My body clock told me it was mid afternoon by the time I awoke. The smell didn't seem as bad and I was able to enter one of the side rooms, at least to relieve myself. I pulled a Hershey bar from my pack and returned to studying the door or at least trying to draw a piece of the pattern like a piece of wire out of it. Knowing what you should end up with doesn't tell you how to achieve it, but sleeping on it had helped, but it has also made me wonder. What exactly has Fiona implanted into my psyche?
Eventually I mamaged to extrude a filament from the pattern and insert it into the hidden handle of the door. There was a click and it opened about half an inch or so. The blast of sulphur, chlorine, and phosphor that entered was nearly as over powering as the original stench in the room. The space beyond was also pitch black.
Drawing my sword, to use as a cane, and bringing up the pattern as a lens I started down the tunnel. Although the pattern has many uses a light source is not really one of them, but the feint shimmering blue of its structure allowed and inch or so of vision in the pitch black.
Inch by inch I made my way along the tunnel. After about 100 yards or so I detected the feint hint of a increase in luminescense, and another 50 yards brought me into a largish chamber. Along one wall and in streaks acros the ceiling bands of lichen glowed feintly their volume casting enough light to make out the skeleton of some large reptile and the chain and ring that had once bound it. As I made my way past I could see the feint outline of the cave mouth awash with pale blue light filtering in from beyond. I'd reached the True Pattern of Amber.
Last time I was here I had come from the other direction with Fiona. We'd ridden the path that circles Kolvir like a coiled python and down the 500m escarpment of the caldera rim to the obsidian plug on which is etched the True Pattern of Amber.How different it looked now.
As I exited the cave I just stopped and stared. Fully one quarter of the pattern was black, feint lines of purple marking the boundaries where the path lay, although I doubted they held much power. The rest of the pattern had not escaped either. From the centre radiated a spray pattern as if somebody had been spun violently whilst their jugular was opened. In the middle lay sprawled the woeful remains of the slight figure of a man, with strawberry hair, who five years ago became the reluctant King of Amber. On its side a few feet away, lay the Crown.
I then noticed the bodies. There were several dozen of them, all demonic littering the caldera. As I scanned the scene I stopped again. There was another figure I knew. Even in death he was handsom, his red hair and beard aflame against the black of the granite wall to which he'd been pinned. I crossed the caldera, anger building against the perpitrator of this atrocity. As I took the body of Bleys down I noticed his rings and sword were missing.
The climb to the rim temporarily exhausted me. I never knew a dead body weighted so much. The moon is bright to night so I have enough light to see by, enough at least to be able to build a cairn for Bley's body. When this is all over I shall return and ferry him to Amber proper, until then he rests a few feet from me overlooking the pattern itself. For Random there is no respite as yet. I dare not walk the pattern to retrieve his body.
Now I must return to Kolvir Peak over looking Castle Amber and collect Mikato who should be waiting for me there. Then I must find the waifs and Charity. They said Dierdre was alive and knew of the Pattern's desicration. It seems they have been telling the truth but I need to see this Dierdre for myself, and they know where she is.
There are many sorts of dogs as there are many sorts of Humans. Just like Humans they range from the almost imbacilic to near genius, but generally they are still dogs with dog intelligence. Then of course there is Mikato. The fact that he can engange in philosophical discussions about a TV program he's just watched or comment on some aspect of an incident he's just witnessed I still haven't quite got used to. Sometimes however having him about can prove exeptionally useful, like tonight for instance with the report he delivered after I made it back to the plateau above the castle. His other use is that he makes a great quilt and body warmer when necessary.
I'd made it back to the plateau shortly after 5 am. The moons were both still full and Tirna Nog'th hung in the sky above us like a silvered ghost. Mikato was waiting not on the plateau itself but slightly below on the side of Kolvir that faces away from the castle. The fact that he was here indicated that something was not right.
Rather than risk bedding down on the plateau I chose the gulley to the south side. It would make observing the castle harder but gave a better view of the city and Arden. The only draw back was that we would be clearly visible to anyone on the staircase to Tirna Nog'th.
As I struggled out of my armour and into my bivi bag I realised that autumn was truely settling in and was glad for the fur rug that settled in beside me. I brought him upto date on my own travels before he started recounting the previous nights events as he'd viewed them.
He'd first thought something was afoot late yesterday evening. Shortly before sunset he thought he'd seen a flash of reflected sunlight in the area of the bluff where we'd observed the castle two nights ago, but his vision like mine is not good at that distance. His suspicions had been confirmed by similar flashes after the moons had risen, but it wasn't until after midnight when he'd seen shapes move onto and up the East stair that he knew something was definately up.
It had remained quiet until about 3 am, when the castle had sprung into life as if somebody had stuck a hot poker into a hornets nest. About half an hour later a winged something had flown down from the castle and disappeared behind the bluff. The castle had remained in an agitated state since although it had started to quieten down shortly before I returned.It gave me food for thought as I put my head down for a much needed rest. Shadow walking in Amber is exceptionally tiring. I asked Mikato to wake me at noon or if he sensed trouble.
By the time Mikato woke me the weather had started to change. There was a freshening wind off the sea and grey threatening clouds had started to roll in. There was going to be a storm later. By the time I'd changed and eaten the cloud blanket was virtually complete and the air had turned hazy as the cloud base started to descend. I extracted my binoculars from my pack and moved to a position where I could scan the castle and the bluff. The castle looked reasonably calm, as did the city. As I scanned the bluff I caught the briefest flash of something moving at about the location where I had hid and observed a few days earlier.
Having established there was something there I needed a closer look. I also needed to locate Charity and the others. If the castle had not been occupied getting down to the bluff would only take a couple of hours but the long way round would take a couple of days. Since I needed the pattern to locate Charity I'd have to also use it to take a closer look at the bluff.
As I spun the lens and descened over the bluff I could clearly make out a female figure. Her aura was interesting. She was both a shapeshifter and Logrus User - what was a member of the courts doing spying on Amber? The lens also showed me something else - she also carried a Logrus blade. As I watched the figure retreated across the bluff towards where four horses were tethered. She appeared to check them, then mount one and ride off back down the East Road. For the time i had other things to attend to; i'd find out more about who she was later.
I now turned my attention to finding Charity and the others. Based upon what Mikato had told me I guessed they were hiding in the Castle somewhere, I hoped they weren't too close to the Pattern. I spun the pattern lens around and headed for the upper floors of the castle. Apart from the guards they appeared to be empty. This was not a good sign. As I steered the pattern lens lower towards the cell block the image became more and more indistinct and broken up, until I could only make out grey shadows. However I could tell one cell had gained an occupant since my last visit. As my head had started to pound with the exertion required to keep the lens intact I let it fade. If they were in the castle then the only way I would be able to find them was to go in after them. Not an entertaining thought. I would also need the cover of darkness if I wasn't to be observed. The problem is I didn't fancy descending a 1000ft cliff in the dark without the aid of the night vision capability of my armour. What I needed now was a Logrus Tendril with the power to fetch a hang glider.
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| Supporting Cast - Cordelia | The Keep of the Thirteenth Hour |