Blood of Amber by Roger Zelazny Read Free Book Online Page A

ahead, if you think you can face that.”
    “Chaos, eh? Torn from the primal Chaos?”
    “Yep.   There’s not much can stand against it.”
    “Except maybe a Lord of Chaos,” I replied, as I shifted my awareness to various points within my body.   Rough work.   The faster you do it the more painful it is.
    Again, the rattling of the tin sheet.
    “You know what the odds are against a Chaos Lord coming this far to go two out of three with a Dweller?” Scrof said.
    My arms began to lengthen and I felt my shirt tear across my back as I leaned forward.   The bones in my face shifted about and my chest expanded and expanded.   .   .   .
    “One out of one should be enough,” I replied, when the transformation was complete.
    “Shit,” Scrof said as I crossed the line.
     
3
    I stood just within the mouth of the cave for some time, my left shoulder hurting and my right leg sore also.   If I could get the pain under control before I retransformed myself there was a chance that much of it would fade during the anatomical reshuffling.   The process itself would probably leave me pretty tired, however.   It takes a lot of energy, and switching twice this close together could be somewhat prostrating, following my bout with the Dweller.   So I rested within the cave into which the pearly tunnel had eventually debouched, and I regarded the prospect before me.
    Far down and to my left was a bright blue and very troubled body of water.   White-crested waves expired in kamikaze attacks on the gray rocks of the shore; a strong wind scattered their spray and a piece of rainbow hung within the mist.
    Before me and below me was a pocked, cracked and steaming land which trembled periodically, as it swept for well over a mile toward the high dark walls of an amazingly huge and complex structure, which I immediately christened Gormenghast.   It was a hodgepodge of architectural styles, bigger even than the palace at Amber and somber as all hell.   Also, it was under attack.
    There were quite a few troops in the field before the walls, most of them in a distant nonscorched area of more normal terrain and some vegetation, though the grasses were well trampled and many trees shattered.   The besiegers were equipped with scaling ladders and a battering ram; but the ram was idle at the moment and the ladders were on the ground.   What appeared to have been an entire village of outbuildings smoldered darkly at the wall’s base.   Numerous sprawled figures were, I assumed, casualties.
    Moving my gaze even farther to the right, I encountered an area of brilliant whiteness beyond that great citadel.   It looked to be the projecting edge of a massive glacier, and gusts of snow or ice crystals were whipped about it in a fashion similar to the sea mists far to my left.
    The wind seemed a constant traveler through these parts.   I heard it cry out high above me.   When I finally stepped outside to look upward, I found that I was only about halfway up a massive stony hillside- or low mountainside, depending on how one regards such matters-and the whining note of the wind came down even more loudly from those broken heights.   There was also a thump at my back, and when I turned I could no longer locate the cave mouth.   My journey along the route from the fiery door had been completed once I exited the cave, and its spell had apparently clamped down and closed the way immediately.   I supposed that I could locate the outline upon the steep wall if I wanted to, but at the moment I had no such desire.   I made a little pile of stones before it, and then I looked about again, studying details.
    A narrow trail curved off to my right and back among some standing stones.   I headed in that direction.   I smelled smoke.   Whether it was from the battle site or the area of vullcanism below I could not tell.   The sky was a patchwork of cloud and light above me.   When I halted between two of the stones and fumed to regard the scene