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Jean notices that in the fastest time shadows containing his puppets, things around him are moving more quickly relative to his puppets.
Ilk's conquest of the other reality has just hit a major snag. There is somebody or somebodies who is trying to regain control behind him. He found out when one of his agents reported in to him just before being shredded by a Pattern-based attack. Ilk starts trying to determine if the Pattern is familiar to him.
Neville went back to Helgram to begin cleaning things up. There were six or seven beings that came out of the Chaos storm in the middle of the house, said, "Wrong address", and then five of them left. One of them is missing. He has a member of the etiquette guild relay that information to Shiryu. Neville goes to check it out. There are splashes of order all around the area.
Celeste is in the waiting room in the Torturers' Guild. A receptionist escorts her into Brand's room. Brand fails to recognize her; Celeste bursts into tears and collapses on the floor. A hand crawls off a rack and pats her. "Wow - you're real. I can touch you. You aren't just another piece of the torture?" They discuss Brand's situation. He's been tormented by visions and illusions by her, and a number of the illusions involve Celeste. Celeste is not okay with it. The piece in the back of his head is her. She's not sure what the thing in the back of her head is. Brand advises her to check into the room next to him or kill herself if it is her.
Corwin, Cassandra, Cailin, and a number of bodyguards are waiting for Trialla next to the barrier to Pearl. Cassandra tries to perform the barrier crossing, aiming for the area near the tents on the Primal portion of Pearl.
Cailin, Cassandra, and a bunch of bodyguards arrive in Pearl. Corwin and Trialla are nowhere to be seen. Cassandra cautions Cailin to stay put and steps back across the barrier. Cassandra discusses the situation with Corwin. Cassandra concludes that the people who can cross themselves should do so. All three of them cross the barrier at the same time, and appear in Pearl in three different places. Trialla wanders off; Corwin and Cassandra converge.
Cassandra complains about the desk in the center of Corwin's Pattern. Corwin declares that he will leave the desk there in case he needs to stash Malachai somewhere. Cassandra leads the group through shadow to the castle.
Cassandra - "I'm sure that there's a cleaner path than that."
Corwin - "Now, now. I enjoy the royal way every now and then."
Cassandra asks Corwin how to go faster. Corwin takes Cassandra on a short hellride. "How do you do that?" "Grab your worst nightmare and ride it." "What if you don't have any nightmares?" "Try raising a daughter."
Jance comes pelting up to Cassandra. He's excited because he won the betting pool. Cassandra tells him to gather White Company for dinner tomorrow - they have an "intelligence gathering mission". Jance stops flirting with Cassandra and flees when he notices Corwin.
Cassandra goes off to talk with someone; Cailin prepares for dinner by conjuring some new travel-worn clothing. An old man walks up to him.
"Nicely done!"
"Who are you?"
"I'm Iff!"
They talk. The old man complains about "Who's on first" questions, then starts changing Cailin's color schemes. He seems delighted to acquire an actual student.
Dinner is only Corwin, Cassandra, and Cailin. Corwin's most recent fling is not present. Cassandra goes there. Corwin leaves the dining hall. Cailin and Cassandra discuss Iff and intelligence gathering expeditions.
Some of the Jeans that are slowing down are trying to turn into rings. It's harder for the ones that are moving more slowly. Jean asks Dworkin for advice. Dworkin trumps Jean by staring at one of the fish. Dworkin and Dworkin's apprentice pull through to a fast shadow. The puppet Jean sees everything moving quickly around them; the primal-ish Jean sees things moving normally. The fish is briefly in trump contact with all of the Jeans. The fish is overwhelmed and traumatized.
Dworkin examines a mattress. He determines their problems to be due to natural life patterns. Some of the mattresses that eat start speeding back up; the slowest ones have reached a plateau and stopped slowing.
Just before Celeste leaves, Brand's face wiggles and moves, and Gwen looks out at Celeste and says, "You're next." Brand's face returns, and Brand resumes his sentence, unaware of any interruption.
Celeste mentions to Brand that Faythe is going to get married to Norton. Brand is shocked and opposed to the notion. Norton contributes to the conversation in his own unique way.
Norton buds into Brand's head and notices that there is not much here. Most of it is automated systems. As soon as Celeste leaves, the torturer enters and goes back to work. Norton starts trying to get rid of the thing in Brand's head, while keeping a low profile and trying to avoid the attention of the good doctor.
Celeste tells the Norton in her head that she probably has something similar in her head. Norton goes to check. After a long time, Norton finds a big glowing green door. It's a hideous and sickly green. Norton ascends and asks Celeste about the door, then returns to look at it again. The door is in a color range that roughly corresponds to Fiona's colors.
Celeste flees towards Andron's place, then realizes that she has no idea where Andron lives. Celeste trumps to House Cara and asks Jean where Andron is.
Jean - "What makes brains good food?"
Celeste - "Nothing!"
Jean - "Well, a bunch of me have been slowing down recently because
they haven't eaten any brains recently."
Jean asks Celeste how to get a supply of brains, and then asks the Norton in Hendrake for a brain farm. After Jean explains his problems, Norton compares an old mattress and a not-old mattress for differences, but doesn't find anything beyond the obvious. Norton-in-Celeste recommends a non-Celeste based Norton.
Norton experiments, with minimal success. Ilk in Norton pulls in a few dozen Fox Mulders from shadow to experiment upon. Jean decides that the mattresses should just turn into saucers, which aren't aging. The gunships aren't aging, either. And the ring that Jean was trying to mimic isn't sentient, so he stops trying to do that. Shifting into a non-sentient form does seem to remove his connection to that body.
The brains that were mind wiped are easily detectable as non-tasty and are budded into almost reflexively, as soon as they were pulled in. The ones that weren't mind wiped are quite tasty, particularly with the crackers supplied by Ilk.
Jeans across shadow turn into saucers. Those that find themselves unable to turn into saucers turn into tiny Jeans.
Norton animates the brainless Mulders as servants, and starts working on fixing the zombies given into his care by Corwin.
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