regard.
… And I realized that I knew.
It was the numb knowledge of awakening. The sources of emotion still dozed In the distance, I could hear familiar voices in soft converse. I could also hear the sounds of cutlery against china. My stomach would awaken in a bit, I knew, and I would join them. For now, it was so very pleasant to lie here wrapped in my cloak, hearing the gentle rain and knowing…
I returned to my micro-world and its dark canyon… The ground shook again, this time without benefit of lightning or thunder. And it kept on shaking. This irritated me, for it disturbed my friends and relatives, causing them to raise their voices in something like alarm. Also, it stirred a dormant California reflex at a time when I just wanted to loll and savor my fresh-acquired knowledge.
«Merlin, are you awake?»
«Yes» I said, sitting up suddenly, giving my eyes a quick rub, and running my hands through my hair.
It was the ghost of my father that knelt beside me, having just shaken my shoulder. «We seem to have a problem,» he said, «with rather extreme ramifications.»
Jurt, standing behind him, nodded several times. The ground shook once again, twigs and leaves fell about us, pebbles bounced, dust rose, the fogs were agitated. I heard a dish break in the vicinity of the heavy red and white cloth about which Luke, Dalt, Coral, and Nayda sat eating.
I untangled my cloak and rose to my feet, realizing then that someone had removed my boots while I slept. I drew them back on. There came another tremor, and I leaned against the tree for support.
«This is the problem?» I said. «Or is something bigger about to eat it?»
He gave me a puzzled look. Then, «Back when I drew the Pattern,» he said, «I'd no way of knowing that this area was faulted, or that something like this would one day occur. If these shocks should crack the Pattern, we've had it - in more ways than one. As I understand it, that spikard you wear can draw upon enormous sources of energy. Is there some way you could use it to defuse this thing?»
«I don't know,» I told him. «I never tried anything like it.»
«Find out fast, okay?» he said.
But I was already spinning my mind about the circle of tines, touching each one to life. Then I seized upon the one possessed of the most juice, drew hard upon it, filled myself, body and mind, with its energy. Ignition completed and engine idling, with me in the driver's seat, I shifted into gear then, extending a line of force from the spikard down into the ground.
I reached for a long while, seeking a conversion metaphor to the subjective for anything I might discover.
… Wading out from the beach into the oceanwaves tickling my stomach, my chest-feeling with my toes the rocks, the strands of sea-weed… Sometimes a rock would turn, slip, bump against another, slide…
I couldn't see to the bottom with my eyes. But I saw the rocks, the wrack, in their disposition and movement, just the same, beheld them as clearly as if the bottom were fully illuminated.
Feeling, feeling my way now, down through the strata, single toe soft as a flashlight's beam running along rocky surfaces, testing the pressures of one upon another, isostatic kisses of mountains beneath the earth, orogenic erogenies of slow movement, flesh caressing mineral in the darkest of secret places
Slip! The rock slides off. My body follows…
I dive for it, following the sliding passage. I race ahead, pouring forth heat, cracking rock, splintering new pathways, outward, outward… It was coming this way. I broke through a wall of stone, another. Another. I was not certain this was the way to divert it, but it was the only one I knew to try. Go that way! Damn it! That way! I accessed two more channels, a third, a fourth
There was a slight vibration within the ground. I opened another channel. Within my metaphor the rocks grew stable beneath the waters. Shortly thereafter, the ground ceased its vibration.
I returned to the place where I had first felt the slide begin, stable now, yet still stressed. Feel it, feel it carefully. Describe a vector. Follow. Follow it to the point of original pressure. But no. This point is but a confluence of vectors. Trace them.
Yet again. More junctions. Trace them. Access more channels. The entire pressure structure, intricate as a nervous system, must be described. I must hold its tree within my mind.
Another layer. It may not be possible. I may courting infinity in my topographic branchings. Freeze frame. Simplify the problem. Ignore everything beyond the tertiary. Trace to the next junction. There are some loops. Good. And a plate is now involved. Better.
Try another jump. No good. Too big a picture to contain. Discard tertiaries.
Yes.
Thus general lines sketched. Vectors of transmission simply drawn-back to plate, almost. Pressure exerted less than full pressure extended. Why? Additional point of input along second vector, redirecting shear forces this valley.
«Merlin? Are you all right?»
«Let me be,» I hear my voice respond.
Extend then, input source, into, feeling, transmission signature…
Is this a Logrus that I see before me?
I opened three more channels, focused on the area, began heating it.
Soon rocks were cracking, but a little later they melted. My newly created magma flowed down fault lines. A hollowed-out area occurred at the point whence the precipitating force had originated.
Back.
I withdrew my probes, shut down the spikard.
«What did you do?» he asked me.
«I found the place where the Logrus was messing with underground stresses,» I said, «and I removed the place. There's a small grotto there now. If it collapses it may ease the pressure even more.»
«So you've stabilized it?»
«At least for now. I don't know the limits of the Logrus, but it's going to have to figure a new route to reach this place. Then it's going to have to test it out. And if it's doing a lot of Pattern watching just now, that may slow it.»
«So you've bought some time,» he said. «Of course, the Pattern may move against us next.»
«It could,» I said. «I've brought everyone here because I thought they'd be safe from both Powers.»
«Apparently you made the payoff worth the risk.»
«Okay,» I said. «I guess it's time to give them some other things to worry about.»
«Such as?»
I looked at him, Pattern ghost of my father, guardian of this place.
«I know where your flesh-and-blood counterpart is,» I said, «and I'm about to set him free.»
There came a flash of lightning. A sudden gust of wind lofted the fallen leaves, stirred the fogs.
«I must accompany you,» he said.
«Why?
«I've a personal interest in him, of course.»
«All right.»
Thunder crashed about us, and the fogs were torn apart by a fresh onslaught of wind.
Jurt came up to us then.
«I think it's begun,» he said.
«What?» I asked.
«The duel of Powers,» he said. «For a long time the Pattern had an edge. But when Luke damaged it and you snatched away the bride of the Jewel, it must have weakened it more, relative to the Logrus, than it's been in ages. So the Logrus decided to attack, pausing only for a quick attempt to damage this Pattern.»
«Unless the Logrus was just testing us,» I said, «and this is simply a storm.»
A light rain had begun while he was speaking.
«I came here because I thought it was the one place neither of them would touch in the event of a contest,» he went on. «I'd assumed neither would care to divert energy from its own attack or defense for a swipe in this direction.»
