Bleys and I walked out to the courtyard and he whistled up a couple of
horses. We mounted up and hellrode our way to a shadow in which the
inhabitants not only played, but LIVED the game of Siege. This struck
me as ludicrous. What a meaningless existence. I suppose that in an
infinite number of shadows there must be a staggering portion that was
at least as pointless. So be it.
When we arrived we chose our castles and gathered up our archers,
footmen, horsemen, and towers. We led our forces to the field and lay
siege to each other's castles. As I said before, beyond the basic
minor strategy, Siege is really just a game of luck, and my luck was
good. I won 2 out of 3. Bleys and I had a good time playing the
children's game. For that matter, the participants seemed to enjoy it
even more than we did. We all gathered together after the third game
and drank several toasts.
Bleys wasn't done yet. He had a game he wanted to teach me. He
whistled the horses up out of nowhere again, and we hellrode. The
ride was a bit longer this time. We seemed to be passing through
worlds less and less like Amber. I saw many strange inventions I'd
never seen before. Eventually, we arrived in a shadow clad in metal.
We dismounted and continued on foot to a metal room. There were
weapons in a rack on the wall. Bleys handed a small device to me. It
had an obvious hand grip and trigger.
I pointed it at a door and pulled the trigger.
*FRAP!*
Alarms sounded.
There was a smoldering dent in the wall where I had aimed. It was
some sort of energy weapon which had no recoil. Amazing!
I fired a second shot to silence the alarm. Destruction was
effortless with these weapons.
"We'd better get moving." Bleys said, grinning.
As if on cue three troopers clad in white armor and armed with
2-handed versions of our weapons arrived.
"Halt Rebels!" one of them shouted, his voice scrambled our
synthesized by the helmet.
"You are not authorized to be..."
*FRAP!*
Bleys shot the trooper down and dived into cover.
I winged the second trooper and took cover just in time as the third
trooper fired, damaging the wall I hid behind.
Bleys and I carried on a nearly continuous fire fight with a seeming
endless stream of white armored troopers. The troopers did not turn
out to be very good marksmen, and Bleys was always able to take down a
trooper that was a threat to hit me. In the end we had rescued a
beautiful woman who was being held prisoner in the compound. She was
happy to be rescued and even happier when I gave her a long passionate
kiss. It seemed like the thing to do at the time. Bleys whistled at
the horses trotted up. The lady was shocked to see horses in the
complex and I have to admit it surprised me a little too. We rode off
and dropped the lady off in her village.
"Where to now, Simon?" Bleys asked.
"Let's take care of securing my shadow from Jurt."
"An excellent idea. You lead the way."
We hellrode to the isle of Avalon.