Sign of the Unicorn, chapter 8

Spoiler alert: This post is part of an in-depth discussion of Sign of the Unicorn by Roger Zelazny, which will inevitably reveal key plot points. I recommend reading the book first. It's short, I promise.

---

After rescuing Brand from the Shadow tower where he was being held prisoner, Corwin, his brothers and sisters tried to piece together the nature of the conspiracy against Amber. The imprisonment and attempted murder of Brand, the disappearance of Oberon, Corwin's car accident, the murder of Caine, and the attacks on Amber by the inhabitants of the dark road through Shadow—all of them seem to be connected. Then, someone lying in wait in Corwin's room stabbed him, too.

Corwin awakes, still bleeding from the wound in his gut. He discovers that he is back in his house in New York. How he got there is unknown, but he thinks it might have something to do with the Jewel of Judgment still hanging around his neck.

Realizing he is in serious need of medical attention, Corwin hides the Jewel, and goes out to the road to wave down a car. Eventually one stops for him: it's driven by Bill Roth, a lawyer friend from the local country club, who knows him as "Carl Corey." He passes out.

Seven hours later, he wakes up in a hospital. The attending doctor, Morris Bailey, also recognizes him: he had been working the ER the night of Corwin's car accident. As Corwin still has no memory of the time just before his accident, he asks Dr. Bailey for information. The doctor doesn't have much: someone phoned the accident into the state police anonymously, and they had Corwin brought to the hospital by ambulance.

Later, Corwin meets again with Bill. With his friend "Corey" missing, Bill had become curious and started looking into his background. Corey had been committed to a sanitarium in Albany, supposedly by his brother Brandon and a psychiatrist, Hillary B. Rand. But two days later, he escaped, only to suffer his car accident the same day. He was then transfered to Greenwood (the private hospital he woke up in, in Nine Princes in Amber) by Flora, under the alias Evelyn Flaumel, his de facto next of kin since "Brandon" could no longer be located. The real Dr. Rand had been out of country at the time, not knowing that his identity had been used. When Bill explained the situation to him, he had the commitment order against Corwin vacated.

Bill and Corwin discuss the disposition of Corwin's house, which he thinks he no longer needs, and Bill admires Corwin's pack of Trumps, remarking on their beauty, apparent antiquity, and the ice-cold feel when touching them. He also remarks on Corwin's footprints in the snow around the house: they indicated exit, but not entry. The chapter closes with Bill asking Corwin: "Are you human?" "I don't think so," Corwin answers.

I've been complaining about how chatty this novel was. It's taken until the eighth chapter of 11 before it dawned on me: this is a detective story. Sign of the Unicorn is a whodunit, albeit one in which the victims, detective, and suspects are all magical fantasy people. Corwin is the investigator, questioning witnesses, trying to piece together clues into a plausible crime, or having his efforts obstructed by a key witness (or himself!) being stabbed. It's supposed to be a laconic story. Lord Peter Wimsey never charged up a mountain to take the Duchy of Denver from his brother Gerald.

Mea culpa. I had forgotten about Zelazny's penchant for genre-bending.

In this chapter, the most significant clue is the person who had Corwin committed to the sanitarium. Brandon Corey and Dr. B. Rand? Perhaps Brand was trying to protect Corwin on Earth. (Admittedly, having your brother forcibly committed to a sanitarium isn't the most up-front way to do that.) The real traitor had him disappeared. Then, when Random found him and he and Gérard rescued him, the traitor tried to silence him with a knife before he could reveal what he knew.

Presumably there are two people behind the aliases "Brandon Corey" and "B. Rand." Both names resemble "Brand" or "Random." Were they working together? (Counterargument: Then why hasn't Random said anything or, conversely, also been silenced?)

As a more famous literary detective used to say, the plot thickens.

Bill is kind of a fun character. Corwin has lived on Earth since the 16th century under an assumed identity. Clearly, he would have grown accustomed to inventing cover stories. The affable attorney knows "Carl Corey" as some sort of military consultant who does work overseas, but clearly doesn't buy the story that he was stabbed by someone connected to his work. Corwin says they became friends over a shared interest in military history. I wonder if Bill has figured out yet that Corwin's knowlege of history comes from personal experience.

There's a confusing editorial oversight in this chapter in which Bill tells Corwin, "Dr. Roth told me what you said had happened last night" (Roger Zelazny, The Chronicles of Amber, vol. 2 [New York: Doubleday, 1978], 104). However, only two pages earlier, Dr. Bailey said, "I am going to call Mr. Roth and tell him you are awake," meaning Bill. It looks like Zelazny got his minor characters confused. I checked an edition of The Great Book of Amber (Avon, 1999) at the local library. It has the same error (p. 322). Apparently it survived 20 years—maybe even longer, if it hasn't been corrected since then.

Corwin was suddenly teleported to New York because the Jewel of Judgment apparently unlocked a new power. That was a little too convenient: it smacks of deus ex machina. Apart from that, my opinion of Sign of the Unicorn has been raised a bit, now that I've sussed out what kind of book it actually is. Corwin has three more chapters to piece the evidence together and solve the crime. See you on Thursday.