Winds That Will Be — Aedan's Journal
"There
is Power in Death"
Aedan's Journal. Session 9-23-01.
© 2001 Todd Worrell
There is power in death, she had said. Use it.
She was speaking with Corwin's voice, but I knew her as the Tower. From what I could gather, she was a mythological being on the same order as the Unicorn or the Great Serpent, but newborn and not yet fully realized. She had offered me Grayswandir to help her grow stronger.
Creation, turmoil, passion. She promised these things. Desire, she named herself. If I helped her get stronger, she would turn the multiverse inside out. The old goddesses, the Sisters, they were called, would disappear. The Tower would be one of the new forces across the many worlds.
And I would be her ally, her servant. If only I could escape.
"Power to do what?" I asked Corwin's body. It lay beside me in the Temple Below the Pattern.
"To change," the Tower said. Her voice sounded ominous in that vast, dark cavern.
She had said I could call upon the Sisters, that they wouldn't know me in this universe. I didn't want to do that. I had seen the Unicorn die. I had watched the Serpent sink into the Abyss. Ygg didn't care. What help would any of them give me?
"How do I unleash my strength?" I asked. I knew that the Tower called Grayswandir my strength, but Caine had taken it from me.
"Thy strength is thine. It is always with thee."
What did that mean? Grayswandir wasn't here. It was someplace out in those dangerous shadows Caine sailed.
An image appeared in my mind. Caine was grinning like a madman, the wind whipping his hair back. He held a slice of the Pattern high over his head. Ice-blue light burst from it, illuminating the Valiant and eight other ships of Caine's fleet. They were sailing along in the shadow Baramac, near the edge of the Great Vortex, moving slowly yet undeniably against the hurricane-force winds. They were well within the downspout. All of the men and women on deck were holding on for dear life, intently watching Caine fight the pull of the Abyss.
Fuck them, I thought. I keep my oaths. I felt my face getting hot. I screamed and saw Caine turn his head.
He looked up at the sky, and I swear, his eyes met mine. His grin faded and he lowered his empty hand. Strength flowed through me, healing my wounds, removing my exhaustion.
I held Grayswandir again.
I closed my eyes and heard, from clear across the universe, Caine's roared "No!" as he, his ships, and all of his people plunged to a brutal, downward-spiraling death.
* * *
The first six months I spent in Amber had been pretty fun. After a couple weeks I quit looking over my shoulder constantly, waiting for Caine to show up and beat me. Corwin and I prowled the bars three or four nights a week.
My uncle reveled in the dodgier neighborhoods. He and I became a regular fixture in a few dives near the docks. Even drunk and bloated he cut an imposing figure in the alleyways and dives of the Harbor District. I had kicked a few alley cats myself on our wobbly walks home.
One night, as we were stumbling uphill a couple hours before sunrise, I tripped and fell. Corwin kept shuffling forward for a few steps, singing the refrain from The Five Hundred Feats of Fergus MacRei. After a while, he noticed I was no longer singing and he stopped.
I had fallen to the side, narrowly missing a pile of rags pressed against a brick façade. As I lay on the cobblestones, the pile of rags moved.
"Hello?" I mumbled.
"Please," a soft voice whispered, "Please don't hurt me."
"I'm not, I won't—"
"Aedan, ya sloppy punk." Corwin knelt down beside me. "Get up. Time go home. I'm getting thirsty."
"Corwin?" The rags shifted and I could make out a freckled face surrounded by ratty gray curls. "Is that you?"
"Mother Unicorn!" Corwin swore and fell backwards onto his ass.
"You remember Lily, don't you, Lord Corwin?" The woman inched forward into the light. She reached out to him, her smile lacking several teeth. "I used to serve tables at the Crossed Nails pub, back in Oberon's day."
Corwin scrabbled back away from the woman. He rolled onto his side and pushed himself drunkenly to his feet.
"One night, we danced until the stars faded and the sun rose. You held me…I was young and beautiful then. Corwin, do you remember?"
My uncle shuffled backwards, then turned and strode quickly off into the night. The woman watched him go. I watched her watch him, a tear rolling down her dirty cheek.
"I remember," she whispered. "I do."
She turned and smiled sadly at me. I felt my breath moving slowly in and out of my lungs. I backed away.
I hurried up the hill to the castle, but I never caught up with Corwin. He wasn't seen around the castle for nearly two weeks.
The next time I saw him, he was leaning over the rail overlooking the western gardens as the sun set over Arden. I walked up and stood next to him, but I didn't know what to say.
The silence stretched on for twenty minutes until the last rays of light diminished. I saw one star, then another. Ten minutes later, Corwin straightened up and looked at me. He put his hand on my shoulder. It felt heavy.
"Everybody dies," he said. "Some of us die in battle; some in bed. I don't know how I'll go, but when the time comes, I want you beside me."
My tongue felt swollen in my mouth and I couldn't speak. Corwin nodded and walked slowly away.
* * *
Grayswandir burned hot on the palm of my hand, a glowing circle of brilliant gray electricity. I clenched my fist around the ring in satisfaction.
"Yes!" I called out to the world, seeing the silvery-gray lines streaking out of the air around me and flowing into my veins. I looked down. The ground was several feet below me. I swam in the air, arms thrown back, breathing my power.
I raised Grayswandir and it became a flicker of lightning, barely restrained. I called the energy to me and my body swelled up with the force of a million stars. "Thy strength," the Tower's whisper cut into my celebration. Her thoughts sizzled in my brain.
I flew over Corwin's body, raised his sword, and plunged it deep into his chest.
Tower, I open the way, I thought.
His heart exploded, his blood splattered on me. White-hot lightning flew from Grayswandir. The columns of the chamber cracked and crumbled. The walls fell. Ice blue sparks flickered all around me, as if the very air were on fire.
Earth and stone fell upon me yet I emerged unscathed, blue-gray lightning extending out from my naked body in all directions. Every time I use this thing, I thought, all of my clothing burns up. I gotta work on that. I summoned a light wisp and directed it to find my mother. I ran after it, out of the rubble and up the stairs toward her.
Several turns of the stairs later, I saw a landing preceding a twenty-foot high, iron-bound double door. A dozen guardsmen stood in front of it, their halberds pointed at me.
"Lord Aedan," the captain said, "we must stop you."
"Bah!" I waved my hand and violent gray bolts thrust the guards out of my way. The huge doors cracked and flew open. I ran upward.
Moments later, as I was almost halfway up the staircase, I saw my cousin Raj coming toward me.
"Move aside, cousin!" I shouted.
He didn't. He grabbed me instead.
"Aedan," he shook me, "What are you doing?"
"Freeing my mother."
I struggled to escape, but he held me fast. I could have turned Grayswandir into a sword and killed him, but I wasn't sure I wanted to do that. He who hesitates, Caine had said.
Eric appeared above us on the stairs. When he saw me, he stopped and smiled his cruel smile.
"I trust," he said, "that you weren't further injured by the…accident…that occurred in the dungeons, hmm?"
"Only my clothing was injured," I told him. "I was rushing to rectify that when this man stopped me."
"And my brother? How is Corwin?"
"I set him free," I declared.
"You freed Corwin?" Raj's eyes opened wide in shock.
"Yes," I seized my opportunity and slipped out of Raj's hold. I scurried down a few steps and summoned my sword. Eric looked askance at Raj, then began walking slowly down toward me.
"What crime has Aedan committed?" Raj asked Eric.
"He just told you he freed an enemy of the State," Eric said, "And he, too, has been declared a threat to the Kingdom of Amber."
"I was unlawfully imprisoned," I said. "as is my mother, vile usurper. "
"It was your mother's bargain to sit out the war, that you and Corwin be released."
"Ha! Your words betray you. Corwin and I are, by your own words, free. How then do you justify keeping us imprisoned?"
"I am the King here," Eric said, angrily drawing himself up.
"You are irrelevant," I told him. I began calling my strength to me. The air filled with slate and charcoal lines of force, rushing toward me. But wait! Eric raised his hand. Crimson energies fell out of the air toward a dark iron ring on his finger. He grimaced triumphantly.
I laughed at him and charged up the stairs.
Eric drew his sword and took a step toward me. To the death, I thought. Eric's prowess with the blade was the stuff of legend, but somehow I knew the day would be mine. I brought the point of Grayswandir to bear against my uncle's sword. The blades touched in a shower of red and gray sparks. Then he faded away and the walls disappeared. White light blinded me and I stumbled.
I fell and felt wet grass beneath me. I blinked, but I couldn't see. The sun felt warm on my face. The scent of pine teased me, but I had absolutely no idea where I was. Time passed, maybe an hour, in pastoral calm. I lay back and tried not to think about anything.
I killed Caine, I thought, and Corwin. A tear rolled down my cheek. What in the Seven Hells am I doing?
* * *
<previous Aedan's Journal next>