Real date: Summer 1993
Run date: June 16-18

Using trumps sketches Felicia has made from information gained during our last excursion into Mortivan, Felicia, Lucius, Keverian, and Mikele perform a little scouting of the castle, specifically the study. Very little of interest is uncovered, as most of the written material is not in any language those present can read. They do uncover a poison trapped drawer containing some sort of diary and a knife with something on the blade, which Lucius takes.

Keverian takes Mikele on a shadowwalk "to a clue." They discover Corwin's pattern, which is guarded by a black knight (later called "the black knight," later known as Phaedron). Keverian fights him in single comabt while Mikele watches. Keverian loses fairly quickly. Mikele sends Keverian back to Amber and then tries to fight Phaedron herself. She fights a longer more defensive fight, but eventually gets knocked out by a good hard clobber from a battle axe. Fortunately for Mikele, Merlin was ready and waiting to pull her out with the Logrus. She arrives unconscious in Amber.

Felicia in the meantime, is having a misadventure with the Pattern. She had drawn a trump of Dworkin, despite his professed opinion that such a thing would not be possible, and attempted to use it. Instead of being in trump contact with Dworkin, she found herself walking the Pattern. When Keverian (now recovered from his earlier misadventure) discovers her, she has been at it for three hours and is barely to the first veil. It is immediately becomes clear that something is wrong, and more and more people are summoned to help, including the eminently useful Fiona. With the help of Fiona and Bleys, Felicia is safely extricated from the Pattern and returned to her room to rest.

Keverian, Felicia, Dalamar, Lucius, and Mikele attempt to track down the black knight: Mikele tries a Logrus search for the shadow the black knight tried to trump her to when he thought he'd knocked her out. The closest match she is able to find turns out to be Benedict's Avalon, which doesn't want visitors.

Reena seduces Keverian: He returns to his quarters to find her in his bed, sans clothes. "I just thought I'd make the offer," she says. After a brief interuption by Felicia, the seduction proceeds unhindered.

Unbeknownst to anyone else, Merlin heads off (after the incident with the black knight) to talk to his old friend Reynard about his recently expressed desire to kill his little sister (i.e. Mikele). Unwisely, Merlin has opted not to put up any defense against nasty sorcery spells (such as spells mind controlling him to kill Mikele). More unhappily, Reynard throws such a spell on him. It doesn't take quite right: Merlin has instead decided he must capture Mikele. His plan to do this is even fuzzier. It involves arranging to meet another old friend (relative), Torquil, in a strange shadow and then inviting Mikele to watch for trouble while they talk (i.e. he knocks Torquil out -- I did says this was fuzzy). After knocking Torquil out with a quick Logrus whap, Merlin starts casting an amnesia spell at Mikele, who luckily learns fast: she smacks Merlin on the head with the Logrus before he gets the spell off properly. ("He's casting a spell on me? No. I knock him out.") He falls unconscious and promptly vanishes.

Mikele calls Felicia and Keverian. They alert Random and bring the unconscious Torquil back to Amber, where he is roused and identified. His parentage, however, will have to wait until he gets permission. Martin arrives just then with a message that Random wants to know why he's always the last to hear about these thing and Torquil's mother wants to see him. Torquil leaves and returns shortly thereafter admitting that he's Fiona's son.

Merlin calls Mikele on trump a little later, and again attempts (and fails) to take Mikele prisoner for Reynard. This time, Mikele manages to get Merlin back to Amber. Fiona is found to look at him and pronounces him mind controlled by Reynard and recommends he spend a while reminding himself who he is and what he's been doing for th epast couple days to help clear his head. Gerard and Random are now helping with this and it looks like it's working, until the couch bursts into flames as he's talking and he vanishes. (Merlin's last words were "the thing you have to understand about Reynard is he's not...") Felciia tries to trump Reynard, but gets only emptiness. Mikele returns to the Courts fo Chaos to let Dara know what happened. Torquil departs Amber briefly to see to some personal matters.