The Hand Of Oberon
Chapter 10

    Moving along the trail at a gentle pace, clouds darkening the sky and Drum's whinny of memory or anticipation. . . . A turn to the left, and uphill. . . . The ground is brown, yellow, back to brown again. . . . The trees squat down, draw apart. . . . Grasses wave between them in the cool and rising breeze. . . . A quick fire in the sky. . . . A rumble shakes loose raindrops. . . .
    Steep and rocky now. . . . The wind tugs at my cloak. . . . Up. . . . Up to where the rocks are streaked with silver and the trees have drawn their line. . . . The grasses, green fires, die down in the rain. . . . Up, to the craggy, sparkling, rain-washed heights, where the clouds rush and boil like a mud-gorged river at flood crest. . . . The rain stings like buckshot and the wind clears its throat to sing. . . . We rise and rise and the crest comes into view, like the head of a startled bull, horns guarding the trail. . . . Lightnings twist about their tips, dance between them. . . . The smell of ozone as we reach that place and rush on through, the rain suddenly blocked, the wind shunted away. . . .
    Emerging on the farther side. . . . There is no rain, the air is still, the sky smoothed and darkened to a proper star-filled black. . . . Meteors cut and burn, cut and burn, cauterizing to afterimage scars, fading, fading. . . . Moons, cast like a handful of coins. . . . Three bright dimes, a dull quarter, a pair of pennies, one of them tarnished and scarred. . . . Down then, that long, winding way. . . . Hoof clops clear and metallic in the night air. . . . Somewhere, a catlike cough. . . . A dark shape crossing a lesser moon, ragged and swift. . . .
    Downward. . . . The land drops away at either hand. . . . Darkness below. . . . Moving along the top of an infinitely high, curved wall, the way itself bright with moonlight. . . . The trail buckles, folds, grows transparent. . . . Soon it drifts, gauzy, filamentous, stars beneath as well as above. . . . Stars below on either side. . . . There is no land. . . . There is only the night, night and the thin, translucent trail I had to try to ride, to learn how it felt, against some future use. . . .
    It is absolutely silent now, and the illusion of slowness attaches to every movement. . . . Shortly, the trail falls away, and we move as if swimming underwater at some enormous depth, the stars bright fish. . . . It is freedom, it is the power of the hellride that brings an elation, like yet unlike the recklessness that sometimes comes in battle, the boldness of a risky feat well learned, the rush of rightness following the finding of the poem's proper word. . . . It is these and the prospect itself, riding, riding, riding, from nowhere to nowhere perhaps, across and among the minerals and fires of the void, free of earth and air and water. . . .
    We race a great meteor, we touch upon its bulk. . . . Speeding across its pitted surface, down, around, then up again. . . . It stretches into a great plain, it lightens, it yellows. . . .
    It is sand, sand now beneath our movement. . . . The stars fade out as the darkness is diluted to a morning full of sunrise. . . . Swaths of shade ahead, desert trees within them. . . . Ride for the dark. . . . Crashing through. . . . Bright birds burst forth, complain, resettle. . . .
    Among the thickening trees. . . . Darker the ground, narrower the way. . . . Palm fronds shrink to hand size, barks darken. . . . A twist to the right, a widening of the way. . . . Our hoofs striking sparks from cobblestones. . . . The lane enlarges, becomes a tree-lined street. . . . Tiny row houses flash by. . . . Bright shutters, marble steps, painted screens, set back beyond flagged walks. . . . Passing, a horse-drawn cart, loaded with fresh vegetables. . . . Human pedestrians turning to stare. . . . A small buzz of voices. . . .
    On. . . . Passing beneath a bridge. . . . Coursing the stream till it widens to river, taking it down to the sea....
    Thudding along the beach beneath a lemon sky, blue clouds scudding. . . . The salt, the wrack, the shells, the smooth anatomy of driftwood. . . . White spray off the lime-colored sea. . . .
    Racing, to where the place of waters ends at a terrace. . . . Mounting, each step crumbling and roaring down behind, losing its identity, joined with the boom of the surf. . . . Up, up to the flattopped, tree-grown plain, a golden city shimmering, miragelike, at its end. . . .
    The city grows, darkens beneath a shadowy umbrella, its gray towers stretch upward, glass and metal flashing light through the murk. . . . The towers begin to sway. . . .
    The city falls in upon itself, soundlessly, as we pass. . . . Towers topple, dust boils, rises, is pinked by some lower glow. . . . A gentle noise, as of a snuffed candle, drifting by. . . .
    A dust storm, quickly falling, giving place to fog. . . . Through it, the sounds of automobile horns. . . . A drift, a brief lift, a break in the gray-white, pearlwhite, shifting. . . . Our hoofprints on a shoulder of highway. . . . To the right, endless rows of unmoving vehicles. . . . Pearl-white, gray-white, drifting again. . . .
    Directionless shrieks and wailings. . . . Random flashes of light. . . .
    Rising once more. . . . The fogs lower and ebb. . . . Grass, grass, grass. . . . Clear now the sky, and delicate blue. . . . A sun racing to set. . . . Birds. . . . A cow in the field, chewing, staring and chewing. . . .
    Leaping a wooden fence to ride a country road. . . . A sudden chill beyond the hill. . . . The grasses are dry and snow's on the ground. . . . Tin-roofed farmhouse atop a rise, curl of smoke above it. . . .
    On. . . . The hills grow up, the sun rolls down, darkness dragged behind. . . . A sprinkle of stars. . . . Here a house, set far back. . . . There another, long driveway wound among old trees. . . . Headlights. . . .
    Off to the side of the road. . . . Draw rein and let it pass. . . .
    I wiped my brow, dusted my shirt front and sleeves. I patted Drum's neck. The oncoming vehicle slowed as it neared me, and I could see the driver staring. I gave the reins a gentle movement and Drum began walking. The car braked to a halt and the driver called something after me, but I kept going. Moments later, I heard him drive off.
    It was country road for a time after that. I traveled at an easy pace, passing familiar landmarks, recalling other times. A few miles later and I came to another road, wider and better. I turned there, staying off on the shoulder to the right. The temperature continued to drop, but the cold air had a good clean taste to it. A sliced moon shone above the hills to my left. There were a few small clouds passing overhead, touched to the moon's quarter with a soft, dusty light. There was very little wind; an occasional stirring of branches, no more. After a time, I came to a series of dips in the road, telling me I was almost there.
    A curve and a couple more dips. . . . I saw the boulder beside the driveway, I read my address upon it.
    I drew rein then and looked up the hill. There was a station wagon in the driveway and a light on inside the house. I guided Drum off the road and across a field into a stand of trees. I tethered him behind a pair of evergreens, rubbed his neck, and told him I would not be long.
    I returned to the road. No cars in sight. I crossed over and walked up the far side of the driveway, passing behind the station wagon. The only light in the house was in the living room, off to the right. I made my way around the left side of the house to the rear.
    I halted when I reached the patio, looking around. Something was wrong.
    The back yard was changed. A pair of decaying lawn chairs which had been leaning against a dilapidated chicken coop I had never bothered to remove were gone. So, for that matter, was the chicken coop. They had been present the last time I had passed this way. All of the dead tree limbs which had previously been strewn about, as well as a rotting mass of them I had long ago heaped to cut for firewood, were also gone.
    The comoost heap was missing.
    I moved to the space where it had been. All that was there was an irregular patch of bare earth of the approximate shape of the heap itself.
    But I had discovered in attuning myself to the Jewel that I could make myself feel its presence. I closed my eyes for a moment and tried to do so. Nothing.
    I looked again, searching carefully, but there was no tell-tale glitter anywhere in sight. Not that I had really expected to see anything, not if I could not feel it nearby.
    There had been no curtains in the lighted room. Studying the house now, I saw that none of the windows had curtains, shades, shutters, or blinds. Therefore . . .
    I passed around the other end of the house. Approaching the first lighted window, I glanced in quickly. Dropcloths covered much of the floor. A man in cap and coveralls was painting the far wall. Of course.
    I had asked Bill to sell the place. I had signed the necessary papers while a patient in the local clinic, when I had been projected back to my old home-probably bv some action of the Jewel-on the occasion of my stabbing. That would have been several weeks ago, local time, using the Amber to shadow Earth conversion factor of approximately two and a half to one and allowing for the eight days the Courts of Chaos had cost me in Amber. Bill, of course, had gone ahead on my request. But the place had been in bad shape, abandoned as it had been for a number of years, vandalized. . . . It needed some new windowpanes, some roofing work, new guttering, painting, sanding, buffing. And there had been a lot of trash to haul away. outside as well as inside. . . .
    I turned away and walked down the front slope to the road, recalling my last passage this way, half delirious. on mv hands and knees, blood leaking from my side. It had been much colder that night and there had been snow on the ground and in the air. I passed near the rocK where I'd sat, trying to flag down a car with a pillow case. The memory was slightly blurred, but I still recalled the ones that had passed me by.
    I crossed the road. made my way through the field to the trees. Unhitching Drum, I mounted.
    "We've some more riding ahead," I told him. "Not too far this time."
    We headed back to the road and started along it, continuing on past my house. If I had not told Bill to go ahead and sell the place, the compost heap would still have been there, the Jewel would still have been there. I could be on my way back to Amber with the ruddy stone hung about my neck, ready to have a try at what had to be done. Now, now I had to go looking for it, when I'd a feeling time was beginning to press once again. At least, I had a favorable ratio here with respect to its passage in Amber. I clucked at Drum and shook the reins. No sense wasting it, even so.
    A half hour, and I was into town, riding down a quiet street in a residential area, houses all about me. The lights were on at Bill's place. I turned up his driveway. I left Drum in his back yard.
    Alice answered my knock, stared a moment, then said. "My God! Carl!"
    Minutes later, I was seated in the living room with Bill, a drink on the table to my right. Alice was out in the kitchen, having made the mistake of asking me whether I wanted something to eat.
    Bill studied me as he lit his pipe.
    "Your ways of coming and going still tend to be colorful." he said. I smiled.
    "Expediency is all," I said.
    "That nurse at the clinic . . . scarcely anyone believed her story." 
    "Scarcely anyone?" 
    "The minority I refer to is, of course, myself." 
    "What was her story?"
    "She claimed that you walked to the center of the room, became two-dimensional, and just faded away, like the old soldier that you are, with a rainbowlike accomnaniment."
    "Glaucoma can cause the rainbow symptom. She ought to have her eyes checked." 
    "She did," he said. "Nothing wrong."
    "Oh. Too bad. The next thing that comes to mind is neurological." 
    "Come on, Carl. She's all right. You know that." 
    I smiled and took a sip of my drink.
    "And you," he said, "you look like a certain playing card I once commented on. Complete with sword. What's going on, Carl?"
    "It's still comnlicated," I said. "Even more than the last time we talked."
    "Which means you can't give me that explanation yet?" 
    I shook my head.
    "You have won an all-expense tour of my homeland, when this is over," I said, "if I still have a homeland then. Right now, time is doing terrible things." 
    "What can I do to help you?"
    "Information, please. My old house. Who is the guy you have fixing the place up?"
    "Ed Wellen. Local contractor. You know him, I think. Didn't he put in a shower for you, or something?"
    "Yes, yes he did. . . . I remember."
    "He's expanded quite a bit. Bought some heavy equipment. Has a number of fellows working for him now. I handled his incorporation."
    "Do you know who he's got working at my place-now?"
    "Offhand, no. But I can find out in just a minute." He moved his hand to rest on the telephone on the side table. "Shall I give him a ring?"
    "Yes," I said, "but there is a little more to it than that. There is only one thing in which I am really interested. There was a compost heap in the back yard. It was there the last time I passed this way. It is gone now. I have to find out what became of it."
    He cocked his head to the right and grinned around his pipe.
    "You serious?" he finally said.
    "Sure as death," I said. "I hid something in that heap when I crawled by, decorating the snow with my precious bodily fluids. I've got to have it back now." 
    "Just what is it?" 
    "A ruby pendant." 
    "Priceless, I suppose." 
    "You're right." 
    He nodded, slowly.
    "If it were anyone else, I would suspect a practical joke," he said. "A treasure in a compost heap. ... Family heirloom?"
    "Yes. Forty or fifty carats. Simple setting. Heavy chain." 
    He removed his pipe and whistled softly. 
    "Mind if I ask why you put it there?" 
    "I'd be dead now if I hadn't." 
    "Pretty good reason." 
    He reached for the phone again.
    "We've had some action on the house already," he remarked. "Pretty good, since I haven't advertised yet. Fellow'd heard from someone who'd heard from someone else. I took him over this morning. He's thinking about it. We may move it pretty quick."
    He began to dial.
    "Wait," I said. "Tell me about him." 
    He cradled the phone, looked up.
    "Thin guy," he said. "Redhead. Had a beard. Said he was an artist. Wants a place in the country."
    "Son of a bitch!" I said, just as Alice came into the room with a tray.
    She made a tsking sound and smiled as she delivered it to me.
    "Just a couple hamburgers and some leftover salad," she said. "Nothing to get excited about."
    "Thank you. I was getting ready to eat my horse. I'd have felt bad afterward."
    "I don't imagine he'd have been too happy about it himself. Enjoy," she said, and returned to the kitchen.
    "Was the compost heap still there when you took him over?" I asked.
    He closed his eyes and furrowed his brow.
    "No," he said after a moment. "The yard was already clear."
    "That's something, anyway," I said, and I began eating.
    He made the call, and he talked for several minutes. I got the drift of things from his end of the conversation, but I listened to the entire thing after he had hung up, while I finished the food and washed it down with what was left in my glass.
    "He hated to see good compost go to waste," Bill said. "So he pitched the heap into his pickup just the other day and took it out to his farm. He dumped it next to a plot he intends to cultivate, and he has not had a chance to spread it yet. Says he did not notice any jewelry, but then he could easily have missed it." 
    I nodded.
    "If I can borrow a flashlight, I had better get moving."
    "Sure. I will drive you out," he said.
    "I do not want to be parted from my horse at this point."
    "Well, you will probably want a rake, and a shovel or a pitchfork. I can drive them out and meet you there, if you know where the place is."
    "I know where Ed's place is. He must have tools, though." 
    Bill shrugged and smiled.
    "All right," I said. "Let me use your bathroom, and then we had better get moving."
    "You seemed as if you knew the prospective buyer."
    I put the tray aside and rose to my feet.
    "You heard of him last as Brandon Corey."
    "The guy who pretended to be your brother and got you committed?"
    "'Pretended' hell! He is my brother. No fault of mine, though. Excuse me." 
    "He was there." 
    "Where?"
    "Ed's place, this afternoon. At least a bearded redhead was." 
    "Doing what?"
    "Said he was an artist. Said he wanted permission to set up his easel and paint in one of the fields." 
    "And Ed let him?"
    "Yes, of course. Thought it was a great idea. That is why he told me about it. Wanted to brag." 
    "Get the stuff. I will meet you there."
    "Right."
    The second thing I took out in the bathroom was my Trumps. I had to reach someone in Amber soonest, someone strong enough to stop him. But who? Benedict was on his way to the Courts at Chaos, Random was off looking for his son, I had just parted with Gerard on somewhat less than amicable terms. I wished that I had a Trump for Ganelon. I decided that I would have to try Gerard.
    I drew forth his card, performed the proper mental maneuvers. Moments later, I had contact. 
    "Corwin!" 
    "Just listen, Gerard! Brand is alive, if that is any consolation. I'm damn sure of that. This is important. Life and death. You've got to do something fast!"
    His expressions had changed rapidly while I had spoken-anger, surprise, interest . . .
    "Go ahead," he said.
    "Brand could be coming back very soon. In fact, he may already be in Amber. You haven't seen him yet, have you?" 
    "No." 
    "He must be stopped from walking the Pattern." 
    "I do not understand. But I can post a guard outside the chamber of the Pattern."
    "Put the guard inside the chamber. He has strange ways of coming and going now. Terrible things may happen if he walks the Pattern."
    "I will watch it personally then. What is happening?"
    "No time now. Here is the next thing: Is Llewella back in Rebma?" 
    "Yes, she is."
    "Get hold of her with her Trump. She's got to warn Moire that the Pattern in Rebma has to be guarded also." 
    "How serious is this, Corwin?"
    "It could be the end of everything," I said. "I have to go now."
    I broke the contact and headed for the kitchen and the back door, stopping only long enough to thank Alice and say good night. If Brand had got hold of the Jewel and attuned himself to it, I was not certain what he would do, but I had a pretty strong hunch.
    I mounted Drum and turned him toward the road. Bill was already backing out of the driveway.