Chapter 094: Boundlessly Drifting

"Guessing problems only to deceive the mention

Passing paths that climb halfway into the void

As we cross from side to side

We hear the total mass retain."

Close to the Edge - Yes

            It was more than just a sensation of being watched, the eyes of the painting actually followed me as I was walking past. It was not surprising, though, for Justin had told me about this earlier, asking some explanation that I was quite unable to give. I had not been aware of anything odd creeping into the picture while I had been painting it, but then I had been so weary and overcome by grief that it was not unlikely that some weird effect had slipped in inadvertedly. However, when Adrian actually leaned forward out of the frame to offer me some wine, I realised that I had to be dreaming. That also explained why the picture was simply floating in the air and not hanging from a wall.

            No, there was a wall, of course, though it could only vaguely be discerned. Through it I could now see an advancing horde of familiar insectoid warriors. Seeing my frown, Adrian asked me what was wrong, and when I told him he changed into a figure of glowing lines of Pattern energy and burst forth to fend off the enemy army single-handedly. I ought to have taken some comfort from this, but all I could worry about was how this transformation had completely ruined my beautiful painting.

            Miss Fabre was tugging at my sleeve. "Why still so formal?" she asked with a friendly smile. "Come on, we have to hurry back to Quendor or we'll miss your aunt's wedding. And I was supposed to be a bridesmaid and everything."

            "Go ahead," Boadice said, her face appearing over Janice's shoulder. "I'll take care of Flora's troops with these." She indicated the water balloons she was holding in her hands, but as her image receded I realised that the dark and swirling stuff inside was far too dangerous for her to play around with.

            I awoke with a start that made Miss Fabre look up from her own reveries. "Bad dream," I murmured and yawned. "How long have I been asleep?"

            "No more than half an hour or so," she said. "Your cousin has not yet returned, though, and I don't know how long she is going to be."

            "Well, that's Boadice for you," I replied. I stretched and yawned again. The Barrier had taken a fair bit out of me, I knew, but even a brief nap like this did much to get my strength back, bad dreams notwithstanding. Although I had tried to convince Boa of the urgency of our task, I secretly had to admit that I didn't mind the delay too much. Still, Primal Chaos was no laughing matter, and we'd better deal with it sooner than later.

            The reason that we were not already dealing with it was that Boadice's priorities had gone slightly askew, as they would. Myrthe had urgently requested her assistance to come up with the perfect ensemble for the imminent inauguration ceremony of King Reys the First of the Courts of Chaos, and of course finding some matching clothes and make-up was far more important than the possible - no, make that probable - destruction of a significant number of Shadows.

            I'm getting ahead of myself, though. Alexander had been the one to inform us of Reys Thurston's sudden and unexpected rise to power. Some fifteen minutes after we had ceased working on the Barrier altogether, he had everyone called to his tent to tell us about the Trump call he'd just had from the Courts. Apparently, the final showdown had been briefer and far less bloody than anyone would have thought, and if anyone had actually put some money on Reys becoming the new King they had probably won themselves a fair fortune, for not many people had had him pegged as a favourite. As for the not-so-bloody part, only one Head of a Major House had died: Lord Borak Ascan, one of the die-hard conservatives.

            Alexander had admitted that Murlas had been his actual source of news of these recent events in the Courts, and he had got word pretty quickly too, for no more than hour could have passed back there since the announcement had been made. As such it had seemed a good idea to pass the news on to others who would be interested, so soon Justin had been busy trying to get in touch with Corwin and I in turn had Trumped my King. Random had been pleased to be informed so quickly, although he had right away started deliberating about who ought to be his official representative at the ceremony. Considering Reys's reputation and his unmarried status, it wasn't surprising that Random's first thought was of one of his sisters. It was a pity, though, he had mused, that Fiona, the most fitting candidate, wasn't available. She had had some prior contacts with Reys and apparently they had got along quite well. I'd just shrugged, however, and had levelly told him that getting Fiona ready for this kind of ceremony was not something I would be able to pull off at short notice. With Flora out of the picture too, though, there weren't that many ladies in our Family left that he could ask, but when I had  mentioned Boadice he'd said that she was far too inexperienced to attend such an important ceremony as an official Amber representative. I'd had to admit she was hardly the Queen of Subtlety.

            Random had taken the news that some Primal Chaos had been accidentally dumped near the Keep of the Four Worlds much too lightly to my taste. First of all, he'd felt that it would be something to keep Flora busy, and secondly he hadn't thought it could do much harm, since the Keep was in fact quite close to the Golden Circle. His theory was that the close proximity of the Pattern would be enough to contain the damage. My misgivings hadn't so easily been laid to rest, though, and I'd pointed out that to my knowledge nothing like this had ever occurred before, and that ordinarily I would have been Trumping Fiona at this point. Random had rolled his eyes and had told me to go and check it out, just as I'd already been planning to do. He had added that in Fiona's absence the onus of taking care of these kind of things would logically fall to me anyway. Another reason to try and get her back to normal, I'd  guessed.

            Since I'd already been reporting on current affairs anyway, Random hadn't minded me telling him about what we had been up to in Galoria. The tale of the Great Power Barrier had caused him no end of merriment, especially when he had heard that we had only managed to make the wall some two metres high. Deep down, part of me had had to agree with him that the results of all our labours were rather pathetic, but since no one likes to be laughed at I hadn't said so out loud. Also, it had been all too easy for him to criticize and say that he could have told us what would happen, when at the time we had really needed him he had not wanted to get involved. Yes, the Great Barrier was only two metres high, but it did extend through some half a dozen or so Shadows, and at least we had tried to do something. If nothing else, it could still be regarded as a useful learning experience for all those involved.

            Random had also had some news of his own, and it had been far from pleasant. Apparently, the Democratic Movement had been gaining quite a following in recent weeks. Random was convinced that Boa's sister Yaslin was still behind it, but so far she had eluded capture and she had not actually been seen for some time. Things had been turning rather ugly, though, with protest marches out in the city streets becoming the order of the day. Random had also told me that he was worried about the sort of people becoming involved in the movement. Earlier on only the lower classes had been susceptible to this kind of revolutionary talk, but lately more and more middle class citizens had been joining the movement, and Random had even heard reports of a handful of nobles chiming in as well. At that point he'd still been quite reluctant to send in the army to quell any form of rebellion, but he had reckoned that this was exactly what he would have to do, and perhaps sooner than later. That was why he had warned me to keep an eye on my father and anyone else who might be dear to me in Amber. Perhaps it would have been a good idea to get them out before all hell broke loose, although on the other hand I had reflected that such a private evacuation could tip off the rebels that something would be coming down. Whatever would happen, though, I had been fairly sure that uncle Jaro would be able to see to it that my father would find safety within the Castle's walls.

            After my talk with Random we had briefly discussed whether or not to continue with our earlier efforts and try and build another layer on top of the Barrier once everyone had been rested. Alexander had estimated, however, that there would not have been enough time left for such Power games, and he had indicated that he would rather concentrate his attention on organising the conventional defenses to the best of his abilities. I can't say that anyone had really objected to this either, as all those involved had seemed eager to get on with other things. Personally, the most pressing thing on my mind had been the Primal Chaos that Boadice had so casually Trumped out to Shadow, and fortunately my explanations had made enough of an impression for her to agree to come along and try to limit the possible damage. First, however, she had been snatched away by Queen Myrthe, who as I already mentioned had absolutely wanted her advise on how to make the best possible impression at the coronation ceremony. Sigh. Oh well, at least it had given me this opportunity to catch a brief nap.

            My thoughts lingered on cousin Boadice as I joined Miss Fabre at the small table in the centre of our tent. Galoria's appreciation of our efforts on her behalf was made clear in the abundance of food that our little shelter had been supplied with, more than two people could ever hope to consume. I took a piece of fruit that looked like a plum but proved to taste more of strawberries and poured myself some water. No wine for the moment, had to keep my head as clear as possible.

            About Boadice, though. When I had explained to Miss Fabre about the danger that the Primal Chaos represented, she had remarked on Boa's impulsive nature, to which I could only concur, although I cautiously added that those were her words and not mine. Cousin Boa was rather impulsive, though, and I knew all too well that her unpredictability should have me be quite wary of her. Such thoughts involuntarily had made me recall our encounters in the Cave of the Logrus and in the Hermit's Keep on the Overshadow. Both times, it seemed, her mind had been tampered with somehow, and her actions had not been what she herself would have wanted,  or at least so she and others had claimed afterwards. Still, all things considered it was clear that cousin Boa ought not to be at the top of my list of relatives with whom I wanted to associate more closely. As a matter of fact, she hadn't proved the most stable member of our Barrier building team either.

            And yet, and yet, and yet… She was likeable, in a rather quirky way. And I must say that I found her troubled romance with Grendel Escallwyn, from what I had witnessed or heard about it, to be quite endearing. At times the guy came across like a wet blanket, but they really seemed to love one another. Could it be that there was still a little of the old romantic Dorian left in me? The old Dorian who would rather give somebody another chance than give up on them altogether? The Dorian who remained optimistic, even though by now he ought to know better?

            Miss Fabre shot me me a questioning look across the table at my sudden and unexpected grin, but I merely shook my head to dismiss her worries. This wasn't something that could be explained as easily as, say, Primal Chaos for instance.

            Romanticism aside, there were some good reasons why I wanted Boadice to come along to face the Primal Chaos menace. For one, I had never been near this Keep of the Four Worlds that she had mentioned, and from her brief description I'd gathered that it was one of the more unusual places in Shadow. No telling what kind of reactions a sudden shot of Primal Chaos might set off there, so any kind of knowledge of the Keep's original state would be handy. Also, for all her quirkiness, Boa had proved herself a more than capable mistress of the powers of Trump, and despite her apparent lack of focus during our earlier efforts, I had been impressed by the way she had used the energies peculiar to Trump to further our goal. Finally and perhaps most importantly, this whole thing was her mess, and I was damned if I was going to have to clean it up all by myself.

**

            When after a brief meal Boadice had still not returned, I figured that I'd better do some preliminary work by myself. I wasn't sure how many Trumps Boa had drawn of the region, but it would probably be better to avoid the one she had used as a cosmic garbage can, if it was even still working at all. We could of course simply start shifting through Shadow in the old-fashioned way, but that would be rather slow, so a more direct Pattern leap might be more appropriate. For this I needed to do a fair deal of scanning ahead first, because I really didn't want to jump into this mess blindly.

            I indicated to Janice what I was about to do and started concentrating on the Pattern, thrusting the image away from me out into Shadow and letting my consciousness glide along with it. From what Boadice and Random had told me I had a rough idea of where to look, but it still took me a good deal of searching before I felt I had reached an appropriate place in Shadow for me to transport us to. I was being extra careful, though.

            As I mentally marked the spot so as to be able to return to it right away, I let myself glide back to the Shadow near Galoria and opened my eyes again. Boadice was sitting with her back against a tree right in front of our tent, and she grinned as she saw me stir.

            "Ready to go?" she asked, getting up and straightening her clothes.

            I nodded. "I think I've found us a suitable spot not too close to the centre of the affected area. I'll put us down over there, so we'll be able to shift in closer on foot. We'd better not take any horses or such, cause I think what is happening right now would spook them too much."

            "Alright," she said with a shrug. "I've us got some standard equipment that might come in handy." She indicated the small backpack that she was carrying. For a moment I wondered wether I had made myself clear enough in explaining the nature of Primal Chaos to her, but I decided to let it pass. She would see what we were up against soon enough.

            "It'll just be the three of us, then?" I said, looking at her and Miss Fabre. It would have been useful to take a Logrus Master along as well, but Gran had Trumped off as soon as he'd heard about the imminent coronation of King Reys, and the former Hendrake who had helped us before had completely collapsed from exhaustion.

            "Seems that way," Boa said, "but how are we going to get there exactly?"

            "Like this," I replied, and started concentrating again.

            It was rather strenuous, transporting the three of us just like that, especially since I hadn't really had sufficient time to recuperate yet from our efforts on the Barrier, but I managed it all the same. It must have been the first time for Boadice to experience such a Pattern leap, though, for I sensed her brief bewilderment as I put us down in the middle of what probably once had been a peaceful little valley.

It wasn't very peaceful anymore, for even at this distance from the centre of the Primal Chaos activity the Shadows had been severely affected. Tremors shook the tiny valley, and rocks and boulders were crashing down all around us. Repressing my initial urge to duck for cover, I simply tried to use my Pattern abilities to stabilise the Shadow were were in. Immediately, I realised that the Primal Chaos had been eating away at it for longer than I had first thought, for there was but little left of this once quiet, verdant world. The Pattern energies I was now pouring into it saved it from completely being devoured, but to my surprise I realised that the Shadow had somehow become unstuck from all the neighbouring Shadows. We were literally adrift in a maelstrom of Shadow stuff and pure Chaos. I tried to get some sense of our direction, but I found that I couldn't focus on any of the Shadows that were closest to us, since the whole area appeared to be awhirl.

            Gradually, I began to understand what had happened. To my knowledge, Primal Chaos would simply feed upon Shadows and devour them one by one, but I realised that it had mostly been used in areas that were closer to the Courts. The Keep of the Four Worlds had been very near to the Golden Circle, and the power of the Pattern was much stronger in these Shadows. Therefore, the Primal Chaos had been unable to destroy these worlds right away and had instead started nibbling at the bonds that tied these Shadows to one another, thus eating away at them from the outside. This had the unfortunate efect, though, that it had been spreading out much wider than I had first imagined. The effect could best be visualised as a giant lake of Chaos energy with countless of little Shadows floating wildly around in it like ice floes that were slowly melting away.

            For the benefit of my two companions I tried to translate what I was seeing into words. Neither of them were able to share my Pattern vision, and I really needed their input on how to deal with the situation. Luckily, it required only a small amount of concentration to keep this Shadow relatively stable.

            "According to Taureth," Boadice said, "the Keep of te Four Worlds was built on some kind of crossroads between four Primal Planes. Could that be why the Primal Chaos is behaving in such an unexpected fashion?"

            "Could be…," I mused. It might indeed have been what had set off this peculiar reaction to begin with. "If those four Planes were affected in the same way, though, I doubt whether this Keep could have survived."

            "What a pity, " Boa said with a sarcastic grin.

            "It al depends on who was there when this started. You said that Flora was trying to conquer the Keep, didn't you?" She nodded. "Well, I guess she would have been able to get out in one piece."

            "You would expect this to wind down a little after a while, though, wouldn't you? I mean, it can't go on forever, can it?"

            "I hope you're right," I sighed. "I don't like the rate at which it has been spreading, though." Something tingled at the edge of my perception, like the briefest flutter of a Trump contact, but before I could focus on it, it was gone. I shook my head and concentrated a bit more on maintaining the Shadow we were in.

            "If Flora had not yet taken the Keep," Boadice said, "Rinaldo and Jasra might still have been there."

            "Jasra?" I looked puzzled. "Who is Jasra?"

            "Brand's wife," she explained, "and Rinaldo's mother. Do you know her?" she asked Miss Fabre when she saw her frown of dislike.

            "Oh yes," she replied rather sourly, "we've met before." Yes, that was right, she had mentioned something about Brand's wife not approving at all of the liking they'd taken to one another, back when he had been her teacher at the university. This Jasra must be the same woman.

            If there was a chance that Rinaldo and his mother had been in the Keep when this all started, however, I felt that it would only be right to try and see what had happened to them, so I suggested that Boadice would try and Trump our cousin. I was a bit surprised when she didn't get his card out but simply closed her eyes and started concentrating, but then I should have realised I wasn't the only one who knew a special trick or two. It didn't appear to be an easy one either, or it simply may have been that there was a lot of interference, for after a while of concentrating quite hard with no apparent results Boadice murmured my name and reached out a hand, inviting me to join in the contact. Careful to keep my grip on the Shadow as stable as possible, I took her hand and let my mind link to hers.

            There was a Trump contact, but it was unlike any I had experienced before. I can think of no other way to describe it than to say that we appeared to be looking down the funnel of a virtual Trump tornado, and far away on the other side we could barely make out the figure of Rinaldo, struggling to reach us. With me beside her, Boadice was able to venture a bit further into the funnel, but it wasn't far enough. She beckoned at Janice to join us as well, who did so, a bit surprised at what she was seeing. Her mind had really become a lot stronger since her initiation, but even with the three of us pulling together we were unable to reach through to Rinado. He wasn't alone either, for I could see a red-headed lady at his side, who was apparently trying to help him get through to us. Presumably this was his mother Jasra.

            In spite of all our concerted efforts Rinaldo was still unable to reach for Boadice's outstretched hand, and we feverishly tried to come up with some approach that might help to bridge the final gap. Anchored as I was, with some of my focus still on keeping the Shadow itself steady, I let the others reach further into the madly swirling Trump funnel, me keeping a tight grip on Miss Fabre's hand, who in turn was making sure not to let go of Boadice. We still couldn't quite make it, though.

            "There may be something I can do to steady the contact," I heard Miss Fabre murmur mentally to Boadice.

            "What is it exactly?" my cousin replied warily.

            "It would take too long to explain," she sighed. "It's something to do with your mind."

            Boadice hesitated a bit, but a quick glance at the desperate expression on Rinaldo's face settled it for her. "Go ahead," she said bravely.

            Immediately, I sensed the characteristic energies of the Crystal Spires, as Miss Fabre drew on their Power and let it flow into Boadice's mind. The alteration was as marked as it was sudden: Boa became much calmer than I had ever seen her before, and as she relaxed the funnel instantly became remarkably firmer. The spinning and swirling sensation didn't stop entirely, but it decreased enough for Rinaldo to reach out his hand across the seemingly endless distance. He hesitated for a moment, though, sensing a little of Boa's new state of mind, which appeared strangely focused on peace and love and similar of such notions one would not expect from an Amberite. Rinaldo eyed her a bit suspiciously, but he didn't really have much of a choice either, so finally he took her hand, allowing us to pull him and the red-headed lady through to our side.

             "Oh, Rinaldo," Boa drawled happily, "it's so good to see you… Love, man… I really love you, you know… In fact, I love all of you…"

            "Ehm, thank you, Boadice," Rinaldo said, moving just a little away from her.

            "I hope this is not going to last," I muttered to Miss Fabre.

            "Oh, it'll fade," she replied, "eventually." Meanwhile, she was casting dark looks at the lady who had come through with our cousin, and the feelings seemed to be mutual. To keep the situation from turning nasty, I quickly stepped in and did the formal introduction bit, complete with bow, heritage, titles and everything. This seemed to pacify the lady, who indeed introduced herself as Jasra, consort to Prince Brand of Amber.

            "I believe you and Miss Fabre here already know each other, don't you?" I remarked lightly.

            "We've met before, yes," Jasra replied primly, in such a tone as to convey that she had regretted ever having done so. "I take it she is with you this time?"

            "Well, we seem to be having some kind of business partnership, you could say."

            "I'm not surprised," she said disdainfully. "She was always quite good at that sort of thing." Janice bristled a bit, but thankfully she kept her cool.

            "That's not important now, is it?" I said, trying to be reasonable. "What is important is this mess we currently seem to be in."

            "Oh, so you have noticed, have you?" Hmm, I was beginning to see that there might be other reasons for Janice to dislike this woman besides the fling she might have had with her husband (if such it had been).

            "Can you just tell us what has happened exactly?" I said.

            "Well, you'll have to fill in the last parts for yourselves," Jasra sighed, "for I still don't know what it was that happened then." She glared at us as if to say that she expected us to know all about it, which of course we did.

            "Now, mum," Rinaldo intervened, "take it easy. I mean, these people have just saved us and all." Jasra sniffed, but relented somewhat.

            "Yes, we did…," Boadice piped up. "We saved you… Because we do love you, you know… All of you…" She beamed a dazed smile at everyone that was hardly becoming of an Amberite. I exchanged another look with Miss Fabre, raising my eyes as if to say that I wouldn't be able to stand much more of this. She shrugged and moved up to my cousin to work her own brand of magic once more. Perhaps she overdid it a bit, for the result was a thankfully much quieter and withdrawn Boadice, but she now appeared to be suffering from a moderate depression as well. Couldn't be helped, though, and it was better than her going on about loving everybody all the time. Rinaldo and Jasra must have had some earlier dealings with Boadice, because they did not seem very much surprised by her behaviour and her mood-swings.

            Calmly, Rinaldo started to tell us that after Boadice's departure from the Keep of the Four Worlds the assaults on the Keep had intensified. Flora's army had even managed to enter the outer buildings, and things had looked quite dire indeed, when the Keep had suddenly been shaken by a series of strange and unnatural earthquakes. At first, they had thought it another of Flora's tricks, but she had appeared as surprised as they, and the attacking forces had been ordered to pull back. Rinaldo and his mother had just been in the process of reorganising the defenses when the earth literally split apart beneath their feet. The Keep itself started to crumble and fall apart, the Fount in its centre was snuffed out like a candle, and the Power of the Keep was lost. That was the point at which they had been trying to leave, and at which luckily we had Trumped them.

**

            In the meantime, Boadice had been able, more or less, to pull herself together. She put her hand on Jasra’s arm in a gesture of commiseration, and told her that she had intended to return with help much sooner, but that the time flow in Ornach Ways had been so slow that several days had passed outside before she even knew it. “Things got in the way,” she sighed. I guess everyone knew this was as close to an apology as she was going to get.

            “I can think of an alternative to our earlier arrangement,” Jasra said briskly. “Just introduce me to this Lord Ornach and then we’ll see what can be done about that damned Flora.”

            “Surely you didn’t have time to take your Trump collection with you, did you?” Boadice said.

            “Oh, not my entire collection,” Jasra said with a meaningful smile. Hmm, I wondered what kind of deals the ladies had been making, but if it involved Ornach and Trumps… Well, never mind, that would be Boa’s affair. After all, she was still Ornach’s secretary and everything. However, there had been more to her defense of the Keep than she had been telling me, which was hardly surprising. I thought it a bit careless of her, though, to let me pick up on this so easily.

            Meanwhile, we had more pressing problems. While we had been talking it hadn’t escaped my attention that it was getting increasingly harder to keep the Shadow entirely stable, and the ground beneath our feet was slowly starting to tilt at an awkward angle. I might be able to affect more than one Shadow at once, I thought, thus providing a larger stable area and hopefully counteracting the effects of the Primal Chaos, but the problem would be to establish the link between the Shadows.

            As I started explaining the situation to Rinaldo and Jasra, mentioning the Primal Chaos while avoiding to mention its actual source, their first suggestion was to involve a Logrus Master, but they also realised that Trumping one would be rather difficult. However, once I had made it clear that I would be able to tie the separate Shadows together with Pattern if the initial connection could be made in some other way, Jasra reasoned that between the two of them Boadice and Rinaldo had enough knowledge of Trump to be able to create Trump Gates from one Shadow to another. Both my cousins nodded their agreement, but one of them would have to cross over to another Shadow if they were to establish the connection, and the usual kind of Shadow shifting might not work here. That was where I might be able to lend them a hand, for I had found that I was able to extend my consciousness just far enough outside the tiny Shadow to be able to pick up on other Shadow fragments drifting in and out of our reach. If one came close enough, I could try and give one of them a push through the contact to the other side. It would not be easy, though, and it would be more than a little dangerous too.

            We talked and argued for a bit, but ultimately no one was able to come up with a better course of action. Finally, Rinaldo agreed to take the plunge, quite literally, provided we kept his Trump ready to save him if things went awry. I started looking around for suitable Shadows moving into our reach, and to my surprise Jasra joined me. The Power that she was concentrating on was both as like and as unlike the Pattern as I had ever encountered. The image that appeared to swirl before her as her focal point was in many ways similar to the Pattern of Amber, but there was a wrongness about it in the shape of a large gap that went from one side of it right to the middle. I recalled Aunt Fiona mentioning something about there being things called Broken Patterns to me once, and I realised that Jasra must be an initiate in one of these. The Power of this Broken Pattern didn’t appear as strong as either of the true Patterns, and in some ways it gave me a much more unnerving sensation than I got from the Logrus, for instance. The Logrus just felt alien to me, but this thing was basically… wrong! I even noticed that instead of focusing on the Pattern as a whole, Jasra was actually concentrating on the unnatural gap that marred it.

            Disgusted I turned my attention to the matter at hand. It wasn’t long before a suitable Shadow drifted in close enough for me to throw out a very tenuous link that could serve as a high-wire for Rinaldo to dance across to the other side. Happily, he made it in one piece, and a few moments later Boadice had Trumped him and they had created the required Trump Gate. Through the Gate I was indeed able to affect both Shadows at once, until they were once again truly connected to one another.

            It was a start, but all of us realised that it would take a while before we would have stabilised an area that was large enough, let alone negating the effects of the Primal Chaos altogether. I did get the feeling, however, that Boadice’s earlier hope of the Primal Chaos not going on indefinitely would prove to be correct. Already, it seemed to be spreading at a slower rate than when we had first arrived.

            In between attempts I suggested that it might be a good idea to try and contact Taureth if we got the chance. The current phenomenon could be new to him too, but his knowledge about Shadows and the Powers that affected them was quite impressive, and he was a more than skilled Logrus Master. Boadice wasn’t too sure he would be willing to help, though, muttering something about how he had refused to help her when she had been trying to save his sister. A curious tale, of which I ought to get Taureth’s side as well one of these days. However, for the moment the idea of trying to Trump all the way to the Courts was still far from workable.

            Gradually, we managed to make our area of stable Shadows larger and larger. Rinaldo and Boadice took it in turns to go over to the next Shadow, but after a while the danger didn’t seem as imminent anymore as it first had been. It was a quite exhausting excercise, though, especially after everything I had already been through in Galoria, so I was glad when we finally reached an area where the Pimal Chaos appeared to have done less damage. I started moving us further in that direction, until we could anchor our whole area to some Shadows that were still completely unaffected. There we stopped for a while, and I took a step back, so to speak, and tried to assess the current situation. The good news was that the Primal Chaos appeared to have reached the edge of how far it was going to spread and that we had been able to secure a significant area of Shadows. Not so good was the large, roughly sickle-shaped area that still consisted of loose Shadows boundlessly drifting on a sea of Primal Chaos. Towards the middle, the situation was at its worst, with actual vortices of raw power swirling around. I figured that to have been the place where the Keep of the Four Worlds had originally been situated.

            From our newly established place of relative quiet we did as I had suggested and tried Taureth’s Trump. Unfortunately for us, the Shadows that were still affected were right between us and the Courts of Chaos, and the interference they caused made it impossible for Boadice and me to get through. A little frustrated Boadice started theorizing about bouncing the Trump signal off of some source of Power and reaching the Courts in some roundabout way, but the Power source that would have been most useful to us, that is the Pattern, was rather wrongly situated for what we had in mind. That is, when we were facing towards the Courts, the Pattern was right behind us. Boa asked whether she might be able to accomplish what she had in mind by means of one or more of the Crystal Spires, to which Janice said that while inter-Shadow communications was one of their applications, she doubted whether Boadice would achieve the required effect if she tried it with her regular Trump skills. Finally, Boadice and Rinaldo started discussing the matter in more esoteric terms of Trump, and I decided to step back and let them at it.

            Just as I was stretching myself a bit tiredly, Janice put her hand on my shoulder and pointed. Damn! There was no mistaking the black-clad figures she had spotted moving surreptitiously from tree to tree. The last time I’d seen guys like this had been when Melusine had led me and Fabian out of her mother’s prison in that other Reality. Quickly I tried to guess at their numbers, but I soon realised that there were too many of them. If they were as skilled as their colleagues whom we had been up against at the fairground in Quendor, so very long ago, we were in real trouble.

            Without any hesitation I turned and snatched Taureth’s Trump out of Boadice’s hand, while at the same time getting out my Trump deck. My Trump of Amber wasn’t hard to find, fortunately, and as I started concentrating I invited the others to join me, pointing out the danger creeping steadily closer. Unsurprisingly, all of them took me up on the offer. A good choice.

Previous Chapter

Next Chapter

Back to the index