When the cards and books are exchanged and the Trump contact closes, Brennan gets up from the chair and takes another look at Camelopardis' remains. Mostly, just to see if the unraveling continued after his death so he won't be surprised when he summons Balen back in. But also an Astral glance just to make sure nothing weird-- nothing new and weird-- is going on. He tucks the note that the Maghee dictated, and the device he described, into a pocket as well.
He’s still deteriorating. Technically the term might be ‘mummifying’, or (if it continues) ‘skeletonizing’.
As Brennan expected. But it's better than 'rotting' at least.
[OOC: At an appropriate moment, he’ll turn to dust and blow away. This may or may not be a clue to the question ’say, how old was this chap, anyway?’]
Then he steels himself back into the Walker persona, opens the door, and gestures Balen back in.
"He's gone," he says. "He did right in the end. I'd see his body treated with respect. And he reckoned this one," he holds up Moire's image, "was the priestess giving orders, working the corsairs. Ain't know exactly why this place, though. Me, I reckon if we had Cledwin close to hand, we could beat some information out of him, but we ain't, and there's an army between him and us." Walker clenches his fists to crack the knuckles, and to indicate that this distance is the only reason Cledwin's teeth aren't decorating the floor right now.
"About that army, though... now we got a problem. The Maghee was the price to buy those boys off, out there. I ain't think they want him like this. And I ain't think it's smart to give him back like this anyway. What's it like out there-- they kept their truce?" Walker moves to one of the windows to see the field while Balen brings him up to speed.
She nods. “Mostly. They’re digging in, but that could be that if the Corsair Captain doesn’t give ‘em something to do, they’ll get bored and make mischief. Or desert. Actually, the longer they besiege us, the worse it may go for them, assuming they can’t use their secret weapon on the walls.”
She frowns. “And Cledwin doesn’t bring another army back from wherever he’s gone to.”
Walker looks up at that, not quite eager but not entirely distressed at the prospect. "You reckon he will?" he asks. "I don't. When he skipped, he'd done his job and everything broke their way, far as he could tell." He shrugs, neither ashamed nor too humble-- depending on how one wants to look at it-- to admit, "It was a good plan. Nah, that clown'll make me hunt him down, I reckon.
"We got some time, anyway-- they want their fella back more than they wanna risk the fight, or we'd be fighting already." Not that he doesn't believe her, but Walker wants to see the scene for himself, so he walks out along the parapet to do just that. That's not limited to the array of Corsairs digging themselves in, either, he wants a quick astral view as well. Mostly, because that should cause the transient man-made artifact of the tank to fade from view and reveal the living worm itself. How big is the thing, give or take? How lively?
Brennan remembers the tank from seeing it. It’s only slightly larger than the kind of tank you might put a decapitated head in, if you were they type of thing you might do.
[OOC: It looks like this, but with a worm in it instead of a skull.]
Astrally he can see the worm. It’s about twenty-five feet long. And it’s not really a worm. It has legs. It also has teeth.
Hopefully the spell keeping it inside the jar didn’t depend on Camelopardis actively maintaining it.
Is there some kind of space warping going on, that Brennan can see? Because 25 feet long or no, something that fits in a tank that small doesn't... quite... seem terrifying.
[OOC: Cameleopardis studied at the feet of the masters, and remembered the lesson, "Never summon anything bigger than your head."]
[OOC: As far as you can tell it’s a tiny tank with a tiny thing in it, which when you look at it astrally is not tiny, but rather taller than the castle walls.]
"So these Maghee folks. I heard his side of it, but that ain't mean much. How do they sit with you, and the Protector?" Walker asks.
She shrugs. “Landless thieves and vagabonds. Some say they took a curse from the Sorcerer-King, but that’s the best thing I ever heard about ‘em and it still don’t make ‘em good people. Father didn’t let ‘em camp on our land, because horses would disappear when they visited."
"Tracks what he said," Walker jerks a thumb back in the direction of the library that they just left. "Didn't mention a curse, but claimed they were the ones sunk the Sorceror King's island and wrecked his towers for him. Sounds like enough to get a curse to me. They worth fighting with, or only against?"
"Dunno. Haven't done either. They don't have any land, so no one much bothers to fight 'em." She looks down, trying to see what Walker was looking at. "I don't know as I buy their history. Sounds like the kind of thing that someone would cook up to make their history sound noble."
"Could be," Walker admits. He's obviously had the same thought. While he is inclined to believe the deceased Maghee-- since he may have been alive for it or very shortly after-- he's not about to try to reason Balen out of something she wasn't reasoned into in the first place. A seed is enough.
He sees Balen trying to see what he's seeing and says, "It just ain't seem that dangerous, something fits in that little pot, does it? Gets bigger, the Maghee said it would. But he ain't seem too happy about it when that glamour got taken away." In the back of his mind, a plan is beginning to take shape. The open question is, is it easier simply to reinforce that spell Sorcerously and make it effectively permanent, or to reinforce the local laws of nature with Pattern against rapid size changes, thereby making its current size the new normal. Two potential routes to get to the same place. The other question, of course, is how likely either of those are to work, but if Cameleoprdis could do it-- or even Dara or Moire-- then so can Brennan.
"He didn't seem too happy being snookered by this Moire woman, either. You done something particular to get her goat? Or is this all just to keep you pinned here while the real fight's somewhere else?" he asks.
“She is desperate, as any deposed Queen is. Her kingdom was close to The Protector’s Realm, along magical roads that were hidden from mortal men. We can threaten the intervening hill towns, so they must protect against us and not help against the port town. The port is important because it threatens the supply lines of anyone trying to invade Avalon. There’s a game we play, called Dominos. We are part of a very large chain of them. Take us out, and Avalon loses our protection.
Balen bites her lower lip, absently. “What I don’t understand is why are we the key, where there are many other dominos that could be in play. Perhaps she saw it in a vision.”
Walker looks keenly interested at the mention of magical roads. "We called 'em Bones, in Reme," he says. "We ain't near one of those roads here, are we? That could explain it."
He pauses for the answer, whether "yes" or "no" or "search me." But expects "no."
She shakes her head. “The further one gets from Avalon, the wilder the country gets, and sometimes it shifts completely and we have new neighbors. If they are martial people, they survive. But our mountain has been stable for a long time."
Walker is visibly disappointed by this. More than disappointed-- frustrated. "Too bad. Thought maybe one might take me home."
Then he scowls and says, "I remember, before we figured out what that thing was," he gestures to the worm in the pot, "Your man Lunk thought maybe they was digging those trenches trying to sap the caves below the castle. Which, turns out, yeah. But when I took those caves out to wreck their plans, your brother was right worried I'd take the wrong path, open a wrong door. Said it would doom me and you both. Something down there could help her?" Walker asks.
“No,” she replies, unexpectedly curtly.
A hit, a palpable hit, Brennan thinks. He doesn't believe that for a minute, and he didn't miss the casual reference to stability, either.
Brennan feels the familiar mental tug that indicates that someone is trying to reach him via trump.
Brennan doesn't answer it immediately, but feigns to take Balen's curt response as a dismissal. He nods sharply, too. "Ain't matter anyway," he says. "Ain't help us any about that thing out there. I'm gonna go get a kit," (a reference he doesn't explain,) "decide how much I trust that Maghee wizard, and find my boys." He looks to Balen as if to say, unless you have some better idea.
"Speaking of the Maghee... that magic ain't stop after he died. His remains'll have to be moved with care."
When he's gotten away from Balen and to somewhere relatively private, he'll accept the contact. Preferably an armory, or the storeroom where they moved the shipment of weapons that they had brought with them on the caravan. Someplace with a door that he can close behind him.
When the contact forms, Ossian can tell that he is not who Brennan expected... but the idea that Brennan would expecting a Trump call from anyone is unusual. Brennan is dressed out of his traditional colors, in armor that's seen quite a bit of use in the recent and not so recent past. He's got grit and dust and sweat on him, which is to say that he hasn't conjured it away. His hair is cut short and whiskers are more than five o'clock shadow but less than a beard. The surroundings are gloomy, indoor, and somewhere that falls closer on the spectrum to Amber than to Xanadu or Paris.
"What news?" he asks. His voice is low.
"Lots." Ossian says. "First, the worst, I guess. Reid is dead. The Klybesian monks had his body, but we managed to recover most of it. You have met the monks haven't you?"
Unexpected Trump calls are always bad news.
Brennan closes his eyes and bows his head out of respect for Reid. "D-mn," he says, opening his eyes. His voice is still pitched low, but it is now more obviously controlled. He had never been as close to Reid as some of his cousins, but he is still visibly upset. "Only one of them-- Signy's man, Tomat. He's still with her, I think." He then amends that: "Only one that I know of. What did they have to do with it? And what do you mean, most of it?"
Ossian's mouth gets thinner. "Someone had taken tissue samples. It's almost certainly a Dr. Chew. By coincidence the monastery was connected by a tunnel to Greenwood hospital, probably the same place Corwin spent some time in way back. And Martin and Folly also ran into this Chew.
"I have volunteered to go back and investigate Greenwood."
"This is the same outfit that Marius claims colluded with Huon in his bid for Rebma? Does your investigation end with salting the earth beneath the ruins of it?" Brennan asks. He is not joking. Then he pauses, scowls becuase something is bothering him, and says, "Wait. I've never been to Flora's place, but I thought it was a tech shadow. Monastery doesn't really fit my mental image of the place. Are you saying they had a tunnel through shadow?"
"I would not be surprised if it is the same place as Marius talked about." Ossian pauses. "And yeah, they had a Shadow path. I am not convinced salting will be enough, but it is a good start, however." He grins. "Besides, it seems I, and you, might have personal issues with the monks as well."
Brennan's eyes narrow, and he can obviously see where this is leading, but he lets Ossian tell it his own way. "Go on," Brennan says.
"Just before I met the monks the first time, and learned that Reid was dead. Before Jerod, Raven and I destroyed the place. We met a woman named Regenlief. Later she was captured by the monks, but I bargained for her freedom.
"The monks said she had a child with Amberite, and she claims the monks took the child and placed it in an orphanage in Shadow. When I showed her your picture she said you were the father." Ossian frowns. "Did you ever go by the name Gamble or Ramble?"
Brennan is still for a long moment, closes his eyes in memory, and nods. "Yes. Ramble. That's the name I went by in those days, the days after the Black Road first... manifested. I thought-- well. I thought a lot of things, some of which were even true. One was that Brand had something to do with that. And that I needed to know more about it. Another was that using my real name might not be wise. So I followed it as best I could under assumed names. Ramble was one of them. There were some places along it that were... hard to pass. More local trouble than you could walk through alone, but if you gave a wide enough berth, you couldn't follow it. Sometimes the only way to get through was to throw in with the local forces.
"It was a place like that, that I met Regenleif. Actually, I always thought she was the one who started people calling me 'Gamble.' Some of my tactics might have seemed a bit risky, in the face of what we were fighting." He shrugs. It was a long time ago. "So, yes, it's possible. Is there any reason not to believe her?"
Then, somewhat delicately, since he holds no moral high ground, here, "How did you come be separated? She is a Valkyrie, and one of the fiercest warriors I've ever met."
Ossian shrugs: "My fault, I guess. I had brought a companion that isn't that much of a warrior. The monks attacked us, maybe because we were with her. My friend was captured, and we had to surrender.
"I do not think she lied to me, but she might of course be mistaken. But since you confirmed her story... I wonder why she left Asgard."
"No, that's not what I meant. I meant... I always assumed that when we discovered who she was, your mother would turn out to be dead. Brand found you in an orphanage, after all." He reflects on that, then answers his own question, tentatively: "But you said Shadow, again. It wouldn't matter how many of them she killed if you were in a different Shadow, and she simply could not get there."
Through all this, Brennan's face has grown as cold as his Trump. His words are calm and measured on the surface, and still quiet, becuase he does not wish to be overheard, but there is rage in the depths.
"This group needs to be unmade," Brennan says, "and made into something else, or into nothing at all. The insult of what they've done to you, to Regenleif, to me, is enough to warrant their extinction. But there are things we need to understand. I was not travelling under my real name. I rarely did, and never gave my lineage. My existence wasn't widely known. So how did this group even identify me, and you through me? And if they knew about me, then who else? If they did this, then what else?"
Ossian goes quiet too. "They do have at least one sorceror, and an unhealthy curiosity about our family. I do suspect they have some aspect of reality, as they turn up a bit too often.
"Regenlief seems to know a bit about them. And maybe Corwin, if he remembers anything from that hospital visit.
"And I agree on the destruction."
Brennan starts to say something, then stops. Twice.
"This is not good," he says at last. "But it would explain some things. As you say, for instance, how they keep turning up. Knowing that they kidnap our children and take tissue samples from our dead... Ossian, they're Family, aren't they? Some of them. Distant, maybe. Maybe not so distant if Brand hadn't taken you out of there.
"Have you shared that speculation with the King?" Brennan asks. "If not, do so. Soon. And one other thing about this-- what about Jasmine?"
"I will ask the King about her, but I will be her guardian if he allows me to. I have not had the opportunity to break the bad news to her yet.
"Without much reason I do not think Chew is family. But someone behind him might be."
Brennan nods. "Do as you think think best for her. I'll treat her as I would a grand-daughter, if that's how you decide." He actually smiles faintly at the thought.
Then he looks around himself somewhat conspicuously, and sighs. "This is not the best of times for a long talk, though. I'm in Avalon, working for our uncle, and the situation is... complicated and violent. Weathering a siege that's going to be broken, one way or the other. But this is very important-- do you have any Trumps of Celina, or anyone who might be with her? Last I heard, Conner and Brita were in that area. Possibly Ambrose, as well," he asks.
"I don't, but Brita is in the Trump booth. I was going to call her anyway. Do you have a message?"
Brennan mutters some mild Uxmali obscenity under his breath. "Yeah, tell her Celina and I need to be in contact very soon. Preferably with Brita and Conner at the same time. It's too much for just message passing, though. But this is a bad situation for Trump use. I'm concealing who and what I am, so every time I take a call, I need to duck away from someone. And very shortly I expect to be... busy." He gives a humorless smile. "And possibly engaged in Sorcery. So whoever calls should use a light touch. If I block, that just means I can't take it right then."
"Ok. I will call her. Then I'll start preparing for going back to Greenwood. Have to find someone to accompany me there."
"Silhouette," he says. It must be obvious to him, because he doesn't have to think about it at all.
"And Ossian, I know I'm usually the one counselling to go in heavy, take no prisoners, make some examples and all that. All subject to the King's command, of course, I don't think that's the right answer, here-- not yet. We can make examples if we want, but this is a group that has some understanding of Shadow, and has been around long enough to use that intelligently. They'll just go to ground for a decade or a century, and let us think we won. If we want to unmake them, we need to figure out how to decapitate them in one stroke... and what that stroke really entails."
"I agree on that. I will do my research. Destruction is not my forte... And if you happen to have finished that siege before I am finished with the monks, will you help?"
Brennan considers that, but can't give an answer: "I really don't know. Much as I'd like to drop everything and go reduce something to rubble, this siege is a small corner of a picture that might get very ugly, very soon. I might be asking for back-up myself, if this goes poorly. That's why I need to be in touch with Celina, so they know what's happening here."
Ossian nods. "I'll let her know. Do you have any words for Regenlief?"
"Yes," Brennan says. "One way or another, today, tomorrow, at a time and a place that is pleasing to us, there will be a reckoning with these people." There is more, of course, but that will suffice for now.
Ossian nods again. "Good luck then."
"And to you both," Brennan says. "Hopefully, next time we'll talk at greater leisure."
Folly exits the music room, gathers up a sketch pad and a few art supplies, and moves back into the kitchen to sit at the table -- quietly, so as not to disturb her daughter's bathtime (which she still holds out hope will eventually turn into naptime, but not if she goes in there to talk to Martin about Serious Adult Things.) She has calls to make, but they will all require borrowing elder-trumps from her husband. Well, or making a sketch of Celina, which she has never gotten explicit permission to do, but this might be an urgent enough situation to warrant it.
Or she could call Random. Which she would really, really like to do. But probably not until she's talked to Martin.
Restlessly, she tears a blank page out of the back of the sketchbook and divides it into two columns. On the left-hand side she begins jotting down details of her conversation with Brennan, the story they got from Cameleopardis, the Fortune reading; and on the right, she starts a list of what they would need to do to be ready to leave here. She bounces between the lists almost at random, sometimes even mid-sentence, as things occur to her.
She's keyed up, she knows. From time to time she stops to listen to the sounds of bathtime: her daughter's laughter, Martin's singing, his playful exasperation when Lark demands one more song, one more story, one more minute in the tub.
Eventually the sounds of splashing and laughing subside, and then it's just Martin, singing softly. Folly slips quietly from the table to go check on them.
Lark is settled in her own bed, conked out, and for all that Martin is still singing about the pink hippopotamus whose boat is sinking for perhaps the tenth or twelfth time this evening, he looks like he's ready to join Lark. But he finishes out the verse, makes sure Lark is asleep (she is), and steps out to join Folly in the hall. The door closes quietly behind him; it never sticks or squeaks when Martin shuts it.
He leans against the wall and arches his eyebrows at Folly in the dim evening light, asking well? and how did it go? without words.
She wrinkles her nose, shakes her head, and takes Martin's hand to lead him to the den, where they can sit together on a comfy couch and talk quietly without disturbing the little one.
When they're settled, she says, "So, remember Merlin telling you about seeing Corwin and Ben dueling it out over the Pattern during his Walk? Brennan just interrogated a guy who saw the same thing in the ruins of his ancestral home, sunk beneath the waves outside Avalon. Where someone who looked like and identified herself as Dara, of the lineage of Lir, asked the guy to join her vendetta to take down the Sorcerer King Corwin and his new realm. And then a woman who identified herself as a priestess of Lir, but who looked just like Moire, gave him a fleet to go attack Methryn's Isle, which is where Brennan is now." Folly shakes her head again and throws up her hands as if to say 'I mean what the bloody hell I can't even.'
Martin nods at the question about Merlin, unsurprisingly. As he listens to the rest of the story, his eyebrows start inching upward; they've attained maximum height by the end of the recital.
His initial reaction is best characterized as, "Well, f**k."
What he actually says is, "That's too much to process without alcohol, or preferably something stronger."
Folly gives a wry smile. "I know what you mean. Unfortunately, I've got to keep a clear head for now, because I think I've got some calls to make after this -- but... yeah." She gestures for Martin to go ahead and get what he needs from the alcohol-and-other-things cabinet.
As he gets up to do so, she amends, "Well, maybe just a wee shot of something for me."
Martin brings back a bottle of something that looks strong and deep, with a tumbler for himself and a shot glass for Folly to take a dram if she likes. He pours for her and then himself, a couple of fingers in the glass to start.
"May the step off the stair be quick," he says, and takes a long gulp.
Folly raises her own glass and takes a small sip.
"All right, let me tell you what I know. Ben lost his arm during the war, and he had this metal arm for a while, that Corwin got out of Tir. Supposedly Corwin saw Dara and Benedict in some distant possible future, and Corwin cut it off Ben's arm. At which point Ben _used it_, which hell if I understand, but it served him to block some scheme of Brand's, and then when I brought Dara to Amber under our grandfather's instructions, there was some reversed version of the scene where Corwin got it and Grayswandir cut it off Ben's arm while I was right there watching. And this whole thing sounds weirdly like the story Corwin told about what Dara said to Corwin--that he reported to Merle, that I'm reporting to you, so take it with the appropriate grain of salt--except obviously with a very different outcome."
Folly nods slowly. "When Corwin saw the distant-future Benedict, or when you witnessed the removal of Ben's spooky new arm in Amber -- where in the castle did those things take place?"
"It was in the throne room. But I wasn't inside. I saw part of it through an archway, but I couldn't get in. Neither could Corwin--he came up while it was happening and couldn't get in. But it was definitely Grayswandir on the other side somehow, even though he was wearing the d*mn thing while he was trying to get in there." Martin shakes his head and shrugs. "I think Grandfather was f**king around with time somehow, with Tir. I don't know where he got the arm, either, though I could make some educated guesses."
"Well, the story this guy told didn't mention that the arm was mechanical," Folly says -- slowly, as she tries to recall and piece together all the relevant bits -- "but otherwise it echoed that story in most details."
She hesitates, then decides that perhaps she should go back and start at the beginning. "So, this guy, Cameleopardis of the Maghee clan, told Brennan that his clan's ancestors defeated the Sorceror-King in days of old by sinking Corwin's towers -- and the land they stood on, along with their ancestral homeland that was once part of Avalon -- beneath the sea. Mag... Magga... Maghdeburg, I think. Made a deal with the Fae to get some of the magics they needed to pull that off.
"So this Maghee fellow, who is a hedge wizard himself, was on his way down through the kelp forests with his little spell that lets him breathe underwater, when he ran across some soldiers coming the other way out of the forests from some battle they'd lost in an undersea city ruled by women. Apparently they'd had rather a rough time of it in the kelp forests -- chased out by deep monsters, and all that -- and thought to make for Maghdeburg themselves, so they captured the Maghee to serve as their native guide.
"They made for the palace. The Maghee described it as a ruin, its opulence long since stolen or drowned, but the Captain of the soldiers insisted that 'the treasure is below'. Which... well. I don't know what he thought he was looking for, but that's certainly suggestive. They found the throne room, a thousand feet across and dominated by a sapphire throne -- also an interesting detail. Cameleopardis says as soon as he saw it, he was struck by a vision: great spirals of light on the floor, with a man walking along them. Then, in front of the man, Corwin with his sword raised, fighting the Protector. At that point the Maghee passed out next to the throne, and when he awoke the soldiers and the Pattern and the dueling figures were gone. A woman sat on the throne with a rune-carved sword at her throat -- though no one was holding it -- and the Protector standing on her far side. She addressed the invisible swordsman as 'Corwin' and then the Protector stepped up to fight him. In the process the phantom blade struck off the Protector's right arm, which regrew from the stump like smoke. The severed arm and the floating sword floated toward the floor and then passed through it -- and then the Protector was enveloped in smoke and disappeared, too. So it was just the Maghee and the woman, who identified herself as Dara.
"She got excited when he told her his ancestors were the ones who overthrew the Sorceror-King. She said she was there to research him, too, and figure out how to destroy him and his new kingdom. When he offered his aid, she said he would sleep for a while and then a priestess of Lir would tell him what to do.
"So he slept by her magics, and when he awoke there was another woman tending to him. When he asked if she was Lir's Priestess she said she was, and gave him ships to go and attack Methryn's Isle. He was less sure about her identity, but when Brennan showed him my sketches, he was sure Dara was Dara and thought the priestess might have been Moire, but felt that some kind of a geas had been put on him so he couldn't remember exactly."
Folly pauses, frowning. "So, a lot of these things could reasonably be things that have happened recently -- the soldiers in the kelp forest could have been Huon's forces taking refuge after the recent altercation in Rebma, and Dara could have been looking for new ways of irritating Corwin and the family after all the fun at the Coronation -- but when one of the people working with Brennan tried to counteract the geas, the Maghee suddenly aged years, maybe centuries, right before our eyes. Which means that some of those things could have happened anywhen, and been part of your grandfather's -- or somebody else's -- time manipulations."
She takes another tiny sip of her drink and blows out a breath that lifts the hair from her forehead. "There's more, but... I'm interested in your take on all of that first. Do any of those details map to other stories, besides the thing with Corwin and Ben and The Arm, and Merlin's story of his patternwalk?"
"The metaphysics are still over my head," Martin says, pulling a short blond strand of hair away from his head. "But the thing that I notice first is there are two different _events_ conflated here, apart from the additional Rebman trappings. First, the bit with Ben and his arm on the one hand, and the second, the duel between Ben and Corwin that Merlin claims he witnessed during his Walk." He pauses there and reviews what Folly said, nodding slightly along with the rhythm her words had been spoken in. "The regrowth of the arm is--suggestive. Of something. I'm just not sure what."
"Yeah, it almost feels like that place was behaving like some kind of node, or nexus---" Folly downs the rest of her drink in one gulp so that she can talk with her hands "---with overlapping reflections all kind of passing through it at the same time, you know? Or maybe with Avalon being adjacent to Tir---"
She hesitates, and a new thought takes her. "Well, I was going to say something about the 'ghosts of Tir', but the visions Corwin saw when he was there turned out to be the actual people, just in a different time and place, right? So maybe Corwin and Benedict did actually once fight over a pattern. Or will do, someday. Or---"
She hesitates again, and her eyes widen. "Or possibly long ago and far away the Sorceror-King drew his own pattern in the basement of his castle, and now that he went and grew up and drew another one the universe thinks they're actually the same point and is folding reality back on itself." She frowns. "Okay, that's a long shot, but I think Corwin just moved up to the top of my list of elders to talk to next. Is the Rebman throne an actual sapphire?"
Martin is doing his best to follow that explanation. Folly can tell he's skeptical of the double-pattern explanation, and is considering opining on it, when she changes direction to a question he can actually answer. "No. It's called the Sapphire Throne as a metaphor, because the stone that's part of the regalia is a sapphire, or appears to be the way the Jewel of Judgement appears to be a ruby. Now the actual throne has sapphires on it, and it wouldn't surprise me if there were a throne made out of sapphires somewhere in the castle, but that wasn't the one in use when I was living in the castle."
"So if what the Maghee saw was meant in some way to represent the throne of Rebma, it at least wasn't the throne of Rebma _now_," Folly says. "It does rather strain credulity that Ancient Corwin would just happen to have picked sapphire for his own throne. Although perhaps," she adds with a smirk that is audible more than visible, "it was a gift from Moins. Or, I dunno... from Moins to Finndo, and Corwin ended up with the hand-me-downs. Er, did I mention the part where the Maghee identified himself as 'Camelopardis Findanus'?"
"No," Martin says, and does not facepalm, but he does shake his head. "As much as I like Brita, I wish Finndo had kept it in his trousers more often. If this Camelopardis Findanus is one of his, it makes something like a dozen troublemaking descendants I can think of off the top of my head." He frowns and shakes his head again.
Folly gives a wry smile; she may not know the full list he's thinking of, but she has at least a few guesses.
"Okay, so you're going to talk to Corwin, presumably in person since this is not the kind of discussion you want to have by Trump. Are there any more stops you have in mind? When do you think you'll be back?"
"Well...." Folly hesitates, frowning, then says, "I think before we can figure that out I've got at least one more question for you. You may have noticed how both Dara and Moire figured into the story told by the Maghee, although there are plenty of details to suggest that not everything he saw was really 'here' and 'now'. But... well, you know both of them better than I do. If you had to hazard a guess, does either of them feel like the one whose fingerprints are on that plan to send Camelopardis and a fleet to attack Methryn's Isle?"
Martin shakes his head. "Neither one of them has the skill to pull off Grandfather's timey-wimey games. Now either one of them might have tried inspiring forces and using them. Dara's got the shapeshifting, to boot." He frowns. "The whole complex plan with third parties and agents is more Grandmother's style, though." He ponders it a bit more, and shrugs, finally, uncertain. "I don't know. Could be either. I don't think it's both of them together, though, because I have a hunch that they wouldn't be able to work together for long without egos getting in the way."
"Well, that's a relief, at least. Brennan is inclined to think Moire is involved, I think, but that's mostly because that's the involvement he's been looking for." Folly begins fidgeting with her empty glass. "We did a Fortune reading while we were talking. I let Brennan pick the question, and he came up with 'What's the best way to catch Moire?' And the answer, as far as I could tell, was that eventually she would come to Lark, who is sitting here all undefended by a Pattern."
She looks up and meets Martin's eyes. "I know we're safe for the time being since nobody knows we're here, but the way we bend things out in shadow so that we all roll into each other eventually, I feel like if we stay here it's only a matter of time until it becomes inevitable that someone finds us."
"Then we don't stay. I like Lauderville just fine, but we're going to run out of road here in a couple of years no matter what." As best as Folly can read Martin's expression, which is particularly flat and stonelike, he knows what she's getting at and is choosing not to acknowledge it for the moment. "We can do a lot with her records to show she is what we need her to be. The facts are that she's different, though. We're different. And not just in ways that have to do with the trust fund and the band. Eventually that tells."
Folly nods; she's got some experience with that herself.
"Maybe this place was a mistake. Gerard was here. Solange was here. It's already been interfered with. I'm okay with being a vagabond for a few decades while we sort it out." He shrugs, not liking the conclusion, but there it is.
"Well, and on the plus side I'm sure Lark will enjoy the chance to surf every beach ever while we're on our universal tour," Folly offers with a wry smile. More seriously, she adds, "We'll make it work."
"How do we think Moire is getting around? Because she's not a Patternwalker and doesn't have our skills. We can seal natural paths if we need to."
"I don't know enough about Rebman magics to know what her options would be. Did you tell me once that she could possibly use mirrors for that?" Folly frowns thoughtfully. "And if so, who do we know and trust that could tell us something about how that would work?"
"Celina," Martin is certain on that point, "who learned it from her." He's less certain about that second point. "I'm pretty sure she needs the right kind of mirror to land in, and I have no idea what the transit restrictions are, but I'm pretty sure it's technically possible to travel by mirror. The question is whether you can do a shadow transit that way.
"I know they can spy through them, which is part of why I've always so picky about where we have mirrors in the house and what kind of mirrors they are." He gestures toward the dining room, which has a mirror for light reflection--one with an artistically cracked and textured surface. "I've assumed that the precautions against spying would also serve against transits.
"If the next question is 'can she spy through mirrors cross-shadow?', the answer is 'I don't know, but on that I realistically assume the worst."
"I've been assuming mirror magic to be roughly the analogue of trumps, until I know more," Folly says, "and those can certainly do cross-shadow somethings. I think Celina is now solidly on my priority list right after Corwin...."
She gets a faraway look in her eyes. "Now that I think on it, Corwin's Paris seemed rather full of mirrors, didn't it? It hadn't really occurred to me at the time because there are so many other reasons that could be the case, but now I wonder how much he knows about the possibilities of mirror magic."
"Depends on whether he can pick it up by osmosis through--" and Martin's gesture leaves no doubt as to which activity he thinks most likely to have brought Corwin into close contact with a mistress of mirrors.
Folly smirks.
"The mirrors I've seen in Paris, though, most of them were--" Martin looks for a word "--they had black on them, like they'd been through a fire. So they reflected light but the view was distorted. That's a common way to defend a mirror against being used for magical purposes. Which on the one hand is common knowledge to anyone who's spent enough time in Rebma, and which on the other hand is a lot of effort for someone to go to for a whole palace. But he's the king, so--" Martin has both hands in the air as if he's weighing possibilities physically as well as mentally.
"Ah. I'd noticed that, but figured it was a side-effect of manufacturing at that technology level, or the gaslight environment, or something," Folly says. "It's comforting to know it's probably intentional -- that all those mirrors weren't just Corwin's way of saying 'come up and see me sometime', you know? Or alternatively, cavalier arrogance that no other powers out there could possibly be a match for him, so why worry about defending against them? Not that I would put it past Corwin -- or most of his brothers, for that matter -- to decorate primarily in the motif of 'trick out with your prick out'. But it's nice to know he didn't, necessarily."
She sets her empty glass aside. "So. Corwin first, and that's a conversation that should probably happen in person. Then, most likely, Celina." She looks at Martin and arches an eyebrow, asking-without-asking his thoughts on whether that also ought to happen in person. Even if that also means In Rebma.
"Any conversation you have over trumps can be overheard. Any conversation you have in person in Rebma can be overheard. Same for Paris. So it's a matter of picking your poisons." Martin does some slow-motion cogitation on the whole thing and adds, "I really don't want Lark near any of the Patterns. It'll raise too many questions if she goes to Paris and not to Xanadu. And I think regardless of anything else, neither one of us wants to take her to Rebma. Not until we have more certainty about my grandmother's situation than we have, no offense to Celina."
"Oh, we're definitely on the same page there; I was already counting on it being a solo mission if I end up going there." She offers up a wistful smile and adds, "...although it does feel strange that my first trip to your boyhood home might be without you. I'd offer to pick up souvenirs, but I think I already know what you'd most want me to bring back...." She reaches for his hand.
Martin lets Folly get hold of his hand, squeezing her fingertips when she has a good grip on him. "Other than yourself? The things I wanted out of Rebma aren't there any more. There's nothing left for me but the people. The people and the ghosts." Another squeeze, and a bit of a grin. "But if you want to pick up some salt tea at the duty-free, you can do that too."
Folly returns the grin. "I'll see what I can do."
She has a few preparations to make before she's ready to contact Corwin, not least among them getting cleaned up from her beachy morning lounginess to a dress that passes, more-or-less, as a Paris-appropriate tea gown. She makes a couple of updates to the in-case-of-emergencies list that hangs on the fridge (not that she thinks Martin will need it, but it makes her feel better) and quietly looks in on her napping daughter.
"You've got my card if you need it, and I've got yours," Folly says to Martin once she's ready to go. "I don't expect to be gone long, but...." She gives a little shrug. Martin knows as well as she does the particular kinds of time-properties they were looking for when they settled in this place. "If my short time elsewhere starts turning into a long time here, call me." She looks for a moment as if she is about to say more, but instead pulls her husband into a tight hug.
After a long moment, she lets out a sigh and reluctantly eases her grip. "Would you rather loan me your card, or make the call and pass me through?"
Martin assists with preparations, quietly, where he can, and keeps Lark down when he can't. He's not that crazy about the Parisian fashion fake-up, either, but he's just not crazy about Paris. What he is crazy about is the hugging--not so much the goodbye part, though.
When Folly lets go of him, he pulls out his deck. "I'll call. I may need to get to you in Paris quickly." Thumbing out Corwin's card, he looks into it and makes the contact. "Hello, Corwin. It's Martin. Folly would like to visit Paris to discuss matters with you. May she come through?"
"Okay, here she comes." Only once the contact is assured and Folly's acceptance on the other end clear does Martin take her hand and pass her through to Corwin.
Last modified: 26 November 2014
