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"Yes. I am."
When we reached the ground floor, we hurried to the right. There had been another pair of guards at the
foot of the stair, but they did not move to stop us.
"Yes," he repeated, as we headed toward the center of the palace. "You are surprised, aren't you?"
"Yes. I thought you were going to get the year over with and be done with it."
"So did I," he said. "But I fell in love with her. I really did."
"Stranger things have happened."
We crossed the marble dining hall and entered the long, narrow corridor that led far back through
shadows and dust. I suppressed a shudder as I thought of my condition the last time I had come this way.
"She really cares for me," he said. "Like nobody else ever has before."
"I'm glad for you," I said.
We reached the door that opened onto the platform hiding the long, spiral stairway down. It was open.
We passed through and began the descent.
"I'm not," he said, as we hurried around and around. "I didn't want to fall in love. Not then. We've been
prisoners the whole time, you know. How can she be proud of that?"
"That is over now," I said. "You became a prisoner because you followed me and tried to kill Eric, didn't
you?"
"Yes. Then she joined me here."
"I will not forget," I said.
We rushed on. It was a great distance down, and there were only lanterns every forty feet or so. It was
a huge, natural cavern. I wondered whether anyone knew how many tunnels and corridors it contained. I
suddenly felt myself overwhelmed with pity for any poor wretches rotting in its dungeons, for whatever
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reasons. I resolved to release them all or find something better to do with them.
Long minutes passed. I could see the flickering of the torches and the lanterns below.
"There is a girl," I said, "and her name is Dara. She told me she was Benedict's great-granddaughter and
gave me reason to believe it. I told her somewhat concerning Shadow, reality, and the Pattern. She does
possess some power over Shadow, and she was anxious to walk the Pattern. When last I saw her, she
was headed this way. Now Benedict swears she is not his. Suddenly I am fearful. I want to keep her
from the Pattern. I want to question her."
"Strange," he said. "Very. I agree with you. Do you think she might be there now?"
"If she is not, then I feel she will be along soon."
We finally reached the floor, and I began to race through the shadows toward the proper tunnel.
"Wait!" Random cried.
I halted and turned. It took me a moment to locate him, as he was back behind the stairs. I returned.
My question did not reach my lips. I saw that he knelt beside a large, bearded man.
"Dead," he said. "A very thin blade. Good thrust Just recently."
"Come on!"
We both ran to the tunnel and turned up it. Its seventh side passage was the one we wanted. I drew
Grayswandir as we neared it, for that great, dark, metal-bound door was standing ajar.
I sprang through. Random was right behind me. The floor of that enormous room is black and looks to
be smooth as glass, although it is not slippery. The Pattern burns upon it, within it, an intricate, shimmering
maze of curved lines, perhaps a hundred and fifty yards long. We halted at its edge, staring.
Something was out there, walking it. I felt that old, tingling chill the thing always gives me as I watched.
Was it Dara? It was difficult for me to make out the figure within the fountains of sparks that spewed
constantly about it. Whoever it was had to be of the blood royal, for it was common knowledge that
anyone else would be destroyed by the Pattern, and this individual had already made it past the Grand
Curve and was negotiating the complicated series of arcs that led toward the Final Veil.
The firefly form seemed to change shape as it moved. For a time, my senses kept rejecting the tiny
subliminal glimpses that I knew must be coming through to me. I heard Random gasp beside me, and it
seemed to breach my subconscious dam. A horde of impressions flooded my mind.
It seemed to tower hugely in that always unsubstantial-seeming chamber. Then shrink, die down, almost
to nothing. It seemed a slim woman for a moment-possibly Dara, her hair lightened by the glow,
streaming, crackling with static electricity. Then it was not hair, but great, curved horns from some wide,
uncertain brow, whose crook-legged owner struggled to shuffle hoofs along the blazing way. Then
something else . . . An enormous cat . . . A faceless woman . . . A bright-winged thing of indescribable
beauty . . . A tower of ashes . . .
"Dara!" I cried out. "Is that you?"
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My voice echoed back, and that was all. Whoever/ whatever it was struggled now with the Final Veil.
My muscles strained forward in unwilling sympathy with the effort.
Finally, it burst through.
Yes, it was Dara! Tall and magnificent now. Both beautiful and somehow horrible at the same time. The
sight of her tore at the fabric of my mind. Her arms were upraised in exultation and an inhuman laughter
flowed from her lips. I wanted to look away, yet I could not move. Had I truly held, caressed, made love
to-that? I was mightily repelled and simultaneously attracted as I had never been before. I could not
understand this overwhelming ambivalence. Then she looked at me.
The laughter ceased. Her altered voice rang out. "Lord Corwin, are you liege of Amber now?"
From somewhere, I managed a reply. "For all practical purposes," I said.
"Good! Then behold your nemesis!"
"Who are you? What are you?"
"You will never know," she said. "It is just exactly too late now."
"I do not understand. What do you mean?"
"Amber," she said, "will be destroyed." And she vanished.
"What the hell," said Random then, "was that?" I shook my head.
"I do not know. I really do not know. And I feel ..that it is the most important thing in the world that we
find out."
He gripped my arm.
"Corwin," he said. "She-it-meant it. And it may be possible, you know."
I nodded. "I know."
"What are we going to do now?"
I resheathed Grayswandir and turned back toward the door.
"Pick up the pieces," I said. "I have what I thought I always wanted within my grasp now, and I must
secure it. And I cannot wait for what is to come. I must seek it out and stop it before it ever reaches
Amber."
"Do you know where to seek it?" he asked.
We turned up the tunnel.
"I believe it lies at the other end of the black road," I said.
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