Terisa’s Diary part 20: The Awakening

in Brave New Worlds

The Awakening- New Year’s Day 3659

After the re-making of the world, I woke up in my house (how did I know it was mine?) and after some surprise that I had indeed woken up I set about trying to find the others. It became apparent that I was, for the time being at least, alone.

As I wander round the house I see I have two paintings which I somehow associate with Alaric – one is a hunting scene and the other is of a young boy on a horse learning to jump – intriguing to say the least as I don’t think I had the pictures before the re-making. They are however beautiful paintings; for all his apparent faults, Alaric was a true artist.

The house and surroundings I have described elsewhere. As I explore over the next couple of days they are gradually populated by people who just coalesce out of the air. The people have memories of their lives, friends and even me. I own a thriving business, a house in the city and an estate some distance away. It says something for the last few weeks that I don’t find any of this disturbing.

I make contact with Mother and others of the family and find that I am in the new City of Amber. She is round the Palace most days and we see each other quite often. We are in a new creation and there are lots of new Pattern realms, including Amber. We need to build shadow realms round Amber for protection and we need to do it quickly. Only one Pattern realm can ultimately survive and we need to make sure it is Amber. I miss Rebma (I think!) but Amber has its own charm.

Our chats take place whenever I am back in Amber. Random remembered my trick with the mirrors as he has around 100,000 citizens to feed but no new trading partners to provide supplies. We need to do something urgently to keep people fed. Random gives me the key to the treasury so there will be no problem with something to offer in return for the food.

I shadow-walk to find a shadow with sufficient food to meet Amber’s needs until trade routes are established. At Random’s suggestion, Peter comes with me as he is learning to shadow walk. I find a suitable shadow (which I will call Cerenia) and start arranging somewhere to make a mirror while Peter handles the negotiations (thank goodness, I was worried about that bit!).

While I get the first food supplies by mirror, Peter sets off to create a shadow path back to Amber so the food can be transported without mirrors, we are limited as I have to work to keep the mirror open and cannot leave it unattended.

I go back to Amber whenever I take a break, if the mirror is being moved to another location and to sleep. Breakfast is a good time to catch up with anyone else who is around.

Eventually Gerard and Gilgamesh set up new trade routes, bringing other food into Amber and with the shadow-path established to Cerenia the pressure is taken off me and my mirror.