"Seeker's Journey"
Part Three
by Corvus
Rainbows of luminescence splashed the chamber in pools of infinite hue. Each step took they took painted their faces in a new idiom, like the sun through a great stained-glass window. Each outcropping was of a different size and shape; some growing tall and straight, some radiating out like shrubbery, others no bigger than a fist. The crystals were warm to the touch, like living things. Enraptured by the beautiful display, Atrus drew out his journal and scribbled furious notes and sketches.
Raven knelt down next to a yellow five-pointed crystaline shrub and grasped one individual spine. With a quick inhumanly-strong wrench he snapped the spine at its base. The lemony light drained from the broken spine along with the strange warmth, leaving behind only a large quartz-like point. An eyebrow arched; these crystals were even more intriguing than he had first suspected. The Amberite walked away from the small gem shrub, humming quietly to himself.
The crystal flared briefly in Raven's hand, then fell dead once more. He stopped, puzzled. After a minute of watching the crystal remained cold and clear. He took several careful steps backward, to no avail. What could have triggered the light? he wondered. Was it the humming? Experimentally he began the song again, and within a few seconds the crystal flashed once more. Raven narrowed down the sequence of notes and tried again, and was rewarded with another flash of yellow light. Finally he tried a single note. The light awakened a fourth time and continued to shine as long as he held the sound.
"Atrus, you've got to see this." Raven approached the D'ni and held up the crystal point.
Atrus looked up from his journal. "I haven't seen any other clear crystals. Where did you find that?"
"Snapped it off a little yellow growth over that way," Raven informed him with a nod of his head. "The moment I broke it off it stopped glowing, but watch this." He hummed middle-C once more, summoning the lemon light. "How about that?"
With an eager hand Atrus took the point and turned it this way and that, looking over every surface. "It appears to be quartz, but I've never seen quartz react to sonic vibrations in that manner. I wonder..." He hummed the same note Raven had and achieved the same result, light and warmth filling the crystal for as long as the note was held. "Curious." Bracing the journal with the forearm of his full hand, Atrus added a quick note about the crystal's reactive properties. "I'd like to test some other crystals, but I'm always loathe to disturb some process or balance we can't see."
"I hadn't thought about that, but you're right. Hope I didn't upset something." Raven had to hand it to his other friend: there was definitely something to be said for the exacting care with which Atrus treated the environment around him. Especially in a place like this. "Still, my gut tells me that reaction will be important."
"In situations such as this, the most infinitessimal details can be vital, yes. And given that we've encountered clues before that we would have missed if we had been too careful," said Atrus, referring to Raven's blunder on the staircase below the hall of mosaics, "I'm even more inclined to believe it."
"Well, since we found a clue, let's figure out what to do with it." Raven glanced around, wondering where the next test might be located. "Maybe we should start by finding the door out of here."
In the time Atrus had known Raven, the Amberite's problem-solving skills had grown substantially. While Raven still had much to learn, a hint of pride kindled in Atrus' heart at the thought that he might have been able to influence Raven in such a positive way. "That sounds like an excellent idea."
True to form the next doorway stood directly opposite the portal they had used to reach this chamber, though it was blocked from sight by the forest of crystaline growths. Before the door stood a flat-topped white marble pedestal two feet in diameter. This particular door was locked, and Atrus reasoned that the key lay in the seven colored yet not-glowing crystal points, one for each color of the rainbow, atop the pedestal. A row of seven hexagonal holes and a round red button an inch across in the center were the pedestal top's only other features.
"Okay, here we go. This is more like it." Raven plucked the red crystal from the pedestal and flipped it in the air. "Seven crystals, seven slots. I think we can figure out what comes next."
"Ah, yes," said Atrus, "but we have to determine the proper sequence. We don't have time to apply brute force." He reached out and pressed the button with one finger.
A sequence of seven notes resonated from the air, rising, then falling, then rising further and falling slightly at the end. Just to be certain Atrus pushed the button a second time. The same sequence played. "That would appear to be our next clue," he said.
Raven's handsome face twisted a bit as he thought. Colors, notes and crystals. They had a crystal point that glowed bright yellow whenever someone hummed a particular note around it. They had seven crystal points on the pedestal: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet. They had a series of seven notes. "Seven notes, seven crystals. Odds are there's one crystal for each note. Now we have to figure out which is which. I've got no musical talent at all. I don't even know what note that was we hummed to make our crystal glow. But I do remember reading something about an analogy between frequencies of colored light and musical notes."
"Of course," said Atrus with a snap of his fingers. "I do have some musical knowledge. The note we hummed was middle-C."
"C... Yellow. Yes, that's it. C is yellow."
"The fourth note was C, so the fourth crystal will be the yellow one." Atrus grasped the appropriate point and stuck it into the fourth slot from the left. He then pushed the central button once more. "A-sharp, C-sharp, D, C, B, F-sharp, E."
"A-sharp is lowest," Raven thought aloud, "so it would be red. F-sharp would be violet." He slid those two crystals into the first and sixth slots. "C-sharp is right after C, so it would be green. D is blue, B is orange and E is indigo." These crystals he placed in their proper order. "Red, green, blue, yellow, orange, violet, indigo. That should do it."
Both men glanced around. Nothing had changed. Raven tried the door; it was still locked. "Did we get something wrong?" he wondered.
"I don't believe so. Let me check again." Atrus pushed the button once more. As the individual notes played, the corresponding crystal flashed brightly. After the seventh note, all seven crystals flared and the door drifted open an inch. "Ah. Serendipity is with us this time."
"Hooray for luck," said Raven as he pulled the door open all the way. Beyond lay another spiraling staircase of red, white and black marble. "And hooray for predictability. Up we go." With a last lingering glance at the beautiful patterns of light in the chamber, the Amberite led the way up the next flight of steps.
One full circle around the circumference of the tower later they reached another door, different from the others in the two riveted iron bands running across its surface. It opened without a sound into yet another great circular chamber. The purpose of the pendulum became apparent: it hung in the center of this room, ten feet from the ceiling. Some invisible light source shone directly on the brass weight, which scattered the bright rays across five polished brass globes hung from steel poles connected to circular tracks in the ceiling.
"An orrery of sorts?" Atrus wondered. "This must be the next challenge."
Without speaking Raven crossed the floor to the exit. As he expected, it was locked. Only then did he turn his eyes to examining the rest of the orrery room. The floor was well-polished marble mottled with white and tan. In the center a nine-foot-wide band of black marble made a circuit three times its thickness in diameter around the foot-wide hole for the pendulum. This band was inlaid with gleaming golden symbols like those on the archway in the rock face on the beach.
A quarter of the way around the wall stood another control panel much like the one working the machinery for the staircases several levels down. There were no dials on this panel, however, only one lever in the "up" position and one wheel. Above the panel light reflected from the pendulum sun onto a large eye carved into the wall at the level of the planetary ecliptic.
"Three guesses as to what that panel controls, and the first two don't count," Raven said as he moved away from the door. When he reached the panel he grasped the lever and pulled. It had three intermediary stops between the top and bottom positions. "Five stops, five planets."
"Don't assume it will be so straightforward," Atrus cautioned. He took hold of the wheel and turned it slowly clockwise. The outermost planet began to move in a similar manner -- but so did the innermost. "Each stop will move any number of those planets. Let me get my journal and we'll test each one."
The uppermost and third lever stops each moved one planet, respectively the innermost and the fourth. The second stop rotated the second and third planets, and the fourth stop made the second and fourth planets move. This puzzle would involve some tricky thinking. There was one thing missing, however. "What do we do with them now that we know how they move?" Raven demanded. Hands on his hips, he blew a sigh of frustration and looked around again. The eye stared down at him, unblinking. Light on the eye... "What if we eclipsed the eye?"
"That should be relatively simple. Rotate the fourth planet between them," said Atrus. Raven pushed the lever to the middle stop and turned the wheel, sending the fourth planet whirling around the pendulum sun. He adjusted the position so that the planet cast a shadow onto the eye. Nothing changed. "Something else is required. Planetary alignments are said by many to hold great significance. According to some traditions they are a time of new opportunity, an opening of new ways. Since we need just that very thing, I believe we should try to align all the planets between the eye and the sun."
The Amberite smirked. "Didn't know you were into astrology."
"One learns a great deal of things one does not necessarily need to believe," Atrus said simply as he reached into his pack again, this time for a piece of scratch paper. "There will be a precise pattern to the movements of the lever and the wheel. Some of it, if the creator of this particular test was truly intelligent, will seem contrary to logic. This could take a bit." With that the D'ni sat cross-legged on the floor and began to write.
Raven decided it would be better to let the bearded man deal with his thoughts on his own. He reached for his Trumps. This strange place blocked the Pattern, but would it prevent the cards from functioning as well? He knew he had some time to relax and ponder, so instead of immediately reaching for his mother's Trump he shuffled slowly through the entire deck, considering each one in turn. Atop the deck was Flora, the much-lauded beauty of the Amberite royalty. Raven's contact with this particular aunt had been spotty at best. She was one of the most devious players in the family game -- a woman who aspired to be the power behind the throne, rather than the one on it -- and he had no wish to be drawn into her schemes. Beneath Flora was Fiona, a firey redhead even more dangerous than her sister. She was a definite contender, her boundless intellect giving her a viciously keen edge.
Next came rugged Gérard, the strongest man in the the entire family, quite possibly the most physically powerful man in all of Shadow, and a staunch ally -- or terrifying foe. Then Random, the impish King of Amber, the best man for the job simply because he concerned himself with being a good man more than with grabbing for power. Following Random was his older brother Corwin, father of Merlin and quite possibly the biggest pain in the neck of all time. Corwin had shaken the universe more than once. Now he had his own universe to shake. That particular Trump was one Raven knew he would never, ever use.
Beyond Corwin was Llewella's card. Raven passed it over for Martin, Random's wild yet good-natured son, his spiked mohawk radiating off the card like a radioactive explosion. Then it was Merlin himself, the artist of the deck. It was an older card, drawn before Merlin had affected a beard. Raven liked his affable cousin, but was wary of Merlin's collection of powers and talents from all throughout Shadow and his rumored connection to the Courts of Chaos. Had Raven not kept himself isolated from the family he would probably have known a great deal more, but he didn't care to get that close.
That brought him to the final card. A stooped-over dwarf, his wizened face split with a lunatic grin, Dworkin was not one to be trifled with. Truth be told, Raven was terrified of the man. This card Raven would also leave alone. He was quick to slide it back under the rest of the deck lest a psychic connection form completely by accident. Now it was time to test.
Pulling out his mother's card once more, Raven gazed at it, reaching through the card toward Llewella. He stared at her face, imagining it beginning to move, to speak. He stared until his head began to ache, but the Trump wouldn't function. He dropped the card and rubbed his temples with a groan.
"Something the matter?" Atrus asked without lifting his head from his study of the orrery's movement patterns.
"Looks like whatever's blocking the Pattern in this place also shuts down Trumps. I'm beginning to think it would be a pretty safe bet to say the Logrus couldn't get in here either." But who could have tapped into something so mind-bogglingly powerful that it could defy the two forces that drove everything that was? How could the D'ni, if they were truly the ones who had created this place, have achieved such knowledge? The implications were staggering as well as horrifying.
"I believe," said Atrus after a moment's silence, "that I have the correct pattern." The beared man stood and began to work the lever and wheel, shifting the planetary globes in their orbits. Raven watched them whirl around their sun and was reminded of the Golden Circle of Shadows that lay close to Amber. Many in that city atop Mount Kolvir would have said that all of Shadow revolved around that one place. The Courts of Chaos would say differently, that much was certain.
Then, all the planets were in alignment. As the final motion came to a stop there came a loud click from the exit door. "Very nice," Raven said.
Atrus took the compliment as he usually did, with a mix of defference and cold fact. "I used something vaguely related to the principles of this mechanism myself in the clock tower on Myst Island, and I've seen other devices and puzzles much like this one. Still, the larger number of possible combinations made it rather more difficult."
Raven put away his Trumps and stood. "Time to go, then." The exit door had opened for them, leading to yet another curving stairway.
Though this chamber was the same as the previous three in size and shape, it was, unlike the others, bisected by a crenelated stone wall twenty feet high. In the center of the wall was a form rather like a gateway, only there was no passage through the wall itself. A curious symbol, like a curved drop of black water, was painted halfway up the wall. Below that, easily within arm's reach, were six empty round depressions two inches in diameter, arranged as the points of a pentagon or star would be around one in the center. Underneath that a small trough was carved into the wall. Within this trough lay five balls: green, white, black, red and yellow.
"Six holes, five balls. I wonder if this is some kind of jumping or sequence game," said Atrus.
Raven reached in and grasped the white ball. It was as white as new-fallen snow when he held it up for a closer look, smooth and heavy. He gasped in sudden realization. "This ball is solid white jade," the Amberite breathed in amazement. "I think... yes, they're all jade. Someone spent a fortune." Forcing himself to ignore the rarity and beauty of the ball, he chose a depression in the wall at random, on the lower right, and slipped the ball into it. Nothing happened. Leaving it in place for the moment he then pulled out the black ball and placed it into the center.
When his fingers broke contact with the dark jade sphere, a strange image appeared on the wall between the depressions and the odd black glyph. It seemed to be an ideologic character, drawn with precise brush strokes. Its meaning escaped both men, but the sound that reached their ears was plain: the babbling of a stream. "Water," Atrus reasoned.
Raven pulled the ebony sphere out of the center and replaced it with the snowy white one. Another symbol appeared, accompanied by a noise reminiscent of a sword being drawn from its scabbard. Raven guessed, "Metal."
"Try the red one next," said Atrus, his tone indicating that he had sensed a pattern already. When the crimson sphere was firmly within the wall a third glyph formed along with the sound of a blazing fire. "As I suspected, fire."
The D'ni's train of logic was suddenly apparent to Raven. "Elements. Water, Metal, Fire... The other ones should be Wood and Earth." The green sphere brought forth the sound of wind rustling the leaves and branches of a tree. The yellow caused a resonating rumble that rattled their bones until Raven pried the ball loose. "Never let it be said that smuggling you books on Chinese history from Shadow Earth is a waste of time. I should've seen that the moment I looked at this puzzle." His blue eyes lifted to the curving black drop overhead. "And that's the Yin half of the Yin-Yang symbol, I'd bet my Trumps on it."
The information Atrus had read on the philosophies of ancient China played through his mind like a moving picture. The Yin and Yang principles were supposed to drive the universe, creating everything that was between them. The active, masculine Yang principle also represented the creative drive, light and life. The passive, feminine Yin was sometimes used to represent death and destruction, the clearing out of the old to make room for the new. If this wall was marked with the Yin symbol... "Solving this puzzle will destroy the wall," he thought aloud.
"Yeah, but... how do we solve it?" Raven tossed the yellow ball into the air a few times. "We've pretty much figured out that the center hole is used to identify which ball is which element, but what about the sequence?"
"What logical progressions are there to these five elements?" asked Atrus. If they could identify patterns, they could put those patterns to use.
"Hmm." Raven caught the Earth sphere and stared into the middle distance as he sorted through his memory. "Earth... Metal... Water... Okay, now I remember. There's a 'creative cycle' to these five, where each one 'spawns' the next. Earth creates Metal in the ores mined from it, Metal creates Water in the dew that collects on its surface, Water creates Wood by nourishing it, and Wood creates Fire by burning. Fire turns into ash, which brings us back to Earth again." He placed the yellow sphere in the top point, then placed the white Metal ball in the next depression clockwise, followed by black Water, green Wood and red Fire.
Nothing happened.
"What gets me," Raven said as he glared at the stubborn wall, "is how the D'ni know so much about ancient China."
"There have been links between D'ni and the humans of Earth before," Atrus reminded his Amberite friend. "Remember, D'ni itself lies in a vast cavern below the ground on an Earth very much like the one you frequent, miles under the feet of the human race. My grandmother, Ti'ana, was originally named Anna. She was human."
"So it's not illogical to think the D'ni came into contact with people around the time of, say, Qin Shih Huangdi, then."
Atrus shook his head. "Not illogical at all. Evidently this pattern is not the correct one. What about another?"
"Well, if there's a creative, there's also... a destructive... I'm an idiot. The Yin symbol means we should arrange the balls in the destructive cycle." Raven pulled four of the five spheres out one at a time and handed them to Atrus, leaving the yellow ball of Earth at the top point. "Earth destroys Water by containing, diverting and absorbing it." The black ball followed, in the next point clockwise. "Then Water destroys Fire by quenching it." The red ball he put in the lower right point. "Fire melts Metal." The white sphere went into the bottom left point. "And that leaves Wood, which is destroyed by the cutting of Metal and destroys Earth by breaking it up." He placed the green ball into the final depression and stood back.
A thin line of light pierced the thickest part of the ebon Yin glyph, then traced out to the right and left before trickling down among the stones to outline a rough door. When the light touched the floor, the portion of the wall thus described faded into translucence, then into invisibility.
The wall was revealed to be only one stone thick. Beyond they could see the exit in the far wall. Between them and it were five stone pedestals, atop which sat five carved cinnabar-glazed figurines on five differently colored bases, one for each element. The pedestals were arranged in a cross atop a mosaic map of China, three from north to south, three from east to west. A thin ring of wood marked with eight pictures, four of them characters and the other four images matching four of the figurines, surrounded the mosaic. When Atrus picked up a carved tiger from the black base on the center pedestal, they noticed that the bases were not attached to the figurines. "This is probably a matching test," he said. "One figure for each element."
In addition to the tiger held by Atrus, there was a dragon, a turtle, a peacock-like bird and a man with a long flowing beard dressed in luxurious robes. Raven scratched his head. "Okay, so we put one figure on each base. This shouldn't be terribly difficult. Any clue as to where to begin?"
"I believe we should examine all the pieces we're working with," replied Atrus. "The directions seem to be important, as do the elements we just worked with at the wall. That makes me think that in addition to matching a figure to each element, we must put the figure and base on the proper pedestal." He knelt to examine the pictures on the wooden ring. To the south was a turtle, its shell and head protruding from water, and next to it a Chinese character. He reached out to run a finger over the scoring. "This should indicate..." The D'ni broke off as the wooden ring rotated slightly under his touch. "Ah, a twist."
"So the ring moves," Raven observed. He glanced at each other other three pictures and noticed that all of the figures on them were oriented with their bottom edges facing the same way. "If we figure out which way to put the ring we'll have our answer. The man in the robes obviously goes in the center, since he's not on the ring. What element is missing?"
Quick examination showed that the bird was wreathed in flame, the tiger's claws were accentuated with lines to show gleaming metal, and the dragon was wrapped around a tree. With the turtle in water, that left only earth. Raven placed the yellow base onto the center pedestal and set the figure of the robed man atop it. "Okay... now what?"
"I seem to recall there was something peculiar about their cartography," said Atrus, "but I cannot remember exactly what it was." He stroked his beard and "Hmm"ed to himself softly.
"You're right. But what was it?" Raven considered the wooden ring again. All the animals were oriented the same way, so that the turtle would be on bottom, at the south edge of the map. But the Chinese... "They oriented their maps upside down. They put south at the top!" He knelt and slid the ring around in its base until the turtle was at the north, on its back the way most maps were drawn. This put the tiger standing on its head in the west and the dragon doing likewise in the east, and the bird flying along contentedly upside-down in the south. Quickly he and Atrus arranged the figurines to match the pictures, the tiger atop the white base for metal in the west, the turtle atop black for water in the north, the dragon atop green for wood in the east and the bird atop the remaining red for fire in the south. With the final figure in place the exit door creaked open.
One more spiraling staircase of gold-inlayed red, white and black marble took them around and up to the next level. Raven paused at the door. "If we suppose that the mosaic room was the base of the tower, how far up would you say we are?"
Atrus ran a quick calculation through his mind. "Each level has been roughly sixty feet high. We should assume at least ten feet between chambers, though I would guess it to be closer to twenty. Placing the floor of the mosaic hall at ground level, that means that the floor of this level is three hundred twenty feet above the top of the cliff."
"And the tower was about five hundred feet high. So the level above this would be the last one at four hundred feet, and above that would be the roof at about four-eighty. Assuming this chamber and the one above are both the size of the other ones we've encountered."
That was a lot of guessing, but it seemed to be the most logical conclusion. Atrus nodded. "We should be coming close to the end of our quest."
"Here's hoping the quest-maker didn't decide to crank up the difficulty a few notches," Raven quipped as he pushed open the iron-banded wooden door.
Neither of them was prepared for the living grove that filled the chamber beyond. Sunlight shone down from a brilliant glowing dome twenty feet across in the center of the ceiling, washing over the green treetops and dappling to the grassy floor beneath. Raven recognized willow, maple, oak, ash, birch and beech as well as the native Misaran tree which yielded the dark wood from which the people built so much of their architecture and furnishings. Atrus immediately withdrew his journal from his pack and walked over to sit beneath the sheltering branches of a red maple. As before Raven left him to his thoughts and wandered away.
Several of the trees bore curious markings, shapes of animals and objects, one to a tree. More curious than that, however, was the incongruous lever switch Raven discovered in the center of the floor directly beneath the false sun, nothing more than a wood-handled brass lever between two small semicircular brass plates bolted to a small concrete block. After a split-second's halfhearted debate with his conscience, Raven grasped the switch and pulled it to the other side.
Night fell in an unnatural instant. The ceiling overhead sparkled with a wild dash of twinkling stars. As Raven gazed up at the unfamiliar sky he heard Atrus' calm, patient voice. "I take it you found something."
"Did I ever!" the Amberite exclaimed. "Hold on a second." He grasped the switch and grinned -- he'd always wanted to do this. "Let there be light!" He threw the switch and the star-jeweled night sky vanished behind the rays of the false sun again. The sudden explosion of light dazzled his eyes. His moment of apotheosis over and his vision clearing, Raven made his way back to Atrus. "Some of the trees are marked, like the pillars in your garden. And I'll just bet that the star patterns that appeared when I threw the switch have something to do with them, like the ones in your planetarium on Myst Island."
"I was inspired to that particular puzzle by a book I read while with my father in D'ni, years ago," said Atrus. "It is not so far-fetched to believe someone else read the same book. Would you agree?"
Raven laughed brightly. "Bless the heart of whoever did it, because it made this puzzle a lot easier to figure out. Come on, let's go copy some constellations." He led Atrus back to the switch and summoned night once more.
"Twelve constellations," the D'ni counted. "One for each month of the year." Once his eyes adjusted the starlight was quite sufficient for him to sketch the patterns into his journal. "Now we'll want to find these patterns among the trees. Flip the switch again. Oh, and cover your eyes."
"Three steps ahead of you," said Raven, his arm already over his eyes. He pushed the switch back to daylight, then slowly removed his arm from his face. "Okay. Let's go picture hunting."
The first eight symbols were easy to find, though they were scattered throughout the grove. Each glyph pulsed with an emerald green light when one of them touched it. The two men passed by the ninth symbol twice before realizing it had been placed upside-down on its tree near the locked exit; after that they were more methodical.
The tenth glyph was reversed, and they initially passed it by, returning only when they didn't find it facing the same way as the constellation. The eleventh was split into two parts, each on one of two trees close by each other but positioned so as for one to be invisible to someone facing the other. They could not, however, find the twelfth, a crescent moon. An hour passed as they checked every symbol in the grove. Raven muttered a curse under his breath and kicked the concrete block holding the lever when they returned to their starting point.
Atrus sat and consulted his journal again. So far they had found eleven symbols on twelve trees. The final would make twelve symbols on thirteen trees -- twelve solar months, thirteen lunar months. There were no crescent moon symbols anywhere on the trees in the grove. He looked up as Raven kicked the lever's base again, then paused, his mouth hanging open.
There was a crescent moon on the block itself. "Very astute," said the D'ni. "You found it."
Raven looked down at the spot his foot had kicked and grimmaced. Leave it to Atrus to put a good face on his frustration. "Thanks." He reached down and touched the symbol. As the emerald fire lit up the familiar sound of a door unlocking reached their ears. "Much as I'd love to stay here a while, I want to get this over with. You ready?"
"Quite," replied Atrus. He stood and shouldered his pack once again. The two men made their way through the grove to the now-opened exit and the expected marble staircase beyond.
There was no door at the top of the stairs. The massive chamber was dark except for a single beam of light shining from the ceiling to illuminate a large white marble statue of a beautiful woman with her long flowing hair tied into a loose tail by ribbons. In one upraised hand she held a white orb, a pearl nine inches in diameter. Periodically a shimmer of iridescence would shiver across the face of the sphere. Power emmanated from it in invisible, rolling waves. The Orb of Geda was theirs.
Raven made no motion to claim the Orb, however, for the face of the woman holding it had stunned him into paralysis.
"Raven?" asked Atrus. "What's the matter?"
The Amberite could only stammer. "That's... that's..."
Part Three
by Corvus
Rainbows of luminescence splashed the chamber in pools of infinite hue. Each step took they took painted their faces in a new idiom, like the sun through a great stained-glass window. Each outcropping was of a different size and shape; some growing tall and straight, some radiating out like shrubbery, others no bigger than a fist. The crystals were warm to the touch, like living things. Enraptured by the beautiful display, Atrus drew out his journal and scribbled furious notes and sketches.
Raven knelt down next to a yellow five-pointed crystaline shrub and grasped one individual spine. With a quick inhumanly-strong wrench he snapped the spine at its base. The lemony light drained from the broken spine along with the strange warmth, leaving behind only a large quartz-like point. An eyebrow arched; these crystals were even more intriguing than he had first suspected. The Amberite walked away from the small gem shrub, humming quietly to himself.
The crystal flared briefly in Raven's hand, then fell dead once more. He stopped, puzzled. After a minute of watching the crystal remained cold and clear. He took several careful steps backward, to no avail. What could have triggered the light? he wondered. Was it the humming? Experimentally he began the song again, and within a few seconds the crystal flashed once more. Raven narrowed down the sequence of notes and tried again, and was rewarded with another flash of yellow light. Finally he tried a single note. The light awakened a fourth time and continued to shine as long as he held the sound.
"Atrus, you've got to see this." Raven approached the D'ni and held up the crystal point.
Atrus looked up from his journal. "I haven't seen any other clear crystals. Where did you find that?"
"Snapped it off a little yellow growth over that way," Raven informed him with a nod of his head. "The moment I broke it off it stopped glowing, but watch this." He hummed middle-C once more, summoning the lemon light. "How about that?"
With an eager hand Atrus took the point and turned it this way and that, looking over every surface. "It appears to be quartz, but I've never seen quartz react to sonic vibrations in that manner. I wonder..." He hummed the same note Raven had and achieved the same result, light and warmth filling the crystal for as long as the note was held. "Curious." Bracing the journal with the forearm of his full hand, Atrus added a quick note about the crystal's reactive properties. "I'd like to test some other crystals, but I'm always loathe to disturb some process or balance we can't see."
"I hadn't thought about that, but you're right. Hope I didn't upset something." Raven had to hand it to his other friend: there was definitely something to be said for the exacting care with which Atrus treated the environment around him. Especially in a place like this. "Still, my gut tells me that reaction will be important."
"In situations such as this, the most infinitessimal details can be vital, yes. And given that we've encountered clues before that we would have missed if we had been too careful," said Atrus, referring to Raven's blunder on the staircase below the hall of mosaics, "I'm even more inclined to believe it."
"Well, since we found a clue, let's figure out what to do with it." Raven glanced around, wondering where the next test might be located. "Maybe we should start by finding the door out of here."
In the time Atrus had known Raven, the Amberite's problem-solving skills had grown substantially. While Raven still had much to learn, a hint of pride kindled in Atrus' heart at the thought that he might have been able to influence Raven in such a positive way. "That sounds like an excellent idea."
True to form the next doorway stood directly opposite the portal they had used to reach this chamber, though it was blocked from sight by the forest of crystaline growths. Before the door stood a flat-topped white marble pedestal two feet in diameter. This particular door was locked, and Atrus reasoned that the key lay in the seven colored yet not-glowing crystal points, one for each color of the rainbow, atop the pedestal. A row of seven hexagonal holes and a round red button an inch across in the center were the pedestal top's only other features.
"Okay, here we go. This is more like it." Raven plucked the red crystal from the pedestal and flipped it in the air. "Seven crystals, seven slots. I think we can figure out what comes next."
"Ah, yes," said Atrus, "but we have to determine the proper sequence. We don't have time to apply brute force." He reached out and pressed the button with one finger.
A sequence of seven notes resonated from the air, rising, then falling, then rising further and falling slightly at the end. Just to be certain Atrus pushed the button a second time. The same sequence played. "That would appear to be our next clue," he said.
Raven's handsome face twisted a bit as he thought. Colors, notes and crystals. They had a crystal point that glowed bright yellow whenever someone hummed a particular note around it. They had seven crystal points on the pedestal: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet. They had a series of seven notes. "Seven notes, seven crystals. Odds are there's one crystal for each note. Now we have to figure out which is which. I've got no musical talent at all. I don't even know what note that was we hummed to make our crystal glow. But I do remember reading something about an analogy between frequencies of colored light and musical notes."
"Of course," said Atrus with a snap of his fingers. "I do have some musical knowledge. The note we hummed was middle-C."
"C... Yellow. Yes, that's it. C is yellow."
"The fourth note was C, so the fourth crystal will be the yellow one." Atrus grasped the appropriate point and stuck it into the fourth slot from the left. He then pushed the central button once more. "A-sharp, C-sharp, D, C, B, F-sharp, E."
"A-sharp is lowest," Raven thought aloud, "so it would be red. F-sharp would be violet." He slid those two crystals into the first and sixth slots. "C-sharp is right after C, so it would be green. D is blue, B is orange and E is indigo." These crystals he placed in their proper order. "Red, green, blue, yellow, orange, violet, indigo. That should do it."
Both men glanced around. Nothing had changed. Raven tried the door; it was still locked. "Did we get something wrong?" he wondered.
"I don't believe so. Let me check again." Atrus pushed the button once more. As the individual notes played, the corresponding crystal flashed brightly. After the seventh note, all seven crystals flared and the door drifted open an inch. "Ah. Serendipity is with us this time."
"Hooray for luck," said Raven as he pulled the door open all the way. Beyond lay another spiraling staircase of red, white and black marble. "And hooray for predictability. Up we go." With a last lingering glance at the beautiful patterns of light in the chamber, the Amberite led the way up the next flight of steps.
One full circle around the circumference of the tower later they reached another door, different from the others in the two riveted iron bands running across its surface. It opened without a sound into yet another great circular chamber. The purpose of the pendulum became apparent: it hung in the center of this room, ten feet from the ceiling. Some invisible light source shone directly on the brass weight, which scattered the bright rays across five polished brass globes hung from steel poles connected to circular tracks in the ceiling.
"An orrery of sorts?" Atrus wondered. "This must be the next challenge."
Without speaking Raven crossed the floor to the exit. As he expected, it was locked. Only then did he turn his eyes to examining the rest of the orrery room. The floor was well-polished marble mottled with white and tan. In the center a nine-foot-wide band of black marble made a circuit three times its thickness in diameter around the foot-wide hole for the pendulum. This band was inlaid with gleaming golden symbols like those on the archway in the rock face on the beach.
A quarter of the way around the wall stood another control panel much like the one working the machinery for the staircases several levels down. There were no dials on this panel, however, only one lever in the "up" position and one wheel. Above the panel light reflected from the pendulum sun onto a large eye carved into the wall at the level of the planetary ecliptic.
"Three guesses as to what that panel controls, and the first two don't count," Raven said as he moved away from the door. When he reached the panel he grasped the lever and pulled. It had three intermediary stops between the top and bottom positions. "Five stops, five planets."
"Don't assume it will be so straightforward," Atrus cautioned. He took hold of the wheel and turned it slowly clockwise. The outermost planet began to move in a similar manner -- but so did the innermost. "Each stop will move any number of those planets. Let me get my journal and we'll test each one."
The uppermost and third lever stops each moved one planet, respectively the innermost and the fourth. The second stop rotated the second and third planets, and the fourth stop made the second and fourth planets move. This puzzle would involve some tricky thinking. There was one thing missing, however. "What do we do with them now that we know how they move?" Raven demanded. Hands on his hips, he blew a sigh of frustration and looked around again. The eye stared down at him, unblinking. Light on the eye... "What if we eclipsed the eye?"
"That should be relatively simple. Rotate the fourth planet between them," said Atrus. Raven pushed the lever to the middle stop and turned the wheel, sending the fourth planet whirling around the pendulum sun. He adjusted the position so that the planet cast a shadow onto the eye. Nothing changed. "Something else is required. Planetary alignments are said by many to hold great significance. According to some traditions they are a time of new opportunity, an opening of new ways. Since we need just that very thing, I believe we should try to align all the planets between the eye and the sun."
The Amberite smirked. "Didn't know you were into astrology."
"One learns a great deal of things one does not necessarily need to believe," Atrus said simply as he reached into his pack again, this time for a piece of scratch paper. "There will be a precise pattern to the movements of the lever and the wheel. Some of it, if the creator of this particular test was truly intelligent, will seem contrary to logic. This could take a bit." With that the D'ni sat cross-legged on the floor and began to write.
Raven decided it would be better to let the bearded man deal with his thoughts on his own. He reached for his Trumps. This strange place blocked the Pattern, but would it prevent the cards from functioning as well? He knew he had some time to relax and ponder, so instead of immediately reaching for his mother's Trump he shuffled slowly through the entire deck, considering each one in turn. Atop the deck was Flora, the much-lauded beauty of the Amberite royalty. Raven's contact with this particular aunt had been spotty at best. She was one of the most devious players in the family game -- a woman who aspired to be the power behind the throne, rather than the one on it -- and he had no wish to be drawn into her schemes. Beneath Flora was Fiona, a firey redhead even more dangerous than her sister. She was a definite contender, her boundless intellect giving her a viciously keen edge.
Next came rugged Gérard, the strongest man in the the entire family, quite possibly the most physically powerful man in all of Shadow, and a staunch ally -- or terrifying foe. Then Random, the impish King of Amber, the best man for the job simply because he concerned himself with being a good man more than with grabbing for power. Following Random was his older brother Corwin, father of Merlin and quite possibly the biggest pain in the neck of all time. Corwin had shaken the universe more than once. Now he had his own universe to shake. That particular Trump was one Raven knew he would never, ever use.
Beyond Corwin was Llewella's card. Raven passed it over for Martin, Random's wild yet good-natured son, his spiked mohawk radiating off the card like a radioactive explosion. Then it was Merlin himself, the artist of the deck. It was an older card, drawn before Merlin had affected a beard. Raven liked his affable cousin, but was wary of Merlin's collection of powers and talents from all throughout Shadow and his rumored connection to the Courts of Chaos. Had Raven not kept himself isolated from the family he would probably have known a great deal more, but he didn't care to get that close.
That brought him to the final card. A stooped-over dwarf, his wizened face split with a lunatic grin, Dworkin was not one to be trifled with. Truth be told, Raven was terrified of the man. This card Raven would also leave alone. He was quick to slide it back under the rest of the deck lest a psychic connection form completely by accident. Now it was time to test.
Pulling out his mother's card once more, Raven gazed at it, reaching through the card toward Llewella. He stared at her face, imagining it beginning to move, to speak. He stared until his head began to ache, but the Trump wouldn't function. He dropped the card and rubbed his temples with a groan.
"Something the matter?" Atrus asked without lifting his head from his study of the orrery's movement patterns.
"Looks like whatever's blocking the Pattern in this place also shuts down Trumps. I'm beginning to think it would be a pretty safe bet to say the Logrus couldn't get in here either." But who could have tapped into something so mind-bogglingly powerful that it could defy the two forces that drove everything that was? How could the D'ni, if they were truly the ones who had created this place, have achieved such knowledge? The implications were staggering as well as horrifying.
"I believe," said Atrus after a moment's silence, "that I have the correct pattern." The beared man stood and began to work the lever and wheel, shifting the planetary globes in their orbits. Raven watched them whirl around their sun and was reminded of the Golden Circle of Shadows that lay close to Amber. Many in that city atop Mount Kolvir would have said that all of Shadow revolved around that one place. The Courts of Chaos would say differently, that much was certain.
Then, all the planets were in alignment. As the final motion came to a stop there came a loud click from the exit door. "Very nice," Raven said.
Atrus took the compliment as he usually did, with a mix of defference and cold fact. "I used something vaguely related to the principles of this mechanism myself in the clock tower on Myst Island, and I've seen other devices and puzzles much like this one. Still, the larger number of possible combinations made it rather more difficult."
Raven put away his Trumps and stood. "Time to go, then." The exit door had opened for them, leading to yet another curving stairway.
Though this chamber was the same as the previous three in size and shape, it was, unlike the others, bisected by a crenelated stone wall twenty feet high. In the center of the wall was a form rather like a gateway, only there was no passage through the wall itself. A curious symbol, like a curved drop of black water, was painted halfway up the wall. Below that, easily within arm's reach, were six empty round depressions two inches in diameter, arranged as the points of a pentagon or star would be around one in the center. Underneath that a small trough was carved into the wall. Within this trough lay five balls: green, white, black, red and yellow.
"Six holes, five balls. I wonder if this is some kind of jumping or sequence game," said Atrus.
Raven reached in and grasped the white ball. It was as white as new-fallen snow when he held it up for a closer look, smooth and heavy. He gasped in sudden realization. "This ball is solid white jade," the Amberite breathed in amazement. "I think... yes, they're all jade. Someone spent a fortune." Forcing himself to ignore the rarity and beauty of the ball, he chose a depression in the wall at random, on the lower right, and slipped the ball into it. Nothing happened. Leaving it in place for the moment he then pulled out the black ball and placed it into the center.
When his fingers broke contact with the dark jade sphere, a strange image appeared on the wall between the depressions and the odd black glyph. It seemed to be an ideologic character, drawn with precise brush strokes. Its meaning escaped both men, but the sound that reached their ears was plain: the babbling of a stream. "Water," Atrus reasoned.
Raven pulled the ebony sphere out of the center and replaced it with the snowy white one. Another symbol appeared, accompanied by a noise reminiscent of a sword being drawn from its scabbard. Raven guessed, "Metal."
"Try the red one next," said Atrus, his tone indicating that he had sensed a pattern already. When the crimson sphere was firmly within the wall a third glyph formed along with the sound of a blazing fire. "As I suspected, fire."
The D'ni's train of logic was suddenly apparent to Raven. "Elements. Water, Metal, Fire... The other ones should be Wood and Earth." The green sphere brought forth the sound of wind rustling the leaves and branches of a tree. The yellow caused a resonating rumble that rattled their bones until Raven pried the ball loose. "Never let it be said that smuggling you books on Chinese history from Shadow Earth is a waste of time. I should've seen that the moment I looked at this puzzle." His blue eyes lifted to the curving black drop overhead. "And that's the Yin half of the Yin-Yang symbol, I'd bet my Trumps on it."
The information Atrus had read on the philosophies of ancient China played through his mind like a moving picture. The Yin and Yang principles were supposed to drive the universe, creating everything that was between them. The active, masculine Yang principle also represented the creative drive, light and life. The passive, feminine Yin was sometimes used to represent death and destruction, the clearing out of the old to make room for the new. If this wall was marked with the Yin symbol... "Solving this puzzle will destroy the wall," he thought aloud.
"Yeah, but... how do we solve it?" Raven tossed the yellow ball into the air a few times. "We've pretty much figured out that the center hole is used to identify which ball is which element, but what about the sequence?"
"What logical progressions are there to these five elements?" asked Atrus. If they could identify patterns, they could put those patterns to use.
"Hmm." Raven caught the Earth sphere and stared into the middle distance as he sorted through his memory. "Earth... Metal... Water... Okay, now I remember. There's a 'creative cycle' to these five, where each one 'spawns' the next. Earth creates Metal in the ores mined from it, Metal creates Water in the dew that collects on its surface, Water creates Wood by nourishing it, and Wood creates Fire by burning. Fire turns into ash, which brings us back to Earth again." He placed the yellow sphere in the top point, then placed the white Metal ball in the next depression clockwise, followed by black Water, green Wood and red Fire.
Nothing happened.
"What gets me," Raven said as he glared at the stubborn wall, "is how the D'ni know so much about ancient China."
"There have been links between D'ni and the humans of Earth before," Atrus reminded his Amberite friend. "Remember, D'ni itself lies in a vast cavern below the ground on an Earth very much like the one you frequent, miles under the feet of the human race. My grandmother, Ti'ana, was originally named Anna. She was human."
"So it's not illogical to think the D'ni came into contact with people around the time of, say, Qin Shih Huangdi, then."
Atrus shook his head. "Not illogical at all. Evidently this pattern is not the correct one. What about another?"
"Well, if there's a creative, there's also... a destructive... I'm an idiot. The Yin symbol means we should arrange the balls in the destructive cycle." Raven pulled four of the five spheres out one at a time and handed them to Atrus, leaving the yellow ball of Earth at the top point. "Earth destroys Water by containing, diverting and absorbing it." The black ball followed, in the next point clockwise. "Then Water destroys Fire by quenching it." The red ball he put in the lower right point. "Fire melts Metal." The white sphere went into the bottom left point. "And that leaves Wood, which is destroyed by the cutting of Metal and destroys Earth by breaking it up." He placed the green ball into the final depression and stood back.
A thin line of light pierced the thickest part of the ebon Yin glyph, then traced out to the right and left before trickling down among the stones to outline a rough door. When the light touched the floor, the portion of the wall thus described faded into translucence, then into invisibility.
The wall was revealed to be only one stone thick. Beyond they could see the exit in the far wall. Between them and it were five stone pedestals, atop which sat five carved cinnabar-glazed figurines on five differently colored bases, one for each element. The pedestals were arranged in a cross atop a mosaic map of China, three from north to south, three from east to west. A thin ring of wood marked with eight pictures, four of them characters and the other four images matching four of the figurines, surrounded the mosaic. When Atrus picked up a carved tiger from the black base on the center pedestal, they noticed that the bases were not attached to the figurines. "This is probably a matching test," he said. "One figure for each element."
In addition to the tiger held by Atrus, there was a dragon, a turtle, a peacock-like bird and a man with a long flowing beard dressed in luxurious robes. Raven scratched his head. "Okay, so we put one figure on each base. This shouldn't be terribly difficult. Any clue as to where to begin?"
"I believe we should examine all the pieces we're working with," replied Atrus. "The directions seem to be important, as do the elements we just worked with at the wall. That makes me think that in addition to matching a figure to each element, we must put the figure and base on the proper pedestal." He knelt to examine the pictures on the wooden ring. To the south was a turtle, its shell and head protruding from water, and next to it a Chinese character. He reached out to run a finger over the scoring. "This should indicate..." The D'ni broke off as the wooden ring rotated slightly under his touch. "Ah, a twist."
"So the ring moves," Raven observed. He glanced at each other other three pictures and noticed that all of the figures on them were oriented with their bottom edges facing the same way. "If we figure out which way to put the ring we'll have our answer. The man in the robes obviously goes in the center, since he's not on the ring. What element is missing?"
Quick examination showed that the bird was wreathed in flame, the tiger's claws were accentuated with lines to show gleaming metal, and the dragon was wrapped around a tree. With the turtle in water, that left only earth. Raven placed the yellow base onto the center pedestal and set the figure of the robed man atop it. "Okay... now what?"
"I seem to recall there was something peculiar about their cartography," said Atrus, "but I cannot remember exactly what it was." He stroked his beard and "Hmm"ed to himself softly.
"You're right. But what was it?" Raven considered the wooden ring again. All the animals were oriented the same way, so that the turtle would be on bottom, at the south edge of the map. But the Chinese... "They oriented their maps upside down. They put south at the top!" He knelt and slid the ring around in its base until the turtle was at the north, on its back the way most maps were drawn. This put the tiger standing on its head in the west and the dragon doing likewise in the east, and the bird flying along contentedly upside-down in the south. Quickly he and Atrus arranged the figurines to match the pictures, the tiger atop the white base for metal in the west, the turtle atop black for water in the north, the dragon atop green for wood in the east and the bird atop the remaining red for fire in the south. With the final figure in place the exit door creaked open.
One more spiraling staircase of gold-inlayed red, white and black marble took them around and up to the next level. Raven paused at the door. "If we suppose that the mosaic room was the base of the tower, how far up would you say we are?"
Atrus ran a quick calculation through his mind. "Each level has been roughly sixty feet high. We should assume at least ten feet between chambers, though I would guess it to be closer to twenty. Placing the floor of the mosaic hall at ground level, that means that the floor of this level is three hundred twenty feet above the top of the cliff."
"And the tower was about five hundred feet high. So the level above this would be the last one at four hundred feet, and above that would be the roof at about four-eighty. Assuming this chamber and the one above are both the size of the other ones we've encountered."
That was a lot of guessing, but it seemed to be the most logical conclusion. Atrus nodded. "We should be coming close to the end of our quest."
"Here's hoping the quest-maker didn't decide to crank up the difficulty a few notches," Raven quipped as he pushed open the iron-banded wooden door.
Neither of them was prepared for the living grove that filled the chamber beyond. Sunlight shone down from a brilliant glowing dome twenty feet across in the center of the ceiling, washing over the green treetops and dappling to the grassy floor beneath. Raven recognized willow, maple, oak, ash, birch and beech as well as the native Misaran tree which yielded the dark wood from which the people built so much of their architecture and furnishings. Atrus immediately withdrew his journal from his pack and walked over to sit beneath the sheltering branches of a red maple. As before Raven left him to his thoughts and wandered away.
Several of the trees bore curious markings, shapes of animals and objects, one to a tree. More curious than that, however, was the incongruous lever switch Raven discovered in the center of the floor directly beneath the false sun, nothing more than a wood-handled brass lever between two small semicircular brass plates bolted to a small concrete block. After a split-second's halfhearted debate with his conscience, Raven grasped the switch and pulled it to the other side.
Night fell in an unnatural instant. The ceiling overhead sparkled with a wild dash of twinkling stars. As Raven gazed up at the unfamiliar sky he heard Atrus' calm, patient voice. "I take it you found something."
"Did I ever!" the Amberite exclaimed. "Hold on a second." He grasped the switch and grinned -- he'd always wanted to do this. "Let there be light!" He threw the switch and the star-jeweled night sky vanished behind the rays of the false sun again. The sudden explosion of light dazzled his eyes. His moment of apotheosis over and his vision clearing, Raven made his way back to Atrus. "Some of the trees are marked, like the pillars in your garden. And I'll just bet that the star patterns that appeared when I threw the switch have something to do with them, like the ones in your planetarium on Myst Island."
"I was inspired to that particular puzzle by a book I read while with my father in D'ni, years ago," said Atrus. "It is not so far-fetched to believe someone else read the same book. Would you agree?"
Raven laughed brightly. "Bless the heart of whoever did it, because it made this puzzle a lot easier to figure out. Come on, let's go copy some constellations." He led Atrus back to the switch and summoned night once more.
"Twelve constellations," the D'ni counted. "One for each month of the year." Once his eyes adjusted the starlight was quite sufficient for him to sketch the patterns into his journal. "Now we'll want to find these patterns among the trees. Flip the switch again. Oh, and cover your eyes."
"Three steps ahead of you," said Raven, his arm already over his eyes. He pushed the switch back to daylight, then slowly removed his arm from his face. "Okay. Let's go picture hunting."
The first eight symbols were easy to find, though they were scattered throughout the grove. Each glyph pulsed with an emerald green light when one of them touched it. The two men passed by the ninth symbol twice before realizing it had been placed upside-down on its tree near the locked exit; after that they were more methodical.
The tenth glyph was reversed, and they initially passed it by, returning only when they didn't find it facing the same way as the constellation. The eleventh was split into two parts, each on one of two trees close by each other but positioned so as for one to be invisible to someone facing the other. They could not, however, find the twelfth, a crescent moon. An hour passed as they checked every symbol in the grove. Raven muttered a curse under his breath and kicked the concrete block holding the lever when they returned to their starting point.
Atrus sat and consulted his journal again. So far they had found eleven symbols on twelve trees. The final would make twelve symbols on thirteen trees -- twelve solar months, thirteen lunar months. There were no crescent moon symbols anywhere on the trees in the grove. He looked up as Raven kicked the lever's base again, then paused, his mouth hanging open.
There was a crescent moon on the block itself. "Very astute," said the D'ni. "You found it."
Raven looked down at the spot his foot had kicked and grimmaced. Leave it to Atrus to put a good face on his frustration. "Thanks." He reached down and touched the symbol. As the emerald fire lit up the familiar sound of a door unlocking reached their ears. "Much as I'd love to stay here a while, I want to get this over with. You ready?"
"Quite," replied Atrus. He stood and shouldered his pack once again. The two men made their way through the grove to the now-opened exit and the expected marble staircase beyond.
There was no door at the top of the stairs. The massive chamber was dark except for a single beam of light shining from the ceiling to illuminate a large white marble statue of a beautiful woman with her long flowing hair tied into a loose tail by ribbons. In one upraised hand she held a white orb, a pearl nine inches in diameter. Periodically a shimmer of iridescence would shiver across the face of the sphere. Power emmanated from it in invisible, rolling waves. The Orb of Geda was theirs.
Raven made no motion to claim the Orb, however, for the face of the woman holding it had stunned him into paralysis.
"Raven?" asked Atrus. "What's the matter?"
The Amberite could only stammer. "That's... that's..."