PRINCE OF CHAOS (16 page)

“We’ve always gotten along well.”

“Of course.
 
He never antagonizes without a good reason.”

I shrugged and went on eating.

After a time she said, “I daresay he has made similar comments about me.”

“I am unable to recall any,” I answered.

“Has he been giving you lessons in circumspection, too?”

“No, though I’ve felt a need to teach myself, of late.”

“Surely, you obtained a few in Amber.”

“If I did, they were so subtle I didn’t notice.”

“Well, well.
 
Can it be I need despair of you no more?”

“I doubt it.”

“So, what might the Pattern or the Logrus want of you?”

“I already told you-a choice of sides.”

“It is that difficult to decide which you prefer?”

“It is that difficult to decide which I dislike less.”

“Because they are, as you say, manipulative of people in their struggle for power?”

“Just so.”

She laughed.
 
Then, “While it shows the gods as no better than the rest of us,” she said, “at least, it shows them as no worse.
 
See here the sources of human morality.
 
It is still better than none at all.
 
If these grounds be insufficient for the choosing of sides, then let other considerations rule.
 
You are, after all, a son of Chaos.”

“And Amber,” I said.

“You grew up in the Courts.”

“And I have dwelled in Amber.
 
My relatives are as numerous there as they are here.”

“It is really that close, then?”

“If it were not, it might have simplified matters.”

“In that case,” she said, “you must turn it around.”

“What do you mean?”

“Ask not which appeals the most to you, but which can do the most for you,”

I sipped a fine green tea as the storm rolled nearer.
 
Something splashed within the waters of our inlet.

“All right,” I said, “I’m asking.”

She leaned forward and smiled and her eyes darkened.
 
She has always had perfect control of her face and form, shifting them to suit her moods.
 
She is obviously the same person, but at times she may choose to appear as little more than a girl, at other times becoming a mature and handsome woman.
 
Generally, she seems somewhere in between.
 
But now, a certain timeless quality came into her features-not age so much as the essence of Time-and I realized suddenly that I had never known her true age.
 
I watched as something like a veil of ancient power came across it.

“The Logrus,” she said, “will lead you to greatness.”

I continued to stare.

“What sort of greatness?” I asked.

“What sort do you desire?”

“I don’t know that I ever wanted greatness, on its own.
 
It seems rather

like wanting to be an engineer, rather than wanting to design something-or wanting to be a writer, rather than wanting to write.
 
It should be a by-product, not a thing in itself.
 
Otherwise, it’s just an ego trip.”

“But if you earn it-if you deserve it-shouldn’t you have it?”

“I suppose.
 
But so far I’ve done nothing”-my eyes fell to a bright circle of light beneath the dark waters, moving as if running before a storm-“except perhaps for an odd piece of equipment, which might fall into that category.”

“You are young, of course,” she said, “and the times for which you were meant to be uniquely qualified have come sooner than I’d anticipated.”

If I were to use magic to summon a cup of coffe, would she resent that? Yes, I believed.
 
She would.
 
So I decided on a glass of wine.
 
As I poured it and took a sip, I said, “I’m afraid I don’t understand what you’re talking about.”

She nodded.

“It is hardly something you could learn from introspection,” she said slowly, “and no one would be so rash as to mention the possibility to you.”

“What are you talking about, Mother?”

“The throne.
 
To reign in the Courts of Chaos.”

“Mandor had sort of suggested I think about it,” I said.

“All right.
 
No one, excepting Mandor, would be so rash as to mention it.”

“I gather mothers get a certain kick out of seeing their sons do well, but unfortunately you’ve named a job for which I lack not only skill, aptitude, and training but also any desire.”

She steepled her fingers and regarded me from just above them.

“You are better qualified than you think, and your desires have nothing to do with the matter.”

“As an interested party, I must beg to differ with you.”

“Even if it were the only way to protect friends and relatives both here and in Amber?”

I took another sip of wine.

“Protect them? Against what?”

“The Pattern is about to try redefining the middle regions of Shadow in its own image.
 
It is probably strong enough to do it now.”

“You were talking of Amber and the Courts, not of Shadow.”

“The Logrus will have to resist this incursion.
 
Since it would probably lose in a direct confrontation with its opposite, it will be forced to employ agents strategically, in a strike against Amber.
 
The most effective agents would, of course, be champions of the Courts-“

“This is mad!” I said.
 
“There must be a better way!”

“Possibly,” she replied.
 
“Accept the throne and you’ll be giving the orders.”

“I don’t know enough.”

“You will be briefed, of course.”

“What about the proper order of succession?”

“That’s not your problem.”

“I rather think I’d have an interest in how it’s achieved-say, whether I’d owe you or Mandor for the majority of deaths.”

“In that we’re both Sawall, the question becomes academic.”

“You mean you’re cooperating on this?”

“We have our differences,” she said, “and I draw the line at any discussion of methods.”

I sighed and took another drink.
 
The storm had grown worse over the dark waters.
 
If that strange light effect beneath their surface were indeed Ghostwheel, I wondered what he was up to.
 
The lightings were becoming a steady backdrop, the thunder a continuing soundtrack.

“What did you mean,” I said, “when you spoke of the times for which I was meant to be uniquely qualified?”

“The present and the immediate future,” she said, “with the conflict that will come.”

“No,” I responded.
 
“I was referring to the business about my being ‘meant to be uniquely qualified.’ How so?”

It must have been the lightning, for I had never seen her blush before.

“You combine two great bloodlines,” she said.
 
“Technically, your father was King of Amber briefly-between the reign of Oberon and that of Eric”

“Since Oberon was still alive at the time and had not abdicated, neither reign should be considered valid,” I responded.
 
“Random is Oberon’s proper successor.”

“A case can be made for an implied abdication,” she said.

“You prefer that reading, don’t you?”

“Of course.”

I watched the storm.
 
I swallowed some wine.

“That is why you wished to bear Corwin’s child?” I asked.

“The Logrus assured me that such a child would be uniquely qualified to reign here.”

“But Dad never really meant that much to you, did he?”

She looked away, out to where the circle of light was now racing toward us, lightnings falling behind it.
 
“You have no right to ask that question,” she said.

“I know that.
 
But it’s true, isn’t it?”

“You are mistaken.
 
He meant a great deal to me.”

“But not in any conventional sense.”

“I am not a conventional person.”

“I was the result of a breeding experiment.
 
The Logrus selected the mate who would give you-what?”

The circle of light swam nearer.
 
The storm followed it, coming closer in to the shore than I’d ever seen one reach here before.

“An ideal Lord of Chaos,” she said, “fit to rule.”

“Somehow I feel there’s more to it than that,” I said.

Dodging lightning bolts, the bright circle came up out of the water and flashed across the sand toward us.
 
If she responded to my last remark, I couldn’t hear it.
 
The ensuing thunders were deafening.

The light came onto the decking, paused near to my foot.

“Dad, can you protect me?” Ghost asked in a lull between thunderclaps.

“Rise to my left wrist,” I bade.

Dara stared as he found his place, taking on the appearance of Frakir.

In the meantime, the final flash of lightning did not depart, but stood for a time like a sizzling stalk at the water’s edge.
 
Then it collapsed into a ball that hovered in the middle air for several moments before drifting in our direction.
 
As it came on, its structure began to change.

When it drifted to a position beside our table it had become a bright, pulsing Sign of the Logrus.

“Princess Dara, Prince Merlin,” came that awful voice I had last heard on the day of the confrontation at Amber Castle, “I did not wish to disturb your repast, but that thing you harbor makes it necessary.” A jagged branch of the image was flipped in the direction of my left wrist.

“It’s blocking my ability to shift away,” Ghost said.
 

“Give it to me!”

“Why?” I asked.

“That thing has traversed the Logrus,” came the words, differing at seeming random in pitch, volume, accent.

It occurred to me that I might defy it now if I were really as valuable to the Logrus as Dara had indicated.
 
So, “It’s theoretically open to all comers,” I responded.

“I am my own law, Merlin, and your Ghostwheel has crossed me before.
 
I’ll have it now.”

“No,” I said, moving my awareness into the spikard, seeking and locating a means of instant transport to an area where the Pattern ruled.
 
“I’ll not surrender my creation so readily.”

The brightness of the Sign increased.

At this, Dara was on her feet, moving to interpose herself between it and myself.

“Stay,” she said.
 
“We’ve more important matters tc deal with than vengeance upon a toy.
 
I have dispatched my cousins Hendrake for the bride of Chaos.
 
If you wish this plan to succeed, I suggest you assist them.”

“I recall your plan for Prince Brand, setting the lady Jasra to snare him.
 
It could not fail, you told me.”

“It brought you closer than you ever came, old Serpent, to the power you desire.”

“That is true,” it acknowledged.

“And the bearer of the Eye is a simpler being than Jasra.”

The Sign slid past her, a tiny sun turning itself into a succession of ideograms.

“Merlin, you will take the throne and serve me when the time comes?”

“I will do what is necessary to redress the balance of power,” I replied.

“That is not what I asked! Will you take the throne under the terms I set?”

“If that is what is needed to set things right,” I answered.

“This pleases me,” it said.
 
“Keep your toy.”

Dara moved aside, and it passed near to her before fading.

“Ask him of Luke and Corwin and the new Pattern,” it said, and then it was gone.

She turned toward me and stared.

“Pour me a glass of wine,” she said.

I did this.
 
She raised it and took a swallow.

“So tell me of Luke and Corwin and the new Pattern,” she said.

“Tell me of Jasra and Brand,” I countered.

“No.
 
You will go first in this,” she said.

“Very well,” I said.
 
“It neglected to mention that they were Pattern ghosts.
 
Luke’s appeared to me on the way over here, sent by the Pattern to persuade me to depart this realm.
 
The Logrus sent Lord Borel’s to dispose of Luke.”

“Luke being Rinaldo, the son of Jasra and Brand, husband of Coral and King of Kashfa?”