Blood of Amber. Chapter 9, 10, 11, 12
9
Power.
I remembered the day I had stood atop a rocky prominence.
Fiona—dressed in lavender, belted with silverstood in a higher place before me and somewhat to my right. She held a silver mirror in her right hand, and she looked downward through the haze to the place where the great tree towered. There was a total stillness about us, and even our own small sounds came muffled. The upper portions of the tree disappeared into a low-hanging fog bank. The light that filtered through limned it starkly against another pile of fog which hung at its back, rising to join with the one overhead. A bright, seemingly self-illuminated line was etched into the ground near the base of the tree, curving off to vanish within the fog. Far to my left, a brief arc of a similar intensity was also visible, emerging from and returning to the billowing white wall.
“What is it, Fiona?” I asked. “Why did you bring me to this place?”
“You’ve heard of it;’ she replied. “I wanted you to see it.”
I shook my head. “I’ve never heard of it. I’ve no idea what I’m looking at.”
“Come,” she said, and she began to descend.
She disdained my hand, moving quickly and gracefully, and we came down from the rocks and moved nearer to the tree. There was something vaguely familiar there, but I could not place it.
“From your father,” she said at last. “He spent a long time telling you his story. Surely he did not omit this part.”
I halted as understanding presented itself, tentatively at first.
“That tree,” I said.
“Corwin planted his staff when he commenced the creation of the new Pattern,” she said. “It was fresh. It took root.”
I seemed to feel a faint vibration in the ground.
Fiona turned her back on the prospect, raised the mirror she carried and angled it so that she regarded the scene over her right shoulder.
“Yes,” she said, after several moments. Then she extended the mirror to me. “Take a look,” she told me, “as I just did.” I accepted it, held it, adjusted it and stared.
The view in the minor was not the same as that which had presented itself to my unaided scrutiny. I was able to see beyond the tree now, through the fog, to discern most of the strange Pattern which twisted its bright way about the ground, working its passages inward to its off-center terminus, the only spot still concealed by an unmoving tower of white, within which tiny lights like stars seemed to bum.
“It doesn’t look like the Pattern back in Amber,” I said.
“No,” she answered. “Is it anything like the Logrus?”
“Not really. The Logrus actually alters itself somewhat, constantly. Still, it’s more angular, whereas this is mostly curves and bends.”
I studied it a little longer, then returned her looking glass.
“Interesting spell on the mirror,” I commented, for I had been studying this also, while I held it.”
“And much more difficult than you’d think,” she responded, “for there’s more than fog in there. Watch.”
She advanced to the beginning of the Pattern, near the great tree, where she moved as if to set her foot upon the bright trail. Before it arrived, however, a small electrical discharge crackled upward and made contact with her shoe. She jerked her foot back quickly.
“It rejects me,” she said. “I can’t set foot on it. Try it.”
There was something in her gaze I did not like, but I moved forward to where she had been standing.
“Why couldn’t your mirror penetrate all the way to the center of the thing?” I asked suddenly.
“The resistance seems to go up the farther you go in. It is greatest there,” she replied. “But as to why,I do not know.”
I hesitated a moment longer. “Has anyone tried it other than yourself?”
I brought Bleys here,” she answered. “It rejected him too.”
“And he’s the only other one who’s seen it?”
“No, I brought Random. But he declined to try. Said he didn’t care to screw around with it right then.”
“Prudent, perhaps. Was he wearing the Jewel at the time?”