Nine Princesses in Bamber - part the first of the Chronicles

[goodgulf]

The posts associated with Bamber are:
Bamber Intro and Index, which has no counterpart in the series because Zelazny (being a master wordsmith) didn't need one. It can be found at:http://www.spanko.net/spanking_forums/v ... ?f=3&t=114

Nine Princes in Amber became Nine Princesses in Bamber, serving as an introduction to the world and its plots and schemes. This story can be found at:http://www.spanko.net/spanking_forums/v ... ?f=3&t=115

The Guns of Avalon became The Paddles of Spankland, where the plot progresses and some new weapons are developed... And the hero falls for a woman named Lorraine (who is only briefly in the series). It can be found at:http://www.spanko.net/spanking_forums/v ... ?f=3&t=116

Sign of the Unicorn became Sign of the Royal Stag, where various things that were set in motion in the first two stories come to ahead. This story can be found at:http://www.spanko.net/spanking_forums/v ... ?f=3&t=117

The Hand of Oberon became The Hand of Titania, where it is revealed that a great work needs to be done (okay, this adaptation loses some of that theme). This story can be found at:http://www.spanko.net/spanking_forums/v ... ?f=3&t=118

The Courts of Chaos became The Chambers of Artwork, where various epic things happen and we learn just who the narrator has been telling his story to. This story can be found at:http://www.spanko.net/spanking_forums/v ... ?f=3&t=215


Nine Princesses in Bamber - part the first of the Chronicles of Bamber

So I was in the royal garden, brush in hand, painting my heart out when the air wavered a bit in front of me. I caught a glimpse of a redheaded beauty mouthing "help me" before the vision faded.

I cursed, muttered something about "not now", and returned to the work at hand. See, I was doing more than just painting and the work had entered a critical phase. The type of "painting" I was working took an average of about two days to get right, with the weave of power just so, and I was only maybe three hours from finishing this one. Stopping now would cost me the bulk of two days work and the ire of my mother, the Queen. Yes, it sounds like a capital letter when I say it - you don't prosper in the Royal Court of Bamber (pronounced BAM-ber) without knowing how to pronounce Queen with a capital Q.

It took longer than I thought, call it five hours before I put down my brush and examined the finished work. Of course it wasn't perfect, I couldn't make it perfect, but the Flaw was hidden in a corner, which was as about as good as I can do. Seeing that Flaw, with the high of the working leaving me, was more than just slightly depressing. It reminded me that I'm not real.

No, I'm not crazy... Well, okay, I'm not claiming to be the sanest person in the worlds, but I know I'm not real, and that's depressing. See, there's only one place in creation that's real. Call it the focus point of Order in the universe. It's called the Pattern, and it's in Amber, which makes Amber the One Real World. Everything else, all this, is all just Shadows of Amber. Some people talk about the Courts of Chaos, but I've never seen those and doubt that they are real. Even if they are, does it matter if reality has one or two poles, each casting Shadows? Maybe to some, but if you're not real then why worry about it?

As far as I'm concerned, Amber is the source of all the Shadow worlds out there. Some worlds are closer to the source and thus are clearer Shadows, like Bamber is. They have the Pattern, we have a Broken Pattern - a pale reflection of the Pattern that's dangerous as hell to walk and all magic based off of it has some flaw. They have (or had) an eternal King named Oberon, we have an eternal Queen named Titania. They have (or had - the numbers seem to have changed a bit) Nine Princes in Amber, we have Nine Princesses in Bamber.

Seriously, their princes are named Benedict, Bleys, Brand, Corwin, Caine, Eric, Julian, Gérard, Random while our princesses are named Bernadine, Bleys, Brenda, Cora, Cathy, Erica, Julie, Geraldine, and Randi. They don't count their princesses in the secession, but they have ones called Deirdre, Fiona, Flora, Llewella while we have uncounted princes named Donald, Fred, Frank, and Lloyd. Of course, of the semi-ignored princes, one stands heads and shoulders above the others - Frank.

No, I'm not named after him - I am him. Haven't you been listening? Yes, I'm Frank, Prince of Bamber, but that doesn't make me real. I can't help knowing that I'm just an inverted shadow of Princess Fiona of Amber and that she's the one who's real.

But where was I? Oh yes, I just finished making a new Trump, one of the royal garden, and there was something nagging at the back of my mind. Something more than the knowledge that I wasn't real. Something that I meant to do. Well, I grabbed a meal and I was halfway through eating when I remembered the call. Of course I finished eating; five hours had gone by and a few more minutes wasn't going change anything. A scion of Bamber doesn't hurry for anything (unless something real comes by, then we run like hell to get out of its way).

So I finished the meal and retired to my room. Once there, I took out a special tarot deck and shuffled out a certain trump card. Brenda's Trump, to be exact. Red hair, green eyes, wearing a riding suit of green and sitting on a white horse, my eyes were drawn to my sister's (full sister, like Bleys and unlike the others who were half siblings) face. The word 'haughty' came to mind, as did 'hubris'. Look in the dictionary under arrogance and you might see Brenda's picture (especially if the dictionary was published in Bamber - mom had some of those printed with Brenda's picture). Dorothy Bargirl, the mad artist who had painted the Trumps, had captured Brenda's usual attitude. That, or the sneering expression was the Flaw in the Trump.

In Amber they have Trumps with the Unicorn on the back of the card, and those drawings are perfect. In Bamber we have Trumps with the Royal Stag on the reverse, and all of them have some Flaw, just as all of our magic is Flawed.

But enough about my Amber envy. Back to the story.

I focused on the Trump, and slowly the card shifted, taking on Brenda's face.

What a shift. Brenda's face was almost as red as her hair and she wasn't wearing anything - at least not from her bust line up. Not that I was seeing anything new; Brenda had never been all that modest. I'd even run into her on nude beaches and those times neither of us had blushed.

"So, are you looking for a rescue?" I asked, offering her my arm.

"You can't pull me through! You have to come here." Brenda insisted.

"Why? And why don't you just walk away from whatever it is?" I asked.

For that is the power of the Pattern, even the Broken Pattern. The ability to walk through the Shadows cast by Amber. World after world, all there for our taking. If you can picture it you can walk to it, at long as it has flaws. We of Bamber have walked a Broken, flawed, Pattern can go nowhere that doesn't include some flaw, but nowhere is perfect so we can basically go everywhere.

But the walks sucks and there's often something nasty when you get there.

"I can't! You have to come here." Brenda insisted.

I bit back a sigh. Ever since the throne war had ravaged Amber, we in Bamber had been expecting some reflection of that struggle to hit us. Mother sat uneasy on the throne, and by the end of that war Brenda's counterpart in Amber had been revealed as being mostly mad. Not that Brenda was especially sane herself; she had thrown herself into studying the Broken Pattern. The Flaw in our Pattern drove you half-mad the first time you walked it. Sure, you came back, but Brenda pushed her mastery of it even further, using it as a source for magic. She mhd mastered sorcery, conjuration, and other powers, all that had the same Flaw in it, and now maybe that Flaw was lodged in her mind.

"Fine, I'll come, but mom wants me to do something so..."

I reached out and took the image's hand, and Brenda drew me into whatever world she was currently in.


When I got there, the first thing I noticed was that Brenda was barefoot, but not barefoot all over. She was wearing a strange skirt, one that fell to near her knees in the front, but sloped up much higher in the back. Other than that, all Brenda was wearing was an odd looking blue cuff on her left ankle and a chain led from it to a wall.

"So that's why you can't walk away." I said, nodding at the chain.

"You've got to get me free." Brenda insisted. "You've got to get me free now."

"Of course." I said sardonically. "Now I'll just take out the bolt cutter you told me to bring and oh right, all you said was come through, so the bolt cutter is back in the tool room and..."

"Stop being an ass and do something." Brenda snapped.

"Like what?" I asked, looking around for tools.

There wasn't much in the small room. A pallet, a chair, what I assumed to be a chamber pot, a small window, and that chain running into the wall.

"I can't shift it, but maybe the two of us can rip it out of the wall." Brenda suggested.

As she turned and bent for the chain, her skirt rode up in the back. Not all the way up, but high enough for me to see bare skin. Bare skin that red, spreading from what showed of her bum down her thighs.

"Looks like someone got herself a spanking." I teased. If it had been someone else I might have made a suggestive comment, but Brenda was my sister and I'd see her bum countless times. The last time either of us had blushed over me seeing it had been that time I walked in on her and a guy named Elvis Something doing the beast with two backs, and all she had said then was to close the door so they could finish.

"Shut up and help me." Brenda snapped.

"There's no way we can rip out that bolt." I observed.

We of Bamber are stronger and tougher than we look, but we aren't up there with the Princes of Amber. Two of them might have been able to rip that chain from the wall, but the two of us wouldn't have a chance.

So I thumbed through my cards, selecting the one that I had only recently finished.

"I'll head home, get some tools, then I'll get you out of here." I said, focusing on the Trump.

As the royal gardens began to expand, I caught sight of something from the corner of my eye. It's happened before, either when I'm making a Trump or using one and opening myself up psychically. The blue cuff around Brenda's leg seemed to have a reddish glow. I wasn't sure what it was, but it was some type of magic.

And Brenda was the expert in magic. Given time she could use a spell to slice the cuff, and it had been hours since she called for help. Give time she could have conjured a mystic bolt cutter that could slice through diamonds, but she hadn't. Her mastery of the Broken Pattern alone should have been enough to open the cuff, but it was closed.

I didn't know what it meant, but it meant something.

"Um, Brenda?" I said, ignoring how she was tugging uselessly on the chain. "Did you happen to notice that the cuff has a spell on it?"

"So it's the cuff and not the skirt? That's good to know." Brenda grunted, still pulling on the chain.

"You didn't know? But you're the expert on magic. What's going on?"

Brenda sighed and abandoned her futile attempt to move the chain to face me.

"My magic doesn't work here." Brenda admitted. "No sorcery, no conjuration, and even if I were free I couldn't walk out of this Shadow. You weren't supposed to notice that. You were supposed to just use your Trumps like a good boy, because Trumps work just fine."

When she said that, I glanced around again, seeing what was missing.

"So where are your Trumps? You said you had almost a complete set and..."

"They're with my clothes, and don't know where those are either." Brenda answered.

I winced. Not at the weirdness of the Shadow but at the lost of those Trumps. Our family's supply of Trumps were slowly shrinking. Ever since the mad artist Dorothy Bargirl had gone missing. One day she just stopped showing up, which meant that she was no longer making new decks for us. Our supplies had hit critical levels before we noticed her absence; most of us now had incomplete decks while our library held the few remaining spares.

That was the job (or royal command) that mom had me working on - making new Trump decks. While Brenda had thrown all of her time and effort into learning magic and mastering the Broken Pattern, I had explored the secrets of the Trumps. Learning at Dorothy Bargirl's feet (and occasionally over her lap - not for any real reason save her madness) I had explore the art that could link people and places. Most of the other had just farted around in Shadows, when meant that when our lack of Trumps had become evident I was the only member of our court who could handle the job.

It was going to be a long, hard job. Every Trump lost made it more urgent, and Brenda had just lost a complete set!

"So, how did you happen to end up somewhere that you can't leave?" I asked, shifting my attention from the royal gardens. They were gone in an instant, but neither of us really noticed.

"You weren't supposed to wonder about that either." Brenda snarled.

I just stood there, waiting. She was the one who needed help so she would have to be the one to talk.

"All right, All right! So I decided to go looking for a Shadow of Desire." Brenda said.

"Are you batshit?" I asked.

Shadows of Desire. That was something the Princes of Amber did. They started shadow walking thinking "I want to reach something place like ..." and they would eventually end up there. But they were using the Pattern, not the Broken Pattern with its Flaw.

"I am not! You know how you can walk to a place where you happen to have magical powers? Well I just went walking to where most of our powers didn't work."

"Why would you... Oh." I said, the pieces falling in place. "So who were you going to invite here?"

"Erica and Cora. With them gone, we'd have a clear shot to put Bleys on the throne." Brenda admitted.

"The throne that mom's still on?"

"That would have been part two or part three of the plan." Brenda conceded. "I hadn't gotten that far."

"So you were going to Trump them in, take their decks, and just leave them stranded?" I asked, looking for details.

Brenda nodded.

"Then I would have gotten all the copies of their Trumps and they would be stuck here forever." Brenda said, expanding on her plan.

"You would have gotten mom's copies? And the ones from the library?"

"Okay, I hadn't gotten that worked out." Brenda conceded, blushing for the first time. It was hard to tell, what with her red face, but knowing her for as long as I had I could see the subtle difference.

"So what was the Flaw in this Shadow of Desire? Because there has to be one."

"The way they treat women! I got trapped by the forces I had arranged to use against them. I should have seen it coming, but I didn't. There, I've admitted I screwed up. Are you happy now?"

I wasn't, but now wasn't the time to complain. It wasn't just the fact that Brenda was scheming for the Throne but that she was doing it so poorly. Maybe Brenda could have trapped Erica and Cora, but when people noticed they were missing they would be rescued. Unless there was more to the plan...

"So, what does the spell on that cuff do?" I asked, looking at it and wishing I knew more magic.

"Nothing yet. I'm fighting off the effects. That's why you have to rescue me now." Brenda snapped.

The way she spoke made me wonder just how much presure she was under. One of us was half-naked, fighting off a spell, chained to a wall, and had a smacked bottom while the other one us could leave at any time. Family etiquette dictated that Brenda make an effort to be polite. It almost seemed as if one of us wasn't thinking clearly.

"So what happens when the spell leaves the world?"

"Um, I don't know." Brenda admitted. "Maybe anything?"

"Maybe anything, like explode?" I asked, thinking back to a friend. He'd worn something that, on one Shadow, was a ring of invisibility but, in the next Shadow, had become a ring of explosion. They used to call him Tom Swift Fingers, but his new nickname was Tom Nine Fingers. "Should we wrap a tourniquet around your leg before we Trump?"

"Um, maybe?" Brenda said in a small voice. "It would be just like the Flaw to do something like that. Um, maybe a lock pick, because I really like that ankle."

I bent and examined the cuff.

"There's no lock." I pointed out. "Does the magic hold it closed?"

"Probably." Brenda said, then sighed heavily. "Damn it Frank, you were supposed to solve everything. Now you can't even break me out without risking my leg. What use are you?"

That stung. I was the one who wasn't caught in her own trap.

"Maybe I can get the locals to free you?" I offered. "What are they like?"

"They're slap happy." Brenda revealed, rubbing at her hip. "I wasn't really paying attention to them. They're only shadows."

"Shadows that have you locked up." I pointed out. "Look, I've got an idea. I'll be back in a bit."

I used the Trump again, then I was back in the royal garden.

"This isn't good." I muttered, heading to my workshop for supplies.


Less than an hour later I was Trumping Brenda again. When she pulled me through I was carrying a gym bag.

"So you brought a bolt cutter?" Brenda asked with a smile.

"No, I brought useful tools."

In this case, the tools were my art supplies. I got out a sketchbook and went to the small window.

"What are you doing?" Brenda demanded.

"Just making a rough sketch so I can get down to the street." I answered, not looking away from the scene below me. "Then I can explore and start working on getting you out of here."

It took the better part of an hour and the resulting artwork was nothing compared to a real Trump. It would only work on this Shadow, and if the scene changed (say if people were to fill the now deserted street) it would stop working, but at the moment I had a way out.

"Okay, I'm off." I announced. "Don't worry, I'll find a way to free you."

Then I was gone, stumbling on as I made contact with the street. It was a half step up from where it should be, which was the Flaw in action.

I walked the deserted streets until I found a park. Once there I found a secluded spot and set to work once more. This sketch was more detailed and contained more power. It wasn't a full Trump, but it would work between Bamber and here. That took close to three hours, and afterwards, well, it was late and I'd been exerting myself. First there was the garden Trump then that sketch of the street and now this one. Brenda didn't seem in real danger, and she had been rude, so I Trumped home and caught some sleep.


Being tired I ended up sleeping a bit later than I planned to, but by midmorning I was ready. I had a gym bag full of art supplies and other useful items, a full stomach, and was ready to explore the world that Brenda had trapped herself in.

I walked through the Trump, then stumbled again as the surface was half a step below where should be. As I recovered the sound of flesh meeting flesh reached my ears. As I tried to track its source I realised that there was more than one source. Maybe as many as half a dozen.

I made my way cautiously through the undergrowth I had chosen to conceal my arrival, trying to avoid those using the secluded area for other reasons. The first people I avoided were a man sitting on a stump with a woman stretched over his lap. She was wearing some sort of bustier and one of those shorter in the back skirts that Brenda had worn, and he was smacking her bared bum with some vigour. As she kicked her legs I couldn't help noticing that there was a blue cuff on her right ankle.

The next couple I passed, well, her top was different but her bum was just as bare as she wiggled on a man's lap. Then I saw another pair, where the man was putting his belt to good use on the abbreviated seat of the woman's skirt. I soon lost count of the couples I saw that way; only two stuck out.

One was a pair of women, with the one being spanked wearing the usual skirt while her spanker wore something that looked like an Edwardian suit. With the other I walked passed them after the spanking was over, and there was a nude woman wiggling her glowing backside in the air while sucking her man off. The man was muttering something, only it wasn't the usually 'talking dirty', but something about: "Should I snap a cuff on you? Would you like me to? Which leg? Which leg should I put a cuff on?".

I might have stopped, but the girl looked like she was enjoying herself. If she wasn't, well, one clamp of the teeth would solve her problems.

So I went on, thinking on how she had been the only spanked woman I'd seen who wasn't wearing a cuff on her leg.


There was far less nudity outside of the park, but there were still countless women wearing those peek-a-boo skirts. Some walked as if their bums hurt, and some had stripes or other marks on the back of their thighs, but no actual spankings were being handed out. Mixed in among them were women dressed normally in jeans, skirts, and dresses or wearing clothes that wouldn't be out of place in Victorian or Edwardian times. Most, but not all, of those in the special skirts wore a cuff on one (but never both) of their legs.

I wasn't picking up anything from just walking around, so I asked someone about 'the library', as if I expected there to be one around the corner.

There wasn't, but I got directions to the nearest one. Then I wished it was nearer.


Three hours later I made my way up the library steps. There were signs on the door. The no smoking, no pets, no food, no drinks, no bare feet signs - those I expected. The silhouette of a shapely girl bending with her jeans at half-mast, surrounded with a red circle with a line going through it, that wasn't expected, but I took it to be this world's "no spanking" sign. Then there was the posted warning:

"QUIET is to be maintained in the LIBRARY under threat of SANCTIONS"

I didn't know what type of sanctions they meant, but I kept my voice low as I asked a question at the main desk. Then I was shown to a set of shelves that were labelled "LOCAL/TOURIST INFO" and sat down to do some research.

That was when I stuck pay dirt.

I was on an island. A large one, call it 84,000 square miles. If I was on that Shadow version of Earth that so many Amberites seemed to enjoy I might call it Great Britain - if Great Britain was 500 miles further away from Europe than it usually was. Which might, just might be why the culture was different most of the rest of the Shadow's. The rest of the world was more or less normal, but this place, called Beakerland Island, was (as Brenda had said) slap happy when it came to women. On Beakerland Island, women could give up their freedom, and if they did they could expect to be spanked. The books were littered with sayings, such as "weepy at one end and welty at the other makes a woman happy", "a red bottom brings tears of joy", and "a hot backside leads to a steamy hot front side".

I found the information on the world's magic in a guidebook, on entitled "Spanking Your Wife or Girlfriend Like a Native". From that I learned that most of the world had abandoned magic at the dawn of the local industrial revolution but this part of the world kept around to help deal with their woman. The area's signature spell was a mind affecting one that made women submissive, or it brought out their nature submissive side. The book debated the means, but it was clear on the ends; any girl who was cuffed became submissive and craved spankings. A cuff on the left leg indicated the woman had temporarily surrendered her freedom while one the right leg meant a permanent surrender.

And the spell wasn't just put on cuffs. Bracelet, rings, leather or lace collars, even something called a thigh band could contain lesser versions the spell. The guidebook recommended that you get one of the innocent looking ones and once the spell took affect it your wife would be bending over to give you opportunities to spank her bum. Then, once she was used to that, get her a slave cuff so she'll know what was happening to her feelings.

After that piece of advice, the book was filled with spanking tips. Not that I bothered to read any of them.

Another book told me why the guide was so sure that you were vacationing with a wife or girlfriend - there were heavy visa restrictions. Single women could enter at almost anytime (leaving could be different matter), but unaccompanied men were almost never issued visas.

A slight disturbance interrupted my reading. A member of the library staff was leading a slacks wearing woman in her mid 20s to the back of the library. The woman was pleading, saying that she didn't mean to do it, but the librarian was barely listening to her.

"You were warned twice." He scolded. "Now you're going out back for a spanking and when I'm done I'm putting you in a short skirt. You do it again and I'll fill out the paperwork to have you cuffed."

The woman didn't look happy, but she wasn't real. No, she was only a shadow.

Just as I was.


I left the library with a good idea of how things worked. Most of the action was in the city; the average country girl never wore a cuff, but many wore something with the lesser version of the spell on it. Even when the cuff was on the right leg things were rarely permanent with most slaves being freed when they were in their 40s. Since a woman couldn't lose her rights on a whim most of the island's women (and practically all the men) supported the system, and one stat I saw claimed that a noticeable minority of the slaves were women who came from distant nations to willingly join the system.

Beakerland Island was divided into various nations, but to keep things simple I decided to call this entire world Spankland. I rarely bothered learning any geography of the Shadows I visited; why bother learning about a particular world when you have infinite ones to explore?

I now knew my mistake - I had drawn a sketch of the wrong park. It seemed logical now that I thought about it. The city was chopped into zones. The park I had chosen was one of the few 'adult/clothing optional/sex permitted' zones in the area. I also knew what I had to do - buy Brenda's freedom.

The question was how. If I'd been born in Amber I would just shift things around and then I'd have plenty of local money, but I was from Bamber and my Broken Pattern didn't work here. How was I going to get local money?

Lost in thought, I almost missed something. That woman who the librarian had scolded was on the library's steps getting her second spanking of the day. The short back of her skirt was up, her modest panties were down, and she didn't look happy.

But as I said, she wasn't real. Nor were the woman I saw, bending over at a bus stop, jeans down but panties up. They were a distracting sight, but I couldn't afford distractions. I had to get money.


I Trumped home, ate, changed, then started shadow walking. I knew generally where I wanted to go but I knew it wouldn't be pleasant. I'd have drawn a Trump for the place, but then others would know about that Shadow and I wanted to keep it private. I began by adding a clump of bushes while trying to ignore how they were being choked by weeds.


The sky turned red, and the smell of the chokeweed grew worse... a river shifted in its bed, and the smell shifted to raw sewage... A wet snow, and the unmistakable smell of burning hair.

Frowning, I tried to shift the Flaw.

The plains blossomed with wildflowers as a howl torn through the air. A blue fire in the sky as a scream cut through the air. Clearing the sky as the moan of the wind cut through me.

My ears aching, I allowed the smell to return as the earth began to shake. The plain before me became a narrow ravine filled with the smell of skunk. The wild shifted. The stink of the night air on my face the earth stopped shaking.

Fed up with the smell, I removed it.

A dozen naked nymphs ran passed, their teeth filed to neat points. Satyrs ran behind a hill, each armed with a spear. Since it was getting dangerous I placed my hand over my nose and allowed the smell to be the Flaw.

Walking down the mountain, I almost gagged on the sulphur, but I kept going as the green sun filled the morning sky.

By the time I reached my destination the smell was of burning effluvia (and seemed to be coming a pumping station of some sort), but that didn't matter. I was in the right Shadow. Minutes after arriving there I traded some iron slugs for some "junk" - 24 carrot gold bracelets covered with gemstones. A bit more trading and I had all the loot I'd need to ransom my sister.

By Trumping home to Bamber I bypassed all the troubles that the Flaw caused when walking through worlds. Avoiding the Flaw was why I put the effort into learning how to make Trumps. Sure there's a Flaw in all of them, but they don't stink or make your ears hurt when you use them.

So I showered off the bit of the smell that lingered, grabbed an overdue meal, rested a bit, then Trumped back to that adult party zone that I'd mistaken for a park. Stumbling into Spankland, I heard the now familiar sound of tail smacking mixed with the moans of pleasure. Or pain, or both. With some moans it can be hard to say.

I ignored the couples (and threesomes, along with one foursome) who were either smacking away or rutting like animals and made my way to a nearby bar. Some girl, who was mostly drunk, was being quizzed over if she wanted to wear a cuff. Her answers didn't make a lot of sense, but I knew that they'd keep asking her questions until she said something that would let them put a cuff on her.

Ignoring that mini-drama, I opened the phone book. Thinking about the Royal Stag, I fanned the yellow pages until a picture called to me. Sure, the text might be more important for most ads, but I dealt with artwork and the illustration of the ad for "Honest Ed's Honest Pawn Shop" called to me. Which wasn't good. I had hope for a jewellery shop or some private firm, but if the artwork said Honest Ed's, then that's what it said. Out of curiosity I flipped to jewellery stores and saw that most of them had illustrated ads, so it had to be that Honest Ed was the best choice.

From the guidebook I knew that the city more or less shut down at night. Most of the streets would empty out sometime between eight and ten, most of the bars closing before midnight, and even the streets around casino emptying out around Two AM with most of the stranglers going home before Four AM. That book had explained the empty streets with a single question: "Would you rather walk the streets at night or be at home spanking your slave girl?".

I left the bar's entryway where the drunken girl was giving up her rights and made my way to Honest Ed's. It was depressingly near the casino district, which didn't bode well. If its main customers were gamblers then it was used to desperate people selling things, and that tends to depress the prices any store would offer.


Honest Ed's shop was flashing neon and promising the best prices in town. The guy behind the counter claimed to be Ed, but I doubt the owner would work the nightshift. Along with "Ed" were two girls, both wearing cuffs. One was a Blonde while the other was a Brunette, and they seemed to be called "Hey" and "You". They were wearing the expected peek-a-boo skirts with tube tops, and they were laid back until Ed got excited at what he saw in my bag.

He seemed to assume that I was I trying to move stolen property, and with the artwork directing me to him I was glad that I hadn't gone to a more respectable shop that might turn me in as thief. I told him that the stuff had come from a tourist who gave it to me in exchange for not cuffing her, and Ed pretended that he believed me. He wanted, he really, really wanted, to pay me in kind. As in I would leave with something from the shelves rather than money. The girls had been smiling at first, with that "I guess I kind of work here" level of smile, then Ed was offering their serves in a series of demos and their smiles dimmed.

And the stuff he had! There was a punishment bench that encouraged wiggling by securing three of the four limbs, but I couldn't help but notice where the straps to secure the right leg had once been; it was what it was by damage, not design. Martinets, straps, you name it and if it could be used on a woman's bottom he had it, and was offering it instead of money. As they flipped up their skirts to offer their bums for demos I couldn't help noticing that both "Hey" and "You" had colour in their cheeks. That, and "Hey"'s collar and cuff didn't match. That was better than "You" being shaved; there was something about lack of pubic hair that raised my Ick Factor, but I ignored as Ed tried his darnest to give me stuff instead of money. Worse the man insisted that the metal in the bracelets was 10 carat, if that, and maybe just gold plated.

Neither girl was happy as they were offered to model various devices, including a mystic hairbrush. Spankland's magic wasn't limited to their mind magic; entwine some woman's hair in the brush, and whenever you thudded it against the palm of your hand she'd feel a smack. Ed talked it up and bragged about how it was practically an artefact until I agreed to take it. It didn't subtract much from the cash I'd be leaving with, so I hemmed and harred and finally mentioned that I'd like a friendship/you want to be submissive/leather bracelet. Ed saw an opening and tried to exploit it, but I didn't need what he had. Any magic he sold would only work in this Shadow and no others, and as for the rest... A Prince of Bamber could find mundane equipment anywhere he wanted.


With local money in hand, I went to find a room. Normally I would have stayed in the best room of the best hotel in the world, but at the moment I was conserving my resources.

I ended up at a place about four blocks off the pathetic excuse of a strip they had here, but then again, it was hard to build a strip around a single casino. I was mostly lacking in luggage, but paying a week in advanced took care of that. After settling into my room I was off to the casino.


The casino was called Bottom's Up, and its scattered neon featured silhouette of shapely bottoms being mixed in among the more common cards and rolling dice. I thought the motel had been expensive, but when I traded my money for chips I realised just how much so-called Honest Ed had ripped me off. He was lucky, very lucky, that I didn't have time to even the score.

I needed to grow my bankroll so I headed for the local equivalent of blackjack. Normally I could have stood near the roulette wheel and used the Broken Pattern to shift the ball around, but that power couldn't work here. Besides, cards had always been friends of mine - except for the nine of spades. Don't ask, just don't ask.

I sat down as a new dealer was doing a fresh shuffle, which was perfect. Card counters got banned from casinos and I wasn't here to get banned. Counting cards? Why bother when all the face cards make themselves known to you?

So I won eight hands in a row. It's easy to do when you know where all the face cards are. Then I gathered my chips, took out a notebook, and wrote down that I had won seven games.

"It's a system." I explained to the dealer. "You have to stop when you're ahead and you never try to win more than seven in a row."

The dealer just smiled. I don't know if she noticed that I was off when I recorded my winnings, but that didn't matter. Casinos loved players with systems. They just loved them.

Now that my bankroll was a bit bigger, it was time to wander. The layout? It was a casino. They are all laid out more or less the same way. The staff? Pretty girls wearing short skirts and low cut blouses. Okay, they were getting their bum patted and swatted a bit more than usual, but other than they were more or less the standard casino decorations. There were the serious looking men in suits that ran the place, but that was standard too.

The only real difference was the number of patrons getting their bums smacked. Most casinos drew the line at public pats where this one allowed spanking, but only as long as it didn't interfere with the gambling. That, and the fact that women were handed special chips when they entered the casino. I figured that had some meaning but it didn't matter to me; I was here to gamble, not spank.

I joined a table where they were playing a form of poker that was a bit like Texas Holdem. Three hole cards face down, a two card flop, one card called the flip, then a final one called a brook. The casino took a $20 ante from every player each hand, but other than that they were just there to deal.

Unlike blackjack, poker uses a single deck. Knowing where the face cards were, well, it helps a lot. That, and I was good at reading people and a practised card player.

I did a lot of winning.

Then I was looking down at three nines, but one of them was the nine of spades. Taking it as bad omen I folded. The next player, a rugged looking man, raised. Play folded to the big blind where Amy something, a tourist, re-raised. Pocket trips would have been a powerful hand and there was plenty of money in the pot, but I had already folded. The guy re-raised, then Amy smiled and said she was all in.

"And that includes my special chip." Amy said, tossing in a chip with a weird marking on it. She took that chip from her bra to throw it.

She was called in a heartbeat. When Amy flipped her cards I wondered if she had been trying to bluff. She had the ace of spades, seven of diamonds, and deuce of clubs. Her caller had three tens - all the tens save the spade.

"Oops." Amy said, laughing nervously. "It's a good thing I've got you covered."

"Look again." The man said with a smile. "I had a dozen purples mixed in with the blues. I've got you covered, even with your chip."

Amy's face fell, and the man chuckled, saying:

"You shouldn't be playing if you aren't prepared to gamble. You just bet your ass and I'm probably going to collect it."

The flop was the six and four of spades.

"It looks like only running aces will help you there." The rugged man said.

Then came the seven of spades, followed by the deuce of spades.

"Looks like you've got two pairs to my three of a kind." The man said.

"Um, no, I have a flush." Amy said, reaching for chips.

"But you might have under called your hand. You can't blame me for trying." He said, retrieving the handful of chips he had left.

Amy pocketed the weird looking chip and arranged the others in front of her. Me, I took the hint. Three tens or a flush, either would have busted me. The nine of spades was active. It was time to cash out.

As I was cashing out there was a woman tourist getting her chips. As she did so, the cashier handed her a weird looking chip saying: "And don't forget your Freedom Chip. Remember, your FC has a face value so if you risk it and win then you'll winning more money."

"And if I lose I wear a cuff." The woman retorted. "No thanks."

That was when I knew how Brenda had been taken. She had gone to the casino thinking she would win and lost. Sorcery she knew, but Brenda was the type who would hit on 18 and hope for a three. And if the hand mattered she would conjure a three. She couldn't do that here so she lost and lost big.


I made it back to my motel room and relaxed.

That morning I was awakened by the sound of - what else? - spanking. Grumbling, I ordered room service and started working. The park was a nosy place to arrive and this room would be a safer arrival point.

I called down for a late lunch as I examined my handiwork. It was good. Not a full Trump, but a much better sketch than the one for the park. After eating, I decided to see if I would have to buy Brenda after all. Putting the friendship bracelet in a paper bag I Trumped back home.

The bag burst into flames the moment I entered the royal gardens. Examining it, I saw the leather bracelet had been completely consumed by the fire.

"I guess the bolt cutter was never really an option." I muttered.


The next few days were spent getting a proper Trump of the motel room and building up my bankroll. I openly kept a list of my winnings, recording the number of games I played, and getting the numbers wrong by five or ten percentage every time. The casino staff saw me doing it and smiled. They knew that every system eventually fails so tolerated my winning ways. It helped that I wasn't playing aggressively and didn't gamble for more than three or so hours at time.

Then life became more complicated. I was leaving the casino when a Trump contact came in too fast and strong for me to stop it. It was short, but not so sweet. Six little words, that's how little it took to derail my plans.

"Are you working on those decks?"

Then contact was broken, but I had the message: Mom wanted me to get those decks out ASAP. If I called her back and explained the situation then Queen Titania would understand. Mom might even show up with an army to rescue Brenda - and then Brenda would never live it down. No, if Brenda wanted mom's help then she would have called her in the first place. And then there was the Amber angle. If Brenda was plotting something then maybe mom would think that Brenda was doing what Brand and done and ...

No, I couldn't tell mom what I was doing so I had to make the decks but I couldn't just go and leave Brenda here so...

Which meant that I had to come up with a new plan.

I returned to my room, got out my deck, and started to do a reading. What? You thought I carried it just for transportation? Don't be silly! If that was the case I wouldn't carry a full deck of tarot cards, would I? Of course any reading I did would have Flaw in it, but I was used to dealing with that.

Laying out the cards, I expected Brenda to be the centre of the reading, so drawing Dorothy Bargirl's card was a shock. Hers wasn't a common card; she had never included herself in the decks she made, which made this an extra special Trump - it was the first one I had ever drawn. It even had her holding that hairbrush she liked so much. Then came Queen Titania's - the first two cards were Trumps! That meant a powerful reading. Then came...

The reading slowly took shape. A plan of how I could work to replace the missing decks while rescuing Brenda. It was wild, it was woolly, it was daring, and it might be my only choice.

Well, that or leading an army here, and that would be messy. No, the plan it was. My only concerned was the nine of swords had appeared in the reading. Most people didn't know it, but the word "spade" comes from a mistranslation of sword way back when the leaf and other symbols replaced wands, cups and such. That meant that it was the same as if an inverted nine of spades had shown up in my reading, and that card... We just didn't get along.

But the plan seemed sound. Even with the nine, the plan seemed sound. That night my dreams seemed to confirm that it was a good idea.


The next morning I rose early and hit the town. By mid morning I was in a newly rented studio with a much diminished bankroll. That afternoon I hit the casino to play for some serious play. I kept the fake records, made sure I lost some big hands, and did other things to make sure the casino didn't tuff me out, and slowly rebuilt my stake. It wasn't easy - those blasted Freedom Chips threw the normal rhythm of the game. You never knew when some woman had a great hand, just wanted the thrill of risking her chip, or really had the nuts and wanted to risk it as a value bet.

I ate in the casino, then spent some time thinking, trying to flesh out the plan.


I ended up heading back to my motel.

I stopped by the desk and dropped off more money; I hadn't been thinking of a long-term base when I picked it, but the place had decent room service and I already had a Trump for it. Then I had a chat with the desk clerk who smiled and told me how much extra that piece of room service would cost.

Ten minutes later I had my room ready when there was a knock on the door. The girl wore one of those peek-a-boo skirts, a T-shirt, and a cuff on one of her legs. She also had a smile and a name - Shelly. We didn't waste much time; she practically leapt over my lap. All I had to do to bare her bum was to raise her skirt, then I frowned.

There were fading marks. Not heavy ones, no bruises or welts, but she had clearly been spanked earlier today. Maybe I was spoiled; as a Prince of Bamber I had always, from the first time I started doodling, worked with a fresh canvas. Not that her bum was really a canvas, not really, but I would have preferred for it to be unmarked before I started.

But it wasn't a really big deal. When I brought my hand down I could see my fingerprints lingering on one of her cheeks. Shelly made a sound that was halfway a gasp and halfway a coo, then I brought my hand down again and again and again.

Maybe I should have used my belt or some kind of paddle. That would have been faster, but there's something about the feel of a woman's bum on your palm. I've always enjoyed groping them and have never been turned off if my partner asked for some colour in her bum. True, this was the first time I'd been "asked" by someone who was slave conditioned by magic to want to spanked, but it was same principle, wasn't it? At least Shelly's bum felt the same as the others I had spanked, which made it more or less the same.

My hand was sore and Shelly was sobbing, but more importantly her bum was the right shade so I called a stop. Shelly wanted to rub at her bum, but she didn't resist as I stripped her nude.

"Anything more (sob) than touching (ah) is extra." Shelly told me, speaking between her tears.

Her words struck me like a punch to the gut. I am Frank, Prince of Bamber, Master of the Trumps and Walker of the Broken Pattern. Born of the royal household and acknowledged as such.

I don't pay for things like that.

I never have.

I never will.

That she thought that I would... I forgave Shelly her presumptions, but vowed that if she was ever over my knee again I'd use my belt on her. That with her there would be no more fun and games. That she needed to be punished and was lucky that I was on a tight schedule.

"Extra charges will not be required."

My tone was firm. My words styled and stilted. My meaning was clear. And it was lost on her as she cried and rubbed at her backside.

No matter. She didn't matter. She was just another shadow. A shadow like me.

I took out my sketchbook and started moving Shelly around the room. The first problem was, well, there was no way there could be full nudity in the finished product. The profile of Shelly standing with one foot on the bed was a nice one, but it showed much too much. Sure, I did a quick sketch of it, but I knew that I couldn't use that pose. Then I had her bending over the bed, leaning over the desk, the chair, trying to find a pose where I could capture her face and bum, but nothing that could be called frontal nudity.

It took more than an hour, long enough that I had to give Shelly a bit of a touch up with my belt so she would still have a glowing bottom and tearstained face, but I found something that worked. She was on the bed in what you might call a mix of prostrate and recumbent. Her head up but chest down and partially covered by her arms. From the right angle I could capture her face and red bum with only the profile of her body. How to explain it?

Have you ever seen the video for California Gurls by Katy Perry? The bit where she's laying naked on a candy cotton cloud with only a piece of fluff covering her bum? Well that's more or less what I came up with but I left the bit of fluff off. The look was playful, semi-nude (only her bum showing), and cute. Especially with a red bum and tear filled eyes.

When I was done, I told Shelly to dress and then sent her back to down the front desk. Then, well...

It had been fun moving Shelly around. Very fun, and I couldn't recall the last time I'd given a spanking and not moved on to sex. I'm sure it must have happened - me giving a discipline only spanking - but right then I couldn't remember when. So I Trumped back to Bamber and looked up an occasional flame (Lady P-----, whose real name I won't reveal) and relaxed with her. Twice.

Afterwards, I drafted one of the palace pages to take a message to the Queen, but of course it was late enough that no one would wake her up unless it was important. This wasn't important. It was just a note saying that I was hard at work, that I had a master Trump for the royal gardens and soon would be working on the portraits, so if she could draft some people to work on the wands, orbs, etc then that would speed things up.


I spent the night at the motel. Waking the next morning I settled into a new routine. Days I spent at my new studio, copying the first Trump of the deck, and nights I spent at the casino, building my bankroll.

Copying Trumps was monotonous. I could work from an existing Trump, copying the power much faster than if I doing the Trump from scratch, but only from a Trump I'd done with the subject present. Maybe the people in Amber could make a copy from a copy, but that feat was beyond me. That was why I needed a new master deck; I didn't know where Dorothy Bargirl's original deck was so I couldn't duplicate it.

Nights at the casino, well, I did more than play cards. I started to get a feel for the place. To know who were the players and who were the saps. I avoided the sharks, there was no need to let them see just how good I was.

But evenings were the fun part. For three days straight I called down for another 'model' and for three days running I got a cuff wearing girl sent up to pose for me. Of course I needed to know how they would look with red bums and tear streaked faces, but they were okay with that. Each night was a different girl so I was never able to give Shelly the punishment she so richly deserved, and in a way that was good. None of the girls were perfect replicas of Brenda and experimenting with their bodies gave me the practice that I would need to position her.

After they left I took a quick trip to Bamber, hooked up with Lady P-----, and returned to my motel room in time to leave it for a trip to the casino.


All casinos have the same types of patrons. There are the hayseeds checking out the big city, the people with "a foolproof system" that the casino loved to see, the people who gambled at home and think they can make it in the big leagues, the tourists who know they will lose but want to enjoy themselves while they're doing it, the self proclaimed professional gamblers, the people who actually made a living at the casino, and the big players. At least that's how it was in most places.

The Bottom's Up had other types of gamers mixed in with the normal flow. There were the tourist women flirting with the idea of losing that special chip, women who seriously considered risking their Freedom Chip, women tourist who couldn't wait to lose that chip, and women tourist who would never even consider risking it but wanted to be somewhere where it was an option. Then there were the couples, mostly married but some engaged or just dating. There was a strange interplay between them, with the women knowing that, in a very serious way, they were dependent on the man they were travelling with. Some treated it in a playful way, others in different ways, but it was a defining fact of their relationship.

Those women playing around with their freedom, they threw off the games. They made random bets, bets that made no sense. Sometimes they wanted to lose their bets and other times they just wanted the thrill of risking it. As I tuned into the nuances of the Shadow I learned more about those chips - they could be bought back (so mostly a woman would only wear a cuff if she didn't have enough money to redeem it) and for the most part she would just be a temporarily slave. Virtually all of them would be freed on the day of their scheduled departure home, which made the whole slavery thing more of a vacation adventure than a life altering decision. Then again, the freeing thing wasn't mandatory, so some women intended to stay for a few weeks and ended up spending years on the island.

Which gave me a terrible thought: what if there was long term effects from the mind altering spell? Would Brenda emerge from this ordeal with a submissive streak a mile wide? Would this change her? And if so, would it be for the better?

That was a lot to think about.


I sketched. I did weird things. I learned more. Including who had won my sister.


His name was Edward Higgins. I had seen him around Bottom's Up's gaming floor but I hadn't placed him in a group. He didn't carry himself like a player but he wasn't just a barfly hanging around the gaming tables. At about seven o'clock I saw him at the bar, sat down beside him, bought some drinks, and got him talking. Five minutes later I knew who he was.

Edward Higgins was an asshole. He hung around the casino looking for tourists who would risk their Freedom Chip and won those chips from them. He wasn't in it for the money (he was rich enough that he didn't care about winning or losing the piddling amounts he played for), just the slaves. He got off on giving them their first spanking then putting on the cuff that would make them enjoy being spanked. He was in it for the power trip. He even carried a wallet full of pictures of his current slaves.

He had twelve pictures, including Brenda's.

So we had a few more drinks and I ended up challenging him to a friendly game. Just to see if I was anywhere in his league. Just so I could tell the people at home I'd won a slave girl at the casino. Heck, I'd even play for one that he'd had for a while and had really broken in.

Edward Higgins agreed and shuffled through the pictures for who we'd play for. Photos aren't artwork, but they still like me a bit, so Brenda's picture came to the top. Then he set the stakes at roughly three times the cost of a slave girl. We'd play the three down, two up, one up, one up game for table stakes and if he lost he'd cover the bet with the slave and if I lost he'd get my money.

Playing at a three to one value he couldn't lose.

Me, I felt the same way.

He wanted to eat and get some sleep in before the game so we agreed to meet at 11.


I didn't really have time to kill. I'd spent the day working on Trumps so I knew I should rest, but I had something to do. Edward Higgins had told me how he did things and I had to hit a certain pawnshop.

Most of Brenda's things, well, if they were here then I didn't see them, but I did stumbled over the tarot deck she normally carried. It was a Dorothy Bargirl original, which made it a collector's item, but I picked it up for a song. Since I was there, I picked up some clothes.

Of course I wasn't the only customer there. While it was still early in the evening the misery you'd find in any pawnshop near a casino was present. There was a young wife complaining that her husband had tricked her into wearing a cuff and it wasn't fair, but that didn't stop her husband from selling the clothes right off her body. When they left she was naked and her husband was carrying a wicked looking paddle he'd traded her clothes for.

But that was okay. It wasn't like she was real.


I stashed the cards back at my room and was back in the Bottom's Up in time for my game with Edward Higgins. We sat at our table, and the house supplied "table chips", which were the normal chips with a hole drilled through them. We placed our stakes to one side and were given 25 blues, 50 reds, and 50 white chips - but they were just chips and had no relationship with the actual stakes. We paid the dealer the normal $20 ante per hand in real chips and started playing.

Ten minutes into the game I knew three more things about Edward Higgins: he was a so-so card player, very rich, and a total asshole. I'd known he was an asshole before but didn't know how total he was until he tipped the deal by putting a chip in her bra.

I kid you not. He put the chip in her bra and patted it in. The dealer gave him a weak smile but didn't protest. The suits working the casino noticed that he did it but all they did was look at him. That told me he was rich. Very rich and lost lots of money here.

They might treat women like shit here but there were limits when one wasn't wearing a cuff. Especially if they handled chips. Waitresses might be semi-fair game, but I'd seen men escorted out for copping feels from a dealer's butt. That sort of thing was just bad all around, and for the casino to tolerate it from him Edward Higgins must be leaving plenty of chips on the table.

As for his card skills, well, they were obvious. He wasn't a lousy player but he wasn't a good one. I didn't need the face cards telling me where they were to beat him so I ignored them and played it straight. It would have been faster if I listened to the cards but this way the nine of spades couldn't louse things up.

Inside of two hours he knew I had him. He was down to maybe 30 chips, only one of them blue, when he called it quits.

"I know I could come back, but that would take all night I've got a private game scheduled." Edward Higgins said, reaching for his real chips. "I'm sitting in with a group of college students and I want their Freedom Chips. Maybe we can have a rematch sometime?"

"So I win the girl?"

"Sure, you win her. " Edward Higgins said in the most condescending voice I'd heard in twenty years. "I'll have her dropped off in the morning. Are you staying at the hotel?"

"I will be." I said with a nod.

"That's the boy." Edward Higgins laughed. "Save money by staying off site. You gotta build that bankroll. Don't worry. You'll get the slave."

"Oh, one thing before you go."

I had to do this right. I was passing as a local and if I revealed my ignorance then I might get carded and I didn't have a travel visa.

Edward Higgins paused as he gathered his chips, raising a weathered eye. I knew about sore losers, but what was it about winners that gave him pause?

"Yeah? What is it?"

"God, this is embarrassing. I can't believe I'm telling you this." I said, giving a nervous laugh. "It's just, well, I've never had a slave before. Back home they frowned on anything stronger than a friendship bracelet. Anyway, how do you take a cuff off?"

"Why? Do you plan to free her? What, is she your long lost love?"

Edward Higgins had been here before, but I was too good a poker player to let him know who Brenda was to me.

"No, I want to take the cuff off her and let her think she's free, just so I can see her face when I clip it on her other leg."

Edward Higgins relaxed and gave a laugh of his own, relieved to discover that I wasn't a vengeance seeking relative.

"Yeah, that is priceless! I'd almost forgotten how good that look can be. Okay, all you do is..."

I listened intently. It wasn't complicated. Nothing like weaving the nature of the universe into a drawing. No, it was simple enough that someone in a distant Shadow could do it.


After making the arrangements for my sister's delivery I made my way to the desk. I booked a suite for tomorrow, paying for it with chips. Then I tracked down the concierge and hemmed and hawed a bit, but with a laugh she finished my sentence for me then set me at ease.

"Don't worry. We do this all the time. Mainly at the request of husbands or boyfriends, but sometimes a group of girls travelling alone will set up one of their own. The important thing is whose name is on the bill. I assume it's yours? Excellence. Now do you have any special requirements? A popular accessory for these service items is a half-legible form with a confused room number. Say a 2 that looks like a five that apparently sends the service item to the wrong room?"

"That won't be necessary." I assured her. "She'll be wearing a cuff. But, well, you see I'm not a full time gambler. Gambling is just my fallback. My full time job is art. Painting, drawing, that sort of thing."

The concierge was good. She didn't crack a smile as she said: "You're a painter exploring making a living as a gambler? That's an interesting fallback."

"Weird. Everyone says that. Anyway, there's a scene I want to paint but I can't be part of the scene if I want to paint it. It's an integrity thing."

"Of course sir."

I picked up one of the hotel's complementary pads, took out a pencil, and drew a rough sketch.

"This is basically what I want to paint, so I'd like her laid out like this. She's been wearing a cuff for a while so positioning her shouldn't be an issue, but I want her ass glowing and her face tear streaked while she's laying there."

The concierge nodded as I worked. There was no power in the sketch, just skill. It was only a pencil sketch on hotel paper but it wasn't that bad.

"I see sir. Of course we can do that. May I keep the sketch? It would help with the positioning."

"Of course you can." I said, signing it FPB (Frank, Prince of Bamber). " And the service tech might have to work on it to get her bum the right colour. She's worn the cuff for a while now and her old owner says that her bum can take plenty of pounding without bruising."

"I shall pass that information along sir."

I left the sketch with her, the only semi-real thing in the entire casino, returned to my room and slept. Tomorrow would be a busy day.


I hated to do it, but I spent the day working in my studio. Queen Titania's patience wasn't endless and I couldn't afford to piss her off, so I produced two more Trumps of the royal gardens. Brenda would be spending the day in the casino's slave holding facility, but after all of her time on this world that might be the least of the indignities she had suffered.

Supper was at the casino. Since I didn't have to buy Brenda I was flushed with local cash so I might as well enjoy myself. Heck, I might even tip the concierge and ask her to pass some along to whoever did the heavy lifting.

I checked with the concierge and then killed some time. When I went up to the suite it was already happening. I could hear the now familiar smacking and squeals coming from the bedroom, but I stayed out in the sitting room with my art supplies. I knew what was happening. I didn't need to see it.

Eventually a woman left the room, looking like she had run a race. I nodded to her and tossed her a chip as a tip. She caught it in mid air, smiling, and told me to go on in.

Brenda was on the bed, positioned perfectly. I set up my easel and started to work. I couldn't finish it, not in time. I'd need a couple of days to get the Trump right but I could do the work sketches now. I had to work frantically.

We of Bamber recover quickly. If I didn't work fast enough the tears would be out of her eyes and the redness faded from her bum. I would be left with the pose but not the attitude, and I needed to capture the attitude while it lasted. Brenda's current Trump screamed haughty and world-class arrogance, but her new Trump would be of a much humbler girl.

I worked for hours. Of course the tears didn't last and most of the redness faded, but I had captured those first and now just had to fix the rest of the pose. I didn't even acknowledge her until I had finished. Well, not finished, but when I had enough to work from.

"So, it is you hiding behind that easel." Brenda said.

There wasn't a trace of bitterness in her voice. It was accepting. It might have been the nicest tone I'd heard from her in over a century.

Yes, I meant a hundred years. We scions of Bamber are long lived. Not as long lived as those from Amber, but we mostly looked late 20s, early 30s even though we had seen the turn of centuries. Two, almost three, on average.

"Yes, it's me." I told her. "I won you back in a poker game."

Brenda just laughed a laugh of pure pleasure. I couldn't remember the last time she had been this relax. All the conflicts that normally warred inside her seemed to have faded away.

"And here I was waiting for a bolt cutter or a boatload of mercs. So you won me?" Brenda asked, tilting her head just so.

"That I did. Now I'll just take that cuff off your leg."

I didn't share my worries about long term effects. They would happen or they wouldn't, and even if they did I didn't think they would last more a year or two.

I needn't have bothered worrying.


I said the spell and took the cuff off. Three seconds later I was crouched defensively in the corner. My left eye was already swelling shut, my noise was gushing blood, and if one of my ribs wasn't cracked it was bruised. I hadn't seen it coming. The moment the cuff was off Brenda was on me. She might have killed me if she hadn't paused. That was the Flaw in the reading. That was the cursed nine of spades making itself felt. The reading had told me everything except her reaction when I freed her.

There she was, stripping the bed to make a toga. She wasn't the most modest woman in the world but she didn't want to be naked when she fought a man who was her brother.

"There are clothes in the other room." I muttered. "In the bag by the TV."

"Thanks you fucking rat." Brenda spat out the words, the bitterness back in her voice.

"I can explain." I said weakly.

"You better. You fucking well better."


She took her time getting dressed, which gave her a chance to cool down just a hair. Just enough that she didn't want to kill me. The clothes helped. After all that time dressed like a slave she was wearing normal clothing again - including real underwear.

"So what the happened to the bolt cutter plan?" Brenda demanded as she re-entered the room.

"I checked it out and you wouldn't have kept your leg. Take the cuff back with you if you don't believe me. Just don't hold it too close to your body and get ready to toss it." I warned her.

"Fuck. Fucking hell! So what's with the painting?"

"I didn't want you blackmailed with a secret." I explained.

"So you made proof? Why not take a picture?" Brenda demanded.

I didn't bother explaining how much harder it would have been to make a Trump off of a cold, impersonal photo. I poured my heart and soul into the work sketch, and that would make it easier to craft the Trump. But that wasn't the answer she was looking for.

"The only way to stop the blackmail is to neutralise the secret. The only way to do that is make sure everyone knows it. That way the secret becomes public knowledge and no one can blackmail you over something that's public." I explained, talking quickly.

"So how would it fucking get out?" Brenda demanded.

"We can't cover it up. Too many people already know."

Brenda's green eyes flashed murder.

"Who have you told?!?!"

"No one!" I promised.

"So who knows?" Brenda demanded.

"You know and I know and that's already too many people." I assured her.

"How is that too many? Are you planning to..."

"Of course not!" I said, shocked that she would accuse me. "Think about it. Something would happen to one of our sisters. She'll start complaining and you'll say it's nothing because of the time something happened to you. Then Cora or someone will say something about the time something happened to her, and someone else will top it and eventually you'll say 'That's nothing compared to the time I was trapped as a slave girl' and whoever you're talking to will know and be able to blackmail you."

I could see the wheels turning as she ran things through her mind. She might be half-mad at times, but Brenda still knew her own true self. She knew I was right but she would never admit it.

"So I turn the sketch into your new Trump and no one will blackmail you. They'll all be wondering what it means. They know I'd set it up any way you wanted me to and they'll go mad looking for the hidden meaning."

Brenda thought again.

"Okay, that's a good plan, but here's how we make it better."

I relaxed as I listened. I was at the core of Blenda's plan, which means that she couldn't kill me over having her spanked. Then I stopped relaxing - Brenda's plan made mine look sane.

But I nodded. If I wasn't on with the plan then she didn't need me. Brenda was riding the edge of madness and was looking to kill someone. No that I had a problem that - as long as that someone wasn't me or anyone I knew.

"It needs work. Maybe..."

"We can talk latter." Brenda told me. "Now how do I get out of this hell world?"

"Trumps." I said. "They're in with my art supplies. Mom has me mass producing them. There are four in the bag, all of the royal gardens. You can take and deliver them to mom."

"Of course I can." Brenda nodded, a gleam in her eyes. "Of course I'll take them both home to mom."

I didn't know what she planned to do with the other two, but that little piece of extortion kept me from mentioning that I had her Trump deck. If she wanted to keep the Trumps that I was making then she could but it would cost her the old deck.

"So you stay here, keep doing what you've been doing, and I'll put the rest of the plan in motion. Don't worry your pretty little empty head, Brenda will take care of the planning."

I hated her condescending attitude. I preferred her when her mind was clearer and emptier, but that was never going to be a long term option.

"Are you going to bring Bleys in on this?" I asked.

Our sister Bleys was a stabilising force. She could keep Brenda on the straight and narrow. She could stop things before they got too far, and maybe even talk Brenda out of the plan all together.

"Oh, I'll involve her." Brenda said with a smirk. "Eventually."

My heart sank, but there was nothing I could do. Brenda was committed to this crazy scheme and if I wasn't ready to kill her then I had to help her.

I could never kill Brenda. My link to Amber might have stabbed her link to Amber, but there was no way I would ever do that. Despite her madness she was still my sister and knew I could never do that. I might be a shadow but I wasn't going to mindless follow the source that cast me.

At least I hoped I wasn't.

So I nodded and went along with the plan. It was the best option I had.

Brenda smiled. She wrapped the cuff in the peek-a-boo skirt and focused on the Trump. As she stepped through the skirt burst into flame, burning with a blue white flame. Brenda didn't break step as she tossed the flaming bundle away and faded from sight.


I woke up in my motel room. The bruise on my eye had almost faded and the ache in my rib was barely noticeable. I called for room service and considered my options.

Option A, I could forget the plan, but that would leave Brenda pissed off at me. Option B, I could go along with it, and if it fell apart I could point the finger at Brenda.

Option B seemed safer. I went with it.


So I paid another few months on my studio and paid in advanced for my room and made myself at home in Spankland. That day Queen Titania contacted me just long enough to acknowledge that I'd sent the trumps back, and to say that now the artists could start working on the other cards - matching the back of the Trumps that I had sent. And that was it; the connection didn't last long enough for me to consider telling her anything. Since I didn't have the chance to tell her anything, keeping silent wasn't really treason, was it?


It took me three days to finish Brenda's Trump. Two pairs of red cheeks decorated the card, and Brenda's lip seemed to quibble a bit as the tears ran down her face. Then there were the freckles. They hadn't been in the sketch and such dots had never graced Brenda's face, but they had worked themselves into the Trump.

The Flaw. It was in everything we did. I could only hope that I would survive the Flaw in Brenda's plan. It was there, it had to be there, and neither of us could see it until it was too late. But I was now committed and there was else nothing I could do but follow it through.

Goodgulf

[goodgulf]

Note:
When updating the link to the last story I discovered several typos and had to rewrite spots. If you enjoyed the story you may enjoy the corrected version.

Goodgulf