The Chronicles of Amber

“Better,” Aber said. I noticed he was rubbing his arm where I'd grabbed him. “We'll take it slowly.”

“I need sleep,” I growled. “Then I can wake up from this nightmare!”

“You'll get the hang of it. Give yourself time.”

Time? I had always been able to walk, even when I was so drunk I could barely see. But I could tell he wasn't going to let me rest.

“Give me a hand—I'll try again.”

“Are you sure?” Aber said, hesitating. He rubbed his arm again. I must have really hurt him.

“Sorry about your arm,” I said. Sighing, I looked up at his face. He flickered: horns, no horns, horns. I had never felt so dizzy and disoriented.

“Don't worry,” he said. “Accidents happen. I heal fast, and I'm happy to carry a grudge.” He chuckled. “I'll get even when you least expect it, dear brother. Maybe you ought to sit still for a while.”

Slowly I began to crawl toward the bed. It felt like a trip across a constantly moving sheet of ice—tipping first one way then another, with me hanging on desperately and trying not to slide away. Maybe I could use the bed to balance myself. Mostly I tried not to think about throwing up.

As I reached the bed and began to climb back onto it, Dworkin hurried over, grabbed a fistful of my hair, and yanked my head back. I felt my eyes roll in panic as colors and lights burst like fireworks around me.

“Let go!” I cried. It came out more like the howl of some haunted beast.

Shoving his face close to mine, he peered into my eyes like a physician studying a new patient. I smelled wine on his breath and knew he'd been drinking. That wasn't a good sign. He'd drunk himself into a stupor in Juniper when faced with overwhelming problems. With a comment of, “Interesting,” he let go.

I fell flat with an oomph of lost air. Then I curled up in a ball on the floor. My breath came in shudders. I wanted to pull the universe in on top of me.

“Do not go to sleep,” Dworkin told me firmly.

I peered up at him through a haze.

“Why?” I whispered

“Because you will die.”

I groaned. “I'm too stubborn to die.”

“Then you are a fool, my boy.”

“Send me back to Juniper!” I begged. “Or Ilerium. Anywhere but here!” I would rather face an army of hell- creatures alone and unarmed than put up with this Shadow of the Courts of Chaos for another minute.

“Quiet, Oberon,” he said. He began to pace. “I need to think.”

As the room began to steady once more, I forced myself to roll over toward the bed. I leaned back against it, watching him. As long as I remained motionless, barely breathing, the room seemed almost steady.

“Can I do anything to help?” Aber asked.

Dworkin said, “Try this.”

As I watched, he reached into the air and, seemingly from nothingness, pulled down a large reddish-brown clay pitcher. That was another one of those Logrus tricks. Wine? Something stronger, hopefully. I needed a drink right now. I needed it desperately. I wasn't sure I could keep it down, but I welcomed the chance to try.

Aber accepted the pitcher with his left hand, then reached down, grabbed my shirt, and hoisted all two hundred and forty pounds of me to my feet as though picking up a kitten. When he released me, I teetered unsteadily. Colors leaped and pulsed around me; my vision dimmed, then brightened, then dimmed again. The scream of wind in my ears grew wild and discordant.

“Whiskey?” I gasped. “Brandy?”

“Afraid not,” Aber said.

“What—?”

“See for yourself.”

Without warning, he raised the pitcher and dumped the contents over my head.

I gasped. It was cold water. Very cold water. Water so icy it shocked and numbed my entire body.

Stunned, I didn't move, couldn't breathe. I just stared at him, feeling like a whipped dog thrown out into the pouring rain in the dead of winter just in time to be kicked by a runaway horse.

“Now,” said Aber, “we're even.” He grinned mischievously at me.

Folding my arms, I silently cursed all siblings to the worst of the seven hells. Fathers, too. A special torture-pit must be reserved for the gleefully malevolent. Dworkin had doubled up with laughter.

So I glared at both of them and waited for their composure to return.

“Remember, Oberon,” Dworkin said sharply, catching his breath. He leaned toward me, one stubby finger leveled at my eyes. As I focused on him, his entire body seemed to waver like a flame in a strong breeze. “No sleeping. If you go to sleep, there is a good chance you will never wake up.”

I gave a low growl of displeasure. I wasn't sure if I meant it for him or Aber.

“We need to talk,” I said to Dworkin.

“Not now.” He returned to the table, gathered up half a dozen scrolls scattered there and hurried out the door.

“When—” I began.

The door slammed before I could finish. I looked at Aber.

“Off to see the king,” my brother said with a half sigh. “I told you he'd been summoned, remember?”

“Why?”

“Dad petitioned for an audience. It took a while. Everything has its proper time and ceremony. And I'm afraid Dad isn't held in very high regard at the Courts. None of us is.”

What rot. I saw the truth. The delay was a deliberate insult… King Uthor's way of letting us know we weren't important enough to merit his attention. We would have to change that. Being here was the first step. Making ourselves important would be the second.

Right now, though, I felt like crawling into bed, pulling the covers over my ears, and hiding from the world for the next ten years. Fathers and their advice be damned, if I could just get rid of Aber…

“You should go with Dad,” I suggested.

“Hah! He would never let me.” A sour note crept into his voice.

“I'm not like you…”

“He didn't ask me.”

“No, he wouldn't. Not with you being sick. He would have taken Locke, though. He was always the privileged one. The favorite son. And now there's you, of course. As soon as you're well, you'll take Locke's place.”

“If you're not happy with your place here, do something about it.”

He chuckled. “What do you suggest? Should I murder my way to the top of the family? Make sure I'm the last male heir, so he has to depend on me whether he likes it or not?”

“No. But I'm sure there's something…”

“Uh-uh. Dad doesn't like me. That's not going to change.” He smiled a bit at my expression. “I do have a plan, though, and I am doing something to help. I don't stand around all day whining about my place in the family, you know.”

I gave him a searching look, but he didn't elaborate. I changed the subject.

“I don't suppose you have any intention of letting me go back to sleep?”

“Nope.” He focused on me and grinned wolfishly. His horns were back. “One must take these small pleasures as they come. Just try, and I'll empty a lake on your head!”

“You're a sadist!”

“I'll take that as a compliment.”

I gave him a half-hearted glower. “Then how about a towel? And maybe some dry clothes.”

“Well… not just yet, dear brother. I've been ordered to keep you awake, and that's what I'm going to do. I don't want you too comfortable just yet.”

Dripping, cold and miserable and thoroughly wide awake now, I stumbled to one of the dragon-backed chairs, sat heavily, and glared at him. At least the room wasn't moving so much anymore. Maybe there was something to his “Chaos legs” theory. Or the ice-water had shocked the worst of the disorientation from me.

“I am going to kill you, you know,” I promised. “Don't think this is over.”