![[previous]](gu-prev.gif){kind=small}
![[next]](gu-next.gif){kind=small}
Back to the index.
[A note for Rivka's misinformation file - Ilk's Logrus insanity: he's a responsible person in a house of party animals]
Jean asks Celeste why the new bodies that he budded into that were bubbling out of the ground near House Cara are sick. She trumps Ilk. Ilk denies all responsibility; Celeste doesn't believe him.
"I was thinking that if there was anyone you didn't like, we could drop them off near me and seeing if they ate magic."
Celeste makes a medicine ball out of magic and hands it to some of the flying saucers, who take it off towards House Cara.
A horde of Jeans run around Norton's house, eating the crawling paisleys. Faythe is disturbed at the idea that all food in chaos moves. Celeste shows off her pet broccoli; Faythe asks if she can have a chef imported from home.
The flying saucers pour the magic over the crawling things. They don't exactly eat it, but the magic unravels around them. Jean speculates that maybe they eat not-Pattern. Celeste trumps Ilk and asks. The Ilk near House Cara tosses a small Sign of the Logrus at one of the Jeans. That one feels a lot better; it eats the energy and starts going after the source of the signature. That Ilk leaves.
Celeste draws a trump sketch of House Cara and goes through. Celeste builds a trump gate into a slow place in shadow. Five of the six walk through the gate; the sixth splits and the part without Jean stays on this side of the gate. He tries again, and again. The Jean on this bit is now really small. Jean and Celeste discuss the situation. Celeste makes another gate to a nearby shadow, and the remaining Jean is only 1/32nd of the original. A flying saucer goes to pick up the bit and takes it to play with the Chaos storm in Helgram.
The Jean bit finds the chaos storm most exhilarating. He gets sucked out the bottom. He's pretty sure that he's a crab. Or a crab nebula. The last thing that he thinks before he loses all sense of identity is that it is good to be red.
Celeste observes all of the paisleys turn red, wink an eye at her, then return to paisley. She flees the room, screaming.
Ilk sends a message to Suhuy asking for a distraction. He says that the illusion left some time ago. One Ilk enters the council chambers.
Cailin enters a private room, casts an illusion, and steps into the costume. (Zorro's sidekick?)
Never set the cat on fire, you only will annoy it. The flames will make the beast perspire; it surely won't enjoy it. Likewise do not ignite the dog, the snake, the gerbil, or the frog; No, never set the cat on fire. CHORUS: And mind your manners, as circumstances may require. And never set the cat on fire. Don't open up the cabin hatch; the air is sure to leave it. And air is very hard to catch; you never will retrieve it. And even though your life's a bore, don't open the reactor door; Don't open up the cabin hatch. CHORUS Don't change the navigator's data, someones sure to see ya. You know the captain's view of that, a very bad idea. He doesn't want his ship to race forever lost in endless space; Don't change the navigator's data. CHORUS Don't start an interstellar war; it has no helpful uses. When someone asks you "what's it for?", you'll only make excuses. If thirty trillion folks get hurt, you'll go to bed with No Dessert! Don't start an interstellar war. CHORUS (repeat CHORUS once)
Celeste excuses herself from her daughter and contacts the Torturers' Guild. After chatting with the person at the front desk and making an appointment, she asks Jean when her appointment is.
Celeste - "How long is two and a half
turnings?"
Jean - "More than two turnings and less than
three turnings."
Celeste - "This is a basis for a system
of time?"
Jean - "What is time?"
Jean - "Let me know what a minute is. I don't think I've ever seen one."
Jean - "...that sounds very complicated. Why don't you just look at the sky?"
Celeste - "How do you know when the sun sets?"
Jean - "What's a sunset?"
Celeste - "It's when the sun goes down"
Jean - "What's a sun... and what's a day?"
Celeste - "If you count to sixty, that's
a minute."
Jean - "I just counted to sixty, but I
didn't see anything appear."
Celeste - "You can't see time."
Jean - "Oh, it's invisible?"
Celeste - "It doesn't have form"
Jean - "So it's like Ilk - it's tendri'd out"
Celeste - "Time progresses in a straight
line"
Jean - "What's a straight line?"
Celeste draws a straight line on the ground. It starts crawling around and squirming. Celeste holds out her arm. "This is a straight line." Jean replies, "No, that's an arm."
The line starts stringing paisley corpses together. Celeste stomps on the line. It looks up at her, hurt, and the last thing it says before it dies is "mama". Celeste fixes it. It continues stringing corpses; Celeste picks it up and strings it around her neck. The broccoli has crawled out of Celeste's pocket and is nibbling on the paisleys. Celeste picks it up, says "Bad broccoli" and puts it back in her pocket.
Jean points to a group of 60*60*24 Jeans standing in a line, each shouting a single number over and over. "That's a day?"
The sky turns. Jean points the turning out to Celeste.
"Maybe you should ask Melk to explain time to you." "What?" "He's the Time Lord. He's got to know about it."
Jean goes over to Melchizedik and tell him that Celeste doesn't know about time. For a moment, Melk is next to each Jean, then he finds the right Jean.
Melchizedik is a scholarly-looking gentleman in a long brownish-black mottled robe. He has two arms and a haunted look in his eyes. They discuss time and turnings. At Norton's prompting, Celeste asks Melk how you keep time in a bottle. Melk hands her a bottle. She can't see anything in it. Melk reaches a hand out and rests it on her forehead. She now knows that the sky turns and changes colors. Every memory of a sky that she has has been replaced with a sky that turns and changes colors. Melk turns and is no longer there.
Celeste cackles hysterically and starts wandering in the direction of the Torturers Guild. The Norton in her head starts building a barcalounger. She opens a gate and goes to the guild hall. She enters the guild, laughing hysterically.
Norton arrives in the council chambers.
Mandor wanders in. People wander back towards their positions. Melk stands behind Mandor.
"Would the candidates and the Savior of Chaos please approach?"
Ferethyn pops in, and pats his apprentice on her head. She stands, and he takes his seat.
Atalanta pushes her nose into Cassandra's head. "Do I have to sit down now?"
Some people wander towards the front of the chamber. The council chamber settles down.
Mandor continues. "Due to a divide in the vote, it took some divination to determine what king would be best - and all of the divination pointed to the king that the Savior of Chaos crowned would have the best start..."
Mandor holds the crown out to Ilk.
Ilk, Mandor, and Norton chat in Norton's head. They fail to be helpful.
Ilk sends a tendril over to Mandor and asks for advice. Mandor says that the crown wanted Silver Lyra but Andron won the vote. Mandor is generally unhelpful. Ilk continues the tendril towards Melk. Melk steps forward and contacts the tendril.
Ilk and Melk discuss the situation. Melk offers Ilk time to ponder. Melk asks if Ilk has checked with his master.
Ilk asks the Logrus which one he should crown.
In a moment of no-time, Jean, Norton, Cassandra, and Cailin are discomfited.
The Sign of the Logrus appears behind Silver Lyra. There is no signature whatsoever.
Ilk thanks Melk. Melk steps back, and things continue.
Ilkandacian crowns Silver Lyra King as of Chaos. When the crown touches her head, Ilk feels two ghostly hands coincide with his. Norton can see that a spirit just appeared. Norton and Ilkandacian recognize the spirit as Jance. The moment that the crown touches Silver Lyra's head, the throne appears. The Realms Lords' chairs disappear from their former positions and appear behind the throne. Ilkandacian's chair disappears from where it is and appears behind the throne. She rises, and thanks Ilk. Ilk bows. Deeply.
Silver Lyra sits in her throne. Talks briefly.
Silver Lyra melts into the throne and is gone.
Cassandra asks Princess Chandra if she has to swear fealty to the King, and is told that her oath is indirect. Cailin asks, and is told that he needs to swear directly.
Atalanta asks Norton if she can leave. She takes off. Cassandra grabs a tail as it blurs by and yells at Atalanta to stop. They stop half-way across Chaos. Cassandra tells Atalanta to return her to the council chambers, and does so.
Jean tells his mom that his half-sister is now royalty. [Silver Lyra is one of Rainbow's older children.]
Norton and Ilk chat internally.
Cassandra and company chat.
Neville and Helgram reach the Realms Master. They ask for the Chaos storm to be moved from the center of their House. Shiryu says that he will have to see to that when he has some time and energy. He says that he doesn't like either kind of hole in his realm.
Norton walks away from Ilk, laughing.
Cassandra goes over to Corwin.
Neville excuses himself from Suhuy and goes back to his House.
Corwin is loud and drunk.
Ilk goes to Andron and starts to apologize for the change of plans. Andron stops him, and implies that they will talk later.
Norton pings Celeste. Celeste, in the Torturers' Guild, vibrates. The Norton in her head says that he must be looking for her. She trumps Norton. They discuss drugs, the king, and travel situations. Norton pulls Cassandra in. Celeste gains contact with Cassandra and Corwin's wrist. Cassandra and Celeste chat; the two Nortons play charades, synching up information.
Ilk wanders over to Suhuy. "Are we done here?" "I think so." Suhuy hands Ilk a copy of the flip book showing Snarsht and the Hillbilly Dworkin ball. He has a stack of them. They head out to Suhuy's realm.
Celeste starts drawing a trump of the pavilion next to the common entry-way to Pearl. Norton corrects her on the sky -- the sky over the pavilion doesn't look like the one over Chaos. Celeste trumps Cassandra back and checks in on that stationary and weird sky.
Celeste trumps Cassandra back. Celeste passes the trump to Cassandra and discovers a picture in her hand of a stoned Corwin. They chat for a bit, then drop the contact.
They leave the council, get their weapons back, then go through the trump gate. Cassandra is holding Corwin's wrist; Corwin is on the Chaos side looking at his hand, which is lying on the ground. They go back through the trump.
An Etiquette Guild member enters the room and approaches Norton. "Excuse me. There is a somewhat flustered young lady outside muttering your name cabalistically." "Ah. They found me again." Norton wanders out of the room.
Cassandra pulls Corwin over, hands Norton the wrist and the hand. He assembles them and passes them back to Cassandra. She hands it back. "On him!" Norton reassembles Corwin.
Corwin chases a flying bag of chips through the gate. His wrist goes through the gate, he runs after the bag and stops, looking at his hand lying on the ground. Norton puts his hand back on, notices the drug, and shifts it out of Corwin's body. He collects the fluid pouring out of Corwin's heels in a bottle.
Norton heads off in search of Snarsht. The trail of destruction heads off into shadow. Ilk convinces Norton to let him Logrus-pull to Snarsht, and does so, using as much of Norton's signature as possible.
Norton notices that the Dworkin in the ball is starting to resemble the screaming guy in terms of desperation. He's also running out of air. Norton waits for Snarsht to pay attention to him before giving his report.
Ilk talks with Suhuy. Ilk tells Suhuy his perspective on the recent events; Suhuy suggests that Ilk go take a nap and goes off to consult with the Logrus.
Celeste gives the intangible picture to the Norton in her head. It becomes tangible to that Norton.
Back to the index.