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AMBER
Boadice’s diary,
Session 89
Played on May the 12th, 1999
Written by Jopie Schekkerman, based on a campaign by Astrid Tops.

Biting my tongue in the Keep of the Four Worlds.

    inaldo was sitting at a desk behind two piles of paper: one small pile and one huge tottering pile. He looked up when he felt the trump contact and his eyes focused on mine as it strengthened. We greeted each other and I asked if I could come through.
“I hope I’m not keeping you from something important?” I asked when I stepped into his office.
“You’re not,” Rinaldo said. “Well, actually, you are, but this has been sitting here practically forever, so it can wait another hour.”

He put the paper he had been reading on the small pile to his left. The pile on his right was higher than the candlestick with the unlit candle.
“Let’s have a drink,” Rinaldo said, reaching for a wine bottle on the mantelpiece. “Have you had dinner?”
“I just had lunch,” I said. “But a glass of wine will go down nicely.”
Rinaldo had a pleasant looking office; it had windows on three sides, the walls were painted a warm orange-brown and the room was flooded with light from the setting sun. It dyed my cousin’s hair even redder than it was and made his clothes look almost black. The view through the windows was marvellous. Rinaldo saw me look and we took our chairs and drinks to the shaded balcony.

“So this is Kashfa,” I said, looking out over a city nestled in green hills. I had been there once before but there had been no time to see the sights. Plants that hung down from the balcony above us moved slowly in the breeze. The wine was a local vintage, heady and fragrant with a bouquet of almond and apricot.
“Yes…” Rinaldo said. “Did you know I had a double, made of Pattern?”
I said I had heard something about that.
“It was a pattern ghost of some sort that had taken solid form. He was very good to have around! We used to take turns, each of us ruling Kashfa for six months so we both had time to have fun and to other things. But now he’s gone. I believe it was Murlas who did him in, but they said it was an accident…”

I knew the story: Coral, with the Jewel of Judgement in her eyesocket, had been repairing Corwin’s Pattern after Alexander had damaged it. A couple of people had been channelling power into her, Rinaldo’s pattern ghost among them, and when Murlas added his strength to the group the pattern ghost sort of overloaded and ‘unravelled’. Coral died on the pattern. I was not there so I learned about it second hand.

“Perhaps it wasn’t all Murlas’s fault,” Rinaldo mused. “But since then I have trouble keeping up with it all.” He threw his thumb over his shoulder to indicate the piles of paper behind him.
“Kashfa is still the back of beyond, but I do my best.”

I offered to find him a good secretary, but Rinaldo said I needed bother because his wife Nayda --whom I had met-- helped out. From there we got talking about old times. Finally, I mentioned I had come to make a deal.
“A deal?” Rinaldo said, pouring us more wine.
“You’ve got something I would like to have.”
Rinaldo looked pained.
“You don’t start off a deal like that! You more or less admitted your trade position isn’t all that good.”
I smiled.
“What you’ve got to ask yourself is: how badly I do want it. I mean: do you see me sweat?”
“Not yet.”
We laughed, and Rinaldo offered to turn off the magical air conditioning.
“You do that, it looks like a lovely evening,” I said, calling his bluff. But Rinaldo said evenings in Kashfa were warmer than I would expect, so he wouldn’t.
“Tell me what you’re after.”
I described the black and white trump. After a while, my cousin remembered bartering for it. But as luck would have it, he had given the trump to his mother, who collected antique trumps.

I could not resist the temptation and launched into a description of my plans for starting an Amber trump museum. Like me, Rinaldo was sorry that the Great Chaos Trump museum had burned down. He had visited it before the Fixing of the Logrus. But he doubted an Amber Trump Museum would be of any use.
“In the old days only Dworkin made trumps, and everyone had a deck. So why have a museum?”
“I was thinking it could also be used as a research facility. Like ‘Brand in his early period, Bleys in his blue phase’, that sort of thing. If you happen to have a couple lying around…?”
I smiled my most charming smile and leaned over for a refill. “I was thinking of letting people see the collection in exchange for donating trumps to the museum, at least in the early stages.”

Rinaldo said he had to think about it.
“It’s not something you do lightly,” he said, “Handing out trumps, I mean.”
He also had doubts about possible abuse of the trumps on display. “Maybe you could do something with permanent loans? But if, for example, I would donate some of my father’s early works, and it happened to be a trump of me, I wouldn’t want anyone to use it without my permission.”
“Darling,” I said. “You’re in the standard deck. Anyone can use your trump without your permission.”
“But I know where those decks are!”
I chuckled and cocked an eyebrow.
“Well, most of them,” Rinaldo said. “People lose theirs, sometimes.”
I told him I was mainly interested in trumps of historical or artistic significance.

“But if you’re here for the black and white trump, I could introduce you to my mother. Then you can duke it out with her.”
I would love to, but asked if he could give me an idea of what his mother would want in return.
“As I said, she collects interesting trumps. But this one is unique so I don’t now what you can give in exchange. On the other hand, you never know with her. It depends on what she’s working on. When she was conquering Kashfa, she needed political support and the collection would have taken back seat. But at the moment I wouldn’t dare say where her priorities lie. You will have to ask her yourself. I know my mother will always listen to what you’ve got to say, but think she will drive a hard bargain. And I don’t know what you want the trump for.”
Rinaldo looked at me questioningly.
“It’s an antique,” I said. “Of course there’s more behind this, and I will tell you all about it later, but not today. I’ve got a much better bit of gossip…”
I told Rinaldo all about the situation in the Courts of Chaos, the king finding procedure and the candidacy of Murlas, Gran and Berice Omega. Rinaldo had ties with the Courts, the information would be useful to him and I was only too glad to provide it. Rinaldo was interested and surprised they had nominated Gran.

From the political situation in the Courts, we got back to general chit-chat and gossip, and I wasn’t all that eager to cut this lovely chat short. The evening air was balmy, the wine delicious and it felt good to put my feet up have a chat with an equal.
“Say, that General Democratic Movement, do they bother you over here?”
“I believe they handed out some flyers,” Rinaldo said. “Fortunately, they set themselves up in a way that offended the local church of the Unicorn. The church decided their ideas were blasphemous and opposed them, so I didn’t have to put in much effort. It blew over by itself.” Rinaldo smiled. “The church can be quite… enthusiastic at times. I let them be, most of the time, it’s best that way. They can be a very religious lot—“
I laughed at this turn of phrase; of course the members of the church would be religious, but Rinaldo corrected himself and said: “—Kashfans, I mean. At least they can pretend to be enormously pious.”

“And the rest of the Golden Circle, any bother there?”
Apparently there wasn’t, apart from some unrest in Begma, but according to Nayda it wasn’t all that bad. The Eregnor situation still wasn’t resolved and Rinaldo didn’t expect it would be any time soon, and from there we went back to talking about old times. Well, not that old, in my personal life-time the siege of Eregnor by the pink golems was less than a year ago. But for both of us that seemed like ages. I had helped Rinaldo organise the defence of the city. The conversation naturally turned to Dalt, who had led the attack. I asked if Rinaldo knew where Dalt was. That man scared me, and I could well imagine him in the employ of the Enemy from Outside.
“You know,” Rinaldo said, “Dalt is someone I don’t like to discuss when he is not around.”
“But that’s the very best time to talk about people!”
“I mean,” Rinaldo said, “he is my friend, and I don’t want to compromise anyone’s loyalty to Amber by supplying the wrong sort of information. I let Dalt do his thing, and I do things my way, we don’t bother each other and that works for us. It’s safest, too. I look the other way and I don’t want to know what he is up to.”
I saw his point.
“If I don’t, I get those difficult choices. Do I betray my friend to Amber or Amber to my friend? I wouldn’t like that. I lost my taste for vendettas, I’ve grow up, moved beyond that sort of thing and I will have no more of it. Let him blow off steam for a couple of centuries and he will come to his senses.”
I nodded. Rinaldo would know his friend best. We chatted until the sun set and we couldn’t put off trumping his mother any longer.

. . . _ . . .

Jasra held out her hand for us to come through the trump. She was a tall, russet haired woman, dark eyed and beautiful in an obvious sort of way. She wore a wide purple and blue robe and smiled as she let us into her parlour. I wasn’t as steady on my feet as I would like; I had drunk more than I should. It’s just as well I built up a little tolerance for alcohol in my seafaring days.
“Boadice, I assume?” Rinaldo’s mother said. “I don’t believe we’ve met, really.”
We hadn’t, except for a brief glance at the great ball in Galoria. We introduced ourselves:
“Boadice of Amber, duchess of the Carth Islands, daughter of prince Bleys of Amber,” I said with a courtesy.
“Lady Jasra, mistress of the Keep of the Four Worlds.”
Whatever that may be.

The room where she received us was elegantly furnished but the rugs and the panelling did not quite hide the rough grey stone of the walls. Jasra offered us wine and asked if we had breakfast yet.
“I just dined,” Rinaldo said.
“And I just had lunch.”
Jasra rung for some light refreshments and we said down on couches upholstered in red velvet.
“Yes, sometimes I lose track of time too,” our hostess said. “It’s so inconvenient when you go from one place to another and time is different.”

I had not realised she was a mistress of shadow, and said so to draw her out, but she just confirmed that she was.
“But my son tells me you are interested in a part of my collection?”
I said I was.
“A black and white trump with a spider.”
Jasra threw back her head.
“Ah, that one. A rare item, quite irreplaceable.” She looked at me with the hungry look of a collector flaring in her black eyes. “But tell me, why do you want it?”
“I could tell you it’s because of its rarity,” I said, “but to be honest, it’s my employer who wants it.”
“Ornach,” she said with her hand on her chin. “Hmm.”
“I also want to get the trump so I can learn things from it. But not on my own—“
“And what do you know about the trump?” Jasra interrupted.
I chuckled.
“A couple of things.”
I sipped my wine.
“You know, that sort of information does not come for fr—“
“You are trying to trade, aren’t you?” Jasra interrupted again.
“Yes, but it’s not my habit to pay before acquisition. I don’t mind making a down payment, but I would have to be certain it won’t affect the pr—“
“Won’t drive up the price,” Rinaldo finished with- and for me. Just shut up, will you?
“Yes, well,” Jasra said, “Let me state my position. It’s not impossible that I part with the trump for a suitable sum. Everything has its price. But as I said, it is a valuable part of my collection. I will have to ponder on what I want in exchange for the trump, hence my request for more information. I think that’s a good start.”

I kind of understood that, but I could not tell her what the black and white trumps were. If the mistress of the Keep of the Four Worlds found out her trump imprisoned one of Ornach’s children, its price would rise sky-high and I wasn’t about to hand her her fortune on a platter. But I could start with what most people knew.
“My employer has, you could say, influence in the Courts of Chaos—“
“I know who Ornach is, thank you,” Jasra interrupted again. She was starting to annoy me; even Bleys lets me finish a sentence once in a while.
“I thought you meant—“
“No, I want to know more about the trump.”
“It’s a sort of trump trap. I can’t say more about it.”

She was silent for a while.
“Listen. One of the things I found so intriguing about the thing was that I knew so little about it. As I said, I am prepared to negotiate but I need more information on the trump. You will have to tell me more about it.”
“Shall I—“
“If you want to make a deal.”
I was starting to dislike this woman. I swallowed my aversion and said:
“I’ve got an idea. You and I both know that the knowledge on how to make this sort of trump is more valuable than the trump itself.”
“That depends on the item. The fact that you are so reluctant to say more about it means something.”
Of course I was reluctant, hadn’t she been listening? I covered my annoyance with a smile.
“I am reluctant to impart information because I think the price will go up when you know what I want with it.”

I could have hit myself when I heard myself say that. Had I taken leave of my senses. No more wine for you, Boadice.
“But—“
“That’s not necessary, as long as I know nothing, the price will just be very high because it means the trump has more potential than it seems to have at the moment.”
“Let me make a suggestion—“
“If you can establish its value for me, we’ve got a base to trade on, and neither of us will have to feel injured in a potential trade where the information is not clearly on the table.”
She had a point, but I could not tell her about Ornach’s children.

“But madam,” I said, “I could tell you the trump is an antique and Ornach wants it because it belonged to his grandmother, and you would have nothing to go on either.”
“Then I would know you’re not telling me everything.”
Would you? Would you indeed? If so, how would you know?
“May I suggest something?” I said. “In exchange for the trump, I propose you come with me and assist in unravelling the secret of the trump.”
Jasra seemed to think this over. I continued:
“I intend to learn everything there is to know about the trump, and I offer to take you with me on the journey of discovery.”

The Thari phrase I used and translated here as ‘journey of discovery’ can mean either a real journey or a spiritual one, but I regretted using it. It gave too much away. I prayed Jasra would take the offer. It meant I could make Ornach teach me more about the trump, something I wanted badly. Unfortunately Jasra shook her head and said:
“I don’t know if I’d like that. It depends on what you know about the trump at this moment. I won’t be dragged into it, especially not when I don’t know what the consequences might be.”
She had a point. I could tell her a bit more.
“It is a trump trap. I myself have once entered a trap like it, and have come out again, but I don’t feel I learned enough from it. My—“
“Is it a sort of initiation?”
“No.”

Now what was I trying to say? Damn her, I had lost my thread of thought. Was she doing it on purpose? I decided to start finishing my sentences no matter what.
“Why don’t you ask me what I am prepared to offer you, it will give you an indication of the trump’s value and we can adjust later. If you told me what—“
“It’s very simple. In this transaction I don’t have to sell. I have something that you want and I have no needs at the moment that only you can fulfil, so why should I comply?”
“I think you mean—“ I said, but when she interrupted with:
“While bargaining, it is a—“
I just went on speaking and said:
“—for me to tell you more than—“
But Jasra just upped the volume and said:
“— a matter of courtesy to—“ and in the end neither of us heard what the other was saying. Was I to let the discussion degrade into a shouting match? She had such bad manners! I took a deep breath.

“So, it is a trump trap,” I said. She could not interrupt short sentences.
“A Logrus trump trap?”
“Based on Logrus, yes. In a trump like that, you imprison someone in his own world. How can I put this—“ That sentence was too long; Jasra interrupted again.
“Okay, so there’s someone imprisoned in it.”
This was dangerous ground.
“Possibly. There wasn’t in the other one I entered. And besides, I didn’t say that.”
“It’s the conclusion I drew.”

This woman was playing with a stacked deck! She was jumping to conclusions you wouldn’t normally draw, and again we were getting dangerously close to Ornach’s children. I would have to lead the conversation away from that.
“With the trump I studied, this was not the case.”
“So you expect that in this trump, there is a prisoner.”
“There is that chance; it would be interesting if there was. I would like to know.”
“How many of these trumps are there?”
So now we had gone from ‘rare and quite irreplaceable’ to ‘how many’. She was not being straight with me. And I could not lie to her for fear of spoiling my chances.
“There are, or have been, about seven, give or take a few.”
“All with different images?”
“I think so, yes.”
“All in black and white?”
“Yes, again. Your questions are amazingly to the point.”
“I am after all,” Jasra said, playing with her empty glass, “a collector. The trumps are interesting. If there are seven, I could complete the set.”
“You can’t,” I said. “Some are already in Ornach’s possession, others have been destroyed.”
“All the rarer the ones that are left. And they are old too.” She looked sly, “—and very powerful.”

So she also knew about their power! Let’s see her reaction if I told her a bit of information that was available in the Courts, but only from very select sources.
“Are they?” I asked, wide eyed. “Let me tell you a little-known detail, and I’m not saying this to drive down the price: it’s really true. The people who used the cards, and the Houses that possessed the trumps usually came to a bad end.”

I described the fate of the minor house called Grendyn, a story Dorian had told me. The house used to be large and prosperous, but had declined steadily and drastically until only one or two young women were left. Jasra knew about the house, she hailed from the Courts and kept in touch. But she did not listen very attentively to what I said. You know that look: the one people wear when they are not listening to you but thinking about what they are going to say next.
“So, Ornach wants them.”
“Them? This one, at least, and that is why I came—“
“So he is a collector too?”
I sighed. She was wearing me out.
“Not of trumps in general. I think.”

“Okay, the trumps contain, or can contain, people Ornach is interested in. To free them or to keep them inside, but there is a personal connection there.”
She was jumping to odd conclusions again. That ‘personal connection’ was of her own fabrication; Ornach could want them for political reasons or to learn about odd Powers, or because one of them might contain a secret. I wondered how Jasra could know so much and yet be ignorant of the last piece of information: that it were Ornach’s children who were trapped in the trumps. Had she been speaking with the Enemy from Outside? Divert her attention.
“I am interested in the trumps because I want to learn to make traps like that mysel—“
“That’s not what this is about. With all due respect, the reasons why Ornach wants this trump are of more interest to me at the moment.”
I nodded and concentrated on relaxing my fingertips and shoulders.
“Yes, I will have to think about it,” Jasra said. “Ornach has a certain standing in the Courts. It is quite possible we can come to an agreement of sorts. His goodwill and assistance could come in useful.”

I thought we would never get there! She had connections in the Courts, she might be interested in protecting them from the ravages of the king-finding procedure. Maybe she would want to exert some influence over the outcome.
“Talking about the Cou—“
“Does he have any formal claims to the trump?”
“I have not asked, I could check it ou—“
“So he doesn’t.”
“Doesn’t he? That’s not a conclusion I would—“

Jasra raised a hand and I gave up. Let her keep the bloody trump. She was staring in the distance, a double crease between her eyes. I felt something too, something that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. Rinaldo put his hand to his sword. When nothing happened, I got back to what I wanted to say.
“Did you know about the political upheaval the Courts of Chaos are in, at the moment?”
“Yes yes”, Jasra murmured, her eyes on a point in space. The air before her started to ripple and Rinaldo and I called up the Pattern. Jasra also used a Power, something that resembled Pattern but with a hole or a blemish in it. I studied her power while she looked at the air before her. This must be that Broken Pattern I heard about. I memorised the blemish.

. . . _ . . .

The ripple in the air turned into an oval. Inside the oval there were dots of dark colour and a large spot of shimmering gold. The gold turned into the bright hair of aunt Florimel. We saw her standing in a grey canvas tent, dressed in severe black with silver trimmings.
“Jasra,” Flora said. “I don’t quite know how to put this, but I would appreciate it if you vacated my castle.”
“Without doubt, you have heard that laying siege to the Keep is an interesting pastime that rarely yields concrete results,” our hostess answered in a low, measured voice.
“That depends on who is laying the siege.” Flora said. “I believe that in this part of the universe, a contest of strength is the preferred way of settling a conflict. And, well, let me put it this way; you can leave now, take your trinkets with you and I will let you go in peace. After that I intend to take up residence in the Keep.”

Jasra had not shifted from her languid pose.
“Fascinating.” She said. “Good luck with your ambitions, I’d say, but I’m afraid I don’t intend to co-operate.”
“I had a feeling you wouldn’t. You know that what follows is on your head, don’t you?”
“You don’t stand a chance,” Jasra said.
“I wouldn’t say that. Look, there’s a little problem you might not have noticed yet. I can jam your outgoing communication. As you can see—“ The image in the air rippled and became blurry for a moment, “—I’ve got a couple more tricks up my sleeve. And you will find out that calling for backup won’t be easy. So think it over, I am sure you will come to your senses soon. If you want to talk further, do that thing with signal flags or something. We’ll be sure to see them.”

FUCK fuck fuck fuck fuck. All my negotiations had been for nothing. If I had just waited half an hour I would have saved myself a lot of aggravation. Right now the Mistress of the Keep of the Four Worlds needed troops, and Ornach could supply them. But how to get the message through to him? Bugger bugger bugger bugger. Damn.

Flora’s image disappeared and I asked if they minded if I tried a trump. Ornach’s trump did not work, neither did Yaslin’s, nor my Logrus trump of Gran. I hate trump barriers. They are my least favourite power manifestation and this was a really good one. From my lessons in Advanced Trump, I knew it is possible to block someone’s trump calls but that would require a lot of concentration and it is a one-on-one thing. It is also theoretically possible to create a general ‘jamming’, but that is just theory because it would require an enormous amount of energy. You would need a lot of accomplished trump artists working in concert, or an amplifier. Trust Flora to find a way to make the hypothetical possible. To be doubly sure, I also tried a place trump. It did not work.
“I should have brought my mail along,” Rinaldo said. “It looks like we’re going to be stuck here for a while.”

. . . _ . . .

In the bright light of morning, Rinaldo and I stood on the ramparts of the Keep of the Four Worlds and looked out over the army Flora had brought. They were setting up camp on the rocky plains that came down from the mountains, one and a half bowshot from the castle. To our left, a stormy sea battered the rocks at the foot of the Keep. To our right a sultry lava field bubbled and smoked. According to Rinaldo, the fourth shadow of the Keep, the one that was blocked from view by the tower behind us, was a desert scoured by sand storms. (Note: in the Amber books, this is an ice field, but I cannot retrofit this.) The castle was a complex structure of dark stone, with towers and outcrops that had towers and turrets of their own: it almost looked like a tree stump with turrets for fungus.

I studied the army through a pair of binoculars. It looked dangerous: trim and fit and well trained; its blond, humanoid soldiers dressed in black and silver. Black banners fluttered in the stiff breeze. The banners did not show Flora’s usual pastel flower but a silver sigil, a letter of an alphabet unknown to me. How odd of her to wear Corwin and Deirdre’s colours. As far as I knew they had nothing to do with her.

On the way upstairs Rinaldo and I had talked about the possibility that the trump-barrier was made of Nexus. The blue macaroni can negate both Logrus and Pattern, so it could conceivably also block trump. Unfortunately, the usual way to fight Nexus is to put a knife in the back of the nexus-user. The other way was finding a weak spot in the Power and ‘pushing’ it with your own Power. That would result in a one-on-one psychic struggle with the user in question, to whit: Flora, and I had no stomach for that. It might also require physical contact with the barrier and that would mean leaving the castle. The rippling in the air that showed us Flora’s face had had macaroni-blue sparks at the edges, so that too could have been made with Nexus.

Jasra joined us on the ramparts, her bright hair tossed and tangled by a gust of hot wind from the lava field. I asked how her troops were doing.
“Quite well,” she said. “The magical defences are in order; they were always very good. Supplies can be tricky, but it is very hard to invade the Keep with purely physical means. There have been armies who tried for ten years and still did not succeed. But in those cases, I could trump in supplies.”
“So,” I asked. “How are the supplies?”
“We have enough for a month, perhaps two or three with rationing.”
I could not believe it, even an average city has enough for at least six months! The good news was that there was a well on the premises.
I asked how the time rate was compared to Amber. It appeared this was a tricky question to answer.
The keep was built on, --or in-- four different shadows at the same time, one of Air, one of Fire, one of Water and one of Earth. The magic of the Keep was based on those four shadows and their dominant elements. The time flow in the Keep depended on which shadow you were in. On average it was about one on one, sometimes two days here to one in Amber. The keep lay at about three-fourth of the distance between Amber and Ygg, closer to Sherwyn than to Galoria.

“So if it’s not very strategically located, why does Flora want it?”
“It is strategic,” Jasra answered. “It is a good base of operations. It is a power base, and a good one. I assumed you knew that.”
She was slightly miffed I had not heard of her pretty place. I shrugged. Now I knew what it was, I could feel the power running through the Keep. I even felt where it was concentrated: slap bang in the middle of the building. I asked:
“And that power of yours, can you use it against this army?”
“I can use it defensively. That is why it is hard to pierce the defences of the Keep. I can use it to divert magical attacks unless it’s the really heavy stuff. But that would have to be something like Advanced Pattern.”
“Could you use it to break the trump barrier?”
Jasra said she did not know, and I looked at Rinaldo.
“You could have a go at it,” he said. “But I am not really interested and don’t intend to try.”

Excuse me? He did not intend to protect his mother’s power base? I covered my amazement with flippancy and turned to Jasra.
“So, you’re in a pickle.”
“Thank you for mentioning it,” Jasra said sourly. “I don’t mind you being here, but don’t get in the way, will you?”
“I won’t,” I said.
Just ask for help, woman! All you have to do is ask.

. . . _ . . .

Rinaldo and I watched from a tower while Flora’s army executed a minor attack to test the Keeps defences. From my vantage point, I studied both aggressor and defenders. The attacking soldiers were mostly human men and they fought with fanaticism and skill. The defenders of the Keep were a mismatch of mercenaries: Kashfans and other races, and they cooperated well but not extraordinarily so. What they needed was a good general to forge them into a coherent unit; it would double their effectiveness. A number of them knew what they were doing; they had clearly beaten off attacks like this before. The main attack came from the rocky side of the keep. I thought I spied masts in the mist and spray that hung over the sea. I couldn’t be sure, but if there were ships there, they did not brave the cliffs and shallows close to the keep. Drawing a trump of the Keep of the Four Worlds would be a challenge. A nice one, though… I should find time to draw a trump of Delwin while my memory of him was still fresh. I grinned to myself. Now that would be an ultra-rare trump. And I intended to destroy it as soon as it was finished.

I sighed and thought of Jasra’s trump collection. Brand would have contributed, and maybe she had Chaos trumps that survived the fixing of the Logrus because they weren’t in the Courts when it happened. Maybe… Damn her, I was jealous! I wanted to be the one with the trump museum! It was not fair that she had the trumps and I did not. I could make much better use of—
I checked myself.
That was a very immature thought. Life isn’t fair; get used to it. Start your collection the hard way. Perhaps Ornach would let me keep Bihaye’s trump when it was empty. Delwin would not be pleased if I put his ace-trumps on display, but anything worthwhile has a price. Maybe I could trade with Jasra for her doubles?

I glanced at Rinaldo. He was watching the enemy too, brow furrowed and arms crossed. He turned and marched back inside, and I followed him. He nodded when he saw me following him.
“I’m going to check on the barrier. By the fount.”
“That trump barrier,” I fumed, “It shouldn’t be possible!”
“It’s a strong barrier,” Rinaldo admitted, “But you see so many strong things in this life. Who knows what she got her hands on?”
“That power you’ve got here,” I asked, “can you use it without initiation?”
“A bit,” Rinaldo said. “You can tap into it but, how shall I put it, without being initiated you cannot use the Fount to its full potential.”
“You’re a trump artist. I’m a trump artist. With a little bit of extra power we should be able to break through the barrier.”
“That depends on the power the barrier is based on,” Rinaldo said. “I never say: ‘this or that should or shouldn’t be possible’. I’ve seen too much. Many unknown factors can be involved. You know that there are a number of different Powers in this universe, some new and some ancient, and I don’t control every single one of them. Do you?”
“Certainly not,” I said. “I was just mightily annoyed. First your mother was insulting me, and—“
“Insulting?”
“O yes.”
We quibbled a bit on if Jasra had been polite to me or not. “But never mind, we’re here and so is Flora. Let’s try to break through her barrier.”

While we navigated twisting and turning hallways of stone, Rinaldo talked about his mother.
“She is someone who needs to come with a manual,” he said. “When she feels she is in control of the situation she will exploit every advantage she has. You would do the same.”
I shrugged.
“What ever happens with the trump,” I said, “It would still be a good idea to keep the Keep away from Flora. That she wants it is enough reason to fight her for it.”
“I thought Flora had a base in Sherwyn.” Rinaldo said. “Perhaps she didn’t like it there anymore. Maybe Adrian kicked her out?”
“Odd things have been happening there,” I said, thinking of the trump calls I listened in on. “That’s all I know.”
“I understood that the atmosphere in Sherwyn had changed for the worse,” Rinaldo said.

I concluded he was quite a lot behind on current events. The ‘getting worse’ part had been over before his father’s trial. Since then I believe it got better. If Samal says it got worse, I think the opposite.
I shrugged.
“I guess, I don’t know.”
“I think Flora’s presence did something to the land. And there have been enemy influences too.”
“She can do that?” I asked, but we had arrived at the source of the Keep’s power.

In the middle of the room a walled fountain spouted fire, and in the fire was a face, man-high, with drooping eyelids and heavy jowls.
“Hi Sharu,” Rinaldo said to the face. It did not react and Rinaldo turned to me.
“He only talks to my mother; she’s the boss.”
“He does?”
“Sharu is a bit special. He’s been around for a long time. Not in this form; he used to be a coat rack for a while. His full name is Sharu Garrul.”
“Pardon?”
“Turning people into coat racks is my mother’s speciality.”
“Stylish,” I said, recognising the warning or the threat.
“You can never have too many coat racks. He used to be a coat rack in the shape of an old man for as long as I can remember.”
“And now he is…?”
“Mother turned him into a guardian spirit. Someone lifted his coat rack spell and turned him into something more useful. And mother needed a guardian spirit; it means you can’t step into the Fount anymore to initiate yourself without her permission. I wouldn’t advise it, by the way.”
“I wouldn’t dare,” I said. Skipping into the Fixed Logrus taught me to be weary of unknown powers.
We had reached the base of the fount and Rinaldo showed me how to safely draw off a little of its energies. The spirit knew Rinaldo and allowed it.
“If it doesn’t work, you’ll have to alert my mother. She’ll take care of it.”
“Would the spirit allow me to take some by myself?”
“You can try,” Rinaldo said. “But I don’t know how he will react when you don’t have my mother’s permission. I don’t know what he’ll do. He knows I have a standing invitation.”
“Let’s not annoy your mother any more than necessary.”
“That’s safest,” Rinaldo said, nodding.

With the power of the Fount we probed the trump barrier. Calling upon the Pattern did not work: I could not reach the power that was my birthright. The power of the Fount I could reach; Rinaldo channelled bits into me. It was a neutral power and it felt a bit funny but it was easy to use. The feeling tingled through my limbs and reminded me of my time as a djinny. Power was plentiful and easy to use then. Too bad it came with so high a price. That experience plus my sorcery training allowed me to use the power of the fount.

To find the exact location of the barrier and to test it, I sent out bits of power like a dolphin uses bleeps of sound. All the beeps took exactly as long to return, so it looked like the barrier was an upturned bowl centred on the Fount. I sent a few bleeps down through the ground and learned the barrier ran through there too. I didn’t dare to think how much power this must cost Flora. Her barrier was very strong, looked permanent and spanned four shadows. Perhaps she used an artefact? I bet she did.

With my power enhanced senses, I could see the army move through the four shadows surrounding the keep. The attack was heaviest on the ‘earth’ side, but it was supported by troops in the other three shadows. Jasra could not smuggle in supplies from over sea, over the lava fields or through the desert. Flora’s army crossed the barrier freely, so I guessed it stopped only occult energy. If I got a man on the other side, he could send a message to Ornach and Ornach could send troops. But I guessed that man would have to be me.

I shook Rinaldo out of his trance and asked what he thought of my plan.
“Yes, talk it over with her. I’m staying out of it, if you don’t mind. It’s her deal and she has a temper, so I’m warning you. In her opinion you are here to ask her for a favour, so… ehrm… You know.”
“What do you think she will…” I asked. “Phah. Never mind.”
I got up to speak with the red-headed harridan.

. . . _ . . .

To be continued...

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