The Chronicles of Amber

could spread, but somehow, riding in this carriage, I felt perfectly safe. Dworkin’s magic would speed us away.

Still the carriage rolled on, faster and faster, leaving the fires behind. The daylight slowly increased, grayish and diffuse now, revealing a drab countryside. Scrub trees replaced the tall grass, dwarf oaks and oddly twisted pines. The carriage turned, climbing sudden hills, then entered a forest of pines, which in turn gave way to more farmlands.

Lightning continued to flash above. The clouds continued to boil and seethe, and the air grew hot and sticky, but no rain fell. I spotted a few small stone houses with thatched roofs among the fields, but no sign of people or animals anywhere… they had probably taken cover to avoid the coming storm.

Peering ahead, I spotted a town of perhaps twenty or thirty low stone buildings just now coming into view. As we rolled through, slowing slightly, men and women dressed in black from head to toe came rushing out from every doorway. All carried swords or knives or axes. Their faces were drawn and pale, and their mouths opened wide to show needlelike teeth and forked tongues.

A thrown axe whizzed by my head, hit the side of the carriage, and bounced off—much too close for comfort. Gulping, I ducked back inside, peering at them from behind the curtain and the relative safety of the coach’s interior. Although they weren’t hell-creatures, from their reception, they might as well have been. Whether they wanted to eat us or sacrifice us to some dark god, I couldn’t begin to guess. I wouldn’t want to pass through here alone and unarmed, I decided with a shiver. And what of Dworkin? If they hit him with an axe—

They gave chase for a few minutes, but Dworkin’s carriage outpaced them, and they, too, fell behind in the distance.

The trees around us had begun to grow taller, darker, and more foreboding by the minute. I found myself leaning closer and closer to the window to see. Streamers of a sickly yellow moss and tangled masses of prickly vines draped every branch. Immense bats hung from every available perch by the thousands, and as we passed, they began to open little red eyes and flex leathery wings.

I liked this place less and less the farther we went. Where could Dworkin possibly be taking us? I hadn’t minded the coast road, but though I considered myself a brave man, the town and now this forest both sent shivers through me.

Suddenly the bats began to make screechy, chittering noises that sounded altogether too much like kill— kill- kill. They all seemed to be staring hungrily at us now, though none made any move to attack.

I wasn’t going to take any chances, though. This time I closed the window and snapped the latch securely. No sense giving them any path inside—though if they decided to attack Dworkin where he rode on top, I didn’t know how I’d be able to help him.

Slowly, I fingered the hilt of the knife in my belt, wondering if I should draw it and trying at the same time not to alarm Freda. No sense in worrying her unnecessarily, I thought.

I gave her what I hoped was an encouraging smile. She just stared through me, apparently bored and uninterested.

My gaze kept drifting back to the window, though, and to the dark ruby-eyed shapes perched out there. If anything, they bothered me more than the townspeople. I could defend myself against human—or almost human— attackers. But against swarms of wild animals…

“Father doesn’t like to be followed,” Freda said suddenly, breaking the uncomfortable silence between us. “He has always been good at laying traps.”

“Traps?” I managed to pull my gaze from the window to regard her questioningly. “What do you mean?”

“Anyone who tries to follow us will be attacked, of course. That is his plan.”

“By the bats,” I said, realizing what she meant. “And the people in that town. And the burning grasslands —”

“Yes.” She smiled a bit and smoothed her dress around her, as though we had gone for a pleasant afternoon’s ride or a picnic in the country. “Father is awfully clever that way. I never could have thought up those bats.”

“But… how—” I frowned, puzzled. Thought them up? She made it sound like he had created them, somehow.

“He is a true master at manipulating Shadows,” she said with a little shrug. “Far better than me. I like to pick a place and stay there.”

“As long as it’s safe.”

“Of course.”

More riddles, I grumbled to myself. Shadows? What was she talking about? She was Dworkin’s daughter, all right, and I was sick of their games. Every time one of them said anything to me, it only made my confusion worse.

My attention drifted to the table between us. Apparently she had finished with her Tarot cards; the whole deck sat neatly stacked before her now. I wondered what she had seen in our future. Briefly I considered asking her, but then I thought better of it. Somehow, I didn’t think the answers would make much sense to me. And I had never put much faith in fortune-telling.

I turned my attention back to the window. Without warning, the carriage burst into a clearing, and dazzling noontime sun caught me full in the face. I had to shield my eyes and squint to see, and even so, bright spots drifted before my eyes.

A desert… we were riding through a desert of red sand and red rocks now. Heat shimmered in waves, and though I could feel a scorching heat on my face, I felt a chill inside.

Magic again. The carriage was ensorcelled, taking us on a nightmare journey where neither day nor night nor landscape held any true form or meaning. Even so, knowing it couldn’t possibly be real, as my eyes grew accustomed to the light I found I could not look away.

We turned, crossed a bridge of stone, and entered another forest, this one filled with redwoods of immense proportion, their trunks so big around that it would have taken a dozen men with arms stretched fingertip to fingertip to surround one. High up among the leaves, I glimpsed creatures the size and shape of men leaping from branch to branch. Male and female alike wore skirts of woven grass and carried short wooden clubs hooked to small belts. When they spotted us, they began to shriek and point.

The sky darkened without warning; hailstones the size of peas began to fall, followed by gusts of wind strong enough to shake the carriage. Behind us, I heard a huge grinding, tearing sound like nothing I had ever heard before, and a jolt of fear went through me.

Opening the window, I stuck my head out and looked back to see what was happening. A cold, gale-strong wind whipped my hair, and I had to squint to see, but the sight filled me with a terrible awe.

Half a dozen tornadoes writhed and danced through the redwood forest behind us. Trees by the hundreds were falling before the winds, huge knots of root tearing loose from the ground, immense trunks slamming down in an impenetrable maze of wood. I saw hundreds of the manlike creatures sucked up into the black swirling funnels where, still screaming, they vanished.

The road would be impossible to follow on horseback. It had to be another trap for our pursuers, if they made it around the fires, through the townspeople, and past the bats. But how had Dworkin known to come here? How had he known the trees would fall? They must have been standing for centuries to have grown so huge. For us to pass just as tornadoes blew them over seemed unlikely, to say the least.

No, I thought, Dworkin hadn’t known the trees would fall, I realized with a growing sense of helplessness. He had made them fall. It was the only possible explanation. With such powers as he now commanded, he could have ruled Ilerium. How, in all our years together, had I never even suspected them?

I felt sorry for the tree creatures in that forest who had died because of us, unwittingly giving their lives and homes to protect our passage.

The winds began to drop when we descended into a small valley. Fog came up suddenly, and a dense, dismal gray cloaked the windows for a time. Though I knew cliffs stood to either side, somewhere just out of sight, I thought once or twice I heard the sound of gently lapping waves.

I pulled my head in and glanced at Freda, who looked as serene as a cat with a bird in its mouth. I couldn’t understand her calm. This journey—and it wasn’t over yet!—already had me feeling battle-worn and weary… yet too