Recorded for Posterity by Iain Walker.
We are in a secret passageway in Rebma. Damien has left Wilkes with Esmée, as it'll be no use down here, and has a crossbow instead. He tells the others to keep their voices down - sound travels far under water, then suggests we go and look at the courtyard as that is where Caine last saw Llewella.
We sneak along. The walls seem to be made of the same translucent bluish glassy material as Castle Rebma as a whole, but it is easier to see out from inside then in from outside as it is darker inside than out. The passageway emerges at a concealed door, with spy-hole, behind a buttress on one side of the courtyard. Tamarind checks the Trumps. Caine's, Bleys' and Random's are active.
The courtyard is brightly lit by the same sort of flames as light Faiella-Bionin. A couple of skeletal demons, burning white and curled up in a foetal position, float down into the centre of the courtyard. The water is boiling around them. They land in a triangle of obelisks, which Tristan can sense are imbued with Real power. By the triangular area stand various Rebmans and Hania (in Mr Skin guise). Hania gestures and the Rebmans enter the triangular area and pick up the demons without being burned by them. They carry the demons over the Hania, who pulls out a Trump. Tamarind senses the Trump of Chever become active. The two Chaos lords are passed through the link.
Hania nods and says something to the Rebmans, then walks off towards the keep with a dozen of them. An escort it seems. The Rebmans seem attentive but wary. They also seem to be keeping an eye on Hania himself.
Tamarind wonders if destroying the three obelisks would stop the demons.
"Perhaps they are a beacon?" wonders Damien.
Perhaps it summons them down, suggests Tristan. But how to destroy them?
Ibrahim holds up Eric's Pattern blade.
"If we have time, after we've got Llewella," says Damien.
"Let's go on to the Royal Apartments," suggests Tristan.
We head back that way along the secret passage, winding our way to the Rebman throne room.
Tamarind continues to scan the Trumps. Caine's is active, as per usual.
We reach the Rebman throne room, a mirror image of the throne room in Amber. We peer out through a spyhole below the balcony that runs along the long right hand side of the room (as one faces the throne).
Rebman guards are standing at attention here and there (in the same sorts of places one would expect them to be in Amber), and some Rebman nobles are moving about the room. Assorted fish are swimming around. But Llewella is not there.
We head onwards, towards the Royal Apartments. There seem to be more troops about than one would expect - on alert, perhaps? A shark swims past in the hallway outside. The Rebmans there get out of its way. Tamarind and Altair can sense that it has an intelligent, person-strength mind.
We see more sharks and more guards as we get closer to the Royal Apartments.
Then we go to turn a corner. Altair and Tamarind just have time to warn everyone else that there is something there before they step around the corner. We peep round and there is a big sea scorpion there in the secret passage.
Damien suggests he shoots it in the head with the crossbow he is carrying, then pins its tail while Ibrahim chops it up.
We go to do this thing. Damien shoots, but the crossbow bolt fails to penetrate the sea scorpion's armour. Whoops. So Damien draws his sword and stabs it between the armoured plates on its tail, twisting the blade around to jam the point in, thereby holding the tail immobile.
Ibrahim chops it, avoiding its claws. The Pattern blade nicely bisects it. Its tail convulses, tearing the sword from Damien's grasp. He leaps onto its back and grabs the sword hilt again as the stinger goes for Ibrahim.
It lets out a hideous ratting screech.
Tamarind, trying to make contact with its mind to stop the screech, realises that it is already dead, and the rattling screech is some kind of death reflex.
Ibrahim chops it up until it stops moving and screeching. Its ichor fills the water.
Tristan attempts to influence probability to make it unlikely that there are guards in the corridor to have heard the death-screech. But there is resistance. We see there is one guard out there who has heard the screech and is raising a large conch shell to his lips.
'BWWOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO,' he goes.
Guards begin to run about and take up positions.
We run through the sea scorpion ichor, and on.
"What do we do if we find Hania first?" asks Ibrahim.
"Go for Llewella first, that's the plan," replies Damien.
We reach the Royal Apartments and peer through spyholes. There is no-one in the bedroom, or the dining room, but there are people in the royal office, which seems to have been turned into a conference room.
Inside is Llewella in white scale armour, which looks like it is made from bone (and which does not look like Julian's armour), plus two 'Mr Skins', four Rebman guards (one in each corner) and two schools of small blue octopi. The guards each hold a long, nastily barbed bone-white spear. Another of the same leans against the wall by Llewella's chair.
Tamarind checks the Trumps. Llewella's, Hania's and Prava's are all active. Then only Prava's, and Chever. Tamarind, Altair and Caleb try to jam it (Altair and Caleb provide the power; Tamarind driects it).
Tristan Trumps Esmée, who, with Caine and Brand, is waiting to Trump attack Llewella. When he gets through he tells her, "Now," then drops the Trump link as she nods.
Then Tristan peers into the royal office and can sense, to his surprise, that Llewella has a Pattern Blade. As a distraction he tries to make it likely that a servant drops a wine decanter.
We notice that Prava is having difficulty with her (apparently his) Trump of Chever. Tamarind can sense that he, Altair and Caleb are adversely affecting the Trump link.
Damien reloads his crossbow as Ibrahim quickly checks the secret door into the room for traps. Llewella stiffens. Tamarind senses Prava drop the Trump link, and so he, Altair and Caleb concentrate on the Trump of Prava her/himself and start jamming her/his brain instead.
A servant in the room stumbles. Red wine blooms out into the water. The people in the room look that way. Definitely distracted. "Remember, bloody cuts," says Damien to Ibrahim as the two of them burst into the room.
Damien shots the Mr Skin with the Trump (Prava) in the head. The crossbow bolt doesn't penetrate much, and he is effectively only grazed.
Ibrahim charges towards Llewella.
Margot is in next and kills the guard on the right of the secret door.
Tristan pulls out Gerard's Trump for possible use as a quick getaway.
Damien leaps over the table to interpose himself between Llewella and the two Mr Skin's.
Tamarind, Altair and Caleb are holding Prava mind-locked.
Margot kills another guard.
Llewella is concentrating hard, and slowly reaching for her bone-white spear (rather than for her Pattern blade!). Ibrahim lops the top off the spear with Eric's Pattern sword.
Damien goes for Hania with a fake feint. Hania remembers the feint from before, tries to block it, and then only just manages to block the real thrust it turns out to be. Damien presses his attack. Hania says a word and Damien is filled with blinding pain, which gives Hania the chance to run Damien through the chest. So he does. Damien grabs Hania's arm and runs him through the neck, attempting to lever his vertebrae apart. He grabs Damien's sword arm, and breaks it. Ouch.
Ibrahim clocks Llewella about the head with the pommel of the Pattern blade. This doesn't seem to have much effect. She's bringing the spear around. The point is growing back, and the shaft has a wicked spike on the other end.
Prava's mental defences are crumbling. Tamarind leaves Altair and Caleb to it and dives into the room, heading for Prava. He notices the two shoals of blue octopi; one is heading for Ibrahim, one for Margot. He picks up the silver tray the servant dropped and skims it into one of the shoals, scattering and confusing it.
The two remaining guards go for Tamarind. He spears one of them in the face (with his spear) and twists to one side.
Damien grabs his sword's blade with his left hand and levers upward at Hania's vertebrae. The blade jams under Hania's jaw. Hania rips his sword out of Damien's chest and tries to stab him in the chest. Damien moves his arm up to block the blade and gets scored across the cheek instead. Hania knees Damien in the groin as he drifts backwards. Bones crack. Ouch. Damien feels that his pelvis is probably broken; he is certainly in massive all-over pain.
Margot defends herself against the small blue octopi which are now swarming about her. A couple have attached themselves to her armour. "Ouch!" she says as they appear to sting her through the links of its chain mail.
Ibrahim continues battering at Llewella. Her defence is slowed, but she's still fairly fast, and the battering doesn't seem to be doing her too much harm.
Tristan is still Trumping Gerard.
Tamarind spears the paralysed Prava through the head, ignoring the second guard. Prava still doesn't die.
Tristan gets through to Gerard and asks him for marines. Gerard (on the deck of a ship) starts shouting orders.
Another guard goes for Ibrahim, so he grabs the guard's spear and levers him into a cloud of octopi, then goes back to hitting Llewella with the flat of his Pattern blade. Unfortunately the octopi don't attack the guard but dodge around him.
Margot is continuing to be stung by octopi through her armour.
Ibrahim hits Llewella with the guard, knocking her over. He continues hitting her, sticking the boot in.
Damien starts casting a Hellfire spell. It's all he can think of to do. Hania punches him in the face, making his head ring. Damien gets off the second lynchpin. Hania nuts Damien, and Damien blacks out. He bounces back onto the table.
Tamarind decides he can't face both Hania and Prava, so he leaps back, grabbing Damien as he does so. Hania stabs him in the back of the hand. "Get Hania!" he shouts, leaving Damien behind.
Margot is falling over, surrounded by octopi. Tamarind grabs her instead and throws her into the passageway. Octopi follow.
Tristan tells Altair to concentrate on Hania's Trump, but as he turns to do so sees two large sharks swimming down the passageway towards us. And another two coming from the opposite direction. Bad!
Ibrahim drags Llewella by the hair towards the door. She is not actually unconscious yet, however.
Tamarind is now surrounded by the octopi that were formerly attacking Margot. He gets stung. The wound burns with poison. He concentrates with the full force of his will on his Trump of the Amber Castle arrival courtyard. "Those leaving, come with me," he grates.
Tristan passes Margot through the Trump link to Gerard and brings Gerard and a contingent of marines through to him.
Ibrahim tries to defend Tamarind from octopi, but it's hard; they're pretty fast, pretty small, and there are a lot of them.
"Gerard, hit her!" shouts Tristan. Gerard punches Llewella and she's out like a light. At long bloody last.
Ibrahim is killing octopi. He shouts to Gerard that Damien is still in the room.
Tristan warns everyone about the sharks; Gerard sends the marines off to defend us.
Tamarind gets through to Amber and starts passing people through, beginning with Llewella. He is feeling woozy from octopus poison.
Ibrahim looks back into the room. Hania has picked Damien up by the throat and is looking at him in a funny way.
"Bring her back or your friend dies," says Hania ominously.
Ibrahim knows better, and charges. But goes full defensive as soon as he is in range of Hania. Hania drops Damien and goes for Ibrahim instead.
Tristan Trumps Caine.
The marines are getting chewed up by the sharks, but the sharks are also having problems as the corridor is really rather too small for them to manoeuvre properly.
Tamarind tries to hold the Trump link open for as long as he can, but he can feel himself fading out of consciousness as the poison affects him, so he falls through the Trump contact and is gone in a purple rainbow.
Hania is a lot better than Ibrahim. Ibrahim continues in full defensive mode. He kicks Damien under the table.
Prava is still mind-locked by the Trump contact.
Ibrahim feints towards Prava and notes that Hania moves to defend her. Ibrahim attempts to move Hania around so that his back is towards the door, but Hania is too good to allow this. Gerard comes in anyway.
Tristan gets through to Caine. "Pass Deirdre through," he tells him. Caine reaches out and Deirdre comes through. "We're in trouble. Help!" summarises Tristan, pointing.
Tristan gets a Trump of Hania from Altair and passes it through to Caine and Brand. "Give it all you've got," he tells them. Then he drops the Trump link.
Altair and Caleb go back onto Trumping Prava.
Tristan concentrates on Bleys' Trump.
Gerard and Deirdre pile into the room. Gerard slams Prava into the wall with the table. Bones are heard to break.
Deirdre assists Ibrahim. Hania leaps onto the table and towards the main door out of here. Ibrahim slashes at him. Deirdre leaps onto the table after him.
Hania ducks under the table. Ibrahim dives to grab Damien, which is also what Hania is trying to do. Ibrahim chops his hand off with the Pattern sword, as before.
Deirdre stabs her sword down through the table into Hania. Hania ducks out from under the table.
Gerard yanks Damien's unconscious form from under the table.
Then the Trump contact hits Hania, and he slows down a lot. Ibrahim leaps in and chops his arms off, then his legs. Ouch.
"Admirable ruthlessness," comments Deirdre.
Gerard punches Hania in the head, then Prava. Eventually they both go limp.
Tristan gets through to Bleys, who looks tired and smoke-stained.
In the corridor the marines have taken care of the four sharks, but only two of them are left.
The main doors into the meeting room burst open and two long oriental dragon-like things swim quickly in. They are about ten metres long and a metre through the body with short clawed legs. They swim fast.
Ibrahim passes the unconscious bodies to Tristan who passes them through to Bleys. Damien, Hania, Prava, the two marines, Caleb, Altair, Gerard, Deirdre, then Ibrahim and Tristan together. Hania's limbs are also brought along, just in case.
The dragon-things watch in a defensive position as we Trump out.
And we are with Bleys in a refugee camp.
Tristan apologises to Bleys for his abruptness. Bleys' left hand is bandaged, and it can be seen that he is missing the little finger of that hand.
Tamarind wakes up. He seems to be in a hospital bed. It is very hot. Probably Amber then. A female doctor is looking down at him. "Keep Llewella unconscious forever," he says.
The doctor tells him that he has been treated for octopus poison, and Llewella is in a cell. All the octopi died in the hot sunlight of Amber.
Tamarind asks to be helped up, so he can check on her. The doctor - who introduces herself as Dr Antonia Mesmer - helps him up. She says that he has been out for about ten minutes. Tamarind pulls out his Trump of Tristan to find out what is going on as they head for the dungeons.
In the refugee camp, Tristan applies medical treatment to Damien. Then he gets Tamarind's Trump call.
Hania's stumps are healing. Bleys puts the various limbs under guard.
Tristan tells Tamarind we have Hania and Prava as well, but that Damien is in a bad way. The priorities are to look after Damien and to ask Brand if he can turn off the sun (as the effect was somewhat like Beltaine's soulstones).
Caine meets Tamarind en route to the dungeons. He says Llewella has been put in a cell in her underwear. She has a Pattern sword, impenetrable armour (!), a magical spear, Trumps and various other bits and bobs.
"Random," says Caine, "is organising the evacuation plans after the assassination attempt on Bleys. The anti-Bleys faction got uppity," he continues, straight-faced. "I think Damien was behind it."
He also says that Brand and Fiona are studying Llewella's equipment. Caine Trumps Tamarind and himself down to the dungeons, leaving Dr Mesmer behind.
Ibrahim Trumps Random, who is in his office in the castle. He is wearing a baggy vest-like T-shirt, shorts, shades and a baseball cap in Amber's green with a white unicorn on the front. Ibrahim gives a quick report. Random says that Damien's campaign tried to assassinate Bleys.
Random's priorities are to interrogate the prisoners and get Bleys and Fiona to finish the evacuation.
Random is annoyed, and doesn't hide it. He also wants a ton of ice cubes delivered to his office.
Surgery is performed on Damien.
Ibrahim tells Bleys that Random says to get on with it.
Altair Trumps off to check that her mother has survived this crisis and is all right.
Tamarind tells Caine about the three obelisks. Caine knows of them. Tamarind says the demon lords are being sent to Chever. Caine looks interested.
They arrive in a (so Tamarind can sense) Trump-barred room. On a table is Llewella's equipment. Fiona and Brand are also in there, positioned so they both examine the equipment and not let the other one out of their sight.
Tamarind can sense that the bone spear is alive, but not sentient.
"I had no idea Llewella was so well-trained in the mystic arts," says Brand.
Tamarind tells him that the power affecting the sun is akin to Beltaine's soulstones.
"I shall go and have a look," he says.
Tamarind asks about Llewella's Trumps. Fiona shows him copies of the ones we took from Aximia. Tamarind, pointing at the Trump of Chever, tells her that the Chaos lords are gathering in that one.
He asks what the spear does. "It is alive," says Brand. "I think it leaves the head wriggling around inside any wound it makes, then grows a new one." Nasty.
The armour is interesting too - it is impenetrable, though it will not protect whoever is inside it from shock waves and the like which will penetrate it.
"Perhaps we should give a set to Damien," comments Tamarind.
Back in the refugee camp, Ibrahim is Trumping Tamarind.
Damien is waking up, full of opiates once again. "Turn that bloody carousel off," he mumbles.
Tristan tells him they got Llewella, Hania and Prava.
"Where are we?" asks Damien.
"Outside Arden," replies Tristan.
Tamarind takes Ibrahim's Trump call. Ibrahim tells him that we need to bring the prisoners through, and that Damien may want to use his fast-time shadow. Tamarind passes over his Trump of the place.
Bleys can't get through to Fiona, and asks Ibrahim if Tamarind knows where she is. Tamarind says that she is nearby. Ibrahim tells Bleys he will ask her to Trump him.
All the group other than Damien and Tristan go through to Tamarind with the prisoners and Hania's limbs.
Just before Ibrahim goes through Bleys mentions to him that the only question he has is how attached Random was to the people he had to kill to defend himself. Ibrahim goes through without answering.
In the dungeons, Tamarind scans Hania and Prava for Trumps, and confiscates them.
Tristan asks Bleys what happened to him. Bleys tells him that he was attacked by forty or fifty idiots who didn't think it was a good idea for him to be back. Their bodies are over there. Tristan recognises some of them as friends of Damien. Damien notices them too, through the morphine haze.
Tristan takes Damien to Tamarind's fast-time shadow, and to the medical room in the villa there. Damien laboriously casts a healing spell, and his many and various wounds close up. Phew.
"Do you need to rest?" asks Tristan.
"Give me five minutes," replies Damien.
"Five minutes?" says Tristan. "All right then. What is your problem with your father?"
"Where do you want me to begin?" responds Damien.
"Anywhere."
"All right. He's a traitor, an oathbreaker and a rapist," says Damien.
"So are most of the rest of the Family," says Tristan.
"Brand didn't rape my mother," replies Damien.
"All right, yes, he raped your mother, I can see that," says Tristan. "But all the rest is irrelevant, because we have all done it."
There is a long argument about Bleys, degrees of treachery and the like. Damien irritably explains that he was holding the anti-Bleys faction in check and that Caine was the one trying to undermine them. And of course the Council for Victory has been all over Amber, in many guises.
Eventually...
"What next?" asks Tristan.
"We find a way to put things back to normal."
"I mean about your father," says Tristan.
Meanwhile, back in Amber, Brand has gone off to have a look at the sun.
Ibrahim Trumps Gerard, who says that Margot has been sent to the Infirmary, then tells Fiona to Trump Bleys. She steps outside and concentrates upon Bleys' Trump.
Tamarind checks on the prisoners. They are all still there. Llewella has woken up.
"We wish some information," he tells her.
"Indeed," she says.
"You are aware that we have your compatriots in the next cells."
"I am now."
"I was hoping for information." He asks how to turn down the sun.
"What is it worth?" she asks.
"Clemency from Random," he tells her.
Llewella is unimpressed. "I will not say anything," she says, "unless I am given Amber. I would not be as corrupt, or under the Hoof of the Unicorn, as the current leadership of this place."
"So you've thrown in your lot with Chaos," says Tamarind.
"Their purposes and mine coincided," she says.
"What do you consider corrupt about Random's rule?" asks Tamarind.
"The man himself is corrupt to the core," she responds.
"So you still hold grudges for his previous actions."
"That is part of it," she admits.
"Random's recent actions suggest otherwise, " points out Tamarind.
"I have my reasons," she says, but will not elaborate further.
"The sun effect will kill you, too," points out Tamarind.
She refuses to say whether she knows how to turn the sun down.
"Well, we tried it the easy way," says Tamarind. He closes the grille on the cell door.
He then peeks in on Hania and Prava. Both are awake. Hania is still growing his limbs back.
Tamarind tells him that his Council for Victory has suffered a setback.
"Perhaps," says Hania.
Tamarind basically does a 'good cop' act with a spectacular lack of success. We can only assume that he is not really that naive. Hania laughs contemptuously at him.
Tamarind closes the grille and tries Prava. "Anything to add?" he asks.
"No," says Prava.
Tamarind closes the grille. He's learning.
Back in Tamarind's fast time shadow. "For the duration of the crisis he bears the mark of Cain," (no 'e') says Damien.
"And afterwards?" asks Tristan.
"You're my friend," says Damien, "And I know you're his as well. But don't get in my way."
Tristan Trumps Tamarind, and when the call is taken without a word passes Damien through before coming through himself.
Tamarind tells Tristan and Damien that none of the prisoners will co-operate.
We try and decide what to do now.
"I'm preparing a list of people who will need pardons afterwards," says Tristan. He looks at Damien.
Damien ignores this. "What did you do to the anti-Bleys campaign?" he asks Caine.
Caine denies that he allowed the infiltrated campaign to have a go at Bleys.
We argue about Benedict's revenge, if he decides to take any. Ibrahim says Hania killed him once, so he has a right to kill him in return. Damien notes that Aximia dismembered him twice so he has the right to do it to her. Tristan rolls his eyes as his nice new legal codes fly out of the window.
"In time of war, laws are silent," says Damien in Latin. He takes Llewella's scabbarded Pattern Blade and puts it on his belt.
Tristan Trumps Random, who comes through to us, still in shorts, vest and baseball cap. Tamarind reports on what Llewella and the others said.
Damien asks Tamarind if he got the impression that Llewella feels her life is on the line. Tamarind thinks not. But her sense that she has options may depend on reviving the Chaos demons in Chever.
Caine offers to go to Chever to teach them a lesson.
Damien argues for killing one of Hania or Prava. We argue as to which one - Prava (with a weaker mind) or Hania (who conducted the original sun-boosting ritual).
Tamarind Trumps Brand. He appears to be on top of Kolvir, in a burnoose as protection against the intense heat and light. "I lack my old Pattern abilities," says Brand, "So I cannot act as I once would have been able to."
Tamarind asks if it would help if he had a body with a Pattern imprint.
"Oh yes," says Brand. He comes through the Trump link to Tamarind.
The idea of giving Brand a Pattern-imprinted body is discussed. None of us, apart from Damien, like the idea of giving him the body of one of the CfV. There is some concern that, in addition to all his other powers, Brand would become an advanced shapeshifter too. Caine comments that this is unlikely - shapeshifting is a thing of the mind, not the body. Despite these reassurances, we are still not keen on doing it. Tristan offers to work with Brand, act as his eyes.
"You could also tell Tristan all about soulstones," Damien comments to Brand.
Brands nods. He says that he stole information from the family Romalek in Chaos, fished the soulstones out of the Abyss, and then fashioned them into servants. The soulstones are real, independent powers from the Abyss.
Tristan wonders if, as shapeshifters, the CfV don't need to be able to turn the sun off.
"They wanted to keep us on as servants," points out Damien.
"And Llewella is not regenerating from her wounds," says Tamarind, "So she is not a shapeshifter, so she is not immune. So why help them if they can't turn it off?"
Ibrahim has the idea of using soulstone powers to create something that would counteract the effect.
"That might work," says Brand.
Damien suggests that if we have to go fishing in the Abyss for raw materials, we also look for Brand's real body, to kill two birds with one stone. And Deirdre's too, naturally.
Ibrahim asks if Brand's original body could still be in the Abyss.
"No," he says, "it will have been destroyed, quite quickly."
"Historically, it sounded like Ambition," notes Damien. He suggests that the next time Brand has ideas for improvement he puts them through official channels.
Tamarind calls us to order again.
Damien asks what we do with Llewella.
It boils down to her co-operation or her life.
Random warns us of Blood Curses.
Damien goes, "pah!" at their mention. Corwin's was only indirectly effective, and Eric's has hardly wiped out Chaos.
Someone notes that the CfV are not being very lucky.
Damien takes it back and apologises to Ibrahim for maligning his father.
Ibrahim suggests threatening Llewella with giving Brand her body, because he's a better chance than she is.
"Who gets to tell her?" asks Damien.
"Caine," says Ibrahim.
"With Brand visible in the background," suggests Damien.
"Let's try it," says Tristan.
We go to see Queen Fish (as we so respectfully put it).
We negotiate. Damien suggests giving her Rebma back with a new Formal treaty that will work both ways. Random approves of this.
She wants 'Vigilant' (her Pattern blade) and her other equipment as well. "Regalia upon completion," suggests Damien.
We give her a few minutes to think about it.
"All right," she says, grudgingly. She says she knows how to turn the sun back down to normal. They didn't tell her, but she knows.
"I'd have expected no less of your majesty," says Damien. Smarm, smarm.
In three minutes Tristan has a provisional agreement ready for her and Random to sign. It is passed into her cell, and she signs it. It is passed out again, and Random signs it. Tristan and Caine witness it.
Caine unlocks the cell door as Ibrahim unobtrusively locks the door of the cell containing her equipment. Llewella walks out in her underwear. Damien gives her his coat. We lead her out past the other cells.
She notices Damien wearing Vigilant.
"A temporary measure until the conclusion of our agreement," says Damien. "I look forward to returning it once this is over."
Llewella nods, rather stiffly.
She and Brand engage in what, to everyone else, is an incomprehensible technical discussion. It sounds vaguely like they are talking about Empowerment magic, leading on to some hideously powerful Real power type thing.
The guards provide burnooses and other clothing to protect us from the sun. We put them on.
Esmée Trumps Damien at this point. She's in an office with Flora visible in the background. She's wearing shades and a skimpy scarlet bikini, which quite makes Damien's day after all the shit he's had to take so far today. They briefly exchange news, and Damien borrows the sunglasses from her - they're just the ones he wanted. They break the link.
Tamarind gets out his Trump of the top of Kolvir, concentrates upon it, and we go through. The sun is blue-white above us, the heat is monstrous, and the shadows on the ground are knife-sharp. There is a strong smell of hot rock.
Llewella bends down and picks up a stone, seemingly at random. Pattern radiates from around her. Tristan can feel that, unlike when he radiates Pattern about himself, this is somehow structured in a highly complex way, and it seems to be focussed on the stone.
Llewella focuses Pattern energy on the stone. There is some magic in it too, of the Empowerment variety.
Damien asks Tristan for a commentary. Tristan gives one, as best he is able.
After a while of this, Llewella abruptly stops radiating Pattern about herself, and throws the stone at the sun.
A few minutes pass. Tristan passes around water.
Then the light suddenly ... fades.
We can take off our sunglasses. The sun appears to be back to normal. Phew.
Damien suggests that everyone should know how to undo this, for future reference. Llewella says that only those expert in the Pattern can do it.
Tamarind asks about the demons landing in Rebma.
"Apparently," says Llewella, "according to the Council for Victory, after the Pattern was drawn, Chaos was not happy. Their universe and Empire were effectively destroyed and their Power crippled. Eventually some of their forces exploring this changed universe met some forces out of Amber, led by Prince Finndo. There was a long war, long enough for Dworkin to become annoyed and rampage around the battlefield, setting Lords of Chaos on fire and hurling them into the sky, where they have remained ever since to look down on their defeat, and suffer."
Tristan suddenly realises that Llewella has a Primal Pattern imprint (like the one he can sense that Bleys and Fiona have). Which she did not have before - before she appeared to have an Amber Pattern imprint. He asks Llewella when she walked the Primal Pattern.
"Thousands of years ago," she says. "Oberon thought I could be a counter-balance to the redheads." she glances at Brand and Fiona.
She says that she doesn't know much about Chever, and has only been there once. They worship the CfV as gods - the same trick Corwin and Damien's father used.
"That's the way Bleys works," says Damien.
Damien suggests that she gets rid of the CfV in Rebma. In return, we can give her the information we used to get into Rebma. He glances and Random, who nods. Damien gets the (rather soggy) Trump sketch we used to get into Rebma and gives it to her. She gets her Trumps back from Tamarind, and Trumps off.
Caine Trumps us back from the top of Kolvir to the Amber castle dungeons.
As we come back to the cells with the CfV in them we can see that, up ahead, Hania is translucent and slowly pushing himself out through the wall of his cell! Damien and Ibrahim, draw their Pattern blades and go for him. Tamarind throws Llewella's magic spear at him.
The spear hits him in the side. The barbed head starts rummaging through his insides as the shaft falls to the floor. Damien slashes down to chop him in half.
His torso falls to the floor. Damien and Ibrahim chop it up.
Tristan checks on Prava, who, it seems, is still in 'his' cell.
The lower half of Hania is slowly retreating back into the wall. Damien sticks Vigilant into the wall to bisect his spine while Ibrahim (once Tristan has got the keys for the cell from Caine) goes to the other side of the wall and chops his legs off. Basically, Hania dies. Tristan senses a flare of Pattern as he expires, like the one from Aximia...
Hania's severed limbs have gone from inside the cell.
Damien wants to kill Prava now.
Tristan mentions the flare of Pattern as Hania died. A Blood Curse?
Damien asks if this happened with Aximia.
"Yes," says Tristan.
"Then it's best that I do it," says Damien. "There is no point in making it one and a half for each of me and Ibrahim."
We open the door of Prava's cell, and Damien goes for her. She dodges. She is faster than Damien. Stronger too. Once Damien realises this he tries to draw her out of the cell. She steps in and takes a wound to her side to grab the Pattern sword from Damien. Hmm. Bad.
Damien backs out of the cell, motioning the others to stay back, out of sight. He draws Dashwood, slowly ... trying to lure her out.
He manages to get out of the cell. Prava follows, and starts to say a word he does not understand. Damien is twisting, and as he goes blind, he drops and rolls. Ibrahim, by the door, tries to deflect the blow.
Damien gets caught in the shoulder, and the clavicle of his sword arm is sliced, rendering that arm useless. But he rolls to his feet as his sight returns.
Ibrahim chops Prava's arm off. Damien grabs for Vigilant as the arm falls, and gets booted across the corridor for his trouble. His jaw is broken. But the effort allows Tamarind and Caine to mind-lock Prava.
Damien gets up. "Ug ugh, ugh," he says, through his broken jaw (meaning, "Let me do it"), after it looks as if Tristan and Ibrahim might be about to kill Prava.
Tristan indicates her pelvis - that's where her mind currently is. Damien chops her in half, then smashes the pelvis in each half. There is another flare of Pattern as Prava dies. Bad.
"Bloody hell, they're tough!" says Random.
"Ug olg ug," ('I told you') says Damien.
Tamarind takes Damien to his fast-time shadow, and once Tamarind has patched his jaw together enough that Damien can speak the words properly, Damien casts another healing spell, and puts himself back together. Phew.
However, Damien has had a couple of teeth knocked out, and they are not grown back by the spell, so he'll be gap-toothed for a while. He is also pretty tired from all this healing.
The others, back in Amber, want to make sure that Hania and Prava are dead - the remains should be burnt, and the ashes dissolved in acid.
Random and Caine Trump off somewhere together.
Brand appeas about to leave, too. Before he goes Tristan takes him aside for a word. He asks Brand to examine Isobel and see if he can find some way to restore her mind. Brand says he will try, but cautions Tristan against too much optimism. He leaves.
Tamarind checks the portal Trump we took from Aximia again. He still can't get through.
He gives Damien one of his teeth back. One of the missing ones, that is.
Tamarind Trumps Tristan. He asks if Ibrahim is there. When told that he is, he and Damien Trump through. "Call me if you need me," says Deirdre, and she leaves too.
Tamarind has a plan - we should check the portal depicted in the Trump first, as it is a likely route to Chaos. He needs help getting there, though.
Tristan laments that he doesn't know how the universe works any more, because we could Trump back from the vicinity of Aximia's shadow. Damien suggests that he starts thinking in three dimensions, and that Caleb is probably right - Corwin's Pattern did rearrange things.
Tristan Trumps Random and when the call is taken says that we want to investigate the portal Trump before we go to Chever. Random is in his office. Tristan wants to borrow the super-Trumps to Chaos and to Corwin's Pattern. "Oh, all right," says Random, and hands them through the link.
Damien realises that his crossbow got left in Rebma. He tells the others that he'll be a few minutes while he finds a shadow of his who likes hunting and who has an armoury. "That will be a distant shadow," comments Tamarind.
"A weapons collector," amends Damien.
Tristan just goes outside and comes back seconds later with a crossbow identical to the one Damien left in Rebma. Oh well...
Altair, having discovered that her mother is all right, Trumps back to Amber and arrives back with the others at this point.
We concentrate on the super-Trump of Chaos. We make contact, after a while, and go through, appearing by the iron fortress at the edge of the Abyss. The guards who greet us are clearly towards the end of their one week tour - all that is allowed before they go violently insane...
We try the portal Trump again.
And this time the contact clears after a few minutes. It flickers, and is hard to hold open. Visible, apparently some two or three hundred metres away, is the vertical black wall with the portal on it. It appears to be about 100 metres in diameter, which makes the ring of the portal itself about 2 metres thick. At the bottom of the portal ring filmies can be seen drifting back and forth. There is no ground under the point of view of the Trump. The place gives the impression of being like, or perhaps in, the Abyss.
Damien volunteers to go through, summon a filmy and see what happens. No-one objects, so he does this and steps through the link, keeping physical contact with the others...
Damien falls, the Trump contact flickering and failing as he does. He tries to summon one of the filmies. He feels his skin starting to burn away, as if he had fallen into an acid bath. He can also feel the magic of the place shifting and changing wildly as he falls, so fast that no spell could be successfully cast. His skin is burning more and more as he falls. The Trump link is flickering more and more, too.
And there is no sign that any of the filmies are responding to him.
Damien comes back through the Trump link. He has been flayed alive; he has no skin or clothes (though his sword belt and sword have survived), and is bleeding. Quite a lot.
Medics from the fortress run up. They look shocked. "Bloody hell," they say.
Ibrahim casts a healing spell, and Damien's skin grows back. This itches a lot, in a most horrible way.
Damien's impression is that wherever it was, it was below - in the Abyss. And it will probably be very, very hard to get from where the Trump comes out to the portal. Perhaps it is better to try Chever and cut off the Chaos lords there, before they can come back here.
Tamarind has a cunning plan. He uses the Trump of the portal which we have, looks through it, then uses his newly-developed ability to draw Trump sketches very, very fast, to sketch a Trump of a point closer to the portal. He then uses the sketch to do the same thing, again and again, until he does one which goes to right on the ring of the portal itself. Result!
Looking through the final sketch he sees an equine horned creature. It seems to have an approving look in its eyes...
Out of the blue, as far as the others are concerned, Tamarind says he can see the Unicorn, who approves of what he's doing. When he reports this, the others all join the link too. Yes, there it is. The Unicorn.
We can step through onto the rim of the portal, so we do. Tristan steps through first. Damien lets him, this time.
Once he is through, Tristan checks to see if he can Trump back, using Ibrahim's Trump. It works, so we all go through, and are standing on the (rather narrow) edge of the portal.
Damien tries to summon a filmy again. It doesn't work again. Damn.
Tristan concentrates on the utterly black portal by which we are standing. He can feel that is has angles, lots of angles, lots of very strange angles... He feels his mind being sucked in...
Damien notices this and hits Tristan. This brings him out of it before he does a Fiona on us.
Out in the Abyss stars and nebulae are shifting, fading, and brightening in the disturbing manner common to the Abyss.
Tamarind concentrates on the portal now. We can all feel it ripple as he does so.
Damien suggests that Tamarind stop, and he try from a magical perspective. They do this. Damien can feel the angles too. The angles... The angles...
Ibrahim has to put his hand in front of Damien's eyes before Damien snaps out of it. "No wonder she was barking mad," mutters Damien (meaning Nitocris).
Tamarind tries to focus his mind on the portal, concentrating on the Unicorn in an attempt to ignore the Angles. It seems to work. Suddenly the portal ripples, then steps back, leaving a spiky fractal interior surface behind. It steps back again. And again. And again...
He feels it stop, and the portal is not stepping back any further.
Tamarind and Altair can sense a fractal tunnel, curving and twisting away, with angles. Angles...
Tristan concentrates on the Pattern, defending his mind with it, and he feels the Angles go away. Phew.
He tells the rest of us this, so we all bring the Pattern to mind. Using Pattern Defence we step forward into the portal.
The fractal walls shift and change as we go. Tamarind trips and stumbles somewhat on the spiky three-dimensional fractal floor as he concentrates on keeping the portal open. We have to hold onto him, and each other, as we go through.
Trying to ignore the Angles is hard.
Damien looks back. There is no sign of the portal out to the Abyss, just a fractal vortex thing, going away.
There is a sense that each of us is walking on a different surface, even though we are all holding onto one another.
Tamarind wonders if we can't just exit here. He pushes at the wall/floor. It gives slightly, but not enough to provide a means of egress.
Damien breaks off a bit of the fractal wall, for his museum, and puts it in his pocket. He puts a 'Removed for Conservation' card in its place.
Tristan concentrates on the Pattern some more, radiating it about himself. The rest of us feel better as it washes over us. The Angles are not calling to us any more.
Tristan attempts to influence probability to make it likely that some Chaos thing comes along...
And before long, a rotting bat-winged horse flies overhead, with a corpse-coloured man in black armour on its back.
"Greetings!" Tristan shouts up at him. "We serve the Council for Victory. We have defeated the Enemy. But how do we get back?"
Tristan wins back all of Damien's respect for coming up with this.
"You must follow the Path of Madness. See this place as it is," says the rider. He begins to circle overhead.
"We've forgotten," says Damien. "The previous generation did not tell us. They failed. We won. Honour them for their effort, but they fucked up, let's be honest."
"You are corrupt," he says, disapprovingly.
"The previous generation failed. We won the victory. Honour their achievements, but we won. But in doing so we have lost some of their knowledge. Show us what we have lost as we will show you what we have won."
The rider seems to accept this. Arrogance is all.
He leads us off from where we are. We can sense the way back, behind us, but not an entrance, as such. It seems almost as if we are going round in circles.
The Chaos person leads us along. Damien complains at the rate of progress. "Our forefathers said it would be faster."
Altair, Tristan and Tamarind (the Psyche monsters - relatively speaking) feel homicidal impulses as they go - 'Kill Them All'.
"This place is driving me mad," says Tristan.
"Do you still have the votive figurine of Ma'at?" asks Damien. "Concentrate on it. (Law. Order. Truth.)"
Tristan finds Damien's voice annoying. All his impulses are telling him to 'Kill Damien Now'.
The rider has disappeared ahead by now.
We keep going. It is not pleasant. There is a wrenching sensation. A twisting. Damien puts his hand on Tristan's shoulder. Tristan, paranoid and suffering from murderous impulses, draws his sword.
Suddenly the twisting stops. The portal passage seems to narrow ahead to a white disc, about four metres across.
Tristan recovers. "I was ready to kill you," he says, disturbed.
"Our forefathers did not adequately prepare us," says Damien, staying in character.
We stride forward and through the portal...
There is an instant of freezing cold as we go through the portal. Then we appear in a tetrahedral room. Its walls are black, shot through with veins of virulent colours (like those parts of the Courts of Chaos people have visited before). In the centre is a sphere suspended from cables to the three walls forming the structure. Sitting in/on the sphere is a large (three metres tall or so) insectoid thing, black, with a long head flared at the back and tapering to a snout at the front; its body is humanoid, though chitinous, and its arms are long, and have more joints than they really should. Lounging around on the floor are half a dozen things that look like giant Siamese cats, and a similar number of what look like balls of spiky black tentacles, each one about one and a half metres in diameter.
"Who is in charge here?" demands Tamarind.
"Who are you?" says the insect-thing in a toneless voice, speaking strangely accented Thari.
"We are the Victorious Council," says Tamarind.
"What do you here?" it asks.
"We have come to spread the news of our victory, and to see our victory."
"Name yourself," it demands.
"Sozé," says Tristan.
"Danas," says Tamarind.
"Terminus," says Damien.
"Gil," says Ibrahim.
"Silva," says Altair.
"Who are you?" demands Tristan.
"I am the Gatekeeper," it says tonelessly. "Step forward and be sampled."
"Why?" asks Gil (Ibrahim).
"It is the Law. Submit to it or die."
"Oh. OK," says Gil (Ibrahim).
"Your laws are old and outdated and have no place in the New Order," comments Tamarind.
"Step forward and be sampled," demands the Gatekeeper again.
"We will not submit, but we will permit sampling," says Sozé (Tristan).
"Acceptable," intones the Gatekeeper.
"Then step forward and sample," says Tristan.
Five of the spiky balls of tentacles move forward.
One reaches for Tristan, and bites off the last joint of his little finger. Ouch! It scuttles away with its prize.
Then another two of the tentacled things do the same to Altair and Damien. Ouch again! Damien looks at the tentacled thing and the Gatekeeper and licks the stump. Damien is not convinced that this is a good idea, but...
Ibrahim and Tamarind also permit sampling. It hurts for them, too.
Once everyone is sampled, the tentacled things scuttle out through a portal in the corner.
"You have your samples. Let us continue," Tamarind tells the Gatekeeper.
"You may proceed." it intones, gesturing to the other corner of the tetrahedron, where there is another portal.
We step through the portal into a roughly spherical chamber, open on one side, which leads out into a huge chamber like the inside of a lung - a tall space with its walls pocked with smaller chambers like the one we have just emerged into. Together they give the impression of their being the alveoli of this lung-like space. The place is lit by a dim but sourceless light. Like the tetrahedron we entered through, the walls here are black, shot through with veins of various virulent colours. Thousands of beings are visible moving about in the chamber, on walkways and what look like filmies, only about a quarter of whom are humanoid. Non-humanoid types include:
The humanoid types include:
They all seem to be going about their business, and are not looking at us especially.
Damien concentrates and summons a filmy.
Altair notes that the seven-strong individuals are powerful, mentally speaking. One heptad looks at her as she looks at them, and she can't help noticing as they do so that they blink in unison.
Other single individuals are mentally powerful too, especially the pale, naked people with long white hair, and some of the golden-skinned types.
The filmy arrives, and we step onto it. It carries us off. Tristan examines other portals in this concourse from a distance; each alveolus seems to have one in it. Tamarind can tell that a few other beings have Trumps, in particular the pale, naked people with long white hair. Some of the same type of people look at us as they (or we) go past. "The differences probably indicate different clans," speculates Gil (Ibrahim).
"Variety is all very well," comments Terminus (Damien) loudly, "but power is sweeter."
We arrive at another alveolus, chosen at random. Altair wants to follow one of the important-seeming golden-skinned muscular people. We go through the portal in this alveolus instead.
On the other side is a circular room or lobby with seven corridors going off from it, one ahead and three evenly spaced on each side, with the portal on this side appearing to take the place of an eighth corridor. Everything is made of grey-blue stone panels; the panels on the walls and ceiling are covered with abstract bas-reliefs. The air smells of blood and electricity. A faint sound of screaming is audible off in the distance, although the direction is uncertain.
"Torture as an art form," muses Gil (Ibrahim).
We go down one of the corridors. One of the bas-reliefs on the walls fades into mist as we get close to it and a figure steps through. He is tall and thin, with harsh angular features, long black hair, fingernails like claws and long canine teeth. The bas-relief re-solidifies behind him.
"Identify yourself," barks Terminus (Damien).
"Ciatlon Vathek," he says, sharply. "Who are you?"
"Terminus of New Amber," replies Terminus (Damien).
"New Amber?" he asks.
"We are the Council for Victory," says Danas (Tamarind). "We are here out of curiosity, and to take the power which is rightfully ours, now that we have won. What is this place? What do you do?"
"This is a school," replies Ciatlon tonelessly. "I teach."
"That is acceptable. Go about your business," Sozé (Tristan) tells him.
"What is your business?" demands Ciatlon.
Sozé (Tristan) gets stroppy with him. We all badger Ciatlon. We are so arrogant.
"What we have seen is disappointing," says Silva (Altair).
"Do you know nothing of Chaos?!" demands Ciatlon.
"Our predecessors only taught us how to win," says Gil (Ibrahim).
Ciatlon takes it upon himself to enlighten us (well, he is a teacher after all). He walks us along the corridor and concentrates on the wall there. The bas-relief fades and he leads us through the wall into an office. All the furniture is of the same blue stone as the walls, ceiling and floor. There is a single window opposite a desk. The wall behind the desk is covered floor to ceiling in drawers. On a side wall is a large chart, carved on a sheet of the blue stone and held a centimetre or so away from the wall by little pillars, one at each corner. Outside the window is a far-away field of green flame; nothing else is visible.
"Observe," says Ciatlon, pointing to the chart. It consists of a small central circle, a pie chart, then a larger circle dotted with smaller circles, some of which overlap with the edges of the pie chart, all annotated in an unfamiliar script. "This is part of what I teach. The organisation of the Courts of Chaos."
"We understand they lost," comments Sozé (Tristan).
Ciatlon scowls, but does not comment.
Gil (Ibrahim) looks at the chart. "Someone else teaches art?" he comments.
Ciatlon turns back to the chart. He says the small central circle refers to the Council, which rules Chaos. The pie chart represents the thirteen families of the Royal House of Chaos. He names them all. They are:
"In the outer part," he continues, "is demonkind, divided into types and sub-types, some specific to particular families, most not." There are thousands of these on the chart.
Damien draws a circle right in the very centre, with 'Council for Victory' written by it. "Sorry, your chart was out of date," he tells Ciatlon.
Sozé (Tristan) demands that representatives come and meet with the Council for Victory, their new masters.
"There is a Council," says Ciatlon, pointing to the innermost circle that was on the chart when we all came in.
"The Council for Defeat," mutters Silva (Altair).
We want to take the chart, but it is a slab. "We should introduce you to the use of paper," comments someone.
Someone asks where the king comes from.
"The King comes from the family Prometheus," replies Ciatlon.
"Did this family preside of the Great Defeat?" asks Danas (Tamarind).
"Yes," replies Ciatlon.
"We are not duty bound to chain him to a rock and..." says Terminus (Damien).
"And I had the giant vulture all ready," says Silva (Altair), disappointed.
Ciatlon agrees to take us to the Council. He leads us off, back to the concourse area, onto a filmy and across to the middle of the far side. Silva (Altair) calls Ciatlon the Second Under-Dean of the Department of Useless Studies. He studiously ignores this. As we go past some more of the pale, naked people with long white hair look at us.
We step off the filmy into another alveolus. Ciatlon leads us through the portal inside it into an anteroom which has arched walls made out of water which meet at a point overhead, like two waves just meeting and frozen in time. Fish and other underwater things are visible in the water. The floor underfoot is a very detailed mosaic of tiny tiles in all shades of blue. There are eight guards visible ahead, before another portal. Four are huge three metre tall demons, matt black, with horns, cloven hooves, goat-like legs, diamond-tipped tails and bat-like wings. Four are antlered fellows with dark grey skin and grey metal armour - of the family alokym.
They challenge us.
"We are the Council for Victory. We have come to take King Prometheus and the Council to meet the rest of us, to meet their new masters," announces Sozé (Tristan).
"Wait," says the guard who spoke. We can tell that he seems to be in mental contact with someone or somewhere else.
Damien leans against the wall of time-stopped water.
Five minutes pass.
"We're waiting," says Damien.
"The Council are being informed. We are waiting for their reply," says the guard.
"We are used to greater efficiency," says Tristan.
"No wonder they lost," comments Ibrahim.
Tristan studies this area, trying to see how he could turn off this time-stopped water effect. After a bit he realises that he is not expert enough to do so. But the whole place, to him, gives the impression of very, very great age.
After twenty minutes we get bored and decide to proceed anyway. We step forward, but the guards block the way.
Damien draws Vigilant and tells them he took it from Queen Llewella in personal combat.
The guard who spoke before is in mental communication again.
Tamarind and Altair step up and look him in the eye, forcing the weight of their Psyches on him via eye contact. His Psyche crumbles. The mental link is cut from the other end, but not before Altair sends a belligerent message to whoever is there.
The other three still will not let us past.
Tristan stares one of the three metre tall demons in the eye, and mind-locks it, then steps right up to it and begins to radiate Pattern energy about himself. He can feel that the demon is in pain, a lot of pain. It begins to shrivel.
Tamarind leaves the first guard to Altair and mind-locks another demon.
Altair, rather than keeping up this mind-locking thing, just nuts the first guard on the nose, knocking him to the floor. Then she proceeds to put the boot in. Another guard lunges for her, so Damien chops its arm off. The stump and the arm begin to burn, consuming the guard out away from the wound.
"What has two legs and goes 'woof'?" crows Altair. "Chaos guards!"
Ciatlon looks appalled, and who can blame him?
Altair beats the fallen guard with the burning arm, for as long as it lasts.
The armless guard is now just burning legs.
The mind-locked demon Tristan is radiating Pattern at is now a small shrivelled ball, dead. Tristan stops radiating Pattern at it.
Tamarind tells his demon to contact its superiors and tell them we are done with waiting. Then (the demon looking uncomprehending) he repeats this in one-syllable words. The demon understands now. Tamarind releases it and it backs towards the portal. Altair trips it up. It falls down.
Damien looks at Ciatlon. "Bred for aggression," he comments. "Don't you think she came out well?"
We march through the portal. The guard demon gets up.
We are on a platform in a black void, the portal behind us. Thirteen other platforms float before us, each of which has four thrones on it, all of them occupied. On each platform all the people are of one of the humanoid types we have seen; the platform of the seven-strong gestalts holds four gestalts so that platform is considerably bigger, and has four groups of seven thrones. One person on each platform (one of the seven of each gestalt) holds, respectively, a chalice or goblet, a sword, a wand or staff and a disc with some sort of engraving on it.
One platform is higher than the others - it holds four of the impressive golden-skinned types. One of them, tall, middle aged-looking, his gold-black hair streaked with silver, wears an impressive fractal crown of what looks like black iron. He holds a sword.
And there is Morred Telgadi, on the Telgadi platform. He looks down on us and smiles. Damien pretends not to recognise him.
Damien strides around the edge of our platform, looking each family up and down in turn. "Well, gentlemen, ladies, it's about time," he says.
"Explain yourselves," booms the man in the crown - the King of Chaos.
"We are the Council for Victory."
"And?" demands the King.
"We have Amber."
"And?" he demands again.
"We won, you did not. We thought you should know, and now we are wondering if you are worth it."
"You have degenerated," says the King.
"You bred us to be superior," sneers Damien.
The King asks why the forts on the edge of the Abyss are still manned.
"We rule Amber. They serve us," says Tristan.
"And since when did Princes Tamarind, Tristan, Ibrahim, Damien, and whoever you are," (he indicates Altair), "become part of New Amber?"
We claim that these are requisitioned bodies.
Morred Telgadi shakes his head, a little sadly.
The King calls our bluff. "You are who you appear to be," he says.
"You have lost again," says Tristan. "It is time for you to surrender, or for a treaty. Your plan has strengthened us."
"You have won," allows the King. "Who knows you are here?"
We say basically everyone, reeling off a list.
The King essentially says, 'Oh well'.
Altair mouths off a lot. She has to be stopped from kicking the demon guard into the void. Tamarind sends the guard and Ciatlon outside - for their own protection.
The King says that a negotiating team will be assembling in one hour.
"We will wait by the entrance," says Tristan.
We bow, turn, and leave through the portal. As we leave the King and Council all look very sad.
There are one hundred demon guards arrayed in the ante-room. As we emerge they part before us. We head out through their assembled ranks.
We emerge in the concourse. The people there all look at us. They look uncomfortable and unhappy.
"Do not be alarmed," says Tamarind, trying to put them at their ease. He appears to have little success.
We filmy back over to the entrance tetrahedron. The Gatekeeper and other demons are still there. They will not get our samples back for us.
And we wait...
After an hour, twelve armoured types arrive, two Vatheks, two Telgadis, two Akokyms, two Cawdors, two Varixes, and two Prometheans.
"Please come with us," says the leading Promethean. He introduces himself as Lexand.
We go with them. They lead us back out into the concourse and usher us onto a filmy. They get on to two others and we all go off to another alveolus with a portal in it.
Through we go, into a truly vast chamber like the inside of a heart, coloured appropriately.
The walls are lined with tiers, and the tiers are filled with people. More than a million people, we estimate, mostly humanoid types, but a lot of demons, too. All dressed in their finest clothes. Some look sad. They are all holding children. Dead children, their throats cut. They sing a discordant dirge. The demons are singing along with the dirge and weeping fire and blood. Tristan can sense that there are perhaps a thousand people out of the million in this chamber who have the blood of Amber.
Lexand is looking straight ahead. "His Majesty will explain," he says, leading us forward across the floor of the chamber.
The king is standing in a shallow amphitheatre not far from the portal we entered through, between and slightly in advance of two piles of organs - it appears that one pile is of wombs, the other of testicles. In front of him lies a body. Martin, looking considerably older than pictures of him people have seen. Dead, his head severed. He doesn't look as if he has been dead long, not that that means much.
"Welcome, Amber, to our Heart," says the King; his eyes are sad, despairing, and enraged.
He is holding a dodecahedral case with a carrying handle. The case is covered in a heavy blue-black hide, like coarse leather, with white metal joints along all the edges. Tristan can sense something Real inside, something which bears a great deal of resemblance to the Black Road.
"The heart of Chaos," he continues. "We are Merodach, the first and last King of Chaos. We greet you with all our loving hatred.
"Congratulations, Amber, you have won. The multiverse you made is yours. The Empire of Chaos is finally no more. We have no future, and our past is no longer relevant. But your victory will be hollow. The Lion shall have its revenge for its children. And our hearts shall not be yours. You shall not corrupt our children to your loathsome ways."
"What have you done?" asks Tamarind, appalled.
"Goodbye Amber. May the multiverse breed that which will supersede you, as you supersede us."
He puts the case down, and steps back. He pulls a gem from one sleeve of his robes and throws it to the ground. Tamarind rushes forward and grabs the case.
The ground seems to turn to grey stone where the gem touched it, and greyness spreads outward from where the gem landed. A great wailing goes up from the assembled demons.
Tamarind looks in the case; it isn't locked. Inside, in a hollow lined with blue-black velvet (the same colour as the hide covering the case), is a glossy black regular seven-sided solid - a heptahedron (which is an impossible form...). Its surface looks as if it is swirling and shifting, without actually moving.
A large demon steps out from behind the pile of wombs, bearing a large sword. The king is clearly aware of it, and spreads his arms, as if waiting. The demon raises its sword and decapitates the King of Chaos. His head and body hit the floor at about the same time.
"This is a monstrous mistake, and unnecessary," protests Tamarind. He walks back to the portal, and out.
The rest of us stay and watch.
Bodies rain down from the tiers, blood spreading over the surface of the heart-chamber and the grey stone, which is spreading out, petrifying the chamber. The demons wail and sob as they kill.
Tristan does not sense any blood curses happening as the Amber-descended people here are killed.
Eventually all the million bodies are still. Demons continue their displays of grief.
Outside, Tamarind finds that there is no-one at all in the concourse.
He draws another Trump sketch of the outside of the first portal we came through, the chamber of the Gatekeeper. It doesn't work. He summons a filmy.
Altair takes the Kings crown. It is cold and spiky. She also picks up the gem the King threw to the ground from which the greyness spread.
Tristan goes up to the demon who lopped off the King's head. "Do any members of the Royal House survive?"
The demon shakes its head, once.
Tristan tries to use the Pattern to influence probability to make a few survivors turn up. No-one does.
In the entrance alveolus, Tamarind Trump sketches Ciatlon, but there is no response when he tries the Trump. The grey lapidification is spreading into the concourse.
He goes through into the entrance tetrahedron, also now empty of the Gatekeeper and the other demons.
Tristan realises that Martin's body is still warm...
"We should preserve his body," says Ibrahim.
"Let's go," says Damien.
"The fat demon has sung," comments Altair.
Damien places a 'Removed for Conservation' card where the dodecahedral box was.
Ibrahim addresses the remaining demons, still singing their discordant dirge. "We did not want it to come to this," he says, "But if this is what your honour requires, we respect it. On this land, be Peace."
The dirge continues as if he had not spoken.
We leave, back out through the portal.
In the concourse the filmies are flickering out as the greyness spreads. We use Margot's levitation rings to bounce across to where we came in.
Tamarind notices the greyness spreading into the tetrahedron. He Trumps Ibrahim.
When Ibrahim takes the call, he tells Tamarind that we are almost there.
Tamarind checks the black stone in the dodecahedral box. It is now an eleven-sided regular solid - an undecahedron.
Everyone else arrives at the tetrahedral chamber.
Tristan wants someone else to carry Martin's body now. Damien takes it.
We go back out through the portal and, Pattern to mind, go back along the Path of Madness.
It is a lot easier going out than coming in. We can watch the pretty angles and not go mad. "It's always easier going home," notes Altair jauntily.
Tamarind checks the box again and finds that inside now is a three-sided regular solid - a trihedron.
Eventually we arrive back at the portal on the wall of the Abyss. There is no sign of the Unicorn.
Tamarind uses the super-Trump of the edge of the Abyss, and we all go through, arriving outside the iron fortress.
Damien puts down Martin's body and picks up a handful of stones. He scatters them into the Abyss in lieu of soil. He picks up the body again.
"Is that Prince Martin?" asks a guard.
"Yes," snaps Damien.
The guards look worried. And who can blame them?
Tristan examines the regular black solid. When he opens the box it has nine sides - a nonahedron. He sees that it is as real as the Jewel of Judgement, though it feels weak and very old, as if damaged by the Pattern. He examines it further; by concentrating on changing and controlling the number of sides, one can twist and move ones way through shadow. It takes him about thirty seconds to figure out how to do this, and the end of which Tristan realises that he has attuned himself to it...
Tristan feels that it would probably survive being taken to Amber, but there is some concern that it might react badly to the close proximity of the Pattern, perhaps damage it. Also, it seems that anyone can learn how to use it - not just those of Amber or Chaos blood...
Then he looks at the gem Altair took. Its power is fading, but it is a bit like a soulstone. It has been used, and is used up.
At out request, the guards bring the super-Trump of Amber.
As well as dead, Martin looks haggard. It looks like they held him prisoner all these years, and only just killed him.
"Bastards," says Tristan.
"Random is not going to like this," says Tamarind.
Tristan takes the black solid and has it locked in a safe in the fortress.
Ibrahim gets some black armbands.
Tamarind gets a shroud. Damien wraps Martin's corpse in it.
A guard comes riding up at speed. He reports that the Chaos prisoners are killing themselves. "Don't stop them. There is no point," says Damien.
Tamarind uses the super-Trump of Amber and passes us through to the Arrival Courtyard, Damien with Martin's corpse first.
Before he goes through, Tamarind orders the guards at the fortress to separate out any Chaosites who do not try to kill themselves.
The Arrival Courtyard is sunny and warm, but not hot. Phew.
Tamarind suggests putting the body in a reception room before contacting Random. We decide to take him to the Unicorn Chapel instead, as it seems more appropriate.
A stretcher is brought, Martin put on it, and he is taken off to the Unicorn Chapel.
Damien and Ibrahim go to find Random.
The others arrive at the Unicorn Chapel. There are some servants praying there. When they see who has just entered, they leave.
Tamarind Trumps Caine. Caine takes the call. He is in a watery passage or alleyway, presumably in Rebma. Tamarind asks if Caine can contact an operative in Chever. Caine says that he can. Tamarind asks Caine to contact them as soon as possible.
"I thought you were going there?" says Caine.
"There was a change of opinion," answers Tamarind.
Damien and Ibrahim reach Random's office. Ibrahim presents himself to the guards; Damien just knocks on the door.
"Enter," says the King from inside.
They go in. Inside are Random, Vialle and Flora. "What's up?" asks Random, seeing our serious expressions.
"There's no easy way to say this," says Damien. "Martin's dead."
Vialle's hand goes to her mouth. Flora gasps. Random looks gobsmacked.
Damien explains how this happened - the Courts holding him, and executing him before killing themselves.
We take Random and Vialle off to the Unicorn chapel. Vialle is crying quietly. Random supports her. Flora comes along too.
In the Unicorn Chapel the priests lay out Martin's body and quickly tidy up the chapel.
Damien, Ibrahim, Random, Vialle and Flora arrive. The priests bow to Their Majesties, who ignore them and go straight to the body. Random unwraps the face. The head wobbles.
Random asks the rest of us (apart from Vialle) to leave. We go.
Flora is also crying. Tamarind puts an arm around her.
We step into the Chapel gardens (the Unicorn Chapel protrudes into its own garden courtyard). Damien sends a servant for brandy. Flora appends whisky to the order.
Drink quickly arrives, and we make use of it.
Tamarind tells Flora that Martin probably died quickly.
"So he was in Chaos the whole time?" she asks.
"It looks like it," says Tristan.
Tamarind asks a servant to bring his lute. This is done.
Tamarind plays sombre music. We drink in silence...