Chapter Ten
Philosphical Ramblings

Gwen and I decided to hang out and talk for a while, her headache nonwithstanding.
"Well, what would you like to talk about, Corvina?" Gwen asked, tiredly.
"How long does it take him to recharge?" I asked, gesturing at the 01 lump.
"I have no clue" Gwen sounded disinterested in discussing 01. "I've never seen him run down before" she added.
"This place is disgusting" I noted.
"Yeah" she replied "tell me about it. It offends my...senses."
We sat in silence for a few moments. It wasn't uncomfortable, though, I realized with a bit of disquiet. I noted the lack of other participants in the conversation. Injarda-o was far out in inner space, and Timtallagay fell asleep as quickly and trustingly as a child. That made me feel odd. 01 could be listening, but I hoped his batteries were too low.
"You appear to have the same deep, abiding, loving, trusting relationship with your family that I do" I commented offhandedly.
"Yeah", Gwen chuckled. "I thought it was only natural. Well, growing up like we did, obviously. The rest of these people are seriously broken though." We both giggled over the concept for a moment.
"Your family doesn't seem to stick their fingers in your business as much as mine does though" I observed. "Everywhere I go I trip over one of them."
"Well, that's because Roland was good at one thing. That was war" she replied.
"That's all he did?"
"That's all he did. He loved just taking over my shadow for a while and going out and blowing up things. Of course, the poor shadow creatures didn't pose much of a challange for him." Gwen's expression was comtemplative, and I realized that her brother meant more to her than most family does to our type. Interesting.
"I must say I envy you. Your brother sat in one place and blew things up, mine had to take over half of the Universe" I told her.
Gwen laughed. "Well, I think my brother was getting somewhere with his hopes and expectations, but, it kind of got cut short. And while I'm not happy about that, I cannot say that it's not a relief in some respects Of course, I still don't know what happened to my mother..."
Ah, the perfect opening "And what about your father?" I asked quietly.
"I have no clue who he is. Well.... that's not true...... but I'm not sure who he is" she replied hesitantly.
"But you have a clue" I pressed.
"Mmmm, maybe, I think mother may have let something slip last time" she pondered.
"Oh, what are your top three guesses?" I asked a bit sarcastically, looking at the short-tempered green-eyed red head across from me.
"Well" she said "it might be Corwin." I noted that she said this with a perfectly straight face. Either she was really good at denial, or I didn't want to play poker with her. Ever.
"Really" I noted.
"Maybe."
"You don't look like Corwin" I pointed out.
"I know I don't" she said "but she seems to have a thing for him."
"So did my mother", I said dryly.
"Yeah" Gwen agreed. "That would make me related to you wouldn't it.. No, I don't want to think about that" she cringed.
Gee, I thought, thanks. But, if appearences be true, I'm fairly sure we're related anyway. And I was also sure Gwen couldn't help but be aware of that. At the least, cousins....even if she was one of Corwin's spawn.
"No, actually, it wouldn't" I told her. "I don't think Corwin's my father."
"Oh" she said, like this was some sort of new information. I am definately not playing cards with her.
"Corwin is Merlin's father, though" I volunteered, seeing where she'd go with that thought.
"Right" she said, "I don't want to think about that either."
"No" I agreed with her "you don't." Agree, poke, poke....
"I think I'll just keep those thoughts to myself" she decided. Dodge, sidestep, evade. I could press for more later.
"What did your mother look like, anyway?" I asked again. I knew this, but I didn't want to entirely drop the conversation. Gwen pointed this out, but handed me a trump anyway. Heh. Other people have trumps of their mothers. I have to remember to point it out to Dara, maybe it will annoy her.
"She ran away from the Courts to get away from the politics" Gwen told me.
I studied the trump. " Somehow", I mused "you don't look like someone I'd picture as a result of breeding between your mother and Corwin."
"Probably not" Gwen said quietly. I handed back the trump.
"Well, isn't debating lineage an age-old passtime?" I asked her, trying to generate more interest.
"Yeah" she admitted "especially for bastards It's always nice to imagine. Heck, with my hair, I would say my mother would be Fiona, but, that's obviously not true. Well, not obviously, but probably not true."
"Well", I smiled, since she was finally admitting to my point "I can tell you my mother's not Fiona."
"Ok" she smiled back. "Your mother was Merlin's mother, correct?"
"Last time I checked, altough she might be lying. One never knows. I only have her word to go on, and that's worth spit."
"Whatever, it's really kind of irrelevant at this point in time" she said, looking away. Ok, Gwen, time to drop this for now.
"Probably" I agreed. "I am curious though..."
"Yes?" she asked.
"For all the time, all this running around, trying to figure out whether or not you're guilty of a murder, and there was the victim, hanging around Tekvar's neck Isn't that annoying?"
Gwen frowned. "Yeah. Not only is it annoying, but I distrust easy answers, and this seems remarkably easy and remarkably convenient at this point in time."
"I would think", I mused, "if I had something like Ghostwheel chasing me and my friends around, trying to get us dead, and I had thae answer hanging around my neck but the answer said oh no, please don't tell, I would blow it off, how about you?"
"Yeah, but then again Tekvar's not from Amber, Tekvar's from shadow" she told me.
"Oh, he could have morals. Yuck". I commented "Those could be fixed." It is my opinion that morals are a detriment, and will only hold you back, or make you hesitiate in a critical moment. Dara would be proud, apparently some of her philosophy got through.
"I think we were getting there with him, he's much more cynical than he was when he first started with us."
"It just seems odd that he'd leave the answer hanging around his neck all that time and not even hint that he could be helpful" I murmured. "Without giving anything away." Gee, throwing dispersions on Tekvar's character could become a hobby. Nah.
"Well, you know, I don't know how long he's known, but he didn't know when he first got Orenstein. Or if he did, he hid it remarkably well..."
"I can't imagine that" I mumbled dryly.
Gwen continued ..."because he allowed me to mind-probe him, and he had no defenses to speak of at that point. Although, with our most recent incident, he had developed his mental status significantly."
"Shapeshifters, just can't trust em, eh?" I grinned, teasing her.
"Can't trust anyone, forget about shapeshifters" she retorted. I sat for a moment, considering the whole deal. The more I thought about it, the stranger my brother's attitudes were.
"I'm afraid Prescott's right though" I said.
"What's that?" Gwen asked.
"I don't think his father does terribly care" I confided.
"Do any?" she asked.
"Ghostwheel does" I said.
"Yeah, but Ghostwheel's not his father, Ghostwheel's his brother and has nothing to fear from Prescott" Gwen retorted.
"I find it odd that Merlin sent me out instead of coming himself" I observed "I look at it this way, his only son was killed and one of the people accused of the murder was his father, and he didn't want to investigate this personally?"
"He obviously knew something that we didn't" Gwen offered in a non-committal tone.
"I figure" I said, unsure. The whole thing was just weird, and the more I thought about it, the stranger it became. I understood that Merlin was busy, and that he had a lot to do, but this seemed a bit out of the ordinary, and something that he would best resolve himself.
"Random's obviously known something the whole time" she added "but..." Gwen trailed off, her point made. They just loved to seem to hide things from us.
We discussed, for a time, the deliberate lack of dissemination of information that we all seemed to be suffering from. Gwen's seen more of the Courts than I've seen of Amber, but things don't seem to change.
Talk eventually turned to getting out of that weird place, and the possiblility of using trumps. Of course, this led to Injarda-o. Gwen commented that he had lots of technical knowledge, but was terribly naive. I added that his shadow was incredibly weird.
"Remember, he comes from an odd shadow where they teach trump to lots of people" Gwen told me.
"I didn't think you could" I mused, shaking my head.
Gwen was quick to agree "But he said his teacher had other students."
"Maybe some shadow where Injarda-o's from is where they're keeping the bastard progeny of Amber" I opined.
Gwen agreed that it was possible, and we contemplated the potential weirdness of the theory.
After a brief silence, my gaze fell with relief on the relatively normal coloring of 01. I began to wonder again what his purpose was.
"Who built that?" I asked, pointing at 01.
"00" Gwen replied "or something of the sort. I don't keep quite the notes that Timtallagay does, unfortunately."
"Those aren't notes, that's a photographic memory, probably recording right now" I observed.
"I wouldn't doubt it" Gwen agreed.
"Kind of spooky, actually" I said thoughtfully.
"Timtallagay's a little.....different" Gwen added, after a monent.
I rolled my eyes, letting her know my opinion of stating the incredibly obvious in such an understated way. She nodded back, but continued.
"He was different even before the trump incident" she told me. "But that kind of pushed things over the edge."
I thought for a minute, and decided that if I could do anything about this place, I had certainly had enough of it. Ravenwind hung dejectedly about my shoulders, and it occured to me he might be about to find a few kinks in this shadow.
"I'm going to try a little experiment and see if I can get us out of here" I told Gwen. I looked around, making sure we had no audience and no witnesses. Pulling Ravenwind from around my shoulders, I told Raven to shift to his bird form. Gwen watched with interest.
"Nice familiar" she commented. I smiled at her. I wasn't quite ready to fully explain Raven yet.
"Raven", I asked, "can you track through shadow from here?"
"There is no shadow here" he told me.
"Where are we?" I asked him.
He looked upset and fluttered his wings with great agitation. I got the impression he had no way to express it, so I let it go. I asked him to find a way out, and at least I told him try, and he flew off. He circled around for a bit, the only patch of darkness in a nightmare sky, then returned to me unsuccessful. I told him to return to cloak form, not wanting anyone beyond Gwen to know I had him. Ravenwind shifted back, but it took him longer than normal, which concerned me.
I wondered about my newer acquisition - the toy from Brand's room. Looking at my left wrist, I tried talking to it again.
"Do you have any ideas?" It squeezed my arm twice, but was unhelpful.
There was a flurry overhead, and Tekvar landed back in the area.
"Well, we know that trumps work here" Gwen said thoughtfully.
"Trumps work well here" Tekvar corrected her.
"If you can concentrate on them without the rest of this" Gwen waved her hand about disgustedly.
"Can you activate trumps here without a problem?" I asked Tekvar.
"I can't he replied, but Orenstein might be able to. He pulled me out of this world once."
Tekvar and Gwen had a brief discussion and disagreement about their last visit to this world, and my mind wandered off for a few seconds.
Tekvar mentioned that Orenstein had told him in the past that he could pull Tekvar along with him. This was interesting.
"Prescott" I asked "can you trump out of here?"
"No" he answered me.
"How do we get out of here then?"
They told me about the black road, and how they'd gotten out last time.
"Well, we know we can use trump, I've contacted people from here before" Gwen protested.
Gwen and Tekvar explained the creation (theoretically by 01) of the last black Road, and how it came to be, from it's beginning as an ink spot to the expansion of the Road. They told me about the black geiser, and the mess it created. This seemed to be the one thing that everyone agreed on - this was hideous. It did not, though, seem to be what I would normally think of as a Black Road, that was just their only term for it.
"So, until 01 recharges and that black dot begins to spread, you're telling me we're here" I surmised from all this.
"Apparently" Gwen answered.
"Try to activate your trump" I suggested.
"Of?" she asked me.
"The Courts" I decided. She pulled out the trump and began concentrating on it.
"Ok, well it seems to be active" she told me after a time. "Shall I step through? I can always come back, I have a trump of Tekvar."
"Hmmm" I said, "it should work."
"I don't see any reason that it wouldn't except for the fact that this place is a mess!" Gwen exclaimed.
Gwen and I decided to try it. We stepped through the wierdly static picture into a small room that felt far too familiar.
"Shit!" I exclaimed, realizing then what we'd done.

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Lady Corvina I of the Courts of Chaos