PRINCE CIMARRON BRANDSSON

HIS TAKE ON ADVANCED PATTERN IMPRINT

The style of Cimarron's Advanced Pattern is that he sees everything in terms of the lines of forces which connect and bind everything together. With his training he can use them to feel powers and forces like a spider feeling vibrations in its web (roughly like the Pattern Lens) and to feel outwards for things he wants. By manipulating these lines of force he can alter the rules of shadow, snip off shadow pockets, make shadow paths, edit and erase shadow. By manipulating the lines of force about himself he can disguise or manipulate his Pattern imprint. Lastly by cutting and reconnecting the lines of force he can teleport through shadow as if having walked the Pattern, and bring people of things to him, or, with time, send them away.

From his point of view, a normal Pattern imprint concentrates the lines of force in the Amberite and lets them manipulate them, but in an undisciplined, uncontrolled manner...

THE SUNSET EMPIRE

The Sunset Empire is a world which is an infinite flat plane, in the centre of which is an ocean. In this ocean sits the sun, which appears huge and red from a distance. The further from the sun one goes, the colder and darker it gets. Vegetation is black, red and gold. There are no stars apart from one bright point of light near the sun, which, like it, never moves.

On a river mouth in a flat, straight coast sits the city of Vermilion, the capital of the Sunset Empire. It faces the sea into which the sun appears to be eternally setting. It is an art deco city of skyscrapers and towers, with sky-bridges and monorails (which extend out of the city into the Empire, as do roads). Airships float about; some dock with the towers, others at an air-port outside the city. The river mouth is a huge harbour, where ships from all over the Empire dock. The countryside around the city is not far above sea level, and is farmland laced with many canals. The city is clean, with no poverty and no suburbs. It has a warm, pleasant climate.

The Empire is vast. Outside of it are other states, with rivalries or conflict, and new lands to colonise. It is ruled by The Scarlet Emperor from the Palace of Sunlight, the highest tower in Vermilion. The whole place has a 1930's feel. Military uniforms are black or dark red with a 30's cut.

When Cimarron returned from Domdaniel he made the Sunset Empire his personal shadow, and one of his dwelling places.

THE OTHER PLAYER CHARACTERS

SIR FRANCIS ALEXANDER FLAUMEL, SON OF FLORA (played by Tim Heap)

Francis is tall (6'6"), tanned and possessed of an impressive physique. He has a wild mane of blonde hair and sparkling blue eyes. Not usually visible on his right breast is an intricate tattoo of a gold lion and a blue dragon forming a close approximation to a yin-yang sign. An attractive man, Francis dresses to suit the occasion. In Amber he usually wears a white loose tunic, tight navy blue trousers over black boots with a red sash (British Army Sergeant Major) around the waist. Francis is well known as something of a hunter and warrior. As an upper-class English gentleman, Francis and Cimarron got on well.

GALDRIN, SON OF BLEYS (played by Robert Irwin)

Slightly shorter than most Amberite males, Galdrin is very skinny and usually a bit ill-looking. He tends to wear scruffy jeans and a tatty Red-Indian style leather jacket. He chain smokes and coughs a lot. Galdrin is only believed to be a son of Bleys, and was actually brought to Amber by Deirdre. He seems to know more of the Pattern than most, though not to be a full advanced initiate.

JURGEN, SON OF BENEDICT (played by Phil Ratcliffe)

In appearance Jurgen is well built, weighing in at around 230lbs and 6'2" tall, both of these adding to his often menacing presence. He prefers militaristic clothing, usually the uniforms of officers from armies throughout shadow. He is most often seen in the uniform of a shadow Earth W.W.II German Field Marshall bearing various decorations, including the iron cross. Although his uniforms are always neat and well cut, Jurgen himself is unkempt, his shoulder length black hair having a somewhat straggly windswept look to it, and his complexion and facial features have a 'too many sleepless nights look'. He has been trained as a son of Benedict might; he is a well-known warrior. His only oddity is that be sometimes travels through shadow on a bicycle.

LYDON, SON OF LLEWELLA (played by Jonathan Carlaw)

He is 5'11" tall with a medium build, brown shoulder length hair and brown eyes. He tends to wear blue robes. He is a superb sorcerer and is acknowledged as Llewella's son.

REINIER, SON OF JULIAN (played by Jan Pieter de Graaf)

A young man of average height with dark hair and a somewhat pale complexion. His eyes are the same colour of blue as his father's, whose cool and dispassionate attitude he tries to emulate, although not always with the same level of success. He is usually dressed in a green and dark brown outfit, typical of the Rangers of Arden, complete with a bow and a quiver full of arrows. It is known that he is a great archer. He is acknowledged as Julian's son.

THE DIARY OF CIMMARON BRANDSSON

from

'THE LONG VIEW'

Recorded for Posterity by Tony Jones

To my younger self, from your older self of a universe different to yours, greetings!

The following missive, which I composed in the timeless void outside our universe, will, I hope, explain how you came to be used by me to change history for, I hope, the better and in the process erase myself to create you. It will also, I hope, pass on a great deal of important information I very much doubt you will get any other way. So pay attention!

We were in and around Amber. Random was King. Dad and Deirdre were both dead in the Abyss. Corwin was at his Pattern. Shadow storms raged here and there, as they had done since Patternfall.

Things started rather strangely. I was at a tyrannosaur racetrack in shadow, enjoying a bet or two, when there was a vibration in the lines of force making up shadow as a whole. They stretched and vibrated, this effect building up and up. Needless to say, I used the Pattern to defend myself from this. Even so, everything around me, outside my protected bubble, raced away and vanished, to be replaced by what seemed to be Francis' taxidermy room in Amber.

But unlike the normal very rigid force lines in Amber, it had no force lines whatsoever. However, it looked normal (apart from the bit which been replaced by the defended part of the racetrack shadow). Francis was there.

I had to subdue the few people I'd carried along from the racetrack. They had trouble adjusting to what had happened, and were a little perturbed. Once they were unconscious, things calmed down somewhat.

Over the next few minutes, Reinier, Lydon, Galdron and Jurgen all popped in, in the same, very strange way. A spot on a wall would develop a Pattern-like force/energy imprint upon and within it, which then expanded out at speed. And as if from a distance a person and their surroundings for a little way about them would rush in to fill the space, before appearing properly. The force lines they brought with them then 'dropped out' from 'under' the newly arrived area, leaving it entirely without lines, like the place as a whole, filling in the 'Pattern-hole' as they went. This was something I'd previously thought impossible, a very strange effect indeed, being wholly being cut off from the lines of forces making up the universe. Each one of us popping into the area one at a time, along with our surroundings.

Of course it was not actually impossible - our surroundings were in fact illusions, apparently created by our own minds. I could put my hand through an apparently solid wall. Some of the others, Jurgen especially, had trouble accepting this view, but eventually had to see that I was correct. In particularly as everything apart from ourselves and our clothes and personal equipment (including the luckless race-goers I had carried along with me) faded away, leaving an empty void with nothing but a silvery path leading off through the darkness.

We had no real choice but to follow it - there wasn't anything else visible - and so off we went.

So strange, what we saw. The void, with the silver path and the swirling Pattern-like entities. Letting one roll over me and Francis. A huge and complex mind, incomprehensible. A mistake on my part in letting it do so and letting Francis trust me to do so! The loss of substance it caused was most unpleasant - becoming semi-transparent and unable to bring the Pattern to mind without falling unconscious; being carried along in Jurgen's bicycle basket (how humiliating!). I feel a little foolish about it all now. I suspected it might be Brand, though. It was a not-unreasonable guess to make under the circumstances - it was big, radiated a high level of (incomprehensible) intellect, and had a vaguely Pattern-like shape to it. Live and learn, I suppose.

And then the two tiny, happy entities came along, very simple it seemed. I didn't care. I absorbed one of them, instantly becoming more substantial and feeling much better. Should I feel guilty? Perhaps. But I don't.

Eventually the silver path ended, at a twisting out of the space of the void to we knew not where. Again, there wasn't really any choice, so through we went. And ended up on slabs, one each, in robes, arranged around a tiny (metre diameter) hostile Pattern. Hostile to me, at least - it sent up a spark which burnt my hand quite badly. There was an unconscious chap lying by the slabs. The room was large with a translucent vaulted ceiling and various doors out.

We had only a brief chance to look about before someone started trying to break down one of the doors. We fled through another door, with the unconscious chap in tow, down a short hall and into a bedroom, with my changing shadow to encourage the healing of myself and him as I went.

The bedroom had windows, but they were of stained glass, not transparent. While I found some decent clothes and equipment to replace the robes (which were not really my style), the others broke a pane or two out of one of the windows, and tried to bring the unconscious chap around. Outside it looked as if we were in a castle, with a brief greensward outside, interrupted by a shimmering black curtain that, from its curvature, surrounded the whole place.

The chap came round in fairly short order, aided by water from the adjoining bathroom. But not before being searched by Lydon, who found some Trumps which were examined and replaced before the chap awoke. They included Brand, and myself looking considerably older, my scar somewhat faded. Strange and a little alarming.

When woken, the chap introduced himself as Arthur, son of Merlin. He led us into the bathroom, produced a secret passage via the Pattern and led us out of there.

Arthur led us off through various tunnel-like shadows. They were strange, with a vastly lower force line density than the shadows I was familiar with (and that you would know, too). It was so easy to shape shadow for things we wanted. There was not even any need to have thing appear out of sight - with the same effort as normal manipulation of shadow, things would just appear in front of one. Arthur seemed surprised that things could be any other way than this, and intimated that things so created would fade back into the structure of shadow (what there was of it) after a little while.

Before long, Arthur began looking looked a little concerned. He said the thread was broken. Apparently a thing he was using to lead himself through shadow. I wondered why he needed such a thing when he so obviously had assayed the Pattern. It seems his Pattern could not do much good with these very weak shadows.

It was at about this point that we were attacked by Julian's forces. First monsters (allegedly illusions, countered with monsters of my own, created from the weak stuff of this shadow), then Rangers and hellhounds. Reinier was not at all keen on engaging them, being heavily involved with the Rangers at home. Given his combat skills this put us at a bit of a disadvantage. However, the rest of us had less compunction, and though Galdron and Jurgen fled on motorcycle and push-bike respectively, the others held off our attackers for long enough for me to get the ground around us sliding off through the rest of the ground, like a raft.

I was not terribly impressed by Julian's actions here - it seems that in the future he had become something of a maniac!

So I had Arthur lend me his Trump of our destination - Brand's castle, he said. I had the raft move through shadow towards it based on the Trump image. After a while the 'raft' stopped working, and we acquired horses. I kept us going and we soon arrived at Brand's castle. Yes, my father alive in the future (I know that is not an issue for you)! But not, it turned out in my present, alas. Shadow seemed to be so far gone in the future that Arthur was surprised by my shifting shadow - he couldn't do that even though he claimed to have had advanced training from our father.

Upon arriving at the castle, we had a brief rest, wash and brush up, then joined Arthur for dinner. As we ate, he told us more about the situation.

It seemed we were in the future, so far ahead that Arthur had no idea that shadow was ever anything like what it was - weak and lacking in force lines. He was also unaware of Patternfall, knowing only of later wars with Chaos (after our time).

Apparently there were are many, many Patterns there, some intact, some damaged and others simply destroyed. It appears that all the elders have drawn Patterns over time (and perhaps some of our younger generation, too). Chaos was gone, the Serpent dead, shadow weak (as we had already discovered), and Trumps also weakened by this weakening of shadow, so that they now only work within a single shadow, not between shadows.

I found this all rather sad, with all that has been lost, so much glory gone, and those born in this time, like Arthur, not even knowing what they had missed.

And I was dead there, in the future. Seventy years gone. I didn't like that, to be honest, though I'd never tell that to anyone who wasn't me. It gave me a chill. It's a pity. It would have been interesting to have learnt from him as you (I hope!) learn from me. And I was not the only one dead there. Most or our cousins were dead, often used in the destruction of a Pattern. Did we not see?!

But I did not let this speculation spoil my appetite - Domdaniel taught me that.

As we were eating, Corwin turned up at the castle gate. It was alarming to see how little, in attitude, Corwin had changed since our day. Still the same headstrong ... idiot is perhaps a bit strong, but I'm sure you've met him, so you know what I mean. And Arthur was obviously in fear of him, his own grandfather. Something to do with his killing Jurgen, and perhaps Merlin, too (though this latter is only speculation).

He joined our discussion of the situation, and among other things he implied that Blood Curses do not actually work. This was an interesting observation, but not one I feel you should experiment with.

As dinner wound down, I was struck by a suspicion that Corwin might try to loot Brands notes, which Arthur had mentioned earlier and which I was intending to look at later anyway. So I excused myself and with the aid of a servant found my way to our father's study. It was locked, but the Pattern soon brought me the key, and in I went. I was quite surprised that I could get in so easily, to be honest. I quickly found the notes I was looking for, though, and started to peruse them for things of interest.

They were most interesting. Those parts that I could understand, at least. Even with my training large parts of them were far over my head. The notes were the sort of thing an Advanced Initiate such as myself might dream of - insights into the nature of the universe itself. I only hope you have as much luck. But they were saddening too. From reading the notes on the situation in the future, its cause, its effects and our being brought there, I was once again impressed by our father's genius, but weighed down by what they told me, and what we, the family of Amber, had done to the universe.

From what I understood, our universe was created deliberately by the Serpent and Unicorn (though no reason for their doing so was mentioned). The Unicorn, Serpent and Logrus are all fundamental parts of it. The Pattern of Amber is not.

Apparently the difference between our universe and what lies outside is that outside there is nothing. No order, no chaos, no structure, no time even. But regardless of this apparent hindrance to life, there are entities and intelligences there, such as the Unicorn and the Serpent of Chaos, that can create realities like ours (or not like ours, indeed!). It appears that the entities we encountered in the void were some of these timeless beings. Fascinating! I think, then that perhaps Francis and I got off quite lightly when I allowed us to be run over by one...

The universe was dying there in the future. The destruction of the Logrus of Chaos, the death of the Serpent at the hands of the family of Amber, and the creation and destruction of the various Patterns had led to the concentration of order in and around the Patterns, with very little order elsewhere. This had led to a major imbalance in the forces that created the universe which was, there in the future, blurring the boundary between the universe and the void outside. Places far from Patterns were becoming more and more like that void. Eventually it seems there would not have been any difference and shadow would become the void. And then the universe would be gone, with only the bubbles where the Patterns were left. And with the breakdown of the structure of the universe, who could say that even they would survive? The structure holding the Patterns together would be gone too, with, almost certainly, unfortunate consequences for all concerned.

It appears that our father noticed that when Patterns were created or destroyed or damaged the boundaries of the universe thinned. His monitoring of the creation and destruction of Patterns confirmed it and, I assume, set in motion the events in which we became involved.

Corwin started it all - the shadow storms of our time (and all of the time since the end of Patternfall), and the decay of the universe in the future. He drew his Pattern at the end of the Patternfall war, thinking Oberon had failed to redraw the Primal Pattern. In accomplishing this he set a trend for doing so by showing that it could be done by someone other than Dworkin or Oberon, which it appears all the family followed.

But the notes stated that the Unicorn and the Serpent only ever intended for there to be a single Pattern - the Logrus. I suppose that situation changing is the price they pay for creating a universe with sentient, intelligent life capable of manipulating their universe within it.

Alas, I could find no specifics on time travel, only general details. The notes seemed to assume that pure minds (in which form we travelled) were very flexible and needed to learn how to visualise travel in time, using the way in which the universe, from outside, is complete in time and space, with its history as part of its structure.

Thus in finding the right point on its surface one can arrive at the desired time and place. As long as something is happening to a Pattern at that point - creation, destruction or damage - to serve as a door in or out of the universe. But also, ones mind remains bound to ones body in a highly esoteric way, seemingly linked to the Pattern, even if it is pulled outside the universe and through time. And if ones mind loses touch with its body, it could mean the body would be dead upon your return, which would be unfortunate.

It appears Brand had found a way for minds to survive outside the universe without a body, and had created artificial bodies to contain our time-lost minds at our destination - very realistic and normal-feeling - we couldn't tell they were artificial! But apparently they would not last, and it was only the power of the destruction of the Pattern that allowed our minds to enter there at all that was keeping them (and us) alive.

Our travelling through time was, it appears a way of cheating the universe. Within the universe time travel is absolutely impossible. But the infinite void outside the bubble of our universe is timeless, allowing this rule to be avoided by seeing all of time as another dimension and acting outside of where the rules apply.

In fact, now, I rather regret not exploring more. What other universes might be out there? But we were hurried, and so I didn't think of it. Curses. And I do suspect that navigating the void would be a problem.

Once I was done I attempted to take the more significant parts of dad's notes with me out of his study, to avoid their falling into less responsible hands than mine. But as I walked out, the whole lot, and the satchel they were in, blinked back to the desk. Most unusual.

I examined the papers, and the place. It seems that everything there was bound to the Pattern and could not leave the room. I managed to get an idea of how it was done, which you might find useful - it was very cleverly made. This feature of the study also explained the apparent lack of security precautions, though there didn't seem to be anything to stop unwanted visitors reading the notes if they wanted to. Even with the precautions there were, I thought it might be useful to put the papers in a safe or suchlike repository, in which, indeed, there might be even more sensitive items. None was visible, but the lines of force in the study did clump somehow in places. Unfortunately, they induced nausea in me when I investigated them, and time was short, so I gave up. But still, I wonder what they were. Guarded shadow pockets, perhaps?

Unsurprisingly Brand had his own Pattern there in the future. His guards wouldn't let me in to look at it, but that wasn't really a problem and I moved along the lines of force to be by it. It was a three-dimensional cube. Silvery. Moving. Very complex. I almost walked (assayed; I suppose it would be hard to walk such a three-dimensional structure) it, but there was never enough time for me to do so without worrying something else would crop up which would need my assistance. Damn disappointing. However, what happened later on did compensate.

Dad had left a device behind with his major-domo, to be given to us if he did not return, which he had not. A flake of skin in a block of crystal, that would turn black if he died. It looked healthy, which was a good sign. Lydon, with some effort, was able to create a magical device that could trace the resonance between Brand and the flake of skin, providing a compass pointing to him.

And so we set out, using it. As we went Arthur laid a trail of silver thread, apparently produced by Brand, which he said would allow us to trace our way back, and also allow the use of magic along it. This was very useful as it turned out, thanks to Lydon's powers. With Arthur's help we followed the resonance with Brand's flake of skin through shadow to The Rose, Flora's Pattern (Flora with a Pattern of her own, who'd have ever though it?! But there was her realm).

We had been told that The Rose was a bad place to go, very heavily defended. But I don't think any of us really believed it. We were wrong. Every peasant was ready to alert Flora to strangers, and attack them if necessary. Hard to believe she inspires her people so, but then perhaps that's just the way she made them.

Francis managed to hold them off long enough for the rest of us, with a group effort, to Trump through to dad. He was in a comfortable cell, but a cell nonetheless. It was hard to make contact - the place had formidable barriers - but we managed to pull him through and get out of there as Lydon teleported us down the thread. And so Brand was rescued.

It was good to meet dad again, despite my mixed feelings about him from putting me in Domdaniel. Even with all the time that's passed, it was good. A tear comes to my eye even now, as I remember it.

He told us that the reason we came from when we did was that even then Bleys was drawing his Pattern. The first of many, and the second part of the Rot.

It came as something of a surprise when, in the future with no apparent means of return to our present (and not yet knowing our bodies were of limited duration only), I trod in our fathers footsteps and suggested we erase that future universe and start over again. We didn't in the end, doing something much more elegant. But it's interesting to find I have apparently as little compunction as our father when it comes to such things. I don't know. If you feel it's right, do it, or be convinced otherwise by one's companions.

It was an interesting silver thread Brand had, pulled from his Pattern itself - the thread we'd used previously, when rescuing him. It allowed those young of the family living in this poor, crippled, age to find their homes in shadow, and use magic to travel to and fro. I do wish I could have known more of it, too. Thinking about it, I wonder how much relationship that silver thread bears to the silver path we followed through the void to the future? The same thing, perhaps?

After some discussion it was decided that we should try and undo the future we were in. But we couldn't really return to our own time, because by that point Bleys had already drawn his Pattern, and the Rot had already been started by Corwin drawing his Pattern. Only around Patternfall, with the damage and redrawing of the Primal Pattern and the drawing of Corwin's Pattern all so close together, could we really act. Arthur was not terribly enthusiastic about the idea of undoing the universe into which he had been born. We didn't let his objections bother us.

Some of the others had qualms about our changing history and where we would do it. I feel they will not necessarily all have told their counterparts as much as I have told you. I admit I do not entirely understand why. After all, as far as I can discern, our entire task there in the future was to go back and change history, so why go for half measures?!

And so we returned through shadow to where we arrived in the future, the slabs by the tiny Pattern. Some of us were feeling more than a little rough by this point, our created bodies starting to run down. But up we got, onto the slabs. Brand raised his powers. Despite his objections Arthur stabbed the centre of the little Pattern with his sword, and away we went, carried on the last wave of whatever dying Pattern brought us there, back into the void outside our universe.

How glorious! We could see the entire universe in that timeless space, in the form of a tree (for some reason), with its duration along the height of the tree, roots in the past, crown in the future. Unfortunately, the further into the future it grew, the more diseased-looking it appeared. Near the base there were only a few diseased spots - Pattern-blemishes. The creation of the Logrus. The drawing of the Amber Patterns and Corwin's Pattern. The damaging of the Primal Pattern by Brand and its repair by Oberon. Further up the tree were many others, more and more the further up the 'tree' one looked.

I do wonder why the universe appeared as a tree? Was it Reinier, as fast as he is, imprinting his vision upon it first? Certainly it's not what I would have visualised it as - I would have expected perhaps a ball of lines of force, of all sizes and colours. Still, once it was done, it seemed not a bad representation. And I would never have thought to see it so, so perhaps I gained some insight from seeing the universe from anothers point of view.

Anyway, we soon located the fourth diseased patch up from the base of the tree. Not the creation of the Logrus or the Amber Patterns, or Brand's damage of the Primal Pattern, but what we hoped was Oberon's repair of it. We had to shift our scale relative to the tree until we were small enough (or the tree big enough) to let us pass though the diseased patch; this was quite easy to do, if slightly unsettling.

In people went. Reinier held back. Why? Frankly I didn't care why. This was no time for him to be playing silly buggers, and I was not feeling very trusting at that moment. I just loitered about outside and didn't go through. Eventually he got the idea and in he went, followed, after a brief interval, by me.

Seeing the tree-universe made me wonder where we were relative to the universe when we went to the future? Away from it? Or so close that we couldn't see it at all?

Anyway, back into the universe we went, appearing, to our relief, high over the Primal Pattern, where Oberon seemed to be arguing with Corwin. After a brief discussion among ourselves, off through shadow we sped to our scattered bodies.

I'm glad I was able to convince you to let me in, inhabit your body for a while. Exiting Domdaniel (after fortunately finding that we had kept my powers), finding Francis on shadow Earth, waiting for Galdron, and intercepting Corwin at Ygg.

I was surprised, and pleased, when we avoided a fight there, using our knowledge of the future and a few judicious lies to get him to ride on to the Abyss without stopping, at the high speeds I and Galdron can achieve. As you know, we had to fight off dad a few times along the way (I hope that doesn't rebound onto you later, and apologise in advance if it does). It was pleasing to stop him drawing his Pattern without his even knowing we had done so - it makes it much less likely he'll even think to try it in your future.

And so we arrived at the Abyss early, leading to the events of which you are aware. Dad's survival and flight into shadow. The defeat of Chaos. The survival of Deirdre.

Even the future Brand admitted he was mad at the time of Patternfall. But he still wanted us to help him in the past (around Patternfall).The future Brand wanted us to, when we went back to Patternfall, kill Corwin and give his younger, madder self the Jewel of Judgement. "Because it would be interesting." Hum. I was sceptical about this, and I wasn't the only one among us, so we quietly brushed it under the carpet. The question of course is why Brand was mad then. Was it some flaw in himself, or was it due to his being imprisoned in that tower for Unicorn knows how long, or something else? I didn't think to ask at the time, alas, and now it's too late. One of a number of questions I foolishly forgot to ask.

Be glad at least that although, I don't doubt, a hunted man, your father yet lives. Mine died in the Abyss, along with Deirdre, so that upon my exit from Domdaniel I had only my memories of him to talk to. To ask 'Why?' Even if he is mad, and you are not trusted in Amber, be thankful for that. And even with dad alive, don't forget mother back in the Sunset Empire.

I suppose you should also know what I do of making Patterns, in case you ever need it. From what I knew in my Amber, one needs to be attuned to the Jewel of Judgement and use it while walking as if on a Pattern, then make a Pattern. It's very hard, much more so than simply assaying the Pattern. But it can be done. It's not just a trick Oberon and Dworkin can do. Any Amberite can do it. Just don't! In fact, in the future we were told it doesn't even require the Jewel, and even Chaosites have mastered how to do it.

But, repeating myself, I urge you not to use this knowledge and make a Pattern, unless you really need it. You will damage the universe, cause shadow storms and generally cause the beginning of the end by showing the family it can be done. So, just don't, please.

You should also be aware that the Logrus is a Pattern too. The original, though not, in my opinion, the best. It being a Pattern why, you might ask, did we not stop the creation of every Pattern after it? Well, frankly, the universe seemed fine with the Amber Patterns in it in addition to the Logrus, and I, at least, like Amber and the Pattern and would prefer both to exist.

I wonder, perhaps that means the Courts attacking Amber in Patternfall was a crusade on their part to restore the universe to the way - as they see it - it should be, with only the Logrus created by the Serpent and the Unicorn left behind as they intended. There's no evidence for this, but it's something you might like to consider.

I suppose possessing an advanced initiation into the Pattern gives one a certain arrogance - or is it authority - when talking of Cosmic matters. Not that the others necessarily pay attention to that, of course!

By the way, Galdron seems quite well trained in the Pattern, despite his ... lax exterior. At one point I had a look at his force lines, just to see how good he is. A bit better than I though, it seems - he definitely noticed my doing it, though he didn't comment. He is a mage, too, though I only saw him cast one spell, at The Rose. An interesting one, though, calling a swarm of bees onto our enemies.

And you should know that our visit to the future did not overly enamour me of the general level of intelligence in the family (apart from in dad, of course). All there huddled in the fortresses at their Patterns, or mad or dead from their damage or destruction. Fools! Did they not see?! Did I not see?! Perhaps I was as bad as the rest...

And that is, thus, the end.

Our work here is done and I must go back to the gate out of the universe at the Primal Pattern, and back to my time, though my subconscious wants me to stay here.

I'm glad I've been able to give you, my younger self, at least some of what I know, finish your advanced initiation into the Pattern, and give you my memories of these, our adventures in a future which will not be yours. I hope you find them of use. If I hadn't been able to do this, I'm afraid I would have felt obliged to put you back into Domdaniel until you could get out yourself. Harsh? Perhaps. But what I learnt there is too much a part of myself to let you avoid learning it, even at the cost of pain to myself. So back in I would have put you. I just hope my intervention in getting you out early will not make you weaker than I was when I freed myself.

And even if, in your now, Francis, Lydon, Reinier, Galdron and Jurgen are not your friends or associates, you should know that they are good and stout companions all. Particularly Francis. We made a good team there, in the far future of our world when, we acted to change history and make yours.

So I leave this missive as my last will and testament to you, my younger self.

Adieu, and good fortune.

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