Winds That Will Be — Aedan's Journal
"Love is Always Complex. People are Difficult to Understand"
Aedan's Journal. Session 3-3-01, Part Two.
© 2001 Todd Worrell
In the morning, Deirdre and I spoke at some length about recent events. I told her of the appearances of the Unicorn, the running theories questioning the beast's motives, and Random's failed attempt at fixing the Pattern that got him and Fiona killed. She listened quietly for the most part and asked me a bit about myself. The usual, egotistical stuff stuck in my throat. I didn't say much at all. I mean, it was surreal to be sitting on her bed talking to her, actually talking to her. When I was a kid I had rehearsed what I would say a hundred times, but ten years of the hard life with Caine must have beaten it out of me.
I was getting hungry, so I said my goodbyes to her and went to clean up. I bathed in extremely hot water, twice. It helped some, but my fingers and toes were still tinted blue.
Most of the usual gang was at breakfast. Gregory looked disheveled and grumpy, nursing a cup of black coffee. Magni, on the other hand, looked amazingly well-rested. He was wearing semi-formal attire, a lacy shirt and half-jacket in place of his usual bathrobe and slippers. I made a mental note to try to discover what drugs he was on and find out where I could get some.
I settled in with a heaping of hashbrowned potatoes, two bowls of hot oatmeal, and three glasses of juice. I was still cold, so I called a servant over. He looked puzzled at my request, but went to get it anyway. Gabriel arrived wearing his bathrobe and slippers. Perhaps, I thought, there was some sort of requirement that someone be dressed like a slob at breakfast. It had been Magni's turn, but now it was Gabriel's.
According to Brand's son, I had been out of circulation, so to speak, for only six hours of local time. I figured I had been in Gealorea for about two hours, which left four hours freezing in the Big Black Nothing. It could have been four days or four months of Abyss-time for all I knew.
The servant returned with a basin of steaming hot water. At my direction, he set it beneath my chair. I peeled off my shoes and socks and plunged my feet in. Aaaahhh. Magni stopped eating.
In fact, everyone seemed to be done eating, so we talked instead. Apparently my relatives had been successful in returning Finnvarra's statue to its elfin form. However, the King of the Fey was badly wounded and mostly dead. Giselle had taken his body to the Fey court to speak with her brother Lugh about it.
The Inn at the Crossroads had been destroyed by the Unicorn, shortly after it assembled itself. Also, the Derga didn't survive the destruction. Oh, and Finnvarra's consort had never actually turned into Deirdre. Instead, it was a silvery phantom. The phantom turned into Deirdre herself approximately two hours before I arrived, which would have coincided with the moment I vacated Deirdre's body and returned to my own. I recalled with a shock that I had been a woman, for a while. Of course, since it was my mother's body, and encased in full armor, I hadn't explored it very much.
The whole experience was too weird, so I didn't mention it.
Gabriel, however, did. He had been the thing pursuing me into the phantom construct's consciousness. He hadn't asked, and had no right to be there. I was rather angry at him. Then I was told that Deirdre had taken over my body and retaliated against him, sword in hand. That served him right.
People assumed that I had switched places with Deirdre, somehow. So I told them of the endless arctic boredom that I had vacationed in. They were particularly interested in the Seraph, and made me repeat my description of it.
"That sounds exactly like the thing I saw when I linked mentally with the Fount of Power," Gabriel said.
"Was it hovering in the Abyss?" I asked.
"I don't know," Gabriel admitted. "It was hovering in my brain."
He rummaged in his bathrobe and pulled out a folded piece of paper. It was a sketch of an androgynous, ghostly figure, with high feathery wings and a scythe.
"Was this what your Seraph looked like?" Gabriel asked.
"Could be," I said. "It was shrouded in fog the whole time."
"This…being showed me the entire universe," Gabriel said, "all decaying, all irrelevant."
"What does that mean?" Magni asked.
"I don't know," Gabriel answered. "Brand knocked down the door and began yelling at me."
"I'm so glad that he's fully recovered," Gregory opined.
I took the sketch and looked at it, squinting and trying to make it look blurry.
"What did its voice sound like?" I asked Gabriel.
"Umm…like a really loud whisper."
"That's the same thing I saw." I handed him back his sketch. As I did so, he noticed the scars on my hand. I had to explain that I had gotten them when I had touched the Seraph. He cast a spell and declared that my scars contained the same energy that had dissipated out of the hole in the wall when the Unicorn died. Was it the same energy contained in the Unicorn's horn? I would have to ask Gwydion the next time I saw him. Gabriel accused me of making a deal with the thing in the Abyss to betray Amber. I laughed and made a mental note to learn what drugs he took and avoid them.
My honest denial angered him, so Gabriel started to leave. He announced he was going to hunt through Shadow for someplace that wasn't "decaying." How he intended to find the place, or what it meant, I didn't ask. It would have just set him off explaining that morning's latest theory. As he walked off, Magni dragged Gabriel's plate over in front of him and finished off the remnants of a burrito.
Just as we were finishing off round one of breakfast and ready for round two, the servants disappeared. Normally three or four stood nearby while others shuffled food and drink to us from the kitchen. That was odd. For a moment, thought we were on the verge of being attacked. I scooted my chair back and watched the doors.
Slowly, the kitchen door opened. Benedict was backing through the door. Both of his hands were holding a tray of food. He turned, regarded us for a moment, before walking over and sitting down at the table.
"Good morning, uncle." I said to him.
"You look very…serious." Benedict poured some milk on his cereal and began spooning it mechanically into his mouth.
Flora and Deirdre arrived together. My mother was wearing a black court dress, functional without being too fancy. Her hair had been washed and brushed and hung below her shoulders. Flora was dressed in a green and gold dress and her hair was down as well.
Benedict finished eating and departed. The servants returned and took Flora's and Deirdre's breakfast requests. My water had gotten cold, so they took the basin away as well. Gabriel returned, dressed in riding clothes. He sat down and looked at his plate with a puzzled expression on his face. Magni kept a straight face.
Caine had educated me in the family rules of etiquette. I told Deirdre about Martin's impending coronation, which was scheduled for the following day. Gabriel asked her that he be judged by his own actions, not his father's. Mother was very polite, perhaps too much so. I was unable and unwilling to restrain my feelings. I told Gabriel so in no uncertain terms. He backed down. Flora changed the subject.
"Gabriel," She said. "Is your father planning on attending the coronation ceremony tomorrow?"
"I think he is," Gabriel answered.
"That will be interesting," Gregory remarked.
"What do you mean by that?" Gabriel puffed up in pretend defensiveness. Had he actually mocked himself?
"Careful," I said. "He's been known to stab."
"Or incinerate," Magni added.
"Or postulate." Gabriel poked fun at himself. Everyone laughed.
"Your generation," Deirdre gestured at us, "seems to be more at ease with each other than ours." Flora smiled sweetly and said nothing.
"Perhaps events have caused us to band together," Gabriel said.
"Fellowship in adversity?" Deirdre suggested.
"Something like that," Gabriel agreed, "but we were friends before all this happened."
"I understand that you cared for your father." Deirdre studied Gabriel over her coffee cup. Around the table, people listened earnestly.
"Yes," Gabriel acknowledged, "when he was ill."
"I appreciate filial devotion." Deirdre set her cup down and pointedly didn't look my direction. She's playing a game, I thought, and we are but pieces, myself included. I took notice of that. For all that she was my mother, I didn't know her very well. In fact, I didn't know her at all.
"He has recovered." Gabriel said.
"Does he want to speak with me?" At that moment, I noticed that Deirdre was sitting perhaps a foot away from the table's edge. One hand was still, resting on the table. The other was below the edge of the table, out of sight.
"Yes."
"I hope you won't think less of me if we argue." Deirdre smiled and my heart twisted to see it. I steeled myself.
"Do you want some company?" I asked her.
"I wouldn't want to be unladylike in front of you."
"That doesn't matter to me," I said. "I only ask that you be honest."
"Aedan," Deirdre lowered her head and regarded me. "I have no talent for deception, as Flora would tell you."
"I will speak with him, if you wish." Gabriel stood politely.
"Thank you, but no. I'll be in touch with him."
"Very well. Please excuse me." Gabriel left again. Magni hurried after him. Flora struck up a conversation with Gregory as the servants brought food. Flora ate very little, but Deirdre finished several platefuls of steaming hot food and drank eleven or twelve glasses of juice.
Flora and Gregory walked off together. I waited for Deirdre to finish eating before saying what I had been holding back.
"I want to be there," I told her.
"Do you?"
"Yes."
She looked out the window. The moment stretched out.
"If there's any of the Brand left that I knew, I'll kill him."
"Thank you," I felt relieved. "That reassures me."
"Do you really want to be present?"
I waited before answering. I had waited my whole life for my mother to return, against all odds. It was too soon to lose her now. If she and Brand were going to fight, I wanted to be there. If she killed him, fine. If he killed her, I would kill him or die trying.
"I do," I said.
She watched me for several moments. I felt her gaze upon my skin and I didn't look away.
"Come, then," She stood. I stood next to her and offered her my arm. She placed her arm in mine and smiled. "It has been too long since I have walked in Amber's gardens."
* * *
I was four years old, walking in the "Lady's Garden," as Samineh called it. My mother had brought flowers from far away and planted them in Tanann's commons. People remarked that they were unlike any they had ever seen. Bright blues, deep purples, and every shade between, arranged in a wild array.
I ran among the flowers and picked a handful. I didn't arrange them in a bouquet as much as I just grouped them together. I handed the cluster of colors to my mother.
She smiled at me, as she often had. I guess I was a wild child, always running from one place to the next. My mother wasn't home all the time, so when she was I was constantly excited and trying to please her.
When she accepted my flowers, she held out her free hand to me. I reached up and took it. We walked through the sea of night blooms to the very edge of the cliff.
Below us, the folk of Tanann went about their daily business. I looked for and found my favorite glassblower. Unwyr the Bald had created the magnificent mobile that hung above my bed. Every night I would stare at it until I fell asleep.
The town ended at the edge of the sea. I counted about three dozen little boats bobbing in the waves. The sky beyond was layered in sheets of gray as it always was.
My mother squatted down next to me. Like some of the women in the village, she wore pants. She pulled me back from the edge and wrapped her arms around me.
"Aedan, do you see that man by the bakery?"
"Yes." A small figure was standing outside the bakery, waving his arms. We were too far away to hear what he was saying.
"What is he doing?"
"I don't know." I turned my head and looked over my shoulder. Mom's face was right next to mine.
"Could you tell what he was doing if you were down there?"
"Of course!" I clapped my hands together, thinking I had solved a riddle.
"How close would you need to be?"
"Um, close enough to listen?" I ventured.
"Then you would know?"
"Well, I could hear what he was saying," I said. "That would explain what he was doing, right?"
"Do people always tell you exactly what they are doing?"
I thought of Samineh. She was always busy with something in the keep. Sometimes she explained it to me. Other times she didn't make any sense and I kept asking her questions until she threw her hands up and said I would know when I was older.
"No," I admitted.
"Do people always know what you're doing, and why you're doing it?"
"No," I smiled, thinking of my secret hiding place in the Bone Orchard.
"What if you explain it to them?"
"Mmmm. No, even then they sometimes don't get it."
"Why?"
I looked back at her again. She was very beautiful. I would have thought so even if everyone didn't say so. A single tear rolled down her cheek. I wiped it away with my sleeve.
"Mom, you're crying."
"Why don't people understand you, even when you explain?"
"I don't know." I said.
She didn't talk for a long time. I wanted to say something to make her stop crying, but I didn't know what to say. She turned me around and hugged me for a while. I cried too. Then she put her hands on my shoulders and held me at arms length.
"Aedan," she looked me in the eyes, "you can never understand another person, no matter how much she explains, or how much you think you know him, or how…close she is to you. You can only guess."
I nodded as if I understood. I didn't, but I swore at that moment to always remember those words so that when I was older I would know what she meant.
Deirdre took my hand in hers and stood. We sniffled and composed ourselves and began to walk back to the keep.
"You can only know yourself." She said, looking down at me. "Know yourself, and you will know as much as you can about other people."
She said goodbye the next morning and went away for years and years.
* * *
We were walking again, twenty-five years later. It was a different garden, a different castle, and I felt like a different person as well. At least I no longer had to reach up to hold her hand. With her wrist resting in the crook of my elbow, we wandered the grounds.
"Do you remember speaking with me in Tir na-Nog'th?" I asked her.
"That wasn't actually me," Deirdre said. "It was a construct of sorts. When I returned last evening, I gained some of its memories. The events in Tir are like a dream to me."
"To me as well," I said.
"Flora told me that when you came down, your hair was like this."
"Yes," I smiled. "It was a healthy shade of black before." I eyed her long tresses. Her hair was still the thick, midnight black waterfall I had played with as a child.
She smiled coyly at me, accepting my implied flattery without appearing to let herself be flattered. She was still very beautiful. That reminded me of something.
"I have something for you," I said, and removed the sapphire necklace from my pocket. She took it and held it in both hands for a moment.
"Where did you get this?"
"Brand gave it to me."
"This made me fall." Deirdre lifted the necklace a fraction. She stared at it for another few seconds before folding it and putting it in her little belt pouch. "Was Brand injured during the war?"
I told her then what I knew. Caine had shot him twice and he had fallen. Deirdre knew that already, so I told her that he claimed to have been rescued. His injuries, whatever they were, kept him confined to his manor until recently, when the Unicorn healed him.
While we talked, we strolled around the grounds. It was a pleasant morning, with the fog lifting off the water. We went inside and back to her rooms. Her servant brought us hot tea and left us alone.
She sat in her chair. I took a seat at the near end of the couch.
"Someone mentioned that you had been to the Courts of Chaos recently." She sipped her tea.
"Yes, I attended the new king's coronation."
"Did something happen to King Swayvill?"
"I was told that he died at approximately the same time all our troubles began here. Merlin is king in Chaos now."
"I do not know the name…."
"He is Corwin's son with the Lady Dara of Sawall."
"Corwin has a son," Deirdre set her cup down and turned her gaze out the window. "Interesting."
I drank my tea quietly while she stared thoughtfully into the middle distance. After perhaps five minutes she looked at me and smiled.
"It is good to see you again," she said.
"It is wonderful to see you again," I told her.
"I only wish it could be in happier times."
"Well, hopefully things will settle down once Martin's reign is underway."
"Ahh, the court at Amber when I was younger was magnificent. Say what you will about him, my father was a majestic king. He knew how to sit a throne. You should have seen it." Deirdre raised a hand, palm up, in a gesture of release. "Flora seems to think that the old days are gone."
"Corwin said much the same thing to me, some time ago."
She didn't comment on that, but one of her eyebrows raised slightly and she changed the topic of conversation.
"I understand that you spent considerable time with Caine."
"Yes, over ten years. However, I've been in Amber for the past seven months, and his visits here have been remarkably short."
"He has always chafed in Amber."
"I can see why," I said. "It pushes and pulls at you."
"Caine prefers to be the one doing the pushing." Deirdre and I shared a smile at that.
"Mother," I ventured. "I have never heard anything about my father. I don't even know who he is."
"What do you want to know?" She sat up straighter, wary. This wasn't going to be pleasant, I thought.
"I would like to know who he is and why I never knew him. No one in Gealorea knew anything about him, or at least, they claimed not to."
She regarded me for several heartbeats, one finger resting on her lower lip. I felt like a specimen in Gwydion's experiments.
"I got drunk," she said glibly, "and had a fuck in a carriage. Is that what you wanted to hear?"
"No," I clenched my jaw, feeling the heat rise to my face.
"Well, good. It didn't happen that way." She stood, walked to the window, and closed the curtains. The room was much darker now.
"I chose a man to be your father, but I didn't want him to raise you." Her hands were at her sides, waiting. "Then I made you. He had very little to do with it."
"I was a calculated, negotiated thing? A business transaction?" I discovered that I was standing now as well. I spun and walked away.
"Yes," she inclined her head. "You could say that."
"Does my father know I exist?"
She moved slowly behind me and stopped. I could feel the heat of her body near me, uncomfortably close.
"Your 'father' has used your presence in that Shadow as a pin to strengthen his defenses. You stabilized that place. He was able to increase his security. That was what he gained in the deal."
"And you?" I clenched my fists and refused to turn and look at her. "What did you gain?"
"I deserve that," my mother said. She touched my face and turned me to look at her. Her eyes were fierce. "I got you, son. Do you know that I love you?"
"Yes," I admitted, ashamed.
"Good people raised you. Even though I was absent, they let you know that I loved you, didn't they?"
I thought of Samineh, Olrem the gardener, and Variga. They practically worshiped my mother, and they had constantly told me how much she cared for me. I remembered that sometimes, growing up.
"Yes."
"Love is always complex," she said. "People are difficult to understand…"
"Even if you're close to them," I finished. She smiled and put her hand on my shoulder.
"Especially if you're close to them." I wrapped my fingers around hers and squeezed. We both sat down. I poured us some hot tea.
We talked about my childhood then, and about my travels and travails with Caine. She didn't admit that she had asked him to look after me, but she didn't deny it either. When I mentioned that Variga knew him, she smiled mysteriously and wouldn't say a word about it.
Deirdre remembered the days leading up to the War with Chaos quite vividly. According to her, she had suspected Brand long before the others admitted that he might be up to something.
"I told them how far he had gone and how badly it would end," she said, "but they were too far gone in their own theories to notice. Benedict was consumed with the war. Caine was too pious. When he raised his hand against Brand it was too fucking late."
"Go easy on him if you should see him," I asked. "His faith has been shaken lately."
She looked surprised for a moment, studying me.
"What of you, son? What are your intentions?"
"I don't know. I hope Martin succeeds and that Amber survives. I'll do what I can to help that along. As for myself, I have yet to master the Pattern and find my own way through Shadow."
"Do you feel any loyalty to Amber?" Deirdre didn't move, but I felt like all of her attention was on me now.
"Yes," I said, "and to my cousins. I feel some loyalty to Caine, and to Corwin. I will serve Martin to the best of my ability, but I only really know one thing."
"Oh? What's that?"
"I know that I shall always love you."
She looked away.
"Many have proclaimed their love for me," she said.
"This is different."
"There have been others."
"Other sons? Other daughters?" I raised my voice.
My mother shook her head.
"My intention is to be an old man," I said more quietly, "with my feet up on a balcony, overlooking my flower garden at midnight. I expect to be able to tell you then what I have told you now. Love is not a tool for me. I will not, cannot use and discard it at will." Perhaps I was being too harsh, for her eyes wavered. "Is it not right for a son to love his mother? Will you not love me as well when I am an old man?"
"I shall be a very old woman," she said. "But I will love you as well, if I can make this place safe for us."
We heard a quiet knock at the door. Deirdre called and her servant entered and removed the tea service. The door closed behind her.
"It seems the day when we were responsible for all we surveyed is past." Deirdre stood and threw open the curtains. Sunlight filled the room.
"I have only been here seven months," I said. "But I do believe things are changing rather drastically."
"She does her work well," Deirdre said admiringly.
"'She'?"
"The Unicorn. Flora told me much. She was nothing but a symbol, they said. She died in the back of an old church, and for twenty years she still led the troops in battle. Now, I guess, she has a plan."
"Perhaps," I offered. "But this time I think she will have fewer people following her blindly."
"Perhaps, but even the Fey recognize her strength and fear it." Deirdre walked to a cabinet and opened a drawer. She removed a heavy dagger, nearly as long as a short sword but significantly thicker. She held it at arm's length and balanced the point on her finger. The dagger barely wavered. Her sense of balance was phenomenal.
"What are your strengths, Aedan?"
It was not the question itself, but the circumstances that made me wonder why she had asked. However, she was my mother. I didn't hesitate to answer.
"I am fair with a blade and quick with a spell. I learned how to work as a team, to infiltrate, communicate, and accomplish necessary tasks with a minimum of unnecessary action."
"Mmmm," Deirdre sat down and placed the dagger on the table. "What don't the others know about you?"
"I may not always carry a sword," I indicated my lack of a weapon. "But I am never unarmed." My sword appeared in my hand. "I don't wear armor, but I am not defenseless." I held the tip of the sword against my palm and pushed. It failed to break the skin. "I have gained an odd power, apparently from your construct in Tir. I have certain abilities. I can fly, somewhat. I can put people to sleep instantly. I can summon a light wisp." I did then, and the silvery white light filled the room.
If my mother was shocked by any of this, she didn't let it show. She glanced at the wisp and gestured dismissively. I extinguished it. Deirdre appraised me.
"Good," she said, as if deciding something. She opened the drawer on the low table in front of her then and took out a card. It was Brand's trump. She arranged the heavy, long dagger on her lap.
"Surely he'll notice," I said, referring to the naked blade.
"I hope so."
My sword appeared in my hand. Deirdre scowled at me. Oh, it was fine for her to threaten Brand but not for me to do so?
"Maybe you should go get a cup of hot chocolate or something."
"Fine," I gave in. My sword disappeared.
Deirdre held the card in her hand, looking away. She placed the card on the table.
"I find I'm hesitating," she said, covering her face with one hand.
"Does this need to be done today?" I asked.
She picked up the card and extended it toward me. I leaned forward and took it.
"See if he'll come here."
I held the trump in my left hand, my right ready to supply my sword if the need arose. I think Brand noticed, for he smiled at me.
"Hello, Aedan," he said. "You look tired." He was sitting at a desk with writing implements before him. A snifter of brandy sat beside him.
"Good morning, uncle. My mother would like to speak with you."
"I'm pleased the necklace was of some use to you." He smiled very graciously and leaned back in his chair. I didn't react.
"Will you come through?" I offered my hand.
Brand turned to someone next to him that I couldn't see.
"Finish these," he said. Brand stood and pulled his doublet straight. "Should I bring my son? We'll both have Seconds then."
"Certainly," I answered.
"'Certainly' what?" Deirdre asked, tension evident in her voice.
"Bring your son," I told Brand for her benefit.
Brand was busy with the servant, giving instructions for the papers. With a nervous look, Deirdre questioned my invitation to Gabriel.
"He is my friend," I told her, quietly.
"If you think it's right," she whispered.
"I do," I assured her. Brand was waiting.
"Is Gabriel ready?" I inquired.
"He will be," he said and took my hand.
* * *
I had kept track. After about eighteen glasses of beer, or seven glasses of wine, Corwin could be persuaded to talk about nearly any subject.
"Brand was a bully," he said, "despite the fact he was smaller than all of us."
I considered Corwin's assertion. Yes, all of Brand's brothers were larger than him. Deirdre outmuscled him, Random outweighed him, and even Flora was taller. That made Corwin's statement sound a bit odd to me.
"How so?" I slurred. In order to get Corwin to the proper level of inebriation/communication, I had to drink quite a bit myself.
"He threatens you," Corwin said. "So damn smug, but I coulda killed him lots of times."
"Why didn't you?" I asked, genuinely interested in the answer.
"Don't know," Corwin took a big drink of his beer. "I was pretty busy at the time. Wish Caine woulda done it sooner, or at least done it right."
"But Brand's around," I pointed out. "I've been to his house."
Corwin leaned back to look at me, brow furrowed.
"His house?"
"Lots of plants," I told him. "But why hasn't anyone killed him again, I mean, recently?"
"I wish someone would," Corwin said.
"Like who?"
"He's got too many tricks up his sleeve. He's tricky." Corwin slammed his glass on the table. "Hell, maybe Dad just conditioned us too well. Eric killed me, and look what happened to him."
"Good point," I mumbled. The fact that Corwin wasn't dead occurred to me, but it didn't seem important. What was important, is that our glasses were empty, and Brand was still alive.
* * *
I placed the Trump card on the table. Brand glanced around, his eyes narrowing painfully at the noon sun beaming in. I took a step back and gestured for him to sit. Deirdre was perhaps ten feet behind me. Brand moved toward the end of the couch I had indicated, but he stopped and peered at my outstretched hand first.
It was my left hand.
"What happened?" He asked cheerfully.
"I met an angel," I said. Brand's eyes narrowed slightly.
"They do heal," he replied, showing me his own left hand. Old scars ran in three parallel lines there.
"Hello." Deirdre's voice sounded a little hoarse. She cleared her throat.
Brand looked over my shoulder to where Deirdre was sitting. I stepped to the side so they could regard each other. The dagger reflected the sunlight into the room. When Deirdre shifted, little motes of light danced on the walls and ceiling.
Brand sat down. I remained standing.
"Would you care for a drink?" I asked them both.
"Er…yes," Brand rested his right arm along the back of the couch.
"What?" Deirdre's eyes hadn't left Brand yet. "No, thank you. It's too early."
I poured a large snifter of Duven's Finest Brandy and handed it to him. He held it to his nose, swirled the glass. But before he tasted it he looked at me. I stared back at him, unresponsive.
"The vintages here are still what I remember," he said. A tense moment of silence followed.
"Is Gabriel in Amber?" Brand asked.
"I believe so," I replied. I poured a glass of water for my mother and put it on the table in front of her.
"Perhaps you should get him," Brand suggested. I moved to stand next to my mother's chair. Brand shrugged. He looked away and spoke to the air. In a moment, Gabriel was standing in the room with us. He glanced around nervously, trying to face every direction at once. When he saw the dagger on Deirdre's lap, his eyes went wide. He took three quick steps and seated himself in the chair at Brand's end of the couch.
"Would you care for a drink, cousin?" I asked him. He saw that Brand was drinking and nodded.
"The usual," he said, blinking rapidly. "A double, please."
I smiled, thinking that having Gabriel here might ease some of the tension. Or, if things got out of hand, he would make a good hostage. It's ironic, I thought. Six weeks ago he was the closest thing I had to a friend here.
I handed him his usual, a Scotch and rye. He took a quick gulp. Brand was watching. He hadn't drunk any of his brandy yet. I smiled politely at him.
"This is ridiculous," Brand said. He drank a large swallow.
I moved around the table and sat on the couch at the opposite end of Brand, near my mother.
"I had hoped," Brand said, holding his drink with both hands. "That my own return foretold the possibility of your return."
Deirdre grimaced sweetly. "It was by mere chance," she said and Brand smiled at that. "Luckily no one was harmed."
"Lucky indeed." Brand looked at me, then at Gabriel.
"Let me be blunt, Brand." Deirdre rested one hand on the hilt of the dagger. The other she waved in the air. "I don't know what this place has become, or which way its prevailing winds blow, but I know where you were once. I know that a lot of people didn't hear me when I told them. I'm not going to let that happen again."
Brand sat for a moment. "That seems fair," he said. "However, I hope you won't feel you have cause. Things are different now. The players have realigned. Some are gone and much missed, even by me."
"It's too hard, Brand." Deirdre sat back in her chair. "I can't make myself believe you."
I shifted on my seat, turning more to face Brand while moving closer to the edge of the couch.
"Well, that is your own cross to bear. I doubt I can persuade you with loud protestations of my good intentions."
"No, you can't."
They glared at each other for a few seconds. I glanced at Gabriel. He had finished his drink already.
"The Abyss isn't particularly…fair. Yes, that's the word." Brand sat forward and put his drink on the table. "But here we both are."
"If I thought that falling with you into that void was the only way we could be rid of you I would have done it gladly."
"That was well known to me from the moment I returned. You all had to pretend in front of each other and me. To be honest, I wasn't even certain who it was that stabbed me."
"If it's any comfort," Deirdre smiled coldly. "I despised you from the start."
"I used to take some comfort in the fact that you hated me less than you hated Corwin."
"It surprised me that you cared what any of us thought. I didn't think that anything I did would affect you in the slightest."
"Well," Brand leaned back. "I had always hoped that perhaps you would come around, in the end."
"It is difficult to cherish a victory if no one is around to applaud you," I said.
"Is that a quote, Aedan?" Brand focused his bitter green eyes on me. "I seem to recall Corwin saying something like that, not so long ago."
I just looked at him, my face expressionless.
"I believe you said 'You are the only ones who can appreciate my triumph." I gave him the words Fiona had told me. "'I will preserve you through the holocaust that is about to begin….'" I had killed bullies before. It had always found it particularly satisfying to provoke them first.
Brand stared coldly at me but said nothing. He looked down at his hands, wringing them slowly.
"We all have scars, Deirdre." Brand shifted his weight forward so that his forearms rested on his thighs. "It is only recently that I have truly become myself again. Since the Abyss, I haven't been well." At the mention of the void, I shivered. Brand saw it.
"If I had had any knowledge of your situation," he said, "I would have sought you out to rescue you."
Deirdre shot him a withering glare, the most hateful look I had ever seen on her face.
"…if only to win points with the others." Brand added.
"I would hardly call that," I said. "A protestation of your good intentions."
"But you are well now, brother?" Deirdre called him that without any taint of affection in the word.
"Yes, I believe so. The Unicorn healed me."
"Congratulations. I'm told that you have regained the Keep as well and are rebuilding it."
"That is true. I'm still not certain of the beast's purpose in directing me this way. It's what I wanted anyway. I think that is its great talent: to lead each of us down the path of our weaknesses."
I didn't know what he meant by that. It sure didn't seem to me that having Brand healthy and ensconced in the biggest fortress with the nastiest cannon was a weakness by any definition of the word.
"I'm not sure…" Gabriel began.
"She needs to know these things," Brand cut him off.
"So you're following the Unicorn's orders, then." Deirdre sounded skeptical.
"I was," Brand took his drink in his hand. "But my cozy relationship with that beast is no more." He drank. "I had thought I was following its wishes before," Brand continued. "But when it seized the Jewel from me in the Abyss, I felt betrayed. I did not know how I could survive that place without Oberon's bauble. I resigned myself to spending the rest of my life there. As you know, that was a particularly unpleasant possibility."
Deirdre moved forward on her seat, her right hand curled tightly around the hilt of the dagger. "Brother, I think that it would be…unattractive…for you to die in front of my son."
"I don't mind," I said, readying myself.
Brand turned toward us completely then, a look of open hostility on his face.
"To what do you refer?" Gabriel broke the tense silence. No one responded to him.
"I had many thoughts as the world of light receded from me," Deirdre bit off each word, slowly and precisely. "I remember my necklace tugging at my skin, a surge of ruby light from the Jewel searing the darkness. You placed it upon the horn of the Unicorn. What great plan was that, Brand?"
Brand closed his eyes and held the glass against his forehead. "A drowning man clutches at whatever—"
"You didn't look like a drowning man. You looked rather calm, in fact."
"At the time," Brand put the glass down and fell back against the couch. "I believed that the Unicorn was the Unicorn, the great, mythological symbol of Amber. How do you deny that? It demanded and I gave. I could only hope for some small measure of salvation."
"So you believe in the veracity of deathbed conversions?" I asked.
"I only know that the fear of death and something worse made a convert out of me." Brand wiped the back of his neck with his hand. "I expected to be able to say to myself 'See, this is what I've worked for, all these years.' Instead, I fell." He glanced at Gabriel. "Caine, for all his comments about purity, gentleness, and strength of blood ties—if he had gotten another shot off it would have been my head. Call it superstition if you want."
"And…?" I waited.
"Arterial blood is very hot," Brand turned to me very quickly, "and it rushes away from you very fast. Do you know?"
"I don't have to experience it firsthand to believe you," I said.
"What did you think at that moment, brother?" Deirdre's voice had returned to normal.
"I thought 'The Unicorn is infinite in its mercy.' That's all."
"Did you believe that you deserved that mercy?" I asked. Brand rocked back and forth.
"No."
"Even in that place, at that time?"
"There, here, it doesn't matter any more." Brand leaned toward me suddenly. "Listen, that thing is not the Unicorn as I knew it. It is bent on murder, rape, and the ultimate eradication of everything we know and love. Haven't you been paying attention? It is destroying whatever gets in its way!"
"Do you claim to know its mind, then?" I said much more calmly than I felt. Brand's face was perhaps two feet from mine. My sword was just over three feet long.
"What? You aren't going to sit here and tell me that you think it's some force for good, anymore, are you? All it wants is unity. No more Shadow, no more Amber, no more anyone that disagrees with it. If you can't see that, then you're ridiculous. You're a ludicrous little boy."
"So, I should simply take your word for it?"
"It's no great secret of mine." Brand crossed his arms in front of his chest and slunk back against the cushions.
"It is not knowing all of the secrets that you all know that is making us pay now," Gabriel interjected, making absolutely no sense whatsoever. We all looked at him. "Is that the lesson here?" He asked his father.
"That was a different time," Brand said, a hint of exasperation in his voice. "This time some of us are trying, really trying, to make things right. Back then, there was one chance to fix everything—one. If you had one chance, wouldn't you take it? I did. Now, other people's power bases are unimportant to me. So, Deirdre, you were right. Nothing any of you did would have affected me. It just didn't matter to me then."
"Are you that person now?" I asked him. It was an important question, one I had been holding back the entire time.
"No, I am less. I couldn't do that now, and that," he pointed a finger at me for emphasis, "is more than you deserve to know." Brand took a deep breath. He stood and began to walk around the table. I stood quickly and moved beside my mother's chair. Brand stopped in front of her and thrust out his open hand, palm up. My mother stared up at her brother. Gabriel moved to his father's side.
"Deirdre," my cousin said. "At breakfast today you said that your relationship with me would be based upon the actions that I performed from this day forward. I would suggest that the person you look at now is not the person you saw forty years ago. I ask that you allow his actions to persuade you and to not let the cloud of history dim your vision."
My mother looked cornered, the dagger held tightly in her hand.
"He just said that if he were stronger," Deirdre nodded at Brand, "he would do it again."
"Not exactly—" I began.
"Dammit!" Brand bent suddenly and grabbed Deirdre's wrists. He lifted her to him and wrapped his arms around her. The dagger clattered to the ground. Brand reached up and pulled my mother's head to his shoulder. I held my breath.
A minute passed as we stood there in that silent tableau. I stared at my mother and her brother, wrapped in their emotions and each other's arms. Deirdre moved one arm against Brand's back, holding him awkwardly. He sighed and shifted. Their bodies separated until only their foreheads were touching, leaning against each other. Then Brand released her and stepped back. He vanished in a rainbow glow. Deirdre collapsed into her chair.
I looked at Gabriel and nodded. He left.
I sat on the floor beside my mother and held her hand as she cried.
* * *
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