Blood of Amber

Locus Award nominee 1987.

The wondrous centre of all reality...

Wizard Merle Corey, son of long-vanished Prince Corwin of Amber, escapes from the cave-trap where he was imprisoned by an old friend and potential deadly enemy, Luke. Returning to Amber, which has become for Merle a world of dangers and ambiguities, where friends and foes are sometimes indistinguishable, he learns that Luke's mother, Jasra has been captured by Mask.

And someone wants Merle dead - is it his best friend? A woman wants to help him - but she can inhabit the body of any woman and there is no way to tell who she is at any time...