Back to: The Schekkerman homepage > Jopie's homepage > Amber > Diaries

AMBER
Boadice's diary,
Session 0 and 38
Played (mostly) on the 31st of March, 1995
Written by Jopie Schekkerman, based on a campaign by Astrid Tops.

Memories and a burglary

    t was one of those plans that could not possibly go wrong. We wanted to steal the ring that bore Gran (my Chaosian boyfriend)'s curse from the art collection of Sawall. For that little errand we had the help of Gran's brother Frewar, Frewar's pretty, red-haired, Logrus-mistress friend Sarana and the unofficial support of king Merlin himself. My royal cousin had given us a guide-spell, a key and his assurance that the ways would be empty. On top of that I had my trusted manservant/mercenary/secretary Mardoc standing by in a nearby shadow, with Logrus- and Pattern based trumps of myself and a trump of a way out. What could possibly go wrong?

Frewar trumped us through to the Courts, and while he welcomed us, Sarana conjured up a swarm of insects to confuse the wards. It was taking her a while, so Gran and I had time to take in our surroundings. Sawall's back door looked like a pair of pillars in a neglected garden of purple plants. That's the Courts of Chaos for you: a door is what you make of it. The key Merlin had given us would have to open the way.
"Say when," Sarana whispered, her eyes closed. "Say when, say when..." Frewar took a trump from his pocket, directed us to the pillars and told Sarana to let go. Immediately a swarm of tiny flying frogs appeared out of nowhere and Gran and I dove for the space between the pillars. I had the key -a soft pink ping-pong ball- in my hand and Gran held on to me, and with a 'plop' we entered the Ways.

At the other side of the pillars was a large dark hall filled with smooth white cubes of various sizes. At first I thought they might be works of art but they were labelled ,so they probably were crates. And I call myself an artist.
"The guide spell," Gran muttered and put his hand in his pocket. Soon a yellow arrow lit up on the floor. While Gran held the spell and I followed him, my thoughts went back to the first time we met.

. . . _ . . .

It must have been more than twenty years ago. I was still in my early seventies and a bit tired of myself. I was hanging out in a shadow that... Well, why it is special is another story. The place has no particular merits except that it is a charming, very quaint shadow, all thatched houses and pretty shops, chimney sweeps and turtledoves. Every winter there is snow and every summer has enough rain to keep the flowers in boom. I call the shadow Pieck.

When I was spending some aimless time in that shadow, I came across a painting that struck me as having… it. It had something special, something I had never seen before. I don't quite remember what it depicted, perhaps it was a landscape. It was good, though. I went looking for other paintings like it and they all had that certain unique quality. Finally, I sought out the artist who had painted them. An acquaintance held a dinner party in his honour and there I saw him, the artist, across a crowded room. He was an unremarkable looking young man with brown hair. I turned on my heels and ran away.

I am not normally this shy, I can assure you. When I learned he had rooms above a pub I bought the house across the street. You know how we Amberites get what we want; with a little information and the discreet use of Pattern the head of the family suddenly finds a job in another city and voila: a house for sale. From there I started to play my games: my shadow on the curtains, a painting of mine in a place where he would see it, some rumours. I think I made a fool of myself but you just wait until you fall in love yourself. Then, one day when I was sure he was out, I dropped into the pub to have a drink. As fate would have it, the object of my infatuation was there. Our eyes met and I swear lightning crossed the room. I remember thinking that I had never seen so much... so much behind a pair of eyes. Infatuation turned into love. After an hour or two of conversation, Gran took me up to his apartment to show me, a fellow artist, his work. To my surprise the biggest painting in his atelier was a life-size portrait of me. And I thought he had not noticed me! We talked, laughed and had dinner, and at the end of the evening we made love on the floor of his workroom. What do you mean, fast? You lot aren't paragons of holy virtue either.

This was the beginning of three years of everyday bliss. Gran painted and loved me, I painted and loved him back. We made a living and lived of it. I moved into Gran's apartment above the pub and forgot I was an immortal in a multiverse in which -I thought- everyone died. My Pattern abilities I hid from my lover as a matter of course, without thinking about it. I always hid them from my shadow friends because they are hard to explain and impossible to share. My other problem: having to think up a believable past to fit the shadow, did not come up because Gran never talked about past either, so there was no strain there. Our relationship was pretty harmonious.

No, that is not true. We had our problems, and not only because I am a temperamental woman. When I argue I tend to underscore my arguments by breaking tableware. Gran could not teach me that special thing, the 'it' he put into his paintings. He could not even explain why he couldn't. This was frustrating in the extreme, I can tell you! Gran also suffered from bouts of melancholy. At times he would withdraw into himself and sit in his favourite chair, hugging himself and not speaking. But this always ended and I dismissed it as the inevitable fairness of life: nothing is ever perfect. We were happy.

. . . _ . . .

One day, when I was inspecting the work of the cleaners (I do not clean, and I do not cook except when I travel) I found three cards behind a mirror. They were pictures by Gran's hand and they radiated... something. Two of them were portraits: one a self portrait of Gran and one a portrait of a smiling, richly dressed young man with dark brown hair. The third card was a landscape of floating rocks under a green sky: very weird. All three cards bore a serpent on the back. They reminded me of four cards I owned: aces in a deck of cards which I will tell you about later. Innocently, I took the cards I had found to Gran and asked what they were and why he had hidden them. To explain why I wanted to know, I showed him my aces. I do not remember exactly what he said but Gran explained that it meant that we were of 'opposite poles' and he told me that our respective families were at war with each other. He, he said, had been exiled from his homeland and had lost all taste for politics. (I later found out that Gran had been talking about the Patternfall War. Swayvill threw him out for being too pro-Amber or just for being too much anti-war.) The 'something' I felt in the cards was Logrus, and it was part of the 'it' in his paintings that he could not teach me. I accepted his story and, un-characteristically, I did not ask further. I guess it had nothing to do with our lives, or perhaps I was afraid to shatter my happiness. We went on with our life and forgot about the cards. Whatever war there was had nothing to do with us.

Then came the day I lost Gran. It was late in the evening and Gran was having one of his silent spells. He had been in the 'hugging himself' stage since the afternoon and I was reading in the chair next to him, feeding him tea and biscuits and trying not to worry. The only sound in the room was the ticking of the clock. Suddenly Gran jumped to his feet, kicking his chair away. Then he doubled up as if in pain. He screamed at me to run away, to leave him but of course I did no such thing. I tried to hold him but he twisted in my arms and screamed:
"Get away, this is dangerous for you!"
With a strength I never knew he possessed he pushed me away and I fell behind the sofa. As I picked myself up I saw my lover burst into flames. His fire lit the room bright as midday. When it was over, all that was left was a blackened spot on the floorboards. I fainted.

When I came to, the world was still there. I searched the apartment but Gran was gone and all the windows and doors were just as we had left them. I went down into the pub for a stiff drink. What on earth had happened? The bar was empty except for an old man on a barstool. The man was nursing a huge glass of something colourful with cherries on top, not something I had seen the pub ever serve before. His hair was grey and wild. When I came to the bottom of the stairs he looked at me with piercing black eyes, and said:
"Will you come with me?"
"Why not?" I answered. No, I was not quite myself at that time. "But not now", I added. "In a few days".
The old man nodded, gulped down his drink (spilling some down his front, on the bar and on the floor), got up and left. I ordered a large brandy.

The next couple of days I spent looking for Gran and waiting for him to return. I found nothing, not a trace, not a sign of him. The rest of the time I used to put our things in storage. Yes, I know, why would I put our things in storage when I expected him to return? At that time I thought he was dead, but I clung to the idea that perhaps he had been magicked to Chaos by that frightening Logrus thing of theirs. An hour after I signed the last papers, the old man turned up in the pub again. This time he drank something brown with bubbles.
"Will you come with me now?" he asked, and I nodded.

The man called himself Dworkin and he taught me to make the special cards we call trumps. It was a maddening and satisfying time, those years with Dworkin in Shadow. The old coot never gave a straight answer to anything, not even about breakfast. Still he managed to teach me what I most wanted to learn: the 'it' that makes your paintings special and ready for trump, and the use of pattern that makes your trumps work. He did not tell me about Amber, Chaos or what happened to Gran, however much I pestered him for it. I even begged once, but don't tell anyone. To every question Dworkin said "Little girls who ask questions have too much time on their hands," and he would give me a new assignment. He was a crazy bastard, Unicorn bless him. One day he just vanished; no goodbyes or 'I taught you everything I know' speech, nothing! I was on my own again. About a decade later I found Amber, or Amber found me. That is another very long story.

. . . _ . . .

Sneaking through the ways of Sawall, we passed through several exhibition rooms. We walked through an oval space filled with painted eggs in all shapes and sizes, a huge hall where silver strings hung from the ceiling (we avoided those) and many, many other rooms full of wonders and works of art. One room was particularly difficult to pass by: Merlin's guide spell led us through a room full of wondrous, old and peculiar trumps. Most were trump-sized but some were huge or tiny and some weren't even paintings. One trump in particular drew my attention. On the wall, framed in silver hung a card-sized picture of a white orchid, all done in ink black and snow white. It was unlike any trump I had ever seen before and I wanted to own that trump, to study it, make it mine, make myself good enough to make something like it... I wanted it so much! Gingerly I put out my hand and I touched the frame. No. Not now, not when stealing it would endanger our mission. This was Merlin's property, and from the other side of the room Gran was telling me to hurry. Later, I promised myself. I would come back for it. I did, but that is yet another story.

I did it again: 'another story'! No, I must tell you all about myself or you will not understand. What happened to Gran when he disappeared? Where did those ace trumps come from, and why did I wander through shadow with the Pattern in my blood but without knowledge of Amber? I must tell you who am I and who Gran is or you won't understand why we were sneaking through Sawall's art collection, looking for a ring. I guess I will have to start at the very beginning.

. . . _ . . .

My name is Boadice of Amber. When I was born I was Boadice de Boville, of the kingdom of Verdiga. My mother is, was, the Princess Magdala of Verdiga, sister to the King. I have a younger sibling called Yaslin, as far as I know she and I have the same father. Who our father was no-one ever told us, the only thing we knew was that whatever he did, he never married mother. This was an embarrassment to our mother, in my country it is shameful to be a bastard. It is even worse to bear one, let alone two. Because of this, our mother retired to her estate in the country soon after Yaslin was born. There, my sister and I grew up, far from the capital city and the court, in the lap of luxury but a little lonely.

Our mother, a strong, proud woman, bore her exile like a lady and I never knew if she regretted what she had done. She was every inch a princess and in the way of our people she forbade us, the little princesses, to play with the other children of the castle. They were the children of the servants and therefore beneath us. Because of this, Yaslin and I became very close. My sister was (and still is) a tomboy and a rogue. She has a great head of reddish brown curls and laughing blue eyes. Me? I look like our mother: black hair, blue eyes and quite gorgeous, if I may say so. When my sister and I fought, Yaslin always won but and I was the one who thought up the plans that got us in trouble. When we got caught we always lied for each other. Together we suffered the torture of corselets and etiquette and together we rebelled against our fate by forcibly removing all the governesses our mother hired to educate us. Life was hard but fun.

The year I turned fifteen I was sent to court to be a lady in waiting to my cousin, the princess Elise, daughter to the king. She was a bit of a brat and she expected me to do her bidding, fetch things for her and flatter her. At first I rebelled, but after a few months I accepted the situation as long as what Elise wanted did not interfere with my own plans. Why I gave in? Because life at court was fun! I had much, much more freedom than I had at home. I had people of my own age and standing to make friends with, there were a million things to do, there were hounds and horses and balls, delicious gossip and jewels and dresses. And there were things to learn! Among other things, I learned that babies are not brought by the stork. No, I did not lose my virginity there, that happened later.

A year later Yaslin came of age and joined us at court. We made quite a merry group: Yaslin and me, Elise and her brothers Harold and Ulric and their friends. Yaslin never settled under Elise's erratic command, she wanted to wear trousers and fight with swords. She got away with it too. I took my first lessons in sword fighting to keep up with her.

. . . _ . . .

Then disaster came to our world. I recognise it now as our shadow's version of the black road. My sister and I and our friends were the first to feel its effects. We were having a picnic in the forest when winged beasts came from the sky and grabbed us with the claws on their feet. We were taken completely by surprise. Verdiga had been at peace for decades, we had the occasional highwayman but they never ventured close to the castle, so we had only two guards with us. Yaslin managed to wound one of the beasts with a butter knife but we were outnumbered and unarmed. On top of that, the girls --except for Yaslin but including me-- were dressed in long, wide skirts, a breath-constricting tight bodice and voluminous sleeves, so I could not even lift my arms to grab the creature's ankles when it carried me off into the sky. From above I saw how our guards were quickly and brutally killed. Their blood splattered my sister's trousers, she was the last to be taken.

The flight that followed was a nightmare. Sharp claws gripped my arms, tore through the sleeves and drew blood, the sun hid behind grey and green clouds and under us the trees turned dark and strange. Then, in the distance a tower loomed. We were dropped on the roof and smaller green monsters without wings herded us to the dungeons and put us in separate cells.

The first day in my cell I raged and tried to break down the door. The second day I tried to pick the lock. The third day I searched the stones of my cell for a secret way out. The fourth day I cried, softly so my jailers could not hear. At the end of the fourth day I heard a banging on my door. I tried to hide in a corner and but then the lock gave away and the door flew open. I blinked against the light of a torch and with relief I recognised my sister. Behind her stood an old man, they had bashed in the door with a big chunk of wood. The man turned out to be an ex-soldier named Rik, a sinewy grey man with skin as brown and wrinkled as old leather. Together we liberated our friends and cousins before getting the hell out of there. This was not easy, we were soon discovered and hordes of demons pursued us up the stairs. Rik killed the first one by bashing its head in with the beam they had used to break down my door. Yaslin took the monster's sword and killed a second beast before it knew what happened. I acquired the second now ownerless sword and pushed through the frightened and useless group of friends to the front, in case our escape would be blocked from that direction. I was right. On a landing I ran into another winged guard. When he drew his weapon and came at me I held my sword awkwardly and pretended to be too frightened to move. The sucker fell for it and died. This is how I killed my first... person.

The second guard saw the bloody sword I held and the corpse of his colleague so he should have been warned. I guess he also underestimated a slip of a girl in a torn bodice and grimy petticoats. I was lucky, he died too. That was the last guard on the landing and we made it to the hall by the main gate before we ran into our captors again. An even bigger and nastier demon blocked the way out. This one had orange fur and straight horns like an antelope, and it raised a hand and threw a spell that bound me like ropes. It drew my arms against my body and my legs together and I could not move. Behind me, I heard the group call out. I struggled with the spell and the beast grinned and drew its arm back to strike. Fear of death performed a minor miracle on me: in the back of my mind I found another way to push against the bonds. They broke and the beast died very surprised. I heard later that when the beast died, Yaslin and Rik in the back were freed too. But we weren't there yet. When we trooped into the hall, a shimmering appeared in the air and a large, no a huge demonic figure appeared. It had bat's wings and antlers and a scaly black hide, and it threw another immobilising spell on us. It felt like fear, like rabbit-in-the glare-of-a-poachers-lamp paralization but a part of my mind recognised it as unnatural. Despite the fear I had managed to hang on to my sword. Shivering, sweating, I tried to gain control of my arm.

The demon was gesturing and leered at us. Sweat dripped into my eyes but then something broke and I threw the sword at him. When it hit the demon in the thigh, it completely overreacted! It started to burn violently and roared in pain, cursing us in a strange tongue. Then it collapsed, spouting flames until there was nothing left but ashes. With their leader gone, the smaller monsters stopped trying to capture us and we made good our escape.

. . . _ . . .

Tired, wounded and without any equipment we set out for home. Without Rik we would have died in the forest; none of us had the slightest idea how to survive without a footman, a butler and a ladies maid. While we travelled, Rik taught us how to keep ourselves alive in the wild, but the most important thing Yaslin and I learned from him, we learned by chance. One night by the campfire when we were bragging about our adventure in the tower he said, offhand:
"Your father would have been proud of you."
My sister and I immediately pestered him for more information. Rik could not tell us much; all he said was that he had heard that our father was, or had been called 'The Red Magician'. We had never heard of the Red Magician but on our journey from our mother's estate to the capital, part of which was over sea, both of us had passed an island that was called 'The red magician's island'. When you are sixteen, this is clue enough. But first we wanted to get home.

Now this is the difficult part. I should describe the ruins of our home and how the wounded and dying filled the great hall. I should speak to you of how the queen tended them even though she had lost her husband. I ought to tell you how our city had been attacked, conquered and sacked -but not taken- while we were away, but I am afraid neither Yaslin or I were particularly impressed. I guess we were rather callous about it, raised as we were on stories of heroic battles and heroes who slew enemies on a daily basis. We reasoned that in this chaos we probably would not be missed: we would set out and find our father because he would help us win the war. The war had been over as soon as I killed the black monster but there was no way we could have known that. So Yaslin picked a lock, we exchanged some of our jewels for money --that way we were not really stealing it-- and dressed up as men so we would be 'safe' on our journey. Dressing up as men was my idea and I remember Yaslin said:
"Sometimes you have some good ideas, sister," and I hit her with a hat. Before we left I wrote a little note, explaining that we had gone looking for our father. That was the last time our mother heard from us.

Gods, you should have seen us on that journey! We hid our hair under our hats and I painted little moustaches on our upper lips. In our post-war country it was a miracle that we got to the sea at all. Our cousin Ulric owned a little boat, we intended to steal it and set out in a random direction because: "an island is a big thing, right? It will be easy to find." Luckily the boat --called 'The lady of the waves'-- came with a warden. The old man who took care of the boat was a good enough judge of character to see we could not be persuaded to stay and had enough sense of responsibility to come with us so we did not drown. After four days of sailing we found our island. When we pulled the boat upon the beach our sailor/caretaker, who was called Adelbart by the way, refused to come ashore and explore the island with us. According to him the place was cursed and people who set foot in the forests never returned. He turned out to be right, but Yaslin and I cheerfully ignored his advise and set out anyway.

The Island of the Red Magician was quite small. In its centre we found a tower of grey stone. It looked deserted but in good repair and cautiously (for a change) we approached it until we were stopped by an invisible wall. You have seen those mimes in shadow who pretend to push against non-existing planes of glass? That is what we must have looked like. Shouting: "It's us, Daddy, open up!" had no effect so I experimented a little with the wall. It was not quite as inflexible as glass, it gave a little when we pushed. I pushed and pushed and with an effort of will as well as strength, the same trick I as the one I learned in the dark tower, I got through. This left my sister alone on the other side until she gathered her strength and followed me.

The front door was open, and shamelessly Yaslin and I explored the inside of the tower. All rooms were furnished in an elegant but Spartan way and everything was in perfect condition except for a thick layer of dust. The pictures on the walls showed strange landscapes and stranger beasts, some showed just shapes and colours. I watched if I could see a portrait of our mother but if our father owned one, I did not find it. Finally we came to a door that was locked. A brief search produced a ring with three keys. When none of them fitted Yaslin lost her patience and kicked the door in.

Behind the door was another room, and this one was definitely our father's workroom. Large books and strange instruments were arranged tidily on shelves. A bit to our left stood a large desk of dark wood. I searched the desk and found a deck of cards. It was a normal deck of cards with diamonds, hearts, spades and clubs and they all bore a unicorn upon their back, but the aces drew my attention. They were beautifully painted pictures of places, very lifelike. The ace of diamonds depicted a beach by a purple sea. The ace of spades was slightly scary: ravens in a landscape of stones. The ace of clubs was a pretty picture of a castle on a glass mountain and the ace of hearts depicted a market square with quaint and pretty houses, trees and people. See? I told you I would explain why Pieck was special to me.

. . . _ . . .

Yaslin had been opening doors and found a huge, more than man high mirror. While I studied myself Yaslin noted that, though outside our tower it was still light, the reflection in the mirror showed the moon shining through our windows. I reached out and touched the mirror. In the blink of an eye I found myself in the moonlit mirror image of the workroom. Of course Yaslin soon followed me. I think we will never be as brave and as foolish as we were then.

Our surroundings had changed more than we had initially realised. The tower had acquired a ghostly, silvery edge and under its windows a colourless city had sprung up. Things seemed to move in the corners of my eye. The door to this room was undamaged. Exited, we went down to explore the city. The streets were deserted except for one well dressed nobleman, who beckoned us but did not say a word to break the eerie silence. He was colourless as the rest of the city except for his hair, which hinted at red. We followed him through empty streets to a castle on a mountainside. When we tried to speak to him he did not seem to hear us. Suddenly he was gone and I heard a woman's voice calling our names. We turned around and saw a silvery lady. She was not just well dressed, she looked like a princess dressed for a ball. She said:
"Your destiny is here."
"Excuse us?" we asked.
"The centre. Everything. You have come home."
Before we could interrogate her, she too disappeared.

We saw other visions that night. The first was our mother and she was silent. The second was a grim vision of our cousins Ulric and Harold fighting, their blades clanging loudly in the silence. Knowing what I know now, this was quite prophetic. Lastly, our path was blocked by the antlered beast from the black tower. It said:
"Daughter of my enemy, you have killed me. Know that I, Cawall, or one of mine, will have my revenge upon you!"

Then out of nowhere four familiar winged demon-beasts were upon us. Yaslin drew a sword I had last seen on the wall in our father's tower (my sister and I have quite a lot in common, I had not returned the trumps either) and we defended ourselves. This time the beasts did not fall for any tricks and soon Yaslin and I were standing back to back, hard pressed to keep our skins intact. Twice, a demon-thing got through my guard and its ghostly weapon made very real wounds on my shoulder and thigh. Things were looking grim and I began to fear the weariness slowing my arm, when the red-haired nobleman appeared and killed one of the demons. This gave us just enough of an edge to slay the last three beasts and when their corpses evaporated we were alone again. With the arrogance of born and bred princesses we once again set out for the castle.

A man with light brown hair and a pensive expression on his face waited for us at the castle gate. He was dressed in black and brown, which was the second time we saw colours in the silver city. Like the first nobleman, he did not speak and he beckoned us to follow him. We accompanied him into the castle. The rooms of the castle were rich and magnificent (and, again, colourless) but empty. Silently we passed through halls and chambers, until we came to the top of a staircase. At this point I was convinced that our father had left hallucinogenic traps in his study and this was all a dream. The staircase went down and down and further down, as did we, until at last we came to the bottom. From there caves made rough tunnels in every direction. The man in brown chose the largest. We passed several cells that reminded me of my time in the black tower but our guide did not look left or right until we came to a large door. The man opened it with a key. The room behind the door was huge and inscribed on the floor was a glowing pattern of blue-white light. Goodness, why am I describing this to you? You surely know what I mean. Our guide took us to the beginning of the Pattern and left.

Why we walked it? Because we did not know how dangerous it was. The whole journey had the smell of destiny about it and this Pattern thingy, well, what did we know? We said 'so long' to each other and Yaslin took the first step. I saw her walk hip-deep in pretty fiery sparks before I followed her.

As soon as I took the first step I knew I should not stop. You know how hard it is to walk the Pattern so I shall not tell you about it. The visions I saw are private, except, perhaps, one. I say my mother arguing, no, having a fight with a lady with reddish-brown hair. It was a memory but I must have been very small, only one year old or less, because I remember I could not walk yet. I made it through the final veil on sheer stubbornness.

When I lay exhausted in the centre of the Pattern I realised that I now knew some things. I knew that this thing was called the Pattern and that it had activated certain powers within me. I had been able to walk it because I am a granddaughter of Oberon, whoever that might be. I was able to walk in Shadow: an infinity of worlds, by 'addition and subtraction'. Finally: I could now transport myself to any place I wanted. I looked around me. Yaslin was gone and for the first time since our journey began I was alone.
"To my sister," I thought, but the Pattern could or would not do this.
"To my father?"
Nothing.
I have not told you this but in Verdiga an arranged marriage with someone I disliked was waiting for me, so I did not want to go back, not without our father to help in the war. I asked the Pattern to take me to the place on my father's ace of clubs: the castle on the glass mountain.

I woke up in a four-poster bed. Exited, I sprang out of bed and ran to the window, fell to my knees from dizziness and walked the rest of the way. Yes, 15 feet below my window a slick glass mountain fell away steeply. I pulled the bell cord to summon servants and interrogated them about my father. None of them knew anything useful, damn them all. Jorg the head butler said I was an honoured guest but he knew nothing more than that the castle belonged to the Red Magician, I was the magician's daughter and I was always welcome. After that one time, I occasionally came back to the castle on the glass mountain but I never stayed for long.

. . . _ . . .

This is how my life in Shadow began. I searched for Yaslin but could not find her. Shifting shadow was difficult, especially in the early days. I learned by trial and error, something that really stimulated my survival skills: co-ordination and combat reflexes and high-speed lying. In later years I occasionally searched for her but always without success, and I must admit; the pleasures of Shadow were a powerful distraction. In my first years in shadow I became quite wild, I did everything our mother had ever forbidden, starting with staying up late and ending with... Let's not get into that. Yes, this is when I lost my virginity. He was a handsome man, a real ballroom tiger with slick black hair and a tiny moustache. A lovely man, I wish I could remember his name. I searched for riches and learned their value. I found myself a kingdom and conquered me an empire, then I gave it away when I got bored. I painted the ceiling of a church and learned about what I loved to do. After that I sailed the seas in my own ships, first as a trader and later as a pirate. I really got into blood and cruelty, then retired to a temple for a life of contemplation and decency. I think I shall never touch those extremes again.

I learned I did not age. This was the most painful thing of my stay in shadow: I learned I was different from everybody else, not in what I could do; travel the worlds with a power no-one else had, but in what I was. This sparked off another frantic search for my sister, again without success. I saw friends and lovers die and tried to learn not to care. I learned what I liked: I like the visual arts and I like to express myself through them. I also like to own a company, a small firm or an estate and have it all ticking over smoothly, it gives me a feeling of satisfaction. I like well-learned skills, I like to be able and in control. I like laughter and fun and luxury. I really like horses, and dogs, and birds. I like animals in general: I made bestiaries of the animals of many worlds, drawing them and studying them and describing their lives. That was when I had the time, I can't do this any more. I like love, and spent quite some time studying ways of expressing it physically.

This period of learning and fun lasted about sixty years, perhaps a little less. Then I met Gran, I told you about that. When I learned to draw trumps, the first one I tried was a trump of Yaslin, then a trump of Gran. Neither worked, I thought they must be dead. I did not try to use the trumps I found behind the mirror because the Logrus in it repelled me. (Eventually I got over that but the stinking wriggling thing still bothers me.) About ten years after Dworkin disappeared, I was found by an uncle, by Amber. Unicorn, there the adventures began in earnest! Bear with me now, I shall tell my tale in an even higher pace than I have so far. Forget the things you don't understand. Here goes:

I was rescued by Gerard when Azrain in the body of Murlas tried to cut me up. Gerard took me to Amber where I met the Family. Uncle Bleys looks exactly like the red-haired nobleman Yaslin and I met in Tir-na Nog'th. There was an opportunity to accompany a diplomatic mission to Chaos, which I joined because I wanted to find out what happened to Gran. Cawall is a Minor House of Chaos and they never tried to extract revenge, so the demon's words in Tir-na Nog'th were probably a threat against all of Amber. His words: 'daughter of my enemy' probably meant: 'daughter of Amber'. I have taken pains to find out if the house Cawall has any particular enemies, it could have been a hint to the identity of my father, but they haven't.

In the Courts of Chaos I met Frewar; Gran's brother. Frewar is the smiling young man on the trump I found behind the mirror. Then I got framed for a murder did not commit. The woman I was supposed to have killed is called Trisha Chartin and when they could not prove I murdered her, her family started a vendetta against me. Trisha was Gran's wife before he was exiled, then his marriage was dissolved.

Back in Amber I got involved in the war of the Pink Golems, it wasn't very interesting. Then I heard my cousin Alexander had met an Amberite called Yaslin in shadow. I had to go through a lot of trouble with Alexander before I had my sister back. When the thing with Galoria and the Nexus came up uncle Bleys adopted me as his daughter, though at that time I had gathered sufficient evidence to suspect that my father was probably Delwin, or perhaps Brand. At the ball in Galoria I saw Sand and recognised her as the woman my mother fought with in my Pattern-reminded memory. I found, and was re-united with my love. It turned out that Gran's bouts of silence and the way he disappeared in Pieck were the result of a shapeshifting disease. Swayvill had cursed him with this disease, (for good measure, I suspect) when Gran was exiled. Now the old king of Chaos was dead, the curse was bound to a ring, and that ring had turned up in the art collection of Sawall.
Did I skip something? I probably did. Never mind, on with the story.

. . . _ . . .

"It is here," Gran whispered. "I can feel it."
We had entered a room full of jewels. Gran pointed at a display case at the back of the room. Between a handful of other rings lay one unremarkable ring with a red stone. We had come fully prepared for burglary so I took my kit with the acids and dissolved the glue that held the case together. Quickly Gran switched the ring with its duplicate. Victory!
Then we heard a voice behind us:
"Okay, put those hands up. Now."
We did, and turned around. It was Trisha Chartin. She was pointing a weapon at us and smirking. Blond, blue eyed, beautiful Trisha. Yes, she is the one I was supposed to have killed. I hate her with a passion. I know I should describe her further and tell you more about the vendetta but that will have to wait, there have been enough stories for now. Did I tell you she is Gran's ex wife? I hate her for other reasons as well.

Trisha wore a sensible grey outfit and her weapon was huge and black and probably an energy-shooter of some sort. The look on her face was triumphant and proud, and she smiled as if she would not hesitate to use her weapon on us. She also watched our hands, which was clever of her. Gran said:
"'Trisha, just one question. Why?"
"Well," she said airily, "We all have our little plans. And we needed bait."
I heard no affection for her ex-husband in her voice and this 'we needed bait' could be a reference to what she had done to me: faking her death and blaming it on me. Gods, she made me boil with anger. I assessed the situation. Unless her weapon emitted a broad, wide ray she could not shoot us both. It probably did, though, and she was watching our hands. I flicked my foot and a metal star shot from my toe.

I was aiming for the artery in her groin but got her in her leg. She was fast and shot me though the shoulder but then I was upon her, trying to get my hands around her pretty little neck. She screamed a word I did not understand before my weight drew us both down to the floor. Luckily I landed on top and with everything that was within me I fought to reach her throat. The pain in my shoulder drained my strength but it fired the hatred that kept me going. I am afraid this was not one of my more civilised fights.

I believe I was stronger than Trisha but she fought like a tigress. She broke one of my fingers and this gave her enough air to shout another strange word. She kicked me in the stomach but I held on and got her under me again. In the meantime, so he told me later, Gran fought six demons that appeared after she had shouted her first magical word. The fact that he kept them off gave me time to strangle Trisha into unconsciousness. I would have liked to kill her but I had to hold back. I told you I was accused of a murder I did not commit, I needed her alive to prove my innocence. From the corner of my eye I saw a green spiked monster coming at us and I turned so Trisha's body was between me and the monster. When the monster hit Trisha on the back of her head I recognised Gran in his Chaosform.

"There are two people here," Gran whispered. "Did you notice that when she shouted her second power word, nothing came?
I got up, shaking and dizzy from my wounds. There were two shady figures in the back of the room. They came closer, walking leisurely as if they were strolling through a garden. One of them had bright red hair. After a second I recognised my adopted father Bleys. The second man had light brown hair. When he stepped over the corpse of a demon I saw he was dressed in black and brown and an old memory surfaced. This could very well be Delwin, brother of Sand. To keep a measure, of initiative I said to him:
"Hello dad."
Bleys and Delwin exchanged looks. It seemed like they did not quite know which of them deserved that title. Then Bleys seemed to nod slightly, --it was hard to tell in the dim grey light-- as if to grant Delwin the honour, and they turned to us again.
I was shocked! How could my mother...? I had never thought she would have done such a thing, but then again... That nod was more than the adopted father nodding to the real one, there was doubt there. I filed it away for later contemplation.

I would have liked to hold Gran's hand but he was shifting back to his human form.
"So," Bleys said to him. "Shall we start lifting that curse of yours?"
"Not here!" I objected. "These are the Ways of Sawall!" but Delwin said:
"That does not matter," and he made Gran put the ring on his finger. Then my father-uncles and my boyfriend performed some kind of ritual in which Gran summoned the Logrus and my fathers told him what to do with it. If I had called upon the pattern I would have seen what they were doing but that did not seem like a good idea, Pattern and Logrus together usually go boom. I felt great powers pass through Gran.

When it was over Bleys asked how Gran felt. Gran shrugged and said:
"All right, I guess." He seemed a little dazed but then he pulled himself together and added:
"But there is another thing we have to take care of," and he pointed to the unconscious Trisha. My fathers (oh gods, two!) bent to look at her and I saw Bleys point at a grey bracelet on her wrist, a bracelet identical to the ones her defeated demon-allies wore.
"I wonder who she tried to summon the second time," Delwin thought aloud.

Gods of sewers and bad weather, I was in big trouble: six corpses, two fathers and us, in a place where we should not be. On the other hand: I was wounded but victorious, I had a living Trisha to show the Chaos court of law and Gran had lifted his curse. We could put the ring back so we had not actually stolen anything. All in all, things could be worse. We would have to dispose of the bodies and erase our tracks but then we would be home free. Things did not work out that way; just when we wanted to go home the Logrus was damaged and the Courts of Chaos went into civil war. I would like to tell you all about it but there is no time.

So, now you know a bit about my life. I know you are interested in everything that happened to me after I came to Amber but you can't. I kept a diary about those things but it is not written in English, so keep patience with me while I translate from Thari. You must also excuse the occasional mistake, English is an awkward language compared to the one true tongue. If you want to know what I and the others look like, there are trumps on this website. Don't expect them to work, I don't think computers work with Pattern yet.

See you later.

Boadice of Amber.