The firing was already beginning to die down as I drew near the group, and I was hardly aware of what happened next until it was too late.
Something big came rushing up from behind and was by me in an instant. I hit the ground and rolled, bringing my rifle to bear automatically. My finger did not tighten on the trigger, however. It was Dara, who had just plunged past me on horseback. She turned and laughed as I screamed at her.
“Get back down there! Damn you! You‘ll be killed!”
“I‘ll see you in Amber!” she cried, and she shot on across the grisly rock and made it up the trail that lay beyond.
I was furious. But there was nothing I could do about it just then. Snarling, I got back to my feet and continued on.
As I advanced upon the group, I heard my name spoken several times. Heads turned in my direction. People moved aside to let me pass. I recognized many of them, but I paid them no heed.
I think that I saw Gerard at about the same time that he saw me. He had been kneeling in their midst, and he rose to his feet and waited. His face was expressionless.
As I drew nearer, I saw that it was as I had suspected. He had been kneeling to tend an injured man who rested upon the ground. It was Eric.
I nodded to Gerard as I came up beside him, and I looked down at Eric. My feelings were quite mixed. The blood from his several chest wounds was very bright and there was a lot of it. The Jewel of Judgment, which still hung on a chain about his neck, was covered with it. Eerily, it continued its faint, glowing pulsation, heart-like beneath the gore. Eric‘s eyes were closed, his head resting upon a rolled-up cloak. His breathing was labored.
I knelt, unable to take my eyes off that ashen face. I tried to push my hate aside just a little, since he was obviously dying, so that I might have a better chance to understand this man who was my brother for the moments that remained to him. I found that I could muster up something of sympathy by considering all that he was losing along with his life and wondering whether it would have been me lying there if I had come out on top five years earlier. I tried to think of something in his favor, and all I could come up with were the epitaph-like words, He died fighting for Amber. That was something, though. The phrase kept running through my mind.
His eyes tightened, flickered, opened. His face remained without expression as his eyes focused on mine. I wondered whether he even recognized me.
But he said my name, and then, “I knew that it would be you.” He paused for a couple of breaths and went on, “They saved you some trouble, didn‘t they?” I did not reply. He already knew the answer.
“Your turn will come one day,” he continued. “Then we will be peers.” He chuckled and realized too late that he should not have. He went into an unpleasant spasm of moist coughing. When it passed, he glared at me.
“I could feel your curse,” he said. “All around me. The whole time. You didn‘t even have to die to make it stick.”
Then, as if reading my thoughts, he smiled faintly and said, “No I‘m not going to give you my death curse. I‘ve reserved that for the enemies of Amber—out there.” He gestured with his eyes. He pronounced it then, in a whisper, and I shuddered to overhear it.
He returned his gaze to my face and stared for a moment. Then he plucked at the chain about his neck.
“The Jewel . . .” he said. “You take it with you to the center of the Pattern. Hold it up. Very close—to an eye. Stare into it—and consider it a place. Try to project yourself—inside. You don‘t go. But there is—an experience. . . . Afterward, you know how to use it. . . .”
“How—?” I began, but stopped. He had already told me how to attune to it. Why ask him to waste his breath on how he had figured it out?