I Trumped Derek and talked to him for a while. He seemed very concerned about me, which is sweet of him. At least someone is. He had no idea that Etienne was in Amber, and he didn't know why, either. He had trouble believing that Lord Bremen had been seen, much less that he had walked the Pattern. I can't say I blame him. He was concerned about my safety and tried to get me to return to Chaos. I dearly wish I could. I hate Amber. Everyone is suspicious of me there. But it's safer than where I am now. I think. I've returned to Amber. I wanted to talk to Markus, so that's where I appeared. Handy that. Pity I don't have better control over it. Markus said the water was an accident. They had to move a large quantity of it, and Nicholas forgot I was down there. I suppose he could be telling the truth. If it was an assassination attempt, it was pretty inept. Markus was standing on a flight of stairs, and he made it clear that he didn't want me to follow him down them. Which pretty much assured I was going to investigate where they led later on. He gave me a Trump of himself and asked for mine. These Amberites are confusing. Half the time they act like they think I don't have any Trumps, and the other half they seem to expect me to have half a dozen of myself alone. I wish they'd make up their minds. Trumps do seem to be more plentiful around here. Maybe I can find some. Left alone with no guards and nothing better to do, I decided to explore the castle. What better opportunity will I have? After wandering around for a while, I made my way back to the stairs Markus didn't want me to descend. There were two guards posted there. I love Amber, they tend to use such obvious guards. I figure any place that needs to be guarded is worth investigating. I tried to use the Spikard to transport me around the next bend in the stairs, out of sight of the guards. I wound up in a portrait room instead. I definitely need to work on that. The portrait room was interesting. It seems to have pictures of all of the Amberites. Even the King was there. I keep forgetting he's an Amberite. I did a careful study of the portraits and the names hung underneath them. At least now if I run into any new Amberites, I'll have some idea who they are. It's amazing how we sometimes overlook the simple answer in favor of a more complicated one. Instead of teleporting beyond those guards, I could have turned invisible and walked right past them. Once I realized this, it was no trouble at all to do. The stairs descended for quite some distance before they finally ended. There was a big set of double doors at the bottom. No cracks to look through, unfortunately. I didn't want to just open the door, because if anyone was on the other side, they'd be a little suspicious of a door opening by itself. I wish I had an intangibility spell. I'll have to work on one. I wasn't willing to just turn around and leave, not after all the effort I went through to get down there in the first place. So I cracked one of the doors just wide enough to look in. I hoped that anyone inside wouldn't notice it. I saw Pattern inside. Just being that close to it gave me the creeps. I want no part of it. I quickly pulled the door shut again and left. I ran as quickly as I could without making any noise. I wanted to get as far away from that thing as possible. I'd passed the guards and was almost at the top of stairs when Nicholas and Markus appeared in front of me. I must have triggered something when I opened that door. Markus couldn't see me, but Nicholas sure could. Actually, I'm pretty sure the only thing he could see was the Spikard, since he was focusing on that. There's got to be a way to hide it. Nicholas asked me to show myself. Fat chance. I have no idea how touchy Amberites are about Chaosites being near their Pattern, but if they were going to attack me, I wasn't going to give them a better target. Nicholas brought up the Logrus and I decided that was my cue to exit. I wound up in some guard's quarters. Nicholas hasn't come after me yet, so maybe he's decided to leave me alone. It's not like I want anything to do with their stupid Pattern anyway. The more I explore this castle, the more convinced I am that Brand took out most of the Amberites in his attack. The only Amberites I've seen since I arrived have been Markus, Jacob, Rachel, Bartholomew, Nicholas and Morgan. Assuming Rachel is an Amberite. And of that number, the only ones I've encountered during my explorations have been Markus and Nicholas. The others must be scrambling to cover the situation up. They have guards posted outside the room where Random and Vialle are still frozen. They don't appear to have made any progress in the actual unfreezing. I wonder if I should lend a hand? Their problems are really none of my concern, but if I was able to free their king and queen, it might make them more inclined to trust me. And I must admit to a great deal of curiosity about Vialle. Why do I have her Trump? How does she know Dad, and vice versa? This all assumes I can even remove the spell. Something Brand created is not to be taken lightly. As far as I can tell, time just stopped in the area surrounding them. I've never seen a spell like this before. But with the power of the Spikard I might be able to pull it off. The only question is, do I want to?