Chapter One
From One End of the World to the Other

Sullenly, I sat on my small drifting rock, arms around my knees, staring moodily down into the black swirling oblivion of the Abyss. My rock drifted lazily through the currents, in a shrinking orbit. Vaguely I wondered if anyone would really notice if I just slid off. Below, and a safe distance to the side, I could see the Pit-divers engaged in a flurry of activity, but today I wasn't interested. I gazed up to watch purplesky fading to an emerald green stripple. Nice, but that meant almost a full turning until my brother had time to grant me audience.
Humiliating, having to request an audience and wait two days to speak with someone in your own family, but growing up in this family I should count myself lucky. I hadn't seen my mother, Dara, for at least 3 weeks. Not a loss for me, there was no real love lost between us.
She might have had a use for me at one time, but once it expired I think she just kept me around because it was more trouble to get rid of me and have to explain it.
I sat, watching the final trails of purplesky vanish. At the other side of the turning I could see wild lightning breaking the edge of redsky, lagging far behind the emerald green. Still most of a turning to go until blacksky, which was our lunch time. Idlely I wondered if choosing blacksky was Merlin's way of being symbolic or something. Looking down again, I sighed as I began reaching out for a wisp to anchor to a higher stone that would swing me to the edge. I let myself get lost in thought and I had spiraled lower than I had planned until the Pit-divers were almost adjacent to me. One or two of them waved, warning me to vacate my position before the current grew dangerous. I considered letting the rock spiral into the Abyss with me, but decided that I was more interested in information than melodrama. Hooking a rising trail, I swung out to the edge, a ways down from the divers. They shook their heads; this was not perfectly normal behavior, and I knew that as well. With a mental shrug, I called Raven and headed back to wait for my lunch date with my brother.
I headed for the Courtyard, wandering slowly through wisps of shadow. By the time I got there, I saw that whitesky was rippling along the horizen. I sat and waited in the quiet of the Courtyard for the agreed upon blacksky time. I enjoyed the solitude while letting the time go by. I wouldn't care to admit it, but I was glad to have an excuse for having lunch with Merlin. I never saw him anymore, and I missed him a little. It still feels odd to think of him as the King of the Courts of Chaos. Nobody else seems to have any trouble adjusting to the concept, so I guess I just have to cope. The main difference between speaking with Merlin and speaking with any other members of the family, is that it's refreshing not to deal with constant verbal fencing. We don't have much to say, but at least every comment isn't laced with dozens of layers of meanings. And I don't have anything of particular interest to him, so I guess I'm not a threat he needs to be paranoid about.
Finally, I left for Mandorways. Merlin had instructed me to use a backway from there to where we would meet. Two things crossed my mind. One, he wanted the meeting kept secret, which was odd, and two, he didn't want anyone seeing me at the Court, which was also odd. Far be it from me to understand royalty. A servent met me beyond the way, and led me to our lunch table. I have to give Merlin points for flashy. The table was inside what looked like a huge crystal globe. Outside, it was snowing over a mountain range. Sort of a reverse snow-globe effect. Very cute. I was looking around a little, when Merlin entered. He looked a little tired to me, guess being King will do that to you.
"Nice snow globe", I observed.
Merlin smiled "What can I do for you?" he asked. He began pouring wine I hadn't noticed into glasses I hadn't noticed at the table, as I gathered my thoughts.
"I've been taking lessons from Mandor", he grinned, and waved his hands over the table. An impressive spread appeared, complete with lovely table settings. Classy.
"Very nice", I said. He motioned me to a seat at the table. I cleared my throat, a little nervously.
"I'm leaving the Courts", I announced. Blunt. Smooth. Not a diplomat, I.
"Going out to wander Shadow?"
"No, I'm going as far as I can get away from here". It occured to me that it was probably a good thing that, having no official father on record, I was not technically eligible for a title despite my family position, and thus would never hold an office here. I don't think I'd help any diplomatic relations.
Merlin frowned. "That would be Amber", he said, "is that where you're planning to go?"
"Yes" He didn't look pissed yet, which was a good sign.
"Why? You know, Amber can be dangerous."
Oh. Well I guess he would wonder that. "I'm sick of this place, there's nothing to do here. Besides, Shadows dangerous too, and so is here."
"There's a lot to do here", Merlin sounded incredulous. "Shadow's not all that dangerous, although here can be". From the expression on his face, it was clear he knew I wasn't saying everything.
"Well, Dara told me my father was dead, and Suhuy insinuated he may be from far away, so I thought..." I trailed this off, hoping he'd pick up the ball. That's when he picked it up and slam dunked the thing.
"Well, you'd better change your hair color first. Your looks might not be so welcome in Amber", he exclaimed.
"Why not?" I asked, irritated. I like my hair. A lot. I had no intention of disguising it.
Merlin looked at me with a derisive snort, "Do you remember Brand? You look a lot like him." He looked like he thought any idiot would have realized this, so why didn't I. I stared. Up till now, it had only been politely whispered rumor that I was an offspring of Brand. Nobody had ever brought it up to my face, you see. Trying to be casual, I asked, "I do?"
"Yes, definately". He pulled a stack of trumps out, and shuffled one out of the deck. He handed me the card. There was a man sitting on a white horse, flame-red hair combed back, green eyes narrow and cold. He was dressed in a green riding outfit, and the expression he wore looked like he knew something about you that you didn't. The face was startling though - Merlin was right, I did look like Brand. Exactly. No one had ever bothered to show me a picture of him either, and I could see now for good reason. Not promising. What in hell had Dara been up to?
"Huh." I said, giving him back the Trump, "you really think so?"
We were interrupted then, by a demon who came in looking apologetic. He walked over and whispered to Merlin. I didn't understand a word of whatever language they were using, so I thought about the implications here. From what I understand of legend, Corwin, Merlin's father, and Caine were the cause of Brand falling into the Abyss at the Patternfall War. I think I'd like to know a little more about that, and I think I'd better consult a different source. Merlin might not be the best opinion to ask on that one.
"I'm sorry", Merlin snapped me back from my musings, "where were we?"
"Discussing my potential lineage", I said. "You know, Mandor once said that I might not know who my father is, but I probably didn't know who my mother is either."
Merlin looked disgusted. "Yeah, right. I wouldn't pay attention to what he had to say". We were interrupted again, by yet another servent. This one, however, seemed to be reporting in Thari, and I just couldn't help listening in. It seemed one of the Shadowmasters had dissapeared, while opening a new Way. Merlin told him to keep an eye out and report any news. Interesting, but Chaos can be dangerous.
"Well", Merlin said, turning back to me, "if you are going to Amber, you can do me a favor".
"Oh? What would that be?"
"I need something delivered to Random, and it can't go by Trump. It needs to be carried by hand."
I frowned at him, "What do you have that can't go by Trump?"
Merlin smiled, "Do you really want to know? If you know, then you'll be involved".
I considered this for a minute. Merlin looked like the cat with the canary. More than anything else, that made me twitch.
'No", I decided, "I don't want to know".
"I'll send along a letter of introduction for you as well".
There were a few minutes of silence, as we ate some of the lunch in front of us. It was really very good. I'll have to get Mandor to teach me this trick sometime. Merlin pulled the box and letter out of midair and handed them to me. Showoff. He also pulled a copy of his own Trump and passed that to me as well. He said it was for me to report and in case of emergency. Huh, I never knew he cared that much.
We concluded lunch by discussing another matter he wanted me to look into while I was out in Amber. It seemed there had been a murder, and the victim was his son, Prescott.
"He's missing?" I asked. I hadn't even known he wasn't home. Hmm, not very observant. It seemed Prescott had fallen in with a group in Amber, gone into Shadow with them and turned up dead. The group, back in Amber, told Random a highly unlikely story about the murderers being black and white versions of Corwin and Benedict in a black and white world with bizarre effects, and they brought evidence with them.
"Here's their evidence", Merlin said, handing me a black leaf.
On closer inspection, it seemed to be a black blade of grass.
"This is their proof?" I asked, wondering if I had missed something.
"Yes", said Merlin, "that's it."
I wasn't impressed. Neither was Merlin, by his expression.
"Random says he believes their story, though", Merlin looked skeptical.
"Do you?" I asked.
"No", he said, "but I believe Random. I want you to look into this for me."
I was surprised. Members of my family take justice and revenge and honor very seriously, to the point of blatant stupidity much of the time, if you ask me. I couldn't believe what I'd just heard. Merlin tells me his son is murdered, the only suspects have fingered his father as the culprit, and he isn't investigating personally?
"Um, aren't you going to look into this yourself" I ventured.
"I don't have time for this" he said crossly. "Interestingly enough, Fiona is also missing, and she was their strongest supporter."
"Um" I said.
"You also knew that Mandor has been missing for a while." he continued.
I nodded wisely. I had no idea that people were missing, but I didn't want to look totally uninformed.
"Perhaps you've heard that they're something of an item, so that might explain them being gone."
I tried to act like this was obvious to me also. I was still getting over being embarrased that I'd managed to spend my whole life never having quite realized that I looked like a carbon copy of one of Clarissa's kids. And after all the history Suhuy made me study. Damn Dara, if she hadn't wanted me to be so interested in history and politics, I actually might have.
"...so that could be true" Merlin said.
Uh-oh. I obviously missed something there. Once again, I nodded like I had a clue. Oops. Merlin turned and addressed Ghostwheel. Oh, was that what I missed, Ghost's arrival?
After a brief talk, Merlin dismissed Ghost, leaned forward conspiratorially, and the snow globe opaqued a bit. Interesting effect.
"You'll have to watch out for Ghostwheel. He's a little unstable. I don't think traversing the Logrus has quite settled for him yet."
I had been wondering why he wasn't using Ghost to investigate this. But the thought of Ghostwheel going unstable ran chills down my spine.
"Ghostwheel going nuts. That's frightening" I observed.
Even more frightening, Merlin agreed with me.
We finished up our lunch and Merlin wished me luck. All things considered, maybe I should have done the same.
I exited the snow globe by the route I came in, as courtesy dictates. Raven was waiting outside Mandorways, as usual. About then I realized I was about to set off for Amber and had no idea how to get there. I never asked Merlin, and I'd be damned if I was going back in now. After a few minutes of consideration, I grinned. The most fun I could think of would be to ask directions from Dara. Asking to see her would annoy her, asking directions would annoy her, and not telling her why I was going to Amber would infuriate her. If I barged in and asked for directions with no preliminaries of social niceties, it would insult her sense of protocol, and make her nuts. Some people might think this is my way of getting revenge for being so neglected. I don't think I want them to know that, deep down, I just enjoy baiting her.
I gave Merlin's package and letter to Raven, to be on the safe side, and went to the Ways of Sawell. Of course, I was made to wait for an audience. I hate my family. At least Merlin had a better excuse, being King. Dara was just playing control games. A demon servent led me to a tower I had never been in betore. Dara was sitting in her high tower (pardon the pun), with a nice, social tea laid out. For once I submitted to protocol, and didn't throw up on her floor.
"Hello mother, how nice of you to make the time to see me", I purred.
Dara smiled, "Well, Corvina, you ask for so little".
"This time I'm asking for directions" I shot back smoothly.
Her smile began to fade. "Directions to where?" she asked.
"Amber."
The smile vanished. I was feeling pretty good about this whole meeting.
"Why are you going to Amber?" she asked.
"Because Merlin's sending me there", I said sweetly.
"What for?"
"To give Random a package". This was fun, really.
"Is the package here?"
"No."
"What's in the package?" she asked silkily.
"I don't really know", I said very wide-eyed. I was going to enjoiy this punchline. "It's none of my business, really" I said with a smile. "I 'm not very interested in politics". Heh he he.
"Yes Corvina, I know" she snapped, her face registered dissapointment. "Fine, if that's how you wsh to be." She gestured curtly to the tower window behind her. "Go that way".
I frowned at the window, "Where does it go?"
She sighed, and it sounded defeated. "Amber. That's what you wanted, isn't it?" Did I trust her? No. Was I going to look triumphant? Absolutely. With an arrogant thanks, I stepped through the window.

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Lady Corvina I of the Courts of Chaos