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Dinner is an informal affair: fried fish and fried potatoes served on tables pulled out onto the balcony. Anyone who's spent eight weeks in a van with the King of (almost) Everything can almost hear the jingle of Texorami's most popular fast-food chain. People from shadows where hardened arteries are a problem are probably very grateful for their superhuman Earth stat. Soren says that at least it isn't that 'Lizzard Partes' stuff they got on tour.
However, the food is tasty and the beer is both cold and carbonated and the view of the waterfall by moonlight is even more spectacular than in the gloaming.
Caine and Gerard are sitting by the edge, looking out to sea. Caine has a spyglass that he keeps handing over to Gerard as they look at whatever it is they're looking at, far out to sea.
Cambina and Martin have a brief conversation, which mostly consists of him saying things and her nodding.
If Bleys is still present during dinner, Brennan probably talks shop with him.
Random keeps conversation to a minimum and changes the subject any time anyone starts to talk about the pattern or Lilly's upcoming walk. Otherwise dinner is uneventful.
Soren and Gerard both decline to go below for what seem to be obvious reasons. Random takes Garrett and Hannah aside to tell them quietly that the rule is that the first time you see somebody walk the pattern it should be someone wearing your shoes. They can, if they want, take this opportunity to prepare some sort of celebratory gesture for Lilly, like baking a cake or short-sheeting her bed...
Garrett nods his understanding of the restriction, then looks a little apprehensive as he wonders if it's family tradition for the uninitiated to bake cakes for new Pattern-walkers.
Hannah looks thoroughly disappointed in Random. "And here I thought you'd be all for rule-breaking," she nudges, only half teasing. "And I went to finishing school, I can do better than short-sheeting," she mutters.
Before the group departs, Garrett moves to Lilly's side. He squeezes her hand and leans in to say softly, "See you on the other side." Then, after giving her a quick kiss on the cheek and a confident grin, he walks away to make room for others who wish to speak with her. He does not look back, so she cannot see the worried crease that now crosses his brow.
Random leads the way down long, dimly lit corridors to an elegant enclosed staircase. He starts down it and doesn't slow until he reaches the bottom. A short trip through a more natural section of caves leads the group to a vast room, hundreds of yards across. The floor is flat as glass and the chamber is illuminated by a soft red glow from the tracery that covers almost all of the floor.
Cambina lets out a breath, as if she's been holding it since the sundering. As if something she didn't know she'd been worried about turned out not to be true.
Celina is surprised how much this Pattern looks like the one she knows, then she sees it is mirror reversed and the notion locks her into paralysis. She stops breathing though her mouth shapes a word she doesn't say. A hand reaches out and traces shapes.
Finally, Celina's ribs shudder and she steps closer, breathing again. Red, not gold or pink?
A very Bleysian mood comes over Brennan, just for a moment, as he lets the red tracery really bring out the color of his hair. He gives it a good, long look, comparing and contrasting to others he has seen. Other than the color and the surroundings, are there significant differences?
Silence engulfs Lilly. As they descended she had been merely quiet. Now she seems afraid to breath or make the slightest of motions. She stares the red glow, completely mesmerized.
Lucas moves slowly, as though hypnotised. He has a quite word with Lilly, wishing her good fortune, and giving her a reassuring smile. Then he moves as far as is possible around the perimeter of the Pattern, watching it with interest, as though he is measuring its similarity to the Amber Pattern, and its differences. If he spots the difference that Folly encountered (the Fourth Veil), he tilts his head on one side a little, considering.
Veils are not visible from outside the pattern, unless someone is walking them and kicking up a veilful of sparks.
The pattern chamber is hundreds of yards across and only a soft red glow from the pattern illuminates the room. It is quite possible to get thoroughly out of sight of the rest of the group. Other than the color, it is just like the pattern Lucas knows is burned into his very being.
Solange looks out over the new pattern, taking it all in in one long glance, and smiles in delight. She gives Lilly a reassuring squeeze on the shoulder, then walks over to stand by Cambina.
After most of the others have given Lilly a quick word, Brennan approaches her. If she permits, he puts both hands on her shoulders.
The touch seems to break the spell the pattern had cast over her. She looks up at him and swallows her. For the first time ever, Brennan can see true fear reflected in her eyes.
He looks her straight in the eye and says quietly, "I'll see you when you're done, Dame Lilly. Don't even think of turning until you're done. I've got your back." He waits for the response, if any, before heading back.
Slowly she nods, "Thank you. That means more to me then you could know," she replies honestly.
Surprisingly, he does not stand right next to Cambina, but, bearing in mind the stories about what happened during Merlin's Walk, he stands apart with enough room to move quickly if need be.
He plants himself like he grew out of the stone.
Brennan believes in me, Lilly thinks to herself as she stands there surveying her destiny. The others as well. I will not let them down. From a pocket she removes a simple metal ring. A second passes as she looks down at it. Slowly a gentle smile spreads across her lips. I will not let him down. She closes her fist tightly around the ring. With a deep breath, she chances looking upon the pattern once more. As she does, her confidence seems to return.
Martin also quietly offers her his good wishes.
After everyone else has approached Lilly, Random looks at her. "This is the biggest crowd I've seen for the old squiggle since I walked it the first time. OK, the rules are we haven't said too much because it's easy to psyche yourself out. The pattern walk, especially the first time, is different enough for everyone that it's not worth giving too much advice about. It's a test of willpower and ego, really. You must start at the start and walk every bit of it, no matter what impulse you have to step off the line. When you're in the middle, you'll know more."
Lilly nods. The universe is about to become abundantly more clear. That thought is at once exciting and terrifying. Best to hold onto the excitement, focus it, use it, she decides. Push aside everything else.
"The thought that helped me get through was 'how hard can it be if Fl--all my brothers and sisters did it?' You'll come up with your own thought. Ready? Then start at the start."
His thought brings the hint of a smile to her lips. With a nod to the King, she moved towards the beginning of the pattern.
Random takes a step back and places his hands on his hips like Peter Pan.
He snaps his fingers. "Veils! I knew I forgot something. There are veils. They're harder than the other parts. Keep going when you get to them. OK, ready? Go."
Again, her answer is a simple nod. At the start of the pattern, she pauses. She places the ring Garrett crafted for her on her left hand and spends a moment looking at it. Strength. His and hers. She could do this. Absentmindedly her hand comes to rest on the hilt of her sword. In that instant a decision is made. Turning away from the pattern, she looks at the assembly of relatives.
"Martin," she calls unbuckling her sword belt. "If my return is delayed, tell your brother he had best take good care of this." She holds out the sword for him to accept.
Martin takes it solemnly, nodding once. "I will."
Once free of the blade, she turns back to the fate laid before her. With a final deep breath, she steps forward...
As Lucas probably won't get many chances to visit the Pattern, he'll circle it slowly during the Patternwalk, if that's possible, watching Lily as she walks. He's drawn to the aesthetic of the thing - you don't just look at a three dimensional masterpiece head on, although unless you're a very small and sticky child, you probably don't climb all over it, either. And there's also interest in seeing Lilly walking from different angles.
Lucas moves through the pattern chamber, wandering widdershins around the giant red tracery on the ground. The glow from the pattern itself is enough to let Lucas see his footing and the wall, but not much more. It is no more than a few moments until he is out of sight of the others.
Lucas is perhaps two thirds of the way around the great chamber, watching Lilly negotiate the Second Veil when a hand comes down on his shoulder.
"Hello, Lucas. I don't think they know I'm here."
If Lucas looks over his shoulder, he sees a tall, gaunt one-armed man of familiar (and familial) mien.
Lucas gives a slight start at the touch, as one would, and then raises his opposing hand (depending which shoulder Benedict has grabbed) to rest it briefly over Benedict's hand in reciprocal greeting.
"No, Sir," he agrees. "And we'd best wait till the end to avoid disturbing her. Although she looks set enough."
He stares out over the Pattern to where Lilly is walking.
"You must be very proud," he says. "She's a formidable and very lovely woman."
If he is conscious of the marked contrast with his own Patternwalk, as he described it to Brennan, he does not show it.
He closes his eyes and does not respond for some moments. Just when Lucas was going to give up on him, the Prince replies. "It reminds me of days long past, Lucas, and other walks under more urgent circumstances.
"You should keep your children from walking it too soon, if indeed they do so at all. It is more powerful than we know and not all are strong enough to undertake it, even if both parents are."
Lucas's eyes seem even darker than usual with memories. "Indeed," he says quietly. "I believe nothing save the most dire necessity would bring my children to this."
He stares at the flickering blue flames, at Lilly, moving steadily forwards. Perhaps, superimposed in the flames, he sees Solace, pale, and delicate. Perhaps he sees his children, Hope so dainty, a perfect little Flora, with something of her mother's fragile beauty and Lucas' own charm, uncorrupted by cynicism. Perhaps he sees Phillippe, sturdy and determined, still all latent potential. They would be there is the flames for Lucas now, he knows. Were they there then, on that first angry storming of the Pattern, some of the unknown shapes and shadows that confronted him? He hadn't been young ... past his first century - and yet the Pattern had made him feel like a child, had made his argument with Flora seem to be a toddler's stamping his feet while all around him great Empires trembled and fell.
"For me," he says quietly, "it was as though I was a reptile, shedding my skin. Each Veil ... as I passed through it was as though my skin had been left behind, and I was raw, exposed. After the first Veil, I supposed there was no more - and yet each Veil tore off another layer, another skin. The last Veil ... the tearing pain of it. I thought it would expose my heart, that I would be like an anatomical drawing of veins and nerves, no longer ... Lucas. No longer human - if I ever was. When I stood in the centre, I felt more naked than I ever have been in my life before - a nakedness that went deeper than the skin, a nakedness of ... the soul, perhaps. And I knew, this was the thing itself. And the power ... flooded into me."
He sounds shaken, just recalling it.
"It is individual for everyone, I know," he says presently. "But to put my children through that, knowing they might ... No, my Uncle. You need have no fear that I will be precipitate."
Benedict nods.
With something of an effort he appears to recover his usual urbanity. "Lilly is strong," he says. "She will succeed." And there is a note in his voice, a thread of steel, as though he would use his own will to aid his cousin's onward path.
"It's a test of will, not strength," Benedict corrects him, absently. Benedict crouches down on his haunches, and looks closely at the loop of the pattern nearest the two of them. "I didn't expect it to be red."
"No," agrees Lucas almost absently. Then he frowns, as though struck by a sudden thought - but he says nothing.
Lilly reaches the center and the glow brightens almost enough to make out the features of the room, but not very well. After the girl disappears and the room darkens again, Benedict reaches into his shirt and pulls out a deck of familiar cards. "Would you mind shuffling the castle trump to the top for me? I need to make a visit to Amber. You can come along if you'd like a quick way back."
"Certainly," says Lucas obligingly, taking the cards and beginning to sort them with the ease of someone who whiled away a couple of rather profitable decades as a gambler on the Mississippi. He doesn't appear to study the cards at all - a gentleman doesn't - or at least, only enough to find the Castle trump. But the skills that won the Saucy Sue (a rather nice paddle steamer) from Mad Dog McCluskey might ensure that he has some idea of which cards Benedict holds in his pack.
If he finds it strange that Benedict has appeared so suddenly when he was previously proving so elusive, and is now bent on heading off without even stopping to greet the King, Lucas does not show it.
"I'd be delighted to accompany you," he says as he sorts the cards. "As long as I can return here in time from the King's formal court tomorrow, and I don't think that should be too much of a problem."
He holds out the trump pack to Benedict, the Castle trump now on top.
"I doubt," he adds, "that anyone will even notice I've gone."
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XXXVIII: A Visit to Xanadu 'town' | Index | XL: Back in Amber
