“What does the place look like, anyway?” she asked.
“Well…” I began. “Here.” I took my notebook and Scripto from my shirt pocket and sketched. “See, all of this area is volcanic.” I scribbled in a few fumaroles and wisps of smoke. “And this part is Ice Age.” More scribbles. “Ocean here, mountains here…”
“Then it sounds as if your best bet is to use the Pattern again,” she said, studying the drawing and shaking her head.
“Yes.”
“Do you think you’ll be doing it soon?”
“Possibly.”
“How will you attack them?”
“I’m still working on that.”
“If there’s any sort of way that I can help you, I meant what I said.”
“There isn’t.”
“Don’t be so sure. I’m well trained. I’m resourceful. I even know a few spells.”
“Thanks,” I said. “But no.”
“No discussion?”
“Nope.”
“If you change your mind…”
“I won’t.”
“…Let me know.”
We reached the Concourse, moved along it. The winds grew more blustery here and something cold touched my cheek. Then again…
“Snow!” Coral announced, just as I realized that a few middle-sized flakes were drifting past us, vanishing immediately when they hit the ground.
“If your party had arrived at the proper time,” I observed, “you might not have had your walk.”
“Sometimes I’m lucky,” she said.
It was snowing fairly hard by the time we reached the palace grounds. We used the postern gate again, pausing on the walkway to gaze back down over the light-dotted town, half screened by falling flakes. I knew she kept looking longer than I did, because I turned to gaze at her. She appeared happy, I guess — as if she were pasting the scene in a mental scrapbook. So I leaned over and kissed her cheek, because it seemed like a good idea.
“Oh,” she said, turning to face me. “You surprised me.”
“Good,” I told her. “I hate to telegraph these things. Let’s get the troops in out of the cold.”
She smiled and took my arm.
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.”
I glanced at Coral, who shrugged.
“I guess so,” I said.
“Front dining room, upstairs,” he told me. “Shall I pass the word to my sergeant — he’s due by soon — and have him deliver it? Or do you want to — ”
“Yes,” I said. “Do that.”
“Care to wash up, change clothes…?” I began, as we walked away.
“The Pattern,” she said.
“It would involve a lot more stairs,” I told her.
She turned toward me, her face tightening, but saw that I was smiling.
“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.
“I’m told there’s a loose step,” he remarked as he passed me the light.
“Which one is it?” He shook his head.
“Prince Gerard’s reported it several times,” he said, “but no one else seems to notice it.”
“Okay,” I said. “Thanks.”
This time Coral didn’t object to my going first. Of the two, this was more intimidating than the stairway on the cliff face, mainly because you can’t see bottom and after a few paces you can’t see much of anything beyond the shell of light within which you move as you wind your way down. And there’s a heavy sense of vastness all about you. I’ve never seen the place illuminated, but I gather that the impression is not incorrect. 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.
After a time, Coral cleared her throat, then, “Could we stop for a minute?” she asked.
“Sure,” I said, halting. “Out of breath?”
“No,” she said. “How much farther?”
“I don’t know,” I replied. “It seems a different distance each time I come this way. If you want to go back and have dinner, we can see it tomorrow. You’ve had a busy day.”
“No,” she answered. “But I wouldn’t mind your holding me for a minute.”
It seemed an awkward place to get romantic, so I cleverly deduced that there was another reason, said nothing, and obliged.
It took me a long while to realize that she was crying.
She was very good at concealing it.
“What’s the matter?” I finally asked.
“Nothing,” she replied. “Nervous reaction, maybe. Primitive reflex. Darkness. Claustrophobia. Like that.”
“Let’s go back.”
“No.”
So we started down again.
About a half minute later I saw something white near the side of a lower step. I slowed. Then I realized that it was only a handkerchief. A little nearer, however, and I saw that it was held in place by a dagger. Also, there were markings upon it. I halted, reached out, flattened it, and read. “THIS ONE, DAMN IT! — GERARD,” It said.
“Careful here,” I said to Coral.
I prepared to step over it, but on an impulse I tested it lightly with one foot. No squeaks. I shifted more weight onto it. Nothing. It felt fine. I stood on it. The same. I shrugged.
“Careful, anyway,” I said.
Nothing happened when she stepped on it either, and we kept going. A little later, I saw a flicker in the distance below. It was moving, and I guessed someone was doing a patrol. What for? I wondered. Were there prisoners to be tended and watched? Were certain cave mouths considered vulnerable points? And what about the business of locking the chamber of the Pattern and hanging the key on the wall near the door? Was there some possible danger from that quarter? How? Why? I realized that I ought to pursue these questions one of these days.
When we reached the bottom the guard was nowhere in sight, however. The table, the racks, and a few foot lockers — which constituted the guard station — were illuminated by a number of lanterns, but the guard was not at his post. Too bad. It would be interesting to ask what the orders called for in the event of an emergency hopefully also specifying the possible natures of various emergencies. For the first time, though, I noticed a rope hanging down from the darkness into the dimness beside a weapons rack. I drew upon it ever so gently and it yielded, to be followed a moment later by a faint metallic sound from somewhere high overhead. Interesting. Obviously, this was the alarm.
“Which… way?” Coral asked.
“Oh, come on,” I said, taking her hand, and I led her off to the right.
I kept waiting for echoes as we moved, but none came. Periodically, I raised the light. The darkness would recede a bit then, but nothing came into view beyond an additional area of floor.
Coral seemed to be slowing now, and I felt a certain tension in her arm as she hung back. I plodded on and she kept moving, however.
Finally, “It shouldn’t be too much longer,” I said, as the echoes began, very faintly.
“Good,” she replied, but she did not increase her pace. 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. When we finally reached it and entered, I felt her flinch.
“If I’d known it would bother you this much —” I began.
“I’m really all right,” she answered, “and I do want to see it. I just didn’t realize that getting there would be this… involved.”
“Well, the worst of it is over. Soon now,” I said.
We came to the first side passage to the left fairly quickly and went on by. There was another
shortly thereafter, and I slowed and extended the lantern toward it.
“Who knows?” I commented… “That could take you through some strange route back to the beach.”
“I’d rather not check it out.”
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… From somewhere, it seemed I heard faint strains of music.
She glanced at me inquiringly when 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. Then I put my shoulder against the door and pushed hard. There followed a long moment of resistance, then slow movement accompanied shortly by a complaint from a tight hinge. Frakir tightened upon my wrist, but I kept pushing till the door was opened wide. Then I stood to the side and held it for Coral.
She moved a few steps past me into that strange chamber and halted. I stepped away and let the door swing shut, then came up beside her.
“So that’s it,” she remarked.
Roughly elliptical, the intricately wound oval form of the Pattern glowed blue-white within the floor. I set the lantern aside. It wasn’t really necessary, the glow from the Pattern providing more than sufficient illumination. I stroked Frakir, calming her. A jet of sparks rose at the far end of the great design, subsided quickly, occurred again nearer to us. The chamber seemed filled with a half familiar pulsing I had never consciously noted before. On an impulse — to satisfy a long-held point of curiosity — I summoned the Sign of the Logrus.
This was a mistake.
Immediately the image of the Logrus flared before me, sparks erupted along the entire length of the Pattern, and a high-pitched banshee wail rose from somewhere. Frakir went wild, my ears felt as if icicles had been driven into them, and the brightness of the writhing Sign hurt my eyes. I banished the Logrus in that instant, and the turmoil began to subside.
“What,” she asked me, “was that?”
I tried to smile, didn’t quite manage it.
“A little experiment I’d always meant to try,” I told her.
“Did you learn anything from it?”
“Not to do it again, perhaps,” I answered.
“Or at least not till the company’s left,” she said. “That hurt.”
She moved nearer to the edge of the Pattern, which had calmed itself again.
“Eerie,” she observed. “Like a light in a dream. But it’s gorgeous. And all of you have to walk it to come into your heritage?”
“Yes.” She moved slowly to the right, following its perimeter. I followed her as she strolled, her gaze roving across the bright expanse of arcs and turns, short straight lines, long sweeping curves.
“I assume it is difficult?”
“Yes. The trick is to keep pushing and not to stop trying even if you stop moving,” I replied.
We walked on, to the right, circling slowly around to the rear. The design seemed to be within the floor rather than upon it, seen as through a layer of glass. But nowhere was the surface slippery.
We paused for a minute or so while she took its measure from a new angle.
“So how are you responding to it?” I finally asked.
“Esthetically,” she said.
“Anything else?”
“Power,” she said. “It seems to radiate something.”
She leaned forward and waved her hand above the nearest line. “It’s almost a physical pressure,” she added then.
We moved farther, passing along the back length of the grand design. I could see across the Pattern, to the place where the lantern glowed on the floor near to the entranceway. Its light was negligible beside the greater illumination we regarded now.
Shortly, Coral halted again. She pointed.
“What is this single line, which seems to end right here?” she asked.
“It’s not the end,” I said. “It’s the beginning. That is the place where one commences the walking of the Pattern.”
She moved nearer, passing her hand above it also.
“Yes,” she said after a moment. “I can feel that it starts here.”
For how long we stood there, I am uncertain. Then she reached out, took hold of my hand and squeezed it.
“Thanks,” she said, “for everything.”
I was about to ask her why that had such a final sound about it, when she moved forward and set her foot upon the line.
“No!” I cried. “Stop!”
But it was too late. Her foot was already in place, brightness outlining the sole of her boot.
“Don’t move!” I said. “Whatever you do, stay still!” She did as I said, holding her position. I licked my lips, which suddenly seemed very dry.
“Now, try to raise the foot you placed upon the line and draw it back. Can you do it?”
“No,” she replied.
I knelt beside her and studied it. Theoretically, once you’d set foot upon the Pattern there was no turning back. You had no choice but to continue and either make it through or be destroyed somewhere along the way. On the other hand, she should already be dead. Theoretically, again, anyone not of the blood of Amber shouldn’t be able to set foot upon it and live. So much for theory.
“Hell of a time to ask,” I said. “But why’d you do it?
“You indicated to me back in the cave that my guess was correct. You said that you knew what I was.”
I recalled what I’d said, but that was with reference to my guess at her being the body-shafting entity. What could she have taken it to mean that had to do with the Pattern? But even as I sought after a spell that might free her from the Pattern’s hold, the obvious answer to things drifted into my mind.
“Your connection with the House…?” I said softly.
“King Oberon supposedly had an affair with my mother before I was born,” she said. “The timing would have been right. It was only a rumor, though. I couldn’t get anyone to provide details. So I was never certain. But I dreamed of it being true. I wanted it to be true. I hoped to find some tunnel that would bring me to this place. I wanted to sneak in and walk the Pattern and have the shadows unfold before me. But I was afraid, too, because I knew that if I were wrong I would die. Then, when you said what you said, you answered my dream. But I did not stop being afraid. I am still afraid. Only now I’m afraid that I won’t be strong enough to make it.”
That sense of familiarity I had felt when I first met her… I suddenly realized that it was a general family resemblance that had caused it. Her nose and brow reminded me a bit of Fiona, her chin and cheekbones something of Flora. Her hair and eyes and height and build were her own, though. But she certainly did not resemble her nominal father or sister.
I thought again of a faintly leering portrait of my grandfather which I had often studied, in an upstairs hallway, to the west. The lecherous old bastard really got around. Giving him his due, though, he was a very goodlooking man…
I sighed and rose to my feet. I laid a hand upon her shoulder.
“Listen, Coral,” I said. “All of us were well briefed before we tried it. I am going to tell you about it before you take another step, and while I speak you may feel energy flowing from me into you. I want you to be as strong as possible. When you take your next step I do not want you to stop again until you have reached the middle. I may call out instructions to you as you move along, also. Do whatever I say immediately, without thinking about it.
“First I will tell you about the Veils, the places of resistance…”
For how long I spoke, I do not know.
I watched as she approached the First Veil.
“Ignore the chill and the sho
cks,” I said. “They can’t hurt you. Don’t let the sparks distract you. You’re about to hit major resistance. Don’t start breathing rapidly.”
I watched her push her way through.
“Good,” I said, as she came onto an easier stretch, deciding against telling her that the next Veil was far worse. “By the way, don’t think that you’re going crazy. Shortly, it will begin playing head games with you — ”
“It already has,” she responded. “What should I do?”
“It’s probably mostly memories. Just let them flow, and keep your attention on the path.”
She continued, and I talked her through the Second Veil. The sparks reached almost to her shoulders before she was out of it. I watched her struggle through arc after arc, then tricky curves and long, sweeping ones, turns, reversals. There were times when she moved quickly, times when she was slowed almost to a standstill. But she kept moving. She had the idea, and it seemed she had the will. I did not think that she really needed me now. I was certain that I had nothing left to offer, that the outcome was entirely in her own hands.
So I shut up and watched, irritated with but unable to prevent my own leaning and turning, shifting and pressing, as if I were out there myself, anticipating, compensating.
When she came to the Grand Curve she was a living flame. Her progress was very slow, but there was a relentless quality to it. Whatever the outcome, I knew that she was being changed, had been changed already, that the Pattern was inscribing itself upon her, and that she was very near to the end of its statement. I almost cried out as she seemed to stop for a moment, but the words died in my throat as she shuddered once, then continued. I wiped my brow on my sleeve as she approached the Final Veil. Whatever the outcome, she had proved her suspicions. Only a child of Amber could have survived as she had.
I do not know how long it took her to pierce the last Veil. Her effort became timeless, and I was caught up in that protracted moment. She was a burning study in extreme slow motion, the nimbus that enshrouded her lighting up the entire chamber like a great blue candle.
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