The storm pushed right up to the edge of my Pattern, and then it parted. It began to creep around me. Not a drop fell upon me or the Pattern. But slowly, gradually, we came to be totally engulfed within it.

It seemed as if I were in a bubble at the bottom of a stormy sea. Walls of water encircled me and dark shapes darted by. It seemed as if the entire universe were pressing in to crush me. I concentrated on the red world of the Jewel. Left...

The chestnut blossoms... A cup of hot chocolate at a sidewalk cafe... A band concert in the Tuileries Gardens, the sounds climbing through the sunbright air... Berlin in the twenties, the Pacific in the thirties-there had been pleasures there, but of a different order. It may not be the true past, but images of the past that rush to comfort or torment us later, man or nation. No matter. Across the Pont Neuf and down the Rue Rivoli, buses and fiacres... Painters at their easels in the Luxembourg Gardens... If all were to fall well, I might seek a shadow like this again one day... It ranked with my Avalon. I had forgotten... The details... The touches that make for life... The smell of the chestnuts...

Walking... I completed another circuit. The wind screamed and the storm roared on, but I was untouched. So long as I did not permit it to distract me, so long as I kept moving and maintained my focus on the Jewel... I had to hold up, had to keep taking these slow, careful steps, never to stop, slower and slower but constantly moving... Faces... It seemed that rows of faces regarded me from beyond the Pattern's edge... Large, like the Head, but twisted-grinning. Jeering, mocking me, waiting for me to stop or step wrongly... Waiting for the whole thing to come apart around me... There was lightning behind their eyes and in their months, their laughter was the thunder... Shadows crawled among them... Now they spoke to me, with words like a gale from off a dark ocean... I would fail, they told me, fail and be swept away, this fragment of a Pattern dashed to pieces behind me and consumed... They cursed me, they spat and vomited toward me, though none of it reached... Perhaps they were not really there... Perhaps my mind had been broken by the strain... Then what good were my efforts? A new Pattern to be shaped by a madman? I wavered, and they took up the chorus, “Mad! Mad! Mad!” in the voices of the elements.

I drew a deep breath and smelled what was left of the rose and thought of chestnuts once again, and days filled with the joys of life and organic order. The voices seemed to soften as my mind raced back through the events of that happy year... And I took another step... And another... They had been playing on my weaknesses, they could feel my doubts, my anxiety, my fatigue... Whatever they were, they seized what they saw and tried to use it against me... Left... Right... Now let them feel my confidence and wither, I told myself. I have come this far. I will continue. Left...

They swirled and swelled about me, still mouthing discouragements. But some of the force seemed gone out of them. I made my way through another section of arc, seeing it grow before me in my mind's red eye.

I thought back to my escape from Greenwood, to my tricking Flora out of information, to my encounter with Random, our fight with his pursuers, our journey back to Amber... I thought of our flight to Rebma and my walking of the reversed Pattern there for a restoration of much of my memory... Of Random's shotgun wedding and my sojourn to Amber, where I fought with Eric and fled to Bleys... Of the battles that followed, my blinding, my recovery, my escape, my journey to Lorraine and then to Avalon...

Moving into even higher gear, my mind skimmed the surface of subsequent events... Ganelon and Lorraine... The creatures of the Black Circle... Benedict's arm... Dara... The return of Brand and his stabbing... My stabbing... Bill Roth... Hospital records... My accident...

...Now, from the very beginning at Greenwood, through it all, to this moment of my struggle to assure each perfect maneuver as it appeared to me, I felt the growing sense of anticipation I had known-whether my actions were directed toward the throne, vengeance, or my conception of duty-felt it, was aware of its continuous existence across those years up until this moment, when it was finally accompanied by something else... I felt that the waiting was just about over, that whatever I had been anticipating and struggling toward was soon to occur.

Left... Very, very slowly... Nothing else was important. I threw all of my will into the movements now. My concentration became total. Whatever lay beyond the Pattern, I was now oblivious to it. Lightnings, faces, winds... It did not matter. There was only the Jewel, the growing Pattern and myself-and I was barely aware of myself. Perhaps this was the closest I would ever come to Hugi's ideal of merging with the Absolute. Turn... Right foot.. . Turn again...

Time ceased to have meaning. Space was restricted to the design I was creating. I drew strength from the Jewel without summoning it now, as part of the process in which I was engaged. In a sense, I suppose, I was obliterated. I became a moving point, programed by the Jewel, performing an operation which absorbed me so totally that I had no attention available for self-consciousness. Yet, at some level, I realized that I was a part of the process, also. For I knew, somehow, that if anyone else were doing it, it would be a different Pattern emerging.

I was vaguely aware that I had passed the halfway point. The way had become trickier, my movements even slower. Despite the matter of velocity, I was somehow reminded of my experiences on originally becoming attuned to the Jewel, in that strange, many-dimensional matrix which seemed to be the source of the Pattern itself. Right... Left...

There was no drag. I felt very light, despite the deliberation. A boundless energy seemed to wash constantly through me. All of the sounds about me had merged into a white noise and vanished.

Suddenly then, I no longer seemed to be moving slowly. It did not seem as if I had passed a Veil or barrier, but rather that I had undergone some internal adjustment.

It felt as if I were moving at a more normal pace now, winding my way through tighter and tighter coils, approadhing what would soon be the design's terminus. Mainly, I was still emotionless, though I knew intellectually that at some level a sense of elation was growing and would soon burst through. Another step... Another... Perhaps half a dozen more paces...

Suddenly, the world went dark. It seemed that I stood within a great void, with only the faint light of the Jewel before me and the glow of the Pattern like a spiral nebula through which I was striding. I wavered, but only for an instant. This must be the last trial, the final assault. I would have to be sufficient to the distraction.

The Jewel showed me what to do and the Pattern showed me where to do it. The only thing missing was a view of myself. Left...

I continued, executing each move with all of my attention. An opposing force began to rise against me finally, as on the old Pattern. But for this, I was prepared by years of experience. I struggled for two more steps against the mounting barrier.

Then, within the Jewel, I saw the ending of the Pattern. I would have gasped at the sudden realization of its beauty, but at this point even my breath was regulated by my efforts. I threw all of my strength into the next step, and the void seemed to shake about me. I completed it, and the next was even more difficult. I felt as if I were at the center of the universe, treading on stars, struggling to impart some essential motion by what was basically an act of will.

My foot slowly advanced, though I could not see it. The Pattern began to brighten. Soon its blaze was almost blinding.

Just a little farther... I strove harder than I ever had on the old Pattern, for now the resistance seemed absolute. I had to oppose it with a firmness and constancy of will that excluded everything else, though I seemed not to be moving at all now, though all of my energies seemed diverted into the brightening of the design. At least, I would go out with a splendid backdrop...