The Battle of the Abyssal Plain

The personal diary of Sorashi, daughter of Deirdre

My mother came to Ikisadha after an absence of some years - I was needed for a great battle, apparently, for Amber. I had nothing to stay for, so I went with her.

The journey to the battle was not worth relating here, so I shall start my recollections with the battle itself. The army of Amber was arrayed a distance from a large chasm called the Abyss (said to be bottomless), our right flank protected by the Black Road and there was a hill to our back, where the command team surveyed the field. Our group of axe-men were on the left wing with Flora's archers to our left. The sky wheeled incessantly in contrasting colours, but the ground seemed stable enough.

Despite the strange environment, the battle itself was confusing and desperate, the stench of fear and aggression drifting through the air. We fought, outnumbered by the forces of Chaos but aided by their strange reluctance to co-ordinate any aspect of their fight. They attacked like gusts of wind, like waves in a sea storm - even when the drifting extrusions allowed troops to cross the Abyss, they were as like to wander off in a random direction as to fight. Our troops held, but the archers had a worse time of it, more lightly armoured as they were - Mother yelled to me to pull off troops to protect our flanks just before they broke - we managed, none too soon.

The Chaos troops expecting an easy fight got a nasty surprise not only from our well-defended flank, but from the cadre of rangers sent to plug the gap. And so it continued - we stood and they broke upon us. As the battle turned in our favour, I saw a red light on a rise someway in front of us. It seemed a signal, though I was ignorant of its meaning - but Mother seemed to have been expecting it. Pausing only to pass command to me she moved swiftly to its summons though a few more Chaos warriors fell during her passage.

As the pressure had eased on our position, I could pay attention to the area she was heading for. There seemed to be a small gathering there, including a green-clad warrior standing apart and readying an arrow in his bow - friend, foe or family I could not tell. From the stance of the others, there seemed to be some form of discussion going on, but I could not see between whom - nor could I see Mother. A movement caught my eye as the green warrior shot his arrow, a fluid motion ending with the nocking of another arrow.

Then it was I heard the scream - it could only be her. Instinctively, I started to shift, but it would take too long so I ran, unopposed by the enemy, to where the scream arose.

Family members stood there, card-painted faces now made flesh, but Mother was not there though I could smell fear and I could smell blood. The fear had my breast clamped as though in a vice.

Not wishing to draw unnecessary attention to myself, I approached a randomly chosen noble to ask what had happened - Brand had been there and been shot by Caine (the green-clad warrior) and fallen into the Abyss, but had grabbed Mother in his falling. I can recall nothing of any response I gave, but I felt dislocated, as though the ground had ceased to exist. However, such emotion as I should have felt had to wait as I noticed a Shadow stormfront approaching swiftly - it was huge, as though it could swallow the universe. Then the clouds moved to form a face, vast in scale, above us. Someone muttered 'Father'. This was the likeness of Oberon, then.

The image spoke of his task of restoring the Pattern, and the likelihood of his demise in this endeavour, leaving Amber without a designated heir. This choice would therefore be left 'on the horn of the Unicorn' - not a phrase I had heard before, but leaving this to chance or the robust power struggles of the family seemed extremely naive. Next, along the Black Road came a procession of people (for want of a better word) - soldiers from a thousand shadows, floating metal things, winged glowing beings and several dragons, it seemed to go on forever until a cart driven by a hunchback (Dworkin?) appeared, bearing a coffin and with glowing staves at each corner. It passed us, on to the Courts of Chaos.

Suddenly there was movement from the Abyss - an unreasoning hope arose in me, but it was not Mother. A hoof struck the edge, then another, followed with some effort by the rest of the Unicorn. She stood, regarding us all - as her gaze rested on me, I realised what it was to stand in the present of a god. I felt humbled yet loved - but what she sought was not within me. She moved to a youngish man - Random, my memory supplied his name eventually - and on her horn was a red glowing jewel on a golden chain.

The Jewel of Judgement.

He took it and murmured 'Thank you'. And thus was Random made king.

The order was given to advance to the Courts of Chaos - I returned to the men and prepared to move. Some time later, we were assembled in the great hall of Chaos' court. I noted that Random, Corwin and Fiona were not here, along with some young man whose name I forget, but there were enough of us to provide a spectacle for the galleries lining the walls, packed with their nobility - richly and variedly dressed as they were, I harboured a suspicion that raiment was not the only thing changed for the occasion.

A large stone throne dominated, the figure sitting on it did not - a shrivelled old man, at his side a lank-haired pallid humanoid - male or female, I could not tell. The old man was announced to the assembled throng - the only one standing out being 'High King of Chaos' the rest a babble but no doubt important to someone. I think his name is Augustus, though this may have been another title, but after the caste-flaunting had finished, the actual business began as he asked who spoke for Amber. Benedict stepped forward and stated his demands - cessation of hostilities, limitation of Chaos to the World Tree, reparations and the handing over of war criminals to Amber - any others are lost to my recollection now.

Glancing back at my troops (strange to term them so) I waited for the cattle-trading of diplomacy to wend its tortuous way to conclusion - hardly expecting the naked threat given in response by the High collector of Chaos titles. Entering was easy, in effect, leaving would not be. I think Pattern was used as a threat, and Augustus' childish glee was sharply reduced by the news that the king of Amber was not amongst his captives. The sort of thing one would want to check first before gloating, I would have thought.

In the midst of this, however, a shocked gasp ran round the room from the assembled Chaos nobles, at the same time as the unmistakeable thrum of Pattern began to mount - the focus of both seemingly a dark-haired woman in green and purple, who stared fixedly at the floor now. The gasp subsided as the Pattern dissipated, and I am not sure there were not hands unclasped from weapons.

Note to self - Pattern is a bad idea here.

The conclusion from the discussions was that we were to be sent out to various Chaos houses and the elders would persist in trying to persuade them to let us go. Seeking clarification, I approached the nearest elder, which happened to be Julian - although miles away, a few steps took me to within arm's reach (distance seemed flexible, to say the least). I explained who I was (not exactly a warm response, but this was family) and asked what we younger members were expected to do. In essence, we were to woo those Houses we were put with to make them like us enough to let us go, though I was warned not to promise anything we couldn't deliver.

As I turned to go, I faced the woman who had caused the disturbance, talking with a being the colour of summer mud. With a polite smile and nod, I prepared to leave until I noticed a Chaos noble making his way towards us, a determined expression on his face, followed by another being, humanish if you ignored the eyes of a blowfly in his head. Ignoring me, the noble upbraided the woman for her faux pas, pointing out the serious consequences to whatever she had done (apparently putting Chuggernath in the shade, from what I could gather). Shamefaced, the woman explained she had meant no harm and would not do so again, which seemed to satisfy him and he left, walking back towards the throne.

A pretty young girl hovered (not literally) at a respectful distance but sought to catch my eye - dressed in black and white, with hair the colour of flame, she gave her name as Wendy, demon for House Minobee upon whom I seem to have been inflicted. I was asked to follow her (my presumed cousin was also to be transported, to House Spectrum, I heard) so I followed. After a journey like a khat-addict's dream, we reached a lonely white tower on a mountainside - this was House Minobee. It seemed forlorn and empty - as we walked through echoing halls and empty corridors, I saw no other living thing. Finally, I was led into a sumptuously decorated room, where sat an old woman of noble bearing, grey haired and dark eyed - my host, Countess Larsa.

I was greeted warmly and invited to sit. Food was brought by Wendy, and it was very good. After I had finished, the Countess and I talked - she commenced by offering condolences on Mother's death - this seemed to resonate with her as she, too was alone. The House had a great lineage and had wielded no small power in the past, but now it was just her - she had a sister, Belissa, but she had joined House Hendrake. Larsa's problem was that in order to have offspring, she had to divide herself in two, like a salamander (my analogy, not hers) - the resultant twins were then vulnerable and needed someone to look after them, but with Belissa's departure left no-one to do so. Something to bear in mind?

Whilst talking of my mother, Larsa made a startling offer - in her view, there were 'streams of possibilities' which, if manipulated correctly, would deliver a present where Mother was no longer falling through the Abyss. Favours could be called in to do this, but the streams were not in existence for long, so a decision had to be made soon. When I asked of the price, I was told there were obviously 'consequences' to this - I do not know if she deliberately avoided the question, or we were not speaking the same language.

Whether fear, suspicion or incomprehension ruled me, I cannot say, but I could not make a decision. I said I would have to think about it.

Sometime later Wendy brought news that William of House Ascaris had arrived to see me. This proved to be the noble from the great hall, tall and broad shouldered, with greying curly hair, dressed in blue and yellow. He was polite enough but the encounter suffered from his obvious social awkwardness as well as Larsa's cheerful interest and 'helpful' asides on 'human mating rituals'. It felt like having one's dissolute grandmother take an active interest in your first adolescent meeting of a potential suitor - irritating and embarrassing in equal measure.

Apparently William was eager to meet his cousins (so, an Amberite, then) but this was handicapped by not knowing who they were or where they had been taken. I remembered that the dark-haired girl (called Constance, according to William) had been taken to House Spectrum. Thus we followed his servant (Delambre) through the khat-dream paths to where Constance was being hosted. It proved to be a migraine-inducing swirl of revolting colours wherein, as we came near, a grubby turquoise began to dominate. In the midst of this flat colour, was a wood - well, to be accurate, an area realistically fabricated to look like a wood, but it smelt and sounded of nothing. The only sound was a soft sobbing coming from beside a silent stream - Constance.

She was pathetically grateful to see us - her hosts had not been kind towards her, from what she told us. I gave her some of my trail rations as she had not been fed - dry and slightly old as they were, she fell on them as though they had been a Mogul feast. Unfortunately, she knew no more of the younger family than I did, neither names or descriptions - after some discussion, William agreed that his grandmother would probably know, but he did not seem enthused by acting on this. Unfortunately, we had no other option so we went to meet William's House.

'Grandmother' turned out to be Cymnea of Amber, an ex-wife of Oberon. On his arrival, William was treated like an adolescent, teased about his 'new girlfriends'. It may explain a lot. Also at the table was the High King's advisor (female, apparently) and Caine, the green-clad warrior from the Abyss. After the effusive Amber family welcome in which I feel I was mentally filed under ' unknown, possibly useful later', we got some information regarding the whereabouts of our relatives.

The first stop was House Malastar, a floating metal habitation in a starry expanse, hosts to cousin Havelock - understatedly theatrical in manner but seeming friendly enough. He was happy to meet up with others of his generation, so our slowly-expanding little band wandered the khat-dream paths after Delambre to the castle of House Petrus. They seemed to have an obsession with stone, which no doubt had some deep significance, but I am not convinced by stone armour.

The last two of our cousins were there, although it took a great deal of effort getting past the intransigent door guards. We finally convinced them to convey a message to someone in authority (who thankfully had rather more than pebbles for brains) who gave the order to let us in.

The last of our kin were Darig and Margrath - after introductions we discussed our course of action, guided by William as the one with most experience of the Courts. This guidance was not the most smooth of experiences though - his social skills had clearly stalled at adolescence, and I did not appreciate some overgrown baby snidely correcting my (my!) alleged social naivety. He was, however, all we had to work with.

On another track, the cards had not been working - I had not even thought of them until Havelock mentioned it, but it may have had something to do with the Shadow storm. They seemed to be functional now, but remembering Constance's little effort initially I was reluctant to try - something for another time, maybe.

We agreed that our primary goal was safe passage out of here for all Amberites - the other demands were either outside our scope or not really relevant to us.

The discussion about Trumps had clearly fired William's thoughts and he seemed desperately convinced that some of his family were still alive, Rhiannon was the name he mentioned. He wanted my card of her to try contact, I put him off, telling him I would prefer to wait until we were sure they were safe to use here. The pleading note in his voice was like an orphaned child clinging desperately to the belief that Maman would come back soon any day now.

(Constance was pretty sure Rhiannon was dead - I did not relay this to him, though)

We parted, now that we knew where (and who) each other was, contact would be easier. I went to bed shortly after my return - it had been a long 'day' (for want of a better term) - pausing only to chat briefly to Countess Larsa.

I dreamt I was in the starry void again, watching a comet shoot across my view. As it came closer, I could see it was no comet, but Mother, her very being abraded from her to form the glowing tail.

She was screaming.

As, apparently, was I, as I discovered on being woken by a concerned-looking Wendy. Maybe not the best behaviour for a guest.

I need to accept Larsa's offer, but I fear the consequences. I need to speak to an elder, for benediction rather than advice - the price to be paid may be more than we can pay, but I need to do something. I cannot stand by and let her die slowly, abraded into nothingness.

I can't leave her in the Abyss.