"And so it is," Fiona said. "But is there order somewhere beyond that wall they come through? Or does the storm go on forever? If he succeeded, it is but a passing matter and we are in no danger. But it he did not..."
"It does not matter," I said, "whether or not he succeeded, because I did."
"What do you mean?" she asked.
"I believe that he failed," I said, "that he was destroyed before he could repair the old Pattern. When I saw this storm coming - actually, I experienced a part of it - I realised that I could not possibly make it here in time with the Jewel, which he had sent to me after his efforts. Brand had been trying to get it from me all along the way - to create a new Pattern, he said. Later, that gave me the idea. When I saw that all else was failing, I used the Jewel to create a new Pattern. It was the most difficult thing I ever did, but I succeeded. Things should hold together after this wave passes, whether we survive it or not. Brand stole the Jewel from me just as I completed it. When I recovered from his attack I was able to use the new Pattern to project me here. So there is still a Pattern, no matter what else happens."
"But Corwin," she said, " what if Dad succeeded?"
"I do not know."
"It is my understanding," Bleys said, "from things that Dworkin told me, that two distinct Patterns could not exist in the same universe. Those in Rebma and Tir-na Nog'th do not count, being but reflections of our own...."
"What would happen?" I said.
"I think there would be a splitting off, the founding of a new existence - somewhere."
"Then what would its effect be upon our own?"
"Either total catastrophe or no effect whatsoever," Fiona said. "I can make a case for its going either way."
"Then we are right back where we started," I said. "Either things are going to fall apart shortly, or they are going to hold."
"So it would seem," Bleys said.
Corwin, Fiona and Bleys, 'The Courts of Chaos', Chapter 12
Corwin came to the place where he drew his Pattern after a long climb up through fog towards a wide plateau with a many-coloured, churning sky above. In fact the same divided sky - "Half of it was of uninterrupted blackness and the other half those masses of swimming colours. And the entire heavenly bowl seemed to be rotating about a point directly overhead" - as that of the Courts of Chaos. The edge of the plateau was steep, but could be walked up and around.
The top of the plateau was "a high smooth plain of harsh bare rock, the far edge of which was Corwin could easily see from the point where he reached the top. Beyond the far edge (towards Chaos) is "the great wasteland which commenced somewhere below the farther lip of the plateau to sweep on for at least forty miles before butting up against another range of mountains. And far off to the left and still running strong went the black road." (Quotes from 'The Courts of Chaos', Chapter 8)
After Corwin's Pattern had been drawn, the location had changed rather. The air was then cool and fresh, sweet and clean, with a sky of bright, uniform white overhead. The plateau was bare, but no longer harsh; this was not just an effect of its new lighting scheme. There were also subtle and gross differences from the old plateau - altered rock formations and topography, some soil in places. The scent of the sea. "This place had an entirely different feeling to it than the one to which I had mounted - so long ago, it seemed. It was too much a change for that storm to have wrought. It reminded me of something." "It was like the place of the primal Pattern." "Like, yet unlike... There was something new in the air, the ground, the sky. This was a new place. A new primal Pattern. Everything about me then was a result of the Pattern in which I stood." "This was a clean, fresh place, and I was somehow responsible for it." (Quotes from 'The Courts of Chaos', Chapter 10)
Even now, the whole area around Corwin's Pattern retains this new, fresh and unused feeling.
Shortly after the Elders returned to Amber, partly at the request of King Random, Corwin travelled to his Pattern with Fiona and some troops. When they arrived, the area about Corwin's Pattern had turned into a verdant, temperate, flat grassy plain, dotted with rocky outcroppings (many covered with large thickets of wild roses, up to five metres tall, though there are 'free standing' ones too), streams and small ponds, and inhabited only by herds of wild horses (mainly of a unique rose-grey breed). The only visible tree was the one Corwin planted from a branch of Ygg. This had grown nearly to full size when they arrived. Like Ygg, it seems sentient and capable to speech, though in general it doesn't say much. It calls itself Drasil. It is obviously the same species as Ygg, but is taller and much more vital-seeming.
While there, Fiona studied Corwin's Pattern, and Drasil, and drew some Trumps capable of reaching all the way there from Amber, though, as in Amber they seem not to work right next to the Pattern. Also like Amber, Magic above the level of power words does not work near Corwin's Pattern. A small castle was also built next to the Pattern, out of some rosy-gold local stone. Corwin did want to go and explore what he had created immediately, but Random was able to persuade him to wait for at least a while, and to defend the place, before doing so.
In the The Last Enemy game game, the tree of Drasil, like the tree of Ygg, is a self-aware Trump monitoring device. Although it is not obviously a Trump item or item of power, it can scry and spy on Trumps, though it cannot jam or disrupt them. It has Trump Memory of all the elders, and can gain a Trump memory impression by the scrying of people using Trumps, seeing the Trump of a person, or seeing a person itself. It also has limited predictive powers, using Trump readings. Unlike Ygg, Drasil has no birds to use as agents, and merely relies on observation.
The climate at Corwin's Pattern is somewhat more extreme than that of Amber, but still reasonably hospitable. The land is always green, even under the snow; in the summer the plains are dotted with wild flowers of all kinds (with poppies and cornflowers predominating), and the air is filled with the scent of roses. Around the Pattern itself the snow never lays, and the grass is always green, short, and neatly trimmed, like a lawn. In summer the grass between the lines of the Pattern is dotted with flowers, like the plains outside.
Because of the flatness of the plain, it is only the rose thickets which allow shadow shifting reasonably close to the Pattern.
About ten miles to the west of Corwin's Pattern, the plateau on which it lies drops off to a milky-blue sea.
Unlike the Amber Pattern, Corwin's Pattern does not seem to have cast any reflections of itself. The precise reasons for this are unclear. Likewise there is no Tir-Na Nog'th or equivalent at Corwin's Pattern. However, there is a moon, which is large and bright, and full more often than seems reasonable.
Corwin's Pattern casts shadows around itself which much more resemble those around Amber than the original much more Chaos-like shadows which previously existed there. There is no discontinuity between the shadows cast by Corwin's Pattern and those cast by Amber and Chaos - they all join smoothly together, as the shadows of Amber and Chaos do. However, these shadows are only those arising from the interaction of the new Pattern with the pre-existing shadows; Fiona speculated that there might be an entire universe of new shadows 'behind' it.
Corwin's Pattern is different in configuration from that of Amber, as Ambers is different from those of Rebma and Tir-Na Nog'th. Apparently it more resembles the Primal Pattern than any other, but is different even from that. Its colour is different too, having a more silvery hue than any of the other Patterns.
There are no shadow paths connecting the 'shadow' in which Corwin's Pattern was drawn with the adjacent shadows. No-one is really sure why.
No-one is sure whether Corwin's Pattern can be walked by any Amberite, or only Corwin and his descendants.
It is entirely possible that the powers granted by a person walking Corwin's Pattern are different to those gained by walking one of the Patterns based around the Primal Pattern of Amber. A possible set of these variant powers can be found here.
Like Chaos, Corwin's Pattern is too far away to Trump to via normal Trumps, and is weeks of shadow shifting from Amber, though the route is safer than that to Chaos.
Since Corwin and Merlin went to explore the other side of Corwin's Pattern in 16 PPF, Random has had the forces deployed there increased, and the castle enlarged. This has included having a (water-filled) moat dug, and a new keep constructed, on a mound formed from the earth dug out of the moat. The new keep is in the form of six half-cylinders around a slightly taller cylindrical central section. Because it is both smaller, and constructed more quickly than Castle Amber, Castle Rosa (as it has become known) is of a much more unified architectural style the Castle Amber.
Although Corwin's Pattern is too large to be roofed over, it is now within the walls of Castle Rosa, along with Drasil, in a large, well-guarded courtyard separate from the main castle courtyard, none of the walls of which form part of the outer walls of the castle. The gate-house to the Pattern Courtyard is the original castle keep. The Trumps Fiona drew take one to a small, well-guarded courtyard on the side of the original keep away from the Pattern.
A community has built itself up around the castle, unofficially named Rosa Town, and farms and settlements are beginning to encroach out onto the plains. It is ruled, in Randoms name, as it has been since shortly after Corwin and Merlin vanished through Corwin's Pattern, by Corwin's friend Lord Rein, head of House Rein, who is Lord Commander of Castle Rosa.
In one of the gardens by the original Castle Rosa are two memorials. One is to Deirdre, and the other, smaller, memorial is to Lorraine, from shadow Lorraine.
In The Last Enemy game, after the incursions of the Ordnung through Corwin's Pattern and the discovery of the realm of Girasol, Castle Rosa was rebuilt so as to be able to defend against threats coming both from outside, moving from shadow towards the Pattern, and also against threats coming out from the Pattern.
The Effects of the Drawing of Corwin's Pattern
A set of variant powers for Corwin's Pattern