Next day....
	
	After I finished cleaving the mace, I walked the Pattern (for 
practice) and took myself outside Sandr's room.  I wanted to see if he 
was ok, and safe, etc...  I found an interesting thing (the crowbar, 
engraved most beautifully with Sandr's name and all kinds of heart and 
flowers and stuff), which made me laugh loud and long.  I took it with me 
and when in search of Sandr-- who conveniently forced a trump contact, 
and then forced his will on me to do his bidding!  I cannot express how 
infuriated I was, though I think I got my own when I attempted to brain 
him later.
	
	I don't really want to talk about the incedent; suffice it to 
say, when I finally caught up with Sandr and Ulysses, they were rude and 
annoying, and deserved far worse than what they got, which wasn't much, 
with me being fatigued from walking the Pattern twice in one day (the 
second time to find the two imbeciles).  Ulysses is stronger than he 
looks...  At any rate, I left them in one of Ulysses' god-awful garish 
shadows and stalked off through shadow to "find" Sequence, who got 
separated from me in the melee.  I walked around a lake a few times until 
it took on normal colors, and then decided that the Lady of the Lake 
should give me Sequence...  I've often thought that the Lady was a kinder 
version of Fiona, and it did me some good.  I trumped back to Amber, and 
went to see Mother, which did me no good.  I decided to go practice with 
Sequence, and take out my aggressions towards the freckled little 
mage-boy and his brainless companion by hacking apart a few dummies.  
	
	Archimedes came in.  I stared hard at him for a while, and 
finally he acknowledged me, and I suggested a fight.  He looked intrigued 
at this notion, then surprised when I began to speak with Sequence.  The 
fight cleared my brain, which was necessary; really, I think Mother 
overlooks the finer things that go along with physical exercise.  
Everything is cerebral with her, and granted she's the best around, but 
the fact is, she often looks like she could do with a bit of hand to hand 
combat to make things a little more basic for her.  Oh, well...
	
	Archimedes was probably holding back, or else his reputation is 
overblown.  I've fought with Kalyn though, and I've talked with him some, 
too... Kalyn wouldn't say Archimedes is better than he is, so I'm 
inclined to believe that the Crown Prince was holding back...  testing 
me, perhaps?  Hard to say.  He tried a little rough-housing, but 
apparently decided this wasn't going to work; he tried some interesting 
stuff by letting Sequence slide off his blade, mainly so Sequence 
wouldn't cut his blade in half, I think.  At one point I drew blood, and 
I'm fairly sure this was on purpose, because I don't think he could be 
that careless!  I was surprised, asked if he was ok, and we went on.  
Then he started talking to Sequence, who was not helping things at all, 
for he was babbling about "the noises you make when you see a man you 
like."  This was very discomfiting, for a variety of reasons...  I lived 
with Elizabeth for years, and also took a lot of science and psych 
courses at university, so I'm fairly aware of sexuality...  and yet I'm 
not.  I've only had the one "affair", and Sequence *knows* how that 
ended, since it was with Sequence that I killed the turncoat bastard.  
Sequence knows far too much, actually, and I am wondering what the sword 
was trying to prove....  I wonder also if Sequence really does know what 
kind of man I'm attracted to.  If so, the blade knows more than I...
	
	At any rate, while Sequence and Archimedes kept up this most 
uncomfortable bantering, I get flustered and a bit disturbed, and lose my 
advantage and focus...  and Archimedes hooks my ankle and I'm down.  I 
lay there for a minute and feel tired, then accept his help up, thank 
him, ask him if maybe we could do this again sometime (to which he was 
non-commital at best) and loped off to bed.
	
	I hung Sequence on the wall by the door (I no longer sleep with 
it-- just a dagger under the pillow, to keep in the habit of "neat 
sleeping"-- ie sleeping such that you are aware enough of the weapon in 
bed with you that you won't wound yourself or forget it's there should a 
crisis arise...), and got ready for bed.  I was planning what I would do 
on the morrow, and considering Mother's words about fatigue as a danger 
of Pattern walking, when a knock came at the door.
	
	It was the taciturn Chaosite, Jubal.  How odd, I thought, and 
looked nervously towards Sequence, who was also playing it silent.  Well, 
three could play at this game, I decided, and didn't say much.  Jubal, in 
more words than I'd ever heard him speak, told me that trust was a 
delicate thing, and that he had kind of thrown it at me the other day 
when he walked the Pattern in front of me.  I'm not sure if the scene he 
enacted was a bribe or a way of saying thankyou, and I'm not sure I'll 
ever know...  Anyhow, he offered me strawberries (my favorite fruit) and 
then cut his finger on a silver platter and played his flute to make the 
blood *dance*!  It was very, very odd.  
	
	After he had done, I recalled his words on trust, and wondered if 
maybe he thought I was worthy of trust because I seemed weak or at least 
non-threatening.  I had almost made a mistake like that with Sandr.  I 
did in fact trust the little mage with some important things, and they 
paid off, to a point.  But he never returned the trust enough to believe 
I might know better than him about his danger.  I have to rethink that 
entire relationship, I guess...  And then I gave Jubal some advice, and 
decided to follow it myself.  I noted that I had a knife in the same 
shape of his flute-- a forked dirk.  Very handy little weapon, I killed 
the sixth wizard with it, though I didn't burden Jubal with this info-- 
it would have distracted from my point.  I showed the dirk to Jubal, and 
then put it away and drew out the triangular assassination blade that I 
had taken off the Egyptian assassin who tried to kill me with it in Foil, 
before the war.	
	
	I don't know how clear I was at this point;  I was extremely 
tired, and drowsy from a hot bath.  I tried to tell Jubal how I'd aquired 
this weapon in shadow, which is reputed to be a dangerous place, but that 
I had kept it all these years to remind me that Amber was even more 
dangerous.  In shadow, I had disarmed the assassin and killed him with 
his own blade; in Amber, such a thing would be much less likely.  I told 
him to be very careful who to trust...  I put the blade away, and Jubal 
left.  I went to bed and slept.  I was exhausted, and my sleep was 
plagued, thanks to my talkative sword and Archimedes' enquiring mind, by 
images of Calamus and all the times blood had been spilt between us until 
I finally killed him...
	
	I finally fell into a deep sleep, and woke up a bit more 
refreshed, though not completely...  a nap in the sun ought to do 
something.  I refreshed my spells, dropped one or two, added a few 
others.  I'm still clinging to my "boil cerebral fluid" spell, which is 
probably silly, since Sandr told Chaos about it when he tried it on his 
enemy, and told Amber about it when he was resisting all attempts to be 
debriefed.  I went to breakfast, which just served to make me madder at 
the twosome;  Caine was an ass to me, but I pretended I didn't realize 
this, since he's the kind of idiot who wants the victim to be in on the 
joke most of the time; Sandr alienated some more of the family.  After 
that wretched meal, I went in search of paints, and since Mother was not 
at home, I borrowed them from Bleys.  
	
	I went down to the Pattern room and began with my attempt to 
convert the flat, planar geometry of the Pattern to the spherical 
geometry of the mace using Bleys' paints.  Jubal was there.  He asked me 
a question or two, and then asked me to watch his flute (stench o' Chaos) 
while he walked the Pattern.  I told it not to bite me, so I wouldn't 
have to cleave it in half.  I watched Jubal, painting the Pattern as he 
took each step.  He made it to the center, going through a variety of 
shapes along the way, and then fell unconscious in the center, reverting 
back to his real shape.  I was concerned, and told Sequence to watch the 
flute (who knows what it might get up to?) and Trumped Mother;  I told 
her what was happening, and asked her if I should go get him.  She 
thought I should leave him to come around on his own, and not to bother 
her until it's been a few days.  Then she reminded me that walking the 
Pattern too much would make me tired, and a tired Pattern-walker is a 
dead Pattern-walker.  Not long after this, he woke up;  I asked if he was 
ok, and he informed me his head hurt, please don't yell...  I whispered 
if he were ok, and he said yes, and eventually disappeared.
	
	I take that to mean he went somewhere to lie down or something, 
so I'm not going to worry too much about it.  He's an odd person, nice 
enough, if a bit quiet, but it's not like I'm going to go ahead and trust 
another stranger real readily.  
	
	I'm not particularly pleased with how the mace looks, but it's 
not terrible.  I'm going to sand it off and start over, after I've drawn 
the Pattern flat a few more times...  Oh, at least ten.  And after I can 
get Sequence to draw the Pattern in the air perfectly a few times.  I 
think I can work up a spell that would allow Sequence to emit a trace of 
light when I move the tip.  I would like to be able to someday trace the 
Pattern in the air so fast that one can get the impression of the Pattern 
hanging in midair for an instant.  That would be ideal...
	
	So, after a few practice drawings, I'm off for a nap in the 
sun...  To dream about the Pattern, no doubt.