I continued to push forward with my foot, sliding it slowly ahead toward the edge of the Pattern. Once I made it, I did not see how they…

Drowsing… I felt myself beginning to fall. I had been asleep for a moment. It happened again.

When I opened my eyes, I could see a portion of the Pattern. When I turned my head, I saw feet.

When I looked up, I saw Dad holding the Jewel.

“Go away,” he said to Dworkin and Fiona, without turning his head toward them.

They withdrew as he placed the Jewel about his own neck. He leaned forward then and extended his hand. I took it and he drew me to my feet.

“That was a damfool thing to do,” he said.

“I almost made it.”

He nodded.

“Of course, you would have killed yourself and not accomplished anything,” he said. “But it was well done nevertheless. Come on, let’s walk.”

He took my arm, and we began to move about the periphery of the Pattern.

I watched that strange sky-sea, horizonless about us, as we went. I wondered what would have happened had I been able to begin the Pattern, what would be happening at that moment.

“You have changed,” he finally said, “or else I never really knew you.”

I shrugged.

“Something of both perhaps. I was about to say the same of you. Tell me something?”

“What?”

“How difficult was it for you, being Ganelon?”

He chuckled.

“Not hard at all,” he said. “You may have had a glimpse of the real me.”

“I liked him. Or, rather, you being him. I wonder whatever became of the real Ganelon?”

“Long dead, Corwin. I met him after you had exiled him from Avalon, long ago. He wasn’t a bad chap. Wouldn’t have trusted him worth a damn, but then I never trust anyone I dont have to.”

“It runs in the family.”

“I regretted having to kill him. Not that he gave me much choice. All this was very long ago, but I remembered him clearly, so he must have impressed me.”