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Mapping the Palace: Part III

"I knew it as my hand knew the glove in my belt."
-- Lord Corwin

<< Go back to Mapping the Palace: Part II

The Ground Floor

Returning to the palace interior, let us begin with the ground floor. Apart from the Main Hall, and the stairs and corridors, all discussed above, there are a number of signature rooms on the ground floor of the palace. The picture of the ground floor emerges across both the Corwin and Merlin chronicles.

The Throne Room

The reader's first scene inside the palace in Amber (and Corwin's first visit to the palace in Nine Princes) takes place in Rebma, and the Throne Room is invoked right away:

[NPIA, Ch. 5] We were taken to the palace in the center of the city, and I knew it as my hand knew the glove in my belt. It was an image of the palace of Amber ... A woman sat upon the throne in the glassite room I almost recalled ...

This tells us only that the Throne Room exists, but nothing about where it is in the palace. Later, after walking the Pattern, Corwin mentions the Throne Room again:

[NPIA, Ch. 5]. If Eric had taken the royal suite, then I might find him there. Or perhaps in the throne room. ...

We later return to the Throne Room following Corwin's capture, his assault on Amber having failed.

[NPIA, Ch. 8] ... After a long walk, we came to the hall of the spiral stair and began to ascend ... When we reached the top, I was conducted further into the palace proper. They took me to a warm, clean room ... "You are ready," said the sergeant of the guard. "Come this way." ... I was taken far to the back of the palace where a smith placed manacles about my wrists. ... Then ... I was led back toward the front of the palace. I had no eyes for the magnificence that lay all about me. ... there was no place for nostalgia as I passed through rooms where we had played as children.

I was led up a long corridor and into the great dining room ...

... After dinner, there were no speeches Eric simply stood. ... Then there was a procession, leading all the way to the throne room of Amber.

We can glean a bit more detail in the above sequence, all of which most certainly takes place on the ground floor. (Zelazny is notorious for telling us when his characters take stairs; if it is not mentioned, we can assume they have not changed floors.)

We can also assume the Throne Room is some distance from the Main Dining Hall, since the procession leads "all the way".

The Throne Room is also visited by Corwin during his sojourn to Tir-na Nog'th, making it the only other room (besides the Pattern Room) visited by the readers across the three different versions of Amber (Amber, Rebma, and Tir-na Nog'th):

[SOTU, Ch. 10] ... Toward the palace, bright architecture of the mind or spirit, more clearly standing now than the real ever did... To judge perfection is to render a worthless verdict, but I must see what lies within...

Hurrying, climbing, up to the rearward portal... Across the threshold, in...

Into an absence of starshine and moonlight. The illumination is without direction, seeming almost to drift and to pool, aimlessly. Wherever it misses, the shadows are absolute, occulting large sections of room, hallway, closet, and stair...

Turning... Crossing... Finally... Entering... The throne room...

And in TCOC, Corwin again visits the Throne Room to witness the unusual scene playing out (the "other end of my dream") between Benedict, Dara, and Martin:

[TCOC, Ch. 1] We left the room [the library]. We headed for the stairway.

On the way down, I heard some small commotion from below ... I looked over the railing and saw a throng of guards at the entrance to the throne room ... I leaped down the final stairs.

Based on this, we can place the entrance to the Throne Room near a stairway on the ground floor, but it is unclear which stairway this might be. We can assume it is some kind of central stairway, not the Rear Stairway. And this sequence helps us place both the Throne Room and the Library (see 2nd Floor).

Sitting Room

Staying in the vicinity of the Throne Room, we know there is a small Sitting Room "off the main hall", toward the southern part of the palace (in Merlin coordinates). We learn about this sitting room in SOTU, and Zelazny returns to it a couple of times:

[SOTU, Ch. 6] "Let us adjourn to the sitting room off the main hall," I said, "downstairs...." ... We filed quietly from the room and headed for the stairway ...

[THOO, Ch. 6] We were on the ground floor of the palace in Amber, in the sitting room to which we had all adjourned on the night of Brand's return.

[TOD, Ch. 8] "Downstairs. The little sitting room off the main hall to the south. Drinking coffee. We've got it to ourselves."

While there would doubtless be multiple sitting rooms on the ground floor, it is safe to assume the above three mentions refer to the same one.

A Drawing Room and the Yellow Room

In SOC, Zelazny introduces a little more diversity in what one might call "rooms where the royals hang out." We learn about additional family dining rooms, a Drawing Room, and the Yellow Room. These revelations support the idea of a larger palace, and suggest there are more rooms like these still. Here are the relevant sequences:

[SOC, Ch. 3] In that it seemed about lunchtime I checked out the several dining rooms in which the family generally ate.

But all of them were deserted ...

Then I heard it-the faint click of cutlery upon plate. I headed in the apparent direction of the sound.

Obviously, the meal was taking place in a less frequented setting than usual. I turned right, then left. Yes, they had decided to set up in a drawing room. ...

I entered the room, whew Llewella was seated with Random's wife, Vialle, on the red divan, dinner laid on a low table before them. Michael, who worked in the kitchen, stood nearby ...

[SOC, Ch. 3] "I seated them in the Yellow Room," he replied, "and told them I would go and announce their arrival." ...
Vialle took my arm and I guided her out [of the drawing room], heading toward the Yellow Room.
...
I saw her out [of the Yellow Room], and accompanied her and the others as far as the foot of the big stairway.

We can interpret these to mean that these additional private dining rooms, the Drawing Room, and the Yellow Room are all on the ground floor. There are no stairs taken in Merlin's previous route connecting the family dining rooms, the drawing room, and then the Yellow Room. (Again, almost without fail, if there are stairs involved, Zelazny will specify them.)

Though this is speculation, for the purposes of my map, I have placed some of these more "private" rooms in the eastern wing, and placed the Yellow Room (presumably a more "public" room) in the western wing.

Moving to the rear of the palace now, there are a number of locations described.

Kitchen

The Kitchen (or Kitchens) are referenced often:

[THOO, Ch. 8] After visiting the kitchens, compiling an enormous meal and demolishing it, I headed for the stables ...

[TOD, Ch. 8] I stopped by the kitchen and filled my backpack with food.... headed for the back and took the big rear staircase down into the gardens ...

[BOA, Ch. 11] I went back in [the rear entrance] the way I had come out, through the kitchen, helping myself to a sandwich and a glass of milk on the way. Then I took the back stairs up a flight ...

[SOC, Ch. 3] ... It was very quiet in the hall, and there were no sounds as I made my way down the back stair. The kitchen was deserted also ...

These descriptions leave no doubt that the Kitchens are near the rear of the palace, and are probably near the rear staircase.

The Armory & Smithy

The Armory is visited by Merlin in Sign of Chaos:

[SOC, Ch. 7] He led the way down the back stair and turned left at its foot. We moved on past the kitchen and followed another hallway which turned off toward the rear. As we did, I heard some rattling sounds from up ahead ... I knew that the sounds were coming from the main armory. Benedict stood in the midst of activity, peering at his thumbnail through a rifle barrel.

And in Nine Princes in Amber, Corwin is taken to a Smithy, which is similarly in the "back of the palace".

[NPIA, Ch. 8] I was taken far to the back of the palace where a smith placed manacles about my wrists.

It is possible, even logical, that the Armory and Smithy are co-located, so I represent them as such on the map.

The Guard Room

Also on the ground floor is a location called the Guard Room, described briefly here:

[SOTU, Ch. 7] Dad had retired about an hour earlier, but I had stayed on in the guard room, playing draughts with Captain Thoben. As we were sailing the following morning, I decided to take a book with me. So I came up here to the library.

We can safely place this to the rear of the palace in the vicinity of the Armory.

The Main (Marble) Dining Hall

We come now to the Main Dining Hall. This room, along with the Library and the Throne Room, is one of the most referenced locations in the palace throughout the ten Amber novels. The Main Dining Hall is also a source of some confusion, which has been discussed above (Visual Guide). While the books are quite clear that the Main Dining Hall is on the ground floor, a case is later made for it to be on the 2nd floor. Additionally, we will learn later that there are multiple dining rooms in the palace. For our purposes, we will refer to this ground floor version as the Main Dining Hall.

Corwin first visits this location when he goes to Rebma, and eats in the "marble high hall" (NPIA, Ch. 5). Given that the purpose of his visit is to walk the Pattern, and his walking of the Pattern happens immediately following dinner, it may have been convenient for Zelazny to move seamlessly from the Main Dining Hall to the Pattern Room. And indeed this becomes a defining characteristic of this Main Dining Hall: i.e., its connection (via a small corridor) to the stairwell that leads to the dungeons.

[NPIA, Ch. 5] After we had eaten ... we rose from our places within the marble high hall ... and we made our way back along a narrow corridor, and down, down, beneath the floor of the sea itself, first by means of a spiral staircase that screwed its way through absolute darkness and glowed.

Later, Corwin returns to the "great dining room" under less happy circumstances:

[NPIA, Ch. 8] When we reached the top, I was conducted further into the palace proper. ... I was taken far to the back of the palace where a smith placed manacles about my wrists. ... Then ... I was led back toward the front of the palace ... I was led up a long corridor and into the great dining room ...

In the above sequence, it is heavily implied that the dining room is on the ground floor. Then, at the end of TGOA, when Corwin and Random are chasing down Dara, they again pass through the "marble dining hall" on their way to the dungeons, retracing their steps in Rebma from NPIA:

[TGOA, Ch. 9] I stepped forward. I stood beside him [Random] on a balcony overlooking one of the courtyards.... We were two stories up.

We entered the palace, moving toward the nearest stairwell ... we headed down....

... When we reached the ground floor, we hurried to the right ... we headed toward the center of the palace.

... We crossed the marble dining hall and entered the long, narrow corridor that led far back through shadows and dust.

... We reached the door that opened onto the platform hiding the long, spiral stairway down. It was open.

This passage leaves no doubt that the "marble dining hall" is on the ground floor. (By "two stories up", by the way, we will assume that means the 3rd floor rather than the 2nd floor (which would be "one story up"). This places Random's rooms on the 3rd floor; see below.)

Additionally, one could interpret "center of the palace" as being in conflict with prior descriptions saying the dining hall is "toward the front of the palace." Or we can interpret this as meaning that the dining hall is quite large, and while it occupies the front of the palace, it has an entrance toward the center of the palace.

The Main Dining Hall makes two more brief appearances in the Corwin chronicles:

[SOTU, Ch. 3] I made my way through the marble dining hall and into the dark, narrow corridor that lay behind. I nodded to the guard and walked on back to the door. Through it then, out onto the platform, across and down.

[THOO, Ch. 4] The ground floor. ... I continued on, entering and crossing the marble dining hall. ... I entered the long corridor, where the dusty walls pressed close on either side.

And in this THOO excerpt, we again confirm that the "marble dining hall" that connects to the dungeons of Amber is, once again, on the ground floor.

The Upper Dining Room

As we move into the Merlin chronicles, we get more detail around Dining Halls, and some confusion about ground floor versus 2nd floor, which we will tackle now. Despite the repeated confirmations that the Main Dining Hall is on the ground floor (see above), when Merlin returns from his walk with Coral in SOC, he describes the following:

[SOC, Ch. 5] ... we reached the palace grounds. We used the postern gate again, pausing on the walkway to gaze back down over the light-dotted town ...

Inside, the guard told me, "Llewella wants to know whether you two will be joining them all for dinner."

"When is dinner?" I asked him.

"In about an hour and a half, I believe. ... Front dining room, upstairs," he told me.

This makes it clear that there are multiple dining rooms, and that one of the "major" ones (used for dinner with the Begmans) is upstairs at the front. Two chapters later, we get this:

[SOC, Ch. 7] He was silent as we turned the corner and headed back toward the stair... "Bill," I said, as we began to climb. ... He halted a moment and looked at me ... We continued on up the stairway ... I heard music as we neared the dining room ... The dining table was to my left, near the big window in the south wall, providing a glorious view across the town below ... I followed her out and around the corner to a small sitting room, where she left me with Vialle ...

The above sequence breaks with the precedent of the dining hall being on the ground floor. And as Visual Guide was conceived just ahead of the publication of Sign of Chaos, we can now better understand where this change came from. However, we can speculate that the dinner in Chapter 7 of SOC takes place in some other dining hall than the Main Dining Hall; as we know from earlier in the chapter, there are several family dining rooms. This dinner is a reception for the Begman delegation not a family dinner; however, it's their second dinner with the Begmans, so we can imagine a location change. In any event, there is enough doubt here that we will stick with the Main Dining Hall on the ground floor, and introduce a 2nd Floor Dining Room (which I will call the "Upper Dining Room").

Again, this Upper Dining Room is described more explicitly in KOS:

[KOS, Ch. 9] I continued on past the half opened door [to the library] to the corner, where I turned right ... I continued to the far entrance to the dining room ... Inside and to the right, as I recalled; there was a sliding panel which would get me into a hollow section of wall beside the library, furnished with pegs or a ladder that would take me up to a hidden entrance to the library's balcony. It could also take me down through the spiral stair's shaft and into the caverns below, if memory served.

And this revision makes its way into the Visual Guide, though it is resolved in that book by combining the Main Hall on the ground floor with both the Main Dining Hall and the Throne Room, which is, in my opinion, over-reach.

All things considered, for our purposes, we will assume the ground floor Main Dining Hall from the Corwin chronicles, and an additional Upper (2nd floor) Dining Room from the Merlin chronicles.

Staircase to the Dungeons & the Pattern Room

Off the Main Dining Hall, there is the "dark narrow corridor" (from excerpts above) which leads to a door, which in turn opens onto a spiral staircase plunging into the depths of Kolvir. At the bottom of these stairs lie the Dungeons of Amber, a series of passageways with jail cells. And amongst the dungeon cells is the Pattern Room.

This route is taken and described several times by both Corwin and Merlin. Together, they make this journey a total of seven times across the ten books:

Corwin, Random, Moire and Deirdre descend the stairs to the Pattern Room to restore Corwin's memories (NPIA).
Corwin goes up & down again when he is captured, blinded, and imprisoned (NPIA).
Random and Corwin chase Dara down to the Pattern Room (NPIA).
Corwin takes the trip down to attune himself to the Jewel of Judgment (SOTU).
Corwin goes down to the dungeons to revisit his prison cell and find Dworkin (THOO).
Merlin visits the Pattern Room and de-tunes the blue button (BOA).
Merlin takes Coral to the Pattern Room, and she walks it (SOC).

Here are the relevant passages:

[NPIA, Ch. 5] we rose from our places within the marble high [dining] hall ... we made our way back along a narrow corridor, and down, down, beneath the floor of the sea itself, first by means of a spiral staircase that screwed its way through absolute darkness and glowed....

It took perhaps ten minutes to reach the bottom ... We were in an enormous cavern, and tunnels shot off from it in all directions. We moved toward one.

After walking along it for an awfully long while, we began to encounter side passages, some of which had doors or grilles before them and some of which did not.

At the seventh of these we stopped.

[NPIA, Ch. 8] The door swung open and a feeble light entered ... The corridor without was filled to overflowing with armed men, so I wasn't about to try anything. ... After a long walk, we came to the hall of the spiral stair and began to ascend. ...

When we reached the top, I was conducted further into the palace proper.

[TGOA, Ch. 9] We passed through and began the descent.
... We rushed on. It was a great distance down, and there were only lanterns every forty feet or so. It was a huge, natural cavern. I wondered whether anyone knew how many tunnels and corridors it contained. ...
... We finally reached the floor, and I began to race through the shadows toward the proper tunnel.

"Wait!" Random cried.

I halted and turned. It took me a moment to locate him, as he was back behind the stairs.... I saw that he knelt beside a large, bearded man. ...

We both ran to the tunnel and turned up it. Its seventh side passage was the one we wanted. ... that great, dark, metal-bound door was standing ajar.

[SOTU, Ch. 3] ... the marble dining hall and into the dark, narrow corridor that lay behind. I nodded to the guard and walked on back to the door. Through it then, out onto the platform, across and down. The interminable spiral stairway that leads into the guts of Kolvir...

Turning, turning, around and down, light here, light there ... A guard's scabbard, the guard rising. A ripple of light from a lantern raised.

Eventually the tunnel, and so up it, counting side passages. It was the seventh that I wanted.

[THOO, Ch. 4] ... I continued on, entering and crossing the marble dining hall. ... I entered the long corridor, where the dusty walls pressed close on either side. Darkness, shadows, my footsteps...

I came to the door at the end, opened it, stepped out onto the platform. Then down once more, that spiraling way, a light here, a light there, into the caverns of Kolvir ... On down. Twisting and winding through the gloom. The torch and lantern-lit guard station was theatrically stark within it. I reached the floor and headed that way.

"Good evening. Lord Corwin," said the lean, cadaverous figure ... I took the lantern and turned away, heading in a direction I had not taken in a long while ... Before too long, I neared the wall, sighted the proper corridor, entered it. It was simply a matter of counting my paces then. My feet knew the way.

And then, from the Merlin chronicles:

[BOA, Ch. 11] ... I departed my quarters and made my way back downstairs... I headed west along the back corridor ... retreating once into a closet to let some nameless parties pass. Anything to avoid official notice ... Finally, I turned left, walked a few paces ... before entering the major corridor, which led past the large marble dining hall ... I entered and passed through. There is a dark, narrow corridor to its rear, with a guard normally posted somewhere near the passage's mouth or the door at its end. ... The long spiraling stair turned round and round ...

[SOC, Ch. 5] "This way," I said, leading her to the main hall and through it.
I didn't recognize the guard at the end of the brief corridor that led up to the stair. He knew who I was, though, glanced curiously at Coral, opened the door, found us a lantern, and lit it.

Now, this snippet above stands somewhat in contrast to the long-standing precedent of the Dungeon entrance corridor coming off the Main Dining Hall, by suggesting that it comes off the Main Hall. We will have to assume that Merlin skips over the crossing of the Main Dining Hall, which itself would connect to the Main Hall.

The subsequent description of the Dungeons themselves align with prior descriptions, while giving more texture:

[SOC, Ch. 5] It's a very big cavern, and you go round and round and down in the middle of it, wondering when you'll reach the bottom... A little later, I saw a flicker in the distance below. ... When we reached the bottom the guard was nowhere in sight ... The table, the racks, and a few foot lockers-which constituted the guard station-were illuminated by a number of lanterns ... I noticed a rope hanging down from the darkness into the dimness beside a weapons rack ... this was the alarm. ... I led her off to the right.

... At last the gray wall of the cavern came into view, and far off to my left was the dark opening of the tunnel mouth I sought: I changed course and headed toward it. ... We came to the first side passage to the left fairly quickly and went on by. There was another shortly thereafter ...

"Who knows?" I commented.. "That could take you through some strange route back to the beach."

... We walked for some time before we passed the third opening. I gave it a quick glance. There was a vein of some bright mineral partway back in it ... I speeded up and she kept pace, our footsteps ringing loudly now. We passed the fourth opening. ... The fifth. . . . we neared the sixth passageway, but I just kept going. It was the seventh that I wanted, and when we finally came to it I turned, took a few paces, halted, and raised the lantern. We stood before a big metal-bound door.

I took the key down from the hook on the wall to my right, inserting it in the lock, turned it, withdrew it, and rehung it.

Given all of this, we can also construct a basic concept for the Dungeons:

(By the way, I cannot readily subscribe to the idea that the dungeons of Amber connect to the sea caves; see City of Amber for a more detailed explanation.)

Next up: Mapping the Palace: Part IV >>

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