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A mob has just been whaled back to Amber from Vanir's Wrath, where they see that the fight between Titania and Titania is still continuing.
Benedict turns towards Neville, goes down on one knee, and offers his assistance in the defense of Amber. Benedict declines Neville's offer to run the defenses, due to a personal oath.
Benedict walks into the garden and disappears.
Cailin goes over to Neville and tells him that an anonymous member of his House wanted him to be available for consult soon.
Neville trumps Helgram. He sees who it is and there is a large magical discharge in his direction. Cailin raises magical shields around Neville. Neville complains to Cailin. They chat.
Ilk notices magical power spilling around, examines it, and pipes it off somewhere.
Neville takes off a glove and Cailin joins the contact. The guy on the other end of the contact is just a shell. The first spell was supposed to rend Neville into his component atoms. The second spell was supposed to cause him to fall apart. The third was intended to rip his heart out. Neville tries to stop the contact. He fails, then pushes harder and snaps the contact.
The magical signature is vaguely familiar to Ilk. Not Mikail, nobody significant, just familiar.
Cailin and Natasha are explaining the concepts of maternity and paternity to their child.
Ilk shows the signature to Neville, but he can't see the magic. Neville asks Ilk to deliver a message to the King for him stating that Helgram is compromised. Ilk asks Neville to write a note.
Ilk goes to Chaos, solidifies, and delivers the note to the king. Silver Lyra opens the note and reads it. She reads the note, writes back a note to the effect of, "Your elevation to head of House is pending our investigation..." she hands the note to Ilk, turns to Flora, and says, "Someone is tampering in House succession again without my permission. Would you have Caine deal with it, please?" Flora trumps Caine, chats with him mentally, and says out loud that it shall be dealt with.
Ilk updates Silver Lyra on the Gwen situation. She asks him to relay to the current wielder of the reality engine that more timely and regular updates would be appreciated.
Ilk returns to Amber and delivers the message and note. Neville enters the castle.
Ilk notices occasional plumes of local Pattern drifting out of the garden area.
The sun finishes setting, and the moon rises. Tir emerges in the sky. Cailin's son starts singing about the pretty city in the sky, and it starts snowing in Amber.
Ilk notices that there was just a huge plume of magical power over there where the kid is singing. It's raw, untutored magic.
Cailin - "Who raised you, anyway?"
Kieron - "The bodiless voice and the Princess."
Ilk whispers in Cailin's ear, "You might want to see about having him trained in magic."
Cailin grumbles about Ilk refusing to embody.
Kieron - "What? The disembodied voice is here? Hello?"
Ilk fails to respond.
There is a ripple at the edge of the garden and Benedict steps out. It's the local Benedict. Benedict turns to Cailin, asks him to tell Neville that he is heading off to acquire reinforcements, mounts up on Morgenstern, and rides off.
Ilk offers Benedict a lift. Benedict refuses -- unless Ilk can prove his identity to Benedict's satisfaction. Ilk congratulates Benedict on his common sense. Benedict rides off.
On the way into the castle, Cailin notices that not only is the moon up and Tir up, but there is a line of moonbeams pouring out of Tir into the garden. The Pattern in that beam is fairly well encapsulated in Dream. Ilk decides to avoid that path.
Cailin and Neville discuss Benedict's departure and the line of Pattern.
Cailin, Natasha, and Kieron head up into Tir. Ilk sends a few tendrils along to keep an eye on them. Time passes, and they reach the castle. They see the reflection of a battle, but it is disjoint, as if time is distorted. Natasha asks Cailin what time it is, so they can track the differences. Ilk pulls in a clock. It's large and ornate. Cailin is confused and looks for a magical signature, but doesn't see one.
The hands of the clock turns far ahead, and they see a large number of dire wolves charge into the garden. Ilk recognizes them as Hounds of Tintalos. They charge at evil Titania. Benedict enters the garden behind the hounds, then sees a body lying on the ground. It's Zack. Benedict tries to apply first aid to Zack. The group also notices bits of Bun-bun lying about.
The clock cycles back, and then there is an image of Kieron running into the garden after a ball, looking up, getting very scared, and falling over with blood spurting out. Kieron goes over to the image and says, "No, don't bleed - that's silly!" and tries to poke a finger in the wound to stop the bleeding.
The is a cloud passing overhead. When the cloud moves between the moon and the stair, Tir goes away. Ilk grabs Cailin, Natasha, Kieron, and the clock. Cailin and company are confused. Cailin and Kieron discuss song, music, and accompaniment. Ilk hands Cailin a left-handed sewer flute.
Tir reappears. The images picks up from where they had left off. Cailin warns Kieron not to chase balls, and the group heads back down the stairs. They reach the base of the stairs, and the clock shows that ten minutes remain before the incident with the ball. Cailin holds Kieron's hand firmly.
The clock strikes the hour.
Cailin reaches into his pouch and pulls out a roll of duct tape. A sphere jumps out of Cailin's pouch, orbits his head, and darts out at Kieron. There is a magical signature on the sphere. Cailin traces the spell. It's coming from the clock. Cailin zaps the clock. The clock defends itself, and the sphere falls to the ground. A bird twitches out of the clock and spells are cast every time it chirps.
Natasha pulls out a mustard bottle and starts squirting a yellowish viscous liquid at the clock.
Cailin and Kieron discuss parental duties. Kieron thinks that Cailin should kill the clock -- that's a father's job.
Cailin checks out the magical signature; it's the same signature as the one in the attack on Neville. There is still no snow falling.
The bird continues coo-cooing. An illusion of a ball is created. Kieron says, "I'm not supposed to follow that, right?"
Natasha nags Cailin. Cailin draws his sword. The sword starts singing, "Kill the coo-coo, kill the coo-coo..."
Kieron cheers his father on, and the clock falls apart. The bird manages to flop free of the clock mechanism. Natasha knives the bird. The clock is diced. The bird is twitching on the end of a knife. Cailin goes over to make sure that the bird is dead. It starts casting again. Cailin tries to contain the bird, with minimal success.
Kieron lifts his foot up to step on the bird. Cailin stops Kieron, and tries to spear the bird with his sword. The bird dodges and keeps casting; Cailin keeps defending magically.
Kieron steps on a wing, and Cailin manages to dice the bird. Cailin realizes that Kieron is singing, "Die, coo-coo, die..." and stops him. They discuss ways of killing the bird. Kieron says that Cailin has to kill it, since he stopped him from finishing his song.
Cailin allows Kieron to continue after Kieron mentions that the Princess taught him the die song. Kieron continues singing, "Die, coo-coo, die..." along with a strange riff of notes, and there is a small greenish glow around the bird. The bird slags. Savior of Chaos notices a surge of the power that Princess Chandra uses.
The Serpent's Apprentice notices that there was a very bright, very focused surge of Serpent power in House Helgram.
Kieron keeps the tattered bird as a totem. It is now snowing in Amber.
There is a long, mournful, mind-numbing howl from the woods. Benedict is riding in on Morgenstern, with a string of hounds behind him. Benedict hits the garden at a gallop, and the hounds immediately follow, except for one that stares mournfully at the castle for a while before entering the garden.
Cailin enters the castle and fills in Neville on the attack. Neville is introduced to Kieron.
Cailin mentions that when the clock first appeared in Tir, it was superimposed over the statue of Connor.
Cailin is missing his duct tape. Kieron is sent to Natasha; Neville tries to trump his House head and fails. Neville heads out of the castle to try again, and sees two of the Hounds fleeing from the garden with their tails between their legs. One is missing a leg and a tail. Neville tries the trump again, and fails again.
Cailin says, "What time is it now?" Another clock appears. Different signature. Cailin attacks the clock with his sword. As it slices through the clock, the coo-coo leaps out and casts defensive spells. There is now snow falling. Kieron sings his "die, coo-coo, die" song again, with the same effects. The Serpent's apprentice notices another bright blip of Serpent power in House Helgram.
Neville makes a trump sketch of himself, hands it to Hamster Gerard, and explains its use.
Benedict walks out of the garden carrying a bleeding Zack. Benedict is limping. The moonbeam of Pattern is still pouring on Zack.
Neville - "How is the battle going?"
Benedict - "We have had a setback. We are still, on the whole, winning."
Jean is asked to acquire a healer. At Ilk's suggestion the Healers Guild is told that Zack is a high-ranking member of House Cara.
Neville is receiving a trump call. It's Caine. Caine says that he found this trump on an individual who is body and brain-burned, and looks like the original head of the House. They chat briefly.
A healer emerges from the fish and starts working on Zack.
Neville wonders out loud whether or not the stream of Pattern is keeping Zack alive.
Ilk can tell that the healer is having problems here; his Logrus tendrils are the only thing keeping the healer alive. Ilk feeds some more tendrils into the area.
Benedict turns and walks towards the garden. Neville asks if he could help. Neville places Hamster Gerard in charge of the castle again. Benedict is dubious, walks over to the hamster, and stomps on it. Hamster Gerard grabs Benedict's foot and throws him. Benedict is completely surprised, but rolls and comes back to his feet. "Okay, I believe you."
Cailin, Natasha, and Kieron shadow-walk out to the Golden Circle to find more birds and kill them. He finds hundreds of coo-coo clocks there, identical to those that he destroyed. They grab a single clock and keep walking out into shadow. They slice the clock open and see a bird inside. Cailin tells Kieron to sing at it, and Kieron complains that the bird isn't alive. Kieron yanks the bird out of the clock and starts blowing in its beak.
Cailin turns towards Natasha. "Now for the experiment - what time is it?"
The bird starts flapping around. Kieron plays with it. It bites him; Kieron is annoyed. Cailin looks for a magical signature, but doesn't see one. Kieron continues playing with the small animal. It shows signs of the abuse. Kieron gets bored and hands the bird to Cailin. Cailin magically reconstructs the clock and places the bird in it.
Cailin notices something magically out of the corner of his eye as Natasha throws herself at him and knocks him and Kieron to the ground. It's a nasty, curdle-everything-in-its-path spell. She throws a cup of something at it. There is a splash and a crunch. "Damn, I missed."
Cailin turns and sees a mage behind him casting a falling wall spell on him. Cailin shields. The wall falls around them and bounces off the shield.
The mage is casting again. Cailin sends six silver arrows at the mage from six different directions. The mage blocks five magically and the sixth physically. The mage's counterattack turns the ground beneath them into quicksand; Cailin hauls all of them out of the mud.
Cailin takes seven of the marbles and weaves them into an avoid-Natasha and Kieron-at-any-cost spell. Natasha is throwing popcorn balls at the mage too. The battle goes on for some time. The mage is gating around and dodging things; so is Cailin.
Cailin and Natasha are keeping roughly equal with the mage. Kieron is moving where they tell him to go. Cailin asks Kieron to kill that, and points. Kieron argues that Cailin is supposed to be the hero, so he should stab the mage first. Cailin sends in thirty-one arrows, and the mage gates away from the arrows.
The mage is wearing House Helgram colors, but is not wearing any Guild badge.
Ilk asks Benedict if Logrus would be of any use in the fight in the garden. He hands Benedict a Logrus etch-a-sketch, and says that if it work there, then he'll be useful in the fight. When Benedict crosses into the garden, the etch-a-sketch bursts into flames. Ilk decides to stay outside.
Neville raises a Pattern lens and enters the garden. His Pattern lens is useless. Neville tries to walk Tir's Pattern in his mind, but doesn't find any advantage from doing it, so stops.
The garden looks like Faerie. Very misty, improbable things are appearing and disappearing. Benedict is walking straight in, sometimes walking through solid objects. Tendrils of some plant entwine themselves around Neville's legs. Neville rips free and tries to follow Benedict, but Benedict has faded into nothingness.
Neville calls out to the Titania that he met and offers his help. There is a moment of hesitation, and then he is at the start of the glass Pattern in Faerie. Neville starts walking, and it feels as if power is draining out of him, the reverse of walking the Pattern.
After some time, Neville reaches the center of the glassy Pattern.
Ilk continues to saturate Amber and watches the healer work on Zack.
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