Chapter 059: The Hermit's Legacy
"So
you tell me `trust me' I can trust you
As
far as I can throw you
And
I'm trying to get out of a shadow of doubt
Cause
I don't know if I know you"
Lie
- Dream Theater
There was a slight sigh of air escaping for the first time since ages as
the door slowly opened. The darkness of a chamber loomed up before us, yet there
appeared to be a soft orange glow coming from somewhere inside. With a very
mixed expression Rinaldo turned back toward us, as if uncertain what to do next.
"Well, shall we?" Panther asked. Rinaldo shrugged and stepped
into the room, closely followed by Panther and with yours truly trailing behind
at a safe distance. I still wasn't altogether convinced that there wouldn't be
any traps waiting for us, this being Brand's place and all.
Inside the shimmering orange glow provided just enough light to make out
the contours of a typical laboratory. However, it seemed a little too... neat, I
guess. It was as if the room had completely been decorated and furnished only
yesterday or the day before: everything was too well ordered, there was too
little rubish or even dust lying around. Of course this could well be the
general effect of the Overshadow at play, but it might be something else.
The source of the light appeared to be a brightly glowing orange cloud
floating a couple of centimetres over a table near the far wall. As I watched it
started to swirl and move, slowly forming into an image of a man sitting in a
chair. Well before his features were complete set I knew who it had to be and in
this I was not disappointed. Panther was rummaging around a bit, but when he
realised that something was up he too started paying attention. I was vaguely
aware of some shifting sounds behind us and as I glanced back for a moment I
thought I saw something move in the darkness of the corridor. At that point,
however, the image of Brand, for it was of course none other than him, started
to speak and what he had to say took up all my attention.
"My son," he began, yet he wasn't looking at Rinaldo, but
straight at the door through which we had entered. This was probably some
prerecorded message left in the hope that Rinaldo would one day find it. I bet
he hadn't counted on anyone else being here as well, though.
"The fact that you're hearing this right now," he continued,
"could very well mean that I am not here anymore. I speak these words to
you now, before my attempt to restore the balance in our universe. For quite a
long time I've had the feeling that some disaster is about to happen, but I
never knew exactly what. All the prophecies I've read point to the fact that our
universe doesn't have very much time left. After an extensive study of all the
facts I've come to the conclusion that this inevitable end is a direct result of
a flaw in the basic nature of the Pattern. The Pattern as created by Dworkin is
in complete polarity with the Logrus, and because of this it can be affected by
it. The two powers are in constant conflict with one another, thereby
continually weakening one another.
"This in itself does not pose any danger, as long as these two are
the only powers in our universe, but I have discovered that this is not the
case. All the indications and portents of what is in store for us that I have
discovered have made me decide that drastic action is the only recourse left to
us: Dworkin's Pattern must be replaced by a new Pattern that works with the
Logrus instead of against it, and that is in effect a kind of extension of the
Logrus' power. This might seem a contradiction, but paradoxically it is the
truth. The polarization of our universe, our main weakness, must come to an end.
Amber as it exists today is doomed, yet no one will believe me." In spite
of that last remark Brand's projection seemed to be very calm and collected. I
couldn't help but wonder whether these were the ravings of a madman, never mind
the calm exterior, or whether there realy was some truth to his tale. The first
possibility was the easier one of course, especially since if the latter case
were to be true, Brand must have failed to accomplish his tasks and the threat
would still be around.
"As I tell you this," Brand continued, "I have already
succeeded in damaging the Primal Pattern. However, Corwin, that idiot, has
constructed a second Pattern despite my best efforts to keep him from doing so.
The cracks in our defenses have widened into gaps. If I do not act, the first
harbingers of our doom will arrive in but a few years time. If you're here
listening to this, I probably will have failed in my objectives.
"As you know I have anchored this stucture to the Overshadow, so it
will remain in place even after my death and only your presence here will
activate this message. Trust no one. The only one who could have been of any
help was Dworkin, and he would not believe me. I leave it to you to continue the
struggle. Perhaps you will only see this when it's already or nearly too late,
but I don't believe that the prophecies can be ignored without risk. You can
look for help among my brothers or sisters or ask your mother, but I warn you:
some of them have already allied themselves with the other powers that will walk
all over us. I'm sorry that I have to include your mother in this category. I
have found that she has tried to keep certain things from me. Trust is deadly.
Maybe even you have been recruited. In that case, this message will not
accomplish anything.
"However, Malachie thinks or has made some cryptic remarks to the
extent that there may be hope for the next generation. Malachie knows as much
about this as I, and you can look him up if you want to, but I have to warn you
that we disagree about the solution to our problem. He believes that the
polarization of our universe could be used as a weapon against our enemies, an
utterly naive notion. Anyway, talk to him if you will and to all the others of
our group. I left a list of names with my other papers.
"I would have liked to have been able to tell you more about the
nature of our assaillants, their powers, their strengths and weaknesses and
such. In the prophecies they are referred to as the Wolves, but whether this is
merely a metaphor or whether it has some literal meaning remains unclear. They
feature in Chaos' memory." His expression changed to a wry grin. "No
one has ever accused me of sanity," he continued. "So be it. Perhaps,
however, one needs some degree of insanity once in a while to attain a higher
level of insight. I leave this matter in your hands. Go with my blessing."
Brand's image grew hazier as the orange glow slowly drifted from above the table
to cover the whole room, until it touched everyone inside, including Martin who
was unobtrusively standing just a little bit behind us. After that the glow
returned to its original place where it continued to illuminate the chamber
without showing us anymore images from the past.
I looked at the others, trying to gauge their reactions. Panther regarded
the rest of us with that condescending little smile of his, clearly waiting for
whatever it was that was going happen next. Martin looked sceptical.
"Hmph," he snorted derisively. "What a load of..."
Rinaldo didn't rise to the bait, however, but simply stood there studying the
glow with a pensive expression. I too put on my thoughtful face, and quite
appropriate it was too, since Brand had left us a lot to think about.
"You're not going to tell me that you believe all that drivel, are
you?" Martin demanded when he saw my expression. "That guy was a
certified lunatic!"
"Certified lunatic or not," Panther said calmly before I had a
chance to reply, "there may yet turn out to be more to the things that he
was involved in than is generally believed. There were some elements of his
story that I have heard mentioned before."
"That doesn't prove anything," Martin
said stubbornly.
"Perhaps not," Panther said, "but it
is enough reason to handle this with all due caution."
"Oh, caution is good," Martin said,
"I'm all for being cautious. Let's proceed with the proper caution and
destroy everything we find here," he waved around at the laboratory and
some of the stuff we saw lying around. "That's a good way of getting
started."
"No," Rinaldo said, "I cannot allow you to do that."
Uh-oh, I had been afraid something like this would happen. The two of them
hadn't been able to get along right from the start and now they seemed to be
heading for their major showdown. And that was a thing that I didn't relish to
be caught in between.
"Well," I said lightly to Rinaldo, trying to keep the mood a
little bit friendly, "if there's anything you want to salvage from this
place, you'd better make it quick, for when Grenade is through with frolicking
with Filigree outside she's going to level this place."
"Grenade is with Filigree?" Martin asked.
"Sort of. They had some things to
discuss, or to fight over, or whatever. There seemed to be some basic
disagreement between the two of them."
"Well, there's a surprise," he snorted.
The tension between him and Rinaldo was still there, of course, and they were
beginning to gauge where Panther and I stood.
"Just for the sake of argument," Panther said, "what if
one of those so-called wrongly allied relatives of ours is here at this very
moment, then what would their intentions be?"
"What do you mean?" Martin asked
suspiciously.
"One should think that whatever Brand's
business was, his adversaries would surely like to see it all destroyed."
"Ha," Martin burst out, "you already
start by assuming that all of this bullshit is actually true. Who can say
whether all of this has not been left by someone else to start us off on some
wild goose chase?"
"In that case there would be no need to
destroy all of this, would there?" Panther replied cleverly. Martin stared
at him for a moment, an angry frown creasing his brow, but he could find no way
to counter this logic.
"Look," Rinaldo said with a sigh, "I'm not going to defend
my dad here, okay? Whether he was justified in what he did or not, he just
plainly went too far. With everything that I now know I cannot support his
actions, but I don't want to see his notes destroyed right away. Who can tell
whether there is not some glimmer of truth hidden away underneath all of that
madness? How much harm can these few notes possibly do?"
"Quite a lot I fear," Panther said. "There are already
people looking for them."
"Who? And why?"
"That is the question," he replied
evasively. "Malachie has disappeared and there were marks in his cottage
that were said to have been made by the Wolves."
"How do you know it was the Wolves?"
Martin wanted to know.
"Because that name cropped up," Panther
explained. "I had never heard it before myself."
"But somebody knows more about them, the person who mentioned them
to you. I would certainly like to know who this person is."
"One of the sisters," Panther said. He
was clearly uncomfortable with mentioning Violet's name here. I wondered why.
"There are a lot of people from the Circle involved in this too, and they
are all looking for this information."
"Look," Martin said, "we have a chance right now to
destroy all of this without too much hassle. If we wait too long, we might lose
this opportunity and come to regret it later, especially if there is some
information in here that we definitely don't want to see falling into the wrong
hands. But okay, since you all want to be so cautious about it, I propose that
we take a few moments to browse through all the papers and get some general idea
what they are all about. After that we can still decide whether or not to put it
all to the torch."
"I second that proposal," Panther said immediately. Of course
he would, for if that elisive list that he was looking for was among the papers,
this was his chance to get a look at it. I nodded my assent too and Rinaldo also
saw no problems.
"We shall have to do it quickly, though,"
Martin added, "for if Dorian is right, we probably don't have a lot of time
before Grenade marches in and brings down the house around our ears."
"That may actually be a good thing,"
Panther said, "for if this is indeed information that is best to be
forgotten, we had better not study it too closely."
"Yes," Martin said with a wry smile,
"we don't want to add ourselves to the list of things that people want to
see destroyed, do we?"
Brand's papers could roughly be divided into three categories. The first
was a series of technical treatises on the Pattern and its relation to the
Logrus. There were of course a lot of calculations that would require a lot of
closer study to be understood completely, including theories on the Jewel of
Judgment and ways to draw a new Pattern. The second group was even more esoteric
than the first, since it dealt with the prophecies that Brand had referred to in
his speech. Unfortunately, these appeared to be mainly notes and comments on
certain books and other writings that weren't immediately specified. I guess
they had only served as entirely personal notes for Brand himself, considering
the great number of cryptically underlined words or phrases, the scribbled page
numbers in certain margins and other references. There were a lot of unfamiliar
names in these texts, but we came across the Wolves a couple of times and
Malachie's name also cropped up. The only other name that meant anything to me
was that of Cadurn, one of the most renowned sages from Chaos history. He was
the kind of person whose name as known to everyone, while his theories and
discoveries were only understood by few.
The third category was also very vague and we had some trouble figuring
out what they were all about. These papers also consisted of some number of
technical treatises and notes, yet this time the subject of the research seemed
to be the dynamics of the different dimensions. There was some talk of the
Overshadow, the various realities and the way of travelling between them, while
a certain part of the research seemed to concern the role of the Pattern in this
model. It was all very theoretical, however, and since I had only a minimal
understanding of these things this was all that I was able to pick up at a first
glance.
Finally, there was one item that didn't appear to belong to any of the
aforementioned categories. It was a simple list of names and places, which I
guessed was the thing that Panther had been looking for. The following names
were on the list:
Melkoth of Sandwick
Flauron of Grahl
Solkon of Rebma
Janice of Quendor
H7520 of N1001
Nostradamus of Earth
Nisse of Chaos
Devoli of Chianit
Guadela of Jidrash
Mormu of Kessanar
Inwardly I cursed when I saw Nisse's name among them. I pointed it out on
the list and told the others that this one was already dead, as was Nostradamus,
whom I remembered having read something about during my stay on Shadow Earth; he
had been a legendary seer who had lived some three or four centuries ago in
Earth time. Rinaldo recognised the name as well, but he wondered whether we
could really be sure whether he was dead or not. If he had been an ordinary
Shadow person, he probably would be, but if not he might still be alive
somewhere. I conceded this point, but asserted that the other one was really
dead. I should know, I had been there when he died. Worse even, I felt at least
partially responsible for his death, but I couldn't let myself be bothered too
much about that right now.
Rinaldo told us that he knew this Guadela person, not surprisingly since
Jidrash was the capital city of Kashfa; according to him she earned a living as
a fortuneteller and as far as he knew she should be still alive. Martin also
recognised one of the names on the list, namely that of Solkon, who was a
magician at he court in Rebma where Martin had grown up. A very religious man,
or so Martin told us.
"But I gather that this is the famous list?" he added.
"Yes," Panther said, "this is the
one that everybody is looking for. The interesting question is whether there was
a copy of this list in Malachie's cabin or not. If so other members of the
Circle may also have it."
"Why would they still be after this one
then?" Martin asked.
"To keep others from learning about it, I
guess," I said.
"Okay, so they may be looking for these names,
but you don't even know who all these people are!" Martin burst out.
"For all we know they may be all accomplices of Brand's who are trying to
bring him back in one way or another. In that case I know exactly what we have
to do with this list." Oh dear, we were back to this again. Panther had his
counterarguments ready, however.
"Brand's story has been corroborated by other sources," he
said. "On the one hand we have the Sisters - again I may add - and then
there is Redbeard."
"Redbeard?" Martin said. "I don't
know him."
"He is an associate of Filigree's,"
Panther said. Hmm, that didn't entirely help to convince Martin, as he was not
too fond of that lady.
"Still," he said after a moment, "I
see no reason not to put the lot of it to the torch."
"Neither do I actually," Panther said.
Yeah, sure, he had already seen his precious list. A lot did he care about all
the other stuff. Rinaldo, however, was still unconvinced about the necessity of
destroying the material.
"If you don't want any of it," he said, "I'll be happy to
take it all." That idea certainly didn't go down well with the others, nor
did it please me very much.
"Whatever we do," I said, "I don't
think it's wise to destroy the notes on the different realities." That
material on the Pattern and the Logrus would undoubtedly be available from other
sources and I thought it a fair bet that the people on the list would be able to
help us get further with the prophecies; the dimensional research, however, was
something that I wanted a chance to read up on in all peace and quiet. The more
I figured out about this business myself, the less I would have to rely on any
introductions or tours from either Grenade or Filigree. If it came to simply
grabbing the stuff you wanted and trying to get away with it, pile number three
would be my choice.
"But what about the rest of the notes?" Rinaldo objected.
"We cannot foresee whether or not we will need any of it later on. My dad
put a lot of effort into this stuff. I think it's rather short- sighted to let
all of that come to nothing."
"I do not find that a very convincing argument," Panther said,
"saving material just because it might become important later."
"Well, you don't have involve yourself in this
if you don't want to," Rinaldo retorted angrily.
"I would not were it not for the fact that
information like this has the tendency to crop up in the wrong hands sooner or
later. You have to have a purpose for it right now, or else you might as well
destroy it."
"Meanwhile we're still undecided,"
Rinaldo sighed.
"Oh, we shall become decided quite soon, I
fear," Panther commented wryly. "Time is running out."
"But you're telling me that you don't believe
my dad's story, is that it?"
"I never said that," I replied calmly. Indeed, I felt that
there may well be a great deal of truth to it, but I couldn't tell them that
without also mentioning the vision I had had of Miri and the Unicorn, and I
wasn't prepared to discuss that just yet.
"I believe that he was onto something,"
Panther said, "only I am not convinced that his conclusions were the right
ones."
"Alright," Rinaldo said, "I want to
look into this and I need his notes for that. Is that clear enough for you? If
there is the least chance of there being any kind of threat out there, I have to
find out. And what if he really was insane? That name, the Wolves, has already
cropped up a number of times, you said so yourselves. There has got to be more
to this than just one of Brand's delusions. So I want to keep his notes and
study them, not throw them away or destroy them without really knowing what
they're all about."
"How do we know that the kind of research you're plannig is the
right kind?" Martin demanded sharply. "I can very well think of
another kind, one that also involves different dimensions."
"You and your petty thoughts of revenge," Rinaldo said with a
hint of disgust. Martin swung back and hit him hard on the jaw, sending him
sprawling to the ground. Slowly Rinaldo picked himself up from the floor,
rubbing his jaw and eyeing Martin with an angry glare.
"I tend to be very petty-minded about people
who have tried to stab me to death," Martin hissed through clenched teeth.
"Call it a character flaw."
Right, I guess that just had to happen. The tension between the two of
them had been mounting right from the very moment that we had arrived here.
While our to cousins got ready to have it out between them I glanced to my side,
right in the inquiring eyes of cousin Panther. "Shall we?" his
expression seemed to say. Well, why not? With a final cautious glance at the two
combattants we surreptitiously picked up the papers from the table where we had
laid them out, after which I touched Panther's shoulder and willed the