Guns Of Avalon

I was walking in Shadow, seeking a place, a very special place. It had been destroyed once, but I had the power to re-create it, for Amber casts an infinity of shadows. A child of Amber may walk among them, and such was my heritage. You may call them parallel worlds if you wish, alternate universes if you would, the products of a deranged mind if you care to. I call them shadows, as do all who possess the power to walk among them. We select a possibility and we walk until we reach it. So, in a sense, we create it. Let's leave it at that for now.

I had sailed, had begun this walk toward Avalon.

Centuries before, I had lived there. It is a long, complicated, proud and painful story, and I may go into it later on, if I live to finish much more of this telling.

I was drawing nearer to my Avalon when I came upon the wounded knight and the six dead men. Had I chosen to walk on by, I could have reached a place where the six men lay dead and the knight stood unwounded - or a place where he lay dead and they stood laughing. Some would say it did not really matter, since all these things are possibilities, and therefore all of them exist somewhere in Shadow.

Any of my brothers and sisters - with the possible exceptions of Gerard and Benedict - would not even have given a second glance. I have become somewhat chickenhearted, however. I was not always that way, but perhaps the shadow Earth, where I spent so many years, mellowed me a bit, and maybe my hitch in the dungeons of Amber reminded me somewhat of the quality of human suffering. I do not know. I only know that I could not pass by the hurt I saw on the form of someone much like someone who had once been a friend. If I were to speak my name in this man's ear, I might hear myself reviled, I would certainly hear a tale of woe.

So, all right. I would pay this much of the price: I would get him back on his feet, then I would cut out. No harm done, and perhaps some small good within this Other.

I sat there, watching him, and after several hours, he awakened.

«Hello,» I said, unstoppering my canteen. «Have another drink?»

«Thank you.» He extended a hand.

I watched him drink, and when he handed it back he said, «Excuse me for not introducing myself. I was not in good manner…»

«I know you,» I said. «Call me Corey.»

He looked as if he were about to say, «Corey of What?» but thought better of it and nodded.

«Very well. Sir Corey,» he demoted me. «I wish to thank you.»

«I am thanked by the fact that yon are looking better,» I told him. «Want something to eat?»

«Yes, please.»

«I have some dried meat here and some bread that could be fresher,» I said. «Also a big hunk of cheese. Eat all you want.» I passed it to him and he did.

«What of yourself, Sir Corey?» he inquired.

«I've already eaten, while you were asleep.» I looked about me, significantly. He smiled.

«…And you knocked off all six of them by yourself?» I said. He nodded.

«Good show. What am I going to do with you now?»

He tried to see my face, failed. «I do not understand,» he said.

«Where are you headed?»

«I have friends,» he said, «some five leagues to the north. I was going in that direction when this thing happened. And I doubt very much that any man, or the Devil himself, could bear me on his back for one league. And I could stand. Sir Corey, you'd a better idea as to my size.»

I rose, drew my blade, and felled a sapling - about two inches in diameter - with one cut. Then I stripped it and hacked it to the proper length.

I did it again, and with the belts and cloaks of dead men I rigged a stretcher. He watched until I was finished, then commented:

«You swing a deadly blade, Sir Corey - and a silver one, it would seem…»

«Are you up to some traveling?» I asked him. Five leagues is roughly fifteen miles.

«What of the dead?» he inquired.

«You want to maybe give them a decent Christian burial?» I said. «Screw them! Nature takes care of its own. Let's get out of here. They stink already.»

«I'd like at least to see them covered over. They fought well.»

I sighed.

«All right, if it will help yon to sleep nights. I haven't a spade, so I'll build them a cairn. It's going to be a common burial, though.»

«Good enough,» he said.

I laid the six bodies out, side by side. I heard him mumbling something, which I guessed to be a prayer for the dead.

I ringed them around with stones. There were plenty of stones in the vicinity, so I worked quickly, choosing the largest so that things would go faster.

That is where I made a mistake. One of them must have weighed around four hundred pounds, and I did not roll it. I hefted it and set it in place.

I heard a sharp intake of breath from his direction, and I realized that he had noted this. I cursed then:

«Damn near ruptured myself on that one!» I said, and I selected smaller stones after that.

When I had finished, I said, «All right. Are you ready to move?»

«Yes.»

I raised him in my arms and set him on the stretcher. He clenched his teeth as I did so.

«Where do we go?» I asked.

He gestured.