Roger Zelazny - The Hand Of Oberon

Dworkin stepped through and paused. He located what looked to be a long staff leaning against the wall off to his right. He struck it several times against the ground and its upper end began to glow. It lit up the area fairly well, revealing a narrow tunnel into which he now advanced. I followed him and it widened before too long, so that I was able to come abreast of him. The odor grew stronger, and I could almost place it. It had been something fairly recent…

It was close to eighty paces before our way took a turn to the left and upward. We passed then through a little appendix like area. It was strewn with broken bones, and a large metal ring was set in the rock a couple of feet above the floor. Affixed thereto was a glittering chain, which fell to the floor and trailed on ahead like a line of molten droplets cooling in the gloom.

Our way narrowed again after that and Dworkin took the lead once more. After a brief time, he turned an abrupt corner and I heard him muttering. I nearly ran into him when I made the turn myself. He was crouched down and groping with his left hand inside a shadowy cleft. When I heard the soft cawing noise and saw that the chain vanished into the opening I realized what it was and where we were.

«Good Wixer,» I heard him say. «I am not going far. It is all right, good Wixer. Here is something to chew on.»

From where he had fetched whatever he tossed the beast, I do not know. But the purple griffin, which I had now advanced far enough to glimpse as it stirred within its lair, accepted the offering with a toss of its head and a series of crunching noises. Dworkin grinned up at me.

«Surprised?» he asked.

«At what?»

«You thought I was afraid of him. You thought I would never make friends with him. You set him out here to keep me in there - away from the Pattern.»

«Did I ever say that?»

«You did not have to. I am not a fool.»

«Have it your way,» I said.

He chuckled, rose, and continued on along the passageway.

I followed and it grew level underfoot once again. The ceiling rose and the way widened. At length, we came to the cave mouth. Dworkin stood for a moment silhouetted, staff raised before him. It was night outside, and a clean salt smell swept the musk from my nostrils.

Another moment, and he moved forward once more, passing into a world of sky - candles and blue velours. Continuing after him, I had gasped briefly at that amazing view. It was not simply that the stars in the moonless, cloudless sky blazed with a preternatural brilliance, nor that the distinction between sky and sea had once again been totally obliterated. It was that the Pattern glowed an almost acetylene blue by that skysea, and all of the stars above, beside, and below were arrayed with a geometric precision, forming a fantastic, oblique latticework which, more than anything else, gave the impression that we hung in the midst of a cosmic web where the Pattern was the true center, the rest of the radiant meshwork a precise consequence of its existence, configuration, position.

Dworkin continued on down to the Pattern, right up to the edge beside the darkened area. He waved his staff over it and turned to look at me just as I came near.

«There you are,» he announced, «the hole in my mind. I can no longer think through it, only around it. I no longer know what must be done to repair something I now lack. If you think that you can do it, you must be willing to lay yourself open to instant destruction each time you depart the Pattern to cross the break. Not destruction by the dark portion. Destruction by the Pattern itself when you break the circuit. The Jewel may or may not sustain you. I do not know. But it will not grow easier. It will become more difficult with each circuit, and your strength will be lessening all the while. The last time we discussed it you were afraid. Do you mean to say you have grown bolder since then?»

«Perhaps,» I said. «You see no other way?»

«I know it can be done starting with a clean slate, because once I did it so. Beyond that, I see no other way. The longer you wait the more the situation worsens. Why not fetch the Jewel and lend me your blade, son? I see no better way.»

«No,» I said. «I must know more. Tell me again how the damage was done.»

«I still do not know which of your children shed our blood on this spot, if this is what you mean. It was done. Let it go at that. Our darker natures came forth strongly in them. It must be that they are too close to the chaos from which we sprang, growing without the exercises of will we endured in defeating it. I had thought that the ritual of traveling the Pattern might suffice for them. I could think of nothing stronger. Yet it failed. They strike out against everything. They seek to destroy the Pattern itself.»

«If we succeed in making a fresh start, might not these events simply repeat themselves?»

«I do not know. But what choice have we other than failure and a return to chaos?»

«What will become of them if we try for a new beginning?»

He was silent for a long while. Then he shrugged. «I cannot tell.»

«What would another generation have been like?»

He chuckled.

«How can such a question be answered? I have no idea.»

I withdrew the mutilated Trump and passed it to him. He regarded it near the blaze of his staff.

«I believe it is Random's son Martin,» I said, «he whose blood was spilled here. I have no idea whether he still lives. What do you think he might have amounted to?»

He looked back out over the Pattern.

«So this is the object which decorated it,» he said. «How did you fetch it forth?»

«It was gotten,» I said. «It is not your work, is it?»

«Of course not. I have never set eyes on the boy. But this answers your question, does it not? If there is another generation, your children will destroy it.»

«As we would destroy them?»

He met my eyes and peered.

«Is it that you are suddenly becoming a doting father?» he asked.

«If you did not prepare that Trump, who did?»

He glanced down and flicked it with his fingernail.

«My best pupil. Your son Brand. That is his style. See what they do as soon as they gain a little power? Would any of them offer their lives to preserve the realm, to restore the Pattern?»

«Probably,» I said. «Probably Benedict, Gerard, Random, Corwin…»

«Benedict has the mark of doom upon him, Gerard possesses the will but not the wit, Random lacks courage and determination. Corwin…Is he not out of favor and out of sight?»

My thoughts returned to our last meeting, when he had helped me to escape from my cell to Cabra. It occurred to me that he might have had second thoughts concerning that, not having been aware of the circumstances which had put me there.

«Is that why you have taken his form?» he went on. «Is this some manner of rebuke? Are you testing me again?»

«He is neither out of favor nor sight,» I said, «though he has enemies among the family and elsewhere. He would attempt anything to preserve the realm. How do you see his chances?»

«Has he not been away for a long while?»

«Yes.»

«Then he might have changed. I do not know.»

«I believe he is changed. I know that he is willing to try.»

He stared at me again, and he kept staring.

«You are not Oberon,» he said at length.

«No.»

«You are he whom I see before me.»

«No more, no less.»

«I see… I did not realize that you knew of this place.»

«I didn't, until recently. The first time that I came here I was led by the unicorn.»

His eyes widened.

«That is - very - interesting,» he said. «It has been so long…»

«What of my question?»

«Eh? Question? What question?»