JULIAN

Pursuit
There is a panther stalks me down:
One day I'll have my death of him;
His greed has set the woods aflame,
He prowls more lordly than the sun.
Most soft, most suavely glides that step,
Advancing always at my back;
From gaunt hemlock, rooks croak havoc:
The hunt is on, and sprung the trap.
Flayed by thorns I trek the rocks,
Haggard through the hot white noon.
Along red network of his veins
What fires run, what craving wakes?
Insatiate, he ransacks the land
Condemned by our ancestral fault,
Crying: blood, let blood be spilt;
Meat must glut his mouth's raw wound.
Keen the rending teeth and sweet
The singeing fury of his fur;
His kisses parch, each paw's a briar,
Doom consummates that appetite.
In the wake of this fierce cat,
Kindled like torches for his joy,

Charred and ravened women lie,
Become his starving body's bait.

Now hills hatch menace, spawning shade;
Midnight cloaks the sultry grove;
The black marauder, hauled by love
On fluent haunches, keeps my speed.
Behind snarled thickets of my eyes
Lurks the lithe one; in dreams' ambush
Bright those claws that mar the flesh
And hungry, hungry, those taut thighs.
His ardor snares me, lights the trees,
And I run flaring in my skin;
What lull, what cool can lap me in
When burns and brands that yellow gaze?
I hurl my heart to halt his pace,
To quench his thirst I squander blood;
He eats, and still his need seeks food,
Compels a total sacrifice.
His voice waylays me, spells a trance,
The gutted forest falls to ash;
Appalled by secret want, I rush
From such assault of radiance.
Entering the tower of my fears,
I shut my doors on that dark guilt,
I bolt the door, each door I bolt.
Blood quickens, gonging in my ears:
The panther's tread is on the stairs,
Coming up and up the stairs.

-Sylvia Plath

Key 13. At first the figures in this card: the enormous gray horse, its rider and the five smaller riders trailing off behind the first seem to be flying, for the black color of the high hills they traverse is almost the same color as the starry starry night above them. The trees are small Halloween traps of broken branches to either side of the glittering party, all in white, and its leader is tall, his wicked wise white face the closest thing to a moon in the card. His eyes are blue, passionless, cold, and his hair is blacker than the night around him, stark and defiant where it brushes against the glimmering white armor he wears. He carries in his hand a sword whose blade gives off a faint white light, and about his neck he wears a golden horn.
Although he still maintains that he prefers any expression of order to complete and utter Chaos, Julian can never be truly happy in Dara's Amber. Arden has been twisted into the Deadwood, Fiona has rebelled and been chased into Shadow with Bleys, and Caine has retreated to Chaos to plot and plan. Ever loyal to even the shadow of Amber, Julian remains and offers friendship to the new regime. He has become the Consort of the Queen, although the comfort and strength that they offer one another has very little to do with physical solace. Julian's release comes, as it always has, in the hunt, and his White Company is feared throughout the whole of the First Shadow.

Julian was strangely absent through most of the recent conflict, and now is staying full time in Amber to be beside his queen as she nears the birth of their daughter.

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