Chapter 2 - Desiree's Warning

The interesting dialogue that concluded Chapter 1 was interrupted by the pellmell arrival of Isadora and Joshua from Shadow ... (for more details of their earlier adventures see The Quest for the Jewel)

The prince extended a silver-gauntleted hand ... Isadora reaches out to take and holds onto Joshua to bring him through as well.

Corwin is in the Oak Study, and Dara is seated with him near the fire...the aura of past tension lies in the air like a plucked harp string, though both attempt to dismiss it in light of their arrivals.

Standing, Corwin hands each a mug of warmed wine. "Here...drink if you will, and quickly. Then we'll be away. Arathorn and Thomas have fled as well as your Kalaran, and things are looking grim."

Isadora took the wine but at Corwin's words she nearly choked on the sip she took. She gave a worried look to Joshua.

Joshua returned the look with one of equal concern. He drank greedily, wiping the excess away on his sleeve.

"Thats better," he announced.

"The Darke?" said Isadora. "You mean the Darke has taken Arathorn and Thomas as well? How are we suppose to fight this?"

Joshua shook his head as he heard the news.

"Things indeed are looking worse with every passing moment. What can we do?" he asks.

Then she drank more of the wine quickly.

"I believe," Corwin states quickly, grabbing his cloak and furling it around his shoulders, "that Thomas and Arathorn may not be quite the advocates of the Darke so much as the victims...if that is indeed who took them. Time will tell. For now, we are needed below... Come."

Taking Isadora by the shoulder, he nods to Joshua to help Dara.

"To the dungeons..."

Joshua smiles slightly, the first smile since his experience with Caine and Fiona. He moves to assist Dara, and then to follow Corwin and Isadora.

"Lady Dara." he offers a small bow, and then an outstretched hand. "Shall we?"

"Indeed," she agreed. Her eyes were alight at the imminence of action as she took his hand.

"Do you have a sword for yourself? Corwin ... " She turned her head. "I shall need a sword myself. A rapier - you know the sort of blade I favour."

"There'll be one down this hall, in a moment...a pair crossed and braced on the wall...take one as we go by, Dara."

Corwin strode forward, leading the others.Isadora had a million questions, but Corwin's action didn't leave any more time. She made certain her daggers were in place as she walked with him.

"What is going on here?" she said almost to herself. Half not expecting an answer, but knowing her answers would be waiting for her somewhere...below.

Joshua listens intently, hoping there would be answers forthcoming.

"Cymena's ghost interupted dinner, as did a Chaosian envoy from the minor houses...and we've found the Darke beneath our very footsteps. The others have gone below to investigate, and now it seems Arathorn
and Thomas have up and vanished after a patternwalk!"

Isadora takes one of the rapiers as well. Leaving the other one for Dara to take. She wanted more then her daggers to fight with if the need came to that.

They reached the spiral stairs under Foresthall's second basement, and Corwin begins the descent into the dark chasm beneath, winding his way as quick as he might around the vast central pillar that plunged into the bowels of the mountain.

"Trump...." be breathed, and then in a moment, he caught a vision of Desiree in his mind's eye, causing him to slow down.

"Desiree? Where did you go to...it's been hours. Is that Caine beyond?"

Isadora leans closer to Corwin at the mention of her father's name. Though not interupting him, she seemed keen on the conversation as she left her father wounded when they raced away.

"Yes, yes," Desiree spoke, her nerves causing her voice to have an odd quality to it. "He's hurt... I'm not sure what's happened to him," she glanced Caine's way momentarily. "I only just got here, myself. He wants... he wants liquor to ease the pain of his leg, I think," she said, torn between compassion for her Uncle and the need to tell her news to someone on hand in Amber.

Joshua takes his well concealed hip flask out of his pocket, containing his personal brew.

"Always comes in handy." he mutters.

"But that's not why I contacted you," she said, her voice rising in fear or warning. "I know what's going on. I know what threat lies beneath Amber. You can maybe save us. But you have to be prepared ..." she said wildly.

"Here," offered Joshua, his arm outstretched with the hip flask clearly visible. "Maybe this will help. Now pray tell what threat lies beneath Amber. It appears to have been a day for threatening behaviour." Instead of a smile, a serious expressions maintains itself across Joshua's features.

She glanced at the offering as if slightly confused, for a moment. Then, "Oh, thank you..." she said, and moving forward, she knelt down and offered it to Caine.

"Martin... " she said, and licked her lips, not wanting to deal this blow. "Uncle Corwin, he's summoned something from the depths of the Abyss, and it wears the face of Deirdre. If it is she, she is not as you knew her... but some glimmering of life or love may yet remain," she said.

"You may be the only one able to reach her... long enough to free her from whatever torment undeath brings..."

At the name of his sister, Corwin pales, his steps faltering upon the stairway, a hand pressed to the stones of the central column upon which they wind around in their descent.

Dara brushes lightly past Joshua and moves several steps closer to him, her face concerned.

Desiree cleared her throat. "She is below Amber as we speak. Kalaran has been corrupted. Martin... I don't know. Mayn't he yet be saved? I could still see him, the man that he was. His heart still beats,
I'm sure of it..."

"If I see him...he has lost his chance for words. The best he'll earn is a quick and merciless death!"

She was stunned to silence momentarily, and managed a choking gasp.

"Do you know how he managed to escape Rebma? We've heard nothing from Moire about this..."

Then she spoke quickly, as if trying to convey as much information as possible - as quickly as possible. "Yes... " she began. "But first I must tell you I can't get in touch with Benedict or Vincent. I'm afraid they have already fallen prey." She took a heaving breath. "And Deirdre is ready to unleash some sort of army of Darke creatures from within the castle's bowels..."

Dara stops ... the hand that was half-lifted falling back to her side. Expressionless, she watches his face, trying to read the import of what he is hearing.

"Damn!" Corwin cursed, and he picked up his speed until he flew from the bottom of the stairway, across the mist-strewn cave floor, toward the Pattern Chamber, Grayswandir gleaming ahead of him.

"This must be the hidden threat Benedict warned us of...not Tir Na'Nogth, but this! Though no one could have predicted it would boil up from our very feet...!"

Desiree nodded.

"We believed there was a puppetmaster... someone calling the shots, someone who knew the castle. Someone who would know where to hide close by," she said, her voice staccato with sudden acute vehemence.

"I discussed it with him... but then at dinner... all those fools! Wanting to destroy the Pattern... Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity. Especially when it is possessed by those in power..."

As Corwin ran, trailing youngers behind him, a curious thing came over his blade...

Isadora felt the same sense of doom that urged Corwin forward. She stayed on his heels and somehow feeling safe with Joshua behind her.

Joshua was indeed on her heels, spurred on also by the increasing sense of doom.

...for a brief moment, it seemed to flare or shimmer with crimson and green, as if it reflected some eldritch fire unseen by the naked eye...and then it was gone, its silver tracery the only mark upon the naked metal.

There was no time to consider the blade, but its message seemed to say something as well. A power was here. Corwin's sword showed who was darke and who was not. They were entering into the Darke's area now.

Joshua shook his head, his face grim, as he observed the warning from Corwin's sword.

Corwin sped onward, toward the Pattern Chamber, his cloak a shadow streaming from his shoulders...

"Uncle, be forewarned of what you will see: she is a thing of mist and rot, an incorporeal spectre. And if you can somehow slay her, it will only give her peace," Desiree emphasized, with otherworldly intensity.

"Don't hesitate to act on the account of love. It is a loving act to free her," she reiterated, the card in her hand beginning to quake uncontrollably.

"You have to save them," she finished, her voice growing weaker.

Not slowing down, Corwin entered the tunnel that exited the great cavern, making for the Pattern Chamber, Grayswandir gleaming in the dim light...mist scudding around his ankles, thickly.

"We'll know soon enough..." he barked.

 

Home Page | Title Page | Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3