Breakfast in Chaos: Amba, Helena and JurtIndex | Time Under Chaos | Game Logs | Breakfast in Chaos: Amba, Helena, and Jurt Ishtar Ways was seeing rather more people at breakfast than usual, for today, Helena and Amba had an early engagement on the Sword Dance Courts (and in preparation, Amba had spent the night at Ishhtar Ways, and Lord Torren had invited the Lords Despil and Jurt Sawall to join them for breakfast and to join himself in viewing the match. The Lady Fiona had not joined them for breakfast, choosing to eat in her room. The meal was progressing with the conversation focusing almost entirely on the Sword Dances and the growing popularity of some of the moves that Helena and Amba had devised themselves. Indeed, at one point, Lord Despil had caused some amusement by using some of the breakfast ingredients by way of practical demonstration - an amusement heightened when fully half the pieces he had selected attempted to escape. But just over halfway through the meal, there came an interruption. A demon arrived with a message for Lord Torren who no sooner read it than he rose to his feet. "This comes from Lady Tabitha Minobee," he said. "It appears that her daughter is proposing to take the Baronness Solitaire Helgram to the Logrus." "I believe they made some such plan," Despil said. "I thought it kind of the Minobee to offer to show that little frightened mouse of a girl all the sights." "Kind!" Lord Torren gave a short laugh. "I daresay she knew no better. And Lady Tabitha knew not how to prevent it without arousing the girls' suspicions. But it's too late now. This is an encounter that must be prevented. Helena, my dear, Amba, I fear your match must be postponed - I would prefer it if you came with us." "And the Lady Fiona?" asked Despil, rising to his feet. Torren shook his head. "It would be too dangerous." He looked at the other three - at Helena, Amba and Jurt. "Will you come?" "Certainly, Father, if that's what you wish..." Helena replied, bemused by the request. She looked at Amba. Amba did not even bother to issue the redundant assent, as it had come to the point that if you saw one of the women, you saw the other—and a match could hardly go on with only one of them. She smiled at Helena, nodding. "I offer no disrespect, but why Lord Torren should the Baroness not make such a pilgrimage?" Jurt asked after finishing his glass of starfruit blood. Torren had signalled for demons, who were now hurrying to bring cloaks and gauntlets made of harded demon skin, but at this he paused and turned to Jurt. "Have you heard the story of the Baroness and the Logrus?" To Helena and Amba he said, "Full protection, both of you. This could be very dangerous." Whether he meant for more than their regular checks of each other's physical preparedness for the sword dances was unclear. "Assayed it in her dreams from Amber, is the accepted story," Jurt answered, accepting the demonskin cloak. Once fastened over his own wyvernskin duster he added the gauntlets, flexing his fingers to test the fit and range of motion. Helena paused with her fork in mid-air. That's all her stepfather needed to say—this could be very dangerous—and she was grinning and up from her chair and donning cloak and gauntlets with relish. Amba followed, though eschewed the gauntlets, and robed with less enthusiasm. "That's a polite fiction," said Torren. "Helped by the girl herself and her dreams as she came to full sentience... "The truth...very few people know it. I imagine your brother is one of those few. I am another, as is Lady Tabitha Minobee. And what I am about to share with you mut go no further than this group of people in this room. Helena stopped her preparations to listen to what Torren had to say. "What you must understand is that when Solitaire Helgram was a baby, she was offered as a living sacrifice to the Logrus. Amba's eyes narrowed at Lord Torren's words as she looked sharply at Helena. "I think, today, we'll harness the stormcrows to the carriage. Speed will be of the essence." "What will happen if she comes into the Logrus's presense?" Helena asked. "I don't know," said Torren. "Neither does your father. But he's at a rather safer distance to judge the results of this experiement than we are." He glanced round at the others to make sure they were properly arrayed, gave a brief nod, and strode out, leaving them to follow. Still silent after Torren's revelation, Lord Jurt followed quietly. In the cortyard, a carriage was standing, a black carriage—although it was actually built more like a sleigh, of highly polished ebony, inlaid with obsidian, with long graceful curved runners. In place of horses, five black crow-like animals stood in their traces—each large enough fout a wing span of up to twenty feet. But this was not all. Already sitting in the cartriage, swathed in white fur, was the Princess Fiona. A small smile on her face, Amba looked from Fiona to Lord Torren to see his response—and if he'd dare try to gainsay her coming now. "This should be interesting," she said under her breath to Helena. "Mother generally gets her way when it's important to her," Helena whispered back. "Princess, so good to see you again," Jurt greeted. Helena slid onto the bench seat to sit next to her mother and looked up at Jurt with surprise and curiosity. "When did you come visit Ishtarways?" she asked, rather suspiciously. Amba followed Helena, sitting beside her, even as she looked at Jurt. "Why, just last cycle, after my brother's wonderful dinner," Jurt answered with a slow smile. Helena glanced at Fiona, then back to Jurt. She visibly relaxed. "I hope you had a pleasant conversation," she said politely. "I'm sorry I didn't see you to pay my regards." "Compliments can be postponed," said Torren, springing swiftly into the seat beside Fiona. "We have more important matters in hand." He waited until everyone was aboard (Despil and Jurt had a good space to ride behind Fiona and the two girls) and then gave a hoarse, guttural cry--not wholly unlike the cawing of a crow--and suddenly they were airborne and flying through the air with wicked speed. At first the air all around them seemed like ice--streaming past their faces. Fiona swirled the furs around herself and her daughter, glancing across at Amba to see if she needed that comfort too. The ground beneath seemed to rush by in darkness only--winking with a steady, intense beat, was a distance red light. And they were racing towards it. As for Amba, she was looking all around in wonder, seeing something other than the darkness. She seemed unaware of the cold--indeed, sitting so close to her, Helena could feel a faint heat coming from the woman. As the growing light revealed more, Helena could see that the same irridescent sheen that she had seen in the lab covered Amba, and she sat precariously close to the edge, looking at the ground speeding by, her mouth parted slightly. The speed of their travel combined with the looming proximity of the source of all Chaos made the shadows they passed through even more malleable than normal, having an almost ephemeral quality as they sped through changes in terrain. One thing was constant though--the theme of the untamed shadows was more primordial in nature as beasts unseen warred for supremacy and lived simple lives amongst untouched, if not unchanging terrain. Lava flowed along the edges of seas, the interchange creating clouds of steam that obscured the broken ground, eventually giving way to untamed jungles that no man had stepped foot in. And still on they flew... As they flew on, the air began to grow warmer...Fiona pushed the furs aside. After a little while longer, they changed to silk... By now they were circling, moving closer and closer to a small stone building by the edge of the Abyss. At least...some of them might have seen it that way. Helena had never visited the Logrus. When Lord Suhuy taught her to create trumps he spoke to her parents about letting her walk the thing. They both forbade it, deeming it too dangerous, even though she had demonstrated she could shift, as per the poisoned fruit episode. Interestingly enough, those both happened about the same time. Or did Suhuy's request happen before the pear? She wasn't quite sure on the timing--Torren told her about it several years later. Helena looked over at her stepfather. He stared straight ahead and didn't notice her regard, lost in his own thoughts and preparations. She turned her attention to the building they approached. To Helena, the red light pulsing from it was ugly and unsettling. It dulled in color everything it touched, as if tainting it. She sensed immense power here, but it was alien to her, foreign--her own training with Torren had taken a different route. Or was it on a deeper level? Something primal in her rebelling at the disorder and discord below? She wondered if her mother felt similarly. The building they approached looked monstrous to Helena. Black, as black as she'd ever imagined something being, its architecture reminding her of the mouth of some grotesque beast. She squashed that thought, taking several deep breaths and mentally preparing herself not to react emotionally to the surroundings. Torren might need her assistance for whatever was going to happen and she needed to be ready, not incapacitated with dread and apprehension. Helena instead looked at Jurt and Despil, gauging their reactions, and then over at Amba sitting next to her. Amba didn't seem apprehensive at all--if anything, she seemed more...alive. Strange. Very strange. There was a warring within Amba--the it was at once the most horrific and the most beautiful thing she had ever seen. The building itself was just that--a building. It's architecture was intriguing, and showed a definite flair that she had never seen before, but it was like the wrapping of a candy bar--just meant to contain the treasure inside, and of no consequence when compared to it. There was a power that radiated from the structure, at once repulsive and alluring, drawing her in, even as she recoiled against what she sensed, her every input overwhelmed by the spectacle. There was power there, an ancient beacon, beckoning to her, pulling at her sanity, urging her to give into its siren call. She forced herself to look away, shuddering at the hunger that was within her. She saw Helena looking at her, and forced a sickly smile on her face, even as she struggled to push whatever it was that had come up from within her back down into the darkness where it belonged. The stormcrow-drawn carriage landed. "They're already inside," reported Despil, who had had--like Jurt--a good lookout position at the back of the carriage. "I saw," said Torren grimly, even as he sprang from the carriage, down onto what appeared to be red snow. "Come on, girls," he said to Amba and Helena urgently. But when he saw Fiona spring from the carriage too, he shook his head. "Oh no, my Lady. This is too dangerous." She held her head high. The bandages Jurt had seen the dark before on her hands were gone...and it could be seen that, on either hand, she was wearing rings with large, black stones that flashed a strange iridescent light. "I'm coming." "Lady, you reek of Pattern," he said frankly. "The last thing we need now is an unhealthy infusion of order." He glanced around the others--and then nodded to Jurt. "Stay with her. And don't let her use...anything." Jurt nodded simply, not voicing a protest. "Only generally gets her way," Helena whispered to Amba, her eyes on her mother. "The rest of you--come on now." [Torren] turned and ran into the chapel, Despil close on his heels. Without hesitating, Helena ran after her stepfather. Amba was on Helena's heels as they ran towards the chapel, squashing the thoughts in her mind that told her to run the other way. Continued in Breakfast with the Logrus and Left Behind |
