Session 5


Jasra starts to look pale, and soon faints. Brand catches her, feels her forehead, and says she's burning up. He sends for a doctor and carries Jasra to her bedchamber. Miranda follows, starting to feel a bit strange herself. After a while, Brand notices that she's looking pale too. He asks how she feels. Strange. She doesn't have a fever, but he tells her to lie down anyway. He'll send a doctor around to look in on her.

Once Miranda changes into her nightgown and lies down, she feels a little better. She still feels tired, but can't sleep, so she mostly just lies there, feeling a strange lassitude. Eventually, Sand knocks at the door and comes in. Apparently Brand asked her to look in on Miranda. Miranda asks if her mother is all right. She'll recover. A servant girl is dead, though. Is there a connection? Possibly. Sand raises Miranda's hand, looking suddenly concerned. Miranda realizes that her hand is semi-transparent. Wow. This would normally frighten her, but she feels too tired. Sand thinks this is due to her shadow being gone. Dad told her about that? Yes. Sand sends the doctor from House Prydain away when he arrives and decides to bring Delwin in on the matter.

Delwin shows up a short time later and questions Miranda about where she was. This takes a bit of persistence on his part, since Miranda's exhaustion is making it hard for her to focus, but she eventually explains how she wound up in Pandemonium Fortress. Delwin says she made a hole through Shadow. How? When she uses broken Pattern, the break is there for a while afterward. Which means the demons could escape. Sand will look into finding Lucifer while Delwin takes Miranda to Pandemonium. He has a Trump of the place.

Delwin leaves while Sand dresses Miranda. Sand keeps asking about Lucifer, but Miranda insists she never spoke to him. She realized her shadow was missing because of a dream. Who is Lucifer, anyway? The last remaining demon. Aren't there a lot of them? They're just shadows. Demons were the original inhabitants of this place. Humans came from elsewhere. Chaosites are descended from both. Miranda asks if Sand's ever heard of Eden. Yes, it's a paradise mentioned in one creation myth. It was the home of the first man and the first woman. Was the first woman named Lilith? Sand gives her an odd look and says no. Miranda asks what's wrong. Where did she hear that name? In her dream. All she remembered when she woke up was something about her shadow being missing, and something about Lilith fleeing out of Eden. Sand asks if she told her father about it. No, she only had a chance to mention the shadow part, and then the whole mess with Lucifer happened. Sand thinks Miranda should mention this to her father.

Delwin re-enters the room and Trumps with Miranda to Pandemonium, arriving in the room with the artifact. Delwin asks a demon servant where Lucifer is. He's out someplace remote. Are there any others here? The demon seems surprised to see Miranda, as it answers that only Lady Miranda is around. It asks her how dinner was. Quite good, she lies. Delwin asks where Miranda's quarters are. The servant is still surprised, but says up on the third floor, near the library. They go up there, following a servant who's bringing more food. Inside the room they see many empty bowls, and Miranda...sort of. It looks like Miranda, only she's dirty, her hair's a mess and she has food stuck in her teeth. Miranda is appalled. Delwin casts a light spell that throws the creature's shadow into sharp relief. It's the shadow of a man with wings. When Miranda stands in the shadow, she tingles. She and Delwin talk to the creature for a while and learn that it's Miranda's shadow given physical form. This is how Lucifer was able to escape. While Miranda slept, he made her shadow sentient, waited an hour or so for it to get bored, then made a deal to swap places with it. Then he attached his shadow to the now-solid shadow, and left. And now that the shadow is sentient, and has experienced all the wonders of having a body, like eating and dreaming, she has no desire to go back to being a shadow. Miranda says Lucifer will want his shadow back, if his body can't survive without it. The shadow says Lucifer doesn't care. He wants Miranda dead, anyway. How does she know? He came back after he was discovered, and told her. Why does he want her dead? Because of the necklace she has.

Miranda's shadow attempts to leave the room. Delwin blocks her path and introduces her to something else that you can experience in a body: pain. He punches her in the face and breaks her nose. Miranda also feels the pain from that, and yelps. Shadow Miranda says that was stupid, adding that she can hurt him too. Then she pulls out a dagger and stabs Delwin's shadow, pinning it to the floor. Delwin cries out and grabs his side, which starts bleeding. He tries to move away, but can't until Miranda pulls out the dagger, which then disintegrates in her hand. Shadow Miranda then flees into the mirror, although Miranda can still see her on the other side. Delwin says he may as well make use of his wound, and begins drawing a sigil on the floor with his own blood. He tells Miranda to keep her shadow distracted and begins chanting. She asks her shadow how she got into the mirror. She tells Miranda to try it. She does, and winds up in the mirror. The two argue, and Miranda notices that her shadow is getting duskier. Her shadow starts to notice too, so Miranda distracts her with insults. This soon devolves into a real cat fight, complete with kicking, scratching, hair pulling and punching. Miranda punches her shadow in the stomach, which makes her shadow throw up. The shadow punches Miranda in the kidney, and she almost pees herself. Miranda punches her shadow in the throat, etc. The shadow becomes more indistinct while this goes on. Too late, she realizes what's going on, and tells Miranda this is all her fault. What is? Lucifer's shadow is gone. Miranda points out that she told her he'd take it back. Fine. She's still not going to rejoin Miranda. If she can't live, she'll take Miranda with her. Miranda doesn't think much of this idea, but can't persuade her otherwise. They do agree that they should probably leave the mirror, though, lest they get stuck in it.

They re-enter the room with Delwin. Delwin tells Miranda he separated Lucifer's shadow from her shadow. Her shadow is incensed when she realizes he was behind that, and begins stomping Delwin's shadow's head. Delwin falls to the floor at this, and doesn't look good. Miranda tries to pull her shadow back, but finds they can't touch each other anymore. She interposes herself between her shadow and Delwin's, which is more successful. More arguing ensues. Delwin recovers and says they need to resolve this soon. Miranda asks if he can transfer the personality of the shadow to another body. He doesn't know how to do that. He suggests they time-share Miranda's body. The shadow doesn't know what that is. Miranda refuses. Delwin says, "For once in your life, trust me." Miranda reluctantly agrees. The shadow wants control of the body every other day. Miranda looks over at Delwin again, then says fine. The shadow reconnects to Miranda, at which point Delwin draws a line through the sigil and says, "I lied." Miranda was hoping that was the case. She realizes that her nose is hurting, touches it, and finds that it's broken. All of her shadow's injuries have now become hers. She asks Delwin if he can set her nose. He suggests they return home and get a doctor to do it. She complains that she can't go back looking like this. Well, he can do it, but it might be crooked.... She realizes that he's still bleeding, and then remembers that he can't shapeshift. Ooops.

Miranda helps Delwin back down to the artifact room, and then they Trump home. Miranda calls for a doctor for Delwin, who arrives and takes Delwin away. Miranda goes to her quarters and cleans up, getting rid of all the vomit, etc., and putting on clean clothes. The doctor returns shortly after she's presentable and examines her nose. He tells her that there will be a brief pain while he sets it. He suggests she close her eyes and grab the chair. She does so, and feels a pain not unlike the one she felt when Delwin punched her shadow. Then it fades to an ache and is gone. She looks in the mirror and sees that her nose is straight again. She thanks the doctor and asks after her mother. She's fine. He looks a bit annoyed. She asks if anything's wrong. Oh, he was just told by the Duke that the Duchess's ailment was metaphysical, and he hates it when other people try to do his job. You artists wouldn't like it if we told you how to paint, he complains. True. She thanks the doctor again and he leaves.

Miranda looks in on her mother. Brand is there. Jasra looks much better. They note that she's gotten her shadow back. Miranda explains what happened, and the loophole Lucifer exploited. Brand admits he's never studied shadows all that much. Miranda asks if Jasra was poisoned. Not as such. Do they think she brought something else back with her from Pandemonium? Brand looks like something has just occurred to him. Jasra indicates that perhaps he should share. The necklace. Both Jasra and the servant handled it. Obviously there's something on it to prevent others from taking it. Who did she get it from again? Miranda, unable to answer, prevaricates. Jasra notes that, if she hadn't checked for this already, she'd swear Miranda was acting like she was under a geas. Brand asks her under what circumstances she would not be able to detect one. She doesn't know, obviously. Jasra looks irritated at having a shortcoming pointed out. Brand asks Miranda a series of yes or no questions Was the necklace given to her specifically? Yes. Did Lucifer give it to her? No. Did a demon? No. That means someone else was there. Did a family member? No. That's a relief, in a way. Jasra tells Miranda not to strain too hard against the geas, as it can kill you.

Brand asks where the necklace is. On her nightstand. It appeared there after she had it sent to the vault. Brand wants to take another look at it. As they walk back to Miranda's rooms, Brand puts his arm around her and says he's glad she's all right. She says she's sorry she made such a mess out of things. It wasn't her fault. But she made a hole in Shadow. Rinaldo's working on closing it. He needs the practice, anyway. Miranda shows him where the necklace was, but it's gone now. A search turns up nothing. Brand speculates that Lucifer took it. Miranda mentions her shadow's claim that Lucifer wanted to see her die because she had it. He could have just waited for her to go after her shadow, knowing that she'd have to get it back. So what do they do now? Brand suggests Miranda get some sleep.

Miranda mentions investigating the briefcase matter in the morning. After all, it was important enough to get the representative of House Deskant killed. Oh, Brand took care of that. What happened? Someone high up in Amblerash turned up dead, with the message that if Amblerash wants to have its little wars with Deskant, they should take care not to involve innocent bystanders from other houses. He figures that if they try to retaliate for the dead man, he can always reveal to the other houses who caused the bridge disaster. Which reminds him, maybe it's time to get her a real bodyguard. Wasn't Evangeline a real one? He means a more obvious one. She says that maybe Kail can suggest one, and offers to ask him at her next lesson. Something else is brought up, but Brand says he can't discuss it with Miranda since there are things that could mean her death if she learned of them.

Miranda tells Brand that there was a second piece of her dream that she remembers, and Sand thought she should let him know about it. She fills him in on the details, and asks who Lilith is. She was a human who became a demon, and then Queen of the demons. Lucifer was her consort. He suspects Lucifer told her this in the dream, and that clicks with Miranda. She says she thinks he's right, although she's not sure why he did that. Why is Lucifer so dangerous? Because he can take over other people, if he wishes. Why didn't he do that to her? Because she's a woman. He fled from Brand because Brand knows how to bind him, having done it once before.

As Miranda prepares for bed, the room suddenly gets cold. As she stokes up the fire, Solange emerges from the shadows. She asks where her necklace is. Lucifer has it. This doesn't please Solange, who declares that as a goddess, she is infallible. Losing the necklace would imply that she made a bad choice in giving it to Miranda. Therefore, Miranda has a year and a day to get the necklace back, or she'll die. She starts to leave, then adds that since she likes independent women, if Miranda needs help in recovering the necklace, she's almost better off not recovering it at all.

Miranda finally goes to sleep and dreams that she's lying in a beach chair on a warm, sunny beach. She rather enjoys the feeling, not having experienced it in a while. A handsome young man is lying in the beach chair next to her. He calls her by name, and asks if she's enjoying the weather. Oh yes, she hasn't been this warm in quite some time. Still cold and dreary back home? Very much so. Maybe someday, the spell will be broken. She notes that they haven't been formally introduced, even though he appears to know her, and asks who he is. His name is Merlin. Miranda looks wary. He points out that she can't get in trouble for talking to him in a dream. She isn't so sure. Despite these misgivings, she does chat with him for a bit and learns several interesting bits of information. First, there are four gods that can lay claim to her: the Serpent, because she's a Chaosite, Una, because of her Amber blood, Comet because she can draw Trump, although Miranda claims not to know what that is, and Solange. He's not sure why Solange can claim her, since she's not a sorceress. Miranda speculates that maybe it's enough that her mother is. She is surprised that Comet is alive, having seen a piece of him. Merlin looks surprised by this. Oops. Miranda claims that maybe she just read about it. Merlin says that now that Solange has claimed her, the others won't interfere. Who would be in opposition to Solange? Well, probably Gaia. Would she be willing to intervene, since she isn't one of the ones with a claim on Miranda? Possibly. How would she contact Gaia? Go to one of her temples. Una is sort of out, given who she is. What about Comet? He won't be much help right now. He's busy. Why are so many gods interested in Miranda? Because she's a nexus, a person around which things tend to happen. Is there any other way to deal with Solange? Well, has she ever heard of the Salamandrist heresy? Yes, she admits warily. Well, the one part they have right is the idea that men created the gods, originally. Eventually, the gods broke free, but there are ways to control them. He found the books that allow him to control Comet when he was out in some technological Shadow. So there are books on how to control Solange out in Shadow? He believes so. Why is he helping her? He figures that as a nexus, it can't hurt if when she is deciding which way to throw the torch, she has reason not to throw it his way.

Merlin says he might be able to tell her more about the artifact Solange gave her if he knew more about it. She explains that it's killed people who touched it. All of them? No, not all. Who survived and who died? A servant died, a noble survived. And how did it kill the servant? It gave her a fever. Ah. He says that having a power like Logrus or Pattern might help someone survive, and she admits the noble had a power like that. He explains that gods can sometimes make someone their avatar, which basically means taking over their bodies. The fever is actually their attempt to fight it off, and when it ends, the god is in control. Is there any way to tell if someone has been taken over by Solange? Merlin's pretty sure she'd know, Solange not being inclined to subtlety. But if she really wants to be sure, one way to tell is that the affected person wouldn't be able to use Pattern or Logrus anymore. He asks who took the artifact. A demon. He thought they were gone. Apparently not. He asks who, saying he might be able to help if he knows of them. She's not sure she can say. He writes the name 'Hastuur' in the sand, and asks if it was that one. No. He looks relieved. She asks what demons he knows of. Well, besides the one he wrote in the sand, there's Canus, the betrayer, Il-Dena, the hunter, Hazimel, the prophet, Lilith, queen of demonkind and Lucifer, the prince of lies.

Miranda asks about Hazimel, then Lucifer, then Lilith, asking how difficult it would be to get the necklace back from one of them. Lucifer would be the easiest. He's the most human, and can be quite the gentleman, even if he does lie most of the time. He even allows himself to be tricked occasionally, by clever humans. Some of the others can be more difficult to deal with because they are so far from human in their thinking. The one who shall not be named is associated with the Kraken, which wants to destroy all things. There's more he knows about Lilith, but that he won't share that for free. Would he trade it for knowledge of which demon has the artifact? No, he knows that already, he just wanted to see if she'd tell him. She's not as unreadable as she thinks. He points out that living with two people like her parents doesn't give her much opportunity to practice, since they can always read her anyway. He also says something about the Emperor having the "Winter Orb," which is what's causing all the nasty weather. Miranda asks if there's a summer orb. No, it isn't that easy. He leaves her to enjoy the sun.


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Last modified on April 18, 2002 by Kris Fazzari.