First Pattern Walk
London and Elsewhere, May 1981
After being ejected from Germany in October 1980 for showing the Nazi regime in a bad light (again), due to Wolf's unexpected sacrifice, which had got me out of there, and had nearly cost him his life, I'd decided to stay in England and take a break. What he had done had certainly spelt the end of the persona of Wolf Ulrich, and we had spent the first month or so back in England creating an alternative life for him to step into. It took time to figure out the details of bringing to life my own twin sons - Ian and Rudi, but once it was done, I'd decided to take time out of my journalistic career, to just enjoy being for a while.
I'd spent a lot of my time reading, writing and taking it easy as my last few wounds healed, then working to regain my usual level of fitness. I also got myself up to speed with the latest developments in international law: assignment in the wilds of the Eastern Reich hadn't really been conducive to keeping up with those, and while I might not be actively practising any more, I still kept my credentials up to date and the knowledge that offered gave my reports more kudos. That occasionally meant retaking exams in the subject, so I had a lot of catching up to do.
Now it was May. The previous week, I'd celebrated my 71st birthday by hiring the 100 Club, on Oxford Street, for the evening, and had even taken a turn at the ivories myself, playing the piano solo version of Gershiwin's Rhapsody in Blue, but the whole event had been somewhat stressful. After all, the best make-up and acting in the world couldn't really get around the fact that despite my years, I still looked and felt twenty-five years to young, and it had been an interesting task slowing myself down enough not to appear like a freak in front of my contemporaries.
There were good reasons why I was back to spending most of my time as Mikael Cuijper nowadays. The notoriety of his involvement in a bloody murder/kidnapping having faded into history for the most part, and his newfound gravitas as a Pulitzer-winning reporter made things so much simpler. I just wished I had the slightest idea why time seemed to be passing me by. It was as if I had some kind of reverse version of Methuselah syndrome.
It was 10pm, and I was sitting in the first floor library finishing up an article for the European Journal of International Law, prior to having an early night, when the doorbell rang. Cursing, I put down my pen and got to my feet. I headed downstairs into the hall, and took a look through the spy hole in the door. Outside was a solidly built man that I didn't immediately recognise, although a nagging part of my mind suggested that I ought to. Given the time, I was inclined to just ignore him, until he thumped on the door with his fist.
"I know you're in there, Ian. Didn't your mother raise you with better manners than to leave a guest standing on your doorstep?"
The voice was strong and slightly accented - possibly American - and it was probably the oddest form of address I'd heard in a long time. Curiosity and annoyance warring within me, I slipped on the chain and opened the door.
"What do you want?" I asked, somewhat grumpily.
"Is that any way to greet your father after all these years," he answered.
Revise that. Make that the oddest form of address I'd heard in a long time.
"My father is dead," I replied, rather nonplussed.
"And the moon is made of blue cheese," he answered, then paused a moment, saying almost to himself, "no, possibly not a good example, given that I know at least one place where it is...So are you going to let me in or what?"
"Right now, I'm inclined towards 'what'...with calling the police a close second."
"By the Unicorn, when did you get so crotchety? Everything I've heard about you made it sound like you had more of a sense of adventure than that. Let me in, listen to me, and then decide whether to call the police."
He pushed gently on the door, and I heard the screws creak on the chain lock. The bastard just wasn't going away, and I had the distinct impression that if he wanted to, he could just force his way inside anyway.
"Fine," I snarled, and released the chain, and the man walked in.
He probably only stood about my height, 6'0", although he seemed bigger somehow: larger than life, even. He looked to be in his late-thirties, or early-forties - slightly younger than my own early-fifties appearance - but was lean and fit and bore himself like a soldier. His hair was red, he had bright blue eyes that looked uncannily like Wolf's, and a neatly trimmed beard adorned his chin. His clothes were obviously expensive - tailored dark casual trousers, a claret red silk shirt which fitted as if it was made to measure, and a sports coat - and he didn't look like the kind of crazy madman who would usually barge into someone's house at ten in the evening.
"So, don't I get a drink?" he asked, as somewhat resentfully, I showed him into the drawing room to the right of the door.
"Drinks cabinet is by the window," I answered, and he crossed to it and poured himself a Scotch.
"Are you joining me?"
"If it gets rid of you more quickly," I answered, and he handed me the glass and poured another.
Then he looked around the room, and I saw his eyes light on the faded black and white photograph I kept on one end of the mantelpiece: the only picture I had of my parents together. It had been taken by a professional studio about three months after they met, and they both looked so happy. It was balanced at the other end by a photo of my own wedding to Audrey, in 1946, where we looked just as content, thus proving that true happiness is only ever fleeting.
"How's your mother?" he said, his tone annoyingly cheerful as he sat himself down without invitation.
"She died," I answered, "cancer."
I actually saw something pass across his face - regret, maybe, or perhaps disbelief, it wasn't clear - and for a moment I regretted my bluntness. But then my heart hardened. Who was this guy to care about my personal business anyway?
"I'm sorry to hear that, son," he said, quietly, "we were fond of each other in our way...but things were never going to be easy between us, and in the end they just didn't work out."
Then he looked at the picture of me and Audrey, "But you're happily married, right?"
"Widowed," I replied, coldly, "not that it's any of your damned business."
"I'm sorry for your loss," he said, quietly.
Rankled by his familiar tone of address, I crossed to the mantelpiece and looked at the picture of my parents properly for the first time in many years. Then I glanced back at my visitor, and against my better judgement, found myself having to concede that there was a resemblance between him and the man in the photograph.
"Who are you?" I asked, as I finally sat down opposite him.
"You know of me as Adam Hawke."
"Adam Hawke died seventy years ago."
"That long? No wonder you look so much older than I expected. This place must be running faster than I'd realised."
"Any time you want to start making sense, feel free...beginning with who are you and why you're here."
"I told you. I'm Adam Hawke, and no, I didn't die seventy years ago. I had to move on unexpectedly, and wasn't sure when I'd be back. 'Dying' got me out of the way, so Maggie could move on with her life."
"It was 1910," I answered, angrily, "how was a woman with fatherless child going to move on with her life?"
"Of course she could have. You were the product of a respectable divorce."
"Divorce? You were actually married?"
"Of course we were. I didn't want her father coming after me with a shotgun. You have our wedding picture on the opposite end of the mantelpiece. Sure, she was pregnant by then...just a few weeks...but we were safely wed when you were born."
Why on earth hadn't she told me? Not, I supposed, that getting divorced was much better than the alternative back in the 1910s, and I certainly couldn't envisage my grandfather going after anyone with a shotgun.
"Ian, whatever she may have told you, the only reason you were fatherless because I couldn't stay. So a quiet divorce freed us both, and went our separate ways"
I looked at him, frowning.
"Did you ever come back to check on her?"
"Well...no," he admitted, perhaps a little sheepish, "matters rather got out of hand and I lost track of time. But on the other hand, I knew she would protect you, so I wasn't worried. However, in the last few days I've been travelling in the neighbourhood, as it were, so I thought I'd call in. You were involved in a bit of a hoo-ha in Germany, as I understand it?"
"What the Hell?"
"Let me guess. It isn't common knowledge that Ian Cushing and Mikael Cuijper are one and the same? Well, at least you've learned the benefits of changing your identity every so often. Interesting history this place has, by the way - did you change that as well?"
"I have no idea what you're talking about. And unless you start making sense, I'm going to have to ask you to leave," I said, trying my best to rein in my anger and sound polite.
"Trust me, Ian. You might have a problem throwing me out if I don't want to go," he replied, with a certainty which left me with no illusions that he wasn't quite capable of doing just that, and then added, more quietly, "Let me show you something."
He reached into the inside pocket of his coat, and pulled out a fine leather wallet, which he slid across the table to me. Inside was a copy of the photograph on my mantelpiece.
"The photographer made two prints. One for each of us. I imagine he's long gone by now, though, so I can't prove it. But I'm guessing that the copy you have was given to you by your mother."
"She didn't exactly keep it on display, but yes...she thought I should at least see where I came from."
"She had her reasons for what happened. So did I."
"You're really trying to persuade me that this is you."
"What can I say? I'm well preserved,," he answered with a chuckle, holding out his hand for me to return the picture, which I duly did, "which sad to say is more than can be said for you. By the Unicorn, boy. What have you done to yourself? I can see the grey hairs. I obviously should have introduced myself sooner, before you ran to seed."
"Before I ran to seed?" I repeated, almost stupidly, and taking exception to his tone, "I'll have you know that I consider myself to be in excellent health for my age."
He paused, downed his glass and helped himself to a refill before sitting back down and continuing.
"Ian, you're still young...a child by our family's reckoning. You certainly shouldn't look older than I do."
"Which is why I find it difficult to believe anything you're saying."
He paused a moment, perhaps considering whether to be offended, but then shrugged.
"Let me prove it."
"How? A paternity test?"
"God no..." he said, laughing, "that wouldn't help in the slightest - they wouldn't be able to make head or tail of the results. About the best they could do is decide we have the same blood group."
That was interesting. I only knew of one person who shared my particular exotic blood group, and that was Wolf. And I knew what the relationship there was. It was the first thing 'Hawke' had said which made me believe that he might be telling the truth.
"No, let me take you somewhere where I can show you."
"Why should I listen?"
"Are you being intentionally obtuse?" he snapped, a trace of genuine anger in his voice...and then he consciously tried to tone it down, "I'd got the impression from reading up on you that you were both smarter than that, and had a healthy curiosity. Aren't you just a little bit interested in whether what I'm saying is true?"
We sat in silence, sipping our respective Scotches and sizing each other up (in the words of Philip Marlowe, "with the clear, innocent eyes of a couple of used car salesmen"), and I found myself studying his features. Maybe there was something of me about his eyes and in the bone structure of the face, although my colouring was my mother's, not his. And his eyes really were uncannily like Wolf's.
"Are you sure you have this relationship the right way around?" I asked, finally, "I could believe you were my brother - if I didn't know I was an only child - but my father? That's stretching it."
He shrugged, and when he answered, his voice was quieter.
"If that makes you feel happier, then think of it that way. At least it means you're willing to accept the possibility that we're related, which is progress."
He paused a moment, then asked more gently.
"What happened to your wife?"
"She was killed in a car accident. We'd only been married a few years."
"Children?"
"We were never blessed, despite our better efforts."
"I'm sorry to hear that."
"It was a long time ago," I replied, draining my Scotch before I started feeling too maudlin.
"But you still miss her?"
I shrugged.
"She was my soul mate. Sure, there have been other women, both before and since, but she was...the one, and after she was gone I had nothing left except memories."
"Memories are very important," he said, quietly, "I'm sorry for your loss."
And I got the impression that he actually meant it he said. Then he managed to spoil the effect by saying:
"So who's the blonde hottie?"
"What the Hell?" I said looking at him in a combination of shock and anger.
"The picture on the corner of the piano. The child's obviously yours - he has the family look - and I'm guessing the woman meant something to you, otherwise you wouldn't have bothered to put her photo on display. So was she before...or since?"
"That's really none of your damned business," I snapped.
"Not while you were married, surely?"
"Of course it bloody well wasn't while I was married," I felt offended at the question, "I knew her before I ever met Audrey."
"Is she still alive?"
"No."
"You don't have much luck with women, do you, son?"
I tried to think of an answer for him, but words failed me and I ended up just glaring at him.
"What happened to the boy?"
"He's alive and well."
He nodded, and I had the distinct impression that he was relieved...possibly even surprised.
"That's good. Does he have a name?"
"Wolf."
"A good name," he said, nodding approvingly, "strong."
"Short for Wolfgang."
"And then you spoil it," he sighed, "I'm not sure I even want to guess why my grandson is called Wolfgang."
"He was born in Germany. His mother named him."
"Are you in touch with him?"
"Yes. He's living in Edinburgh at the moment."
"Do you get on?"
"Of course we do. Why the Hell wouldn't we?"
"Never a given in my family," he answered, with a shrug, "but it sounds like you've been lucky."
"Your family?"
"The House of Amber. Of which I'm a part, and so, by extension, are you and...Wolf."
"Never heard of it."
"Which is why you need to learn. Plans are in motion, and I want to make sure you're prepared for what's coming. So it's time you entered into your birth right."
"I still don't know what the Hell you're talking about."
"It will make sense we've done what needs to be done this evening."
Then he emptied his own glass and stood up, "I guess we'd better go."
"Go where?" I asked, taking his cue, and getting to my feet.
"A place called Tir-na Nog'th."
"Isn't that something out of Celtic mythology?"
"All mythology has its roots somewhere. Quite often in the doings of our kin."
"The House of Amber again?"
"Indeed. You're catching on."
"So how do we get to this mythical place?"
He placed his glass on a table, and then reached into his pocket again and brought out what looked like a playing card. Then he gestured for me to join him. Too tired to argue any more, I crossed to where he was standing and glanced at what was in his hand. It looked like a picture of three stone steps.
"Rest a hand on my shoulder, and when I say so, step forward."
I shrugged and did as I was bid, and then, to my surprise, he began to concentrate on the card, almost as if he was willing it to do something. He fell silent, obviously intent on what he was doing, and in front of me the picture seemed to come to life.
"Let's go," he said, and he stepped forward. I followed, and suddenly I was beside the steps I had seen in the picture. It was a cold, moonlit night - if anything, it felt like late autumn - and in front of me was a staircase made of moonlight headed up into the sky.
"What on Earth?" I asked.
"Technically, not Earth. The steps to Tir-na Nog'th. What we want is at the top. However, be wary. The sky city can play tricks on you - give you visions of what is, and was, and yet may be. Try not to let your attention stray too far, though. I can see clouds in the sky, so I'm not sure how long we'll have."
And with that, he started striding up the stairs. Unsure what else to do, I followed him, regretting my current relative lack of fitness as I walked. However, the higher we got, the easier it seemed, and sooner than I might have expected, we were standing at the top of the stairs.
"Look down...carefully," he said, and I did as bid. Below me, I could see the twinkling lights of a city, with a castle dominating the hill on which it was set, lit by what looked like flaming torches in sconces.
"That is Amber...the family pile. Eventually, if everything goes according to plan, I'll be able to take you there officially. For now, though...I wouldn't advise it. The current management has...antipathy towards me and, by extension, my blood. If he knew about you - or your son - he would do his best to kill you both. Shall we go?"
He strode briskly towards the gates of the sky city in front of which we were standing, and after a couple of moments, I followed him inside. As I did, I saw him pause, a flash of anger crossing his face, as he looked at a statue of a heavily built, bearded man in Medieval clothing, which adorned the courtyard into which we entered. Then, to my surprise, he spat at it, hitting its left foot with unerring accuracy.
"My brother Eric," he said, his tone surprisingly disrespectful, "he's been getting above himself."
"The current management?"
He grunted in acknowledgement, and before I could ask more, but Hawke strode off across the corridor, heading for the ghostly image of the castle. I followed him, pondering over the nature of his society, if siblings murdering each others' children the norm Around us, pale people seemed to be going about their daily business, oblivious to our presence.
"Do they know we're here?" I asked.
"Who, them? No. We're ghosts to them, much as they're ghosts to us. Unless you do something to consciously interact with them. Which I have neither the time nor the inclination to do at this point."
We headed inside, and around me I could see that the castle was decorated as if for some kind of festival. Rather against his better judgement, it became obvious that Hawke was interested in this as well, and after we had travelled through a couple of corridors, he changed direction. Soon we found ourselves in what looked like an honest to goodness throne room, arrayed for an equally honest to goodness coronation. And on the throne was the same man whose statue Hawke had insulted earlier.
"Bugger," he said, loudly.
"Problem?"
"This is the last thing I wanted to see up here. Here's hoping that this is the city having a bad day."
As we watched, a prisoner was dragged in and forced to his knees at the soon to be crowned monarch's feet. The crown was thrust into his hand and he was pulled up, obviously expected to place it on the head of the man on the throne. However, he just smiled and crowned himself. I saw Hawke's face cloud with anger as we watched him beaten to the ground and then dragged away as Eric placed the crown on his own head. A short while later it felt as if a scream ripped through the city. It caused the hairs on the back of my neck to stand up.
"What was all that about?"
"Eric and Corwin...they've always hated each other. It looks like Eric's got the upper hand."
"Another brother?"
"Indeed. Come on. We've wasted enough time already," he said, abruptly, but as we walked I got the impression that he was shaken by what he'd seen. One thing I'd noticed, and I had to guess he had as well, was that he hadn't been present at the Coronation banquet.
He led me through a corridor or two, and finally into a room in the back corner of which was a concealed stairway. However, before we could start descending, it was as if the lights flickered on in the room, and images began to move. Again I saw Eric, this time sitting at dinner when a messenger approached him. The man was covered in blood and looked like he'd been riding hard for a week. He knelt before Hawke's brother, and gave a report which both angered and worried his master, and a few moments later, Eric stood, casting his goblet to the floor so it shattered into a thousand pieces, and strode out of the room in a fury, the messenger following behind him like a dog.
"At least he didn't kill the poor bastard," Hawke commented, and then started down the stairs. I paused a moment, looking back into the room, but Eric did not return. Instead, servants came to clear away, and the image once again faded into nothing, until I heard my companion's voice from below me, "Hurry up - we don't have all night."
I pulled myself out of my reverie and followed him. We descended for a long time - almost longer than it seemed we had climbed to get to the sky city in the first place - but eventually made it downstairs. Then he threaded his way through what looked like a dungeon complex, with me trailing behind him, until he reached an old wooden door.
"Entrez-vous, mon fils," he said as he opened the door, and gestured for me to step through.
Inside, the ghost of a hewn rock chamber was dark, lit only by a silvery light from what looked like some kind of insane, giant doodle on the floor. Of everything I had seen up here, only that design seemed real, and I felt as if it was calling to me.
"The Pattern," Hawke said, as if it explained everything, "only my father, Oberon, and his descendants can walk it. Anyone else who tries, dies."
"What is it?"
"It's the key to everything in the universe," he answered, "largely because without it there wouldn't be a universe. It's the doorway to Shadow. The freedom to leave the place you call home and have a life of your own."
"I had those already."
"Trust me, once you've walked the Pattern, you'll realise just how unimportant your old life was. Everything is going to be a whole lot clearer to you."
"So what happens now?"
"You start at the beginning and begin to walk. Don't stop. Don't look away. And never step off the lines. Keep to the path, get to the middle, and you'll be fine. Damned tired, but fine. And once you've initiated to it, all of this will make a lot more sense."
"Sounds simple enough."
"It isn't...it's probably the hardest thing you'll ever do in your life. Never forget that. But keep your wits about you. As you walk, you might feel a current coursing through you. Ignore it. You may well also find yourself experiencing memories from your life. Ignore them too. Don't let anything break your concentration. Then, once you make it to the middle, you have the option of getting it to send you anywhere you want. At that point, meet me at the top of the stairs, by the statue of my bastard brother, and I'll take you home. Are you ready?"
"As I'll ever be, I guess. I just hope you're sure that we're related."
"I am," he replied, and led me to the start of the Pattern.
I took one last look at him, then put my foot on the start, and everything disappeared from my consciousness except the Pattern itself. I placed a second foot, then a third, and soon I found myself bound up in what I was doing. And he was right. It was hard. I felt as if I was being ripped apart and being put back together again repeatedly, and as he'd said, memories of my childhood and early career came to mind unbidden. I also felt a sense of challenge from it. It wanted me to recall when I had felt most alive, and there was an odd urgency to its wish.
Then my mind was filled with memories of the war...the battles, the plots, the plans, the deceptions and the escapes...the compromise with the lesser of two evils...the doomed attempts to help the innocent escape and the punishment for trying. The torture when I was caught and the fear of dying under the guns of an SS firing squad. The sheer relief and pleasure as Audrey came into my life and saw me safely home. Had it really been so long since I'd felt truly alive? I felt as if I was struggling to make sense of it all, and suddenly the sense of urgency was gone, and the memories were more general.
I was travelling with Audrey, and later, after she was gone, making my own journeys as I tried to forge a new path for myself. Then, a little further along the silver road I was following, time turned back on itself, and I was reliving her death and the serious injuries that had nearly claimed me as well. I struggled and pushed to break through them, to see myself healed in body and spirit, and finally prevailed. I was left with the happier memories of my wife, rather than the pain of her death.
I could tell that I was well on my way around the Pattern - certainly over half way, and maybe even two-thirds to the end. I was tired, but I knew I had to continue, and I struggled on. My later life. Discovering I had a son and going to his rescue when he needed me. Meeting Marina Acker, my newer lover and rival, our relationship cemented in the heat of combat. We got caught in a terrorist attack, and my old instincts from the war kicked in to keep myself and my companions alive. Our complicated relationship thereafter, built on respect and professionalism mixed with lust and mistrust, with the nagging suspicion that whichever persona I was wearing, she knew who I really was.
Further travels, with the dark memories of the massacre I had witnessed on the Eastern Front, and how my own actions may have made it worse, but in doing so saved millions of lives. The urgency returned for a third and final time as I relived the second torture at the hands of the Gestapo after I told the world what I had seen, the grief when I thought that Wolf was dead and the panic to keep him alive. Once again, I found myself striving to break through the physical and pain, and eventually, as I finally conquered it, I could see the final few steps ahead of me. I exulted inside, and took those steps, and soon I was standing in the centre.
I paused to gather my breath, and as I did, I realised that he had been right. Things had fallen into place. I knew who Adam Hawke really was - Prince Bleys of Amber - and that he had been telling me the truth about our relationship. I knew that he was one of something like thirteen brothers and eight sisters, although some of them were dead, and so much more besides.
I also knew I was starving hungry and completely exhausted.
I glanced over in the direction in which I thought I'd last see him, and could just about make out his form against the light.
"See, I told you," he called back to me, "now, remember what I said. Ask the Pattern to send you back to the entrance, and I'll meet you shortly."
"Okay."
I concentrated for a moment, and found myself once more at the top of the stairs. This time, however, what I could see was different. Instead of the massive drop below me, it was as if the sky city had expanded, and I could see the countryside around it. I walked towards it, and felt the ground beneath me give slightly, causing me to step back quickly. However, suddenly it was as if I was taken up by it, and I found myself flying over the landscape, until I was elsewhere. As I came to ground, I find myself witnessing an unexpected sight. Eric, lying bleeding on the ground from a mortal wound, and beside him knelt the one Bleys had called Corwin. No longer in chains, but instead in uniform, surrounded by men in similar uniforms. And off to one side, a young civilian stood watching. Corwin and Eric spoke, although I couldn't hear the words, and I was left with the impression that they had finally come to terms with each other. And then Eric pronounced words of power - leading to a similar tremor through the city as the scream I had heard before - and his eyes rolled back into his head. Corwin closed them gently, and then stood.
"By the Unicorn, Ian," came a shout from behind me, "What do you think you're doing?"
I looked towards the voice to see Bleys's panic-stricken face, and as I did, I felt myself falling. But a strong hand caught mine, and he pulled me back onto 'solid' ground.
"What happened?"
"You'd all but stepped over the edge, you young idiot," he answered, and while his tone was angry, it was underlain by shock and fear, and he was obviously more shaken by my near demise than he wanted to admit.
"I was somewhere else," I replied, "but it felt as real as the rest of the place."
"What was it? What did you see?"
"I saw Eric die," I answered, and my father looked at me very strangely.
"I need to get you home," he said, and once again got the pack of cards out of his pocket. I didn't see which one he drew out this time, but moments later we stepped through into a narrow alley. Then he concentrated again, and we seemed to be instantaneously moved from there - wherever there was - to the front door of the cottage.
"Before you go, I want you to promise me something."
"Of course."
"If Wolf is truly your son, then everything I showed you tonight, and everything I will teach you later...that birthright is his, as well. He, like you, will need them to survive. If, for any reason, I can't help him to take it up, promise me that you will."
"Why wouldn't you be able to do that?"
"So much is going on...I don't know what the future will bring. Will you promise me?"
"Of course."
"Thank you. Now, go inside. Rest. And I will come back for you in a few days, once you've recovered," he said, quietly. Then he reached into his pocket, pulled out my door keys and turned the key in the lock, before handing them back to me, "Oh, and you might want to take a look at yourself in a mirror.
Then he turned on his heel and walked away. He had disappeared before he even got to the gate which closed off Albion Close from Albion Street and the Bayswater Road.
Shaking my head, and very aware that I was about to fall over, I headed inside and up to my rooms on the attic level. However, as I turned the corner on the staircase, I caught a look at myself in the mirror. Staring back at me was a man in his mid-thirties, hale, healthy, full of vitality and not a grey hair in sight. I looked at him and it occurred to me that I was looking at myself as I appeared during the war - when I felt most alive, as the Pattern had kindly put it - and I realised it felt right.
Without further ado, I made it to the top of the stairs and paid a call to the bathroom, and then I went over and threw myself on the bed, knowing that sleep would claim me almost immediately. Everything else could wait until morning.