Zelazny, Roger - Amber 07 Blood of Amber

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Blood of Amber

Amber # 07

Roger Zelazny

REFLECTIONS IN A CRYSTAL CAVE

My life had been relatively peaceful for eight years--not counting April

thirtieths, when someone invariably tried to kill me. Outside of that, my

academic career with its concentration on computer science went well enough and

my four years' employment at Grand Design proved of rewarding experience,

letting me use what I'd learned in a situation I liked while I labored on a

project of my own on the side. I had a good friend in Luke Raynard, who worked

for the same company, in sales. I sailed my small boat, I jogged regularly--

It all fell apart this past April 30, just when I thought things were about

to come together. My pet project, Ghostwheel, was built; I'd quit my job, packed

my gear and was ready to move on to greener shadows. I'd stayed in town this

long only because that morbidly fascinating day was near, and this time I

intended to discover who was behind the attempts on my life and why.

At breakfast that morning Luke appeared with a message from my former

girlfriend, Julia. Her note said that she wanted to see me again. So I stopped

by her place, where I found her dead, apparently killed by the same doglike

beast which then attacked me. I succeeded in destroying the creature. A quick

search of the apartment before I fled the scene turned up a slim packet of

strange playing cards, which it took along with me. They were too much like the

magical Tarots of Amber and Chaos for a sorcerer such as myself not to be

interested in them.

Yes. I am a sorcerer. I am Merlin, son of Corwin of Amber and Dara of the

Courts of Chaos, known to local friends and acquaintances as Merle Corey:

bright, charming, witty, athletic.... Go read Castiglione and Lord Byron for

particulars, as I'm modest, aloof and reticent, as well.

The cards proved to be genuine magical objects, which seemed appropriate

once I learned that Julia had been keeping company with an occultist named

Victor Melman after we had broken up. A visit to this gentleman's studio

resulted in his attempting to kill me in a ritual fashion. I was able to free

myself from the constraints of the ceremony and question him somewhat, before

the local conditions and my enthusiasm resulted in his death. So much for

rituals.

I'd learned enough from him to realize that he'd been but a cat's-paw.

Someone else had apparently put him up to the sacrifice bit--and it seemed quite

possible that the other person was the one responsible for Julia's death and my

collection of memorable April thirtieths.

I had a small time to reflect upon these matters, though, because I was

bitten (yes, bitten) shortly thereafter by an attractive red-haired woman who

materialized in Melman's apartment, following my brief telephone conversation

with her in which I'd tried to pose as Melman. Her bite paralyzed me, but I was

able to depart before it took full effect by employing one of the magical cards

I'd found in Julia's place. It bore me into the presence of a sphinx, which

permitted me to recover so that it could play silly riddle game sphinxes love so

well because they get to eat you when you lose. All I can say about it is that

this particular sphinx was a bad sport.

Anyhow, I returned to the shadow Earth where I'd been making my home to

discover that Melman's place had burned down during my absence. I tried phoning

Luke, because I wanted to have dinner with him, and learned that he had checked

out of his motel, leaving me a message indicating that he had gone to New Mexico

on business and telling me where he'd be staying. The desk clerk also gave me a

blue-stone ring Luke had left behind, and I took it with me to return when I saw

him.

I flew to New Mexico, finally catching up with Luke in Santa Fe. While I

waited in the bar for him to be ready for dinner, a man named Dan Martinez

questioned me, giving the impression that Luke had propose some business deal

and that he wanted to be assured Luke was reliable and could deliver. After

dinner, Luke and I went for a drive in the mountains. Martinez followed us and

started shooting as we stood admiring the night. Perhaps he'd decided Luke was

not reliable or couldn't deliver. Luke surprised me by drawing a weapon of his

own and shooting Martinez. Then an even stranger thing happened. Luke called me

by name--my real name, which I'd never told him--and cited my parentage and told

me to get into the car and get the hell out. He emphasized his point by placing

a shot in the ground near my feet. The matter did not seem open to discussions

so I departed. He also told me to destroy those strange Trumps that had saved my

life once already. And I'd learned on the way of that he'd known Victor

Melman....

I didn't go far. I parked downhill and return on foot. Luke was gone. Soul

was Martinez's body. Look did not return to the hotel, that night or the next

day, so I checked out and departed. The only person I was sure I could trust,

and who actually might have some good advice for me, was Bill Roth. Bill was an

attorney who lived in upstate New York, and he had been my father's best friend.

I went to visit him, and I told him my story.

Bill got me to wondering even more about Luke. Luke, by the way, is a big,

smart, red-haired natural athlete of uncanny prowess--and though we'd been

friends for the years I knew next to nothing (and Bill pointed out) concerning

his background.

A neighboring lead named George Hansen began hanging out near bill's place,

asking strange questions. I received an odd phone call, asking similar

questions. Both interrogators seemed curious as to my mother's name. Naturally,

I lied. the fact that my mother is a member of the dark aristocracy of the

Courts of Chaos was none of their business. But the caller spoke my language,

Thari, which may be curious enough to propose a meeting and a trade-off of

information that evening in the bar of the local country club.

But my Uncle Random, King of Amber, told me home before that, while Bill

and I were out hiking. George Hansen, it turned out, was following us and wanted

to come along as we shifted away across the shadows of reality. Tough; he wasn't

invited. I took Bill along because I didn't want to leave him with anyone acting

that particular.

I learned from Random that my Uncle Caine was dead, of an assassin's

bullet, and that someone had also tried to kill my Uncle Bleys but only

succeeded in wounding him. The funeral service for Caine would be the following

day.

I kept date at the country club that evening, but my mysterious interrogar

was nowhere in sight. All was not lost, however, as I made the acquaintance of a

pretty lady named Meg Devlin--and, one thing leading to another, I saw her home

and we got to know each other a lot better. Then, at a moment when I would have

judged her thoughts to be anywhere but there, she asked me my mother's name. So,

what the hell, I told her. It did not come to me until later that she might

really have been the person I'd gone to the bar to meet.

Our liaison was terminated prematurely by a call from the lobby--from a man

purportedly Meg's husband. I did what any gentleman would do. I got the hell out

fast.

My Aunt Fiona, who is a sorceress (of a different style from my own), had

not approved of my date. And apparently she approved even less of Luke, because

she asked me whether I had a picture of him after I'd told her somewhat

concerning him. I showed her a photo I had in my wallet, which included Luke in

the group. I'd have sworn she recognized him from somewhere, though she wouldn't

admit it. But the fact that she and her brother Bleys both disappeared from

Amber that night would seem more than coincidental.

The pace of events was accelerated even more after that. A crude attempt at

knocking off most of the family with a thrown bomb was made the next day,

following Caine's funeral. The would-be assassin escaped. Later, Random was

upset at a brief demostration on my part of the power of the Ghostwheel, my pet

project, my hobby, my avocation during those years at Grand Design. Ghostwheel

is a--well, it started out as a computer that required a different set of

physical laws to operate than those I'd learned in school. It involved what

might be called magic. But I found a place where it could be built and operated,

and I'' constructed it there. It was still programming itself when I'd left it.

It seemed to have gone sentient, and I think it scared Random. He ordered me to

go and turn it off. I didn't much like the idea, but I departed.

I was followed in my passage through Shadow; I was harassed, threatened and

even attacked. I was rescued from a fire by a strange lady who later died in a

lake. I was protected from vicious beasts by a mysterious individual and saved

from a bizarre earthquake by the same person--who turned out to be Luke. He

accompanied me to the final barrier, for a confrontation with Ghostwheel. My

creation was a bit irritated with me and banished us by means of a

shadow-storm--a thing it is not fun to be caught in, with or without an

umbrella. I delivered us from the vicissitudes by means of one of the Trumps of

Doom, as I'd dubbed the odd pasteboards from Julia's apartment.

We wound up outside a blue crystal cave, and Luke took me in. Good old

Luke. After seeing to my needs he proceeded to imprison me. When he told me who

he was, I realized that is was a resemblance to his father which had upset Fiona

when she'd seen his photo. For Luke was the son of Brand, assassin and arch

traitor, who had damn near destroyed the kingdom and the rest of the universe

along with it some years back. Fortunately, Caine had killed him before he'd

accomplished his designs. Luke, I learned then, was the one who'd killed Caine,

to avenge his father. (And it turned out he'd gotten the news of his father's

death on an April thirtieth and had had a peculiar way of observing its

anniversary over the years.) Like Random, he too had been impressed by my

Ghostwheel, and he told me that I was to remain his prisoner, as I might become

necessary in his efforts to gain control of the machine, which he felt would be

the perfect weapon for destroying the rest of the family.

He departed to pursue the matter, and I quickly discovered that my powers

were canceled by some peculiar property of the cave, leaving me with no one to

talk to but you, Frakir, and no one here for you to strangle....

Would you care to hear a few bars of "Over the Rainbow"?

Blood of Amber

Roger Zelazny

Chapter 1

I threw the hilt away after the blade had shattered. The weapon had done me no good against that blue sea of a wall

in what I had taken to be its thinnest section. A few small chips of stone lay at my feet. I picked them up and rubbed

them together. This was not the way out for me. The only way out seemed to be the way I had come in, and it wasn't

working.

I walked back to my quarters, meaning that section of the caves where I had cast my sleeping bag. I sat down on the

bag, a heavy brown one, uncorked a wine bottle and took a drink. I had worked up a sweat hacking away at the wall.

Frakir stirred upon my wrist then, unwound herself partway and slithered into the palm of my left hand, to coil

around the two blue chips I still held. She knotted herself about them, then dropped to hang and swing pendulum-like. I

put the bottle aside and watched. The arc of her swing paralleled the lengthwise direction of the tunnel I now called

home. The swinging continued for perhaps a full minute. Then she withdrew upward, halting when she came to the

back of my hand. She released the chips at the base of my third finger and returned to her normal hidden position about

my wrist.

I stared. I raised the flickering oil lamp and studied the stones. Their color....

Yes.

Seen against the skin, they were similar in appearance to the stone in the ring of Luke's I had picked up at the New

Line Motel some time ago. Coincidence? Or was there a connection? What had my strangling cord been trying to tell

me? And where had I seen another such stone?

Luke's key ring. He'd a blue stone on it, mounted on a piece of metal.... And where might I have seen another?

The caverns in which I was imprisoned had the power to block the Trumps and my Logrus magic. If Luke carried

stones from these walls about with him, there was probably a special reason. What other properties might they possess?

I tried for perhaps an hour to learn something concerning their nature, but they resisted my Logrus probes. Finally,

disgusted, I pocketed them, ate some bread and cheese and took another swallow of wine.

Then I rose and made the rounds once more, inspecting my traps. I'd been a prisoner in this place for what seemed at

least a month now. I had paced all these tunnels, corridors, grottoes, seeking an exit. None of them proved a way out.

There were times when I had run manic through them and bloodied my knuckles upon their cold sides. There were

times I had moved slowly, seeking after cracks and fault lines. I had tried on several occasions to dislodge the boulder

that barred the entranceway--to no avail. It was wedged in placed, and I couldn't budge it. It seemed that I was in for the

duration.

My traps....

They were all as they had been the last time I had checked--deadfalls, boulders nature had left lying about in typical

careless fashion, propped high and ready now to be released from their wedging when someone tripped any of the

shadow-masked lengths of packing cord I'd removed from crates in the storeroom.

Someone?

Luke, of course. Who else? He was the one who'd imprisoned me. And if he returned--no, when he returned--the

booby traps would be waiting. He was armed. He would have me at a disadvantage from the overhead position of the

entrance if I merely waited for him below. No way. I would not be there. I would make him come in after me--and

then--

Vaguely troubled, I returned to my quarters.

Hands behind my head, I lay there and reviewed my plans. The deadfalls could kill a man, and I did not want Luke

dead. This had nothing to do with sentiment, though I had thought of Luke as a good friend until fairly recently--up

until the time I learned that he had killed my Uncle Caine and seemed intent upon destroying the rest of my relatives in

Amber as well. This was because Caine had killed Luke's father--my Uncle Brand--a man whom any of the others

would gladly have done in also. Yes, Luke--or Rinaldo, as I now knew him--was my cousin, and he had a reason for

engaging in one of our in-family vendettas. Still, going after everybody struck me as a bit intemperate.

But neither consanguinity nor sentiment bade me dismantle my traps. I wanted him alive because there were too

many things about the entire situation that I did not understand and might never understand were he to perish without

telling me.

Jasra... the Trumps of Doom... the means by which I had been tracked so easily through Shadow... the entire story of

Luke's relationship with a painter and mad occultist Victor Melman... anything he knew about Julia and her death....

I began again. I dismantled the deadfalls. The new plan was a simple one, and it drew upon something of which I

believed Luke had no knowledge.

I moved my sleeping bag to a new position, in the tunnel just outside the chamber whose roof held the blocked

entranceway. I shifted some of the food stores there, also. I was determined to remain in its vicinity for as much of the

time as possible.

The new trap was a basic thing: direct and just about unavoidable. Once I'd set it there was nothing to do but wait.

Wait, and remember. And plan. I had to warn the others. I had to do something about my Ghostwheel. Needed to find

out what Meg Devlin knew. I needed to... lots of things.

I waited. I thought of Shadow storms, dreams, strange Trumps and the Lady in the Lake. After a long spell of

drifting, my life had become very crowded in a matter of days. Then this long spell of doing nothing. My only

consolation was that this time line probably outpaced most of the others that were important to me right now. My

month here might only be a day back in Amber, or even less. If I could deliver myself from this place soon, the trails I

wished to follow might still be relatively fresh.

Later, I put out the lamp and went to sleep. Sufficient light filtered through the crystal lenses of my prison,

brightening and waning, for me to distinguish day from night in the outside world, and I kept my small series of

routines in accord with its rhythms.

During the next three days I read Melman's diary again--a thing heavy in allusion and low in useful information--

and just about succeeded in convincing myself that the Hooded One, as he referred to his visitor and teacher, had

probably been Luke. Except for a few references to androgyny, which puzzled me. References to the sacrifice of the

Son of Chaos near the end of the volume were something I could take personally, in light of my present knowledge of

Melman's having been set up to destroy me. But if Luke had done it, how to explain his ambiguous behavior on the

mountain in New Mexico, when he had advised me to destroy the Trumps of Doom and had driven me away almost as

if to protect me from something? And then he had admitted to several of the earlier attempts on my life, but denied the

later ones. No reason to do that if he were indeed responsible for all of them. What else might be involved? Who else?

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BloodofAmberAmber#07RogerZelaznyREFLECTIONSINACRYSTALCAVEMylifehadbeenrelativelypeacefulforeightyears--notcountingAprilthirtieths,whensomeoneinvariablytriedtokillme.Outsideofthat,myacademiccareerwithitsconcentrationoncomputersciencewentwellenoughandmyfouryears'employmentatGrandDesignprovedofrewardin...

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Zelazny, Roger - Amber 07 Blood of Amber

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