Recorded for Posterity by Iain Walker.
Notes typed up by Jane Winter.
Backnotes:
Everyone is in Amber for a joint attempt to ... apprehend ... Bleys.
Tristan suggests doing Trump readings to check if Fiona and Bleys ever come out from behind their Trump barrier. Readings, he thinks, will be jumbled if they are still behind the barrier but make sense if they aren't. He thinks this might be more helpful than simply monitoring the Trumps, since the latter only shows anything if someone actually uses the Trumps.
With a little prompting from Tamarind, Caine admits that he might be able to tell if they emerge from behind the barrier just by monitoring the Trumps.
Beltaine wonders what we are planning to do about the black blob.
"Drag Bleys through, knock him out and study it?" suggests Tristan.
"What if it can 'jump'?" worries Beltaine. As in from body to body.
"Yes; mental contact would be the ideal situation for it to try that," agrees Ibrahim.
Tristan notes that it seems attached to Fiona's mind. And it said it was 'observing' us.
"We do have wardings that can contain the memory fragments - maybe something helpful could come of that," Tamarind reminds us.
"And the Jewel works against the holes in reality," adds Tristan.
"Yes, but what exactly what are we trying to achieve?" asks Beltaine.
"Isolate the blob, send it back to the Land of the Dead, and put Fiona in another body." Tristan makes it all sound so simple.
Random declares that both Fiona and Bleys are to be considered enemies of Amber. This applies to Fiona even if we manage to remove Anurerishkigal from her. We will, after all, only have her word for how the 'possession' came about. "We would have to consider her words very carefully," he concludes.
It seems that the only way to capture them would be to do extreme but not fatal damage to Bleys.
"Perhaps Bleys could be brought in with the promise of a body for Fiona?" suggests Ibrahim.
We wonder why Fiona is still in Bleys.
Tristan suggests that perhaps Bleys can't do the mind-transfer trick that Caine can.
Damien suggests she had nowhere else to go on returning from the Land of the Dead.
Brand suggests that she didn't want to give up a Pattern-blooded body, which provokes the usual display of impatience from Beltaine.
"Did you explore the Land of the Dead?" Tristan asks Brand.
"I did," he says. "But it's a big place. I saw no signs of Anurerishkigal or anything like it while I was there."
Damien wants to know if Brand noticed anything amiss when he and Altair were inside Fiona's head in the Land of the Dead.
"Not at the time..." says Brand.
"And in retrospect?" prompts Damien.
"I did wonder why she was still in a coma after all that time," says Brand. "But I didn't notice anything out of the ordinary otherwise."
Tamarind wonders if we could discover how to summon Anurerishkigal, and thus how to banish it. He and Beltaine look questioningly at Damien ("Our expert on supernatural blobby monsters," as Beltaine puts it).
Damien explains that summoning is often necessary, but something being 'summon-able' does not necessarily mean that the something will then be banish-able. Or controllable.
Beltaine wonders how Bleys brought Fiona back into himself.
"Since her own body was destroyed," theorises Damien. "She wasn't anchored to it, so she and Bleys (and Fiona's passenger) would just all use Bleys' body as the anchor and so all end up in it."
"What about all those Pattern bodies of the Stasis Babies?" Beltaine wants to know.
Tamarind wonders if we could adapt the ritual used to return Brand and Deirdre into a means of summoning Fiona into a separate body. Preferably at range. And Tristan could unleash Martian War Machines to distract them while we did it...
Tristan is not amused at the thought of pitting his knowledge of Pattern against Bleys and Fiona's. He's also not in favour of starting a Shadow Manipulation Contest - they'll just retaliate, and are probably better at it than he is...
Tamarind essentially argues that since we don't know what they might be doing we should (somehow) attack first.
Few people seem to support this. And no one responds to his suggestion of going back to seek further information from visions in Tir-Na Nog'th.
Brand heads off to do more reading.
Damien sends a message to the museum, asking how the research is going.
Random asks everyone to stay in the Castle for now.
"Should we refuse to take Trump contacts?" asks Ibrahim.
"Well, try not to take them," adds Beltaine.
"Good idea," says Random.
Random instructs everyone to go off and rest.
Beltaine curls up in an armchair with Miss Kitty.
Tristan goes to check up on the Children.
They are all sleeping peacefully.
He sleeps in a spare room nearby.
Damien goes back to his own rooms.
Tamarind does likewise.
Ibrahim checks in with his staff officers, then also returns to his own quarters.
Damien studies his relevant necromantic spells, and Brand's Land of the Dead ritual, looking for common elements. He does not find very many.
Eventually, he drifts off to sleep.
Next morning, we all wake up. Always a good start.
Childers has a message for Damien from the Museum.
Seth writes to say that some, but not much, progress has been made in the past day. They have found more passages referring to Anurerishkigal, Su-Chan and so on, but these have not, as yet, been translated.
Tamarind goes down to breakfast.
Ibrahim goes about his duties, having new defence plans drawn up for Castle Amber.
Tristan goes and plays with the Children.
Beltaine wakes, still in Random's sitting room, and looks for coffee.
Random provides some, very strong, and she heads down to breakfast.
Damien comes into the breakfast room carrying his notes.
He brings us all up to date on the state of the museum research.
Tristan brings the Children to breakfast.
Beltaine introduces them to Miss Kitty.
Angelique pokes Beltaine. "I can still see through you!" she says.
Beltaine demonstrates that she can also become insubstantial.
"Are you a scary ghost or a friendly ghost?" Angelique wants to know.
"Oh, a friendly ghost," Beltaine assures her. The children look relieved to hear this.
Breakfast having been consumed, Tamarind heads off to the garden to do some Trump monitoring. Beltaine accompanies him.
Tristan wants to see Random and work out a Trump reading rota.
The Children are shepherded off to school.
In the garden, Tamarind scans his Trumps, with his lute playing in the background.
Beltaine lazily watches Miss Kitty playing.
"I feel a bit useless now," she confides.
"We all do," Tamarind reassures her. "All we can do is wait."
"I suppose I could try sending a message to Bleys in a dream," she muses. "If we really needed to."
Tristan finds Random in his office. Random has a Reading Roster all prepared. Everyone except the Trump Artists features in it, which means each person has to do one Trump reading a day. Random has also appointed teams to attempt to Trump Bleys and Fiona, splitting people roughly into two groups. Owen will stand around and hit anyone who looks as though they might be possessed.
Tristan recalls Beltaine's comments of the night before about the babies in stasis. "Should I check on them?" he asks.
"Yes, but not right now," Random feels.
In the garden, Beltaine raises another worry.
"Felicia is a Shadow of Fiona. Would she see her as a suitable host?"
Tamarind quickly pens a note to Julian mentioning this and asking that he ensure Felicia is protected. A servant carries it off for delivery.
That done, Tamarind wonders whether minds could be linked synergistically to boost mental strength for Trump contacts - something closer to a 'hive mind' effect.
Beltaine is interested in this. "Perhaps the soulstones could help," she speculates. "Will you help me investigate them, when there's time?"
Tamarind nods.
Damien sends a note to Brand, which reads:
|
Avenues of research: Am Tuat? Damien |
"Am Tuat?" comes back the response.
"Book of the Dead," sends back Damien.
"Tell me more," comes the reply.
Damien goes to see Brand.
Upon arrival he shows him his own copy of 'Am Tuat', and his notes on 'sticking souls in bodies' spells. He leaves them with Brand. He then turns to 'Al-Azif', to research god-binding and banishing.
The day wears on.
Ibrahim continues to re-vamp the Castle defences.
Days pass.
Bleys and Fiona have not, as far as anyone can tell, emerged from their Trump-barred hiding place.
Beltaine and Tamarind begin working on soulstone research and on psyches-working-in-concert (hereafter referred to as 'psychic metaconcert').
After a week, Damien suggests we let the Children have their visit to the Museum, regardless of the crisis. It'll only take an afternoon.
People consider this.
Translation work at the Museum continues during this time.
It seems that the passages in question, those referring to Su-Chan and the Mera, are religio-historical, rather than pure mythology. 'Mera' seems to refer to a race of demons, of whom 'Su-Chan' was their leader. By 'demon' the writers appear to mean creatures like the servants in Chaos, but not a servitor race. There are indications of the Mera suffering a change, revolution, new religion or something of that nature, back in 'the ancient of days'. These passages seem to refer to a single period of history.
Beltaine also practises her Tir-Na Nog'th powers.
Tamarind and Tristan volunteer to be turned (temporarily) insubstantial.
Tamarind, who has recently walked Tir-Na Nog'th's Pattern, is easier to turn de-solid than Tristan. Tristan resists the process as a test, and it turns out Beltaine can turn him desolid anyway. Turning people insubstantial takes effort and physical contact, and doesn't work in full sunlight (which also feels like a solid barrier when one is already insubstantial).
If Tristan has the Pattern summoned, it's harder for Beltaine to affect him, but not impossible.
Experimentation proves that Beltaine can turn both of them desolid at the same time, even if both resist. However, this is quite hard.
She tries making a stick desolid and re-solidifying it inside a wall. The stick embeds in the wall. This would probably not do a living person much good...
And the Children are taken to the Museum for their pre-Opening visit.
All of us escort them, and Margot, Esmée and Altair also come along, as does Sebek.
The Museum is explored with Damien as our guide.
Angelique chooses a new sword to replace the one she broke. She chooses a large black bastard sword with runes along the blade, imbued with magic and named 'Stormbringer'.
Duncan wants a sword too, but he chooses a plain short-sword.
Tristan has copies of the swords made, which aren't sharp, or hard, or dangerous.
Angelique demands a museum of her own, to put rocks in.
Sebek sniffs at Beltaine - he wants more marshmallows. Fortunately, she's brought some along.
The Children overhear Tristan talking about Bleys, and ask why he's no longer around.
"He's been stupid," says Tristan.
"But he was nice..."
"He's also been stupid."
"You're nice; are you stupid too?" they ask. "Daddy Tristan's stupid, Daddy Tristan's stupid..." they chant.
Sebek hisses, ready to defend Tristan's honour. The guardian creatures move into defensive stances around their charges.
Tamarind and Ibrahim quickly break things up.
"Way to go, Tristan," mutter the rest of us.
As Angelique and Duncan got swords, the other Children now want presents, as does Sebek. We promise them nice things. Anything for a quiet life...
We have lunch in the shadow of Stonehenge which forms one of the Museum's outdoor exhibits, then visit the Art Galleries.
To distract the children from seeing the more 'adult' galleries, they are taken to the Priory to see Sebek's own museum. Sebek is clearly very proud of his collection of assorted junk.
Tristan meanwhile pops off into Shadow to find presents for the rest of the children. He returns just as the children finish making a racket on Sebek's pipe organ.
Angelique and Duncan fence with their new swords.
Tamarind returns to Amber and gets paint sets for Eleanor and Octavius.
Damien prudently sends for paints for Sebek, too.
The rest of the day is spent in the velocidrome, painting, swimming in the lake, climbing trees and so on.
The rest of the week is uneventful.
After two weeks, Ibrahim goes to see Random. "Do we really want to continue with our Trump scanning and reading ?" he asks.
Random says he will consider this.
Some time later, Random calls the family together.
When we are assembled, he suggests that there is little point keeping up the vigil as it has shown no signs of working so far.
Damien suggests we concentrate on ritual research, spirit-binding, god-banishing, and so on.
Tristan suggests he and Beltaine could find the Shadow where they spoke to Bleys.
Random says he has sent messages to Bleys saying that not all bridges are completely burnt.
"Could you also work on protection against Anurerishkigal?" Beltaine asks Damien.
He suggests that he and Ibrahim could come up with warding artefacts.
Esmée mentions that she has a ring that moulds Shadow to prevent invasive Psyche and magic getting at the wearer. However, she admits that she didn't make it, just walked in Shadow to find it.
It is decided that we will try to track down the shadow where Tristan and Beltaine spoke to Bleys, and then go from there.
We go out into Shadow to do this thing.
Tristan shifts us through Shadow at speed for a few days. As we go, shadow becomes more and more high-magick, high-tech and rather Real. It also gets nastier, more crowded, and more brutish the further we go.
And eventually we arrive in the Shadow where Tristan and Beltaine met Bleys. From the general nature of the place outside that actual room (and indeed many of the shadows around that specific shadow) it seems to be very much like the Shadow where one of the memory fragments listed in Professor Branarien's database in Moro recalled Fiona as being an evil bitch-queen.
Arriving in the room where the meeting took place we find that there are no detectable residues or trails there, but we search the place anyway.
And after a while we find, hidden in a book on the bookshelf, a slip of paper. A note. Sealed with Bleys' seal.
"To whichever of the Royal Family finds this," it says on the outside.
It does not have any detectable magic or other powers on it, so we deem it safe to open.
Inside, it reads:
|
To whom it may concern (probably Tristan or Beltaine); I imagine that I am now painted as an enemy of Amber. Let it be known that I had to save my sister from whatever was possessing her - if this means I am painted as Amber's enemy, so be it. But know that I am not your enemy, and I wish to resolve this without bloodshed. I write this so that you know I am not set against Amber. Bleys |
Beltaine is unimpressed. Bleys has just decided that he'll do what he wants to do, and nothing else matters. She announces that she is going back to Amber to 'arrange' Pattern-blood bodies for Brand and Deirdre. We are going to need Brand on our side, in her opinion, and this seems the best way to make sure of that. Deirdre is included for the sake of fairness.
Tamarind Trumps everyone back to Amber.
We go and find Random, who is, it turns out, in his office. We give him the note.
Random reads it. "Bloody hell," he sighs. "Right. Bleys is declared an enemy of Amber."
"Yes, but how are we going to deal with them?" Beltaine wants to know. "Killing them or exiling them doesn't work."
"Imprisonment?" suggests Ibrahim. "If it could be made to work."
Beltaine says she has a plan for supplying Pattern-blood bodies for Brand and Deirdre as a means for ensuring Brand is on our side. She suggests that she become pregnant by Tamarind (they are the closest relatives of Brand and Deirdre), then use scientific means to ensure that she bears triplets. Only one of these will take on a mind of its own (and will be her and Tamarind's child); the other two will have Brand and Deirdre put into them before the time at which life-force (and so minds of their own) would usually start to 'take' in a developing foetus. That way, no one 'dies' to provide the bodies.
Random looks more than a little surprised by this sudden announcement, but reluctantly grants permission, if Beltaine is sure this is what she wants to do.
No one else has any better ideas to offer.
"What is the legal position on union between cousins?" asks Ibrahim (who has, of course, no more than a casual interest in this question).
"Well, Damien slept with Esmée for ages," points out Beltaine.
Random says that Oberon was against sibling unions. Intra-cousin unions? Well, who knows...
Ibrahim thinks this was just a Zeus-complex on Oberon's part.
Random thinks the Lady Legislator will let the matter pass...
Tamarind, though a little taken aback at having this suggestion made in public, is agreeable to it.
He and Beltaine go to see Deirdre to explain their plan to her.
She's training guards again, but dismisses them when Beltaine and Tamarind arrive.
Beltaine says she'll let Tamarind explain...
He does.
By the time he is done, Deirdre needs something strong to drink.
"Of course, you might go transparent at the full moon," Beltaine warns her.
"I could live with that," Deirdre says. "Are you sure you want to do this?"
"It's better than the alternatives I've heard suggested," says Beltaine. She warns Deirdre that she and Brand will have to be transferred to embryos in the womb and so be very vulnerable (and probably very bored) for a while.
Deirdre can live with that too. She hugs Beltaine. "This is the most selfless thing anyone has ever offered to do for me," she says sincerely.
Beltaine looks embarrassed. "Just trying to be practical," she mutters.
Deirdre pours more drinks.
Then Beltaine and Tamarind go to see Brand, who, it turns out, is in his rooms.
As usual, his face lights up when he sees Beltaine.
"This time I definitely need you to explain things," she hisses at Tamarind. "And ask him if he's got anything to drink first."
More drinks are provided, then Tamarind explains things again.
Brand is amazed. "Maybe the younger generation are the hope of the future after all," he comments.
"Or maybe we're morons," mutters Beltaine.
"It's a matter of perspective," agrees Brand.
He admits that he is in awe - not a familiar sensation.
Tamarind notes that he owes Brand Deirdre's return from the Land of the Dead.
Beltaine adds that after this she expects to owe Brand nothing at all.
"Wasn't aware you owed me anything anyway," says Brand.
Beltaine asks whether anything inherited from her mother is likely to affect her children.
"No, not as far as I am aware," Brand replies. "Your Tir-Na Nog'th-related powers are not inherited from your mother. From what I have learnt, Persephone faded away due to over-exposure to Tir-Na Nog'th. Which was not my intention..."
Beltaine says she doesn't want to hear his excuses. And is there any other reason she and Tamarind shouldn't have children?
None that Brand mentions, it seems.
"Thank you," says Brand.
Reluctantly, Beltaine lets him hug her. Then she and Tamarind leave.
Over the next few days, Damien takes Sebek into Shadow and changes him so that he can talk. He then teaches him how to pronounce his written vocabulary.
Beltaine and Tamarind go to see Caine, as they will need him to act as psychic midwife for Brand and Deirdre. A scary prospect.
He doesn't say no. He says he can't guarantee absolute success, but is willing to give it a go. He does promise, or at least gives his word, not to interfere and snuff anyone out.
"Not an idea I'd have expected a Family member to come up with," he says cheerfully. "Congratulations!"
Damien brings Sebek back.
Now that he has a voice, Beltaine begins to teach him to sing.
The Museum is formally opened.
Damien's idea of 'pastels' (worn due to his losing a bet with Beltaine) proves to be blue and grey.
Sebek wears his big bow tie in honour of the occasion.
During the festivities, Beltaine confides in Esmée her intention to provide bodies for Brand and Deirdre, and them means she plans to use. Esmée is gob-smacked.
Random makes a speech.
Damien makes a speech.
Sebek is allowed to make a speech. Unfortunately, Beltaine has given him some champagne, so he burbles on embarrassingly.
After a tour of the museum, people begin to file out again.
Before they go, Julian, looking uncomfortable, stands and says he has an announcement to make. He will (finally) be marrying Princess Felicia. Next year.
Esmée and Margot are clearly surprised by the announcement.
People go up and congratulate Julian.
Tamarind and Beltaine begin to put their master plan into action.
Tristan refuses to assist them with his advanced knowledge of the Pattern. "Manipulate the Pattern yourselves, you sick perverts!" he exclaims when they ask him to help with the pregnancy.
That being so, Beltaine and Tamarind go on a Shadow cruise, during which Tamarind sketches and paints Beltaine against a succession of romantic backgrounds, and with a lot of valiant effort, not to mention probability manipulation, they attempt to make Beltaine pregnant...