The Chronicles of Amber

these worlds become, until you cease to recognize them. We call these worlds Shadows. Anything you can imagine exists in one, somewhere. Any many things you cannot possibly imagine.”

“And Juniper is just a Shadow,” I said, brow furrowing. “And Ilerium… everything I’ve ever known?”

“Yes.”

I felt stunned. With those few words, he had completely undone my view of the universe—and of my place within it. No wonder Ilerium now seemed a distant, fading memory. None of it mattered. None of it had ever mattered.

And yet… every fiber of my body told it had mattered. I had loved Helda. I had given my heart and soul to serving King Elnar and Ilerium. It had been my whole life… my whole reason for existing. It had been real… at least to me.

Now, suddenly, Dworkin reduced all I had ever known to a single mote of dust floating in a great ocean of a universe, a place so vastly, unimaginably huge that I could only just begin to take it in.

“But it felt so real!” I whispered.

“The Shadows are real. People live and breed in them, build cities and empires, work and love and fight and die, all the while never knowing anything of the greater universe that lies beyond.”

“And the Logrus? Is that what controls it?”

“No. The Logrus is—” he hesitated, as if searching for the words to describe the indescribable. “It is a key to finding your way amongst all the Shadow worlds. It is like a maze. By traversing its length, from start to finish, someone born of Chaos may have the Logrus imprinted on his mind forever. It frees your perceptions, allows you to control your movements. You can pass freely through the Shadows and find your path among them.”

Freda’s words on the journey in the carriage came back to me. “That’s what you did on the way here.”

“Yes. We traveled through many Shadows. We took an indirect route.”

“When can I go through this Logrus?”

“Soon. The Logrus is difficult and dangerous. It is not something to undertake lightly, and you must prepare for it. And, afterwards, it leaves you disoriented… sick for a time.” He hesitated. “Besides the ability to travel through Shadows, it confers other powers, too.”

Other powers? That caught my attention.

“Like what?” I asked cautiously.

“This.” Dworkin reached into the air and suddenly plucked a sword from nothingness.

I gaped at him. “How—”

“I had it in my bedchamber. I knew where I left it, and I used the Logrus to reach for it… to bridge the distance between my hand and where it lay. A kind of mental shortcut, if you will, between here and there.”

He set the sword down on the closest table. I stared at it, still hardly able to believe my eyes.

“And I can do that?” I asked skeptically.

“Not now. Not yet. You must first master the Logrus. That, at least, is your birthright… by tradition, no one, not even King Uthor himself, can deny it if you ask. Of course, there is the problem of getting you to the Courts and back safely, without our enemy finding out and killing us. And once in the Courts, you must survive the Logrus. Not all of us do, you know. My brother died on his first attempt. It destroyed him, mind and body. It is not so simple a matter after all.”

“I want to try,” I said firmly. “You cannot show me this gift and then tell me I can’t have it!”

“In due time.”

“You’re playing games with me again!”

“Do I need to remind you of how many children I’ve already lost? It is not safe for any of us to leave here,” Dworkin said firmly. “Not now, not yet. Juniper is well defended for a Shadow, but beyond the lands we control, there are creatures watching us. They are waiting for a mistake… any mistake.”

“Then we’ll kill them!” I felt a yearning inside to be off, to walk the Logrus and gain the powers due me… the powers my father and brothers and sisters already possessed. “That crystal you used against the hell- creatures—you must have more of them.”

“It is not so simple. Some of these watchers are relatives. The Courts of Chaos are… unlike anything you can imagine, with your limited experiences. Struggle and conflict are encouraged there, and only the strongest wield any real power. I have been away too long and have now lost whatever influence I once may have held.”

“I don’t understand,” I said.

He folded his arms, looking away. “There are ancient codes of honor that are supposed to prevent death among us, among the Lords of Chaos. But out here in the deepest, farthest Shadows, those rules are often bent… or overlooked entirely. I am not important enough to try to demand observance of the rights and protections due me. But some of our enemies are very, very important, I suspect. And if they were to die—murdered or assassinated, whether by my hand, or yours, or our agents’—it would call the wrath of King Uthor himself upon us all. We could not survive it, not one of us.”

I frowned, not liking the sound of that. “Damned if we do, dead if we don’t. When we kill our enemies, it has to be in self defense.”

“Or it must look like an accident.” He sighed and shook his head slowly, and I realized he did not like the situation any more than I did. “After all,” he continued, “there is no harm in their watching us, or so they would say.”

“Spying on us.”

“Well, yes.”

“Then those hell-creatures in Ilerium—”

“They were soldiers drafted from another Shadow, sent to find and kill you, my boy. They are just the hands of our enemy… cut off the head and the body will die. It’s the only way, if we are to survive.”

“And this head… whose is it?”

“I wish I knew. It could be any of a dozen Lords of Chaos. My family has its share of hereditary rivals and blood-feuds. And I freely admit I have made mistakes over the years… my own list of personal enemies is larger than it should be. It could be any one of them.”

“Is that why you left the Courts?”

“One of the reasons. I thought they would forget me if I lost myself among the Shadows.”

I chewed my lower lip thoughtfully. His story pretty much matched Aber’s, and every word rang true. Sometimes, I’d found, just being alive was enough to make an enemy. I may have found my family… but I’d also gotten more than my share of trouble along with them.

“Before we can proceed,” Dworkin went on, “I must check something. It will only take a moment…”

He crossed to a table cluttered with wires and tubes and beakers, crystals and glass spheres and copper pots—the cast-off paraphernalia of a wizard or alchemist, as far as I could tell. He rummaged among the bits and pieces, tossing first one then another aside, muttering to himself.

“How long have these feuds been going on in the Courts of Chaos?” I asked.

“Longer than anyone can remember. The Courts are ancient.”

“How old is that?” King Elnar’s family had ruled in Ilerium for nearly a thousand years,

“Every family in the Courts can trace their lineage back through the generations,” he said, “to the man who first recognized the Logrus for what it was. His name is lost to us, but it is known that he created if from his own blood and magics that came to him in a vision. He built it, and then he went through it. Once he completed the journey, when he discovered he had the power to move through Shadows, he forged an empire that still stands. Every one of his children went through the Logrus as they came of age, and they in turn gained the ability to walk among Shadows, becoming the first Lords of Chaos and begetting all the noble houses and the great families that still hold power in the Courts. Thus has it come down through the generations to us, to you and me and all the rest of our family.”

“How many generations?” I asked. “How many years?”

“It could be ten thousand. It could be more. Who can say? Time has little meaning for those who travel in Shadows…”

It seemed inconceivably ancient to me. A ten-thousand-year-old blood feud… 

“How many of these great families are there, anyway?” I asked. “And how many Lords of Chaos?”