“I like this place,” she said. “It’s . . . different.”
“Uh . . . yes,” I agreed, glancing at two passed-out drunks—one to the front of the establishment, one to the rear—and three shifty-eyed individuals conversing in low voices off in one corner. A few broken bottles and suspicious stains were upon the floor, and some not-too-subtle artwork of an amorous nature hung on the far wall. “The food’s quite good,” I added.
“I’ve never been in a restaurant like this,” she continued, watching a black cat, who rolled in from a rear room, wrestling with an enormous rat.
“It has its devotees, but it’s a well-kept secret among discriminating diners.”
I continued my tale through a meal even better than the one I remembered. When the door opened much later to admit a small man with a bad limp and a dirty bandage about his head I noticed that daylight was beginning to wane. I had just finished my story and it seemed a good time to be leaving.
I said as much, but she put her hand on mine.
“You know I’m not your entity,” she said, “but if you need any kind of help I can give you, I’ll do it.”
“You’re a good listener,” I said. “Thanks. We’d better be going now.”
We passed out of Death Alley without incident and made our way along Harbor Road over to Vine. The sun was getting ready to set as we headed upward, and the cobbles passed through a variety of bright earth tones and fire colors. Street and pedestrian traffic was light. Cooking smells drifted on the air; leaves rattled along the road; a small yellow dragon rode the air currents high overhead; curtains of rainbow light rippled high in the north beyond the palace. I kept waiting, expecting more questions from Coral than the few she had asked. They never came. If I’d just heard my story, I think I’d have a lot of questions, unless I were totally overpowered by it or somehow understood it thoroughly.
“When we get back to the palace . . . ?” she said then.
“Yes?”
“ . . . You will take me to see the Pattern, won’t you?”
I laughed.
. . . Or unless something else were occupying my mind.
“Right away? First thing in the door?” I asked.
“Yes.
“Sure,” I said.
Then, that off her mind, “Your story changes my picture of the world,” she said, “and I wouldn’t presume to advise you. . . . ”
“But—” I continued.
“ . . . If seems that the Keep of the Four Worlds holds the answers you want. Everything else may fall into place when you learn what’s going on there. But I don’t understand why you can’t just do a card for it and trump in.”
“Good question. There are parts of the Courts of Chaos to which no one can trump because they change constantly and cannot be represented in a permanent fashion. The same applies to the place where I situated Ghostwheel. Now, the terrain around the Keep fluctuates quite a bit, but I’m not positive that’s the reason for the blockage. The place is a power center, and I think it possible that someone diverted some of that power into a shielding spell. A good enough magician might be able to drill through it with a Trump, but I’ve a feeling that the force required would probably set off some psychic alarm and destroy any element of surprise.”
“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 forw
ard 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-shifting 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.”
The Great Book of Amber - Chronicles 1-10 Page 135
