The Road to Amber (83 page)
The battle which ensued lasted for several days with no clear victor. In the course of it, however, the forces released were so potent that they wrenched the fabric of reality itself, sundering the realm of magic from that of science, separating the two domains in the spacetime continuum—so that somewhere there is a world the exact opposite of their own, with cities where magic does not work, and large, dead, barren areas which had once been countryside. Periodically—like once every century, more or less—the two worlds merge again for 24 hours. For three nights in advance of this, each glimpses the other as a ghostly presence in their own barren area. There is, he says, something which must be done during this period of time. It has been attempted many times in the past and has always failed.
When the brothers had fought and the worlds were initially torn apart, there had been a last desperate engagement, reducing them to hand to hand combat. During the course of this conflict both weapons were temporarily abandoned. When the sundering began and each realized what was occurring, he seized the nearest fallen weapon—the other’s. Now, the strange machine is in the magical realm, where
it
will not work, and the wand is in the other place, where it will not work. He, Arkans, is the guardian of the machine, he explains, and there will probably be an attempt to steal it back during the 24 hours when the worlds coincide.
During this time both magic and science will work in both places as in days gone by—only Arkans has no idea how the machine works, as there has never been any way for him to test it.
Arkans tells Alex then that it is suddenly imperative that he undertake a mission to the other realm to steal the wand. (This, too, has been attempted in the past.) Whoever holds the device appropriate for his own world could rule the place. This, he concludes, must be why Brelt is amassing power. He intends to obtain the wand for himself.
Before Arkans can go into more detail a baleful star seems to drop from the firmament, growing larger and brighter, until the entire window is filled with a ruddy light. Brelt then steps in, exchanges a few words with Arkans and attacks him magically, ignoring Alex. The old man is no match for his attacker, and he begins to fall back. As the battle progresses, and Arkans is apparently mortally wounded but still defending himself, Alex feels a great anger rise within him at seeing his master so abused. He summons his own fledgling powers and unleashes a magical bolt which takes Brelt completely by surprise, his attention focused upon Arkans. Brelt falls, himself mortally stricken. His accumulated powers pass to Alex, the only fit magical receptacle about. Alex, glowing strangely, goes to Arkans’ side and asks him what he should do. The old man tells him that now he must guard the machine rather than attempt to steal the wand—and to send someone else after the latter device. He tries to tell him why they should have the wand and deny the others their machine but dies before he can explain this. (If either instrument is returned to the proper realm the realms will come to coexist on one plane again. If either realm has both instruments, it will dominate the world. If both are returned to their proper planes, the realms will coexist, but the polarity will be intensified in peculiar ways.)
Alex is left with two dead sorcerers, uncertain as to how he might execute his orders. He recalls then the words of Morningstar and decides that he must ask his advice.
He journeys back to Mt. Panicus, arriving at sunset, and he speaks with Morningstar. Morningstar agrees with Arkans that if Alex attempts to recover the wand himself, the machine will probably be stolen. Plus he is now the strongest sorcerer in the realm; he should stay by it and use his powers to guard it. Who then should he send after the wand? he asks. Morningstar suggests he employ the services of a professional thief. There is one called Shadowjack that he would recommend as being at the top ofhis profession. Alex asks how he is to find him, and Morningstar calls his name, which Jack can hear whenever it is spoken in shadow. Morningstar then stretches his great arms and pinions, and a long bat-like shadow stretches back across the land.
Jack, dallying in an inn or brothel, hears his name spoken and moves to the window. He sees the advancing shadow, fetches his cloak, and steps out upon the spreading darkness which he rides like an escalator into the heights, stepping forth before the young sorcerer. Jack agrees to undertake the mission on Morningstar’s recommendation. Apparently there is some bond between them. So Jack heads west, then, to steal the wand from the booby-trapped, well guarded stronghold, as Morningstar has described it to him.
Alex returns to his master’s Keep to watch over the machine. While doing so, he passes the time in conjuring up visions of the distant city where the wand lies. He witnesses some of Jack’s difficulties in gaining entrance to the city, locating the stronghold, and entering there—
e.g.
, at one point Jack moves a piece of furniture to cast a shadow across a room which is criss-crossed by laser beams at the slightest pressure on the floor. He bridges it by flowing across the shadow—but the piece of furniture is accidentally removed thereafter, precluding his return via that route… Alex is distracted, however, by the comings and goings of a lovely girl in and about the technological center.
We follow Jack as he locates the vault holding the wand, then cut back to Alex who, in his flame-girt mirror, is viewing something he had never witnessed before—the takeoff of a jet plane.
The airplane climbs into the air and heads for the border between the two realms. Alex quickly realizes that this is the beginning of the raid, and he commences a spell. A dragon emerges from a cloudbank and flaps its way upward. It is tumbled about as the plane shoots by at an enormously superior speed and crosses the mountains high above Morningstar—who watches impassively. Alex then conjures up a storm which rages about the plane. It weathers this for a time but is finally struck by lightning. A wing breaks and falls off. The other wing then drops away very neatly, however, as does the tail assembly. The fuselage plummets, changing shape as it falls. A final lightning bolt misses it. When it appears that it must crash, a series of parachutes suddenly bloom above the remnant, now transformed into an armored vehicle.
Dropping the chutes, the vehicle advances. The storm continues. Alex works another spell. Soon the earth begins to tremble, and cracks appear within it. Flames leap from these; rocks are blasted into the air, some of them striking the advancing vehicle. Lightnings still flash nearby. Finally it is struck and shattered. A side collapses, becoming a ramp. A small, sportscar-type vehicle emerges and speeds on. Alex abandons his mirror and rushes to the wall. From there he can now view the thing unaided.
He leans forward and unleashes bolts of sorcerous energy directly from his hands. They fall upon the car and it begins to melt. Moments later, though, a motorcycle is jumped clear of the wreckage, ridden by a metallic figure—a robot or a person wearing body armor. For some time the rider dodges the bolts he hurls, all the while approaching nearer and nearer to the walls of the Keep.
Finally, he opens the earth before it. The rider leaps clear as the cycle plunges into the fiery abyss, landing on the far side of the burning pit and rushing afoot to the gates of the Keep. The armor is mechanized and full of weapons. Laser beams emerge from the hands, burning an opening through the gate.
Alex rushes to meet the invader, who is now upon the stair. Sorcerous bolts from his hands cancel laser beams from the other’s as they move toward a confrontation before the crypt where the machine is kept. He burns out the other’s armor but temporarily spends his own powers in so doing. The other turns and crashes through the door to the crypt.
Within, the machine rests on a pedestal. The invader rushes to it and begins operating the keyboard. Alex tackles the other, who crashes to the floor, helmet rolling away, much-abused armor coming unfastened. It is, of course, the girl he had seen earlier, stunned for a moment. The machine begins making strange sounds.
Cut to Jack, clutching the wand, racing up stairs to the top floor of the building, pursuit hot on his heels. He reaches the top and enters a room, slamming the door behind him and securing it. He turns then and sees that he is trapped. There are no other doors. All of the windows are barred. There comes a banging on the door. He rushes to the window and peers out.
The dawn is breaking. Atop the highest peak of the mountain range to the west, the statue of Morningstar has changed position. Arms and pinions raised high, its shadow flows again as the sun comes up, sliding across the building and finally the window out of which Jack stares. Smiling, Jack changes shape and oozes through the bars just as the door gives way. Again, the magical escalator ride along the shadow, across the plains, and through the mountains to Morningstar’s prominence. There Jack collapses, the wand still clutched tightly in his hand.
Meanwhile, back at the Keep, the conflict between Alex and the girl has ended as the machine—which she had programmed—levitates and flies out the door. Alex rushes to the battlements, hurling sorcerous bolts after it, but it is fast and it is also able to parry them. It streaks westward.
Morningstar holds the wand in one hand and talks with Jack. Suddenly he reaches high into the air and closes his hand without turning his head to regard what he is doing, without halting his speech. When he lowers his hand, he holds the machine clasped within it.
Alex—with the girl (Dyjah) beside him, their struggle now forgotten—resorts to the mirror to trace the machine. He sees what has become of it—also of the wand. Morningstar somehow becomes aware of this scrutiny. He regards them from the mirror then draws them to him through it.
In their presence—and Jack’s—Morningstar then states that it is time the two devices were returned to their respective realms and the world united in a special way. He does something to the wand and releases it. It rises above him, growing brighter and brighter, becoming starlike in appearance and sinking out of sight behind him in the west. Then he programs the small machine and releases it. It does the same thing, sinking in the east. The price of this union will be a single, stationary world, he explains, with a dark side and a light side, a realm of magic and a realm of science, coexistent, coterminous. Changes will occur, deep beneath the earth and high in the atmosphere: a magical screen emanating from the wand will protect the darkside from freezing; force fields, controlled by the machine, will keep the dayside from frying; between the two there will be a shadowland…
The world brakes slowly as the merger occurs. Numerous disasters ensue, but the two devices operate to prevent total chaos. A new order dawns. Alex and Dyjah regard each other with something like dawning realization of kinship. Jack allows that the new state of affairs may have been well worth his efforts, as it will provide a whole new area in which to practice his trade; and as for a land of permanent darkness—that’s fine for a thief, too. He fades away into the gloom. Alex and Dyjah, now holding hands, turn away and begin to descend the mountainside.
Now, in a seeming eternal shadow, Morningstar still faces east, to await the impossible dawn…
This tale features the return of Jack of Shadows and Morningstar in a prequel to both “Shadowjack” and
Jack of Shadows
. Zelazny originally wrote it on commission as an animated film treatment. In the 1980s he wrote to an interested comics producer, “The only clear, unpublished property I have on hand at the moment is an outline for
Shadowland
, a prequel to my novel
Jack of Shadows
, originally intended for an animated film which never got made.”
[1]
This may have been the second film outline (after
Changeling
) that he wrote for Nelvana Films in Toronto. He also wrote and sold an outline for an animated film incorporating American Indian mythology.
[2]
The outline for
Shadowland
was again put into pre-production. Correspondence from 1993 through mid-1994 in the Zelazny archives at Syracuse University shows that Aries Graphics produced a rough script breakdown (based on this outline) and preliminary graphics for the 3-part graphic novel
Roger Zelazny’s Shadowland
. The company apparently ceased operations before completing the project. The preceding is Zelazny’s outline of the complete tale.
Zelazny wrote this piece and “Shadowjack” as prequels because he didn’t want a sequel to
Jack of Shadows
. “I didn’t really intend to continue that one. I liked ending it with that sort of ambiguous ending.”
[3]
Pinions
are the primary feathers on a bird’s wing.
Coterminous
means sharing a common boundary.
- Undated letter from Roger Zelazny to Chris Ulm,
Eternity Comics
, Newbury Park, CA.
- Science Fiction Chronicle
#36 Vol 9 No 3, August 1980. - Media Sight
Vol 3 No 1, Summer 1984.