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of an emergencyhopefully also specifying the possible natures of various emergencies. For the first time,
though, I noticed a rope hanging down from the darkness into the dimness beside a weapons rack. I
drew upon it ever so gently and it yielded, to be followed a moment later by a faint metallic sound from
somewhere high overhead. Interesting. Obviously, this was the alarm.
"Which . . . way?" Coral asked.
"Oh, come on," I said, taking her hand, and I led her off to the right.
I kept waiting for echoes as we moved, but none came. Periodically, I raised the light. The darkness
would recede a bit then, but nothing came into view beyond an . additional area of floor.
Coral seemed to be slowing now, and I felt a certain tension in her arm as she hung back. I plodded
on and she kept moving, however.
Finally, "It shouldn't be too much longer," I said, as the echoes began, very faintly.
"Good," she replied, but she did not increase her pace. At last the gray wall of the cavern came into
view, and far off to my left was the dark opening of the tunnel mouth I sought: I changed course and
headed toward it. When we finally reached it and entered, I felt her flinch.
"If I'd known it would bother you this much-" I began.
"I'm really all right," she answered, "and I do want to see it. I just didn't realize that getting there
would be this . . . involved. "
"Well, the worst of it is over. Soon now," I said.
We came to the first side passage to the left fairly quickly and went on by. There was another shortly
thereafter, and I slowed and extended the lantern toward it.
"Who knows?" I commented.. "That could take you through some strange route back to the beach."
"I'd rather not check it out."
We walked for some time before we passed the third opening. I gave it a quick glance. There was a
vein of some bright mineral partway back in it.
I speeded up and she kept pace, our footsteps ringing loudly now. We passed the fourth opening.
The fifth. . . . From somewhere, it seemed I heard faint strains of music.
She glanced at me inquiringly when we neared the sixth passageway, but I just kept going. It was the
seventh that I wanted, and when we finally came to it I turned, took a few paces, halted, and raised the
lantern. We stood before a big metal-bound door.
I took the key down from the hook on the wall to my right, inserting it in the lock, turned it,
withdrew it, and rehung it. Then I put my shoulder against the door and pushed hard. There followed a
long moment of resistance, then slow movement accompanied shortly by a complaint from a tight hinge.
Frakir tightened upon my wrist, but I kept pushing till the door was opened wide. Then I stood to the
side and held it for Coral.
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She moved a few steps past me into that strange chamber and halted. I stepped away and let the
door swing shut, then came up beside her.
"So that's it," she remarked.
Roughly elliptical, the intricately wound oval form of the Pattern glowed blue-white within the floor. I
set the lantern aside. It wasn't really necessary, the glow from the Pattern providing more than sufficient
illumination. I stroked Frakir, calming her. A jet of sparks rose at the far end of the great design,
subsided quickly, occurred again nearer to us. The chamber seemed filled with a half familiar pulsing I
had never consciously noted before. On an impulse-to satisfy a long-held point of curiosity-I summoned
the Sign of the Logrus.
This was a mistake.
Immediately the image of the Logrus flared before me, sparks erupted along the entire length of the
Pattern, and a high-pitched banshee wail rose from somewhere. Frakir went wild, my ears felt as if icicles
had been driven into them, and the brightness of the writhing Sign hurt my eyes. I banished the Logrus in
that instant, and the turmoil began to subside.
"What," she asked me, "was that?"
I tried to smile, didn't quite manage it.
"A little experiment I'd always meant to try," I told her.
"Did you learn anything from it?"
"Not to do it again, perhaps," I answered.
"Or at least not till the company's left," she said."That hurt.''
She moved nearer to the edge of the Pattern, which had calmed itself again.
"Eerie," she observed. "Like a light in a dream. But it's gorgeous. And all of you have to walk it to
come into your heritage?"
"Yes." She moved slowly to the right, following its perimeter. I followed her as she strolled, her gaze
roving across the bright expanse of arcs and turns, short straight lines, long sweeping curves.
"I assume it is difficult?"
"Yes. The trick is to keep pushing and not to stop trying even if you stop moving," I replied.
We walked on, to the right, circling slowly around to the rear. The design seemed to be within the
floor rather than upon it, seen as through a layer of glass. But nowhere was the surface slippery.
We paused for a minute or so while she took its measure from a new angle.
"So how are you responding to it?" I finally asked.
"Esthetically," she said.
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"Anything else?"
"Power," she said. "It seems to radiate something."
She leaned forward and waved her hand above the nearest line. "It's almost a physical pressure," she
added then.
We moved farther, passing along the back length of the grand design. I could see across the Pattern,
to the place where the lantern glowed on the floor near to the entranceway. Its light was negligible beside
the greater illumination we regarded now.
Shortly, Coral halted again. She pointed.
"What is this single line, which seems to end right here?" she asked.
"It's not the end," I said. "It's the beginning. That is the place where one commences the walking of
the Pattern."
She moved nearer, passing her hand above it also.
"Yes," she said after a moment. "I can feel that it starts here."
For how long we stood there, I am uncertain. Then she reached out, took hold of my hand and
squeezed it.
"Thanks," she said, "for everything."
I was about to ask her why that had such a final sound about it, when she moved forward and set
her foot upon the line.
"No!" I cried. "Stop!"
But it was too late. Her foot was already in place, brightness outlining the sole of her boot.
"Don't move!" I said. "Whatever you do, stay still!" She did as I said, holding her position. I licked
my lips, which suddenly seemed very dry.
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