“That is correct. What we must do for you is something similar to what the first Lord of Chaos did… find a way to trace the unique pattern within you, so that your pattern is imprinted on your mind, much the way the Logrus is imprinted on my mind.”
“All right,” I said. It sounded reasonable enough. And yet… something still bothered me.
Dad hesitated.
“You’re leaving something out,” I said accusingly.
“No…”
“Tell me!”
He swallowed. “I have never tried this before. It may work. It should work, if my theories about the Logrus and its nature are correct. But then again… what if I am wrong? What if I have made a mistake?”
“It might kill me,” I said, recognizing what he had been unwilling to say.
“That, or worse. It might destroy your mind, leaving your body little more than an empty shell. Or… it might do nothing at all.”
I didn’t know which would be worse. My hopes had been raised; it had to work. It would work. I had run out of options.
“What are my chances of living?” I asked.
“I cannot guarantee anything, except that I have done my best.”
“Would you do it?” I asked. “Would you risk your own life on tracing this pattern?”
“Yes,” he said simply. No arguments, no explanations, just a single word.
I took a deep breath. This was the moment of truth. I could risk everything and try to gain power unimaginable. Or I could be safe, forever trapped in the world of mortal men.
Could I live with the Lockes of the world sneering at me, pitying me? Could I live with myself if I passed up my one last chance for power?
Only cowards choose the safe path.
I had known what my answer must be even before Dworkin told me of the risk. I wanted power. I wanted magic of my own. After seeing what Dworkin and the rest of my family could do, how could I step back now?
I swallowed hard. “I want to try it.”
Dworkin let out his breath. “I will not fail you, my boy,” he said softly.
He held up the ruby. I gasped as it caught the light, sending flashes of color dancing and slashing around the room.
Holding the jewel higher, at my eye level, I found it glowed with an inner light. I leaned forward, wanting to fall into its center like a moth is called by an open flame.
“Look deep inside,” Dworkin continued. His voice sounded as if he were standing far away. “Fastened within it is a design… an exact tracing of the pattern within you. Gaze upon it, my boy—gaze and let your spirit go!”
A shimmer of red surrounded me. The world receded, and light and shadow began to pulsate rhythmically, shapes and forms seeming to appear, then vanish.
As though from a great distance away, I heard Dworkin’s voice: “Follow the pattern, my boy… let it show you the way…”
I stepped forward.
It was like opening a door and entering a room I never knew existed. The world unfolded around me. Space and time ceased to have meaning. I felt neither breath in my lungs nor the beating of my heart; I simply was. I did not need to breathe, or see, or taste, or touch. When I reached for my wrist, I felt no pulse… I felt nothing at all.
Lights glimmered, moved. Shadows flowed like water.
This isn’t real…
And yet it was. Before me, behind me, to the sides and all around me, I saw the lines of a great pattern. It blazed with a liquid red light, curves and sweeps and switchbacks, like the twisted body of some immense serpent or dragon. It held me transfixed within it, just as I held it within me, and together we balanced perfectly. I felt a calm, a harmony of belonging.
“This way…”
I felt a hand on my shoulder, pushing me on. I took a step.
“Dad?”
“Yes. I am here. I have projected myself inside the jewel, too. Come. Move forward, onto the pattern. Walk its length. I will be withyou…”
I stepped forward, heading for the pattern. This was no mere distortion of the Logrus. It was separate, different, and yet… two parts of some greater whole.
Distantly, as though in a dream, I heard Dad’s voice talking to me. I could not make out the words, but the tone nagged and insisted. I had to do something… go somewhere…
So hard to concentrate. And yet I knew there was something I had to remember… something I had to do…
“Forward,” said the voice. “Do not stop.”
Yes. Forward.
I moved on, into the pattern, following the glowing red light. At first I found it easy, but it grew steadily harder as I progressed, like wading through mud. The light pushed at me, trying to drive me back, but I refused to give up. I thought. I would not stop no matter what happened.
And abruptly the resistance ceased. I moved easily down the trail. The light, clear and brilliant, lit the path. Around the turn, forward—another turn—
The whole of my life flashed before me, but strangely vivid—all the places I’d been, all the people I’d ever met.
My mother—
Swearing to serve King Elnar—
Sword lessons on the town green—
Our house in Piermont—
Fighting the hell-creatures—
Dworkin as a younger man—
The path curved and again grew difficult, and I found myself straining for every inch, forcing myself forward. I would not stop. I could not stop. The lights ahead beckoned. Images of my life flashed and danced through my mind.
The beach at Janisport—
King Elnar’s crowning—
Fishing on the banks of the Blue River—
The women I had known before Helda—
The battle of Highland Ridge—
In bed with Helda—
Mustering troops for battle—
For some reason, I seized upon the image of the battlefield. Here King Elnar had fought the hell-creatures to a standstill. Here we had known our first real victory in the war against the hell-creatures.
In my mind’s eye, I still saw our troops again rallying valiantly to the king, swords and pikes raised, screaming their war-cries—
And, reaching the center of the pattern, where it had wound in upon itself—
—I staggered across mud and matted grass, then drew up short, half gagging on the stench of death and decay. Bodies of men and horses lay all around me, rotting and covered with flies. A low buzz of wings came from the corpses.
I looked up. It was late afternoon on a dark, overcast day. A chill wind blew from the east, heavy with the promise of rain. It could not remove the stench of death, however.
Slowly I turned in a circle. The battlefield stretched as far as I could see in every direction. There had been a massacre here, and I saw uncountable hundreds, perhaps thousands of bodies, all human, all dressed in King Elnar’s colors.
From warmth to cold, from dry to damp, from the safety of a castle to the horrors of a battlefield in an instant. What had happened? How had I gotten here?
Dworkin’s ruby…
I remembered it now. I had seen the fields outside of Kingstown while gazing into the jewel. Somehow, it had sent me here.
But why? To see the destruction?
I covered my mouth and nose with my shirt tail, but it did little to hide the stench. Slowly, I turned full circle, taking in the horrors around me.
These men had died at least four or five days ago, I estimated. Broken weapons, a burnt out war-wagon toppled on its side, and fallen banners caked with mud and gore spoke to the magnitude of the loss. King Elnar’s army had been destroyed, and from the number of bodies, probably to the last man.