With Andre’ being the Random clone, we still needed a Dworkin stand in, So I set out to look for one. I figured that it wouldn’t be too close so I asked Archi to give me a lift. We sailed along as I pictured a dog speaking Thari. Eventually we came to an island and were greeted by a bird requesting (in Thari) food. We told him that he wouldn’t like what we had. He said something rude and flew off. Seeing that we had reached the land of Thari speaking animals, we decided to put ashore and look for a dog. Once we reached the island, it didn’t take long to find the dog, he was sitting discussing natural science with a monkey. I told them my story of woe and asked that they come and hang out in Amber for abit. The dog asked if his monkey friend could come too. Archi and I exchanged looks, shrugged, and said “I don’t know why not”. Can you tell we are making this up as we go? We loaded up and headed back.
On our way home, we were sailing past a beach and saw one of Corwin’s bugs come out of the jungle. It was a huge centipede type thing, ~ 10 ft tall and er…. pretty damn long. Archi had his crew load the guns, but it was moving too fast to hit. Then, from out of nowhere, came 3 unicorns. The ‘out of nowhere was a literal statement. A slit in reality opened up and they came running though, black, red and blue. They caught up to the centipede and started taking bits off it with their horns. It wasn’t sitting idle though and soon the blue one was down. Their attack however was enough to get the damn thing to stay in 1 spot long enough for the ships guns to fire. Archi had them fire the canons using grape and chain shot. I manipulated probability enough so the shot would miss the unicorns, but hit the centipede. That was the end of that fight.
The black unicorn changed form into a humanoid man, and picked up the blue unicorn while the red one drew a trump in the air with its horn. The three of them trumped out. We continued to sail for Amber, discussing the implications.
Upon arrival, we moved the dog and the monkey, who had acquired the names Dworkindog and Darwin, into the castle and introduced them around. When I reported to Vialle, she asked me to find those unicorns again and see about establishing formal relations. I headed out on foot, but was not making to good of progress, so hitched a ride with Archi again. We searched shadow for the image of the unicorns we saw and ended up in a forested region. We left the Zepher then and walked in the woods to find them waiting.
After finding that we had come just to talk, we were invited to their camp for dinner. They all had humanoid forms as well as unicorn ones. The blue unicorn who had been wounded was better. She was their trump artist in that she seemed to make mental trumps of people. She stared hard at Archi and I to make trumps of us. They called the white unicorn that we Amberites call THE unicorn, grandmother. They do seem to be related to us somehow, but in a distant enough way that I might eventually take one of the males up on some fooling around. But not quite yet. We enjoyed a good dinner (not grass) and made arrangements for them to contact us when they had discussed the possibility of formal relations. We stayed overnight and woke to find them gone in the morning. We headed back and reported to Vialle. It’s up to the unicorns now.
Reading this over, I find I’ve used the words us and home to refer to Amberites and Amber. Maybe I’m adjusting. I should go back to San Francisco and get my stuff.
