Disclaimer: I own it! I own it! I own it! BRAND THE ALMIGHTY OWNS EVERYTHING!!!!! Except, apparently, the copyright for the Amber series, which belongs to Roger Zelazny.
A/N: Another chapter! I still haven't finished reading the series (I know. Pathetic, isn't it?), but I'm on the last book, thank goodness. Once I'm done, I'm probably going to have to go back and read them all again, in order this time (i.e. not third book first). Frankly, I've forgotten a lot of the details in Sign of the Unicorn because it was on audiotape and I had absolutely no clue who anyone was at the time. But enough rambling...time to start the story. (Warning: this is extremely long. There are a few slow spots, but it gets better later on...at least I thoroughly enjoyed it.)
How to Go Shopping
"I need some new clothes," Corwin remarked lazily as he lounged in an armchair in Fiona's apartments in the royal palace. Fiona, who was going through the elaborate and complicated process of making tea, looked up and raised a perfectly molded eyebrow.
"So go to the tailor," she suggested, dunking the tea bags with the ease of long practice. Honestly, sometimes Corwin could be a little strange. Most people would just have gone and gotten the stupid clothes without making such a big deal out of it. But then, Corwin was definitely not most people...
Corwin shook his head impatiently. "No, I don't want to go to the tailor," he argued. "I want to go shopping." Fiona rolled her eyes, wondering what in Chaos had gotten into her brother today. Shopping...?
She decided she would simply have to be patient and humor him, always the best course when dealing with Corwin. "And why do you want to go shopping?" she inquired sweetly, picking up the teapot gracefully and beginning to pour the hot tea. Corwin made a face that was probably meant to be a rueful smile.
"I don't know," he admitted heavily, slouching even further down into the chair. "It's just...you know how it is around here..." Trailing off, he looked at her hopefully as if waiting for her to finish his sentence.
Fiona sighed inwardly. "No, actually I don't know. Maybe if you told me what's bothering you I could help." [And maybe I'll go to the Mosh Pit of Chaos with Mandor next Saturday night...]
"Well," Corwin said unhappily, "you know it's been a while since we had a battle or an invasion or an attempted coup or anything like that." He looked to Fiona once more for understanding and she nodded slowly, hoping against hope that she didn't know where this was going. If he was going to make one of those typical macho speeches about being bored stiff during peacetime...
Bowing his head in sorrow, her brother continued, "And you know I like fighting and battle and killing twenty-three enemy minions with one blow and all that stuff." Again, Fiona nodded. That she certainly did know...
"See, the present whaddayacallit, atmosphere in Amber is sickeningly peaceful, right? So what do you do if you like war?" Yep. It was one of those typical macho speeches, minus the usual semblance of intelligence and bravado. Fiona settled in for a long talk.
"I don't know," she said consolingly. "What do you do?"
"You go shopping!" Corwin announced triumphantly.
And there it was. She had just been neatly maneuvered into it. If she refused to go shopping with him at this point, she would be a hardhearted, uncaring sister who would rather see him curl up and die than spend the afternoon looking at clothes. Of course, the description fit her like a glove, but still...It was the principle of the thing, she decided. It was all right to be hardhearted and uncaring, but if one just came out and advertised the fact it took all the fun out of the complicated sibling rivalries of the royal family.
Forcing her best smile, Fiona said calmly, "Okay. Shopping it is." She tried not to shudder too obviously.
#####
"I'm bored," Mandor whined plaintively. He glanced languidly around him at the elegantly furnished room and let his head drop limply once more, slouching down in his armchair.
"You're always bored," Dara said exasperatedly. Of course she was bored too, but that wasn't the point. The point was that Mandor wasn't helping one bit. Normally she would have eaten something—eating was her favorite hobby. But it was too late for a mid-afternoon snack and too early for tea or supper, so she was stuck listening to her son gripe about how bored he was.
She wondered, not for the first time, why things were often so boring around the Courts of Chaos. One would think, with all the intrigue, assassinations, and general plotting that occurred on a daily basis, that there would always be something interesting going on, but for the last few weeks things had been decidedly slow.
Perhaps it was time to change that...
Dara made up her mind. "Mandor," she said coaxingly, "don't you think it's high time we were up and about doing something instead of sitting here frittering our time away?"
"No, not really," Mandor said seriously. "I actually kind of like frittering my time away. Very peaceful. But boring," he added after a little thought.
Dara sighed. "I've been thinking about this," she said firmly. "We need to spend more quality time together."
Mandor actually choked on his water and had to put the glass down on the table and cough a few times. "More what?" he demanded incredulously. "Did you say—"
"Yes, quality time," Dara said sternly. "And I've also decided—don't say a word, just listen!—that we ought to go shopping together to bond as a family." She folded her arms and looked at him triumphantly.
The room was silent for a minute as Mandor thought. He knew perfectly well what she had just done—if he declined her offer of quality time, he was a bad son. And bad sons had an uncanny way of disappearing in the Courts of Chaos...
At last Mandor looked up at his mother, pouting a little. "Fine," he said petulantly. "Take me shopping. See if I care." Dara smiled tolerantly at her son, knowing she had won the first battle. From here it was only a step to a makeover of his entire wardrobe, and from there...who knew?
Someday, she thought, he would thank her for this.
#####
Thirty minutes and one rather unpleasant hellride later, Corwin and Fiona had finally arrived at the mall. The building was, Fiona thought, probably the biggest, ugliest thing she'd ever seen in her life.
"Here we are," Corwin said happily.
Fiona looked at him in disgust. The siblings hadn't spoken throughout the journey, preserving at least the illusion of getting along. The half hour had given Fiona time to collect her thoughts, but her horror at the prospect of shopping with Corwin had not decreased.
"Here we are," Fiona said dully.
Resolutely, she steered her thoughts to more cheerful subjects. If she was stuck here at this...this mall with Corwin, she might as well use the time to plan her next move in the great chess game that was life in Amber. Hmm...obviously some revenge would be necessary for this little episode. Perhaps Julian would help her...
"This is going to be so much fun!" Corwin grinned at her like a little kid and then ran ahead of her through the glass doors. Fiona sighed, set her jaw, and followed him.
Once inside, she simply stared for a moment before she remembered to close her mouth. It was truly an awe-inspiring view, even for someone accustomed to life in Amber. And all devoted to shopping...Hmm. Maybe this trip hadn't been such a bad idea after all. Or, she corrected herself, it wouldn't be so bad if it weren't with Corwin.
Corwin popped up at her elbow, still grinning from ear to ear. "So where do you think we should go first?" he asked, practically jumping up and down. "Papaya Republic? The Restricted? So many stores, so little time, huh?" He punched her lightly in the arm. "Aren't you glad I brought you along?"
"Oh. Uh, yeah, sure," Fiona lied quickly, resisting the urge to roll her eyes. "I, um...why don't you pick where we go?" There. That would satisfy his mammoth ego for a while. Maybe she would be able to plot her escape...
She was mildly surprised to see what appeared to be a thoughtful expression on Corwin's face. "Well..." he said slowly. "There's a store I've heard all about and I've been dying to see it."
Fiona wished he hadn't used the word "dying". Under the circumstances it wasn't exactly encouraging. "And what store is that?" she asked in her best falsely cheery, talking-to-four-year-olds voice.
"It's called Hot Subject," Corwin explained. "I think it's very popular among young adults."
Fiona rolled her eyes and took Corwin's shoulders, shaking him a little. "Look, Corwin, that means teenagers. You are not a young adult. You are over a millennium old, and I will not have you lower yourself to consort with that...rabble!" If this place Hot Subject really was a teenage hangout, this shopping trip could turn out to be much, much, much worse than she had dreamed.
Corwin grinned. "Yeah, but I'm a kid at heart, Fi," he said. "I never grew up, you know."
[You can say that again,] Fiona thought resignedly, taking a deep breath and trying to remember all the relaxation techniques she knew. All she could think of was to keep breathing deeply.
"Come on!" Corwin exclaimed impatiently, grabbing her arm. "We have to get going! This could take a while," he added happily, his green eyes sparkling.
"That's what I was afraid of," Fiona groaned under her breath, giving up at last and letting herself be towed in the direction of Hot Subject.
#####
Mandor was still pouting. "Do I hafta?" he whined, trying to dig in his heels as Dara dragged him through the mall entrance. "C'mon, Mom!"
"Mandor..." Dara began warningly, giving him the Evil Eye. Passersby shied away in fear, trying to convince themselves that they hadn't just seen a perfectly ordinary woman grow two feet taller and sprout horns for a split second.
To Dara's great satisfaction, her son continued to glare at her but remained silent.
"Well," she said briskly, "that's much better." They stopped by a kiosk with the word DIRECTORY prominently displayed. Hmm...where should they go first?
"Aha!" Dara cried. "Just the place." Mandor moaned a little and buried his face in his hands. Dara patted his shoulder comfortingly. "And you should like this place too, Mandor. Just look! I've been hearing about it forever."
Tremblingly, Mandor looked at the little rectangle on the map and then down at the key, which identified it as "Hot Subject." "What's Hot Subject?" he asked fearfully.
"Oh, it's a charming little place for young adults," said Dara enthusiastically. "And since you're one of my few surviving sons, I thought it would be nice if I went shopping with you! I want to see what young people these days are wearing."
Mandor sighed heavily and rolled his eyes. "Mother," he said firmly, "I am not a child anymore. I am not even a young adult. I am a grown man and I can do my own shopping." He stopped and scanned her face anxiously. "I realize that this may be hard for you to accept, but I'm not your little boy anymore."
If he was looking for wobbling chin, trembling lower lip, or any of the other signs of an emotional moment, he was severely disappointed. "Of course not," Dara agreed.
"What?" Surely, Mandor thought, he must have heard wrong.
"Of course you're a big grown-up boy," Dara crooned, pinching his cheek. Mandor ducked, but too slowly to avoid the hand that ruffled his hair mercilessly. "My little Mandor's growing up so fast. And that's why I wanted to go with you to Hot Subject—so I can get used to the idea of my little baby Mandikins buying clothes for himself and entering the big grownup world!"
Despite Mandor's anguished protests and pleas, Dara took his hand and began marching in the direction of Hot Subject. His efforts to escape were all in vain, and she callously ignored his piteous cries of, "Mother! I can do it myself!"
#####
"Just look at that," Corwin exulted as they entered the store. "Young adult fashions."
"Fashions in Shadow," Fiona reminded him sternly. "You'll be a laughingstock when we get back to Amber." Corwin ignored her, his eyes suddenly widening as he gazed off to their left. Before she could stop him, he had raced off and was accosting a group of Shadow teenagers dressed in some sort of shiny black clothing with silver chains all over.
No. No. This was not happening to her. She could just hear Corwin demanding, "Where did you get this?" as he fingered the tallest boy's jacket. Fiona was suddenly very busy studying something in the opposite direction, hoping that nobody would realize she was with Corwin. Of all the ways to start off a shopping trip...
"I get my stuff here, dude," the youth replied, looking a bit disconcerted but not homicidally angry as Fiona had feared.
"Yeah," Corwin said enthusiastically. "Great place, isn't it?" Casting strange glances at him over their shoulders, the kids left and he bounded back over to Fiona.
"Corwin," she said softly through gritted teeth, "you're embarrassing me."
Corwin had the grace to look a little abashed. "But I couldn't help it!" he protested. "Did you see that? What they were wearing? All black and silver! It's in—"
"It's in your colors," Fiona said resignedly. Now she would never get out alive.
Two minutes later, the royal family of Amber had commandeered a fitting room and Corwin had taken no less than ten items of clothing in to try on. He closed the door with a flourish, then cursed softly. "It doesn't lock," he said disappointedly.
So there she was. Fiona, princess of Amber and very possibly the smartest one in the family, holding a fitting room door closed for her idiot brother. She hoped desperately that nobody she knew would happen to pop into this Shadow for the afternoon. That would be just too much.
"Well?" she called impatiently through the door. "Do they fit?"
There were several muffled grunts and rustling sounds, and then Corwin's voice replied, "Nope. I guess I'll have to get some more." He began whistling "The Ballad of the Water-Crossers", and Fiona slumped down against the door in disgust.
#####
"Now won't this be fun?" Dara asked Mandor as she shoved him through the entrance to Hot Subject. Mandor squeaked a little in reply, but she ignored this and kept propelling him toward the store counter, behind which sat a very bored-looking teenager with pink hair.
"Excuse me," she said imperiously. The girl looked up, the corner of her mouth twitching as if she were trying not to laugh. Mandor could understand perfectly—a fine spectacle they must be, he thought, a mother dragging her grown son into this shop of all shops! "My son is looking for a new wardrobe."
Mandor shot the girl behind the counter a pleading look—Please don't let her do this to me!—but she ignored him. "Right over there, ma'am," she droned, obviously uninterested in Mandor's plight. As Dara pulled Mandor in the indicated direction, the girl went back to her magazine, shaking her head a little.
"Well," Dara said finally, looking at the clothes on display. "It's certainly...interesting." Yes, Mandor thought, interesting was the word. He'd always liked gray more than black, and the styles didn't quite seem his type...
"Here." His mother had been busy while he was contemplating the clothes—she shoved a whole pile of the stuff into his arms. "Fitting rooms are over there. Now scoot." She started to give him a slap on the bottom, but he dodged out of the way in time.
Once inside the small cubicle, Mandor enjoyed the quiet. Putting the clothes down on the bench under the mirror, he let out his breath and closed his eyes tightly, trying to nerve himself for the moment when he would have to go back out there and face his mother. Oh, golden silence...
Then, very faintly, he heard a sound from the next cubicle. It sounded like...it couldn't be...it was! It was that infernal "Ballad of the Water-Crossers"!
Hoping to shut up whoever was on the other side of the wall, Mandor banged on it with both fists. "Oy!" he yelled. "Quiet over there!" Much to his dismay, the response came not from the person in the adjacent fitting room, but from outside his door.
"Now, dear...that wasn't very nice." Mandor's eyes widened as he realized that there was simply no escape from his mother. Sighing in resignation, he began to try on a hideous-looking leather jacket.
#####
Fiona soon realized that this business of trying on clothes was going to be a big problem. Either Corwin was more inept at finding the right size than she had known or he simply enjoyed torturing her. "Well," he said brightly, "I'll try on this lot."
Not trusting herself to reply, Fiona glared at him until he retreated into the fitting room and she obligingly held the door shut again. "Nasty chap in the other room," Corwin commented through the door. "Told me to shut up."
"I wonder why," said Fiona.
#####
"Well?" Dara called through the door. "How is it, sweetie?" Mandor cringed, wondering why she felt it necessary to call him "sweetie" in a shop full of young adults.
Looking in the mirror, he examined the clothes—a black leather jacket and black pants of some strange ridged fabric. "It's a little wide in the shoulders," he called back, "but nothing I can't handle." Concentrating, Mandor shifted his body mass so that his shoulders became a little bulkier. "Perfect," he said with some satisfaction, having forgotten for the moment that he didn't want these clothes.
When his mother didn't reply, he called, "Mother?" There was still no answer, but he heard her voice talking to someone else. A few words he couldn't hear, then: "—fancy meeting you here, Princess Fiona!"
Princess Fiona?
Mandor's heart seemed to stop for a moment, then resumed its beating at about twice its normal speed. Princess Fiona...his idol, his obsession, the love of his life. And, from what he could gather, right outside the door.
Glancing toward the door, Mandor gave himself a last appraisal in the mirror and did his best to slick his hair back. "Mandor," he told himself, "you are one happenin' dude." Suddenly feeling much better about his clothes, he opened the door and stepped out nonchalantly.
#####
As Fiona began to chat as pleasantly as possible with Dara, she became aware of something in the background. Apparently, malls in this particular Shadow installed small television screens in the corner of each shop, providing brainwashing in the form of advertisements. Though Fiona had noticed this almost immediately, she had been distracted by Corwin's antics until now.
The current commercial was one for Zounds, some sort of jewelry store in the mall. As the announcer continued to babble about the wonderful pendants, rings, and bracelets on sale, Fiona tuned both him and Dara out and watched the changing pictures of the merchandise. Now this was the kind of shopping she preferred...
The door of the fitting room next to Corwin's swung open dramatically and, much to Fiona's dismay, Dara's son Mandor stepped out. "Ah, Princess Fiona," he said smoothly, bowing and giving her what was obviously meant to be a charming smile. "What a surprise to see you here." Fiona made a strangled noise, which she quickly turned into a laugh, and returned the greeting while trying not to grind her teeth too much. Then she concentrated on watching the Zounds commercial and ignoring Mandor as best she could.
Fiona nodded and smiled in response to some polite and slightly flirtatious remark of Mandor's and stared longingly at pair after pair of diamond earrings. Suddenly, Dara gasped in surprise and grabbed Mandor's arm. "Look!" she breathed.
Startled, Fiona took a closer look at the necklace now on sale for only three hundred rubles. A huge, bright red pendant on a long chain...there was only one pendant like that. "The Jewel of Judgment!" she whispered. Then, as it hit her and she turned to stare in horror at Dara and Mandor, who were staring in delight at each other: "Corwin! Get out of there pronto!"
#####
Of course Mandor was happy that his family might finally have the chance to get the Eye of the Serpent for their own, but did it have to come at this moment? He was just making headway in his relationship with Fiona...But his mother was hissing, "Mandor, now!" and pulling at his arm. Reluctantly, he bowed to Fiona again, smiled roguishly, and winked. Then he and Dara took off for Zounds at a dead run.
Thirty feet later, Dara realized that they had no idea where they were going and skidded to a halt in front of the DIRECTORY kiosk. "Zounds...Zounds..." she muttered, tracing a finger down the key. "Here!" She pointed to a shop on the second level of the mall and smiled wolfishly.
#####
"Corwin!" Fiona yelled desperately, banging on the door. "Corwin, if you're not out in ten seconds I'm coming in!"
In nine and one-half seconds, her brother appeared, frantically pulling off the leather jacket he'd been trying on. "No time!" Fiona screamed. "Hurry!" She dragged him out of the shop, ignoring the alarms that went off as the accidentally shoplifted jacket set off the sensors at the exit.
"Now," she muttered, "where is Zounds?" She cast about frantically until she found a kiosk labeled DIRECTORY and dashed over to it, still towing the unfortunate Corwin. It took a moment, but she located Zounds—it was halfway across the mall and on the second floor. It would have to be, with her luck.
"Wait!" Corwin said. "What are we—" He had no time to finish his sentence, for Fiona was off again at a breakneck pace.
"I'll explain later," she told him. "To the escalators!"
#####
Mandor took a moment to look down as he and Dara ran up the escalator, knocking people out of their way right and left. To his immense satisfaction, Fiona and her no-good brother Corwin were just leaving Hot Subject. He admired Fiona's practicality and presence of mind as she looked around, then made a beeline for the directory.
Dara had also noticed. "They're gaining on us," she gasped. "Faster!"
#####
"So this is an escalator," Corwin mused. "I wonder how it works..." Fortunately, he seemed to have picked up some of Fiona's urgency and kept moving while he talked.
Unfortunately...
"No, Corwin!" Fiona howled. "Wrong one!" Her brother, one of the best and most ingenious warriors Amber had ever seen, was busy trying to ascend the down escalator. Not only was he losing valuable time, he was beginning to attract angry shoppers like iron filings to a magnet. This was not good.
Quickly, she dashed forward, seized Corwin by the collar of his jacket, and hauled him bodily over to the escalator on the right-hand side. "Now, up!" she ordered, shoving him onto one of the steps and getting on herself. Why, oh why hadn't she just left him in the fitting room?
#####
"There!" Dara cried in triumph. The entrance to Zounds lay directly ahead of them, and it was none too soon for Mandor. He wasn't used to this kind of exercise.
They skidded into the shop and almost collided with the counter. "Where..." Dara panted, leaning on the edge of the counter and glaring at a very startled employee. "Where...large red pendant...three hundred rubles..."
"Oh yes," the employee said importantly, bustling over to a glass case and removing what was unmistakably the Eye of the Serpent. It seemed to shine with an inner fire, and Mandor's eyes widened at the thought that they had regained it at last.
Somehow, this all seemed too easy...
"Now," said the employee, "cash, check, or credit card?"
#####
"I don't believe this," Fiona moaned, looking around at the bewildering array of shops. What was the Jewel of Judgment doing in a jewelry store?...But there was no time for questions, as she had to keep reminding Corwin. The important thing was to find Zounds and get the Jewel before Mandor and Dara.
"How long are we going to be running?" Corwin asked plaintively as they flew past dozens of booths selling hand-dyed grains of rice and personalized socks. Fiona shook her head and kept going, scanning the passing shops intently for any sign of Zounds. Hopefully, they weren't too far behind the others...
Then the blood froze in her veins as Corwin suddenly dropped behind and she heard him say excitedly, "Oh, goody! Ice cream!"
#####
Dara fumbled in her bag, producing the Shadow money she had fortunately had the foresight to bring along. "Five hundred," she snapped, slamming the small coins onto the counter. "Hurry!"
The employee was not going to be hurried. "Do you want that gift wrapped, ma'am?" he asked politely.
"NO!" Dara shouted. "No gift wrap! Now give it to me!" Mandor had learned through hard experience that it was usually not a good sign when his mother began foaming at the mouth.
"All right," the employee said, taking the coins. "And, with tax, your change is one hundred seventy-eight rubles." He opened a drawer and began to painstakingly count. "One hundred...one hundred fifty...one hundred seventy-five...Just a minute, ma'am, I'll find you some one-ruble pieces."
#####
After this was all over, Fiona would apologize to Corwin for her behavior. However, this was no time for gentleness.
"Corwin!" she shrieked. "Run!" Knocking over the startled ice cream vendor, she pushed her brother ahead of her as she ran. There! Through the crowds, she could just see ZOUNDS in large neon lettering.
Fervently, Fiona prayed that they weren't too late.
#####
Mandor watched the employee like a hawk as he counted out the last three rubles. "Your change, ma'am," the man said proudly, handing it to Dara, who stared at it in total disgust. She had gone through the agony of the last few seconds for a few worthless pieces of metal?
"At last!" she crowed, turning to Mandor. "The Eye of the Serpent is ours!" She smiled at him. "Aren't you glad I insisted on a little family bonding time?"
"I wouldn't go that far," Mandor murmured. Still, it was a good bargain. All in all, the shopping trip had been very profitable.
"...And here's your receipt, ma'am," the employee told Dara, pressing a small piece of paper into her hand along with the paper bag that held the most precious item in existence.
#####
As they covered the last twenty feet to the store entrance, Fiona saw something that made her heart stand still. Dara and Mandor were standing at the counter, apparently engaged in some sort of transaction.
Giddy with the sheer tension of the moment, she put on an extra burst of speed and covered the distance in two seconds. With Corwin right behind her, she dashed into the store—
#####
Dara turned, grinning from ear to ear, as Fiona and Corwin hurtled into the store at half the speed of light. To Mandor's amusement, their momentum carried them all the way to the counter, where they dropped to the ground, exhausted and slightly dazed.
Shaking her head a little, Dara turned to go. "Come, Mandor," she said, lifting the bag so that the Amberites could see it and jiggling it until it clinked. "We have business elsewhere."
Though he was loath to leave his dear Fiona once again, Mandor contented himself with blowing her a kiss as he followed in his mother's wake. She glared at him. Ah, that Princess Fiona—always playing hard to get.
"You have a good day now, ma'am," the Zounds employee called as they reached the exit. Dara looked back for a second, then smiled brilliantly at the shop in general.
"Oh, I will," she said. "I will."
A/N: Okay, that was ridiculously long. I hope you enjoyed it, because otherwise you've no doubt been driven insane. I just love the image of Mandor as "Mandikins". Quick apologies to all stores twisted here: Banana Republic, The Limited, Zales, and...of course...Hot Topic. I don't know how many of you are familiar with Hot Topic, but it's a wildly popular place for...what else? Young adults. You can get everything there from black leather and chains to Hello Kitty and Cabbage Patch Kids. THE EVIL ONE andthelimeskittle: Did this remind you of your own story, "Fiona Goes to the Mall"? I only realized that myself when I was halfway through it. Who knows...maybe I was subconsciously influenced by reading your story. Anyway...
~~~~~
And now, Amber fans, the moment you've been waiting for...the second installment in the Useful Amber Tips has arrived! Interchangeable Hellride Paragraphs are an indispensable addition to any story, especially serious ones—they can add a bit of badly needed comic relief. You can use this tool in two ways:
{A} Mix and Match
Take these ready-written paragraphs and use them in any order to create your own unique hellride!
...A primeval, foul-smelling sludge from horizon to horizon with roiling clouds overhead and the occasional ray of sunlight, unbearably bright as it pierced through the stifling atmosphere...
...A village of tall, strangely shaped huts, offering tantalizing glimpses of oddly familiar people with three arms and no obvious facial features of any kind...
...A lush green meadow dotted here and there with delicate-looking blue flowers that seemed to enjoy eating each other, as well as small birds and unwary travelers...
...A rocky valley with straggling blades of grass protruding in ragged clumps from under stones, bounded by tall mountains covered with a forbidding white glaze of snow...
...An unearthly landscape in blues and oranges, covered with strange, spiny plants and stranger, spinier animals and crisscrossed by gurgling reddish rivers in which swam huge fish with opposable fins...
{B} Create Your Own
Select one word at random from each of the three columns to create a fascinating descriptive phrase, then build your own paragraph. Good for real ambitious types.
A B CLarge Blue Avalanche
Frightening Hairy Mountainside
Green Lush Gorilla
Dangerous Rocky Village
Romantic Friendly Volcano
Rippling Cloudy Wasteland
Winding Voluminous Grass
Scurrilous Eye-catching Swamp
Twisted Happy Desert
Flying Purple People-eater
With the help of these guides, you can avoid the embarrassment of badly written, dumb-sounding hellrides! Simply insert the above paragraphs and/or phrases and continue on your merry story-writing way. Tune in next time for the next Useful Amber Tool—Available Family Relationships. (e.g. "Merlin's daughter", "Deirdre's son")
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That was fun. Please don't laugh at my awful hellride paragraphs—I never liked writing hellrides much anyway. Hmm...maybe I'll just use the chart next time...Anyway, I've already started the next chapter and hopefully it won't be a matter of months before it's posted. And I finally got to read The Dawn of Amber, which is excellent. I have a new favorite character...Aber. Of course, I'll have to read Chaos and Amber as soon as I can (which is probably as soon as it comes out in paperback—I can't count on my library to have new science fiction and I don't have the money to buy hardbacks). So who else out there likes Aber?