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Session 4.12 Index Session 4.14
Notes Taken by Samantha and Alastair Beadle.
As Agharti moves off through shadow, we ask her about their voyage here. Timandra tells us that they experienced about six years of time on the journey here, although roughly sixty years passed in Amber during that time.
We voyage on.
Caitlin is still dreaming of Tir-Na Nog'th every night. Her dreams are not all identical, seeming to have her wandering through different parts of Tir-Na Nog'th, but they are all in Tir-Na Nog'th.
After a couple of weeks three of the Chaosites, Olinda, Anaximander and Alcina, come and visit us.
"Good Turning!" says Anaximander cheerfully as they arrive. He explains that he has come along to see how we are getting on.
Jihx tells him that he is already bored and asks what they did on the journey out here to entertain themselves.
Anaximander describes that they wrote novels, watched plays, painted, wrote treatises on military matters and so on.
Jihx is fascinated and asks to read some of their works.
Anaximander agrees, although a little reluctantly.
He also suggests that we could probably use our Pattern powers to return to Amber or go off into shadow and then rejoin the journey later. The Trumps could probably also be used for this.
Whippoorwill states that he is keen to visit some of the shadows that we pass through, out of interest.
The Chaosites say that this is possible.
Olinda offers to spar with Caitlin, for practise and to learn. Caitlin agrees with this idea, liking the idea. Olinda also suggests that Garrick may want to join in too.
They decide to reshape some of the interior into training rooms for this purpose.
Whippoorwill takes his immediate squad, but not his war machine, off into shadow. He is looking for 'cool stuff' and training for his minions to go through to improve their effectiveness.
This much improves his soldiers.
He also acquires a magical 'thermic lance' that works in most shadows for use by himself or one of his troops.
Caitlin and Olinda meet up to spar.
Olinda is stronger and almost as fast as Caitlin. The result is that they are fairly evenly matched, when Olinda refrains from shapeshifting and Caitlin refrains from using the Pattern and her stronger mind to her advantage. Caitlin senses that Olinda has a strong mind, but not as strong as Caitlin's.
Olinda turns out to be the bush of armoured black tentacles that cut up Godofos in Amber. Caitlin declines the offer to fight her in that form, even when Olinda says that she can heal her afterwards if she should be injured.
Garrick also turns up on occasion and spars with Caitlin. He turns out to be just as fast as Caitlin and much stronger so that in general he beats her every time. However his mind is not as strong as Olinda's.
Garrick's demon form is an armoured humanoid with a pair of large crab-clawed upper arms and a smaller lower pair of arms ending in normal hands. It has eight eyes, four on the front of its head and four behind. Its entire body is reversible, aided by double joints and so on, so it can turn around without physically turning its body. In all of his forms Garrick does not say very much.
All three learn a good deal from the sparring.
Jihx reads a novel that Timandra wrote on their voyage. It is an odd book, in that the society that it is set in is very different from anything he is familiar with, so that it makes assumptions about things the reader should know which leave Jihx rather in the dark. The result is quite an impenetrable story.
The novel is the tale of Hania, a poor Chaosite who comes from a poor background and is not tested for entry to the Coteries - a great injustice and a sign of corruption in the Coteries. Despite this Hania proves herself, through a series of adventures, worthy of membership of the Beastmaster Coterie. Her adventures include entering the Black Zone of shadows around the Courts of Chaos to carry messages, through to assisting the Assassin Coterie (which seems to consist of spies as well as just assassins) in their tasks. Jihx gets the impression of a non-democratic but otherwise orderly society, if one in which the Coterie system is riddled with corruption.
Whippoorwill returns with his troops.
He then spends some time doing research into another spell, one that will turn existing non-magical smoke into his anti-magical smoke.
As he does this, Alcina comes and watches him doing his research. She seems to understand what he is doing, and comments that it is quite clever.
"You should know that in Chaos magic doesn't work everywhere," she tells him. "We have used magic for a very long time."
Whippoorwill notices that Alcina's appearance seems to have changed somewhat from the last time he saw her, and comments on this.
She seems pleased that he has noticed this, and tells him that she likes to change her image from time to time to keep in fashion.
Whippoorwill seems to have made a friend; he makes a mental note to compliment her on her appearance from time to time.
Godofos works on the Trumps and on his Shapeshifting as we travel. He draws himself superTrumps of Caitlin, Jihx and Whippoorwill, and creates superTrumps of himself for each of them.
Godofos' finger, lost to molten lava during an attack on Coraltown, grows back during the journey to the Courts of Chaos.
Some time later, Timandra invites everyone to dinner.
Dinner is a luxurious chamber not unlike an Arabian tent. There is a large circular table in the centre of the room around which everyone sits on cushions.
The table is filled with a huge number of different dishes of all kinds, from the plain and simple to the highly spiced, from the sweet to the savoury, from the (to Amberites) delicious to the utterly foul, from the raw to the charred, from which people pick and choose what they eat.
In one corner of the room a small orchestra of the four-armed prehensile-tailed humanoids play music which is strange, atonal and rather unpleasant to Amberite ears, although the Chaosites seem to enjoy it.
Over dinner, Jihx speaks to Timandra about her book and about Chaos society in general.
She seems pleased that he has read it, and describes the Coteries as being very old and long standing. All children in the Courts should be tested for entry to the Coteries, with children of the Coteries being fostered back out into the Commons. There are a fair number of Coteries, including Makers, Artists, Finders, Warriors, Assassins, Scholars, Diviners, Farmers, Builders, Priests, Beastmasters, Mimics, Physicians, Diplomats, Entertainers and Artisans. She describes how they have become corrupt over time, with nepotism and favouritism being rife, and because of this corruption not every child in the Courts is being tested for entry to the Coteries, leading to both loss of potentially skilled people in the Coteries, and resentment among the people of the Commons. Apparently about ten to fifteen percent of the humans in the Courts are members of the Coteries, with the rest being the Commons. Once one has qualified for a Coterie, one is in it for life, but if one fails to qualify, then one has failed for life, except for highly exceptional cases.
Timandra apparently wants to go off into shadow with the rest of her Coterie and create a new Courts, with a fair system, as the Courts of Chaos once was, and should still be.
Dinner is a long affair. Food just keeps coming, more and different dishes being delivered to the table by more of the four-armed, prehensile-tailed humanoids.
Jihx looks suspiciously at some of the meat that is delivered to the table as it looks rather ... human. He asks Timandra about this.
She tells him that the meat is indeed from a humanoid race, but one with, apparently, a very low vocabulary, which, for her, seems to make it right.
Jihx and Whippoorwill quiz Timandra further on this subject. Jihx does not try the meat (being vegetarian as he is), but Caitlin and Whippoorwill do (Caitlin has eaten human meat many times before, particularly during the Derrisian invasions of Ahnel). Whippoorwill describes it as like chicken.
The Chaosites say they don't know chicken.
We offer to get them some, and invite them to dinner in return.
And dinner draws to a close...
Jihx leaves Agharti and uses the Pattern to obtain a novel about Amber written by a noble of one of the Noble Houses of Amber. It is a tale of a heroic Lord of Amber struggling to survive in the political climate of Amber under the late King Oberon. He gives this to Timandra, who thanks him.
Whippoorwill also passes a copy of the proposed Amber Constitution drafted by his lackey Mr Snide to Timandra to read.
She seems to view it as rather strange.
We discuss the kind of dinner we will throw for the Chaosites. Whippoorwill wants to do a very formal dinner, with lots of cutlery and a dozen glasses each, very rigid rules of behaviour and whispering and tut-tutting at anyone who gets it wrong.
We all agree that this is a good, and amusing, idea. We also think that a single singer performing the 'Ballad of the Water Crossers' by Prince Corwin, which goes on for thirty-five minutes, would be good. A few high-ranking officers from our troops are also to be invited to make up the numbers on our side.
We send out our formal dining rules to the Chaosites beforehand, so they have a chance to revise.
And the formal dinner rolls round.
There are rafts of cutlery, lots of alcohol (as we hope to make the Chaosites less able to cope with our complex rules by getting them drunk), and a great many courses, each one with very small piles of food with outrageous garnish.
When the Chaosites arrive and dinner begins, Anaximander completely ignores all the rules and the tutting this generates, and does what he likes.
Whippoorwill provides him with lots of waiters to make amends for the rules he is breaking.
Anaximander proceeds to modify his behaviour so as to cause as much stress to the waiters as possible.
Tannim gets all the protocol rules correct from the start. Terrato, on the other hand, becomes more and more irritated with all of our rules as dinner continues. This continues until, when one of the waiters moves to correct him and take a piece of cutlery, he pins the waiter's hand to the table with one of the knives and stomps out. The other Chaosites struggle with the rules and carry on trying to keep up. Timandra keeps up perfectly with all of the courses.
Caitlin struggles with the rules too. Godofos does his best, but...
After Terrato is gone, Alcina asks our permission to heal the waiter he injured.
We allow this, and she takes the waiter's hand. The flesh flows back together, completely erasing the wound.
Dinner eventually finishes, a lot of alcohol having been consumed. Jihx is the most drunk of anyone; Anaximander, Tannim and Timandra are showing some signs of drunkenness. The others all seem completely sober.
Jihx declares it is time for a ball, so we adjourn to a large adjacent chamber that we have set up as a ballroom. The orchestra starts up, and the dancing begins.
All of the Chaosites prove to be very good dancers.
Jihx is enthusiastic but very drunk. Caitlin simply does not dance. Garrick and Castalia also do not dance.
The three of them go to the part of the ballroom set aside for large armchairs in which brandy and cigars can be consumed. These things are indeed provided. Castalia eats her cigar, and then is embarrassed when she sees Garrick and Caitlin smoking theirs, but continues to eat it.
The Chaosites say they will have to have a ball in return.
Whippoorwill says we will have to host another dinner, but less formal. Alcina tells him never to hold a dinner like this one ever again.
And the evening ends. Jihx ends up unconscious on a sofa, but despite awakes the next day with no hangover.
More time passes. After a while, the Chaosites host a ball, again with the strange atonal Chaos music - off key and jarring.
The food is much the same as before - a very wide variety of different things all together at once. Some of it is all right, but some is strange, and some is unpleasant. The Chaos ballroom dancing is also quite strange, certainly different to the Amberite variety; from looking at it one can see why the Chaosites were so good at the simpler Amberite dancing.
Caitlin hangs about by the door and leaves fairly quickly to a much better evening on her own. Terrato also leaves early.
Caitlin continues to dream about Tir-Na Nog'th every night. Her psychic aura is blurring more and more as time goes on.
Jihx notices this, and asks her about it, so she tells him what is happening, and says she does not know why it is happening. She does not mention the apple which Deirdre gave her in Tir-Na Nog'th, or the fact that she ate it...
Wanting to see exactly what kind of humanoid the Chaosites are eating, Jihx goes and visits the 'dinner herd'. He finds a fairly pleasant cavern, filled with grass and trees, in which several hundred ape-like humanoids are wandering about.
He approaches one, and talks to it. Its name is 'Gark', and it seems very passive, as well as not very bright at all. In fact, when he talks to others, he finds that they are all called Gark and they seem to look very confused about any question asked of them.
As he talks to the Garks, a couple of the four-armed people turn up and talk to one of the Garks, inviting him to go with them. The three of them quietly leave without a fuss.
Jihx accepts all of this, and leaves.
More and more social events are arranged between us and the Chaosites.
Caitlin turns up to these less and less, as do some of the Chaosites, Terrato particularly.
Some of the events are hunts, where creatures are brought in from shadow to be hunted through Agharti. Some of them are fearsome beasts, some of them very elusive creatures.
This is more Caitlin's cup of tea, so she participates. Her hunting skills prove to be the best of everyone there, and so she consistently wins the hunts.
We cannot help noticing that Terrato seems to enjoy the hunts rather too much, particularly the blood and the pain of the hunted creatures...
Time passes.
Caitlin spends some weeks ignoring everyone and then disappears into the myriad tunnels of Agharti.
Jihx and Timandra exchange books; Timandra has not written any beyond the one Jihx read previously, but she does have more books from Chaos itself.
Jihx reads these, as well as Anaximander's treatises on military affairs. From these he concludes that Anaximander is very skilled in all aspects of military matters.
He discusses what he has read with Timandra, and also asks her about what they are going to do when they leave Chaos.
Timandra tells him of her plans about setting up their own society, though they do not know where they are going to do this. She also mentions that they may bring along members of other Coteries if they wish to come, as there are some skills, such as Trump and certain magics, which they cannot duplicate.
Caitlin spends some time investigating the mini message-carrying shadows she took from Econstis, the Priest of the Serpent. She finds that they are hard-wired to home on Chaos, as fast as they can go, carrying whatever in inside them. With some thought, she figures out how to rewire them to home on any place she desires. She cannot rewire them to home in on a specific person (as one cannot use the Pattern to shift for a specific person). The shadows are each about an inch across on the outside and two metres across inside. Again, Caitlin has figured out how to make mobile shadows of different sizes. She finds that the larger they are, the slower their maximum speed.
After some four months of travelling, from her place hidden off in Agharti, Caitlin realises that the speed of Agharti has suddenly slowed considerably.
She Trumps Godofos and when he takes the call tells him this.
He passes this information on to the rest of us.
Jihx goes and finds Timandra and asks her what is going on.
Timandra tells us that we have reached the area of fractured shadow that we have to cross before returning to Chaos. We recognise this as the area Caitlin found earlier, near the tree of Ygg.
Whippoorwill asks Timandra if the entire shadow of Agharti could be passed through Trump.
She thinks it could be, if a large enough contact could be made; certainly Econstis' mini-shadows could pass through a Trump contact.
Jihx tells Timandra about Etienne and the problems we had with her.
Timandra suggests that she should have been hunted down and exterminated.
Jihx tells her that we may well do when the one hundred years of the truce is over.
Soon after entering the shattered zone of shadow, Jihx leaves Agharti and uses Godofos' super-Trump of Gerard.
After some effort he gets through, and Gerard takes the call.
Gerard asks where we are, and how things are going.
Jihx tells him that we are getting on all right with the Chaosites, and are en route.
When asked, Gerard tells Jihx that although it has been four months for us, six months have passed in Amber. He says that things are quiet in Amber, and that he is in contact with Queen Moire, so he knows that things are fine in Rebma too. Amber is being protected, and Lillian and Moire are researching the Real Magic needed to keep the Vadgaon worms away from the various Patterns.
Jihx thanks Gerard and signs off.
He then tries to contact Connor. Even with quite a lot of effort he does not get through, so he gives up.
He has no Trump of Queen Moire (and knows that she does not allow such things anyway), so he sends a water-snake of desire off to her, carrying a message from him.
We spend the next four months slowly creeping through the area of shattered shadow.
After a while, Whippoorwill and Alcina end up in bed.
Afterwards, he asks her whether Amberites have ever mated with Chaosites.
She tells him that they have indeed done this. Apparently a Warrior named Lintra slept with Prince Benedict, and severed his arm at the same time. This was quite a scandal at the time. Lintra had a child by Benedict, and one of the descendants of that child, a woman named Dara, slept with Prince Corwin and Dara had a son, a man named Merlin.
Alcina assures Whippoorwill that, as she is a shapeshifter, she is in no danger of getting pregnant.
Jihx continues to converse with Timandra, about the Courts of Chaos and many other subject, including their shapeshifting abilities.
Four months after entering the zone of shattered shadow, we seem to emerge on its other side, and Agharti once again starts moving at speed.
On this side of the divide Caitlin can sense that the shadows we are passing through have been cast by a completely different Pattern to those on the Amber side - like that which created some of the fragments of shadow she encountered while exploring the shattered zone.
She goes outside and wanders around to investigate this further. Her Pattern powers seem to work just as well good here as on the other side of the divide. Although different, the shadows here feel just as Real and physically work in much the same way.
Jihx continues to converse with Timandra, about the Courts of Chaos and many other subject, including their shapeshifting abilities.
Time continues to pass.
Anaximander attempts to chat up Caitlin, but does not succeed in this.
Afterwards he tries to chat up Jihx instead, but does not succeed there either, despite offering to be female for him if that is what he wishes.
As they continue to sleep together, Whippoorwill discusses relationships with Alcina.
She tells him that Chaos do have marriages, but they are not exclusive relationships and are generally more to do with politics than with love.
Outside, the shadows become more and more Real as we travel on. The level of Reality peaks, and then begins to fall away again.
When we ask the Chaosites what is happening, they say that this a surprise to them, as it was not there before. It appears to be a Pattern of some form, but Timandra tells us that there is no Pattern in Chaos, and in any case we are still a long way away from the Courts of Chaos.
We discuss the idea that it may have been created by one of the Elders.
Caitlin suggests trying to Trump them to see if they respond on this side of the divide.
Jihx selects Corwin's Trump and attempts to make a contact. He fails to get a response.
He then tries the Trumps of Flora, Bleys, Deirdre, Benedict, Caine, Random, Llewella, Julian and Fiona with an equal lack of success.
We think that they would be contactable at this distance, if we were in Amber and they were on the Amber side of the divide. Hmm...
We prepare an expedition to find out more about this Pattern.
Caitlin, Whippoorwill and Jihx go off into shadow to find this 'Chaos Pattern' while Godofos remains in Agharti so that they can Trump back to him if required.
We shift through shadow for some days, and eventually find a shadow that feels Realer than Amber - could it be a Primal Pattern? It is a flat grassy plain dotted with rocky outcroppings, occasional ponds and streams, and large bushes of wild roses. Herds of wild horses are occasionally visible off in the distance. Because of the roses we speculate that Corwin's hand is behind this shadow.
We can all sense the Pattern now, and head towards it, remaining in the shadow.
After a while an odd-looking tree appears on the horizon - it looks much like the tree of Ygg. As we approach we see a silvery-blue glow on the ground beneath the tree. As we approach we see that the glow comes from a Pattern.
It feels similar to the other Patterns we have know, being but has a different shape from all of them. It feels closest to the Primal Pattern. Although it is Realer than it, to Caitlin this Pattern feels somehow weaker that the Amber Pattern.
As we stand there studying the new Pattern, Jihx gets the impression that the tree is watching him.
He looks at it, and it is just a tree, but it is definitely watching him. He puts his hand on the tree, and as he does so he senses a mind in the tree, a powerful one, and it is watching us.
Jihx tries to contact it with his mind. "Hello! Who are you?" he sends.
"I am Drasil," the tree replies, audibly, in voice like the rustling of leaves in the wind.
"Oh, the tree speaks!" exclaims Caitlin. "Who made you?" she asks.
"Prince Corwin planted me here as a cutting from the tree of Ygg," replies Drasil. "He cut me as a staff from Ygg and brought me here, planting me when he decided to create the Pattern."
We asks it if anyone else has been here since then
"He and no other Amberite has been back in the seventy years since," it replies.
We ask why he drew it.
"He drew the Pattern with the Jewel of Judgement in an attempt to prevent the destruction of the universe," replies Drasil. "He thought that King Oberon had failed to redraw the Primal Pattern, and so created this one to ensure that the universe he knew would survive."
We offer Drasil some any assistance it needs.
"I have the rain, and the wind, and the insects," it replies. "I need nothing more."
Despite this, we talk Drasil into accepting some manure from our horses.
We then return to Agharti by Trumping through to Godofos.
Whippoorwill tells Timandra about the Pattern and about the tree, but not that it is a talking tree.
We speculate about a breach of the Treaty of Awarcon which we read about on the obelisk we found at Ygg, then decide that as there was a war on at the time it doesn't matter.
By now we appear to be roughly two thirds of the way to the Courts of Chaos.
Whippoorwill suggests that Caitlin may like to wander about this area of shadow, just to explore.
Caitlin agrees with this idea, and leaves Agharti.
Whippoorwill also wanders shadow, searching for guns which work everywhere with which he can equip his troops.
Both Caitlin and Whippoorwill notice that the shadows here appear different than Amber. There is a definite bias in the type of shadow towards a French feel in many of them, far more than you might expect in Amber's shadows. And not just French - many shadows have a roughly shadow-Earth year 1900 feel to them, and most of these also have a definite likeness to Paris. In terms of time-flow, level of magic and technology the shadows are, however, similar to those in the Amber universe.
Meanwhile, Jihx stays in Agharti, reading and talking to the Chaosites.
From talking to him, he discovers that Anaximander is not a Spaceshifter, but is in fact of the Warrior Coterie.
When Caitlin and Whippoorwill mention the French bias of the shadows here to him, Jihx asks the Chaosites about it.
They say they have not noticed the French influence across this part of the universe.
As they continue to travel through the shadows cast by Corwin's Pattern Whippoorwill and Caitlin notice that the locals speak rather like Etienne. This worries them a little, until they realise it just seems to be the way people speak in these shadows. A few of the shadows have gods, but again this is as per the Amber universe; not all shadow-gods are part of Etienne's God.
Over the course of a few weeks Whippoorwill finds a type of machine gun which works in most shadows. He equips all of his troops with these weapons.
Some time later, Timandra calls us all together to give us a briefing on the Courts of Chaos and of where the others are being held.
She tells us that the others are being held in a place called Fortress Gantu. This is the high security prison of Chaos, and is a place which can be tailored to the prisoner, from the deepest, darkest oubliette to a luxurious cell which would put a ten-star hotel to shame. The fortress is apparently isolated from the rest of the Courts of Chaos, hanging below them in the depths of the abyss.
Timandra uses her magic to project an image for us to see. The image shows a lightly blurred ground underneath the point of view, which in front of the viewpoint drops off in a sharp cliff edge. Below the edge of the cliff is a sea of moving, fading and brightening multicoloured stars. This sea of stars blends upwards to form half of the sky overhead, and is very reminiscent of the starry areas we saw in Tir-Na Nog'th where the Vadgaon worms had eaten shadow. Over the second half of the sky moving bands of colour shift and change. This banded part of the sky cuts off in the distance, giving a horizon. Out in the starry Abyss is a dark blob which Timandra points out as the Courts of Chaos. It appears to be a black mountain even darker than the blackness of the Abyss, with tiny flashes of light visible around it and misty sheets passing between it and the viewpoint.
Timandra tells us that the Courts of Chaos is made out of fragments of many shadows. Each Coterie has its own private area of stitched-together shadows known as their Ways, but there are also public areas. On the far edge of the Courts of Chaos are the Citadel of Chaos, where the Council of Coteries meets, and the Temple of the Serpent, the main place of worship for the Courts. There are also areas of the Courts set aside for the Commons and, below them, the demons.
Fortress Gantu hangs below the Courts of Chaos in the Abyss, and is reached by a private route separate from the Commons and the demons.
As we watch the image we can see that the coloured part is the sky seems to be rotating. Timandra tells us that this is the basis of time in Chaos - one rotation of the sky is one 'Turning'.
We need to get into Fortress Gantu.
Timandra thinks we can use Pattern to do so, as it is a power about which Chaos knows very little. She tells us that a warding in the fortress stops shapeshifting and Trump in the cells.
Whippoorwill cautions us, telling us that as the Elders have been here it is possible that the Courts of Chaos may have better defences against our powers than Timandra believes. A fair point.
Timandra goes on to explain that they do not know where in the prison their fellow Coterie members are. However she does believe that records exist that will give us this information. However, she also does not know where these records are kept, although she suspects that they will be near the entrance.
We discuss preliminary plans. These include a head on attack, or surveillance followed by precision strike. Diversion tactics are also discussed.
Timandra gives us a Trump that depicts a temple carved in a rock face with a large crack running down the centre. She tells us that this is the entrance to the Spaceshifter Ways, which she thinks is abandoned. She suggests it as a rendezvous point for the mission, somewhere to go once we have freed the prisoners.
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She then gives us more information on Fortress Gantu:
Timandra pulls a small box from her robe and hands it to Jihx. It has an iridescent silver surface that is constantly shifting and flowing. We are to show this to the prisoners - they should recognise this as Timandra's symbol. She also hands us a locket containing pictures of all of the seventy prisoners we are looking for, which can be paged through by pressing a button inside the lid.
And we plan...
Session 4.12 Index Session 4.14
The "Now These Her Princes Are Come Home Again" Top Page.
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