From Kris.Fazzari@um.cc.umich.edu Tue Oct 5 14:36:50 1993 Date: Mon, 4 Oct 93 14:04:50 EDT From: Kris.Fazzari@um.cc.umich.edu To: thari@umich.edu Subject: Kris' Campaign Log Chapter Fifteen After walking for a while, the group realizes that they are not getting any closer to Ygg. Ariana tries walking to her shadow, with no more success. Heather trumps to her shadow and brings the rest of the group through. Well, everyone except Martin, who disappears en route.. Everyone else finds themselves standing on a small hill overlooking Heather's manor. Heather asks Ahab to help her with an experiment. They walk away from the others and try to shift shadow. The act of shifting shadow feels different than it normally does to Ahab. Ariana decides to try shifting shadow as well. She notices nothing unusual and travels back to the others. Heather and Ahab return also. Heather suggests that they may still be in the underground passage, and simply seeing an illusion of traveling. The others agree that this is plausible. They decide to get horses and travel back to that shadow. Ariana suggests riding for Ygg again, to see if Martin's absence makes any difference. They do so, and find that they are no longer blocked. Hellriding also feels odd to Ahab. After they reach Ygg, Alex does a location check and says that they still haven't moved relative to the Logrus. They go over what they know again. Ariana tells the others about the trump scrying Ahab did. The results seem significant to Heather, but she won't say why. Shortly afterward, she begins talking to Brand, without using a Trump. From the group's point of view, she is talking to herself. Brand asks Heather if she wants to come home. She says yes. He asks if she wants to bring the others, or let them find a way out for themselves. Heather thinks about this for a minute, and then decides not to abandon them. Brand pulls the people through, but leaves the animals behind. Ahab and Shard are rather upset by this. Ahab tries his Trump of Zero, but it doesn't even grow cold. Ariana asks Brand if he knows how they were imprisoned. He says he might, but he won't reveal that information. Ariana goes out into the hall and tries Coral's Trump once more. Still no luck. She Trumps Martin, to see if he's OK. According to him, he last saw the group when they Trumped back to Amber the first time. Since he is somewhat...occupied at the moment, Ariana doesn't press him for any further details. Alex, Shard, and Heather go down to dinner. Felix, Ariana and Ahab go clean up. Ariana learns from Kira, her servant, that they have been gone for three weeks. The scene at the dining hall is much more conventional than the last one they saw, with Random still the King. Bleys, Caine, Julian, Gerard, Isabeux, Flora, Driscoll, Eris, Ariadne and Vialle are also at dinner. Heather asks to talk privately with Random. Alex attempts to follow, but is told to stay in the dining hall. Random takes Heather to the hallway outside of his room. Heather tells him that she thinks there is a common link between all of Amber's problems. She asks to speak somewhere more privately than the hallway, so Random brings her into his quarters. Heather says that she thinks there is a Chaos conspiracy against an Amberite who was involved in Patternfall. She also thinks that those behind the conspiracy are just toying with the younger generation. In the course of their conversation, Heather learns that Deirdre has been injured. Ahab finishes cleaning up and makes his way down to dinner. He sits next to Ariadne, and asks what happened with her attempt to impersonate Coral. She says that she was discovered and ran. She updates him on recent events in Amber, including the fact that Dalt made one more attack, in which Deela was supposedly killed. She also tells Ahab that Deirdre was shot in the lower back with a black fletched crossbow bolt, and is expected to be a long time in recovering. Apparently Eric was the one who found her. Felix sits next to his parents. He asks if they missed him, which earns him one of his mother's special "that was a stupid question" looks. He says that it wasn't his fault that he was gone so long. This immediately causes Isabeux to asks what trouble Ahab got him into. He tells her all about the rescue attempt. Eris tells him that he should plan better next time, which embarrasses Driscoll quite a bit. Kids just say the darnedest things. Alex sits next to Medb, and flirts. Heather returns and talks with Ariadne. Ariadne is surprised to learn that they haven't found Coral yet. Dinner starts to break up. Ahab tries to trump Zero again and fails. Heather leaves, with Ahab following closely behind her. He asks her to trump him to some location out in shadow, so he can track down Zero. She transports him to her shadow, where it is raining. He starts shifting shadow, and quickly comes across Zero. She's unhappy about having been saddled and bridled for so long, and a little thin (hard to eat with a bit in the mouth), but otherwise seems to be fine. He starts to bring her back to Heather's stables. Along the way, he comes across a little Englishman wearing spectacles. He asks if Ahab has anything to declare. Ahab lists his possessions. The man gives him a stack of papers to fill out. Ahab tries to subtract most of the papers, with no success. He asks what will happen if he doesn't fill out the paperwork. The man tells him he won't get through. The bureaucrat won't say what will stop Ahab, only that he won't get through if he breaks the rules. Ahab tips the man's chair over. The man gets up, dusts himself off, sits down, and says that won't let him get through either. Ahab tips him over again, with the same result. He takes the papers the man is working on away. The bureaucrat pulls out more from a drawer. Ahab continues tipping the chair over, pulling out a desk drawer. When all the drawers are gone, the man just sits there. Ahab writes a single letter on each page and turns them in. The man starts highlighting things on the forms. Ahab tries to shift around the bureaucrat, but can't. When he comes back, the bureaucrat hands him the stack of papers again and says that he must fill out all the highlighted areas. Ahab gives the man a paper cut. The man threatens to call the guards if Ahab keeps that up. Ahab continues to be obnoxious, and the man eventually gets annoyed and disappears. Ahab finds himself unable to get any closer to Heather's shadow, so he trumps back to Amber. Ariana goes to the library and does some medical research. Heather goes looking for Mandor, but he is not in his room. She trumps him. Shard goes looking for Brand. He knocks on his door. Brand asks who it is. Shard identifies himself, and Brand lets him in. He asks Brand how to retrieve Battlestar. Brand says he knows a way, but he doesn't think Battlestar will come to him. He suggests asking Julian for help. Alex looks up Medb and asks her to show him the gardens. She says he's seen them before. He asks if she'd care to go elsewhere, but she has this nice needlepoint she's been working on. He asks what it's a needlepoint of. She says it's of a forest, and offers to show it to him. He agrees, as an excuse to keep talking to her. The needlepoint looks bad, but he lies and says it's wonderful. She offers to teach him needlepoint, and he pretends to be enthusiastic. Ahab returns to Amber, and seeks out Flora. He knocks on her door and is invited in. She is reading the Age of Innocence. He asks her for some help in locating materials for a practical joke. Specifically, 3-4 pounds of blank paperwork. She asks why he wants that, so he explains about Heather's shadow guardian. She asks how he's going to make a joke out of it, but he hasn't really got that planned yet. He says there's no rush. Flora brings up Deirdre in a round-about sort of way, to learn if he knows about her injury. He indicates that he does. Flora then indicates that Deirdre is not adapting well to her current condition. Ahab says that if she's feeling that way, he assumes Deirdre doesn't want to see him, but Flora disagrees. He jokingly asks if he should tell Deirdre that Flora asked after her. Flora says that would be a bad idea. Ahab bids her goodnight. Ahab goes to visit Deirdre. He stands off to one side of the door and knocks, but gets no reply. He calls out "Mother" and she asks what he wants. He says he wanted to check on how she was doing. She asks if he's going to stand out in the hall or come in, so he comes in. He goes into her bedroom and finds her lying in her bed. She is pale and thin, and her hair is cut short. He tries to hide his surprise, but doesn't succeed. Deirdre looks hurt by his reaction. She seems to be much less angry with him than she has been in years. Ahab decides to take advantage of this and they talk for a while. She tells him he can do better with his sleeping partners. He asks if she has someone in mind. She says no, but urges him to be discrete. He asks why, but she won't say. He asks why she didn't tell him about Ramon. She says there wasn't anything to tell. She claims that although she doesn't regret Ahab, she does regret Ramon. She wants to know who told him about it, but he refuses to reveal that. She is upset by that, but says she'll find out on her own. She tells him that Ramon was convenient, but he would have been no good for Ahab. She asks if he discussed it with Ramon's killer, and he says he did. He mentions that Corwin was rather surprised when Ahab first asked him about it, since he thought Ahab already knew the details.