Day Six

Well, now I'm confused. Walking the Pattern; I thought that was pretty bad. Being consigned to the surface; that was wretched. My engagement I've come to grips with, but it could have been better timed. This, however, is not happy making at all. All I was trying to do was to help Lyss feel a little better about things, so I suggested that it couldn't hurt to look for her mother. I thought that sounded a damn sight better than letting her crawl back to Corwin's Pattern to berate herself alone. So, fool that I am, I go into the unknown with her. It really looked promising at first, truly. I mean, I was finally learning what I could do, having walked the Pattern, and I was a quick study as well; she made a great show of astonishment at the pace I was able to set. She was even starting to feel better about herself. I could see the confidence and purpose growing in her as we traveled. That lasted until we saw Dara's men. We didn't know who they were, of course, not then, but they were definitely military, and she seemed suddenly to think that we'd made a terrible mistake. And she thinks she's stupid; it took me the rest of the day to figure that one out. Okay, here's where the problems started. Turns out that this Dara is also a daughter of the elusive Ariadne (or Spider, as Lyss sometimes calls her), making her my friend's half sister. Lyss seems nervous, suddenly, but I figure that makes her family, right? So I accept her invitation on both of our behalves, making it a full acceptance. Dinner changed my mind. I guess I should have known instinctively that relatives are evil from the way Mother kept throwing me in the closet when they dropped by. Dara keeps asking Lyss questions, and well, she was so tense that she kept talking. By the time she was explaining this ghost wheel, I figured that maybe that pained look wasn't gas. So, gentleman that I am, I throw myself verbally between them. Bad move, but what else was I going to do? All at once, Dara starts slicing me up, right? And there's nothing that I can do about it, because there's been no breach of etiquette, and I'll be damned if I'll be the one to put holes in it first. So then she invites us to spend the night before we go, and I see the look on Lyss' face, and I decline for the both of us, we're in a terrible hurry, don't you know? This is where it gets ugly, right here. This is the part I can't get around. This is what's going to keep me up all Amber Day Six, even though it's only two in the blasted morning. 'Cause this is where she comments that I could always stay with my family, just down the way. Suddenly I think that maybe that innocent comment at dinner about my coming to see my father was maybe not just accidental. See, maybe she just thought I was a Chaosite on account of my being in Lyss' company and my being in Chaos and all, but when she states flatly where I'm supposed by her to belong, well, gods that's just sheer malevolence, you know? So we're back in Amber, and Lyss has talked to Ahab, and that's all cool, I guess, but now she wants to help him get this Sand woman who blew up the castle, and I guess that I should make sure she's not entirely suicidal about it, but all I can think is who in the hell can I ask about my problem. That's just it. It's my problem. I'm not supposed to have them. I'm supposed to help everyone else and occasionally apologize and look chagrined, but I don't have the first notion of what to do with this. I can't ask Mother. It's really none of my business whom she sleeps with, and I'm sure that's what she'd say. And Gant's right out. We've always just assumed he was my dad, and I'm afraid of what this might do to our friendship. Maybe, if I live through this fight, I should just find someone relatively harmless and ask obliquely about House Jesby. Yeah, sure.

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Last modified on January 12, 1999 by Kris Fazzari.