We awakened on that morning, after the elves and humans fought it
out.  All of us seemed to be a bit tense, after all, we were headed into
an area that Benedict and Fiona had never entered, most of our powers were
either not working or barely working, Dworkin had been found but was no
more of a help than he'd ever been in the past or future.  We mounted up
and continued on towards the plane of Trump, not really knowing what or
who we would find once we got there.  I kept watch over the surroundings,
with a bit more intensity then I normally would have, what with Sky being
around and all.

	We traversed several Shadows, all playing out a war between tech
and magic, with different outcomes.  Overall, it seemed that the magic
factions were getting the short end of the deal, however.  Apparently, we
were in an area where magic had been top dog for quite a while.  We
steered away from the battles as much as we could.  Somewhere between
midmorning and noon, I think closer to noon, time slows down a bit near
Sky I've noticed, we came upon a crossroads.  We saw three men on
horseback being chased by several creatures.  We watched as the men were
close to being overtaken before we noticed that the creatures would cross
our path.  We began to fire arrow upon arrow at them, while Mok tried to
learn how to conjure from Dworkin.  He did better than I thought he would
when he eventually conjured up a tiny bow.  They were getting close when
we decided to charge.  I can't remember who started the charge, but I
think all of our royal blood was boiling by that point.  Isaac and I were
handling our own, as was Mok, but Caine, of course, was showing his
superior skills.  I turned around as the last was falling to see a party
of men riding up with crossbows drawn, coming up behind Sky and the rest.
I noticed at this time that Melanie had disappeared, but I didn't have
time to delve into her disappearance.  Fearing the men would fire upon my
love, I shifted into demon form and my horse bolted (I expected better of
a Chaosite horse).  I flew towards my wife and the men with crossbows.  I
forgot in the thick of the battle that these men were probably not used to
thinking of big, black faceless things with metallic looking wings and
sharp claws as friendly.  I retreated from the hail of bowfire that they
fired at me.  At this moment, I noticed Mok off investigating something.
I flew towards him, this time wondering where Melanie had gotten to.
About this time, more of the creatures came out of nowhere, literally
nowhere.  Me and Mok engaged them, but we were a bit hard pressed.
Suddenly, arrows began to strike the creature I was fighting, and I knew
Sky had figured out what was going on.

	After dispatching these creatures, the men invited us to their
castle.  We went with them and they told us of some Champion that had put
a hole in their wall.  Upon seeing the hole in the wall, I began to fear
that one of us would have to face this Champion to get to the plane of
Trump.  With the knowledge that Caine would find a way out of it, and that
Isaac and Mok were not capable of dealing with it, so it would probably be
me to face this thing, I began to grow a bit uncomfortable.  We discovered
that this place used mirrors to perform magic.  They led us on a tour of
their mirrors, and we found Fiona and Benedict.  The natives tried to find
out who had made the mirror, as only that person could use the mirror.
Another surprise was finding Ragnar at the castle.  Apparently, the man
gets around.

	We retired for the night, confused, as Dworkin said we were there
but not there.  I swear, the man grows more and more senile the longer he
stays in Mok's head.  I guess it could have been worse, he could have been
in Laughter's head.  I was awakened in the middle of the night by some
sort of dwarf.  He looked like Dworkin.  He wanted to show me his
masterpiece.  He said that he was waiting for me.  Only I would appreciate
it, or some such nonsense.  I followed him, with a quick mental message to
Sky to alert her, in case I needed help.  He led me through our wardrobe
into some sort of maze.  We ended up in his lab, where there were two
mirrors facing each other almost horizontally, with this odd, yet
familiar, red glow in between them.  I gave a quick shout to Melanie, who
alerted the others, and we began to figure out what I should do.  They
began to make their way towards the room, and I knocked the man out.  With
the advice of Dworkin, we slowly and carefully moved the mirrors away from
each other.  The red glow, lo and behold was that of one of Dworkin's
damned rings.  How this Shadow nut had gotten a hold of it, was quite
uncertain.  While we were discussing what to do with the two mirrors, one
that of Logrus and one that of Pattern, the crazy guy got up and smashed
the Pattern mirror.  I almost killed the man right there.  We were
discussing what to do with the other mirror when Ragnar made one of the
most sensible suggestions I'd ever heard him make.  So I told him to act
immediately, and smash the Logrus mirror.  Keeping Chaos and Amber equal
is something I think to be most valuable, although Melanie was most upset.
At this point, Dworkin entered the Shadow body, and we had two nuts in one
head.  Great.  But as a consolation, Logrus, Trump and Pattern were back
to normal.  The Shadow told us that the broken mirrors revealed a
prophecy.  Dworkin said he would figure it out and get back to us.  I, for
one, didn't really want to know.  At this point we parted ways, the
Amberites and Ragnar heading back to Amber, and me, my family, and Melanie
heading back to Chaos.

The End of the Claudio Journals.