#log 61

This is actually pretty relaxing, I feel a lot better. Also made another discovery: Novil has a moon. I didn't even notice that when I was down there.

They both know the path. It's not an easy one, not even with a shadow guide taking them to the furthest reaches of Shadow, where Pattern's effectiveness starts to wane and chaos begins to take hold. The sky is a dark overcast and there are no moons, no suns, no stars to light the way. The ground is uneven, broken in patches where wide chasms spread and then fade away into a flat stretch of nothing, but this particular stretch is punctuated by the glassy surface of the icky good known as chaos, a veritable lake of it.

The going is made even more slow by the cart that Catriona insists on bringing with them. Upon it is a long box, about six feet long by three feet wide and tall, which she has remained silent about, turning away any queries with mystic silence, or a change of topic. "Do you hear the whispers yet?" she asks her companion, one Alec. "Anything that intrinsically tugs at you?"

Alec tears his gaze away from the box, which his attention had once again drifted toward, at Cat's questions. He looks back down at the sketchbook he holds and adds a few more lines to his unfinished drawing. "I don't hear any voices," he says, "or anything pulling at me. Should I?"

"I don't know," Cat muses. "I thought, perhaps, with your newfound knowledge of Pattern and being the extended offspring of someone Chaos-marked, you might have. Interesting to note that it is not so. I have long wondered whether the blood of Chaos can be passed through childbirth." Cat's hand on the horse pulling the cart is steady, inexorable, despite the animal's clear desire to be anywhere but here. "It is a question I have been giving thought to answering myself, lately. Thoughts?"

"I don't know how long ago Caine decided pump himself full of chaos, but if it was after Dirk was born, then it doesn't really make a differe-" Alec stops and stares at Cat. "Wait. You're thinking of having a child?"

"I don't know when he was tainted, either," Cat says, musing on that for a moment, the tilt of her silver head ponderously slow. The horse is led on, the guide ahead of them stepping off the side and out of relative harm's way. "And yes. I am thinking of it. I've done so much in my life. There's precious little left to try. And this seems like a question worth considering."

"I honestly don't think having a child is a good thing to do in the name of science," Alec says slowly. "Anyway, with you the one mothering it, I get the feeling it would be experimented on even more after it's born."He sighs. "But I suppose there's no stopping you, in anything you have planned. Who's the prospective father? Corwin?"

The allegation gives Cat further pause. She even halts the horse and cart in order to consider the notion. "Experiment on a child of my own loins..." She stares down at her stomach as if the answer might be found there, and then back up at Alec. "No. No, I don't believe I would. The child should be free to choose. As for the father, I haven't given it that much consideration, though the idea of two bloodlines of Chaos with some Oberon mixed in... Anyway," she gives her head a shake, pulling the horse the last few feet until they're reined in beside the still lake of Chaos. "I'll need your help to open the box."

Alec raises an eyebrow and shuts his sketchbook. "I'm just the muscle this time?" he asks. "That's a relief. Alright. At least I'll finally get to see what's inside the damn thing, although at this point, I'm not sure how much I really want to know anymore."

Cat wastes little time clambering inside the cart, holding up a crowbar and tossing it to Alec with a "think quick". Another she retrieves and begins work on her side of the wooden crate, prying loose the thick nails pounded deep into the top panel. "Well, now that I know muscle is your birth right," she teases lightly. "And I thought you, of all people, might enjoy what's inside this crate. Though, maybe not..." Clearly, another of her experiments. "What have you been up to lately?" she asks, while she works at the nails.

Alec catches the crowbar with his right hand and then, leaving his sketchbook on the seat, follows Cat. "I'm finally learning about how to draw trumps," he says to answer her question. "And I've been testing my powers over shadow, trying to figure out how to summon birds. It's harder than it looks." He wedges his crowbar inbetween the top panel and the box itself and gives it a good heave.

"All good skills to have," Cat says, grinning up at Alec over the top of the groaning wooden crate. "Is that what you've been drawing as we've been traveling?" she asks, then jumps back as the top pops off the crate revealing... Caine. Or at least a very good, waxy likeness of him. The body isn't breathing, though. There is no telltale rise and fall of animation. For anyone who can sense it, the body, dark eyes open, reeks of Order.

Alec nods. "I've been practicing drawing portraits, trying to capture the true person." He seems about to coninue when the box is opened. He stares at the body for a while, as unmoving as it is. "I have to admit that I was expecting a corpse," he eventually says, tone surprisingly even. "Uh, is this who I think it is?"

"Not actually," Catriona is quick to clarify, cutting a glance across the makeshift coffin over at Alec. "It's a shadow version of Caine, found in an Order-hospital. Ruby and I did some exploring. I needed an Order relic and this is what we found." She reaches down, and then recoils her fingertips. "Do you think you might be able to lift it on your own?" She shivers, as if her skin crawls at the nearness of something so completely infested with Order.

"Oh." Alec's expression is suddenly somewhere between relief and disappointment, although it seems distinctly more on the disappointed end of the spectrum. "Uh, yeah, I guess I can." He looks uncomfortable at the thought. Still, he reaches in to scoop up the body in an awkward fireman's carry.

Trained to observance of these little things, Catriona takes in Alec's fluctuating expression and bites her lower lip punishingly on the laugh that almost escapes. "Thank you," she says, settling for the display of gratitude rather than the amusement of yet another person wishing Caine dead. "We can just... roll it into the Abyss. See what happens. This one... this one I suggest standing back for. Well back." She shifts as she says it, eyeing the body and then the Chaos. "Like, roll, and run."

"I don't think I've ever wished I were a faster runner than now," Alec mutters as he looks down at the grim parcel he carries. When he accedentally meets not-Caine's eyes, he frowns and looks away, back at Cat. "At least I know what the guy looks like finally so I can more easily avoid him if I see him." He reaches the edge of the Abyss, shifts into a better position, and then heaves the body into the air toward the dark liquid before sprinting in the other direction.

Cat's already running, with her silver head down no less. For someone so small and seemingly fragile, she is quick and graceful. No wonder she chose leathers today, instead of a more cumbersome dress! "Glad I could help," she tosses back over her shoulder as she runs in the opposite direction, leaving the horse and cart behind. As soon as their guide sees them running, the startled man starts to do the same. "He's a handsome man, your grandfa-" And before she can get out anything else, the ground begins to shake, and an ear-shattering BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM follows on their heels.

Alec had nearly caught up with Cat when the explosion hit. He's gotten used to these earthquakes during his time here with Cat, but this one is much stronger than the others... He trips and stumbles, trying desperately to keep himself upright while maintaining his momentum. He manages to lose both, however, as he goes crashing to the ground. He struggles to rise again, blood now on his face and hands.

Despite her own preternatural strength, Catriona's grace and agility is found sorely lacking. The sudden surge and rumbling of the ground, so violent a reaction, catches the tiny Chaos woman off guard, heaving her to the side in a tumble of limbs. She catches her head on a protrudance of stone, smacking it with a resounding crack. Even had she wanted to regain her feet, the blonde doesn't seem able, laying on the shaking ground, stunned. Only able to watch as the Abyss rises up, begins to roil, rolling towards them and carrying with it the body. The untouched, unharmed body.

Alec rolls onto his back, staring up at the ominous waves crashing toward him. He reaches for his trumps, fingers fumbling for his pocket from a combination of panic and the continued shaking of the ground.

Cat stares senselessly at the wave and the unharmed body rolling towards them with inexorable madness. "Didn't change. Didn't change. Why..." she mutters, over and over again like a broken record, making no move to rise, to fumble for her own trumps. A pool of blood starts to seep upon the ground around her head, tarnishing the silver strands of her hair.

Failing to free the cards from his pocket, Alec does the only reasonable thing he feels he can do and raises one arm in a futile attempt to shield his head.

It's a damn good thing it's just an extension of the Abyss and not them falling into the Abyss itself. A good thing, but not the best thing. The best thing would be to avoid the wave of Chaos that sweeps over them like a crazy lover, leaving a punishing taint behind that can't be showered away. It leaves the Order relic body of Caine, too, like a parting gift.

Alec is stiff and unmoving the entire time the wave washes over him, and his expression after the liquid retreats is as though he's just been smeared with dog shit. He lays there, stiff and unmoving in that position. Eventually, he lowers his arm and spits onto the ground next to him. "I think I understand what you mean about the voices," he says finally. "I don't think I wanted to know, though."

To that, Catriona only watches him, finally lifting her head from the puddle of blood. The madness in her eyes is nigh unto unbearable and when her gaze shifts and falls upon the Order relic, it turns raving. She scrabbles for a dagger from her boot, starts to crawl towards the body of Caine. "Don't. Think. Don't think. DON'T. THINK! Why is he so wrong! Why does he lay there, so perfect! What do you hear, Alec? What do they tell you? Do they tell you how wrong it is?"

"Confusion. Opposites." Alec pulls himself to his feet and takes a step away, one hand pressed firmly against his temple. He only makes it one step, however, before he stops again, cringing as though in pain. "Stop talking over each other," he hisses through clenched teeth, both hands holding his head. "Cat... Cat, I need to get out of here..."

His words reach Cat as she plunges the dagger into the Order relic of Caine, stabbing it again and again though it doesn't bleed. "Go? Why would we go? This place, it tells you the truth. Listen for the truth, Alec. You'll never hear it in Amber. The lies in Amber... the lie IS Amber." She's raving now, but the dagger is withdrawn in favour of a trump from another pocket. "The lie is Amber." She focuses on the trump, leaving the man only moments to jump on if he can.

A pig fell on Incubus [RT] #four's head!

Incubus [RT] #four says: pig why

Merchant [RT] #shark says: the pig seems to have an issue with the incestfam

A pig fell on Priest [VK] #Chris's head!