Robin runs down the hill to the castle, quickly outdistancing the guard, and provides the password to the gate guards. She's admitted to the castle and given the option to send messages to anyone she might want who might be in the castle.

Robin doesn’t need to send any messages.  But she takes a moment to talk seriously with the firelizards.
            “Okay, darlings.  It’s going to be ucky in here.  You can either wait outside and keep hidden.  Or come with me.  But if you come, you cannot attack anyone without my permission, oui?”
            Regardless of the firelizards decision, the girl continues on into the teetering heap of senile stone.

The firelizards decide to remain outside.

The gate guards send Robin to Caine's office. When she arrives, she finds a group of nervous Naval officers--some of whom are probably closer to Robin's age than childhood--and one elderly gentleman in a wheelchair who Robin suspects has the rest of them mildly terrified. She can see into Caine's office, which is soaked as if a man-sized wave had materialized near the desk and splattered all over it.
            The wheelchair-bound fellow assesses Robin with none of the deference that she's used to from the castle people. "You must be Lady Robin. Julian's daughter. I am the Marquess Maritime and I've taken charge of this investigation on Caine's behalf. Do you have any sorcerous means of determining how Prince Caine was taken?"

Having worked among the Rangers, Robin has no problem with a lack of deference.  She nods in response to Marquess’ identification.  In response to his question, she says, “No sorcery.  Other things though.  Anyone tried to contact him through one of the Cards, yet?”

[Post missing]

"Let's try that first then." Robin pulls the beaded leather pouch out of an interior pocket of her vest.  Her brow furrows in thought as she shuffles through.  Eventually she holds two cards out to the Marquess, reserving one for herself.
            "Okay, if something eats me, call the King and Prince Bleys.  That should shake all hell loose.  If something doesn't eat me, I'll want those back."  She finishes with a grim smile.
            She turns her green eyes to the remaining Trump, Caine in all his piratical glory, and attempts to Call her bastard Uncle.

There is no response. It doesn't even have the sliding-off-mind feel of a contact denied. There simply is no response.

“Hunh.”  Robin frowns.
            “Do yours feel icky?” she asks the Marquess, reaching over to poke one of the cards he holds.

"I haven't noticed anything unusual. Define 'icky'," the Marquess suggests, offering her the cards.
            When she touches the cards he's holding, they seem cold in the usual fashion--but so does Caine's.

“That feeling.  Okay, that one didn’t work.” She puts her Trump away but doesn’t retrieve the cards from the Marquess yet.  After all, there’s still plenty of time to be eaten.
            “Anyone been in there yet?”  Robin says stepping toward the door.  (If no one stops her, she’ll attempt to walk right on in.)

"No one has, not since Signy and Paige apparently rushed in to help Prince Caine," the Marquess says, but neither he nor the aides seem inclined to stop her.
            Robin walks into the room. There's a lot of water and the tang of salt sea near the desk; she could smell that from the hall.

Robin looks around at the water splashes and the way things have been sloshed to see if she can get an idea of the water’s entry.
            “Apparently rushed in?  Were there any eye-witnesses?” she asks while still looking around.

The water appears to have flooded in from somewhere near the desk.  There's no sign of a breach of the castle or a broken pipe or any such thing that might have caused it.
            The Marquess gestures at a midshipman. "I saw the ladies go in, but I didn't get a very good look at what happened next, ma'am," the young man says.

Robin walks over to the desk and pokes around, looking for... broken summoning circles, fried items of power, you know, stuff.
            "Anything else interesting happen at the same time?  Sharp cards stuck in walls?  Weird psychic screams?  Anyone shredded or empty-headed?"

Based on a visual examination, there's nothing wrong that dumping a few dozen gallons of seawater into the room out of nowhere wouldn't have caused.
        "There are no signs of a Chaosi attack, if that is what you mean," the Marquess replies rather severely.

“Heh.  Lots more things huntin’ us than Chaosi, but I’ll take that as a ‘no.’” Robin chuckles wryly.  The Marquess’ severity doesn’t bother her; things are done differently in the Navy than the Rangers.
            “Okay, quiet time coming.”  The girl leans a hip back against the desk, closes her eyes and Listens.  She knows this doesn’t usually work well in Amber, but what the heck.

Robin had, perhaps, forgotten that the deafening thing now only was deafeningly silent. Perhaps she would expect the sort of nasty undertones that accompanied the Black Road in the old days, some discordant note that would echo in her underhearing long after the event, if that had been how Caine and Paige and Signy were taken. But as it happens, there are no such echoes: nothing reminiscent of the road or even the jangling of the firelillies she heard earlier.
            The room is silent.

Robin pales and sways, suddenly disoriented by the intense silence.  Opening her eyes, she surreptiously wipes a tear away.  "D@mn," the girl mutters under her breath, "I am NEVER going to get used to that."
            "Okay, *that* reduces the likelihood of it being Chaosi attack quite a bit." She nods to the Marquess.  "Probably green goddesses too.  Don't know about Moon-types or Rebmans.  Or new players to the field."
            Robin looks around the room feeling spectacularly unsorcerous. Abruptly, she folds her arms angrily.  Green sparks of venom dance in her eyes and her frown is enough to shake trees.
            "Fine, then!" she spits to herself.  "Call the F^ckhead."
            Taking a deep breath, she looks over at the Marquess, makes a little bow and does her best not to be too pissy.  "Milord Marquess, would you be kind enough to call th... p... fu... Prince Bleys and inform him that his daughter has been taken?"
            Oh, it's killing her, but there it is.

"But surely you wish to--" the Marquis says smoothly, a slightly malicious smile lighting his face. " No? Very well."
            He takes up the Bleys card and concentrates on it. "Your Highness, it's M."

Robin sticks only a little bit of tongue out at the Marquis while he’s calling.  After all, a little snark is a small price to pay for not having his highness the backstabbing bastard in her head.

There's a noticeable pause.

"No, rather something else. Your daughter Paige and the Regent, your brother Prince Caine, among others, have gone missing."

Another pause.

"Lady Robin, Prince Julian's daughter is here. It is she who requests your presence."

Another pause, this one longer.

Then, M brings someone through. It's not Bleys, though; it's a dark-haired woman. She looks vaguely familiar to Robin, although Robin is certain she's never seen the woman before. Her new friend is dressed in semi-transparent silks and barefoot, with jingling bells around her wrists and ankles.
            Bleys steps through behind her, dressed in silks himself, but he has on boots and a leather belt, from which his blade Werewindle hangs in its sheath. "Thank you, Marquess," he says, then turns to one of the midshipmen. "See that Lady Brij is escorted to an appropriate chamber. She is the mother of Prince Martin's beloved and must be guarded appropriately."

‘Mother of Prince Martin’s beloved’ huhn?  Robin raises an eyebrow.  That would make the belly dancer her... grandniece or something.  The girl’s eyes narrow as she gets in a good long look at Brij.  Robin doesn’t keep lists in her head, more like piles of intentions stacked around her awareness.  But grandniece belly dancer has definitely been added to a pile to be gone through once the current crisis is less immediate.

M makes a slight hand gesture that Robin doesn't recognize, but can guess is the Naval equivalent of Cadence.

As Brij is escorted out, Bleys turns to Robin. "Where did you say my daughter was?"

“I didn’t, cause I don’t know.”  Robin answers in her best ‘duh’ voice.  But she gets right on to reporting as quickly as she can.  “Reports,” she waves to the Navy guys in the corridor to source her intel, “say that Prince Caine was in his office and taken magically against his will into light and seawater.  Paige & someone named Lady Signy rushed to his aid and disappeared as well.  I’m not picking up any obvious Chaosian traces or any blatant sorcerous signs, but I’m not the best finger-twiddler in the family.”  She says to the finger-twiddler.

Bleys' eyebrows rise slightly.

Robin holds her hand out to the Marquess for the return of the Bleys Trump.  The King he can still hang on to for now.  While having the Asshole around reduces her chance of being eaten (at least by non-family enemies), there’s still always the possibility.

The Marquess offers Robin both of the Trumps she handed him.

Robin takes just the Bleys Trump back.
            “Let’s keep that one as a back-up for now, oui?”
            Then she meets the Marquess’ eyes, and with a wry twist to her lips, makes a little bow.  She owes him one for allowing her to throw his brain between her and Bleys.  And she knows it.  Snarkiness aside.

"As your ladyship wishes," the Marquess replies, with a simple nod of acknowledgement.

Bleys steps into Caine's office and tsks at the seawater stench. He draws his great golden blade and makes several passes with it. Robin can only assume this is some kind of sorcery, but it's not strong enough to impinge on her underhearing without Listening.
            He considers whatever knowledge he gained from the spell for a moment.  Then he turns to the Marquess and says, peremptorily, "Have whoever is in charge at the Rebman Embassy brought up. Now."

Okay, Rebmans.  Robin ruffles.  But still not her area of expertise.

The Marquess gives a gesture and one of the midshipmen moves off to make it so.

Bleys turns to Robin. "Excuse me, dear niece, but I think our next order of business is to contact Rebma and find out what they know. That was no Rebman sorcery; perhaps it was a mirror enchantment." He shuffles out a Trump. "Llewella may be of some assistance."

Pretty lights dance in front of Robin’s memory for a moment.  Mirror enchantment?  Her head cocks to one side. Then her gaze darts around the room looking for mirrors or other reflective surfaces as she nods in response to Bleys.

There are no mirrors visible in the room. Bleys, catching the direction of her gaze, and perhaps the line of thinking, says, "They'd be on the other end. Llewella, hello, it's Bleys. How are you?"

There's a long pause.

"That sounds absolutely fascinating, Llew, but I believe I need to deal with matters here first. You don't know anyone who would be so rash as to try to commit violence on Caine's person via mirrors, do you?"

Another pause, much briefer.

"A pity."

The Marquess smirks.

Robin echoes that smirk.

"I suggest you go to the Pattern chamber and assess from there. Contact me when you have a better idea." A moment later he closes the connection, looking disgruntled. "I mislike this a very great deal."

Robin raises an eyebrow.  Either he’ll tell her or he won’t.

"There's been some difficulty in the Pattern chamber of Rebma. Brita and Ossian are missing as well. I'd best contact Fiona." Bleys starts shuffling out his own trumps to find his sister's card.

Yay.  Robin presses her lips, but nods her understanding.  Then she cocks her head to the side as she wonders whether the Patterns vibrate with one another and if it'd be worth it to check the dead ruin in the basement.

The question is immediately moot because Bleys does not make the contact. "She's talking to someone," he explains, tucking his cards away. "We're on our own for now, at least until she calls me, which will either happen at the most inconvenient time in my working or just in time to save our lives."

Robin Hears a sudden noise, like a distant thunder, with her underhearing. The devilish smile on Bleys' face drops then, and he draws his great golden blade.

"Something happened. Did you feel that?"

“Heard it,” she clarifies/confirms with a worried nod.  And Listens more closely.

She mostly Hears Bleys throwing up a spell of some sort, and can see him drawing a quick gesture with Werewindle. He says "Out!" as if he has no time to spare for more speech.
            There's something else going on that she can also Hear. Her gut instinct is that Bleys is containing the other thing.

Hoping she’s understood him correctly, Robin scrambles for the door.  “Fall back,” she orders the naval men.  Once into the hallway, she slows and Listens again to see how far the retreat need be.

The naval men scramble back at the royal command. Once Robin is out of the room, Bleys retreats, keeping Werewindle between him and what appears to be a rapidly growing ball of coruscating rainbow energy. To Robin's underhearing, it gets louder and louder and louder as the ball fills the room, symphonically swelling as it reaches the door, and then with a final crescendo, it falls off. Robin can't tell whether it does that because of something Bleys did or not.
            When Robin can look again after the giant glowing ball has vanished, the room has been scoured to the walls and the windows have been blown out. She can hear the surprised noises of the men behind her.

"Keen!" Robin murmurs under her breath, her eyes bright with glee.

Bleys says, between hard breaths, "I hope Caine wasn't fond of anything he kept in that office." There's a half-beat, then he adds "Besides himself, of course."

Robin's green eyes dart over to her exhausted uncle.  For a moment, her fingers itch for a knife.  Buuuutttt there's too many witnesses and the King said no killing Uncles.  Pooh.
            "At least it's dry now," she shrugs.  "Besides, we still have to find him before he can be pissed at us."  She finishes with a wry tick of her lips.

"That's true. I believe a Trump is in order. You may do the honors," Bleys says.

"Okaaaayyy," Robin allows as she pulls out her beaded leather Trump pouch.  "It didn't work last time.  But that was before the big ball of flaming card magic death sooooo..." she shrugs.
            A thought occurs to the girl as she withdraws Caine's Trump. "Oo. Marquess?  Would you mind sending one of your men around to do damage control on the other side of those windows?"
            Then she concentrates on the card with a grimace of distaste.  This card dung is getting *way* too common for her.

"Who calls?"  Robin gets an image of a dizzying height, as if Caine were clinging to the side of a mountain.  He doesn't seem bothered by it.

“It’s Robin, sir.”  The dizzying height doesn’t bother Robin either.  In fact, she rather likes it.  But she keeps her mind on business – the less time using cards, the better.  “Me, Prince Bleys, the Marquess and a handful of concerned naval officers are standing outside the ruins of your office in Amber.  Are you alright and are Paige and Lady Signy with you and have you any knowledge of Brita and Ossian’s whereabouts?”
            There, she thinks that about covers it.

"Yes, yes, and yes.  Tell Prince Bleys that Prince Huon's brother Pinabello is dead again."
            Caine looks up and Robin gets a glimpse behind him.  the water is very blue and the waves are regular and it looks like an ideal site for cliff-diving from.

Robin's eyes widen and a grin creeps to her lips.  Cliff-diving is great - except for that part at the end where you get wet.

Robin hears the rumble of male voices, probably in the room with her.  While she's in a trump contact, she can't make out what they say.  Perhaps Prince Bleys is speaking to the Marquis.

"Prince Bleys?"  Robin doesn't take her eyes away from the Trump, trusting that Caine will find a way to deal with the amateur card user.  "Prince Caine answers yes to all of the questions.  And says to inform you that Prince Huon's brother Pinabello is dead again."
            Robin can't quite keep the snarl out of her voice when she mentions Huon's name but otherwise she doesn't seem to find anything odd with the statement she's relaying.

Bleys says "Bide," followed by a much more quiet "Yes, Jerod?"  It's unclear to Robin where he is, although "further away" seems logical.

Caine is continuing to climb.  He doesn't seem to Robin to be dressed for climbing, although he's dryer than she'd expect, given the state of the room he came from.
            "Thank you.  If you would tell the Marquis to expect Prince Corwin and guests shortly, that would be useful.  Do you have anything else for me?"

"Corwin!?!"  Robin stifles a shriek/snarl.
            Corwin.  And Bleys.  In Amber.  With just her here.
            White lightning shock waves of adrenaline shoot up and down Robin's spine.  And unconsciously, she backs against a wall, mantling and prepping her empty hand for a weapon.  Just a few years ago – for her -- she was on the battlefield to prevent that very thing.  With her life, if need be.
            But, but, but... so was the man she is talking to.
            Robin's gears grind furiously as she fights to stay, if not calm, at least... in the present.  'No killing uncles, no killing uncles, no killing uncles' runs through her mind in a steady rhythm.  Its intertwining and sometimes conflicting melody is 'Stay alive, stay alive, stay alive.'
            "O-okay," she grits out.  "I, I, I'll tell him."

Caine nods.  "Thank you.  And Robin?  No killing uncles."
            The contact breaks from the far end, and Robin finds herself looking at a Prince Caine's painted enigmatic smile rather than the actual one he had on as the contact faded.

Dung!  Robin thinks as she lowers the card.  She’s leaking again.  And to the man who hung Aisling out to dry.  Smart, real smart.
            Straightening up, she looks around for the Marquis.  If she finds him, she’ll pass along Caine’s message verbatim and politely asks for her Card of King Random back.

"Don't underestimate yourself, Jerod!  No one else does," says Bleys from a spot near a window.

The Marquis thanks her and motions to a young officer who is cleaning the room.  He stops what he is doing and heads towards the blown-out window.  "The Prince Corwin and an unknown Lady.  It is the Lady Hannah," he says after a moment.  The Marquis nods, and the young man leaves the room, quickly.

The Marquis holds out the card to Robin.

She takes the card back with a rueful smile.  Yep, she's twitchy.  But she's here.  And doin' what she can.  Which right now needs to be not killing uncles.
Then a name drifts through her mind.  Hannah?  Wasn't that who Solange was going to track the Iron-Eye clue with?  Hmmm... between that and the maybe grand-neice person who Bleys had hustled off to the lock-up, could be that maybe she's not so alone with uncles that would benefit from killing.

Bleys nods once.  "Good thought, but I don't.  You'd need to speak to my late brother or one of his students for such a thing.  Between us, I think that Brand was afraid of Huon.  He was never a very good judge of character."

Speakin' of uncles who could benefit from killing, there's another two winner names.  Robin's brow furrows, Brand afraid of Huon?  He was tough sure.  And their discussion did leave marks... well, she didn't grow up with Huon as an older brother, so maybe Brand had good reason.

Bleys walks in front of the mantel in Caine's office.  "Is there anything else?  There are some issues here I need to attend to, if you can spare my attention, nephew.  King Corwin the Great of Paris is arriving momentarily."

Robin can't quite repress the gagging sound.
            Then a thought occurs to her.  "Oo! Prince Bleys?  Has anyone told Jerod about Cabima?"  She bites her lip in concern.  But a small evil part of herself laughs.  If Bleys is going to throw her to enigmatic-smile-uncle, she can at least retrurn the favor.

Robin hears someone arriving outside the chamber. The Marquess says, "Prince Corwin. Prince Bleys and the Lady Robin are within."

"No idea," replies Prince Bleys.  "The question of the day is 'did he abandon his post voluntarily or was he taken against his will?'  If we find him, we can pursue your question, if it's not moot by then.  If Robin and I happen to disappear from the Castle in the next few minutes, then the answer to 'why' is likely 'because Corwin made it so'."  He smiles, broadly.

That's when Corwin walks in and gives Bleys, and then Robin, an inquisitive look.