Chapter Three

After Theron, Aaron, Dalen, and Maladin had left, I headed back upstairs to my office to find a package there. Opening it, I found what looked like a sidearm of some sort with a pump on it, some chemical based glow sticks, and what appeared to be a blank piece of stationary. The first two was more in a series of attempts to determine what technology did work in Amber. Gunpowder didn’t, but a pneumatic weapon probably would. I smelled it and examined it through the image of the Dark Well, only to learn it was covered in chemicals. A voice inside my head suggested I touch it, and where I did, words could be seen. Spreading my finger liberally over the document, I found that it was a letter from my commander in Telluria.

To Ambassador Lentaro
From Tellurian League, Diplomatic Corps, Admiral Raal

Len, hope this finds you well and adjusting to your new position. From what I hear the Amber dimension can be a little primitive but I'm sure you'll adjust. We've included a few trinkets the computer models say should work in your little backwater. Give 'em a shot and let us know.

On a more serious note, there has been a recent plague of bizarre cults popping up that seem to have their roots in some animal worship endemic to that dimension. Normal such inefficiencies would be put down easily enough but this particular cult is spreading very quickly and seems to be very well funded and armed.

This is not public knowledge, but the Sh'dak shipyards were sabotaged and completely destroyed a few days ago. I won't bore you with the death count, but in addition to all hands and numerous smaller craft, 3 cruisers and a heavy carrier in dock at the time were also destroyed. Evidence will be manufactured and the blame will be placed on pirates, but the damage is severe and leaves us with only 3 shipyards left in Tellurian League Military hands. This situation can not be allowed to continue.

The League would like you to investigate whether or not forces in Amber may be behind these cults. League military finds it unlikely, and I would be inclined to agree. While their psionic abilities are impressive, a culture lock in such a backward state lacks the resources and know how to represent a significant threat. However, whatever forces are behind this cult could be in contact with persons in Amber, and this is what we would like you to investigate.

This directive overrides all previous directives.

Admiral Raal
Tellurian League Diplomatic Corps

A moment later the receptionist announced that Maladin was hear to see me. I told her to send him to my sitting room, and I went there myself, getting out a bottle of wine that I knew that he’d like, and preparing glasses.

Maladin entered, and I indicated a chair I wasn’t planning on using. I decanted the wine into a couple of glasses, and passed him one.

"Well," he said. "I think it’s safe to say that the Tellurian League is nowhere near where I last saw you."

"The same can likely be said of Sanctuary," I replied.

"Yes, it could."

An awkward silence existed for a bit.

"So, how is it you manage to travel through shadow?" I asked, figuring it was the question on both our minds.

"It’s an… application of sorcery. Yourself?"

"Are you acquainted with the Broken Patterns?"

He pondered for a moment. "No… I’ve heard of the Pattern in Amber, but not the broken ones. What are they?"

"Quite simply," I answered, "they are flawed reflections of Amber’s Pattern. Those not of Amber blood are capable of walking them and gaining a limited ability to travel through shadow."

"Intriguing," Maladin replied after a sip of his wine. "So what was that scene down there all about?"

"I have not the slightest clue. Though the thought occurs to me that the zombie at the banquet last night was possibly draining reality, it might be that they think the zero-point drives of Telluria might be involved."

"I’m sorry… did you just say a zombie was draining reality?" Maladin asked, after almost choking on his wine.

I realized that he might not be up on things, so I gave a brief explanation of what Telluria’s role was in relation to Amber, what the banquet was about, the ordeal with Fumaris (his life, his death, and his undeath), my rescue, leading up to my meeting with him in the White Rose.

Finishing his wine, Maladin jibed with a slight grin, "You’ve certainly been busy. Where do you plan on going from here?"

"Well, I have some agents here at my disposal that I’ll probably send out to do some investigation. Also, I need to send a note off to the castle to request an audience with Fiona. I want to find out what she was able to learn about my zombie friend from last night. And yourself? What is your agenda while in Amber?"

Maladin shrugged. "Random invited me to visit Amber," he replied. "I’m supposed to see him tomorrow. Taking a slight vacation from playing mercenary."

"And here I thought that was just local to that one little skirmish."

Maladin gave an innocent shrug. "A man’s gotta make a living. There are a lot of Golden Circle kingdoms interested in hiring someone with a good military background. How about you? You’ve never struck me as being the diplomatic type."

"Since leaving our smuggling days behind? I’ve largely been involved in the military intelligence branch of the Tellurian League. Since walking the Broken Pattern I haven’t been as involved in things as I was before, but they felt they needed someone a bit above average after the last ambassador died."

We talked a little longer, reminiscing about times past, and then we both had matters we wished to attend to and he left after we finished the wine.

I jotted down a quick note to send to Fiona, requesting an audience with her. Later that afternoon Princess Fiona replied that she could meet with me in the evening.

Dressing moderately well, I went off to that meeting in the evening.

Fiona was dressed relatively casually, and received me in one of the small sitting rooms that are spread throughout the castle.

"Princess Fiona," I said in greeting with a slight bow.

"Ambassador Lentaro. How might I help you?" she asked while indicating the seat opposite her.

Sitting, I replied, "Prince Aaron had informed me that you were handling the examination of Lord Fumaris’ body. I was wondering if you had turned up anything. As you can imagine, I have a vested interest."

Her face was difficult to read. All she said in reply was, "It’s still a bit too early to tell what the circumstances were surrounding this. It’s definite that he died as a result of a Tellurian poison, and the animation was likely due to sorcery of some sort."

"And the draining of reality?" I asked.

"Likely a socerous effect as well. I’ll be sending out an official report through the palace and the various consulates. I’ll be certain that a copy of it is hand delivered to you."

"Thank you… while I’m here, there was another matter I thought I’d ask you about."

"Yes?"

"Have you heard anything about visions that the Lady Dalen has been having?"

"The bar maid?" Fiona asked skeptically.

"Yes… she’d had some visions that she’d told Aaron about. I thought perhaps he may have mentioned them to you."

"No," she replied, as impassive as a stone wall. "He’d mentioned nothing of them. What were they?"

"The first apparently was that Prince Lore was the pawn of someone. The other was that of some sort of floating Pattern destroying a lot of things."

"Wasn’t she drinking rather heavily at the party last night?" Fiona asked.

"Mm… perhaps. She did seem a bit out of it."

"Well, there you have it. Many people when arriving in Amber experience some mental problems. It’s likely the energies from the Pattern combined with a bit too much to drink brought on all manner of fantasies."

"I see. Well, I thank you. I’m fairly unacquainted with such things, so I wasn’t certain how much stock to place in those that Lady Dalen had had."

"Fair enough. Was there anything else?"

"No, I don’t believe there was."

And at that, we parted ways.

The next morning I sent out my agents to look into a few matters of interest for me. Basically, I wanted to learn more about Lord Fumaris, Lord Neechan, and Lore.

Which, basically, came to a whole lot of nothing, but I didn’t learn that until a bit later.

It was afternoon of that day, and I got a trump call. At full alert, I accepted the call, and found it to be Caine. I’d tried reaching him a few times since the "rescue" but got no response.

"Len! How goes the rebellion in Telluria?" he asked as soon as the contact was made.

There are moments in your life when you realize that your carefully chosen series of decisions was exactly the wrong thing you should have done. This was one of them.

"I… wouldn’t know. I’m still in Amber."

"My people found you, didn’t they? I’d sent them to help you go undercover into the rebellion in Telluria," he said, seeming a bit concerned.

"Yes… yes, the found me. I just thought they were a bit… incompetent and was certain that you’d have done better."

"Well yes, they’re incompetent. It’s the best the rebellion seems to have, though. So what did you do…?"

"I ran away."

"You ran away from them?"

"Well, yes. In the end, I didn’t want to endanger trade relations with Amber, and I didn’t want to get into more trouble than I was already in."

Caine exploded in a sigh. "That could have been fixed easily," he muttered.

Continuing, I added, "I’d tried contacting you afterwards, to no avail, so I assumed that something must have been wrong."

"I was in Telluria trying to figure out who was behind the rebellion. I just got back today. The people behind things seem to be pretty potent, and taking a trump call then could have been detected. You do know there’s a rebellion going on, right?"

"Yes, I received a dispatch."

Caine rolled his eyes. "I probably know far more than they do. Here you go: Whoever it is behind it is pretty good. Even though the people themselves are pretty incompetent, the structure behind it is obviously the work of a professional. Also, it looks like the organizers have the ability to travel through shadow. The weapons the cultists have are unnaturally identical. Since you don’t have replication technology, they are probably taking them out of shadow to somewhere that has the technology or the magic in order to do the job. There’s an update for ya."

"That’s… definitely more than the dispatch had."

"I’m not surprised," Caine replied. "Anything else happening in Amber?"

"The Lady Dalen has apparently been having visions. One involving a warped Pattern destroying the land, and another regarding Lore being the pawn of someone."

Seeming unimpressed, Caine replied, "Lore’s the pawn of anyone in power. Who’s this Lady Dalen?"

"She’s part of the White Rose, I believe," I answered.

"A tavern girl? She’s probably got the hots for Lore, and lots of people have nightmares about the Pattern. Really, Len, I thought I taught you better."

"Sorry, just seemed interesting at the time."

"Well, let me know if you turn up anything more useful."

The connection was cut, and I sat alone in my office for a bit. Bringing out the small stack of trumps that I had, I brought out the trump depicting a youthful man, almost albino in his paleness, in red and yellow. Concentrating on it, I finally got a response from person depicted: Lord Kelarn of House Jesby.

When Caine first began his contact with the Tellurian League, Chaos’ Foreign Relations Division sent their own representative in the form of Lord Kelarn.

"Lentaro!" he said as the connection was made. "How ever are things in beautiful Amber?"

"Fine as can be expected. I imagine you had heard about the incident involving Lord Fumaris."

"Why, yes I did!" he said, and with a certain morbid glee, he added, "So, did you really kill him?"

"No, unfortunately I didn’t. But I’m still under ‘city arrest’."

With a mischievous grin, he asked, "Want me to trump you out?"

"No, I’d rather not endanger relations here."

"Your loss… I also heard some strange things about your escape…?"

Taking that as a not-so-subtle hint, I gave him a brief run-down of my "escape", watching his expression of amusement grow until I thought he’d pass out from restraining his laughter.

"Have you heard about a revolution in the League?" I asked once I’d finished my narrative.

That earned an arched eyebrow and a head cocked slightly towards me. That was as serious an expression as I could hope to get. "No, not at all… what do you know?"

"Some sort of Amber-cult, with an out-of-shadow backer. They’ve taken out a few shipyards and the like."

"Well, I’ll definitely be looking into this a bit more. Anything else, Lenny?"

"No, I believe that’s all. I look forward to hearing back from you about what you learn."

I had lunch in the city that day, thumbing my nose at Amber society again. Later in the afternoon I received a rather last minute invitation to a reception for Bleys. He apparently had some political success in Helmwind, and was getting the hero’s welcome.

I picked out a uniform to wear to the affair, and gave my assistant, Victoria, notice that she could attend as well. I was, after all, allowed one guest.

Bleys, as usual, was in top form for the night. What else would you expect from a celebration in his honor? We were seated for the meal by the Lady Flora, who quipped, "No deaths tonight, if you will." After that the only death I had in mind was hers.

Next to me was Prime Ambassador Malcolm of Cassia. I recall being hip-deep in disease ridden swamp water during a military action in what was later known as the Eastwind Conflict, waiting for something, anything, to happen, and pondering whether I would catch some virulent disease.

That’s what talking to this Ambassador was like.

The man was truly obsessed with typeface. Every aspect of it from the spacing to the different types of gold lettering, he knew about it. If I didn’t have to maintain a diplomatic presence, I might have snapped. Victoria seemed to be faring much better than I was. She did not have the rumors of murder surrounding her, so she was able to relish being an interesting curiosity.

The obligatory social hour after dinner was typical. Bleys was recounting tales of his recent diplomatic trip. Other socializing was going on. I noticed Dalen and Aaron were both in attendance, as well as Maladin. The last surprised me a bit as he was wearing a military uniform of Amber’s styling. I approached him, exchanged brief pleasantries, and then cut to the chase.

"So… the uniform?"

He gave a sheepish grin and, indicating the uniform, replied, "I’ve been made a military adjucate to the House of Amber."

"That quickly, eh?"

Giving a modest shrug.

"Any missions interest that I should know about, or did someone just owe you a favor?"

"I’m to investigate events in Helmwind. Apparently there have been some problems out there."

"Interesting. Don’t suppose you need help? It might be fun to put Gérard’s panties in a bind."

Maladin gave a slight laugh. "I think I’d prefer to maintain a low profile. You’re a bit too noticeable, I’m afraid."

"Ah, well. Let me know how it goes?"

"Of course."

Moving through the crowds, I noticed Caine, and remembered something I hadn’t mentioned to him earlier.

"Caine, there was one other thing I wanted to ask you about," I said, after the usual formalities and we had a bit of relative privacy.

"Yes?"

"I found a trump of Lord Neechan Cho in a cloak I believe once belonged to whistler in my rescue party. When I tried contacting Neechan via trump," I explained, plowing through the look on Caine’s face, "though I couldn’t see who was on the other end he instantly engaged me in psychic combat as soon as he found out who it was."

"Really? That sounds… so unlike him. I’ll look into it further. Thanks."

I saw Caine approach Neechan, clap him on the back, and do some arcane gesture behind the noble while he talked. Hopefully Caine would be able to learn something.

The rest of the event dragged on uneventfully. Towards the end, I returned to the embassy and went to bed. I had work to do the next day.

Over the next few days, I learned very little of worth.

Lord Fumaris was made a Chancellor as a conciliatory move for the conservative nobles of Amber. House Sorr, from which Fumaris hailed, was one of the older houses and had a lot of pull with the lesser guilds and similar organizations. Apparently his death has caused some problems with some delicate balances.

Lord Neechan came from a rather militaristic house with a crypticness that many in Telluria associated with some savanja clans, as well as some human cultures.

Most importantly for me, Fumaris and Neechan had no apparent connections, nor did either of them have any connection to Lore.

I was able to learn nothing in Amber about the Knights of the One True World.

Rumors came back regarding others I was aquainted with in Amber. Maladin was apparently to take Aaron to Helmwind, but there was some fiasco involving Aaron’s appearance. Maladin also demonstrated some amazing ability to travel through shadow which was somehow earning the name "zip-zip-zing". Word is that Dalen possesses some minor ability with the power, and so did some of the attackers of Helmwind. Also, I heard something peculiar about Aaron nearly killing himself while doing some experiment with the Pattern.

Along the way, I was able to get Caine to obtain me a deck of Amber’s favorite playing cards. That would hopefully come in handy in the future.

Will report more later.

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