Roger Zelazny. The Shroudling and the Guisel
Roger Zelazny. The Shroudling and the Guisel
Preface from _Realms of Fantasy_: This story takes up the affairs of Merlin, son of Corwin, from where I left him at the end of _Prince of Chaos_, the 10th and most recent book in my Amber series. As a Prince of Amber on his father’s side and a Prince of Chaos on his mother’s, Merlin has some problems–not the least of these being that he finds himself in the line of succession for the recently vacated Throne of Chaos, a position he is not anxious to assume. He had felt himself well-protected from it by the number of claimants ahead of him. Unfortunately, they have been dying off most rapidly, generally by means other than the natural. He suspects his mother, Dara, and his half-brother, Mandor, of having a hand in this. But he recently faced both of them down in a magical duel, and they seem to have had second thoughts about his tractability, should one of them manage to seat him on the Throne. Time will tell. In the meantime, he went off to one of Mandor’s guest houses, hoping for a good night’s sleep.
I awoke in a dark room, making love to a lady I did not recall having gone to bed with. Life can be strange. Also oddly sweet at times. I hadn’t the will to destroy our congress, and I went on and on with what I was doing and so did she until we came to that point of sudden giving and taking, that moment of balance and rest.
I made a gesture with my left hand and a small light appeared and glowed above our heads. She had long black hair and green eyes, and her cheekbones were high and her brow wide. She laughed when the light came on, revealing the teeth of a vampire. Her mouth held not a trace of blood, making it seem somehow impolite for me to touch my throat seeking after any trace of soreness. “It’s been a long time, Merlin,” she said softly.
“Madam, you have the advantage of me,” I said.
She laughed again. “Hardly,” she answered, and she moved in such a fashion as to distract me entirely, causing the entire chain of events to begin again on my part.
“Unfair,” I said, staring into those sea-deep eyes, stroking that pale brow. There was something terribly familiar there, but I could not understand it.
“Think,” she said, “for I wish to be remembered.”
“I…Rhanda?” I asked.
“Your first love, as you were mine,” she said smiling, “there in the mausoleum. Children at play, really. But it was sweet, was it not?”
“It still is,” I replied, stroking her hair. “No, I never forgot you. Never thought to see you again, though, after finding that note saying your parents no longer permitted you to play with me…thinking me a vampire.”
“It seemed so, my Prince of Chaos and of Amber. Your strange strengths and your magics….”
I looked at her mouth, at her unsheathed fangs. “Odd thing for a family of vampires to forbid,” I stated.
“Vampires? We’re not vampires,” she said. “We are among the last of the shroudlings. There are only five families of us left in all the secret images of all the shadows from here to Amber–and farther, on into that place and into Chaos.”
I held her more tightly and a long lifetime of strange lore passed through my head. Later I said, “Sorry, but I have no idea of what a shroudling is.”
Later still she responded, “I would be very surprised if you did, for we have always been a secret race.” She opened her mouth to me, and I saw by spirit-light a slow retraction of her fangs into normal-seeming dentition. “They emerge in times of passion other than feasting,” she remarked.
“So you do use them as a vampire would,” I said.
“Or a ghoul,” she said. “Their flesh is even richer than their blood.”
“‘Their’?” I said.
“That of those we would take.”
“And who might they be?” I asked.
“Those the world might be better off without,” she said. “Most of them simply vanish. Occasionally, with a feast of jokers, only parts of some remain.”