DOLON’S JOURNAL MASK OF CHAOS II-1

The leadership crisis is going just about as I expected. We have a triumvirate of Dad, Benedict and Caine. Dad runs the diplomacy, Ben is rebuilding the armies and Caine is rebuilding the navy. Nobody invited Fiona in. Yes, quads can deadlock, but she should have been asked, and they could have added Julian if an uneven number was necessary. Never piss Fiona off, that’s my motto.

Julian has absented himself from Amber. Hopefully he simply wants to avoid involvement in fratricide.

Flora is deep into her ditz cover. Probably still deciding whether or not she can pick a winner to suck up to.

Corwin is about from time to time, "staying in touch." Possibly enjoying the game from the outside for the first time. Eric is dead (again) and he has his own place, so Amber is merely the soap opera he’s been watching for a long, long time.

Dad checked me out for support. I was truthful. I don’t want a family war and I don’t want him to take Benedict on. Dad is likely to lose. Even if he didn’t, I like Benedict. Yes, Benedict looks vulnerable to magic or other Powers. But he’s been just as vulnerable for millennia, and he’s still here. And we do have enemies in the Courts and elsewhere.

So now I need to watch out for Caine. Is Caine telling Tashy to watch out for Bleys?

Rob, Tashy and the others are still pissed off at being kept safe like children. On the other hand, were the rest of us the expendable ones?

Nobody seems to know who the people from my Hall vision are.

Had a possibly good idea about Dave’s power, or condition or whatever it is. He walks about on Pattern-made solids and breathes Pattern-made air. Perhaps this is a mental trick. Could be dangerous learning to selectively disassociate from reality.

Dad agreed to train me in some of the deeper mysteries of the Pattern. I mostly want to learn how to do the Pattern-probe trick. I have Logrus-sight envy.

 

DOLON’S JOURNAL MASK OF CHAOS II-2

I sketched the people from my Hall viewings as visual aids to either Benedict or Fiona. As I did I saw that the man with the child "Bronwen" was actually the same as ‘Old Trumpy’.

Fiona finally answered a Trump call. Unfortunately, she didn’t recognize the mystery relatives either. While talking, she suddenly realized, she said, that a long-ago vision in the Hall of Mirrors made sense in light of recent events. So apparently the visions of the Hall can refer to events centuries in the future.

We had a pleasant chat. She claimed that the Jewel had not been found yet and implied that she had been seeking it diligently. No surprise there.. She claimed that it was still missing.

I mentioned my notions concerning David’s condition. Fi didn’t shoot them down. She was evasive as to how she and Caine had made David -- "something like" gene mixing. She was not inclined to treat David as something less than Family; no one else is either, so it seems that cloning or other esoteric reproductive methods are acceptable. (I wonder: are any of the others products of non-traditional methods?)

Fiona invited me to stay for dinner and I naturally accepted. She let me browse in her library for a while after warning me away from certain sections. If this was a test of my courtesy, I passed; if one of nerve, I failed. The dining room was far more comfortable and pleasant than Fiona’s favored ‘Queen of the Zombies’ decor. I would not be at all surprised t0 find that the haunted house aspect is either an illusion or a separate wing of her abode, used to discourage casual interruptions. The meal was excellent. I did my best to charm her and did gain some smiles and laughter. I left afterwards.

Back in Amber. No reply from Benedict. Damn!. All I wanted was ten minutes of his time. I took myself off to Argannel and made arrangements at my palace for a guest I Trumped Ancarath Hendrake and found that she was eager for any kind of action. I set up a hunt and brought her over. Ancarath is a tall, striking woman with bold features and athletic build. She usually has some non-human detail such as small horns or catlike eyes. She bores easily and must constantly be looking for some sort of action, usually something vigorous and physical. Hunting, surfing (big waves), mountain climbing, sex (rather like an affectionate tornado), fencing and rugby are some of her favorites. For a Hendrake, she’s not vindictive at all, though I suspect that torture simply bores her. I can usually beat her fencing while she almost always beats me wrestling; both of us rub it in with bets and forfeits.

I’d created some elephantine trwyth-boars for our hunting pleasure. We found one and killed it with a hundred cuts and stabs. The next one she determined to kill showily. She let it charge her on foot, then vaulted onto its back to ram her spear into its spine. Unfortunately, just as she started SOMEBODY changed the trwyth-boar, made it invulnerable, and faster. Her spear broke and she was thrown quite a distance. She landed like a professional cat acrobat and it charged her. I intercepted it and stuck it with my spear while triggering a lightning bolt. The point glanced off and the bolt flared harmlessly around it.

Bugger.

 

DOLON’S JOURNAL MASK OF CHAOS II-3

I blasted the thing, hard, wiping out a number of trees in the process. Ancarath was impressed, which is all to the good. Should some Hendrakes take it in their heads to attack Argannel, Ancarath might speak up and volunteer to arrange for the return of the smoking shreds of their bodies.

Dar Brennin had enhanced the trwyth boars on my orders, or so he thought. Someone was able to access the Oak and seem to be me. ‘Someone’ was going to suffer. ‘Someone’ turned out to be the adult from my Hall of Mirrors vision, who had visited and claimed (to Mother) to be my friend. I suggested that should he return, she might want to kill him. We agreed to work out identity verification procedures with the Oak.

I was no longer in a mood to hunt. I suggested we visit Amber; Ancarath liked the idea. Once there we couldn’t find Benedict or Dad to fence with and ended up looking for Corwin in the gardens. I swear I didn’t think of the Corwin-Borel incident, and wouldn’t have expected so much emotion if I had. Ancarath attacked him on sight, screaming, charging and laying about him with that big estoc she favors. Corwin defended himself with little effort as I asked him to not injure her. ‘Cara wouldn’t listen to anything I said. I could see Corwin starting to run out of patience, so I knocked her out and made apologies. He said he was returning to his own realm as the politics of Amber made him tired. I wrangled an invitation to visit him there.

Ancarath explained, after she woke up on a couch in my city mansion, that Corwin had such a rep for informality in her House she thought her attack was appropriate. And Amber was the realm of rebels, anyway, so what rules were there for her to break? I disabused her of that notion. She agreed to act nice in order to meet the rest of the family.

We tussled on the couch – her idea, Hendrakes are tough. Fighting tends to get her in the mood, too. Making love to a woman with horns takes practice – you could lose an eye.

I don’t think she was deliberately keeping me from reconsidering bringing Action Girl to a family dinner.

While getting dressed it hit me that the little girl from the Hall vision – Bronwyn – was probably my half-sister Ayla’s kid. Ayla had access to the Oak.

Ancarath derailed that thought by demanding my opinion of various ensembles made of clothes from my closet, the guest closets and what she’d brought with her.

 

I SEEM TO HAVE MISSED SESSION 4

 

DOLON’S DIARY Mask of Chaos II-5

Flora’s dinner party consisted of her, Benedict, Tashara, Robin, Julian, David, Ancarath and me. Dull, most of it as half the group are not known for talking much.

Ancarath and I did get Benedict to agree to some fencing. Tashara said she wanted in too. ‘Cara said she could start right now.

David’s face was heavily bruised and apparently Julian did it. Still, David said he felt their meeting had gone rather well. Also, it seems that he is thought of as Random’s heir in some quarters.

My Fiona For Queen notion came up. I thought she would be a useful and not-too-annoying Queen Log. Julian said that Queen Fiona might act much differently from Princess Fiona. He might be right. He has known her for many centuries more than I have.

The dinner ended mercifully. Florimel left. Tashara and Ancarath decided to fence right there. They waited impatiently as I had the servants clear the table first . They put on a good show, very acrobatic as well as athletic. ‘Cara is probably just a bit more skilled and less strong than Tasha. Meanwhile, I discussed how we could make the fencing interesting for Benedict. He claimed he could find interest in any match. I said that two or three of us at once might be more interesting and confessed my dream of seeing him perspire, just a little, when fencing me. Even if I had to have help. That brought out a small smile. The girls finished the match with style. They seemed to be instant friends. I was glad; I’d thought that they were so alike that they would instantly either like or hate one another.

We set a date with Benedict for late the following morning.

David was not pleased to be a candidate for King. Among other things there had been three assassination attempts in two days, and Tyndall was off on some mission. Invited him to stay the night at my place, and Tashara and Robin as well. All accepted. I hope that neither Tasha or Robin are members of the Kill David club.

 

DOLON’S DIARY Mask of Chaos II-6

SLEEPOVER AT CHEZ DOLON

The pool party thing went well for a while. Tasha, ‘Cara, Robin and I had fun while Dave watched drank. Then Robin tried to toss Dave in the pool and got flattened with a bottle.

Dave was way too tense for a party.

‘Cara, of course, saw this as livening a rather tame party up with some nice bloodshed. She made some moves on him but the horns and catlike eyes were a bit too much for a guy from Earth. He resisted, then made excuses and went up to bed.

Tasha cleaned Robin up. I used my last First Aid spell on him. ‘Cara went up to tuck Dave in, came back slightly miffed. Dancing and drinking, broke up a couple of hours after midnight.

‘Cara gave me a very nice kiss goodnight, then went to her room alone. Tasha saw this, chuckled then laughed outright when I gave her the eye. You have to understand, ‘Cara is not the kind of woman you can get possessive with. Not and stay healthy. She’s fair: she doesn’t want to own me, either.

I expect ‘Cara will make another pass at Dave. Hope he doesn’t blast her with the wand I lent him. And he could really, seriously stand to get his brains screwed out. Do him a world of good, maybe even put off the impending nervous breakdown.

 

MASK OF CHAOS DOLON II-7

Morning After

Fenced with Tasha after breakfast. She’s better and stronger than me, dammit.

Dave came down. Robin and ‘Cara came down together. Sigh. Ancarath is my friend but not my girl. Or anybody else’s.

Dave apologized to Robin, who accepted.

Tasha, Rob and ‘Cara took off; R & C for shopping.

Dave wanted to visit Earth again via DolonAether and borrow a gun and hang on to the wand for a bit. Not a problem. Family courtesy usually pays off in the long run. I’ll just pick up a few extras next time I’m there. Earth, for me, is mainly halfway to Drexler. Two wands left and, frankly, I’ve used them too much and too openly. Need to find something else. Anyway, David wants to go alone. I can’t blame him. Fragile, mortal hostages to fortune – better for him if nobody could identify them.