This is it. This is the final chapter in this slim little book published in 1970. Are you prepared for this?
Corwin steps through the Trump, a fire smoldering behind him, onto a beach. The sun’s out. There’s a breeze. It smells like the ocean. There’s some boats bobbing on the water. Remember that he hasn’t regained all of his vision so even if you discount “moving from fire-lit darkness to daylight” his vision isn’t great. He takes his filthy, ragged, lousy, emaciated self to the lighthouse and knocks on the door. Dworkin’s old pal Jopin, the lighthouse keeper, answers it and totally believes the story that this crusty filthy guy was awash in the waves for a long time. He’s drunk, which probably helps.
Jopin helps him to bed, Corwin gets settled, takes his boots off, realizes just how disgusting he is, and quickly puts them back on so Jopin doesn’t see how dirty they are. He’s drunk, but he’s not THAT drunk. Probably. Jopin brings him something to eat. He crashes soon after eating, understandably.
Corwin spends some time with Jopin getting his strength back, recovering. It’s kind of a lovely peaceful domestic situation in many ways – he cleans, he fixes the place up. He’s pretty handy. He helps Jopin update some of his nautical charts and they discuss politics a bit (Jopin thinks everyone sucks). We also find out that Corwin and his family aren’t the only people who live a long time – Jopin commanded a ship for over 100 years and he’s Just Some Guy.
Just as he’s making up his mind to head out someone attempts to contact Corwin via Trump. He resists and… I find this FASCINATING… in his resistance he starts pacing. He realizes after the fact that he’d been pacing out the dimensions of his cell, the place he’d spent so much time in the darkness. The contact helps him make up his mind about leaving and he tells Jopin that he’s heading out. Jopin, who’s known who he actually is for a while now, tells him to check out the Valley of Garnath before he goes – that beautiful place that Eric had burnt down, reduced to nothing but ash and ruin. When Corwin does he doesn’t like what he sees because what he sees is himself.
The Curse he pronounced as the hot irons sizzled against his eyes is manifest as a blight upon the land, a road for all things foul and evil. It’s a road that someone who isn’t of the blood of Oberon can use to walk through Shadow; it’s a road that any malicious person can use to enter Amber, or send dark things out of Shadow to bedevil Amber. It’s something that puts Amber at risk, and needs to be dealt with. Sooner or later Corwin is going to have to face his hate made manifest.
He grabs a quick breakfast hops onto one of Jopin’s boats to sail through Shadow which is pretty cool. He summons two “birds of his desire,” one white and one black, and sends them off with a message. The white one says “I am coming,” and he signs it with his name; the black one says “fuck u Eric lol.” No, just kidding. It says “Eric—I’ll be back,” and it was signed: “Corwin, Lord of Amber.” Lord, not King, which is interesting.
And just as this book opens with a great line, it closes with one too:
A demon wind propelled me east of the sun.
