John Betancourt - Chaos and Amber

“Sounds perfect,” I asked.

“We can wait there,” he said, “as long as it takes.”

An interesting turn of phrase that said little but implied much-all of it different, depending on how you looked at the question.

“Are you expecting company?” I asked.

“I always expect someone,” he said, “and I am seldom disappointed.”

The trees around us grew taller, darker; pines replaced oaks. Then the path opened up, and ahead I saw the place he meant—a hundred yards of low-cropped grass, then a gentle incline that ended at a wall of stone, a steep cliff rising fifty feet or more above us. Pine trees overhung the top.

He reined in his horse. “Make camp here,” he said.

“How long will we be here?” I asked.

“As long as it takes. I… am waiting for a guide.”

“A guide? You mean you don't know where we're going?” I asked.

“I know. I am having a little difficulty finding it again, however.”

“Tell me. Maybe I can help.”

“You have been a help already, my boy. More than you realize. But this is not something you can do.” He sighed. “I must do the last of it myself.”

“Maybe, if you'd explain…”

He hesitated, as if not knowing how much he could safely reveal.

I said, “You're going to have to tell me, Dad. I know a lot of it already. Maybe I can help. Remember Juniper…”

He sighed, looked away for a long moment, took a deep breath.

“I have lived a long time, Oberon. I have done a lot of things of which I am not proud, and many of which I am.” He swallowed. “You… you will be the first person besides myself to see the heart of the Shadows. The place where they begin.”

“I don't understand,” I said.

“All this—” His hand swept out, taking in the world around us. “All this is a Shadow. But what casts that Shadow?”

“It's not the Courts of Chaos, is it?”

“No!” He laughed. “The Courts cast their own shadows, true, but they are dim and dismal places, full of death and unpleasantness.

These Shadows—Juniper, Ilerium, all of them—are cast by something else… something greater.”

I felt my heart beating in my throat.

“You did it,” I said wonderingly. “It's the Pattern.”

“That which casts these Shadows is a great Pattern, like the one inside you, but inscribed with my own hand at the very heart of the universe.”

“That's why they're after you,” I said, wonderingly. “King Uthor knows , somehow, and he wants to destroy the Pattern and the Shadows. Freda said they weakened Chaos—”

“Yes! It weakens them ,” he said, voice rising in a laugh. “But it made you stronger.”

“How—where—” I stammered.

“It is close. But hidden… very carefully hidden, where no Lord of Chaos can ever hope to find it on his own.”

“Then you hid it too well, if you can't find it either.”

“I had… help.”

My eyes narrowed. “Help? So they're right and you have allied yourself with another power. Who is it?”

“Not exactly a who ,” he said. “More of a what . But she is a good and loyal friend.”

“A woman? Will she join us here?”

“I hope so.” He swung down from his saddle, stretching. “We must wait until she comes.”

A woman…

“What is her name?” I asked.

He didn't answer. Instead, he walked to the edge of the clearing and gazed off into the trees, lost in thought.

Sighing, I tethered both horses and began unloading their saddles and packs. Every time I looked up, my father had wandered a few steps farther, and now he was staring up at the cliffs as if trying to place them on some mental map.

“She has no name,” he said. “At least, none that I know.”

“Is she… human?” I asked.

“More so that most.” He chuckled a bit to himself, as though at some private joke. Then he bent down and began gathering up handfuls of grass.

I had a feeling I wasn't going to get any more from him tonight, so I quit asking. He'd already told me more in the last five minutes than I'd learned from him since I'd found out he was my father.

I looked up at the cliff and thought I glimpsed a faint movement among the trees, a lighter shadow flitting past. Could that be his mysterious woman?

We spent an hour weaving grass into rope, like we'd done when I was a boy, and we used the rope to set snares along game trails running through the grass. While we waited for rabbits or quail or whatever the local equivalent might be, I went down to the stream and threw a couple of dozen rocks up onto the bank, then lugged them back to the clearing and set them in a circle.

Dworkin, meanwhile, had wandered off to the side by himself. I caught him gazing up at the cliff several times when he thought I wasn't paying attention. Whatever was up there, he'd seen it, too. Hopefully it was his mysterious woman.

I gathered wood and set a fire, lighting it with flint and steel that Bayle's daughter had kindly packed for us. Then, as the fire snapped and cracked, I spread out our blankets and sprawled on top of mine. Lying on my back with my fingers laced behind my head, staring up at unfamiliar constellations, I felt a deep contentment. This was the life I liked—roaming far from home, exploring unknown lands, getting to know myself and my father.

I had often gone camping like this with my “Uncle Dworkin” when I was a child. Side by side, we lay out under the stars, a crackling campfire at our feet. He would talk to me like a son and tell me stories of heroes long gone, of voyages and adventures, of treasures lost and found. Those had been the happiest days of my life. Once, even, we had come to a place much like this…

I sighed. Where had the time gone?

“Wine?” he asked me, holding out the skin.

“Thanks.”

I sat up and took it from him, then took a long sip and passed it back.

“You brought me here before, when I was young,” I said.

“You remember!” He seemed surprised.

“Of course.”

I opened the basket Bayle's daughters had packed for us, discovering cheese, bread, and dried beef that looked more like army provisions than a picnic meal. It would keep. I wanted something fresh.

“I'll check the snares,” I said, and I went and did so.

The first two had been broken by whatever they had caught, the third was empty, and the fourth and fifth both held something like a rabbit, but with short pointed ears and broad padded feet. The last two were empty.

I skinned the rabbits, spitted them, and brought them back. The fire had begun to die down to embers, so I laid the rabbits across the coals to cook. Then once more I sprawled back on my elbows to wait.

Dworkin was looking up at the cliff again, lost in thought.

“Is she up there again?” I asked.

“Eh? What?”

“This mysterious woman we're meeting. I saw movement up there before. Has she come back?”

“Oh… no, no women up there.” He chuckled. “No women at all.”

After we ate the rabbit with bread and cheese, washed down by more of Bayle's excellent wine, I felt tired and full. My thoughts turned to the rest of our family, and I wondered where they were and what they were doing right now.

“Should we call Freda and tell her where we are?” I asked.

“No,” he said. “Time runs differently here. I doubt if it's been more than a few hours for her since we left the Beyond. We will be done and back before we have been missed.”

“Good.”

I lay back and closed my eyes, listening to the sounds of the night. Night-birds sang, insects chirped and buzzed in the grass, and the occasional bat or owl flitted past overhead.

As I drifted toward sleep, I heard my father shift and stand. That brought me back fully awake. What was he up to?