or
Recorded for Posterity by Iain Walker.
"We should have just followed Merlin.
I mean, is there any gestalt entity we've met that hasn't eaten him?"
- Phoenix
All of us apart from Tamarind are in the Keep of Castle Amber with five large wine casks.
"I think another Trump Artist should look at the Abyss Gun control crystals, so that there is someone other than Brand who can draw control Trumps of them," Tristan suggests. Fair point.
Tamarind, meanwhile, is with Chalice and Esmée.
Being a cautious type, Tamarind has asked Esmée to check Chalice over after her sojourn in the demon realms of Chaos.
"It's Chalice," Esmée tells Tamarind. "She's a bit beat beaten up and malnourished, but definitely Chalice."
"Told you," says Chalice irritatedly.
Tamarind thanks Esmée, and he and Chalice Trump away.
He takes her to and through Corwin's Pattern and the two of them go to see Beltaine.
Upon arrival he, Chalice and Beltaine spend some quality family time together before he has to return to the rest of us. Chalice decides to stay with Beltaine for a while.
That being so, Tamarind returns to the Amber universe intending to go from there to Amber to see if we need his help.
In Amber, Damien is breaching one of the wine casks. A servant having brought some goblets, Random pours wine for us all.
Tristan and Ibrahim attempt to Trump Tamarind.
Tamarind, by now on the Amber side of Corwin's Pattern, receives the call, identifies the callers, and accepts it. The situation is explained to him and he steps through to Amber.
Damien, meanwhile, has Trumped Flora. When she accepts the call, Damien passes her a note asking her for up-to-date reports on the disappearing civil servants.
"I shall see what I can do," she says, and closes the link.
Now that he is here, we explain to Tamarind what occurred in the demon realm, and how it all came to happen. That is, that it is all Damien's fault.
"And no more throwing Pattern Blades into the Abyss," orders Random.
"That's OK," says Damien. "He only had the one."
"That's not the point," replies Random sharply.
He then shows Tamarind the Trumps of the control crystals for the Abyss Guns.
Tamarind can tell from the Trumps that they are Real crystals, somewhat like the Soulstones, with a certain amount of their own mental strength. He can also tell that the Trumps are deliberately 'crippled' in that they allow mental but not physical contact with the subject.
He then concentrates on one of the cards and opens a link to the stone it depicts. He finds that it is not only has some mental strength, but also a rudimentary mind, and can be told to do things, though it is not a fully sentient being. He obtains enough of a psychic impression from the contact to enable him to draw a Trump of it himself, and then cuts the link.
Tamarind repeats this with the second stone, also studying it enough to draw a Trump of it. He can tell that both crystals are in dark places, wherever they actually are.
"Dworkin has the parts of the Guns proper, while I have the control crystals hidden away," explains Random. "We need some duplicate Trumps of the crystals," he tells Tamarind.
Tamarind agrees to provide these.
"Are we going to see Finndo about the Soulstones with the blobs of Anurerishkigal in them?" Phoenix asks.
"I'll leave you to it," Random tells us. "If I could just have those back..." he says to Tamarind.
Tamarind hands the Trumps of the control crystals back to Random.
Random leaves.
"Has anyone tried a Trump reading regarding the disappearances?" Tristan asks.
"Huh?" says Phoenix.
In the ensuing discussion it turns out that no-one has told Phoenix that one can use the Trumps to do tarot-type readings...
Still, Tamarind now obliges Tristan, and begins to perform a Trump Reading, explaining the process to Phoenix as he gets out his truly enormous Trump deck and begins to lay out the cards.
The question we are asking is:
'What is responsible for the disappearances of the civil servants in Amber?'
We argue about the best card to use as a focus for the reading. Should we use Amber itself, Esmée (as effective head of the Civil Service), or nothing, since the question involves disappearances.
In the end, Tamarind decides on the latter, and does the reading without having a focus.
While Tamarind lays out the cards, Tristan opens a window and summons two doves of his desire. As they flutter down, he wonders what message to send to the person responsible for the disappearances.
"Send the dove to look for them, not to give them a bloody message!" we tell him.
He sends one dove off to search for the hypothetical abductor, and the other one to deliver an admonishment to the worst tax evader in Amber. "As a control," he explains. "They will return if they don't find anything," he decides.
"Er, they return if they do find something, surely?" Damien comments. "Don't we want a positive result?"
But it's too late. The doves are flapping away...
We concentrate on Tamarind instead.
He has, by now, laid out the cards.
From his interpretation of their spread, Tamarind interprets that the disappearances are being carried out to obtain information, and that a single person is involved with them. However, there is no indication of their identity. "A powerful individual might hide their tracks," Tamarind notes.
There is no obvious sense of malignancy from the Trump reading.
"We could also ask if the disappearees are still alive," Phoenix suggests.
However, she is more interested in Finndo's infected Soulstones, if the disappearances are not a clear and present danger.
Tamarind writes a quick note summarising his findings. With our agreement he points the finger at the Girasolians, for want of a better example of a non-hostile power who might be interested in spying on Amber. While Tamarind writes this, as other possibilities we also consider Benedict, or a powerful former agent of Benedict, or one of the Children, or...
When the note is written, Tamarind Trumps Random and, when he takes the call, passes the note through to him. Random thanks him and cut the link.
Tristan and Phoenix then Trump Finndo to ask about the Anurerishkigal-infected Soulstones.
After a while he takes the call, proving to be on the deck of a large clipper-type ship made of silvery metal with green sails emblazoned with a white Unicorn design. It appears to be a ship of the Amber Navy.
We ask him to come through to us. He shouts a few orders to the crew, and does so.
Upon his appearance out of a purple Trump rainbow we offer him wine. He accepts with thanks.
"Could you tell us about your investigations in the Anurerishkigal-filled Soulstones?" Tristan asks him.
"I have made some investigations," Finndo allows.
"Can you use them for tracking?" Phoenix butts in.
"Only within the same shadow, alas," he admits.
At our urging, Finndo describes his work to us.
His experiments seem to be based around a process that he calls 'Psychometric Resurrection'. This involves creating an artificial intelligence that takes on the characteristics of the trapped elements of Anurerishkigal, based on psychometric readings of their psychic characteristics.
From what he says, he has determined that the two samples are slightly different from one another. One seems to be frightened, of death, and of its enemies. The other is simply hungry for life-force.
"From what I can tell, Fiona seems to be completely merged with it," Finndo comments. "But it does think that it has a base somewhere called 'The Farm', some overcrowded hell-shadow," he adds. "Somewhere well protected, well defended, and possibly in more than one shadow."
"Does it have a Pattern imprint?" Phoenix asks.
"Yes," replies Finndo.
A lengthy discussion ensues over what is required for a person to have an operational Pattern imprint.
The outcome of this is that it seems that both a body of Amberite blood, and a Psyche that is also of the Family is required. Neither an Amberites mind in a shadow body nor a shadow mind in an Amberite body will suffice. Despite this Finndo thinks the Soulstone-fragments do have such an imprint.
"I get the impression that Fiona might have allowed Anurerishkigal in, in exchange for something," says Finndo. "Perhaps her not fading away in the Land of the Dead?"
This re-starts the argument about the best way to nab Anurerishkigal.
Ibrahim has a plan to create a trap that blocks the path to the Land of the Dead, fill it with life-force, take it to The Farm, destroy the place, and let Anurerishkigal jump into the nearest source of life-force. And voila, we have trapped Anurerishkigal.
"But will Fiona fall for that?" asks Phoenix. "I think that the composite Fiona-Anurerishkigal is stronger than the two separate components. So separating them might weaken them both."
"I think they're pretty well intertwined by now," Damien comments.
"We could go to Tir-Na Nog'th," suggests Tamarind.
"And we all know how well that turned out last time," comments Damien. Then, "OK."
A virus that drains life-force, based on the life-force transfusion spikes, is also suggested as a possible weapon.
Phoenix and Damien wonder whether the Soulstones could be used as a focus to track Anurerishkigal through shadow to somewhere it has recently been, even if we could not track it directly.
No-one is really sure...
However, by the end of our discussion, we have come to the conclusion that we need the following:
No-one wants to face it unprepared. Very sensibly!
"Do we consider this to be a priority?" asks Phoenix. "Since we haven't really been pursuing the Anurerishkigal problem recently."
"I have," says Damien. "Hence the badgering of Brand on the shadow-trap issue. The several years of badgering."
"I also think Anurerishkigal is a priority," chips in Tamarind.
A thought strikes Phoenix. "Could the Land of the Dead be a creation of Anurerishkigal to tap into the recycling of life-force?" she asks the room in general.
No-one really knows.
However, Damien suddenly recalls Maieutis, the horribly overcrowded shadow ruled by the God-Empress Fiona that was mentioned in the database we found in the laboratory in shadow Moro/Renaissance as having been recalled by one of the memory-sparks dissected there [Session 2.5]. As he recalls, another memory-spark recalled a place of the same name, though from their memories it was a rolling high-magic medieval high-fantasy sort of land ruled by Queen Fiona. Perhaps this latter set of memories was from the place as ruled by pre-Anurerishkigal Fiona?
This sounds quite relevant.
With help from Tristan and Damien, Phoenix attempts to Trump Brand. She wants to ask him whether we could make a really big Soulstone in which to trap Anurerishkigal.
However, they do not get through. They look at Tamarind.
Tamarind long-sufferingly pulls out his super-Trump of Brand and concentrates on it.
Before long the link opens up, to reveal Brand in a luxurious bedroom. He is not alone there, and does not look entirely happy at being interrupted.
"If you could please call back," Tamarind asks him. "Since we have a theoretical question..."
Brand nods and breaks the link.
"He was relaxing," Tamarind tells the rest of us as the contact drops.
A few minutes later Brand Trumps back to Tamarind and, when he takes the call, comes through.
Phoenix asks him her question regarding the giant Soulstone.
Finndo then relates his research again for Brand's benefit.
Brand considers all of this. "I think we would need a Soulstone at least one thousand times the size of the current ones," he eventually says contemplatively. "In theory a Soulstone that size is findable, but it is very unlikely in practise. Even the small ones are very rare."
"However," he says. "I do have an idea for observing the Land of the Dead. If I were to find someone who was dying and make a deal with them - perhaps of benefit to their family - then I could give them a device that would become part of their Personal Reality. Something similar to the communication stones I gave you that allowed you, in the Land of the Living, to talk to me, in the Land of the Dead. They would then take it into the Land of the Dead when they died. It would allow a person with the other end of the device, here in the Land of the Living, to see through their eyes and guide them from place to place in the Land of the Dead. Thus giving us a chance to see what was going on there without having to die..."
We think this sounds like a good idea.
Phoenix has an idea too. "Couldn't we just split off a part of ourselves (those of us who can, anyway), and let it go to the Land of the Dead and report back?"
Fair point.
Brand and Finndo both seem to be quite impressed by this idea.
Tamarind, meanwhile, is thinking about looped Trump Traps.
The rest of us discuss the Brand-Phoenix plan. Eventually it expands into the idea of sending people or parts of ourselves into the Land of the Dead with life-force draining spikes, so that they can use them on Anurerishkigal if it dies in the Land of the Living without being fully drained.
Of course, this requires our agents in the Land of the Dead to die in the same place as Anurerishkigal does. Or our separated parts in the Land of the Dead would have to be able to move to the right part of the Land of the Dead to intercept it. However, this might be manageable...
At this point Brand has another idea. "It might be possible to build a device that duplicated the way in which a developing foetus attracts life-force. If this was implanted inside a person it would effectively make them immortal, since you would replenish your life-force as seen as you lost it."
"Interesting..." muses Phoenix.
"Does anyone think that destroying Anurerishkigal would harm the Land of the Dead?" she asks. "In which case we couldn't then get any more people back from there."
We consider this.
The rest of us think that the Anurerishkigal and the Land of the Dead are not that intimately connected, and that the latter would survive the death of the former. We think.
"That's OK then," says Phoenix.
Tristan is squeamish about gathering the life-force of dying people as bait. "I prefer using Brand's hypothetical life-force recycler as a bait," he says. "Or the appearance of such a thing existing."
Unfortunately, we do not know whether Fiona/Anurerishkigal has not thought of this and built one already.
"I got the impression from the samples that it might actually prefer freshly-formed souls," Finndo chips in.
However, Tristan's idea has the virtue that Anurerishkigal would not end up in a trap where it had a lot to eat.
"I think Fiona can actually eavesdrop on the Trumps," Tamarind comments. "I detected her doing so once or twice."
We wonder who could make an unguarded Trump call that would alert Anurerishkigal.
"Random," mutters Tamarind, still annoyed at Random's lax Trump security earlier.
"Sebek," says Tristan. "He could Trump Damien and ask if he can be immortal yet."
"Sebek has no sense of his own mortality anyway," points out Damien. "And if he did, if he was offered immortality, we would have to deliver on the promise..."
Finndo turns into Sebek. With eyebrows so that he can waggle them.
"Can you do that well enough so that if I Trump Sebek, I get you?" Damien asks.
"I think so," says Finndo.
"We'd need to put Sebek into a Trump-barred shadow, so he'd be safe from Fiona/Anurerishkigal if she/it tried to Trump him after overhearing the pseudo-Sebek's unguarded call," Phoenix comments. Fair point.
"Have we ever known Anurerishkigal to be creative?" Phoenix then asks.
We consider this. "On the whole, no," we conclude.
"It tried to test us by having a lunatic kidnap the children," Damien says.
"SO it'll have learned who the best hostages are," replies Phoenix.
We resolve to check on the Nippers out in shadow.
Tamarind Trumps them all - simultaneously.
After a while, six contacts open up, shortly followed by Octavius who has obviously paused to check the identity of the caller.
From what Tamarind can see, they all appear to be in the same place - a restaurant on the top of a skyscraper, having lunch.
"Are you well?" asks Tamarind.
"This Chardonnay isn't properly chilled," comments Angelique.
"Chalice and Brand have just been rescued," Tamarind tells them.
"Is there something we should know?" they ask, looking pleased at this news.
"Yes, if you have a moment," says Tamarind.
Octavius assures them that he can get them back to their lunch, and then they all come through to us.
We explain the plan to them.
Eleanor sniggers at the idea of trading on the naivety of Sebek to bait the trap. But even Sebek's friends among the new generation can appreciate the plan.
"Can we help?" they ask.
"I recall a shadow I worked in with Fiona that would make a good location for a trap," Brand chips in. "I also think I know where Maieutis may be."
This all sounds good, so we begin to work on the plan.
Ibrahim Trumps himself and Tamarind to the Palace of Splendours to work on Tamarind's idea for looped Trump Traps.
While Ibrahim enchants a Dancing Stick so that it is a sentient device, Tamarind creates two Trump Trap sketches that are also SuperTrumps. Each links to a point directly in front of the other.
When the Stick and the Trumps are complete, they allow the Stick to move in front of one of the Trump Traps. It is immediately Trumped in front of the other one, then back to the first one, and so on. The movement of the Stick does cause it to drift from directly in front of the Trump Traps, but the Trump Trap sketches burn out before it moves out of range.
So that should work.
Tamarind comes up with a better idea, and instead creates two hemispherical Trump Traps.
He then traps the Dancing Stick within the sphere they form. Now unable to drift out, it flickers back and forth between the two traps in a way that provides encouragement to our plan.
Meanwhile, the rest of us who are still in Amber go in search of King Random.
We find him in an audience in the Throne Room, and only too glad for this excuse to escape.
At his request the various nobles present are ushered out.
When the room has been cleared, we run the plan past him, ask to borrow the Jewel of Judgement, and ask whether he wants to come with us.
Random approves of our plan, and our use of the Jewel. He leaves to fetch it.
"I know it's none of my business," Phoenix asks Damien and Tristan while Random is out of the room. "But why have Random and Vialle not had children yet?"
"I recommend that you talk to Vialle about that before Random," Damien suggests.
"We're not a fertile race," Tristan comments.
We discuss this further.
Phoenix innocently natters on about our eccentric reproductive techniques, while the Children look either uncomfortable or condescendingly amused.
With their experiments concluded for now, Tamarind and Ibrahim release the unfortunate Dancing Stick into the wild, and then Trump back to Amber via Damien.
Soon afterwards, Random returns with the Jewel of Judgement, which he gives to Tristan.
If Tristan is to continue carrying it, the rest of us insist that he get some armour.
That being so, Angelique escorts him to the Armoury while the other Children go to tool up themselves.
They all return a short while later, armed and armoured as appropriate.
And with everything being ready, Brand pulls out one Trump while sketching another.
He concentrates on the Trump sketch and, when the link opens up, Trumps us all through. We appear high up in mid-air, and begin to drop, but Brand quickly casts a spell and our fall is broken by a field of force. Far below us is a vast ocean with two-mile-high waves rolling ponderously across it.
Damien, Ibrahim and Tristan can feel that this place is magical, fairly Real, and that technology works here. Time in this shadow flows roughly five times faster than in Amber.
"Welcome to Steelcliff," says Brand, waving to indicate the shadow as a whole.
From high in mid-air, Brand uses the Trump he pulled out earlier and, when the link opens up, brings us through to a helipad on the top of a very tall structure like an oil rig with legs several miles high [like an oil rig version of the elephants in 'The Temptation of St. Anthony' by Salvador Dali]. In the far distance, we can see the vast waves crashing against a huge steel-grey cliff that rises up into infinity. The light in the sky - not a sun - is shaped like a huge, shining lotus flower.
Brand leads us down a ramp from the helipad into a complex of laboratories, living quarters, gymnasia and weapons practise areas.
And we set to, preparing our trap.
Tristan makes life-force draining spikes.
Those of us with magical and related powers work on the spirit trap.
Finndo, Tamarind and Octavius work on Trump Traps and so on.
Finndo also works on an impression of Sebek, as does Phoenix.
Weapons and combat practise also takes place.
Since Damien reckons that he can assist in all but the Trump-related activities, he decides to be co-ordinator. Everyone else humours him in this.
Damien, Tristan and Phoenix talk to Eleanor about her powers.
"I've got a couple of people living inside me at the moment," she says. "I rescued them from dying."
We ask her if she thinks her powers could be useful for the trap.
"I don't think I could transfer a spirit without channelling it through myself," she says.
So perhaps not, then...
After a while the conversation wanders round to the possible Shapeshifting abilities that Fiona/Anurerishkigal may possess. Finndo, after some prompting, gives Phoenix a sample of the anti-Shapeshifter toxin that he possesses, though we warn her that it has never been seen to actually work.
Phoenix is not impressed that Finndo forgot to mention this before. But then, no-one else seems to have mentioned it either...
Tristan begins to seal off all but one of the exits from shadow Steelcliff.
After a few days hard work in shadow Steelcliff we have:
Damien reckons that Brand should be the one to be visible rather than in hiding as the rest of us intend to be.
"I could make us look like each other to confuse things even more," suggests Phoenix. A good plan.
Phoenix will pretend to be Sebek in the shadow pocket. She has a Trump of the fleshy blob, so she can solidly contact it if required.
We have three key locations for the plan:
When we think we are ready, Brand, Finndo and Tristan all thoroughly check the trap. Some amendments to it are made based on what they find, and then it is re-checked more successfully.
And we make ready to clear the decks. Which basically means getting Sebek out of the way.
To do this, Damien and Tamarind shift out of shadow Steelcliff.
From outside, Tamarind Trumps them in a roundabout manner to just outside the Trump-barred shadow that Tristan created for Beltaine.
And from there, Damien Trumps Sebek.
Before long, the Trump link opens up, revealing Sebek in a tropical jungle, wearing a camouflaged helmet and flack jacket, and carrying a rifle much like an M-16.
"I'm hunting marsh-mallards," he tells Damien over the Trump link. "Some people told me to get them from someone called Charlie."
"Run back and get Agrippina," Damien tells him. "Or you'll be late for the race."
Excited by this prospect, Sebek runs back and bumps into Agrippina, who is also in jungle camouflage gear.
After some little explanation, the pair of them come through to Damien and Tamarind.
Damien convinces Sebek that he has to explore Beltaine's shadow first, before the race, as Beltaine says he can have it, and it will help us trap a criminal, and...
In the end they just usher Sebek and Agrippina into the barred shadow. Damien palms a note explaining what is going on to Agrippina as he does so.
"Can we go now?" says Tamarind levelly.
Damien nods.
The two of them Trump back to outside shadow Steelcliff and make their way back in.
Tristan, meanwhile, has realised that he and Ibrahim should not be in the same shadow (or shadow pocket) as Phoenix. At least, not if they are carrying the Jewel of Judgement and a Pattern blade respectively.
That being so, he constructs a second shadow pocket off the fake shadow Plinius for them to lurk in.
And with everyone ready, we begin.
Phoenix as Sebek Trumps Damien.
"Is it ready yet?" 'Sebek' demands as the link opens up.
"It'll be ready soon," Damien tells 'him' wearily. "The thing that keeps people from growing old." He 'distracts' 'Sebek' with talk of the impending 'race'.
'Sebek' breaks the link, then Trumps Brand to badger him instead.
Brand plays his part well, and intimidates 'Sebek' into breaking the link.
The next two calls to Brand go unanswered, so 'Sebek' tries Damien again.
Damien mollifies 'him', and congratulates him on winning his race. 'Sebek' is suitably distracted.
This goes on for a while.
But after a few exchanges like this, Tamarind begins to detect activity from Fiona's Trump.
Phoenix quickly shapeshifts people to look like others of us who they are not. In particular, Brand now looks like Damien, and vice versa.
There is a sudden surge of Trump in the 'bait room', filled with combat-orientated people, and then someone appears in a purple Trump rainbow.
It looks like Fiona, if she was made out of, and clothed in, glossy black ooze.
"I've come for an immortality device," it says. "Give me one and you may live."
Appearing to be Brand, Damien flicks his eyes over to the desk where the 'devices' are.
"Thank you," she says, and glides over in an oily fashion that implies a lack of legs under her clothing.
"Do something Damien!" says Damien to Brand (who looks like Damien) as he backs away. Then grabs a crossbow loaded with a life-force draining spike.
At the same time, the door bursts open to admit Ibrahim with Chrysanthir at the ready, Tristan, fully charged with Jewel energy, and Phoenix, now having relinquished her Sebek shape.
Tamarind, Carl and Duncan also pile in.
Damien's spiked crossbow bolt hits Fianurerishkigal first.
Ibrahim reaches her first as far as hand-to-hand combat goes, and chops at her with Chrysanthir. However, she manages to avoid the worst of its damage.
Tamarind weighs in with Nexus.
Brand shouts a couple of words as he casts a spell. A cluster of black dots fly from his hand. We feel a distinct gravitational tug as they go past. They hit and plough into Fianurerishkigal, and seem to be sucking up her/its body mass.
Phoenix shoots her small, internally stored life-force draining spikes into it.
Tristan attempts to use the Jewel of Judgement to set Fianurerishkigal on fire.
Carl casts a Lightning Bolt at Fianurerishkigal. It hits her, blows a hole through her, goes through the hole, and then curves round to attack again.
Fianurerishkigal looks rather taken aback by all of this. As well it might.
The Dancing Sticks on the table beside it, also tipped with life-force draining spikes, lift up and fly at it.
It dodges some of them, but not all of them.
Fianurerishkigal opens its mouth, speaks a word ... and there is a blindingly bright flash of light.
Damien closes his eyes in time. Tristan has a life-force lens in the way, which filters out most of the flash. But the others in the room are briefly blinded.
Ibrahim feels something sharp penetrate his chest in a painful manner.
He immediately tries to remove it as quickly as he can, in case it is a life-force draining spike.
Damien runs forward, reloading his crossbow.
Duncan is blinded, as is Tamarind, who waves his palmed Trump Trap leading to the Trump Trap sphere at Fianurerishkigal. "I don't need my eyes to see - only the Trump is needed," he announces.
As he does this, Tamarind, although blind, senses that someone is trying to use the power of the Trump here. He homes in on it.
Phoenix, who by now has formed a new set of eyes for herself, casts a Corrupt Flesh spell on Fianurerishkigal's pristine goo. It gradually begins to look even gooier.
Damien shoots another life-force draining spike into it and runs forward, drawing Dashwood as he goes.
Duncan, who seems to be recovering his sight somewhat, throws a large knife into Fianurerishkigal. It seems to have little effect.
Ibrahim, also recovering his sight, strikes at Fianurerishkigal with Chrysanthir, driving it towards Tamarind.
Tamarind can also mostly see now. He strikes Fianurerishkigal with Nexus.
Fianurerishkigal singularly fails to be Trumped into the Trump Trap sphere next door. Damn.
Instead, globs of black flesh roll up the blade of Nexus. And Chrysanthir. Others fly out towards Damien.
Then Fianurerishkigal bursts into flame, as Tristan begins to apply the power of the Jewel of Judgement to it.
Concentrating on the Jewel and looking through the life-force lens at the same time, Tristan realises that Fianurerishkigal is not losing life-force, despite the many spikes that are embedded in it. From what he can see it is not drawing life-force from anywhere else, and it's not losing any from the spikes. In fact, it appears to be immune to the life-force draining effects of the spikes. Damn again.
He shouts this information to alert the rest of us.
As he does so, he also notices that Fianurerishkigal has some kind of Pattern-based artefact inside it, around the stomach area. He passes on this information to the rest of us too.
Damien dodges the rolling black globs and stabs Fianurerishkigal in the stomach area. Dashwood clacks against something solid within the viscous oily flesh.
Tamarind withdraws Nexus from Fianurerishkigal, separating the black blobs from it. Away from the main body, Nexus seems affect them, and they are Trump Trapped away to the sphere.
Whatever the artefact inside Fianurerishkigal is, Tristan thinks that his efforts to suppress power on and around it are stopping it doing whatever it is supposed to be doing. However, his doing so also causes Brand's mini black holes and Carl's self-charging Lighting Bolt spells to dissipate. As he concentrates on the artefact, Tristan also feels that there is something Trump-like about it.
Fianurerishkigal suddenly collapses into a thick black splash of goo, covering the feet of Damien, Ibrahim, Tamarind and Duncan.
As it does so, Damien twists Dashwood, catching the artefact within Fianurerishkigal and flipping it out of the black goo and away.
Brand, concentrating on it hard, forces the artefact to stop and float in mid-air. It is a collection of four inch-wide spheres arranged in a tetrahedron, like a molecular model.
Damien leaps up out of the black goo, as does Ibrahim, who slashes at the tetrahedron with Chrysanthir.
The tetrahedron explodes in a bright flash of lightning and a rumble of thunder that stuns Ibrahim and blows him down into the goo on the floor.
Phoenix leaps up, darts across the ceiling while clinging to it, grabs Ibrahim and pulls him from the goo.
Tamarind also jumps out of the goo, and slashes at the black blobs on his boots. Most of them are Trump Trapped away, expect for one or two blobs that seem to have penetrated the chinks of his armour...
Duncan jumps out of the black goo.
Carl begins to cast another Lightning Bolt at the black goo.
Brand teleports over to Tamarind and, hovering a few inches above the ground, helps him to push Nexus into the black goo. He assists Tamarind in reinforcing the Trump Trap effect of Nexus, and the two of them feel it activate. The pool of oily black goo glows Trump-purple and disappears. Taking Chrysanthir with it...
This leaves only the blobs of goo that are on us.
"Use the Trump Traps!" shouts Tamarind to the room at large, meaning the small palm-sized Trump Trap sketches of the trap sphere he gave to us all.
While still in mid-leap, Damien tries to kick some of the gloop off himself against the wall, with some small success. As he lands he begins trying to scrape and Trump Trap the rest of it off him.
As he does so he feels a slight sensation on his leg - some of the black goo has crawled up to the top of his boot and is now making its way down the inside. Not a good sign.
Tamarind has goo seeping in through the joints of his armour. He uses Nexus to cut into his own leg in order to Trump the invading goo away. Ouch.
"Ah! It's on me!" cries Duncan. It is indeed.
Tristan calls on the power of the Jewel of Judgement to burn up the last blobs of black goo in this room, and they burst into flame. As do the parts of us that they were touching. Ouch.
As the last of the black goo burns away, Carl abandons his casting of a Lightning Bolt spell in favour of casting a Healing spell on Duncan instead.
"Are you both OK?" Damien asks them.
They nod.
Everyone heads into the other room, where the Trump Trap sphere is.
Through the walls of the sphere we can see a flickering image of a black blob being Trumped back and forth while being attacked by the maelstrom of poisons, flechettes and life-force draining spikes we had earlier filled it with. And a Pattern sword.
The only problem with this latter, which is otherwise proving quite effective, is that it is not doing the interior of the sphere any good whatsoever...
Through the life-force lens, Tristan can see that Fianurerishkigal is now losing life-force.
He can also sense that it is trying to shift shadow away from here.
Brand and Finndo begin blocking Fiona's Trump while Tristan attempts to keep this shadow constant, reinforcing its resistance to Pattern to stop Fianurerishkigal shifting away.
He hands the Jewel of Judgement to Ibrahim, and he and Phoenix concentrate on it, using its power to keep Fianurerishkigal burning. At the same time, Damien and Tamarind concentrate on it to suppress Fianurerishkigal's use of the Pattern.
As this begins to take effect, Fianurerishkigal changes tactics. It begins radiating Pattern around itself to suppress the Trump Trap sphere, and the magic within it.
Tristan, Ibrahim and Damien change to concentrating on the Jewel and using it to suppress this use of the Pattern by Fianurerishkigal. Phoenix continues to concentrate on burning it, but the rest of us and Finndo - who, we notice as he begins to assist us, is somehow also attuned to the Jewel (perhaps in Oberon's day) - are determined not to let it use the Pattern to any effect.
As we all concentrate hard on the Jewel, this seems to be working...
Tristan is also keeping an eye of things, trying to detect what Anurerishkigal is doing so that he can warn us.
Carl is attempting to hold the Trump Trap sphere together with magic. Octavius and Eleanor join us in using the Jewel against Fianurerishkigal. Beatrice and Angelique patrol the perimeter of the sphere. Luther is casting spells into the sphere.
"Adding something combustible to the mix in the sphere might be a good idea," Phoenix suggests.
Agreeing with this, Damien steps out of the Jewel link and begins casting a Hell-Fire spell targeted inside the sphere.
As he does so, Fianurerishkigal seems to have got a proper hold on Chrysanthir, and appears to be about to use it to hack its way out of the sphere.
Then the sphere is filled with Hell-Fire. Fianurerishkigal sizzles.
Everyone on the Jewel concentrates hard on using it to paralyse Fianurerishkigal.
Despite this, the tip of Chrysanthir emerges through the outer surface of the sphere, poison vapours leaking out around it.
Phoenix runs across, her arm stretching to maintain contact with the Jewel, and absorbs the poisons into herself.
Angelique, her hands gloved, carefully grabs the tip of the sword and begins to twist and pull it as she attempts to wrench it from Fianurerishkigal's grasp.
Damien rejoins the Jewel-using group.
Angelique manages to pull Chrysanthir out of Fianurerishkigal's grip, and out of the sphere. Unfortunately, although the sphere is healing behind it, there are blobs of the black gloop on Chrysanthir.
"Use Nexus," shouts Tamarind.
Damien borrows Nexus, leaves the Jewel-using group again, and uses Nexus to Trump Trap the extraneous blobs back into the sphere. This seems to work.
We keep Fianurerishkigal paralysed with the Jewel while the Trump Trap sphere repairs itself. Then Finndo, Eleanor and Octavius maintain the paralysis while the rest of us go back to using the Jewel to burn Fianurerishkigal up from the inside.
After four or five hours of this, Fianurerishkigal has lost roughly a third of its life-force. It seems to decide to give up. Its physical body dies and the Trump Trap sphere splinters and breaks around it.
Unfortunately for Fianurerishkigal we have warded the area to block its escape route to the Land of the Dead, and we can feel its life-force all around us, trapped by Brand's warding.
"We should all get into one mental ink to prevent it from picking on any one of us individually," Tamarind suggests urgently.
A fair point. We do this thing.
Fianurerishkigal is contained, but its black life-force is everywhere within the warded area.
"It's trying to Trump itself," Brand says.
He, Finndo and Tamarind work together to try and block Fiona's Trump and so stop it from doing whatever it is trying to do. It feels as if something - perhaps another part of it - is trying to Trump it from outside.
Tristan begins attempting to alter the shadow so that one cannot Trump into it. He passes the soul-cutting device from shadow Moro to Damien.
With the help of the life-force lens, Damien begins vivisecting the spirit of Fianurerishkigal. It does heal from this damage, but the healing also weakens it.
"Why are you doing this?" comes its voice, echoing mentally to us all.
"No-one talks to it," insists Tamarind.
Tristan closes his mouth.
"You are torturing me for no good reason," Fianurerishkigal continues. "I never intended any harm to Amber. I can help you."
Eleanor, Luther, Octavius and Duncan go to one of the pocket shadows to avoid having to hear this. Angelique does not.
"So much for the moral high ground," it seems to moan at Tristan.
Tristan continues to keep his mouth shut.
Fianurerishkigal moans piteously.
Damien snips on with the soul-cutter.
It drains away more and more as it tries to fix itself.
This wretched process continues for some twelve hours more, with Fianurerishkigal berating and begging us all the while.
Finally there is a hideous mental scream and a psychic wind, and its life is gone. All that is left is a rather large memory spark drifting within the warding, and slowly fading away.
"We should seal up this shadow," Tristan suggests.
No-one disagrees with this idea.
Before we do so, Brand takes the time to snip the warded area of the station out of shadow Steelcliff and turn it into its own shadow pocket, embedding the warding into the fabric of the small shadow thus created.
We fill the shadow pocket with concrete, creating something like a giant concrete Malteser.
Once this is done, Brand and Tristan spend some significant time trapping the former shadow Steelcliff to hell and back, using the most advanced techniques in shadow trapping that they know. All of the magic of the shadow is concentrated to fire on interlopers, the power of Trump is turned off throughout the entire shadow, and the place is made the opposite of a shadow of Desire.
With the modifications to the shadow completed, Tristan leaves an inscription warning any surviving visitors not to let Fianurerishkigal out, and also instructions on how to put it back in if they do.
Once all of this is done, we leave the former shadow Steelcliff by its one exit.
To find that the next shadow has changed.
It is now anti-magical, our spells and magical items are rapidly fizzling away, Trumps do not work and, according to Brand, there is now only one exit from this shadow too.
"It wasn't like this before!" Brand comments.
"It may have been a trap Fianurerishkigal set for Damien and Brand once it had nabbed the 'Immortality Device'," speculates Tristan. "Something it created before it went in."
We all gather around the Jewel of Judgement and use it to handily teleport us all to Amber in a red glow of Jewel energy.
Once we are there, Tamarind quickly checks his Trumps.
"I want to report to the King," says Ibrahim. "Before we go and investigate the exit from Steelcliff from the outside to see what has been done to it."
The fact that all of us are fairly tired, injured to varying degrees (though Phoenix's patches are doing what they can for things such as Damien's injured leg and Ibrahim's chest) and have absolutely no magic left is also a good reason for not going back there at once...
We are allowed out of the Arrival Courtyard and head off to see Random.
In Random's office we find Queen Vialle, behind his desk, working. "Random is in a meeting with the Golden Circle Ambassadors," she tells us.
"We have killed most if not all of Anurerishkigal," We tell Vialle. "Including Fiona."
"I am glad of the first," she replies. "Though not of the second."
"Fiona was already dead to all intents and purposes," we point out.
While we talk, Tamarind goes and sits in a corner, beginning to lay out the cards for another Trump Reading. 'Is Fiona Alive?' is his question.
We tell Vialle the whole story.
"It sounds most unpleasant," she comments.
We do not disagree with her on this, and suggests that further investigation would be a good idea. When we are rested.
"That would probably be a good idea," she agrees.
By now Tamarind has finished his Trump reading, with a result that seems to be unambiguously affirmative. Fiona is indeed still alive. Damn.
He begins to lay out another reading. 'Where is Fiona?' is his question this time. The answer that comes back indicates that she is moving around, not in any one place, or perhaps in multiple places at the same time.
A third reading asks 'Is Anurerishkigal alive?'. The answer to this is also an unambiguous affirmative.
Tamarind's final question asks 'Are Fiona and Anurerishkigal one and the same?'. Again, the answer to this is an unambiguous affirmative.
"Good work," says Vialle.
Even if it does transpire that our victory was indeed only partial.
Ibrahim and Damien thank the Children for their help, and people stumble off to get some rest.
"Can I borrow the Trump of Beltaine's barred shadow?" Damien asks Tamarind.
He hands over the card, then comes with Damien anyway.
The two of them appear outside Beltaine's shadow, and step across the shadow veil into it.
"Where in the name of all the Gods have you been?" demands Agrippina, who is camped just inside. "It's been over a week," she tells them. Well, it is a fast-time shadow...
Damien apologises to Agrippina, then Trumps Sebek who, when he takes the call, proves to be off hunting. "I'm bored," he complains over the Trump link.
Sebek is quite happy to leave here now, and so comes through to Damien.
The four of them leave the Trump-barred shadow, and Tamarind takes everyone back to Amber by the simple expedient of tapping us all with Nexus, which is set to transport everyone back to Amber's Arrival Courtyard.
"Thank you," Damien tells Tamarind after everyone is safely arrived.
"Goodnight," mumbles Tamarind, and shambles off to his bed.
Everybody rests.
Apart from Damien, who finds himself trying to explain things to and placate Agrippina and Sebek. Sebek, having been told he is going to have a race, now actually has to have a race, so Agrippina is detailed to organise it. How impressed is she? Not very...
Eventually Damien gets to bed too.
Before resting Ibrahim also has to explain to Margot why she was left out of the exercise for reasons of operational security.
Everyone wakes up in Amber the next morning and heads down for breakfast.
Tristan checks for his doves that he sent off before.
He finds that the one he sent to the worst tax evader in Amber has returned. He makes mental contact with the dove and finds that it has a clear image of someone he doesn't really know, but who, from what he can see, seems to be a member of House Ashlurian. The other dove has not returned as yet.
"What now?" says Ibrahim.
"I want to check the anti-magic shadow that Anurerishkigal left in our path," says Tristan.
We discuss this. In the course of which it comes out that the manipulation of shadow by a person does show distinctive personal touches.
"And it might give us some of idea of what to expect on The Farm?" Damien suggests.
"How's Sebek?" asks Phoenix.
"Looking forward to his next race," replies Damien. "Agrippina's arranging it."
"You mollycoddle that velociraptor too much," comments Brand. "You spoil him."
"I'd like to know how it became resistant to the spikes," says Tristan.
"It's a pity you destroyed the tetrahedral construct inside Anurerishkigal," comments Brand grumpily. "I might have learned something from it."
It is pointed out that given its origin not destroying it would probably have been a much worse idea than destroying it. Brand grudgingly concedes this point.
"I want to do something about my armour so that it isn't so leaky," says Tamarind.
"Could we concentrate on making Anurerishkigal lose life-force rather than trying to drain it directly?" Phoenix wonders. "Perhaps if we give it intense memories that make it use up life-force in laying them down..."
Damien recalls the final demise of the Council for Victory, who were drained by an environmental effect of the Nonagram. "Could that be a useful alternative approach?" he wonders.
"I'll have a think about it," says Brand.
Finndo arrives and begins his breakfast.
Tamarind builds on Phoenix's idea. "Perhaps we could use something like Dworkin's memory-storage Trump," he suggests. "Force it into contact with it, so that it is overwhelmed by a vast flood of memories."
"And," he adds. "Once the crisis is past, you could develop these memory-Trumps as libraries..."
The Children turn up and begin breakfast.
Tristan and Damien volunteer to return to the trapped shadow to scout it out.
The Children are detailed to hold the fort here in Amber.
"We must all have some fairly intense memories," says Phoenix, returning to idea of the memory-flood weapon for use against Anurerishkigal.
"We need a way of containing them," comments Tristan. "I like your idea of talking to Dworkin," he says to Tamarind.
"Could I have one of the memory sparks?" wonder Eleanor. "If I could hold it inside me, I might be able to expel it at Anurerishkigal on demand."
This idea is also greeted with general approval.
"Anurerishkigal will be expecting us," note Phoenix and Ibrahim. "And might even have been goaded into a response by all of this."
We decide that not dying must hence be the cornerstone of any plan...
Tamarind checks the Trumps. That of Fiona is not currently active.
"Have you sensed anything?" Tristan asks Finndo.
"I haven't noticed any activity from her Trump since yesterday," replies Finndo.
With a course of action agreed, Tamarind attempts to Trump Dworkin. However, he receives no reply.
Brand hands Tristan a Trump of somewhere near shadow Steelcliff.
"Is it going to be safe on the other side?" Tristan asks him.
Brand takes the card back, looks at it, and then hands it back. "Yes," he says.
Having finished his breakfast, Brand leaves to continue his research.
While Tristan and Damien go off to the vicinity of Steelcliff, the others intend to borrow the Jewel again and use it to go to the Primal Pattern and hopefully see Dworkin.
We arrange to meet up back in Amber. If Tristan and Damien are not back when they return, Phoenix, Ibrahim and Tamarind will attempt to join them instead.
Before we split up, Tamarind hands Tristan a Trump, face down.
"What is it," says Tristan, looking at it.
"It's a Trump Trap of Amber's Arrival Courtyard," begins Tamarind.
But he is talking to the air. Tristan has just vanished in a purple Trump rainbow, appearing in the Arrival Courtyard. He radiates Pattern at the Trump to suppress its power so that he can examine it. After that he quickly realises what it is.
Damien bids the others adieu, and voluntarily Trumps down to the Arrival Courtyard.
Tristan looks at Damien. His expression is unreadable.
"Shall we go?" asks Damien brightly.
Upstairs, Phoenix, Tamarind and Ibrahim head off to see Random, accompanied by Finndo.
Servants direct them to Royal Quarters, where Random and Vialle are having breakfast.
We explain what is now being planned.
"I approve," nods Random. "Gerard is out with the Fleet, but I don't know where Corwin, Caleb or Merlin are."
"We should have just followed Merlin," says Phoenix. "I mean, is there any gestalt entity we've met that hasn't eaten him?"
Just to be safe, Tamarind checks the Trumps, and finds that Merlin is asleep in bed.
Random goes to get the Jewel of Judgement.
We make polite conversation with Vialle.
"Why is it called the Jewel of Judgement?" Phoenix asks when Random returns with said gem.
"I don't know," says Random.
"Can it do time travel?" Phoenix asks. Then a new idea strikes her. "Could we use the Jewel to speed up Anurerishkigal so that it loses life-force faster?"
We generally agree that this should be do-able.
"And it might cut us up into gobbets," warns Ibrahim. "If it's a lot faster than us."
"I think we could arrange it so that it couldn't focus on us," speculates Phoenix. "So that wouldn't matter."
Random hands the Jewel of Judgement to Ibrahim.
Ibrahim concentrates on it while Tamarind, Phoenix and Finndo gather round.
And we all disappear in a bright red glow.
To reappear by the Primal Pattern.
Dworkin is sat in a deckchair by the Pattern, with an odd device beside him. Finndo peers at it.
We explain what has been going on, and broach the idea of flooding Anurerishkigal with memories to force it to use up its life-force. Eleanor's idea is also put forward.
Dworkin ponders this.
"I've got a photographic memory," muses Phoenix. "But sometimes I forget to turn it on..."
"I think one could layer lots of memories," says Dworkin. "And use a reverse Trump Trap that would bring the subject to you rather than the other way about."
"Are Trump Traps that just suck out the mind of the target possible?" Phoenix asks.
"I think so," replies Dworkin.
So with no immediate flaws in our plan, we discuss a delivery system.
Tamarind puts forward a number of low-tech ideas involving spikes on the ends of ropes.
"Could you use spores?" asks Phoenix. "Or cut the Trump up like a jigsaw?"
"Yes, you could, but then it wouldn't work," says Tamarind.
"What's your device here?" Phoenix asks Dworkin.
"It's for keeping an eye on things," Dworkin tells her.
"Can we see what Tristan and Damien are doing?" she asks.
"We can indeed," replies Dworkin, and begins re-tuning the device.
Meanwhile, Tristan and Damien arrive on a ledge on a steel-grey cliff high above a raging sea. They can both tell that it is not shadow Steelcliff, but a similar location. They check the shadow properties, and find that this is a fast-time shadow.
Tristan feels his way forward.
After a while he finds that the anti-magic shadow directly outside shadow Steelcliff leads to another that we assume is highly trapped.
By the Primal Pattern, Dworkin has tuned into Damien and Tristan, and all of us are watching them.
We ask whether we could use the device to spy on Fiona.
"No," says Dworkin, shaking his head. "At least not in the short term. To re-tune it means shifting the viewpoint through shadow, so you would have to find her first, then re-tune it to her location."
Tristan slowly drills through the shadow veils so that the two of them can have a look into the putative trap shadow.
Damien concentrates on what Tristan is doing in the hope of learning something in doing so.
Phoenix meanwhile is using her Shapeshifting to adjust Tamarind's armour, making it more flexible and less leaky.
After a short while it is sealed apart from at the faceplate (as Tamarind does need to breathe, after all).
"An anti-flash visor or something of that nature might be useful," Ibrahim suggests.
Phoenix adds a separate tinted visor as the next best thing, given the technological limitations of most shadows.
Dworkin has been concentrating for a short while. A small depressed line forms a square on Dworkin's left temple. This deepens and turns into a hatch, which opens. He shakes his head and a small black cube falls out into his hand. He gives it to Tamarind. The hatch closes and disappears.
"There are two parts of the process," Dworkin tells us. "This is the part used for recording memories. There is another part which involves the restoring of the memories to the subject."
He gets up from his deckchair and goes into his cave.
Tamarind examines the box. Finndo peers over his shoulder as he does so.
It is warm, pulsing slightly, and has a good deal of mental power in its own right. It is not Trump-based, so we assume it is probably a largely shapeshifted thing.
"I think I understand the principle," says Phoenix. "I might be able to do something like it given time and experimentation."
Dworkin re-emerges from his cave with a large canvas that we recognise as the memory-upload Trump he used to restore himself previously.
"I can output the contents of the box onto the canvas," he explains. "And then create a Trump Trap-like device that injects the memories into the brain of the subject."
Meanwhile, on the little screen, Tristan and Damien work their way into the shadow next door.
It takes a while, but eventually Tristan establishes a path and senses through it. Next door, the shadow is fast, and the magic is set to obliterate anything coming in through any entrance, old or new.
Tristan also senses some kind of creature of desire head off in response to his break-in. He summons a roc of his desire to chase it, which swoops down from the sky behind us and into the trapped shadow after its prey. There is a bright flash and the roc is no more.
"Doh," thinks Tristan.
"We've been detected," he warns Damien.
He begins trying to turn off the magic in the trapped shadow.
Damien holds the Trump Trap of Amber in readiness for a quick escape, should one become necessary.
After an hour or so, during which the trapped shadow attempts to resist Tristan's changes, a flight of some hundreds of winged man-sized centipede-things fly up over the horizon in the trapped shadow and straight towards the way through into the shadow where Tristan and Damien are.
Tristan quickly shifts them to a shadow where there are giant centipede-eating chaffinches. However, the centipedes do not follow them, so they return, bringing the chaffinches with them.
The birds fall on the flying centipedes, which fight back. It quickly proves that the centipedes are very tough, perhaps a similar level of fearsomeness to Sebek. However, they do not seem to be sentient (from the life-force lens) or intelligent (from their behaviour). More and more of them arrive, and the giant chaffinches begin to take casualties.
Tristan continues working to turn off the magic, and all other powers, in the trapped shadow.
After some time, he succeeds in this.
The centipedes inside the trap shadow begin to die as it seems they cannot support their own body weight any longer. The ones on Damien and Tristan's side of the shadow veil are still alive and active, but are no longer being reinforced.
"I want to check the shadow further to see what else Fiona has done to it," Tristan tells Damien.
Meanwhile...
"... and that's about it," says Dworkin.
Phoenix and Tamarind are of the opinion that they could rig up something that would turn Dworkin's black box upload system into a weapon. Finndo agrees.
Ibrahim has been watching Damien and Tristan's antics on Dworkin's viewing device.
"Thank you," we say to Dworkin.
"You can keep the black box for a bit," Dworkin tells us. "I'll be keeping an eye on you - I watched some of yesterday's high jinks..."
"When did you attune to the Jewel?" Phoenix asks Finndo.
"When Oberon disappeared and Eric took the throne," he says. "I was the one who left the notes on its use that Eric found."
With that, Ibrahim concentrates on the Jewel of Judgement and he, Phoenix, Tamarind and Finndo disappear in the flash of red Jewel energy to reappear in the Amber Arrival Courtyard.
We are admitted and go up to see Random.
In their office, Random and Vialle prove to be going through their morning post.
Ibrahim reports what has transpired with Dworkin, and what has been learned. And that Finndo is attuned to the Jewel.
"We'll chat," Random tells Finndo in a slightly ominous tone.
We announce that we are going to join Damien and Tristan.
"In that case you can hold onto the Jewel for now," Random tells us.
Before we go, Ibrahim Trumps Margot.
"I'm off to poke Fiona with a sharp stick," he tells Margot when she takes the call.
"Good luck," she tells him in return. "Give her a poke from me."
The call ends.
Tamarind concentrates on Damien's Trump.
Back in the shadow close to Steelcliff, Tristan concentrates on adjusting it to bring all of the magic in their immediate vicinity down on the entrance.
This takes a while, but is eventually done.
The remaining centipedes are vaporised in a massive flash of magic.
At this point Damien feels a Trump call coming on, and accepts it.
It proves to be Ibrahim, Tamarind and Phoenix, who want to come through and join us. Damien brings them through.
"Is it bring your own roc?" asks Tamarind, displaying more knowledge of the situation than Tristan and Damien think he should have.
"You can buy them at the bar," Damien tells him.
"I think the formerly trapped shadow is safe now," Tristan announces. "The next step is to send something through..."
Tamarind mentions Dworkin's shadow viewing device, thus explaining how he knew about the roc. And also its limitations that prevent it being used to spy on Fiona.
Phoenix extends a tentacle through the shadow veil opening into the formerly trapped shadow. Nothing happens.
That being so, we step through into the formerly trapped shadow.
Dead giant winged centipedes litter the ground as far as the eye can see.
"How dangerous were they?" Tamarind wants to know.
"Sebek without his sunny disposition," Damien estimates.
We follow the trail of dead centipedes to a pit some three hundred metres across, at the bottom of which is a compacted mass of giant centipedes, all of them dead.
That being so, we leave the shadow. On foot.
As we go, Tristan sets up a few birds of desire, and an inconspicuous beetle of desire, to alert him to any intruders.
Damien summons some other birds and creatures of desire to attack anything attacking Tristan's creatures.
Next, we want to do the same thing to The Farm, but we all think we need to prepare for this first.
Tristan summons Castle Corvallin, we all climb on board, and off we fly.
In Castle Corvallin, everyone apart from Tamarind hangs and maintains their spells and magic items.
"Do you have any sentient artefacts I can experiment on?" Tamarind asks Tristan. "To see if I can Trump Trap its mind in and out of it."
"Will this harm it?" asks Tristan suspiciously.
"Almost certainly," chips in Ibrahim.
"I don't think so," Tamarind assures him airily.
Tristan reluctantly surrenders a sentient knife, which happily follows Tamarind, who then subjects it to hideous Trump Trap experiments.
Tamarind first uses a Trump Trap to capture its spirit, yanking it out of its body and into the card. He studies the spirit briefly, being quick as he senses it starting to fizz away, and then transfers it back to its body again.
"How do you feel?" he asks it.
"Tired," replies the knife.
"Do you remember anything?" he asks it.
"No," says the knife. Further questioning indicates that it recalls nothing of its time in the trap.
Tamarind sends the knife off to sing in the corner with his self-playing lute.
He then works to fine-tune the Trump Trap until he satisfies himself that he has it right.
Then he returns the knife to Tristan.
"I think we should call in Eleanor now," Ibrahim suggests when everyone has racked all the spells they want to and had a chance to rest.
No-one objects to this, so he Trumps her.
Tristan sends Castle Corvallin flying off towards shadow Renaissance (formerly Moro), where we should have a warding full of memory sparks around the old hole from the Land of the Dead there.
After a short delay, Eleanor takes Ibrahim's Trump call.
"We're going somewhere where there are memory sparks..." Ibrahim begins to tell her over the Trump link.
"Just bring her through!" the rest of us chorus in horror.
She comes through.
With Trump security assured, we explain that we are ... going somewhere where there are memory sparks.
She nods. "I've been to shadow Renaissance before," she tells us.
After a few hours of rapid shadow shifting, we arrive in Renaissance.
The populace below look up and point at the unusual sight of a castle flying overhead.
"When I revealed myself as Ibrahim of Amber before I left Renaissance, I did try to prepare them for the possibility of flying castles turning up at some point in the future," Ibrahim tells us, looking down from the battlements. "But it would appear that not everyone believed me..."
We hover over a military complex that has been built around an old inn, near to a heavily-guarded hill swathed in barbed wire - the former location of the hole from the land of the dead.
Troops on the ground aim guns and missiles of various kinds up at Castle Corvallin.
"Could I have a quick Trump sketch of a spot down below?" Ibrahim asks Tamarind.
Tamarind dashes one off and hands it over.
Ibrahim quickly concentrates on it and Trumps down to the ground, appearing out of a purple Trump rainbow.
He is quickly recognised by the troops present there.
"We'll call off the air strike," the Captain in charge tells Ibrahim. He gets on the radio and does this thing.
"I and some others are here to check up on the Gateway and do some research," Ibrahim tells the Captain.
With all that sorted out, Ibrahim Trumps down the rest of us.
We approach the hill and go inside the layers of defences around it. We sense the shadow pocket Tristan created to contain the hole and enter it.
Inside, through the life-force lens, we can see that the metal cage of the warding contains thousands of black memory sparks bouncing around randomly.
Eleanor peers into the warding. "I can see them in there," she says. She does not have a life-force lens, but just seems to be able to sense them.
She attempts to 'eat' one of the memory sparks, feeling through the warding. One of them flies out and Eleanor sucks it into herself, much as she might with the spirit of a living person.
"It's cold," she says. "And the others don't like it. I'm going to try to wall it off."
She begins to concentrate.
Tristan peers at her through the life-force lens as she does this. He can see the black memory spark within her quite distinctly.
After a few minutes she relaxes. "That's better," she says. "And now to get rid of it..."
She expels it from herself back into the warded cage.
Then Eleanor pulls out another spark and projects it out as a dim ectoplasmic humanoid.
Tamarind prods it with Nexus, and the Trump Trap sucks it into his storage Trump.
"Ow!" exclaims Eleanor, who appears to have been linked to it before this.
"Sorry," says Tamarind.
Tristan volunteers to have the spark projected into himself, while others watch through the life-force lens and see whether he does actually lose any life-force.
We do this. Tamarind projects the spark out of Nexus and into Tristan.
To no visible effect. The spark simply floats inside Tristan and dissipates without affecting the amount of life-force he has.
However, we recall from Fiona's notes here in shadow Renaissance that when she sliced up the memory sparks and injected the fragments into people, then the latter lost life-force.
That being so, we use her spirit-dissection tool to dissect another memory spark into fragments, which are then sucked into Tamarind's storage Trump.
From there the fragments are projected into Tristan.
He feels a swathe of random memories from some poor peasant woman surge through him. And we see that he loses a tiny amount of life-force.
"I think it would take thousands of memory sparks thus transferred to drain me to nothing," he says.
Based on that, the next step is to find out how much memory the storage Trump can hold.
Ibrahim and Tamarind step into the warded cage with the spirit-dissection tool.
While Ibrahim chops up memory sparks, Tamarind sucks the resulting fragments, the last remains of the people they were, into the storage Trump using Nexus.
As they continue to do this, the Trump proves to be able to hold a lot of memories. They have almost cleaned out all of the thousands of memory sparks inside the warding by the time they decide to stop. This takes hours.
While this goes on Phoenix discusses how to create new bodies for Eleanor's passengers so that she does not have to watch the slaughter in the cage.
Using a separate storage Trump, a single memory spark is dissected and the fragments of that person projected into Tristan. This time he has the Pattern to mind. However, it proves to be no defence against the loss of life-force caused by absorbing the memory fragments...
"If Anurerishkigal can sub-divide," Phoenix suggests. "Then it might be able to react quickly enough to shunt all of the memories into one part of itself which can be allowed to die. Maybe checking that should be another test."
We consider this, then put that test on hold for the time being.
We do want to examine the samples of Anurerishkigal from the Soulstones, though, so Tamarind Trumps Finndo, and, when he accepts the call, requests to be able to examine the Soulstones.
"My samples are in shadow," Finndo tells him. "I'll get them and call you back."
He breaks the link.
We decide that the next thing to do is to obtain more memory sparks and use them to fill up some more of Tamarind's devices.
Tristan uses the Jewel of Judgement to open the hole from the Land of the Dead as wide as possible, and memory sparks begin to flood out. Ibrahim chops up more sparks, destroying the last remains of more thousands of people, and Tamarind uses Nexus to store the fragments. Damien takes over from Ibrahim after a while.
Meanwhile, Phoenix takes Eleanor outside the shadow pocket and Eleanor describes the bodies her two passengers would like to have, given the chance.
Via an iterative modification process, Phoenix makes the two bodies, converting air into flesh, and modifying them until they are the desired form. One of them is a young man while the other is an older woman.
When they are done, Eleanor expels their spirits into the new bodies.
As the two wake into their own physical bodies again, they look amazingly happy. They, and Eleanor, thank Phoenix for what she has just done.
In the shadow pocket, Tamarind checks on Finndo at regular intervals as he is not, as yet, calling back.
He senses Finndo leave Amber, go into shadow, then go somewhere barred to the Trump. The next time he checks on Finndo, he finds that Finndo is in combat with a large mechanical blob-creature...
Tamarind yells this out to the rest of us, and we all rush to join him.
We attempt to Trump Finndo, but he resists us.
Instead, we call Brand, on the grounds that based on the powers he has demonstrated before he may be able to take us to where Finndo is.
After a short delay, Brand accepts the Trump call and comes through to join us.
He looks at Finndo's Trump, seems to make some kind of very fast mental Trump sketch, and then there is a flash of combined Trump and Pattern power.
We appear in the middle of a park with the skyscrapers of a high-tech city rising all around us. We are next to the ruins of what appears to be some kind of university building. Lots of bodies are scattered about.
Close by, a large, mechanical amoeboid thing is fighting Finndo. He does not appear to be doing well. Tamarind can sense that the thing is Trump powered.
"It's Trump powered!" he tells us.
"Squash it with the red thing!" shouts Phoenix.
Ibrahim draws Chrysanthir and runs towards the thing.
Damien also advances, but more slowly and casting a Hellfire spell as he goes.
Tristan uses the life-force lens and instantly sees that the thing has black life-force, like Anurerishkigal, but not very much of it. Certainly not enough to waste the new weapon on. Instead, following on from Phoenix's suggestion, he takes up the Jewel and attempts to suppress the thing's Trump power source.
Tamarind also concentrates on disrupting the Trump power source of the thing. He begins a Trump sketch for just this purpose.
Ibrahim begins to lop bits off of the thing with Chrysanthir. However. it does not begin to burn, and grows the parts back.
"Ibrahim. Hurrah," gasps Finndo.
"Is this the only one?" asks Ibrahim.
"This is the hungry one," says Finndo.
Ah. So this is one of the Soulstones, then. Damn.
Damien's Hellfire spell goes off inside the thing, and it shudders. There is a mechanical shriek, and smoke rises from parts of it.
Phoenix casts a Render Combustible spell that makes it more flammable, which seems to do it no good at all.
Holes appear in the thing as it burns.
As Ibrahim fights with it, he is impaled by a thin spike-tipped tentacle that feels cold and sharp-edged as it goes in. Ouch.
Finndo steps back from the combat for a moment to heal his wounds.
Damien parries tentacles to allow Ibrahim a chance to sever the tentacle embedded in his chest.
Phoenix turns into her fiery form and dives into the interior of the thing.
"Use life-force spikes so we can see why it doesn't work," suggests Tristan, pausing a moment from his work with the Jewel.
Ibrahim pushes a couple of spikes into the thing.
"Observe," Tristan tells Brand, then goes back to suppressing the thing's Trump power source using the Jewel.
Damien concentrates on defending Ibrahim, who pauses to cut the tentacle from his chest.
Then the thing stops moving.
"It's still alive," says Tristan, checking.
By now Tamarind has prepared his Trump sketch, but it is no longer needed.
"Where is the other one?" Damien demands of Finndo.
"Don't know," says Finndo, and keels over unconscious.
Finndo receives little sympathy from the rest of us, but we check him nonetheless. We quickly realise that he has been spiked several times, and has barely any life-force left. The spikes are still in him, and draining life-force. They are removed.
Damien currently has an excess of life-force, so Tristan hands him a pair of linked spikes to transfer some of his into Finndo.
"Tell me when I'm down to one hundred percent," Damien says, driving the receiver spike into Finndo and the transmitter spike into his own chest. As Tristan watches through the life-force lens, life-force lens begins to transfer from Damien to Finndo.
The spikes inserted into the amoeboid thing do seem to actually be draining its life-force. The parts of Anurerishkigal inside the mechanical thing clearly never learned the defence that the main part of Anurerishkigal came up with.
"You're at one hundred percent," Tristan tells Damien after a while.
Damien removes the spike from his chest.
And we consider the situation...