Philippe-AoS

Brother Random,

I'm seated now in a cafe near the river Cala in Nenton, drinking Qiraret and coffee after having spoken to brother Bleys. He tells me that we won the Patternfall War, Oberon is dead, and you, of all people, are King of Amber.

So a question comes to mind. Is my fealty worth anything to you if I have no interest in being of service to Amber? To answer that question I shall do two things. First, I shall render my fealty since you and I know how hollow fealty is when pit against ambition. Secondly I shall tell a story, not so much to you, but to tell of myself to the others who read this Article of Submission since it is unreasonable to assume it will be kept secret. Undoubtedly they will be bound into a book like the one for the damn cards you had made that unfortunately include me, affording any Amberite the power to intrude on my lifestyle.

So first.

Here do I, Phillipe, Son of Oberon ak Abagoes and Elaynea al Margas, Duke of Dwendal in the kingdom of Thalusia, give my unconditional fealty to the Realm of Amber and my conditional fealty to the anointed and undoubted king of Amber, Random the First. May he rule wisely and lead the realm not into folly.

To be clear the condition I set on you, my liege, is that I shall not raise my blade against the Kingdom of Thelusia if you demand it. Of course for war to separate Amber and Thelusia, like separating a hand from a wrist, extraordinary things would have occurred and my blade would have little effect if the elephant of Thelusian politics chose to take a stand against her kinsman. Woe be those who make war on Duchess Clymnea.

Now secondly, for those who read beyond my fealty.

When last you and I spoke in person Oberon had found us sitting at the edge of the balcony that I understand Flora turned into some kind of cafeteria during the riegn of the rat-bastard Eric. We were sharing a pitcher from Dame Margot's kitchen mixed wine barrel.

(For those of you not aware of this her wine barrel is one that undrunk or half drunk glasses of wine are emptied in to, magically purified of spittle, backwash, and other impurities and indignations, and used for the kitchen staff's libations. Margot's Sideboard does the same for partially eaten table scraps. Sometimes the Wine Barrel's bounty is used for cooking, but mostly its taken by the tankard or the pitcher back to the rooms and lounges of the castle staff and quaffed during their own entertainments. It is also dipped into by adolescent princeliness if Margot is sufficiently far from it at the time of filching.[[1]])

He came out, angry about that nonsense in Ergenor, talking to himself about sending someone out to finally drive a stake through the heart of Deele the Desecratix. I interrupted his rambling, revealing that we had been sitting there in plain sight, and said I would be happy to go out and take care of it. She had been destroying unicorn shrines for too long.

He looked at us as if we were table-scrapes. He shook his head, took our wine, and left.

In the family we grew up among you and I were often disregarded. I had been in Amber for less then a year. I had been introduced to the others but had barely spoke to any of them. They seemed only interested in teasing you. I spent some time with Flora for a few weeks. I went on a hunting trip with Julian who decided I was hopeless on a horse. I spent a month on one of Gerard's training ships trying to learn the ways of the sail navy. I was unceremoniously dropped off in the Harbor district after I nearly hung myself in ship's rigging and couldn't manage my seasickness.

I had spent a year in shadow with Benedict learning weapon skills and he said I was a prodigy with the bow. He sent me to his private hell school called Nasty Place but while I passed the course I was near the bottom of the class. Much of what kept me alive in the centuries I traveled shadow I learned under the tutelage of Benedict's tender mercies but after it was over and I was acknowledged in Amber he rarely ever spoke to me.

During my time there I only met Eric, Corwin, Caine, Gerard, Fiona ,and Brand and none of them spoke to me very often. I never spoke to Fiona after I was introduced. I never met Llewella or Deirdre while I was in Amber though as you know I traveled with both after we ran into each other in shadow.

Between sibling indifference and parental disdain it was enough to make me decide after I walked the pattern that there was little to keep me in the company of family. I attended the course of Royal Rights at Fantalin, as ordered. At the end of it Aries Colbresi took me to the pattern there, gave me a deck of trumps, and set me on my path. When I reached the center I considered what he said. "You can go anywhere you can imagine. You might as well. Oberon told me he has no orders for you. Frankly I had to remind him who you were. "

So I went deep into the wild lands of my fantasies making up as wild a place as I could and never looked back. I rarely came closer to Amber then Diaga in the centuries since. I never saw the reason to.

Over the centuries I found places in shadow that were splendid. They were home. I spent almost 300 year in Aloquisa alone. It was a time of music and laughter, long nights, soft lips. There was war but nobles in that world were sloppy and forgetful about it. Bitter enemies could be distracted by a surprise tournament. I know because I stopped a war by setting up a jousting list and pas da arms field where two baronial armies were converging and they totally forgot to fight the war and entered the lists instead.

I spent nearly 500 years in shadows of a medieval nature, having been born in one. Horse ages, sword ages, bard ages. Lovely regions where competition between warring tribes and clans were expressed in who produced the greatest produce at the regional faires. Vegetables, fruits, meats, steel, woodworking, animal husbandry and nearly everything else.. They had duels and killings and the occasional battle, war, or crusade such as one might expect and there were occasional brigandage, but they never rose to the level of warfare so often come to Amber.

I had spent almost 30 years in Nenton, in Antheris before the war. A reasonably technological world which was something of a change for me, so used to sword age worlds as I was. It was there that the blackness of Chaos expressed itself. Leather-clad nearly human soldiers in pickup trucks, armed with repeating crossbows. They took over an industrial building, and burst out like ravaging hoards driving around the streets of Nenton. Now, Antheris is a technological world but the average citizen is unlikely to have firearms. Little lone something able to piece magic leathers. As an offworlder I volunteered to help and managed to supply the force the local police raised with substantially potent bolt throwers firing ensorcelled ammunition. The destruction was wide spread but on small scales. as each new outburst came I was called by local authorities. In the 5 years the war infected that realm I developed a cadre of 500 soldiers experienced in battling the forces of Chaos that limped into that realm. But that made us heroes. Yes, the nations of Antheris had their militaries but nothing with the ability to manage even these weak Chaosians.

I had seen the Abyss. That's a story from a different time, but it had given me perspective. Amber was a place, like many others, but it was no true rival to endless chaos. .