Its when the hooded figure in front of you pulls back his hood to reveal a visage close enough to yours to be a close relation, if not your own twin, that you begin to wonder just how you got into this predicament in the first place.

Allow me to introduce myself, since I trust, gentle reader, that you may neither know well of me, nor know of my adventures. My name is Diomedes, and I am the son of the Prince Brand, of Amber. I'll trust that you understand the import of his name, and of my origin, and so I will not describe them further, save where they might be different than your expectations? Agreed?

The trouble began on a typical day in Amber, about five years after Grandfather, King Oberon, disappeared for the last time. Oh, certainly, he had been prone to absences before. As to hear my elder cousins and aunts and uncles tell it, for reasons of finding wives or the like. But this felt different. No contact at all for five years was unheard of, and so the Elders of the Family met, and invited us cousins, to deliberate on what to do.

Most of the Elders were there, at least the ones in favor. My branch of the Amber clan, however is somewhat...apart from the rest of the Family, for various reasons. Rosalind and I were invited, but Bleys, Fiona and Brand's invitations seem to had been misplaced. Uncle Bleys, Rosalind's father, managed to show up anyway. There was no sign of some of the Elders who favor shadow, either, like Benedict and Random.

The topic of the day, besides the disappearance of Grandfather, was Corwin. Corwin had been missing for far longer, and some of the Elders felt it was now a good idea for us kids to go and look for him, with Amber in such a vulnerable position. We could use all the help we could get, especially if the Elder's efforts to find Grandfather could not be found. So Gerard gave us a dossier on the last potential sighting of him, in some shadow. It was pretty scant evidence.

Still, we agreed to go look for him, although its a sham and I think most of us knew it at the time. Dina, Corwin's daughter, said as much from the start. Miho is the model of sincerity, and possibly Gerard was talked into it, and thus passed it onto his daughter. But, if we wanted more Princes and Princesses to defend Amber, there were more reachable and likely choices out there. I named two just a moment ago: Random, for all of his faults, is still a Prince of Amber, and then there is Benedict, possibly the greatest swordsman and general in the history of Amber. But long disappeared Corwin? A long shot of all long shots.

So the five children of Amber, myself, Rosalind, Corradina, Obi, and Drake, rode out into Shadow. even if a couple of us, Miho and I, might have preferred a naval approach to traveling. Of course, our group wasn't going to stay cohesive forever. I'm surprised that it remained together as long as it did.

Not that I am not guilty myself of breaking apart members of the team.

My full cousin Rosalind left, after a trump conversation with someone, probably Theia Fiona or her father. I know most of the rest of the cousins were expecting her to come back, but I wasn't surprised when she did not. She's my senior by a dozen years or so, but the divide seems wider than that by far, and I think she thinks it still wider. She was probably happy to get back to the company of her father, and her betrothed, and her own plots in that regard. Rosalind possibly even resents me being underfoot. I, on my part, admire her unique abilities, and she is my full cousin. A century or so from now, and maybe she will fully accept me. It might take several times as long for the Elder cousins, especially Corradina, to do so.

The others flitted in and out of contact for a while, until we finally all agreed to seperate and try separate tacks on the problem. I paired with Miho, even though no one had trumps of us, since we are both hydrophilic. We decided to travel by water, and soon were shifting shadow up a river in the direction of the world where Corwin was last spotted. Our thought was that we could bypass obstacles and get to him faster than the others. We might be the youngest, but we had tricks up our sleeve.

The journey began well enough, heading down a river into Shadow. Miho and I worked on a boat as we did so, picking up a crew along the way once we had a boat that was big enough to require one. While both of us thought we'd reach an ocean in the process of searching for Corwin, it never did come out that way. Despite our desire to smell the salt of the sea, our shifting always kept us on river travel.

We were a week on that river, Miho, our crew and I. I've sailed with Miho before, and this was, despite the seriousness of our mission, as pleasant a trip now as previous trips with her have been. She truly is a daughter of Amphitrite, a daughter of the sea. I think I've been blessed to see sides of Miho only her father has seen. But those stories are stories for another time.

A week in, the river began to run low, oddly low, as if a severe drought had struck the area, with no other evidence, like withered vegetation, to suggest it. There seemed to be no natural reason for it, and Miho and I feared this might be a blockade to our progress to find Corwin, the blockade we had been anticipating.

And then there were the signs. I haven't felt it necessary to mention it before now, but my heritage as Brand's son has its advantages. I am a sorcerer. Oh, much of what the Royal Family of Amber can do is considered magic of one sort or another, but out of the five cousins, I am the only one who openly practices esoteric arts of an overt sort. I learned them from my Dad, and Aunt Fiona too. So when I saw the signs, I knew them for hex signs. Wards against something. It could have been the river itself, or something from the river. No way to tell without further investigation. In any case, it was significant, and I told Miho so. So, when we reached a settlement, I suggested we stop, and learn the lay of the land.

The inhabitants of Evan's Mill seemed to be expecting us, or someone very much like us. I convinced Miho to play along, at least at first, so that we could learn more. The town was very much like a frontier burg, far away from its mother country, in a hostile land. Worse, it seemed some sort of devilry was plaguing this town, and they looked to myself as the representative sent to help deal with it. It's a situation I've found myself in shadow a number of times, or crafted my shadow shifting to make happen. Its easier for strangers to accept you if they think they already know who and what you are.

I don't know what Miho herself was expecting to see. I, for one, was expecting something arcane, based on the hex signs. When Miho and I went to see this devilry that they spoke up, we were in shock. It certainly surpassed my expectations. In a land of wooden homes, and moderate technology, a ship of diamond, crystal and glass sat in the center of the low river. It was as out of place here as a wooden ship would be in a fleet of battleships and aircraft carriers. Something told me not to pass this by and continue to go to find Corwin, but to investigate this and first. There was a reason that, not only that this was here, but that this was in our path. Miho, of course, the direct person that she is, wished to press and continue.

It was a hard decision. I am loyal to my cousin, but my instincts won out over that loyalty. So, I remained behind, and fully entered into my identity as Doctor Dismas. Its far from the first time that I've taken on a pseudonym and a role in shadow. In point of fact, I do it rather often. I figure that my legend will spread through shadow whether I use my name, or if I don't. And names have power. Never forget that.

The townspeople were good people, as far as I could tell. Scared out of their wits and unable to articulate well just what the people on the ship were like. It was they who had built dams upstream to lower the level of the river, to restrict the movement of the ship, to keep them at bay. According to one of them, Tannard, only one man had gone to the ship and came back, and he was half mad. I decided that it was valuable to talk to him anyway, to see if I could glean anything out of him.

The conversation began on the wrong foot.

As soon as I entered the church to where the poor stricken Jack was being ministered to by their preacher, he saw right through me, accusing me of not being human. I'd normally have just dismissed his observations as being part of his madness (no matter how true they might be), except for one telling detail in his babble.

"I see a bird.. like a pheasant, only bigger.. greater.. and it's on fire. You ain't no Doctor.. you ain't no human being.."

He was describing the Phoenix, the symbol of my father. The mythic symbol behind him, and probably behind me as well, although I do favor a Double Eagle for seals and such. It still was close to home, and part of my meta myth. I found it disturbing that he would make this sort of observation, and it lent weight to everything he said, no matter how little sense it made. From what I could deduce, his experiences with the beings on the ship had, somehow, given him a sort of ability to see behind the world, a form of what sorcerers call Mage Sight. However, it had also afflicted him with a dementia animus, a madness, Jack was ill prepared to see beyond the waking world, and that, as well as the experience, fragmented his mind.

The only real detail that I could hook out of his words, though, was the fact that Jack was sure that their leader, the White Lord, was waiting for me. That he knew I could come this way, and was waiting for me.

The poignancy of Jack's condition nearly made me want to head to the ship to confront these tormentors, these beings, even though darkness was approaching. So, with reluctance, I left mad Jack, and went back to the Inn for food, and some spell work, and sleep.

The next morning found me in a rowboat, heading toward that ship, that miracle of a rare device. I got a better look at it as I approached it, and it nearly dazzled me, in the morning sun, with silver, and crystal and other things of light composing its makeup. I've never seen its like, and the mariner in me wondered how well it handled on rivers and oceans when not nearly aground as it was now. The people on the ship, though, they were plainly as inhuman, by the standards of the inhabitants, as I was. However, it was far more obvious on they.

Their hair were metallic, bronze, copper, and gold. Their skin colors were exotic too, including some that might have passed for Rebmans. They were magnificently beautiful and I admit to an attraction to that beauty. They are marked by high cheekbones, a slanting of the eyes, and a slight pointing of the ears. I could see why an ordinary mortal could fall under their glamour. They looked down at me and laughed. They had no idea at that time who or what I was. A mutual ignorance of each other.

And I was going to go aboard their ship. They dropped a rope ladder down in invitation as I pulled alongside in the rowboat. It was a silent invitation, but when dealing with beings akin to the Fair Folk, or Faerie, there are niceties that should be observed.

So I asked permission to board and depart.

The response came back from one of the females, or at least in a feminine voice.

"The former is a given, son of man. The latter depends solely on if you do, indeed, have the will."

And so I climbed the rope ladder. Once I reached the top and made it onto the deck, I looked around. It was like being surrounded by cats, they were watching me, and I couldn't fixate on them doing it. Finally, after looking around the deck, I fixated on one of the women. My usual preference, you understand. Her inhumanity accentuated her beauty, rather than detracted from it. And then I decided to unleash my bombshell.

"I am here to see the White Lord." I paused and then added. "I believe that I am already expected." Now that brought reactions from the crew. The lady of eyes of dark wine linked her arm in mine and announced me to the ship. They began to surround me, plucking at my sleeves, my cloak. The warriors were a little agitated, too, taking up defensive positions. It was a clue that I missed, at the time, the way they were reacting to me.

For my part, though, although they seemed ready to carry me to somewhere, I had business to attend to, no matter how pretty a little blond thing I had on my arm. So I restated my desire to see the White Lord. Pleasures of any sort, could wait.

The pretty little thing had other ideas, and still thought me pliable. So she kissed me, and tried to psionically dominate me. In her so doing, her intent was open to me as a book. Her attentions were to break me to her body, right on the deck with all of them to see, and then break my mind and soul.

I'm not averse to some, mind you, even on the deck of the ship. My sybaritic tendencies can be discussed another time, however. Still, I had no intentions of being broken to anyone's will, especially someone whose mind was clearly inferior to mine own. So I casually stopped the attempt, quite easily.

I didn't get a chance to explore her mind, though, because a more martial threat reared its head. One of the warrior caste in sapphire armor put his hand on the hilt of his sword and began to demand my identity. The face off with the warrior was short circuited, however, by the sudden appearance of a man clad all in white, hooded.

The White Lord.

The White Lord tasked the woman with bringing me to him, and departed, to prepare for our meeting. The conflict over, the ship mostly returned to ignoring us, leaving me with the nameless woman. Even the guards were mostly back in their usual mode. Still, a woman without a name is missing something, so I provided her one. And I did tell you that names have power. Given the striking color of her robe, I dubbed her Saffron, and extended my hand out to her, to show no hard feelings.

She accepted it, and seemed to accept her name, and lead me to one of the rooms on the upper deck. It was practical as well as beautiful, my host I rejected food and wine, although I soon wished for the latter. With a glass of water in my hand, and pretty Saffron submissively at my feet, I waited for the White Lord in a comfort and milieu that reminded me a little of the Sultan's palace in Shadow Deryabar.

I did not have soon to wait until he did come back, and revealed his face to me. What this will portend, my next Reflection, perhaps, will be able to tell.