changed and he shrugged.

"So there had to be a layer of reality deeper than your Amber," he explained,

"where the dirty work was done. Your patron beast led us to what seems to be such

a place, and that blot on the Pattern looks to be the dirty work. You agreed."

I nodded.

"It was your perceptiveness rather than the conclusion itself which stunned me

so," I said.

"You beat me to it," admitted Random, off to my right, "but the feeling has

found its way into my intestines-to put it delicately. I do believe that somehow that

is the basis of our world down there."

"An outsider can sometimes see things better than one who is part of them,"

Ganelon offered.

Random glanced at me and returned his attention to the spectacle.

"Do you think things will change any more," he asked, "if we go down for a closer

look?"

"Only one way to find out," I said.

"Single file, then," Random agreed. "I'll lead."

"All right."

Random guided his mount to the right, the left, the right, in a long series of

switchbacks which zigged us and zagged us across most of the face of the wall.

Continuing in the order we had maintained all day, I followed him and Ganelon

came last.

"Seems stable enough now," Random called back.

odor which I could not identify. The horses must have done a better job of it,

though, or been pessimists by nature, because they flattened their ears, widened

their nostrils, and made alarmed noises while turning against the reins. They

calmed, however, as soon as we had made the turn and begun moving away once

again. They did not suffer a relapse until we reached the end of our descent and

moved to approach the damaged Pattern. They refused to go near it.

Random dismounted. He advanced to the edge of the design, paused and stared.

After a time, he spoke without looking back.

"It follows that the damage was deliberate," he said, "from everything else that we

know."

"It seems to follow," I said.

"It is also obvious that we were brought here for a reason."

"I'd say so."

"Then it does not take too much imagination to conclude that our purpose for being

here is to determine how the Pattern was damaged and what might be done to

repair it."

"Possibly. What is your diagnosis?"

"Nothing yet."

He moved along the perimeter of the figure, off to the right where the smear-effect

began. I resheathed my blade and prepared to dismount. Ganelon reached over and

took hold of my shoulder.

"I can make it myself--" I began.

But, "Corwin," he said, ignoring my words, "there does appear to be a small

irregularity out toward the middle of the Pattern. It does not look like something

that belongs..."

"Where?"

He pointed and I followed the gesture.

There was some foreign object near the center. A stick? A stone? A stray bit of

paper...? It was impossible to tell from this distance.

"I see it," I said.

We dismounted and headed toward Random, who by then was crouched at the

extreme right of the figure, examining the discoloration.

"Ganelon's spotted something out toward the center," I said.

Then, without waiting for a reply, he took a running leap into the black sector,

raced along it toward the center, paused long enough to pick up some small object,

turned and headed back. Moments later, he stood before us.

"That was a risky thing to do," Random said. He nodded.

"But you two would still be debating it if I hadn't."

He raised his hand and extended it.

"Now, what do you make of this?"

He was holding a dagger. Impaled on it was a rectangle of stained pasteboard. I

took them from him.

"Looks like a Trump," Random said.

"Yes."

I worked the card loose, smoothed down the torn sections. The man I regarded

upon it was half familiar--meaning of course that he was also half strange. Light,

straight hair, a trifle sharp-featured, a small smile, somewhat slight of build.

I shook my head.

"I do not know him," I said.

"Let me see." Random took the card from me, frowned at it.

"No," he said after a time. "I don't either. It almost seems as though I should, but...

No."

At that moment, the horses renewed their complaints much more forcefully. And

we needed but turn part way to learn the cause of their discomfort, in that it had

chosen that moment to emerge from the cave.

"Damn," said Random. I agreed with him.

Ganelon cleared his throat, took forth his blade.

"Anyone know what it is?" he asked quietly.

My first impression of the beast was that it was snakelike, both from its

movements and because of the fact that its long thick tail seemed more a

continuation of its long thin body than a mere appendage. It moved on four double-

jointed legs, however, large-footed and wickedly clawed. Its narrow head was

beaked, and it swung from side to side as it advanced, showing us one pale blue

eye and then the other. Large wings were folded against its sides, purple and

leathery. It possessed neither hair nor feathers, though there were scaled areas

across its breast, shoulders, back, and along the length of its tail. From beak-

stamping. I moved to interpose myself. At that point, it reared.

Its wings went up and out, spreading like a pair of slack sails suddenly caught by a

gust of wind. It was back on its hind legs and towering above us, seeming to

occupy at least four times the space it had previously. And then it shrieked, a god-

awful, hunting scream or challenge that left my ears ringing. With that, it snapped

those wings downward and sprang, becoming temporarily airborne.

The horses bolted and ran. The beast was beyond our reach. It was only then that I

realized what the bright flash and the tinkling had represented. The thing was

tethered, by means of a long chain running back into the cave. The exact length of

its leash was immediately a question of more than academic interest.

I turned as it passed, hissing, flapping, and falling, beyond us. It had not possessed

sufficient momentum to obtain true flight in that brief rush upward. I saw that Star

and Firedrake were retreating toward the far end of the oval. Random's mount Iago,

on the other hand, had bolted in the direction of the Pattern.

The beast touched ground again, turned, as if to pursue Iago, appeared to study us

once more, and froze. It was much nearer this time--under four meters--and it

cocked its head, showing us its right eye, then opened its beak and made a soft

cawing noise.

"What say we rush it now?" said Random.

"No. Wait. There is something peculiar about its behavior."

It had dropped its head while I was speaking, spreading its wings downward. It

struck the ground three times with its beak and looked up again. Then it drew its

wings part way back toward its body. Its tail twitched once, then swing more

vigorously from side to side. It opened its beak and repeated the cawing sound.

At that moment we were distracted.

Iago had entered the Pattern, well to the side of the darkened area. Five or six

meters into it, standing obliquely across the lines of power, he was caught near one

of the Veil points like an insect on a piece of flypaper. He cried loudly as the

sparks came up about him and his mane rose and stood erect.

Immediately, the sky began to darken directly overhead. But it was no cloud of

water vapor which had begun to coalesce. Rather, it was a perfectly circular

formation which had appeared, red at the center, yellow nearer the edges, turning

in a clockwise direction. A sound like a single bell chime followed by the growl of

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摘要：

wehadcomewas,bythelawofprecedenceandconfiguration,therealAmber.IturnedtoasmilingGanelon,hisbeardandwildhairmolteninthemercilesslight."Howdidyouknow?"Iaskedhim."YouknowIamaverygoodguesser,Corwin,"hereplied,"andIrecalleverythingyouevertoldmeabouthowthingsworkinAmber:howitsshadowandthoseofyourstruggles...

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Roger Zelazny - Amber 04 The Hand of Oberon

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