Extracts from the Journal of

Chapter VII
Amber, 113 PPF - Hell, date unknown

Facilis descensus Averno (The descent to Avernus is easy)

- Virgil

e concentrated, the six of us, on Esmée's Trump, with only Tristan holding back, in case any shapeshifters turned up to find out what we'd done with their wall. We had agreed, without too much argument, that if we couldn't just drag her through to us, then I would go through to her and adjust matters so that we could. At first we seemed to be getting nowhere, but then, with an agonising, glacial lethargy, a contact began to form. "There's a barrier," muttered Tamarind through clenched teeth. I blinked a bead of sweat from my right eye and redoubled my efforts. I realised, of course, in some vaguely rational place at the back of my mind, that mine was the least of the mental contributions to this group effort of will, and that I would be of little use to Esmée if I stumbled through the Trump link half-dead from exhaustion. The rest of me, however, was focused entirely on establishing that link in the first place, whatever the cost. Our combined psyches continued to inch through the obstructing shield, and then at last an image wavered into view, and we could see her. It's always struck me as somewhat trite to resort to such expressions as "my heart skipped a beat", but sometimes the language of Dworkin and his descendants, for all its subtleties and for all that it encompasses all the tongues of Shadow, fails you, and cliché becomes your only resort. I felt a distinct lurch in my chest, and a surge of nausea about six inches further down. I had expected, if indeed we managed to get through to her at all, to find her drugged or restrained, possibly in a hospital bed not unlike the one in which I had awoken just a few hours previously. This was worse. Esmée appeared to be walking down a hallway, in what looked remarkably like Castle Arden. She was being led by a single chain secured around one wrist, the other end being held by the spitting image of Julian, looking even more cold and implacable than usual as he strode along the corridor ahead of her. She was also, impossibly, heavily pregnant. But the thing that inspired the wobble in my cardiac rhythm was the expression of misery and despair etched into her face. I knew without having to ask, that someone, with great care and deliberation, had taken her and systematically broken her. What had been done to myself and the others had at least served some conceivable tactical end. This was the work of an individual who revelled in the infliction of terror for terror's sake. Esmée was staring at us in disbelief, and then the faintest flicker of hope passed across her features, a sight even more wrenching than the anguish it replaced. I found I couldn't speak. It was Flora who recovered her voice first. "Esmée, what happened to you?" she gasped. Tamarind, more practical, burst in with "What powers does the chain hold?" He seemed to suspect that it was the source of the barrier that we had managed to breach, and which even now was frustrating our attempts to establish a physical contact. "None," said Esmée, "I don't know. Nothing seems to work here." Her hair was black, I suddenly realised, rather than her preferred blonde, her eyes more blue than violet. Even her discretely cosmetic shapeshifting was being suppressed. However, she was not so cowed that she lacked the presence of mind to sub-vocalise. I seized upon this slight spark of encouragement, and found my voice again. "Help us strengthen the contact so we can reach you," I told her. She had a strong mind, more powerful than a good few of us at our end of the contact, and I was sure that she could tip the balance. She tried, and I reached for her as she reached for me. Our fingers touched - and then simply passed through each other. At this point Julian turned on her and with chilling casualness struck her across the face, sending her stumbling into the wall. "Stop dawdling and come on," he told her. Esmée straightened and allowed herself to be led onwards. She said nothing, but a tear trickled down her cheek. This kind of treatment was obviously something she had become used to. I swallowed down bile, fighting the impulse to be sick. "Help me," Esmée begged us, "This is hell. I can't stand it. Get me out of here. Please." I tried to reach for her again, and again my hand went through hers as if it wasn't there. "It's not a barrier," Tamarind was saying, "It's something about the place she's in. Something's missing from it ..." Caine seemed to be nodding in agreement. Certain Shadows, I knew, possessed curious properties that did indeed inhibit the use of Trumps. But what Tamarind was describing was quite the opposite, an absence of quality. Something, more than the scene itself, wasn't right. Ibrahim voiced what I was beginning to suspect as well. "Could it be just in her mind?" he said, "And we're just seeing what she's seeing?" Esmée, to whom the distinction was probably rather academic, chose neither to confirm or deny this. But this made a certain amount of sense - the lack of physical contact despite the apparent absence of an active opposition; her advanced state of pregnancy, which even two days in the fastest of fast time Shadows could hardly have achieved; and not least her own implied suggestion that she was trapped inside a manifestation of her worst fears and nightmares. In a way it was possible to draw some encouragement from this notion - it at least meant that none of what was happening to her was real, however real it might seem. However, it also meant that what I was about to attempt would be all the more difficult. I began concentrating on her surroundings, not so much on the way they looked as the way they felt. I wanted to be sure of ending up in the right place when I walked the Pattern and teleported there, wherever and whatever 'there' might be. Out of the corner of my eye I could see Tristan concentrating on another Trump, and then Julian - the real Julian - appeared beside him and immediately joined our frustratingly tenuous link with Esmée. Esmée's eyes widened as she saw her father appear beside us. His eidolon continued to stroll along in front of her, still apparently oblivious of her contact with the outside. "Daughter, what is this place?" demanded Julian. I could hear a tremour in his voice, possibly first palpable emotion I'd ever observed in him. "I don't know," wailed Esmée, "Just get me out of here." "Why haven't you brought her through?" Julian growled at the rest of us. "Because we can't," I snapped, rather more harshly than I'd intended. I could feel Julian immediately applying his mind to bolster the contact. I continued trying to commit to memory the sense or aura of Esmée's locale. As I did so, I heard Caine suddenly address Tamarind. "Can you feel that?" he said quietly. Tamarind frowned. "There's someone - or something - watching this link," said Caine, "At Esmée's end. It seems to be all around her. I've never seen anything like it." Tamarind nodded slowly. I couldn't sense anything in particular along these lines, but then the Trumps weren't my area of expertise. However, I added the knowledge to my inventory of site signatures. Every little helped. Tristan was asking Random if he should try to contact Bleys, or if the Jewel of Judgement might help. By this stage I might have been willing to accept aid even from the former, but the latter was nearer to hand. Random waved his fingers to spell out the combination as Tristan fiddled with the safe on the wall. Then the Jewel was pressed into Random's hand and within seconds of his donning it, a new influx of power flowed into the link. Esmée was starting to look hopeful again, but I could see that she did not expect it to work. I set aside my Pattern-walking plan for the moment, and reached out to her again. "If we can make contact this time," I told the others, "I'll go through and engage the other Julian. Once he lets go of the chain, pull Esmée through and then Trump me. I'll have a look for Margot and Caleb while I'm there." This was probably a good way of committing suicide, warned a faint voice inside me, especially given that it had taken a full fifteen minutes just to force the initial contact with Esmée, but in the absence of any other course of action immediately open to us, nobody raised any objections. Yet for a third time my hand passed uselessly through Esmée's, and I could see my own despair mirrored and magnified in her eyes. I was sure that the Jewel had strengthened the link, but it was as if there was simply nothing physical to latch on to. Caine however wanted to try something else - if Random would permit it, he might be able to direct the power of the Jewel to try and fry the watching presence. I could sense Random redirecting the Jewel's energies through Caine, and then I could feel the elusive Watcher as well. Or rather, I could hear it - a sudden, and oddly feminine-sounding, roar of pain surging up through the contact. Then the Julian leading Esmée abruptly turned and grabbed her by the throat. Ibrahim in desperation lashed out with Eric's sword, trying to sever the chain. The addition of a Pattern blade to the Trump link, not to mention to the melange of powers currently in play, proved too much. The contact fell apart, and Esmée was gone. I staggered out of the group, shaking. I'd felt this blind, sick terror only once before, when I discovered the shattered crown of Upper and Lower Egypt amidst the carnage of Nitocris' throne room. But then I'd been facing a known enemy of more or less known powers, and I'd possessed a fairly good idea of my chances of effecting a rescue. This time I had neither of those advantages. I turned to Random. "You have a Trump of the chamber by the Pattern Room, don't you?" I asked, "I'm going to walk the Pattern. If we can't bring Esmée through to us, then I'm going to her." Random was already holding out the Trump, although some of the others looked dubious. "It may not work," cautioned Tristan. "I don't care," I informed him. "On the other hand," he mused, "it would have the additional benefit of restoring our memories from two days ago ..." Some mercifully brief discussion ensued. I wasn't to go alone, it was decided - Tristan and Julian would be there too - while the others would try and contact Margot. If, as seemed likely, she and her sister were in the same place, then they might be able to attack the watcher by the same means as before and thereby distract it from Esmée, while we of course would be distracting it from Margot. Our chances of rescuing both of them would hence be improved. That, at least, was the plan. So we all Trumped down to the level of the Pattern Room. Random, Caine, Flora, Ibrahim and Tamarind remained in the Trump access chamber, where the proximity of the Pattern would not affect their attempts to Trump Margot. "See you in half an hour or so," I said, more to keep up appearances than anything else. Then Tristan, Julian and I headed for the Pattern Room itself, a relay of guards posted between the two locations to permit the coordination of our endeavours. The vast intricate spiral of the Pattern lay glowing in front of us. "Who goes first?" asked Tristan, adding rather unnecessarily, "I don't want to fight any duels over it." "I will," I said, already heading for the start. I glanced at Julian. He nodded, almost imperceptibly. "I know you have ... some feelings for her," he said. "Yes," I said, swallowing hard, "I do." I didn't know if this was meant as a peace offering or merely as a truce. Contrary to what some others might tell you, I've never actually disliked Julian. The animosity was entirely on his side. I reached the beginning of the Pattern. No doubt I would find out which it was after we returned with Esmée. Blue-white sparks rose up around my ankles as I set foot on the Pattern. I proceeded as quickly as I could. There was hardly any point in not forcing the pace, because the Pattern leaves you little choice in the matter. I was going to arrive at our destination drained and exhausted either way. And in any case, I didn't want Tristan or Julian catching up with me before I got to the centre. Patterns do not come equipped with lay-bys. I forced myself through the First Veil, and was rewarded with the unwelcome memory of lying in my crib, a red-haired giant looking down at me. I hadn't dredged that up the last time I walked the Pattern, nor indeed on any previous occasion. The inchoate perceptions of the infant Mortlake made it hard for my adult self to interpret his expression. Presumably he was congratulating himself on his gall for coming back to Medmenham. "Bastard," I muttered. I couldn't seem to get away from him these days. Behind me, Tristan had already set out. I pushed myself onwards, the sparks rising to my waist. The Second Veil threw up recollections of my arrival in Amber: the deaths of Julian's rangers; the curious faces surrounding me in the throne room; the circular debates; my finally siding with Julian on the obvious solution; my first Pattern walk ... Then I was on the Grand Curve, and the images faded again. I couldn't see much beyond the sparkling discharge that all but enveloped me, but Julian, several circuits behind, was overtaking me on the outside. Tristan was somewhere out of sight behind me. I ploughed on, step by step, finally approaching the Third and final Veil. Expeditions to far flung Shadows, to R'lyeh, Irem and Shamballah ... Esmée getting bored with playing hard to get, suddenly turning to me and saying "Let's do it. Right here." ... the sky of Chaos, and the Citadel disintegrating beneath it ... Nitocris, the features of her new face remolding themselves as she vomited sea water over the side of my makeshift raft ... the two of us walking into the Grand Ball Room as heads turned and conversations died ... the confrontation in the Vaults of Kish ... the day she returned the velociraptor ... approving a new batch of anti-Bleys posters ... awaking in the inn, aware of an intruder ... a flicker of magick, and a dimly lit figure looming over me ... same uniform, same face - the applied meteorologist from atop Kolvir ... two spikes not unlike ice-picks jutting from his palm, and a sudden agony in my head ... damn, he was fast, even if I'd still been half-asleep ... then finding myself in the city of the dead ... I seemed to be frozen on the spot, poised on the final twist and turn that would free me from the Third Veil and deposit me in the Pattern's centre. Best practice dictated that I ignore all else and force myself through that last barrier before the Pattern got tired of waiting and set about consuming me. So instead, I reached back for another memory of Esmée ... Her smile had been as arch as it had been dazzling. It had been less than a week ago, and she had been teasing me about the imminent return of Bleys. No-one else but Esmée could get away with that. If the price for getting her back had been a big welcome home parade for the odious man then I would have organised it myself. "I'm sure he's even more handsome than his portraits," she had said. Thus armed with her image, I took the last two steps and collapsed to my knees in the middle of the Pattern. A few minutes later Tristan wobbled up and joined me. Julian followed, and he wasn't even staggering. However, I thought I noted a hint of a tear in one corner of his eye. I wondered vaguely how the sight of Esmée's vision of hell had affected him. Maybe the Pattern had been playing back to him scenes of attempted parent discipline, culminating in the point where she had finally rebelled and ceased, for all practical purposes, to be his daughter. Feeling sorry for Julian isn't really the done thing, but then I've always preferred to lead rather than to follow fashion. The sparks thrown up by our passage were settling, although I could feel the gargantuan power of the Pattern pulsing around us. It was expecting us to get on with it and bugger off somewhere, and was starting to wonder why we were still hanging around. We were waiting for the signal that would tell us that the others were starting to get through to Margot. The guard posted in the open doorway kept glancing sideways down the corridor, but the signal was taking its time. Maybe I'd been making more of a difference to the first contact than I'd thought. I glanced at Tristan and Julian. "We're aiming for the feel of the place, not the appearance," I reminded them, although my tone posed it more as query requiring confirmation. Tristan nodded. I'd originally been prepared to do this alone, but it would be embarrassing for all concerned if I found myself tackling Esmée's captors without backup, while Tristan and Julian stood around in the real Castle Arden scratching their heads. Then the guard by the door nodded to someone out of sight, and waved his arms wildly at us. "Go!" he mouthed. So we went. Nothingness. Faintly misty, no sense of colour. I found myself falling. Tristan was with me, just off to one side, and Julian to the other. We didn't seem to have arrived anywhere in particular, but I could hear the Watcher roaring in agony, all around us. Random and Caine were obviously giving her their fullest attention. This suggested that we were at least headed in the right direction. Then off in the distance something broke through the diffuse monotony of the void, a skyline, reminiscent of some high-tech city. However, our fall was not carrying us towards it. Faintly visible in the opposite direction was an odd structure that took me several seconds to identify as a prison hulk. I immediately thought of Caleb, which implied that the city was somehow connected with Margot. For a brief moment I wondered why the three of them should have been selected for this kind of treatment, while the rest of us had been merely left brain-dead. An elusive ten-year old connection began to form in my mind, but then something was whirling up out of the void beneath us. It looked like Castle Arden. I braced myself to land on the battlements, but we passed straight through them, and then through the walls. I was starting to turn to Tristan so see if he could anchor us in some fashion when my feet hit a floor and I found myself in a lantern-lit bedroom. I don't think I have ever hated as much as I did at that instant. In comparison, my feelings for Bleys were merely a polite loathing. Even my hatred for my mother's late and unlamented murderer paled beside the incandescent rage that suddenly threatened to choke me. I had assumed that the chimera in which Esmée had been trapped had been some hideous parody of parental authority gone mad, the tyrannical father figure bringing an errant daughter to heel. There were two figures on the bed, one pinned beneath the other, and there was a crib in one corner. The child had been born, and until now I'd had half a suspicion that in this artificial nightmare it was supposed to be mine. It had never occurred to me that it was meant to be Julian's. Esmée was crying. I wanted to scream. I don't remember if I actually did. I don't even remember drawing my sword. What I do remember is lunging at the unclad Julian before me as he leapt to confront us. The armoured Julian by my side, the real Julian, was fractionally faster, burying his sword almost to the hilt in his doppelganger's chest. A split second later, Dashwood speared Esmée's tormentor just below the eye, the point exiting from the back of his head. And then Tristan ran him through as well, just for good measure. Most people would have reacted to such concerted and manifest ill-will with at least some degree of chagrin. Julian's simulacrum just laughed, grabbed Dashwood by the blade and wrenched the sword from his head and then from my hand. This, I realised a little belatedly, was not so much a figment of Esmée nightmare as a manifestation of its author. Julian dragged his own sword free and sidestepped, ready to swing again, as Tristan darted round the bed and grabbed Esmée, who was curled up in a ball. The doppelganger snapped my sword in two. He wasn't bleeding from any of his wounds - in fact, he didn't appear to retain any wounds with which to bleed in the first place. I took a step back and drew Wilkes. Either the gun wouldn't work or the bullet would have no effect, but I needed to give Tristan, who was departing via the window with Esmée clutched in his arms, as much time as possible in which to get her away from her captor. So I shot the ersatz Julian between the eyes. I had been right - the gun worked. His response was to laugh again. "You think now that you can escape?" he demanded, savouring the words like some black-hatted villain in a penny dreadful, "You're in my realm now - that makes you mine." And with that, he backhanded the echt Julian across the room. Julian rebounded from the wall, and toppled over, stunned. I retreated far enough to be able to haul him to his feet, and then pushed him in the direction of the window. There was a sword on the wall just a few feet away, so I appropriated it. Ersatz Julian was suddenly between us and the window, conveniently ignoring the intervening distance between that aperture and the bed. Before I could do anything, the real Julian was sailing past me again, to land with a splintering crash on the crib. A screaming baby was deposited at my feet. I gritted my teeth and dragged Julian upright again, and this time aimed for the door. Outside in the corridor was yet another Julian, this one armed and armoured, but still wearing the same snide, gloating expression as his double in the room behind us. I slammed the door in his face, and went for the Julian blocking the route to the window again. There wasn't much else I could do. Tristan, with his power over the Pattern, was our best chance of getting out of here, but the important thing was that he got Esmée away first. The real Julian and I would have to fend for ourselves. I was of course now alert to the likelihood that there was nowhere in this realm beyond the reach of the torturer who wore my uncle's face, and that Tristan and Esmée were faring no better than ourselves. This place seemed to obey the laws of nightmare rather than those of any waking world. My conviction that this ghastly milieu was some wholly psychical construction in which we were not even physically present, seemed to garner further confirmation with every passing moment. Certainly, if I had possessed any lingering doubts, they were to be quickly dispelled. I lunged again with my heavy, borrowed blade only for it to be snatched from my hand again. Ersatz Julian tossed it in the air to catch it by the hilt. The pleasure he demonstrably took in his power over his involuntary guests struck me as being as contemptible as it was odious. Scales seemed to fall away from my eyes, and I beheld him as he truly was, something stunted and cowardly, and - as long as I refused to indulge in his repulsive little game - quite unable to harm me. "I am afraid you are in my realm now," he repeated, adding redundancy and a pathetic paucity of imagination to his crimes, "You're playing by my rules." Well, no. Not any more. I folded my arms. I've faced down gods in the past. He promptly ran me through. Bis peccare in bello non licet, I told myself. In war one may not blunder twice. Once in one day had merely been annoying, twice was not only tedious, but also potentially embarrassing. However, since this wasn't really happening, I decided that it didn't count. I won't deny that it hurt, though. I could feel the blade grating against my ribs, and the agony as one of my lungs collapsed. Then the steel was withdrawn, and was swung round in a blood-flecked arc that I had no way of avoiding. My throat suddenly felt cold, and then I was falling. I was momentarily puzzled by the fact that I seemed to be tumbling end over end towards the floor, despite the fact that I had been standing on it, and tried to raise my arms to break my fall. Unfortunately my arms were still connected to my body, which was toppling in the opposite direction. My head smacked into the stone floor with an impact that almost jarred my eyeballs from their sockets. Despite the pain and the momentary whiteout, I was still perfectly conscious. From my limited vantage point, I could see two pairs of feet facing one another, one set bare, the other armoured. Amber's Julian had obviously returned to the fray. Then his decapitated skull joined mine at floor level, and the armoured pair of feet simultaneously upended themselves as the rest of him fell over backwards. This may not have been real, but it was frustrating. Just as long as Esmée had got away, just as long as she was safe ... That was when I heard the screams and the sepulchral baying of hounds from outside the window. The screams sounded like Tristan's. Ersatz Julian, armoured now that he had actually remembered so to be, bent down and picked us both up. Julian he carried by the hair, myself simply by gouging his fingers into my scalp. It was not unlike being stuck in a vice. I had a hip-level view that kept on turning a blurred red of corridors and a large hallway, and then I was being lifted up towards a candelabra-like device, which seemed to have spikes instead of candle-holders. A sharp point pierced the severed muscles of my neck, and then penetrated the base of my skull. Another whiteout, and when my vision cleared I could make out that Julian had been stuck beside me, and that we were being carried outside. Around the side of the castle was a seething mass of hellhounds. Julian's simulacrum kicked them away, revealing the remains of Tristan. He seemed to have been eaten alive, there being little left of him but his head and a small section of spinal column. He had his eyes closed and seemed to be concentrating fiercely. Ersatz Julian picked him up and added him to candelabra. Tristan seemed to be radiating Pattern energy, although what good it was doing him I couldn't tell. There was no sign of Esmée, but even if she had recovered herself sufficiently to flee, I doubted that she would have got far. Fury and despair washed over me. Failure was galling enough, but what I couldn't forgive was that the person I had failed was Esmée. Whatever further torments were intended for her, I would be helpless to prevent them. Unless ... I still couldn't understand what rational purpose this place might serve, or what possible reason the Council might have had for singling out Esmée, Margot and Caleb to inhabit it. It obviously wasn't to test the resistance of Amberites to stress, since in that case the rest of us would have been incarcerated here instead of being allowed to wander the City of the Dead. Further to that, Esmée's situation bore all the hallmarks of a hell designed purely to afford amusement to its twisted architect. It was certainly of little value in determining the strengths and weaknesses of its victim, since its very construction implied a prior acquaintance with her worst, most personal terrors. I tried not to think about the implications for her relationship with her real father, perched gritting his teeth beside me. But if pseudo-scientific experiment could be ruled out, than the only remotely comprehensible rationale was that this place was a trap, a trap into which we had leapt with the greatest alacrity. They wouldn't have needed very many of us to bait it, just a select few. Which meant that now that the three of us were here, the original victims might possibly gain some respite. If I had currently had a neck and shoulders to provide leverage, I would have shaken my head. This did not sound terrible convincing either. I decided that I might as well face it: we were, in spirit at least, in the hands of a lunatic who wasn't so much maladjusted as beyond reassembly. My own dismembered state was at least an illusory one, a temporary inconvenience until I returned to my real body. Wherever that was: the Pattern could have sent our bodies anywhere, although it didn't seem too unlikely that they had remained behind in Amber. I quickly latched on to this latter notion. The only other glimmers of optimism left open to me were twofold. Firstly, the possibility that the rest of the Family had by now hit upon a successful mode of rescue, even if it was too much to hope that having liberated Margot they might have had time to claw back Esmée as well. I decided however not to ponder the problems of extracting someone from a purely mental construct without actually being in possession of their physical body. And secondly, the hope that even if this hadn't been a trap that had now served its purpose, the supervisor would now be distracted from those who had baited it by having three new subjects to play with. I seemed to have passed beyond rage to somewhere very calm, a state where hatred and fury ceased to boil and froth but instead crystallised into something terribly cold and hard and clear. Until now the Council for Victory had been emerging as a new, if undoubtedly patient and intermittently cunning, enemy. Now they were simply vermin to be exterminated. Furor arma ministrat, as Virgil once took it upon himself to suggest. Well, rage might not supply arms, limbs or anything else of much use to me at the moment, but it was still the quality that was going to permit me to survive this and subsequently hunt down and destroy the self-styled Council like a trio of mad dogs. Just as long - and at that point I felt myself waver slightly - Esmée was going to be all right. And Margot. And Caleb. I tried to remember the flicker of insight I had experienced earlier, as to why they in particular had been chosen for this, the dim recollection of a connection that somehow linked them with Evander. But it was gone. It would come to me in time, and time was something of which I might have a disagreeably large amount on my currently absent hands. Not having an awful lot of choice in the matter, I waited to see what would happen next.

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