I raised the Jewel and stared into it. There was an image of me completing the walking of the Grand Curve and continuing right on through the wall of flames as if this represented no problem whatsoever. While I took the vision as a piece of advice, I was reminded of a David Steinberg routine which Droppa had once appropriated. I hoped that the Pattern was not into practical jokes.
The flames enveloped me fully as I commenced the Curve. I continued to slow as my efforts mounted. Step after painful step I drew nearer to the Final Veil. I could feel myself being transformed into an expression of pure will, as everything that I was became focused upon a single end, Another step…It felt as if I were weighted down with heavy armor. It was the final three steps that pushed one near despair’s edge.
Again . .
Then came the point where even movement became less important than the effort. It was no longer the results but the attempt that mattered. My will was the flame; my body, smoke or shadow….
And again…
Seen through my risen blue light, the orange flames which surrounded Coral became silver-gray spikes of incandescence. Within the crackling and the popping I heard something like music once again-low, adagio, a deep, vibrant thing, like Michael Moore playing bass. I tried to accept the rhythm, to move with it. Somehow, then, it seemed that I succeeded-that, or my time sense became distorted-as I moved with a feeling of something like fluidity through the next steps.
Or maybe the Pattern felt it owed me a favor and had eased up for a few beats. I’ll never know.
I passed through the Final Veil, faced the wall of flame, suddenly orange again, and kept going. I drew my next breath in the heart of fire.
Coral lay there at the Pattern’s center, looking pretty much as she had when last I had seen her-in a copper shirt and dark green breeches-save that she appeared to be sleeping, sprawled there upon her heavy brown cloak. I dropped to my right knee beside her and laid my hand upon her shoulder. She did not stir. I brushed a strand of her reddish hair off her cheek, stroked that cheek a few times.
“Coral?” I said.
No response.
I returned my hand to her shoulder, shook her gently.
“Coral?”
She drew a deep breath and sighed it out, but she did not awaken.
I shook her a bit harder. “Wake up, Coral.”
I slipped my arm beneath her shoulders, raised her partway Her eyes did not open. Obviously she was under some sort of spell. The middle of the Pattern was hardly the place to summon the Sign of the Logrus if one wished to remain unincinerated. So I tried the storybook remedy. I leaned forward and kiss her. She made a small, deep noise, and her eyelids fluttered. But she did not come around. I tried again. Same result.
“Shit!” I remarked. I wanted a little elbowroom for working on a spell like this, a place where I had access to some of the tools of my trade and could call upon the source of my powers with impunity.
I raised her higher and commanded the Pattern to transport us back to my apartment in Amber, where her ty’iga-possessed sister lay in a trance of her own-one of my brother’s doing, for purposes of protecting me from her.
“Take us home,” I said aloud, for emphasis.
Nothing happened.
I employed a strong visualization then and backed once more with the mental command.
We didn’t stir.
I lowered Coral gently, rose, and looked out across the Pattern through the faintest area of the flames.
“Look,” I said, “I just did you a big favor, involving lot of exertion and considerable risk. Now I want to go the hell out of here and take the lady with me. Will you please oblige?”
The flames died down, were gone, for several beats. In the diminished light which followed I became aware that the Jewel was pulsing, like the message light on a hotel phone. I raised it and stared into it.
I hardly expected an X-rated short feature, but that’s what was playing.