The Courts of Chaos, chapter 10

Spoiler alert: This post is part of an in-depth discussion of The Courts of Chaos by Roger Zelazny, which will inevitably reveal key plot points. You may well have a lot of reading ahead of you.

---

Corwin hellrode most of the way from Amber to the Courts of Chaos, facing opposition from Brand and others all the way, only to find that he would not be able to complete the journey, as he could not outrun the oncoming storm of Shadow being undone by Oberon's failure to repair the Pattern in primal Amber. Instead, Corwin decided to create a new Pattern where he was to hold back the destruction. Where Oberon failed, he succeeded—but immediately he was attacked by Brand, who materialized, stole the Jewel of Judgment, and disappeared.

After a time, Corwin looks up and sees that the plateau he was on had ben renewed, and the staff cut from the tree Ygg has itself grown into a tree. He reasons that his mission to carry the Jewel to Chaos had not entirely failed if Brand did the job for him. He uses the new Pattern to teleport himself to the Courts of Chaos.

There, Corwin is attacked by a horned rider on a black horse. He easily dispatches him, but the rider recognizes the silver rose on his coat. Taking the horse, he rides on to the battlefield. He is challenged by another rider, this time a hulking redheaded brute named Borel. Corwin runs from him, then ambushes him when he gives chase.

Many of his siblings are in the battle. There is also a knight clad in green, an effective fighter, whom he doesn't recognize. The storm is still coming, so Corwin decides to search for Brand, hoping he can take control of the Jewel. He sees him at a safe vantage point, and gives chase. So do many of his brothers and sisters and the knight in green. Brand attacks the group with lightning. Corwin reaches Brand's location, but he is no longer there. Then Corwin hears "a scream and a curse" nearby.

Oberon gave Corwin his orders back in chapter 3. Oberon's exact intent was a little easy to miss, and I did, indeed, miss it. Mea culpa. Here's what he told Corwin:

"No good," Dad said. "It will be necessary for you to take the longer route because you will be carrying something which will be conveyed to you along the way."

"Conveyed? How?"

He reached up and stroked the red bird’s feathers.

"By your friend here. He ue not fly all the way to the Courts—not in time, that is."

"What will he bring me?"

"The Jewel. I doubt that I will be able to effect the transfer myself when I have finished what I have to do with it. Its powers may be of some benefit to us in that place."

Put briefly, Oberon instructed Corwin to carry the Jewel to to Chaos, to aid Benedict's forces in his attack there. But he also needed the bloodbird to carry it to Corwin once he was finished with it, and so Corwin needed to remain within reach. Then, he needed to complete the hellride because with all of reality rearranging itself, the Trumps wouldn't work. Simple enough, really, but Zelazny's prose here is just oblique enough to miss the more subtle point.

The image at the beginning of the chapter was an interesting one. Corwin's staff was cut from a tree named Ygg, obviously meant to represent Yggrasil, the World Tree of Norse myth. Now, at the location of Corwin's new Pattern, the staff has flowered into a new tree—a new Yggdrasil, perhaps. The text suggests that the new Pattern is primal; it's not made of Shadow like the one in Amber. This means it's the source of Shadow. Like the mythical Yggdrasil that connects the nine worlds, this new Ygg Jr. stands at the centre of whatever new worlds are created by Corwin's new Pattern.

In a tense chapter, the "fight" with Borel was a tidbit of humour. Borel was the swordsman who taught Dara; she mentioned his name in chapter 2. Borel wants to approach their swordfight with appropriate honour and ritual. Corwin, meanwhile, just wants it over with. He isn't unskilled with the blade, but perhaps understandably, he doesn't want to face down an actual swordmaster just now. It reminds me of the swordsman scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark, though of course that movie came later.

Who is the knight in green? When an author emphasizes that a character is unidentifiable, as Zelazny does here, it's probably a safe bet that he's an established character in disguise, about to make a surprise appearance. Right now, though, there aren't too many characters who aren't already on the battlefield. Gérard isn't there, but he was supposed to stay in Amber (did he survive the storm?), and in any case, it's been said repeatedly that he's without guile. There's no reason for him to be sneaking around. Recently introduced characters like Martin or Merlin don't really merit such a dramatic reveal (and it's not clear whose side they'd be on, anyway). Could it be someone Zelazny has led us to believe was dead?

Obviously Brand snuck away from his vantage point to attack one of the Amberites. Which one, I wonder?