“What a surprise!” said Julian, in his slow, almost impeded way of speaking and a great hawk that was black and green circled and settled upon his left shoulder.
I always wonder what Zelazny/Corwin means by “impeded.” Gerard isn’t a smart guy and folks just come out and say that, and it’s ok that he isn’t smart. Is Julian just like… intellectually impaired? Trying to hide a stutter? Being made fun of? Does it really matter, in the end? He is, after all, another sociopath.
“I enjoy slaughtering beasts,” he said, “and I think of my relatives constantly.”
This quote is a badass quote. Like, he’s terrifying. This is dark. Brilliant. It also leads directly to Julian letting them go solely so he can chase them again.
Julian, of course, goes down like a punk when Corwin goes after him. He’s all ballsy menace… until he’s flat on his back in the dirt. Corwin takes him prisoner to pump him for information and Julian reveals that he’s siding with Eric just like… as the path of least resistance. Eric’s there? Fine. Might as well support him. Meanwhile Benedict might be dead because… nobody’s heard from him in a few years? Julian really doesn’t seem to care about his family, or his alliances.
He also doesn’t seem surprised to see Corwin. This is a man who takes things as they come.
Now, it’s possible that he’s playing it cool and he has Secret Info as part of a cabal he’s later revealed to be in, that he’s known for a while now that Corwin was still alive. But did Zelazny have that as part of his plan from the start? I don’t think so. The first five books of the series really feel like he was flying by the seat of his pants and making stuff up as he went along without keeping the most careful track of it. He apparently didn’t leave many notes, it just rattled around in his skull. This has lead to a lot of inconsistencies, some of them frustrating.
Corwin declines to kill Julian, showing him mercy. Random refers to it as guile, confessing that he’d have killed Julian himself but that they stood to gain with him being alive. In truth, it’s a demonstration of how living in Shadow for so long, not being Corwin of Amber but rather being Some Guy, has changed him. This is one of the themes of the series, by the way, the story of a man finally growing into adulthood.
“Staring downward through the smoke, I caught my first glimpse of that sea. Beneath the deep blue, almost night-time sky, with that golden sun hanging up there in it, the sea was so rich-thick as paint, textured like a piece of cloth, of royal blue, almost purple-that it troubled me to look upon it.”
One of the big reasons many fans are hype for a tv version of the series is to see the fight scenes play out. Me? I want to see the hell rides and different Shadows and Amber itself. I want to see the monstrous horse constructs and the stippled sky of Chaos.
We learn a bit more about Corwin – information about him dribbles out slowly, unfolds. He’s a poet, a singer, a bard maybe in addition to being a warrior. And we also see that Random has again altered things as they travel – in this case totally changing up their clothing. He even gives himself a hat! Corwin gets a cloak! One with a silver rose-shaped clasp, no less! Just casually magicking up some clothing. And, of course, he managed to summon up Corwin’s magic sword as well as one for himself.
The car finally craps out and they strike out on foot. They eventually leave the road, pride be damned, and night falls. They come across a bunch of men around a fire with a woman tied to a stake and when they realize it’s their sister Random… calls her a bitch. He doesn’t really like her – I assume he doesn’t like anyone. They wade in and kill all the guys and release Deidre and Corwin hugs her a little too much and she catches them up to speed on what’s happening. Eric, she says, is crazy. He wants to keep her a prisoner, or maybe kill her, for some reason. It doesn’t really make sense. And, again, is this Corwin being an unreliable narrator or is this just Zelazny dialing things back later on?
Either way, this is when Corwin realizes that the prize he’s “trying” for is the throne of Amber.
That’s a pretty big thing.
As they crouch in the bushes hiding from various pursuers and dangers Corwin decides it’s a good idea to drop his little “I don’t actually know who I am” bombshell. He seizes the moment to insult Flora a little more. Random goes all in on supporting his attempt at the throne, though.
Enter, at this point, some werewolves.
Raymond Chandler’s big advice to keep a plot moving was to have a guy with a gun come into the room. Zelazny follows a similar strategy in this book, only instead of a guy with a gun we’ve got some werewolves here. It’s another fight scene, and then our trio runs into the bushes again and plan their next big move. This move involves traveling to Rebma, which is the reflection of Amber (“Rebma” is “Amber” spelled backward) including a reflection of The Pattern… and a quick introduction to what that is and what it lets people in their family do. We also get the revelation that Random got up to something in Rebma and isn’t welcome there. He tosses out the phrase “your sister’s sister” and this dude is such a weaselly scumbag.
They travel two more days until they get to “the pink and sable sands of the great sea,” which sounds lovely.
References:
- Roman Candles are a type of firework. They’re pretty showy.
- “Thari” is the name of two different actual languages – one spoken among Irish Travelers (sometimes referred to as a mystic secret ancient Druidic language) and one spoken in Pakistan. In later books it’s revealed that Thari sounds a little like German to people on Earth.
- “The Ballad of the Water-Crossers” isn’t a real thing, as far as I can tell, except for nerds who’ve written their own versions. And there don’t even seem to be that many versions. Where are all the filkers at?
- “Dreck” means garbage, or dirt, or poop.
- “Ill Met By Moonlight” is a Shakespearean quote – Oberon says “Ill met by moonlight, proud Titania” in act II scene 1 of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”
- “Weir” is a reference to “werewolf;” these guys are werewolves or something similar
