10.   Scarlett.

 

I honestly thought the small frame may be a portrait of the King, and eager to get a look at my cousin before actually meeting him, I picked the lock.  To my great surprise it’s a photograph of Aunt Flora with the Magistrate and – as unbelievable as it seems – mother!  I study the photo for long minutes.  I think it might’ve been taken on Shadow Earth.  Mother looks far happier, less troubled, than I’ve ever known her to be. I return the picture to the desk drawer and re-lock it.  I notice my saber in the corner behind the desk and return it to my side.  Without thinking about how all this might look, I draw the blade and begin sharpening it as I wait for the Magistrate to return, sitting in a comfortable chair.   I consider all that’s happened over the last few weeks.

 

Where to begin – well, the beginning’s always a good place to start from.  A beginning, which also involved another cousin – Elektra, also a child of Uncle Brand.  Yes, it all began when I pulled her through the Trump. That’s when the trouble started, for while checking on the progress of the mother’s and mine portrait, my Cousin Elektra had pilfered several Trumps – I’d thought her as crazy as her father at the time – but was she?  I’d wanted adventure – I begged Ele to take me with her on a mission into Shadow that somehow involved getting something, medicine I thought, for her father Brand.  She’d chosen one of the stolen Trumps as our method of journey.  Horses and Hellride seemed to me a more normal way, but what was I to say, I was the one begging for adventure.

 

And so it’d started with a Trump, a Trump of a world called Tatuine!  A desert world where commerce seemed to revolve around two commodities – slaves and water.  It didn’t seem to place us any closer to getting to the Courts of Chaos.  Yet, she’d chosen to stay on Tatuine and set about on some elaborate scheme to enter into the water market and gain the attention of the rumored ruler, who we’d thought was called Bubba the Gut, but whose real name, we later learned, was Jubba the Hutt.  Well, our ways of gaining information hadn’t proved too reliable on that world.

 

Ele was somewhat ignorant of technology, but with my help we’d filled the cargo hold of a starship with precious water – when I say we, I mean Ele.  She’d done it via the outrageously clever use of the Pattern.  She’d used it a lot to fight several battles we’d become embroiled in on that strange desert world.  She wanted nothing to do with weapons.  Me – mother would be furious to learn that I’d relied almost entirely on Uncle Bleys training in the use of my saber in those battles – she would’ve told me I really should rely on other abilities and attributes…

 

Oh yes!  We’d been successful in gaining the attention of Jubba.  We’d been captured and were to be sold as slaves.  We learned that a man named Skywalker of an order called Jedi Knights might be behind our troubles – possibly the secret identity of Jubba.  Ele and I had become separated, just before we both escaped.  I’d been captured and escaped again, and came face to face with a man I’d been told was Skywalker – I meant to kill him but he escaped.  Then Ele and I were reunited, only to face another man claiming to be Skywalker and, he said, of the Force of Good.  If he was Skywalker, who was the first man?

 

As we were talking and hard to believe explanations were being made, this new Skywalker had suddenly pulled his light saber weapon and shoved Ele to the ground.  I thought he meant to kill my cousin, so in a flash I was on him with my saber of quality flashing for his throat.  He was good and his weapon powerful.  I think my blade might’ve been destroyed, and perhaps my life ended, had not Ele protected my blade with the Pattern – another amazing employment of it by my cousin.  We’d fought and I was gradually being worn down by the Jedi when suddenly Ele had made a thunderstorm occur – something that hadn’t happened on Tatuine in living memory.  How did she do it?

 

Lightning had got out of control and the Jedi Knights were about to be struck by a powerful bolt.  Ele had somehow thrown herself in the air and risked her life to protect shadow creatures – unheard of for one of Amber to take such risk to protect the stuff of Shadow.  Then, as we rushed to my cousin's side, Skywalker's blade flashed above Ele as it had before, but this time, I saw the deflection of the assassin’s second energy bolt.  Leaving the Jedi to care for my cousin I’d raced after the assassin with blood on my mind.  He’d got away!  How?  Unlikely, I thought, unless by a Trump.  So then was he of Amber or of Chaos?  Elektra was hurt too badly for the Jedi to be of help, so I contacted Mom, I pulled her through to Tatuine and the next thing I knew we were in Rebma.  Mother had risked her own life to save Ele by taking her onto the Pattern.  Then we all ended up on Shadow Earth in a hospital – why Shadow Earth?   I think of the picture I’ve just looked at.  I knew it to be the Shadow of Aunt Flora's liking – Mom's as well it would seem.  And the Magistrate was there as well.  So many coincidences!  Or are they?

 

Ele had gotten better, and I was whisked back to Amber under the watchful eyes of both mother and Uncle Bleys.  Then had come the explanations and questions.  Mom had asked about Ele’s business with the Courts of Chaos, but I didn’t have answers.  She told me of Ele’s mother, when pregnant with her, having had walked the Pattern.  Unheard of!  And that when Ele had come of age, her first walk had seemed easier than it should’ve been – the first demonstration of how easy all things related to the Pattern were for Ele.  Yes, I can bear witness to that!  And then comments about her possibly being able to draw a new Pattern without the aid of the Jewel of Judgment.  Wait!  Oh no!  The storm on Tatuine that shouldn’t have happened – it was just like in the texts.  Eric had sent storms like that upon Bleys’ and Corwin’s army…  Those attuned to the Jewel could do such things… even in Amber proper!  Did I tell mother how the storm had come about?  Was it important?

 

She’s already the most dangerous person we’ve ever known, Scarlett.  I feel strangely ill as I have a new revelation.  The assassination attempt – who was the assassin?  Had mother intentionally had the Trump Artist let Ele steal the Trump of Tatuine so that there she could be got rid of?  She probably didn’t know I would accompany.  Was the risk with saving Ele really an elaborate cover up to fool Brand?  Mother was most definitely capable of it!

 

Why was I chosen to accompany the stranger Ambrose to walk a broken Pattern, when I was normally not let out of mother’s or Uncle Bleys’ sight?  Ambrose, obviously of Amber blood and with abnormally powerful psyche, found on Shadow Earth with a deck of Trumps, and who had earlier bumped into Uncle Brand’s daughter Elektra!  Brand, Trumps, Shadow Earth – so many coincidences, so many questions.

 

I’d been specifically sent to have Ambrose walk the broken Pattern. On Amber, only one or two guards watch over the Pattern room.  Here, after Ambrose left, the room was suddenly filled with warriors, and I was faced with an impossible battle.  Why so many guards?  Did they know I’d be there?  There, in the Pattern room of the kingdom ruled by son of Brand!  Something’s up I feel it in my bones!  Intrigue again in the Courts of Amber – Brand and his children possibly at the center of it – and Brand’s son might be about ready to walk through the door!  I never even knew Brand had a son!  And Ele never mentioned anything either, so she doesn’t know herself.  Why weren’t we told?  Why does no one ever mention Brand’s son at the Court?

 

I sheath my blade and wonder what mother is up to.  I hope she knows what she’s doing!  There’s a quiet knock at the door.  “Come in,” I say…

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