Dworkin continued to circle the stone. Horrorstruck by the nightmare surrounding us, I could do nothing but cling to the hope that this was not the end, but the start of something new and greater.
He reached me and held out the staff. I resheathed my sword, then took it.
“Look!” I pointed.
A tall white unicorn stood at the heart of the stone, her head raised defiantly high. A ruby dangled around her neck on a silver chain. Occasional gusts of winds whipped her mane and tail, and when she turned her head, her eyes glinted deep red, like rubies, like the Jewel of Judgment.
Dworkin saw the unicorn and grinned.
“She is holding this place together for us!” he shouted. “We must begin! There is not much time!”
“What must I do?”
“Use your knife!”
I drew it. He stuck out his arm.
“Cut me!” he screamed over the howl of the wind. “Open my vein! Let the blood flow!”
“No“
“Do it!”
Taking a deep breath, I grabbed his wrist and gave it a quick slash—long but not deep. I did not want him to bleed to death. He must know what he was doing.
Dworkin grimaced, but made a fist. With blood pouring down his arm and dripping from his fingertips, slowly and steadily he began to walk backward, leaving a trail of blood. As it fell on the bare stone, sizzling and crackling like fat on a hot griddle, a glowing blue line began to appear. It burned with an inner fire, like nothing I had ever seen before.
I realized at once what he was doing… tracing a new Pattern, one that matched the Pattern within me, and within the Jewel of Judgment. He worked slowly and carefully, never slowing. And as he dripped blood, the Pattern burned deep into the stone.
Slowly the winds died. The storm abated. Still he walked slowly and calmly backwards, trailing blood, shaping the design. When at last he finished, when he stood in the center of the Pattern next to the unicorn, a terrible calm like nothing I had ever felt before came over the world.
Slowly, silently, Dworkin collapsed. In the blink of an eye, he was gone—and the unicorn with him.
Then the ground underfoot began to rumble and heave. I lost my balance and fell, over the side of the stone, into a darkness that never seemed to stop.
HERE ENDS BOOK TWO OF THE DAWN OF AMBER
Oberon, continuing his quest to learn the truth about his life and family, begins to master his new-found powers and build powerful alliances to protect his family. But enemies new and old rise before him, including a dark alliance that seeks nothing less than the complete destruction of the Pattern itself.
Survival is at stake, as Oberon races to build a kingdom. To do so, he must not only thwart the servants of Chaos, but cope with a father's who's gone mad, siblings who want him dead, and legions of invading soldiers! But first he must learn…
TO RULE IN AMBER
The final volume of the new Amber trilogy!