Chapter 060: Fair Shares
"And
any fool knows a dog needs a home
A
shelter from pigs on the wing"
Pigs
on the Wing (part 2) - Pink Floyd
"We have to go back for Boadice."
"Oh? Do we?" I gave Panther a square
look. Personally I wasn't too keen on retrieving the cinder that was our cousin,
not in the least place because I wasn't entirely convinced that she wouldn't
start hallucinating again once we started moving her around. However, I guessed
that it wouldn't do to leave her there either.
"Yes, we do," Panther asserted firmly.
"Shall we go back for her together or shall I do it alone?"
"Wait a minute, let me try something first." I tried to put
myself beyond our surroundings, beyond the cold and the wind razing the
battlements of Brand's castle, beyond the black and silver robot defenders that
silently stood around awaiting further orders, down into the castle to the spot
right in front of the door of the laboratory. That was the place where we had
left our cousin, right under that checkered blanket. I tried to envision it as
best as I could and then tried to bring her up to us in much the same way that I
had managed to teleport myself around.
Since it was the first time that I tried to teleport something other than
myself, I shouldn't have been surprised that it didn't work as planned. The only
thing that appeared before us was the little blanket I had summoned earlier to
hide Boa's horribly burned body away from sight. Feeling slightly crestfallen
and disappointed I shrugged at Panther.
"It would have been a good idea to bring the contents up here as
well, I think," he remarked dryly.
"That is what I was trying to do, for your
information." As if he was being such a great help. At least I tried to do
something.
"I suggest you quickly teleport me to where
she is," he said, "so I can get hold of her and you can immediately
bring the two of us back here."
"Okay, I'm willing to try that, but I think
you'd better leave the papers here with me, just in case."
"No, I think not. I would not want to lead you
into temptation."
"Look," I said, "I have no way
of leaving the Overshadow on my own, so I have to wait for you anyway." It
clearly wasn't enough to convince him.
"If that is your attitude," he said,
"I am sure that I can accomplish it just as easily without your help."
Damn! The stuck up arrogant bastard! Part of me acually would like to see him
try and, hopefully, fail, but what if he succeeded? Why was he so concerned
about Boadice anyway? It sure wasn't because he had started caring all of a
sudden.
"Okay," I conceded, "we might as
well go back together." He nodded.
"Fair enough, only be quick about it, for we
do not know what has happened there since we left."
I concentrated, snapped my fingers, and we were out of the chilling wind
and back in the dark dungeons of the castle, right next to the door to the
laboratory. To my surprise there was no sign of Boadice anywhere. She had been
in no condition to wander off on her own, so where had she gone? Back to our own
reality perhaps? Or had someone else taken her away?
We didn't have much time to ponder our cousin's mysterious disappearance,
for just a moment after we had arrived there we heard a shout from behind us in
the corridor. We turned to see Martin and Rinaldo charging towards us, their
expressions boding no good for either of us. Apparently our sudden exit with the
papers had made them put aside their differences for the time being in order to
focus their attention on finding us. I quickly teleported us back to the top of
the castle before they could get their hands on us, thinking how fortunate we
were that our cousins hadn't yet figured out how to work this trick.
"She's gone," I said, my breath forming faint plumes in the
night air.
"Damn!" For some reason he looked really
upset. Urgently he turned to me. "You are a witness, right? She had already
vanished when we came back." With a shrug I nodded, wondering to whom I
would have to corroborate this story. Panther gave me a somewhat satisfied nod
in return. "We have to get the papers to a safe place."
"I couldn't agree more, but where do we go
from here?"
"The fastest way to Tir-na Nog'th would seem most appropriate."
Okay, remembering our earlier visit to the Overshadow I concentrated on the
version of Arden that we had passed through then and immediately teleported us
over there. By now Panther appeared to be taking my mode of transportation
completely in his stride, and he started leading us towards the Silver City.
Fortunately for me he also remembered to keep up my defenses against the
Overshadow effects, else I would have ended up as a red smear amongst all the
nice greenery. This dependency on others still bothered me, though, especially
since I noticed that I couldn't tell how cousin Panther was finding his way
around here. I realised that I would have been completely lost without him and I
decided there and then that the next time I would be coming up here I would be
coming prepared. The only thing I would have to figure out was how to get the
right initiation, that was all...
After a while the forest started thinning and a few minutes later I
caught my first of glimpse of Tir-na Nog'th. At least the moon was right for a
safe descend to the real world and there appeared to be few clouds. As we
continued on our path round the outskirts of the city towards the stairs to
Amber, we started discussing what we were to do with the papers. Panther, who
turned back into Murlas as we descended the stairs, felt that it would be best
to divide the papers between us, thus limiting the chances of anyone else laying
their hands and eyes on the entire set.
"That's all very well," I said, "but I'm not sure that I
want to split them up right away. I think I would first like to take the time to
go over them in some more detail."
"A good idea," Murlas said, "but I
would like to be present when you do so, and I simply do not have the time right
now."
"That's exactly what I'm afraid of. If we
don't do it right away, we may end up putting it off forever."
Murlas merely looked pensive for a moment, then he said: "I have
another suggestion. We go off and try to find one of the people whose names were
on the list and have a little conversation with them. That way we may gain a
better insight in what is going on, after which we can make our decision on what
to do with the papers."
"And I had the feeling," I said with a
smirk, "that it might be easier if we went over the notes first before
looking up any of those people, so that we would at least have an idea of what
to ask them and a better chance of understanding anything they might be willing
and able to tell us."
"I think that as far as the most interesting
part of the notes is concerned, that is the prophecy, any further study would
most likely not yield us all that much," Murlas remarked.
"You're being a bit too hasty there," I said. "considering
that we only took a very brief look at them in the castle. There's no telling
what we might be able to learn from them. Besides, studying them for a while may
help us to be able to recognise certain names and theories when we come across
them. I estimate that reading through all the notes while not really going into
them in full detail would take about a day or so. How much time do you think it
would take for us to locate any one person on that list?"
"Alright, one day is fair enough," Murlas
conceded. "I presume that you already have a place in mind to spend this
one day?"
"My father has got a house in the city where I
think we will have all the peace and quiet that we need." I wasn't entirely
for involving dad in our problems, but I figured that the chances of anyone
following us to his house were slim to nil.
"Fair enough," Murlas said. "And I
presume that for the duration of that one day we will not be accepting any Trump
calls, will we?"
"That would be wise," I replied with a
smile.
Our course of action decided we fell silent, continuing down the stairs
till we reached Kolvir's terra firma. Setting a firm pace I led Murlas along the
fastest route that would take us to dad's place. Glancing beside me at a certain
point I noticed how my cousin had once again changed his appeareance, this time
to that of a rather non-descript sailor. Apparently he didn't want anyone in
Amber to know that he was around.
Through the dark streets of the city - it must have been well after
midnight - we made our way to the house where I had grown up. That time seemed
centuries ago now, yet I still felt a certain twang inside when I regarded the
familiar facade, realising that in some unspecified way this house would always
be a home to me. Around the back I quickly located the spare key in its usual
hiding place and opened the back door, inviting Murlas to step inside.
I was careful not to make too much noise, since it was clear that
everyone had already gone to bed, but a few minutes after we had reached my room
Sondra, the housekeeper, came knocking on my door. She was surprised to see me
there, of course, and I explained to her that if anyone came asking for me I
wasn't really there. She offered to make us some coffee, which we gladly
accepted; it would be a long while before we would get any sleep.
The first thing I did was using the list of names to light the fireplace
with, for while both Murlas and I were convinced that it wasn't a good idea to
destroy all the papers, there didn't seem to be much use to keeping this list
around, especially since we both had memorized all the names as best as we
could.
Well, as I had already expected it took us slightly more than a working
man's day to read everything, which period was only interupted twice by Sondra
coming around to bring us some food. She informed me that my father had been
made aware of us being here and that he would like to see me as soon as I found
myself available, which I had already decided to do anyway.
We didn't gather as much information from the notes as I would have liked
or had expected, or rather most of the knowledge contained in there was quite
esoteric and its use would only be revealed to us once we had gathered some more
information from other sources. Still, there were quite some interesting
theories on influencing reality levels with the Pattern, and another intriguing
thing was the Nexus cropping up a couple of times in the notes on the
dimensional studies. Could it be that this threat that Brand had referred to
would in fact be coming from that corner? It wouldn't hurt to keep that in mind,
I decided.
"Well, that was all quite fascinating," Murlas said after he
had put down the last scrap of paper, "but now I do have some pressing
business elsewhere."
"Do you want to make any sort of arrangements
first?"
"That would be a good idea," he said with
a slight smile, "at least if we want to have another look at the entire
collection, that is." He nodded towards the piles of papers on my desk.
"So how do you want to divide the papers
between us?"
"I would say that you are the most interested in the material
concerning the Pattern," he ventured, "if it were only to serve as an
extra background study for the things that you are involved in. As I see it
there are two ways to do this: either we split up the whole thing fairly and see
to it that neither of us will have any use of the part that is in his safe
keeping, or we opt for a division that would allow for people to make a start in
the field that they are most interested in. To tell you the truth, I do not
really care whether we choose one or the other."
"The second option seems promising," I
said, "but there happen to be three main subjects and there are only two of
us. How do we divide this fairly?"
"As I said before, the Pattern is mainly your field of expertise, so
those notes would be best suited in your hands. Since I still need to find out
what has happened to Malachie, I think the notes on the prophecy would best
serve my ends."
"Which leaves us the notes on the dimensional
theories," I said noncommittally.
"Yes. I think we would do best to leave that
matter be for now." Hmm, his idea of a fair division wasn't entirely what I
had in mind.
"I don't know what pressing business is so urgently requiring your
attention," I said, "and frankly I don't need to know, but I would
like to go after the names on that list as soon as possible, and I think that
the material on the prophecy may prove to be quite helpful."
"In my opinion," Murlas said with a
slight frown, "the prophecy is too important for any one of us to look into
alone. We already know of one person who has disappeared in connection to this.
Also, we would need to decide what to do about Rinaldo in this matter."
"You're right. Sooner or later he will pop up
again."
"Yes, that is why I think we should wait for a
while."
"I get the feeling, though, that there is a
sense of urgency to this that is hard to ignore."
"Agreed, but with `a while' I mean a few days
and not a few weeks."
"That's all very well, but I have noticed that
it is sometimes difficult to keep these things in check."
"Well, there is nothing that will keep you
from looking me up, is there?"
I shrugged, conceding the point, and said: "So we are back at the
question how to divide the papers."
"Actually it is quite simple," he said
with false cheer. "Since I do not have the time to look into these matters
myself, a precise fifty-fifty division would seem to be best." Again I
shrugged. As a matter of fact, I didn't really care all that much either way. I
had already managed to convince him in the matter of studying the notes before
splitting them up, and I felt that the notes weren't that crucial even if I
would go looking for the people on the list. Besides, he was right in assuming
that I would look him up as soon as I felt I needed to see his half of the loot.
After splitting up the papers between the two of us (taking care to
number them of course, so we could put them back in the right order), Murlas was
eager to leave right away, and I wasn't all to sorry to see him go. Of course I
could have invited him to stay for dinner, but I was sort of looking forward to
sharing that occasion with just my dad; having another relative around would
only spoil the atmosphere.
I realised that I needed a safe spot to keep the papers in, and after a
lot of deliberating I decided that a pocket Shadow would still be the most
convenient option. Which meant that I would have to use the Pattern again...
Well, there were no two ways about it and if the nasty thing would try to fry my
mind, too bad! Sometimes you just won't get anywhere without taking some risks.
This time my luck held. There seemed to be no sense of danger from the
the side of the Big Blue One, and coming back to the familiar presence after all
this time was even pleasant in a certain way. There is this sense of power
involved after all. Still, it would probably be wise to continue to use it as
little as possible. No telling whether It wouldn't yet try to have its revenge
on me. I quickly fashioned a small pocket, not much larger than the actual
papers themselves, and anchored it to myself. That way I would need to channel a
minimum of power to maintain it, but I realised that if I were to lose
consciousnes quite suddenly here in Amber, the pocket would almost certainly
cease to exist and would deposit its contents right
next to my body. Oh well, I just had to be careful, as always.
I had a quick shower and shave and a change of clothes before stepping
out to greet my dad. He was glad to see me, as always, and wanted to know how I
was doing. I told him that I was fine considering the circumstances and that he
shouldn't worry too much about me. I worried enough about myself as it was.
Our conversation over dinner was pleasantly light and there were but few
truly interesting bits of news that he could tell me. It turned out that my trip
to the Overshadow had taken significantly longer than I had thought: I had been
gone for a little over two weeks. Dad proudly told me that he had had a visit
sometime during that first week from the kids accompanied by none other than
Queen Vialle. It was clear from the way he told me this that he had enjoyed
their company very much, even though those six were more than a few handfuls.
Thinking back to that visit reminded him to ask whether I had already
heard about the royal proclamation. Of course I had not, so he informed me that
Vialle had at long last given birth to a lovely baby daughter. The girl had been
named Ruby and there were lots of festivities and formal occassions planned for
the next week or so, at which everyone who was anyone was expected to attend.
For a moment I pondered whether I should Trump Murlas or not, since I was fairly
certain that he had managed to slip away from Amber without hearing about the
news. I realised, however, that he probably wouldn't be taking any calls anyway
and I strongly felt that it wasn't my duty to keep him up to date. If he didn't
want to get involved in Amber social life, it was his own choice.
As I was very tired and we didn't have too many important things to
discuss, we didn't stay up too late after dinner. I was glad that I had this
chance at least to spend one quiet night in my parental home before heading back
to the hurly burly of court life. Tomorrow I would go and visit my newly born
cousin and subject myself to all kinds of Family plots and machinations, this
night I would simply sleep. Sometimes it seems the greatest luxury that anyone
can afford themselves.