Recorded for Posterity by Iain Walker and Jane Winter.
Damien wonders if the magic of the shadow where we found the remains of the HMS Unicorn's Flight (Gerard's flagship) is like that of R'lyeh. He checks, and it is not. This is not altogether bad.
Guided by Tristan, Corvallin flies along the trail through shadow he detected. Damien keeps an eye on the magic as it changes. Tristan wonders if someone should follows the trail backward at the same time as we go forwards in Corvallin. We debate this, but in the end decide not to split up.
As time passes, Tristan thinks we are getting somewhere, catching up with whoever made the trail.
Meanwhile, Tamarind has returned to Amber, where it is the full moon. Tamarind had previously left the Device with Random, so Trumps him, and goes through. Random hands the Device over, in its case. He had the case open and was examining it when Tamarind called. "Do you want any backup?" he asks Tamarind.
"It would be useful," says Tamarind. "But not Brand."
Random volunteers, to get out of the office. He straps on a sword, and gets a bottle of something out of the drinks cabinet.
Tamarind then Trumps them up to the steps on Kolvir. There are guards there (as there have been since shortly after Random came to the throne), and the sky is black above, but clear and star-less (as it has been since the Council for Victory pulled the stars from the sky). The eastern horizon, out to sea, lightens, then the moon rises. The stairs to Tir-Na Nog'th start to form, shimmering into existence up from the three steps, and Tir-Na Nog'th appears in the sky above.
Random waits on the top of Kolvir as Tamarind escalates up the stairs. Tamarind has taken the Device from its case, which he leaves with Random.
In the sky city, Tamarind wanders the Tir-Na Nog'th version of Castle Amber until he gets to the Tir-Na Nog'th version of Beltaine's quarters. There is a shimmering mirrored crystal sphere around them tonight. Tamarind sits, puts the Device into his Trump-enhancing Frame, and concentrates...
After a while he feels as if he is sinking into the Device, his spirit stretching out from his body into it and reaching out in strange, non-Euclidian directions...
After another while, somewhat tired from his exertion by now, he seems to be making contact...
Inside the bubble, Beltaine feels as if she is waking up after a long sleep. She yawns. Is that a Trump call she feels coming on?
"Bel? Can you hear me?" comes Tamarind's psychic voice, loudly.
"Stop shouting!" she replies.
"It's very important you concentrate on this," says Tamarind. We've got to get you out of here."
He reaches out for her, and she reaches back.
They make contact.
Tamarind can see people behind her - Owen and Lucien included - curled up on the floor.
"Do you want to bring anyone else out?" he asks.
"Them," says Beltaine, pointing.
Tamarind tries to include the others in the Cosmic Trump Device field, but he cannot - it is tied specifically to Beltaine. He asks her to touch them instead. She tugs at Owen.
"Where are you?" she wonders.
"Tir-Na Nog'th," says Tamarind. "You were trapped for ... a while."
Beltaine passes Owen and Lucien through the link to Tamarind. She then checks her other servants, but finds that they are dead.
"I had better bring you through now," says Tamarind, and does so.
They share a big hug. Tamarind is tired.
"It worked!" he marvels.
"Are you all right?" Beltaine asks.
"We should go find Gerard now," she continues. She feels good, and seems to have got over her post-Pattern sickness.
"You know about that?" asks Tamarind.
But first he Trumps Random. When he gets through they return to the top of Kolvir, where Random is still waiting, bringing Owen and Lucien with them. Tamarind brings along the Trump statue and Trump Frame too.
Random looks surprised and pleased when Tamarind appears with Beltaine. He hugs her.
They examine Owen and Lucien. They are both alive, but their pulses are racing. Beltaine can sense that they are both dreaming very intensely. Tamarind worries that the others trapped with Beltaine (her other servants) dreamed themselves to death ("Cool," says Beltaine), and they need to be woken up now.
"Oh. OK," says Beltaine.
She reaches down and makes contact with Owen, entering his dreams...
Meanwhile, the rest of us have been following the trail through shadow from where we found the remains of Gerard's flagship - not the shadow path, but the trail left by, it appears, someone using the Pattern. We reach another natural shadow path, and here the trail we are following ends.
This place is further from Amber, with an orange sky and grey sea, slightly magical and with a slightly slower time-flow rate than Amber. Altair thinks it is a little familiar - shadow Caradan, or thereabouts. A coastline is visible in the distance. From what Altair recall Caradan is another luxury-item-exporting shadow.
Tristan checks, and can sense no other unnatural shadow trails here. He has Corvallin move closer to the land, making it probable that cloud will appear to cover our approach. This occurs.
Altair tries to Trump Gerard again, with Damien assisting. Again they have no luck.
Altair does the go-outside-swear-loudly-come-back routine. She then Trumps Caleb, and when she gets through tells him to bring the Morningstar and meet us here.
Corvallin proceeds up the coast, and after a while Altair is able to confirm that this is indeed shadow Caradan. Not long after that we reach the capital city, also called Caradan. It is walled, low and sprawling, spread around a large harbour, with lots of mud-brick huts and a large ziggurat-like temple-palace in the centre.
Castle Corvallin comes down over the city. Guards on the walls run around and bells ring as they respond to this apparent invader. Tristan belatedly has the flag of Amber raised over Corvallin. Doh.
Corvallin lands outside the city; we saddle up, exit Corvallin and ride towards the city to have a chat with the locals.
Back on top of Kolvir, Beltaine sinks into Owen's dreams. She makes herself into a dream-catcher and tries to lure Owen from the dreams in which he is trapped into more normal sleep.
Owen is dreaming of fighting and fleeing. Big battles. Burning cities. Deirdre. A big fight with Corwin... Uh huh.
There is not much of Owen left other than the dreams, Beltaine decides. Ulp. She isolates the Owen from the non-Owen parts and gets out of his dreams. The others, waiting while she does this, see Owen's sleep pattern change - he seems to be sleeping much better now, and more normally.
Tamarind suggests that Caine might be able to help, then suggests that they go to his villa shadow, where she can help Lucien more easily (as it is more magical than Amber).
Beltaine tells Random she is sorry about Martin. Random looks surprised that she knows, but thanks her.
Then Beltaine checks Lucien. He is alive and dreaming very intensely, just like Owen.
Tamarind pulls out his Trump of the villa and concentrates on it. He quickly gets through and he and Beltaine take Lucien, Owen, the Frame, the statue and its box through to the villa. Random also comes along.
Tamarind tells Beltaine she was unreachable for fifteen years.
"I wondered why no-one visited," she says. "We tried!" say Random and Tamarind in unison.
"So I don't have a brother any more? I should have listened to myself in the vision," she says.
Random proposes a toast, and they drink.
Beltaine gives Tamarind her amethyst soulstone. She says she wants to know how to make things like the statue.
"It is a long process," says Tamarind.
Beltaine thinks it feels a bit like Esmée. Which is true - the bits of arm it was made from all had little bits of Esmée's life force in them.
Beltaine then tries to fix Lucien and separate him from his dreams in the same way she did for Owen. She sinks into his dreams. He is dreaming of something urgent he should be - must be - arranging, but it is all going wrong. She tries to bolster his essential Lucien-ness, and by the time she has finished, seems to have done as much towards this as she thinks she can. But she is now quite tired.
They lie down to rest. Tamarind tells Beltaine about the children, and other stuff too.
They drift off to sleep...
Outside the city of Caradan, we ride up to the city gates, now closed.
The gate guards challenge us. They have blue skin and yellow hair, are carrying spears and wearing plain white kilts. Tristan declares who we are, and says that we want to see the Princess. After a bit of mumbling amongst themselves, they open the gate and let us in. In we go, through the streets of the city towards the central temple-palace ziggurat.
As we ride Damien shifts his clothing (the Wardrobe) into more courtly style.
Altair worries that the people who built the ziggurat are into human sacrifice. Damien says that this is not always true, and some of them are into sacred prostitution instead...
As we go the others use the Pattern to tidy themselves up, and in Altair's case to change from the bath-robe she is wearing (after having been diving down to the remains of Gerard's flagship) into proper clothing. Damien tries to fob her off when she keeps asking about the sacred prostitutes.
All the people here seem to be blue-skinned with yellow hair. They stare as we go past because we are weird, in both clothes and colouration. Children run alongside us pointing and laughing.
We are challenged again outside the temple-palace (which is in a walled compound) and once we have explained who we are again are invited in. Servants take our horses and we enter the ziggurat. Inside it is brightly painted and decorated, quite unlike the mud-coloured exterior.
A servant leads us into the palace, then confers with some guards and other servants. She tells us that Princess Derizi will see us now. We are led through the ziggurat, up ramps and along corridors to a large chamber, the entrance to which is covered by richly embroidered curtains. The curtains and pulled aside and we enter the throne room, which seems to be inside the peak of the ziggurat.
Princess Derizi is sat on a golden throne on a dais in the centre of the room. Her skin is royal blue and her hair is golden. She appears to be about twenty-five, and she is a babe.
We bow. She nods to us and asks why we have come here.
Tristan tells her of our quest, and how we followed the pirates here.
Damien asks if any strange ships have been sighted, or strangers in town.
The Princess asks a courtier, who says that a report from a village up the coast said that a ship had appeared, but not through the shadow path.
Ibrahim asks if we can speak to those who saw it?
"Of course," says the Princess.
When asked they say they have not seen Gerard recently, or any sea serpents.
The courtier, Chuak, is assigned to assist us. We thank the Princess and leave. Chuak says he will have people take us to the village. We are led back out through the palace-temple to the courtyard, where our horses are waiting. Tristan is bowing to everyone, only stopping when we start meeting people not important enough to bow to.
Two soldiers are waiting in the courtyard to escort us to the village. Their mounts are big lizard-camel things.
We leave the palace and the city, following the two soldiers. Clip clop. Castle Corvallin follows. As we go the soldiers tell us the village is called Kosila.
After some distance we reach Kosila. The soldiers ask around, mainly talking to the priest at the village temple, and return to tell us that some fishermen saw the ship. The fishing fleet is in, we find, and the soldiers produce the witnesses.
The fisherfolk bow and grovel as befits their station. They say they saw a ship of a type they had not seen before. It looked damaged, but partly repaired. It was a long thin vessel, they say, with four masts, no oars, and no flag; from questioning them we get the impression it was something like a clipper ship, but with triangular dhow-type sails. Altair sketches what we think they have told us and show them. They agree that that is what they saw. They add that the hull was scarred, the sails patched and the railings broken. There was some decoration around the stern. It was also armed. Damien asks about a figurehead. It had one, is all they can say.
They tell us the ship was going 'that way', that is in the away-from-Amber direction along the shadow path.
Tristan, when Damien asks, says that they were definitely moving through shadow using the Pattern. On the other hand, they were using shadow magic earlier. But a family member could just tailor their spells to a particular shadow (leaving out the magic of shadow lynchpin), resulting in the same effect.
Altair Trumps Caleb. When she gets through he says he is en route. We give the villagers some money to thank them for their help and go through to him, on the Morningstar.
Tristan takes the wheel from Caleb and we zoom off through shadow. Altair orders the last few sails to be raised and the speed of the Morningstar increases still further.
We reach the shadow path and zoom off along it at more then seventy knots...
In his villa Tamarind sleeps the sleep of the exhausted. He has weird dreams, but doesn't remember their details upon waking. Beltaine sleeps the sleep of the simply tired.
He and Beltaine wake up. They are snuggled up together on some big cushions. Beltaine pokes Tamarind to see if he's real. He seems to be.
There is no sign of Random, but he has left a note pleading affairs of state forcing him to return to Amber.
"Gerard," says Beltaine.
"What about Owen and Lucien?" asks Tamarind, then decides. "They are safe here. Although everyone knows about this place."
"That's not safe, silly man," says Beltaine. "They should be somewhere realer," she adds.
They decide to summon Esmée to sit with them.
Beltaine only has a night-gown to wear, but it turns out that Tamarind has wardrobes full of women's clothing in the villa. Just don't ask.
Tamarind uses the Pattern to ensure some of them fit Beltaine. She gets dressed.
Tamarind Trumps Esmée. She is still in the medieval place she was before. He asks for a favour - some people need watching over - Owen and Lucien.
She realises what this means. "Beltaine is out?" she asks hopefully.
She comes through the Trump link, runs over to Beltaine and gives her a hug. A big reunion takes place.
Beltaine points to Owen and Lucien.
"We need someone we trust to look after them," says Tamarind.
Esmée issues a coded warning that Brand is about.
Tamarind Trumps Altair.
On the Morningstar, Altair feels a Trump call coming on and checks her deck (Trump deck, not the ship's deck). She finds that it is Tamarind, and takes the call. Tamarind looks smug as the Trump link opens up. "It was a success, or you got laid," she says to him.
Tristan, hearing this, lets go the ship's wheel. Damien and Ibrahim grab it before the ship can spin out of control.
Tamarind and Beltaine come through.
Tristan immediately dashes over and hugs her. Beltaine bursts into tears. There are tears in Tristan's eyes too. Drinks are brought up from below. Tamarind is congratulated. Altair and Beltaine say hello (Gerard introduced them while Altair's existence was still a secret)
Beltaine says Owen and Lucien are recovering having lost bits of themselves into their dreams, so she has cocooned what is left and is letting it germinate in their minds.
Tamarind says Beltaine knows what is happening. Beltaine suggests a Trump scrying for Gerard. Tristan is enthusiastic. Altair is sceptical.
Once the scrum clears Damien gives Beltaine a hug. "You OK?" she asks carefully.
Damien grins. He is still Obviously Mad Damien.
"You won your bet," he says.
"I know," she replies.
"Make up a forfeit, then."
"Wear pastels to the next party," she says.
"All right," agrees Damien.
We continue to zip through shadow. Tristan tells Beltaine what we've found so far. Altair checks her charts. The Liberty Islands lie ahead, which she knows is, among other things, a place where pirates hang out. She tells Tristan that we are going somewhere where there are dodgy people, and that he should restrain himself. Tristan reminds her that he is no longer Lord Legislator.
Beltaine, down below, does a Trump scrying regarding Gerard, using her soulstones as well. Tamarind helps. Beltaine borrows the amethyst soulstone back from Tamarind for this.
Damien and Ibrahim watch the rapidly-changing magic as they zip through shadow and work on holding their racked spells (and for Ibrahim his empowered items) together.
Beltaine finishes laying out the Trumps, and scatters the soulstones across the spread of cards. Looking at the layout, the Trumps seem to say that Gerard is alive but in trouble. He is imprisoned, but this is incidental to some other end which appears to be monetary or political in nature.
Of the soulstones, the rose, red and amethyst ones land in significant positions. Beltaine thinks that the rose soulstone is associated with Gerard, the others being associated with the opposition. No other family members turn up, other than Altair in the resolution position in the spread.
They sketch the spread for future reference and put the cards away. In doing so, they discover Caine's Trump, hidden under another card in the spread, in a position relating to the means used to trap Gerard. Strange. They note this, then come back on deck and tell the rest of us.
Tamarind wonders if the opposition are shades (on the basis of the soulstones), who need Gerard to become more real. Or something like that.
Altair wonders if people who have been dead count as ghosts. Beltaine knows we have been dead. She seems to have been aware of most of what has happened while she was 'cocooned'.
We wonder is we could sit on Caine and live. [This idea makes more sense in context. Allegedly.]
Altair quizzes Tamarind regarding the Trump Frame and the means by which he achieved Beltaine's return. Then she admits to us that a lot of her crew are not legitimate types, and that most of the family, including the King, do not know about the Morningstar. She adds that many of her crew were recruited in the Liberty Islands.
We suspect that the appearance of Caine in the reading is symbolic. Perhaps it means that Gerard was nobbled by Trump, or, Damien speculates, has had his spirit shunted into a weaker body in that way that Caine seems able to do.
"It seems likely that Gerard just turned up at the wrong time and had to be dealt with," says Altair.
Tamarind wonders if the attacks in the shipping lanes were intended to lure interested parties (Gerard) into a trap.
Beltaine thinks that the reading definitely suggests that his involvement is incidental to the monetary or political thing.
We discuss how to deal with the local pirates. If they are superstitious, Beltaine can do illusions to prey on this.
By now Altair thinks we have just reached the Liberty Islands. We are going through fog, which Altair says is the normal weather of this shadow; somehow the fog stays despite there being wind here. The only land is islands in the midst of shifting sand bars, all dangerous to ships. Tristan can tell that there are four shadow paths leading from this shadow.
A ship is looming up to one side. It looks like a two-masted armed merchantman.
"We should ask them questions," says Tristan.
"Prepare to board!" Altair tells her crew.
"Er..." says Tristan.
The Morningstar zooms up alongside the other ship, screeches to a stop and we board.
Altair jumps across first and takes out her frustration on the drunk and disorganised crew, beating up a few.
Tristan and Tamarind follow.
Damien waits until the ships touch then steps across, as does Ibrahim. Our new friends welcome us with open cutlasses.
Damien wanders towards the poop deck, side-stepping pirates on the way.
Tamarind can see the captain (who is on the poop deck) from here, and does a quick (very quick) Trump sketch of him.
However, Damien reaches the Captain first, and sits on the binnacle. "I wonder if we could have a word?" he asks.
Beltaine watches the fun from the Morningstar, waiting to throw magic about if necessary.
"Get off my ship, you scurvy dogs," says the captain, swinging for Damien with his cutlass.
Damien parries him easily.
"Four masted clipper, dhow rig, came through a few days ago. Seen it?" asks Damien. He disarms the captain; his sword flies overboard and splashes into the sea.
Tamarind has finished his Trump sketch now and Trumps the captain. The captain's mind is weak and quickly crumbles under this psychic assault. Tamarind roots him to the spot. These lightning Trump sketches are good!
To cut a long story short, we capture the ship in short order.
"Ring any bells?" Damien asks the captain, again.
"Who wants to know?" he wibbles.
"Just answer the question," says Tristan.
"Yes, a ship like that came by a couple of days ago," he says, caving in.
Altair rants at the luckless captain, making blissfully little sense.
"The 'Firespirit'," says the captain. "That was its name."
He says that the crew looked swarthy. The figurehead was of a flame-patterned woman. They went towards one of the Free Towns, which is also in the same direction as one of the shadow paths out of this shadow.
Altair heaves the captain overboard. Before we leave, Altair asks if any of the crew of this ship want to join her crew, having already inducted one of this ship's crew who talked back to her.
One or two agree, board the Morningstar, and we sail on...
As we go, Altair asks Beltaine if she can make the Morningstar look like a ghostly, damaged version of the Firespirit. She wants to freak out the pirates.
"Won't it look odd if we ask if they've seen us before and we ask where we were going?" asks Tristan.
"Ghosts always ask where they're going," says Altair.
"True," says Damien. "They tend to be a bit confused."
There is a discussion about different kinds of ghost. Damien says there are three kinds, namely:
This is Damien's current Theory Number One. An alternative hypothesis, based on Egyptian views of the afterlife, is that spirits are modular, and have different components that go their separate ways. The ka ends up in the land of the dead along with sah or life-force, plus the spiritual body, only for the sah to get leached away and recycled. The ba (or some other bit) is what gets left in Shadow for necromancers to play with. Damien's hope is that if this is true, the bit that gets left behind is not essential.
Altair wants to know about sacred prostitution again.
"I'll lend you a book," says Damien.
"I've heard about your books," says Altair. "They're not safe."
Pause. "I'll land you a safe one," says Damien.
We try using Tamarind's Trump Frame to try and Trump Gerard, in the hope that the Frame will boost the Trump's power and so enable contact to be made. Altair, Tamarind and Beltaine (those of us with the strongest minds) put in the greater part of the effort. The rest of us assist, but are not planning on passing out through over-exertion.
We concentrate, but do not have any luck. Eventually, Tamarind falls unconscious. Clonk. Tristan abandons the effort. Damien does too, wandering off to get a drink. Beltaine falls over. Damien gets her a drink too. Everyone else drops out the Trump call, leaving only Caleb and Altair to continue. Altair falls over after an hour, still with no joy. Damien tells Caleb he can stop now, so he does, looking tired.
We sail on. The others gradually come round.
We wonder why it didn't work, but it is pointed out that if Gerard was unconscious that would probably suffice.
Tamarind says it was different with Beltaine - he had to attune himself to her, her situation and so on over a long period of time to get through.
We sail on towards one of the Liberty Island Free Ports that Altair knows is ahead. She uses the Pattern to ensure that we do not run aground on the frequent shifting sandbars here.
"If I go to sleep, will someone wake me up?" asks Beltaine.
Tristan offers to sit with her.
"Yes, please," says Beltaine.
Damien hangs a spell or two. Ibrahim rests.
Damien concocts a version of his militia spell - a 'Chain Shot' spell - and hangs it.
Eventually we reach the Free Port. Everyone wakes up or is woken up. Altair gets Beltaine a hooded cloak to hide that fact that she is in a near-ghostly state (it being the full moon back in Amber, after all).
A harbour entrance emerges from the fog. Ibrahim sends his desert eagle, Tora, to spy the place out, looking through her eyes. He reports that none of the ships currently in the harbour look like our quarry.
Beltaine tells Tamarind that someone should check her rooms in Amber to see if she is still there - she might be a ghost still. Tristan insists she is real.
We sail into the harbour and dock.
A dodgy-looking man in a shabby-looking uniform comes up to where we are docked. He introduces himself as the harbourmaster, and demands a docking fee.
"Screw you," says Altair.
Tristan gives him a bag of gold.
Altair grabs him and demands information on the Firespirit.
"They'll kill me!" he gurgles.
"By the time they find out you'll have been able to run," Damien notes. "You can't run from her," he continues, indicating Altair.
We notice that several hard-looking dockside types are sneaking up on us with malice aforethought.
Altair drags the harbourmaster aboard.
"They were in a few days ago, needed battle damage repairs, paid in gold, were heavily laden," says the harbourmaster quickly.
The captain didn't give his name, he continues. He was old, swarthy, twisted as if by injury. His left arm was hanging by a thread - he made a show of it. It was held on by silver wires. He only had one eye.
We show him our Trumps in case he recognises anyone, but he does not. He says the captain of the Firespirit is perhaps a bit like Benedict. Uh oh.
"Not another one," groans Damien.
"Another what?" asks Beltaine.
"The Benedictines," says Ibrahim, meaning the Benedict-descended members of the Council for Victory.
Tristan recalls Finndo and Osric, but when Tamarind produces their Trumps, the harbourmaster does not recognise them. And anyway, we do not scar, so it looks like he is more likely to be a shadow than Family.
"Maybe it's someone built from missing bits," muses Beltaine.
On the whole, the person we are after does sound a bit like family. A distant shadow of Benedict, perhaps?
"They sailed on to Calibera," says the harbourmaster. Altair knows that this is a shadow even further from Amber than here. "Or at least in that direction. They left yesterday."
Tamarind wants to speak to the people who worked on repairing the Firespirit.
"I'll go escort the harbourmaster while he looks for them," says Damien.
"Mistress Marianne - the local sorceress - might know if they had sorcerers," volunteers the harbourmaster.
Damien leaves the Morningstar with the harbourmaster. The others stay on board as the Morningstar un-docks and sails on. Damien goes with the harbourmaster to talk to people who worked on the Firespirit.
The Morningstar sails back out to sea.
As they go Beltaine asks Altair which are the good bits of a ship to break (bits of the other ship, that is). Altair gives her some pointers.
Tristan gives Altair wind again (as it were) and they zoom along the shadow path. However, despite the wind the fog remains - it seems to be a feature of the shadow.
Back in the Free Port, Damien talks to dockyard workers. There is one called Jethro who worked on the Firespirit. Damien asks him about names.
Jethro says that Mr Carag was one mate. Mr Alarius and Mr Alkura were the others. They were all swarthy types, and looked like they had been in the wars. The ship needed lots of things replaced, and it was definitely a rush job.
Damien presses him on the nature of the repairs. Jethro says the Firespirit's crew did not let the dock workers do repairs on the stern, below decks - they did that themselves.
"Did you overhear anything?" asks Damien.
Jethro says he overheard them saying, "As long as we have the hostage, none of them will be able to touch us." But he did not hear them say anything about a cargo or destination. He says they did buy ammunition, as if they had used a lot in battle.
Damien asks if any of the repairs were more rushed than others.
"The rigging and masts needed most work," says Jethro.
"Some people may have been lackadaisical in their efforts," speculates Damien.
He pays Jethro for his trouble and leaves. Then he uses the Pattern to make it likely that some of the repair work on the Firespirit was indeed shoddy.
Having done this thing he Trumps Altair.
On the Morningstar, Tristan looks at Altair's charts. The next shadow is one of limitless ocean. This will possibly slow them down somewhat.
It is possible that we might be able to get ahead of them - if we had a Trump of a shadow further along their projected course. We speculate that Caine might be sad enough to have drawn Trumps of everywhere...
Altair identifies and accepts Damien's Trump call. He comes through to the Morningstar.
Damien tells everyone what he has learned. He also notes that someone who can use the Pattern should not have needed to put in to do repairs - they should just be able to shift the damage away en route.
"Are we putting Gerard in danger by following them?" asks Beltaine.
"We could call their bluff," says Ibrahim.
"We catch up, we scry Gerard's general location, then Trump or teleport there should a 'we'll shoot the hostage' situation ensue," says Damien.
"I can mess with any blocking magic," says Beltaine.
Damien begins to hang a scrying spell - a roving eye kind of thing.
We take to one of the Morningstar's jollyboats to nip ahead along the shadow path using the Pattern, while Caleb takes over the Morningstar to follow along the path itself. He says he will Trump us if he notes anything unusual.
Damien points out that even if Gerard was nabbed opportunistically, the perpetrators were still lurking in that shadow planning something, because their 'hide everything we have done' evidence-erasing spell was designed for that shadow alone.
We shift at Tristan-speed 'around' the shadow path to a jungle shadow beyond the shadow of infinite ocean, and wait.
It is hot and humid here. There is also a huge amount of insect-noise. "Shut up!" says Beltaine. The insects shut up. Silence descends.
Tamarind plays his lute to make up for the lack of background noise.
We argue about the best illusory disguise to put over the boat. Damien thinks tropical driftwood is better than a rock. Ibrahim casts a spell to disguise us accordingly.
Damien finishes hanging his scrying spell. Altair goes for a swim. The piranhas seem to be elsewhere at present.
And we wait...
After a while Tristan exits the illusion spell to Trump Caleb. When he gets through Caleb tells him that he has not seen anything. But they have not reached us yet. Damien suggests Tristan join Caleb and have a more thorough look about. This he does, and before long the Morningstar hoves into view, having caught up to us without finding the Firespirit. We re-board the Morningstar and sail on.
The shadow path exits the jungle shadow and the Morningstar reaches a shadow of small inhabited islands with channels between. Tristan hails a fisherman in a dinghy and asks after the Firespirit. The fisherman says it has not been past. Damn.
We discuss what to do next.
With Tristan's permission Damien borrows Castle Corvallin to follow the shadow path onwards, just in case. The others double back.
While they travel, Tamarind Trumps Random. When Random takes the call Tamarind tells him that there is no news of Gerard yet.
In return Random tells him that the Tir-Na Nog'th 'bubble' which had sealed off Beltaine's rooms has gone. Some dead servants have been found inside. Random adds that there are a lot of people who want to welcome Beltaine back. Tamarind passes this on to her.
"Where can we go next?" she wonders, clearly filled with enthusiasm at the thought of a queue of well-wishers.
Damien shifts along the shadow path, using the Pattern to make the clouds the same colour as Corvallin's underside. The castle's observers man the walls, peering out through telescopes.
The others debate how to scry for Gerard in a given shadow. Beltaine considers wandering through people's dreams as one way of doing so.
Tristan shifts us directly back to the Liberty Island Free Port, to begin the search there.
The harbourmaster turns up again when we dock, not looking terribly happy. He is clearly torn between not wanting to have anything to do with us and what he fears we may do to him if he doesn't. Ibrahim asks him if the Firespirit has been back. The harbourmaster says that it has not.
Altair goes up into the town, asking people where her dad is, starting fights in inns, and getting drunk. Tamarind slips off to shadow her. People tell her lots of stuff, such as that this a really good shadow for hiding out in, and that lots of pirates do, but at that point none of this is considered relevant...
Beltaine nods off to peer into people's dreams and scry about. She floats off. Tristan can feel her drift away from her body. She looks for powerful things, Gerard, Family members, the one-armed semi-Benedict look-alike, the Firespirit, and other things of relevance. Wheee...
She scrys about the shadow. There is magic in several places here, both within the Free Port and elsewhere. She senses powerful warding spells on another island, with a ship near to it. She can also sense Pattern on the island, personalised - it is Gerard! More strangely, there is also another being with a Pattern imprint, this one very diffuse - too much so to identify - underwater, and moving about by the ship.
She returns to her body, awakens, and tells Tristan what she has found.
Tristan Trumps Damien, and when he gets through tells him, "We've completely lost him." This is for the sake of security, to deceive anyone listening in.
Damien returns to the Morningstar via the Trump link. "That was a complete lie," says Tristan, putting away Damien's Trump.
"I'd assumed as much," snorts Damien.
Tristan tells the others what has been discovered.
Damien Trumps Altair to get her back here. She is in the middle of a bar fight, quite drunk, and takes a few blows as she is distracted by the Trump call. But once things are explained to her she returns to the Morningstar. Tamarind, in disguise, also comes through with her.
The situation is explained to them, too.
Damien suggests that we use Corvallin to spy on the place, then land on another island and shift shadow until we are on the right island. If that trips a warding, at least we will already be on the island...
Castle Corvallin arrives and we go on board, leaving Caleb in charge of the Morningstar again. We fly off towards the island to have a look.
Tamarind and Beltaine Trump off to Tamarind's villa to rest - they are both pretty tired. Altair is also quite tired now, but she doesn't want to rest just yet...
We arrive over the island Beltaine scryed out. Fog covers it, so Damien casts a 'Roving Eye' scrying spell and swoops his point of view downwards vicariously, stopping just short of the warding. Below Damien can just make out a barren-looking rocky mountainous island, roughly in the shape of a crescent moon with the horns of the moon encircling a large semi-circular bay/harbour. A ship, which looks to be of the same type as that described as the Firespirit, is visible at anchor in the harbour. There are warehouses and other buildings on the shore, and a jetty jutting out into the harbour; these all seem to be made of driftwood. All the buildings seem to be raised up off the sand on little stilts. Damien can sense that the warding is centred on that building. There also seem to be some fairly well-positioned watch posts/gun emplacements overlooking the place.
He snaps out of his spell and reports the details to the others. We plan. We can shift shadow to this strategic point here...
Tristan thinks this place feels real enough for a Family member to have been here for a year or so.
Tamarind and Beltaine return from Tamarind's villa, feeling refreshed. They are filled in on the plan.
Damien wanders off into Corvallin's storerooms and soon finds what he is looking for - a crate of spring-powered net-trap grenade bombs. He brings them back to the others and passes them out.
While Damien does this Tristan moves us a few shadows away where we find an island not unlike our target.
Damien goes off to test Wilkes (his pistol) before he actually needs it. He goes downstairs into the storerooms again, looking for a suitable target. He finds the giant Bleys-shaped wax candle that was in the same storeroom as the diving bell we needed earlier. He pulls the trigger, blowing its head off. Wilkes would appear to be working, then.
We all prepare for gratuitous violence. Damien has two of the net-ball bombs. Ibrahim gives Beltaine a communication ring. Damien does a last minute strategic and tactical description of the island and then shifts us all from the nearby shadow to our target.
Beltaine looks for internal wardings as we shift to within the warding on the island. She does not find any; it would appear they rely on their one big outer warding. We have got inside it, and we arrive in the correct shadow.
We sneak around the buildings to the one that seems to contain the person with the Pattern imprint. Beltaine can sense that there is a warding on this building, its magic hidden by the greater magic warding the entire island. She begins to sing softly to it, to disarm it. The others keep watch while she does this, and Damien discusses the gun emplacements. After a little while Beltaine mimes 'it's open' to us. We go through as Damien indicates where the guns are, and we are up against the wall of the building, inside the warding. From this close the construction is pretty crude, the walls being of rough boards with poorly-sealed gaps between the planks.
Damien uses the Pattern to find a broken wine glass in the sand. He uses this to listen through the wall into the room beyond. He can hear nothing, so assumes the room is empty. We scoop sand out from under the building (as it is up on stilts) wriggle under and remove a couple of floorboards until there is a large enough gap for us to fit through. Damien wriggles in, and everyone else follows.
Inside, the room is indeed empty. It is a bedroom of sorts, recently used, with one door out, further into the building. There is a large bed, a chart rack, sea chest, mirror, wash stand and so on. All good quality furniture in a low quality room - looted, perhaps?
Tamarind, and after a second Altair notice that there are Trumps in the sea chest. However, others of us can sense that the chest is magically protected.
Communicating silently using Ibrahim's rings, Tristan tells us that he thinks Gerard is on the other side of the door.
We examine the door. It opens inwards, and is locked, with the lock on this side.
Ibrahim peers under the door, and can make out, from counting feet, that there are probably six people in there, plus a desk, a large table and some chairs. Altair uses the Pattern to make a section of the wall, though it looks all right, actually badly termite-eaten and very easy to burst through, as she intends to do.
Damien mouths 'now'. Altair and Ibrahim burst through the wall, followed by Tamarind. Damien kicks down the door, with Tristan behind him.
The room beyond is a large office space, almost like that of a business - 'Pirate PLC'. The desk is a large roll-top one up against one wall. There is a window and two other door out, one to the outside. On the large table is Gerard, beaten, bruised, unconscious, and missing his left leg below the knee (it has been bandaged).
Four of the six pirates in here turn towards us. Two turn towards Gerard. All seem to armed with muskets, cutlasses and knives. Damien shoots the fastest of the two turning towards Gerard and he goes down.
Altair throws a net-bomb, which entangles one of the pirates.
Tristan shoots a pirate with the crossbow he is carrying.
Ibrahim disarms one of the pirates with the intention of taking him prisoner.
Tamarind spears the pirate with the strongest mind.
Beltaine has remained in the bedroom, where she is holding Caleb's Trump. However, she is not making contact until we have Gerard.
Those of us fighting pirates can tell that they are fast, but not of Amber quality. That is, they're crap.
Altair reaches Gerard and kills the pirate by him with extreme prejudice. Then she picks Gerard up and heads back into the bedroom. Beltaine begins concentrating on Caleb's Trump as soon as she sees this.
The door from the office that does not lead outside opens and an old one-eyed Arabic-looking man stands there. One arm hangs limply. The magically-inclined in the group can feel him slotting in lynchpins, so Damien shoots him then runs over and stands on his limp arm. He has been knocked over by the shot, which helps in this.
"Damien, Lord Mortlake," Damien introduces himself. "And you are?"
"Askan al-Hamir," gurgles the man. It is clearly the captain of the Firespirit. His arm is held together with silver wires, as described. His head is held together by Damien not firing Wilkes when it is pressed against his forehead.
Beltaine gets through to Caleb. Ibrahim's prisoner, disarmed of his musket, is about to go for Ibrahim. Damien turns, shoots him, re-cocks Wilkes and goes back to threatening al-Hamir, all in one smooth motion.
Tamarind comes over and makes contact with al-Hamir's mind. This does not take long - Tamarind's mind seems to be much stronger than his. Al-Hamir is trying to do something, slapping his hand (the one on his intact arm) onto the floor. Tamarind kicks the hand up and grabs the crystal away from him. Damien feels a brief flare of magic as this happens.
Beltaine passes Altair and Gerard through the Trump link to Caleb. Altair sets about putting Gerard to bed and having him looked at by her ship's doctor.
Tristan senses that al-Hamir has lots of magic, especially in the silver arm, so he chops it off. Ouch.
Tamarind can sense that al-Hamir is now in lots of pain. Damien punches him, which seems to knock him out quite effectively. He is also passed through the Trump link to the Morningstar, along with the other surviving pirates.
The others get ready to leave via the Trump link to Caleb, but Beltaine won't leave without Damien. Damien wants to see the sea serpent or whatever it is, and so does Beltaine. So Ibrahim, Tamarind and Tristan also remain.
On the Morningstar, Gerard is treated and put to bed.
Tristan examines the chest with the Trumps in. It is not immediately clear how to disarm the magic on it, so he radiates Pattern about himself until the magic goes away. Then he opens the chest and takes the Trumps.
Altair Trumps Random, and when she gets through explains the situation to him before passing Gerard and the prisoners through to Amber.
She cuts the Trump link and Trumps Tristan.
In the pirate hideout, we leave the office and go out onto the beach. There are sounds of bells and an alarm being raised - we have not been terribly subtle, after all. Amoeboid pseudopodia shoot out of the water between us and the Firespirit. Large, tanned-skin coloured ones. Very large ones. They do not look terribly sea-serpent-like. Oh well.
Two groups of pirates are coming up the beach towards us, one from each side. Tamarind tries to protect Beltaine. Damien tries to give Wilkes to Ibrahim. Ibrahim wants no part of it, having something better in mind. Damien gives Wilkes to Beltaine instead, along with instructions on its use. She shoots. Bang! A pirate falls over.
Tristan tries to use the Pattern to manipulate the shadow to our advantage, but isn't sure how. "Give me a clear shot!" says Damien.
"How?" asks Tristan.
"Oh, just remove the sea," Damien tells him. Tristan snorts.
Tristan feels a Trump call coming on. This distracts him. Pirates are lining up on the beach to both sides of us and raising their muskets. Tristan takes the Trump call. It is Altair.
Beltaine sees Tristan is about to be shot and so shrieks/sings, casting magic to put the pirates to sleep. Unfortunately there is not much time to do this so only a few of them fall over. The others fire.
Tristan is shot and knocked to the ground, but fortunately no musket balls penetrate his armour. Tamarind grabs Beltaine and leaps, holding her over his head in a very ballet-dancing-like fashion to put her as far out of the line of fire as possible. He is shot, but his armour protects him from anything other than being spun around, which he easily compensates for as he lands. Tristan maintains the Trump link, and Altair comes through into the middle of the fire-fight.
Damien tries to protect Beltaine, then Tamarind, then the casting of his spell, then himself. He is waiting for the sea serpent/monster to show its face properly, at which point he intends to blow it off.
Beltaine screams. Tristan and Tamarind's swords shatter musically. Damien's Dashwood and Eric's Pattern blade do not. The pirates swords and the metal parts of their muskets also disintegrate, which is what Beltaine was intending.
At this point most of the pirates decide to run away.
The amoeboid creature roils towards us. It is very big - at least as large as Gerard's flagship. No face becomes visible as it reaches the shallows and begins to rise up, but Damien decides to fire anyway. He slots home the last lynchpin of his 'Chain Shot' spell, intending to use it to decapitate the creature. Unfortunately it has no visible head. The chain shot does not quite slice the creature in two, but does cut deep into it. It is definitely not happy, and is showing noticeable signs of distress.
Ibrahim raises his arm and a lightning bolt arcs from his eagle-emblazoned wristband into the thing. It sizzles.
Tristan decides now is the time for Corvallin to appear and drop rocks on the creature, by now clearly not a sea serpent.
Beltaine sings, casting magic at the thing and trying to put it to sleep. Its mind is not at all strong, but it does not nod off. However, she definitely slows it down.
Altair also makes mental contact with the thing, mind-locking it in place. As she does this she recognises the creature's mind - it is Caine! She shouts this to the rest of us.
Ibrahim casts another lightning bolt at the thing.
Damien is readying a Militia spell this time. Platoon fire. "Company, present..."
Blam! Blam! Blam! Blam!
A ripple of musket fire, platoon by platoon, strikes the creature.
As she holds it Altair can tell that the thing has no consciousness as such; it is very animal-like and seems to be operating on a very instinctive, primal, level.
Damien prepares another Militia spell, an ordinary one this time.
The thing is moving slowly now, clearly badly hurt.
Tristan has been using the Pattern to manipulate the waves and weather to make a storm with thunder and lightning about to start overhead, while the Firespirit has been swinging at anchor so as to line one of its sides up with the creature. A lightning bolt strikes down from the sky and splits just above the Firespirit, each sub-bolt igniting a cannon on the side of the ship facing the creature. The broadside fills the air with smoke as many cannonballs strike the unfortunate creature. Its pseudopodia writhe.
Damien holds his spell back while he works out the best place to hit it to inflict maximum damage. Having managed the latter, he shoots it again. Many musket balls strike home.
The creature is proving very hard to kill, but we can all tell that it is not well. Those in touch with its mind are not getting much information from it, but can tell that it is not happy and still trying to get to us.
We argue about what it might be as it continues to bear down on us.
Ibrahim casts a Sandstorm spell that swirls razor-sharp sand around the ship and the creature.
Tristan has the Firespirit swing round until the other side faces the creature, then he repeats the lightning-bolt-sets-off-a-broadside trick and does more damage to the creature.
Damien runs forward (into the sandstorm - ouch!) and jumps up onto the creature. He begins to slice it up with Dashwood. Ibrahim cancels his Sandstorm spell to stop Damien being sandblasted to death.
Tamarind checks the Trumps and senses that Caine's (among other) Trumps is active at this time. But if the creature is one of them it is not clear which from the Trumps alone.
Damien gradually butchers the creature while Altair and Beltaine keep it locked in place. And at last it dies, a huge mass of butchered flesh.
Once it dies, Beltaine pauses the throw up.
Damien climbs down off the thing, covered head-to-toe in blood. His clothing begins to clean itself and him on command.
Castle Corvallin arrives, flying down out of the fog. We board her, and fly off.
Ibrahim suggests that we should report to Random. This is accepted as a good idea, so we Trump him. He takes the call and we go through the Trump link into the Castle Amber Infirmary.
"What news do you have?" Random asks, once the Trump link drops. Then we don't let him get a word in edgewise for the next half an hour. But he's only the King, after all.
Altair tells Random it was a form of Caine eating the ships, and which hurt Gerard. People speculate about Caine and his assumed shapeshifting abilities - did he create a copy of himself that went wrong? But the monster was huge - did it eat things to gain mass? Random suggests the spirit of the real shadow of Caine that we brought back from the Land of the Dead five years ago came back to its body which Gerard buried at sea long ago, and thus that body must have had a link to Caine. Presumably the shapeshifting body mindlessly took the form most suited to its environment and then grew big enough to eat ships.
Random considers this, then tells us he does not mind if the rest of the universe knows this; if asked he will not deny it.
Damien rambles on about the crystal which al-Hamir dropped before his wire-reinforced arm was lopped off. Whatever it was, it's no longer magical.
Ibrahim comments that the body buried at sea must have been quite Real. Tristan agrees and adds that it had a Pattern imprint. "How?" we wonder. Because it was made from part of Caine? From his blood? Or perhaps the real Caine was murdered, and the Caine who 'came back from the dead' at the end of Patternfall was not Caine. Altair doesn't think it matters. The rest of the group think it might (because if the Caine who 'came back from the dead' is not really Caine, then who is it?).
We debate questioning al-Hamir, or (more fun!) attempting to trick Caine into a Trump- and Magic-proof cell. Altair plays Devil's advocate for 'Caine'. Random points out that three of the Council for Victory successfully impersonated Evander for ten years.
Eventually we decide to go and have a chat with al-Hamir, the (now) one-armed man. Beltaine teases Random into giving us a direct order. Random tells us he has been put in the dungeons, and that Caine has already 'had a word with him'. We hope that he is still alive, then...
We leave.
On the way to the dungeons, Altair diverts to check on Gerard. He's asleep in the hospital wing. A doctor approaches. "Are you a shapeshifter?" demands Altair of him.
"Er, no, your Highness," say the medics.
"Oh. Good for you," says Altair.
Gerard lies there with a drip in his arm. He is snoring loudly, so he must be all right. His head and leg have been re-bandaged. "He should make a full recovery" says the doctor. His wounds have been treated as best they can, and as he is an Amberite the leg should grow back, in time, though no actual time scale is mentioned. Altair holds her father's hand and has a quality mushy moment. She worries about whether he is getting the best medical treatment available and is reassured by the doctor that he is. She curls up on the bed next to Gerard, "just for a minute..."
Meanwhile, the rest of us walk down the steps to the dungeons. Down, and down, and down. Beltaine gets tired and is carried by Tamarind. Eventually we reach the dungeons, Tamarind Trumps Altair, catching her on the brink of sleep. She comes through and reports on Gerard.
The guards on the door into the dungeons are inspected by Damien for 'for'- or 'anti'-Bleys badges, but are wearing neither. They escort us in and to al-Hamir's cell, then wait outside as we talk to him.
Inside the Trump-barred cell, al-Hamir is lying on the pallet-style bed, looking ashen. It appears that his wounds have been treated, and he is conscious. He looks very old - much older than when we saw him for the first time.
He says he doesn't know us, but does know it was Prince Gerard of Amber whom he took prisoner.
"Why'd you take him?" asks Altair.
"The opportunity arose," he says. When we ask him he says that he does not know where the amoeba-Caine came from. He says he found it in shadow, attacking a ship, and discovered how to control it and its ability to move through shadow, which he then turned to his own ends.
He curses Amberites, who he says "destroyed his home" - a shadow called G'hal-ne-Husten. Altair certainly recognises that name - it was an Arabic-style shadow that largely depended on piracy to live before it had a change of government and was incorporated into the Golden Circle; as part of its conditions of joining its leaders had to stamp out piracy there. So in fact we did not destroy it, just his way of life - G'hal-ne-Husten joining the Golden Circle was not at all to his convenience.
Having the sea monster was a stroke of luck, he continues - as a creature that was conversant with shadow movement it could carry them through shadow, allowing them to operate avoiding the shadow paths. They found it in an obscure Shadow and followed it when they discovered it could move between worlds under its own power. They couldn't communicate with it ("It was just an animal"). It doubled its size in two years. The monster was being used to take crews off ships (it ate them), then to sink the ships once they had been looted. It was controlled by magic.
They were planning on holding Gerard as a hostage indefinitely, keeping him unconscious the whole time, in case Amber started to cause them too much trouble. It was another lucky break - lucky from the pirates point of view, anyway. It appears the HMS Unicorn's Flight came upon them whilst they were taking another ship, and the sea monster dealt with it, though after a hard fight. It grabbed Gerard when the Unicorn's Flight went down. The pirates hoped to use Gerard as insurance, keeping him unconscious with drugs.
Ibrahim and Altair move on to detailed questions about the pirates operations. Al-Hamir grudgingly provides details.
This done, we leave the cell to go back up to the castle proper.
From outside the cell Ibrahim Trumps Random and we all go back through to report. Random is in his office now.
We discuss what we have discovered with him and conclude that the amoebic Caine thing was probably a genuinely Caine-derived creature, if not necessarily a completely real Official Amberite Threat. That is, Caine was probably not aware of being an amoeba-thing and eating Gerard's leg. People make nasty comments about 'Caine'. Altair says we can't just question his right to exist on the basis that he's a liar and potential threat.
"Why not?" Beltaine wants to know, "since he's always questioned my right to exist?"
"And he told Caleb not to be friends with me when I was little" she adds.
We decide that this needs 'discussing' with Caine. Random is happy to be there while we do this. He collects the Jewel and says he will help with contacting him.
We Trump Caine. He takes the call and comes through to us. Altair has a go at him for being mean to Beltaine in the past.
"Beltaine. You're back," says Caine coldly when he sees her. Beltaine takes this about as well as might be expected. He helps himself to one of Random's cigars and sits down.
Someone is going to have to talk to him. "Not you" says everyone to Damien, hurriedly. It's the only thing we agree on for the next hour or so, so I thought I should mention it (Damien has been hitting the bottle quite heavily by this point, so no-one wants him to discuss the Caine-duplicate-thing). Damien shuts up.
Tristan leads a conversation suspiciously like the one Damien would have gone through, with Damien chipping in when the conversation dries up, and making a few comments that we should just kill Caine here and now. The others seem to have problems with this. Tristan asks how the body planted by Caine was different to the replacements currently used by Brand and Deirdre. "I found it very close to Amber - why all the questions?" replies Caine.
"Because we just killed it again" says Damien. We tell Caine that the renewed Caine-creature, the amoeboid thing, is dead. Or at least that we tried very hard to make it so. Caine does not seem too bothered by this news.
"Where?" he asks.
"Very close to Amber." Caine is asked if he has a Trump of it - not on him, he replies.
"This is a question of whether you're the real Caine" Altair says. He says he is "the real Caine" and is so evasive one could readily believe it.
In response to all this, Caine admits that he has certain powers over ... the soul, and that there are obvious benefits to being able to sometimes be in more than one place at the same time. Some short while before Corwin's return he needed to do this, wanting to be in Amber but also out doing detective work in Shadow. So he split himself, physically and mentally, which reduced his capabilities (but not by too much). Obviously, he says, he's also a shapeshifter. So part of him went out into shadow to do some tasks while the other half stayed in Amber, to lurk.
The 'detective half' came to suspect Bleys and Fiona and Brand; it tracked them to the tower that Random knows of but he couldn't get in and rescue Brand - the tower was too well defended. Beltaine looks disbelieving. Rescue him. Of course. Caine was not in touch with his 'other half', which fled towards Amber but was killed by the creatures Corwin thought had killed Caine - the things guarding the tower in which Brand was imprisoned. Corwin was not framed (per se) at all. Honest. Caine ducks the question of when he was last in touch with his duplicate, but says that he - the him here now - only discovered what had happened later. He learnt what had happened when he sneaked into the morgue without being noticed after the body was discovered - he apparently has some means of recording information so that it lasts even after death and can be read (by himself, at least).
Caine says Bleys and Fiona can confirm his story, "if they don't lie". He used to contact his duplicate by Trump, he continues. He received messages that way and was not 'aware' of the duplicate in any mystical sense. Before discovering that it was dead he hoped he might eventually be able to re-integrate with it. That part of his spirit presumably came back from the land of the dead to the remains of its body beneath the sea, bringing it back to life. Caine was unaware of this and failed to contact it at that time.
Caine says he also wanted to learn of the land of the dead. His incomplete state is probably the reason he suffered so much when in that place - he had spent some of his life force already. He eventually admits that there are other such 'bits' of him out in Shadow, but "not too many".
He then claims that he has split himself up in the past, but that occasion (when the other Caine was killed) is the only time he has lost one of the parts. He says he prefers not to duplicate too much as the more he duplicates, the weaker each part becomes.
"Caine, when did you last walk the Pattern?" Tristan asks. Caine evades answering.
"Thank you very much for the explanation," says Tamarind.
"It's stupid enough to be true," says Damien.
"Thank you Damien," says Caine, suavely.
We move on to other topics of conversation. Beltaine worries about just who else in the Family might be a shapeshifter, and how we could find out. Could we test them? With some kind of potion? With the Pattern? Caine says he could modify his anti-shapeshifter poison into something that would produce a result short of death. We ask Caine if making them walk the Pattern in public would suffice. It seems not, according to Caine - conscious control is required to walk the Pattern and keep the shapeshifting under control. A lack of experience, a lack of attention and/or exhaustion tend to let the shapeshifting manifest, but it is clearly not a sure-fire test. Damn. [You have to love this guy. He's dragged in as Suspect Number One, and now we're somehow looking for him to point out the bad guys...]
Beltaine wants to know if one can hide a Pattern imprint. Tristan says this is possible, and demonstrates.
Tristan queries Caine's story about how he got information from 'the dead body'. Caine explains that he prepared the bodies in advance so as to be able to retrieve information from them. Perhaps a better shapeshifter than him could also access such information.
Damien wakes up. "Can you give us any reason we shouldn't just kill you?" he asks Caine.
Caine essentially argues that he is more useful than dangerous to Amber.
"Oh fuck," says Tamarind suddenly, and Trumps out abruptly. Beltaine pulls out his Trump and concentrates on it.
We thank Caine and leave.
Tamarind Trumps back to his villa to check on Owen, Lucien and EsmŽe. They all seem to be where he left them in his home shadow. Esmée has been waiting for him and Beltaine to return, apparently catching up on her reading.
Tamarind tells her that people are wondering how to tell who the shapeshifters of the family are. Esmée doesn't really know how this might be achieved. She says she cannot detect other shapeshifters (having been in the vicinity of 'Evander', at least).
"They woke up," she concludes, indicating Owen and Lucien. At this point Beltaine contacts Tamarind. He reports to her that Owen and Lucien have been "quiet and distracted". They cut the Trump link.
Tamarind goes and greets Owen and Lucien. They are awake, but still seem a little dreamy and spaced-out. Tamarind offers to bring Beltaine to them. This is good for Lucien. Tamarind pulls out his Trump of Beltaine.
In Amber, Beltaine is wondering where she can stay tonight - she does not want to stay in her old rooms in the Castle. She feels a Trump call coming on, and accepts it. It is Tamarind. He tells her Owen and Lucien are up, and asks if she wants to come to the villa. Beltaine does so.
"Hello Beltaine," says Owen. Lucien bows. Another reunion ensues.
People go to bed, to rest...