The Hand of Oberon, chapter 9

Spoiler alert: This post is part of an in-depth discussion of The Hand of Oberon by Roger Zelazny, which will inevitably reveal key plot points. I recommend you support your local bookseller or public library, and read the book first.

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Brand again disappeared, and there were blood and other signs of a struggle in his room. Gérard, who had suspected Corwin previously of murdering Caine and Benedict's retainers, was again enraged and tried to fight him.

Ganelon intervenes and pummels Gérard unconscious, allowing Corwin to escape so he can hellride to Earth and retrieve the Jewel of Judgment, which he concealed in a compost heap at his New York house (after being stabbed, supposedly by Fiona, in Sign of the Unicorn). As he pssses through the forest of Arden, he is spotted by one of Julian's hunting birds. He believes Julian is hunting for him. However, when he is pursued by a manticora that is taken down by Julian's hounds, he realizes it was his prey, not him.

Julian tells Corwin that the triumvirate of Eric, Caine, and himself was created to oppose that of Brand, Bleys, and Fiona in their play to take the throne. The latter had uses for Corwin, and so he was blinded and imprisoned to protect him by making him of no use to them. Julian also warns Corwin that Brand has become more powerful than he realizes. He has become like a "living Trump," able to teleport himself or retrieve objects from Shadow without the use of the Trumps, which the other Amberites would require. Brand may be attempting to beat Corwin to the Jewel of Judgment. Corwin and Julian reconcile, and Corwin continues his hellride.

Back in the previous novel, when Brand explained his triumvirate's plan to seize the throne, I began to suspect (in hindsight) that his alliance with Bleys in Nine Princes in Amber was simply Bleys using him to continue to carry out his faction's plan, even after falling out with Brand. If Julian is correct, then Corwin would not have survived even if the coup had been successful.

But it wasn't successful, Bleys fell from the mountain (and was presumed dead), and Corwin was captured by Eric. Again, according to Julian, his imprisonment and blinding was to protect him and keep him out of the Brand/Bleys/Fiona group's hands by making him useless to them. As The Godfather would say, it was business, not personal. (Though I'm not convinced that was necessarily true in Eric's case.)

So one novel ago, Julian was still Corwin's enemy, and Brand was an innocent prisoner of persons unknown. Now it seems like Brand is the villain and Julian is the ally. Amberites politics continue to be ambiguous and mercurial.

Corwin is pursued through Arden by what Zelazny describes as a "manticora," which is obviously meant to be a manticore (the Latin name is mantichora, so he probably modified the spelling a bit). This mythical beast usually has the body of a lion, the face of a man, the wings of an eagle, and the tail of a scorpion or dragon. Sometimes it has porcupine-like quills that it can fire like arrows.

Try as I might, I could not get an AI to create an image of a manticore with those features. They seem to have a blind spot when instructed to put human heads on animal bodies. (I got a lot of pictures of perfectly ordinary lions, though.) I kept the post illustration because it's still pretty darn awesome, but I included this 17th-century engraving of a manticore just to show what Corwin was really being chased by.

All the Amberites possess superhuman strength, and Gérard is the strongest of all of them. Still, Ganelon subdued him with relatively little effort. We've already learned that he figured out how to use the Trump's himself. There's definitely more to him than he's letting on.

My readthrough of The Hand of Oberon continues on Sunday.