21 - Gerard's Decision

GM: How do you react when the door next opens?

Helena: I scooch off into the corner, wrapping my arms around my knees.

GM: A quartet of particularly burly guards grab you by arms and legs and cart you out of the cell. They carry you up a flight of stairs, performing whatever limb twisting necessary to make you move, and perhaps a little just because they were not instructed to be gentle. Do you resist?

Helena: I don't resist at all, but neither do I make any attempt to have them unhand me or let me walk on my own.

GM: The room above feels like it has windows, albeit with the sound and pitch of arrow slits more than anything. They lower you into a cold bath in a large metal bucket, and two hold you down while the other pulls on your braid to some end.

Helena: "I'll do it, whatever you are trying to do," I grate out in real irritation.

GM: Sound of a knife slicing, and then the weight of your hair falls away. A pause, then, curtly, "Lose the shift."

Helena: I remove it with a businesslike motion. Does the water actually smell clean?

GM: antiseptic, actually

Helena: Regardless of the horrors to come that might imply, I cannot help but take hidden enjoyment from that now.

GM: One grasps your ankles and pulls while the other three push, ducking your head.

Helena: I am careful not to struggle, and not to breathe in.

GM: They hold you under a moment, and then let you breathe. Two go to work with scrub brushes, like they were cleaning pots or scaling fish, while the other two hold you.

Helena: The bandages around my head are still on... and all wet now, I presume.

GM: Yes. slipping from the water and the moving.

Helena: "If you want me to wash, I will."

GM: "Just shut up." They continue scrubbing, working over all of you eventually.

Helena: "Is it easier for you to not believe I can speak?"

GM: "We don't need your suggestions."

You feel a knife slide up under the bandages, and they are cut away, nicking your cheek enough to bleed freely

Helena: I lower my head and wait for them to finish.

GM: The other scrubber also stops, and then you feel a razor against your brow. It works backward, taking your remaining hair in swaths.

Helena: I try not to reveal either my sudden discomfort with the procedure, nor the mix of relief I feel to have the dirty mess gone from my head.

GM: As soon as that one is done, one man grasps either of your legs, a third your head, and the razor man moves below. They don't bother suggesting that you hold still

Helena: I am supremely capable of holding still at this moment.

GM: You escape unscathed, though a bit raw. Last, they clear your underarms, and finally lift you from the tub, one to a limb. You are put spread eagled on a metal table, and the bands around your wrists and ankles secured.

Helena: I breathe, in and out. I am in a still spot from which any action is possible. No preconception will weight my reactions.

GM: Very firmly pinned now, arms and legs near max extension. The men file out of the room.

Helena: I am relaxed so that the extension does not hurt me.
(physically relaxed, and seeking for that... martial kata state of mental relaxation and readiness.)

GM: There is a pause, long enough for you to feel centered, though perhaps they meant it to heighten your anxiety. Then firm footsteps on the flagstone floor.

Helena: Their intentions are not my concern.
(Any other background sounds?)

GM: (just the occasional bit of high tower wind)

Helena: (echoes, clues to size of environment… I am just taking all that in)

GM: (largish room, maybe - certainly larger than your cell)

Helena: (no sensory clues as to who has entered?)

GM: Same heavy step as Gerard. Not clumsy, but very firm. Only smell is antiseptic. The sound of metal tools being removed from a tray.

Helena: "Uncle," I greet him grimly. I risk his anger at that statement now, that he be more emotional if I get a chance to speak later.

GM: "Murderess," Gerard answers flatly, and then he draws a strap over your brow to secure your head to the table. Tightening a bit more than necessary

Helena: There is no pleading or trying to convince in my tone as I speak this next. These are simple facts. "You love Benedict. So do I." So do I, present tense.

GM: Once the strap is set, his hand closes around your neck, promising violence without yet delivering it. "Do NOT SPEAK his NAME."

Helena: "I did not harm him," I say simply, under his hand. I risk much now to lay the ground for a garden that may never bear fruit while I still live.

GM: His hand tightens, then relents, as if he has chosen another solution. He does not answer this time.

Helena: "His life is still at risk; I know who is trying to kill him." All simply said. No emotion. Simple facts.

GM: "Enough!" he commands, and his hand presses your jaw down. A cold metal sphere is pressed into your mouth.

Helena: I hope it is enough. It would be enough for doubt, for some men, at some times. I lie waiting.

GM: The sphere flattens such that it will not dislodge, and then he takes up another tool from the tray. With all the gentleness of one attacking a hangnail, he pries the torched remnants of your eyelids from beneath the edges of what fills your sockets. Very... slowly....

Helena: I breathe. I focus on breathing. Injury comes in battle. Pain comes with injury. Life comes by passing through pain to carry on.

Serpent, it hurts.

GM: You feel blood running at the edges of the ruin of your eyes by the time he is done. A cloth soaked in chemicals is next, adding a burn to the pain.

Helena: I do not tense. Tension limits action and thought.

GM: Then he tests the cut on your cheek, as if it were delivered with intent, to measure. Samples are taken with a harsh swab, digging at the cut.

Helena: That I allow a wince, small enough reaction.

GM: "What makes you tick?" he asks rhetorically.

Helena: I twitch, only slightly.

GM: He undoes the head strap, and you can feel his eyes searching, as if there were an answer beneath your skin

Helena: My breath is shaky, struggling to remain even.

GM: A finger trails from your neck down over the collarbone and up the arm, tracing what you don't know.

Helena: (Is everything about him consistent with Gerard other than behavior? Size of hand, voice every time, breath pattern?)

GM: (yeah - would have to be a shapeshifter of some accomplisment to fool you, even blind, you think)

Even the psychic presence is similar to that of the hands that gripped you in your blinding

"Why do you inspire such fear in my brother?"

Helena: I shake my head.

In the forefront of my mind are several circling thoughts. This (behavior) is not Gerard. Please let him not want to become what you become after you've done this to a person. This is Julian's way. and the vision of Julian stabbing Benedict while he reached out his hand to me for help.

GM: His hand removes a moment, then, "Do you have an answer you wish to share, monster?"

Helena: I put the real fear that I have into my face, and after a moment, I make a very small nod. A confused nod.

GM: The sphere in your mouth changes shapes again, and he snatches it out, dropping it into some basin and pausing to wipe his hands. "Do not presume to reach for my mind again," he warns.

Helena: ? did i ?

GM: (physical contact, intense thoughts - he might think so)

Helena: I turn slightly, pulling back from him.

GM: His hand steers your face back toward his voice. "How did you drive my brother to stab my brother? Their feud had only simmered until you came and set them at each other."

Helena: I grit my teeth, "Ben... the Lord General... he went to stop him." My breath is fast and shallow. "Afraid, because of what he did to my... mother."

GM: "Benedict surged into my brother's woods with no word, no explanation, and then the thing he chased attacked Julian. My brother took his defense too far, but would have done none if you had not set Benedict upon him." Gerard grabs your jaw. "What HE did to HER?"

Helena: I whimper. "What he did to her is all I know of it. Only a few weeks ago did I find out.

"I knew he'd beaten her. I knew he'd tried to take his seed back from her. I didn't know ... how long."

GM: "The price for the humiliation she heaped upon my brother was not paid full enough, whatever the torments you claim in her name."

Helena: 'How can you say that?" I ask in a ragged whisper.

GM: "Smaller humiliations have earned worse than you survive now. Do not presume to know the measure of a Prince's pain." He releases his grip on you, and then you hear a faint jingle of keys.

Helena: "He..." I can't even articulate the awfulness.

GM: "What did he do? What did she do to him to provoke it!!!"

Helena: "I don't know. He thought she was his brother's whore, and she wasn't. Was that enough?"

GM: A mighty slap rocks your entire consciousness, and loosens several teeth. By the time your recover your sense, he has undone your wrists from the table and secured them cruelly behind you, twisting shoulder, elbow, and wrist as they now lie.

GM: He moves around the table now, closest to your right foot.

Helena: I lay dazed, swallowing blood.

GM: Your ankles are unsecured from the table, and then he pulls you toward him, your skin screeching against the metal table.

Helena: I don't struggle, just stay pulled back within myself from him.

GM: "Have you her witchly arts? Is that the source of my brother's madness?" His breath is in your face, your body pressed against a rough work apron.

Is he muscle or wrought iron beneath those clothes?

Helena: I shake my head slowly, and then more clearly. "Witchly arts?" I manage to say.

GM: "She became all he wanted in one night. Shook his mind and heart. Will you poison all who touch you the same?" He turns, throwing you down on a rough couch nearby. "Is the cure in your skin somewhere for me to harvest?"

Helena: "No..."

GM: "What proof do I have? How can I face my brother with no peace to help him?" He sounds almost tearful

Helena: "She was a spy. To gather intelligence and his seed. An expert at it. A shapeshifter. She bested him, briefly. There was no witchery."

GM: "No mere changeling could do what she did. Rent him, she did." One hand grips your shoulder, the other a cruel grasp of your breast.

Helena: "Ah!" I bite it back.

GM: He stops suddenly, a sob, bitter in his throat.

Helena: My breath catches. I'm frozen, pushed back into the couch.

GM: "What am I to do...?" he whispers.

Helena: "What does he want from you?"

GM: "I WANT TO HEAL HIM!" he thunders. "HE asked me NOTHING!" Tears fall on your chest.

Helena: I actually sob.

GM: His hands are trembling on you now

Helena: "What he did... the thing he did... what if he is... broken? He did those things. Nothing made him do them except himself."

GM: "N-no." Whispered like a child

Helena: "I'm sorry." It is almost silent. It is completely true. I ache for this brother who loves another. There is room in me for that ache, I am surprised to find.

GM: "What do I do now?" still the child's voice, so strange from this huge, powerful man above you.

Helena: I don't know, I think, truly. "What you find right."

GM: He is silent a long time, his hands unmoving. Your arms ache double from the weight of him.

Helena: "What do you need to see?"

GM: "I... I no longer know." He almost sounds himself now, and his weight eases slightly; then one hand moves off you, the other still on your shoulder.Another teardrop strikes you, and then he snuffles, likely rubbing his eyes on his sleeve.

Helena: I wait quietly, trying to still my too-rapid breath.

GM: "With no spell to undo, no wound to heal... I am lost."

Helena: "Nothing in my knowledge heals such a thing, that does not also take away some of the self.

"Before I knew, I tried to reach to him, too. My father...." I don't choke using that term for the monster.

GM: A little coolly, "Yet you raised arms to him with no hesitation." Almost a question. It is a sudden turn, like some old thought forcing back to the fore.

Helena: I nod. "I was foolish, but between the monster and Benedict, there was no choice."

GM: "Once upon a time, my brother was not a monster." A long pause. "Would that you could have met him before it came to this."

Helena: I turn my face up to him. I can just barely believe that is possible. "If I could wish such a thing true..." I say with bitterness and regret.

GM: Another long pause. "I have sought more than revenge against you, my neice. Allow me a small respite in recompense." He frees your wrists. "You have earned your punishment... but not this." A sheet is pulled from somewhere, and draped lightly around you.

Helena: I pull it around myself and shiver in it a moment, releasing adrenaline.

GM: Gerard rises, moving toward where you think the door is, then returning to crouch near you. "The longer we are here, the more cruelties Julian will believe I have heaped upon you. If you would take your ease, and keep this secret, I would let you rest. Will you?" His hand settles on your shoulder, powerful, but momentarily kind.

Helena: Before I agree, I ask in a whisper, "Can you keep him from me?"

GM: "I can try." It sounds like all the promise he can offer.

Helena: "I don't know how bad... I don't know how much time Benedict will need to recover if he is not dead. Keep him from me that long."

GM: "I will do all I can, Helena. I swear it." He kisses your forehead, knowing he cannot undo the cruelties you have already suffered, but still making his wish there.

Helena: "Thank you." I breathe, in and out. My life today is measured in breaths. "Do what you must. I will survive."

GM: "Perhaps one day you will forgive all that I must do. I pray you survive that long, at least." It is not meant to be cold, but the chill beneath it will not be denied.

Helena: I turn my face away and put my head down on my knees.

GM: He rises, leaving you be. After a moment, you hear running water, smell soap, then the work of a towel on hands. A small pop of a cork, pouring, and the aroma of strong spirits. Gerard sighs.

Helena: "Can you tell my family and my betrothed that I ask them not to wait? I beg them to move on."

GM: An uncomfortable silence, and then, "I'm not sure I can manage such word, Helena."

Helena: "The Embassy. They have a gate there."

GM: "A gate I will not use. My brother's sanity could not spare me the trip."

Helena: "Someone there would take a note from you."

GM: "But I cannot be seen delivering such a thing. And you must know that my brother watches... consumed with it, he is...." There's something else that he's not telling you.

Helena: "What?" I ask gently. "He is what?"

GM: "It will do you no good to hear." He drinks, swallowing in audible gulps.

Helena: "Knowledge is better than none. It must be. It gives choices, limited though they are," I jut my chin towards the room's door, acknowledging my captivity.

GM: "This is no choice, my neice. Only another cruelty." His glass is refilled.

Helena: "Please," I'm terrified now. "Please tell me. Is it my family? Is he hurting my family?"

GM: Another swallow, and he is convinced that you will not let it go. "Your betrothed. He sent Trump toward you, which my brothers intercepted." He breathes pure sorrow. "I am sure Julian awaits some choice moment to reveal how he stopped your fiancee's heart after tearing at his mind."

Helena: My heart stops, too. A noise escapes me. Another. It is an animal howl that comes forth, finally. How could he be gone and I not know? I scream and cry. If guards listen outside, they have all the evidence they need.

GM: Gerard makes no move to comfort you, for he knows that he cannot.

Helena: "He was innocent in this. Innocent..." I manage to scream out.

GM: Perhaps Gerard makes some nod or gesture, but how would you know? He makes no move to silence you.

Helena: "Saras." Saras, Saras... his name is on my lips and his body in my arms.

GM: The small wind through here is so cold now....

Helena: "Let me go, Gerard. Let me go, I beg you. Or kill me. Don't let him use me to kill them. Please. Sweet Serpent, sweet Unicorn, please."

GM: "He will strike only at those that come for you, and he is convinced that no more will come. Julian does not wish a war, for then he would no longer be allowed his excesses. I cannot kill you, by Random's own order, Helena. I do not owe you enough to go against that."

Helena: "Let me go."

GM: Firmly, "Do you deny maiming a Prince of Amber?"

Helena: "Do you deny he killed one? Or tried?"

GM: A shudder, a grunt. "I pray not. I know he tried."

Helena: "Am I not a princess, too?

"I spit on that title.

"No Lord of Chaos would do as he has done, and be allowed it."

GM: "Then your mother's people are better than mine."

Helena: "Yes, they are. I tried not to judge that, but they are."

GM: "But he is my brother."

Helena: "And you let him make you a murderer along with him? You almost let him make you a torturer and rapist today. What else will he ask?"

GM: "No Prince has bloodless hands. And today is mine to own; not his."

Helena: "We would cut our brother's throat to save him the shame. Or our father's or our daughter's. He is sick. He is broken. Let me GO." ...I want all the strength and speed I have. I want her to lessen my pain.

GM: (so very slowly, you feel things coming into motion in you, switches moving)

"And if I did? To what end? So you might slick my hands with my own brother's blood by your proxy?"

Helena: "Saras was MY LIFE! He took my LIFE!"

GM: "Your man should have known better," is all the answer he can offer.

Helena: "Let me go, and I slink back to Chaos, and help Benedict heal, and then you get to choose between your beloved brothers as I had to do."

GM: He rises from his seat. "No."

Helena: "You damn Benedict to die?"

GM: "I leave the greatest among us to live or not, by his own lights. Julian fears him, even deathly wounded, too much to chase him. If he lives, he is safe where he is, and I'll not be pressed to crime against the Realm I love with some tiny guilt, for this day or any other." His voice is rising. You feel the slightest tremble as the changes begin to surface.

Helena: I stand and let the sheet drop. I am nothing but rage, now. Much as I sorrow for Gerard, his weakness let this happen, and he plans to let this happen again.

GM: Perhaps he hesitates to see you so.

Helena: "You will let him go on, until he finds some other victim for his madness. When will that victim be too close? A brother not close enough? Perhaps a sister? Perhaps the King?"

GM: "He wouldn't..." but the denial is not a certain one.

Helena: "You are the only one who knows this, Gerard. Perhaps you."

GM: "NO!" And his fist thunders on a table, but not with all the strength it should have. "He is not so mad...."

Now your nerves are singing, and you can feel cold sweat beginning to bead on you. Your heart thunders in your ears.

Helena: "He raped her while he cut her, Gerard. He ruled her by sorcery and controlled her completely and still he healed her so that she would not die while he raped her again. He raped her wounds, Uncle." Quietly, "He raped her wounds."

My arms shake, and I force them under control.

GM: the trembling will not be stilled

Helena: I pick up the sheet and wind it between my two fists to be blocking and binding weapon against sword and spear. "How many guards between here and the exit?"

GM: "You cannot..." but the refusal dies on his lips. "I'll not send you to your death, Helena." He begins to move toward you.

Helena: "I will not let you touch me until you swear you will either see me to safety or see me dead."

I calculate the known angles of the room, the clear spaces, the placement of the trays and tables.

GM: You count two trays, a bucket, several lengths of chain, a chair, the large basin, and map them all in your mind.

"I can offer you neither." Another step closer

Helena: I flip across, trading sheet for chains. Two lengths, one for binding, one for striking.

GM: They rattle long, ready at your beck. Gerard turns, seeing you committed, and rushes.

Helena: I change course instantly, letting him crash past.

GM: You avoid him, but he has a solid grip on one chain for his trouble. Do you release it?

Helena: I resist just enough as he goes by for him to commit to pulling on it, then I punch him with all my strength in the side of his head with the chain wrapped round my fist. Immediately after impact and follow through, I release it and throw myself back to the other side of the room. On my way by I test if the table moves or is fixed to the floor.

GM: You clout the side of his head mightily, but it is too much like punching an oak. He is shaken, but not stilled. Spinning to bear on you again

Helena: I'm across the room by the trays. My spare hand feels for help... A full syringe perhaps. A long knife.

GM: The tool he used on your eyes comes to hand.

Helena: "Let me go, Gerard. Don't let's do this."

GM: "If it is me or my brother, let it be me. How much do you hate him, Helena?" Again he comes, straight on.

Helena: "How much would you?" I growl. ... if we don't get out of this, leave the dials as they are. Let me die of this, rather than give Julian more to kill them all.

I let him get momentum, brace my back against the wall, and propel the metal table at speed, edge on into him with all the strength of my legs. And then dive again to the side, out of his way since he might still be coming on.

GM: The table shudders to a stop against him, and then jams back so hard you are sprawling. By the time you've recovered, he has a hand on you, and then his other finds your throat.

Helena: I jam the tool between the bones of his wrist round my throat and kick off of him.

GM: The tool goes through, but he does not let go. Squeezing, life darkening, you kick... but he will not be moved.

Helena: I pull it out. "He is a mad dog," I grate out past his grip. "Whether I hate him or not, he will bite until he bites someone you care enough about to stop him. If I swear not to kill him, will you let me go?"

GM: He hesitates.

Helena: I push back, though not violently, to gain air while he thinks.

GM: He is unmoved. "What oath would I believe from you, my neice?" giving you just enough air to answer.

Helena: "I swear on my lover's corpse." I can feel the snarl on my lips, the spittle flying. My lips are pulled back from my teeth.

GM: He releases you, almost throwing you down. "I will arrange your escape. Shut up and wait quietly before I change my mind."

Helena: I lie on the floor, my hand on my throat, and breath and sob in a ball.

GM: The soft flip of a Trump deck, then a slight cooling in the air. Gerard's voice; "Yes, Fi, I think we're at that point. Are you...?" and suddenly you're talking to Fiona. "Keep your teeth to yourself, Helena, and I'll offer you my hand."