Nine Princes in Amber (The Chronicles of Amber #1)

by Roger Zelazny

So I sat up. It took me a real effort, as my muscles were very tired. It was dark outside and a handful of stars were standing naked beyond the window. I winked back at them and threw my legs over the edge of the bed.

I decided to seize what seemed the advantage I'd obtained in this game I didn't understand with players I didn't know for stakes I had no inkling of.

If danger was the price of memory and risk the cost of opportunity, then so be it.

Besides, I like libraries. It makes me feel comfortable and secure to have walls of words, beautiful and wise, all around me. I always feel better when I can see that there is something to hold back the shadows.

"All roads lead to Amber," he said, as though it were an axiom.

I decided—with a sudden certainty—that he was somehow adding and subtracting items to and from the world that was visible about us to bring us into closer and closer alignment with that strange place, Amber, for which he was solving.

"The Charles Forts of this place will doubtless quote this happening for many years," said my brother.

I found myself speaking in a language that I hadn't realized I knew. I was reciting "The Ballad of the Water-Crossers," and Random listened until I had finished and asked me, "It has often been said that you composed that. Is it true?"

We were up to our waists when Random said, "It's death if I stay and death if I go on." "One is imminent," I said, "and the other may be open to negotiation. Let's move!"

Bleys stood there and called things, like Robert E. Lee at Chancellorsville, and we took them.

The magic was still there, in Dworkin's hand, for soon the lighthouse seemed as real to me as my cell. Then it seemed the only reality, and the cell but a Shadow at my back. I heard the splashing of the waves and felt something like the afternoon sun upon me.