Real date: June 1993
Run date: June 15, 11th year after the Patternfall War

A diplomatic delegation arrives from Rebma, including Llewella and Nikrowd.

Later on, another delgation arrives (this time from the Courts of Chaos) lead by one Shaidran Chanicutt and including the charming Dalamar. The welcoming ceremonies are interupted when Deirdre trumps into the main hall and collapses. Caine, Keverian, and Flora all rush over to her, and all but Keverian leave with Deirdre. Random apologizes and leaves too, as does Fiona (separately).

Felicia deftly fills in for her elders by seeing to the comfort of the delegation, before joining in the various attempts to gain more information about Deirdre's sudden arrival which are sadly largely rebuffed by the elders.

Keverian, Felicia, Merlin, Mikele and Lucius wind up in the same place later on and all but Lucius attempt to contact Corwin by trump. Corwin doesn't answer, but an "inhuman presence" does, so they drop the contact as fast as they can, but not in time to stop Mikele and Keverian from fainting. Felicia and Keverian pass this information on to Random, who says he'll get back to them.

There is another large state dinner which Random, Vialle, Martin, Deirdre, Llewella, Benedict, Caine, Flora, Fiona, Lucius, Merlin, Mikele, Keverian, Nikrowd, Felicia, Dalamar and the Chaos delegation all attend. Lucius winds up at a table with only elder Amberites and Felicia winds up nexts to Nikrowd who, to her chagrin, insists on eating off of her plate instead of his own.

Keverian arranges (at Benedict's request) an expedition to investiage the shadow Deirdre was apparently held in, Castle Mortivan. Keverian recruits Mikele, Nikrowd, Dalamar, Felicia, and Lucius and all depart Amber on a several hours long hellride.

Benedict stops the ride suddenly in a mountain pass and stands perfectly still. While he is standing, the ground rumbles and the pass closes behind us. (Our first clue that perhaps something is wrong.) Nikrowd and Felicia rapidly work out that Benedict is in psychic combat with someone or something (perhaps the inhuman presence?) and try to help. The psychic comes to a close with Benedict vanishing. At about this time the bad guys on horses arrive. After a brief combat, the party has won and even has a prisoner.

We quickly discover that trumps are being jammed here. Lucius and Mikele (well, Lucius's crow and Illidor) perform a little reconaissance, while Felicia mentally interogates the prisoner. We learn a little about the castle's defenses as well as the name of its lord: Reynard.

A little experimentation reveals that only standard Amber deck is being jammed, and Felicia manages to apprise Random of the situation. Felicia is able to make a trump sketch of a latrine inside the castle, and Lucius and Mikele are sent in to investigate in disguise via said trump. While inside they fight (and kill) a fairly impressive guard, rescue a blond prisoner named Reena, and discover what looks like a negative image pattern in the dungeon level (the spiral) with some dark spots at the center. Felica comes through to make a sketch of the spiral while people talk to Reena. Dalamar searches the dead man and finds a set of keys and a trump of a blond woman (not Reena).

Mikele and Lucius go to investigate more, but run into Reynard and some henchmen, and wisely opt to bail out. Dalamar tries to get more information from conjured birds-spies, but doesn't have a lot of success. Deciding we've run up against the law of diminishing returns, we head back to Amber to give Random the whole story. Reena claims to have been the ruler of the castle (after supplanting a woman named Misha Greer), until recently supplanted by Reynard. She says the spiral is a source of power, but professes no knowledge of the black spots at its center.

Random has nothing useful to say, so everyone disperses. Reena remains in Amber as a guest.