It has been a very intense day working with Llewella, one that has enlightened us to several dangers we face, as well as to new abilities that walking the pattern has conferred on us.
One of these, the ability to both read and manipulate the mind of an individual, fills me with great fear. The fact that it can be so simple to do, requiring either direct eye contact over a short distance, or physical contact makes it an even more dangerous ability.
One outcome of Llewella's assessment this morning is that I shall have to take great care around Cordelia. Whilst Llewella appeared to have no difficulty in invading Archibald's or my mind, something that still causes me to shudder when I think on it, she appeared to have to work quite hard to invade Cordelia's. Her comment that with the right training Cordelia might be able to resist her, adds a greater requirement to be cautious.
Assessment of our mental capabilities, was only a precursor to the days main activity, which was to learn the basics of Trump. Trump seems to be some sort of entity like magic, except that it can only be activated by embedding it into objects, most notably in the form of thin plaques slightly larger than the hand. The set Llewella produced reminded my of a Jafran deck from my own world. On what she called the "Major Arcana" were pictures of each of the members of the family, although it appears some are no longer alive. Holding one of these cards in your hand and concentrating hard, although that is not on it's own enough, enables the holder to activate the card, placing them in mind-to-mind contact with the person depicted.
After allowing Archibald and myself, in turn, to attempt to activate the her card and initiate contact unsuccessfully for several minutes, she passed the card to Cordelia. After but a couple of minutes her face glazed over as if she were suddenly somewhere else. After a few seconds she 'returned' blinking as she did so. Llewella congratulated her then asked her to do it again. When she did so Llewella called a halt to proceedings and suggested we have lunch. When we returned in the afternoon Llewella gave gave her a stack of plaques to with, whilst she spent some time coaching Archibald and myself.
It was about an hour later when we were startled by the sound of one of the plaques landing with a clatter on the floor. I didn't quite understand Llewella's comment about "not expecting her to get that far that fast". When I asked what had happened she said she'd explain later, once Archibald and myself could activate the plaques without too much effort.
Perhaps another hour passed before Llewella called a halt to the afternoon's practice. Both Archibald and myself were capable of activating the plaque with her picture on it as well as a few of the plaques in the stack that Cordelia had been playing with. When Llewella had retrieved the plaque from the floor she had done so carefully, and then had carefully touched several points on the card. As she touched the last one Cordelia had reappeared. She had then explained that trumps could be trapped to kill, main, or imprison the unwary, but detecting and dealing with them was a lesson very much for the future.
So much has happened in what for me has been the last four days, which I have yet to reconcile with the fact that it is only 8 hours since we arrived at Llewella's studio this morning. Had I know then of the events that were to unfold I would never have gone, and I shall never forgive Cordelia for the manner in which she violated both myself and Archibald. Even Llewella was forced to give her a dressing down. I still cannot believe she cavorted unclothed in front of Archibald, even going as far as taunting him to do something about it.
I feel it is going to take me some time to write this entry, as I begin to shake as I think about what was done to us. This then as I write gives way to anger and I am forced to stop writing whilst I calm myself. I am no longer a teenager and therefore have no excuse for not being able to control my emotions.
Perhaps I should set events out as they occurred.
Having broke our fast this morning Archibald and I made our way to Llewella's studio. Cordelia was already there as she had been yesterday, wearing that sword of hers as she has done every since she returned to Amber 5 days ago. Llewella is of the option that it once belong to a powerful Chaos Lord as it is both a Trump power source and a Logrus spell rack. Perhaps this is where Cordelia derives her power from.
After we arrived Llewella announced that we would not be spending the day in the studio but would spend it traveling. She then handed Cordelia one of the Trump Plaques that we had been using yesterday. She then told her to establish contact as we'd been taught and once she'd done this to materialize a gate, which she then had to further explain. It took Cordelia about half an hour with Llewella's guidance to materialize the gate. Llewella then instructed Archibald and myself to sep through it before following herself. As Cordelia was stepping through, Llewella grabbed her and pulled her out of harms way as the gate collapsed. She said that next time she must either be quicker in stepping through or hold the gate open for longer, otherwise she would leave part of herself behind. An event which would most likely result in her death - oh that fortune should favour us so.
Perhaps I should not be so unkind as to have written that. All of us are new to our abilities and Llewella did explain that there was no malice in what happened, just that Cordelia lost control, and having such a powerful psyche inflicted a lot of damage unintentionally. Logic says that I give credance to this but my feelings are very much the opposite.
Llewella then turned to me and gave me one of the Plaques. It was my turn to do what Cordelia had just done. It took much longer and a considerable amount of guidance from Llewella, all done in mind-to-mind contact, for me to achieve it, and I was quite tired at the end of it. With my turn over it was Archibald's, and like me he required a considerable amount of help and guidance. We did however end up at a rather nice eating establishment where we had a relaxing lunch, very much the calm before the storm.
With lunch over, we adjourned to Llewella's villa. She then explained that this afternoons exercise was similar to this morning's, except that rather than use a place trump we would be calling her and creating a gate that would allow either us to join her or her to join us. Cordelia would go last in this exercise. She flipped a coin resulting in Archibald going first.
From this point nothing went well. Archibald tried to do what Llewella asked and after struggling for about 10 minutes gave up. Then Cordelia became distant, not appearing to pay any attention to her surroundings for several minutes. After she regained her focus she said that she'd been instructed by Llewella to help Archibald. She told him to re-establish contact with Llewella, and then put her hand on his shoulder as Llewella had done. Archibald reacted to this and she removed her hand after a few seconds. She then threatened him and put it back. I'm not sure what she did next, but she appeared to feint, and Archibald began to shout and scream at her accusing her of violating him. Everthing happened so fast after that, one minute he was shouting, then he was on top of her completely silent, then woodenly standing his eyes fixed and staring into space. I didn't know what to do.
Cordelia then got up and sat back in a chair, all the while holding Archibald's wrist. Then she spoke "Archi you can try again now. I'm not going to exert any more control than I am now, and I'm not interested in your private life."
I put my hand to my mouth and turned away. I could not belive she was calmly sitting there controlling another human being like a puppet. She then said "I'm taking control now so you can see what to do."
By the time I turned around Archibald was offering Llewella his hand and she was stepping through the gate. Both Cordelia and Archibald then appeared to relax, and his eyes returned to their normal appearance.
At this point my memory becomes very unclear. I can remember Llewella handing me her trump, and then Cordelia stampeding through my mind and me screaming "Stop!Stop!Stop!"
When I came to I was no longer on the terrace and the villa, but sitting under a tree in a dense forest, my dress tattered and torn, with evidence of elekron burns. The evidence sugested I must have reverted to my primal form and fled.
It was about 2 days later when Llewella caught up with me. She said nothing just rode along on her horse beside me. After about half an hour I asked her what she was doing here. She said she was looking for me. When I asked her why she said I was a member of the family whether I like it or not and therefore I couldn't just go running about shadow as I pleased. When I retorted angrily, she said she was aware of what happened as she'd read the details from Cordelia's memory, before treating the electrical burns that had nearly killed her. If Cordelia hadn't had the mental endurace she had then most likely both she and Archibald would be dead and she, Llewella, would be none the wiser as to what had happened, and therefore would be tracking me with very different intentions. When I asked her what she meant she said she'd have killed me when she caught me. When I asked her what she was going to do next, she said that that depended on me. If I chose to return with her then nothing, otherwise, she didn't need to spell it out.
I said that wasn't much of a choice. She said it was as much of a choice as Cordelia got when she grabbed my hand. She wasn't expecting what happened to happen, and by the time she realised what was happening she was flying through the air and I was disappearing into the sun. I didn't want to believe her. I still don't.
In the end I agreed but only on the condition that she found me some fresh clothes and an inn where I could take a bath and get a meal.
So it was that about 4 hours later we returned to the villa. Cordelia was climbing, completely unclothed, out of the swimming pool, whilst Archibald watched her from the reclining area. He blushed when I entered the room. After Llewella fetched a robe and went outside to lecture Cordelia, he and I managed to discuss a little of what happened, although I think it will take several days for either of us to be able to discuss it fully.
Archibald and I have had a little time to talk this afternoon, to compare notes on what Cordelia did to us, and also for me to explain a little of what happened on the terrace after Cordelia grabbed my arm. It also seems that Llewella exagerated the truth. He was not nearly killed by my exit mearly rendered unconscious. Cordelia on the other hand had been really badly injured but had somehow managed to call Llewella, and open a gate. Llewella had then apparently used a spell to heal Cordelia, and then gone in search of me. Cordelia had been unconscious for 40 hours before re-appearing in the manner in which I'd encountered her by the pool. The fact that she'd been like that for over five hours by the time we returned I simply cannot find words to expressed my feelings about. He on the other hand has different reactions, firstly embarrasement, and secondly lasciviousness.
Since we returned at lunchtime we have not seen Cordelia. Florimel said at dinner, that she had been seen leaving the castle on foot with Random shortly after we returned, and as neither of them had returned they were most likely getting drunk at Dave's. I asked who Dave was, and Delwin said he was the owner of a dive of a drinking establishment, that Corwin, Cordelia's father, and Random spent too much time in. Benedict commented that is wasn't so bad, and that it was better than most places Gerrard and Julian frequented. Benedict then asked us if we'd managed to get ourselves organised for our trips the following day. Archibald was as stunned as I was. When we queried Benedict he in turn said "hasn't Random discussed this with you", to which both of us replied no he hadn't. He then uttered a number of profanaties before declaring than he needed to talk to both of us after dinner because Random wasn't likely to be in a fit state to do so in the morning.
Thus we learnt that Archibald would be off to the Courts tomorrow with Bleys, I would be traveling to Maenios with Florimel and himself, and Cordelia would be off into shadow on what he termed a "trade mission". Even though he explained it as gathering a number of critical cargoes and bringing them back to Amber whilst keeping some of our trading partners happy I had the distinct impression that he was hiding something or at least not telling the whole story. There was also perhaps the slightest hint of "we're keeping you two away from her", but maybe I'm reading more into the explanation than is really there.
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