I find that it’s Cordelia. She has collapsed, but she at least made it to the centre. Fiona is holding her. Fiona make a sort of doorway and Luke uses it to get to her and Cordelia. She then pulls his through. Luke then vanishes with Cordelia.
Fiona then returns to whatever she is doing.
I ask and find that Luke would have taken her to the infirmary. A grunt shows me the way.
I ask the grunt what he knows about the pattern. He says it was drawn by Corwin at the end of the Pattern fall War 19 years ago. “So this is not the first war” The castle building was started about 17 years ago. Mostly completed 18 months ago. “So it has not been here long”. The Town serves the castle. “Well I guess it doesn’t do that at the moment”. The pattern is off limits to all except the Family. It will kill anyone that stands on it. And a few have died from doing that. Luke knows more as he is part of the family.
I guess all amberites are part of the family. Looks like they are treating me like a member of the family too even though I am not OF Amber.
We arrive at the infirmary and Luke says she is breathing but is in some sort of coma. They don’t have the equipment to do a brain scan here. Brain scan I guess that’s more future technology, so in the future we will know more about the brain interesting. They will just have to wait and see.
I ask Luke if we can chat later, he says he will meet me in the mess at 7pm.
I ask if the Nurse can arrange for me to be informed when if Cordelia wakes up. She says she will get a message to me. I get the grunt to follow me so I can pick up some stuff up at the armoury and supply store.
I get some armour. Even though in vampire form I am immune to most attacks I have started to find out I can do more useful stuff in human form like give myself wolf eyes etc.
We go and check on the others Cordelia said they will be out of it for a while the first time. But then with Cordelia out too they may need help.
The grunt helps me get them all into bed, as some teleported to their room floors. I ask the Grunt to get someone to check on them at set intervals and inform me when they wake up.
He leaves to get this sorted. And says if I need anything more I should ask at the command centre. I scan their aura’s to see if they are ok and to get a read of different auras to help me with my Aura shifting. I find out that yes Isocrates aura is mostly plain at the moment. But all three have the same mark in their auras. I guess this what you get when you walk the pattern.
While I wait for the time to meant Luke I practise my shape shifting and practise shifting my aura to match the others.
I am getting good at this aura shifting It does not take me too long to be able to change my aura and add the marks that the others have. After my chat with Luke I will go and check on the others and see if I have managed to copy their auras fully.
At 7 pm I met up with Luke.
I thank him for meeting me he says no problem helping integrate a new family member is somewhat traumatic. I guess he doesn’t know I am not an Amberite either. I guess Cordelia did not have chance to tell him, I was from the courts.
So only He, Fiona and Cordelia here can walk the pattern until we arrived.
He says as I have not walked the pattern I do not know my parents. While that’s true I tell him that Cordelia identified me as a member of the courts. And I did not see anything when the other walked the pattern. Allanon said he saw flames when Kohaku walked the pattern. But I just saw her fighting against some force trying to hold her back. He doesn’t know anything about the courts but at least he does not seem troubled that I am a member of the courts. And from what he says, lots of Amberites have visited the courts Cordelia used to go a lot until Random barred her from going there. And last time the black road was closer to the courts so they may have more problems than we do.
So interesting the last war was like this one and they fixed the pattern last time. SO we can fix it again.
He does not know why Cordelia collapsed as yes its true its only normally the first time that knocks you out.
Fiona is using the pattern to cover the castle with a force shield that blocks physical and trump attacks. I’m not sure what trump attacks are will have to find out.
Luke will need to go out and get coal soon as the castle seems to be using it as fast as they can get it. As I can’t walk the shadow I can’t help them.
I ask if I can go outside and have a look around. He says he will get me a pass that has to be stamped with a ring Fiona has so it will take a bit of time. Once I have the pass I can show it to the guard commander and I can leave via the cleft we entered by.
I ask to meet him tomorrow if he is still here. He says the coal run will take 3 to 4 days so he needs to go soon. But he may still be here and he will meet me if he is.
So as I can’t go out today and everyone is busy I head back to my room and continue my shape shifting. I am getting really good at adding wolf eyes and Bat echo location etc.
And Yes when I go and check on the others I can copy their auras fully. This will be useful. I wonder if it will pass a scan from Cordelia. But how to ask her, without her wondering why I am trying to do this.
Well I continue with my self-discovery and wonder around the castle. Until 7pm when I go and meet Luke. He gives me the pass. I ask if I can leave via the loading dock. But he says it is a dead end in this shadow so as I can’t shadow walk I will have to use the cleft.
Cordelia is ok, well at least she is still alive, but no change she is still unconscious. And does not respond to any form of stimulus.
He thinks that the other should wake up some time in the next morning.
So after our meal I head out and use the cleft to get out. I climb down as I don’t want to be spotted flying as a vampire climbing down I will be harder to spot.
I change into my wolf form to skulk around. But it means I will have to leave my clothes here. I wonder I can shift my aura and my body could I shift clothing etc. as well. I will have to try at some point. But not now.
I picked up a lot of Intel about the town. I will have to report this back to the castle. I also spot a lot of stray dogs. They should be easy to copy as close to my wolf and would be better to look like the local dogs.
But first I try to shift into the form of the demons. It take me about an hour of study to copy a demon, well it least a close copy if no one gets to close. I will need to get a better view to copy them fully. I don’t understand their language. It’s a shame I can’t walk the pattern as that is meant to give me understanding of all languages. I hope the logrus does the same.
I nearly get caught, but get away and then change into the form of a streay dog to get back to the castle
But while I was hiding in dog form I did manage to smell that there are humans alive here still. The people in the castle will want to know that.
Get back to my room at about 7am
Isocrates is awake. He is surprised that he can now understand what I am saying, I guess he did not get what Cordelia was saying to us about what the pattern can do. So after some introductions and an explanation about what is going on and that I am from a shadow that’s about 2000 years before mine. Etc. I also tell him about Cordelia.
I then check on Allanon. He’s ok and awake too. I tell him he’s has been asleep for about 2 days and what has happened in those 2 days.
I go to my room to eat breakfast. While I am eating Isocrates comes knocking he does not know how to use the showers, towels or get dressed.
After breakfast I take Isocrates to the store room and the armoury to get supplies and a slide rule as they have them here.
I get more changes of under clothes and another set of uniforms with captain’s stripes form them and my old uniform. If Cordelia has promoted me who am I to argue. I get a sewing kit.
We get a new sword for Isocrates and I tell him I will show him how to use it later.
On the way to the mess we check in on Cordelia. No change.
We meet Allanon in the mess (Not found Kohaku yet she is up and about but not seen here) and then Isocrates decides to walk the pattern again. While he and Allanon go to do this I go and tell the command staff what I saw in the town. They thanks me for the Intel and ask if I can get more.
When I get to the pattern Isocrates is near the centre but he seems to be talking to someone. Or he has gone mad.
When he get to the centre he teleports back to where we are waiting. And tells us he was talking to Corwin’s echo. At least when you walk the pattern you leave an echo on it.
He tells us that they don’t need to walk the pattern again they should not be able to walk it in their heads and then once they have done that they can use it to do shadow walking etc.
He says Corwin said he was told to attack Cordelia and he did, even though he is not sure why. Not good. The Main pattern in Amber is the damaged one.
The attack on Cordelia is more mental than physical. I wonder if I can read her aura and get through to her. I will try later.
Before that we go and do some sparring. Isocrates can use a sword but isn’t very good. Allanon is about as skilled as me but a bit faster, interesting.
When I check in on Cordelia Her aura is just a void, nothing there. I will have to tell Luke this when I see him next if Cordelia has not woken by then.
Ok so what have I learnt over these few days?
While I wait for it to get dark I see if I can shift my clothes. Well after a few hours concentrating I can see a small change in the shape of the sock I am practicing with, so it looks like I will be able to shift my clothes and perhaps other non-living mater like my gun and knifes etc. but it will take me a bit if time to fully learn this skill. I will practise more tomorrow but it dark so off out I go.
So I head out again. This time I look around the surrounding area. I find their main camp there are about 7000 in the main camp with patrols everywhere. But I could not find an easy bunch to attack tonight, so I guess I can’t get a closer look at a demon. Oh well maybe tomorrow night if we are still here.
I head back for morning and grab a couple of hours rest before breakfast.
One other thing I have noticed no incursions here. I guess the pattern here is stopping the black road appearing here.
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