The Geography of Amber

Is a Map of Amber possible?

Let us endeavor to deliver the most accurate map of Amber and its surrounding terrain as possible, relying upon the source material alone (avoiding the speculative work done in books such as Visual Guide to Castle Amber), and tackling the contradictions, when necessary.

To begin with, it is important to acknowledge that there has never been an "official" map of Amber. We have come to expect such things in major fantasy works, inspired perhaps by the map of Middle-Earth we all remember from inside the cover of The Hobbit, or the map of Westeros, popularized by the 3D credits sequence at the opening of each episode of Games of Thrones.

We do not have the benefit of an asset like this for Amber.  (NOTE: It turns out this is not entirely true; see correction at the bottom of the article.)

As Zelazny biographer  F. Brett Cox speculates, this may have even been intentional, or at the least part of Amber's enduring mystique. Cox writes:

The focus on Corwin, however, raises an interesting question: What about Amber? Throughout the series, almost as striking as the overpowering presence of Corwin is the absence of the city. As Gary K. Wolfe points out, we know "little about Amber itself,” a place that “often seems to have no population other than its royal family ... no streets, no economy, no network of social organization.” For Wolfe, the fact that Zelazny presents Amber not as a constructed environment but as "an emotional archetype" is fully in keeping with fantasy literature's ability to "sustain our interest in impossible worlds simply by making these worlds emotionally meaningful to us.”

In this context, it is striking that much of the sense of physical setting we do have in these novels is not the world of Amber, much less its infrastructure, but the corridors between Amber and elsewhere: the shadow worlds through which Corwin periodically hellrides, early on to pursue his quest for power and vengeance, later to preserve Amber itself. These are the passages where, even in the exposition-laden later novels, Zelazny allows himself to get lost in language.

There is truth in this observation, but it does not mean we are without any description of Amber as a place. (And I would argue that with the Merlin chronicles, the temptation to create more of a "living world" out of Amber, the city, the harbor, the vineyards, and so forth, clearly motivated Zelazny.) We may be left without an official map, but we do have a collection of descritions and references that allow us to piece together the topography. Though unfortunately we are also left with contradictions that amount to two distinct and conflicting layouts of Amber -- one that stems mainly from the Corwin chronicles, and another that stems from the Merlin chronicles. We will come to this contradiction later.

The Corwin Chronicles

First, let us begin with collecting all of the major pieces of information the canon provides. In Nine Princes in Amber, Corwin and Random make their way toward Kolvir in the Mercedes, and later on foot. They end up skirting the mountain, changing direction toward the sea, and entering Rebma instead. This mutli-day journey affords us these descriptions:

[NPIA Ch. 4, Julian speaking]  Gerard controls the southern seaways, and Caine is off in the northern waters.


[NPIA Ch. 4]  We drove on in silence, and finally the forest began to thin... The road took a turn upward, and we were heading toward a pass between two purple mountains. ... Within an hour, we were passing between high shoulders of stone.


[NPIA Ch. 4]  ... I caught my first glimpse of that sea. ... And as the cliff curved further and further to the left, and as we swung downward across its face, heading toward a wooded valley, more and more of the sea came within our range of vision.

"The Lighthouse of Cabra," said Random, gesturing toward an enormous gray tower that rose from the waters, much out to sea. ...

After almost half an hour, we reached the bottom. ... We were in a lush valley, though not so thickly or massively wooded as the Forest of Arden, which sloped gently but steadily toward the distant sea.

High, and climbing higher on the left, the mountains reared. The further we advanced into the valley, the better came our view of the nature and full extent of that massive height of rock down one of whose lesser slopes we had coasted. The mountains continued their march to the sea, growing larger as they did so ... The face they turned to the sea was invisible to us from the valley, but about the back of that final, highest peak swirled the faintest veil of ghost clouds ... I judged we were about thirty-five miles from the place of light ... I knew that the final peak was our destination.


[NPIA Ch. 4]  The sun by now was westering farewell ... the evening was cool and briskly fragrant. There were stars in the east already ...

With these early descriptions, we learn a few high-level facts:

At this stage, it is not entirely clear what the spatial relationship is between Arden, Kolvir and Garnath, nor is it entirely clear the vector of travel that Corwin/Random are following. Are they coming from the north? The northwest? The west? One could make various arguments, given all the twisting and turning they do. Generally speaking, it seems as though they are coming from the west, and then once they enter the mountains, the are forced to head southeast into the valley.

Pausing here, we can sketch a broad topographical view of the Forest of Arden, the Valley of Garnath, the sea, the mountains, and Kolvir. (And we can confidently say that the sun rises in the east, and sets in the west!)

Having ditched the Mercedes, and joined up with Deirdre, they make their way on foot through the valley and to the coast.

[NPIA Ch. 5]  We spent two evenings making our way to the pink and sable sands of the great sea. ...

The rising sun cast billions of bright shards into the foaming swell of the waters, and our eyes were dazzled by their dance so that we could not see beneath the surface ...

The mountain that faces the dawn, Kolvir, which has held Amber like a mother her child for all of time, stood perhaps twenty miles to our left, the north, and the sun covered her with gold and made rainbow the veil above the city. ...

Deirdre touched my hand, gestured with her head, and began to walk toward the north, parallel to the shore. ...

We'd advanced perhaps a quarter of a mile, when it seemed that the earth shook lightly. ...

We reached the cairn and Deirdre turned at right angles to it and headed straight toward the sea.

With the above description of the Random/Corwin/Deirdre "approach" to Amber, we get a sense of scale that helps inform the distances in the above map: namely that there are twenty miles between Kolvir and the Faiella-bionon (the stairway to Rebma). 

We also get clear confirmation that the coast runs north/south.

The next opportunity we have to piece together the geography of Amber is during the failed assault on Amber by the armies of Bleys and Corwin.

[NPIA Ch. 7]   By high noon we were crossing the valley that paralleled the seacoast. The Forest of Arden was to the north and our left. Amber lay directly ahead. The breezes were cool and filled with the odors of earth and its sweet growing things. A few leaves fell. Amber lay eighty miles distant and was but a shimmer above the horizon.

[NPIA Ch. 7]   Seventy miles of wooded valley lay between us and Amber, and over thirty behind us, going back to the forest's end.

"Bleys!" I gasped. "Two or three miles ahead of us the trail forks! The right branch comes more quckly to the river Oisen, which goes down to the sea! I think it's our one chance! ..."

... We made it to the fork ...

"Only about a quarter mile more," I said.

... We plunged in and let the cold wetness embrace in. ... we were swept along the twisting course of the Oisen. ...

... It was several miles before we left the burning wood and reached the low, flat, treeless place that led on to the sea. It would be a perfect place for Julian to be waiting, with archers ...

I dove, and I swam underwater for a long distance. Since I was going with the current, I made it quite a way along the river before I had to surface once more.

... I looked all around me. We were running short on trees at this point, and the fires hadn't gotten this far. Both banks seemed empty, but so did the river. ...

...

When I awoke, I wished I hadn't. ...

"Where are you?" he asked, when I had made the contact.

"Damned if I know," I replied. "Lucky to be anywhere at all. Near the sea, though. I can hear the waves and I know the smell."

"You're near the river? ... Which bank?"

"Left, as you'd face the sea. North."

With this description, we learn a number of key facts:

At this point, the exact location of Arden and its "shape" are still somewhat muddied. We can assume that Arden is generally to the west and north of Amber, while the Valley of Garnath is to the south.

[NPIA Ch. 7]   We could see Amber in the distance. ... By afternoon we had made maybe fifteen miles. We marched along the beach, and there was no sign of Julian anywhere. ... We marched on, and soon we were within forty miles of Amber. ... and all of the wood to our left was a desolate, blackened ruin. The fire had destroyed most of the timber in the valley, so for once there was a thing in our favor. Julian nor anybody else could ambush us. We'd see them coming a mile off. We made another ten miles ere the sun fell and we bivouacked on the beach.

... We led a speed-march till noon. then rested. By then, we were twenty-five miles away from the foot of Kolvir. By twilight, the distance was ten. ... We marched till midnight and we bivouacked once again. ... The next day, I felt even better.

We marched until we came to the foot of Kolvir ... We had maybe three thousand men when we had finished off everything Julian had to throw against us. ... I didn't like it.

But the next day we began the ascent. There was a stairway, allowing for the men to go two abreast along it. This would narrow soon, however, forcing us to go single file.

[NPIA Ch. 7]   We made it to the halfway point, fighting for every step. Once we reached the top, there would be the broad stair of which the one to Rebma had been but an image. It would lead up to the Great Arch, which was the eastern entranceway to Amber. ... The eastern stair is seldom used. ... Our original plans had been to cut through the now blackened valley and then circle, climbing, and to take the western way over the mountains and enter Amber from behind. The fire and Julian had changed all this.


[NPIA Ch. 7]   ... I made it and was gasping, as my troops came over the edge to support me there on the landing.

... It took us an hour to reach the Great Arch.

We passed through. We entered Amber.

... Things went badly.

We fought on until twilight, and by then there was only a small band of us remaining.

We were surrounded at a point a thousand yards within Amber, and still far from the palace.

With this sequence, a clear picture emerges of Kolvir's relationship to the coast. Again, they march north along a north/south coast, and eventually hit Kolvir. They ascend Kolvir's eastern face. Given how soldiers are falling from the staircase and passing by those further down the mountain, we can imagine the staircase literally zigzagging up a sheer, vertical face. This is not a standard staircase that goes up a steep angle; the eastern face of Kolvir is straight up.

Amber as a City
Let us consider the City of Amber for a moment. Something I find interesting about the above descriptions of Corwin finishing the climb up the eastern stair of Kolvir and entering Amber, is that the the Faiella-bionin, stairway to Rebma, is not actually the mirror structure to the whole of the eastern stair. The eastern staircase that zig-zags up Kolvir is unique to Kolvir, and only near the top does it transition into a "broad stair" that mirrors the Faiella-bionin. This serves to help us understand the scale of the ascent up Kolvir, the majority of which simply gets one to the actual staircase leading into the city. And before even entering the city -- and it's worth pausing to acknowledge that Zelazny is clearly using the word "Amber" in this section to mean the city -- there is a landing which occupies the space between the stair's ledge and the Great Arch. This landing, which Merlin will later identify as "Land's End", takes Corwin's army an hour to fight across. We can roughly estimate that to be a distance of a hundred yards or so.

From there, Corwin enters the city, through the Great Arch, and even after traversing a thousand yards, he says they are still "far" from the palace. With this information, as well as upcoming descriptions, we can begin estimating the size of the city of Amber. Let us assume that the full distance between the Great Arch and the palace is, say, three times the distance they have already travelled. That is, a thousand yards have been travelled, and there are three thousand still to go. This is as good an interpretation of "far" as we will get, and is admittedly a guess. But this would put the complete distance at four thousands yards. And since we know that the Palace of Amber lies at the back of the city (exiting the rear of the Palace puts one immediately on the trails down Kolvir), that means the city of Amber is around four thousand yards wide, or around 2.3 miles. And if we further assume that the city is built with some level of symmetry (it is the one, true city, after all), then it would be around 5.3 square miles.

This scale feels believable. With these rough assumptions, the distance from the Great Arch to the Palace of Amber would be about the same as the distance between the Arc de Triomphe in Paris and the Louvre Museum, and about the same as the distance between the Empire State Building and One World Trade Center.

(For further reading, here is a full in-depth look at the layout of Kolvir and the City of Amber.)

At this point in the story, Corwin is thrown into the dungeons. Later, we get a couple of additional terrain references toward the end of the first book:

[NPIA Ch. 9]   I stood upon the sandy, rock-strewn edge of the small island Cabra ... Amber lay forty-three miles behind my left shoulder.

[NPIA Ch. 10]   I had sailed far into the north many years ago...

As we move into The Guns of Avalon, we get a second significant crack at the geogrpahy of Kolvir and Amber, when Corwin and Ganelon lead their army to attack Amber from an entirely different direction: the north.

[TGOA CH. 9]   This time, I intended to go over the top of Kolvir from the north, rather than essay its seaward face again. ... The earth was black among rocks and the bright green of the grass. The trees and the shrubs had a moist lucency to their foliage. ...

By nightfall, we were passing among the massive trees at the fringes of Arden. We bivouacked there ... We still had about forty miles to go before we hit the mountains...

We departed the hard, dirt roadway after that and worked our way through the woods themselves. As I still knew them well, it was less of a problem than it might have been... The trees were quite large, as we were well into Arden proper, and the topography sprang back into mind as we moved.

... Near sunset, I scaled a forest giant and was able to make out the range that held Kolvir. A storm was playing about its peaks just then and its clouds hid their highest portions.

The following noon we ran into one of Julian's patrols...

We gained considerable distance and altitude by nightfall, and the mountains were in sight whenever there was a clear line of vision. The storm clouds still clung to their peaks ...

The next day we reached the foothills, successfully avoiding two patrols. I pushed us on and up well after nightfall, to reach a place of cover I had had in mind.

The sky continued to darken as we climbed, and the thunder never ceased. Flashes of heat lightning occurred in the west, and the winds grew stronger. Looking up, I could see great masses of clouds about the higher peaks. ...

  ... We kept climbing, wondering when the storm was going to begin. ... The rocks were more slippery. I was tempted to call a halt, but we were still a good distance from Kolvir ...

We achieved perhaps another four miles and several thousand feet in elevation before we were forced to stop. ...

During what passed for morning, we advanced perhaps five miles toward Kolvir before bearing off to the west. It was one of three possible routes we could follow, and I had always considered it the best for a possible attack.

... Finally, we rounded the base of a huge escarpment, our way taking us outward and upward through thunder and mist, until we were afforded a sudden vista, sweeping down and out for dozens of miles across the Valley of Garnath that lay to our right.

I called a halt and moved forward to observe.

When last I had seen that once lovely valley, it had been a twisted wilderness. Now, things were even worse. The black road cut through it, running to the base of Kolvir itself, where it halted. A battle was raging within the valley. ...

The distance was too great for me to determine the combatants. At first it occurred to me that someone else might be about the same thing I was - that perhaps Bleys had survived and returned with a new army.

  But no. These were coming in from the west, along the black road. And I saw now that the birds accompanied them, and bounding forms that were neither horses nor men...

  So the forces from Shadow about which I had been hearing reports, were even stronger than I had thought. I had envisioned harassment, but not a pitched battle at the foot of Kolvir ...

  Ganelon came and stood beside me. He was silent for a long while.

  "What now, Corwin?"

"We must increase the pace," I said. "I want to be in Amber tonight."

We moved again ... When we came to a safe-seeming place later that afternoon - a place within five miles of the northern skirts of Amber - I halted us again ... 

About a mile farther along, I mounted a steep upturn, pausing when I achieved its crest. There was a battle of some sort in progress on the slopes ahead.

  I kept out of sight and observed. A force out of Amber was engaged with a larger body of attackers ... they were airborne. ... They swept in from the west like great gusts of windblown leaves....

  I looked for and located the pulsating glow given off by the Jewel of Judgment when it has been tuned to operate. It came from the midst of the largest body of defenders, dug in near the base of a high cliff. ... It was Eric.

  On my belly now, I crawled even farther. I saw the leader of the nearest party of defenders behead a landing wyvern with a single sword stroke. ... Another of my brothers?

  I wondered how long the battle had been in progress, both in the valley and here above. ..    

I moved to the right, turning my attention to the west. The battle in the valley continued unabated. From this distance, it was impossible to tell who was who, let alone who was winning. I could see, though, that no new forces were arriving from out of the west to supplement the attackers.

This sequence gives us a few important facts:

However there are some complications with this description. It would appear that, from his position in the mountains, Corwin looks west to see Garnath and the black road. This is inconsistent with most of the passages to come, which clearly put Garnath and the the black road to the south. This reference to the black road in the west is incongruent and will need to be explained (below).

With the first two books concluded, we can now step back and draft a different kind of overlay on top of the Amber map. This next map depicts the three different "approaches" to Amber: (1) Random/Corwin/Deirdre from the west, moving toward the sea; (2) the Bleys/Corwin assault, intended attack from the west, but ultimately re-routed down the River Oisen, forcing a march up from the south, and a climb up the eastern stair; and finally (3) the Corwin/Ganelon assault from the north, sweeping around Kolvir to come in from the west, stopping on the "heights" where Eric dies. 

Later, in Sign of the Unicorn, Corwin occupies the city and palace, and he focuses on rooting out the traitor(s) in the family. With this "pause" of sorts, we get a handful of descriptions of the local geography, as well as the palace:

[SOTU, Ch. 1]  ...  turned the horse in for care and maintenance ... stamped off toward the rear entrance to the palace....

I skirted the exercise area and made my way to the trail that led toward the southern end of the palace gardens. Fewer eyes along that route. I would still be spotted, but it would be a lot less awkward than going in the front way, where things are always busy...

There were a few idlers beside the fountain at the far end of the garden. Also, a couple of guards were passing among the bushes near the trail. ...

... I crossed the garden, out of the shade and into the slanting sunlight. I swung up the wide, curving stair. A guard snapped to attention as I entered the palace. I made for the rear stairway, then up to the second floor. Then the third.

From the right, my brother Random stepped out of his suite and into the hallway.  

"Corwin!" he said, studying my face. "What's the matter? I saw you from the balcony and - "


In this sequence, the orientation of Kolvir and the palace are reinforced. The front of the palace faces east, toward the sea, and the rear of the palace faces west, toward the mountains and the bulk of the Forest of Arden. Corwin is coming back from the Grove of the Unicorn, and his encounter with the creature that killed Caine (that is, Caine's body double), and he is entering Amber from behind. The stables are at the rear of the palace, with the rear gardens (including an exercise area) occupying the space between the stables and the palace's rear entrance. Rather than coming straight through the gardens directly (west to east), Corwin skirts and moves toward the southern end of these rear gardens, finds the shade, follows the way there until he is forced, as he approaches the palace, to cut back into the sun in order to take the rear entrance, which is presumeably centered on the back wall of the palace.

The Palace
We also learn that Random's suite is on the third floor, and that it has a balcony. We know from Nine Princes in Amber that the library is also on the third floor. The palace has a rear entrance, which is used frequently by Princes coming and going from the palace, and there are rear gardens and stables behind the palace. (Much of this will be confirmed, expanded, and occassionally contradicted in Sign of the Unicorn; the layout of the Palace will be the subject of a different essay.)

In Sign of the Unicorn, we are introduced to the Grove of the Unicorn. While this new information (below) reinforces some aspects of the terrain, by placing the grove in Arden and saying it is "southwest of Kolvir", this challenges the idea that Arden lies to the north of Kolvir. And it certainly reinforces the idea that Arden somewhat "wraps" the mountains:

[SOTU, Ch. 5]   The Grove of the Unicorn lies in Arden to the southwest of Kolvir, near to that jutting place where the land begins its final descent into the valley called Garnath. While Garnath had been cursed, burned, invaded, and fought through in recent years, the adjacent highlands stood unmolested. The grove ... was, as near as we could tell, a spot now but slightly screened from the long view across Garnath to the sea - twenty or thirty paces in from the upper edge of things: an asymmetrical glade where a small spring trickled from a mass of rock, formed a clear pool, brimmed into a tiny creek, made its way off toward Garnath and on down.

  It was to this place that Gerard and I rode the following day, leaving at an hour that found us halfway down our trail from Kolvir before the sun skipped flakes of light across the ocean, then cast its whole bucketful against the sky.

Next, we get some additional geographical information when Corwin visits Tir-na Nog'th:

[SOTU, Ch. 10]   At the head of the stair, I entered, coming into the ghost city as one would enter Amber after mounting the great forestair up Kolvir's seaward face. I leaned upon the rail, looked across the world. ... As far beneath the waves as I'd soon be above them, off to my right, glittering and curling, the outline of Rebma appeared within the sea.


[SOTU, Ch. 10]   The black road led off to the south.

Here the geography is confirmed once more. Clearly the steps to Tir-na Nog'th are at some eastern edge of Kolvir, and they ascend out over the ocean, eastward, such that when Corwin reaches the top, Rebma is off to his right.

The Black Road
The mention of the black road, however, is a complication. In many ways, it makes the most sense that black road leads south, through the Valley of Garnath, toward the Courts of Chaos. This arrangement is generally confirmed throughout the books. However, at the end of TGOA, Corwin describes the enemies attacking Amber and he says, "These were coming in from the west, along the black road". This seems to suggest that the black road cuts west to east; but this cannot be the case, since the Valley of Garnath is to the south of Amber... and we know for certain that the black road's terminus lies in the Valley of Garnath, butting up agains the southern base of Kolvir. (This is further corroborated in SOTU Ch. 11, when Corwin says, "And that blotted area is to the south, from whence comes the black road.")

This next description from The Hand of Oberon serves to further reinforce the basic geography of Kolvir, Garnath, and Arden, as well as the location of the black road.

[THOO, Ch. 9]   I headed for the nearest trail into Arden. The sea lay at my back, Garnath and the black road to the left, Kolvir to my right. I had to gain some distance before I could work with the stuff of Shadow. The day lay clean once Garnath was lost to sight, several rises and dips later. I struck the trail and followed its long curve into the wood ....

There can be no mistake that both Garnath and the black road are to the south of Kolvir, and we can perhaps justify Corwin's description of creatures coming "from the west" in TGOA if we recall that Garnath is 100 miles wide (NPIA), and as such, creatures could be coming from the western width of the black road, while the black road -- on the whole -- stretches to the south into Shadow.

And finally, in The Courts of Chaos, we get further confirmation that Garnath is to the south of Amber, and that the black road runs to the south. It is also reinforced that there is a trail on the souther face of Kolvir that heads from Amber straight down into Garnath. And we understand that this is a separate trail from the one that heads down the back of Kolvir (westward), toward the Grove of the Unicorn, and into Arden. 

[TCOC, Ch. 1]     Amber: high and bright atop Kolvir in the middle of the day. A black road: low and sinister through Garnath from Chaos to the south.

[TCOC, Ch. 3]   I turned Star toward the trail that would take me southward ... While Dad was able to play with the stuff of Shadow atop Kolvir, I had never been able to. I required a greater distance from Amber in order to work the shifts... working my way southward across bare stone ... I headed toward the trail that led to Garnath.

... By the time I reached the trail leading down the southern face of Kolvir, the character of the land had already changed. I looked upon a series of gentle slopes, rather than the steep descent which normally marked the way. I was already entering the shadowlands.

The black road still lay like a dark scar to my left as I headed downward, but the Garnath through which it had been cut was in slightly better shape than that which I knew so well. ... My eyes moved in the direction of the Grove of the Unicorn, but it was too far to the west, masked by too many trees, for me even to glimpse that sacred glade.

   The slope grew more level as I descended, becoming a series of gentle foothills. I let Star move faster as we crossed them, bearing to the southwest, then finally the south. Lower, lower. At a great distance to my left the sea sparkled and shone. Soon the black road would come between us, for I was descending into Garnath in its direction...

We came at last to the floor of the valley. The Forest of Arden towered far to my right, sweeping westward, immense and venerable. 

This sequence will be the final description of Amber's terrain in the Corwin chronicles, and with it, Zelazny brings together several key ideas:

With all of the above, we have a complete set of references to geography from the first five books, the Corwin chronicles. And we can present a final map, which includes all of the various trails described in the books as overlays:

The Merlin Chronicles

Now, with the Merlin chronicles, Zelazny throws a wrench into the works with an entirely different take on the geophraphy of Amber:

[TOD, Ch. 8]   ... On the wide strand of shoreline at the southern foot of Kolvir there is a small chapel dedicated to the Unicorn  ... 

[TOD, Ch. 8]   I thought about it as the trail grew steeper and curved on Kolvir's western face. ... The sky was growing lighter when I crossed the last rocky slope to reach the wide trail at the foot of Kolvir to the northwest... and I headed north into Arden.

[BOA, Ch. 8-10]   I followed it westward, and it finally took me to the crossroads with the marker indicating that Amber lay straight ahead. I rode on. ... There were more trees at the roadside now, and the forest itself was nearer. ... The fields gave way to wilderness as I approached the verge of the forest. Something of twilight had already entered its bright-leafed domain. It did not seem a dense, ancient wood like Arden, however; from the distance I had seen numerous gaps within its higher reaches.
... My uphill way took several turnings as the route passed through the heights, but Amber remained in sight most of the time. ... I recognized no one along the way, and I reached the Eastern Gate

[SOC]   ... a flock of dark birds flapped its way toward the ocean, south ...

[SOC]   It was a map of the western fringe of Arden, and he pointed out our position on it. Garnath lay to our south-southwest. Amber to the southeast.

While the basics remain in tact, Zelazny rotates the entire map by 90 degrees. After multiple books of descriptions of Garnath to the south of Kolvir, Arden to the north and west, the coast running north/south, and the black road running to the south... in the second series, the sea is now suddenly to the south of Kolvir, instead of the east. And the coast now runs east/west. 

Whether intentional, or because he failed to consult his own notes (or re-read the Corwin books!), we cannot know.

But the description of Merlin hiking down Kolvir at night in Trumps of Doom, and heading "north into Arden", is very likely the same path Corwin and Gerard take to the Grove of the Unicorn. But the map is rotated.

An additional challenge with the information introduced in the Merlin chronicles is the scale of the terrain to the north (per Corwin) or east (per Merlin) of Amber. The Merlin chronicles introduce the notion of a wine country to the east of Amber; Merlin says that "Baron Bayle owned a number of vineyards about thirty miles to the east." If we are to accept that the map has been rotated 90 degrees since the Corwin chronicles, and all other things are equal, we are left with the problem that Corwin tells us in TGOA that there are "forty miles" of Arden to the north of Amber, in addition to the mountains and foothills. As such, thirty miles would not be enough to get you out of a high-altitude forest, much less to a place suitable for growing grapes. 

Despite this inconsistency, the Merlin chronicles do offer us a very different lens onto Amber -- one of a living world, a city with a population and a working economy, a class system, and various industries. With the second series, Zelazny deliberately evolves from an idealized broad-stroked world -- what Wolfe called the "emotional archetype" -- into a place with sounds, smells, texture, and ordinary people. Merlin's Amber is more like a medieval kingdom straight out of our Shadow Earth, and less like the fantastical, almost alien (or sci-fi) universe of infinite parallel worlds that we find in Corwin's Amber. In Merlin's Amber, there is no talk of seawater that is "purple" and "thick as paint", or grass that is "very, very bright green... unlike Earth", or of trees "tinged with gold", or of "rainbow veils" over Kolvir. But we do get Bloody Bill's and various restaurants, names of streets, harbor life, dairy villages, a wine industry, and "traffic" at the Eastern Gate of Amber. (See an extended exploration of this in City I Was Born to Rule.)

But perhaps these two different (and occasionally conflicting) "takes" on Amber -- together -- give us a deeper, richer imagination of Amber than either series could alone. 

UPDATE:  After publishing this, it was pointed out to me by Marv Breig that there is, in fact, an "official map" that was published with Zelazny's blessing.  "Roger Zelazny published a simple map of Amber and the nearby areas (Mt. Kolvir; Garnath; the stairs to Rebma) as part of the original serialization in Galaxy magazine. The map appeared in Galaxy, Volume 39, No. 2, pg. 101. "

This map confirms much of the basics discussed above, without offering a lot of detail. It also raises additional questions, including why there is not much of a mountain range beyond Kolvir, even though this is clearly described in multiple places in the Corwin chronicles. 

Importantly, this map does nothing to resolve the contradictions introduced in the Merlin chronicles; indeed Galaxy Vol. 39 No. 2 was published in 1978, seven years before Trumps of Doom. If anything, it makes us wonder why Zelazny did not do a better job of consulting his own map when he said things like "vineyards thirty miles to the east of Amber."

I'd love to hear your thoughts! Please follow me on Twitter @RZAmberFan, or email me at jkisherenow@gmail.com.

Find my All Roads Lead to Amber podcast on Spotify or Apple Podcast.