Notes Taken by Samantha and Alastair Beadle.
Jihx has a sudden thought that perhaps the Moonriders are members of the family of Amber. Then he realises that they bear no resemblance to the family at all.
Arun, Jihx and Godofos get their horses from the Castle Amber stables and ride out, heading south up the first line of cold that doesn't run out to sea, which Arun can detect the best. Godofos flicks pebbles at Jihx's Horse to wind Jihx up. It works to some extent.
Caitlin and Etienne rest in Vitesse.
As they ride, Jihx Trumps Gerard and asks that ships be prepared to follow the lines of cold leading out to sea. Gerard agrees to do this. Godofos tells Gerard about the magic used by the Moonriders at the now-burning Pattern-thing, and that they are using Trump (or at least used one to escape). A description of the old-looking leader of the Moonriders is given. Gerard says he'll have the library try and identify them.
There is some speculation that the Moonriders are some long term plan of Finndo's. There is, as yet, no evidence for this one way or the other.
In Vitesse, Caitlin and Etienne discuss going to talk to Lillian, still imprisoned in the dungeons of the castle. They decide not to bother asking Gerard or anything like that, but just to show initiative and go for it to accustom Gerard to their showing initiative. They Trump to the Amber Castle courtyard, and head down to the dungeons. On the way they pick up a servant to go with them to the cells.
Out in shadow, moving away from Amber, Godofos, Jihx and Arun ride on. As they go, Godofos practises his shifting shadow (he's bored!). Unfortunately, this interferes with Arun's shifting shadow, so that before long he throws Arun off the trail, and it is lost. Godofos keeps his mouth shut, so Arun and Jihx assume that this loss of the trail is hostile interference.
But they backtrack, and Arun finds the trail again. On they go. As they ride through shadow, they start to move into inhabited areas. First isolated huts, then farmhouses, then hamlets, villages, which grow in size until they become small towns. The styles of architecture vary widely as they ride.
When they reach the first town, they stop for lunch. As they walk towards and into the inn, Jihx wants the inn to be run by vegan nuns. It is. Godofos walks out and seeks lunch more to his taste. Arun and Jihx order lunch and eat. It is quite bland vegan stuff - like Jihx wants. Outside, Godofos walks down the street looking for lunch. He soon finds a 'meat on a stick' stall selling something called kalkalash. He buys and eats some, and has some beer. He carries on, and lunches some more on fish on a stick, dried rat on a stick (complete with bones), and various other things. He eats it all.
He returns to the inn as Arun and Jihx are leaving it. They mount up and ride quickly off.
In Amber, Etienne and Caitlin and the servant reach the bottom of the long, long spiral stair and turn away from the hall to the Pattern, towards the dungeons. The guards at the table by the entrance throw down their cards and spring to attention as they approach. They tell the guards to escort them to the cell where Lillian is imprisoned, and ask about the other prisoners down here. The guards tell them there are a couple of hundred prisoners down here at the moment, all of them 'normal' offenders other than Lillian herself and the Moonrider captured earlier. Two of the guards take down lanterns, open the massive door into the dungeons, and escort Caitlin and Etienne in. Caitlin and Godofos have been to visit Lillian in the past (Godofos because he fancies her), during the first six months or so of her imprisonment, but stopped after she became quiet and un-talkative.
The guards lead them off into the dungeons, down many corridors lined with cell doors, and around many turns. After a ten minute walk they end up outside a big, solid-looking metal door with a peephole. One of the guards opens this and peers through, then pulls out a big bunch of keys. Once the door is opened a hall can be seen leading off to a single cell door similar to this one. There are four barred gates blocking the hall, which is lit by three glowing hemispheres in the ceiling. The guards lead them in, locking the door behind them, then down the hall, locking and unlocking the gates as they go until they reach the cell door. Etienne can feel that there is some kind of magic on the doors and gates, about as powerful as magic can be in Amber. The door at the far end is also big and solid-looking, with a peephole and a slot at the bottom for passing trays of food in and out.
One of the guards peers through the peephole, then unlocks the door. The guards and servant wait outside while Caitlin and Etienne go in. The cell seems to be carved into the solid stone, a ten foot by ten foot by ten foot cube, sparsely furnished with bed, table, chair and toilet, lit by another glowing hemisphere in the ceiling.
Lillian is lying on the bed, facing the door. She looks depressed and is unresponsive as Caitlin and Etienne try to talk to her. They offer to try and get her released if she helps out, for example with information - she could be ransomed, or allowed to live under house arrest rather than in this cell, if terms of release can be agreed. Lillian gets up from the bed and approaches them. Caitlin steps to the side and moves around so that Lillian is side on to her. Just a precaution. Lillian doesn't react to this. As she gets within arms reach, Etienne reaches out and touches her arm. Lillian stops. Etienne can feel that Lillian has no Pattern Imprint! This is most unusual, as she did have, and the cell doesn't seem to stop Etienne's imprint.
They don't delve too into this at the moment. Etienne offers to bring some books down and visit again soon. Lillian doesn't really react, but certainly doesn't look impressed by this.
Etienne says they must go now, and asks Lillian to move back away from the door. Lillian ignores this, and glares at Etienne. Etienne slaps her across the face. Unlike their last encounter with Lillian, this time she neither dodges or takes the blow to little effect, but flies back across the cell and smashes into the wall, slumping unconscious to the floor - far too easily, basically.
Caitlin and Etienne check her out - she's alive, but unconscious. They conclude that this Lillian is not the real Lillian (or she has ceased to be an Amberite somehow, which they find harder to believe). One of the guards waiting outside is called in and informed of this, then they leave the cell to call Gerard (one of the guards mentioned that this particular cell is warded against Trump somehow). Etienne pulls out her Trump of Gerard and concentrates on it.
Out in shadow, Jihx, Arun and Godofos carry on. As they go, technology seems to become more advanced. Cars start to appear, at first fairly primitive Model T Ford-type things, but as they carry on, more and more advanced types. The buildings become higher and more modern too. Theirs become the only horses visible. Their horses start to become nervous as cars zoom past them, and passing motorists start to shout abuse at them for blocking the road.
Eventually Godofos' horse decides it's had enough, and starts bucking and rearing, throwing him off. He lands nimbly on his feet while the other two stop. The horse sidles off when Godofos approaches it, to he goes to flag down a car instead - a nice sports model. The car tries to accelerate past him, but Godofos punches out the driver's side window, tears off the door and piles in before it gets past him. The driver tries to pull a gun on Godofos, but is quickly disarmed. Godofos points the gun at the luckless driver and forces him to follow the horses.
Arun leads on. As they continue to shift shadow, Arun notices the level of magic dropping more and more, until the shadows become actively anti-magical, and start eating away at the spells he has stored. He pulls out his Trump of the Amber castle courtyard and concentrates hard upon it. When the link opens, he throws through his earring (his spell rack) and drops the link.
The ride on. As they go, the road rises and widens into an elevated highway. They carry on. Godofos driver starts looking concerned as he doesn't recognise this part of the city. Godofos fobs him off with lies. Police sirens begin to sound from behind them. They try to ignore them and carry on (Arun's horse is a bit upset at the noise), but the cars are faster than the horses and soon catch up. Painfully load voices from car-top loudspeakers order them to pull over. Godofos says he'll handle it, and Jihx and Arun leave him to it, trotting off.
The police order Godofos to drop the gun and lie down on the ground with his hands on his head. He tries to explain himself, but the police just aren't having any. Several shotguns are pointed at him from the (black, mirrored) windows of the police cars.
Some little way off, Jihx and Arun have stopped to see what's going on. Jihx decides to help Godofos out. He imagines that this place has hugely violent weather, and in a recent tornado, two elephants were sucked up into the sky and even now are falling. Towards the police cars. Godofos is quite surprised when two live elephants plummet from the sky and flatten both police cars (and themselves). Jihx is a little unhappy - he didn't realise the elephants and the police officers (who hadn't left their car) would be killed by this! Ah well, we all make mistakes...
Godofos dives back into the car, and has the driver (already well removed from his home shadow) power off down the highway. He imagines there is a large assault rifle-type thing behind his seat and pulls it out. As he does this, he notices a heavily armed police helicopter flying up from behind. He pulls out the anti-helicopter missile and launcher from under the seat, sticks it out of the window, and fire. The helicopter explodes into a ball of flame and tumbles onto the highway. Where it triggers a chain reaction of explosions in the cars crowded onto the highway, which explodes rapidly towards them! They flee down the highway away from the explosions.
Etienne and Caitlin make Trump contact with Gerard. They tell him about their chat with Lillian, and their suspicions that the one here is an impostor, with the real Lillian having been gone for years. Gerard brings them through the Trump link to the office where he is working and they discuss a little more. While Etienne talks, Caitlin pulls out her Trump of Jihx and concentrates upon it.
Jihx, Godofos and Arun flee through shadow and quickly avoid the explosions following them. They ride on. The road becomes more and more quiet, and free of cars, until it is entirely open in front of them. The buildings beside the road become bigger and darker and more covered by pollution. Clouds close in and darken overhead. It's cold. It starts to rain. The rain is acidic, and stings.
They ride on. Old-looking roadblocks appear ahead, wood and barbed wire, blocking one entrance to a massive convoluted road junction looming dimly ahead out of the rain. Thunder and lightning begin.
They agree that they should get rid of their horses, who are not at all happy in this weather, and go on by car.
At this point, Jihx feels a Trump call coming on. He accepts it It's Caitlin. She tells them about Lillian's apparent escape.
Godofos goes to find some gold to pay off the driver he kidnapped. He finds a bag of coins under a pile of smelly rubbish at the edge of the road here, by the dirty concrete crash barrier. As he stands up, a flash of lightning gives him a good view of the junction ahead - the curve of the roads, and where they cross each other looks just like the Pattern, expanded slightly in height!
He comes back and tells the others this. Looks like this is the place they have been heading for. He gives the bag of gold to his luckless driver, and tells him to go. Once he's taken all the rest of the weaponry out of the car. The driver starts to turn the car, then sees that the road behind them is nothing like the road they took to get here. He looks very confused. "This isn't Neopolis!" he says. The others ignore him. He drives off.
Jihx goes to find the obelisks that must be here. He jumps off the edge of the elevated highway, thirty feet up or so and lands in the filthy mud below. Arun turns into dragon form and flies off to look for obelisks too. Etienne wonders how Arun is flying in this anti-magical environment. Sheer physical strength, that's how.
The acid rain is burning a little here. Godofos Trumps the Amber Castle courtyard, and passes the horses through.
Jihx looks about. He can see, under the elevated highway, a number of fires burning in old oil drums, with at least twenty homeless people huddled around them. He can also see an obelisk, a bit beyond them, also under the highway itself. He goes towards the obelisk. The homeless people quickly notice Jihx and move towards him, aggressively begging for "money for food". Jihx activates his armour and sword, and walks through them, using his superior strength to force a path. But there are just too many, and they swamp him with sheer weight of numbers.
Godofos, looking over the edge of the highway above, sees this. He jumps over the edge and goes to help Jihx. He has fewer qualms than Jihx about hurting the homeless people, and smashes into them, badly injuring several, including one who flies through the air and is impaled on the obelisk.
The homeless people decide this is more trouble than it's worth, and run. Jihx attacks the obelisk with the edge of his sword (as its blasting power is not working here due the anti-magical nature of the place), not bothering to help the impaled homeless person.
Godofos feels a Trump call coming on, and identifies it as Caitlin. He accepts the call. Godofos tells Caitlin the situation. In the background, Caitlin can see a rusty sign poking out of the mud. On it are the words 'You Are Now Leaving Junction 66'.
Jihx chips the stone with his sword, but that's about it. He decides to give up on damaging it here, and instead grabs the stone and starts pulling it from the mud.
Caitlin and Etienne go through the Trump link to Godofos. Etienne instantly feels the anti-magical nature of this place attacking her racked spells and magical items, quickly pulls out her Trump of the Amber courtyard and concentrates upon it, hard. The link quickly opens up, and she dives through to Amber, where she removes her magical items before Trumping back to Godofos.
Jihx pulls the obelisk out of the ground with a nasty sucking sound. He puts it down and uses a paper and pencil he 'finds' with the Pattern to write a note to his people on Ahnel, sticks the note to the obelisk, and sends the obelisk through to Ahnel.
Godofos and Caitlin 'find' a second rocket launcher, for Caitlin, and start shooting rockets at the pillars of the junction (both of them are pretty familiar with high-tech weaponry from their years wandering through shadow). Etienne (who is not used to this high-tech stuff) is also given a quick lesson on how to do use the rocket launchers, with a third one that is found nearby (rocket launchers seem to grow on trees in this shadow).
At this point, the sound of helicopters is heard, and spotlights begin to move around on the ground, searching for people. Caitlin blows up one of the helicopters with a rocket. As it tumbles to the ground in flames, their light reveals another obelisk, under another elevated highway off to the side. Godofos shoots and destroys another helicopter.
An elevated section of the junction starts to crumble and shake. Etienne senses an imbalance of power building up as the removed obelisk start to make its absence felt.
Caitlin fires a rocket at the obelisk she spotted, and blows it to smithereens.
The damage to the support pillars starts to have an effect, and the centre of Junction 66 starts to cave in. Etienne pulls out her Trump of Amber, concentrates upon it, makes contact, and leaves. The others move out from under the elevated roads.
Godofos and Caitlin set off round Junction 66 in opposite directions, looking for more obelisks. As they go, they each see another (separate) obelisk and destroy it with a rocket. Caitlin sees and destroys another. They both see the last as they approach from opposite directions, and destroy it with rockets together. At this point everyone left at Junction 66 notices the spotlights of more helicopters approaching.
At this point, Arun is spotted near to the last obelisk, lying battered and unconscious in the mud. Caitlin ignored him and concentrates upon her Trump of the Amber courtyard. Jihx, who has also moved round behind the junction, runs across, picks him up and carries him to Caitlin. They all pile through the Trump link into Amber as Junction 66 entirely collapses behind them.
In the courtyard, Caitlin pulls the trigger of her rocket launcher. Nothing happens. They give the rocket launchers to some guards for putting into storage.
A servant runs up. She tells them that they have done the search of the library records Prince Gerard asked for, and have some answers:
Also, another cold line has vanished. The one from the Pattern-thing on the cliff, presumably?
Etienne picks up her magical equipment. Many of her spells and empowered items seem to have been sucked dry.
Arun is healing himself, and is soon brought round.
The whole group head for the main courtyard in order to summon Lillian, by force. Forty-eight guards are called out to surround the area of the courtyard where they are planning to do this, and servants are sent off to bring the cage that Lillian was imprisoned in before back into the Pattern room. They assemble, at the ready. Godofos pulls out his Trump of Lillian. Everyone apart from Godofos concentrates upon the Trump. The plan is that the others will force the contact, then Godofos will grab Lillian and pull her through (as the power of his mind is so little, he wouldn't be contributing much anyway).
At first, there is no progress. The Trump doesn't make contact. Then the link suddenly opens. Lillian is there, in the 30's style uniform she wore the last time she was free, at a desk in a tent of black fabric. A Moonrider is visible in the background, by the tent flap. Etienne and the others force their way into Lillian's mind, mentally paralysing her against her attempts to resist. Godofos grabs her and together with Etienne pulls her through the Trump link. Godofos immediately grabs her in a 'full Nelson' so she can't get away. She starts to speak, "No...", but then Caitlin smacks her on the forehead with the pommel of a sword and Lillian falls unconscious.
Her unconscious body is picked up and carried down to the Pattern room. Godofos helps, and cops a feel as he does so.
Jihx Trumps Gerard. When Gerard answers the call (in the office) he tells him what has happened. Gerard looks quite pleased.
When they get to the Pattern room, Caitlin and Etienne search Lillian, stopping Godofos from assisting and sending all the men there out of the room. They take strip everything off her - equipment (pistol, utility belt), jewellery (various rings) and clothes. She has a deck of Trumps, containing Trumps of a number of Moonriders and various places, including the cliff with the Pattern-thing, Junction 66, and Ghenesh, and various other people. There are also cards like the ones she had before, of wolves, weapons and the like, and the usual selection of tarot cards. There are also Trumps of all the group in a style like Finndo's, but not exactly the same as his. They are accurate representations, neither insulting nor flattering. There is no new Trump of Finndo, just one in the style of Dworkin. In fact the Trumps in the deck are divided into three groups - ones by Dworkin, of the Elders and the Amber courtyard, ones by Finndo, and ones in the style like Finndo's - Lillian's, perhaps?
The place Trumps Lillian has are:
Servants come in, lugging the cage Lillian was put into last time. Caitlin and Etienne put her in the cage with a couple of blankets, also similarly to last time.
Jihx arrives, having finished his Trump call.
Lillian wakes up, and sits up. Her eyes focus on Caitlin as she feels the bump on her forehead. "OW! You Bitch! Bloody Hell!" she says angrily.
She is told off by Caitlin and Etienne for her part in this. She is not too impressed by this.
However, with very little prompting she spills the beans. Some of them, anyway. She says she went out using the Pattern to search for something that would help her 'have her revenge upon Amber'. She wanted to kill off all the Amberites involved in the death of Finndo. However, she did not want them to destroy the Pattern! She claims she didn't know who she had found until she was in too deeply to back out, and the Moonriders essentially betrayed her and used her to start destroying the Patterns. Effectively they had her captive at the end. That's why she didn't attempt to resist the Trump from the Etienne and the rest, even though she knew who was calling, as she hoped they might help her out of this bind she is in. She wasn't expecting a brutal clubbing about the head. She glares at Etienne again.
She doesn't say anything at all about how she managed to escape from her cell in the first place.
They show Lillian all the Trumps they took from her. She looks less than pleased that they have them, but does identify all the places shown. They are (in the same order as the list above):
She also names the various Moonriders whom she has Trumps of. These include Adrastus, Alcibiades, Atreus, Cadmus, Dionaeus, Erebus (one of their leaders), Euryalus, Gorgon (their other leader), Nessus, Phobos, Pylades, Sciron, Telemachus, Thersander and Typhon.
From what Lillian says, the Moonriders remember Oberon wiping them out. And then remember coming back. They think Oberon brought them back!
There is a bit of discussion, then the group decide to go back up to the courtyard and use Lillian's Trumps to apprehend Moonriders. Guards are left to look after Lillian and they step outside, then Trump back up to the arrival courtyard.
They choose Gorgon as their first target. Another fifty or so guards are called in to surround them as they use the Trump. They are warned about Gorgon's missile-reflecting powers (though if it's a spell it won't work here in Amber). Then they all concentrate on the Trump, apart from Godofos, who is in the link but ready to grab Gorgon when the contact is forced.
Initially, there is a lot of resistance, but then the link opens up, and there is Gorgon in a moonlit black stone Greek-style temple (perhaps one on Ghenesh). He is not looking as charred as might be expected from the attacks he took previously (but on the other hand, magical healing could easily do that), but does seem surprised. Etienne attempts to freeze him in place prior to grabbing him, but Gorgon shrugs her off and, looking annoyed, breaks the link. Because the link wasn't made properly, Godofos gets no chance to grab him. Damn.
This has given someone a worrying idea - could this Trump-based attack be done on them? They troop back down to the Pattern room again, and ask Lillian whether the Moonriders have any Trumps of them. No, she says. Her spare set is not in someone else's hands. All Gorgon has is Trumps of some of his associates, and a couple of places in shadow (including Ghenesh). She lists the Moonriders Gorgon has Trumps of - they seem to be the same as the Moonriders she has Trumps of herself.
They leave Lillian again, and go back up to the courtyard via Trump.
They decide to repeat the trick that failed against Gorgon on one of the other Moonriders. They pick one from Lillian's list, Pylades, in the hope that his mind will be less strong than Gorgon's.
They begin to concentrate upon the Trump...