It's getting tough to have a good time nowadays.  First Kilroy, 
then Dad interrupts me.  Kilroy wanted to know where Zane was.  
Now why the Hell would I have any idea?  We're not exactly bosom 
buddies or anything.  Kilroy did tell me that Cuel is still looking for 
me, so the call wasn't a total waste.  That boy has a one track mind, 
he does.  I need to find a way to derail him.

	I was rather surprised to find Lord Tempest hanging out at the 
same bar as I was.  Mardan nobles aren't generally into slumming.  
Myself excepted, of course.  He bought me a drink and we made idle 
chit-chat.  I still have no idea why he was there.  It's too much of a 
coincidence that we would wind up at the same bar.  No, he must 
have wanted something, but he never got around to it.  Of course, we 
were interrupted.

	It's weird, I couldn't ID the call at first, so I didn't take it.  I'm 
not stupid enough to take a call from an unknown party, and I have 
Trumps of everyone important.  Even the Chaos delegates.  The damn 
thing wouldn't go away though, and when I checked again, it was 
Dad.  Does he know of a way to conceal his identity over Trump?  Or 
was the first call from someone else, and they just overlapped?  If it 
was the former, I don't know why Dad used it on me.  Maybe to see 
if I'd be stupid enough to take it.  Dad's tricky that way.  It turns out 
he's getting impatient for me to go talk with Vale.  And he wanted 
me to bring back some Zima.  I don't know what he sees in that stuff.  
It's too sweet.

	I made my farewells to Tempest and headed home.  I opted to 
walk back, to give my head time to clear.  It's not like there was any 
hurry.  When I found Dad, he was in the middle of something 
involving Trump, so I sat down to wait for him to be finished.  I 
should have stayed at the bar.  It wasn't long afterwards that Byron 
showed up, along with those disgusting demons of his, a mute and a 
horse!  What is it with Byron anyway?  I think Waldhiem dumps all 
of the rejects on him.  The mute, who Byron introduced as Dominic, 
refused to take the horse down to the stable where it belonged.  
Well, there was no way I was allowing that animal into the room.  
Byron managed to persuade his entourage to wait out in the hall.  It 
worked as a temporary solution, but simply won't do in the future.  I 
don't care who you are, horses do not belong in castles.

	Once all that was resolved, Byron got down to the purpose of 
his visit.  He claims to be interested in freeing Grandma and Bleys.  
No doubt it would be a political coup of sorts for his house.  Of course, 
Vale is in House Barimen, and they don't get along with Sawall, but 
Byron didn't think this would be a problem for him.  Because, get 
this, he doesn't get involved in politics.  Like that's a protection.  
Everyone is involved in politics, it's just a question of whether you 
are an active participant.

	The most interesting piece of information I gleaned is that he 
thinks he may be an Amberite.  Apparently he's adopted, his real 
father having vanished shortly after he was born.  OK, it's possible, 
but it seems pretty unlikely based on that evidence alone.  He 
wanted to see if my sword would ignite his blood.  Oh yeah, great 
idea.  If it doesn't work, and something goes wrong, I get to explain 
to Waldhiem why I was fooling around with a Pattern sword near 
one of their Logrus masters.  And I don't think they'll buy "He 
wanted to see if he had Amber blood." as an excuse.  And if he does 
have Amber blood, then there's all that blood to clean up.

	It turns out I needn't have been concerned about the blood.  
Dad pulled Kilroy and Randall through, and they provided plenty of 
their own.  Something sure gave them a good chewing over.  
Apparently they tried to go through to Zane, and wound up on an 
empty plain beset by dogs.  Nasty ones, by the look of it.  Pattern 
revealed that both of them were infected somehow with Logrus 
energy.  How were dogs able to do that?  Weird.  Randall asked me to 
dispel the energy with my sword.  This must be my day for odd 
requests.  It turned out to be a bad idea.  I got a nasty shock when I 
touched the sword to one of his wounds.  No way was I doing that 
again.  It did cauterize the wound, though.  Byron said he might be 
able to help, but he needed some time to work on it.  Kilroy left to 
clean up.  Randall hung around with me and Dad to discuss the 
problem.

	We got interrupted again, this time by a Trump call from 
Isabel.  Why is everyone Trumping me all of a sudden?  She said she 
was in Chaos, but didn't have time to say much more before we 
noticed an odd rumbling noise.  Almost like dogs growling.  I wanted 
Dad to hear this, but Isabel got jumped by three dogs before I could 
get him in the contact.  I closed it down fast at that point.  No way 
did I want any of those suckers on me.  It's so hard to get blood out 
of leather.

	Dad thinks the dog plain somehow exists between Trumps.  
Don't ask me how that's possible, my knowledge of Trump ain't that 
advanced.  Dad was pretty put out that he hadn't found it before 
now.  Typical.  He thinks he's some kind of Trump God most of the 
time.  Of course, he was assuming the damn thing's been there all 
along.  I don't think so.  While he pouted, I decided to try and better 
determine how this thing's affecting Trumps, in hopes that would 
give us some clue as to its nature.  At first I thought it might be 
connected to Dad's Trumps, since all of the affected Trumps so far 
were drawn by him.  Dad didn't like this idea.  Geez, I only said it 
was a possibility.  One which was quickly disproved when I Trumped 
Isabel with a sketch of my own.  Same growling noise.  I determined 
she had weathered the dogs OK and shut down the contact.  I think 
she's with that Barimen security guy.  I didn't know Julian had let 
him go free.  Dad left at this point.  I think he's miffed that I 
suggested his Trumps were at fault.  He's awfully thin-skinned 
sometimes.

	Having eliminated the artist as a determining factor, I next 
focused on location.  I was going to Trump Randall to see if the 
barrier existed despite our close proximity, but he got a call before 
we even started.  He was understandably concerned about taking it.  
I IDed the caller as Cuel and told Randall to go ahead.  It was the 
perfect opportunity in a number of ways.  So far, the dogs only 
attacked the initiator of the contact, not the receiver.  If Randall was 
attacked, I'd know the receiver was in danger as well.  If Cuel was 
attacked, I'd know the barrier was effective within the Golden Circle.  
Plus, Cuel would get munched on by dogs, always a good thing.  And 
if nothing happened, I'd know that contacts between Amber and 
Marda seem to be safe.

	It turned out to be the third possibility.  Pity, I was sort of 
hoping for the second.  No problems were evident in Trumping 
Randall either, or in pulling him through.  OK, what common thread is 
left?  Isabel was in Chaos.  Obviously the barrier exists between here 
and there.  Where was Zane?  Randall had no idea, since Kilroy is the 
one who actually talked to him.  Where is Kilroy anyway.  He's been 
gone an awfully long time.

	Kilroy finally made an appearance, but he's... changed.  He looks 
like a giant lizard man and he thinks I'm scrumptious.  I was half 
expecting him to say he could eat me alive.  I made damn sure to 
stay out of his reach.  Byron arrived with his spell, which he cast on 
Kilroy instead of Randall.  As far as I could tell, nothing happened, 
although Byron claims it removed the infection.  A bit late, I would 
say.  He should have cast it on Randall first, since he hasn't changed 
nearly as dramatically.  Yet.  It's going to take another couple of 
hours for Byron to prepare another spell.  At which point Randall 
might be a lizard man as well.  Why did Kilroy change so much faster 
than Randall anyway?  Normally I'd suspect the infection was slowed 
by the presence of Pattern in Randall's blood, but Randall has never 
walked it.  Maybe our experiment with my sword helped after all.

	They wound up going to Waldhiem to get the problem fixed.  I 
went along mostly out of curiosity.  Besides, I wanted to see if there 
was anything unusual about the transit to Amber.  If there was, I 
didn't notice it.  Waldhiem told Kilroy and Randall they owe him a 
favor, gave Byron a gift from Mandor, and told me I share my aunt's 
beauty.  Which is odd, since I don't have an aunt.  I think he meant 
Vale, though.  Dad says she and Waldhiem used to hang out quite a 
bit in the old days.  But she's my second cousin, not my aunt.  Maybe 
Waldhiem just got the terminology mixed up, but that would be 
unlike him.  Most odd.

	After a brief argument between Dominic and Byron, in which 
Byron refused to allow the demonic duo to ride with him (can't say I 
blame him, those two are really disgusting), we set off for Chaos.  The 
group was somewhat larger than the original plan of Kilroy and 
myself, but the more there are, the less my chances of getting hurt.

	We didn't get far.  We ran into a shadow storm before clearing 
the outer boundaries of the Golden Circle.  I'm sure that wasn't there 
yesterday.  Byron tried to Trump us around it, but he heard dogs 
barking through the contact.  I'm beginning to suspect the storm may 
house the barrier.  In which case, I definitely do not want to go 
through it.  We were in the process of trying to find a way around it 
when an enormous flying dragon appeared.  Make that an enormous 
falling dragon.  I tried to shift shadow out of it's way, and wound up 
in the shadow storm.  The last place I wanted to be.  Well, actually 
the second to last, since being underneath the dragon when it landed 
would be worse.  At least Kilroy got stuck with me.

	I brought Pattern to mind in hopes I could spot the edge of the 
storm with it, but no luck.  We were in the process of retracing our 
steps when I was mentally attacked by something.  It was very odd.  
One minute we're riding along, the next I'm on my ass with a 
headache and no Pattern.  I hate shit like this.  We'd almost found 
our way out, when suddenly I had Pattern to mind, and then, wham, 
I was on my ass again.  I don't know what the Hell happened there.  
It's like time just skipped, like a scratched CD.  Needless to say, that 
only increased my desire to get the Hell out of there, and we 
proceeded at all possible speed.

	We made it this time, and found only Randall on the outside.  
Then Dominic arrived, and chased Kilroy all over the place trying to 
make psychic contact with him.  It was kind of humorous, in a way.  
However, when Dominic knocked Kilroy off of his horse, I decided 
things were getting too serious.  With my crossbow to back me up, 
Dominic saw my point as well.  There's certainly nothing wrong with 
his hearing.

	Isabel joined us, along with the Barimen security guy.  He 
shook hands with Dominic, and I think Dominic tried for psychic 
contact, because the Barimen guy (What was his name again?  Oh 
yeah, Li Chan) jerked his hand away like he'd been shocked.  I felt 
the same way moments later, when Isabel told us what she'd learned 
in Chaos.  It seems the guy in charge of investigating the attack on 
Grandma is the same guy who orchestrated it.  Why doesn't this 
surprise me?  I knew it was a setup.  I wonder if the whole House is 
involved, or just a faction of it?  Isabel seems to think Li Chan is not.  
Apparently his partner was the guy killed in the attack.  
Nevertheless, I don't trust anyone from Barimen right now.

	Dominic finally got Isabel to allow psychic contact.  She 
certainly is a trusting fool.  He wanted us to help him find Byron, 
who still hadn't turned up.  Neither had those damn demons, but no 
one missed them.  I tried Trumping Byron and got, you guessed it, 
dogs.  Which, if my theory is right, means he's on the other side of 
the shadow storm.  We followed Dominic for a while, right up until 
the point it became obvious he was going to take us right into that 
damn storm.  No thank you.  Been there, done that, don't want to 
repeat the experience.  Shadow storms are bad enough.  The 
presence of the Trump barrier makes things worse.  But that time 
skip, that's what really bothers me.  What if we got stuck repeating 
ourselves over and over again, always in the storm, never finding a 
way out?  No way, not this Amberite.  Mom and Dad didn't raise me 
to be stupid.  Dominic wound up going in alone.  He's a brave sucker, 
I'll give him that.  I admire his devotion to Byron.  But I wouldn't go 
in there even if my own father was on the other side.  Well, maybe 
that's not the best example.

	We waited for a while, but no one emerged.  Eventually we got 
back to our original goal of finding a way around the storm.  Our two 
newcomers had lost their transportation, and given what had 
happened the last time I tried shifting shadow, I didn't think we 
should use that method to find them horses.  Isabel wound up riding 
with me, but no one would take Li Chan.  I certainly wouldn't trust 
him behind me.  He ran alongside us instead.  He certainly is a fine 
physical specimen.

	We gave up, eventually.  There doesn't seem to be an end to it.  
It's like Amber is at the eye of the storm.  A disquieting thought, to 
be sure.  I tried Trumping Dad to let him know of this development, 
but he wouldn't answer.  I hope he's not still pouting.  We all went 
back to Amber and made our respective reports to Garth.  Like he 
can do anything about shadow storms and Trump barriers.  He 
wasn't pleased to hear about Barimen's treachery, though.  Of course, 
with the storm where it is, there's no way to get to Chaos.  Unless we 
try Isabel's flying dragon technique.

	I'm heading back to Marda, for the time being.  Dad still won't 
answer his Trump, so I guess I'll have to talk to him in person.  At 
the very least I want to warn him and Mom about the storm.  If it 
starts heading our way, we may need to evacuate.