The Pattern (The Chronicles of Amber)

In The Chronicles of Amber series of fantasy novels (1970s - 1990s), The Pattern is an inscribed labyrinth which gives the multiverse its order.

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.

During the series, it is revealed that Amber itself is but the first "Shadow" of a Primal pattern, located when the Unicorn of Order lead Corwin to a previously unseen location. The Primal Pattern was guarded by a purple Griffin named Wixer that apparently had also been placed there to guard Dworkin (previously thought deceased), as Dworkin had, at this point, lost much of his mental faculty. This Primal Pattern was damaged prior to the events of Nine Princes In Amber when Amberite blood was spilled on it — the blood of Martin, son of Random (Oberon's youngest acknowledged child), who was stabbed by Brand. Oberon attempted to repair the Pattern, although he realized the process would kill him. Brand, whom Dworkin acknowledged as his most apt pupil in study of the Pattern, suggested that such repair may not be possible. Brand also suggested when Corwin was inscribing his own Pattern that there could not be two such centers of order in the multiverse, and that it would be necessary to destroy Corwin's Pattern before he could inscribe his own. However, Oberon successfully repaired the Pattern, and it was seen to coexist peacefully with Corwin's Pattern - possibly because both are merely reflections of the Pattern in the Jewel of Judgment.

...
Wikipedia