Knight of Shadows

Chapter 7

Some of the arms seemed to be waving good-bye to us as we commenced our climb after reaching the wall. Jurt thumbed his nose at them.

“Can you blame me for wanting to escape this place?” he asked.

“Not in the least,” I replied.

“If that transfusion you gave me really placed me beyond control of the Logrus, then I might dwell here for some indefinite period of time.”

“Sounds possible.”

“That’s why you must realize I threw the ice at Borel, not you. Besides the fact that you’re smarter than he was and might be able to find a way out of here, he was a creature of the Logrus, too, and wouldn’t have had enough fire if the need arose.”

“That had occurred to me also,” I said, withholding a possible out I’d guessed at, to keep myself indispensable. “But what are you getting at?”

“I’m trying to say that I’ll give you any kind of help you need, just so you don’t leave me behind when you go. I know we never got along before, but I’m willing to put that aside if you are.”

“I always was,” I said. “You were the one who started all our fights and kept me in trouble.”

He smiled.

“I never did, and I won’t do it again,” he said. “Yeah, okay, you’re right. I didn’t like you, and maybe I still don’t. But I won’t mess you up when we need each other this way.”

“The way I see it, you need me a hell of a lot more than I need you.”

“I can’t argue with that, and I can’t make you trust me,” he said. “Wish I could.” We climbed a little more before he continued, and I fancied the air had already grown a trifle warmer. Then, “But look at it this way,” he finally continued, “I resemble your brother Jurt, and I come close to representing something he once was — close, but not a perfect fit. I began diverging from his model beginning with our race. My circumstances are uniquely my own, and I’ve been thinking steadily since I gained my autonomy. The real Jurt knows things I do not and has powers I don’t possess. But I have his memories up through his taking the Logrus, and I’m the second greatest authority there is on the way he thinks. Now, if he’s become such a threat as you’ve indicated, you might find me more than a little useful when it comes to second-guessing him.”

“You have a point,” I acknowledged. “Unless, of course, the two of you were to throw in together.”

He shook his head.

“He wouldn’t trust me,” he said, “and I wouldn’t trust him. We’d both know better. A matter of introspection. See what I mean?”

“It means neither one of you is trustworthy.” His brow furrowed; then he nodded.

“Yeah, I guess so,” he said.

“So why should I trust you?”

“Right now because you’ve got me by the balls. Later on because I’ll be so damn useful.”

After several more minutes ascending, I told him; “The thing that bothers me the most about you is that its was not all that long ago that Jurt took the Logrus. You are not an older, milder version of my least favorite relative. You are a very recent model. As for your divergence from the original, I can’t see this short while as making that much difference.”

He shrugged.

“What can I say that I haven’t said already?” he asked. “Let’s just deal in terms of power and self-interest then.”

I smiled. We both knew that that was the way it was anyway. The conversation helped pass the time, though. A thought came to me as we climbed.

“Do you think you could walk through Shadow?” I asked him.

“I don’t know,” he answered after a time. “My last memory from before I came to this place was of completing the Logrus. I guess the recording was completed at that time, too. So I have no recollection of Suhuy instructing me in shadow-walking, no memory of trying it. I’d guess I could do it, wouldn’t you think?”

I paused to catch my breath.

“It’s such an arcane matter that I don’t even feel qualified to speculate on it. I thought maybe you’d come equipped with ready-made answers for things like that — some sort of preternatural awareness of your limits and abilities.”

“Afraid not. Unless you’d call a hunch preternatural.”

“I suppose I would if you were right often enough.”

“Shit. It’s too soon to tell.”

“Shit. You’re right.”

Soon we’d climbed above the line of haze from which the flakes seemed to fall. A little farther, and the winds died to breezes. Farther still, and these subsided to nothing. The rim was in sight by then, and shortly thereafter we achieved it.

I turned and looked back down. All I could see was a bit of glitter through the mist. In the other direction our trail ran on in a zigzag fashion, here and there looking like a series of Morse dashes — regular interruptions, possibly rock formations. We followed it to the right until it turned left.

I reserved some attention for Jurt, looking for signs of recognition at any feature of the terrain. A talk is only words, and he was still some version of the Jurt I’d grown up with. And if he became responsible for my falling into any sort of trap, I was going to pass Grayswandir through his personal space as soon as I became aware of it.

Flicker…

Formation to the left, cavelike, as if the hole in the rock opened into another reality. An oddly shaped car driving up a steep city street…

“What…?” Jurt began.

“I still don’t know their significance. A whole mess of sequences like this were with me earlier, though. In fact, at first I thought you were one of them.”

“Looks real enough to walk into.”

“Maybe it is.”

“It might be our way out of here.”

“Somehow that just seems a little too easy.”

“Well, let’s give it a try,”

“Go ahead,” I told him.

We departed the trail, advanced upon the reality window, and kept going. In a moment he was on the side walk next to the street up which the car was passing. He turned and waved. I saw his mouth working, but no words came to me.

If I could brush snow off the red Chevy, why couldn’t I enter entirely into one of these sequences? And if I could do that, mightn’t it be possible that I could shadow-walk from there, wending my way to some more congenial spot, leaving this dark world behind? I moved forward.

Suddenly I was there, and the sound had been turned on for me. I looked about at the buildings, at the sharply inclined street. I listened to the traffic sounds, and I sniffed the air. This place could almost be one of San Francisco’s shadows. I hurried to catch up with Jurt, who was moving toward the corner.

I reached him quickly, fell into step beside him. We came to the corner. We turned. We froze.

There was nothing there. We faced a wall of blackness. That is, not just darkness but an absolute emptiness, from which we immediately drew back.

I put my hand forth slowly. A tingling began as it neared the blackness, then a chill, followed by a fear. I drew back. Jurt reached for it, did the same. Abruptly he stopped, picked up the bottom of a broken bottle from the gutter, turned, and hurled it through a nearby window. Immediately he began running in that direction.

I followed. I joined him before the broken pane, stared within.

Again the blackness. There was nothing at all on the other side of the window.

“Kind of spooky,” I remarked.

“Uh-huh,” Jurt said. “It’s as if we’re being granted extremely limited access to various shadows. What do you make of it?”

“I’m beginning to wonder whether there isn’t something we’re supposed to be looking for in one of these places,” I said.

Suddenly the blackness beyond the window was gone, and a candle flickered on a small table beyond it. I began to reach through the broken glass toward it. Immediately it vanished. Again there was only blackness.

“I’d take that as an affirmative response to your question,” Jurt said.

“I believe you’re right. But we can’t be looking for something in every one of these things we pass.”

“I think maybe something’s just been trying to get your attention, to get you to realize that you should be watching what appears, that something probably will be presented once you begin noticing.

Brightness. A whole tableful of candles now blazed beyond the window.

“Okay,” I hollered. “If that’s all you want, I’ll do it. Is there anything else I should be looking for here?”

The darkness came. It crept around the corner and moved slowly toward us. The candles vanished, and it flowed from the window. The buildings across the street disappeared behind an ebon wall.

“I take it the answer is no,” I cried. Then I turned and beat it back along our narrowing black tunnel toward the trail. Jurt was right behind me.

“Good thinking,” I told him when we stood back on the glowing way, watching that rising street get squeezed out of existence beside us. “Do you think it was just pulling these sequences at random till I finally entered one?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“I think it has more control in those places and could respond to your questions more readily in one of them.”

“It being the Pattern?”

“Probably.”

“Okay. The next one it opens to me, I’m going in. I’ll do whatever it wants there if it means I get out of here sooner.”

“We, brother. We.”

“Of course,” I answered.

We commenced walking again. Nothing new and intriguing appeared beside us, though. The road zigged and zagged, and we walked along it, and I got to wondering whom we might meet next. If I were indeed on the Pattern’s turf and on the verge of doing something it wanted, then it seemed that the Logrus might send along someone I knew to attempt to dissuade me. No one appeared at all, though, and we took the final turn, followed a trail suddenly grown straight for some time, then saw it end abruptly within a dark mass far ahead.

Continuing, I saw that it plunged on into a great, dark, mountainous mass. I felt vaguely claustrophobic; just considering the implications, and I heard Jurt mutter an obscenity as we trudged toward it. Before we reached it, there came a flickering to my right. Turning, I beheld Random and Vialle’s bedroom, back in Amber. I was looking from the southern side of the room, between the sofa and a bedside table, past a chair, across the rug and the cushions toward the fireplace, the windows which flanked it admitting a soft daylight. No one was present in the bed or occupying any other piece of furniture, and the logs on the grate had burned themselves down to red embers, smoking fitfully.

“What now?” Jurt asked.

“This is it,” I replied “It has to be, don’t you see? Once I got the message as to what was going on, it presented the real thing. I’ve got to act fast, too, I think — as soon as I figure just what —”

One of the stones beside the fireplace began to glow redly. It increased in intensity as I watched. There was no way that those embers could be doing it. Therefore…

I rushed forward under the influence of a powerful imperative. I heard Jurt shout something behind me, but his voice was cut off as I entered the room. I caught a whiff of Vialle’s favorite perfume as I passed beside the bed. This was really Amber, I was certain, not just some shadowy facsimile thereof. I moved quickly to the right of the fireplace.

Jurt burst into the room behind me.

“Better come out fighting!” he cried.

I whirled to face him, shouted, “Shut up!” then raised a finger to my lips.

He crossed to my side, caught hold of my arm, and whispered hoarsely, “Borel’s trying to materialize again! He might be solid and waiting by the time you leave!”

From the sitting room I heard Vialle’s voice. “Is someone there?” she called.

I jerked my arm free of Jurt’s grasp, knelt upon the hearth, and seized hold of the glowing stone. It appeared to be mortared in place but came loose easily when I drew upon it.

“How’d you know that one came free?” Jurt whispered.

“The glow,” I replied.

“What glow?” he asked.

I did not answer him but thrust my right hand into the opened area, hoping offhandedly there were no booby traps. The opening extended back for a good distance beyond the length of the stone. And there I felt it, suspended from peg or hook: a length of chain. I caught hold of it and drew it forth. I heard Jurt catch his breath beside me.

The last time I had seen it was when Random had worn it at Caine’s funeral. It was the Jewel of Judgment that I held in my hand. I raised it quickly and slipped the chain over my head, letting that red stone fall upon my breast, just as the door to the sitting room was opened.

Placing my finger to my lips, once more I reached forward, caught hold of Jurt’s shoulders, and turned him back toward the opened wall which let upon our trail. He began to protest; but I propelled him with a sharp push, and he moved off in that direction.

“Who’s there?” I heard Vialle ask, and Jurt glanced back at me, looking puzzled.

I did not feel we could afford the time for my explaining by sign language or whisper that she was blind. So I gave him another push. Only this time he stepped to the side, extended his leg, slipped a hand behind my back, and pushed me forward. A brief expletive escaped my lips, and then I was falling. From behind me, I heard Vialle’s “Who —” before her voice was cut off.

I tumbled onto the trail, managing to draw the dagger from my right boot as I fell. I rolled and came up with the point extended toward the figure of Borel, which seemed to have found its form once more.

He was smiling, his weapon yet undrawn, as he regarded me.

“There is no field of arms here,” he stated, “to provide you with a lucky accident such as you enjoyed when last we met.”

“Too bad,” I said.

“If I but gain that bauble you wear about your neck and deliver it to the place of the Logrus, I will be granted a normal existence, to replace my living counterpart — he who was treacherously slain by your father, as you pointed out.”

The vision of Amber’s royal apartments had vanished. Jurt stood off the trail, near what had been its interface with this odd realm. “I knew I couldn’t beat him,” he called out when he felt my glance, “but you took him once.”

I shrugged.

At this Borel turned toward Jurt.

“You would betray the Courts and the Logrus?” he asked him.

“On the contrary,” Jurt responded. “I may be saving them from a serious mistake.”

“What mistake might that be?”

“Tell him, Merlin. Tell him what you told me while we were climbing out of the deep freeze,” he said.

Borel glanced back at me.

“There’s something funny about this entire setup,” I said. “I’ve a feeling it’s all a duel between the Powers — the Logrus and the Pattern. Amber and the Courts may be secondary to the entire affair. You see —”

“Ridiculous!” he interrupted, drawing his weapon. “This is just made-up nonsense to avoid our duel.”

I tossed the dagger into my left hand and drew Grayswandir with my right.

“The hell with you then!” I said. “Come and get it!”

A hand fell upon my shoulder. And it kept right on falling with a sort of twist to it, spinning me into a downward spiral which threw me off to the left of the trail. From the corner of my eye, I saw that Borel had taken a step backward.

“You’ve a resemblance to Eric or to Corwin,” came a soft, familiar voice, “though I know you not. But you wear the Jewel, which makes your person too important to risk in a petty squabble.”

I came to a stop and turned my head. It was Benedict whom I beheld — a Benedict with two normal hands.

“My name is Merlin and I’m Corwin’s son,” I said, “and this is a master duelist from the Courts of Chaos.”

“You appear to be on a mission, Merlin. Be about it then,” Benedict said.

The point of Borel’s blade flicked into a position about ten inches from my throat. “You are going nowhere,” he stated, “not with that jewel.”

There was no sound as Benedict’s blade was drawn and moved to beat Borel’s off its line.

“As I said, be on your way, Merlin,” Benedict told me.

I got to my feet, moved quickly out of range, passed them both cautiously.

“If you kill him,” Jurt said, “he can rematerialize after a period of time.”

“How interesting,” Benedict remarked, flicking off an attack and retreating slightly “How long a time?”

“Several hours.”

“And how much time will you need to complete whatever you’re about?”

Jurt looked at me.

“I’m not certain,” I answered.

Benedict executed an odd little parry, followed by a strange shuffling step and a brief slashing attack. A button flew from Borel’s shirt front.

“In that case I’ll make this last for a time,” Benedict said. “Good luck, lad.”

He gave me a quick salute with the weapon, at which moment Borel attacked. Benedict used an Italianate sixte which threw both their points off to the side, advancing as he did so. He reached forward quickly then with his left hand and pulled the other’s nose. Then he pushed him away, stepped back a pace, and smiled.

“What do you usually charge for lessons?” I overheard him asking as Jurt and I hurried down the path.

“I wonder how long it does take for one of the Powers to materialize a ghost,” Jurt said as we jogged toward the mountainous mass the trail entered.

“Several hours for Borel alone,” I said, “and if the Logrus wants the Jewel as badly as I’d guess, I’d think it would have summoned an army of ghosts if it could. I’m certain now that this place is very difficult for both Powers to reach. I get the feeling they can only manifest via the barest trickles of energy. If that weren’t the case, I’d never have gotten this far.”

Jurt reached out as if to touch the Jewel, apparently thought better of it, withdrew his hand.

“It seems you’ve definitely aligned yourself with the Pattern now,” he observed.

“Looks as if you have, too. Unless you’re planning on stabbing me in the back at the last moment,” I said.

He chuckled. Then, “Not funny,” he said. “I’ve got to be on your side. I can see that the Logrus just created me as a disposable tool. I’d wind up on the scrap heap when the job’s done. I’ve a feeling I might have dissipated already had it not been for the transfusion. So I’m with you, like it or not, and your back is safe.”

We ran on along the now-straight way, its terminus finally grown near. Jurt finally asked, “What is the significance of that pendant? The Logrus seems to want it badly.”

“It’s called the Jewel of Judgment,” I answered. “It is said to be older than the Pattern itself and to have been instrumental in its creation.”

“Why do you think you were led to it and obtained it with such ease?”

“I have no idea whatsoever,” I said. “If you get one before I do, I’ll be glad to hear it.”

Soon we reached the place where the trail plunged into the greater darkness. We halted and regarded it.

“No signs posted,” I said, checking above and to either side of that entranceway.

Jurt gave me an odd look.

“You’ve always had a weird sense of humor, Merlin,” he said. “Who’d put up a sign in a place like this?”

“Someone else with a weird sense of humor,” I replied.

“Might as well go on,” he said, turning back toward the entrance.

A bright red exit sign had appeared above the opening. Jurt stared for a moment, then shook his head slowly. We entered.

We took our way down a wandering tunnel — a thing which puzzled me a bit. The artificial quality of most of the rest of this place had led me to expect a ruler-straight trail through a smooth-walled shaft, geometrically precise in all its features. Instead, it seemed as if we were traversing a series of natural caverns — stalactites, stalagmites, pillars, and pools displayed at either hand.

The Jewel cast a baleful light over any features I turned to scrutinize.

“Do you know how to use that stone?” Jurt asked me.

I thought back over my father’s story.

“When the time comes, I believe that I will,” I said, raising the Jewel and studying it for a moment, then letting it fall again. I was less concerned with it than with the route we were following.

I kept turning my head as we made our way from damp grotto to high cathedral chamber, along narrow passages, down stony waterfalls. There was something familiar here, though I couldn’t put my finger on it.

“Anything about this place bring back memories?” I asked him.

“Not for me,” Jurt replied.

We kept going, at one point passing a side cave containing three human skeletons. These being, in their fashion, the first real signs of life I had seen since the onset of this journey, I remarked on it.

Jurt nodded slowly.

“I am beginning to wonder whether we are still walking between shadows,” he said, “or whether we might actually have departed that place and entered Shadow — perhaps when we came into these caves.”

“I could find out by trying to summon the Logrus,” I said, causing Frakir immediately to pulse sharply upon my wrist. “But considering the metaphysical politics of the situation, I’d rather not.”

“I was just going by the colors of all the minerals in the walls,” he said. “The place we left behind kind of favored monochrome. Not that I give a shit about the scenery. What I’m saying is that if we have, it’s a kind of victory.”

I pointed at the ground.

“So long as that glowing, trail is there, we’re not off the hook.”

“What if we simply walked away from it now?” he asked, turning to the right and taking a single step in that direction.

A stalactite vibrated and crashed to the ground before him. It missed him by about a foot. He was back beside me in an instant.

“Of course, it would be a real shame not to find out where we’re headed,” he said.

“Quests are that way. It’d be bad form to miss the fun.”

We hiked on. Nothing allegorical happened around us. Our voices and our footfalls echoed. Water dripped in some of the danker grots. Minerals flashed. Our way seemed a gradual descent.

For how long we walked I could not tell. After a time stony chambers took on a generic appearance — as if we passed regularly through a teleportation device which rerouted us back through the same caves and corridors. This had the effect of blurring my sense of time. Repetitious actions have a lulling effect and —

Suddenly our trail debouched into a larger passage, turned left. Finally, some variation. Only this way, too, looked familiar. We followed our line of light through the darkness. After a time we went by a side passage to the left. Jurt glanced up it and hurried past.

“Any damned thing might be lurking around here,” observed.

“True,” I acknowledged. “But I wouldn’t worry about it.”

“Why not?”

“I think I’m beginning to understand.”

“Mind telling me what’s going on?”

“It’d take too long. Just wait. We’ll be finding out pretty soon.”

We went by another side passage. Similar, yet different. Of course.

I increased my pace, anxious to learn the truth. Another sideway. I broke into a run…

Another…

Jurt pounded along beside me, the echoes falling about us. Up ahead. Soon.

Another turning.

And then I slowed, for the passage continued ahead but our trail didn’t. It curved to the left, vanishing beneath a big metal-bound door. I reached out to my right to where the hook was supposed to be, located it, removed the key that hung there. I inserted it, turned it, withdrew it, rehung it.

I don’t like this place, boss, Frakir noted.

I know.

“Seems as if you know what you’re doing,” Jurt remarked.

“Yep,” I said, then added, “Up to a point,” as I realized that this door opened outward rather than inward.

I caught hold of the large handle to the left and began to pull upon it.

“Mind telling me where we’ve wound up?” he asked.

The big door creaked, commenced a slow movement as I walked backward.

“These are amazingly like a section of caverns in Kolvir beneath Amber Castle,” I replied.

“Great,” he said. “And what’s behind the door?”

“This is much like the entrance to the chamber which houses the Pattern in Amber.”

“Wonderful,” he said. “I’ll probably go up in a puff of smoke if I set foot inside.”

“But it is not quite the same,” I continued. “We had Suhuy come and look at the Pattern itself before I walked it. He didn’t suffer any ill effects from the proximity.”

“Our mother walked the Pattern.”

“Yes, that’s true.”

“Frankly, I think anyone of proper consanguinity in the Courts could walk the Pattern — and vice versa for my relatives in Amber with the Logrus. Tradition has it we’re all related from back somewhere in the dim and misty.”

“Okay I’ll go in with you. There’s room to move around inside without touching the thing, isn’t there?”

“Yes.” I drew the door the rest of the way open, braced my shoulder against it, and stared. This was it. I saw that our glowing trail ended a few inches beyond the threshold.

I drew a deep breath and muttered some expletive as I let it go.

“What is it?” Jurt asked, trying to see past me.

“Not what I expected,” I told him.

I moved aside and let him have a look.

He stared for several seconds, then said, “I don’t understand.”

“I am not certain that I do either,” I said, “but I intend to find out.”

I entered the chamber, and he followed me. This was not the Pattern that I knew. Or rather, it was and wasn’t. It conformed to the same general configuration as the Pattern in Amber, only it was broken. There were several places where the lines had been erased, destroyed, removed in some fashion — or perhaps never properly executed in the first place. The ordinarily dark interline areas were bright, blue-white, the lines themselves black. It was as if some essence had drained from the diagram to permeate the field. The lighted area seemed to ripple slowly as I viewed it.

And beyond all of this was the big difference. The Pattern in Amber did not contain a circle of fire at its center, a woman dead, unconscious, or under a spell within it.

And the woman, of course, had to be Coral. I knew that immediately, though I had to wait for more than a minute before I got a glimpse of her face beyond the flames.

The big door shut itself behind us while I stood staring. Jurt stood unmoving for a long time also before he said, “That Jewel is certainly busy at something. You should see your face in its light right now.”

I glanced downward and observed its ruddy pulsations. Between the blue-white flux in which the Pattern was grounded and the flickering of that circle of flame had not noted the sudden activity on the part of the stone.

I moved a step nearer, feeling a wave of coldness similar to that of an activated Trump. This had to be one of the Broken Patterns of which Jasra had been speaking — representative of one of the Ways in which she and Julia were initiates. This placed me in one of the early shadows, near Amber herself. Thoughts began to race through my mind at a ferocious pace.

I had only recently become aware of the possibility that the Pattern might actually be sentient. Its corollary, that the Logrus was sentient, seemed likely also. The notion of its sentiency had been presented to me when Coral had succeeded in negotiating the Pattern and then had asked it to send her where she should go. It had done so, and this was the place to which she had been transported, and her condition was obviously the reason I couldn’t reach her by means of her Trump. When I had addressed the Pattern following her disappearance, it had — almost playfully, it seemed at the time — shifted me from one end of its chamber to the other, apparently to satisfy me on the matter of its sentience.

And it wasn’t merely sentient, I decided, as I raised the jewel of Judgment and stared into its depths. It was clever. For the images that I saw within the stone, showing me what it was that was desired of me, represented something I would not have been willing to do under other circumstances. Having come away from that strange realm through which I had been led on this quest, I would have shuffled out a Tramp and called someone for a fast exit — or even summoned the image of the Logrus and let the two of them slug it out while I slipped away through Shadow. But Coral slept in a circle of flame at the heart of the Broken Pattern… She was the authentic Pattern’s hold over me. It had to have understood something back when she was walking it, laid its plan, and set me up at that time.

It wanted me to repair this particular image of itself, to mend this Broken Pattern, by walking it, bearing the Jewel of Judgment with me. This was how Oberon had repaired the damage to the original. Of course, the act had been sufficiently traumatic to kill him…

On the other hand, the King had been dealing with the real thing, and this was only one of its images. Also, my father had survived the creation of his own ersatz Pattern from scratch.

Why me? I wondered then. Was it because I was the son of the man who had succeeded in creating another Pattern? Did it involve the fact that I bore the image of the Logrus within me as well as that of the Pattern? Was it simply because I was handy and coercible? All of the above? None of them?

“How about it?” I called out. “Have you got an answer for me?”

There was a quick pang in my stomach and a wave of dizziness as the chamber spun, faded, stood still, and I regarded Jurt across the expanse of the Pattern, the big door at his back.

“How’d you do that?” he hollered.

“I didn’t,” I replied.

“Oh.”

He edged his way to his right till he came to the wall. Maintaining contact with it, he began moving about the Pattern’s periphery, as if afraid to approach any nearer to it than he had to or to remove his gaze from it.

From this side I could see Coral a bit more clearly, within the fiery hedge. Funny. It was not as if there were a large emotional investment here. We were not lovers, not even terrifically close friends. We had become acquainted only the other day, shared a long walk about, around, and under the town and palace, had a meal together, a couple of drinks, a few laughs. If we became better acquainted, perhaps we would discover that we couldn’t stand each other. Still, I had enjoyed her company, and I realized that I did want to take the time to get to know her better. And in some ways I felt responsible for her present condition, through a kind of contributory negligence. In other words, the Pattern had me by the balls. If I wanted to free her, I had to repair it.

The flames nodded in my direction.

“It’s a dirty trick,” I said aloud.

The flames nodded again.

I continued to study the Broken Pattern. Almost everything I knew about the phenomenon had come to me by way of my conversation with Jasra. But I recalled her telling me that initiates of the Broken Pattern walked it in the areas between the lines, whereas the image in the Jewel was instructing me to walk the lines, as one normally would the Pattern itself. Which made sense, as I recalled my father’s story. It should serve to inscribe the proper path across the breaks. I wasn’t looking for any half-assed between-the-lines initiation.

Jurt made his way about the far end of the Pattern, turned, and began to move toward me. When he came abreast of a break in the outer line, the light flowed from it across the floor. The look on his face was ghastly as it touched his foot. He screamed and began to melt.

“Stop!” I cried. “Or you can find another Pattern repairman! Restore him and leave him alone or I won’t do it! I mean it!”

Jurt’s collapsing legs lengthened again. The rush of blue-white incandescence which had fled upward through his body was withdrawn as the light retreated from him. The expression of pain left his face.

“I know he’s a Logrus-ghost,” I said, “and he’s patterned on my least favorite relative, but you leave him alone, you son of a bitch, or I won’t walk you! You can keep Coral and you can stay broken!”

The light flowed back through the imperfection, and things stood as they had moments before.

“I want a promise,” I said.

A gigantic sheet of flame rose from the Broken Pattern to the top of the chamber, then fell again.

“I take it that is an affirmative,” I said.

The flames nodded.

“Thanks,” I heard Jurt whisper.