“You’re sure there is one?”

“There must be. It is in the nature of such a construct to be scribed at a more basic level of reality as well as the mundane.”

“And our purpose in traveling to that place?”

“That is where its secrets dwell; where its deepest magics might be learned.”

“I see,” I told her. “Then what?”

“Why, there we might learn how to undo the trouble the thing is causing,” she answered.

“That’s all?”

Her eyes narrowed.

“We will learn whatever we can, of course. Power is power, and represents a threat until it is understood.”

I nodded slowly.

“But right now there are a number of powers that are more pressing in the threat department,” I said. “That Pattern is going to have to wait its turn.”

“Even if it may represent the forces you need to deal with your other problems?” she asked.

“Even so,” I said. “It might turn into a lengthy enterprise, and I don’t believe I have the time for that.”

“But you don’t know that for certain.”

“True. But once I set foot on it, there’s no turning back.”

I did not add that I’d no intention of taking her to the primal Pattern, then leaving her there on her own. After all, she had tried her hand at king-making once. And if Brand had made it to the throne of Amber in those days, she would have been standing right behind him, no matter what she had to say about it now. I think she was about to ask me to deliver her to the primal Pattern then but realized that I’d already considered it and rejected it. Not wanting to lose face by asking and being refused, she returned to her original argument.

“I suggest you make time now,” she said, “if you do not wish to see worlds torn up about you.”

“I didn’t believe you the first time you told me that,” I answered, “and I don’t believe you now. I still think the increased Shadow-storm activity is probably an adjustment to the damage and repair of the original Pattern. I also think that if we mess around with a new Pattern we don’t know anything about, we stand a chance of making things worse, not better — ”