KNIGHT OF SHADOWS (24 page)

I’ve no idea how much time passed in my attunement to the Jewel of Judgment, the higher octave of the Pattern.
 
Dworkin felt that there were reasons other than my having pissed off the Pattern for its wanting me dead immediately following my completion of my bizarre quest and repairing of the nearest of the Broken Patterns.
 
But Dworkin refused to elaborate, feeling that my knowing the reason could influence a possible future choice which should be made freely.
 
All of which sounded like gibberish to me, save that everything else he said struck me as eminently sane, in contrast with the Dworkin I knew of from legend and hearsay.

My mind plunged and reared through the pool of blood that was the Jewel’s interior.
 
The Pattern segments I had traversed and those I had yet to travel moved about me, flashing like lightning.
 
I’d a feeling my mind was going to crash against some invisible Veil and shatter.
 
My movement was out of control now, accelerating.
 
There was no way, I knew, for me to withdraw from this thing until I had run its course.

Dworkin felt that I had been protected from the Pattern during our confrontation, when I had gone back to check on the figure I had seen, because I was wearing the Jewel.
 
I could not keep wearing it for too long, though, because this also had a tendency to prove fatal.
 
He decided that I must become attuned to the Jewel-as were my father and Random-before I let it out of my possession.
 
I would thereafter bear the higher-order image within me, which should function as well as the Jewel in defending me against the Pattern.
 
I could hardly argue with the man who had supposedly created the Pattern, using the Jewel.
 
So I agreed with him.
 
Only I was too tired to do what he suggested.
 
That was why I had had Ghost return me to my crystal cave, my sanctuary, to rest first.

Now, now...I flowed.
 
I spun.
 
Occasionally I stalled.
 
The Jewel’s equivalents of the Veils were no less formidable because I had left my body behind.
 
Each such passage left me as wrung out as running a mile in Olympic time.
 
Though I knew at one level that I stood holding the Jewel through which I took my initiatory way, at another I could feel my heart pounding, and at another I recalled parts of a guest lecture by Joan Halifax for an anthropology course I was taking, years before.
 
The medium swirled like Geyser Peak Merlot 1985 in a goblet-and whom was I looking across the table at that night? No matter.
 
Onward, down and around.
 
The blood-brightened tide was loosed.
 
A message was being inscribed upon my spirit.
 
In the beginning was a word I cannot spell.
 
.
 
.Brighter, brighter.
 
Faster, faster.
 
Collision with a ruby wall, I a smear upon it.
 
Come now, Schopenhauer, to the final game of will.
 
An age or two came and went; then, suddenly, the way was opened.
 
I was spilled forth into the light of an exploding star.
 
Red, red, red, shifting me onward, away, like my little boat Starburst, driven, expanding, coming home...

I collapsed.
 
Though I did not lose consciousness, my state of mind was not normal either.
 
There was a hypnagogia I could have passed through at any time I chose, in either direction.
 
But why? I am seldom the recipient of such a delivery of euphoria.
 
I felt I’d earned it, so I drifted, right there, for a long, long time.

When it finally subsided below the level that made indulgence worthwhile, I climbed to my feet, swayed, leaned against the wall, made my way to the storeroom for another drink of water.
 
I was also ravenous, but none of the tinned or freeze-dried foods appealed to me that greatly.
 
Especially when fresher things were not that hard to come by.

I walked back through those familiar chambers.
 
So I had followed Dworkin’s advice.
 
It was a pity I’d turned my back before I recalled a long list of questions I wished to ask him.
 
When I turned back again, he was gone.

I climbed.
 
Coming up out of my cave, I stood atop the blue prominence which held the only entranceway I knew of.
 
It was a breezy, balmy, springlike morning with only a few small puffs of cloud to the east.
 
I drew a deep breath for pleasure and expelled it.
 
Then I stooped and moved the blue boulder to block the opening.
 
I’d hate to be surprised by a predator should I come this way again in need of sanctuary.

I took off the Jewel of Judgment and hung it on a spur of the boulder.

Then I moved off about ten paces.

“Hi, Dad.”

The Ghostwheel was a golden Frisbee, come sailing out of the west.

“Good morning, Ghost.”

“Why are you abandoning that device? It’s one of the most powerful tools I’ve ever seen.”

“I’m not abandoning it, but I’m about to summon the Sign of the Logrus, and I don’t think they’d get on too well.
 
I’m even a little leery over how the Logrus will take to me with this higher-order Pattern attunement I’m wearing.”

“Perhaps I’d better move along and check back with you later.”

“Stick around,” I said.
 
“Maybe you can bail me out if this turns into a problem.”

I summoned the Sign of the Logrus then, and it came and hovered before me, and nothing happened.
 
I shifted a part of my awareness into the jewel, there on the side of the boulder, and through it I was able to perceive the Logrus from another perspective.
 
Eerie.
 
Also painless.

I centered myself within my own skull once again, extended my arms into the Logrus limbs, reached....In less than a minute I had a plate of buttermilk pancakes, a side order of sausages, a cup of coffee, and a glass of orange juice.

“I could have gotten them for you faster than that,” Ghost remarked.

“I’m sure you could have,” I said.
 
“I was just testing systems.”

As I ate, I tried to sort my priorities.
 
When I finished, I sent the dishes back where they had come from, retrieved the Jewel, hung it about my neck, and stood.

“Okay, Ghost.
 
Time to head back to Amber,” I said.

He expanded and opened and sank, so that I stood before a golden arch.

I stepped forward-

and back into my apartment.

“Thanks,” I said.

“De nada, Dad.
 
Listen, I’ve a question: When you summoned breakfast, did you notice anything at all unusual in the way the Logrus Sign behaved?”

“How do you mean that?” I asked as I moved to wash my hands.

“Let’s start with physical sensations.
 
Did it seem...sticky?”

“That’s an odd way to put it,” I said.
 
“But as a matter of fact, it did seem to take slightly longer than usual to disengage.
 
Why do you ask?”

“A peculiar notion has just occurred to me.
 
Can you do Pattern magic?”

“Yeah, but I’m better at the Logrus variety.”

“You might want to try them both and compare them if you get a chance.”

“ Why?”

“I’m actually starting to get hunches.
 
I’ll tell you as soon as I’ve checked this one out.”

Ghostwheel was gone.

“Shit,” I said, and I washed my face.

I looked out the window, and a handful of snowflakes blew by.
 
I fetched a key from my desk drawer.
 
There were a couple of things I wanted to get out of the way immediately.

I stepped into the corridor.
 
I had not gone more than a few paces before I heard the sound.
 
I halted and listened.
 
Then I continued, past the stairway, the sound growing steadily in volume as I advanced.
 
By the time I reached the long corridor which ran past the library I knew that Random was back because I didn’t know of anyone else around here who could drum like that-or would dare to use the King’s drums if he could.

I continued on past the half opened door to the corner, where I turned right.
 
My first impulse had been to enter, give him back the Jewel of Judgment, and try to explain what had happened.
 
Then I recalled Flora’s advice that anything honest, straightforward, and above-board would always get you in trouble here.
 
While I hated to give her credit for having enunciated a general rule, I could see that in this particular instance it would certainly tie me up with a lot of explaining when then were other things I wanted to be about-and, for that matter, it might also get me ordered not to do some of them.

I continued to the far entrance to the dining room, where I checked quickly and determined the place to be deserted.
 
Good.
 
Inside and to the right, as I recalled; there was a sliding panel which would get me into a hollow section of wall beside the library, furnished with pegs or a ladder that would take me up to a hidden entrance to the library’s balcony.
 
It could also take me down through the spiral stair’s shaft and into the caverns below, if memory served.
 
I hoped I never had reason to check that part out, but I was sufficiently into family tradition these days that I wanted to do a little spying, as several muttered exchanges as I’d passed the opened door led me to believe that Random was not alone in there.
 
If knowledge really is power, then I needed all I could get my hands on, as I’d felt especially vulnerable for some time now.

Yes, the panel slid, and I was through it in a trice, sending my spirit-light on ahead.
 
I hand-over-handed my way quickly to the top and opened the panel there slowly and quietly, feeling grateful to whoever had thought to conceal its space with a wide chair.
 
I was able to see around the chair’s right arm with comparative safety from detection-a good view of the room’s north end.

And there was Random, drumming, and Martin, all chains and leather, was seated before him, listening.
 
Random was doing something I’d never seen done before.
 
He was playing with five sticks.
 
He had one in each hand, one under each arm, and he held one in his teeth.
 
And he was revolving them as he played, moving the one in his mouth to replace the one under his right arm, which replaced the one in his right hand, which he had switched over to his left hand, the left-hand one going up beneath his left arm, the left arm one going to his teeth, all without missing a beat.
 
It was hypnotic.
 
I stared until he wound out the number.
 
His old set of traps was hardly the fusion drummer’s dreamworld of translucent plastic with tipped cymbals the size of battle shields set around the snares, a mess of tomtoms, and a couple of basses, all lit up like Coral’s circle of fire.
 
Random’s set went back to a time before snares grew thin and nervous, basses shrank, and cymbals caught acromegaly and began to hum.

“Never saw that done before,” I heard Martin say.
 
Random shrugged.

“Bit of horsing around,” he said.
 
“Learned it from Freddie Moore, in the thirties, either at the Victoria or the Village Vanguard, when he was with Art Hodes and Max Kaminsky.
 
I forget which place.
 
It goes back to vaudeville, when they didn’t have any mikes and the lighting was bad.
 
Had to do show-off things like that, or dress funny, he told me, to keep the audience paying attention.”

“Shame they had to cater to the crowd that way.”

“Yeah, none of you guys would dream of dressing funny or throwing your instruments around.”

There followed a silence, and there was no way I could see the expression on Martin’s face.
 
Then, “I meant it different from that,” Martin said.

“Yeah, me too,” Random replied.
 
Then he tossed three of the sticks down and began to play again.

I leaned back and listened.
 
A moment later I was startled to hear an alto sax come in.
 
When I looked again, Martin was standing, his back still to me, and playing the thing.
 
It must have been on the floor on the other side of his chair.
 
There was a Richie Cole flavor to it that I rather liked, and it kind of surprised me.
 
As much as I enjoyed it, I felt that I did not belong in this room right now, and I edged back, opened the panel, passed through, and closed it.
 
After I’d climbed down and let myself out, I decided to cut through the dining room rather than pass the library entrance again.
 
The music carried for some distance thereafter, and I wished I’d learned a spell of Mandor’s for capturing sounds in precious stones, though I’m not sure how the Jewel of Judgment would have taken to containing “Wild Man Blues.”