Pattern? A beautiful closed system, it seemed, its weakness totally shielded by its strength.'
He fell silent. I listened to the fire. I do not know what he listened to.
Then, 'I was wrong,' he said. 'Such a simple matter, too... My blood, with which I drew it, could deface it. But it took me ages to realize that the blood of my blood could also do this thing. You could use it, you could also change it-yea, unto the third generation.'
It did not come to me as a surprise, learning that he was grandsire to us all. Somehow, it seemed that I had known all along, had known but never voiced it. Yet... if anything, this raised more questions than it answered. Collect one generation of ancestry. Proceed to confusion. I had less idea now than ever before as to what Dworkin really was. Add to this the fact which even he acknowledged: It was a tale told by a madman.
'But to repair it... ?' I said.
He smirked, my own face twisting before me.
'Have you lost your taste to be a lord of the living void, a king of chaos?' he asked.
'Mayhap,' I replied.
'By the Unicorn, thy mother, I knew it would come to this! The Pattern is as strong in you as is the greater realm. What then is your desire?'
'To preserve the realm.'
He shook his/my head.
' ‘Twould be simpler to destroy everything and try a new start-as I have told you so often before.'
'I'm stubborn. So tell me again,' I said, attempting to simulate Dad's gruffness.
He shrugged.
'Destroy the Pattern and we destroy Amber-and all of the shadows in polar array about it. Give me leave to destroy myself in the midst of the Pattern and we will obliterate it. Give me leave by giving me your word that you will then take the Jewel which contains the essence of order and use it to create a new Pattern, bright and pure, untainted, drawing upon the stuff of your own being while the legions of chaos attempt to distract you on every side. Promise me that and let me end it, for broken as I am, I would rather die for order than live for it. What say you now?'
'Would it not be better to try mending the one we've got than to undo the work of eons?'
'Coward!' he cried, leaping to his feet. 'I knew you would say that again!'
'Well, wouldn't it?'
He began to pace.
'How many times have we been through this?' he asked. 'Nothing has changed! You are afraid to try it!'
'Perhaps,' I said. 'But do you not feel that something for which you have given so much is worth some effort-some additional sacrifice-if there is even a possibility of saving it?'
'You still do not understand,' he said. 'I cannot but think that a damaged thing should be destroyed-and hopefully replaced. The nature of my personal injury is such that I cannot envision repair. I am damaged in just this fashion. My feelings are foreordained.'
'If the Jewel can create a new Pattern, why will it not serve to repair the old one, end our troubles, heal your spirit?'
He approached and stood before me.
'Where is your memory?' he said. 'You know that it would be infinitely more difficult to repair the damage than it would be to start over again. Even the Jewel could more easily destroy it than repair it. Have your forgotten what it is like out there?' He gestured toward the wall behind him. 'Do you want to go and look at it again?'
'Yes,' I said. 'I would like that. Let's go.'
I rose and looked down at him. His control over his form had begun slipping when he had grown angry. He had already lost three or four inches in height, the image of my face was melting back into his gnomelike features, and a noticeable bulge was growing between his shoulders, had already been visible when he had gestured.
His eyes widened and he studied my face.
'You really mean it,' he said after a moment. 'All right, then. Let us go.'
He turned and moved toward the big metal door. I followed him. He used both hands to turn the key. Then he threw his weight against it. I moved to help him, but he brushed me aside with extraordinary strength before giving the door a final shove. It made a grating noise and moved outward into a fully opened position. I was immediately struck by a strange, somehow familiar odor.
Dworkin stepped through and paused. He located what looked to be a long staff leaning against the wall off to his right. He struck it several times against the ground and its upper end began to glow. It lit up the area fairly well, revealing a narrow tunnel into which he now advanced. I followed him and it widened before too long, so that I was able to come abreast of him. The odor grew stronger, and I could almost place it. It had been something fairly recent...
It was close to eighty paces before our way took a turn to the left and upward. We passed then through a little appendix like area. It was strewn with broken bones, and a large metal ring was set in the rock a couple of feet above the floor. Affixed thereto was a glittering chain, which fell to the floor and trailed on ahead like a line of molten droplets cooling in the gloom.
Our way narrowed again after that and Dworkin took the lead once more. After a brief time, he turned an abrupt corner and I heard him muttering. I nearly ran into him when I made the turn myself. He was crouched down and groping with his left hand inside a shadowy cleft. When I heard the soft cawing noise and saw that the chain vanished into the opening I realized what it was and where we were.
'Good Wixer,' I heard him say. 'I am not going far. It is all right, good Wixer. Here is something to chew on.'
From where he had fetched whatever he tossed the beast, I do not know. But the purple griffin, which I had now advanced far enough to glimpse as it stirred within its lair, accepted the offering with a toss of its head and a series of crunching noises. Dworkin grinned up at me.
'Surprised?' he asked.
'At what?'
'You thought I was afraid of him. You thought I would never make friends with him. You set him out here to keep me in there-away from the Pattern.'
'Did I ever say that?'
'You did not have to. I am not a fool.'
'Have it your way,' I said.
He chuckled, rose, and continued on along the passageway.
I followed and it grew level underfoot once again. The ceiling rose and the way widened. At length, we came to the cave mouth. Dworkin stood for a moment silhouetted, staff raised before him. It was night outside, and a clean salt smell swept the musk from my nostrils.
Another moment, and he moved forward once more, passing into a world of sky-candles and blue velours. Continuing after him, I had gasped briefly at that amazing view. It was not simply that the stars in the moonless, cloudless sky blazed with a preternatural brilliance, nor that the distinction between sky and sea had once again been totally obliterated. It was that the Pattern glowed an almost acetylene blue by that skysea, and all of the stars above, beside, and below were arrayed with a geometric precision, forming a fantastic, oblique latticework which, more than anything else, gave the impression that we hung in the midst of a cosmic web where the Pattern was the true center, the rest of the radiant meshwork a precise consequence of its existence, configuration, position.
Dworkin continued on down to the Pattern, right up to the edge beside the darkened area. He waved his staff over it and turned to look at me just as I came near.
'There you are,' he announced, 'the hole in my mind. I can no longer think through it, only around it. I no longer know what must be done to repair something I now lack. If you think that you can do it, you must be willing to lay yourself open to instant destruction each time you depart the Pattern to cross the break. Not destruction by the dark portion. Destruction by the Pattern itself when you break the circuit. The Jewel may or may not sustain you. I do not know. But it will not grow easier. It will become more difficult with each circuit, and your strength will be lessening all the while. The last time we discussed it you were afraid. Do you mean to say you have grown bolder since then?'
