Winds That Will Be — Aedan's Journal
"Are
You a Ghost?"
Aedan's Journal. Session 6-9-01.
© 2001 Todd Worrell
Martin wasn't Martin, but he was still the King—or, I should say, "it" was still the King, because Martin was a machine.
That wasn't good. In fact, I would even go so far as to say that it was very bad. I started to get upset, but the feeling passed suddenly. Maybe it was due to possibility of Merlin's bodyguards misinterpreting my anger and fracturing my skinny bones. I don't know. All I know is the feeling of curiosity passed very quickly and it was overwhelmed by a sense of urgency. If what Merlin said were true, we had to get rid of the Martin construct.
While Magni and I were exchanging glances and trying to determine just how far we could trust Corwin's son, he spoke to the air again. After a moment, Giselle appeared.
"What is so important?" she asked.
"That thing in Amber that looks and acts like Martin isn't Martin," Magni replied.
"How can you tell?" Giselle sat down.
"He has Pattern, so it's not readily detectable." Merlin sipped his wine. "However, Martin and I had…connected…during his time here; that connection is not apparent with this thing. It's more than a shadow. It copies the injury. Someone who knew him pretty intimately would have to be involved."
"I find this disturbing," I mused aloud. "Forgive me. We seem to have crowned some thing King of Amber.
"It's quite amusing really," Merlin smirked. "I wonder if it'll stick."
"What is interesting is there were other elders who you would think would detect just this sort of thing."
We discussed my aunts and uncles and their respective powers at some length. Merlin suggested that Benedict would have noticed, Corwin's son having implied that Benedict's use of the Logrus would have made Martin's non-Martinness quite apparent.
We recalled how Martin claimed to have had great difficulty contacting Benedict by Trump, except for that one time at dinner.
Merlin spoke to his invisible familiar, calling it Ghost. After some calculation, it told him that no trump call had been made to Benedict during the time Martin allegedly spoke with him. I tried not to show it, but I was impressed. Imagine what you could do if you had an instantaneous record of who trumped whom. It was worth noting among Merlin's assets should war become inevitable.
Giselle was prompted to tell us about the assassination attempt on Martin's life immediately prior to his coronation. Apparently, she had left out a few of the details when she told us before.
"It was a rather clumsy attempt, if you ask me," she said, "but now that you mention it, there was a time when Martin just disappeared for a moment."
"Was he out of sight?" Magni asked.
"Yes."
"Via Trump?" I inquired.
"I don't think so. There were no rainbow special effects."
"How long was he gone?" Magni leaned toward Giselle.
"I don't know," she said. "He bent time in that shadow, so we couldn't tell."
She wasn't certain of the rest of the details, other than Martin's naked body in a bed with a dead woman and the equine demon that had slain her instead of Martin. Then she revealed that Raj had been with Martin and he might know more. That was disturbing. Raj had never mentioned anything of this sort. Certainly, if Martin had asked him to keep it quiet, that would have been understandable. According to Giselle, however, there was no such request. She revealed that the reason she had been reluctant to divulge what she knew was that she had been with Mandor of Sawall at the time.
I asked if Mandor might have been involved in replacing Martin with a simulacrum. Merlin dismissed that thought with a wave.
"It would have had to have been someone with access to Martin's imprint of the Pattern. I doubt that even Lord Mandor would have that sort of thing lying around."
"You never know," Giselle said. "Uncle's pretty resourceful."
"Yes, but there are others who would have an easier time at this. I'm trying not to jump to the obvious conclusion, but Brand's name is at the top of the list."
"It would have to be someone with some skill at drawing Trumps," I said, showing Merlin the trump of Martin I had.
"It looks like the newer style," Merlin commented. "Probably drawn by either Fiona or Brand."
"He has the artistry necessary," Giselle said.
"He has the skill," Merlin agreed.
We sat a moment in unhappy, thoughtful silence.
"I have a particularly unpleasant thought," Giselle broke in.
"Do you need to share it with us?" I asked.
"Unfortunately, yes," she said. "Whoever switched Martin would most likely need to have connections with the demons so they could get a contract."
"Well," Merlin shrugged, "the demon connection is not beyond Brand's reach either."
"What exactly is this contract?" I asked.
Merlin looked away suddenly. He mumbled something quietly, then stood quickly.
"I must go," he said, and he did. His two bodyguards left with him.
Magni, Giselle, and I sat in the ultra-comfortable chairs of Chaosian hotel and made strange "I'm thinking" faces at each other. Well, I know that Magni's face looked weird. I happen to know from previous acquaintances and lovers that I look particularly handsome when I'm deep in thought.
"I think it's time to head back to Amber," I said.
"I'll get the horses and settle the bill," Magni said, and left.
What Merlin had said made my stomach churn. My gut instinct was to confront Martin, but I had learned through painful lessons with Caine that my first instinct was usually best ignored. My second instinct was to investigate all avenues of information.
I turned and regarded Giselle carefully. She sat quietly. That in itself was unusual for her. Also, she seemed particularly sad.
"Forgive me cousin," I said. "I would speak with you, but if you need time alone…."
"No, I am fine." She brushed a loose blond hair behind her ear and wiped her eyes. I could see now that they were red, as if she had been crying.
"I wanted to tell you of my experience with the being we call the Tower."
"Please do. I am very interested to hear what you have to say."
I told her of my initial visit to the strange grove, of Corwin's inability to see the woman, and of the curious tableau of legendary weapons she clutched. Corwin said he could sense his sword, but he couldn't see it.
"With the Tower's blessing, I drew Grayswandir forth," I told her. "I threw it behind me to Corwin. He picked it up. The next thing I remember is feeling a blinding pain and seeing a hideous spiral horn protruding from my abdomen. I fell. Corwin fought the beast."
"It was the Unicorn?" Giselle asked.
"Yes, but not our parents' Unicorn. This one was twenty hands high, steel gray, with cloven hooves and a particularly bad attitude."
"The same beast that just marched through the Courts?"
"Yes," I told her. "It still bore the wounds from the fight."
"What happened?"
"Corwin struggled against the thing, knocked back toward the Tower. She couldn't move, so she threw her blades. One of them plunged into the Unicorn's eye. It reared and roared a hideous animal scream of pain, then plunged into the woods."
"And Corwin?"
"Corwin was lying face down, the second blade partly protruding from the back of his skull." I rubbed my sweaty palms on my pants legs. "I couldn't save him."
We sat in silence for a moment. I poured us each some fresh wine.
"Do you think the Tower was aiming for Corwin?"
"No. She was fighting the Unicorn. Corwin was in the way."
"She could have done better to let Corwin wound the Unicorn before she entered the fray," Giselle said.
"Corwin was giving ground rapidly. He was losing the fight."
"Maybe he could have tired it out. Didn't your mother teach you anything about combat?"
"No," I said icily. Giselle didn't notice.
"Neither did mine."
"Mine was gone."
She looked at me suddenly, realization written across her face.
"I apologize," my cousin said. "Please forgive me; I've had a very bad day."
After several minutes, we had both composed ourselves somewhat.
"Giselle, are you feeling well? You seem…."
"I've been dining with my uncle." She indicated the elaborate formal gown she was wearing.
"Mandor?"
"I'm worried about him."
"That seems unlikely, or at least incongruous, given what I know about the man."
"We are losing our elder generation at an astonishing rate," she said. "He is older. In many ways, he has been my parent, so I am worried about him."
"Is Mandor in any sort of danger?"
"He wouldn't say so if he was. He would smile and have dinner with me then walk to his funeral if that was to happen. He tries to protect me that way. I worry for him as I worry for all of them, save for Brand. His survival instincts seem perfectly intact."
"I don't know what to say," I confessed. "This is an emotion with which I am unfamiliar, having spent much of my formative years cramped on board a ship with Caine."
"Worry is an emotion one never quite gets used to."
"It seems like an utterly impractical emotion."
"It is," she said. "But I feel it far too often. I worry about nearly everyone: you, Raj, even Magni. I don't worry for Gabriel, as he seems to think enough about himself, and perhaps for his father."
"He has strange instincts, but he's a good kid."
"Mmmmm…" Giselle said doubtfully.
"…at times." I continued.
That broke the somber mood somewhat. We chuckled and talked of the strange collection of metaphysical beings that were so prominent in the multiverse the past few days. I told her that according to what Eve had told Raj, neither she nor the Tower were part of the Sisters. They were something new, I thought.
"Eve is structure and order," I said. "The Tower is creation and devastation, turning everything on its side. I would like you to meet her."
Giselle looked shocked. "I would be too tempted to step above my station," she said. "I am just a lowly salt-shaker."
"I know you seek answers. She's been forthcoming."
"I'm sure, but are her answers true or are they subjectively true?"
"I think truth itself is a subjective term," I told her.
"Usually."
I laughed at that.
"I think that these all-powerful women destroy everything I love. And there is little that I can do about it."
"There is something…you can confront her."
"Ah, yes, and do what?" Giselle stood quickly and waved her arms about angrily. "Other than tear the ring from your hand, turn it back to Grayswandir and attempt to cleave her head off with it?"
"That's one option." I rose and tried to comfort her. I put a hand on her shoulder. "It's my belief that only one of the two new powers in the universe is free and growing more powerful. If we are unable to impede Eve, perhaps freeing her opposite might restore the balance."
"Do we know they're opposites?"
"We know very little. However, they clearly seem opposed to each other. We have obviously been ineffective in preventing Eve from running around wreaking havoc. I'm willing to try something else."
"One of my instincts is simply to duck and cover and hope to be alive when this is all over." Giselle smoothed out her dress and sat down. "However, I expect to be forced to choose a side…eventually."
"More information might help you make your choice. If you continue to hide, you will cease collecting information." I sat down.
"Information is good, provided the source is reliable."
"No source is completely reliable. However, I will stop trying to convince you. If you should wish to meet Tower, I will gladly escort you there. I think I know the way."
She seemed to accept that. We sipped our wine.
"What of Raj, Magni, and Gregory? Have they chosen sides?"
"Raj seems to have unknowingly pledged himself to Eve. Magni has a ring like mine, which he received from the Tower. Gregory did not journey with us and I know nothing of his allegiances."
"What of Gabriel? If someone were to dangle a weapon of power in front of his nose like the proverbial carrot, do you think he would resist?"
"He would not willingly assist the Tower. Gabriel is too much of a scholar to take such bold action. I think he would be too afraid." I leaned forward and looked at her until out eyes met. "Are you afraid as well?"
"Yes," a tear leaked from Giselle's eye and rolled down her face. "I am afraid. How could I become an agent of something that will destroy my father's court, kill my brother, wreck everything?"
"You don't know that will happen. That's your fear speaking."
"I…it's just…"
She was crying now. I gave her a silk handkerchief and put my arm around her.
"Is there anything I can do for you?"
She collected herself.
"Yes, find out if Martin is truly what Merlin says he is. That is most important."
"Do you intend to stay here?"
"Yes. I want to see what happens in the Courts. I need to speak with Merlin again."
"Very well," I stood. "If you hear any news of Dara please let me know. She was kind to me when others were not."
I escorted Giselle to her rooms in the hotel, then walked to the stables and let Magni know I would be using my trump of the Great Hall to get back to Amber right away. He wanted to ride and think for a while, so he took my horse with him. I found a secluded corner inside the hotel and did the Amberite vanishing trick.
It was early evening in Amber. The sun had gone down behind Kolvir and the sky was rapidly growing dark. I walked around the seaside of the mountain until it was a pleasant shade of charcoal. I summoned a light wisp and continued my trek.
Corwin's tomb was properly called a cenotaph, since he wasn't really dead. However, even Corwin called it his tomb. It made a good rendezvous spot for semi-clandestine meetings of the family.
We had a semi-clandestine meeting of the family: Giselle, Magni, Raj and myself. The night breeze carried the scent of the sea to us as we perched on and around the empty sarcophagus and discussed what had happened recently.
Gregory displayed a signet ring that Lugh had given him. It was elaborately tooled with ivy vines and seemed important, although Gregory wouldn't specify exactly what it meant.
Raj had met with Eve again and experienced another frightening vision of her view of the future: peace and harmony through the total elimination of diversity and enforced conformity. I shuddered.
Magni told everyone what Merlin had said about Martin not being Martin. That set off twenty minutes of heated debate. We finally agreed to meet the current King at seven o'clock the next morning and try to convince him to walk the Pattern. I wasn't sure that such an action would prove or disprove anything, but it was better than doing nothing.
I waited until the others had left before starting back on my own. It was a clear night and not yet midnight. The moon had risen low across the water. Thousands of stars looked down on me. I walked slowly.
* * *
Off in the far reaches of the section of Shadows called the Dark Airs, the port city of Dhubzarreal sits perched on a bay like a sneakthief lizard awaiting its prey. Caine put in at Dhub at least three or four times a year. Many of his crew kept houses there, although none of them were native to the place.
The harbor was constantly wreathed in a dark soup that the locals called the Veil. It was a heavy blue mist that rose off the water and wrapped the minarets of the city with thick wet arms. The streets twisted and turned so much that three blocks from the docks you couldn't tell which way was which. In Dhub, being lost was a daily occurrence.
During one of my regular wanderings through the low town, I saw a shopkeeper's sign of an eye on an open hand. Surrounded as it was by deserted warehouses, I couldn't believe the place could do enough business to make it profitable. This was the sort of establishment that Caine had told me was often a front for one shady deal or another. Curious, I opened the heavy oak door to the sound of gypsy bells.
The front room was small, perhaps ten by eight feet. The only light came from a single beeswax candle on a small table draped in black cloth and bracketed by two wooden chairs in the center of the room. The smell of honey and incense filled the air. All of the walls were hidden by dark purple curtains embroidered with local constellations. From behind one of the curtains, a woman entered the room. She stopped and regarded me silently for a moment.
Her clothes were comprised of a dozen layers of shadowy silk wrapped around her torso at different points. Her hair fell from beneath a scarlet and gold scarf in a silver waterfall past her narrow waist. Her face, I was surprised to see, wasn't hidden behind the traditional veil all women must wear in public in Dhubzarreal. It was a doll's face, far too young-seeming for her. Deep blue eyes smiled mischievously at me as she watched me watching her.
"Welcome, far traveler," she said. Her voice held an old woman's tone, heavy with years. "I am Mehalla, called the Skywitch. Have you come to have your fortune told?" She gestured gracefully with a hand covered by hundreds of tiny crimson tattoos. I seated myself at the chair she indicated, but she didn't sit down at the other side of the table as I expected. Instead, she walked around behind me, just out of sight.
"Tell me my future," I said.
"You are a sailor," she said, "one of the Green Man's crew. But you aren't like the others who work for him."
I turned around in my chair to see her. She hovered just behind me, seemingly comfortable with the lack of space between us. She had gray hair and crow's feet around her eyes, but her skin was as smooth as a woman of eighteen. I hadn't the slightest idea how old she was.
From my belt pouch I took out a golden samluk, easily twenty times the price of a fortune-telling, and held it up for her to see.
"No parlor tricks," I said. "If you are truly a seer, you will earn this." I turned my back to her and placed the coin on the table. The gold shone beneath the candle flame.
I heard the rustle of her skirts on the floor, then felt her press up against me. Her breast pushed against my right shoulder blade as her arm came around me. A warm tattooed hand slid inside my jacket, inside my shirt, gently touching my skin until it rested directly over my heart. Her breath on my neck smelled of cinnamon and cloves. I tried to relax, but failed. My palms began to sweat.
Mehalla's hand clenched slowly, her fingernails digging in to my skin. She took a deep breath and held it. I waited, willing myself to breathe slowly.
"You…" she whispered wonderingly, "will never die."
* * *
I couldn't sleep. Something was bothering me. I was uncomfortable confronting the Martin construct with nothing more than Merlin's accusation and some circumstantial evidence. I wanted to know more about constructs. Then I remembered the silver spirit Deirdre had made that spoke to me in Tir. It was a manufactured thing, so apparently my mother knew something about constructs. I got dressed and went and knocked on her door.
Her servant Brielle answered my knock with a drowsy word that my mother wasn't in. I asked if I could come in for a moment and write a note. She agreed and left me in the front chamber alone as she returned to bed. I lit a lamp and looked around.
Next to the inkstand on the writing desk was Deirdre's platinum and sapphire necklace that I had worn for a brief while. As I recalled, it was some sort of battery. Mother herself had told me that it was the channel for operating her double.
I made sure Brielle was asleep before I cast a simple probing spell on the necklace. I had investigated it before, but never to my satisfaction. Given that I now knew its purpose, perhaps I would be able to discern something useful.
It was as I remembered it, but with one difference. It seemed empty, somehow, and infused with a vague resonance of Tir na-Nog'th. Looking closer, I saw that there was a faint line of power stretching upward, into the night sky. I cast my perception along the invisible line and suddenly found myself in the City in the Sky.
It was quiet, silver, and empty of ghosts. Sitting on a bench ten feet in front of me was a very real, flesh-and-blood Martin, son of Random.
"Aedan?" He said. "Is it you, or are you a ghost?"
Given my normally pale skin, I suppose that was a fair question in this place.
"It's me," I told him.
"How did you find me?"
"I didn't, really. It just happened."
"Oh, shit…then, this place isn't safe any more."
"What do you mean?"
"Someone tried to kill me," he replied. "They failed, but the contract is probably still in effect. They'll try again. We have to go."
"Wait a moment," I said. I went and sat beside him on the bench. "The method I used to find you here is not accessible to anyone else."
"You have some weird connection to this place, right?"
"Yeah."
"Whew. I don't know where else I could go."
"You're safe here. Tell me what happened."
He described the assassination attempt, much as Giselle had already told me. However, he remembered being teleported out and ending up here. The construct must have been substituted for him at that time. He didn't want to tell me who helped him, and I didn't press for details. Martin rubbed at his side.
"How is your wound?" I asked.
"It hurts."
"May I see it?"
"I suppose."
Martin pulled up his shirt and turned away from me. On his back, below the ribcage, was a fresh unhealed slash that glowed silvery-blue. I concentrated on it and cast a heal spell. Nothing happened.
Looking more closely at the wound, I realized that it had an unusual design within it. It looked like a section of the Pattern, with lines and swirls.
"Has this never healed?" I asked him.
"No."
I thought of Grayswandir and decided to use it.
"May I try something else?" I asked Martin.
"What?"
"I want to try to use something with a little kick to it."
"Well, I guess so. I've tried everything I can think of."
"This may sting a little."
I concentrated on the ring, pulling energy into it. I felt electric, alive, full of juice. I held it a moment and poured a little into Martin, willing the wound to repair itself. I unwound the Pattern and replaced it with flesh.
I felt a stabbing pain in my stomach. I lost the energy and fell to the floor, doubled over in pain. Martin jerked away from me and vanished. I tried to remain conscious as the world spun around me like a hellride gone bad. Everything blurred together and I blacked out.
* * *
I came to my senses lying on the floor of Deirdre's antechamber. The lamp was still burning. I could hear Brielle's soft snoring coming from another room. My ears tingled and my finger beneath the ring felt burned but uninjured. I looked at myself and couldn't see anything unusual. Had I really been to Tir? I checked my side where the intense pain had been. There was no mark on my skin, nothing to show that anything had happened to me.
I sat up slowly. Next to me was Deirdre's necklace. I hesitated, then put it in my pocket. I stood up and checked myself over tentatively. Nothing was broken, sprained, or injured as far as I could tell. I seemed perfectly healthy aside from a slight mental daze. I wandered to my rooms and collapsed into my bed. I had no trouble sleeping now.
At least, I had no internal difficulty sleeping. The pounding on my door served pretty well to limit my beauty rest. Raj's knuckles were getting quite a workout until I opened my door. I hoped to shock them, naked and upset at their rude interruption. Instead, they barged into my room demanding answers.
"What have you done this time?" Raj pushed me ahead of him into my room. Gregory and Magni followed.
"Is sleeping a crime, now?"
"You know what I mean!"
"He's referring to the sharp, stabbing pain we all felt earlier this night," Magni clarified.
"You felt that too?" I asked.
"We all did," Gregory said, "Everyone in the family. At least, everyone we could contact."
"Unless you want to feel another, sharp, stabbing pain," Raj growled, "I suggest you explain what you were doing at that time." He twisted his fist on the hilt of the Great Sword of Gerard.
Have I ever mentioned just how wide Raj's shoulders are? Each one of his arms is bigger than my whole body. He was red-faced mad and spitting flecks of foam. Behind him, Magni looked amused but also very interested. I decided that honesty was the best policy and told them about Martin, Tir, and my attempt to heal his strange wound with Grayswandir.
They weren't happy. Gregory thought that I had seen a ghost of Martin, but Magni believed that this was proof that Merlin had been right. He wanted to confront the Pseudo-Martin right now, at three o'clock in the morning. Raj wanted to check out the Pattern room, and since he had the biggest sword, we all decided that was a good idea. Raj sliced the air with Gerard's sword, leaving a trail of rainbow hues. He motioned for us to follow him and stepped through it. We did.
The Pattern Room was the same as it always was, only more so. Raj marched over to the section of the Pattern that had been damaged and examined it. I went alongside him, outside of sword range, and compared the damaged part to what I had seen in Martin's wound.
"Well?" Raj asked.
"They look very similar," I told him. "Something weird is going on."
"Hunh."
Magni and Gregory had been talking. Now they walked up to the edge of the Pattern next to us.
"Ready for Plan 'B'?" Magni asked.
Raj stood up and held the sword ready.
"Let's go," he said. He rent the air and we passed through it.
The four of us were suddenly standing in the King's receiving room. Two startled royal guards pointed their halberds at us. Raj sheathed the big blade on his back.
"It's okay," Magni told the guards.
"We need to see the King," Gregory said. A guard went away, then came back. After a moment, Martin appeared in a robe and a yawn.
"Good evening, your majesty." Gregory said politely.
"Did we wake you?" Magni asked him.
"Yes," Martin replied.
Magni looked at me as if this further confirmed the Fake Martin Theory. I shrugged back at him. It didn't prove anything.
"Amanda," Martin called into the room behind him, "get in here!"
A small, older woman with short brown hair appeared. Martin sat down on a chair and turned so she could treat his wound. It was bleeding.
"We have a family issue," Raj said. "Can we talk in private?"
"Yes," Martin sighed. "It's no use, Amanda. Thank you anyway." The King's nurse curtseyed and left the room. The guards followed her out.
"Did your wound just flare up this night?" Magni asked.
"No," Martin said. "It has never healed right. It bleeds sometimes. Why ask about it now?"
"We all felt a searing pain, in the same place as your wound, less than an hour ago," Gregory told him. He explained the strange feelings of shifting shadow without moving that we all experienced. Martin said he hadn't felt any of this.
"Do you need my permission to investigate?" Martin asked grumpily. "Go ahead. No need to wake me up."
"Actually, we do need your permission," Magni said.
"For what?"
"Come with us."
Martin looked at us for a few moments. He sighed, then said he would get dressed. While he put on clothes, we looked at each other with determination in our faces. I didn't know what that meant, but we seemed united about something. I only hoped we were doing the right thing. What if this construct were something someone had substituted for Martin to protect him? So far, the Pseudo-Martin hadn't done anything too crazy—at least, nothing that I knew about.
My four cousins, the King, and one of his personal guards took the long walk down to the Pattern room. Martin kept asking us what we were doing. Finally, Magni gave him an honest answer.
"We don't think you're you."
"What in the hell…?"
"We think you're a construct," Magni said, "a machine."
"Fuck off! I'm going to bed." Martin turned and started back up the spiral stairs. Gregory stopped him.
"We would like you to walk the Pattern."
"Now? It would kill me."
"Perhaps in the morning?" Raj suggested.
"Perhaps in a couple years when I'm built back up. That thing kills people." Martin looked indignant. "It would be fatal to me right now."
"If you are Martin, you need to walk the Pattern tonight," Gregory declared.
"I am your king," Martin drew himself up. "I am not your experiment. Good night."
Martin signaled to the guardsman and began walking upstairs. I hurried to follow him. Raj was a step behind me.
We heard an odd noise, a "click," that echoed off the stone walls in the way that empty guns do. Everyone stopped and turned around.
Magni was gone.
* * *
Sweet slumber, that elusive mistress, escaped me again. I dove headfirst into her embrace only to be jolted rudely awake by an increasingly familiar pounding on my chamber door. Dressed but barefoot, I plodded out and opened the door.
"We want to go to Tir na-Nog'th," Raj growled. Hovering behind him, Gregory nodded.
"Go ahead," I yawned.
"I can't. I need you to get there."
"Can it wait till morning?" I asked. He just looked at me. "Oh, that's right." I stretched and rolled my neck around.
I still had the sapphire necklace in my pocket. I concentrated on it and the scenery changed. Raj and I were in the hoary phantom castle. Gregory was nowhere to be seen.
We were in the West Tower, before it was destroyed, although not long before it. In the round room with us were ghosts of Fiona and Random. At least, I assumed they were ghosts. They didn't look as ghostly as phantoms usually did in Tir. Raj reached out and tried to touch Random; his hand passed right through him.
Fiona moved to the center of the room and lit a white candle. She released it in mid-air where it hovered. Random stepped close to the flame and pulled the Jewel of Judgment on its chain from beneath his doublet.
"It's getting to be too much," Random said. "They don't listen anymore."
"I'll be there to help you," Fiona answered. With one step I was behind her. I laid my hand on her shoulder. I could feel nothing. Without acknowledging my presence, Fiona shifted and moved away from me.
Raj cast a curious look at me. I shrugged. Random held the Jewel over the candle flame. Heavy maroon shadows flickered across the walls around us. The king peered into the ruby's depths. It spun slowly, then stopped and held abnormally still.
"It seems dim somehow," he said.
I took out my trumps and shuffled through them. I found Random's card and concentrated on it; nothing happened.
Fiona walked around the room, studying the silhouette of the Pattern on the walls. She paused and pointed.
"Here," she said. I looked and saw that the shadows were darker where she had indicated. A triangle-shaped section of the Pattern appeared smudged. It corresponded exactly with Martin's wound.
"I'm ready," Random said. Fiona took her place opposite Random on the other side of the candle. Almost immediately, I could feel pressure building, like a distant hum of white noise.
Something was happening in the Jewel. From the shadows it cast on the walls, I could see a three-dimensional mass growing at the edge of the dark wedge. I readied a spell of protection, hoping in vain to somehow protect my elders from the destruction I knew was imminent.
"We're holding this…together…alone." Fiona's voice sounded strained, but she had a tight smile on her face.
"That's nonsense," Random protested. "We couldn't have gotten this far without her."
The unseen energy built. I could feel the air vibrating on my skin.
"She's not here," Fiona said.
"She is here," Random snarled. "The Unicorn is here."
"Think what you want if it helps us keep it together," Fiona replied.
Suddenly the background pressure stopped. A chill ran down my spine. Instinctively, I cast my spell, trying to contain the explosion I knew was going to happen.
A spark blazed inside the Jewel of Judgment. On the wall, the lumpy mass on the edge of the darkness tripled in size. Fiona flinched, and the Jewel exploded in countless crimson shards. Random and Fiona's bodies melted instantly away. I smelled something burning. Around us, the walls flew away in a shower of stone. The floor collapsed and we were falling.
I jumped. Remembering that after the West Tower had collapsed, the closest structure had been the castle wall, I leaped in what I hoped was the correct direction. I was lucky. I landed on something solid and converted my fall into a roll. I stood and got my bearings. I was in a hallway in Tir, somewhere near the Hall of Portraits and nowhere near where the West Tower had ever been and was no more. I was alone. I hoped Raj had survived.
For that matter, what had happened to Gregory? I wandered the halls of the Castle That Wasn't The Castle, trying to find Julian's son. The passageways shifted and jumped around as they often do until I was standing in front of the Royal Chamber door. I went through it and found Gregory.
He and Martin were having an animated discussion about the current state of affairs in Amber. I could tell that Gregory had told Martin about the imposter on the throne and was trying desperately to convince him to return to his rightful place.
Martin, however, was reluctant. He was afraid for his life and believed that if he returned his would-be assassins would still be after him. Gregory thought that Arden would be a good place for Martin to hide. He could be near enough to Amber that we could report to him, but far enough removed to be out of imminent danger. Arden was a big place with dozens of secured bunkers. It seemed like a good idea, and after a few more minutes of discussion, Raj walked up.
"You found him? Good, let's go," Raj said.
"Raj," I told him, "We don't know if Martin really wants to leave. You're assuming—"
"Aedan!" Martin interrupted, "Get me the fuck out of here."
That seemed rather decisive. Raj waved his groovy trump sword, and we appeared in the woods not far from Julian's Hunting Lodge. We settled in with ease. Martin ate huge amounts of food while Julian made arrangements and Raj called our cousins via trump. I snuck off to a deserted storage room and got in a nice nap.
I awakened an hour or three later to find that Giselle had arrived and taken charge of everything.
"There you are," she said when I walked into the main room. "It's about time. Are you ready?"
"Sure," I said with no idea what she was talking about.
"Okay." Giselle corralled Martin, Gregory, Raj, and I into uncomfortably close proximity. She twitched her nose and the walls began to spin. A moment later, we were someplace else.
"Welcome to my home away from the home I don't really have," Giselle said. I stepped back and looked around. We were in a large windowless room, probably somewhere underground, that was obviously once a wine cellar. It measured nearly forty feet in length and was fifteen feet across. At one end were a couple looms, a large spinning wheel, and other assorted sewing materials. The other end of the room was full with a small kiln, a workbench overflowing with junk, tools hanging from the wall, a forge, and assorted craft stuff on wooden shelves. There were stains on the stone floor from spills of days gone by. Everything had that well-used look to it.
Giselle walked to the middle of the long side of the room and uncovered a set of protruding crystal knobs. She twisted these around and glowing green and gold vines became visible in the walls. I could tell she was adjusting the wards. If Gabriel were here, I thought, he probably would learn something.
Finally, Giselle tuned the energy vineyard to a psychedelic day-glow orange that oscillated to pink. She nodded in satisfaction.
"Groovy," I agreed.
Raj cleared off a workbench. Martin sat on it and pulled off his shirt. Giselle examined his wound.
"Aedan, what exactly did you do?" She asked. Everyone gathered around.
"Why, did it work?"
"It feels different," Martin said. "It itches more." I looked at his wound and saw that it was noticeably different in the middle. The damage had faded somewhat.
"It looks better," I said and told them the brief story of what I had done in Tir. Martin was willing to try again, with more help this time. I described what I was going to do and we discussed everyone's various parts. Magni had arrived via Gregory's trump. He took off one of his red lacquered vambraces and handed it to me.
"This will help me channel and regulate the energy," he said. I held it for a moment before slipping it over my left wrist. It fit snugly with only the faintest tingle to tell me that it was no ordinary piece of armor.
I took my place nearest to Martin's injury. Giselle knelt at Martin's head. She would monitor and try to lessen the shock and pain to his body. Magni would assist in providing me with power while Gregory kept his sorcerous talents in reserve. Raj stood near the door to dissuade anyone from interrupting.
I took a deep breath, looked at my cousins, and began. Summoning the energy was easier than I remembered, either because I was in the Fey realms, or I was getting better at this. I gathered it inside me and held it. The first time I had touched Martin's weird wound his reaction was so intense that I resolved to go more slowly this time. I felt his skin around the edges. Tiny blue sparks jumped out of the triangular wedge as I slowly re-grew his skin and organs inward.
At least, that's what happened at first. With a sudden rush, I felt the dull gray power surge through me. My body flew into the air. The world became a sheet of white-hot light that burned from inside me. I felt an overwhelming sense of vertigo, of hellriding at unbelievable speeds. Sounds assaulted my ears across the full audio spectrum and I realized they were coming from my mouth. I stopped screaming and all was silent. I fell from the roof of the chamber to the ground beside Martin.
I couldn't see or hear anything for a few moments. I felt someone's arm go around me and help me off the floor and onto the workbench. A spell nudged me and I saw Giselle's concerned pixie face peering at me.
"Can you hear me now?"
"Yes," I said, my voice hoarse. "Thank you."
Gregory handed me a flask of water. I drank it greedily. Martin was sitting on the bench beside me, looking like his usual self.
"Did it work?" I asked. He showed me his back: there wasn't even a scar. It looked as if he had never been stabbed.
"It seems fine," Martin said.
"There was only one casualty," Magni said with a wicked grin on his face, "Your clothes."
I looked down at myself and saw that I was completely naked. I still had on my rings and my torc, but my clothes were gone.
"They burnt off during the procedure," Gregory said. He was clutching a newly-bandaged hand to his chest.
"What happened to you?"
"I touched you," he told me. "That was a mistake."
"As many, many women could have told you," Magni said.
They laughed. I tried to, but I was distracted. The scar on my chest had healed over. I could faintly see where my skin was slightly discolored, but it looked like a birthmark now. The parallel scars on my left hand looked the same. Also, the cut on my thumb had healed and the scar on my left bicep was gone. I had no bruises, scars, or other marks on my body.
"Well, I guess we did something right for a change," Raj said.
"Don't be so sure," Giselle's voice was far too somber for such a happy occasion. "Look."
She was pointing around the room. I couldn't tell what she wanted us to see. Then I noticed that the rugs looked spotless. Any hint of a stain was gone. In fact, everything looked more than new. It looked…altered. The room and everything in it was different, somehow.
"Oh shit," Gregory said.
Giselle hurriedly lowered the wards. The vines faded from a tawny brown to invisibility. Raj stood beside the exit.
"I'm almost afraid to open the door," he said, then opened it and looked out into the daylight.
"It seems okay," he said.
"Yeah," Giselle agreed drolly, "Except my workshop is in the basement. There are stairs on the other side of that door."
"Not any more."
We slowly stepped outside. The room behind us was part of a small stone cottage in a forest glade. The afternoon sun was shining down on us. Birdsong floated by on a pine-scented breeze.
"This isn't the Fey realms," Giselle whispered. "I have no idea where we are."
* * *
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