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The Beginning: Acheron

Eventually, the street she was on took her to a wide plaza. In front of that plaza was a palace that could very nearly be a match for the descriptions of Castle Amber as provided by her mother and Alexander. There were no guards in front, and as she approached, she discovered why. There was a thin, almost invisible, sheet of flame covering the entrance to the castle courtyard.

Septima moved closer, examining the fire without touching it. She looked for a way to get past it, or to shut off the spell or trap creating it so that she might enter the castle.

The fire gave off no heat, but was definitely a barrier. A few moments of looking at it gave no information, but other means yielded slightly better results. The barrier was set to prevent all except a specific set from entering. What that set was, she couldn't tell, not quickly.

Septima took a deep breath. The guard had said the castle was kept ready for "the bloodline," or something like that. It stood to reason, she might be able to pass. She reached out her left hand and tried to pass it through the barrier.

The barrier tingled against her skin, but she was not harmed. It did occur to her, though, that there was something protecting her - and she felt briefly as she had when she first essayed the Pattern in this place, though she did not remember the city or castle from that visit.

Strange. Septima took a complete step forward, passing all the way through the barrier, and moved toward the castle, looking for signs of occupation, or for a hint of why she had been herded here.

Passing through the barrier was even weirder. It seemed almost as if the barrier knew her, down to the merest part of her, but it also seemed as if she knew the barrier - as if the barrier were part of her.

Intrigued, she continued onward, exploring, reaching out with her consciousness, Pattern still held before her.

Once past the barrier, she found herself in a castle much as she had expected from Uncle Alexander's stories. It was quiet and lonely, but there was no dust, and the wood and stone seemed brand new.

Septima smiled, and moved in the direction she suspected to find the library, according to what Uncle Alexander had told her of the place's layout.

The stairs seemed to be where Uncle Alexander indicated, and she was able to climb them easily, then to find the doors that almost had to be the library.

Opening the doors, it was indeed a library - though a library without any books in it.

Septima's eyes widened and she moved to explore.

The room itself was empty of all except book cases and some furniture. It was obviously intended as a library, but had never received its allotment of books, apparently.

Septima made an irritated noise, but continued in her exploration of the castle. Slowly, looking at whatever caught her eyes on the way, she headed down in the direction of the Pattern.

Heading downstairs, then to the throne room, or at least, what Alexander's descriptions would seem to make the throne room, she found the doorway into the catacombs, then started down the long stairway.

The stair was, indeed, long. It took nearly a quarter of an hour to reach the bottom. It was noticeably warmer at the bottom, too.

Eventually, she came to a door - the first thing to actually match her memories of the last trip. The door opened easily enough, letting her look for a second time upon the Pattern that she had walked. It glowed a sullen red in the black basalt of the floor, as if laid out in solidified, but not cooled, magma.

Septima walked around the Pattern slowly, taking in the sense of power she felt from it. Once she had made a slow circuit, she came to the beginning of the design, set her foot down and began to walk.

The Pattern did indeed exude Power. Power and Heat. And before she could place her foot upon the design, something stopped her. It wasn't questions of rightness, it wasn't lack of confidence, it was something else entirely.

There wasn't even really anything to feel, but she was prevented from stepping another inch forward. There was a feel, however, as of a key - that she needed something else before she could get through this barrier.

She was beginning to be slightly irritated. "Well," she said aloud to the Pattern, "that's a long bloody walk back up."

But she made it, and continued to search the Castle, methodically, for whatever it was she was supposed to find.

Searching the castle, she found almost nothing. The castle was furnished, seemed complete, but had nothing beyond the basic furniture. No food in the larder, no books anywhere to be found, even the beds were merely boxes, with no mattresses yet.

Septima bit her lip, took a deep breath and considered. It was a puzzle. It had to be. If it was a puzzle, it must, by definition, have a solution. Therefore, she would solve it. There had been a slight leap of logic there, but she ignored it. After a moment, she began another circuit of the castle, searching for mirrors.

There were several mirrors available - they, it seemed, were part of the furniture. One, in fact, stood from floor to ceiling in one of the larger suites.

Focusing on the mirror and trying to scry for the 'key' that she seemed to be missing proved quite difficult. It was as if she was looking for a concept, instead of a concrete entity. She knew from experience that scrying for a concept wasn't a good idea.

Hmm. Septima stopped and considered for a moment and then changed her focus, attempting to scry Castle Amber, the courtyard outside.

There being no mirrors in Castle Amber's courtyard, she was unable to scry there. She could feel a mirror that seemed to be attuned, somewhere within the Castle, however.

Septima focused on the attuned mirror, seeking through it.

The mirror was not one attuned by her, but it was close - perhaps it had been attuned by her mother. She could not get a strong image, but was able to determine that it was a mirror situated in the library at Castle Amber.

She could see that the room actually had books - there was no one there at that point in time, or at least no one in the range of the mirror itself.

The books were not easy to tell apart - it looked like any library she would expect to see that was well-stocked. Nothing immediately stood out as something her mother might have been interested in, but the possibility of entering Amber's library more or less at will could well have been part of it.

Septima concentrated on the two mirrors and the gateway between them through which she was even now gazing. She remembered the mirror magic that her mother had taught her, and sought for that place, that moment, when the glass would become a door, and she could slip, slip, through this mirror, through the space between, through the next one, and into Castle Amber.

The mirror seemed to glaze over as she'd learned to expect, and she stepped through. It was like walking through molten glass - hot, slow, and clingy. It took a lot longer than she liked, but she made it through, and found herself on the other side, in the library at Amber.

Septima let out a breath she had not been aware of holding. Had she solved the puzzle or sidestepped it? No matter.

There were forms to be upheld, after all, and walking through mirrors tended to be slightly surprising. She left the library to find a majordomo or castellan of some sort and announce her presence.

Stepping out of the library, Septima came face to face with a very large man. Then her mind metaphorically stepped back, looked at him again, and revised that to a very, very large man. He stood quite nearly two full feet taller than her, and if he weighed less than 25 stone then he was lighter than he had any right to be. His hair was black, worn short, and he had a lightly trimmed black beard. He blinked slowly at seeing her, scowled softly, and lifted one hand - larger than her own head - palm out.

"You shouldn't be here, girl. How'd you do it?"

Septima cocked her head to the side in order to regard the man while craning her neck as little as possible. "Mirrors. I do apologize for my abrupt entrance, but I wanted to visit and found my way blocked."

The man sighed.

"I know that, child. But you should not have been able to. The mirror wasn't attuned to you."

"No... my mother, I think, attuned it. Who are you, my lord?" Septima said, smiling her most charming smile.

He shook his head. "Of course she did. The point, child, is that you should not be able to travel through a mirror attuned to someone else. I think your mother will want to talk to you, and find out how you did it."

He shrugged. "That's for the future, though. For now, welcome to Amber. I'm your uncle Gerard."

"Thank you for your welcome, uncle," Septima said with another smile and a tiny curtsy. "It's wonderful to finally meet you."

He shrugged. "So, how did you do it? Anything special, or just dumb family luck?"

Septima shook her head. Discovering how she had done what should not have been possible had made the top of her list, but she was unwilling to share that she did not know. "That's a trade secret, uncle. Perhaps over dinner?"

Gerard chuckled. "Well, it seems you've been taught some of the Family's etiquette. Come with me - first, you need to be introduced to Random. Then you can have dinner."

"I would be honored," Septima replied, continuing to smile at Gerard. She reached up to fix her unruly auburn curls, her eyes dropping so that they were clouded by her eyelashes for a moment, but the look was not flirtatious as much as it was vulnerable.

He shook his head. "I'm going to let you in on a secret, child - since I already know your very dangerous one. I am not as dumb as I might look, and vulnerable looks will not win any respite from me. Understood?"

Showing neither shock, disappointment nor fear, Septima dropped the act entirely and nodded. "Yes, sir," she said simply.

He smiled and nodded. "Very good. Now, let us get you to Random. It is well for you that Fiona is not in the castle right now. She would likely have taken this worse than I."

Septima turned her head to the side so that she could study his face. "I do not understand," she said.

Gerard simply smiled. "She takes Castle security very seriously."

He led her down the hall to a stairwell, then down. Assuming the castle she'd come from had the same floorplan, he had just skirted away from the Great Hall entirely, and was bringing her to the castle doors.

To make it seem she had entered by a more normal door? Septima wondered. She kept silent and followed.

He did, indeed, lead her to the castle doors, and as they passed them, the two heard voices beyond, out in the courtyard. While Septima didn't recognise any of them, Gerard obviously did, and he stopped.

"It looks as though you're about to meet some relatives sooner than you thought."

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