Way too early -- earlier even than those stupid dawn workouts the fencing coach always wanted to put us through in the name of "teambuilding" -- we all trudged down to the docks to meet Gerard's ship, the "Bonnie Lass". She's, um, bigger than a breadbox. Thanks to my years in Flora's delicate china-and-crystal sphere, I'm not too familiar with any ship that doesn't come with a valet and drink service. So I can say with certainty that the "Bonnie Lass" is bigger than a yacht but smaller than an ocean liner. Useful, huh? Oh, but it's got guns -- meaning it totally kicks the conga-line-dancing ass of the "Imperial Goddess of the Seas" no matter how many fruity-umbrella-drink-wielding poolboys the latter has got. I think I'm gonna like this seafaring thing just fine.
Note to self: never EVER mention that to Caine.
First-mate Smee -- oh, I'm sorry, Flea (though his resemblance to a certain pirate sidekick did make me wonder whether he's got a near shadow in the cartoon Disneyverse) -- came down the gangplank to tell the guys that they can only take as many personal effects as will fit in a duffel bag to their bunks with them, and that the rest will have to go into the cargo area. Alyddia and I are sharing Gerard's stateroom, though, so all our stuff can go to our room with us.
Of course, all the stuff I'm bringing with me fits into a duffel bag. Well, okay, it would if I wadded up my Coronation dress. (Hey, that dress survived being dropped off a rainbow bridge in space, it can survive being wadded up in a gym bag, right?)
After Flea talked to us about the bunking and luggage situation, Gerard came out to greet us. He told us that everyone in the royal family does a mandatory couple-year stint in the Royal Navy, and that we could all think of this as practice.
I couldn't resist. "How did Flora do?" I asked. I can just imagine her trying to figure out how the hell to smuggle servants on board to swab the deck for her, not to mention trying to figure out how to do anything useful at all without breaking a nail.
"Well, we all got through it," Gerard replied. Heh.
While we were talking, Queen Aloo sent a request that the Tongan King's remains be brought to her quarters. She and Reiki were already settled in the other stateroom, which I suddenly found myself hoping was far enough away from Gerard's stateroom to spare Alyddia and me the pungent odor of day-old minced King....
And speaking of pungent odors, Gerard explained that we should use the front of the ship to "eliminate bodily waste."
"Is that what they call the 'poop deck'?" I asked.
No, Gerard replied, the 'poop deck' is actually at the back of the ship -- because, I dunno, that's the end that the ship poops from, or something. We wanna use the 'head' because the wind is coming from behind us. Good to know.
But then Smee -- er, Flea -- pointed out that there are also chamberpots for the 'ladies'. Yeah, okay. We'll see how much I'm feeling like a 'lady' on this trip, I suppose....
We came aboard, dumped our things off in our quarters, and met more of the crew. The cook, Big Jack Brass, is a jovial guy with a peg leg and a parrot on his shoulder -- which makes me think every Hollywood pirate ever is one of his shadows....
Then it was time to divvy up jobs, since this is NOT a 'lounge about on the deck eating caviar' sort of cruise. I decided to start out on the ropes, because you never know when knowing how to tie a good sturdy knot might come in handy....
Gerard explained that the penalty for falling asleep on watch is keel-hauling. He then had to explain 'keel-hauling' to Alyddia. "And do people survive that?" she asked incredulously.
"Well, YOU would!" I helpfully pointed out to her.
And then, with the sun just starting to peek over the horizon and the crew ready to cast off... Gerard started handing around little bundles of papers.
Lyrics sheets.
As soon as the ship pulled out into the harbor, the crew burst into a rousing sea shanty. And when they got far enough out to sea that no one on shore could hear them, Gerard switched them over to showtunes. And the "Spongebob Squarepants" themesong.
As morning wake-ups go, I think I would've preferred a cup of coffee or six. Poured into my lap.
I really need to think of some new songs to teach the crew. I'll bet they'd enjoy "We Will Rock You"....
But then I found a sailor to show me how to tie knots, and my day got much better.
After about four hours of learning knots and then checking lines, we Youngers all finished our first shift and converged in Gerard's quarters to discuss the situation with the Tongan king: in particular, whether to return his hand -- currently being studied in Brain Boy's home shadow -- and how close an eye to keep on his, er, other kingly parts. I hypothesized that if the king's hand were a material component for the spell that Brand used to shapeshift, that probably the rest of the body wouldn't hold much interest for him. But of course we don't know for sure. Hargomme and Gareth wanted to return the hand to the Tongans and keep a close eye on the body.
According to Tongan custom, a royal funeral starts with a wake that includes a viewing of the deceased's body -- although under the circumstances they'll probably skip the viewing part this time, unless they've all got, like, a mincemeat fetish or something -- followed by several days of feasting culminating in a ceremonial dumping of the body into a volcano. So there's certainly an argument to be made for keeping ALL the body-parts together for volcano-dumping.
Eventually we decided to ask Gerard's opinion. Gareth found him fishing off the back of the boat and brought him back to the stateroom. He seemed surprised that we 'ladies' had let men into our room. Hmmph. Hope he doesn't turn out to be a panty-twisted dorm mother in disguise....
Gerard opined that giving back the hand, which the Tongans don't know we have, would probably raise questions that the Tongans don't really want to know the answers to. He suggested we should incinerate the hand later, which should be sufficiently in keeping with the "dump the king into a volcano" custom. We decided this seemed like a good plan.
Then we decided we should all test the trumps of ourselves, to see if any of them are Stupid the way Llewella's trumps of Martin are Stupid. But no, they all seem to work. Hargomme tried Llewella's trump, but got the feeling that she might be asleep. He then tried Martin's trump with the same result. Figures.
Since all the trumps of me seemed to work, I gave one to Gerard and asked him to pass it along to Martin if Martin ever trumps him again. Gerard was surprised that Martin hadn't been given my trump in the first place, so he agreed pretty readily.
In the afternoon, Alyddia and I practiced sparring on one of the decks. I think we were perhaps a tiny bit of a distraction to some of the crew. Their slack-jawed staring and accidental bumping into things was kind of a clue. Heh.
After a couple days at sea, we Youngers had settled into a pretty nice rhythm: up at dawn, chores, lunch, sparring (for me and Alyddia, anyway), more chores, debating what to do about Brand, dinner, sleep. Even sharing Gerard's hammock with Alyddia has turned out not to be nearly as bad as I'd feared; after all, Gerard is probably as big as four or five of us -- so with only two of us sharing, the hammock is downright roomy.
The men, I think, don't have it nearly so well. It's not the lack of privacy: hell, I've lived in a dorm for six years, I'm used to a lack of privacy. Nope, it's that the loud rumbling sound I'd figured was just some sort of "wind in the sails, creaking of the mast, roar of the ocean" thing is actually Gerard snoring in the common room belowdecks. Y'know, the one that all the men share.
I think Hargomme nicked some paraffin from the storeroom to make earplugs. Heh.
So, anyway, things were going pretty well... until this afternoon.
Alyddia and I were in the middle of our sparring practice when the guy up in the crow's nest reported something strange: an area of dark water about a league ahead of the ship. I climbed up in the rigging to take a look, and sure enough, there was this long dark smudgy line extending in both directions for as far as I could see.
Now, I was really hoping for a massive migration of stingrays, or a horde of some, like, aquatic lemmings all marching to land so they could throw themselves suicidally onto the shore, or something, but no such luck.
No luck at all, in fact, except of the massively, ass-kickingly bad kind.
We concluded that it was a manifestation of the Black Road, and that we couldn't detour around it. So, since we've got a funeral to get to and all, we -- by which I mean the sailors -- decided to sail through it.
Because, y'know, sailors are so smart and all.
Alyddia, Gareth and I went belowdecks to help row if need be. Even with the extremely limited view through the oarholes, we knew the minute we passed onto the Black Road: not only did the light go very dim, but sound also became muted, and there was this pervading ugghy, creepy, box-of-maggots-in-a-Nine-Inch-Nails-video kind of feeling. But, y'know, not in a good way.
Very soon, we got the call to start rowing. So we rowed.
And rowed.
And rowed.
By the best estimates of Crow's Nest Guy and Gerard, the black patch was only a couple leagues wide. We should've cleared it in a half-hour, easy. But after an hour we were still at it.
And then the lurching started.
We rowed harder, but all of a sudden there was this jarring sensation, and the ship started moving SIDEWAYS. Okay, I'm no sailor, but even I know that that's probably a bad sign. My disgruntled urbanite instincts kicked in immediately -- and so, with my middle finger already in the full upright and locked position, I looked out the oarhole for the cell-phone-addled Hummer driver who must've just T-boned us.
Instead I got squid.
And not just any squid: this was a giant black squid with a mouth large enough to make calamari out of us. It looked like it could swallow the boat whole.
And it looked like it was planning to do just that.
Well, fuck if I'm gonna be bested by an appetizer, you know?
I pulled my oar out of its hole and raced abovedecks.
What a mess. Total chaos. Gerard was unconscious with a big gash in his head, with Alyddia bent over him trying to stop the bleeding. Hargomme and Brain Boy were whacking at the giant tentacle wrapped around the ship, but they weren't making much headway. And anyway, even if they did manage to cut through that first one, there were a lot more where it came from.
And we were still being pulled rapidly toward that mouth.
I stared at Ika Boy for a few seconds, trying to suss out a vulnerability. With his mouth rapidly approaching -- and also, conveniently, rapidly opening -- I figured my best bet was a kill shot to the brain.
Not that I know shit about squid physiology, of course, but I figured the brain was probably somewhere behind the eye.
So I took my oar and flung it, javelin-like, right into that ugly maw toward what I was guessing was its brain.
Well, whatever I hit, Mr. Sushi-Waiting-To-Happen certainly didn't like it too much. He let out a loud, angry sound -- which was sort of surprising, since I never knew squids even made sound.
And then it pulled us into its mouth. Swallowed the ship in one gulp.
And now we're dead.
No, we're not really dead. I mean, DUH. If we were dead, who'd be writing this journal?
No, actually we were floating in an immense starscape. Really. And we weren't even on drugs.
Yet.
We looked back toward what should've been the ass end of the squid -- the poop deck, if you will -- and instead saw what looked like a white glowy planet-sized thing. We floated away from it 'til it appeared maybe half its original size, and then we started slowing down and moving sideways with the ship's nose pointed toward it, like we were in orbit around it or something.
In every direction, we could see starscape. Also, in orbit with us, lots of debris: trash, automobile tires, unmatched socks, like we'd been lost out a giant metaphysical dryer vent or something.
Well, by that point, we were barely better than debris ourselves. The Bonnie Lass had lost a mast and snapped a lot of lines in the battle. One of the sailors estimated that it'd probably take six hours to get her sea-worthy again. Not that we had any sea to sail her in, mind you.
Also, Gerard was still unconscious.
Since we didn't have much else to do but sit around and wait -- and, OH, YEAH, we were in the middle of FREAKY SHIT -- we Youngers tried to gather a little more data about what was going on and, y'know, where the fuck we were.
I tossed some debris over the side of the ship to see what would happen. It fell, at first, but then came rising up again on the other side of the ship. It orbited a few times, getting closer and closer 'til it fell back onto the deck. It was like the ship generated its own local gravity or something. At any rate, we weren't all going floating off into space, and we still had breathable air. Always a bonus.
Hargomme secured a rope to the ship and tied the other end around his waist, then lowered himself overboard to investigate further. He dropped "down" toward the bottom of the ship and disappeared underneath it -- and stayed gone for a really long time. After a while I figured maybe I should go check on him -- for a fighter type he gets weirded out by the strangest things sometimes -- so I lowered myself hand-over-hand down his rope.
I found him sitting on the bottom of the ship. Upside down.
And that's where the drugs come in.
He was sitting there, calmly smoking a pipe in a way that made me think maybe he wouldn't be quite so calm if he weren't smoking that pipe. So I bummed some.
Mmmmm. Good shit.
I coulda' stayed down there the whole six hours, but after a while we felt this strange breeze. It was rapidly getting stronger -- so, since I wasn't actually tied to anything, we decided maybe we should head back up to the deck and brace ourselves.
The wind quickly rose to gale force -- and then, after about fifteen minutes, it disappeared again.
And oh, yeah -- other people noticed it too, it wasn't just some freaky drug trip.
Brain Boy -- who'd been, like, consulting his navel or something -- informed us that the whole area was full of Logrus energy, which seemed to be emanating from the glowy squid-butt thing. So I guess now we know what Logrus actually is: squid shit. I'm sure it's a delicacy in Thelbane.
Alyddia tried to trump Corwin -- and it worked, sort of, but she said the visuals were all sort of squishy and melty. She wanted to try passing something through to Corwin to see whether we could use Trump to get outta here if we needed to. Corwin suggested using something organic -- and the first likely candidate Alyddia found was the little potted cactus in Gerard's quarters.
Apparently it wasn't especially cactus-like anymore when it came out on the other side. So much for the "Trump-out" idea.
Then Hargomme tried trumping me to see whether the squishy visuals were only an effect of trying to trump from someplace Logrus-y to someplace Pattern-y -- but no, even over that short distance he came through looking like something out of a Dali painting.
And I mean one of the melty ones, not one of the giant penis ones.
After some discussion, we all decided that maybe getting away from the giant glowing squid butt would allow us to use Pattern and Trump powers a little better. There's still a certain appeal to building up a lot of speed and giving Moby Prick a splintery Bonnie Lass enema, but the "getting away" plan is probably more useful in the long run.
As I helped the sailors tie knots and ready the sails and shit, Hargomme came over to join me. He asked me how much I knew about Logrus.
I decided not to tell him my new "squid shit" theory. Instead I told him (truthfully) that I'd never even heard of Logrus 'til we met Dara. Hargomme was concerned that since Brand probably did some sort of magical Logrus shit with the dead king's body, that the Logrus energy in the area might have some weird effect on the body.
I swear, he and Brain Boy are just a little too obsessed with the dead king's body. If he turns out to be gay -- yeah, I know, he used to be married, but that's not always a faithful indicator -- I'm gonna be so disappointed.
Well, unless he ends up with Brain Boy. THAT would be funny. I should ask Brain Boy how many times he's had sex with men. Also with farm animals.
Where was I? Oh, yeah, I told Hargomme that I doubted there'd be a problem, unless there was something inherently Pattern-y or Logrus-y about the king's body.
Alyddia came over to join us. She was wondering whether the glowy squid thing might've been after us specifically. I suggested that since we encountered it in a stretch of the Black Road, that perhaps we were simply in a region of bad mojo. ("What?" asked Hargomme. "A place that sucks," I explained. He seemed to understand that, but who knows which meaning of "suck" he assumed?)
I wondered aloud whether the giant glowy Logrus energy source might in some way be powering the Black Road. So then Alyddia reminded us where the Black Road came from.
And it sure as shit wasn't from squid... unless she and Dear Uncle Brand ordered calamari on their little date, that is. He did cut her in the gut, after all.... Hmmm....
I decided not to say that part out loud.
Hargomme said he and Gareth have discussed a plan to get to the Pattern Alyddia walked: Alyddia and Gareth would walk the Amber Pattern together, Alyddia would envision the Pattern she walked, and then Hargomme and I would join them via trump. This way our two strongest fighters wouldn't be all exhausted from a Patternwalk and would be able to defend Alyddia if anything went wrong.
Alyddia doesn't like this plan at all. She doesn't want to go back there.
Just then, our conversation was interrupted by a loud, angry bellowing sound: Gerard, regaining consciousness as a medic tried to stitch up the gash in his head.
It's too bad our contest with the squid wasn't a bellow-off. I think Gerard woulda won.
Some hours later, the ship is ready to sail and the wind picks up again. Eve, Alyddia and Gareth are on deck, tied down. Hargomme is in the galley working on the next meal. The sails billow out and we can tell we are getting farther away from the glowy thing. We figure out that the wind is spiraling outward from the glowy thing.
The guy in the crow's nest calls our attention to something in the distance -- possibly a planet. Gerard says, "Land, ho! Land, ho!"
Gareth says, "There appears to be Logrus in the direction of that object." "As much as there was where we started?" Alyddia asks. "Difficult to say, because the power is great enough that I have to stop exploring before I get there," Gareth says.
Gerard calls a meeting in his cabin. "This spiral wind looks like it might take us right into the planet, or right by it. We need to figure out what we're going to do."
Alyddia suggests trying to orbit the planet.
Eve suggests a Pattern power test by trying to find things on the ship -- like water skis in that storage bench.
"Good plan," Gareth says. "But we should try to find things that are useful."
"Well, yeah," says Eve, "I was going to look for water skis."
Hargomme asks if Gareth learned anything from his latest trump with Corwin.
For one thing, Gareth says, there's a big time differential -- only twenty minutes had passed there. Corwin hasn't yet found Dara to ask her opinion, but Fiona is on the case. She is very interested in the former cactus.
"What cactus?" Gerard looks around. "What happened to my cactus?"
"We had to pass something organic. Better that than a deckhand!" says Alyddia.
We discuss whether to head straight to the planet or not.
There's a knock on the door. Willie in the crow's nest is seeing lights.
We go back onto the deck. The planet, reddish-orange, is much bigger now, looks like it has one big land mass -- no obvious sign of water. Something shiny is orbiting the planet -- possibly a spaceship.
We decide to get into orbit around the planet and then perhaps shift shadow so that there will be water to land in. We can see clouds moving across the surface.
Hargomme (alarmed): "What are those?"
Alyddia: "Those are clouds."
(Hargomme looks incredulous.)
Alyddia: "You're seeing them from the other side.
A lot of things dawn on Hargomme.
Hargomme: "We're with the gods?"
Gerard: "Yes, lad, you're with the gods."
Alyddia looks at the spaceship through a spyglass. When they get close enough, she can tell there's a picture on the side of a serpent wrapped around a tree and the word "Falcon" -- in Thari.
We know the serpent is a symbol of Thelbane, and Thari is spoken there.
On the surface, Alyddia can just make out a small body of water near the equator. The features of the planet don't seem to be moving, as though it's not rotating.
Cross to the dark side of the planet. It seems dimly white, as if covered with snow.
We try to get closer to the spaceship.
We come up alongside it. Hargomme ties a rope around himself and jumps from our ship to the spaceship. When he gets there, the gravity from the other ship takes over and he can walk around its surface and breathe just fine. Gareth ties himself a safety line and goes hand-over-hand to Hargomme.
Hargomme finds a hatch. He and Gareth go in and find the bridge. Gerard trumps them. They are both at a bit of a loss for what it all means, so Gerard suggests that Alyddia should go join them.
While they're on the bridge, a man named Aidan appears (Sean Connery-lookin'). Says he used Logrus to get there. He offers to take them to the surface of the planet, Bliss, to confer with their council of elders. They also came through the giant squid about seventy-five years ago (by their reckoning). Gives them an hour to go back to the Bonnie Lass to confer and decide.
Hargomme volunteers to go. Eve offers to go too, because "Between the two of us, we can kick their asses if we need to."
We decide that we should trump Gerard once we get to the surface. If anything goes wrong, he'll try to rescue us, then take off. There is talk that those on the surface could pluck us off the ship at will. "They're probably listening to our conversation right now," says Alyddia. "Then they heard the part about us gonna be able to kick their asses," says Eve brightly.
[Alyddia: "I'll get you another cactus if we get out of this stupid squid!"]
We equip ourselves (with weapons!) and wait. Gerard goes into his quarters to keep a low profile. Aidan appears on deck after the hour is up. We tell him that all four of us will go, provided he will allow us to trump the ship once we get to the surface. He agrees, we all grab hands, there's a moment of odd yellow-green energy, sort of nauseating, like when we went through with Dara.
We find ourselves in a smallish room. Through a window, we see a primitive settlement. Two other men here, dressed similarly to Aidan, sitting at one end of a table (largish dining-room-table-sized). He motions for us to take a seat at the other end of the table. He introduces Halas (peppery hair, not quite as old as Aidan) and Onan (white-haired, older than Aidan, doesn't smile but looks at us shrewdly). Aidan sits between the other two and asks who we are.
Hargomme introduces himself.
Gareth says, "I'm Gareth, of... well I suppose we should just call it The Civilization. Its true name isn't pronounceable."
Alyddia says, "I'm Alyddia of Glonar".
Eve says, "I'm Eve, of Westchester." 'Cos if they're gonna blow up where you're from, might as well give them a place I wouldn't mind having wiped out of creation.
They ask how we got here, we tell them about getting sucked in by the Kraken. They ask if we're planning to leave, we say we'd like to.
Gareth: "Have you been able to get out?"
Aidan looks uncomfortable. Halas suggests they level with us, but Onan doesn't think they should trust us.
Alyddia: "What information do you want?"
Halas: "We want to know about Thelbane." Onan rolls his eyes.
We find that though they've only been in Bliss 75 years, they left Thelbane before the foundation of Amber. They've never heard of Amber, the serpent still had both its eyes. At their last time in Thelbane, they were vassals of Barimen, whose leader, Dworkin, approached them about a rebellion against current monarchy (Swayvill in house Sawall). House Bariman was defecting, wanted to warn their vassals to flee. Fled on the spaceship (the Falcon) being pursued by imperial forces -- and then out of nowhere, swallowed by the Kraken. They settled here and have been fairly content. They identify themselves as house Bruinen.
Gareth: We know of someone named Dworkin. What did he look like?
They go to look for their trumps, which haven't been used in a long time because they're distorted. Gerard, who can see the Dworkin trump thru his trump contact with Gareth, says, "Yeah! That's Dworkin, who taught us Trump and was Dad's advisor!"
Gareth: This is the same Dworkin we know from home. If you owe him allegiance, then I think we will be friends.
Onan expresses indignation about their association with House Barimen. "Did they help us when we were being chased by imperial troops? Nooooo. Did they answer our calls when we got stuck here? Noooo." Goes on, grumpy-old-man-like, for a while.
Apparently Dworkin spoke of another creature of power coming out of the abyss, and that House Bariman was going to work with that power.
They pass over another trump, obviously Oberon. They identify him as "Dworkin's son Oberon."
We reveal that we are descendants of Oberon, and that the Unicorn is the creature that came from the abyss. We tell them that Thelbane is now attacking Amber to try to get the Jewel back. Also that Oberon was king of Amber, and we only knew of Dworkin as an advisor and teacher to the king and his children.
Onan says that they are not interested in another vassal relationship. Just wants to live peacefully in Shadow without always worrying that they will be dragged away and executed for treason. They are disturbed to learn from Gareth (via Gerard) that Thelbane is still held by Swayvill.
Then, almost simultaneously, Gerard reports to Gareth that the Bonnie Lass is under attack by a ship with energy weapons, and someone enters the conference room to report more visitors, another ship. They are surprised, as they've never had any other visitors before, and now they're getting two sets in one day.
Hargomme immediately asks, "How can we help?"
Onan says, "See, we shouldn't've trusted them!" But Aidan is already putting their contingency plan into effect. Sends us with Halas to be part of the vanguard. Gareth asks Aidan to get people off the Bonnie Lass.
We walk outside the building, and everyone is already rushing around. We go beneath another building to retrieve energy weapons, rifle-like, powered by Logrus, which he hands out to us. "Haven't checked the power cells for a while, I hope they work," he says.
Armed, about ten of us are headed back to be the vanguard when Gerard comes barrelling out of the building where we had our meeting. "They destroyed the Bonnie Lass!" he says. "I think it was Thelbane -- there was a serpent on the ship...." Hargomme hands Gerard an extra weapon, and he and several of his men join the vanguard.
We hear a rumbling noise and see a streak of light in the sky. We head toward a hill, attempting to draw the enemy back into the settlement.
We array ourselves along a ridge and wait. Eve takes the high point; Gerard is in sight of her, as if keeping an eye on her.
The ship is about a mile away, called the "Gorgon", has a one-eyed serpent on it. It has landed on landing gear, rather than crash landing. A hatch opens, and black-armored and helmetted troops spill out and get into land rovers. 4 rovers, each with 6-7 soldiers, plus extra soldiers on foot. We open fire. In the first couple minutes, Eve picks off two or three.
Halas calls the retreat order. Eve follows. Hargomme stays behind to try to jump into one of the rovers. (He manages to get it to flip over.) The rest fall behind outbuildings to snipe at the enemy and try to draw them into an ambush. Eve goes into one of the buildings and fires out the window at the approaching rovers.
She manages to get the perfect shot, bouncing a beam off the visor of one of the soldiers in a rover and taking out the driver with the ricochet. The rover swerves straight for her, so she leaps out the window to get out of the way. Rover plows into the building and stops; building collapses on the rover. Eve takes cover behind some rocks and waits to take out footsoldiers. About 25 of them total, 5 stopping and crouching behind rocks to try to take out Eve. She gets one of them, but fire is getting pretty intense, so she retreats. Gets tagged in the left calf, but manages to get into the building where Gerard and Alyddia are.
Gareth comes leaping through the window. Eve stops just short of shooting him in the head. Her leg starts throbbing, and she slumps against the wall clutching at it and cursing. Alyddia comes over to look at the wound, but it's not bleeding -- instantly cauterized -- so doesn't really need to be bandaged. No ointments or aspirin or anything available in the building -- it looks like a small meeting hall or something, with a table and chairs and a sideboard and not much else in a single-room building.
Enemies start coming into the building. Eve dives under the table with Alyddia and gets her knives out. Gerard grapples one who comes in thru the window, breaks the guy almost immediately. Gareth strikes the leg out from under the first guy coming thru the door, cuts it off clean; guy goes down, falls right in front of Eve, who finishes him off.
Another guy comes through the door and shoots Gerard with a big yellow-green energy ball, which traps him against the wall. Gareth slices the guy in the back, guy goes down.
One more guy comes in the door. Gareth hits him but doesn't punch through the armor; guy hits Gareth with the butt of his gun. Eve darts out and hamstrings him with her knife, then wrestles him into submission, while Alyddia looks for something to tie him up with. They want to question him.
Hargomme shows up, pokes his head in the building, tells Gerard he can fight his way out of the energy ball. "Workin' on it, lad," says Gerard. Then Hargomme darts away again.
Eve and Alyddia subdue the soldier, Eve gets his helmet off. He's young, perhaps 18, dark-haired and dark-eyed, nice-looking. Very, very pissed. He shifts, red-skinned with bony pertuberances, red eyes and fangs. Eve wonders whether he could shift his way out of his bonds -- so she punches him. It takes three punches to knock him out -- weird, she can usually take a guy out with one punch. They wait for Gerard to work his way out from the energy blob, so they can question the prisoner.
Gareth and Hargomme come back, suggest to Alyddia that they should go check out the spaceship. "Well, let me go tell Halas," says Alyddia. Hargomme and Gareth don't want to wait. Gareth asks Gerard to tell Halas. Gerard reminds them that the spaceship has weapons on it powerful enough to blow up the Bonnie Lass, so that they might want to investigate with Logrus rather than walking right up to it. "Ah," says Gareth. "Perhaps we should go talk to Halas, then." "What a good idea," says Alyddia sarcastically.
All five of them, Gerard bringing their prisoner in tow, head to find Halas and the rest. Gerard asks Eve about her leg, which is really starting to hurt again now that the adrenalin is wearing off. "It will heal cleanly," says Gerard, "but I'll bet it hurts a lot. Perhaps someone here can provide you with an analgesic." "Or lots and lots of alcohol," says Eve. "Or a nice analgesic," says Gerard.
Hargomme lights up his pipe and hands it to Eve. The weed in it focuses the mind but relaxes the body.
They come upon the settlers dealing with captured enemies.
Captured soldiers identify themselves as working for King Swayvill of Thelbane. They don't say why they were sent to attack.
Halas tries to check out the ship remotely using Logrus. [Andy: Halas is Voguing.] Eve smokes 'til Hargomme takes the pipe away.
Gerard and Aidan and many locals have taken prisoners into custody. They say they're members of Thelbane army, just acting under orders. Youngers are watching Halas use Logrus. He detects eight life-forms on board the ship that landed. He didn't want to be invasive enough for them to notice, so he doesn't know what kind of life-forms. He detects Logrus shielding around the ship. The life-forms aren't scurrying around quickly, so may not realize they've been scanned.
Gareth says, "I need to... take a moment." Halas says, "The bathrooms are that way." Gareth walks several yards away, lets out a very loud yell, and then comes back.
Alyddia asks Eve, "What was that all about?" "He's a freak," Eve replies.
When Gareth comes back, Hargomme asks about the interaction between Pattern and Logrus -- can the powers not coexist in the same space? He recalls that Pattern swords cut the Logrus tendrils powering the bug golems.
Halas turns to leave, to confer with Aidan, and Eve says, "Let us know if you need us to take that ship out." "Can you?" Halas asks. "I'll bet we can figure it out," Eve says.
The Youngers and Gerard, who has just wandered over, discuss plans for getting to the ship -- perhaps combining Aidan and Halas's Logrus with Gareth's Pattern and a thrown Trump to try taking out the shields.
Gerard, Gareth and Hargomme go to talk to Aidan and Onen.
Alyddia and Eve go to interrogate prisoners. One of the guards says the prisoners won't give them much more than name, rank and serial number and that they were just following orders to take out their target. Turns out the "target" is the Amberites.
Eve looks over the prisoners to see if one of them looks especially weaker or more freaked-out than the others. Not especially, so she picks one who appears to be about in the middle, rank-wise. Prisoners are kneeling in a line with their hands on their heads, Eve leans down and gets in the guy's face. He reveals that they noticed a ship flying into the Kraken and were ordered to retrieve the occupants and bring them back to Thelbane. He says, "You're just kids. Why would they want you?" "Because we're incredibly good-looking?" asks Eve. "Do you have any secrets or superior weapons or something?" he asks. "Well, I've got this," Eve says, pulling out her knife and waving it in his face.
Alyddia starts asking about the ship. "We know about your ship, we know about the other eight men, we're going to go take it out." "Why should I tell you anything else?" the guy asks. "What're you gonna do, kill us? We'll just keep coming and coming until Amber is destroyed." "There are fates worse than death," says Alyddia. "Right, what are *you* going to do to me?" the guy asks. "Oh, it won't necessarily be me," Alyddia replies.
Eve brightens and looks at one of the guards and asks in the sweetest little-girl voice she can muster, "Oooh, can I have him?" She and one of the guards lead the prisoner into a house and get him strung up by the wrists from the ceiling. Alyddia goes to enlist Hargomme's aid.
When Alyddia and Hargomme arrive at the house, Eve has cut off the prisoner's shirt and is using her knife to sketch a unicorn into his chest.
"Lieutenant Damir Jazak," the prisoner says when Hargomme comes in. "How many men under your command?" Hargomme asks, and grabs Damir by the face to try to force eye contact. Damir resists. Eve steps back. Gareth walks in, stands to the side with Alyddia to observe.
After babbling to try to resist Hargomme's psyche, prisoner reveals that there are eight men left on the ship, only one is Logrus master. Logrus master needed to power the weapons. (Only one other was among their troops, but he is not among the prisoners now.) Shields powered with Logrus, can fry anything that tries to force its way through.
We go to the ridge, Aidan, Halas and Onan sit in a circle with eyes closed and start moving their arms in unison. Hargomme goes to top of ridge to watch ship, trumps Eve a few moments later. The three Logrus masters slash the air, and Hargomme says, "The shield is down." A moment later, the Logrus masters open their eyes and say, "Their Logrus master is dead."
Hargomme, Alyddia, and Eve with some of Gerard's men, go to ship to parlay. Gerard stays in contact with Eve via trump, Logrus masters watching with Logrus. We give them terms: surrender, and we will allow them to negotiate to stay here instead of being killed. We take the ship. They say they want to come with us. There's room for ten in their brig. They at first try to convince us that only they can drive the ship, but we know they're lying.
17 of Gerard's crew remaining + three from Tonga + Gerard + youngers.
Eve asks Halas if he can find an individual in Shadow using Logrus and bring that person here. Halas says Logrus tendrils won't extend outside the Kraken.
Setting sail on the Gorgon....
Seven prisoners in the brig; two of Gerard's crew badly injured and in medical; five of Gerard's crew dead, on ice in the cargo hold. Hargomme in charge of keeping an eye on prisoners. Eve volunteers to help; Hargomme reluctantly agrees.
[Andy: "I don't think they'll have sticky-notes, it's a small
population, they're not going to have the manufacturing
technology...."
GM: "But I thought Office Depots were ubiquitous throughout Shadow...."]
We take off, Eve is watching the brig. One of Gerard's men, Lynn, comes down to keep an eye on Eve. Alyddia takes off and heads toward the mouth of the Kraken. As Alyddia and Gerard discuss how to get out of the Kraken, Hargomme comes down to check on the brig.
Eve asks Hargomme about the thing he did to break the prisoner. Hargomme expresses surprise that he felt resistance: usually when he uses this technique the interrogated just tells him what he wants to know. Eve tells him that one of the powers of the descendants of Oberon is mental strength, and that's probably what he's using. She suggests he should try it on her, later, when they're not watching prisoners. "You would let me do that?" he asks. "For a while," Eve says.
After about an hour, Alyddia comes over the intercom to announce that they're about to go really fast to try to get out of the Kraken. A moment later, they hit the opening and everything is enveloped in a bright white light. Everybody blacks out.
When they come to, Eve and Hargomme see that everyone in the brig has blacked out as well; they are coming to. Hargomme asks Eve to go to the bridge to see what's happened. She learns they're over a gas giant, out of the Kraken. Gerard asks Eve to test the trumps. She trumps Hargomme first, works fine. She tells him they're out of the Kraken. She tries Random next; he's in a pub outside Amber, says it's been about a week for him since they left, but he's in a fast-time shadow because he needed to get away for a while. She tells him they got side-tracked on their way to Tonga, and now she's got a nifty new scar, and she'll tell him all about it when they get back.
Alyddia sees that there are three somethings -- ships -- heading toward us, Gerard wants to shift us away to get away. He's never shifted from air. Gareth mentions he's shifted from balloon, Eve mentions she's shifted while falling from a gigantic bridge. Gerard lets Gareth shift, he turns the gas giant planet below them into something habitable. The three ships following us become three birds, who lose interest and veer off. Gareth suggests shifting the vessel so it becomes a water-based ship, but Gerard would rather find a ship than shift the spaceship into one. Gerard mentions that they don't want to take the prisoners to Tonga, so he asks Eve to trump Corwin.
Corwin is in the middle of shaving, but is interested in accepting Thelbane prisoners. He says he'll get himself cleaned up and trump her back in a few minutes.
Gareth shifts shadow to an uninhabited area where they can hide the spaceship so Alyddia can find it again later. Gerard says Corwin will want to look at it, too. Pink sky, yellow vegetation, little crystals scattered about.
Eve gets a trump from Corwin, he's in the Amber castle dungeons. She takes Hargomme and a couple of Gerard's men and goes to the brig. Hargomme takes one prisoner at a time and crosses the trump contact with them so Corwin doesn't actually have to make contact with any of the prisoners, just in case. Only one prisoner makes trouble, tries to break away on the Amber side, but after a short scuffle is quickly subdued. (Also pass through two injured and five dead among Gerard's men.)
Eve hears Corwin's side of a conversation with Hargomme, wherein Corwin asks Hargomme how he is and then wishes him luck, tells him to keep Eve out of trouble. "Hey, I can hear that!" says Eve.
As they emerge back onto the bridge, they hear Aloo asking what will happen now that the body of the king is gone. They have nothing to burn. Alyddia suggests they might be able to provide a cloned body, but Aloo is not sure that will be good enough to fool the gods. Normally they burn the body, pour the ashes into the volcano so that the king can rejoin his ancestors. The only time a king has died and the body was lost, there was a big earthquake that the holy priests took as a bad sign. But Aloo decides it's worth a shot. Gareth says it will take a couple weeks, and goes to the brain civ. Tells us to trump him if we need him.
Gerard goes off to find a seagoing ship; he'll trump them all when he finds one. Hargomme goes out to try to find a sword behind a tree; he doesn't find his own, but finds a crystal sword.
Eve naps, and dreams: She is in a verdant, Earth-like meadow with little purple-and-white flowers, under a tree, on a red-and-white checkered blanket, having a picnic with Martin and the unicorn. They are eating fried chicken and the unicorn is drinking tea daintily from a tiny teacup. There is some sort of church or chapel or something, from the look of the architecture, a little way away. Eve licks her fingers, and Martin says, "Here, let me do that for you...." He takes her fingers into his mouth, and turns into Random, and...
...a bell rings, and Eve is in the cafeteria at her school. She knows she has about five minutes to get to class. As she stands, from behind a stack of trays jumps Dara, with a sword. Eve is suddenly in her fencing outfit and begins fencing with Dara. She can hear her fencing instructor shouting instructions on how to defeat Dara, but it isn't working; and now there are lots of Daras, surrounding her, and Eve is being overwhelmed, and...
...now she is on the playground, and she is four years old. Flora is on the seesaw with Caine. She smiles and says, "I have a secret." Caine smiles. Corwin is on the swings, Gerard on the slide, Random is hanging from a pole, and they are all smiling and laughing at her, not taking her seriously, until Eve gets pissed off and yells, "Fuck you!" She runs away, behind the jungle gym, and there is Martin holding a box with a representation of the Pattern on it. "What is that? Where did you find it?" "I found it in the meadow," Martin replies. "What's in it?" "Here, open it," Martin says, "but be careful of the spiders...."
...and Eve wakes up. While she's scribbling the details in her notebook, Hargomme comes by to make sure she's awake so he can sleep. She tells him to beware of weird dreams. "Oh, I always have vivid dreams when I've been smoking," he says. Ahhh.
After Hargomme wakes up, he busts into Eve's room and asks for something to write with. We find Alyddia on the bridge. She also had a weird dream. Hargomme trumps Gareth to see whether he has also had a strange dream. Gareth is with his father, but comes through. He also has had a strange dream.
Gareth: Researching in Amber library; Julian enters and asks, "What's with the strings?" Gareth notices strings going up from his wrists, Julian says, "I bet those itch."
Then he's in a meadow, with a tree and purple-and-white flowers and a small building, Eve and Alyddia are there, clapping as if watching a show. He also has strings on his feet and is being made to dance.
Suddenly he's at the edge of a large drop, under a striped sky, Bleys says, "It's coming" and "I'll bet those itch". Gareth asks, "What?" and Bleys says, "The strings." Gareth looks up to see his mother pulling the strings, but she has strings as well that go up farther than he can see. Before he can figure out where they go...
...he's in a room with an ornate box with the pattern inscribed on it, when he goes to open it, he wakes up.
Hargomme: Began in his home, Corwin comes in through the window dressed for battle, asks where he'd been, told him to come with. Hargomme says he needs to say goodbye to the people from his home. He goes to look for them but finds himself in Castle Amber. He finds Flora, who asks what he's looking for. He can't remember, she turns into Fiona who says, "Try the pattern room." He asks where that is, but she vanishes.
He finds a room with an ornate box with a representation of the pattern on it. When he goes to open it, Eric says, "Keep looking."
Opens another door, is on a plateau under a striped sky. Troops of Amber and Thelbane rallying below; all the Thelbane troops are Brand. Hargomme tells Corwin, "We'll lose." Corwin turns into Brand and says, "So will they." Hargomme hypothesizes that Brand wants a war between Thelbane and Amber and wants both sides to be wiped out.
Eve relates her dream, but leaves out the part about the finger-sucking.
Alyddia: Chased down a corridor covered with spiderwebs. She opens random doors to find a way out. One door takes her into her playroom as a child. She's making a birthday card for her father, cuts herself, her mother tells her not to worry, it's not much blood. Then she's back in a corridor, hears Brand's laughter, Unicorn takes her through another door with a meadow visible through the windows (same one Eve and Gareth described). On a table in the corner is a box, but before she can open it she's back in the corridor. Next door she opens takes her into the meadow. Unicorn is there, doesn't speak but Alyddia gets the impression of one word: "Blood". She's back in the room with the box, opens it, there's a solid gold knife with an intricate handle. Then she's at the restaurant where she and Brand had dinner. She's with her Borg-ified friend Todd, who is dressed like Brand; he asks her if she ever wonders why she was born. Then she's back in the room with the box, she takes the knife and wakes up.
Gareth says Bleys told him that Unicorns in the dreams of Amberites are often signs of prophetic dreams. He decides to trump Gerard to ask whether he also has had strange dreams; but Gerard hasn't slept since last we saw him. Gareth reports that Gerard wants them not to tell anyone about House Bruinen. Gareth tries to trump Corwin to ask about what the policy should be on revealing information about House Bruinen, but Corwin is torturing the prisoners and Gareth decides he should call back later.
Eve trumps Random, who is taking an afternoon horseback ride, and asks if he's had any strange dreams lately. She tells him that she has had one, and she's trying to figure out whether it was from the weed or whether it's something more, since the Unicorn was in it. He asks her about the dream; she tells him about having tea with the Unicorn, and that Random was there, but that just as he got there, a bell rang and she was in her school cafeteria fencing Dara. And then after a while she's out on the playground, four years old, and pissed off because the elders are treating her like a child. He asks, "The unicorn? You were with the unicorn? Drinking tea?" And then after a moment he says, "Oh, wait, come to think of it, I had a dream about a picnic, and I was in a field with little purple-and-white flowers...." "Yeah!" says Eve, "That's just like my dream!" And then Random looks really uncomfortable, and Eve knows what he's leaving out, and he knows she knows, and he says he'll get back to her....
Wait several days for Gerard. During that time Hargomme asks Brain Boy about how to walk the pattern in one's mind, Alyddia gets more sparring training with Eve.
On third day, Gerard trumps Eve. He's on the deck of a ship out at sea. She gathers up the other Youngers, the Tongans, and the rest of Gerard's crew and trumps him back, passes them through.
Largish blond guy, curly hair, green eyes, cousin Cole. He gives Eve a big hug and says, "Sis! So nice to finally meet you!" Gerard says he found Cole in shadow, looking for a ship.
He's from Perondor, illegitimate son of the queen, is glad his younger brother will be inheriting the throne. Age 21, walked Pattern about three years ago.
Hargomme asks if he's had any strange, memorable dreams recently. "Yes!" he says, and points at Eve. "And you were in it! Which is weird, since I didn't know what you looked like yet. And you were having a picnic, and there was this woman in a frilly dress, only she turned out to be dead, and then there were a bunch of them...." He later reveals that Fiona was in the dream, with a box with the Pattern on it and a golden knife inside it. He goes to take it, but Fiona tells him it's not for him, and that "blood is the key".
The last thing Cole knew was that Corwin might be returning, might attack by sea. Under Eric's orders, he went out with the king's fleet, they found a woman in a boat who said her ship had been destroyed but didn't give her name. She offered her hand, he kissed it... and the next thing he knew, he woke up under a tree about two days ago.
The other Youngers fill Cole in about the attack by bug golems from Thelbane, Eric's death, Corwin's coronation, where Hargomme and Alyddia are from, whose son Gareth is. ("My father is Bleys," says Gareth. "Can't you tell from all the flair?" asks Eve. "It's... subtle," says Cole.)
Few more days to sail to Tonga. Gareth retrieves the cloned Tongan King body -- it's not as fat as the old one, and doesn't have the same scars.
We discuss whether to trust Cole. Eve brings up that Caine is being nice to him, which Eve takes as a bad sign. But she eventually says that it's not so much that she thinks he'd intentionally backstab them as that she doesn't get the sense that he's overly practiced at keeping his mouth shut, so we should very explicitly warn him if we tell him things we don't want to repeat to people who might be his father.
Eve and Cole spar. They are very evenly matched in skill, but Cole is stronger. They trade touches, but since they can both last so long, they can't figure out how to stop. Cole says, "Okay, on the count of three, we'll both stop." They count to three, stop, and Eve gets one last thwap in that he didn't even expect. "Brat," says Cole. "Just testing," says Eve. He catches her up in another big hug and says, "Thanks, sis, that was fun!" Eve thinks, "I really need to talk to him about this hugging thing...."
Hargomme spars using the crystal sword he found in shadow. When he's done, Cole's sword has little nicks taken out of it.
Gareth tries sparring with Cole. (Andy: "Gareth tries not to die.") Since he's just faced two strong opponents, Cole comes out strong, disarms Gareth immediately.
Pull into the cove at Tonga. Tall buildings of stone, piers jutting out into the water -- no beach in the cove -- prominent active volcano behind the main city of Wahu.
We are shown to dignitaries' quarters, with a common room and separate sleeping quarters for the men and women, balcony looking out to nice views.
We discuss the dreams we had, and decide maybe we should try to find the meadow in shadow.
Ambassador Timor sends clothes for us. Flowered dresses for the women, flowered skirts (but no shirts) for the men. Cole tries to hand the men's outfits to the women. As if. Hargomme and Gareth both just start changing in the common room. Eve lets them.... (Alyddia: "...we'll get to see cute Polynesians who aren't related to us. Hopefully.")
Aloo says that the high priest Tinaga is concerned that the gods won't accept the body because it hasn't gone through the initiation ceremony, which involves walking the "power inscription" which resembles part of Amber's Pattern on the floor of the cavern at the base of the volcano. Tinaga has suggested doing the ceremony out of order, initiating the new king and then anointing the old, dead king in the new king's blood before offering him to the gods, and perhaps that will satisfy them. Eve asks if they could carry the dead king's body through the initiation ritual, and Aloo says she will talk to Tinaga and send him to talk to them.
The Youngers speculate among themselves what might happen if they tried to walk this wedge of pattern. Gareth reveals that he observed it earlier today through the pattern lens, and it exudes pattern power. Cole seems like he might be interested in trying to walk it, to see what happens. "We might insult someone," says Alyddia. "Or even worse, they might try to put us on the throne," says Eve. "Ewwww," says Cole. "Never mind."
Tinaga comes in, Eve offers that they might try to walk the old king's body through the initiation ritual if it would help and if it is permitted to non-royals like themselves. Tinaga says he will consult the books and auguries. He reveals the legends that some of "your kind" came to Tonga to inscribe the mark years ago. Walking the inscription gives the royals sensitivity to the gods and increased strength.
Four days of feasting, very pleasant. Lots of pretty polynesian people who treat us as honored guests or minor deities. At sunrise on the fourth day, we all go into the cave of the volcano to watch Kayu walk the wedge of pattern. He's about ten years old. Not quite like walking the Pattern, as there are no sparks and he doesn't seem to be encountering much resistance. After the walk, they cut across his palm with a ceremonial knife and take some of his blood in a bowl. The high priest then marks the dead king with the blood, say some ceremonial words. Guards come and dump the king over the ledge into the volcano.
After several moments, there is a spew of lava, and then quiet. After a few more moments, Tinaga sighs with relief and says, "They accepted the sacrifice."
Then there's clapping from the doorway. It's Brand. He says, "It appears Kayu has been initiated. That means I can take his right hand."
Cole charges, Brand shoots him with a double crossbow, then shoots one of the guards with the other bolt. Eve rips the side seam in her skirt and pulls out one of the knives strapped to her thighs, throws at his head, nicks the back of his neck. He touches the back of his neck, feels the blood, and yells, "Fucking bitch!" Eve feels she has accomplished something good.
Then Eve rushes Brand, who is moving toward the Tongan royal family. Brand uses his now-empty crossbow to bludgeon the high priest out of the way. Kayu is trying to pull Aloo and Reiki away.
Eve hits Brand from the side with a flying tackle, they both go clattering to the ground. She lands on top of him, but he elbows her hard in the face, hits a pressure point, she goes rolling off. When she recovers enough to look around, Brand has closed his eyes, is starting to phase out. Hargomme throws his crystal sword, it tags Brand's shoulder just as he disappears.
Gerard comes over and starts poking at Eve's nose. "Ow. Ow. Ow." "I think it's broken, lass," Gerard says. Her nose is bleeding all over the place. She hears Hargomme ask, "Is there any way to track him?" Eve says, "Find my knife. It has his blood on it. I don't know if it'll help." Fiona has come through on trump from Gareth, says she will try to track Brand. She closes her eyes. Gerard goes to tend Cole.
Fiona disappears. Corwin says she thinks she might be able to track Brand. Then he looks at the Youngers and crosses his arms. Alyddia says, "Hey, we didn't do anything wrong, it was all Brand's fault!"
Corwin says to Alyddia, "I notice that Brand always seems to show up where you are." Alyddia replies, aggravated, "Yeah, why don't you figure out why that is?"
Corwin says Cole and Eve, who need medical attention, must return to Amber. The others will stay in Tonga. Gerard picks up Cole and trumps back. As Eve walks past, Hargomme says quietly, "Good job." She nods slightly, while trying not to bleed all over herself. (She's got her skirt clamped over her broken nose.) Corwin puts his arm around her and trumps them both back to Amber, sends her to the infirmary.
Eve and the guard follow Gerard up the hill toward the infirmary. Partway up, Gerard tells Eve to wait on a bench by the path and he'll trump her when he gets to the infirmary so she doesn't have to overexert herself. She starts to protest that she feels fine, but relents, slouches over to the bench. The guard goes with her, offers her a small handkerchief.
"What'm I supposed to do with this, tourniquet my capillaries?" But she takes it, spits on it, and starts cleaning the blood off her face.
Caine walks by on his way down the hill, but Eve doesn't acknowledge him or call attention to herself. But he stops, turns. "Eve?" he asks. "What happened to you?"
"They should know better than to send me on a diplomatic mission."
He laughs, a big belly laugh that goes on too long. At first he seems to be laughing at the joke, but it shifts into laughing at her.
When he seems to be recovering his breath, she adds, "You should see what happened to Cole."
He catches his breath, asks, "Why? What happened to Cole?"
"He's up in the infirmary with a bolt sticking out of him."
"Is he gonna be all right?"
Eve thinks about it, says, "Dunno, we don't think it hit anything vital, but we don't know for sure."
He thinks about that, his mind obviously working things out very quickly. "Well, see ya around, kid," he says, and goes on down the hill.
A few minutes later, Gerard trumps Eve and brings her through to the infirmary.
(Jonathan = James Spader in the "Stargate" movie)
Jonathan checks her out, asks her a bunch of medical questions ("Are you discharging clear fluid? Do you have any dizziness?"), concludes they'll need a couple of days for the swelling to go down before he can tell whether her nose is broken. It hasn't deviated sideways, but might need to be popped out again. (That procedure will be under local anesthesia, if it has to happen.) He gives her another long list of symptoms to watch out for (dizziness, nausea, neck stiffness.... Eve tunes out after a moment) and then sends a nurse in to help her get cleaned up.
She trumps back to the front gate of the castle, heads up to her room to change out of her bloody clothes. On the way, she meets Flora, who does a double-take. Her face goes very red, and she says, "Eve!? What happened to you?!"
"I'm trying out a new look," Eve replies.
With barely suppressed fury, Flora says, "We send you on a DIPLOMATIC MISSION to a GOLDEN CIRCLE KINGDOM that we're trying to keep GOOD RELATIONS with, and you get into a BRAWL?!?!"
"Well, yes, I thought maybe we should keep those good relations by saving the new king from your PSYCHO BROTHER!"
"What are you talking about?"
"Remember Brand? The psycho that caused the last king of Tonga to end up chopped up in tiny pieces?"
"Yes, I remember Brand, redheaded, psycho...."
"Yep, that's the one. He showed up at the coronation with a crossbow, threatened the new king, so I charged him. It worked, though."
"Brand did this to you?"
"Yeah, but I cut him first."
Flora is so livid she can hardly speak, and she goes storming off. Eve continues on up the stairs.
She hears a sound behind her: it's Alyddia, entering the main hall with new Tongan king Kayu and a retinue of five servants and three trunks. They exchange a few words -- Eve says, "Flora went that way," because it's always fun to put Flora on the spot to be nice to important diplomats when she's in a bad mood -- and then Eve goes on up to her room to change.
Then she trumps Gerard to ask about Cole. Gerard is at the docks, has heard that Cole came out of surgery just fine but doesn't know whether he's awake yet. Eve suggests that one of them should fill Cole in on the history of psychoBrand before he does anything stupid. Gerard says, "Good idea, perhaps you should go do that."
Eve heads up, gets a trump call from Hargomme, who has collected our belongings from our rooms in Tonga and is ready to come back to Amber. Eve pulls him through, he says he'll catch up with her in the infirmary after he gets our belongings sent back to our rooms.
Eve heads on up, finds Cole awake and being fed grapes by a young nurse called Monica. His right arm is in a sling. They start discussing Brand, and Hargomme joins them after a few minutes. Hargomme returns Eve's knife to her, still encrusted with Brand's blood -- he even points out that the blood is still on it.
Y'know, most men would just send flowers. But then, most men are idiots.
It comes out that Cole's mother has come to visit him in the infirmary. Eve asks, "Did she act how you would expect her to act?" After some more discussion, it comes out that she has walked the Pattern fragment in her shadow. Hargomme immediately figures out where Eve is going with this, excuses himself saying he is going to talk to Corwin about this: keep Golden Circle monarchs in Amber for protection against Brand, keep an eye on them to make sure they're not Brand!
Reconstitute dried blood: Eve gets Jonathan to help her, he's very interested and helpful (entirely platonic). She scrapes the dried blood off her knife, gets just a few drops when it is reconstituted. She and Jonathan decide to split it: Eve gets a couple drops stoppered in a little glass test tube, Jonathan takes a couple of drops on slides.
As she's finishing up, gets a trump contact from Hargomme, asks if Alyddia is there. Eve looks around the infirmary, doesn't find Alyddia. Hargomme breaks contact. About a minute later, he calls back again and says he hasn't been able to raise her by trump. Eve pulls him through, and he trumps Gareth to see whether Brain Boy can use the lens to find Alyddia.
Then Eve gets a trump call from Alyddia, checking in to let Eve know she's okay. She says she got a trump call earlier but couldn't answer it. "I think that was Hargomme," Eve says. "I'll let him know you're alright." She says this out loud so Hargomme knows. Alyddia says she's going to turn in early, and she'll see them in the morning.
Eve and Hargomme walk back to the castle for dinner, decide they should rest up for a couple days before trying any more psychic experiments or going to seek out Alyddia's pattern or the meadow from their dreams. Eve needs to stay in Amber so she can get her nose checked out.
Eve sleeps in the next morning, because she has had to sleep propped up due to her swollen nose and is not well rested.
Eve awakens to a trump contact. She hesitates, the person on the other side pushes. She grabs her knife and answers. It's Hargomme.
"You know, when somebody pushes, you should probably resist," says Hargomme.
"Fuck you," says Eve.
Hargomme is standing in a room with a small portion of Pattern on an obelisk behind him. They discuss the situation a moment, he asks if Eve wants to come through -- possibly with Cole. Eve says she'll call back in ten minutes.
She gets dressed, goes to the infirmary. The nurse is taking Cole breakfast, Eve offers to take it instead. She finds Cole, asks if he's up to going with her to wherever Hargomme is. He eats most of his breakfast and gets dressed while Eve goes into the hall to trump Hargomme. They discuss whether Cole can be trusted. "I don't think he will be intentionally deceptive... but there's every chance he'll forget that he's not supposed to say things...." Eve opines.
Cole comes out into the hall, they briefly discuss whether to tell Jonathan he's leaving. Eve dips her pinky into the gravy from Cole's breakfast and writes "C YA" on the wall by Cole's door. "Hey! He's gonna think I did that!" Cole protests. Eve smiles and passes him through the trump to Hargomme.
They meet Qu'an, who guards the Pattern Fragment. He calls himself the Keeper of the Golgonath, which is the story of the origin of the Bright Ones who were born of the Unicorn. When the first one, Bar-Iminen, was born, the Unicorn's blood spilled onto the ground into a tracery of red and gold.
Turns out the Unicorn was the one who led Alyddia here.
Qu'an identifies us as Bright Ones. His eyes are sewn shut, but he senses our life forces. He was visited by Brand, "the surly one," three seasons ago. Brand was brighter than the rest of us, but with a darkness around the edges. (Gareth is the brightest of the five of us.) Before that, he hadn't been visited by a Bright One since Oberon. He wants us to spread the story of the Bright Ones to the other Bright Ones so they will not forget.
Eve reminds the others about Alyddia's dream, about being sectioned into pieces by Brand, who kept her right hand. She is concerned that Brand may intend to collect body parts from initiates of multiple patterns and pattern fragments. Gareth and Alyddia go up the stairs to talk. Cole, Hargomme, Eve and Qu'an play dice.
Eve asks Hargomme, "You've never pissed off Llewella, have you?" "Um... yeah, but not so badly that it will keep me from communicating with her. Why?" "It occurs to me," says Eve, "that if Brand is trying to collect pattern initiates, it would be useful for a certain Rebman initiate to know that there are no working trumps of himself so he won't accidentally answer a sinister call.
Hargomme trumps Llewella. She says that Martin is now well aware that there are no working trumps of him.
Cole, meanwhile, starts asking Eve about which patterns and pattern fragments correspond to the 1,4,7 and 10. Eve hedges a little about the 1, since she knows about the Primal Pattern but Cole doesn't.
Gareth sits down to try to mentally follow the trail left by the Unicorn. The others discuss what to do next, decide that they should either look for the field that showed up in all their dreams or try to find the original tracery left by the Unicorn.
Cole and Alyddia both need to talk to Corwin, so they trump back to Amber.
Hargomme goes up the stairs toward the town to try to find some better equipment before they set off.
When Gareth gets done following the trail, he announces that it splits into five parts, all of which dead-end.
They discuss whether to go back to Amber. Gareth says he would like to trade in his all-purpose tool for a weapon that will work even in low-tech Shadows. "You have an all-purpose tool?" asks Eve. Hargomme just gives them a confused look.
Cole and Alyddia return. Cole is now armed. Gareth returns to Amber to try to track the paths to the Golden Circle kingdoms so he can go to any of them on a whim. It is decided that Cole should also return to Amber to get his trump painted, so the rest of the Youngers will have one in the future and Cole will be able to get a trump deck. Cole takes Hargomme's trump from Eve so he can catch up with them when he's done. He passes along a couple of extra blades in case Alyddia decides she wants to be armed. Eve takes them.
Hargomme, Alyddia and Eve set out to look for the meadow from their dreams. Hargomme didn't see the meadow, so Eve and Alyddia will take turns trying to shift. Neither of them have ever done it before.
Hargomme first manipulates probability to try to find three horses. He does, one with a bow and arrows strapped to its saddle at Eve's request. Hargomme calms Alyddia's horse because she has little riding experience.
Eve starts shifting shadow, not pushing things too hard. After three or four hours, she gets the ground-cover (except for the little flowers) and the sky looking right. Then she hands over shifting duties to Alyddia.
Alyddia gets to an area of little purple-and-white flowers, but the ground is too rocky. As she's smoothing out the ground, Hargomme gets a trump call from Cole and brings him through (on his Non-Pansy horse).
They continue on until they find a meadow that looks like what they seek, but it doesn't feel right. They decide to wait for Gareth.
Gareth joins them and tries his hand. He has no more success, hypothesizes that they are being kept from their destination purposefully (either actively or passively).
He tries using pattern lens to find traces of pattern in nearby shadows. After a few minutes, he says "I'll be back" and steps through the lens....
Hargomme immediately trumps Gareth. When he gets through, he asks, "What's that sound?" Then he turns to the others and offers his hand.
"Where are we going?" asks Alyddia skeptically. "To Gareth," Hargomme replies. "And does he seem OK?" asks Alyddia. "Yes." "And what *is* that sound?" asks Eve. Hargomme offers his hand, and Eve takes it. "Harmonica?" Eve asks.
Cole runs out to get his bow, then they all go through the trump. On the other side, they are in the chapel they all saw in their dreams. A black man playing a harmonica introduces himself as Gideon Stubbs, says he knows the unicorn. He says that a couple weeks ago someone came in and slit the throat of another guard and took the knife that was in the box. The knife, he says, is what shed the blood that damaged the Pattern, and it needs to be used to fix the Pattern. But he doesn't know how.
He also says that the knife and the box belong together, that they're part of the unicorn's power that she divided up and hid in several different places.
Gareth sits down on a pew and pulls up his pattern lens. The others talk to Gideon. He says that he lives in a nice little town not far from here. Eve asks if everyone in the town is an adherent of the unicorn, or only a select few. "Funny you should ask," Gideon replies. "Not just anyone can get up here -- just me and Temple Drake (the guy whose throat was cut) and a couple other guys." Gideon has a tattoo on his left forearm just like Qu'an's: a circle with three stars in it.
Gareth reports that he has followed a tendril of power away from the box, but that he reached a barrier that he couldn't push past. He says he doesn't think we could shadow-walk through it.
We discuss other possible plans, including going to the Primal Pattern ("Primal Pattern?" asks Cole. "It is another pattern that the others all seem connected to. It is the one that was damaged," Hargomme replies); anticipating which other Pattern Initiates might be attacked and lie in wait for him; shadow-walk as far along the power tendril as we can; or find some other way of spying on Brand.
Hargomme brings up the possibility of using trumps to spy, although we know we're not nearly experienced enough to do so yet. He also brings up the possibility of heading to Thelbane, since we think Brand is probably affiliated with some of the forces of Thelbane.
Gareth brings up the pattern lens, a few minutes later disappears. He trumps Hargomme, we all go through.
We're on a touristy, carival sort of boardwalk (very Santa-Cruz-like). It's twilight, the sea is to our right.
Cole and Alyddia happily go for snacks and beer. Hargomme and Eve stick by Gareth, who is pulling up a pattern lens to look for traces of pattern in this shadow (because "...maybe Brand comes through this shadow a lot," Eve hypothesizes.)
A guy in a nearby booth shouts out, "Hey, you there!" to Hargomme. Hargomme whips around. "Win a prize for the little lady?" "No!" shouts Hargomme, and ignores the guy.
A few minutes later, Gareth says, "We need to go." Hargomme immediately trumps them to Amber, then trumps Alyddia and brings her and Cole through. They are laden with fair food -- Cole is wearing a beer hat.
Alyddia asks Hargomme, and Hargomme asks Gareth, "Why are we back in Amber?" They go to a private place to talk, Gareth reveals that he encountered another pattern lens coming toward them.
After much discussion, Hargomme decides to go back to see whether the wielder of the other pattern lens shows up. Gareth teleports back using the pattern lens, then trumps Alyddia. Hargomme goes through, Gareth comes back. Eve immediately trumps Hargomme. He asks her to grab his hand through the contact, just in case. Alyddia joins the contact and harrasses Hargomme about how stupid she thinks this plan is. After twenty or thirty minutes, Alyddia gets bored and convinces Cole to go back through and ride the rides. She and Cole pull themselves through the contact between Eve and Hargomme.
Eve overhears an argument between Hargomme and a carnie when Hargomme tries to climb on top of his booth to look for Alyddia and Cole.
After some time, Eve hears some commotion coming from the Portcullis Gate. One of Julian's rangers goes riding by, followed by a couple of castle guards. Eve drops the contact with Hargomme, calls one of the guards over, finds out that something has been killed on the Black Road in Arden, and the ranger is on his way to talk to Corwin about it.
After trumping Hargomme again and some discussion with Gareth, Gareth and Eve decide to go up to the casle proper to find out more. Hargomme drops the contact so he can stay in contact with Alyddia and Cole.
GM: "The attendant on the ride tells you you have to take your hat off before you go on the ride."
Cole: "How does he feel about the bastard sword?"
When Gareth and Eve reach Corwin, he's talking via Trump to Julian. When he's done, he reveals that there's been some sort of sacrificial rite in Arden involving Arden fairies. Julian pursued the suspected perpetrators down the Black Road. Corwin wants Gareth and Eve to go with Dick the Ranger back to Arden to check things out and make a report.
Dick has sandy hair and light eyes, says three fairies were killed in what appeared to be a dark rite, the immediate effect of which is not known. While they talk, Hargomme, Alyddia and Cole all trump through to Gareth. Dick goes to acquire horses for them all (as well as another bow for Eve).
While he's away, Eve refers to Gareth as Brain Boy.
"I think Brain Man would be more appropriate," says Gareth.
"Well, I have no way of knowing that," says Eve.
"I could provide proof," says Gareth.
"OK," says Eve.
So he drops his pants.
"I'll take that into consideration," says Eve.
Hargomme explains that nicknames aren't always logical.
Dick comes back, they saddle up and head out. Hargomme goes back to his room to grab the book about fairies, then trumps to join them on the road.
Ride down to Garnath and into Arden to the start of the Black Road, and along a path just to the north of the Road. Learn that the fairies involved in the rites were Sidhe, human-sized fairies that travel in tribes.
As we ride, we see the twinkling lights of pixies in the forest.
Come to three rangers and two Sidhe, tall, white-haired, man and woman, arguing with one of the rangers about the lack of protection, that Rangers aren't upholding their end of the treaties. Torches have been set into the ground around the area.
On the black road, a pentacle made with a white substance; three naked Sidhe girls (pre-adolescent) with heads in the middle of the pentagram, bodies outward in an equilateral triangle, hearts cut out of their chests and no longer there.
Hargomme and Alyddia get a closer look at the pentacle; it appears to have been drawn in salt. No other signs of violence on the girls except for the missing hearts. Strange lack of blood. Hargomme mumbles, "Brand."
Eve asks the ranger talking to the Sidhe what they've found out so far. He says Julian and fifty men took off down the black road to investigate, though the ranger does not know whether they had a lead. Then she asks the Sidhe whether there's any particular reason these three girls were chosen. They can think of no reason except perhaps that they were all young virgins. Eve mentions we've been tracking a wizard who has taken body parts of royals, or of those who have undergone rituals to come into adulthood or into their powers; but that doesn't seem to be the case with these three.
Hargomme says, "I'm getting a Trump call." Eve draws her knife and comes to stand next to him. It's Corwin. He wants Hargomme to go find Julian, who isn't answering his trump.
Hargomme, Cole and Eve go, Gareth and Alyddia stay behind. Dick the Ranger goes in front with a lantern, Hargomme in rear with a lantern, Eve and Cole to the sides with bows (Cole on the side closer to the Black Road). They discuss riding on the road itself because it is level and they can go faster, but Dick points out that "things tend to be attracted to you" when you're on the road. So we ride along on the north side of the road, heading west.
After a few minutes they decide that it would be much quicker to ride on the road. They want to ride through about 40 minutes and then get off again before they get to where they think Julian might be; Eve plays through some NIN in her head to estimate 40 minutes for them.
Gareth (to Alyddia): "How do you feel about the fact that the Thelbanians are being held prisoner?"
Carl: "Huh? Who?"
Michele: "The soldiers we brought back from Squid... World."
---
Gareth (thinking of how to get Thelbanians away from guards): "Sleeping gas."
Alyddia: "Do you know where some is?"
Russ points to napping flatulent Pippin.
---
Alyddia: "Is there a way of seeing in the dark that doesn't involve electronics?"
Gareth: "Carrots...."
---
After 40 minutes of riding, we stop and Hargomme tries to trump Julian. No answer, not even when he pushes. We ride on, a little slower, 'til Dick stops us, thinking he heard something over the clop of the horses' hooves. Sounds like muted sounds of battle up ahead, so we pull off the road onto the path on the right. Sounds become more distinct as we step off the road. Hargomme guesses it's about a mile ahead. Eve suggests they extinguish their lights so they don't ride up to a battle as bright shiny targets. Dick blows his light out and hangs it on his saddle, Hargomme shutters his and keeps carrying it. Eve has an arrow at the ready. We proceed at a fast walk/trot. New moon, very dark.
We see that Julian's men are engaged with some supernatural creatures, man-sized or smaller, some flying, that are still on the Black Road. The rangers are between us and the creatures, so we decide to sneak through the woods on foot to attack from behind. All of Julian's men appear to be engaged; we appear to be outnumbered.
Hargomme contacts Corwin, gives a terse summary of our situation. Corwin offers to send reinforcements. We finish flanking, trump Corwin back to pull troops through just inside the edge of the trees.
We see that Sidhe have already flanked from this side, they're riding in on a mist with red-eyed black dogs, fighting with bows and javelins.
Corwin sends extra soldiers through Trump to Hargomme, then sends through Gareth, who has returned to the Castle.
Eve gets a trump call from Alyddia, who brings a very bored Deirdre through to kick some ass. Alyddia comes through as well. Hargomme hangs back with Alyddia and Gareth to await another call from Corwin. Cole and Eve charge forward with Deirdre. They see that the light source on the Pattern is flanked by three Hellmaidens with white, pupil-less eyes; Deirdre immediately closes with one. Eve shoots at another from behind a tree.
Other opponents: zombielike pasty-faced men; winged critters, 4 or 5 ft tall, tan, pointed features, horns, leathery bat wings, holding swords, long talons; large, anaconda-sized snakes (but fast like cobras).
Eve lines up a good shot on one of the Hellmaidens; at the last minute she turns and parries the arrow with her sword.
She notices that Cole and Deirdre have both closed on another Hellmaiden; she manages to get a shot when the Hellmaiden is distracted. Hellmaiden notices the arrow coming but doesn't have time to react; it hits her in the chest and bursts into flames. Deirdre sees her chance, swings with her battleaxe, and practically cleaves the Hellmaiden in two. The other two Hellmaidens scream as the first goes down in flames.
Hargomme comes around from the other side as Deirdre and Cole close with the second one. They are directly across the glowing portal from which the other beasties are emerging, so Eve doesn't have a clear shot; but they are able to take her down quickly. Eve notices that some of the zombie-critters have noticed her arrows and are moving in her direction.
Suddenly the portal flares up into a bright white light, then collapses in on itself; everything goes very dark.
The last thing Eve saw was a snake headed in her direction; so she draws her sword and relies on her instincts and her other senses. After a moment she becomes aware of something directly in front of her. She swings broadly, several times; hears several hisses and a thunk, then silence.
When she regains her night vision, sees the third Hellmaiden trying to retreat down the Black Road flanked by all of the other baddies. Eve moves to cut her off; closes at the same time that Hargomme arrives from the other side and Deirdre arrives from behind, followed by Cole and Julian. The Hellmaiden goes down quickly.
Julian glares at Deirdre. "Didn't it occur to you that we might want a prisoner to interrogate?"
Deirdre holds up her battleaxe. "You want a piece of this?"
Julian gives her a withering stare. Eve chooses this moment to say snidely, "Hi Julian. Nice to see you again." Julian ignores her.
Cole goes with Deirdre to get drunk.
Gareth, who passed out when he and Fiona pushed their Pattern lenses into the portal to close it, goes back to Amber to sleep.
Hargomme and Eve go to talk to Julian, try to find evidence of the missing Sidhe hearts or what caused the portal to open. Hargomme tells Julian to trump Corwin. Julian is grumpy.
Eventually what look like charred remains of hearts are found where the three Hellmaidens were standing.
Hargomme returns to the castle, Eve goes to the Ranger fort to drink. She sees a post: archery contest, winner gets a Hellpuppy! Only rangers need apply.
Like that's gonna stop her.