“And then?”

“Why, when the ordeal is past I will be attuned, you give me the Jewel, I inscribe a new Pattern and we are back in business. Things hold together. Life goes on.”

“What of Chaos?”

“The new Pattern will be unmarred. They will no longer have the road giving them access to Amber.”

“With Dad dead, how would the new Amber be run?”

He smiled crookedly.

“I ought to have something for my pains, oughtn’t I? I will be risking my life with this, and the odds are not all that good.”

I smiled back at him.

“Considering the payoff, what is to prevent me from taking the gamble myself?” I said.

“The same thing that prevented Dad from succeeding — all the forces of Chaos. They are summoned by a kind of cosmic reflex when such an act is begun. I have had more experience with them than you. You would not have a chance. I might.”

“Now let us say that you are lying to me. Brand. Or let us be kind and say that you did not see clearly through all the turmoil. Supposing Dad did succeed? Supposing there is a new Pattern in existence right now? What would happen if you were to do another, here, now?”

“I… It has never been done before. How should I know?”

“I wonder,” I said. “Might you still get your own version of reality that way? Might it represent the splitting off of a new universe — Amber and Shadow — just for you? Might it negate ours? Or would it simply stand apart? Or would there be some overlapping? What do you think, given that situation?”

He shrugged his shoulders.

“I have already answered that. It has never been done before. How should I know?”

“But I think that you do know, or can make a very good guess at it. I think that that is what you are planning, that that is what you want to try — because that is all you have left now. I take this action on your part as an indication that Dad has succeeded and that you are down to your last card. But you need me and you need the Jewel for it. You cannot have either.”