Elaine, what's happening to you?
Damn. Elaine's become mixed up in whatever's happening. To be expected, I suppose - but I can't like it.
Picking up where I left off: Waiting for contact from Clare. She got in touch, and talked to Tamash for a while, and then went away to investigate a bit. Prospero conjured lunch. Literally, I think. Clare then got back to us, but was cut off mid-way through coming through to see us.
I teleported to Avalon, but seem to have inadvertantly found the shadow of the destroyed Avalon in Corwin's universe. Nothing real there at all - but I can get there again, if Clare and Tamash want to, when the present problem is resolved.
Tamash suggested I pass the time by attempting to contact Elaine (suspecting foul play, after I recieved the trump). I did so - using sorcery, and not the trump, to discover that she wasn't in Amber.
With some haste, we convened in Clare's home shadow - a giant stud, so far as I could see - to examine the trump I had been given. Clare declared it untrustworthy, and made her own trump of Elaine, from the picture on the other trump, and my description.
Using this trump, we found Elaine chained to a wall in the pitch blackness. Leaping through, I discovered that it was also hundreds of metres above water. My primal shapeshift kicked in, however, and left me safe. Tamash had her free by the time I had reached them once more.
Elaine safe (and fed, and shown to a bed by Clare's scarily efficient servants) we had a council of war, of a sort. Tamash especially, and Clare as well, seem keen to help me, and I've told them most of the relevant parts or my past. I really rather worry about their motivations, since they don't seem altruistic. (In fact, they seem determined to cut me out of things I might intefere in) Therefore, I guess it all ties in with something they know about. I'll have to watch for them trying to jump out on me, and hope my problems are solved first.
I didn't learn much new at the council of war, but told them a fair bit. We headed for the Hendrake Ways, to visit Adeline - my 'rescuer'. The section containing her mansion was abandoned, and someone watched us magically. Clare used some Pattern trick to put an end to that, and we returned to her home shadow. Oh the council was held in a shadow 'pocket' Clare owned. Possibly a useful trick, but I don't see how, yet...
Chaos forms. Tamash has one, of course, and Clare has one, too. (It'a a nightmare - black with wings and flames). Anyway, in the middle of Hendrake ways, seeing me still human, Tamash decided to try and shock me into adoping mine. The only result was that he now knows I have Kiall - I think he suspected anyway. Clare tried the same thing with flame, then had the indecency to deny it. Briefly.
Now comes the interesting bit. I was summoned to see the result of Tamash and Clare messing about with the trump of Elaine. No, they didn't invite me to the beginning - and I really hope for the sake of our cooperation that they don't do that again, but I can't be bothered to waste any more time on that today.
It seems the trump of Elaine went to the mind of ANOTHER Elaine, who knew the same things, and lived somewhere similar - she was asleep, so we couldn't check properly, but... WHAT is going on? Just to confuse matters further, Clare demonstrated that it was possible to duplicate Elaine perfectly, from shadow. I think I'd rather Elaine didn't know that, considering - but she heard it all.
Still. That's my dilemma: Who is Elaine, what does it mean to be Elaine anyway, and what are those two really up to?