“As I understand it,” she said, “Brand was able to trump in when Corwin was at the middle.”
“That's the way I understand it, too.”
“...So, when you reach. the center, I can come in” on a Trump.”
“I suppose so. Then there will be two of us standing at the middle of the Pattern.”
“...And from there we will be in a position to go someplace we could not reach from any other point in existence.”
“That being?” I asked.
“The primal Pattern which lies behind it.” “You're sure there is one?”
“There must be. It is in the nature of such a construct to be scribed at a more basic level of reality as well as the mundane.”
“And our purpose in traveling to that place?”
“That is where its secrets dwell; where its deepest magics might be learned.”
“I see,” I told her. “Then what?”
“Why, there we might learn how to undo the trouble the thing is causing,” she answered.
“That's all?”
Her eyes narrowed.
“We will learn whatever we can, of course. Power is power, and represents a threat until it is understood.”
I nodded slowly.
“But right now there are a number of powers that are more pressing in the threat department,” I said. “That Pattern is going to have to wait its turn.”
“Even if it may represent the forces you need to deal with your other problems?” she asked.
“Even so,” I said. “It might turn into a lengthy enterprise, and I don't believe I have the time for that.”
“But you don't know that for certain.”
“True. But once I set foot on it, there's no turning back.”
I did not add that I'd no intention of taking her to the primal Pattern, then leaving her there on her own. After all, she had tried her hand at king-making once. And if Brand had made it to the throne of Amber in those days, she would have been standing right behind him, no matter what she had to say about it now. I think she was about to ask me to deliver her to the primal Pattern then but realized that I'd already considered it and rejected it. Not wanting to lose face by asking and being refused, she returned to her original argument.
“I suggest you make time now,” she said, “if you do not wish to see worlds torn up about you.”
“I didn't believe you the first time you told me that,” I answered, “and I don't believe you now. I still think the increased shadow-storm activity is probably an adjustment to the damage and repair of the original Pattern. I also think that if we mess around with a new Pattern we don't know anything about, we stand a chance of making things worse, not better—”
“I don't want to mess around with it,” she said. “I want to study—”
The Sign of the Logrus flashed between us suddenly. She must have seen it or felt it somehow, too, because she drew back at the same instant I did.
I turned my head with sure knowledge as to what I would see.
Mandor had mounted the battlementlike wall of stone. He stood as still as if he were a part of it, his arm, upraised. I suppressed my first impulse, which was to shout to him to stop. He knew what he was doing. And I was certain that he would not pay me the slightest heed, anyway.
I advanced to the notch in which he had taken his position, and I looked past him at the swirling thing on the cracked plain far below. Through the image of the Logrus, I felt the dark, awful rush of power that Suhuy had revealed to me in his final lesson. Mandor was calling upon it now and pouring it into the shadow-storm. Did he not realize that the force of Chaos he was unleashing must spread until it had run a terrible course? Could he not see that if the storm were indeed a manifestation of Chaos then he was turning it into a truly monstrous thing?
It grew larger. Its roaring increased in volume. It became frightening to watch it.
From behind me, I heard Fiona gasp.
“I hope you know what you're doing,” I called to him.
“We'll know in about a minute,” he replied, lowering his arms.
The Sign of the Logrus winked out before me.
We watched the damned thing spin for some time, bigger and noisier.
Finally, “What have you proved?” I asked him.
“That you have no patience,” he answered.
There was nothing particularly instructive to the phenomenon, but I continued to watch it anyway:
Abruptly, the sound became a stutter. The dark apparition jerked about' suddenly, shaking off bits of accumulated debris as it contracted. Soon it was restored to its former size, and it hit its earlier pitch and the sound grew steady once more.
“How did you do that?” I asked him.
“I didn't,” he said. “It adjusted itself.”
“It shouldn't have,” Fiona stated.
“Exactly,” he replied.
“You've lost me,” I said.
“It should have gone roaring right on, stronger than ever, after he'd augmented it that way,” Fiona said. “But whatever is controlling it had other plans. So it was readjusted.”
“...And it is a Chaos phenomenon,” Mandor continued. “You could see that in the way it drew upon Chaos when I provided the means. But that pushed it past some limit, and there was a correction. Someone is playing with the primal forces themselves out there. Who or what or why, I cannot say. But I think it's strong testimony that the Pattern isn't involved. Not with Chaos games. So Merlin is probably correct. I think that this business has its origin elsewhere.”
“All right,” Fiona conceded. “All right. What does that leave us with?”
“A mystery,” he said. “But hardly, I think, an imminent threat.”
A faint firefly of an idea flitted through my mind. It could easily be dead wrong, though that was not the reason I decided against sharing it. It led into an area of thought I could not explore in an instant, and I don't like giving away pieces of things like that.
Fiona was glaring at me now, but I maintained a bland expression. Abruptly then, seeing that her cause was fruitless, she decided to change the subject:
“You said that you left Luke under somewhat unusual circumstances. Just where is he now?”
The last thing I wanted to do was to get her really mad at me. But I couldn't see fuming her loose on Luke in his present condition. For all I knew, she might actually be up to killing him, just as a form of life insurance. And I did not want Luke dead. I'd a feeling he might be undergoing something of a change of attitude, and I wanted to give him every break I could. We still owed each other a few, even though it was hard keeping score; and there is something to be said for old times' sake Considering what I'd judged his condition to be when I'd left him, it was going to be a while before he was in decent shape again. And then I had a number of things I wanted to talk to him about.
“Sorry,” I said. “He's my province at the moment.”
“I believe I have some interest in the matter,” she replied levelly.
“Of course,” I said, “but I feel that mine is greater and that we may get in each other's ways.”
“I can judge these things for myself,” she said.
“Okay,” I told her. “He's on an acid trip. Any infor– ormation you'd get out of him might be colorful, but it would also be highly disappointing.”
“How did this happen?” she asked.
“A wizard named Mask apparently slipped him some chemicals when he had him prisoner.”
“Where was this? I've never heard of Mask.”
“A place called the Keep of the Four Worlds,” I told her.
“It's been a long time since I heard the Keep mentioned,” she said. “A sorcerer named Sharu Garrul used to hold it.”
“He's a coatrack now,” I stated. “What?”
“Long story; but Mask has the place these days.”
She stared at me, and I could tell she was just realizing that there was a lot she didn't know in the way of recent developments. I'd judge she was deciding which of several obvious questions to ask next when I decided to beat her to the punch while she was still off balance.