“Uh, Your Honors,” I began, feeling obliged to try talking them out of it and wishing I were Luke, who just might be able to swing such a feat. “This is a perfect time to employ an impartial arbitrator, and I just happen to be uniquely qualified if you will but reflect-”
The golden circlet that I knew to be Ghostwheel suddenly dropped over Nayda's head, lengthening itself downward into a tube. Ghost had fitted himself within the orbits of Mandor's spheres and must somehow have insulated himself against whatever forces they were execting, for they slowed, wobbled, and finally dropped to the floor, two striking the wall ahead of me and one rolling down the stairway ahead and to the right.
The Signs of the Pattern and the Logrus began to advance then, and I crawled quickly to keep ahead of the Pattern.
“Don't come any closer, fellows,” Ghostwheel suddenly announced. “There's no telling what I might do if you make me even more nervous than I already am.”
Both Power Signs halted in their advances. From around the corner to the left, up ahead, I heard Droppa's drunken voice, raised in some bawdy ballad, coming this way. Then it grew silent. Several moments passed, and he began singing “Rock of Ages” in a far, far weaker voice. Then this, too, was cut off, followed by a heavy thud and the sound of breaking glass.
It occurred to me that I should be able, from a distance such as this, to extend my awareness into the Jewel. But I was uncertain what effects I might then be able to produce with the thing, considering the fact that none of the four principals involved in the confrontation was human.
I felt the beginnings of a Trump contact. “Yes?” I whispered.
Dworkin's voice came to me then.
“Whatever control you may have over the thing,” he said, “use it to keep the Jewel away from the Logrus.”
Just then a crackly voice, shifting in pitch and gender from syllable to syllable, emerged from the red tunnel. “Return the Eye of Chaos,” it said. “The Unicorn took it from the Serpent when they fought, in the beginning. It was stolen. Return it. Return it.”
The blue face I had seen above the Pattern did not materialize, but the voice I'd heard at that time responded, “It was paid for with blood and pain. Title passed.”
“The Jewel of Judgment and the Eye of Chaos or Eye of the Serpent are different tames for the same stone?” I said.
“Yes,” Dworkin replied.
“What happens if the Serpent gets its eye back?” I inquired.
“The universe will probably come to an end.”
“Oh,” I observed.
“What am I bid for the thing?” Ghost asked.
“Impetuous construct,” the voice of the Pattern intoned.
“Rash artifact,” wailed the Logrus.
“Save the compliments,” Ghost said, “and give me something I want.”
“I could tear it from you,” the Pattern responded.
“I could have you apart and it away in an instant,” stated the Logrus.
“But neither of you will do it,” Ghost answered, “because such a focusing of your attention and energies would leave either of you vulnerable to the other.”
In my mind, I heard Dworkin chuckle.
“Tell me why this confrontation need take place at all,” Ghost went on, “after all this time.”
“The balance was tipped against me by recent actions of this turncoat,” the Logrus replied-a burst of fire occurring above my head, presumably to demonstrate the identity of the turncoat in question.
I smelled burning hair, and I warded the flame.
“Just a minute!” I cried. “I wasn't given much choice in the matter!”
“But there was a choice,” wailed the Logrus, “and you made it.”
“Indeed, he did,” responded the Pattern. “But it served only to redress the balance you'd tipped in your own favor.”
“Redress? You overcompensated! Now it's tipped in your favor! Besides, it was accidentally tipped my way, by the traitor's father.” Another fireball followed, and I warded again. “It was not my doing.”
“You probably inspired it.”
“If you can get the Jewel to me,” Dworkin said, “I can put it out of reach of both of them until this matter is settled.”
“I don't know whether I can get hold of it,” I said, “but I'll remember that.”
“Give it to me,” the Logrus said to Ghost, “and I will take you with me as First Servant.”
“You are a processor of data,” said the Pattern. “I will give you knowledge such as none in all of Shadow possess.”
“I will give you power,” said the Logrus.
“Not interested,” said Ghost, and the cylinder spun and vanished.
The girl, the Jewel, and everything were gone.
The Logrus wailed, the Pattern growled, and the Signs of both Powers rushed to meet, somewhere near Bleys's nearer room.
I raised every protective spell that I could. Behind me I could feel Mandor doing the same. I covered my head, I drew up my knees, I—
I was falling. Through a bright, soundless concussion. Bits of debris struck me. From several directions. I'd a hunch that I had just bought the farm and that I was about to die without opportunity to reveal my insight into the nature of reality: The Pattern did not care about the children of Amber any more than the Logrus did about those of the Courts of Chaos. The Powers cared, perhaps, about themselves, about each other, about heavy cosmic principles, about the Unicorn and the Serpent, of which they were very probably but geometric manifestations They did not care about me, about Coral, about Mandor, probably not even about Oberon or Dworkin himself. We were totally insignificant or at most tools or sometimes annoyances, to be employed or destroyed as the occasion warranted—
“Give me your hand,” Dworkin said, and I saw him, as in a Trump contact. I reached and—
–fell hard at his feet upon a colorful rug spread over a stone floor, in a windowless chamber my father had once described to me, filled with books and exotic artifacts, lit by bowls of light which hung without visible means of support high in the air.
“Thanks,” I said, rising slowly, brushing myself off, massaging a sore spot in my left thigh.
“Caught a whiff of your thoughts,” he said “There's more to it.”
“I'm sure. But sometimes I enjoy being bleak-minded. How much of that crap the Powers were arguing about was true?”
“Oh, all of it,” Dworkin said, “by their lights The biggest bar to understanding is the interpretation they put on each other's doings. That, and the fact that everything can always be pushed another step backward – such as the break in the Pattern having strengthened the Logrus and the possibility that the Logrus actively influenced Brand into doing it. But then the Logrus might claim this was in retaliation for the Day of the Broken Branches several centuries ago.”
“I haven't heard about that one,” I said.
He shrugged.
“I'm not surprised. It wasn't all that important a matter, except to them. What I'm saying is that to argue as they do is to head into an infinite regression-back to first causes, which are always untrustworthy.”
“So what's the answer?”
“Answer? This isn't a classroom There are no answers that would matter, except to a philosopher-that is, none with any practical applications.”
He poured a small cup of green liquid from a silver flask and passed it to me.
“Drink this,” he said.
“It's a little early in the day for me.”
“It's not refreshment. It's medication,” he explained. “You're in a state of near shock, whether you've noticed or not.”