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AMBER
Boadice’s diary,
Session 74
Played on the 12th of December, 1997
Written by Jopie Schekkerman, based on a campaign by Astrid Tops.

The real Sherwyn - Deirdre’s angry

   here was a stench in my nose. Something alarming… Fire! My eyes flew open and I jumped out of bed. Well, I tried to. My head hurt. A bed, I was in a bed. I was sitting on the edge of a bed in a room blue with cigarette smoke. Cigarettes?! Someone must be smoking tarred rope to produce this stench. I got up and when the wave of dizziness had come and gone, I saw Deirdre in a chair by the fireside, a full ashtray beside her. I dragged my corpse over to the window, opened it and hung my head over the windowsill to breathe.
"Oh, don't exaggerate!" Deirdre said, behind me.
"Sure", I mumbled. "Hello aunt Deirdre."
The view was breathtaking. A sprawling town lay below my window. A sparkling river ran through it, and between its painted houses small pyramidal temples reflected the noonday sun. The temples were made of yellow sandstone and the palace I was looking out from was white and red. This must be Sherwyn. Clean, sweet air, birdsong… Beautiful. Where was the bathroom?

I found it in time to throw up in the water closet. Good of Adrian to have modern bathrooms just like those in Amber, Mine had tiled walls and floors and hot and cold running water. I retched above the bowl and tried to throw up more but nothing would come. When was the last time I had eaten? The day before yesterday? Overshadow messed up my sense of time. Overshadow, and that other universe... Murlas! Adrian had knocked me out, but before that Murlas had tried to invade my mind. The thought of what he could have done made my stomach heave again. Never! What is in my mind is between Fiona and me, and no-one else! If he tries this again, I will kill him! But how? I need a sort of moat around my thoughts, to give me time to defend myself if someone tries this again. I am weak, I know I am; I can do what I want with a shadow person but against an Amberite or Caosite I am helpless. Unicorn help me, it could be like that time with Azrain all over again! I need something... Until that time, I decided, I would spy on Murlas' trump calls. I can monitor two people at once, let it be Murlas and Alexander.

"Had a wild night?"
Deirdre had got up and was leaning against the doorframe, watching me pray to the porcelain god.
"Night, day, another night," I mumbled. "I guess. Never mind..."
Where was Llewella? How stupid of Adrian, stupid of Murlas not to listen to me! I threw up again, losing water and bile. 'Morning sickness?' a part of my mind suggested. I wish!

"That must have been a wild party," Deirdre tried again. I did not want to talk about it.
"Have you seen Llewella anywhere?" I asked.
"No," Deirdre said, "You should have her. Or so Adrian said."
"I wish!" I said and got up to rinse my mouth. I found my trumps and while Deirdre looked on, I tried to trump Llewella. There was no reaction and the trump felt only luke warm. She could be here... I tried harder but could not get a connection. Ignoring Deirdre, I staggered back into the room, wrote my measurements on a slip of paper and sent them off with a servant to the castle dressmaker. Deirdre had been watching me in silence, and with a nod in her general direction I went back into the bathroom for a quiet shower.

You can say a lot about Adrian –the egg-sized lump on the back of my head was probably his doing— but the showers in his palace show a lot of common sense. It was magnificent. I washed the straw and the cabbage out of my hair, made free use of the available lotions and shampoo and with a clean white bathrobe, I felt ready to face the world, and maybe even Deirdre.

She was still waiting in my room, but so was the castle dressmaker and he had a rack with him on which a dozen spangly dresses vied for my attention. One by one, he held them out for me. All the while he chatted about the law one of the minor gods had tried to pass, in which it was ruled that beautiful women should always be provocatively dressed. The uppergod, which I understood to be Adrian, had veto-ed it on grounds of practicality, but the dresses he so enthusiastically showed to me were all very revealing.
"Yes," said the dressmaker while smoothing his moustache and winking at me in a conspiratal fashion, "I usually dress the Chosen of the Week. A new girl every week, all little dolls, as pretty as you like! The flower of Sherwyn, yes ma’am!"
The dressmaker sighed.
"Shame the moon god and the other minor gods try to get at them before they get to see the King. That's what they've been looking forward to, the girls I mean. But most of the time the King isn’t even here. Shame, isn't it?" He held up a tight orange dress with spaghetti straps and a split up to the hip. I shook my head and hoped for a decent black blouse and trousers.
"They've gone through the whole pageant thing and then they don't even get to see Him. So they've only got a week, and a girl will want to have her day, and then she meets the lesser gods… You get my drift?”
I got it.
“I'm not saying anything against the other gods, mind you, but--"
I rejected a green leather skirt and the matching leather bra.
"It's just a pity, that's all I'm saying. Are you sure I won't have to re-do that purple ball gown?"
In the end I had him attach the upper part of a long sleeved but short red dress to the floor length skirt of a strapless purple ball gown. The combination was hideous but modest. While the dressmaker retired to a side room to sow the parts together, I turned to Deirdre.

She had been watching me and the dressmaker while slouched in a chair, listening and smoking her foul cigarettes, quiet and a bit menacing.
"I had Llewella with me," I said as if we had never been interrupted, "and if she is not here, that is because Adrian and Murlas did not listen to me."
"This sounds like it has a story behind it," Deirdre said, blowing smoke in the air. "Why don't you tell me all about it."

Who did she think she was; Fiona?
"Because I don't know all of it myself," I said.
"Oh, just start anywhere."
That was precisely the problem. My story started in Overshadow, and my part in that game is a secret I have to keep at all costs. From Overshadow, I somehow fell into the dark Sherwyn, and I don't know how I got there or why Llewella looked normal, there, while she was really bodiless.
"Ehm, no." I said. "I think I will have to look for Llewella myself, then."
"Are you quite sure?"
The implied threat was not lost on me. I wanted to tell Deirdre what I could because Llewella is her sister and she might help, but every possible scenario ended with me telling her about the Overshadow.
"Aunt Deirdre," I sighed, "What is it that you want from me, exactly?"
"I want to know where my sister is," Deirdre said, "And I want to know your part in her disappearance."
"I had nothing to do with her disappearance!" I protested.
"Adrian suggested you did."

Yeah right Adrian. Sick the bitch on me, why don’t you.
Deirdre leaned back on her chair and blew smoke rings. I had the impression that she could blow smoke squares if she wanted to.
"Then you should have another talk with him."
"I am talking to you. At his advice."

This is a discussion you don't want to have on an empty stomach, plagued by a headache and wearing only a fluffy white bathrobe.
"At his advice?" I said. "You know Adrian, he'll say anything!"
"Yes," Deirdre agreed, "Adrian will babble, but sometimes he hints at things that are interesting enough to follow up on.
I sighed again. "I just don't know where to start."
"I am still patient."
More threats. I clenched my teeth and tried to match her stare. I failed, due to the headache and the bathrobe and the fact that Deirdre vastly outclassed me. And the smoke stung my eyes, too. Yes, I lost. So what. You would have too.

"The last time I saw her, she was whole and healthy," I said. This seemed the only way to explain. "We were going to arrive here via a mirror-portal of some sort that she and Adrian had made. But before we could go through, someone, Adrian probably, hit me on the back of the head. You have seen the bump."
It occurred to me that if Llewella had come with us, her disembodied spirit might still be in the room we had arrived in after Murlas and Adrian had taken us from that other world.
"Aunt Deirdre, do you have any idea how I got here?"
"According, to Adrian, you came with him."
"With him? Very well, we shall ask him." I went to the door of the antechamber and asked for my clothes. They were ready (must have been magic) and I got dressed in the bathroom.

Back in the sitting room, Deirdre had not moved.
"I don't mind hearing your story with Adrian present," Deirdre said, "but hear it, I will."
I did not need this! Orchis and Number Six would be wondering what was keeping me. In Chaos, Trisha was having her way with Gran and while this woman was badgering me, her sister was dissolving into thin air. I had no time for this! I wanted to go home!
Besides, who did she think she was, demanding information from me like that.
I tried to leave the room but Deirdre blocked the door.
"Aunt Deirdre," I said with the weight of my broken heart behind my words, "I have my own life, as you have yours. My life has nothing to do with yours, my problems have, as far as I know, nothing to do with yours. I won't tell you all of my troubles, that would only air my dirty laundry. Please get off my back, or otherwise just--" I heaved my shoulders, "... drop dead!"

I never saw her blow coming. It was like being hit by a windmill, her hand hit the side of my face and slammed me against the open door. Stars exploding in darkness and I tasted blood in my mouth. Gods!
"I thought I heard something," the voice of Deirdre came through the darkness, "but that must have been my imagination."
"Yeah, right", I said while I drew myself up.
"You were going to tell me something?"

I would not bend! She might think that we of the second generation serve only to do the dirty jobs for the elders, and spill our guts at the drop of an eyebrow, but I will not bow to her! I might not be as old or as strong or as powerful as she is, but I have my own strengths and I am no longer a child. Besides, those you love can hurt you much worse.
"Right, beat up your little niece," I said, holding a handkerchief to my mouth. Then I spit on the floor before her feet, to express what I thought of her.
There was a long period of silence. Then Deirdre said, menacing:

"I might have, at one time in my life, given you the impression that I am a patient woman. That would have been a wrong impression."
I just steadied myself against the wall and looked at her. Deirdre bent forward until her face was only a handspan from mine. Softly she said:
"Where is Llewella."
"I don't know," I said. "She should be here."
"So tell me!" Deirdre said, louder. "Where did you come from, where did you meet her?"
"I can't tell you where I met her," I answered, tired to the bone with pain and hunger. "If I'd do that, I would betray the confidences of several people who could hurt me much more than you can, at this moment."
"Oh, but they are far away."
"They are," I said. "I am counting on the fact that I am not worth the time it would take you to get it out of me."
"I have plenty of time," Deirdre answered.
"Fine," I said, and went to the bathroom to bathe my face with cold water. If she had plenty of time, I might as well use it to nurse my bruises.

In the bathroom I thought again about Llewella. She was a bodiless spirit, but I don’t think she knew that when she and Adrian were turning that mirror into a portal. She would have come through with us, finding on the other side that she had no body to sustain her mind. She would be in a situation very much like Bihaye’s, that time in Ornachways. But now Deirdre with her demands for information was keeping me from taking action, and Llewella would be having trouble keeping herself together. Deirdre had not followed me into the bathroom. I could trump out, I could concentrate while I was washing my face and I would be gone before she knew it. But that would not solve anything, it would leave Llewella helpless and Deirdre would come after me another time. While I left the bathroom I said:
"Shall we go and see Adrian?"

Deirdre stood watching me from behind the blue smoke of her cigarettes. Between her black clothes and her black hair she embodied everything that was menacing.
"Yes, maybe we should go and see Adrian," she said, but when I passed her, she took me by the collar and hissed in my face:
"Don’t think I am stupid, little girl. I am keeping a close eye on the both of you."
"The both of us?" I asked, uncaring. She had done everything she could.
"I don't know what you are up to, but I will find out!"
"Who do you mean, 'the both of you'?"
"You. You and that other traitor."
Duh. Adrian and me. Stupid woman. Someone should tell her that annoying her is not a capital offence and does not amount to treason.
"As far as I know," I said, "I am not in league with Adrian."
With that said, we set out to find my royal cousin.

. . . _ . . .

We found him in one of the larger sitting rooms with a bottle and an empty glass. His blond hair was tousled and he could do with a shave, but otherwise Adrian seemed to be all right. I saw him take in my hideous dress and my bruises when we entered the room. To attack is the best defence, so I started with:
"Adrian! You knocked me out, didn't you!"
"Yes!" He immediately answered, getting up. "Because we had to leave in a hurry."
"Oh, and you could not wait just a moment more to hear me out? And where is Llewella now?"
"Ho!" Adrian threw up his hand. "Llewella stayed there, I think. She is no... I am just glad that she knows that I know that we are here."

Just like Adrian: sometimes he makes no sense at all. But it would explain to Deirdre most of what had happened, and show her in no uncertain terms that I had nothing to do with Adrian's mad doings.
"Well, it is your fault that she might now be floating around somewhere as a disembodied spirit!"
"No," Adrian said, "She already was a disembodied spirit."

He saw from my face that I did not understand.
"We were in a mirror world," Adrian explained. "A ghost can walk in a human body, there. She must have stayed behind."
"Or she di--" I started to say but Adrian did not let me finish.
"I don't have time for this, now!" he exclaimed. "It will take time to, to..."
"It seems very odd to me that she would not have followed us," I said, "Because she seemed to think that--"
"That she could," Adrian finished my sentence for me. "She did not realise, indeed."
"No," I said. "And now she must be here, without her body"
"If she came with us."
"So you will search for her in that other place," I suggested, more for Deirdre's sake than expecting him to do so, "and I will look for her around here. Where did we enter this world?"
"No," Adrian shook his head. "I’m telling you, I am busy doing other things!"

"Yes," Deirdre spoke up, "you are busy with other things because you have not recovered my trumpdeck for me."
I could see Adrian's face fall. Poor boy, harassed by Deirdre while he had apparently just as much time to spare for her as I had.
"That is correct," he said. "And I don't think I will be able to get them."
Deirdre came a few steps closer and said, quietly:
"Would you repeat that?"
"I think," Adrian said with a patience similar to mine a minute ago, "that the favours I could do for them--" (Who are 'them'?) "--would not measure up to the use they could make of your trumpdeck. They say your trumps are the spoils of war. So I doubt if I could get them back for you, or that you will be able to get them back at all. You will have to come up with something better than 'It's mine and I want it back'."

Deirdre got even closer. Us youngsters must have been irritating her something fierce that day.
"Yes," she said. "Maybe you are about as useful to them as my trumpdeck."
"Aunt Deirdre," I said, "Why don't you go and get it yourself? Do you know where to find them?"
"No," Adrian said, "She was captured and someone brought her here."
Odd. I needed to think about this. How did the pieces fit together?
"You have had your chance," Deirdre hissed. "You know there is a price tag attached."
"Not for me," Adrian said. Atta boy! Let her solve her own problems.
Deirdre smiled, but Adrian reacted with:
"It was not me they took prisoner."
Deirdre kept smiling, and softly Adrian repeated:
"It was not me they took prisoner."

"No," Deirdre said. "You are a traitor and a turncoat. Traitors are usually not imprisoned."
"Traitors are killed," Adrian said, quietly and with a bit of regret. What had he done?
"That is an option."
"That is an option," Adrian repeated. "I have done a number of things I now know I shouldn't have. That's life, but not a conscious choice of betrayal."
"And my brother," Deirdre said, meaning Corwin, "Did he betray us too?"
"I don't think that question needs to be answered," Adrian said, forming a fitting alternative for 'I won't dignify that question with a reply'.
"So you think," Deirdre said.

"No," Adrian said, "no-one intentionally defected. And if you insist on thinking so, remember that if it meant hurting you, Corwin would not be able to entertain the very idea."
There were worlds of bitterness behind that last remark. Everyone knows how Corwin feels about Deirdre, but it must hurt more when it is your own father who is being played for a sap.
"You are who you want to be, you are no less in that, quite the opposite, than the rest." (I think Adrian meant the rest of the Family, the elders.)

Adrian went on:
"And my father can't see that. Well, err… It just means that you are just like the others."
"I will take that as a compliment," Deirdre said.
“You can take it as you will,” Adrian answered. “But that does not give you the right to say what you want about other people.”
“I will say what I will, Adrian.”
“I know,” Adrian said resignedly. “And I will remember your words.”
“You do that,” Deirdre said, and she turned around and walked away.

. . . _ . . .

When she closed the door behind her Adrian and I heaved a sigh of relief. For a moment we quietly enjoyed her absence, and then I asked if all of this had been about the army that was marching from Sherwyn to Galoria. Adrian confirmed that it was, but that the army had been stopped and all but destroyed by our good cousin Dorian. I remembered the size of the army and that shadow Cardane had been involved, and I was impressed. I tried not to let it show, as Adrian just mentioned it as a comforting but unremarkable fact. Or perhaps he was just tired, he seemed to have been drinking.
“That’s good to hear,” I said. “But what now?”
“Now, we shall just have to see,” Adrian answered, reaching down and pouring himself another drink. “And that will be up to me, and not to you.”
I quite agreed, thank the Unicorn this was not my business.
“That is why I don’t have the time to get involved with Aunt Llewella’s problems,” Adrian said. “Although I should, and I want to, and if you find out anything I would very much like to hear about it, and I in my turn will tell you if there is anything I know, but… But on the other hand there are several things I have to do that can not wait.”

I understood, having several pressing matters of my own vying for my time and attention. I agreed to see to Llewella but asked if I could make a sketch or a trump of Sherwyn, as I might have to fetch things from Shadow to assist in the project.
“I’ll tell you something first,” Adrian interrupted. That place where we found you was a Mirrorworld. You can get to it through certain mirrors. Some people can, anyway. It is not a place you can get to through shadow, and there are scary people who… can see you through their mirrors.”
I stopped him and made him repeat himself. “See me through mirrors?”
“Yes,” Adrian confirmed, serious and concerned, “You can be observed and overheard in any room that contains mirrors.”
I remembered my lovely shower and way I threw up in the toilet bowl, and how the mirror looked when I bathed my bruised and bleeding face. Shit.

I agreed I could not do anything in the Mirrorworld, but asked again for permission to draw a trump of Sherwyn. Adrian agreed, as long as it was a trump of this particular sitting room, and if I wanted I could trump him. Yet, when I asked if he would stay near Sherwyn his answer was ambiguous, he said he thought he would, but he could not give me any guarantees. When I asked where we had entered Sherwyn from that mirror world, he said we had entered through a mirror that hung in his bedroom. So that’s where we went first.

On our way there I picked a candle form it’s holder for later use. Adrian saw me but did not remark on it.

Before we had reached Adrian’s room, we heard hasty footsteps behind us. A petite, pretty blonde in a little black dress caught up with us, and according to her expression, she was not happy. Her skirt barely covered her lap and she sported a most impressive cleavage, so I concluded that she must be the Chosen of this week.
“Let her stay,” I said to Adrian. “She could be of use, and maybe hand us things.”
“Not a good idea.” Adrian shook his head. “Keeping this sort of lady around for any length of time can work out badly.”
We shared a smile, and Adrian told the Chosen of the Week he would be with her in a moment, but the girl frowned and tried to get her breath back, so Adrian pointed at me and said:
“This is not a Chosen. Ever.” I quite agreed, but thought he could have been a bit less emphatic.
“That is all I wanted to know,” the little lady managed, staring at my dress.
“Yes, it is ugly, isn’t it?” I said but could not coax a smile from her. She followed us when we entered Adrian’s bedroom, and looked at Adrian, at my face and then back again at Adrian, not satisfied. I decided I would inform her.
“I’m his niece, okay?”

Even if the girl showed more skin than could be called decent, she did so in a tasteful manner, so I gave her the note with my measurements and told her to make herself useful and go and fetch me something better from the dressmaker, preferably in black.
“No no no no! Not at all, no!” Adrian suddenly shouted.
“Excuse me?”
“No you won’t! You don’t have any right to!” Adrian yelled at me. I had a short fuse that day so I shouted back at him:
“So you want me to keep walking around in purple and black, do you?”
“That is your business,” Adrian shouted back. “I have clothes enough that match, all the clothing that… This is not something you can combine!” He indicated my improvised blouse and skirt.
“You don’t really think I’m going to wear those clothes that all but put my bosom on display, do you!” I said, gesturing at the Chosen’s push-up cleavage, “Like some… people around here!”
The Chosen of the Week took offence, at my implied criticism or at the way I spoke to her King.
She beckoned a guard (who had sidled near the door to hear what was going on) and told him:
“Remove this.., this whore from the palace!”
“No no no!!” Adrian shouted, louder than the first time. No! Down!”
“But I am the Chosen of the Week!” The girl whined.
“Yes! And she—“ Adrian indicated me, “Is not chosen at all. Do you think I would let a chosen, err… I would chose someone who dresses like that?’
I grumbled and Adrian told me to be quiet, so I told him he could forget that, and that she had insulted a Royal, and that in Amber this would be a hanging offence.

Adrian sighed. “But we are not in Amber. Just let me take care of this, okay? You can get yourself another outfit later. Let me just clear op this misunderstanding.”
He turned to the Chosen of the Week and took her out of the room. Of course, I went to the keyhole to see what he would do.

The poor Chosen girl was almost in tears. Adrian kissed her squarely on the mouth until she passed out. He must be either be a very good kisser or the lady was not used to much, but when she was unconscious, Adrian told the guard who had been listening in to take her to her suite, and I darted back to the centre of the room.
When he re-entered, Adrian slammed the door behind him with a force that would have shattered it if it had not been made of thick solid oak.

“You have to learn to behave yourself! YOU chose this combination yourself, and—“
“Only because there was nothing better available!” I retaliated. “This was the only way to keep myself decently covered, because YOU are keeping a—“
“But those colours!”
“I had no choice! You are the one who lets those girls walk around like… eh… you know! Gods help me, I slept three nights in those old clothes I was wearing. And that child will be punished for calling me a whore. I insist on it!”
“You are the one who insulted her!” Adrian shouted back. It was just as well he had not shattered his thick bedroom door or the whole palace would have been able to enjoy our row.
“You started it!” Adrian went on. “You said things you have no right to at all, because you are a GUEST! And as a guest, you should behave accordingly. If you don’t, and it gets you insulted, it is your own fault.”
“You mean she wasn’t a servant?” I asked, a bit gobsmacked because he had a point.
“She is no servant,” Adrian confirmed, obviously angry. “She has not that status. Maybe you can regard everything that walks around on two legs and is not you as a servant, but it isn’t!
I stammered and suffered from a bit of a culture shock. Replaceable sex toy, and not a servant? Adrian had some strange ideas.

I tried to pour a little oil on the waves.
“Adrian,” I said, “I don’t want to argue about this. At the moment, what happens to Llewella is more important. But I say this girl will have to be punished, the only thing I said about her was that she walked around with her breasts on display.”
“That was not a compliment, “ Adrian said icily.
“But I can think of many worse insults.”
“So can she, probably.”

But I did not want to argue, I did not have the time for it, and I told him so. The life of our aunt hung in the balance and we would fight this out another time. Adrian agreed. Before he left, he gave me the run of the palace, and after a while a servant appeared in the hall to ‘inconspicuously’ clean and keep an eye on me. I closed the door and got to work.

. . . _ . . .

After Adrian had treated me the way he did, I felt no qualms at all about ransacking his room for things to trade with his fanclub. I stole a small towel and a slightly bigger one, both embroidered with Adrian’s crest; a crown and an ‘A’, from the bathroom. From his closet, I took a white shirt from a large pile of identical shirts, and from his bureau I took a notepad, a pen and a pencil, all embossed with his crest and initials. From his hairbrush I took three shining blond hairs and from his bed I took a pillowcase to carry my loot. That would do the trick.

Then, having had enough of my hideous outfit, I created a little illusion that turned all my clothes a solid black. This turned out to be easier than I had thought, I seemed to have somehow acquired the knack. Soon, perhaps, I could create a more complicated illusion. I would have to practice, though.

Finally, I turned my mind to Llewella’s case. There were no traces of her presence that I could sense, the tricks I learned in the Overshadow did not work in Sherwyn. Trumping had not worked, perhaps I could use plan B, to whit: use magic to find her. If I was Llewella, what would I have done? I would have followed us; Adrian, Murlas, Alwin and me through the mirror because I did not remember everything that had happened to me. Once through, I would find myself without a body, like Bihaye. Possibly not, but I would have to work from that assumption. Then, I would try to get back to my own body. If Llewella could have done that, and if she had made her way from Sherwyn to Amber, I would have been able to trump her. Perhaps she was still on her way, but if she had found and taken posession of her body, her trump would have felt normal.

But if she was still around, bodiless, what would Llewella have done? If I was her, I would have kept close to… me, the one who seemed to know what was going on. That thought made me blush: if Llewella had followed me around, she had seen me vomit in the toilet bowl. She would have been present when Deirdre beat me up, and most embarrassing: she would have seen me take those things from Adrian’s bedroom. Ah, well, I just hoped she was around. If my plan B did not work out, I had no idea what else I could do.

Plan B existed of me making a small effigy of Llewella out of candle wax. Perhaps this could function as a container for her spirit, like the bottle had been for me in my days as a djinny. This did not seem to work, I could not make the wax into a proper vessel. I should have known this would not work, the Djinns in the Society had taught me something about the subject, and waxen effigies are more suited for making links to the subject and are not suited as hosts. A specially prepared bottle would do the trick but I doubted I had the materials and the skills to perform a full djinn binding. A musical instrument with the image of a female body embedded in the design would have been traditional and aesthetically pleasing, but I had no such instrument, nor the time to have a craftsman make one. There was another option available though: an animal could be a temporary host for any disembodied spirit, providing the spirit was willing and magic made the animal accessible. This could work…

I looked down at the wax statue in my hand. It was a pretty thing, still, with flowing wax robes and Llewella’s delicate features. I had incorporated bits of pattern in the design, like I do with trumps, and I realised that I had fallen back on familiar patterns, so to speak. My trump artistry has always been a comfort to me, but now I would have to rely on unfamiliar magic. But perhaps this thing could still be of use…

When I was bodiless, my biggest problem was my inability to communicate. Bihaye had communicated by writing in the dust patches little Dara left around the place. Llewella might be able to do something similar, but I did not like the thought of going around Adrian’s palace with a jar of talcum powder. The Chosen of the Week would have a fit. But if Llewella had followed me and was near, she might be able to make a candle flame flicker, especially if the candle had somehow been attuned to her. Quickly, I closed all windows and drew the curtains. More towels from the bathroom made draught excluders under the doors. When Adrian’s room was completely draught-less (and dark) I lit the wick on Llewella’s candle. It burned steady and bright. Quietly, as not to disturb the flame, I asked:
“Llewella, are you there?”
The flame immediately started to dance and flicker, then became still again.
“I know you’re there. Will you follow me? I have a plan to get you back to your body. Make the flame flicker twice if you agree.”
Flicker. A moment of quiet light. Flicker.
Right! I blew out the candle and opened the curtains. This short conversation would have to suffice, I did not know if the Llewella candle would still work if all of her head had burned away. I was lucky I had left the wick in the wax.

. . . _ . . .

In the sitting room where Deirdre and I had first found Adrian, I made a trumpsketch. The sorcerer who had terrorised the Carth Islands before I became their duchess had left rooms full of magical books and paraphernalia behind after I drove him away. I had stored the books and stuff in a secret basement, and I remembered there had been one little book that might be of use.
I darkened the sitting room, lit the Llewella-candle and asked:
“I have to go into shadow for a moment, will you wait for me?”
Llewella’s candle flickered twice. I extinguished it and trumped to my lovely home in the Carth Islands.

In my basement I found the book I had been looking for: a slim treatise on the exorcism of ghosts by binding them to an animal and thereby giving them a chance to live out a natural life span. A few hands full of magical ingredients would do no harm, and so provided I set out to find a suitable animal to serve as host. The trouble was to decide what sort of animal to chose. A fish would suit Llewella but would be inconvenient. I had a cage full of pet birds in my room in Amber. They were tame but a little bird the size of a sparrow would be too vulnerable. An albatross would be better, but perhaps too big. In the end I settled on one of the big grey seagulls that lived by my coast. You know the ones I mean: those big bastards who can bite your thumb off in one go. By the shore, I used pattern to summon a bird of my desire, and with bird, book and bag of trinkets I trumped back to Sherwyn.

The room was as I had left it: dark and undisturbed. I locked the door, lit a few more candles and set to work. Firstly, I cleared a table of lamps, bottles and glasses. It seemed that Adrian had been drinking heavily lately. I put the candle and the bird on the empty tabletop. Thankfully, the seagull was docile and did no more than relieve itself on the polished surface. When I scratched its head it closed its eyes, and with a small suggestion of mine, it went to sleep. I was unpacking my bag of magical stuff (coloured chalk, incense, various precious and semi-precious gems; whatsisname the sorcerer had been bleeding my islands dry to buy his magical components) when I felt a coolness on my wrist. Alexander’s trump was getting active. I apologised to the invisible ghost of Llewella and went down the hall to the WC.

In the stall, I fanned through my trumps to see who Alexander was trumping. I wear his trump on my left wrist so that the coolness of the card alerts me when my cousin is trumping. If I can, I listen in.
Meanwhile, Alexander’s voice whispered into my mind’s ear:
“…-city, the room that belonged to Brand has been burglared.”
That is the trouble with listening in on trump calls, you always drop in when the conversation has already started. Alexander was trumping our good king Random, and for a moment I hesitated, not wanting to spy on my lawful king. A little time went by and I missed some of the conversation while I put Random’s trump away. I would spy on Alexander but not commit treason.
“Yesterday night, his room has been burglared,” I heard Alexander explain, “A couple of spells had gone off, he seemed to have used Pattern to put wards on his place. But the burglar seemed to have fished behind the net, because something else had happened too.”
Alex was quiet while Random answered, and I suffered a little interference from the proximity of Corwin’s pattern because Alexander’s next words were nearly inaudible:
“The room…. protected with patt… som.. pattern to …”

Alexander was quiet again.
“There is another possible connection: someone named Janice Fabre might know more: she is the one who filed the request to see Brand’s old office.”
A pause.
“In other circumstances I would, but at the moment I am dealing with a quite annoying little problem.”
“…”
“It seems like one of my relatives is putting my name in a very bad light, in the Courts.”
“…”
“Yes, in the Courts. Let’s just say: a shapeshifter with Pattern.”
“…”
“There is one who does of which I know for sure, and I know he has his reasons, but I don’t know if he is at liberty to do so at the moment, because has been the ‘guest’ of the house Escallwyn lately.”
Was he talking about Caine? Alexander has told me about a shapeshifter who impersonated Rinaldo and turned into Caine. When Alexander next said:
“Murlas”, I did not know what to think anymore. Why was Murlas the Escallwyn’s guest when he had a perfectly good house of his own in the Courts? And why the use of the word ‘guest’ in such euphemism-suggesting tones?
“Me neither,” were Alex’s next words, and I briefly regretted not listening in on Random as well.
“Considering the consequences for both me and Galoria, I will have to take action very soon.”
“…”
“And I understand that the time differential is such that time in the Courts of Chaos is going relatively fast, lately.”

WHAT? I had to constrain myself to prevent Alex from noticing my eavesdropping. This is the hardest thing about trump spying; not reacting to what you hear because those reactions betray your presence. If very much time had passed in the Courts, how did Gran feel about me now? The last thing he got from me was a swallow and a flower, and not a peep more. I could only hope that Gran would know about the time differential.
“I am taking into account that this is not only a personal feud but a part of the invasion plan”, Alexander went on. Brand, connected with the army that had been marching on Galoria. Now where had I heard that before?
“So you understand that I can’t investigate the case myself.”
“…”
“I seem to remember Dorian has visited Quendor recently.”
That would have been it: Brand’s testament, Murlas, Dorian, Rinaldo and Martin had been present, and I had been semi-unconscious on the floor.
That was all Alexander said on the subject, he exchanged greetings with Random and ended the contact.

This would bear pondering. Brand, the invasion, a strange shapeshifter with Patter who was giving Alexander a bad name in the Courts… I had the feeling that I possessed many pieces of a puzzle and I only needed to try and fit them together. I was ready to leave when Alexander’s trump activated again. After a brief search I saw he was trumping Bleys, and I had no qualms at all at listening in on my Uncle-Daddy.
“—you summarise briefly?” Bleys was asking.
“Murlas is ruining my good name in the Courts,” Alex answered. So it was about Murlas! But what about him being a guest of—
“And I suspect it is not directed at me personally. We have had our differences, but I suspect it also concerns the problems our reality is facing lately.”
Bleys only said:
“Ah?”
“Usually, I would take care of this myself, but if it concerns the whole of reality, there is too much at stake.”
He was trying to let Bleys do the job for him, the sneaky bastard, because he had no time to spare himself! Bleys was having none of it.
Pleasantly, Bleys said:
“You know, Alexander, there is a rumour that you have extradited Murlas to a Chaos House—“ Escallwyn, as Alex mentioned before? “—In that case I could understand if he is less than enamoured of you. The case is… It all depends on the situation but in this case, while Murlas is the Head of a small Major House, it could have been his death.”
“The situation was--,” Alexander answered, irritated, “that we prevented his assassination by another house.”
“Different versions of this story are going around,” Bleys replied.

My cousin and my Uncle-daddy speculated some more about Murlas and what he had done when he testified against Bleys in his trial for the murder of Jaill Helgram’s nephew, and Murlas’ possible crimes and misdemeanours. I had almost lost interest when Alexander added:
“One more small thing. You know that your brother once was a professor at the University of Quendor?” Bleys did not know, and Alexander said: “Well, he was, several years ago, Quendor years. But yesterday evening someone, an Amberite, broke into his room at the university.”
“Quendor, did you say?” Bleys said. “I have heard that shadow’s name mentioned before.”
Alexander then launched into a hyper-interesting story about how our illustrious uncle, under the alias of ‘Brandon LaBlanche’, had been a respected member of Quendor’s scientific community. His abandoned room had been burglared, but some days before the burglary someone had stolen something from the room, something that Alexander guessed to be the aim of the second burglary. The amusing thing was that the first thief, or thieves, had just sawn a hole through the wall, while the second, more recent burglars had gone through the trouble of disarming or setting off the wards, only to find an empty closet where their loot should have been.
Bleys thanked Alexander and promised he would think about it, and closed the contact.

Gods in heaven, our universe was in trouble! I thought back to Brand’s recorded testament, and his warnings about the inherent weaknesses of our pattern. The trouble with this information was: I just didn’t know enough to act on it. In the Hermit’s laboratory (Brand’s alias in Overshadow was ‘the Hermit’) my cousins mentioned someone named Nostradamus, but he would be dead and they did not say the names of any of the other friends of Malachie out loud. I would HAVE to talk to Malachie, and soon. GODS why was I saddled with this problem of Llewella’s? I didn’t even know her that well, she was just another friendly face at the family dinner table. I had my own problems, plenty of them!

I sighed and drank some water. It came down to this: if I didn’t help her, no-one would. Adrian, her pupil, was busy with those mistakes that made him a traitor in Deirdre’s eyes. Murlas has his cousin or nephew or whatnot, this Alwin, and probably could not care less about Llewella. And I have the means and the skill. And besides, I will need every friend I can get if I am carrying Gran’s baby. I really hope I am, because even if I loose Gran to Trisha or to his responsibilities, I will have something of him with me. I don’t even care anymore if it makes the child a bastard, I have been a bastard all my life. My mother raised Yaslin and me all on her own, and did a very good job of it too!

Sigh, Gran… The thought of living an eternity without his love made my heart ache and my eyes hurt. Why can’t I just go to him, ask to talk it over? Don’t, Boadice, be true to yourself, don’t accept a cheating and jealous man as a husband, it is better to endure loneliness than to lose yourself for the sake of love. If you are not true to yourself, your love will die in time too.
Then why, why does this hurt so much? I am such a stupid cow!

With heavy heart I went back to the room with the sleeping seagull and, perhaps, Llewella’s ghost. With chalk I drew a standard pentagram on the tabletop, to concentrate the energies. I lit a few more candles, placed the sleeping gull in the centre of the pentagram next to the Llewella candle and added some refinements to the chalk design. Where the book was unclear about the procedure, I just did what felt right and after some chanting, I felt a change and the ritual was over. But had it worked?

The seagull woke up and looked at me with a bit more intelligence than it had possessed before.
“Llewella?” I asked, but of course the bird could not answer. When I tried her trump, it felt a tad colder than before but I could not make it connect. I reasoned this was because her spirit had somehow merged with the seagull’s, and with her mind so altered and her body far away, her trump did not describe herself accurately enough. This unnatural binding might even be harmful, I thought, if it lasted too long. I should get her to Fiona and back in her body as soon as possible.

. . . _ . . .

Before I trumped off, I used the larger of the towels I had stolen to wipe the table clean of the remnants of my spell. There is no sense in advertising my newly learned magic powers, is there? Boadice of Amber, trump mistress and sorceress, that sounds good! Specialised in illusions and out-of-body problems. Fiona would be proud of me. And when I brought her Llewella in a seagull’s body, she might even smile at me! Hastily, I drew her trump out of my deck. I would humbly lay the fruits of my labour at her feet. I was very disappointed when she did not answer my call. So I opened the curtains, tidied up the last of the mess and trumped with the seagull to Amber.

In Fiona’s apartment, her chambermaid told me that the princess Fiona had left Amber and that she did not know when she would be back. With a sigh, I sat down on the couch. I needed something to eat, and soon. The seagull flapped it’s wings and shrieked, but stayed on my wrist. What to do? There was that army that came from Sherwyn which Dorian had destroyed, and it came into being because of Adrian’s mistakes, whatever they were. Did it have something to do with the ‘outside threats’ Brand had warned us about posthumously? Possibly, because the army was not of any of the four known powers, nor was it of shadow. How did the Sherwyn mirror world fit in? Malachie would have the answers, I was sure of that! But I was still burdened with the responsibility for Llewella's fate, and without Fiona here, could I put her back in her body myself? Footsores, blisters and blight! I would much rather sleep in my lover’s arms. In the hope that he would take Llewella off my hands, I trumped my Uncle Daddy but when he told me he was busy, I behaved like a child and told him to forget I called.

Unicorn help me, I need food. After Llewella is taken care off, I will get myself to Overshadow as soon as possible, find Orchis and Number Six and try to talk to Malachie, if I can. Perhaps then, later, I can find a way to talk to Gran.

. . . _ . . .

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