It's all your own fault, Jeremy.
You read the books and heard the gossip--Phil Dick and L. Ron Hubbard, really alive somewhere on a mysterious island, where the aliens or whoever had left them. You alone knew the place to start looking was upstate New York, with a name: Evelyn Flaumel. Because Roger Zelazny was on that island too.
It was a hard trail to follow, and you were careful, in case someone figured out what you were doing. You were tired of writing web site copy. It would be quite lucrative to bring three of the greatest SF authors of the twentieth century back from the dead. Maybe Roger would write the rest of the short stories for Amberzine at last.
But you weren't careful enough. On reflection, it had to have been the man who gave you the map to Noonah. You disregarded his warning that the search was more rewarding than finding the object of your desire. Later, you realized that you should have known who he was, even if he looked more like you than Denis Leary*.
With the map to Noonah, you thought you'd found them, and you had. But it was a trap; Noonah wasn't a Caribbean island and never had been. When the sky outside the chartered plane turned that peculiar color, you knew what had happened, and who the man had been. You didn't bother telling the pilot to turn back when the storm hit; it was far too late for that.
The crash and the stormy sea claimed the pilot's life. You swam to the island, which proved to be well-stocked if short on company. Once the inhabitants realized you were no danger to them--were a fellow prisoner, in fact--they came out to help you.
There were four people in Noonah. The three authors shared food, water, drugs, and knowledge of their captor.
Evelyn Flaumel was the fourth person in Noonah, and she was quite mad. She couldn't break out of Noonah and go home to Amber, but she could do things in Noonah. She could twist probability to take her madness out on her companions. And she does.
The months since you swam ashore have been a living hell.
Some days, she thinks she's in Versailles, or worse, in Amber again, and the fabric of Noonah shifts to meet her desire.
Sometimes she thinks you're her family. Roger is Corwin, Phil is Dworkin**, and Ron is Caine. You're her baby brother, and she pleads with you to let her come home. When you look in the mirror these days, sometimes you think you see his face.
On the bad days, she knows who you all are, and where. She's still beautiful, even if she's mad, and she knows it. Like some deranged Gloria Swanson, she lies on her chaise-longue in a cropped T-shirt and jeans, rubbing her belly, saying "Kiss me, Jeremy, kiss me right here."
Random has a wicked sense of humor.
* Jeremy thinks Random should be played by Denis Leary in the movie. It's not a bad casting, but not the one I'd make.
** Philip K. Dick was a shadow of Dworkin in the Amberway II game, in which Jeremy and I both played.
Comments from the judges:
"Nightmares will Yoda have....."
"Little long but I found it interesting and has raised a lot of curious thoughts and streams of subconsciousness."
"Place three very different SF authors in a blender, set on 'distort'. Ouch!"