“I checked a number inside when I came on duty, sir. I’ll light you one.”
Might as well save the energy that would have gone into the fire spell, I decided. Every little bit helps…
“Thanks.”
He opened the door, hefted, successively, three lanterns which stood inside to the right, selected the second one. He took it back outside, where he lit it from the massive candle in its stand partway up the corridor.
“I’ll be awhile,” I said as I accepted it from him. “You’ll probably be off duty before I’m finished.”
“Very good, sir. Watch your step.”
“Believe me, I will.”
The long spiraling stair turned round and round with very little visible in any direction but below, where a few chimneyed candles, sconced torches or hung lanterns flared along the central shaft, doing more for acrophobia than absolute blackness might, I suppose. There were just those little dots of light below me. I couldn’t see the distant floor, or any walls. I kept one hand on the railing and held the lantern out in front with the other. Damp down here. Musty, too. Not to mention chilly.
Again, I tried counting the steps. As usual, I lost count somewhere along the way. Next time…
My thoughts went back to that distant day when I had come this route believing I was headed for death. The fact that I hadn’t died was small comfort now. It had still been an ordeal. And it was still possible that I could screw up on it this time and get fried or go up in a puff of smoke.
Around, around. Down, down. Night thoughts in the middle of the afternoon…
On the other hand, I’d heard Flora say that it was easier the second time around. She’d been talking about the Pattern moments before, and I hoped that’s what she was referring to.
The Grand Pattern of Amber, Emblem of Order. Matching in power the Great Logrus of the Courts, Sign of Chaos. The tensions between the two seem to generate everything that matters. Get involved with either, lose control — and you’re done for. Just my luck to be involved with both. I’ve no one with whom to compare notes as to whether this makes things rougher, though it massages my ego to think that the mark of the one makes the other more difficult… and they do mark you, both of them. At some level you are torn apart and reassembled along the lines of vast cosmic principles when you undergo such an experience — which sounds noble, important, metaphysical, spiritual and lovely, but is mainly a pain in the ass. It is the price we pay for certain powers, but there is no cosmic principle requiring me to say I enjoy it.
Both the Pattern and the Logrus give to their initiates the ability to traverse Shadow unassisted — Shadow being the generic term for the possibly infinite collection of reality variations we play about in. And they also give us other abilities…
Around and down. I slowed. I was feeling slightly dizzy, just like before. At least I wasn’t planning on coming back this way…
When the bottom finally came into sight I speeded up again. There was a bench, a table, a few racks and cases, a light to show them all. Normally, there was a guard on duty there, but I didn’t see one. Could be off making rounds, though. There were cells somewhere to the left in which particularly unfortunate political prisoners might sometimes be found scrabbling about and going slowly out of their minds. I didn’t know whether there were any such individuals doing time at the moment. I kind of hoped not. My father had once been one, and from his description of the experience it did not sound like easy time to do.
I halted when I reached the floor and called out a couple of times. I got back a suitably eerie echo, but no answer.
I moved to the rack and took up a filled lantern with my other hand. An extra one might come in handy. It was possible I would lose my way. I headed to the right then. The tunnel I wanted lay in that direction. After a long while, I stopped and raised a light, as it almost seemed I had come too far. There was still no tunnel mouth in sight. I looked back. The guard post was still in sight. I continued on, searching my memories of that last time.
Finally, there was a shifting of sounds — abrupt echoes of my footfalls. It would seem I was nearing a wall, an obstacle. I raised a lantern again. Yes. Pure darkness ahead. Gray stone about it. I went that way.
Dark. Far. There was a continuous shadow-show as my light slid over rocky irregularities, as its beams glanced off specks of brightness in the stone walls. Then there was a side passage to my left. I passed it and kept going. It seemed there should be another fairly soon. Yes. Two…
The third was farther along. Then there was a fourth. I wondered idly where they all led. No one had ever said anything about them to me. Maybe they didn’t know either. Bizarre grottoes of indescribable beauty? Other worlds? Dead ends? Storerooms? One day, perhaps, when time and inclination came together…
Five…
And then another.
It was the seventh one I wanted. I halted when I came to it. It didn’t go back all that far. I thought of the others who’d passed this way, and then I strode ahead, to the big, heavy, metal-bound door. There was a great key hanging from a steel hook that had been driven into the wall to my right. I took it down, unlocked the door and hung it back up again, knowing that the downstairs guard would check it and re-lock it at some point in his rounds; and I wondered — not for the first time — why it should be locked that way in the first place if the key was kept right there. It made it seem as if there were danger from something that might emerge from within. I had asked about that, but no one I’d questioned seemed to know. Tradition, I’d been told. Gerard and Flora had suggested, respectively, that I ask Random or Fiona. And they had both thought Benedict might know, but I’d never remembered to ask him.
I pushed hard and nothing happened. I put down the lanterns and tried again, harder. The door creaked and moved slowly inward. I recovered the lanterns and entered.
The door closed itself behind me, and Frakir — child of Chaos — pulsed wildly. I recalled my last visit and remembered why no one had brought an extra lantern upon that occasion: The bluish glow of the Pattern within the smooth, black floor lit the grotto well enough for one to see one’s way about.
I lit the other lantern. I set the first one down at the near end of the Pattern and carried the other one with me about the periphery of the thing, setting it down at a point on its farther side. I did not care that the Pattern provided sufficient illumination to take care of the business at hand. I found the damned thing spooky, cold and downright intimidating. Having an extra natural light near at hand made me feel a lot better in its presence.
I studied that intricate mass of curved lines as I moved to the corner where they began. I had quieted Frakir but I had not entirely subdued my own apprehensions. If it were a response of the Logrus within me, I wondered whether my reaction to the Logrus itself would be worse were I to go back and essay it again, now that I bore the Pattern as well. Fruitless speculation…
I tried to relax. I breathed deeply. I shut my eyes for a moment. I bent my knees. I lowered my shoulders. No use waiting any longer…
I opened my eyes and set my foot upon the Pattern. Immediately, sparks rose about my foot. I took another step. More sparks. A tiny crackling noise. Another step. A bit of resistance as I moved again…
It all came back to me — everything I had felt the first time through: the chill, the small shocks, the easy areas and the difficult ones. There was a map of the Pattern somewhere inside me, and it was almost as if I read from it as I moved along that first curve, resistance rising, sparks flying, my hair stirring, the crackling, a kind of vibration…
I reached the First Veil, and it was like walking in a wind tunnel. Every movement involved heavy effort. Resolve, though; that was all that it really took. If I just kept pushing I would advance, albeit slowly. The trick was not to stop. Starting again could be horrible, and in some places impossible. Steady pressure was all that was required just now. A few moments more and I would be through. The going would be easier. It was the Second Veil that was the real killer…