“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.