20 - The Tower

GM: You awaken with your veins on fire, and the burn of a needle in your arm. Gerard's hand guides that needle. What little of your arms and legs that are not bandages and plaster are shackles and chains.

"You have slumbered long enough," Gerard rumbles. "It is time to face the Court, and Amber's justice." His voice lowers. "You will not squirm from this, serpent lover. But, please, try, that my chemistry might enhance your suffering."

Helena: "Benedict?" I think I mumble. The word was on my lips as I awoke.

GM: Almost hissing the words, "Still missing, so you only face Julian's justice today. Pray he is found alive, or I'll gladly melt your bones myself."

Helena: The relief I feel... I know I can deal with whatever else comes.

GM: The large syringe dry, he casts it onto a tray. After many turnings of keys, he grasps the largest bundles of your chains and yanks you from the bed to your feet, broken and torn arms twisted behind you as painfully as he can manage without separating limbs from torso. It feels as though the hellhounds made quite a meal of your legs, but it is either stand or be dragged across flagstones. Your choice as to which pain you prefer....

Helena: I stand if I can. If not, eyes closed, I hang there.

GM: It is like standing in fire, but you can stand, and even walk with him pulling you.

You are dragged into the main Audience Hall, and your chains fixed to a great ring in the floor that appears to have been tested only once before - and held against whatever was bound there. King Random sits on his throne. The Queen's seat is empty. Prince Julian stands to his left, and Prince Caine to his right. Many citizens and nobles of Amber are in the audience, including a very few faces you recall from the Embassy. To the right and left of your place on the cold floor, great braziers burn, and metal implements gather terrible heat.

Helena: I sit awkwardly, as upright as I can manage. My face is a flat mask.

GM: Julian wears his white armor, helm beneath his arm, a black silk sash covering his right eye and much of that side of his face. A maze of emotions twitch beneath his remaining eye, unreadable, almost mad.

Caine is dressed in black and green, with heavy gauntlets and an apron of blacksmith's leather. A black headband holds back his hair. His expression is that of a bemused workman

Random is dressed in the Unicorn's white and gold; colors for weddings and funerals. His face is dark, conflicted, but resolute.

The King rises, and the room hushes as he speaks; only the crackling fires in the braziers dare continue their whispers. "For the crime of maiming a Prince of Amber, the price is for the Prince to name."

Julian: "An eye."

Gerard grabs your head in two hands, facing you left, and Caine plucks a brand from the fire.

Helena: I do not struggle.

GM: He examines its cherried tip, and then points and plunges in one smooth motion, burning your right eye out. Meyani Honeir screams, and is carried out in a dead faint.

"For the crime of blinding a Prince of Amber, the price is an eye. Do you dispute this price?"

Julian agrees flatly, "An eye."

Your head is jerked to the right, and Caine presents and examines a second brand.

Helena: I try again not to struggle, but find I can't help but flinch back into Gerard's hands.

GM: His grip is like iron. The crowd will hardly see you move. Another practiced flourish, and then Pain and Darkness. Gerard lets you fall from his grasp.

Helena: I try to remain sitting. I feel nothing. "I wish to speak." I attempt to say.

GM: You droop but do not fall. A supreme effort of will raises you straight, though your face - YOUR EYES - are screaming. Your words are heard, cutting through the new hush that followed the last hissing of flesh seared to echo on the hallowed walls.

After a bitter silence, "The Crown will hear your words at a time of its choosing. Twist in what remains of your life for now." Random sounds just slightly sick to intone this last, as if obliged - no, forced - by some script of tradition. The guards surround you, and you suspect violence if you attempt to speak.

"There is another Prince to be answered, and until he comes to name his price, or until his body is returned to his family, you will remain in the dark, in the towers to rot."

Helena: I let my head fall, then, and the rest of me, and allow the guards to carry me where they will.

GM: Gerard unchains you, leaving it to soldiers to drag you to your cell.

They haul you to a dank tower room furnished with a scattering of straw and a hole for wastes, tossing you roughly to the ground before removing the majority of the steel wrapped to you. You are left with metal bands that would hold an elephant welded around your wrists and ankles, so they might chain again you at their leisure, and a rough cotton shift.

Slightly disingenuous question, I realize, but what do you do? (state of mind, emotions, thoughts of serving sentence vs. escape?)

Helena: Try not to go into shock? Seriously.

GM: You are a trembling mess for some hours - a guess, given the windowless room - and then finally your body decides that life might be worth clinging to a while longer.

Helena: When I have moments of clarity, I worry only about the amount of time passing. The window of preventing war coming from my stupidity is pretty short, I would guess. I alternate that with praying for Benedict's survival, and hoping Saras does not come looking for me, and the pointless wish of having had only another second with Julian.

GM: You feel the slightest inkling of a Trump contact during these prayers, but it ends - is ripped away, perhaps? - so quickly that there is no telling if it was even real.

Helena: I will let myself sleep only if it doesn't seem likely to kill me.

GM: At last you do sleep, a fitful and trembling experience that singularly fails to heal much or refresh at all. When you awaken, there is some brittle hardtack and brackish water waiting, pointed out by the guard who kicks you toward them and spills half your ration.

"Eat! So the scribe can make out your worthless mumblings!" And he says it just that way.

Helena: I feel around and force myself to drink some of the water.

GM: It makes you feel worse before it makes you better, but it lets you speak with less pain eventually.

Hours later, a small voiced man arrives, "To take your statement to the Crown." The only other noise he makes is the scratch of his quill as he (presumably) transcribes whatever message you have.

Helena: "I give my message for the Crown to the Crown. Please. Time..."

GM: As levelly, politely, and plainly as his nasally voice can manage, "The King is forbidden by law to grant time to a Wolf's Head. Speak to me or do not be heard."

Helena: I think of a million things to say. I don't know how long I lie there in front of him. Are you... can I touch your face, and show you? Please. For the life of my grandfather Benedict, please. And if not you... is there another who is not my accuser?"

I have to ask it, though I can only imagine he will say no.

GM: He skitters backward a step as soon as your hand moves. No more refusal seems necessary, though if you ask he will give one. "You may speak what you wish to me, but that is all. To be granted that is...." He does not want to be here, even before and beyond your 'threat' to touch his mind, but he does not finish expressing his opinion of this 'audience' you are being granted. "If there is nothing that you can say that I may write, then I will leave, and that will be the end of you for me. No one would deign to visit a Wolf's Head that was not obliged by the Crown, no doubt, so think carefully."

Helena: At the first sound of his retreat I withdraw my hand. "Please write that I say this out loud, in this forum, only because no more quiet way was allowed me, and I pray that the King of Amber hears this and no other, for I would not bring such further disquiet to his kingdom."

GM: After the slightest pause, the scribe's pen scratches furiously. There is no request that you slow, so you must presume that he can match your verbal pace.

Helena: "I attacked Julian in defense of Benedict, whom he tried to murder. If His Majesty has access to trusted sorceries greater than his brother's, he may be able to see Benedict's blood upon Julian's blade, before I wrested it from him and turned it upon him. I realize His Majesty may think to disregard this, but I beg him to recognize the danger of ignoring my statement. I believe it puts Benedict's life in further danger from Julian if that Prince were to learn that his brother lives while he is yet recuperating from the dire wound Julian dealt him.

GM: An incredulous pause here, but the scribe catches up quickly.

Helena: "In either case, I here request blood price from Julian, Prince of Amber, and charge him with the attempted murder of my grandfather and the multiple rape and torture of my mother beyond the needs of war."

GM: The scribe sits in silence for a long moment, beyond what would be strictly necessary to ascertain that your statement is complete. At last, he rises. "I will convey your words to His Majesty. May the Unicorn have mercy upon your soul...." With that (slightly odd) closing sentiment, he knocks for the duty guard, is released, and departs, the heavy door thudding closed behind him.

You do not know if each meal is a day or a fraction of one, but three times you are kicked toward brackish water and moldy bread crusts before anything of note occurs. Your body is healing, painfully slowly, but the burning sensation in your veins persists.

Helena: During this time I work on putting my mental house in order, and on moving slightly, in whatever range my injuries and confines afford me.

GM: You find that, by the second meal or so, you could stand and pace off the room - all 8 small steps by 10 of it. Your limbs are a maze of scars and scabbing, and your belly worse, but you can move most everything. Too much movement in any particular direction tends to provide a deep tearing sensation, however, so holding still and lying down hold a multitude of charms for you right now.

Some hours after the fourth laughable meal you've had here, guards come in to hogtie you with chains and force you into a sitting position opposite the waste hole. They leave, and then there is the faintest whiff of the Queen's perfume in the room.

The door closes before you hear Vialle's voice. "You may speak to me, if you wish, but I must warn that you will hear little good news from these lips. These walls will hold any necessary confidence, for now." Her tone sounds formal but faintly sympathetic.

Helena: "Tell me... what news there is, then."

GM: "My husband would like to privately thank you, for your heroism, for your sacrifices, and for your candor. With Benedict gone, however, we cannot honor your words or your call for blood price." She pauses, seemingly leaving out much.

Helena: "I deserve this cell for my failure. Does Julian not deserve one also for his?" It is a foolish and pointless remark that I regret instantly. "I am sorry. I am... not myself. I imagine it will be some time."

GM: "You have endured much. I was born to the dark; to be thrust there... I can only pretend to imagine what that must cost." There is a gentle exhaling, and then, very softly, "I am obliged to pray that none of us get what we deserve.

"If it is any consolation, there will be no war with Chaos over this. They have agreed to treat it as a personal matter. As such, however, they were obligated to leave you to our justice. There will be no extradition, no formal protest, and no visitation from their side."

Helena: "Your words are consolation. I thank you.

"I am very sorry for what I have done to you and His Majesty with my foolishness. I had it in my hand to rescue the Lord General, and leave resolution to the future. My... reaction to seeing him stabbed overcame my sense. I have been trained better than that."

GM: "You are kin to us, and we are passionate people." There is the softest swish of skirts.

Helena: When I hear her approaching I pull back from her. "Please, let us not come in contact. Someone will make... incorrect assumptions.

GM: "I promised you your privacy for this talk, but I will respect your wishes." She stands back, but does not yet go to the door.

Helena: "Unless and until the Lord General puts in an appearance then, I presume I can expect no change in my situation. As time passes, any further news you are allowed to share about matters between our realms would always be welcome."

GM: "I will rarely be available as I am now, but I will see what can be done. You are not strictly forbidden visitors, though it may be hard to find those willing to risk the trouble."

Helena: "Thank you for coming." I do not mean it to sound too much of a dismissal, for I really am grateful, but what I really want to do is concentrate on recuperating and not have to consider other elements of my fate for a while.

GM: "You are welcome, Helena. I regret that we did not have time before this...." She does not complete the thought. "I will see to it that you are given at least one decent meal when they release you." She needs give no word; the guard opens the door for her, seemingly unbidden.

True to her word, after you are unchained, a heavy earthenware bowl is thrust into your hands, and a slightly spongy wooden spoon offered to eat the stew within with. This is the first meal that does not sicken you to eat it. Guards stand to either side of you while you eat, having no intention of leaving you with an implement in private, but they do nothing to rush or coerce you.

Helena: I eat calmly but completely, and push the empty bowl and spoon far enough from myself that they feel comfortable picking them up.

GM: Despite your caution, they press you back with batons before taking away the implements - a small improvement from kicking you places, perhaps.

GM: Ten doses of trough-water and hardtack later, you hear a small voice outside your door. "Miss Helena?" Meyani asks, her voice cracking despite her efforts to be brave and calm.

Helena: I breathe. I'm not sure why it is... annoying to be interrupted from doing nothing.

I move my throat and stretch my mouth a bit to avoid sounding too horrible. "I'm here, Meyani."

GM: "They wouldn't let me bring the medicines I bought in town, but I have clean bandages and... water." She wants to say 'clean water,' but she doesn't want to lie. "They won't let me in until you invite me, Miss Helena."

Helena: I sit up against the far wall and pull my shift straight. "I thank you for coming, Meyani. I would say I don't think this is a sight for you, but that is for you to decide. I welcome you if you enter, and if not perhaps the guards would leave the bandages within for me."

GM: Even after the door opens, there is a pause. It is silent at first, but then you can hear her sniffing back tears, trying to rein in her emotions before she enters. Finally, she crosses the short distance to you, and the door thuds closed behind her, making her startle enough for the water to splash near you.

"I'm so... *sniff* I'm so sorry." She puts the bucket down and then stops. "M-Miss Helena... I don't know where to start...."

Helena: "I will deal with the bandaging. Just... talk to me about the world. Tell me how things are. What is in the papers these days? It doesn't have to be about me. Just talk."

GM: After another long moment to gather herself, she speaks; haltingly at first, but more conversationally as she accustoms herself to the dark cell and your condition.

She describes in detail the long hush at the Embassy when your arrest was announced... the fevered negotiations and messages passed through the gate... the decision to delay the Embassy Gala until after your sentencing. A few days after your imprisonment, the grand opening at last came off, and was a guarded success. No protests were lodged within or without from either side, and Prince Julian chose to absent himself from the festivities after all. Aside from a silent toast among some of the Embassy seniors, your absence went carefully unmarked.

In the weeks since, trade has begun again, though far more slowly than was originally hoped. Hendrake has begun contracting through the Jesby Trade Mission, rather than start a mission of their own, but other Houses are beginning to seek lands and contracts for their own trade ventures.

On a personal note, she has been granted modest quarters at the Embassy. She describes in fond detail the flowering plants she has begun cultivating, and she is negotiating with a breeder in Jesby to purchase a small dog for company in her off hours.

Helena: Having been interested but quiet during her talk of the trade embassy, I smile a little at her description of the flowers. "You will have to tell me about your dog when you get him."

GM: She describes several little puppies she's debating, and you note that she's spending more thought on appearance than personality. One in particular would not be suited to indoor life, as it is a warren hunting breed.

Helena: I steer her in a good direction, towards a stable breed line that I think has some of the characteristic looks that seem to be to her taste.

GM: She takes your suggestions to heart, and thanks you kindly for your help.

Helena: I pull the bucket and bandages towards me, tear off a piece of bandage (unless there are also other cloths) to begin, and (depending how awful the water is) use it to "wash" my face, being abstemious with the use of the cloths and not "rinsing" it in the bucket I need to get more water from. If there are even close to enough bandages to re-bandage my arms and legs, I ask her to please turn around while I remove the bandages from my right arm, clean it, and put new on. Then the left. Then the legs. Then the stomach. I then wash the rest of my body under the shift.

GM: You note that this water is marginally cleaner than what you've been given to drink all this time; take that as you will. There is not enough bandage for your entire body, but as you remove choice parts, enough scabbing falls away for you to determine than only your right arm still has open wounds. The careless stitchwork on your belly is grown over now, with just knots and thread sticking from the long scars.

Helena: I test one to see if it is ready to be removed.

GM: The edge stitching could be taken out in most cases, but some of the stitches close to mid-wound on the deeper injuries seem to have a bit of work left to do - perhaps in a few more days you could rid yourself of them all.

Helena: While she is talking I use the rest of the water to rinse the worst parts of the floor down the waste hole.

GM: Nothing could end the smell of rot and death here, but it is well diminished, at least.

Helena: Sitting back, finally, I put all the horrible bandages down the hole as well, and push the empty bucket towards Meyani.

"I thank you again for coming with this.Clean water is very welcome. I must ask that you go now. I need to rest again."

GM: She picks up the bucket. "It will take some time to come up with... what is necessary, but I will be back as soon as I can, I promise."

Helena: "When you can. Thank you."

I keep my expression at weary but thankful until she is out the door, then let myself fall over, using my better arm for a pillow, grateful for the smell of new bandage under my nose.

I continue to work on my calm. As I get better able to walk I make careful measure of my cell, the location of the hole, irregularities in the floor and walls, the exact size of the door -- all the things necessary to create a good picture of it in my mind's eye.

I will work on being able to access my control room. If I ever manage it, I want to get out the box representing me and rebuild the digital Helena.

GM: Three 'meals' later, you have a careful map of the cell. There are no irregularities in the walls aside from the even lines of mortar joining the massive blocks. The hole is a few handspans from the wall, and rimmed with metal; carefully seated so there is no getting it loose or pried up without tools and more strength than you can muster. The door is offset slightly, with the hidden hinges fixed in the short end of that wall, opening inward. It feels 15 cm thick, maybe more; wood faced with brass and bound with iron. There is no doorknob on your side of things.

After another dozen meals pass, you are at last able to reach the control room.

The first time you try to reconstruct Helena from the Saras boxes, it does not go well, and you fall out before accomplishing anything. After a seemingly long rest, you are able to part the lock to the stage. Do you attempt to open the other lock as well?

Helena: I can't access the room with my "sister's" lock on it without opening the storage room door too, right?

GM: You can open the door that connects the stage to the storage room to get access the long way around. Won't cause a problem that you know of.

Regardless, grasping the specially bright keystone block is sufficient for the construct version of you to reappear, though it seems 'damaged' somehow. "You have reconsidered?" it asks.

Helena: "I need your help in something. I need to tell you something I fear, and an action I think you can take that might help, and then I... need to forget what I have told you to do. Can we do that?"

GM: "I can be whatever confidante you wish, as you may remove my memories as you see fit. There is no means for me to respond in kind, however. Those connections were not well made when you were converted, or perhaps your sister broke them to some end. We don't know, after all."

[since it knows what you know, let me know what you're thinking…]

Helena: Well, basically I'm afraid that now Julian is mostly recovered, he or one of his agents will take the opportunity to steal the information that he thinks I might have. And I am afraid he will torture me, though I try not to give shape to that, and I hope that being a prisoner of the Crown affords me at least some protection. I am afraid that if he does I would not be able to resist, and so that situation is perhaps the only one I would try to escape from -- otherwise I would respect Amber's justice for a long time.

I basically want to give the Helena here what I know about the connection between my mother, the JRS, Loren, and the internal spy. I want the Helena here to stand by the lock to my shapeshifting. If Julian interacts with me in such a way that what is needed to unlock it is revealed, she should open it and get out of the way. I need to be left with enough suspicion of the situation that even under duress I will try to goad him to tell me exactly what happened to my mother by his hands.

I also need to give her any thought I have that Benedict might be with the JRS. All I know is I was in Chaos, go the call from him with the explosion, tried to Trump him back, and came through to attack Julian. My assumption is that someone else picked up my Trump of him, or he had some other safeguard that my arrival gave him time to activate. In fact, it must be the latter, because if someone in my House had him, they'd have presented that fact to the King to save me from my fate here.

Does she think she can do that? Can she hear what she needs to hear if I relock the doors around here? Of course she knows the keys, so that shouldn't stop her if it becomes necessary. I give her permission to change my settings but _only_ if I would otherwise die (like my metabolism is running so fast I'd bleed to death). She should on no account change them to spare me pain or dull my reactions, as I think he would know.

GM: "I cannot make you forget. I am sorry. If someone else makes you forget, I may keep those memories hidden for you, but that is the best I could hope to do." She pauses, thinking coolly as on a construct can. "Remember, it must be a memory shared, not merely told... but perhaps, if he can be made to recall it while close and distracted...." She 'shrugs.' "We do not know if we have the will to manage that against such as him."

Helena: There are possibly worse combinations of realizations. I'm not sure what they would be.

"I can't forget it."

What are the chances he won't come? What are the chances he thinks I don't know what he wants to know? And if he comes, and gets what he wants? I think through many possibilities, succeedingly worse.

If that happens, I share with her... she knows what I know... and he does somehow share that memory with me... "Will that be enough for _you_ to open the door?" If it is, then after the point he has what he wants, it becomes my job to get that contact and make him want to share that memory.

GM: "I've not held a key before, so I do not know if I can open the door. If I cannot alone, your help should suffice - a moment's concentration."

Helena: "If that has to be, it has to be."

I spend a lot of time thinking through strategies of conversation, of goading, of leading him to throw me in the briar patch [I'm sure there is a similar Chaosian concept], that might cause such a revelation. I pour through and study Alma's memories for keys that would bring that on... nuances of her behavior, answers or body language that seemed to trigger him. Hell, I'll use her memories combinded with mine to let the room build a study model of him.

GM: Building from memory instead of sense cues is exacting and time-consuming work, but you clearly have little but time in here. You begin the work, and I'll let you know when it is complete.

Helena: (While I think most of this is shot down as she comes to the below understandings, this is still worth doing. It might teach something about him she hasn't yet understood.)

GM: Some dozen 'meals' later, while still only part way done with your 'Julian' construct, your cell door opens, wafting in the scent of pipe smoke and fish, even over the prison stink.

Simone: Over the past doezen or so days, I would have removed those bandages from my arms and legs that I deemed no longer necessary. Any remaining middle-layers of bandages that have been neither too filthy from being
on the outside or being against my body I have used to rub myself down before disposing of them down the hole.

I will have also have removed the stitches that were ready to be loosed, not risking any that were not.

Very early on, I braided back my hair tight ot me head, to avoid it being in my face and bothering my wounds, and also to avoid it becoming a matted mess more prone to picking up filth than it is this way.

GM: You are free of all your stitches by this point.

"I have something for you," Caine says simply, "to celebrate the first drops of ocular humors we've managed to coax from the ditch you made of your father's eye." A bowl of fish stew is either eased into your hands or placed before you, depending on whether you reach or retreat from him.

Helena: I lean back a little. Real retreat is hardly useful in this place.

GM: "I'm going to have a smoke, and I'll come back for your bowl when I'm done." Again, you have a soft wooden spoon to eat with, but this time no lurking and looming guards.

Helena: Sickened with fear of him against which I must nearly bully myself into a soldier's suppression, I pour the stew down the waste hole and push the bowl and spoon towards the door.

GM: He returns some long minutes later and retrieves the bowl, making a small disappointed noise at your decision, it seems. "You needn't have bothered, Helena." There is a soft coughing noise from his direction, and then you feel a sting in your arm, followed by a softening of the sound that reaches you and a rapidly spreading queasiness that leads to unconsciousness....

When you awaken, you are greeted first by intense pressure in your eye sockets, and then dessert is served with a renewed burning in your veins. A tight bandage is wound 'round your head, contributing to the pressure, and a light cord - easily snapped, you think - holds your wrists behind you. None of your limbs are bandaged anymore.

Caine's voice whispers, "If your bandage is still in place after your next meal, I will handle your post-op. If not, it will be Gerard." Then his steps trail away, and the door thuds closed.

Helena: I lie there without moving for a considerable time. All my concentration is on not sobbing in frustration and my building worry. I don't think I would stop, if that began.

Very carefully, as passing time makes it seem I can release that tight control, I work on sensing what has been done to me.

GM: Some time later, as the pain diminishes, you realize that your eye sockets are full. Whatever it is has some perceptible weight, but has absorbed enough heat from you to be neutral against your body temperature, and is inflexible enough to exert some small pressure on the orbital bones even now.

Helena: Something to prevent my natural healing? (That would make sense, since of course they do not yet realize how very much impaired that is, even beyond their shape-shifting poisons.)

GM: The timing also fits, as Caine's earlier statement of Julian showing signs of recovery might prompt just such a precaution.

Helena: Later, I return grimly to the tasks I have set for myself, realizing now they are just makework efforts to avoid the insanity of hopelessness, but pushing that realization away.

By the way, what do I know of Caine and Gerard other than that they are allied with Julian? For example, unless he was beign disingenuous, it seemed Gerard was genuinely enraged that I might have killed Benedict, in addition to his anger that I had attacked his brother.

GM: Gerard is famous for his strength, his fierce loyalty to Amber, and his medical skills. You have no idea what his relationship with Benedict had been, but you sensed no irony, sarcasm, or subterfuge in his anger at your presumed role in the Lord General's fate.

Caine's reputation is that of an assassin for Amber, the most famous of his acts being the execution of Brand (and Dierdre) at the edge of the Abyss. Other than that, he is a cipher.

Helena: Given your reply to my question about Gerard and Caine, in sensing out what has been done to me, then, I also want to figure out what the role of the bandages is... and consider at least breaking the bonds on my hands, if not actually mucking with the bandages themselves. I have no idea if I will have time alone with whoever it is that is coming next, but if it is a choice of Caine or Gerard, I pick Gerard.

GM: Okay, so you broke the slim cord around your wrists... then what? How much are you doing with the bandages?

Helena: Depends what I think they are there for. Was it just to hold in the orbs or whatever?

GM: The orbs seem VERY well seated on their own, so you don't think so. A test? Some other purpose?

Helena: I have water at some point in here, yes?

GM: One tin cup at a time, yes, unless you someday get another visitor

Helena: I unwind the bandages carefully, remove a small section to use as a cloth, gently "clean" my face, and then wind them back on. I am taking care to neither put them back exactly nor to make them look purposely messed up.

(consistent with my cleaning behavior, but not outright disobedient.)