In The Chronicles of Amber series of fantasy novels (1970s – 1990s), The Pattern is an inscribed labyrinth which gives the multiverse its order. It granted characters walking through it "the ability to access a multitude of compossible worlds". Related to it is the Logrus, a shifting, three-dimensional maze which represents the forces of Chaos in the multiverse.

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 Castle Amber 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, but "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.

In the Merlin Cycle, the second series of five novels in the Chronicles, the Pattern is shown to be sentient. It is able to manifest itself at any point in shadow, and teleport others without their consent. It is also able to create Pattern ghosts, echo versions of any person who has walked the Pattern.

During the series, it is revealed that Amber itself is but the first "Shadow" of a Primal pattern, located when the Unicorn of Order led 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 the study of the Pattern, suggested that such repair may not be possible. Brand also suggested when Corwin was inscribing his own New Pattern that there could not be two such centers of order in the multiverse and that it would be necessary to destroy Corwin's New Pattern before Brand could inscribe his own. However, Oberon successfully repaired the Old Pattern, and it was seen to coexist peacefully with Corwin's New Pattern – possibly because both are reflections of the Pattern in the Jewel of Judgment.

It is implied that nobody could successfully repair the damaged Pattern perfectly, or reproduce it as it originally was – and that their own personality would be inevitably imprinted on it in the attempt. This is accepted – and desired – by Brand, who wished to destroy the Pattern outright and re-create a new Pattern in his own image, with himself as the architect of the new multiverse: A fact either not known, not believed, or misunderstood by Corwin, who attempts to faithfully recreate the Old Pattern (after Brand deceives him into believing Oberon to have failed in his attempt to repair the original) only for his New Pattern to not only evolve differently but also to eventually resist the attempts of the successfully-Repaired Pattern to incorporate it. It follows, from this (and from the fact of Corwin's successful creation of a New Pattern, in which he did not die) that it may not have been necessary for Oberon to die in repairing the Old Pattern. Since Oberon did indeed die, he may even have done so willingly (and known in advance that this was necessary) as a way to avoid imprinting his own personality on the Old Pattern at its restoration. At any rate, after its repair, the Old Pattern (when displaying sentience) does not appear to display any clear characteristics of Oberon's personality.

Through the course of the ten books, the existence of many other alternate Patterns is revealed. There is the Pattern in Rebma (Amber spelled backward), a reflected version of Amber beneath the sea; there is one in the ghost-city reflection of Amber in Tir-na Nog'th; there is the Primal Pattern, the one true Pattern that is higher on the reality scale than even Amber; Corwin's own Pattern, off in Shadow; and even imperfect versions of the Pattern found in Shadows very close to the true Pattern. The latter are called 'Broken Patterns' and can be walked by anyone with enough courage to do so.