Amber, year one, day 132 continued

Night

Alex has managed to blow up the castle. Well, not all of it, just a goodly portion of the first floor. I do not think I have ever seen a person so badly injured before. Under normal circumstances, I would expect him to either be dead already, or to quickly become so. But it seems that his Chaos shapeshifting has saved his life. I observed his body as it lay in the infirmary, and it was constantly in motion, rippling and shifting. It seems to not only be capable of repairing damage to tissue, but of actually moving and setting bone! A truly marvelous ability. I am surprised that none of my siblings has chosen to learn how to do this. Perhaps it is one of those things, like Trump, which you must be born with the ability to learn. Or perhaps some of them do know how, but have kept that ability hidden. After all, my relatives are nothing if not secretive.

Fortunately, Mebd was the only other person injured in the explosion (other than the injury to Heather's pride). Given the damage Alex did, things could have been much worse. Even Mebd was not injured too severely, with some bruises, a broken arm, and a possible concussion. I shall have to look in on her in the morning.

Felix put on quite a show tonight. Ahab took off into Shadow, neatly avoiding the cleanup effort. Shard, Felix and Driscoll all pitched in, though, and I granted myself a few minutes of pleasure in watching them. Felix apparently noticed my attentions and responded by taking his shirt off. Did not wish to get it dirty, indeed! He is very well built. I would love to model him for a statue. I would love to do other things to him too, but I do not think Gérard would approve. Gérard does not approve of many things. Like Felix voicing an opinion. You see, Shard was apparently visiting Brand when the explosion occurred. Brand jumped down through the hole in his floor, to find out what had happened. Shard decided to stay where he was and throw pillows at Felix instead. Jasra apparently did not appreciate this and pushed Shard over the edge. What a foul-tempered woman! If Felix had not caught Shard, I suspect I would have had another patient on my hands. As Felix and I were discussing this later on, Felix made a rather astute observation. He claimed that only someone more moody than Brand could possibly marry him. You should have seen the look that statement earned him from Gérard! I can see why Felix is so quiet most of the time. I think he is right about Jasra. It may even be that she exacerbates Brand's moodiness. Gérard suggested we go to bed after that. As if he was my pater and can order me around! I gave a rather suggestive look at Felix when I left, just to needle Gérard. Felix, of course, missed it, but Gérard looked rather unhappy about it. Good.

It seems that Heather may be human after all. I arrived too late to see for myself, but Ahab claims the explosion interrupted Heather and Mandor while they were making love. The fact that Heather wore very little in the way of clothing when I saw her makes me tend to believe him. After all of her pretensions of superiority over me, and all her claims of being above that sort of thing, she is found sleeping with an ambassador from Chaos! This liaison may be good for her. At the very least, she can no longer pretend to be disinterested in sex.

Heather also showed an usual amount of concern over the well-being of Mebd. I would feel similarly if Kira were injured, but Heather has always been so unemotional that I would not have been surprised if she had not reacted to Mebd's injuries at all. Instead, she seemed genuinely worried about Mebd. She would not leave her side, and even helped me set Mebd's arm. There may be more to Heather than I realized. Not that I will ever completely trust her, and I may never like her, but I do not mind her presence nearly so much as before.

I picked up a faint trace of the Logrus in Alex's room. No one else seemed to have noticed, not even Heather. Of course, Heather was rather distracted. I thought that perhaps the explosion had occurred when Alex attempted to use the Logrus. After all, Ahab claims that the Logrus is sentient, and Alex was trying help us escape from a Chaos trap. It made sense that it might be mad at him. Mandor used one of his spheres to investigate that possibility, and concluded that using the Logrus had not caused the explosion directly, although its use had apparently triggered the spell that did. He did not seem to think that further use of the Logrus would trigger any more explosions. I wonder why someone would want Alex dead? Or perhaps the spell was meant for Mandor? I am sure there must be factions who dislike our current peace with Chaos, perhaps the same factions that kidnapped Coral. Perhaps they feel that killing one, or both, of the Ambassadors will end the peace, or threaten it in some way. Or perhaps the same people who have plotted (quite successfully) to worsen Amber's relations with the Golden Circle are at work here. Maybe they are one and the same.

Looking back at this record, it seems hard to believe that so much could happen in just one day. I am looking forward to getting a good night's sleep.

Amber, year one, day 133 (Sunday, November 28, 2987)

Morning

I woke up to the sound of a woman screaming. It turned out to be Mebd. Apparently she regained consciousness early this morning and asked what had happened. Heather told her about Alex. Heather must have stayed awake all night watching her, for she looked quite worn out when I saw her. Her lack of sleep no doubt explains why she kept insisting that Alex's head had exploded, even when she saw how hysterical it was making Mebd. Besides, his head did not really explode. Well, not all of it, anyway. Heather gave Mebd some alcohol to calm her down, while Felix and I attempted to reassure her that Alex's head was still attached to his body. Felix started yelling at Heather for frightening Mebd so, which was not the best thing he could have done in that situation. Heather told him to shut up, so he stormed out of the room. They do seem to bring out the worst in each other. Mebd mentioned that she was seeing double images of everything, so I gave Heather instructions in how to care for a concussion.

Breakfast was relatively quiet. The younger generation all ate together. I had a chance to ask Martin what had happened from his point of view on our failed rescue attempt. His recollection was the same as mine, up until the point when he Trumped to Amber. He says that he was unable to reach the rest of us by Trump at that point. Obviously, he was allowed to leave. The question that remains is why? Perhaps he might have been able to discern a way out of the trap.

Ahab told me the purpose of his little Shadow trip last night. It seems that Heather has established some sort of guardian that must be passed in order to enter her Shadow. Given the number of times that Amberites have gone tramping in and out of her home, I cannot say that I blame her. I wonder if I could do the same? Her guardian appears to require that large quantities of paperwork be filled out before access is granted. I am unsure as to whether anyone filling out the paperwork would be allowed in, or if they would simply be given more paperwork. Needless to say, Ahab never bothered trying to find out. He has decided to obtain a small measure of revenge by finding in Shadow what he thinks is the appropriate paperwork for him to bring in a flying legion of some kind. He claims he will not use this to harm her home, only to threaten her. I do not feel this is the wisest course of action, but Ahab has shown time and time again that he will not listen to the advice of others. I have decided to hold my tongue in this matter. Eventually, he will have to learn, or he will die from his mistakes. He also mentioned that his mater was injured, shot in the back with a crossbow. Much as I may dislike Deirdre personally, I am glad that she is still alive, for Ahab's sake. It is a terrible thing to lose one's parents. I often wish mine were still alive. He says that they have come to a reconciliation of sorts, so maybe he will stop trying so hard to prove himself to everyone. Maybe.

"Outrageous Fortune"
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All text on this page is © 1993 by Kris Fazzari.

Last modified on October 12, 1993 by Kris Fazzari.