had changed. «Very well,» the Sign acknowledged. «You came prepared. It is not yet time to weaken myself in your destruction. Not when another waits for me to falter.
«Lady of Chaos,» it stated, «you must honor Merlin's wishes. If his reign be a foolish thing, he will destroy himself by his own actions. If it be prudent, you will have gained what you sought without interference.»
The expression on her face was one of disbelief.
«You would back down before a son of Amber and his toy?» she asked.
«We must give him what he wants,» it acknowledged, «for now. For now…»
The air squealed about its vanishment. Mandor smiled the smallest of smiles, reflected to infinity.
«I can't believe this,» she said, becoming a flowerfaced cat and then a tree of green flame.
«Believe as you would,» Mandor told her. «He's won.»
The tree flared through its autumn and was gone. Mandor nodded to me.
«I just hope you know what you're doing,» he said.
«I know what I'm doing.»
«Take it however you would,» he said, «but if you need advice I'll try to help you.»
«Thanks.»
«Care to discuss it over lunch?»
«Not just now.»
He shrugged and became a blue whirlwind.
«Till later then,» came the voice out of the whirlwind, before it blew away.
«Thanks, Ghost,» I said. «Your timing's gotten a lot better.»
«Chaos has a weak left,» he replied.
I located fresh garments of silver, black, gray, and white. I took them back to Jurt's apartments with me. I had a long story to tell.
We walked little-used ways, passing through Shadow, coming at length to the final battlefield of the Patternfall War. The place had healed itself over the years, leaving no indication of all that had transpired there. Corwin regarded it for a long while in silence.
Then he turned to me and said, «It'll take some doing to sort everything out, to achieve a more permanent balance, to assure its stability.»
«Yes.»
«You think you can keep things peaceful on this end for a while?»
«That's the idea,» I said. «I'll give it my best shot.»
«That's all any of us can do,» he said. «Okay, Random has to know what's happened, of course. I'm not sure how he's going to take having you as an opposite number, but that's the breaks.»
«Give him my regards, and Bill Roth, too.»
He nodded.
«And good luck,» I said.
«There are still mysteries within mysteries,» he told me. «I'll let you know what I find out, as soon as I have something.»
He moved forward and embraced me.
Then, «Rev up that ring and send me back to Amber.»
«It's already revved,» I said. «Good-bye.»
«…And hello,» he answered, from the tail end of a «'I rainbow.»
I turned away then, for the long walk back to Chaos.
Short stories
A Secret of Amber
2005
By Ed Greenwood
“It was starting to end,” the book – THE book – began. Mildly interested (my father's study was chock-full of all sorts of books, and each new opening of pages might reveal just about anything), I read on.
By “Where the hell was I?” I was hooked.
Let thirty-some years blow past, and come to a standstill now. On a height, looking down into Arden, with a silver blade in one hand and the cold tingling of Trumps in the other.
I'm still hooked. I think I always will be. I want to believe that Amber is real, and that this place is just a Shadow.
Over those years, I read and re-read Nine Princes In Amber – and as each new novel came out, I and my best friend Dave devoured it, walked the parks near our homes for hours speculating as to who among the Royals was behind what attack, and making untrustworthy alliance with whom.
I wrote my own books. I dared to travel to sf conventions. There came a day when a man with glasses as severe as my own sat at a table, signing the books a long line of fans thrust eagerly at him. I was one of them, and the book was my father's precious copy of Nine Princes .
And he swung it open at my bookmark.
My bookmark, foolishly left inside. ‘Foolishly’ because it bore these words of mine: She raised an eyebrow. “I thought better of you, brother. It seems I was wrong.”
I sipped my wine. “It seems you were. Again.”
Silence. She raised the other brow.
I gave her more silence.
“Well. Corwin?”
“Disappointment,” I observed, over the rim of my glass, “is a beast that runs in packs.”
And the Lord of Amber looked up from my scribbles and smiled. “Fiona,” he said. It was not a question, but I nodded and grinned like an idiot. He flashed me a grin just as wide, and wrote:
“Whereas wit is a bird that eludes the hand of rather too many princes.”
I shrugged. “Your disapproval concerns me even less than usual, Fi. All things considered.”
She tossed her head, red hair like a fall of flame. “Yet perhaps it should. All things considered.”
I did things with my own eyebrows, emptied my glass, swung my boots down from the table, and headed for the door. She chuckled, behind me.
I stopped, refrained from turning, and waited. Fiona could never resist showing the rest of us that she was a step ahead. Or pretending to be.
“You are wearing your blade,” she said. “Good.”
I went out, uttering no clever comments. With at least three murderous ghosts stalking Castle Amber, the time for such things was past.
He looked up from hand book and bookmark back to me, and laughed when he saw my badge, and my name on it.
“Yes,” I mumbled, “I’d been meaning to speak to you about that. The hospital –”
“Let you out for the day. Glad you came.” Again the smile.
“Well, uh, thanks. See you next year,” I said, and meant it.
He never signed the book, I realized later, but I had that precious bookmark – and an idea. I thought long and hard, and then carefully wrote under Roger’s words:
