The chronicles of the exiles, 9.

By Aratana

Shortly after Random left, lord Orden mentioned that "he had some interesting insights". Lord Orden then bleached as there was a flash of silver light and Fiona appeared. Orden left. Sideways. Fiona looked rather angry to say the least. After a brief questioning of me and Darius, Fiona said that we could be excused. Fiona called Bryan to heel.The collar glowed briefly and he was compelled to do her bidding. Fiona looked at us and said that it would be best for us to "do something else. Orden mentioned a group that would not be using the weapons of late. They have a castle, but they are not there at the moment. I cannot go there but you can. There may be something there that is of great interest to all of you."
Fiona then left to go and look for Lord Orden, or, as she referred to him, Atathon.....

Darius shadowwalked us toward where Fiona had asked us to go. It seemed to work. We moved through shadow. A knight, sir Bedevan, challenged us. Ricardo accepted and jousted sir Bedevan. When it came to the swordfight, however, Sir Bedevan prostrated himself before us upon seeing Ricardo's sword, which looked rather like Grayswandir. Bedevan stated that his liege was Corwin of Amber, and also that Corwin was missing. We continued on through shadow.
We soon came upon Orden, wearing a crown. He said that things didn't seem too sorted out at home and that Fiona wasn't happy. She seemed most distressed, but then again, it isn't often that she is on the losing side. Somewhere in the conversation, it came out that Atathon gave Ricardo Grayswandir. Also it seemed that the castle where we were headed had already been gone over once, but most things were still there to be seen. Apparently, the castle was also full of magical and mundane traps. Apparently, the castle contained, or at least had contained, "The swords and the prophecy".

Bryan keeled over at this point, before a trump contact came through. Johanna was at the other end. She said that Fiona sent her, and that Bryan should pull her through. Bryan said that Johanna should find someone else. Bryan heard a psychic cough that suggested that Fiona was indeed at the other end. Bryan still refused. Something black and wibbly then attacked Bryan's mind and forced him to pull her through. The discussion turned to the black knight that had been attacking Johanna. It was mentioned that it might have been sir Frederick, also known as the "Opener". Ricardo mentioned that Frederick hadn't been burning to the full extent that might be expected for a wound from a pattern sword. The conversation returned to the matter of Johanna's trump of Bryan. He wanted to eat it, while Johanna wished to keep it.
After much arguing and maligning of parentage, we decided that Johanna should keep it in a box at her waist with a key such that if trying to use it without reason, someone could hit her before she could use it. Daroius went off to look for an army. He got one. We then went to the castle. Under flag of truce we went in, since it seemed to be occupied. We were welcomed by the Lord who was minding it for Corwin. We spent some time there doing various things. After I got back, Darius said that there were various interesting things in the basement and also in the tower. We went to the basement first. There were various sealed tubes containing parchments. After blowing one up, we managed to open the others with Grayswandir, and read the documents within, which were various prophecies.

The first:
One to Open
One to Fight
One to Oppose
One to Close

White and Gold,
Silver and Black
He who brings the circle,
Gets his due back.

The second:
I am not sure what the importance of these documents, but they appear to test as genuine under Pattern semi-random Pathing. I've put them here in the library:- they'll never be noticed with all the other books. If someone else finds theis, DO NOT try and win your due: believe me, it isn't worth it.
[squiggle]

The third:

The Opener a fool,
The Fighter a brave man,
The Opposer, desperate,
The Closer, quick.
None of importance;
the lock in the key.

Darius mentioned that the tower held other goodies and that he could get up there but that there was a lot of magic around up there. We contrived a plan. Darius trumped Ricardo after teleporting up to the tower, and I came through with him. We saw Johanna, who had disappeared earlier, descending the stairs, stuck in a time-slowing spell. She would never reach the bottom if she continued. Darius blew up the spell, but we found nothing of any interest in the tower apart from four far-viewing windows that looked out over Avalon. We trumped back to the panther using Johanna's trump. As we got through, Bryan launched himself at the trump in Darius' hand, and nearly destroyed it, but for Johanna punching his face aside. Bryan then attacked Johanna, and in the brief, yet bloody fight that ensued, Johanna lost her nose whilst trying to bite Bryan. Someone set off a boulder trap and we left via various means. We then found a quiet shadow and settled down to read the books that we had just acquired. One was "An introduction to the creation of the Pattern" by Dworkin Barimen, which appeared to be total drivel to everyone except Darius, who could only understand the first line. A book entitled "White and Gold, Silver and Black" contained the prophecy as outlined above and over 150 interpretations of it. We sighed.