Nine Princes in Amber, chapter 6

Spoiler alert: This post is part of an in-depth discussion of Nine Princes in Amber by Roger Zelazny, which will inevitably reveal key plot points. If you don't want me ruining the experience for you, put this post down and go read Nine Princes in Amber now. I promise I won't be offended.

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Corwin, prince of Amber, has recovered his memories and his ability to magically travel to and from Amber. He faced his brother Eric and declared his intent to take the throne of Amber from him.

Corwin is now with his brother Bleys, who has allied with him to March on Amber and take the throne. They travel throughout Shadow, raising a military force large enough to defeat Eric before his coronation, which is to take place in three months.

Using his deck of Trumps, Corwin contacts his brothers Caine and Gérard, who are allied with Eric and guarding the sea. He persuades them to stay out of the way. There is no answer when he tries to call Benedict. Brand is apparently in trouble and calls out for a rescue, but contact is broken. Corwin then tries the card of his father Oberon, presumed dead, and is surprised when he gets an answer. Oberon tells him to take the throne.

Bleys and Corwin advance on Amber, with Bleys in charge of the land forces and Corwin the navy. Eric knows they are coming, and he can control the weather, so losses to storms, flash floods, and freak weather are heavy. Moreover, Caine has gone back to Eric's side. With his navy decimated, Corwin surrenders his flagship to Caine and teleports to Bleys.

This chapter is long on action and short on expository material. If you were to film it, you could do it as a montage of the many acts of destruction Eric perpetrate on Corwin's fleet and Bleys's army. Storms, earthquakes, floods, monsters—the VFX team would have a field day. This is epic stuff, but we're only through two-thirds of the novel, so I don't think it's quite the climax.

I had speculated earlier that perhaps Corwin, suffering from amnesia, might be an unreliable narrator. Maybe Eric's not actually so bad, and Corwin's the actual villain. Now that he's got his memories back, though, I think it's fair to say Eric is, indeed, villainous. He was responsible for Corwin's car accident, and basically his entire imprisonment on Earth. The true Lord of Amber, Oberon, has been presumed dead but is alive and missing. Where has he gone? Did Eric disappear him, too? Is that why he supports Corwin's attempt to take the throne?

Eric uses something called the Jewel of Judgment to control the weather. That doesn't sound like what you'd name a weather-control gadget, unless you're using it against everyone not named Noah. But it sounds important enough to come back into the story later, maybe.

Older brother Benedict is also missing, presumed dead. But is he? His whereabouts are also unknown and his Trump doesn't work, but Corwin had assumed the same of Oberon. Brand is alive but in trouble, either imprisoned or in torment, and his Trump only works intermittently.

Corwin's stolen deck of cards does indeed have a complete set of Trumps, including his dead brothers and sisters. So what happened to Flora's missing cards? Did she get rid of them? Does, say, dead brother Eugene's card even have any use now? There's also an additional Trump representing Amber, enabling direct travel there. I suspect Corwin will be using that card before the end of this novel.

Amber is the real world, and Shadows emanate outward from it, between Amber and Chaos. (Is Chaos another world like Amber, or is it just something like the outer edge of existence?) Corwin's family can move through Shadow by altering reality (adding to and subtracting from it) until it matches where they want to be. It would be possible for Corwin to create a Shadow identical to Amber in every respect except that he is on its throne. However, he would know it wasn't real.

Does this mean that Shadow is malleable, reshaped by anyone moving through it? Is our Earth just a product of Eric's imagination that he could theoretically remake into (for example) Narnia? Or do the various realities have an objective existence that could be mapped: that is, is there already a Narnia somewhere that you could get to if you knew the way? In my head, I picture Shadow as a sort of magical moiré, where the interference pattern ripples through reality creating infinite variety.

There are four chapters—one-third of the novel—remaining in Nine Princes in Amber. The action is building up to something. We'll see soon what that is. Stay tuned for Chapter 7 on Thursday.