«It is not a social call,» he stated, drawing near and clasping my hand and shoulder. «Ah! These are your quarters!»
«Yes. Won't you come in?»
«Thank you.»
I led him in. Ghost did a fly-on-the-wall imitation, became about a half inch in diameter, and took up residence on the armoire as if the result of a stray sunbeam. Dworkin did a quick turn about the sitting room, glanced into the bedroom, stared at Nayda for a time, muttered, «Always let sleeping demons lie,» touched the Jewel as he passed me on his return, shook his head forebodingly, and sank into the chair I'd been afraid I'd go to sleep in.
«Would you care for a glass of wine?» I asked him. He shook his head.
«No, thank you,» he replied. «It was you who repaired the nearest Broken Pattern in Shadow, was it not?»
«Yes, it was.»
«Why did you do it?»
«I didn't have much choice in the matter.»
«You had better tell me all about it,» the old man said, tugging at his grisly, irregular beard. His hair was long and could have used a trim also. Still, there seemed nothing of madness in his gaze or his words.
«It is not a simple story, and if I am to stay awake long enough to tell it, I am going to need some coffee,» I said.
He spread his hands, and a small, white-clothed table appeared between us, bearing service for two and a steaming silvery carafe set above a squat candle. There was also a tray of biscuits. I couldn't have summoned it all that fast. I wondered whether Mandor could.
«In that case, I will join you,» Dworkin said.
I sighed and poured. I raised the Jewel of Judgment.
«Perhaps I'd better return this thing before I start,» I told him. «It may save me a lot of trouble. later.»
He shook his head as I began to rise.
«I think not,» he stated. «If you take is off now, you will probably die.»
I sat down again.
«Cream and sugar?» I asked him.
Chapter 9
I came around slowly. That familiar blueness was a lake of prebeing in which I drifted. Oh, yes, I was here because… I was here, as the song said. I turned over onto my other side within my sleeping bag, drew my knees up to my chest, and went back to sleep.
The next time I came around and gave it a quick glance the world was still a blue place. Fine: There is much to be said for the tried, the true. Then I recalled that Luke might be by at any time to kill me, and my lingers wrapped themselves around the hilt of the weapon beside me, and I strained my hearing after signs of anything's approach.
Would I spend the day chipping at the wall of my crystal cave? I wondered. Or would Jasra come and try again to kill me?
Again? Something was wrong. There'd bees an awful lot of business involving Jurt and Coral and Luke and Mandor, and even Julia. Had it all been a dream?
The moment of panic came and went, and then my wandering spirit returned, bringing along the rest of my memories, and I yawned and everything was all right again.
I stretched. I sat up. I knuckled my eyes.
Yes, I was back in the crystal cave. No, everything that had happened since Luke imprisoned me had not been a dream. I had returned here by choice (a) because a good night's sleep in this time line amounted to only a brief span back in Amber, (b) because nobody could bother me here with a Trump contact, and (c) because it was possible that even the Pattern and the Logrus couldn't track me down here.
I brushed my hair out of my eyes, rose, and headed back to the john. It had been a good idea, having Ghost` transport me here following my colloquy with Dworkin. I was certain I had slept for something like twelve hours - deep, undisturbed stuff, the best kind. I drained a quart water bottle. I washed my face with more of the stuff.
Later, after I had dressed and stowed the bedclothes in the storeroom, I walked to the entrance chamber and stood in the light beneath the overhead adit. What I could see of the sky through it was clear. I could still hear Luke's words the day he had imprisoned me here and I'd learned we were related.
I drew the Jewel of Judgment up from within my shirt, removed it, held it high so that the light shone from behind it, stared into its depths. No messages this time.
Just as well. I wasn't in the mood for two-way traffic. I lowered myself into a comfortable cross-legged position, still regarding the stone. Time to do it and be done with it, now that I felt rested and somewhat alert. As Dworkin had suggested, I sought the Pattern within that red pool.
After a time it began to take shape. It did not appear as I had been visualizing it, but this was not an exercise in visualization. I watched the structure come clear. It was not as if it were suddenly coming into existence, however, but rather as if it had been there all along and my eyes were just now adjusting to perceive it properly. Likely this was actually the case, too.
I took a deep breath and released it. I repeated the process. Then I began a careful survey of the design: I couldn't recall everything my father had said about attuning oneself to the Jewel. When I had mentioned this to Dworkin, he had told me not to worry about it, that I needed but to locate the three-dimensional edition of the Pattern within the stone, find its point of entry, and traverse it. When I pressed him for details, he had simply chuckled and told me not to worry.
All right.
Slowly I turned it, drawing it nearer. A small break appeared, high, to the right. As I focused upon it, it seemed to rush toward me.
I went to that place, and I went in there. It was a strange roller coaster of an experience, moving along Pattern-like lines within the gemstone. I went where it drew me, sometimes with a near-eviscerating feeling of vertigo, other times pushing with my will against the ruby barriers till they yielded and I climbed, fell, slid, or pushed my way onward. I lost most of the awareness of my body, hand holding the chain high, save that I knew I was sweating profusely, as it stung my eyes with some regularity.
I've no idea how much time passed in my attunement to the Jewel of Judgment, the higher octave of the Pattern. Dworkin felt that there were reasons other than my having pissed off the Pattern for its wanting me dead immediately following my completion of my bizarre quest and repairing of the nearest of the Broken Patterns. But Dworkin refused to elaborate, feeling that my knowing the reason could influence a possible future choice which should be made freely. All of which sounded like gibberish to me, save that everything else he said struck me as eminently sane, in contrast with the Dworkin I knew of from legend and hearsay.
My mind plunged and reared through the pool of blood that was the Jewel's interior. The Pattern segments I had traversed and those I had yet to travel moved about me, flashing like lightning. I'd a feeling my mind was going to crash against some invisible Veil and shatter. My movement was out of control now, accelerating. There was no way, I knew, for me to withdraw from this thing until I had run its course.
Dworkin felt that I had been protected from the Pattern during our confrontation, when I had gone back to check on the figure I had seen, because I was wearing the Jewel. I could not keep wearing it for too long, though, because this also had a tendency to prove fatal. He decided that I must become attuned to the Jewel - as were my father and Random - before I let it out of my possession. I would thereafter bear the higher-order image within me, which should function as well as the Jewel in defending me against the Pattern. I could hardly argue with the man who had supposedly created the Pattern, using the Jewel. So I agreed with him. Only I was too tired to do what he
