The Hand of Oberon (The Chronicles of Amber Book 4)

by Roger Zelazny

Emerging on the farther side… There is no rain, the air is still, the sky smoothed and darkened to a proper star-filled black… Meteors cut and burn, cut and burn, cauterizing to afterimage scars, fading, fading… Moons, cast like a handful of coins… Three bright dimes, a dull quarter, a pair of pennies, one of them tarnished and scarred… Down then, that long, winding way… Hoof clops clear and metallic in the night air… Somewhere, a catlike cough… A dark shape crossing a lesser moon, ragged and swift…

To be honest, it had to be a form of madness, to have so much and to strive so bitterly for just a little more, for a bit of an edge over the others.