The Chronicles of Amber

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. I knew I had betrayed his trust. I knew 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 2

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