Behind the Scenes

First, I took us to Ygg via trump.

"So, what now?" I asked.

"I pull this knot in the tree...you step back...and hey presto!" Kurt explained.

He left the stepping back part a little late. The ground was already tilting underneath my feet so I had to jump back.

"Very funny," I muttered.

Kurt clapped me on the back. "I thought so."

The opening underneath my feet grew larger with a grinding sound to reveal a stone staircase that made its way down deep undergound.

I peered in but couldn't see anything. "What's down there?" I queried.

"Don't worry, little brother," Kurt said, lighting a wooden torch as he spoke. "It holds the key to the fixing of my Pattern. Trust me."

"Right," I replied nervously. "You want me, a self confessed paranoid, to trust you, a member of the same family that's hunting me down one-by-one because of some Chaos prophecy that's turning them all crazy."

"Well, I'm not hunting you down and I'm not crazy. Now get down there!" He thrust the torch at me.

I took it with as much dignity as I could in the circumstances, and taking a deep breath, I started down the steps.

"I hope there aren't any dragons down here," I added, "or monsters or such because I'm really not good at coping with them..."

Luckily for me, we didn't come across any monsters. We found Bleys instead.

The bottom of the steps opened out into a wide circular cavern with walls and floor made of wood. It smelled musty, the way old and expensive furniture sometimes does and the walls were threaded with dark green vines whose scent mingled with the musty smell and created a whole that was not unpleasing to my senses. There were sconces in the walls and I lit the two nearest the steps while Kurt kept guard.

And that's when I saw him.

He was chained to the wall across the cavern from me.

"Bleys!" I exclaimed and hurried forward. He was hanging from the chains and unconscious, and he was beaten about the head and torso, his pulse when I took it was weak but regular. How dare they treat a Prince of Amber so, with no thought of his dignity or rank! I was galled to see him there. I began to search for a weak link in his chains but Kurt dragged me away.

"He's the key to fixing my Pattern, Brendan."

"He needs our help."

"We need his blood."

"WHAT?!"

"Keep your voice down," Kurt ordered. "Bleys isn't that out of it."

I continued in a vehement whisper, "Do you realize he's one of the few who's treated me well and who's not out for my blood? He's always been good to me. I want to rescue him."

"And we will. After we take what we need."

"We rescue him then we ask him," I argued.

Kurt pulled a face. "Sure and you really think he'll say yes, of course, and then bleed for us with no questions asked because he likes us."

I sighed because I knew I was defeated yet again. "Okay...okay...you don't have to be so sarcastic," I replied, glancing over at Bleys. "We don't need a lot of blood, do we?" I asked, hopefully.

"No," Kurt replied, "just enough for you to do your thing with it."

Ah...my thing. Of course! My thing about which I had absolutely no idea. Yet I wasn't about to admit that to Kurt given how invested he was in fixing his Pattern and how he had tied that to my continued well-being. I decided not to remind him that I didn't have a clue what I was doing.

So, I stood back and let Kurt take Bleys' blood and put it in a flask he'd brought with him for the express purpose of blood-letting, already enchanted to keep it fresh. But I insisted keeping tabs on Bleys' pulse because I couldn't tell what his other injuries might be.

Then we cut Bleys down and I pulled up a mental trump of a mutual friend and contact of his in Shadow that I knew. I told her how I'd found him and what had happened, excluding my part in his blood-letting but including his lack of blood and other possible injuries. I passed Bleys through.

From there, I took the two of us to a place in Shadow near Kurt's Pattern. But as soon as we stepped through I knew we'd made a big mistake.

"Hello Brendan," Caine said, with a predatory smile from across the small wooded glade in which we both stood.

And I knew I was dead.