This one is especially for KIM ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The author would like to thank Byron Preiss for making this project possible; his editor Howard Zimmerman, who has done a superlative job through a sometimes grueling schedule; and Theresa Thomas, Warren Lapine, and Lee F. Szczepanik, Jr. for providing commentary, criticism, and advice on the early drafts. CHAPTER ONE Grayness surrounded me. Gray the color of morning twilight. Hours and days and years and centuries of gray. A featureless, all-consuming, all-encompassing gray that sucked the strength from your limbs and the will to live from your heart. So much gray that you couldn't take it all in no matter how hard you tried. I fell through that gray, thinking of my crazy brother Aber, who had run out on me. Then I thought about my crazy father, Dworkin, who had left me guarding his back while he destroyed the universe. For a while I wanted to kill them both. That lasted a long, long time. Then I wanted to hurt them. That lasted even longer. Finally I didn't care. And still I fell. Uncountable ages passed. My mind wandered; I dreamed unhappy dreams. Now and again my father's voice spoke to me. "Be patient," it would say. "The end has come, and the beginning lies ahead." "What's in it for me?" I asked warily. "Nothing," he said. "You were a tool, nothing more, used and discarded." "No!" I jerked around and tried to grab him, but my arms windmilled through nothingness. He hadn't really been here. I had imagined it. Dreams, nightmares, hallucinations, imaginings. Call them what you will. They were one and the same. And still I plunged through that gray, a never-ending sea of it. Forever passed. At least twice. The end came with no sense of motion. Had I really been falling? Aber would know, some distant part of me remarked. Aber knew everything about magic. Frowning, I tried to remember something important. Something about having to kill someone… I couldn't recapture the thought. My head hurt. My muscles seemed to groan and my bones to creak, as though they hadn't been used in a long, long time. Lurching, I almost fell. Suddenly I had direction again: a clear sense of up and down, left and right, forward and back. Thick, impenetrable grayness still surrounded me, but something had definitely changed. Something big. "Aber!" I shouted. The air seemed to swallow my words. "Aber! Where are you?" No reply. Besides, I knew my brother hadn't done anything to save me. He would have gone… where? I frowned. Back to the Courts of Chaos, probably. Who else could help me, then? A face, a name on the tip of my tongue… "Dworkin?" I whispered. That sounded right. "Dad?" Memories suddenly flooded back. Our flight from Juniper to the strange Courts of Chaos. Someone named Lord Zon trying to kill my whole family. My half-brother Aber, who painted magical cards called Trumps that could be used to travel between worlds… my half-sister Freda, who saw the future… and most especially our father, the dwarf I'd grown up calling Uncle Dworkin. It turned out he'd been lying to protect me. He reallywas my father, and he commanded magical powers I had only just begun to understand. Someday soon I too would command those magics. I knew it. Dworkin had created his own universe, a huge sprawling place of Shadow-worlds, and in so doing had weakened the powers of the sorcerers who lived in the Courts of Chaos. So someone from Chaos - probably Lord Zon - had sent hell-creatures to kill our whole family and destroy the Shadows, along with the magical Pattern that cast them. My head hurt just thinking about it. Fleeing the Courts of Chaos, Dworkin, Aber, and I came to a secret place that contained the Pattern at the center of the new universe. Unfortunately, Dworkin hadn't understood the Pattern fully when he'd created it, and its very essence held a flaw. To fix things, he had destroyed the old Pattern and retraced it from scratch using his own blood. He had collapsed after finishing it, and I had fallen into a void. Had it worked? Did a new and correct Pattern really exist now? I didn't know. How could I find out? First things first. I needed a plan. Mentally, I made a list: 1. Get out of the fog. 2. Find the rest of my family. 3. Stop everyone from trying to kill us. If I had time, I'd add: 4. Beat my father to a bloody pulp for getting us all into this mess in the first place. The air flickered around me, brighter then darker, brighter then darker. Stretching out my hands, I squinted into grayness, trying to see my fingertips. Nothing. Was I imagining things? The light flickered again, subtly. I couldn't tell whether I had dreamed it, but somehow it felt different . I fought back a rush of excitement; no sense in raising my hopes. I had been disappointed too often. And yet a small part of me wondered - could dawn finally be approaching? Had something else happened? Anything would be better than this gray fog. Slowly I inched my hands closer to my face. Dim shadows appeared. I wiggled my fingers; the shadows wiggled. The gray reallyhad begun to lift. I could see again, if poorly. There's nothing more useless than a blind swordsman. Hunkering down, I waited impatiently. The grayness seepedaway slowly, like a morning fog lifting as the sun grows high. A long time later, I could see my hands clearly. A heartbeat later, and I could see all the way down to my boots. Another heartbeat, and I could see ten feet in every direction, then twenty, then fifty - Rising, I looked around, but saw nothing but rock and sand and sky. No trees, no bushes, no blades of grass broke the desolation. Not even lichen grew here. Gray fog continued to rush away from me in all directions, an outgoing tide revealing hills and valleys and distant mountains, all as barren as the land around me. I had never seen a place as dry and dead before. The staff I had been carrying when I fell lay a few feet away, mostly hidden by rocks. Strolling over, I picked it up and leaned heavily on it, feeling old and tired. All I needed was a long gray beard and I'd be set. The last of the gray vanished, but it didn't leave a promising world behind. Even on the distant mountains I saw no trees, bushes, or even grass - not a single living thing of any size, shape, or kind. No birds chirped or winged past; no insectsbrred . Not even a breeze stirred the dust on the ground. I had never felt so alone in my life. Wherewas I? Where had my fall left me? The sky overhead turned blue, the deepest, purest azure I had ever seen, without a single wisp of cloud. I gaped up into the vastness of it all. At last, forcing my gaze back down to land, I sighed and resigned myself to work. My first job would be rescuing myself. I had to get off this Shadow - if Shadow it proved to be. If nothing else, I had begun to feel the first gnawing pangs of hunger. I took a quick inventory. Sword, knife, boots, deck of Trumps - all where they belonged. All my limbs; all my fingers. I had not so much as a single bruise. My mental faculties seemed as sharp as ever. If the Trumps still worked, I could use them to call any of my half-brothers or half-sisters for a way out. Or I could use one of the Trumps that showed a place, such as the Beyond or the Courts of Chaos, and bring myself directly there. The only problem was, I didn't know how safe any of those places would be. Too many people were trying to kill me right now to go blundering off to unknown destinations. At least, not without taking proper precautions - an army, for instance. Removing the deck of Trumps from the pouch at my belt, I flipped through them until I came to the image of Aber. I liked Aber best of all my siblings; he was the only one who seemed to have a sense of humor, and he had been the only one to really take me in and make me feel as though I belonged. I hesitated. Should I contact him and ask to be rescued? No… not Aber, not yet. I liked him, but I didn't quite trust him. He had his own problems and his own agenda. He had betrayed us to King Uthor of Chaos, though under duress. I could forgive him for that… but my trust would have to be earned back. Moving his card to the bottom of the deck, where I could find it again easily, I kept going. My dead brother Locke… he couldn't be of any help now. My brother Conner… my sister Blaise… Then I came to our father's card. It showed a dwarf dressed in a ridiculous jester's outfit, with bells on the toes of his pointy purple slippers and an idiotic grin on his face. Aber had painted Dad this way on purpose. He never missed a chance to secretly mock anyone who slighted him, our father most especially. Raising Dad's Trump, I concentrated, envisioning him before me. But his image failed to come to life. I didn't sense so much as a flicker of consciousness when I concentrated on it. Dead? Unconscious? Just ignoring me? All seemed equally likely, and I had no way of finding out the truth right now. It also could be that my Trumps no longer worked. Dad had destroyed the Pattern they were based on, after all. No, I'd have to assume they worked. Dad could easily be unwilling or unable to respond. I'd try another card. Who was left? Just my other siblings, and I didn't know most of them well enough to decide how much I could rely on them. Any of them could be in Lord Zon's employ. Someone in Juniper had deliberately let an assassin into the castle to kill me. The plot had failed, but I still didn't know who the traitor had been. Putting Dad's card on the bottom of the deck, next to Aber's, I pulled out my sister Freda's Trump. I trusted her more than most of the family. She might be a mystic and have visions of the future, but she had always been honest about her scheming: she wanted to be in charge of the family. As painted by Aber, Freda looked gorgeous and sexy, with her red hair up, accentuating her high cheekbones and pale skin. Her shimmering reddish-purple evening gown accentuated her dark eyes. She had a cat-with-bird-in-mouth expression, which I found somewhat intriguing. As I stared down at her, the stars behind her began to twinkle, and I felt a stirring consciousness. Good - the Trumps still worked. Then her picture moved, but oddly, with jerky movements. I couldn't quite see her face clearly. A veil seemed to hang between us. "Who… it?" sheasked. Words seemedto be missing. "I… see-" "It's me - Oberon," I said. "Who?" she cried. " ...again !" Before I could reply, the ground trembled underfoot. An earthquake? I leaned on my staff for support and tried not to lose my balance. The vibrations grew stronger. Pebbles on the ground began to hop and jiggle. Rocks slid, and when the ground gave a sharp convulsion, I almost fell. Freda was saying: "-swer…! Who is… ?" "Not now," I said to Freda. I covered her card with my hand and abruptly lost contact. I would try again once the earthquake passed. Before I could lose my deck of Trumps, I shoved them back into their pouch. A distant rumbling began at the very edge of my hearing and grew steadily louder. Not thunder - it reminded me of stampeding horses. But there were no horses here… were there? I turned slowly, hunting for the source of the noise. There - coming up from the valley-raising a cloud of dust - it reallywas horses! No, not horses…unicorns . Dozens of them, a hundred or more, all running at breakneck speed toward me. Their silvery-white coats flashed in the sunlight, shiny with sweat The horns on their heads bobbed up and down in rhythm to their strides. Their hooves blurred with the speed of their movement. I had never seen anything so magnificent before. What could they be doing here? They swept across the land like a wildfire. Behind them came a tide of color: greens and browns and pinks and yellows, flowing across the mountains and valleys. Oceans of grass surged from the earth. Trees sprang from the ground; first seedlings, then towering oaks and maples and pines and so many more. Bushes heavy with ripe berries sprang full-grown from the ground. Meadows - forests - green from trees and grass; pinks, yellows, and purples from flowers; reds and golds from ripening fruit - The herd approached my position rapidly. The jarring force of their stampede made everything loose bounce across the landscape like so many children's toys. I staggered but, with the help of the staff, kept to my feet. Still the unicorns rushed forward - hooves pounding like hammers on anvils, the sound of their passage growing to a deafening roar. A hundred yards away, and I saw the wild, fierce looks in their eyes. They ran with a mad abandon, savage, fierce, unstoppable. Panicking suddenly, I looked around for cover but found none. If the whole herd ran me down, I'd never survive their hooves. Where could I go? What could I do? My thoughts raced through the possibilities. Fifty yards - I'd never get a Trump out in time, even if I could contact someone to save me. Thirty yards- Taking a deep breath, I raised my staff and faced the unicorns. I could never hope to outrun them. What if I treated them like a real herd of horses? Bellowing a war-cry, though they never could have heard me over their own deafening noise, I twirled my staff and stomped my feet. If I could spook the leaders enough to make them shy away - Ten yards - five - It wasn't going to work. I saw it now. Their nostrils flared. Their jaws snapped. Their eyes rolled wildly. They ran with no thought or reason; a terrible madness seemed to have come over them all. I steeled myself. My heart hammered in my chest, but I set my feet and held my ground. Three yards - one - At the last instant, the lead unicorns veered aside, one to my left and one to my right, and the others followed right in their paths. Like a river flowing around an island, they separated just enough to avoid hitting me. The rushing, pounding noise of their passage deafened me. The heat of their bodies washed across me in a burning wind. The cloud of dust raised by their hooves filled my eyes and mouth. Flecks of foamy sweat hit my face and arms. Coughing and choking, half blind, I held as still as I could. They would pass me safely. I could live through it if I just kept still - And then they were gone. The sudden silence and stillness was overwhelming. But before I could relax, the ground underfoot seethed and churned. What now? I teetered, off balance. A moment later, thick blades of grass popped out under my boots, growing rapidly until it was waist high. I braced myself with my staff, trying desperately to keep my balance. As my staff touched the ground, it ripped free from my hands and took root. Branches burst out along its length, several almost skewering me. Then a hideous, tortured face appeared in the center of the trunk. Two orbs flickered, then opened… showing familiar blue eyes… eyes I had looked on with admiration and respect a thousand times before. Now, though, they glared down at me. I had seldom seen such hate and loathing. It wanted me dead. "No…!" I whispered. My heart seemed to skip several beats. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't tear my gaze away. "No… !" Those eyes - that face - belonged to King Elnar of Ilerium. King Elnar had died because I abandoned him, despite my oath to serve both king and country for all my life. He had died - murdered by hell-creatures - what now seemed a lifetime ago. The wooden mouth opened. A groaning, moaning squeal of pain came out. "Please," I begged. "Not this! Not again!" I swallowed hard. The lump in my throat felt as large as my fist. I couldn't believe this was happening to me. Elnar had been almost a father to me. I had worshipped him… done everything I could to be just like him. Of all the things that had befallen me - of all the horrors I had seen since leaving Ilerium - his death struck me the hardest. After murdering him, hell-creatures had mounted his head on a pole outside of Kingstown. When I had returned there, the king's head spoke to me. Somehow, impossibly, magic kept it alive. It had called me vile names and shouted for hell-creatures to come and kill me. That had been one of the worst moments of my life. Of course, I knew deep inside that it hadn't really been King Elnar speaking - not truly - but the words still hurt like no others could have. Iknew I had betrayed his trust. Iknew I had deserted him in his time of greatest need. Because of me, he had died. Horribly. No, I forced myself to think, not because of me. Because of the foul magics of the Courts of Chaos. I took a deep breath, forcing down my shock and repulsion. Hell-creatures had created a grisly parody of what King Elnar had once been. The head on the pole had not been my liege and friend. Nor was this face in this tree King Elnar. It was an abomination, created by magic - an abomination to be loathed and destroyed. And yet - it was King Elnar's face - As I watched, those familiar blue eyes stared down at me. The wooden mouth parted, twisting into a half snarl. "You!" it moaned at last, with Elnar's voice. "I know you! You are the one who did this to me! Murderer!Traitor !" CHAPTER TWO ^<file:///D:/Books/Betancourt, John Gregory/John Gregory Betancourt - %5BNew Amber Trilogy 3%5D - To Rule In Amber (v1.0)lit.html> I took a deep breath, then let it out explosively. "You're wrong!" I said. The severed head on the pole in Ilerium had uttered pretty much those exact same words. "Think back to what really happened. Look inside yourself. You will see the truth." "Traitor!" it cried. Its lips pulled back in a pained grimace. "Murderer! Butcher!" I turned away. My eyes burned and my head pounded. I couldn't believe my luck. Why had the unicorns done this to me? Were they trying to punish me for some reason? No, not the unicorns… the blame lay with Aber. Understanding came on me suddenly. I had returned to Juniper with the pole upon which King Elnar's head had been impaled. Aber had taken the pole. Later, at the Pattern, when I asked him for a staff, he had summoned one for me… and it was my bad luck that he had given me back the one which had held King Elnar's head. The unicorns, with their life-giving magic, had somehow brought both the staff and King Elnar back to life, but joined together. It made a certain amount of sense. King Elnar's head had been growing into the pole, as I had discovered when I smashed his head to a pulp in Kingstown, what now seemed a lifetime ago. "You deserve to die!" the face in the tree screamed. "No - death is too good for you!Torture ! A thousand years of torture!" I pressed my eyes shut and turned my face away. How much more of this could I take? Still King Elnar called down abuse. What could I do to stop him? What could I do to make it up to him? "Enough!" I said. Drawing a deep breath, I whirled. My temper flared; I could not put up with his abuse any longer. "Oh, the coward speaks!" he mocked. "Enough! Boo-hoo! Did I cry when you killed me?" "I mean it!" I said. I drew my sword and took a step forward, raising my blade menacingly. Would it be soft like human flesh, or hard like a tree? "Shut up, o -!" "Or what? What are you going to do, kill me again?" It actually laughed at me. "You always were a fool. A fool and a traitor! Look how you respect your oaths of allegiance. Will you kill me by your own hand this time? Or will you leave that to the hell-creatures?" I sucked in an angry breath and raised my sword. "Assassin!" it shrieked. "Assassin!" "I'm only going to say this once," I said in a dangerously quiet voice. I owed it to King Elnar's memory to try one last time to make peace with whatever part of him remained alive here. "Believe me, I could not have done anything more to help you. Had I stayed in Ilerium, we would both be dead now. That is the truth." "Youshould be dead!" it cried. "Thousands perished because of you!Murderer! Traitor !" "Enough!" Rage swept through me. Without a second's hesitation, I stabbed the face with the tip of my sword. Steel bit into its nose with the dullthump of metal hitting wood. It didn't penetrate far, but it seemed to hurt. "Assassin!" the face howled, its voice rising in panic. Its eyes crossed almost comically as it tried to see the wound. "Help me, someone! Help me! Save me from the assassin!" I jerked my sword free, leaving a long gash in the wood of its nose. Slowly, a sticky-looking black sap oozed out. It had the consistency of blood. And, like blood, it slowly beaded. Still the tree cursed at me. "Enough, I said!" My voice rose to a roar. If I couldn't out-fight or out-reason it, maybe I could out-shout it. "Be quiet, or I'll carve out your tongue!" "You wouldn't dare!" it cried. "Oath-breaker! Liege-killer!Murderer !" On and on it went. I forced myself to take a deep, soothing breath. Clearly the hell-creatures had taken all of King Elnar's rational mind, leaving behind a creature that could only parrot human speech. Nothing remained of my old friend. It was all too ridiculous. I couldn't allow hell-creatures to waste my time and energy. I wouldnot fight a tree. Shaking my head at the morbid humor of this whole situation, I turned away. I could easily waste all my time and energy trying to reason with this monstrosity. And maybe that's what the hell-creatures wanted. Maybe it was supposed to keep me busy until they could capture or kill me. Unfortunately for them, they were nowhere close. They would never find King Elnar again… never use him against me. Clearly thisthing wasn't my old liege. I didn't have to treat it with any special deference or respect. Nor would I fight with it. After all, what could I possibly accomplish by hitting a tree with a sword? Maybe I could claim "first sap" instead of "first blood" in our fight. Not that anyone would call striking an unarmed tree with a sword a fight… Then the answer came to me suddenly. I didn't have to do anything at all. If I wanted to win, all I had to do was walk away. If I abandoned it here, forever howling insults and cursing my name, it had no power over me. Turning, I headed up the valley. And why not? With somany Shadows to choose from, I had no reason to ever come this way again. Let it scream. Let it curse my name. What did I care? "Come back!" it yelled. "Coward! Simpering weakling!Traitor !" I paused. Despite the soundness of my own advice, I discovered I couldn't just leave. Idid care. Maybe it was my oath to King Elnar. Maybe I owed something to his memory. Or maybe the hell-creatures had put a spell on the head, a compulsion to make me stay and argue with it against my own better judgment. Whatever the reason, Ineeded to make peace with the tree. But how? Threats hadn't worked. Reason hadn't worked. What else remained? "Assassin!" it continued to scream. "Murderer! Someone help me! Avenge my death!To arms! To arms ! He's getting away!" What else? Perhaps… reality? With a sigh, I took a deep breath and faced the tree again. What did I have to lose? Things couldn't get any worse, after all. King Elnar had already died. Hell-creatures had already cut off and ensorcelled his head. Maybe, if he truly understood what had happened to him… I seized on that idea:make him understand . If I could make him see his own grim predicament… or shut up for a minute to let me explain it… maybe that would be enough. "Let in -" I began. "Assassin!" "Le -" "Murderer!" "- me explai -" "Traitor!" "- it to you!" "Oath-breaker!" I paused. The abuse didn't stop for a second. A human being who talked and screamed and shouted non-stop would rapidly lose his voice. What about a tree? I didn't know. But I intended to find out. "Liege-killer!" "Uh-huh," I said. "Tell me about it." And he did, calling me every sort of vile name imaginable - and some I never would have imagined. Through it all I just stood there and nodded, smiling now and again, making encouraging noises at all the right places. Maybe all he needed was time to talk himself hoarse. Well, let him! His words couldn't hurt me. Finally, as he began to repeat himself, I decided to take a rest. I sat beneath its spreading branches, stretched out my legs, and gave a wide yawn. Wriggling my back, I found a comfortable spot against the trunk, leaned back, and shut my eyes. Abruptly the abuse stopped. I opened one eye. "Go on," I said. "Don't stop." "What are you doing?" he cried. "Taking a nap." "Stop it! Murderer!Help me, someone !" "Go on," I said sarcastically. "I love the sound of your voice." If anything, that seemed to enrage him. He screamed, shouted, threatened, and insulted me time and again. Despite the constant stream of abuse, it actuallydid feel nice to relax. I could even fall asleep here… Closing my eyes again, I pretended to snore. After ten minutes, the cursing and name-calling came to a stop. Now the tree muttered the vilest of threats under its breath, promises to disembowel, behead, and boil me in oil - sometimes all at once. Minor progress, but progress nonetheless. I continued to snore. The muttering lasted another ten minutes or so. At last it grew silent. Had I outlasted it? Had its murderous rage finally passed? Would it talk civilly to me now? Cautiously opening one eye, I peeked up at King Elnar's face. He stared down at me, frowning severely. "Don't stop," I said with a chuckle. "The music of your voice soothes my sleep." "What are you doing?" it demanded. "Resting." "Why?" "I felt like it." "Traitor!" "Scream all you want," I said, folding my arms behind my head and closing my eyes. "It doesn't bother me a bit." "Why not?" "We're far from Ilerium. I don't have to worry about hell-creatures finding and killing me here." "Why not?" "It's just you and me, old friend. No one can hear you, so go ahead! Scream all you want! Curse. Call me names. It doesn't bother me. No one can hear you. After all, we're alone in this world." "I don't believe you." "And I don't care." I closed my eyes. This time, I almostdid fall asleep. When at last it spoke again, suspicion hardened its voice. "What do you mean, alone?" "We aren't in Ilerium anymore, old friend. We're in a new world… an empty world. No people. No hell-creatures. Just you and me. And you're a tree." "You're a liar!" I actually laughed. "I wish I had a looking-glass. You're not even a tree - you're a face stuckin a tree. Now that's funny! King of Shrubbery, I'll call you!" "Liar!" "Shrub!" When it didn't reply, I squinted critically up at the twisted, gnarled trunk. Had my words finally sunk in? "You're not even a very good looking tree," I went on. Why not add insult to injury? "You're lucky I don't have an axe. I have a feeling you'd make better kindling than anything else." "Liar! Liar!" "Don't you believe me?" I streched one arm up, caught a low-hanging branch, and broke off a handful of leaves with a twist of my wrist. "Ow!" it cried. "Look! You reallyare a tree, whether you want to admit it or not!" "That hurt!" "What hurt?" I demanded. "My… my leaves?" A horror-struck look came over the face, as it realized what it had said. Leaves.Its leaves. I smiled grimly. "That's right, Your Highness," I said. "As I already told you, you're a tree now, complete with roots, trunk, branches, and quite a nice bunch ofleaves . Everything I've said to you has been the truth." Casually, I reached up and snapped off a small branch just above my head. I got a shriek in return. "See?" "Stop that!" Perhaps I'd found the negotiating tactic I needed. I said, "You need to keep a civil tongue, O King of Shrubbery. Set a good example for your people." I nodded to one side. "The blackberry bushes over there are watching, after all." "Do not mock me, traitor!" "Why not? It's fun." "Woe!" cried King Elnar's voice. "I am lost! I am a tree, and I am lost!" "Be quiet," I said, reaching for another branch, "or I will have to do a fair amount of pruning…" The face closed its mouth with a snap. The silence seemed unexpected - almost unnatural. If it had enough sense left for self-preservation, what else might it be capable of? Maybe more of King Elnar remained than I had dared to hope. Slowly I lowered my arm. "If you're going to be reasonable," I said calmly, "we can work things out between us." "You are trying to trick me!" "Why would I do that?" "I… I don't know. But you will! That's what traitors and murderers do!" "Here's a thought. Maybe I won't trick you. I have no reason to, after all. And I'm neither a traitor nor a murderer. Don't call me that." "But -" "But nothing! Everything I've told you has been the truth. You reallyare a face stuck in a tree. Hell-creatures killed you, not me. They put those words in your mouth and made you say them. The man I knew, the man you once were, would never have believed their lies. We fought them together, side by side." The face and I stared at one another. I didn't know what else to add; apparently, neither did he. We had reached an impasse. At least he had stopped yelling and calling me names. Then a bird flew past, twittering loudly. I sat up, startled. A bird - the first animal I had yet seen in this world! It seemed the unicorns had left more than mere greenery and magical trees in their wake. I watched the bird land twenty feet away. It picked up a piece of grass, then flew to a nearby tree, where it seemed to be building a nest. If this world had animals, what else might there be? Perhaps… people? Rising, I turned slowly, searching for any sign of civilization - houses, smoke from cooking fires, anything that spoke of a human presence. My gaze lingered a long time in the direction the unicorns had gone. A perfect stream, surrounded by cattails and thick green reeds, burbled happily through the picturesque little valley. Iridescent dragonflies buzzed over the water, and a frog hopped from the bank into a blue-green pool with an audible splash. "What are you looking for?" asked the tree. "Shh!" I held up one hand for silence. Something felt subtly different… Stealthy movement caught my eye. A single white unicorn moved with dainty steps from a copse of trees beyond the stream, lowered her head, and drank deeply from the frog's pool. She had something around her neck… something that looked like a giant ruby on a chain. I gaped. It had to be the jewel my father had shown me in Juniper… the one he used to trace the new Pattern. This unicorn had to be the one that had helped Dad and me. When she raised her head and she saw me staring at her, she stamped her right forefoot and tossed her head. I took a step in her direction. As I did, she turned and slipped into the trees. There she paused long enough to glance over her shoulder. Follow me, she seemed to be saying.Follow me to your destiny . CHAPTER THREE ^<file:///D:/Books/Betancourt, John Gregory/John Gregory Betancourt - %5BNew Amber Trilogy 3%5D - To Rule In Amber (v1.0)lit.html> "All right," I called. "I can take a hint. I'm coming!" I started after her. "Do not leave me!" cried the tree. "What?" I demanded, looking back in surprise. "I thought you couldn't wait to be rid of me!" "… Please?" I hesitated. King Elnar might be dead, but my sense of duty remained. Almost reluctantly, I turned back to the tree. That unicorn could wait another minute. "What is it you want from me?" I said. "I… I think I know you." "You'd better, after all those accusations you made." Then I paused, as a horrible suspicion bubbled up inside me - what if he reallydidn't know me? I had to ask: "What's my name?" "I think… Ar… Orl… Erlock?" "You called me Obere," I said gently. "But my real name is Oberon." "Obere… Oberon… yes. Yes, that sounds right. Iknow you. Obere. Oberon." "What happened in Kingstown? Do you remember?" "I… cannot remember. You said I was a tree. But I think I used to be a man. Was I a man?" "Yes, long ago," I said. The hell-creatures had done their work well if he couldn't remember such simple details. Everything he had said, everything he had done since his death, must have been due to their foul magics. Only now had he begun to recover. I went on. "Do you remember anything about me? Do you remember fighting hell-creatures in Ilerium? Do you remember anything more of your old life?" It gnashed its wooden teeth, but made no reply. Apparently it didn't remember. Considering how I'd destroyed King Elnar's head the last time we met, the tree's lack of memory probably shouldn't have surprised me. With his brains scattered across a battlefield on another Shadow, how could he remember much of anything? "Do you know your own name?" I asked. If I pressed him for information, perhaps he would recall more. "Ev… Agg… Ygg… ?" "You don't remember," I said sadly. I had hoped, for a moment, that more of King Elnar remained. "Do you recall anything of your days as a man? Do you remember your kingdom?" "So much darkness…" it whispered. "Shadows fill my mind… there is nothing left…" "Think!" I cried. It gave a sob. "I cannot! My memories are gone! I cannot recall anything before I awoke here!" I glanced at the unicorn. She stamped her feet impatiently and slipped into the trees. Time to go. She wanted me to follow. Hurriedly, I said, "I have to leave. If you'll talk to me instead of calling me names, I promise I'll return when I can." "I agree… Oberon." "Thank you, old friend." Giving it a brief salute, I took a deep breath and faced the stream again. Snorting, the unicorn moved farther into the trees, dark gray on black beneath a canopy of leaves, drifting away. The reddish glint of her eyes seemed almost catlike as she watched me now. I knew she hadn't enjoyed waiting, but after all, she and her kind had brought King Elnar back; what could I do? Briskly I hiked after her, splashing across the stream and entering the cool, moist-smelling forest. No birds sang here, nor did any insects chirp or buzz or wing through the air. Each leaf, mushroom, and splay of sunlight filtering down through the treetops took on a special sharpness, as though each line had been carefully etched with a needle-sharp tool. We were cutting across Shadows, through world after world after world. The air almost sang with power. When I reached the spot where she had been standing, a faint flash of white, ahead and to the left, drew me farther into the trees. The faintest of trails wound among the ancient oaks and pines, skirting rocks, twisting and climbing into low hills. So it went. Over the next half hour, she lead me through the forest, then into grassy hills dotted with the round shoulders of ancient boulders. We crossed lush but empty valleys where wind sang a single mournful note, and then again entered a long stretch of primal forest where a peaceful, hush hung over everything. I could not tell if we were traveling through Shadows, but I didn't think so. Finally, we pushed through a thick hedge and entered a broad clearing. Here, in its center, on top of a huge stone slab that must have been a hundred and fifty feet wide, shone the Pattern that my father had inscribed with his own blood. It glowed with a clear bluish-white light, cold and beautiful… more beautiful than the last Pattern, perfect this time in every way. Slowly I approached it. Waves of energy came off its sleek lines, humming deep inside me. It felt good . Strange, unlike anything else, but good. I basked at its edge, eyes shut, justfeeling its nearness. Warm all over, strong and more alive