“Brother Corwin,” comes that voice again. “I have been waiting for you.”

I faced the wood, watched him emerge from it. I did not draw my weapon, as he had not drawn his. I reached down into the Jewel with my mind, though. After the exercise I had just completed, I realized that I could do a lot more than control weather with it. Whatever Brand's power, I felt I'd a weapon now with which to confront it directly. The Jewel pulsed more deeply as I did this.

“Truce,” Brand said. “Okay? May we talk?”

“I do not see that we have anything more to say to one another,” I told him.

“If you do not give me a chance you will never know for certain, will you?”

He came to a halt about seven meters away, flung his green cloak back over his left shoulder and smiled.

“All right. Say it, whatever it is,” I said.

“I tried to stop you,” he said, “back there, for the Jewel. It is obvious that you know what it is now, that you realize how important it is.”

I said nothing.

“Dad has already used it,” he continued, “and I am sorry to report that he has failed in what he set out to do with it.”

“What? How could you know?”

“I can see through Shadow, Corwin. I would have thought our sister had filled you in more thoroughly on these matters. With a little mental effort, I can perceive whatever I choose now. Naturally, I was concerned with the outcome of this affair. So I watched. He is dead, Corwin. The effort was too much for him. He lost control of the forces he was manipulating and was blasted by them a little over halfway through the Pattern.”

“You lie!” I said, touching the Jewel.

He shook his head.

“I admit that I am not above lying to gain my ends, but this time I am telling the truth. Dad is dead. I saw him fall. The bird brought you the Jewel then, as he had willed it. We are left in a universe without a Pattern.”

I did not want to believe him. But it was possible that Dad had failed. I had the assurance of the only expert in the business, Dworkin, as to the difficulty of the task.

“Granting for the moment what you have said, what happens next?” I asked.

“Things fall apart,” he replied. “Even now. Chaos wells up to fill the vacuum back at Amber. A great vortex has come into being, and it grows. It spreads ever outward, destroying the shadow worlds, and it will not stop until it meets with the Courts of Chaos, bringing all of creation full circle, with Chaos once more to reign over all.”

I felt dazed. Had I struggled from Greenwood, through everything, to here, to have it end this way? Would I see everything stripped of meaning, form, content, life, when things had been pushed to a kind of completion?

“No!” I said. “It cannot be so.”

“Unless...” Brand said softly. “Unless what?”

“Unless a new Pattern is inscribed, a new order created to preserve form.”

“You mean ride back into that mess and try to complete the job? You just said that the place no longer exists.”

“No. Of course not. The location is unimportant. Wherever there is a Pattern there is a center, let's do it right here.”

“You think that you can succeed where Dad failed?”

“I have to try. I am the only one who knows enough about it and has sufficient time before the waves of Chaos arrive. Listen, I admit to everything Fiona has doubtless told you about me. I have schemed and I have acted. I have dealt with the enemies of Amber. I have shed our blood. I tried to burn out your memory. But the world as we know it is being destroyed now, and I live here too. All of my plans-everything! -will come to nothing if some measure of order is not preserved. Perhaps I have been duped by the Lords of Chaos. It is difficult for me to admit that, but I see the possibility now. It is not too late to foil them, though. We can build the new bastion of order right here.”

“How?”

“I need the Jewel-and your assistance. This will be the site of the new Amber.”

“Supposing-arguendo-I give it to you. Would the new Pattern be exactly like the old one?”

He shook his head.

“It could not be, any more than the one Dad was attempting to create would have been like Dworkin's. No two authors can render the same story in the same fashion. Individual stylistic differences cannot be avoided. No matter how hard I might try to duplicate it, my version would be slightly different.”

“How could you do this,” I asked, “when you are not fully attuned to the Jewel? You would need a Pattern to complete the process of attunement-and, as you say, the Pattern has been destroyed. What gives?”

Then, “I said that I would need your help,” he stated. “There is another way to attune a person to the Jewel. It requires the assistance of someone who is already attuned. You would have to project yourself through the Jewel once more, and take me with you-into and through the primary Pattern that lies beyond.”

“And then?”

“Why, when the ordeal is past I will be attuned, you give me the Jewel, I inscribe a new Pattern and we are back in business. Things hold together. Life goes on.”

“What of Chaos?”

“The new Pattern will be unmarred. They will no longer have the road giving them access to Amber.”

“With Dad dead, how would the new Amber be run?”

He smiled crookedly.

“I ought to have something for my pains, oughtn't I? I will be risking my life with this, and the odds are not all that good.”

I smiled back at him.

“Considering the payoff, what is to prevent me from taking the gamble myself?” I said.

“The same thing that prevented Dad from succeeding-all the forces of Chaos. They are summoned by a kind of cosmic reflex when such an act is begun. I have had more experience with them than you. You would not have a chance. I might.”

“Now let us say that you are lying to me. Brand. Or let us be kind and say that you did not see clearly through all the turmoil. Supposing Dad did succeed? Supposing there is a new Pattern in existence right now? What would happen if you were to do another, here, now?”

“I... It has never been done before. How should I know?”

“I wonder,” I said. “Might you still get your own version of reality that way? Might it represent the splitting off of a new universe-Amber and Shadow-just for you? Might it negate ours? Or would it simply stand apart? Or would there be some overlapping? What do you think, given that situation?”

He shrugged his shoulders.

“I have already answered that. It has never been done before. How should I know?”

“But I think that you do know, or can make a very good guess at it. I think that that is what you are planning, that that is what you want to try-because that is all you have left now. I take this action on your part as an indication that Dad has succeeded and that you are down to your last card. But you need me and you need the Jewel for it. You cannot have either.”

He sighed.

“I had expected more of you. But all right. You are wrong, but leave it at that. Listen, though. Rather than see everything lost, I will split the realm with you.”

“Brand,” I said, “get lost. You cannot have the Jewel, or my help. I have heard you out, and I think that you are lying.”

“You are afraid,” he said, “afraid of me. I do not blame you for not wanting to trust me. But you are making a mistake. You need me now.”

“Nevertheless, I have made my choice.”

He took a step toward me. Another.. .

“Anything you want, Corwin. I can give you anything you care to name.”

“I was with Benedict in Tir-na Nog'th,” I said, “looking through his eyes, listening with his ears, when you made him the same offer. Shove it. Brand. I am going on with my mission. If you think that you can stop me, now is as good a time as any.”

I began walking toward him. I knew that I would kill him if I reached him. I also felt that I would not reach him.