“No—that would kill you!”
“But you said—”
“I said your pattern is not a distortion of the Logrus. It is something else… something new. A different pattern.”
I frowned, confused. “How can that be? Isn’t the Logrus responsible for everything… for the Courts of Chaos and all the Shadow worlds?”
“In some ways, perhaps.”
“I don’t understand.” I stared at him blankly.
“Few are the things that cannot be replaced.”
“You mean I really am a cripple. I cannot draw on the Logrus like you do.”
“No!” He threw back his head and laughed. “Exactly the opposite, my boy—you do not need to draw on the Logrus. You have something else to draw upon… your own pattern.”
“My own…” I stared at him dumbly.
“I hold the design of your pattern fixed clearly in my mind now, and it burns with a primal power. You are like that first nameless Lord of Chaos. You hold a pattern—this new pattern—inside you. It is unlike the Logrus! It is a pattern from which whole worlds may spring, once it is traced properly!”
Not the Logrus…
I felt a sudden joy, a boundless euphoria, as I realized what that meant. Perhaps I could master Shadows the way the rest of my family had. I might yet travel between the Shadow worlds and work the wonders I had seen. Suddenly it all lay within my grasp.
And I wanted it more than I had ever wanted anything in my life. More than a father, more than a family, I wanted my heritage… my destiny.
Only—
“Traced properly?” I asked slowly. “What does that mean?”
He hesitated, and I could tell he was trying to find the words to explain it to me.
“I believe the Logrus exists not just inside, but outside the universe as we know it,” he finally said. “The first Lord of Chaos partly traced its shape using his own blood… putting a form to the formless, making it real in a way that it had not been before. It is my belief that when someone of our bloodline passes through it, the Logrus’s pattern is imprinted forever in his mind, enabling him to use it—to draw on its power and move between worlds.”
“I understand,” I said. I’d heard the whole history-of-our-powers speech already. “You said the Logrus wouldn’t work on me… it would destroy me.”
“That is correct. What we must do for you is something similar to what the first Lord of Chaos did… find a way to trace the unique pattern within you, so that your pattern is imprinted on your mind, much the way the Logrus is imprinted on my mind.”
“All right,” I said. It sounded reasonable enough. And yet… something still bothered me.
Dad hesitated.
“You’re leaving something out,” I said accusingly.
“No…”
“Tell me!”
He swallowed. “I have never tried this before. It may work. It should work, if my theories about the Logrus and its nature are correct. But then again… what if I am wrong? What if I have made a mistake?”
“It might kill me,” I said, recognizing what he had been unwilling to say.
“That, or worse. It might destroy your mind, leaving your body little more than an empty shell. Or… it might do nothing at all.”
I didn’t know which would be worse. My hopes had been raised; it had to work. It would work. I had run out of options.
“What are my chances of living?” I asked.
“I cannot guarantee anything, except that I have done my best.”
“Would you do it?” I asked. “Would you risk your own life on tracing this pattern?”
“Yes,” he said simply. No arguments, no explanations, just a single word.
I took a deep breath. This was the moment of truth. I could risk everything and try to gain power unimaginable. Or I could be safe, forever trapped in the world of mortal men.
Could I live with the Lockes of the world sneering at me, pitying me? Could I live with myself if I passed up my one last chance for power?
Only cowards choose the safe path.
I had known what my answer must be even before Dworkin told me of the risk. I wanted power. I wanted magic of my own. After seeing what Dworkin and the rest of my family could do, how could I step back now?
I swallowed hard. “I want to try it.”
Dworkin let out his breath. “I will not fail you, my boy,” he said softly.
He held up the ruby. I gasped as it caught the light, sending flashes of color dancing and slashing around the room.
Holding the jewel higher, at my eye level, I found it glowed with an inner light. I leaned forward, wanting to fall into its center like a moth is called by an open flame.
“Look deep inside,” Dworkin continued. His voice sounded as if he were standing far away. “Fastened within it is a design… an exact tracing of the pattern within you. Gaze upon it, my boy—gaze and let your spirit go!”
A shimmer of red surrounded me. The world receded, and light and shadow began to pulsate rhythmically, shapes and forms seeming to appear, then vanish.
As though from a great distance away, I heard Dworkin’s voice: “Follow the pattern, my boy… let it show you the way…”
I stepped forward.
It was like opening a door and entering a room I never knew existed. The world unfolded around me. Space and time ceased to have meaning. I felt neither breath in my lungs nor the beating of my heart; I simply was. I did not need to breathe, or see, or taste, or touch. When I reached for my wrist, I felt no pulse… I felt nothing at all.
Lights glimmered, moved. Shadows flowed like water.
This isn’t real…
And yet it was. Before me, behind me, to the sides and all around me, I saw the lines of a great pattern. It blazed with a liquid red light, curves and sweeps and switchbacks, like the twisted body of some immense serpent or dragon. It held me transfixed within it, just as I held it within me, and together we balanced perfectly. I felt a calm, a harmony of belonging.