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Malachai receives a trump call from Corwin. Corwin is standing in a green plain, and asks to be brought through to Arden. Malachai complies and pulls Corwin through the trump, who then asks,"When are we pulling the army through?"
Corwin has readied his army to come into Arden to help against Julian, or, if Julian isn't available, to help against those rogue hellhounds ripping up Arden and decimating the gryphon aeries.
Malachai is assembling a strike team to take out the rogue hellhounds, and is reluctant to accept Corwin's offer of aid. Malachai can't even send the tame hellhounds back to their caves and declare open season -- Ivy is the only hellhound handler other than Julian, and she isn't around.
Malachai tells Corwin that Julian is in Faerie, and thus is currently not a danger to Arden, but Corwin continues trying to talk his army into Arden, mentioning that given the current defenses of Amber, invading Amber could be fun.
Malachai finally forstalls a possible invasion of Arden and/or Amber by hunting hellhounds with Corwin.
Aramek gathers more information about Malachai's caravan from a drover. He discovers that Amber's port is blockaded, that Malachai is the caravan master, and that Lady Serena is a noble backer of the caravan who comes along because she doesn't trust Malachai. The drover is evasive about the exact route that the caravan takes, but mentions Amber, which resonates oddly in Aramek's head... Aramek expresses interest in joining the caravan, then gets his informant drunk and tortures him to death.
Rivka leaves the scene of the recent battle in Drageara, saying "Gotta go - Mom calls!"
Cathryn dispels Mikail's illusion, and resumes working on Morrolan's list. She returns to #2 again, who seems both boring and flirtatious.
After some searching with the Logrus, she finds a map and looks up the next address. (#3) It's in a townhouse that has two guards outside the front door. The guards scoff at her stated mission, claiming that Morrolan is just "the upstart who put the Queen in her place" and carries no weight there. She enters the house anyway, which turns out to be heavily trapped magically. After several magical traps are sprung on her, a Logrus-powered trap goes off in her direction, proving that this was one of the desired targets. She leaves the house and returns to the courtyard, where she is insulted by the two guards until she kills them both.
She heads to the next address on the list (#4), passing a man in grey and black who is leaving the house as she approaches it. The guard next to the gate is dead due to a dagger in his back. She enters the house, notices a pool of blood, and leaves, assuming that her target is already dead.
Ilkandacian has finished recovering from his Pattern headache in a fast shadow, and has hung a few spells that are more appropriate to taking someone alive. He looks for Rivka and Cathryn with the Logrus, but only finds Cathryn, so goes to her.
Cathryn and Ilkandacian chat about finding Mikail, and Ilk concludes that he would prefer to test the sensitivity of demons of the kind that Mikail has to Logrus energies before trying to find Mikail directly with the Logrus. The two return to house #3, in order to extract their victim from her shell.
Under Ilk's expert eye, the house appears to be filled with enormous amounts of magical energy, with chunks of Logrus and Pattern magic tossed as well. However, the Logrus magic looked formulaic, as if it was cast by someone with no actual understanding of the subject but access to a grimoire. There is only one living thing visible in the house, and it has a Logrus tendril wrapped around its head. Ilk and Cathryn waffle about how to remove their victim, and Cathryn declines to inform Ilk as to her defenses against magical attack. Seeing that Cathryn would prefer not to make any decisions, Ilk decides to attack from above, and raises himself to a point above the center of the house using the Logrus, and Cathryn follows by shifting bat wings. Ilk then changes his mind and decides to take a simpler approach, returning to the ground. Ilk tries to extract the being from the web of traps with a Logrus tendril, but its brain gets caught and a bloody mess ends up at their feet.
Ilk then decides to disassemble portions of the house in order to check out the blind spots in his Logrus sight, and proceeds to pile chunks of house in the courtyard, occasionally stacking sections like a giant house of cards. He asks Cathryn to try to stack a block on top, and she does so. He asks her to stack two blocks at the same time, and ends up starting to explain the use of multiple logrus tendrils. The conversation appears like it is going to take far too long, so it is delayed until another time. When the blind spots are uncovered, they burst into flame.
They head to the next site (#5), which is deserted.
Site #6 is in the same complex as #2, and the target is a sculptor who is startled and slips when Cathryn and Ilk arrive and accidentally chops a large slab of stone off his current work. Cathryn welds the stone back together with the Logrus. The sculptor appears clean of Logrus influence, as does the building as a whole, so Ilk and Cathryn leave.
Site #7: Clarissa is outside the house waiting for Ilk and Cathryn. She apologizes for leaving unexpectedly to take care of her son's health, and asks Cathryn if Mikail has returned. When Cathryn tells her that Mikail has not returned yet, Clarissa tells Cathryn that this house is clean and leaves.
Cathryn and Ilkandacian prepare to go to Morrolan's castle.
Velaria and Arielle are in the Locked Room party, acquiring information about Faerie gates from Jeremy, a crow. There is a stir as a liveried servant actually enters the party, and starts walking over to Dworkin. Logan walks up to the servant, sniffs and says "Fresh Lunch!"; the servant looks down at Logan, scoffs, and continues.
Arielle interferes with Logan's harrassment of the servant, but is sidetracked when Logan bets her that she cannot touch the crow. She agrees, and then discovers that she can't touch the crow. She tries to bribe it by creating a dead Tekla for it.
Zack returns to the bar in Faerie where he left his father, and arrives only to discover that Julian is nowhere to be seen. The barkeep says that he's in a room upstairs, and Zack heads up to talk, acquiring three glasses of wine on the way. Julian is heading down the stairs as Zack starts up, so they sit down at a table, order three more glasses of wine, and start to talk.
Zack apologizes to Julian for gating him to Faerie, which only serves to really tick Julian off, then tells Julian that Arden is no longer his -- Oberon gave it to a new Warder. Zack does diplomacy things to try to keep Malachai alive, including not mentioning the name of the new Warder. After talking in circles for quite a while, Zack convinces Julian to come talk to Oberon, but since Oberon is currently missing, Julian wants to go deal with the new Warder in a decidedly fatal fashion first. Julian also doesn't believe that Oberon has locked a large number of the most powerful beings in reality into his room, so Zack opens a Faerie gate to the party, and they step through.
Dworkin gets up on the table, and announces that somebody just offered to give them a concert. From the expression on the servant's face, it is clear that that wasn't the real message...
Zack and Julian walk in to the party through a Faerie gate.
Malachai is hunting hellhounds in Arden with Corwin. They discuss Julian, and Corwin expresses a belief that he is stronger and better with a sword than Julian, but that Julian cheats, so he's not sure who would win in a fight. Corwin tries to discourage Malachai from taking on Julian, and states that Cassandra's desire to do so is why she is currently in Pearl.
They chat. They talk about the Marshalldom of Amber, and it is said that Oberon said that he no longer had any need for Benedict's services, and that Benedict no longer had the Sword of State. The Manato are no longer blockading Amber's harbor, and Oberon and Gerard are both missing, apparently together. Corwin trumps Caine, says that he will have to step through, then does so.
Velaria and Zack are in the Locked Room party. Velaria keeps an eye on Julian. Suhuy approaches Zack, greets him, and then insults Julian.
Cathryn and Ilkandacian see an image of Suhuy appear in front of them. It is made out of hundreds of thousands of tiny self-generated logrus tendrils. The image mentions that Julian is in the Locked Room, and asks about the progress of the negotiations for the duel. The only detail left to be worked out is the time, and Cathryn states that she cannot handle the duel immediately, since she must first fetch her weapons.
Suhuy switches to a complex language that Cathryn does not understand and asks Ilkandacian if he is willing to tutor Cathryn. Ilk expresses amazement at Cathryn's current lack of skill, but agrees to take a few centuries to tutor her in some of the less crude utilizations of the Logrus. Suhuy says that he wants her studies to be less relaxed, and that she must be ready for something far sooner than that. After advising a crash course of study, however, he declines to offer suggestions as to in which course of study Ilk should instruct Cathryn.
Suhuy then discusses terms with Zack and Julian in the party while his image discusses terms with Cathryn in Drageara. The result, after many insults on both sides: One Amber day hence, to first blood, in the Mazelands.
Gerard's baby squalls, and Julian walks over and starts playing with it, after chatting with and insulting Gerard's wife. Velaria mentions that Gerard's fertility seems to have increased drastically since the drawing of Corwin's pattern. The baby grabs Julian's gauntlet and teeths on a finger, depending itself from the gauntlet with one chubby first and denting the gauntlet with its gums. Suhuy is vastly amused by this and displays a miniature image of the baby and Julian to Ilk and Cathryn.
Malachai trumps Serena to check in with her, and finds out that she is bored. Very bored. She wants to leave. Now. And that strange hunchback is scaring Dapple, who claims that she just found a well-hidden corpse on a roof. Malachai suggests that Serena should ask Dapple to bring the corpse to her, and drops the connection.
Serena trumps Malachai back a few minutes later, and says that the dead guy was one of the drovers from the caravan, who was mutilated as if he was tortured to death. They decide to bring the caravan through to Amber, and to resume the route from that shadow when Malachai has more free time.
Aramek begins having problems keeping his form stable, and hears rumors that the caravan is moving out. He decides to hide in one of the empty wagons and go with the caravan.
Malachai goes to Kolvir and stands on Corwin's tomb, looks back at Arden, and sees Zack and Julian appear at the edge of the forest.
Malachai trumps Zack, and they chat about Julian's current situation. Zack says that Julian wants to call his rogue hellhounds to him, and asks Malachai to clear a path through Arden for them to pass through.
Malachai heads to a command post, gives orders to clear a path, then returns to Kolvir, taking a few mounted rangers along to serve as messengers.
Zack and Julian begin walking through Arden, and Julian seems disappointed that only forty or fifty of his two hundred or so newly created hellhounds arrived. Zack blames the losses on the landmines and on rangers defending themselves. As they walk, Julian finishes old hellhounds and creates new ones.
Zack tries to trump Clarissa to find the Mazelands and fails. He then trumps Benedict, who is in an office. They chat about the duel, and decide that Benedict will walk to the Mazelands then trump Zack through, who will then trump Julian through.
Julian and Zack go to a shadow on the edge of Arden where Julian is king for dinner, eat dinner, and wait there for Benedict to trump Zack.
Mikail locates a "weak point" and finds a note there saying, "They're gone." When he passes a note back through, he discovers that he is travelling in the wrong entropy direction and turns around. He then scatters seeds through the weak point.
Cathryn spots Mikail walking down a nearby street. She starts frantically trying to convince Ilkandacian to do something, anything, which leads to some confusion since Ilk has never seen Mikail outside his armor before. Ilk starts reviewing his options and suggests that Cathryn attack, and he'll provide magical backup, mainly to shut her up for a few minutes. She charges, shapeshifting into a large and nasty combat form. While she runs, Ilk finishes his deliberations and casts a paralysis spell and a sleep spell at Mikail. They both succeed. Ilk joins Cathryn at the paralyzed and sleeping target, and they see another Mikail walking down a nearby street. Ilk does a Logrus search for Mikails and overloads due to the sheer number of them. Ilkandacian starts dropping big rocks taken from the townhouse he disassembled earlier on the Mikails. However, amulets around the necks of the Mikails seem to be protecting them from the falling rocks, so he starts using pairs of rocks to encase the Mikails in stone.
A riot starts.
Cathryn returns to Morrolan's castle, tells him her conclusions after investigating his list, and then returns to Ilk, who is still squashing Mikails. Morrolan mentions that the last house was not empty - the red-haired Dragearan delivered the occupant to him earlier.
Ilkandacian acquires a clue and tries to locate demons with the Logrus, and finds none on this shadow.
Vastly underestimating the scale of the riot, Ilk attempts to stop it by sleeping a few city blocks worth of rioters, who are then trampled by the rest of the rioters. Oops. Ilk starts coming up with more, better, and more entertaining ways to stop the riots, but Cathryn doesn't seem to want to hang around the area and departs to Jesby Reception with the slept and paralyzed Mikail simalcrum, who melts after leaving the shadow. Ilk follows Cathryn.
During the distraction, Mikail acquires one of his two missing Swift Edges, and heads over Deathgate Falls to find the other.
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