Chapter Seven - The Gods Battle

From a high vantage point above a shifting valley of Shadow, the companions bore witness to a cataclysmic duel unfolding below - a battle between two of the most ancient and primal forces known to Reality. Coiled in terrible majesty, the Serpent loomed vast and coiling, its titanic body easily stretching a hundred feet from nose to tail, with a girth thicker than a man was tall, and a mass that might have crushed stone simply by shifting its weight. Opposing it stood the Black Unicorn, larger and more powerfully muscled than any steed known to men or myths. Yet for all its immense size, the Unicorn moved with a grace and speed that defied expectation - an eerie swiftness that seemed almost magical in origin.

 

The dark beast struck first, harnessing its velocity and raw power to drive its alicorn deep into the Serpent’s scaled flank, tearing flesh and drawing forth ichor that hissed as it struck the broken earth. It was a savage, righteous blow - one that might have felled a lesser creature. But the Serpent, as ancient as the foundations of the Logrus and imbued with a might older than the Courts, retaliated with thunderous fury. Its immense tail cracked across the valley floor like the fall of a mountain, slamming into the Unicorn and hurling it bodily across the battlefield. As the Unicorn struggled to regain its footing, the Serpent lunged again, this time sinking its jagged, lance-like fangs into the creature’s hindquarters, tearing through muscle and hide with terrible force.

 

Blood splashed and steam rose from the ground, reality itself recoiling from the magnitude of the conflict. Even from afar, the party could sense the strain placed upon the fabric of Shadow. And though the Black Unicorn fought with fury and pride, it was clear that the tide was turning. Wounded by both fang and tail, bleeding and staggering, the once-mighty beast was being driven back. The Serpent, bloodied but resolute, was gaining the upper hand.

 

Reacting swiftly to the dire scene unfolding below, Kyle retrieved his Trump sketching tools and began crafting an emergency card - an image of the Black Unicorn, rendered with focused urgency. Perhaps his intention was to offer the wounded creature a means of escape from the escalating carnage, to draw it away from the Serpent’s wrath. But when he attempted to activate the Trump, there was nothing. No flicker of psychic contact, no response, not even the faintest echo of presence. It was as though the Unicorn no longer existed on the same metaphysical plane, or was shielded by forces too great to penetrate.

 

Undeterred, Kyle pivoted to another option. He reached for his Trump of Corwin, hoping to discern his location or secure aid. Again, the connection wavered - thin and fragmented. The link refused to stabilize. All he could sense, dimly through the interference, was that Corwin remained bound to his own Primal Pattern. Whatever energies surrounded him were interfering with Trump communication, or Corwin himself was resisting the contact.

 

Desperate to find some way through, Kyle brought both Trumps together - Corwin’s and the Black Unicorn’s - attempting a more complex weave of power, hoping to forge a bridge between the two potent entities. But the effort failed. No contact passed through. The cards remained inert in his hands, their magical resonance muted by the chaos in the valley below.

 

Realising he was working against a tide of primal interference far beyond his ability to overcome in the moment, Kyle made the tactical decision to shut down all Trump activity in the immediate area, sealing the psychic channels for now. Whatever was happening here, it was too wild, too foundational, for the tools of Order to reach through safely.

 

Recognising the cataclysmic scale of the conflict before her, Corin reached inward, calling upon her connection to the Logrus - the great, shifting primal force of Chaos. The tendrils of her will uncoiled into the infinite, drawing upon the boundless energies that answered her call. Through that communion came clarity, and with it, determination. Knowing full well she stood between two of the most ancient powers in existence, she sought not to confront them directly, but to separate them - to interpose herself as a living barrier between the Serpent and the Black Unicorn. But even Corin’s formidable command of the Logrus would not suffice on its own.

 

Turning to William, she called for aid - not in words, but through a profound, silent understanding between those who had shared battle and burden. William stepped forward without hesitation, clasping Corin’s forearms, and in that instant, poured his own power into her. The effect was immediate and electrifying. A flood of energy surged through Corin, deeper and brighter than anything she had ever known. The power of two beings - one attuned to Chaos, the other capable of extraordinary transfer of essence - fused for a moment, and Corin felt herself rise to a level approaching the divine.

 

With her senses blazing and her Logrus mastery magnified beyond mortal comprehension, she extended a shimmering veil of force between the duelling titans. Reality twisted in response. The very fabric of Shadow strained as her will carved a metaphysical wall across the battlefield, one strong enough to halt even those primal engines of destruction. Against all odds, the gambit worked. The Black Unicorn reeled back, the Serpent recoiled, and for a breathless instant, the fury of the gods was held at bay.

 

Weakened and bloodied, the Black Unicorn did not hesitate. With a final glance at its adversary, it turned and began to limp away from the shattered battlefield, each step laboured but purposeful. Corin’s barrier, now humming with residual energy, offered the perfect window for retreat - an opening that the great beast seized with instinctual urgency. It did not look back.

 

For a moment, the Serpent paused, its vast head swaying as though in disbelief, sensing the sudden absence of its foe. Then, comprehension flashed through its ancient eyes. With a roar of rage that rippled through the valley and into the bones of all who watched, the Serpent surged upward, coiling its immense body before bringing its colossal tail down like a divine hammer. The blow struck Corin’s barrier with catastrophic force. The wall of power shuddered - and shattered.

 

The collapse sent a violent feedback surge racing along the arcane tether that bound Corin to her spell. But the conduit she had opened with William remained active, still pouring his essence into her efforts. As the backlash came crashing in, the torrent of destructive energy diverted - flowing through the open channel and slamming into William like a wave of molten force. He was hurled backwards, his body crackling with residual energy, his hands and arms scorched and blackened by the magical discharge.

 

Corin staggered but remained standing, spared the worst of the backlash by the very link that had empowered her. Across the battlefield, silence fell once more - broken only by the ragged breath of the exhausted Serpent and the faint echo of retreating hooves.

 

A heavy silence settled over the valley, vast and absolute, as though even the wind dared not disturb the aftermath of divine violence. Only the faint whistling of air through broken stone and the distant, uneven rhythm of retreating hooves pierced the stillness. At the base of the ravaged vale, the Serpent lay coiled in exhaustion, its massive form quivering with laboured breath. Each exhalation echoed like the sigh of a dying world. Though it remained conscious, the great beast was brought low - its wounds deep, its fury spent, and its presence diminished, if only for now. The battlefield, once a storm of chaos and power, had become a place of eerie calm, trembling on the edge of something darker yet to come.

 

Corin, her form still crackling faintly with the residue of unleashed power, advanced cautiously toward the fallen titan. Though she had borne the strain of the magical backlash, her link with William had spared her the worst of it. Now she moved with purpose, stepping over scorched earth and fractured stone until she stood near the massive, coiled bulk of the Serpent. As her shadow fell across its flank, one immense, slit-pupiled eye cracked open, gleaming with both pain and unbowed fury.

 

From a safer distance, Kyle and Bannoq observed the tense exchange, reaching out with voice and thought to support Corin’s effort. Together they implored the ancient being to see reason - to recognise the futility and danger of this brutal contest. But their words, however sincere, fell on deaf ears. The Serpent snarled, its voice like the grinding of tectonic plates, and dismissed their appeals with contempt.

 

It demanded the Unicorn. Its tone brooked no compromise. This was no simple request born of care, but a claim rooted in ancient entitlement. As its rage spilled forth, the Serpent's control slipped, and with it came revelations - secrets not meant for mortal ears, truths lost to the early ages of creation. It spoke of the Unicorn’s condition with unexpected passion, declaring that only it, the Serpent, possessed the knowledge and power necessary to save her. Only it could mend what had been broken. Only it could restore what had been stolen.

 

But even as the words echoed across the broken valley, their meaning stirred more questions than answers - and left the party uneasy, unsure whether they had just heard the desperate plea of a wounded god… or the calculated manipulation of something far older and far more dangerous.

 

With the Serpent’s revelations still hanging heavily in the air, Kyle reactivated his Trump senses, cautiously reopening the psychic channels he had previously sealed. Reaching into the familiar current of possibility, he focused on his card of Benedict and made contact. The seasoned warlord responded swiftly, his expression as unreadable as ever, though the tension in his eyes betrayed the weight of his own concerns.

 

Kyle relayed the events as succinctly as he could - the battle between the Serpent and the Black Unicorn, Corin’s intervention, the Serpent’s demands, and the disturbing claim that it alone could save the Unicorn. Benedict listened in grim silence, absorbing each detail with the practised detachment of a man accustomed to the apocalyptic.

 

When Kyle finished, Benedict offered no platitudes, only caution. His voice was measured, but resolute. Any entanglement with the Serpent, he warned, was fraught with peril. Whatever motives the creature professed, they were layered in ancient agendas and cosmic pride. To trust the Serpent, even slightly, was to risk becoming a piece in a game whose rules mortals could not understand.

 

Instead, Benedict advised another path. The Black Unicorn, he reasoned, might hold the key to understanding both Corwin’s intentions and the broader forces now gathering. “Follow the Unicorn,” he said. “See where it leads - and what it leads you to.” Then, with his usual brevity, he severed the link, leaving Kyle alone with the gravity of that counsel.

 

Standing her ground before the immense and seething form of the Serpent, Corin remained resolute. Her voice, calm but firm, echoed across the valley as she spoke of the need to end the conflict. Too much had already been lost, she argued - too many wounds torn in the fabric of reality itself. The war between the ancient powers had to stop, before it unravelled everything they were all bound to protect.

 

But the Serpent would not be placated. It lifted its bloodied head, its golden eyes burning with cosmic rage, and unleashed a tirade that shook the air around them. “Do not think your child's schemes are veiled from me,” it hissed. “It was my power that shaped the Logrus. My essence that seeded the Pattern of Amber - and the one Corwin now bends to his will. My strength courses through the sinews of all reality. I am written into the bones of Creation. I will not be denied.”

 

Its fury rose with every word, coiling like a storm. Then, with a voice laced with menace, it issued a final, dire warning: if the Unicorn perished - if its essence was lost - there would be consequences beyond reckoning. The vaults that sealed away forgotten horrors, ancient powers far older than the Courts or Amber, would weaken. Those primordial forces, long held at bay, would stir once more. And if they were unleashed, not even the gods would survive.

 

Corin, wearied by the Serpent’s arrogance and unmoved by its threats, gave no reply. With a bitter exhale, she turned away and walked deliberately into Shadow, her figure soon swallowed by the mist. Behind her, the Serpent remained coiled, wounded but defiant, its wrath still simmering as it too withdrew - its body dragging a deep scar through the valley floor as it slithered into the dark.

 

While the Serpent’s furious declarations echoed across the broken valley, Joshua remained silent, his expression unreadable. But inwardly, he was unmoved. Whatever the Serpent’s claims, he found its insistence on aiding the Unicorn deeply suspect - its motives too tangled in ancient pride and wounded power to be trusted. Quietly, he turned from the others and slipped away, drawing the coiling threads of the Logrus around him like a cloak. Without word or trace, he vanished into Shadow, shifting his path with practiced ease, his presence hidden from all but the most attuned.

 

His destination was Terra Prime - a bastion of healing and order, and the current resting place of the wounded Unicorn. There, under the watch of Random and Gerard, the creature was reportedly being monitored. But Joshua was not reassured. He moved unseen through the facility’s pristine halls, entering the Unicorn’s chamber like a whisper of smoke. What he found did little to ease his doubts. The stillness of the room, the clinical detachment of the attending staff, the strange sense of disconnection - all confirmed his unease.

 

Acting with grim determination, Joshua extended his psyche outward, exerting his formidable will over the medical personnel. With practiced precision, he rewrote their memories. In the minds of the doctors and attendants, the Unicorn had risen under its own power - miraculously revived, capable once more of movement and agency. They would remember Kyle arriving shortly after, praising their skill and dedication before the Unicorn departed of its own volition.

 

Satisfied that no suspicion would follow, Joshua slipped away once more, leaving Terra Prime behind. His next destination lay far from the certainties of medicine and monarchs. He turned toward Ygg - the ancient, sentient tree that marked the metaphysical midpoint between Order and Chaos, Amber and the Courts. Whatever lay ahead, Joshua knew the answers he sought would not be found within the confines of earthly institutions, but in the spaces between… where balance trembled and secrets stirred.

 

Taking Benedict’s counsel to heart, Kyle began shadowing the Black Unicorn, careful to keep his distance. Though still visibly wounded, the great beast moved with a stubborn purpose, its direction unwavering. Kyle needed no confirmation - it was clear the Unicorn was heading toward Corwin’s Primal Pattern. Whether drawn by instinct, memory, or some deeper bond, it was retracing a path etched into the foundations of its very being.

 

William joined Kyle in the pursuit, and together the two navigated the fractured edges of Shadow, ensuring they remained hidden. They followed silently, cloaked by subtle spells and sheer caution, never revealing themselves as the Black Unicorn pressed onward. Eventually, the shimmering boundary of Corwin’s Pattern came into view - a radiant dome of light that pulsed with raw, reality-altering energy.

 

As the Unicorn approached the glowing threshold, Kyle and William slipped into concealment, taking up positions just beyond the Pattern’s edge. Whatever was about to unfold, they knew it would be significant - and potentially perilous. For in this place of new and terrible power, all the rules had changed, and the next move might shift the fate of realities.

 

Elsewhere on the shattered battlefield, Bannoq moved among the wreckage left in the wake of the titanic clash. The very earth bore scars of cosmic violence - charred, fractured, and humming faintly with residual power. Strewn across the landscape were smears and pools of blood, not ordinary by any measure, but the ichor of primordial beings: thick, glistening, and unnatural. The blood of both the Black Unicorn and the Serpent lay intermixed, each substance radiating a different kind of potency, as though reality itself struggled to contain them.

 

With methodical care, Bannoq began searching through Shadow for a container - something sturdy enough, perhaps enchanted enough, to hold a sample of the Serpent’s blood. He conjured and examined several possibilities until settling on a vessel that appeared promising, reinforced with arcane seals and forged from a metal mined in a high-magic realm. Yet the moment the Serpent’s bubbling blood touched its interior, the container simply dissolved - unmade by the corrosive essence it attempted to contain, as if the Serpent’s blood rejected being caged by lesser matter.

 

Undeterred, Bannoq turned his attention to the blood of the Black Unicorn. This substance had already undergone a strange metamorphosis: the crimson liquid had solidified into a crystalline, stone-like form, cool and inert to the touch, yet still thrumming with latent power. Unlike the Serpent’s, it could be handled. Carefully, he gathered several shards and stored them in reinforced vials, sealing each one with protective wards. Whatever mysteries the blood held, they would be better understood in the safety of a lab. For now, he had preserved a fragment of something ancient - and possibly sacred.

 

Sensing the gravity of what was about to unfold at Corwin’s Pattern, Kyle reached for his Trumps once more. He contacted Corin and Bannoq in turn, requesting their immediate presence. Responding without hesitation, both joined him at the edge of the radiant dome. Upon arrival, Corin wasted no time - she whispered a spell under her breath, wrapping them all in a veil of invisibility, shielding them from magical and mundane sight alike. Cloaked from detection, the trio settled into position, watching silently from the treeline as the wounded Black Unicorn limped toward the heart of Corwin’s realm.

 

As they observed, Corin’s thoughts drifted to the mysterious being known as Bennu. She recalled the vision she had seen through her Logrus Sight - an image that had seared itself into her memory: a vast, phoenix-like bird, composed of flame and light, encircling Bennu’s form as if the creature were its true expression. It had not seemed symbolic. It had seemed real - a manifestation of power, elemental and sentient.

 

Now, as she watched the Pattern shimmer with strange energies, Corin voiced her speculation. Perhaps Bennu was not merely a powerful being, but something more - something akin to the Serpent or the Unicorn, a primal entity of the same order of magnitude. And if so, then Bennu’s fiery avian form might be more than just metaphor - it might be his true essence, a divine embodiment forged in the crucible of creation itself.

 

The thought lingered between them like a rising heat, its implications vast and unsettling. For if Bennu truly stood among such powers, then the balance of reality was more precarious than any of them had imagined.

 

From their concealed vantage point, the trio watched in silence as the Black Unicorn limped toward the glowing edge of Corwin’s Pattern. At the heart of the labyrinthine design stood a dome of incandescent light - so radiant it was painful to look upon directly. It pulsed with layered energy, like the heartbeat of a nascent reality, and shimmered as though barely anchored to the plane on which it stood.

 

The Black Unicorn, still visibly wounded and weakened from its brutal encounter with the Serpent, pawed at the ground with one heavy forehoof, sending small ripples of magic through the surrounding terrain. As it drew nearer to the dome, a ripple of energy flared along its surface - a wave of distortion and brilliance - and from within stepped a figure composed at first entirely of light. The being floated several feet above the Pattern, its outline flickering with unformed potential. But as it descended toward the edge, the energy began to condense, coalescing into familiar features. Bit by bit, the glow gave way to flesh, cloth, and steel - and there was no doubt who now stood before them. It was Corwin.

 

Kyle, immediately alert, reached for his Trump deck and activated his card of Dworkin, hoping the ancient sorcerer might offer insight - or perhaps a warning. The connection formed, and Dworkin appeared, his face characteristically sour. Whether from annoyance or concern, it was hard to tell. Yet despite the gravity of the moment, Dworkin offered little in the way of guidance. His answers were terse, noncommittal. Whatever he knew, he wasn’t sharing.

 

Below, the Black Unicorn took a cautious step back, yielding space as Corwin approached. The Prince of Amber - now fully formed, his every movement radiating confidence and controlled power - extended a hand toward the creature. His fingers reached for its brow in what might have been a gesture of recognition, perhaps even compassion.

 

But Kyle had seen enough. Trusting neither Corwin’s motives nor the consequences of what this union might bring, he acted.

 

Without hesitation, Corin unleashed a surge of magical force. The spell struck with thunderous precision, blasting Corwin backward and away from the Black Unicorn. He was hurled bodily across the marble-like weave of his own Pattern, landing with a grace that belied the violence of the attack. The Unicorn, too, was caught in the fringes of the spell’s wake, pushed toward the edge of the Pattern but carefully diverted - kept from making contact with its burning threads.

 

To Corin’s surprise, Corwin showed no signs of disruption or disorientation. He had not walked the Pattern in any formal sense, yet its energies did not lash out at him. He moved as though it welcomed him, or at least tolerated his presence. Whatever bond he had with this version of the Pattern was evidently deep - and unnatural.

 

Corin cast a second spell, aiming to press the advantage, but the effect was diminished. The magical force fractured and dispersed as it struck an unseen field. Corwin had shielded himself - encased in a shimmering globe of defensive energy that shimmered with shifting hues, like light through oil. Protected now, and visibly enraged, he drew Grayswandir in one smooth motion. The blade - long, pale, and etched with power - seemed to drink in the ambient light as he stepped off the Pattern.

 

His voice rang out, cold and cutting. He hurled barbed insults at the group, his disdain for them as evident as his readiness to do violence. Kyle responded with a volley of his own, conjuring a spell that sent crystalline shards streaking through the air toward Corwin. Most shattered harmlessly against the protective barrier, but a few struck true, slashing into Corwin’s flesh. Yet no blood spilled - not a single drop fell to mar the sanctity of the Pattern beneath him.

 

The message was clear: Corwin was not only protected - he was prepared.

 

As Corwin stepped past the crumpled form of the Black Unicorn, eyes blazing with wrath, William surged forward to meet him. There was no hesitation - only the instinctive resolve of a warrior who knew the stakes. Steel met sorcery as William charged, blade drawn, hurling himself at Corwin with all the fury and focus of a scion of Bennu.

 

Corwin, unfazed, raised Grayswandir high. The blade shimmered with primordial power, and as it descended, it did so with terrible finality. William met the blow with a strong parry, his sword braced for impact - but it was not enough. Grayswandir, forged in the heart of a Pattern and now saturated with raw power, cleaved straight through William’s weapon as if it were made of glass. The force of the strike sent sparks screaming into the air, and only a last-moment dodge saved William from being cut down entirely.

 

But the momentum had shifted. Corwin pressed his advantage with the brutal efficiency of a master swordsman. William staggered backward, off-balance, just as Corwin lashed out with a heavy kick. The blow connected squarely with William’s chest, lifting him off his feet and hurling him out of striking range.

 

Before he could recover, Corwin followed up with a blast of arcane force - words of power spoken in a tongue that bent reality. The air itself cracked as the spell struck William, sending him careening through the air like a broken doll. He crashed to the ground with a thud that reverberated through the valley, his body stunned, breath driven from his lungs. For a moment, he did not move.

 

As William fell, Bannoq stepped forward to intercept Corwin’s relentless advance. The moment their eyes met, something unspoken passed between them. Corwin’s gaze narrowed - not with disdain, but with recognition, as though he glimpsed a familiar spark within Bannoq, something half-remembered and troubling. Yet he said nothing. Instead, he raised Grayswandir once more.

 

The first strike came fast - faster than Bannoq expected. Only by instinct and agility did he manage to evade the blade, twisting aside in a graceful pivot that left a shallow scar on the earth where steel had meant to find flesh. Emboldened, Bannoq attempted to maintain this evasive rhythm, dancing around Corwin’s lethal precision. He left his own Pattern blade sheathed, trusting instead in his regenerative resilience and uncanny reflexes, hoping to wear Corwin down or find an opening that would not cost him dearly.

 

But Corwin was no ordinary opponent. For centuries, he had stood as one of Amber’s greatest swordsmen, second only to Benedict. Against such mastery, evasion alone was a gamble destined to fail.

 

The next strike proved it.

 

With a sudden feint and a brutal reversal, Corwin drove Grayswandir forward in a precise thrust. The blade pierced Bannoq’s left upper arm cleanly, sending a shockwave of searing pain through his body. But the pain was not merely physical. Grayswandir, now fused with the primal essence of Corwin’s Pattern, radiated a terrible power - one that lanced through muscle, bone, and soul alike. Bannoq staggered, reeling from the strike, the wound blazing with energy far beyond mere steel.

 

He had faced pain before. But this was something older… and far more dangerous.

 

While chaos erupted around her, Corin held back from the fray. She skirted the edge of the battle, her eyes fixed not on Corwin, but on the fallen form of the Black Unicorn. The creature lay slumped at the edge of the Pattern, its flanks rising and falling in shallow, laboured breaths. It was barely conscious - its body wracked with exhaustion and wounds both physical and metaphysical.

 

Acting swiftly, Corin summoned the Logrus within her, weaving it into a precise incantation. Threads of power coalesced around the great beast, forming an invisible cradle. With a surge of telekinetic force, she gently lifted the Unicorn from the ground, its limbs hanging limply, blood trailing like ribbons in the air.

 

Without a word, Corin turned and vanished into Shadow, loping across the skeins of reality with the wounded Unicorn in tow. She moved with purpose - away from Corwin, away from the battlefield - searching for safety, for distance, and for time enough to understand what this creature truly was… and what role it might yet play in the fate of all things.

 

Kyle raised his hand to cast another spell, intent on striking Corwin or shielding his companions - but before he could utter a single word of power, his body froze. A numbing stillness seized his limbs, locking him in place as though time itself had coiled around him. The Jewel of Judgement, affixed to his person, pulsed violently with erratic energy - each throb a warning, or perhaps a constraint. Kyle's mind raced. He had been paralysed, possibly by Corwin, whose familiarity with the Jewel far exceeded his own. This wasn’t just a contest of magic - it was a contest of legacy and intimacy with one of the primal tools of reality.

 

Panic rising, Kyle reached for his Trump deck, fingers trembling against the stillness that gripped him. With focused desperation, he activated his card of Benedict, pushing a message through with sheer force of will. Bannoq is in danger. At once, the elder strategist answered, and Kyle did the only thing he could - he invoked his Exalted Trump mastery and exchanged places with Benedict in a burst of raw Trump power.

 

In the blink of an eye, Benedict now stood between Corwin and Bannoq, blade drawn, his stance unyielding. The change was instantaneous, but its effect on Corwin was profound. At the sight of his elder brother, doubt flickered across Corwin’s face. His advance faltered, the fury behind his eyes momentarily tempered by caution, or perhaps old memories.

 

But Kyle wasn’t finished.

 

Still locked in heightened Trump communion, he extended his power further. Calling upon the full breadth of his mastery, he reached through the fabric of space and pulled Bannoq, William, and Benedict to safety in a single, sweeping act of translocation. As the three vanished in a blaze of prismatic light, the fading image of a rainbow-hued bird - the unmistakable signature of Kyle’s Trump work - lingered in the air, trailing behind them like a defiant echo.

 

And Corwin was left alone, the battlefield suddenly silent, the confrontation abruptly ended.

 

Corin moved swiftly through Shadow, carrying the Black Unicorn across the shifting tapestry of worlds in search of safety. But her efforts were short-lived. Before she had travelled far, the great beast stirred. With a sudden surge of will, it shrugged off the telekinetic grip that had borne it, landing on its hooves with a weighty thud. Still visibly trembling from its grievous battle with the Serpent, the Unicorn nevertheless stood tall - majestic, proud, and utterly unmoved by Corin’s intentions.

 

Corin spoke to it - pleading, reasoning, invoking the need for peace and the dangers of continuing conflict. But the creature’s silence was its answer. No gesture, no glance, no telepathic communion came in response. Its eyes, dark and deep as stars, regarded her with weary dismissal. And then, without fanfare or farewell, it turned and began to walk away.

 

Corin made no attempt to stop it. But she did not let it go alone.

 

Keeping to the edges of Shadow, she followed at a respectful distance, masking her presence in the treeline of a wooded ridge. She trailed the beast through fractured terrain until, after some time, the Black Unicorn crested a rise - and was no longer alone. Upon a nearby hill stood a solitary figure, still and waiting.

 

Corwin.

 

The moment was almost intimate. The Unicorn approached without hesitation, and Corwin, his expression unreadable, reached up and wrapped his arms around its powerful neck. The two stood together in silence, as if sharing some ancient grief or understanding too vast for words. They remained that way for a long time - motionless against the backdrop of the ever-shifting sky.

 

Then, without a backward glance, Corwin turned and led the Black Unicorn away, the two figures slipping once more into the folds of Shadow, leaving Corin alone in the gathering quiet.

 

Joshua emerged at Ygg - the ancient, living tree that stands at the midpoint between Order and Chaos, its roots delving into realities few dare to name. The sentient arboreal entity, as was its nature, greeted him with the beginnings of a philosophical overture. But Joshua, ever disinterested in metaphysical small talk, brushed it aside. He had come with a purpose, not for riddles or riddled company.

 

Instead, he reached for his Trump deck and focused on Suhuy, the enigmatic Master of the Logrus and one of the most knowledgeable figures in all the Courts of Chaos. To his quiet satisfaction, the contact succeeded. When Suhuy answered, he was visibly surprised - more by the fact that Joshua had reached out than by the fact that Joshua was alive. Whispers of Joshua’s reappearance had already begun to echo through the darkened halls of the Courts following the defeat of the Chaos army on Malkeeva.

 

Joshua offered a parley, requesting that Suhuy join him at Ygg. The elder sorcerer agreed, stepping through the Trump connection with the calm precision of one long accustomed to stepping between realms.

 

The conversation that followed was grim and focused. Joshua recounted the events surrounding the recent demon summoning - the presence of a vast, controlling force behind it - and the disturbing urgency with which the Serpent had demanded possession of the weakened Unicorn. He raised the possibility that a new force - something akin in scale and nature to the Serpent or the Unicorn - might have awoken. A "Master" demon, perhaps, calling its kin back to the Abyss, summoning the scattered legions of its kind toward some unknown, and likely apocalyptic, end.

 

Suhuy listened intently. When Joshua mentioned that his own demon had vanished, Suhuy confirmed the broader pattern: demons across the Courts had also begun to disappear. The phenomenon had deeply unsettled the High Lords of Chaos, and even their monarch, King Swayvill - whose name Joshua heard with a barely concealed scowl. Suhuy warned that the Abyss, long a source of dread and mystery, was dangerous in ways no one fully understood. To descend into it, he said, was to court madness or death. None returned unchanged - some emerged monstrous, others broken beyond repair. And those who lingered too long bore scars that no power had ever succeeded in cleansing.

 

As for the Serpent’s claim on the Unicorn, Suhuy was deeply sceptical. “On the face of it,” he remarked dryly, “it seems unwise to hand the beast over to the very force that once shaped it.” He also delivered a more personal warning: the Church of the Serpent, enraged by Corin’s interference, had begun to whisper accusations of betrayal. Though Suhuy admitted his personal fondness for Corin, he urged caution - the Church was ancient, proud, and easily provoked.

 

The two agreed to keep communication open. As Suhuy prepared to depart, the air between them hummed with a shared sense of unease. The world was shifting. Powers were rising. And the path forward would be anything but clear.

 

Kyle, Bannoq, and William re-emerged from their Trump retreat into an unexpected setting - an organized military encampment nestled deep within a Shadow unknown to them. Before them stretched a force of several thousand soldiers, perhaps three to four thousand strong, each bearing the lean, sinewy frame of upright meercat-like creatures. Though man-sized, their narrow limbs, hairless skin, and dark, watchful eyes lent them an uncanny presence. Grim and focused, the creatures trained relentlessly with a range of modern projectile weaponry - rifles, pistols, and other advanced firearms that cracked the air with sharp retorts.

 

Julian was there, overseeing the operation with his customary stoicism. His sharp gaze swept across the ranks like a hawk assessing a rookery, ensuring every drill was executed with ruthless precision. It was clear that these troops, strange though they appeared, were being prepared for real war.

 

Recognizing the need to understand this unfamiliar arsenal, all three Amberites began their own crash course. Bannoq and William took to the weapons with remarkable ease. Bannoq’s focus and warrior’s intuition made him a quick study, while William - guided by raw reflexes and an instinctive grasp of battlefield rhythm - soon handled the firearms with calm proficiency.

 

Kyle, though competent, found the experience less natural. He could wield the weapons, but marksmanship was not his strength. His talents lay elsewhere - in the manipulation of higher powers, the art of Trumps and Pattern. Still, he observed and participated, aware that in the coming storm, every skill might count.

 

Amid the brief lull in activity, Kyle seized the moment to reach out through Trump in a desperate attempt to contact his mother, Fiona. He poured his focus into the card, drawing on all his psychic strength to breach the veil. The connection flickered uncertainly, resisted by unseen forces - but after great effort, it took hold. What he found on the other side chilled him.

 

Fiona’s image was incomplete, fractured, as though viewed through warped glass. Her mind was clouded by a fog of immense confusion - more than simple disorientation. There was something unnatural at work, something that felt like duality - two consciousnesses or states of being coexisting in unstable tension. It was not clear whether she was aware of him at all.

 

Still, one fact emerged with disturbing clarity: she was within Corwin’s Pattern, likely imprisoned, her will subdued by the very forces Corwin now commanded. The realisation struck Kyle hard, stirring a fierce desire to act - but charging into Corwin’s domain alone would be suicide.

 

Instead, he conferred with Bannoq, and together they devised a bolder plan. Since Kyle needed to remain free to initiate a Trump rescue if things went wrong, Bannoq would be the one to attempt an infiltration. The dome that enclosed Corwin’s Pattern was impermeable through conventional means, and Bannoq could not walk Corwin’s Pattern - he would be destroyed.

 

However, Bannoq proposed a daring workaround. If he first walked the Amber Pattern, he might gain enough metaphysical resonance and mastery to teleport into the heart of Corwin’s realm. It was a gamble, but one that could give him just enough speed and precision to reach Fiona and extract her before Corwin could intervene. Kyle agreed

 

Working quickly, Kyle sketched a Trump of Rebma’s Pattern - its mirrored, underwater reflection of Amber’s primal force - and used it to transport himself and Bannoq directly into its sacred chamber. There, beneath the shimmer of ancient waves, Bannoq approached the Pattern with solemn purpose. Without hesitation, he began to walk it, step by burning step, enduring the searing effort required to imprint its power upon his very soul. When he emerged, his aura crackled with renewed potency - his command of reality now sharpened to a finer edge.

 

Kyle, his role as anchor and rescuer unchanged, returned via Trump to Julian’s encampment, where he immediately reopened a psychic link to Bannoq. On the other end of the connection, empowered by the Pattern he had just walked, Bannoq focused and executed the delicate art of teleportation - his destination: the centre of Corwin’s Pattern.

 

The teleportation succeeded, but not precisely as expected.

 

Rather than arriving in the heart of the dome, Bannoq materialised on a hovering platform suspended some fifteen feet above Corwin’s Pattern. The scale of the space was staggering - on the outside, the dome had appeared contained, almost modest in size. But within, it stretched impossibly large, a vast interior much greater than its exterior dimensions should have allowed. The air shimmered with layered energy, time and space distorted in ways no conventional sorcery could replicate.

 

Encircling the inner surface of the dome, at the level of the platform, were dozens of arch-like portals - windows into other realities, each glowing faintly with its own hue and atmospheric resonance. They pulsed with latent invitation, as if awaiting a traveller to choose a path. Whether they led to distant Shadows, to the raw space between the Pattern and the Logrus, or to some entirely new dimension birthed by Corwin’s design, Bannoq could not yet say.

 

What was clear, however, was that Corwin’s Pattern had become more than a tool. It was evolving into something altogether other.

 

At the centre of the hovering platform rose a sleek, metallic column, etched with glowing veins of Pattern energy that pulsed with an eerie, rhythmic cadence. Branching from this central spine were several seats - regal in shape, almost throne-like in design, arranged with clinical symmetry. Two of them were occupied.

 

In one sat Fiona - motionless, deathly pale, her body slumped and shackled at the wrists and ankles by silver restraints that shimmered with latent power. Opposite her, seated in a mirroring position, was Corwin. Or rather, a semblance of Corwin. Bannoq immediately sensed the truth: this was not the man himself, but a Pattern Ghost - an echo crafted from Corwin’s own Primal Pattern, a sentient shadow shaped by memory and intent. Though it bore his likeness and radiated a sinister stillness, it lacked the soul behind the eyes.

 

Between them stretched a grotesque connection: a series of translucent tubes extended from Fiona’s arms and neck into the chest of the ghostly Corwin. Through them, blood flowed - slow, steady, and unmistakable. The rhythm was carefully regulated, just slow enough to keep Fiona alive and capable of replenishing what was taken, but fast enough to sap her strength, trapping her in a state of near-total unconsciousness. She looked spectral - so pale as to seem carved from moonlight.

 

Whatever this mechanism was, it wasn’t just imprisonment. It was a harvesting - and Fiona, despite all her power, was being drained to sustain something that should not have existed.

 

Without hesitation, Bannoq sprang into action. He slashed through the feeding tubes connecting Fiona to the Pattern Ghost with swift, decisive cuts, severing the grotesque lifeline that had been siphoning her strength. The ghost remained inert for now, its purpose momentarily disrupted. Bannoq then turned his attention to the restraints binding both occupants to their thrones - sturdy cuffs of enchanted metal clamped tightly around Fiona’s wrists and ankles, fixed to thick struts that linked the chairs to the platform’s central column.

 

Drawing his Pattern-forged blade, Bannoq began hacking at the structural arms anchoring Fiona’s seat. The material was unnaturally dense, pulsing with resistance, but the edge of his sword cut deeper with each blow. After three or four solid strikes per strut, the final anchor gave way with a sharp snap, and the chair toppled sideways, thudding against the platform floor.

 

As Bannoq steadied Fiona’s limp form, a shimmer rippled across the far edge of the platform - a distortion in the air like heat over stone. From it stepped Corwin.

 

This time, it was no ghost.

 

Corwin’s expression twisted in surprise, caught off guard by the intrusion. His eyes locked onto Bannoq and the unconscious Fiona, and something darker stirred behind them. But Bannoq didn’t flinch. He had no desire to trade blades again - not here, not now. His mission was clear: get her out.

 

In one smooth motion, he hoisted Fiona and the chair into his arms, her weight a feather compared to the burden of failure. The moment he was secure, Kyle - already locked in Trump contact - executed the pull.

 

Light fractured around them in a swirl of iridescent colour, and with a flash of prismatic brilliance, they vanished from the dome in the signature burst of Kyle’s Trump mastery. As a parting indication of his feelings for his adversary, Bannoq flipped Corwin the bird, and then disappeared in a burst of rainbow colours.

 

Wasting no time, Kyle used his Trump to bring himself, Bannoq, and the unconscious Fiona back to Terra Prime. The moment they arrived, he placed his mother in the care of his top medical team, who rushed her away to stabilise her condition. Her pallor, her drained aura, and the strange lingering effects of her captivity demanded immediate and specialised attention.

 

While Kyle remained by her side briefly, Bannoq handed over the dismantled throne and its components to the resident scientists, instructing them to analyse the materials and arcane systems embedded within. The nature of the Pattern Ghost, the blood-draining mechanism, and the possible influence of Corwin’s Pattern all needed urgent examination.

 

As the staff set to work, Kyle turned his attention to Terra Prime’s surveillance systems. He pulled up the security footage from the medical wing - the same place where the Black Unicorn had once been housed. What he saw deeply unsettled him. Onscreen, his personnel wore subtly altered expressions, their movements stiff and oddly detached. The footage showed the Unicorn vanish, apparently under its own power - but Kyle now recognised the signs of memory tampering. False impressions had been implanted in his people’s minds, and the fingerprints of psychic manipulation were all too familiar. Someone had intervened - and Kyle suspected it might be someone he knew.

 

Digging deeper, he reviewed the logs of Benedict’s recent visit and uncovered a recorded conversation with Annael. The exchange was brief but potent: a pact had been made. Though the details were thin, its implications were far-reaching. Kyle relayed the essence of the agreement to Bannoq, the two of them quietly weighing the consequences.

 

At the same time, Bannoq entrusted the Terra Prime scientists with the crystalline samples of solidified Unicorn blood he had collected earlier. These too were to be studied - every property, every resonance - no matter how alien. If any fragment of truth lay hidden in their structure, it would be found.

 

Before long, Kyle began sealing off his Shadow, weaving layer after layer of defensive wards, enchantments, and barriers. Terra Prime would be locked down, protected from intrusion by Trump, Logrus, or worse. Once the protections were in place, he re-established Trump contact with Julian’s encampment. With Bannoq at his side, he stepped back into the field - knowing the calm would not last.

 

Elsewhere, Joshua reached out to Corin via Trump, the connection opening with a whisper of mental contact. Once linked, he wasted no time relaying Suhuy’s warnings - the unease spreading through the Courts, the growing concern over the Abyss, and most pressingly, the danger posed by the Church of the Serpent. Suhuy had made it clear: the Church viewed Corin’s interference in the battle between the Serpent and the Black Unicorn as a betrayal of divine order, and their murmurs were growing darker by the hour.

 

Corin, however, was unmoved. Her tone, sharp with fatigue and barely concealed irritation, reflected a growing impatience with the so-called wisdom of her elders. Whether Chaosian or Amberite, male or female, she had little interest in bending to their judgment. Let them whisper. She had more important concerns.

 

Together, she and Joshua turned their focus back to the Unicorn. It remained injured, elusive, and vulnerable. They needed a place of power, of restoration - somewhere it could be safe, if not healed. One name surfaced immediately: Dworkin.

 

If any being in existence understood the nature of the Unicorn - or how to preserve it - it would be him. And perhaps, at his Primal Pattern, the beast might be protected or revived. But there was a problem. Neither Joshua nor Corin knew how to reach Dworkin’s Pattern directly. The paths to such deep, foundational places were few and tightly held.

 

Their only lead was what little lore had filtered down through the ages: the Primal Pattern of Amber could be reached on foot - if one began in Amber itself and climbed the great mountain of Kolvir. It was a long shot, but it was all they had.

 

First, they would need to find a way into the ruined city. And from there… begin the climb.

 

Joshua, ever precise with his Trump artistry, quickly sketched a gateway to the docks of Amber - a place once bustling with life, now silent beneath the weight of conflict. When the image was complete, he and Corin stepped through the card, emerging into the shadow of a broken city.

 

Amber lay in ruins.

 

The grand avenues were deserted, its towers scorched and shattered. Signs of battle were everywhere - collapsed buildings, overturned carts, and streets choked with debris. The people were gone, driven out or worse. Above them, the sky droned with menace. Blood Droids, mechanical sentinels of some unholy design, swept overhead in slow, predatory arcs.

 

Without hesitation, Joshua cloaked them both in invisibility. The spell shimmered into place just as one of the Droids passed nearby, its sensors whirring as it scanned the wreckage. Hidden from view, they slipped silently through the desolate streets and left the city behind.

 

The climb began at the city’s edge, where Kolvir’s steep slopes rose like a wall against the sky. They moved cautiously at first, ascending the rugged terrain that gave way gradually to forested paths and gentler inclines. The air grew quieter as they rose, the city’s ruin falling away behind them like a discarded memory.

 

Eventually, they came to a halt. The climb had brought them closer to their destination, but they knew they could go no further without guidance. The Primal Pattern lay somewhere beyond - but where, exactly, neither of them could say. Only one of Amber’s true scions was likely to know the path.

 

They turned to the only one they trusted for such knowledge.

 

Joshua produced the Trump of Benedict and activated the contact, reaching out to the ancient tactician. If anyone had walked the Primal Pattern and returned to speak of it, it would be him.

 

Benedict stepped through the Trump onto the slopes of Kolvir, his presence as composed and commanding as ever. The mountain air swirled around him, but he remained still, his gaze sharp as he assessed Joshua and Corin in silence for a moment before allowing them to speak. He listened intently as they relayed the situation - their flight with the wounded Unicorn, the danger posed by the Serpent, and their intention to seek Dworkin at the Primal Pattern.

 

His response, when it came, was measured but displeased. He made it clear that he disapproved of Joshua’s decision to remove the Unicorn from Terra Prime, and urged them to return it. Yet his protest lacked true force - his focus was plainly elsewhere, consumed by the far greater logistical and strategic demands of retaking Amber from its unseen occupiers. His words were laced with duty, but not with insistence.

 

Corin, however, bristled at the rebuke. Her voice was sharp, unyielding. She accused Benedict of being no better than the Serpent - another elder steeped in ancient agendas, another voice cloaked in authority but blind to justice. She denounced him and his kin alike, branding them as untrustworthy relics of a failing lineage.

 

Joshua, more pragmatic, added his own defence. He reminded Benedict that he had no desire to harm the Unicorn - on the contrary, he possessed both the will and the power to protect it better than most. His concern was genuine, his logic sound.

 

Benedict paused, weighing their words, and finally let the matter drop. There was no time to argue over wounded beasts when war loomed over the horizon. With a sardonic edge, he remarked that the two of them likely wouldn’t be much use in the assault on Amber anyway. Then, without waiting for further protest, he turned and vanished back through his Trump - returning to Julian’s camp, where the final preparations for battle were underway.

 

Determined to find sanctuary for the ailing Unicorn, Corin and Joshua combined their powers and reached out through Trump, focusing their efforts on Dworkin - the mad architect of the Pattern and perhaps the only being in existence who might understand the Unicorn’s condition. The contact resisted at first, as if Dworkin’s presence were buried behind layers of psychic static, but with focused effort, the link was made.

 

The connection opened onto the familiar image of Dworkin seated in his cluttered, arcane-laden study, perched somewhere near the Primal Pattern itself. He looked up with a scowl - impatient and irritable, as ever - but when Corin explained that they had possession of the Black Unicorn, now grievously wounded, his expression changed at once. With a wave of his hand, he drew them through the Trump.

 

They emerged in the chamber moments later, and Dworkin wasted no time. After hearing the briefest outline of events, he confirmed what they had hoped: this was indeed the best place for the Unicorn to recover - if recovery was even possible. He gently took the creature from them and, surprisingly tender, laid her across the wide, cushioned surface of what appeared to be his bed, murmuring unintelligibly beneath his breath as he examined her.

 

With the immediate task complete, Corin hesitated, then broached a troubling development of her own. She revealed to Dworkin the strange physical transformation she had undergone - the appearance of hair across her chest and the changes that hinted at something primal awakening within her. Dworkin studied her with a puzzled eye, frowning as he probed the signs with his formidable senses. But even he could offer no clear answer. “I’ve seen many things,” he muttered. “But not this.”

 

Their conversation turned, inevitably, to Corwin.

 

Joshua raised the question of whether Corwin could be healed, or stopped. Dworkin’s response was bleak. To bring Corwin down, he said, would be tantamount to attempting to strike down Dworkin himself - nearly impossible. Corwin’s Pattern had grown to such power and autonomy that it would defend its creator as fiercely as reality defends its own laws. Any direct attempt to destroy Corwin would be repelled, perhaps catastrophically.

 

There was, however, one theoretical possibility: an infusion of Chaos. Only by introducing true Chaos into Corwin’s Pattern - unfiltered, unpredictable - might there be a path to his undoing or redemption. But such an effort would be perilous in the extreme, and the consequences unknowable.

 

The Unicorn rested quietly nearby, a silent witness to the fate that now hinged on forces older and darker than any of them could fully control.

 

Upon his return to camp, Benedict wasted no time. He summoned his inner circle - Julian, Caine, Kyle, and Bannoq - drawing them into a secluded war tent lit by the low hum of arc-lamps and the crackling of distant energy drills. With his usual precision and brevity, he outlined the operation that would soon reclaim Amber from its occupiers.

 

The plan was bold, intricate, and executed across three coordinated fronts. Benedict himself would hell-ride through Shadow to a position just outside Amber’s borders, within the protective bounds of the Golden Circle. From there, he would Trump Kyle through to his location. Kyle, once on site, would establish a Trump Gate - a stable portal - then return to the main encampment to open a second gate linked to the first, creating a direct conduit for the army to surge through into Amber with speed and surprise.

 

But the logistics didn’t stop there. Kyle was also tasked with opening a third Trump Gate in his own Shadow, Terra Prime, to serve as an emergency extraction point for the wounded. Using the full reach of his Exalted Trump powers, he would psychically link all operatives and commanders, allowing real-time communication and strategic synchronisation across all teams.

 

Benedict then detailed the assault groups. Julian would lead a detachment to the towers of Castle Amber, where they would deploy anti-aircraft weaponry to thin the skies of Blood Droids. Caine would guide a second team into the Pattern Room, securing it against the remote possibility that the enemy might once again attempt to breach the Pattern’s sanctity. Bannoq would command the third strike force, storming the Castle courtyard to seize control of the gates and secure ingress and egress points. All three teams had a single imperative: destroy any Droids encountered.

 

Timing would be critical. The coordinated strike would commence only after Benedict gave the signal - an all-out assault on Amber’s main city gates. The goal was to draw the bulk of the Blood Droids away from the castle and into the open, where they could be more easily cut down or bypassed.

 

As the meeting broke, Benedict pulled Bannoq aside. His tone shifted from command to quiet gravity. He spoke briefly of Annael - of the deal he had struck with the being - and offered no apology for it. “It’s just the way it has to be,” he said. “If this family is to have any peace, if we are to survive what’s coming, then certain pacts - however distasteful - must be honoured. Even with a dangerous fool.”

 

And with that, the gears of war began to turn.

 

With the strategy set and roles assigned, Benedict mounted Glemdenning - his legendary striped warhorse, bred in a Shadow where speed, stamina, and savagery had been woven into its blood. Without fanfare, he spurred the beast forward and vanished into the shifting currents of Shadow, hell-riding with relentless focus toward his target within the Golden Circle surrounding Amber.

 

The journey was swift, driven by precision and will. As soon as he reached the designated location - a clearing shielded from aerial surveillance but close enough to launch the assault - Benedict reached for his Trump and contacted Kyle.

 

The link opened cleanly. In seconds, Kyle stepped through, and the plan began to unfold.

 

With practiced ease, Kyle established the first Trump Gate at Benedict’s position. He then returned to the army’s main encampment, opening the second gate and linking it to the first, allowing the flow of soldiers to begin. Column after column of disciplined troops surged forward through the shimmering portal, entering the staging ground in ordered ranks, ready for war.

 

Kyle, not yet finished, activated a third gate back in his own Shadow of Terra Prime, creating a fallback conduit for the wounded and vulnerable. Through his Exalted Trump mastery, he established a psychic web of connection between all key participants - commanders, operatives, and support - ensuring immediate and seamless communication across the battlefield.

 

Now, with the forces in position and the stage set, there remained only one thing: the signal. Until Benedict gave the command, the army waited in tense silence, poised on the edge of a storm that would decide the fate of Amber.