First item that needs addressing is that of Blaise. I inform Vialle and Julian of the strange behavior and decide to go talk to Brand. Julian, of course, is sure that Brand is behind it all. I take Archie and Michael with me, Archi because he’s related to Brand and thus provides a ‘make nice’ quantity, and Michael because he is a trump expert and can determine whether we are being fed a load of crap or not. I’m not too worried about being lied to. Brand had his bout with insanity and is now trying to make amends. I don’t like the man, he is abrasive and abrupt, but I trust him.

We trump Brand and head off to his place. I tell Brand about Fiona and he takes it kinda hard. I had forgotten they were full brother and sister and that he was fond of her. Once the subject changes to Blaise, he explains the strange contact that Llewella and I made. Turns out he made trump blocking cards of most the family for both himself and his direct siblings awhile back, and Blaise is using his. He couldn’t block me as I wasn’t around when the cards were made and thus none was ever made. Brand also never made a card to block himself from his brother’s mind. In order to find out what was going on with Blaise, I was to trump him and while the younger generation kept him busy, Brand would sneak in the back way and have a look around. Turns out that Blaise also tried to contact Fiona while she was in the serpent’s possession. Their relationship was a lot closer and it damaged him. He has succumbed to the family failing and has gone insane. (Brand, then Corwin, now Blaise. Who’s next?) He believes he is back in time when he and Corwin invaded Amber. Thus he is gathering his troops and planning an invasion. Thus Corwin is likely the only one who can get close to him. It will give Corwin something constructive to do.

Since I’m not sure I want to be in Amber when the drek hits the fan, I attached myself to Archie’s trip to Chaos. The sail out to where the dancing mountains used to be was fairly uneventful and we had some fun coming up with worlds that would prove a hazard to Chaosians coming towards Amber, but not so much for Amberites going towards Chaos. There was still a disruption point halfway there. On the water it manifested as storms. While the Zepher would have made it through, the other ship with us would not have, so we debarked and started overland. It was arduous, but mostly boring. I figured we were getting closer when the landscape started to be hostile, but hadn’t realized we were on the outskirts of Chaos till we found ourselves surrounded by the weaver clan (a minor Chaos household) and trump blocked by Borrimans (major Chaos house). Archi is taking lead and announced that we were coming to pay Queen Vialle’s respects as well as bring the 3 house Roc women home. We are being treated as guests (the same way an extracted exec or researcher is a guest at their new corporate home). I’m not sure we want to ‘escape’ yet, I think we will need to have an escort to get further into the courts, but I’ll keep my ears open anyway.