Karm Before the Storm

The personal diary of Margrath, son of Sand, pt 10

I was still working at the Alhambra, assessing and repairing the structure, which appears to be somewhat like cobwebs in appearance. All the while I was working Asfar was hanging around, keeping an eye on me.

As I worked in and around the courtyard I was aware, as we had been before, of a bound spirit under or in the metal plate that sits in the courtyard’s centre. This spirit is bound into the plate and is an extremely powerful demonic spirit, though what else you would expect to find bound into the fabric of a place in the Courts I’m not sure. Looking at it, with Sight, is difficult and confusing as the spirit does not fully exist on this plane, rather it spans multiple planes. It appears to me as a series of dots and shapes, though there is some structure to it, and the form of a feathered serpent is discernible at times. At others there is a flavour of the draconic.

There is one thing though of which I have not doubt. This spirit was bound here as a power source for the Alhambra, and it has been here for a long time.

I attempted to communicate with the spirit and as soon as I spoke it reacted in a predatory manner. It told me that I am repairing the place wrongly, cack-handed, and that I need schooling in the correct ways of repair and maintenance of structures in the Courts.

In our conversation it said that it is connected to all sorts of places, including at one time, Amber. Now, however, Amber is gone, it no longer has a connection to that place. This I feel is indicative of Amber having changed and this spirit merely not being able to connect to the new Amber.

After some time I thought to ask it its name. It calls itself Kirgiz. It also told me that it had been watching me, presumably to comment on the poor skill I showed at repair. However, it said there was also something else, outside the estate, watching me, but that it was not worried about that because it seems to be only a threat to me and not to the Alhambra.

At this point my attention was brought back to the plane of the Alhambra, as Sorashi arrived back and it took me a short while to readjust to seeing in that place after watching Kirgiz.

We talked about what I had been doing and what I had learnt, especially about Amber not being there. It was thought that possibly Amber may have changed, along with Random’s trump, if he has now become King of Amber. As a trump of a person will change with time and the development of a person, so may a place’s trump change if the place has lost the spiritual shape it had when the trump was drawn. Sorashi checked her trumps of places in Amber and they seem now to be merely pieces of card, all their magic gone with the changes in the places they connect to, perhaps. She passed me her trump for the Palace gardens and I had to admire the beauty of the place, but agree that it was now just a picture.

We checked trumps for the Elders who are now in the Courts and they were all unchanged. The trumps for Brand, Delwin, Corwin, Fiona and Gerard were mostly dead, while those for the Palace gardens and Random were just dead cards. Interestingly the trump for Oberon also fell into the mostly dead category. This may just indicate, as with Delwin, that his spirit has not passed on yet, and maybe will not until his funeral.

We were interrupted by a banging on the main door to the Alhambra and Suhuy’s arrival was announced. He had come to speak to Sorashi and they talk about her upcoming duel with the thing in the cellar, which she needs to best to become Lady of the House.

Suhuy pointed out that she only had to best it in some way – even if this is by cheating, as that appears to be accepted common practice in the Courts. He suggested that she may consider a contest of shape-shifting.

Suhuy then said something very particular. “I remember how it will be, it will be very useful”.

Sorashi then demonstrated her shape-shifting ability to Suhuy, which is more proficient than I had previously believed. She shifted to the forms of a tiger, which I had seen before, and then to the forms of a griffin and an eagle, which I had not seen before.

Suhuy then entered into contest with Sorashi by changing into a thundercloud, as something that can best an eagle, prompting Sorashi to try to change into competing forms. She changed into a whirlwind to disperse the thundercloud, Suhuy changed into a stone wall and Sorashi changed into ivy. Suhuy then changed back to the form he has been using while we have known him, and seemed reasonably impressed with Sorashi’s skill. They then talk about reptile forms and the virulence of venoms.

When they were done I mentioned to Suhuy about the watcher Kirgiz had talked about, and he suggested going to have a look. He walked through a door and onto the battlements, from where we could see that the surroundings had a washed-out look. We both agreed that there was something watching. We returned to the courtyard and Sorashi talked to Suhuy about the attack she suffered previously when visiting the Alhambra.

From walking with Suhuy onto the battlements and watching what was being done, I could see how to use the Ways, at least within the Alhambra, to move around, jumping from place to place. I should study this here and in other places in the Courts.

Before entering the arena for the duel, Sorashi made it clear that if she died she wished the Alhambra to pass to Deirdre.

The Arena was open above to the Abyss and Suhuy and myself were watchers, knowing that we must not intervene in the duel about to take place, lest we cause the outcome to be against Sorashi.

Sorashi entered the Arena and so did the nightmare that is the Chimaera. It asked Sorashi ‘Who are you, speak your name’, and she answered. It replied that it was Todaformas. Sorashi then issued a challenge to a contest of forms, to which Todaformas agreed.

Sorashi apparently had choice of the first form and she chose eagle. This was met by a falcon which Sorashi’s eagle flew above and became a net. Todaformas then became a flock of butterflies who flew through the net. Sorashi became an air elemental and the butterflies scattered to become shuriken which hit the walls and melted and then came together as liquid metal. Sorashi contained the metal in a glass hemisphere which she extended into a sphere to completely surround the metal. The metal then became a Dwarf with a pickaxe, who started to chip its way out of the glass sphere. Then Sorashi became a tiger which closed on the Dwarf but was hit in the shoulder by the pickaxe. The tiger came closer and changed to a liana to entangle the Dwarf. The Dwarf immediately began to pull the Liana apart which changed to wire and became hot. The Dwarf then changed to a metal Dwarf whereupon the wire became a cloud of ice and the Dwarf became hot. The ice cloud then formed into a heavy, cone shaped object above the Dwarf, which dropped onto the Dwarf and became buried in his head. The object then turned to water and reacted to the Dwarf, who was now incandescent, causing an explosion which shattered the Dwarf.

In the aftermath of the explosion we could see Sorashi reform with a gash on her shoulder and we could also see that she was scaled all over. We also observed the pieces of the Dwarf coming back together. I asked Suhuy if the duel was now over, and he advised we wait, cautiously.

The pieces of the Dwarf came together to reform the Chimaera who then asked Sorashi, “What are your wishes, Mistress?” She had triumphed and is now the mistress of the Alhambra.

After we were together again, Suhuy warned Sorashi about the possible dangers of shape-shifting outside the Courts, for instance in places where clouds of ice cannot have brains. Then he again remembered how this place will be and that it will be important in relations between the Courts and Amber.

As we were taking our leave of Suhuy and the Alhambra I noticed a faint screaming from outside and, as it got louder, it seemed to be coming from within the walls. I wondered if this was the watcher that I had been aware of and had been warned of by Kirgiz? As it got louder the screaming began to cause an almost physical pain in my ears, and I was aware that Suhuy was affected as well, though to what extend I could not be sure.

Suddenly there was a loud bang and a crash and we were aware that something had arrived. It sounded like a roof had fallen in and a body had fallen from a great height. Sorashi seemed to recover more quickly from this, possibly because she is not so attuned to magic and spirit. Suhuy and I had fallen and, as I helped him back to his feet, he advised caution, although he said that he thought he knew what this was. He told Asfar to attend to the Lady Sorashi, his Mistress.

Lying on the ground was the body of a naked woman, which turned out to be the Lady Zae, minus her tongue, apparently returned from her initiation. Suhuy said that he thought her tongue would have grown back by now, but thinks that maybe they can make a new one for her.

Interesting, because if she is now a Chaos Lady, surely she would be able to shape-shift now, and even if her default form has no tongue, she should be able to take a form with a tongue. Maybe it doesn’t work like that? Something I will have to talk over with Sorashi or Suhuy if I have the chance.

Asfar came out with suitable clothes for both the Lady Zae and for Sorashi as Mistress of the Alhambra.

Unfortunately Suhuy did not think that the Lady Zae was the watcher, as I had previously conjectured. He felt that that watcher had a degree of malevolence to me and Sorashi, and possibly to the rest of the cousins. Whether it has been watching the others I do not know but I also wonder if its malevolence extends to the older Amber generation as well?

Suhuy thought we should accompany him to Brứ-na-Bóinne and he then guided us to there. On arriving we were met with a Melvin who was very happy to see Sorashi. Nobody else was there when we arrived. Suhuy then left to take Lady Zae back to House Zigo, but he left a message for William – Congratulations on his impending nuptials but, “You can take the Angel out of Chaos, but you can’t take Chaos out of the Angel.”

Shortly, or possibly aeons, after Suhuy left, the other cousins arrived and we introduce Sorashi as Lady of the Alhambra, and talked to them about the arrival of Lady Zae and about the watching presence. None of them seemed to be specifically aware of it and I wonder if it is confined somehow to the Alhambra?

Darig suggested that the Alhambra may make an ideal embassy for Amber in Chaos or the location for an envoy from Amber.

We talked to Melvin, in general terms, about what we would be discussing and he stepped away to decide whether he wanted to join us in talking about overthrowing a Chaos House, but he returned shortly having decided to be part of our discussion.

William believed that he could get three people into House Karm, and get four people out, and present them to the Board – the ruling group of House Karm. He felt that when inside the threat of using Pattern would be enough to force them to release Julian. The team going in were to be William, Constance and Havelock. It was noted that a trump reading had already shown that William and Havelock were focuses in this endeavour. Plus, while William is a warrior, Havelock is much better at negotiation.

William also said that he believed the party to present us to the High King is drawing near. Earlier at the Thelbane, he had observed preparations for the party and he had also observed that there was some trace of a closer relationship between Mandor and Oggil of House Karm.

The plan was that the team would free Julian and take him to the Alhambra, or to Sanctuary in the Duomo if that turned out to be necessary. His condition would be examined and dealt with after he was safely out. Those not going into House Karm would wait at the Alhambra. When the team was about to go in, Havelock would trump Dirk so that he could tell Caine what we were doing, and therefore pass that information on to the other Elders.

As a last resort, Havelock lent me trumps of himself, William and Constance so that, should it be necessary, I could trump them out. Melvin then advised me that Suhuy had a high opinion of my intuition and he told me to trust that intuition as to when to use the trumps. Melvin himself decided to wait at Brứ-na-Bóinne in case there was an attack on the Alhambra, and we could then get a message to him via demon and he would pass the message on to House Ascaris.

The team then set off for their meeting at the Clock of Doom.

While we waited at the Alhambra I used the information that I had observed and deduced before, to check out the doors within the House. Certain doors lead to multiple destinations and by opening them with the right intent you can choose where you want to be. I found two things of further interest – there are four ‘backdoors’ to the place which are locked, but which can be opened by Asfar if the Mistress so desires. There is also only one door to the treasure room, which leads in and out of that room, almost like a normal door. This is obviously for security reasons.

As we waited I noticed that the trumps went dead for a while. This was presumably due to the blocking effect that House Karm has set up, and indicated that the team had entered the House. The trumps became active again a while later and just as I was deciding to trump Havelock, he trumped me and told me that the four of them were out of House Karm. Thus indicating that Julian’s incarceration was ended.