The Chronicles of Amber & Freeing the Fire Giant II
Continued from The Chronicles of Amber & Freeing the Fire Giant
The fourth book, The Hand of Oberon, features the cave of secrets and exposes the foundation of the worlds, and is therefore rooted in the element of Earth. Despite this, it opens and closes with the Sun. In that first scene, Corwin, Ganelon, and Corwin’s brother and ally Random are regarding a Pattern bathed in the brilliance of an unexpectedly bright and golden daystar. A trail of black damage runs from the edge of this Pattern to its center, where an unidentifiable object lies.
Though the existence of this Pattern was previously unknown, certain signs make it clear that it is the original, the source for those that sit at the center of Amber, Amber’s submerged sister beneath the sea, Rebma, and the moon-borne reflection of Amber in the sky, Tir-na N’ogth. When the object at the center of the Pattern is recovered, it turns out to be a trump from the worlds-crossing tarot deck. But this is a trump no one has seen before, its subject a person neither Corwin nor Random immediately recognizes. Another point worth noting, there is a dagger sticking through it.
The trump turns out to show Martin, the estranged son of Random born long ago in Rebma. Random and Benedict set out to track down Martin in order to bring him to Amber and learn who attempted to kill him. Carrying the silver arm in his backpack and grateful for Benedict’s efforts on behalf of his son, Random shows it to Benedict and performs the surgery required to attach the prosthesis. Buoyed by this positive turn of events, Benedict’s suspicions regarding Corwin are allayed. Corwin makes alliance with Benedict, then sets out to recover the Jewel of Judgment, which he abandoned during the failed attempt to assassinate him and which he has since learned can repair the damage to the original Pattern. It is this damage which has opened up the eerie Black Road through the worlds being used by Amber’s foes to lay siege to her gates.
Corwin is too late: Brand has already taken possession of the artifact with the aim of destroying the Pattern and replacing it with a new design — complete with a new multiverse — of his own making. Around this time, Random returns with Martin, who is interviewed by Corwin and seems to be hiding something, though he takes no trouble to hide his desire to have vengeance on Brand, who used his blood to defile the Pattern.
The ruling family of Amber quickly unites once Brand is revealed as the nemesis who has enabled the enemies of Amber. Llewella, princess of Amber, has the Pattern in Rebma kept under guard. Gérard, the most physically impressive prince of Amber, secures the Pattern within Amber herself. Corwin personally prevents Brand from working mischief with respect to the original Pattern, then posts his sister Fiona and a squad of guards there.
Leaving only the Pattern in Tir-na Nog’th, the city adrift in the night sky. This location is particularly problematic given that it is notoriously difficult to access and navigate, and Brand meanwhile has developed the unique ability to travel through Shadow without the aid of the tarot or the Pattern. Brand can therefore arrive in the Pattern chamber before anyone else.
Nevertheless, a clever plan is conceived which succeeds in putting Benedict — the greatest swordsman alive — where he needs to be as soon as Tir-na Nog’th is brought forth by the moon. Brand appears, somewhat surprised his brother is there before him, protecting the Pattern. He is also wearing Oberon’s ruby pendant, and uses it to immobilize Benedict since it can control more than weather. Just when Benedict is about to be impaled on Brand’s dagger, however, the silver arm snatches the chain of the pendant, strangling Brand for a time before snapping. Brand, damaged but alive, vanishes. Benedict, Jewel of Judgment in hand, is returned safely to the mountaintop where Corwin waits, holding the trump for Benedict as the sunrise dissolves Tir-na Nog’th.
While the power freed in The Hand of Oberon was obviously Martin, who did little but whose presence drove so much of the plot, in the final installment, The Courts of Chaos, no new character appears to be introduced. The story, for the most part, amounts to a kind of vision quest for Corwin, who sets out on a grand tour of Shadow all the way from Amber to her counterpart on the other side of existence, Chaos.
As this is largely an internal journey, it mainly consists of Corwin reviewing his life, his choices, his evolution as a person, values and perspectives he has lost and acquired, confronting various demons representing his own temptations and personal weaknesses along the way. Oberon returns, true, but only briefly and just long enough to reconcile with his son before handing him a special assignment: carry the Jewel of Judgment all the way to Chaos. Then Oberon sacrifices himself in order to undo the damage to the Pattern. And, as expected, Corwin prevails over some tough obstacles, keeps his faith — he is still the Grail knight, after all — and helps foil Brand’s scheme to reshape reality.
It is really only after Brand’s defeat, though, that everything comes together. Brother Brand and sister Deirdre are lost to the abyss. Dara, who was not genuinely interested in destroying Amber, but was somewhat interested in Corwin himself, has a change of heart and rejects him. The death of Oberon is honored with a grand procession made up of representatives of many worlds. The Unicorn, mother and symbol of Amber, appears and initiates a new dynasty.
And then Corwin finds himself alone and exhausted, sitting by a campfire on a ledge overlooking the abyss. Nearly alone. There is one other sitting there with him, his son Merlin. Except for a brief appearance and four lines in a single scene in The Hand of Oberon, this character has not been part of the story until now. In response to Merlin’s request to hear about his life, Corwin complies with, “I suppose the best place to begin is at Greenwood Private Hospital, on the shadow Earth…”
Before chronicling his adventures for his son, Corwin’s desire to remain in the world has reached an all-time low, leaving him less than convinced there is any point left in continuing. Yet when the Unicorn appears shortly after his meeting with Merlin, bringing hope with her, Corwin’s first thought is that if there were in fact no hope then he would be losing this newfound relationship.
Corwin has spent his whole life struggling to work out his relationships with his siblings and most crucially with his father. Now, that finally accomplished, he’s lost the most important male figure in his world, Oberon, and the most important female figure, Deirdre, his beloved sister. Merlin represents the new connection which may take the place of those Corwin has lost, a chance for new meaning when other people and purposes are gone. Oberon’s presence looms over this book, yet he is very early on retired from the story. While it can be argued he is the power unleashed in this final installment, The Courts of Chaos is about the passing of the torch, a torch Corwin almost literally carries with him in the form of the Jewel of Judgment. Corwin begins as the naïve son of Oberon in Nine Princes in Amber, but ends as the sadder but wiser father of Merlin in The Courts of Chaos. The so-called giant set free this time is Oberon in the beginning, and Merlin by the end.
A Footnote for Fire Giants
As a footnote, it is perhaps interesting that while each of the books of The Chronicles of Amber is tied to one of the alchemical elements — water, fire, air, earth, void — the giants or powers set free as Corwin moves through the shadow worlds and their story of war and succession for the most part favor the element of fire. In the first book there is Bleys, based in fiery Avernus, the Leo character in Amber’s zodiac. Creatures of Chaos, as offered in the second book, burst into flame when wounded or destroyed — the giant hellcats, the demon Strygalldwir, the masked damsel in distress encountered on the Black Road (who may have been a manifestation of Dara). Dara is revealed to be one of them, and therefore also a being with fire in her veins. Brand lights a cigarette merely by staring intently at it, later encircles Corwin with a ring of flame, and his name itself, of course, connotes fire. Martin and Merlin are a bit more difficult to pin down in this regard (though Martin is technically a Horus-like fire-breathing avenger seeking justice), but Oberon appears among the mystic tarot of Amber as the Sun.
Of course, in the end, as it was in the beginning in the first chapter of the first book, it is Corwin — alone with his thoughts, feelings, failures, triumphs, retired desires, refreshed readiness for a challenge, tormented, healed, regarding the Courts of Chaos from a bridge floating over the abyss — who has been freed. He may have had a little more help this time around, but it is Corwin who is at last liberated to face life and all its troubles anew.
