Amber Dungeons
Early November
The Pattern.
I had never, ever considered the possibility of taking the Pattern until my conversation with Zao. If I was going to become an initiate of anything, it was going to be the Logrus in deference to the wishes of my maternal grandfather. Now, however, I have made a different decision, both on the strength of my friend's advice, and based on what is probably best for Avon. After all, the monarch of one of the Arden Kingdoms not being an initiate of the Pattern could be a hindrance to his country, especially if it ever comes to war - which I have no doubt it will if Eric ever wins in Amber. It took a while to come to the decision, of course. A couple of weeks or more. However, I guess that after all this time I finally realised that it would be the logical thing to do.
"Find the person who knows most about the power you wish to take, and learn from him," Zao had advised, "to become as good with it as you can."
As far as the Pattern was concerned, that seemed to leave two alternatives...at least of people I was on speaking terms with. My Aunt Fiona, and my Uncle Brand.
It was a surprisingly simple choice once my mind was made up to pursue the matter, although I suspect a lot of my generation - especially Terry and Kelric - would disagree with my reasoning. While Fiona had tried to step into Brand's shoes as my tutor in the years immediately leading up to and after Patternfall, it was my Uncle who had been my friend and teacher all my life. The decision made, it was just a case of calling him before I lost my nerve and changed my mind, so I brought his image to mind, and waited to see if he would reply.
He answered after a brief pause, and looking through the Trump I could see that he was in his lab. He seemed to be taking readings from a vial of some noxious, vicious-looking black liquid substance, locked carefully behind reinforced glass. He reached for the device he was calibrating his results with, turned it off and smiled, "Hello Robert, good to see you."
"Hello, Brand," I replied, matching his expression, "I hope I haven't caught you at a bad moment..." I indicated the substance he was experimenting with.
"Not at all...I am trying to contain Abyss..." he answered, grinning as he indicated the black substance, "the trouble is that in the magnetic magical jar it quickly turns into matter or energy, or at least Chaos."
"As always...it seems a little beyond me. Now anyway," I replied, a little unsure about what he wanted me to say. I hadn't pretended to follow a lot of his experiments for a very long time, although I had helped out on some of the alchemical ones. Bottling the Abyss was a little beyond my experience, though. I just hoped to Hell he knew what he was doing.
"That is how I stay ahead and keep my status of elder," he continued, still smiling, "by always growing and experimenting and making bold new discoveries. It may be far easier to waste my time the way my brothers do, gambling in a smoke filled den of inequity, but I can relax here and do my experiments."
"It's a shame that some of the others misinterpret your actions," I commented.
"I have long giving up worrying about what THEY think," came the reply, accompanied by a broad grin, " 'tis better to do good anyway."
"Indeed," I answered, although I had to wonder how the general good was being served by what he was experimenting on just then. I looked at him, trying to weigh him up and mentally comparing the Brand I knew now with the one I had grown up with. Yes, he had changed, but he no longer seemed to be the insane, obsessed man he had been during Patternfall. The question was, had he recovered, or he had just put on a better mask?
He was still my friend and had taught me a lot over the years, and in that regard, at least, I was willing to trust him...in as much as I trust anyone in the family. I decided to drop the subject of his experiments, and pass on to the reason I had called him. I stepped through the link to join him, took a deep breath, and then continued.
"This may sound like a somewhat out of the blue request," I began, cautiously, "but...many years ago you offered me the Pattern. Does that offer still stand?"
"Of course," Brand replied. He seemed a little surprised, although whether it was at the question itself, or at the fact that I was asking it, I wasn't sure, "now is the best time to do it before Jasra leaves Amber."
"I'd kind of prefer it if she didn't find out immediately," I answered, shrugging, "this is something I hadn't been planning to do before...and I'd rather be used to the idea before letting her know."
"We can let her know sometime after we do it," he agreed, nodding, although I could see a trace of regret on his features, "it is really sad that you and her cannot get along. She is so fearful of you you know."
There it was again. The number of people who had felt it necessary to tell me that Jasra was afraid of me had just increased by one. I still found it difficult to understand. She was the one who left without a fight, whatever reasons she had for it, and I do not know what I have done to make her fear me...unless it is just that she feels her children should love her without reservation, and I do not fit the mould.
As of now, I do not think I ever will.
"I think we came to a kind of agreement after the Privy Council meeting," I replied, quietly, although the facts that she had kept on and on about my calling her "mother" since then, and that she had even seemed unsure of me at the Embassy Ball, nagged in the back of my mind. "It is very hard to break the habits and prejudices of a lifetime, although she seems either unwilling or unable to accept that. I think I would prefer it if she didn't know until afterwards though...I don't want her there, and I would guess she would insist on being."
"She will not last past the end of her term as Regent," Brand commented, his tone strangely neutral, "Bleys will be the next king and then we can all settle down to New Versailles on Kolvir with the Merrie Monarch."
"There are worse choices than Bleys," I answered, musing. If Finndo truly did not wish to be King, as it appeared was the case, then Bleys would have my support...were it not for the rumours of what the Abyss Hags would do to a red haired King, "but I don't know how long he will last."
I paused a moment, mental images of Bleys lying dead on Kolvir, like Gregory Helgram before him, floating into and out of my mind.
"However, you're right," I continued, finally, "it seems that if I am to do this, it will need to be soon, which is part of the reason I called you now. Is it something that the auguries need to be right for, so to speak, or can it be done at any time?"
"We can have you walk it now," he suggested in reply.
"Before I lose my nerve again, eh?" I answered, a wry smile on my face, my amusement mainly at my own uncertainty.
After Andrew had taken the Pattern, there had been no reason for me not to emulate him, and yet as I have said, I never wanted to. I guess, if I am being honest with myself, fear was part of that. Fear that both Kirk and Brand had been wrong when they told me who my father really was, although Andrew's survival meant that he had received the Amber genes from one of his parents, and I was the most logical candidate. Or maybe fear of what the Pattern actually is, and whether it corrupts and controls those who walk it as Rick has suggested.
"I assume there are instructions I need to know before doing it..." I continued, cautiously, "but after that, then what the Hell. I guess I'm as ready as I'll ever be."
Brand looked at me, smiling again, "Well, I can ship us off to the site instantaneously. Have you brushed your teeth and made sure the taps are turned off?" His tone was light, teasing even, "or if you want to do it tomorrow, I can pick you up later."
"As I said, I guess I'm as ready as I'll ever be," I replied, shrugging, still amused at my own nervousness, "let's do it."
His face became serious for a moment. "Robert, are you really sure you don't want Jasra to be there? I suspect she will be hurt when she discovers what you have done."
"No, I would rather she wasn't," I answered, firmly, "I think that her being here would make me even more nervous than I am already."
He gave a slight nod, then gave his answer. "I will let her watch a recorded version. She is sentimental about such things."
"I suppose so," I replied, quietly, "but that is better than her being present and causing me to take a wrong step."
A half smile crossed his features at that. "I am sure you will be fine. Come on."
Without further comment, he put his hand on my shoulder, and almost immediately we were surrounded by a Trump rainbow. When it faded, I was in a room I had only seen as a ghostly image before: Andrew had taken his walk up in Tir?na Nog'th, and yet now I was in the real chamber of which Tir?na Nog'th was just a Shadow. The door behind us was still locked, and as I glanced into the room I could see the Pattern burning on the floor.
It still scared the Hell out of me.
"The start is over there," Brand said pleasantly, indicating a spot off to one side, "and as for instructions, I am sure you remember the ones I gave Andrew. Don't step off the lines, don't be put off by either the current you will feel or the memories you will see, and most of all, don't stop or it will kill you." He paused a moment, and then grinned. "Good luck, Robert."
I shot a nervous smile at him, and then crossed to the place where the burning path started. I looked at it, then glanced back at Brand, who appeared calm, and definitely interested to see if I was willing to go through with this. His being there was strangely comforting. Then I took another deep breath, and gently lowered my foot towards the start of the Pattern.
I could feel a charge as my foot touched it, like a mild electric shock, and sparks leapt up into the air. But it hadn't killed me immediately. Cautiously, I placed my second foot in front of the first, and started walking. I took two steps, and then the Pattern started curving away from me, and the memories began jumping into my mind, as Brand had said they would.
I was a tiny child again. Mother and father were arguing in the old hall, and it was if I was there: the smell of the pine branches arranged around the room was strong, and the shouts of my parents hurt me. I saw him hit her and she fell, but at my cry of distress Sand came to join me and took me away. I felt a stinging in my eyes as the injustice overwhelmed me, but I fought the memories down and put them out of mind.
I continued walking up the curve, and memories of my childhood continued to figure strongly. A succession of birthdays and Christmases. Growing up with Elizabeth as my first and dearest friend. Father and Sand always there, keeping a careful eye on me and helping when I fell. Always firm and strict, but fair. I knew I would be able to count on them for ever. Aunt Cassie and Uncle Albert. Who were they really? I never had been sure. They were supposed to be my relatives, and yet that, like the rest of my line of descent, was brought into dispute by the fact that my father was a Prince of Amber. I could see Cassie before me, though, always smiling. She still reminded me of Sand. A Shadow, perhaps?
Then I could feel the pressure building up, and I guess that I was approaching the First Veil...supposedly the first major test for one who would take the Pattern, as if the path to there had not been damned hard work. I could see the wall of blackness coming at me, threatening to fall and crush the child whose memories were in my mind. Mentally I lashed out at it as I remember the first time I had ever manifested the Talent, the first time my life had truly been in danger. I felt to be walking through flames, and I felt something give. In my mind's eye I saw the Veil rip apart, like a black, velvet curtain that I had grabbed and pulled in two, and I was through it and gasping for breath.
Quickly, I realised what had given. I glanced at my hand, a little in front of my chest, as if to feel the way, and saw that it wasn't wholly human. I had started to shift with the strain. I tried to concentrate on bringing the ability back under control, however I quickly realised that to do so I would need to stop, and I could not afford to do that. Realising that, I tried to push the uncomfortable sensations to the back of my mind, and concentrated on the line in front of me, my eyes following the sparks as if my very life depended on them.
In a way, I guess it did.
I kept walking, because I had no choice. The Pattern was working on me, and there was nothing I could do but keep going, alone with my memories. I could see new images forming in my mind. My days at college. The duel with Vallencourt, and the pain as his spell burned me and his blade bit into me. I think I knew the moment I hit him that he was dead, but my mind wouldn't accept that immediately after the fact. And he was but the first of a long line of people whose blood is on my hands.
Three more steps. I was still barely an adult and the Pattern offered me images of my wedding to Elizabeth. She looked truly stunning, dressed in white and smiling as she walked down the aisle, and I could remember all the hopes and dreams we had for a long and happy life as partners and lovers. However, the Pattern continued to play games with me, and before I could relive the little time my wife and I had together, I could see her lying in our bed, dying. Pale and gaunt. A tiny, weak child in her arms.
Another step. The fight to keep Andrew alive through his first few years. Always small. Always weak and prone to take ill from any disease or virus going around. I nearly lost him at least twice, and those painful memories were very strong. It was as if the Pattern relished showing me the bad, but not the good. Yet he survived, and I completed my studies, and soon I could see myself in Paris: enjoying the social scene and learning alchemy, yet always returning home to be with my son during his holidays. A strange mixture of what I wanted and what was best for him, pleasure and duty, but I was willing to do it as he was all I had left of Elizabeth.
I tried to clear my head, and escape from my reverie. I looked around me and realised that I was well into the Pattern. The sparks were leaping up to reach my knees, or what passed for them just then, and I felt tired and yet elated. I continued walking, and soon the memories were back in full force.
"Monsieur le Marquis, forgive the intrusion at such an early hour, but there is a visitor for you." My Parisian butler's voice as he told me of the visit of Henry Barrett, my father's solicitor. My father was dead. Lost at sea. I shook my head in disbelief. Surely he couldn't really be gone? His ship had foundered when he was returning from a trip to the New World, and all hands had been lost. Barrett, took me to the scene of the wreck and showed me the damage. The search for the body and eventually discovering it on a nearby island. I slowly accepted the second major loss in my life, and at the Summer Solstice that year undertook the knight's rituals to become Duke of Worcester, where I first discovered the errors of my soul's past, and began to try to atone with the help of one of Gray's predecessors as Man in Black for Southern England.
Onwards, ever onwards. The images coming faster now. Paris in the seventeen forties. Saint-Germain, and the way he juxtaposed the genteel with the devastating; the angel with the demon. So like, and yet unlike, the family. A confidante who understands what it is to be immortal, without the baggage that being of the House of Amber brings. Time passed with every step. Paris, Berlin, London and my lives and loves there. The funeral I finally had to hold as my longevity first became a problem, and Brand's curiosity at my reasons.
A few more strides, and I came to a straight section, and I felt the pressure beginning to build again. From what I had heard from Brand in the past, I guessed that I was approaching the Second Veil. The next major obstacle to my passage of the Pattern, and once again the Sign was playing tricks with me. I was back in the Revolution, betrayed and hurting, waiting for the tumbrels to take me to the guillotine. Anger at my betrayal, and my determination to get even with de Vassigny, the man who had brought me to this, swelled in my mind and gave me the strength of will to continue. As he died in my memories, the Veil parted before me.
I carried on walking, placing my feet carefully on the sequence of right angles that followed the Second Veil. The images were martial now. The rise of Napoleon as the old century died and the new began. The war where I served in some of the bloodier battles of the era, and with Wellington at Waterloo. The Crimea and the bitterness of the Russian winter. Shock at the fate of the Light Brigade and anger at the stupidity of Lord Cardigan, sending his men to die with no chance of survival.
Ever onwards. As I hit the Grand Curve I was in India, both during and after the Mutiny, and the years stretched out to the turn of another century. A brief spell in South Africa, and a longer one in Japan as the nineteenth century died and the twentieth began. Memories of pleasant liaisons between times...and especially of Thérèse Langevin, my friend and lover. Lucien's mother. More used to the distraction now, I kept walking. Most important was to continue putting one foot in front of the other and making it to the centre.
More curves. More steps. More memories. The world descending once more into war, pushed by an assassination. The Western Front. Time spent both at headquarters, behind the lines, and in the trenches when the mages were required to try and press forward. Ypres. Verdun. The Somme. Passchendaele. The elation of capturing Passchendaele ridge again dashed by the Pattern as I remembered receiving the news that Lucien, my second son, had died in the assault. I could feel the pain again, both as I opened the letter and when I told Thérèse and held her as she wept, and it was hard to shake it off and concentrate on the job at hand.
Another straight line in the design, and I continued moving towards the middle. The horror of the Great War was slowly subsumed by memories of the Roaring Twenties, flashing through my mind...perhaps a little different on Terra Magica than on Earth, but still a somewhat less inhibited time than the end of Queen Victoria's reign. That decade was really the first time since the mid-eighteenth century that I let myself go. Especially in the hotel on the Champs Elysées where I had spent the week with the woman I had known as Maria Anna. How much were both that affair, and my general conduct over the period, coming back to haunt me now, as I learned just how used I had been by my enemies in the Thule Society.
A set of sharp arcs. Each step was getting harder and harder, I was feeling tired and hungry, and I could still feel myself shifting. However, I bent my will to the task at hand. There was nothing else I could do, and if I made it to the end, at least the memories would go away. Time passed, and in my mind I entered the thirties. I could see economic Chaos, both in Europe and in America, and the rise of Hitler's Nazi Party in Germany...and the conflicting feelings towards it in England.
I hit a series of turns. The Anschluss with Austria. Peace in our time. The annexation of Czechoslovakia. The invasion of Poland. And once again the inevitable result. Humanity seems to delight in wars. Externally, I could feel the pressure building again, presumably as I reached the Final Veil, while my memories were firmly entrenched in the war. Trying to defend a city, with too few resources. A July night on the bank of the Thames when I nearly died. Coming back and continuing to defend the British shores against everything the German mages could throw at us. Months of planning later as I worked with those who would help me take my revenge. And then the final assault.
As I hit the Veil I could see Heydrich...Reinhard, the nephew I did not know I had...his revolver pointed at me, still smoking from the bullet which had nearly taken me in the back. "You bastard..." he mouthed as I fired. Then the Veil parted as he fell and I was through. The memories moved on, through the desert war on Earth, and my flight through the trees in the Ardennes pursued by von Schmullenberg's men. De Lyon and his knights offering me sanctuary, because of their obligation to a mutual friend. Then the final end of the war, and the Nuremberg trials, and at last, as I started on the last few steps, more positive memories as I sped from the bleakness of war through the rebuilding afterwards.
I carried on walking. Not at all long now...I was past the final significant hurdle, and I fancied that I could see the end. The memories became more peaceful. Time passed, and soon I recalled first Annabel, with the arguments interspersed with the joy of William's birth, and then, later, the break-up once there was nothing left to save; and then my time with Pamela, and the more gentle but once again inevitable break-up before I knew she was carrying my daughter.
Then the images shifted to my first meeting with Claire, and the first night we had made love. The meeting of minds that had meant so much to her. My surprise at the intensity of her reaction to me as I loved her, reflected in her acceptance of my own feelings and of my very nature. After that we had always been frighteningly close, but perhaps not in the same way we had on that first night when we were mentally and physically joined.
I walked the short arc towards the end. Memories of the closeness between us manifesting in the fact that I knew the very moment when she nearly lost her life, just eighteen months later. The struggle to bring her back from the brink, not to lose her as I had Elizabeth, and my relief at her recovery. Memories both good and bad of the quiet years on Terra Magica as Michael grew up, culminating in the meeting with Merielle when we finally discovered who Claire was.
By then I felt consumed by the Pattern, the sparks leaping high enough that I could see them before my eyes. What was it doing to me? Had I really been rebuilt from the basics upwards as some people had suggested? Three steps left. Probably the hardest ones of all - the ones I hadn't been warned about. The recollections finally subsiding, leaving me all too aware that I was alone on the Pattern, and it could still kill me if it chose to. I felt a flash of anger. I would not let it do that.
Just two more steps. My right foot felt like lead, and seemed completely bathed in sparks. I could not see if it was human or demon. Just aflame. I lifted it finally and almost dropped it onto the line. Then there was only one more step to take. It was like walking through a brick wall and I had to fight so hard to make that final step. I threw my entire force of will into placing my left foot at the end of the line, and slowly, oh so slowly, laid it down.
And then the pressure was gone. I found myself standing at the centre of the Pattern. I was still alive, I was human once more although I was ravenously hungry, and I'd made it through. I stood there gasping for breath for nearly a minute, before I gathered enough of my wits about me to bring Brand's image to mind.
"Congratulations, Robert," he said, smiling as he answered, "I hadn't realised your shifting studies were so far advanced though. You should have told me, and I would have warned you what the effect would be."
I gave a weak smile. "Remember, I was planning to take the Logrus until about a fortnight ago," I answered, "although I didn't realise what contact with the Pattern would do to a shapeshifter. What happens now?"
"You can teleport wherever you want, although I would suggest you go somewhere where you can recover in safety. Then, when you're ready, call me and I'll tell you what you can actually do with the Pattern now you are an initiate of it."
"Thank you, Brand," I said, quietly, "for everything. Please, when you see Jasra tell her that I did not mean to hurt her by doing this without her."
"Hmm," came the non-committal answer, before he grinned at me, "get out of here, de Lacy, before you fall over."
"Yes, sir," I replied, trying to lift my arm in a mock salute, but realising I hadn't got the strength. Then I brought Millbank and Claire to mind, and asked the Pattern to take me home.