The Pattern - Amber Pattern

Amber Pattern

The Pattern is inscribed on the floor of a large cavern that is part of a system of caves deep within Mount Kolvir, directly underneath Amber Castle in the city of Amber. The Pattern is a single, intertwined curve, laid out in a spiderweb-like shape.Members of the Royal Family of Amber can walk along the Pattern to its center in order to gain the power to walk among shadows — alternate worlds. Whether members of the house of Amber create the shadows they walk into or that the shadows already exist and that the pattern walker merely enters them is a subject that the author Zelazny leaves open to reader interpretation. Once a walker sets foot upon the Pattern, he must continue following its labyrinthine course to the center; stopping for too long, or leaving the pathway of the Pattern, results in a terrible death.

Walking the Pattern is not an easy task. There is a resistance that slows the walker, as if he is wearing lead boots that get heavier and heavier with every step. During the ordeal, the walker passes through several points of extreme difficulty called "veils" — The First Veil, the Second Veil, and the Final Veil. These points represent intense surges in this fierce resistance; however, "breaking through" a Veil causes the resistance to let up a bit.

Once at the Pattern's center, the walker has acquired the power to walk in Shadow. As well, being at the center gives him the opportunity to command the Pattern to send him anywhere he wishes—across the room, back up to Amber Castle, across the world, to another Shadow world, here on Earth, etc.