the Jewel of Judgment
A Tale of Perfidy, Betrayal, Secret Love and Madness
"We tended to the Serpent as best we were able, but the enormity of the wound, the pure horror of working upon that once Glorious, now Defaced visage, was too much for us. We failed--- and thereby compounded the Deed of the Traitor. We are all Doomed."
"When Our Hands finally have him-- His eyes will be taken from him in justice for his High Crimes. His body will be devoured by the Abyss. And his name will be stricken from the House of Thelbane, where it will be death to speak it, and from his cradle House of Nemirab, where all of his Blood, have sworn that he and his Wretched Son are torn from the roots of Nemirab and cast out forever and eternity."
King of the Great Houses of the Courts of Chaos
"Gather our strength. Use all our resources—all excepting that barest cover which may shield us from the ire and plot of the other Great Houses. Find him. Find him and the boy, Oberon. Do not kill them, but bring them here to me, so that I might take the life from them myself. I want no other House to say that they made some effort that was not thrice over done by those of Nemirab. You find him, and speed him here rightly in whatever condition is necessary to effect the task, but make you sure that he lives still. For he is mine and nothing less will satisfy."
from the journal of Grand Dame Evdrin Nemirab, his Consort First
What? A red-clear organic orb taken from the metabody of a higher entity. That which Dworkin much later used to scribe the Pattern. Stolen from the Highest Entity of Higher Power in the Courts of Chaos. Ripped from the Serpent's head. An eye. The Eye of the Serpent.
When? At the quint-millenium ceremony of the Serpent's alliance with the Courts of Chaos.
Where? Within the Cathedral of the Serpent when the Serpent manifested to bless the Rod of the Prelate and the Crown of the King.
Who? Dworkin. Even he does not deny it. Prodigy. Genius. Invalid. Thief. All before and long ago. Dworkin Barimen. Architect of Doom.
Why?
Why?
Why?
Here is why:
Power. Creation. A vision of Form and Substance. A philosophy, and a stone, an orb to use as a fulcrum that might leverage a new order.
Before Pattern there were Image, Art, Symbol, and Substance--- and they shall persist when Pattern is no more.
Therefore Trump is a Power unto its own.
Dworkin was the Philosopher, and his Stone was the Eye of the Serpent. His inspiration was the Unicorn. But the skill and vision were his.
The Right Eye of the Serpent.
What is an eye, but a focus for collecting images? What then was the power of the Eye of the Serpent before it was used by Dworkin? Image. Symbol. Perception.
Dworkin used it as a tool--- for leverage to manifest a new order. His will painted within the Eye an Image unknown of a possible Order. A possible Substance.
Order made manifest through Trump. With the Eye acting as the tool and meta-canvas for realizing that first model of Order. The very Concept Pattern.
The Eye was able to capture Dworkin's artistry, to collect the idea. Dworkin as a Trump Artist and the Eye as the first multi-dimensional Trump. The Eye performed as it always had, it collected and retained symbols of the Universe that was a lower order of existence than its Master. It had been separated from its Master, but still carried metapower of a Higher Order.
The Serpent's Eye had not yet become the Jewel of Judgement.
The Eye did become containment for the Concept Order of Pattern. The Concept for all Pattern to follow.
Then was Dworkin able to travel out into the waste and madness of deepest Shadow, and will a place into being long enough to paint his next Trump in his own blood. Using his Blood to insure that his Work would not be used as freely as had the Logrus become used.
The Primal Pattern of Amber.
Amberites have been known to take a narrow view of the Jewel of Judgement. To believe, in fact, that it is attuned to the Pattern, that it gives some degree of control over the Pattern.
Nothing could be more turned around or illogical.
Attuning to the Jewel does not initiate you to the Pattern. It merely attunes you to the Eye/Jewel and its amazing abilities to act as a proto-Trump, a blank slate of Trump images.
Weather control? Yes, images of storms can be accessed. LIghtning? Simple trickery. Children playing with power they barely understand.
As with the Pearls of Wisdom that are extracted from the Dragons of Shadow, the Eye of the Serpent broken from its resting place has imaged a large portion of the Universe and gains more every decade. Over time, the Eye has accessed so many images, including people, that it has gained literate understanding of the lower order Universe it has been thrust into since its separation from its larger metabody. Trump data within the Eye has long since passed a sentient threshold.
Within the Eye, images of Dworkin, Oberon, Eric, Corwin, and Random are all accessible. And the Eye has learned to use those images to process other images, to reason, to experience Perspective and Judgement. A symbolic language.
Oberon warned of this.
Oberon changed the name of the Eye.
The Jewel of Judgement. Once you have projected yourself within——
—it knows You!
"—imagine paradise, imagine your vision and look within the Orb, for if you are worthy of making Order where there is none, then you must paint it there, inside— with your mind—— if you never return, then your Desire was not worthy."
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