Undertow — Blades's Background
Blade, Son of Bleys
© 2004 Chris Butz and Simone Cooper
Background:
Blade was born in the shadow Ravenna in the old universe. Ravenna was a fast-time shadow that still hadn't emerged into the steel age when Bleys came racing through. He spent only one night there, but one night was long enough to father a son. Bleys was fleeing from the pursuing forces of Amber, following his and Corwin's failed attempt to assault Kolvir and deny Eric the Crown of Amber. He needed aid and Villania, Blade's mother, was willing to accommodate the charming stranger.Nine-months later, Blade's birth fulfilled a prophecy and set off a chain of events in Ravenna. Villania was a powerful sorceress, a blood witch. Blood sorcery was one of several different magical disciplines practiced on Ravenna, and arguably the most powerful-as well as the most insidious. For years now, Villania had used her blood sorcery to control the king and his son, and to effectively run the kingdom from behind the throne.
Ravennians had several prophesies concerning the end of time. One of the signs that the end was near was that a blood sorceress would have a son. "And one of the blood witches shall bear a son with hair of fire and eyes of ice. As the starlit blade foreshadows death, so will he usher in the end of days." Ravennians were a light-skinned people with dark hair and dark eyes. When the son of Bleys was born, with bright red hair and ice blue eyes, there could be no doubt that he was the child of prohpecy.
Fear seized the kingdom that Villania controlled, and word spread far beyond its borders. The "starlit blade" had arrived. Before she could even pick a name for him, her son was already known as "Blade" by all in the palace. Blade grew up in a palace filled with intrigues, the son of a powerful sorceress, whose birth foretold disaster, and with the air of one who knows that he is destined for greatness.Blade's instinct for palace intrigue was almost preternatural. Indeed, it was due, in part, to Blade's careful ear that some of the plots against he and his mother were discovered. Never-the-less, Villania's position in the palace became more tenuous as other endtime prophesies were fulfilled and people sensed that doomsday was nearing. Fear drove politics and more and more of the king's advisors and relatives were siding against Villania. She did whatever she had to to hold them off until Blade was ten years old. She had to wait, for she could not perform the ritual she required until then.
Blood magic was tricky. Some rituals could only be performed successfully if the blood was given with consent. According to the laws of magic, a child was not old enough to consent until he or she had drawn breath for ten years and a day. When that day came, Blade consented to his mother using his blood in the Ritual of Summoning. Demonstrating greater strength of mind than she realized she possessed, Villania cast a ritual that opened a hole through the barriers that separated shadows and she spoke with Bleys.
Blade only ever heard the conversation from his mother's end, but he understood what was being said. "Bleys of Amber, can you hear me? It is I, Villania of Ravenna. [pause] I am sorry if this is not a good time, but I have contacted you as early as I was able. [pause] I have your son with me-our son. [pause] He is right here with me, step through the portal if you would see him. [pause] Yes, I can hold it open for another minute or two, but do not delay, my strength is waning." Less than a half minute later Blade saw his father for the first time.
Blade stepped through the portal in full combat gear. It was obvious to anyone that he was on his way to a battle. He bent over and looked at his son for the first time. He saw it in the eyes-there was no question. Blade was his. He stood erect and looked back at Villania. He seemed to think for a moment and then decided about something.
"Thank you for contacting me, Villania. I'll be taking the boy with me." Villania furrowed her brow.
"Not yet, you won't. I have some important questions to ask, first. Blade's birth fulfilled the first of our Apocalyptic Prophesies. The end is supposedly near. What does it have to do with you and your visit to our world?"
Bleys smirked a little for a moment. "My son fulfilled a doomsday prophesy? Cool. Look, Villania, I'm sure this is of the utmost concern to you and I'd love to stay and chat and maybe do more than chat, but I have a battle to go fight or Amber will fall. As for the end of your world, I wouldn't worry too much about that-there isn't anything you or anyone else can do at this point to prevent that. Once the Pattern is repaired, everything will re-order itself. In a few days or less, your entire world is going to be destroyed. Hopefully, it will be replaced with a new one. If not, then we're all screwed."
Villania was shocked, not only by his revelations of Ravenna's impending destruction, but with his nonchalance about the entire situation. She insisted on coming with him, wherever he was taking the boy. Bleys said no chance in hades. Villania insisted that if she were not going to safety, then neither was Blade. "He is blood, you are not," replied Bleys just before he drew his sword in a lightning fast flick and drove it through Villania's heart.
Blade stood there momentarily stunned. He didn't know what to think. Villania was his mother, but two seconds ago, tried to use him as a bargaining chip to save her own life. Bleys was a total stranger who had just taken his mother's life without a moment's hesitation. Now he pulled out a card and seemed to concentrate for a moment. Blade thought about drawing his dagger and shoving it into his father's liver while the man focused on this card of his. But, Bleys was the way out. He was Blade's only chance of surviving the coming apocalypse that Blade himself had heralded.
Blade looked down at his mother who was still barely breathing, lying in a pool of her own blood. Weakly she reached out a hand to her son. Then he looked up at his father who had finished with his card. He was still holding it, but there was a faint, multicolored aura surrounding him. Bleys offered him a hand as well. For a moment, Blade stood between his dying mother and cold-blooded father as both reached out for him. Then Blade made his choice and took his father's hand. He never even looked back as Ravenna vanished in the darkness.
In the camp, Blade could see that this was a serious military force. It didn't take him long to determine that several thousand men were within sight and that thousands upon thousands more lay beyond them. Bleys spoke briefly with his lieutenant who wanted to know what Bleys was doing with a kid. Bleys would take care of it, he said. This was a critical time, Blade could tell. Somehow, he sensed that the outcome of this battle mattered to the fate of the universe. His father could not be baby-sitting Blade while this fight went on. Bleys pulled out another one of the cards. This time, Blade heard only his father's end of the conversation.
"Hey, Gerard. I need your help. [pause] Turns out I have a son I didn't know about. I have him with me. Look, I can't take him to Chaos with the troops and I don't have time to make any arrangements. I need you to take him for me. [pause] Well, if you're safe on Kolvir's Pattern during the repair, then he should be, too. [pause] No good-I don't have an extra Trump of you and I don't have time to make one of him. [pause] Well, I guess he'll just have to walk it. [pause] No, I'm not kidding. [pause] I don't know-he looks about ten. [pause] Well, kid or not he's just going to have to suck it up and make it, cause I don't have any other options, right now. This is the only chance the boy's got. His odds in the middle of a battle on the edge of the Abyss aren't any better. Besides, I can't risk having any of my men do something stupid to try and protect him-you know how important this fight is. [pause] Okay, we're coming through."
Then, Bleys again proffered his hand to Blade and the two of them stepped through a second Trump contact, this time emerging in Amber. So, moments after meeting his father for the first time, Blade met Gerard. Bleys introduced them, and then pulled out a card again and was gone. Gerard was not particularly thrilled with being saddled with the responsibility of keeping Blade alive during the next few hours.
Blade had arrived at a bad time, he quickly deduced. He asked Gerard about this. Gerard confirmed that the universe was in the middle of some profound changes, and things were a bit hectic. But he did congratulate Blade on some fine timing "if Bleys had found out about you one day later, you d have been history, just like the rest of the universe. As it is, your odds of survival still aren t great."
Blade asked what he meant by that and Gerard explained briefly about the Pattern how Oberon was about to repair it, how the universe would be unmade and (hopefully if the repair was successful) remade. But to survive the Unmaking, a body had to be in one of several very specific locations. They would survive the Unmaking here, by standing at the center of the Pattern under Castle Amber. The catch was no child had ever before walked the Pattern. It was very unlikely that Blade would survive the attempt.
Only hours later, Oberon checked in with Gerard one last time before leaving for the Primal Pattern. It was the only time Blade ever met his grandfather. Then, he and Gerard proceeded to the dungeons and eventually arrived in the Pattern room. There, Gerard explained to him what walking the Pattern was like and marched him over the beginning of the Pattern. Blade was to go first so that, if necessary, Gerard could carry his dead body to the center.
Gerard grabbed Blade by the back of the neck and pushed him onto the Pattern. Then, Gerard stepped on behind the lad. Blade's first and only walk of the Pattern began with his mind being assaulted by a whirl of images. Were they from his own mind or from the Pattern itself? Blade did not know, but he followed Gerard s instructions: keep moving forward no matter what; if you stop, you die. Nothing else matters. Blade tried to ignore the images and sensations he felt and focus on the only thing that mattered: survival.
His very life depending on his will alone, Blade somehow clawed his way to the center and collapsed with Gerard still behind him. Blade was not conscious of anything after that. He awoke sometime later in a bed in the Castle. Gerard was out helping Dworkin prepare the funeral parade that would take Oberon s body down the Black Road to his final resting place in the Abyss. From the ramparts of Castle Amber, Blade watched the procession leave.
Then began Blade's long stay in Hell. Due to fluctuations in the time flow between Amber and Chaos, it was nearly a decade before the other Amberites returned from their victory in Chaos. Gerard became Blade's foster father. and Blade's life went from bad to worse. Gerard was a harsh taskmaster, constantly demanding perfection plus some. When Blade failed to live up to Gerard's impossible standards, Gerard would brutally punish the boy on occasion beating him to within an inch of his life, but usually humiliating Blade before the underlings.
Blade quickly grew to hate Gerard, a situation only complicated by the facts that Gerard was the first father figure Blade had known, and that every once in a while (for no discernible reason) Gerard was suddenly very pleased with Blade's performance and would shower the young man with praise and reward. Blade's relationship with Gerard was about as dysfunctional as it could possibly be, but, for a number of reasons, Blade never did anything to deliberately provoke his foster father.
The first was that he knew Gerard could always beat him. No matter how hard he tried or how good he got, he was never powerful or skilled enough to beat Gerard, and Gerard made sure that Blade was clear on that point. But, even more powerful of a reason was the fact that Blade desperately sought Gerard's approval. As Blade's first father, Gerard wielded extreme psychological and emotional control over the boy and he used it with impunity.
Blade was driven to seek Gerard's approval, which was only sparingly apportioned, forcing Blade to seek greater and greater levels of achievement to try to impress his foster father. But, since what he did seldom measured up (regardless of how hard he tried), Blade grew to hate Gerard for the ludicrous standards of accomplishment he expected from Blade. Within a few years, Blade longed for the day that his murdering father would return for him.
It was shortly after his 19th birthday (a day on which Gerard stripped and beat Blade in front of the castle staff for daring to change the supper menu without Gerard's permission) when the elders, including Bleys, returned to Amber. Blade spent some time with his biological father for the first time in his life. He probably would have developed as terrible a relationship with Bleys as he had with Gerard, except that Blade was (for all practical intents and purposes now) a grown man and much of his psyche had already been formed.
Bleys took his son to a fast-time, high-tech shadow called Kwantum where he set up Blade with all the resources the young man needed to continue furthering his education. There, Blade used a large virtual reality simulator to further refine his understanding of combat, both large scale and personal. He also learned a great deal of how technology worked. Bleys would stop in and visit him from time to time, and the two of them got along tolerably well but Blade had never forgotten what Bleys had done to him or how different things would have been if Bleys had brought Villania along rather than killing her!
Eventually, Blade determined that he had learned as much in Kwantum as he desired. He was ready for experiences in other worlds, so he prepared to make his first solo journey through shadow. He had minor success, slogging through a few shadows, but hit more snags than anything else. Finally, after a day or so of arduous travel, Blade found himself in a rough spot, having run afoul of some soldiers in another high-tech shadow near Kwantum. He would probably have gotten himself killed if it weren't for Bleys s timely arrival. After Bleys rescued him, he tore Blade a new one for wandering off into shadow alone.
Blade objected that he wanted to go elsewhere, he was tired of life in Kwantum. Bleys agreed to take him to someplace where Blade wanted to live, but extracted a promise from him that Blade would not attempt to leave his new home until Bleys determined that he was ready to learn to walk through shadow.
Today, Blade lives in shadow Torveth, an Earth-like world with fully functional magic and 1930s and 40s technology, not too distant from Amber (less than a day's hell-ride away). Several fey-like races interact with humanity (and seem to have taught magic to humans), and other fantastic creatures, though rare, do exist. Sort of a post-steampunk world. There are three dominant cultures on the continent that is at the heart of Torveth's political intrigues. Since this area is also where the finest goods and services are available, this is naturally where Blade makes his home.
Blade lives on a sprawling estate just outside of one of the largest cities on the continent. He has easy access to the finest in liquor, wine, food, clothes, servants, women, vehicles, entertainment, and a whole world of luxuries. Visiting Amberite cousins are treated to a level of hospitality that one might find in few other places in the universe. Blade lives in the lap of luxury. But, Blade also spends a fair amount of time alone from his women, servants, and fellow adventurers. His mansion has an entire wing that is off limits to everyone.
This wing contains his work-out equipment (so that he can keep his sculpted physique and always looks good), a virtual reality room that allows Blade to preserve his fighting techniques (imported from Kwantum), and a computer library that contains far more volumes than he ll ever be able to read (also imported from Kwantum). A conventional library stocked with thousands upon thousands of books on hundreds of different subjects is located in the public area of the mansion. There is a portrait of Bleys kept in the library, which functions as a Trump, a gift from his father affording him a rapid means of communication should he be in trouble.
Once settled on Torveth, Blade began to affect the lifestyle of a playboy primarily for the purposes of convincing his Amberite relatives that he was no threat to anyone. While he held out little hope that this façade would fool either of his fathers, he did hope that it would convince his aunts, uncles, and cousins to underestimate him. As is true for so many, however, Blade's thirst for parental approval drove him to do things he would otherwise never consider: to wit, joining the Amber Expeditionary Army, commanded by Bleys.
To preserve his cover as a harmless fop, however, Bleys provided Blade with a ring that masked his Amberite aura. Utilizing the ring and a simple disguise, Blade served his father for years, leading a special forces team, without being found out by his Amberite relatives. Yet, for all his efforts, Blade seems no closer to winning his father s pleasure than if he had done nothing. Perhaps that is part of the reason that Blade hides his true self under the guise of a rake.
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other writings: Background, Quiz, Blade and Rio, Undertow log, "Blade and not Rio", "Blade and Corwin", "The Promise of Power", "An Open Letter to the Family"