The Chambers of Artwork, part the fifth of our Tale

[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


The Chambers of Artwork, part the fifth of our Tale

I ran like a madman. I had a stitch in my side, I was breathing hard, my legs were burning, but I daren't slow down. In one hand I clutched a fine gold chain, holding it as if my life depended on it.

And it did. Moving fast meant my life, or maybe my death.


Maybe this isn't the best place to start this story.

A couple of years ago I made a new set of Trumps for my family. We all carried special tarot decks, where the Trumps were pictures of people (my family) and places (where we lived). Those Trumps were one means of moving between the near infinite worlds that were the Shadows cast by Amber. Amber, of course, is the one real world (which is why it casts Shadows). The location of the Pattern, the ultimate artefact of Order. By its very existence it cast Shadows, and each Shadow was a world in of itself, all unreal reflections of the One Real World.

I wasn't from there. I was from Bamber, a close reflection of the real world of Amber. They had nine princes who schemed for the throne, we had nine princesses. They had the Pattern, we had a version of the Broken Pattern (an inferior copy that inserted a Flaw into of our magic). They had recently (well, not so recently) had a civil war followed by the Pattern Fall War followed by the near destruction of the cosmos. They had experienced a time of chaos, all started because two princes and a princess had tried to seize the throne from King Oberon. We had avoided that, until now.

You see we were too close of a reflection of them for us to miss the chaos. 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 princes named Donald, Fred, Lloyd, and Frank (which is me).


Back to the chaos. My sister Brenda had come up with a plan, one that my sister Bleys had taken most of the crazy out of it, and I went along with it because it looked like a good idea at the time. We made a deal with a bunch of demons (or they had made a deal with us) that involved overthrowing our mother. Using some "lost" Trumps to act as a gateway a demon army would assault the royal army by surprise, "removing" our mother from the throne. The demons were expecting our army to come and mop up, but of course we planned to double cross them. They might be expecting something like that, but they couldn't expect the demon slaying weapons that all of our troops were carrying. Brenda had personally conjured them, investing vast amounts of time doing so. Those weapons were only demon slaying one around the Shadow of Bamber - otherwise they were just normal weapons, which meant that the demons wouldn't sense them until it was too late. Once we wiped out the demons we would put Bleys on the throne and be home free.


That was the plan, but like everything we of Bamber did there was a Flaw in it. Or in this case very many Flaws. The first problem was Geraldine. She maintained a force of foresters, more to prevent poachers than to fight battles, but they were taking R&R where they shouldn't have been and Geraldine been able to fling them into the battle, practically doubling the size of the royal army.

This delayed the demon army's triumph.

Then two other armies showed up. Erica and Cora were both leading armies onto the plain outside of Bamber City. The thing is, they weren't here to help our mother - the two of them had finally decided to settle things and they were here with armies to decide whom trial by combat would smile on. I'm not saying that the rivals made peace right then and there, but they turned their armies into the demons as opposed to slaughtering each other. That relieved pressure on the Queen, giving her the respite she needed to Trump in our sister Bernadine and some of Bernadine's crack troops.

Now the Queen is powerful and sometimes batshit crazy, but Bernadine scares me. In hand to hand combat she was basically untouchable and as a general she was in a class by herself. We had planned our attack around her being away and now that she was here with a unit of her best troops, well, it changed things.

There was no way we could arrive with our army. The demon slaying weapons would scream to everyone that we expected to fight demons today. How could we expect to fight demons if we hadn't been involved in planning the demonic assault?

On the flip side, there was no way we move our army away, not without Bernadine noticing that we had been here and left, and that would be worse than showing up demon slaying weapons.

There was no way...

Well, our options were limited. Very limited. The Court might need its Trump artist but I might end up working from a dungeon cell. As for my sisters, I could see one or both of their heads decorating a pike. Probably Brenda, because she was Brad's counterpart, but Bleys' head wasn't safe, not by a long shot. Mine wasn't a hundred percent safe but my sisters were just this side of doomed.

And I didn't want to see them dead.

I was thinking as I acted, but only as I acted. If I paused long enough to consider what I was doing then I knew I wouldn't do it.

I took out Titania's Trump and focused on it. As soon as contact was established my hand shot out and grabbed the gold chain around her neck. Amber had this huge honking ruby called the Jewel of Judgement while we had an emerald called the Jewel of Justice. No, I didn't know what it did, but I grabbed it off her neck. As the Queen stared (for once in her life she was slack jawed) I took time to gloat and even crow about how my dupes hadn't noticed any part of my plan, much less understood the goal.

Then I broke contact and turned to my sisters. Slack jaw seemed to be going around, because both of my sisters were standing there, their eyes fixed on the jewel in my hand and their mouths agape.

"Okay, here's the deal. Send the troops in, mop up the demons, and when Bernadine asks everything was my idea."

Bleys was still slack jawed, but Brenda was grinning.

"So how long have you been planning this?"

"About a minute and half." I admitted. "This is the only save I can think of. Now if you'll excuse me then I have to start running."

And I did. Run that is.

I've been running ever since. The lightening and the earthquakes were a good reason to run. I had no idea how the Queen was doing it but she was throwing them at me so I was dodging disasters and death as I ran through Shadow after Shadow, world after world.

I ran for hours, never slowing down. Finally I was a few steps ahead, far enough ahead to pause and search my Trump deck. I dropped a handful of cards as I searched for the Trump I was looking for. It wasn't one of the ones that was common among the decks but a custom one I had made years ago and kept for sentimental reasons. The card shifted and grew in my hand, shimmering as it opened a way into a new reality. I dived through, moments before the earthquake would have reached me.

I was in a seedy motel room. An occupied seedy motel room. There a man on the bed with a woman over his lap using a paddle as she squealed and kicked her legs. Squealed, and screamed how much she loved being spanked as her bum shifted colours.

Yes, I had returned to Spankland. A Shadow far from Bamber where most of our family's powers didn't work. Trumps worked here, but that was it. You couldn't use sorcery here, or conjuration, or even Shadow Walk out of here. At least not with the Broken Pattern; the real Pattern probably worked fine here, but no one in our family had access to that power source.

I'd spent years here while I was making a new set of master Trumps to copy. Back then I'd made a Trump of my motel room so I could zip between here and Bamber. Of course I hadn't bothered to keep up payments for the motel room so it was occupied by the man who was now spanking the woman who, by the look of the cuff on her leg, was a slave. That cuff was more than just a marker, it carried a powerful enchantment that made a woman submissive and want to be spanked.

Whoever he was, that guy was really into spanking. He was enjoying it as much as she was (if not more) and unlike her, he wasn't spellbound to enjoy the spanking. But there's enjoying something and then there's not noticing that there's a stranger in your motel room.

I was heading for the door when it dawned on him that he wasn't alone.

"Who the fuck are you?"

"This room two two two three um, three something?" I slurred, shamming drunkenness.

"No it sure as fuck isn't!" He said, not pausing the spanking as he spoke.

"Wrong oom? Room?" I slurred.

"You're fucking drunk!" He yelled. "Get the fuck out of my room!"

I nodded and left before he could ask how I had gotten into his room. Then I was staggering out of the motel, still going with the drunk act. Going out of my way to make it look like I could barely put one foot in front of the other.

Minutes later I wasn't acting. Someone had my Trump and was poring an unimaginable amount of power into contacting me. I mean that; I couldn't imagine how much power someone was throwing at me, which meant that it was probably my mother trying to fry me. It took every ounce of mental power I had to keep it away.

Every ounce of mental power and then some. I knew my abilities, and my limits, and somehow I was exceeding them. There was no way I should be able to resist the probe that was coming at me but I was. It had to be the Jewel of Judgement. That was the only explanation. I didn't know how it worked but somehow it was shielding me from the worse of the Queen's attack... Why split words? She wasn't just the Queen, she was my mom and she was hunting me down like a mad dog that needed killing.

The attack kept on coming. Coming and coming. I could never have kept up an attack that long. No one I knew could have ever done that. Well, no one but the Queen. The demons must have been taken care off for her to focus all her attention on me. I hoped that this meant that Bleys and Brenda were okay - I would have hated to do this hero bit and not have saved them. That wouldn't have been good news - I was probably going to survive my mother's wrath up until the point where I stole the Jewel of Judgement and made a run for it. Since I had sacrificed my chance I could only hope that my sacrifice had been worth it.

It had been years since I had been in this Shadow, and here I was staggering towards a spot that I almost completely remembered. When I had left this Shadow I had been on a gambling run, with lots of cash and chips. I had buried them all in a spot I knew I could find again and now I was staggering towards it.

Digging it out wasn't easy, not with the mental attack happening, but I managed it then bit back a curse. I'd buried everything in two duffel bags and one now had a hole in it. Whatever had burrowed into it had shredded all the cash I'd left there. The cash had been turned into a nest (the most expensive nest in history), but other than some scat the creature had left no trace behind. The money was still in the other duffel bag and I had the chips from both of them but I had less cash than I had chips.

Chips from a casino that all nine of my sisters had been in. They all knew where it was. It might be the first place they looked; all of them knew that their powers had been limited in this Shadow and this could be one of the first places they thought of when it came to thinking of where I might have run to.

Which meant that they could be waiting for me in the casino. I'm sure that any one of them (well, other than Randi) could take me in a fight. Take me, knock me unconscious, and drag me back home. If that happened then my noble effort would be rendered meaningless. The Queen would soon wretch the real plan's details out of my mind and Bleys and Brenda would both be dead. Their heads would be on pikes and I would be in a dungeon or dead, which meant that I couldn't risk going into the casino.

But those chips were worthless unless someone cashed them in.

First things first. I staggered into a pawnshop that carried some second hand clothing, muttering something about being misinformed about it being a costume party. I was still playing drunk (how could I not, with the psychic attack still hammering down at my shield?) and I used some of my recovered cash to buy something that could pass as normal in this Shadow. Behind the clothing store an alley beckoned and I was soon dressed in clothes that would let me pass as a normal guy. The Jewel of Justice went around my neck; I needed to keep skin contact with it if it was going to help defend me.

Then I hit the casino; well, I lingered outside the casino until I could find a patsy to cash my chips in. When I spotted an honest looking guy I spun some story about how I didn't want my wife to know that I had won big in the casino, and when the bastard came back he grinned and told me that there was a 30% henpecked husband fee.

Thirty percent? I could maybe understand if I dealing with a hundred bucks, or five hundred bucks, but those chips represented a huge windfall for him. That 30% "henpecked fee" had to represent two or five years of salary for the guy.

But I was in no position to argue, so I let him cheat me. Knowing this Shadow his name was probably Ed something. The Eds here were all bastards.


I wandered the city, collecting stares from the few people who were still abroad. It was later than I thought and aside from the casino (and a few associated businesses) this burgh practically rolled up the sidewalks at midnight. As I staggered down the deserted streets I could only wish I had the mental energy to plot; I needed to focus on keeping my defences up against that continual assault. I could barely even plan let alone scheme.

A bus station came into view and with it the first glimmerings of a plan. The smell from the duffel bags gave me another part of the plan. I staggered a pawnshop near the station (those places never seemed to close) and picked up both a knapsack and gym bag. I locked myself in a stall in the bus station's bathroom and transferred what I needed from the rotting duffel bags. The paddles I put aside; Brenda had made them and might be able to trace so I would have to ditch them with the rotting duffel bags. Most of the art supplies were spoiled so they went too. When I was done all I was carrying was the cash and the art supplies that hadn't spoiled.

I found myself returning to the casino. There was a dumpster in one of the parking lots there - the duffel bags (along with the mystic paddles, enchanted too strongly to work on normal people) went in and then I had to stagger back the long journey to the bus stop.


I was getting looks. People thought I was drunk or high, or maybe crazy. I wasn't used to those types of looks. Street people got those looks, not Princes.


I got a ticket for the first long distance bus (one heading north) and found a seat near the back. Other passengers slowly filtered in. To my disappointment they included a women in Edwardian dress escorting a women wearing what was basically the standard outfit for a slave girl in this Shadow. A peek-a-boo skirt, one that fell to the knees in front and barely covered the girl's panties (assuming she was wearing any) in back; sandals, knee socks, and an easily removable top. I didn't need to glance at her legs to know that she was wearing a slave cuff but I did, mostly to see what sort of slave she was. If the blue cuff was on the left leg then she was temporary slave, but if it was on the right leg she would grow old a slave - only to be freed when she was in her 50s or older.

The pair ended up in seats in front of me, and the one with the cuff was soon over her owner's lap getting her panties slapped. I never thought that this could happen, but I found the sight of one woman spanking another to be, well, annoying. Normally it was I sight that I appreciated, a woman squealing as another one slapped her bum, but at the moment I found it an annoying distraction.

Then the bus driver made an announcement. After listing off the places we would be stopping at, he ended with:

"... and the bus is currently leaving the station so please return to your seat and refrain from spanking."

Imagine! They had a standard announcement that including 'stop spanking'. Only in Spankland! There was only one thing more unbelievable - a Prince of Bamber riding a bus. Not a jet or a train, a bus. My sisters would never believe it. Hopefully that would slow down any search. They would expect me to travel in style, not on a smelly bus.

The couple in front of me shifted, the slave now squirming in her seat. I wasn't much more comfortable. I could close my eyes and relax, but I couldn't really sleep. Not with the psychic attack I was withstanding. I didn't know how long the Queen could keep it up and could only hope that I withstand her best efforts.

We made a stop, maybe an hour out of town, and I staggered off the bus. I wasn't the only one, but most of the others left so they could deliver or get a spanking. Me, I avoided the noise and grabbed a hot sandwich, some bottle water, and some packaged food. Various women were sobbing as they returned to the bus, but I didn't have time to do more than notice them.

I dozed as much as I dared, which wasn't much. At every stop I grab something to eat, more bottled water and more packaged food. I couldn't help noticing that not all of the women getting spanked were slaves. Most of them were wearing one of those lesser enchantments, a scaled down version of the slave spell that made a woman more submissive and open to being spanked, but a few of them didn't even have that. They were women who didn't need a spell to make a spanking enjoyable.

There were times that I wished I had the time to enjoy the sights I saw on that trip (mostly the bared or semi-bared bottoms), but I was too busy fighting for survival and trying plan. At one stop I picked up a map. I'd seen a large scale map at the bus station and I knew that this stop was close to a checkpoint of sorts. This island, Beakerland Island, was divided into several countries and I was heading towards one of the borders. The country I was in was the most significant one on the island (it was the largest and had the only real casino as well as the island's sole major airport) but the other countries had similar laws and customs when it came to spanking. The problem was I was pretty sure that they checked paperwork at that boarder and papers were something that I didn't have. The map implied that there was a wooded area around here, a small forest that spanned the border and would be a perfect place to cross without notice.

I got off the bus at the town before the border. I was the only one who left it there. I checked my map, picked a direction, and started walking, hoping to get inside the wooded area and away from prospective spectators before anyone thought to check if I was planning to sneak across the border.


As I headed for the small forest I ended up in a park like area, one that I thought might serve my immediate needs, but there was a road leading in and a picnic area. One that was occupied. One of the women was in her 40s while the other was maybe 20, and from their conversation I tagged them as "Sheila" and "Sheila's mom". Sheila seemed to thing that they were joking around, but her mom had a hairbrush out.

"I could get you one of those cuffs." Sheila's mom pointed out. "I have the authority to do that."

"I said cut that out." Sheila responded with a laugh.

"No Sheila, I won't cut it out. Now get your tail over here."

"But mom... You can't really mean it, can you?"

"Of course I do. Now do you want to wear a cuff? Do you? Because I could make that happen. Come on Sheila. This trip was expensive and you're not going to go home before you get a red bum."

It took a bit of bullying, but I wasn't halfway across the clear area before Sheila was over her mother's lap. I was still staggering towards the far side of the clearing when a car pulled up and a pair of men got out of it.

"Excuse me." One of the men said. "But someone here ordered something from our service."

"Oh, you can leave." Sheila's mom told them, bouncing her hairbrush off her daughter's skirt. "I've got matters well in hand. She agreed to let me spank her after all."

"That's nice, but when you booked our service we guaranteed results."

The pair of men advanced on the mother / daughter pair. There were protests, but by the time I hit the tree line both women were over knees, getting their bare bums spanked. A mother daughter combo like that wasn't a scene you saw every day, but I was in no condition to enjoy it.

The sounds of the double spanking seemed to linger forever, but finally I was out of earshot of the unlucky duo. I staggered for a bit more, then found a rock that looked suitable for sitting, and sat. I fished out the Jewel of Justice and tried to concentrate on it. I had heard that there was some sort of attunement processes for the Jewel of Judgement and hoped that there was away I could somehow master the mystic emerald.

Nothing happened until I tried to use it as if it were a Trump. It was like a new trump appeared - one of me holding the new Trump of me. And in that second trump was another Trump of me holding a Trump, and so on. I projected myself in and it was like going through a thousand thousand Trumps at the same time. I passed out, and when I awoke I knew what the Jewel really was. Dorothy Bargirl had designed it to build a place of power, one comparable to the Broken Pattern but an unflawed power source based on the unifying force behind the Trumps rather than a lesser version of Amber's Pattern. And once I understood the design I saw the flaw, or rather the Flaw. The power source would have the Flaw in it, so even if the resulting Trump power would be Flawless you would still have to deal with the original Flaw to master it.

New knowledge and power flooded into me. Knowledge and power that the Queen must already have. I knew then that the only reason she hadn't made the new Trump decks was she didn't want to take the time. Which meant that my skills wouldn't have been enough to save my life, which meant I hadn't really thrown away my chance at life to save my sisters. It's strange to say this, but that was a comforting thought.

I used some of my newfound powers to erect some defences. I needed to do some drawings and a bit of paintings, but eventually the ongoing attack stopped. Finally I felt safe and moments later I was unconscious, the stress of the battle, fleeing, and long bus ride catching up with me.


It was dark when I regain consciousness. True dark, the type of dark that you don't get in city. The trees were blocking out the stars and there wasn't the slightest hint of a moon in the sky. I could barely tell if my eyes were open or closed, which was a bad spot to be in when all of your powers were visually based. I felt around in the gym bag for some the water and food I was carrying and tried to relax.

Dawn finally came and I checked with the cards to see which direction to take. I was missing a few cards, but I had enough for a simple question like that. The cards answered and I started walking.

It took me days to leave that forest, and by then I was drinking stream water and looking for berries. I also needed a shave, a shower, fresh clothes, and a general clean up. Luckily I emerged far enough from the border that people thought I was tramp, not an illegal immigrant.

I hit a motel and freshened up, bought some new clothes, hit a diner and had a meal. There wasn't a major library here but I was able to find out that there were only few small cities in the entire country. As a result the whole place had some sort of inferiority complex concerning their larger neighbour to the south, but I could live with that. The biggest problem I had was with the money I was carrying; I could exchange my cash (taking a 2% loss) or draw attention to myself by using the money I had (with most merchants charging mean extra 5% for accepting the foreign currency). I decided to do a little of both, using as little cash as possible in case someone was looking for a rich man fitting my description.

I made my way to the nearest excuse for city and started planning. It wasn't even the biggest city in this second rate country on this little island but it would do for a start. Now that I didn't have to worry about the on going psychic attack from my mother I could plan, or at least try to. I say try because the major problem with planning then was my lack of options. There was nowhere I could be safe. Nowhere. Between them my sisters knew all my regular haunts so I couldn't Trump anywhere without them finding me. Maybe I could draw a Trump of somewhere I wanted to go, but with the Flaw in all of our powers I knew I would end up in some hellhole. Maybe I could make a Trump sketch from memory, but if I was someplace where the Broken Pattern worked then my family catch me. It seemed that I'd gone from being able to move freely through the cosmos to being trapped in a single Shadow.

A Shadow where I had dwelled for a while, but one that I still knew little about.


One of the first places I visited was the slave market. Not that I was interested in buying but I wanted to see if things worked the same way here as they did at the one near the casino. I didn't use the main entrance and stumbled over a transaction happening. There were two women, one early 20s and the other mid 20s, and the one in the early 20s was wearing babydoll sleepwear while protesting that she shouldn't be here.

"You can't do this Alice. Tell her that she can't do this! She isn't even my real mom! Can't you see that she isn't my real mother?"

"They know that Stacy, but I am your step-mother and the one who's paying the bill and that's what matters." Alice said, smiling. "I know you've never accepted me as part of your family."

"Is that why you're doing this?" Stacy demanded. "Because I don't like you? Because I don't think my dad should be married to someone only a few years old than me? Is that it?"

"Pretty much." Stacy said with a smile. "You've made too much trouble for me to ignore. If you come home then you'll keep at it, trying to break us up, so you won't be coming home."

"But you can't do this! Dad will know and he'll flip. You know he will!" Stacy protested.

"He'll understand."

"No he won't!"

"Yes he will." Alice said with a smug smile. "You asked to come here, didn't you? He would have sent you anywhere for a graduation present and you choose here. If you were just interested in seeing some spankings then we could gone to that island group where women spank men. No, you choose to come here where your lily-white ass would be at risk. Your dad thought it was fifty / fifty that you'd end up wearing a cuff and it seems that he was right."

"But I decided not to! I didn't bet myself at the casino. You can't do this!" Stacy protested.

"But I am doing it." Alice gloated. "Maybe a few years of wearing a cuff will loosen you up. Open your mind to the idea that someone your dad's age could build a new life with someone my age."

"But I don't want to be a slave!"

"It won't be that bad, not once you've got the cuff on." Alice consoled her. "Besides, it's what you really want, isn't it? And even it if isn't, it's what I want and what I say goes."

I left that conversation wondering if I was hearing the real story. It sounded believable, but why was Stacy wearing babydolls? That bit didn't make sense. Why was she out and about in that getup if she didn't want to be a slave?

I attended the auction. Sure enough Stacy was sold there. She was presented as "Experienced with most things, but has never been spanked - not in her entire life! If you can believe that!", which was a welcome break from the others - women who had run up credit cards or had come in from the countryside looking for bright lights and ran out of money before finding a real job. It seemed that most women who wanted to be owned gave themselves to the man (or woman) they wanted to own them so the presence of a tourist caused a real stir at the auction. She went for more than twice the going rate and Stacy was barely off stage before the bottoms of her babydolls were down and her new owner was bouncing his palm off her bum.

Of course Stacy liked how she was being treated. She was wearing a slave cuff and its enchantment assured that she enjoyed being spanked. I'd never know if she would have enjoyed it without the cuff, but in the big scheme of things that was one of the smaller mysteries of the universe.


After she was sold I got on with the reason I had come to the slave market. Slavery might be legal and more or less acceptable here, but slave markets were never in the best part of town. Working out from the market I found some of the seedier services that you could find any city. They were harder to find here, in a small city, and the services they offered weren't the same quality as what you'd find in bigger cities, but they were there. As usual the players were broken down by ethnic groups, so I tried to pick a group that I thought would have connections I needed.

About a week after I hit the city I was at a poker game run by one of the seedier types. Anthony "Big A" Piocosta was running the game and it had a mix of doctors, lawyers, B grade entertainers, and some of the seedier types, with other seedier types there to help keep order. With my expanded mastery of Trump powers the face cards were practically singing to me, but I made sure I didn't win too much. It wouldn't do to make enemies of the seedier types.

At least not my first time at the "big" game.


The game was a weekly one and I was invited back. I took things slow, not to arouse suspicions, but I didn't have forever. A month later I was making a killing. It didn't matter what weird variation of poker they trotted out, or what the odds of making a hand were, I was cleaning up. I lost a few hands and there were some that I didn't play, but when my chips went in the pot I usually took it down.

The game had hit its tenth hour when things fell to pieces. We were playing a poker variant that was a bit like Texas Holdem. Three hole cards face down, a two card flop, one card called the flip, then a final card called the brook. I had two nines and queen, and the flop brought the queen of hearts and another nine. Normally that would be a sign to push all in, but the nine that came was the nine of spades. Now I have a good relationship with cards, but the nine of spades really hates me. Hates me with a passion. When it comes to critical situations and the nine of spades comes up I know I've lost. That it's time to take my chips and go home. It didn't matter that I'd bet big before the flop, I was out of this game. I even folded out of order.

But when a big winner wants stop betting there are sometimes objections, especially at these less than legal games. Carlo Altieri, one of the seedier types, was in the pot along with a paediatrician they called Doc Stevenson.

"That's not right." Carlo protested. "I finally got a hand here."

"And technically, it's not even your turn to act." Big A said, calling over from the chair where he was sitting.

"If you didn't have a hand then why you bet?" Carlo asked. "We you trying to push me off my hand? Trying to buy the pot. Hell, I'm down forty G's here and he's trying to buy the pot."

"I had a hand, but the nine of spades just came up and that card hates me." I revealed. "If I stay in the hand I'll lose big. I know I will. My luck's gone. The nine of spades just poisoned it."

This got Big A out of his chair.

"What, you got a hex or something? A luck charm?" Big A asked.

I knew they had a man (maybe a couple of men) who scanned the big game for any sign of magic. This Shadow didn't have magic in a big way, but every Shadow that had magic had people who tried to use it to cheat at gambling. Now these weren't the big boys, the big boys hung out in the bigger cities, but these players could be deadly enough when it came to idiots cheating at cards.

"No, no spells or charms. It's just that nine of spades hates me. It always poisons my luck." I said, thinking clean thoughts in case someone was trying to read my mood. "Maybe I'm just superstitious, but that card always spells an end to any streak I've got going."

"Sure you got a hand." Carlo sneered. "A killer hand. So play it already."

"It looks good, but if I bet I'll lose. I know I will, so why bet?"

Of course you couldn't say something like that in a room full of gamblers. Everyone had an opinion about my luck. I ended up betting half of them that if I stayed in the game I'd lose. "Winning" the hand meant I'd lose most of my recent winnings and might even end the night behind, which might have been what the nine of spades had been warning me about, but not taking their bets could have been disastrous to my health.

Carlo went all in and Doc Stevenson called, and Big A insisted that my cards be flipped over too. All the while Jimmy Parisi, Big A's mojo expert, was overseeing everything in case there was any spell work being done. Everyone laughed when they saw my hand.

"You got a full house there." Big A pointed out. "A full house and you were talking about tossing the hand. You shouldn't have bet us that the hand would lose."

"He would have won." Carlo said, laying down a ten, jack, king, all spades. "Your full house would have take my straight. That's a bad fold you did."

"Maybe he had you, but he wouldn't have beaten me." Doc Stevenson smiled, laying down two queens and the last nine. "Queens over nines beat nines over queens."

"Fucking shit! I can't get a break." Carlo groused.

The two of spades hit the flip.

"I can't fucking believe it!" Carlo complained. "A flush. A fucking flush and it's no good. One card away from the nuts. Just one card."

"So you would have lost." Big A sniggered.

"Maybe." I nodded. "But maybe I wouldn't have gone all in with nines over queens."

One of the kids working the game, a boy everyone called Spirodakis, chose that moment to do something really stupid. He flipped one of the slaves that were serving drinks (there were three of them, all wearing peek-a-boo skirts with nothing under them) over his lap and started spanking her. She was up for it (thanks to the cuff) and this wasn't the first lap her bum had graced that night (as its colour attested). It wasn't even the first time one of the kids had spanked one of them, but the other times had happened during small hands.

"Would you fucking stop that?" Carlo bellowed. "Fuck I'm all in here and you're smacking some girl's ass? You want me to lose? Stop fucking doing that."

"OH OW does he have to?" The woman complained.

"Sorry Mr. Altieri." The kid said, going pale as he released the woman.

I didn't think Carlo would kill the kid over something like that, but maybe a beating was coming.

Then the situation was defused with the final card of the hand. The brook was the queen of spades.

"But I would have gone all in with queens over nines." I commented.

"Yes! A king high straight flush! Finally!" Carlo crowed. "Spirodakis, you go back to spanking that ass!"

The woman squealed in pleasure as Spirodakis took her over his lap again and started spanking.

Big A looked to Jimmy Parisi who shrugged. Hopefully that confirmed that no magic had been used in the hand. Next came the hard part, cashing in my chips. Not that I really planned on leaving with the money. I had more, much more, left from my stash from the times I had played at the real casino. No, I needed the in with Big A more than I needed the cash.

"And that's it for me." I said, gathering up my chips, including my new winnings I'd gotten for losing the hand. "If you want proof you can deal my seat in and you'll see. I won't have another winning hand tonight. Maybe not all week. Maybe not all month."

"So we won't be seeing you at our weekly games?" Big A asked, still looking to Jimmy Parisi.

"Not for a while, but I'd like a quick word before I cash out."

We walked away from the table, over to the remains of the food. The kids (and slaves) had kept the buffet more or less intact for most of the night, but at the moment it was overdue for refreshing.

"There's something I've been meaning to ask about, I think that you could be the person to ask." I said, keeping my voice low. "And if you aren't the guy then maybe you know a guy, you know?"

"Maybe I know a guy." Big A answered with a nod. "What are we talking about here? Women? Smack? What you talking about here?"

"You might have noticed from my accent that I'm not from around here." I said, revealing little.

"Yeah, I figured you for someone from the south." Big A nodded.

The island's main country was to the south. Big A had tagged me as someone from slumming from the big city. Maybe a gambler who'd been barred from the main casino.

"I wish." I said with a chuckle. "No, I came to Beakerland working on a ship. I would have flown, but I didn't have the time to wait for a visa."

"You didn't have time for a visa, but you had the time to work your way here on a ship?" Big A asked, seeing how this conversation was going.

"Yeah, I kind of had to leave town fast. It didn't matter where I was going as long as I wasn't still there." I revealed.

"That so?"

"Yeah, it seemed that I had made a little accounting error, one in my favour, and someone stumbled over it before I was ready for that. So I had to leave town fast and now I have to avoid places like the casino. I don't think anyone would bother following me out of the country but why take chances?"

"Why indeed?" Big A asked. "Is there a reason you'll telling me this?"

"I jumped ship and I kind of need identity papers. Not just something that can pass but something real. Something official. You know anyone who can help with that?"

"Maybe I do, but something like that, it can be expensive." Big A said, rubbing his fingers together.

"That's why I stopped playing when the nine of spades showed." I told him. "Maybe you could cash me out later, maybe after you find out how much your friend might charge? So it's all covered. I mean, you know I'm good for it, but this way you have the cash in hand for when your friend needs it."

Big A gave a nod and a grunt.

"Yeah, sure, I'll take care of it."

I smiled and gave him the details he would need.


Of course he overcharged me. There was no way he couldn't; a shark had to bite and guys like him had to grab every nickel they could. A fair price might have been a quarter of my winnings and he only left me with half my stake, but I got the papers I needed. They were the real thing. I could now legally prove that I was Timothy Joseph Frankland; that last bit pissed me off. I had said no Franks, Frankies, or anything with Frank in it. I didn't need any clues pointing to where I might be hiding. But Big A said there was no shifting that, I was taking the identity of someone who had died as an infant and the Frankland family was the only one that had gotten careless with getting a matching death certificate.

With the papers came an invitation to a casino that Big A was involved in. Maybe he owned it, maybe he knew the guy who ran it, maybe a lot of things, but he seemed curious about my current luck. I didn't need an angry crook on my back trail, so I dug into my stash and paid a visit.

As casinos went, it was clear that this was an illegal one. It wasn't seedy, I'd been in worse dumps that were legal, but it wasn't anywhere near classy as the island's main casino. It only had two short rows of slots. As for real gambling, there were two blackjack tables, two dice pits, and three poker tables. The waitresses were all wearing slave cuffs, but they weren't freshly enslaved ones. The typical one was in her 30s, and not her early 30s. That didn't stop them from wearing their uniforms blouses with skirts that barely reached their thighs in front and left most of their bums exposed. They had thongs under them, readily visible thongs, with pink or red peeking out on the part of their butts that could be seen.

Most of the gamblers were hard core ones. Some were there for fun, the rest because being a gambler was what defined them. The staff looked to be pros, but they weren't the best out there. They were competent but not up to the standards of a big time casino. The casino didn't have real security, only a mix of the seedy types that hung around Big A. Some of them clearly worked as muscle but for good casino security you need more than just muscle.


Big A nodded hello to me as I made my way to the two dollar blackjack table.

"What, a big timer like you hitting the small stuff?" Big A teased from across the room.

"Running out my luck." I called back with a smile.

On first hand I hit on 12 and busted out. Big A strolled over to watch as I played and stood there watching as I lost hand after hand. I kept the bets small and lost, lost, and lost. Yeah, the nine of spades was bitch.

"Shit, you're not joking, are you?" Big A said. "You're on a bad run, aren't you?"

"You got it." I nodded. "At least now I know it happens. I didn't always know about it."

"You didn't?"

"Of course not." I chuckled bitterly. "That's why I needed to make an accounting error in my favour. When I'm on a bad run I can lose a fortune if I'm not careful. So now, when I'm going down, I make small bets until my luck turns around. No more doubling down, chasing bad money with good."

"I've heard that before." Big A chuckled. "You won't be able to last. You'll win one or two hands then you'll be chasing it."

"That's the old me." I said, losing another hand. "The new me doesn't bet when I'm losing."

"So, what is it? Some sort of curse? You have all your good luck at once then a run of bad luck." Big A probed.

"Not really. My luck's normal until the nine of spades hits, then it's shit for a while." I told him.

Big A snorted.

Jimmy Parisi kept an eye on me as I lost, night after night. Looking for the slightest sign of a spell or inverse curse. Big A's idea had been a good one. I'm sure someone somewhere had come up with a system like that. Not that I had something like that going with the nine of spades, that card just plan hated me. I even kept losing even after my rut ended. Oh, nothing obvious like going against the odds, but doing little things, based on my powers. Hitting when I knew there was a face card coming, hearing the cards as they were being dealt, and otherwise tapping my mastery of cards to ensure I would lose.

Then I started winning, not steadily. Nothing dramatic like that. I had a few runs of good and bad luck, just enough to convince Big A that I was normal, that I hadn't been cheating. He'd taken a big chunk of my winnings for my new documents but people like that never tolerate someone cheating them and I didn't need a pissed of gangster on my back trail.

Which was another way of saying that I that I had to leave town. This was a small city in a minor country but it was still too big. When the search came it would sweep through here. I had to be somewhere smaller, somewhere they wouldn't look. I might come back to this city, hitting the big game when I needed extra cash, but I couldn't live here. I checked maps, did a little research, and planned on how to disappear.

I spent one last night in a decent hotel. I even sent down for a slave, a nice girl who giggled as she asked me if I wanted to spank her. Since she asked so nicely, well, what else could I do? It helped with the stress.

What stress?

I was running from my family, I was doing a con job on a criminal, and I was about to leave any trace of the good life behind as I ran for my life, and you ask about what stress?

The real money? My winnings from when I making the Trump decks? I had plans for that.


I ended up in a little seaside place called Harold's Beach. It wasn't much, maybe 1200 year round residents, but it had a tourist trade. Mostly in the summer, some on the spring and fall, and little in the winter. I built, well, not exactly a shack, but it wasn't much better than a shack, just off the beach. I picked up some art supplies and started doing caricatures on the boardwalk.

God it was boring.

Day after day, drawing tourists. The girls were sometimes interesting to draw. I lost count of how much time I captured pink or red in a girl's bum. Heck, half the time I did caricatures of fully dressed women and showed them over someone's lap getting her oversized bum paddled or spanked. Sometimes it was foreshadowing, sometimes it wasn't, but it usually greeted with laughter or smiles. And a tip, usually a good one.

Of course 'good' is a relative term. Beach bums don't make in the way of money, not even when they do caricatures. Even really nice caricatures that were signed TJ (I left the F off because I didn't want to draw attention to the fact that I was a Frankland). There were times that I cadged meals or drinks in one of the cafes. I, a Prince of Bamber, basically begging for my meals. How could that have happened? I was born into the Royal House, recognised as a legitimate heir (after my legitimate sisters) to the throne, and I was basically a bum who had to beg for food.

Oh, there was the gambling. Hitting Big A's game two or three times a year (always leaving with more than I came with) was the only way I kept eating through the winters. It was that, or go on the dole and I wanted to leave as few official records of Timothy Joseph Frankland (Timmy to his friends) as I could... That and the last lingering trace of pride kept me off welfare.

The money from the casino? I said I had plans for it. The first fall I spent here I went to Wolverton, a small town about a hundred and fifty miles from my beach, and bought a house. Well, not just a house - a great old pile. A huge place, once owned by the town's leading family and where they had lived for generations. It cost big bucks and then there was more money to fix it up. Redo the roof, replace a few stones here and there, and otherwise make sure that the place stayed standing for another hundred or so years. On the plus side it came furnished, but on the negative side no one had bothered to clear out any of the junk the family had accumulated in the century or two (or three? I didn't check the age of the place) they had been living there. Of course the locals were curious about the new owner of the manor house but I past myself off being from a priggish and vain family, one newly wealthy who needed to own a country heap to impress the other priggish families. Someone who would rarely visit the place.

Of course I made Trumps as I went, rattling them off with almost no effort. One of my beach place, one of an interior room of my mansion, and one of a park in the city near where Big A had his game. (As an aside, it drove Big A crazy, trying to find how I arrived in and left his city.) Those Trumps were important. They let me travel between my two homes at an instant's notice. I also had other Trumps, ones of meaningless locations that I thought might be good place to run to in case someone found me.


The required repairs took most of the first year and it was the next fall before the workmen were gone and I was able to thoroughly inspect my new house. Luckily it was during Tommy's slow season so no one noticed when I disappeared for hours or days at a time.

The place was, well, it was impressive. It came with a mouldering library, one with an erotic section that rivalled the porn kept in the library of Bamber, and that's saying something. Of course most of it was spanking oriented but that was predictable in this Shadow.
Less predictable were the other things I found. One room had a series of benches, with decaying leather straps on them, clearly designed to hold women in place for some serious spanking. I wasn't sure but I thought they looked like those judicial benches I had seen.

Another room had a bench that stood roughly at waist level. It looked like a bench you would sit at to do work on a worktable, but the worktable was nowhere in sight. Instead the beach had three extensions, finished planks of wood that were about a foot wide (if that) and above the bench a row of hooks on the wall, with leather bindings on them. Exploring that room I discovered a box of old photos that explained the purpose of that bench. In each of the photos three girls (one for each plank) lay face up on the bench, their shoulders against the wall (raising their heads so they were looking down the lengths of their bodies) and their bums were near the end of the plank. In all cases their legs were attached to the hooks on the wall, giving the observer a gynaecological view while holding their bottoms in an interesting position to spank. It was almost like the diaper position, except that their legs went up, apart, and back, going well above their shoulders where they were secured to the wall. As for their hands, they were usually manacled together, on a chain wide enough to span their bodies. Most photos showed them with their hands under them, palms lying flat and almost clear of their waists. Of course most of the women in those pictures were naked, but I came across a series of photos where the victims were wearing tops and (more to the point) not wearing slave cuffs. Flipping one of the photos over I saw a caption on the back:

"The wife and her sisters needed seeing to."

At that point I decided that at least one of the previous owners had been Not Nice. Anyone who would treat his sister-in-laws like that... I mean, I could understand him spanking them (that was how things worked around here) but positioning them like that? From the photos it was clear that they weren't enjoying themselves. Flipping through their pictures I saw them with different tops, meaning that they had been positioned like that on different occasions. Checking the backs of others I saw that most of the other victims of that bench had been maids, with notations that their misdeeds had earned them more than a trip on one of the regular strapping benches.

Other old photos and punishment instruments were scattered around the house; when the old family that had owned it died out (or went bankrupt, I never bothered to learn their fate) they had left countless personal effects behind. Many of the bedrooms still had clothes in them and most had various spanking instruments, left where they could be used.

In addition to the various punishment rooms there was a pair of storerooms crowded with every instrument you could ever imagine using on a woman's backside. Canes, straps, paddles, straps, martinets - you name it and it was crowded into one of those two rooms. The servants quarters were predictable and slightly depressing; they all seemed designed to accommodate the spankings the maids were sure to earn.

As for old clothes, there were countless ones stowed in various places in the cavernous place, mixed in with the bric-a-brac and other debris that had accumulated over the generations. Clothes, various uniforms from different eras (the maid uniforms often looked more than a bit like French maid outfits), and bondage gear. If I ever threw a Halloween party I could outfit over a hundred people with the discards left in this house.

The cellar? Make that cellars. The top level had storerooms, cold rooms, and other rooms that you would expect in an old place like this. Then came the wine cellar; it had a few scattered bottles but had clearly been picked through. Below that... One of the rooms was basically a dungeon and another was clearly slave quarters, and there was a huge chamber that made up the root of the foundation. One that had plenty of room for me to do what I needed to do.


Late that fall I went to the basement of my mansion with the Jewel of Judgement. Using my blood as paint and the jewel as the brush I began to draw the construct that Dorothy Bargirl had designed. It took over a year (Trumping between the mansion and the beach practically every night) of bleeding and twisting mystic forces in a way that I had never dared attempt before, but I persevered. As I worked I found myself drawing in some of the echoes that had built up in the house, but I hoped that they would be harmless additions to its power. At worse someone going through it might get a sore bum, which would be a small price to pay to link your destiny to this newly developed power source. Of course the Flaw was in it, but I had accomplished something special, building a construct of power. Standing there, staring at the completed thing, I wondered if I was the first one to build the construct or if Dorothy Bargirl (or my mother) had complete one long ago. Either way I had constructed this one with my blood, sweat, tears, and memories, making it was unique in all the Shadows.

A week after I completed it I entered the basement and transversed the construct. Avoiding the Flaw I floated, ran, shifted, and transfigured until I had mastered the construct, making its power my own.

Afterwards, lying there exhausted, I remembered how good it was to have servants. People who would feed you and put you to bed after you tasked your powers and endurance to their limits, going far beyond your safe limits. When I walked the Broken Pattern there were people to gather me up and see that I was okay. Not being able to even raise my head from the floor I now wondered if I would starve to death before I regained the strength to move and how stupid I had been not arrange for servants or some kind of assistants ahead of time. Obviously I survived, but it was a near thing.

When I was recovered a bit I found that I could do things that I had never thought possible, using the power of Trump as others used sorcery or conjuration. My Trump powers were stretched to the point where I could use normal playing cards as Trumps, focusing my will on them to turn them into conduits to travel the universe. More importantly I had access to a root power source. It wasn't quite as Primal as the power of the Pattern (the one in Amber) but it was... it's hard to explain. It wasn't at the same level as the Broken Pattern in Bamber. I'm not sure if it was better or worse, but it was different. Best of all it didn't have the Flaw inherent in it so anything I made with those powers could be as close to perfection as I could manage.

It was power, but it wouldn't be enough to protect me from my family if they found me. And it took me months to recover from being the first one through it. Months that I used to study the local magic system. Not that I really needed to use it, not now, but I thought I might need to disguise my powers as something more local in nature.


Four months later (while I was still weak from mastering my the Chambers of Artwork) I was back on the boardwalk in Harold's Beach, ready to draw caricatures on that bright spring day. I had a book on what the locals called magic at my side to occupy my slack time, not that I much time to read it with the steady stream of tourists I was getting. Then a red haired beauty sat down for a drawing. I looked up at her smiling face. She was wearing a silk bikini and beach robe whose colours were mostly red and orange. Her hair was red and her eyes were as blue as mine. They were exactly the same shade as mine, which was understandable as she was my sister. Not a half sister but one of my two full sisters.

Bleys looked through me, smiled, and said: "Draw my picture. Do a good job and I'll let you buy me a drink."

"I'll have time for that?" I asked, trying to smile.

My sister Bleys was murder with a knife, sword, or gun. With the price on my head, 'murder' might be the operative word here.

"Oh, I think you'll have time for that." Bleys answered, her smile never dimming.

As I sketched the caricature it was hard not to channel power into it. I was still recovering from gaining my new powers but I could have easily drawn a gun on the page and have it pop out of the drawing. I could have drawn a moving bullet and it might speed off the page and into my sister's heart.

But if she was here than the others would know she was here so killing her wouldn't change anything. That and I had risked my life to save hers so it didn't seem right to try to take it now. Besides that, she was my favourite sister and I hated to think that I might ever kill one of my sisters.

I drew the picture quickly, and her form was exaggerated (as usual in caricatures), but other than that it same pose as the one I had used for her Trump. When I showed it to her Bleys just smiled and said: "Nasty but nice. It looks like I'll be buying you that drink."

"Sorry, but I need to make rent." I told her. "Maybe sometime after six? That's when things wind down here."

"Is there someplace we can meet?"

"How about the Longshoreman? It's a bar and..."

"I'll find it." Bleys told me.

A few of the other boardwalk regulars snickered at this. Polly (who ran an ice cream booth) mimed a swat as I waved off with my sister. Of course she couldn't see the family resemblance and didn't know that my own family wanted me dead, she just thought that I was getting lucky.

I smiled back and nodded, as if I wasn't looking at a death sentence.

I tried to think about good times, like that time when Polly and I were kind of an item. I'd kept her bottom warm during the winter they were repairing my house, but then we had drifted apart. Something about me not sharing or not communicating; I'll never know because I wasn't listening at the time. You go through enough break-ups you don't really need to learn the details of the next one, you know? No, of course you don't. Not yet. Anyway, Polly had moved on and was sporting an engagement ring, but the memory of her warm body (and hot bottom) on those winter nights was something to cling to as I wondered if my sister would kill me.

When the tourist crowd thinned I went to the Longshoreman, a bar a bit back from the boardwalk. Bleys was working on a tail blue drink in a quiet corner in the back. I ordered a drink at the bar and went to her.

"So, how have things been?" I asked as I slid in next to her.

"Things have been up and down a bit." Bleys acknowledged. "They were down a bit, back when I last saw you. But mom finally agreed that Brenda and I had been the unwitting pawns of the evil mastermind Frank."

"How terrible it might have been. Bad Frank." I said mockingly.

"Since then things have been better." Bleys said.

"Um, are you here to..."

"Let me catch you up on the family gossip." Bleys said.

Family etiquette was clear on a few things, but one of them was that if a member of the family was at a clear disadvantage they were polite and allowed the other one to steer the conversation. I have only once heard of anyone at a greater disadvantage than I was now (it involved a naked blade at my throat) so I let her steer the conversation.

Two hours later we were on our third round of drinks and I had been filled in on everything. How Erica and Cora had made peace, sort of. They had agreed that neither of them really wanted the throne (just so long as the other didn't have it) and together with Bernadine and Geraldine had formed an unstoppable "keep mom on the throne" coalition. Even Brenda had given up her plans for the throne. More surprisingly, Dorothy Bargirl was back and somehow between Titania and Dorothy Bargirl they had formed a new Jewel of Judgement. Then she got to the important part.

"And my brother Frank is still hunted." Bleys said. "Wanted dead or alive, but if taken alive then he would soon be dead. But of course since no Prince of Bamber would be eking out a living drawing pictures on a beach there's no way I could have seen Frank, Prince of Bamber, here. There's a shadow dweller who might look like him, but a Prince drawing caricatures and studying the local magic system? No, never."

"Um, that's good to know." I replied, relaxing a bit.

"I think I'm the last person searching this Shadow." Bleys continued. "All the others have bad memories of this place, but some thought that after we found those freshly discarded paddles and a collection of sketches that a concierge had, that he just might have come here. I thought... well, I'm sorry that I've wasted all my time here. It looks like I'll be leaving, probably never to return."

"I'm sorry to hear that." I said, with some feeling. Bleys was my favourite sister.

"It had to happen." Bleys said with a smile. "If I were to return here people would think that I had reason to. They know that I'm not into being spanked so they wouldn't stop looking until they found the real reason, and they would take action about that reason."

"I understand." I answered, smiling sadly and nodding.

"Then again, since the Jewel of Judgement has been replaced, maybe tempers could cool?" Bleys continued. I wasn't sure is she was being serious or offering me false hope. "But not for years. Maybe not even decades. The Queen will need time to cool down."

I nodded again. A glimmer of hope tempered with caution. I really couldn't have expected better.

Bleys gave me a hug goodbye, then my favourite sister walked away. I ordered another drink and waited. A few hours later, someplace over a hundred miles down the road, I felt, no sensed, no, there really are words for what I felt then, but I knew that someone had used a Trump to leave this Shadow. Focusing I thought I caught a glimpse of Bleys as she returned to Bamber.


It felt odd. Very odd. Not the sensation of power. No, what felt odd was the knowledge that I now totally cut off from my family. I'd known about and accepted the 'wanted criminal' status, but who in the family hadn't had their share of royal disfavour? Okay, Randi might have skated by since she was the baby of the family, and her daughter hadn't suffered much over the years, but the rest of us had all experienced periods of exile.

But those were periods. This could be forever. Not that I really liked all my relatives but after knowing them for a couple of hundred years I'd kind of gotten used to having them around. Knowing that I wouldn't see them again, that was bad. Maybe there was a spot of hope, sometime in the far future, but right now I was island adrift in the Sea of Shadows. My only anchor was the new source of power I had developed. The Chambers of Artwork that I had created were the only semi-real thing that I could hang on to it.

I ordered a new drink, then another. I ended up tying one on. I drank through some of my rent money and was late getting on the boardwalk the next morning so I missed out on some work and ended up tapping some of my reserve funds. Then I tapped some more as I went on a bit of a bender. I missed out on more work and alienated some of the folk on the boardwalk, but I after about a week or two I bounced back. We of Bamber are a hardy crew, physically and mentally. Emotionally, well, that's sometimes an issue, but I bounced back.

What I needed was a project and I went with one. Not another Trump deck, I couldn't have handled the monotony of making a new one of them from scratch, but something that would tap the powers of the Chambers of Artwork I had constructed. I spent months with my brushes, working nights and evenings when I wasn't on the boardwalk, rebuilding my bankroll. The brushstrokes on the canvas were less important than the ones in my mind and the project drained me in ways that Trump powers had never pushed me before. Eventually, after those months of work, I finished the project. It was more a proof of concept than anything else, but when I finished the last brushstroke a ring fell from the canvas.

Of course I wouldn't, nay couldn't devote all that time and effort to something useless. It had to do more than just look nice. The ring was defensive in nature, keyed to resist spells and enchantments. Tied to the power of Trump it would work in every Shadow in which Trump could function (which was the vast majority of them), making it a minor artefact. It wasn't on par with any of the items of legend, but it was closer to being real than anything my sister Brenda could conjure. In this Shadow it would totally block the effects of any slave cuff or other mind affecting enchantment. Not that I had anyone to give it (not then) but I thought I someday might want to be friends with a woman who couldn't be enslaved and that ring would keep her free. That, and protect her in other ways. I had met one special woman in this Shadow, and who knew if I would meet another?

Since it was the first creation based on the powers of the Chambers of Artwork I decided to name (names can have power), and so the Emerald Ring of Security was born. Yes, it is a crappy, self-important, arrogant sounding name, but it seemed to make sense at the time. Of course it's too late to change it. Once something like that, something that's almost real, is named, then that name tends to stick with it. Someone a hundred Shadows from here might pick it up and think to himself 'this looks like an Emerald Ring of Security'.


Years began to pass. I mastered some of the magic of this Shadow, substituting power for skill when I needed to. Other times I used my own powers and passed them off as local magic. Not that I did much magic; I couldn't live the life of a powerful wizard. My relatives might come around this Shadow again and while they might overlook a beach bum they would notice someone living the comfortable life of a wizard. And if I did anything influential then I would start casting shadows into the nearby worlds and couldn't risk that. The magic made the life of a beach bum just a little better, as did the money from the poker games. I had to mix things up a bit at times while I was rebuilding my cash reserves, but variety is the spice life.


Polly was long married and her niece was working the stand on the day I glanced up and my heart almost stopped. It was Lorraine. Older, definitely older, but it was her. Still as graceful as ever. Walking towards me.

I found myself straightening in my seat as she approached. She looked down at me hopefully.

"Frank?" Lorraine asked.

"Lorraine." I said smoothly. "I didn't think you ever planned to return here."

"Um, should I sit or do you need to work?" Lorraine asked politely.

"Sit, make yourself comfortable. Work can wait. I feel like taking a week off. Maybe two. How long are you staying? That's how long my vacation is going to last."

"That's the Frank I remember." Lorraine said, grinning as she sat.

The locals knew me as Timmy or TJ, but I doubt any were listening as Lorraine said my name. If they were, fuck'em. This was Lorraine.

Looking at her, I couldn't help noticing the passing of years. There had been those years when I was working on those decks, years while my sisters and I planned our failed coup, and the years of me living on the beach. Those of us from Bamber live far longer than normal people and Lorraine was merely mundane when it came to her lifespan. There are tricks we can use to help our friends live longer and part of me wondered if I could use them for Lorraine. It wouldn't turn back the clock but it would give us more time. Most, nay all of those resources were in Bamber, but I was sure I could the Chambers of Artwork to fashion something. It might take a year, it might take longer, and it might only end up working in this Shadow, but I could do it.

All of this flashed through my mind as she sat in front of me.

"You're not an easy man to find." Lorraine said. "I checked at the casino and they said they hadn't seen you in years."

"True, and then there's the assumed name thing." I said magnanimously. "People around here know me as TJ, but keep calling me Frank."

I was sure she had used some brilliant way of tracking me down to Harold's Beach. Lorraine always thought ahead.

"Um, is there somewhere else we could go to talk?" Lorraine asked.

"Of course there is." I said, rising my seat.

I offered her my hand to help her rise and left my art supplies where they were. We strolled from the boardwalk to my shack. For the first time in years I was slightly ashamed of where I was living and wondered if we should Trump to the mansion for our talk.

"I like this place." Lorraine said, glancing around and unknowing answering the question. "It's you."

"Thanks." I said with a grin.

"Nice and temporary. Just like a hotel room." Lorraine continued.

I forgave her immediately. We had been temporary. Then.

"Have a seat." I offered. "Can I get you something to drink? Something to eat? If I don't have it I can send out for it. Or we could go out?"

"I'm fine." Lorraine assured me, sitting once more. "Um, so you were a bit hard to find."

"But you found me." I said with a smile. "If I'd known you were looking I would have found you."

"But you didn't know. So I used my powers to find you."

"Really? Then maybe I can help you handle fate's blow back." I offered.

"I doubt it." Lorraine said with a sad smile. "Um, after I found you I saw a doctor about something. That's when I knew I had to see you soon."

"You should have seen me whenever you wanted." I said gallantly.

"No, the doctor said I should do it sometime in the next week or so." Lorraine answered.

"Did he say why?" I asked, planning what we would do while she was here. We couldn't have worked back in Bamber and I hadn't wanted to endanger her while my relatives hunted me, but now that she wanted to be together I was sure we could work something out.

"Because if I didn't do now then I'd never do it all." Lorraine said softly.

That was when it clicked. How she needed to sit, both here and on the boardwalk. How she had held my arm as we walked. Everything clicked.

"No." I said firmly. "That is not happening. There's something we can do."

"There isn't." Lorraine said kindly.

"There is." I insisted. "There's magic! There are healers and..."

"It's magically resistant." Lorraine said. "And advanced. We aren't talking months here. We are talking days."

"We can make that into more." I insisted. "There has to be something I can do."

I opened my powers up, fully. I perceived her for the first time with the senses I had developed from the Chambers of Artwork. Then I did it again, and again, but always with the same result.

Lorraine was right. I didn't know of a single Shadow where she could be healed. She was too far gone for the places they had magical healing and any technological Shadow I knew would need at least a month to cure her.

A month she didn't have.

I could do something. I could tap the Chambers of Artwork to fashion a cure, but I would need months for that. Months that Lorraine didn't have.

"This is unacceptable." I hissed.

"But it's life." Lorraine said with a perfect shrug of her lovely shoulders. "Besides, you haven't even asked my why I was looking for you."

"It couldn't be a good reason." I said, shaking my head. "Not if this is the cost. No, nothing was worth this."

"I was probably sick before I looked for you. I kind of knew something was wrong, which is why I looked. And she has your eyes."

"But if you hadn't have pressed then maybe there would have been something." I argued. "All we would need is a few months. Even just one."

There a high tech Shadow where they can cure almost anything but the nanobots needed a month to work. My mother could find me there but it was a risk I was willing to take.

"No, I won't accept this. This is not happening." I declared.

Then her words hit me.

Once, years ago, I had a knife rammed into my guts after a poker game gone wrong. Another time, maybe fifty years before that, I was almost crushed in a landslide. I was dying, trapped in the rubble until someone Trumped me out.

Lorraine's words struck deeper than the knife while crushing the air from my lungs like the landslide had.

It took a while before I could speak. Lorraine just nodded, seeing that her words had sunk in.

"She? Eyes?" I asked breathlessly.

"Our daughter." Lorraine said sweetly.

"Our daughter?" I asked dumbly.

"She's wanted to meet you for years." Lorraine said softly. "And when I started feeling sick it seemed like the right time."

"Our daughter?" I repeated.

"Yes, the girl with your eyes." Lorraine reminded me. "If you want there's a test we can do, but you were the only one for months before and there wasn't anyone else before she was born so..."

"No, no test." I said, sinking into a chair.

I trusted Lorraine. Even if I didn't, back in the day we had talked about her experiences and I know she told me the truth then. She had to; she had been wearing a slave bracelet. Knowing how she was when she got on the plane I couldn't see her running to another man. No, she was telling the truth.

In the space of minutes I had lost Lorraine and gained a daughter.

"Um, where ... when..." I couldn't decide on a question.

"She's at the hotel up the coast." Lorraine told me gently. "She doesn't fly well so she took something to help with that. She's still pretty out of it; the medication works for two days if it works at all."

"Two days?" I asked, grasping on to one of life's lesser mysteries. One that might be explained.

"It's a long flight." Lorraine pointed out with a smile. "More than eighteen hours. And then there's the boarding and debarking, and then flying to a rinky-dink airport on a tiny plane. Luckily we were coming here."

Then Lorraine dropped her voice.

"I think they're used to drugged or semi-drugged women arriving here. We didn't have any trouble, not at the airports or on train afterwards or checking into the hotel. Now I wonder why no noticed that she was completely out of it and under my control."

"Because they treat woman..." I began, then my voice rose with concern. "Is she safe?"

"Of course she is silly." Lorraine replied, gifting me with one of her crystal clear laughs. "I wouldn't have left her if she wasn't. I told the hotel staff what I expected and they jumped to obey. Almost as if they are used to older women making decisions for vulnerable young girls."

My head was swimming and I couldn't think. Time moved differently between Shadows. I know how long I'd been here after Lorraine left and how long I'd been here since my defeat, but how much time had passed while I plotted and schemed with Brenda and Bleys? I cursed myself for being so self-centred. Not only did I rarely learn the geography of a Shadow I almost never cared about the date. I had a daughter I had never met and I didn't even know how old she was.

"And I haven't told her about this place." Lorraine continued, her lovely voice ringing like a bell through the chaos of my thoughts. "Nor have I shared the details of my sex life with her. At home they don't talk about this place so she doesn't know that women get spanked here."

Inspiration struck. I rose from my chair and went to a rear cupboard. The door was locked and I think I broke it. I might have even ripped it off its hinge; I didn't notice. The door didn't matter. What was inside mattered.

I returned with Emerald Ring of Security and presented it to Lorraine.

"Take this." I said. "It might help. Maybe only a bit but maybe a bit."

"It won't." Lorraine said with a sad wisdom.

But she humoured me. She put it on. Of course she was right. It did practically nothing for the cancer that had spread through her body, but I had her wear because it might keep her safe from other threats.

"When should... When will the drug wear off?" I asked.

"Not today or tomorrow." Lorraine answered slyly. "As she was coming out of it I gave her the second pill. You'll have to get a new prescription when she leaves."

"But why?"

Lorraine stood.

"Because I feel so terribly naughty about not telling you sooner and I was kind of hoping for one last..."

Lorraine let her voice fade off. She didn't put me in the position of having to say no.

I brushed away a few tears that I hadn't known were around my eyes.

"Well that was very naughty of you." I said, trying to force my tone to be firm. I tried, but my voice betrayed me. "Maybe I should get to the bottom of it? Your bottom."

I tried to be gentle, but she didn't want gentle. This wasn't a time for gentle and mark here or a bruise there wouldn't make any difference in all the worlds. We ended up cuddling in the afterglow, my hand on the warmth of her bottom.

"I've never met a man who could spank like you." Lorraine said lovingly. "You're pretty good in bed, but as a spanker you're in a class by yourself."

"You can tell the difference?" I asked.

"When she was older I... Coming here liberated me. Or maybe it was meeting you or something you said, or maybe it was being a mother which meant that I stopped thinking of myself as someone's child. Whatever it was I stopped caring so much about what other people thought. Anyway, when she got older I dated and this time I knew what I wanted and I wasn't too shy to say it."

"Did you find anyone special?" I asked, surprised that I didn't feel any jealousy.

"There were a few men. I even came close to marrying one until I discovered that his views on spankings extended to stepdaughters and stepdaughters to be."

"I'll kill him." I vowed.

When I vowed that I wasn't Timmy the beach bum or Frank the gambler. No, I vowed it as a Prince of Bamber in all my dark glory.

"But it was years ago and I didn't let him." Lorraine protested, recognising something in my voice. "I'm sure he didn't do anything but talk to her about the spankings she would get when we were married or maybe just officially engaged. She would have told me if he had actually spanked her. To be honest, I'm not even sure he talked to her about being spanked; I overheard him telling someone else that he was going to talk to her again and 'lay down the law' and that ended things."

"He's dead." I vowed.

No, I didn't know then about those few times that he did more than talk. Times when Lorraine wasn't there to make sure it was only a private talk with her daughter. Times before she even knew anything about the spanking talk or that he felt that stepdaughters' bottoms were as spankable as wives' were. Times when he pointed out that some other sleepover boyfriends sometimes spanked their girlfriend's kids that the outstanding debt shouldn't get too high so maybe they should handle this bed behaviour now rather than wait until he was 'officially' allowed to decide if my daughter needed a spanking. Times when he said that troubling Lorraine over this would just bring a grounding when a spanking had already handled things so it was best not to say anything. I vowed to kill him because he threatened my daughter. Now that I know I about those times I plan to do it slowly.

Of course I'm serious. I don't joke about life and death. Okay, maybe sometimes I do joke, laughing in the face of the Reaper and all, but trust me on this one: he is a dead man.

"But she was just a girl and I don't want hear about this." Lorraine said mournfully. "I don't want you saying that you're going to kill him. That's not the talk I want to hear so don't say that."

I kissed her hair.

"Then I won't." I promised.

No, I wasn't lying. I only promised that I wouldn't tell her that I was going to hunt down and kill him. My resources might not be speedy enough to save Lorraine but I have all the time I need to find him. I've run the cards and I already know his name is Melkin. Wherever he is Melkin should be praying to die in accident before I get to him.

No, I told you I got it from the cards. She never told me his name. She didn't have to. I have powers, remember?

"That's better." Lorraine sighed. "And I really do have a confession to make. Remember that time, back in the casino when we cut cards to see if I would be your slave?"

"Like it was yesterday." I replied. "No, like it was only an hour ago."

"And how I told you I'd drawn an eight and tied you so you won?"

"That's what you said. Why? Was it a king?" I asked.

"No, it was a nine. The nine of spades." Lorraine revealed.

I had to fight not to tense my body. I now knew why Lorraine was dying and it wasn't because she used her powers to find me. No, it was that fucking nine of spades. It had failed to prevent my happiness with her then so had to destroy her now. Thinking back I thought that maybe I had known it was a nine but I hadn't bothered to learn which one it was. Not that there was much I could have done, with the nine of spades co-operating with this Shadow's version of Fate to screw her over, but I should have made the effort.

"But I wanted you to take my chip so I lied." Lorraine concluded. "That's really what I wanted you to know. I know I said it was a confession, but I needed you to know that I chose to wear your slave cuff. I wanted you to know that. That you didn't trick me into it."

"I suspected at the time." I answered, concealing my hatred of the nine of spades. "But you're right; knowing is better."

Later, I made my own confession.

"You could say that I've broken with my family, but I didn't leave empty handed. Yes, I make my living working on the beach but I keep a reserve that I build through card games."

"You, gambling?" Lorraine asked in mock shock. "I would never have guessed."

Then she started laughing.

"And then there's the mansion."

Lorraine's laughter stopped.

"The what?" Lorraine asked, looking around at the shack we were in.

"I own a mansion." I repeated. "Countless rooms. Classic furniture. No servants, but I can fix that."

"Um, when you said a reserve..."

"Some people say you should have three months of bills in reserve, but I'm more of the 'decade or two' type of guy." I admitted, not quite bragging but needing to let her know that if wanted anything it was hers.

"A decade?" Lorraine asked incredulously.

"Well, my bills aren't that high." I conceded. "But if money can buy it then it's yours."

"That's a big if." Lorraine joked.

"I know. I wish the 'if' wasn't there, but..."

"Peace." Lorraine said, comforting me when I was the one who should be doing the comforting. "I was only joking. It's a nice offer but I can't think of anything I want. Not anything that money can buy."

"There are still some things I check on." I told her, hoping that one of my more desperate plans would work out.

Lorraine just chuckled and eased herself from the bed.

"You do that, then meet me the Hotel Watson. I've got a suite there." Lorraine told me. "There's someone there who would like to meet you. Now that I actually told her that you would be coming by. I didn't want to get her hopes up in case..."

"I'll be there." I vowed.


For the first time in years I left the Shadow I'd named Spankland. Alas, Lorraine's cynicism proved correct. My risks were for naught; there was nothing I could do. If I'd had a month, or any thing close to a month, then I could have done something but the nine of spades had insured that I wouldn't have the time I needed.

Time moves differently in different Shadows I exhausted the last possible lead with plenty of time to make it to the Hotel Watson. There I meet Lorraine and caught sight of a vision of loveliness that was, alas, totally out of it. The family resemblance was unmistakable; she could have past for one of my sisters in a heartbeat.

"Maybe seeing that mansion of yours would be nice." Lorraine said with a smile. "When could we see it?"

"Um, did I ever mention that I know a bit about magic? Some would say quite a bit."

"I suspected you might. You do have that air about you."

"Give me a few minutes to sketch out the room. I'll explain why later." I said.

At one time it would have taken me the better part of an hour to make something like this, but that was before I created the Chambers of Artwork. I rattled off the sketch then produced my Trump of the manor.

Lorraine was surprised by the mood of transportation, but not shocked. I don't think she had it in her any more to be shocked. I showed her parts of the manor and we worked out a plan. Returning to the hotel room we put the plans in motion.


The next morning I paused long enough to tell some of the others working the boardwalk that I was dealing with a family emergency and would gone for a while. Some of them would have notice my absence and a few of them might have even been concerned over it. Then I retrieved my secret stash and started making calls. Money talks, and within hours I had a medical team assembled that could ensure that Lorraine remained comfortable. They couldn't do much else, no one could, Lorraine wouldn't suffer any pain as the end neared.

Not unless she wanted another spanking.

Sometime around noon Lorraine arrived in Wolverton, our daughter still slowed down from that pill. A misunderstanding happened and our daughter was jabbed with a needle, sedating her into unconscious. It was an accident, completely unplanned, and the nurse was mortified that a mistake had happened. She was fired immediately, but that was all. It was an accident and not every accident is the type of thing that sends me into a killing mood.

Of course I hadn't given up. I tried more desperate moves. Going into my studio I tried to paint a place that might have a cure for Lorraine, but nothing. I wasn't sure if it a lack of power or lack of imagination, but I couldn't make a place where there was even the possibility of a cure for her.

Emerging exhausted, I found Lorraine sitting in one of the rooms in what I had designated as her suite. The room looked slightly different, and I noticed why at once. There was a three by six portrait on the wall, one showing a lovely model on a bed in what you might call a mix of prostrate and recumbent. Her head up but chest down and partially covered by her arms (well, her nipples were mostly covered). Painted from a certain angle it captured her tear-streaked face and red bum with only the profile of her body. If you've ever seen the video for California Gurls by Katy Perry it looked like the bit where she's laying naked on a candy cotton cloud with only a piece of fluff covering her bum. Of course the piece of fuff was missing and you had a full view of her red bum.

I knew that pose well; it formed the basis of the Trump deck that I had produced for the royal family of Bamber. As for this piece I knew it intimately; I had painted it during my first stay in this Shadow. The model, of course, was Lorraine. Lorraine as she in what some would call her prime, but the woman sitting in the chair looked infinitely more appealing than that picture could.

"You kept it?" I asked.

"Obviously." Lorraine said with a smile. "And it has always hung in my house."

"Always?" I asked.

"Most of the time was hanging at the back of my closet, behind clothes, but it always hung." Lorraine assured me. "It's a thing of beauty and would be a shame if it wasn't hung."

"I had a wonderful model." I told her.

"Would you mind walking with me?" Lorraine asked. "There's someone who probably wants to meet you. If she's awake that is. I'd invite her in, but she's never seen the painting before and I don't want to have to handle two sets of questions at once."

That was when I formally met a glorious young beauty named Meredith. She was still groggy, and half out of it, but her beauty and poise were unmistakable. The questions were there, just as Lorraine knew there would be, but they were easily answered with the truth. Lorraine and I had met while Lorraine was on a vacation. I hadn't known about Meredith until recently, and while that lack of knowledge had been Lorraine's choice I wasn't going to gainsay it. Lorraine had been the one making the decisions and while I wish that I had known sooner I hadn't and that was the end of it. I knew now and so I would always be here for her. At least I would be in a short time, but right now I was focusing on her mother. My daughter was totally ignorant of my heritage and mostly ignorant of Lorraine's enjoyment of spanking, but she was under no illusions about her mother's health. She certainly was more accepting of the situation than I was.

Of course I didn't stop exploring, questing for some possible way to cure Lorraine. I did some really stupid things. I knew they were stupid when I was doing them but I couldn't help myself. I had to do something. I had to at least try. And when I wasn't doing stupid things I spent all my time with Lorraine. Meredith, I loved at first sight, loved with all my heart in a way that I had never loved anyone before, but these were my last days with Lorraine.

We spent hours just talking, when her failing strength allowed her to talk. I learned more of how she had lived after we parted ways. She never mentioned anything to do with Melkin (not knowing that I could easily find him even without the details she could give), but she did tell me how her travelling companions (Barbara and Ruth) had been embarrassed at customs, paying a minor fine that was publicly reported, while her portrait was classified as artwork rather than porn meaning that she escaped that fate. She also told me about how her third travelling companion, Kat (who I had shifted Fate's negative attention to when I had shifted it off Lorraine) had spent over ten years on Beakerland Island before returning from her unexpectedly extended adventure in slavery (I didn't mention to Lorraine about switching the Fates, but she suspected I had). Mostly she talked of our daughter, trying share with me some of the experiences I had missed.

On the third day in the manor Lorraine met me with a grin that I never expected to see on her face again.

"Meredith went exploring and she found, um, interesting things." Lorraine informed me.

"I've wedged the door the library shut so..."

"It wasn't books, well, not just books." Lorraine said with her perfect grin. "It was, um, some instruments along with a sketchbook. A sketchbook showing how a girl's bum looked after those instruments had been used."

"Oh, just that." I said dismissively.

"Just that." Lorraine agreed. "She wants to ask you about them but she's not sure she wants the answers you'll give. She's about to lose... Well, part of her wants to be able to depend on you from now on and now she's beginning to worry about what sort of person you might me."

"Don't worry about it." I said, not thinking about how this might have reawakened memories of Melkin.

"Oh, I'm not worried." Lorraine answered with her grin. "I know you'll have glib answer for this as well."

"Glib and truthful." I assured her.

That night, at dinner, I dropped a few comments about how I bought the place a few years ago and I still hadn't cleaned it out.

"The bric-a-brac and other debris must have been building up for generations." I commented. "I couldn't tell you all the weird things I've found here. All I can say is that previous owners must have been some very strange people with very odd taste."

"You mean you haven't done any of the furnishing?" Lorraine asked, feeding me the line I needed.

"Of course not. I barely have a change of clothes here." I told her. "I've been living at my house in Harold's Beach, where you found me. It's just that this house is better at holding, um, the attendants."

'Attendants' being a better word than medical staff. Not that they didn't give me a few unneeded headaches while claiming to be professional. I had made it clear that I didn't want Meredith exposed to spanking but I knew that some of the nurses sometimes had red bums under their uniforms. If I'd only handled things then...

But I couldn't focus on minor matters such as problems with the staff, not with Lorraine slowly slipping away.

I couldn't do anything about that. I had powers that could shape worlds but I couldn't give her an extra hour. Meredith continued exploring the house, looking for distractions from the approaching end, but I didn't have time to deal with that either.

Then came the day when Lorraine was gone. The grounds had their own cemetery and Lorraine was added to the family crypt.

That was also the day that Doctor MacLachlan suffered a broken arm. It was a learning experience for him, one that I hope he benefits from. Somehow he couldn't understand the most simple instructions. Arranging my daughter on one of planks that lay on that weird bench, with her legs over her shoulders and attached to wall had nothing to do with my instruction to keep my daughter away from spankings. She had her dress up with her underwear protecting her modesty and only received a few light pats from a paddle but even those pats were completely against my instructions and Doctor MacLachlan had to learn that certain things were unacceptable. It could have been worse, he might have shown her some of the photos that the device had spawned, but he hadn't so the lesson was merely a broken arm.

Following the funeral (and the doctor's unfortunate non-accident), I knew it was time for a long, heart to heart with my daughter. Meredith, in whose veins the blood of Bamber flowed. The first thing I did was pass on to her the ring I had given her mother, the Emerald Ring of Security. The moment I did it counteracted the charm on the bracelet that Doctor MacLachlan had given her. I doubt the charm was having the effect that the bad Doctor MacLachlan had wanted (which is why my daughter wouldn't allow him to bare her bottom), but any effect that clouded her mind was too great.

Of course I knew about what the doctor did, just as I knew how you dwelled on that sketchbook to distract yourself from what was happening to your mother. No, I'm not judging you or saying that you're like your mother, not that there's anything wrong if you like things like that.

What? You're still upset about I'm going to do to Melkin? Don't be. You are of my Blood and the cards speak to me of his deeds. I know about the time he spanked you in front of... well, you knew it was wrong at the time and looking back you have to see how wrong it was. Wrong in the evil sense of the word.

But that worry is for another time. Right now it's time to transverse the Chambers of Artwork so you can be empowered as a True Daughter of Bamber. All you need do is pass through a source of power to bring out the potential of your blood. The Chambers of Artwork are new, but they safer than the Broken Pattern with its deadly Flaw. Even if my family didn't want to kill me (and maybe they've forgiven me a bit) the Chambers of Artwork leads to Flaw free magic. Yes, there's a Flaw in the Chambers of Artwork itself, but I'll enter with you and guide you past that problem. I know I can do it; either you leave the Chambers of Artwork or neither of us will. The ring should give you added protection; at most all you're really risking is a bit of a sore bum, which I now believe is a gift from the nine of spades. I'm sure the nine of spades thing was spawned from the Flaw in the Broken Pattern; you'll understand the nine of spades problem once you've transverse the Chambers of Artwork, but you'll never have to worry about it.

Once we leave the Chambers of Artwork you'll have the freedom to explore the worlds. To visit Shadow after Shadow. To draw and paint your own Trump cards. To gain glimpses of the future while learning the past and the present from the cards. You'll live for centuries with vast powers at your command. As for how you want to live your life, I was raised by a domineering mother I grew to hate and fear. You'll have the freedom to do what you wish with the knowledge that I'll always be here for you.

Well, always unless something kills me, but I'm not going to let that happen. What I'm trying to say is if tomorrow you want to play some games with someone like Doctor MacLachlan or form the beast with two backs with someone else then I won't get involved with anything you want to do.

But that's tomorrow. Now the Chambers of Artwork await.

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