Amber: generation next

Jessica's tale: The Age of Redemption and Rebirth 2420-2493 d'L

Chapter 43: Faith Renewed

I think it's time to leave Amber again, perhaps get my mind off such things, and see where the Force guides me. Should I go alone, or take Agnar and his friends with me? One thing for sure, I need to seek out a copy of my journals for the library, the volume before this one, that was lost during the war. This new group of Amberites should have access to that period of history, even if it is colored by my point of view. On second thought, I could use the branches of Ygg and bring a copy here, much like a Logrus master uses the Logrus' tentacles. That having been accomplished, I'm going to soak in a hot bubble bath.

A dark cave, illuminated by an eerie yellowish glow. Trudging through knee deep, cold water. Sitting on the bank, staring into the pool, a young woman, familiar yet unknown. The reflection in the pool was not her own, but that of a man with the horns of a ram. Darkness, only two humanoid figures in the distance. Closer, a woman being ravaged by a winged man with ram horns. A faint voice... "Mother, help me!"

I sat up, water splashed everywhere. I must have fallen asleep. The water was cold. The bubble were gone. The dream was a vision of the future, but how far distant? I could not bring it back, but I know what it meant...Amanda has jumped spokes. She's here in the Shadows of my Amber.

Was Amanda the reason for my nostalgia about children? Was it that actively seeking me out caused ripples in the Force that produced these feelings? I knew her chronological age, but what of her physical and mental age? The blurred images of my vision were difficult to judge, late teens or early twenties?

Still dripping wet, I lay on my bed, mentally rifling through my Trump deck. Finding the card I wanted I called out, "Agnar, I need your help."

Was Amanda the reason for my nostalgia about children? Was it that actively seeking me out caused ripples in the Force that produced these feelings? I knew her chronological age, but what of her physical and mental age? The blurred images of my vision were difficult to judge, late teens, early twenties?

During the time spent in shadow rescuing Ray's fiancee, Shaila, my apartment had been reconstructed. I think Supergirl helped out with her superspeed, but she won't admit she did anything for me. The furnishings are not as personal as before, but definitely fit for a Lady of Amber blood..

Still dripping wet, I lay on my bed, mentally rifling through my Trump deck. "Agnar," I said. "I need your help."

"Jessica" he replied, "As beautiful as you are I..."

"No, not that," I interrupted, realizing that I was lying naked on my bed and how that must look through Trump. Gathering the comforter around me, I continued, "No it's my daughter, Amanda. She's in danger and I'd like your help finding her, before its too late.

"Gladly, I'll collect supplies and ask Woodrow and Ray to join us," he said.

"Great. Meet me in the dining hall when you're ready," I concluded breaking the contact.

My hair was still wet, but the rest of me was now dry, but my bed was soaked. I remade the bed, dressed, brushed my hair and made my way to the dining room to wait for Agnar.

In the month that's passed since we rescued Shayla, I made a trip back to Star Wars. I restored the damage done to my shadow by the Yuzzum Vong, and sent them back barring their return to my beloved galaxy. I also purchased a few more dresses of living silk, and a Jedi robe as well. One of the dresses I'd purchased was a heavier, winter-weight cloth, which I wore under my robe. I'd also purchased a pair of thigh boots that were so light I almost felt as if I were barefoot. These I also wore, after all winter had returned to Amber.

One of the servants brought me a tray of ham, cheese and bread, along with a carafe of coffee. I thanked her and she went one her way. I didn't feel like eating but knew I had to nourish my body before making this trip. I had to decide the best way to seek her out. Then it struck me, I could travel thought Ygg, and it would be faster than Hellriding.

Agnar and Woodrow walked in as I was finishing the last of the coffee. "Ray is off in Shadow with Shayla, but Woodrow and I are ready to go," Agnar said. The scent of female pheremones and sweat exuded from Woodrow. He'd tried to clean up, but for some reason my senses were sharper than normal this afternoon. There was a familiar quality to those scents, could it be after all these years he was finally to become a father? I could not be sure and didn't want to get his hopes up, so I kept silent.

I quickly told them all I knew of Amanda from her conception to my latest vision. They both agreed she probably was heading into danger. We collected our personal gear and went to the garden. Ygg was a bit harder to reach than usual, because of the season, but Agnar and I entered the tree, carrying Woodrow along with us.

Racing through the roots and branches of Ygg through shadow was more exhilarating than walking the Pattern within the Kaiburr Crystal, or the wildest roller coaster. As we slowed near the shadow where I felt Amanda's presence. I heard a voice call to me, "Leave the influence of my brother and I will give you real power." I recognized the evil intent behind the voice for it mirrored my own dark inner voice. Drasil, the dark sister to Ygg, was tempting me to the dark side.

Our wild ride ended at the edge of a forest. The land before us looked as it if had been burned. Evil radiated from the very ground we must cross . . . five miles to a lonely mountain.

A Trump call, very faint . . . Owen and Michael. Valian calling through Ygg. I opened my mind to them. Owen wore the black garb of Damien Omega. He had recently walked the Pattern with two lightsabres bearing Kaiburr Crystal fragments. He also had become strong with the Force. "Sister, we are off to shadow seeking Vialle and her son," Owen said in a calm even tone. "Care to join us?"

"I would if I were not seeking my own daughter," I replied.

"Michaela?" asked Valian and Michael together.

"No, Amanda," I said. "My other daughter. The one I left behind eighty-nine years ago in that other Amber."

"Alone?" Valian asked.

"No, Agnar and Woodrow are with me."

"Vialle and her son are alive," Owen argued. "Random hid them in shadow before the fall of Amber."

"Great. Glad to hear it." I said trying to break contact against their combined psyches. "Random be damned. I have my own child to save," I thought.

Valian went on about how he'd abdicated the throne of Chaos, leaving it to whomever draws a special sword from the center of the Logrus. A comment was made about me trying for it, but knowing Valian and Michael I wouldn't qualify even if I wanted to try.

Consciously, I've lost the desire to rule anywhere. I only maintain control of Star Wars because I need a refuge now and then. The Vong were destroying it and that was the only reason I put things right, but somewhere in shadow even that battle rages on.

Finally I convinced them I had to save Amanda, and they broke contact.

She was already inside the mountain. The Force was difficult to utilize in this shadow. I could feel her presence, but little else. Agnar, Woodrow and I began walking across the black land toward the mountain.

Along the way we fought demons, pixies, and dragons. The seemed to spring from the ground. The sense of foreboding all around. Before we reached the mountain, we'd lost all our supplies, mostly Agnar's herbs, and my clothes had been shredded, several times. The final tear in my winter weight living silk dress had mended, just outside the cave, when Owen and the refugees from the Courts of Chaos contacted me again. They were at the edge of the forest, having arrived via Ygg just as we had. I focused all the power I could muster through the Force, which was more difficult at the base of the mount than it had been for the last four hours crossing the burned land, and teleported them to me.

For the first time, since I discovered he was studying the ways of the Force, I had a chance to truly size up my brother. Although he could still best me in combat, in a psychic duel of the Force I would win. 'He could be controlled. Make him your slave and both thrones could be yours,' encouraged my dark inner voice.

Agnar and Woodrow elected to guard our backs, while Valian let the rest of us into the cave. A few meters into the cave we were trudging through knee deep water, which produced an eerie yellowish glow. For the first time in years, I felt inadequate, almost useless. Being shorter than my male companions, I brought up the rear due to the resistance of the water.

Owen, being the combat master he is, utilized the Combat Sense power of the Force to its greatest potential. He pointed out the shadow demons lurking above, which Michael destroyed with a 'flick of his magic wrist.' Owen warned of the water beast lurking in front of us. Between my three companions, it died quickly.

The only thing I could do was notice bits of fabric here and there. I knew it was the remains of Amanda's clothing. I could sense, her fear. Along her way through this cavern she was being deprived of her belongings and her dignity. I could sense her near gratitude at receiving the sheer white gown...her wedding gown. A slight calm as she sat on the bank, staring into a pool. Fear, loathing, revulsion, as the horned man came out of the water and drug her away from the water's edge.

Thirty demonic creatures lay in wait as we reached the spot where she'd sat. The details are a bit fuzzy from here. Owen and Michael took on the horned man, while Valian and I dealt with the demons. I killed three with one blow of my Jedi weapon. Another attacked from behind, a flick of my wrist and my blade was pointing backward, thrust into his gut. Another one died, and another. The fell swiftly and easily before my blade. They say there's nothing more dangerous than a mother defending her young, I guess I proved this true.

When all the demons were dead, Michael led Amanda out of the darkest part of the cave. Owen only slightly ahead of him. Michael had conjured up clothing for her, probably in the style she was accustomed. She wore a black halter top, a black and pink plaid mini-skirt, sandals, a black cape with a pink lining, and a wide pink belt. Her lightsabre hung from her belt and greatly resembled mine, including the Kaiburr Crystal chip I had somehow transferred to her in the dream.

I rushed toward her, covered in the black ichor the demons used for blood. I embraced her, not wanting to let go. Tears rolled down my cheeks and my voice quivered as I begged, "Amanda, please forgive me for leaving you behind."

"I do," she sobbed returning my embrace. "I received your Holocron cube a month ago and it explained everything. I understood, and forgave you then."

I broke the embrace and choked back my teas and replied in shock, "A month ago?" I looked at her closely, she was no older than seventeen, eighteen at the most. He red-blonde hair, green eyes, her father's pointed ears and fanged mouth, yes this was the child I bore. "When did you head out into shadow?"

"Right after I finished with the Holocron. Three weeks after I woke from my nightmare with that crystal in my hand," she said. "It was the crystal that guided me here."

"That was seventy-two years ago!" I said. "How'd you cross over?"

"The same way you did," she replied. "Only I used the Pattern in the crystal."

"That explains a few things," I said. Since I'd used both the crystal and the Pattern, my jump had been momentary, but at the expense of my powers. She used only the crystal and for her time stood still until the crystal shard zeroed in on itself. Somewhere in this shadow, now that I looked for it, I felt the Kaiburr Crystal – the master crystal which Benedict hid years ago.

"Let's go home," I said, Trumping the six of us back to Amber. After making proper introductions, Amanda and I retired to my apartment. I had seventeen years to catch up on.

She had been raised well, no hint of darkness in her, unlike her sister and myself of course. She dad brought with her the Holocron cube, but had lost it along with her other possessions in the cave. I took out a piece of paper and a pencil from my desk, and sketched the cube, then pulled it out of the depths of the dark waters, via the Trump sketch. I handed it back to her, jokingly saying, "Next time be more careful where you drop your toys."

She smiled and placed it on the table. We began to talk about her adventures. Too bad so few Amberites had enough concentration of midi-chlorians to use it, the Holocron would make a wonderful addition to the library. She knew she could never go back to the Amber she grew up in. Her 'cousins' would be over seventy years older than she was. The one she would miss most was the girl Pallas. I had a suspicion they were more than friends, or she wished them to be.

As we talked I realized she was a reasonably mature, though inexperienced, young woman. She needed me less as a mother than a friend. The best I could hope for was a Master-Padawan relationship. She needed someone to help her understand her powers and teach her to control them. I hadn't taken an apprentice since Silisity was murdered. Even Michaela couldn't really qualify, she'd developed too fast. Michaela is what Prath made her through my actions, and the child of the two most powerful Amberites of the third generation. She was also the result of a forbidden union: Michael, son of Eric, child of Oberon; and me, Jessica, daughter of Brand and Dierdre, children of Oberon. Besides Brand's mother, Clarissa, only Michael's mother, Delia, gave diversity to Michaela's DNA. Genetically speaking she was more my sister than my daughter. Michael's father and my mother shared the same parents. My father was my mother's half brother. Even Michael's mother was blood related to us being the great, great, great-granddaughter of Dworkin, Oberon's father, through Benedict and Lintra Hendrake. Its no wonder she turned out the way she did. But enough about Michaela, back to the situation at hand.

Amanda tole me that at a very early age she demonstrated her powers. All of Oberon's other grandchildren were boys, until Pallas came along, so she'd used her powers to make them play games with her. When she was twelve, she completed her first solo quest. She had hunted down and defeated a sorcerer, that had once been a friend in that shadow. Battling his undead forces along the way with only the Force and a Wakizashi. The night she turned thirteen her menarche began, as did her nightmares, which I had been an unwilling party to. A few days later she walked the Pattern for the first time.

The Pattern sent her to a shadow where she met a man named Admiral Francis Drake. He taught her of the Force and how to build a lightsabre.

On her way back to Amber, she discovered Pallas, Oberon's only other granddaughter. The two of them shared many adventures. Once of which included a sexual encounter with a twenty-one year old man from a shadow called Bram, she was only fifteen.

The exchange of the Kaiburr Crystal chip came during her nightmare on the night she turned seventeen. She had it made into a broach pin at the time. A few adventures later, she received the Holocron, learned the true nature of the crystal and walked the Pattern within. She asked it to take her to the master crystal from which the fragment came. The result was a long shadow seeking journey during which she was in a hybernation trance.

Amber Time:2493.30 d'L magna

Amanda has expressed a desire to return to her Amber. I took her to the Primal Pattern. Together we walked to its center, then carefully expressed a desire to be returned to the Amber of our own birth. I found myself alone in my new apartment. There was no change. It was the Amber I'd left. I only hope she returned safely as well. Though there is some sadness at her parting, at least we have met and know the answers to the questions we've both had for years. There comes a time when every parent must let go . . . this is mine.

I don't know what path my life will take next. With Owen's return to Amber as a Jedi Weapons Master, there is little need for me here and Star Wars has changed too much to be called home, even if I eliminate the Yuzzem Vong.

Perhaps I'll wander into shadow to find a world where I can make a difference again. If not that then just wander aimlessly until I find a shadow I can settle in and finally raise a family properly.

I wonder just how the elders managed to survive for the past two thousand four hundred ninety three years, those that are still alive, without going completely insane? Immortality sucks!

I could take a page from Merlin's chronicles and ask the Pattern to send me where it wants me, but that seems almost too impractical. Although . . .