Chapter 065: On The Other Side Of You
"Who
is the third who walks always beside you?
When I count, there are only you and I together
But when I look ahead up the white road
There is always another one walking beside you
Gliding wrapt in a brown mantle, hooded
I don't know whether a man or a woman
- But who is that on the other side of you?"
The
Waste Land - T.S. Eliot
"Tell me," Caine said, and I did. It was much later at Lady
Grice's party when he finally Trumped me to hear what had happened. The time in
between I had spent trying to shrug the uneasiness from me by indulging in some
of the pleasures that were on offer. The atmosphere in the sunken city had been
quite enticing, and I had been happy to find that the Columbine had not been too
badly affected by the gruesome scene she had witnessed. All in all I had had a
pretty good time, although the murder of Belissa and the fight on the rim of the
Abyss were hard to get out of my head. A couple of times I had tried to contact
Alexander to tell him the bad news, but he remained incommunicado, leading me to
conclude that he probably wasn't in the Courts right now. Well, he would hear
about it soon enough.
Caine listened
to my story quite attentively, asking after all the available details, like the
various power impressions I had picked up and such. He was his usual suspicious
self without ever letting on what he was really thinking; the only thing he
would say when I asked him for his opinion was that he simply didn't trust any
affair that involved Tirga Ysarn. Well, at least he had had the good grace to
call me after I had had my piece of fun.
At his request I
took him on a guided tour round the various scenes of the crimes, which took
quite a lot of time since he spent a great while taking in all the details no
matter how insignificant. Yes, he was thorough, but he remained as close-mouthed
as ever. At the end of the tour I asked him whether he had any interesting
observations that he would like to share with me, but he just said that there
weren't any that were of interest to me right now. Oh well, I thought and
shrugged.
"One
thing," Caine said suddenly. "This has politics written all over it,
as you undoubtedly have figured out for yourself. If you're involved in Chaosian
politics at all, you would do well to be extra careful." As if I needed the
warning.
He stiffened a
bit suddenly an started staring at a point in the middle distance. I sensed that
he was getting a Trump call, so I distanced myself a bit from him and waited
till he had finished. A minute later he helped someone step through to where we
were, a man dressed in bright white and silver. I remembered noticing him before
when I had been busy determining who the attending Amberites were, and now that
he was close enough I was quickly able to tell that it was in fact Murlas.
Surprisingly enough he indicated that he wanted to have a word with me,
privately, he added with an eye on Caine. Caine smiled and made a show of
turning his back and walking a few metres away from us. At first I thought that
Murlas wanted to hear from me personally what had happened to his dear auntie
Tirga, but he had something quite different on his mind.
"Dorian,"
he said seriously, "concerning that little matter we left unresolved, it
may prove to be more urgent than we had thought." It was clear that he was
talking about Brand's prophecy and the list of his former associates.
"I hear you," I said. "What do you have in mind?"
"Nothing concrete as yet, but I have an intuition that something is
about to happen, and it would be wise to stay ready to act at a moment's
notice." I nodded. I guess he couldn't yet start making any plans as long
as this matter with Tirga was in the air. I wondered, though, what he had
learned that had given him this sense of urgency.
"You know where to find me?"
"I know where you are."
And that was all we had to say to each other for now. Since Caine had no
more use for me either, I returned to the party and spent the rest of the night
in an undisturbed frenzy of pleasure. Save for the murders this had been one
hell of a night.
Already the next
day Murlas stopped by to talk, which in itself was indication enough that the
matter carried quite some weight with him. He even insisted on me securing the
room from evesdroppers with a Pattern shield, which I grudgingly did, although I
wondered whether it was worth the effort. It took quite a bit more out of me
here in the Courts, but I wasn't going to let him notice this.
Once our privacy
had been secured, Murlas told me how one of the guests at last night's party had
offered to tell him his future. Using some arcane set of divination cards she
had told him that he was in great danger, something that was connected to
`darkness'. From a subsequent spread she had divined that there were in fact two
dangers, one of which was imminent, the other distant, but both were connected.
I gathered that this had been the thing to prompt him to contact me again.
"You think this may have something to do with the prophecy thing we
were looking into?" I asked.
"Yes. The question is, of course, exactly how imminent this one
danger really is. Another day has passed and nothing very much seems to have
happened, does it? It is clear that some form of action is called for, but
unfortunately I have some practical problems to keep me busy. House Ysarn is
entirely caught up in a struggle to survive, and they can hardly cope without my
help."
"I see."
"If push comes to shove, Amber's interests of course take
precedence," he was quick to assure me, "but as far as this matter is
concerned this is something that is not at all that evident."
"Would you mind very much if in the meantime I go off and do some
investigating on my own?" I asked.
"I would say that in this case it would be the wisest thing to do. I
shall try to conduct a similar investigation here in the Courts." Hmm, not
that that would turn up all that much, but okay. It was clear that he would be
spending most of his time looking after Ysarn business.
"I have one
final piece of information for you," Murlas continued. "Should you
come across any mention of a black ball of a certain power, such a ball has
recently surfaced here from those tunnels that were used in the latest attacks
on the Courts." Now that he mentioned it, I recalled having heard a rumour
of these attacks which claimed that the assaulting army had reached the Courts
by means of Nexus tunnels. Nothing had officially been substantiated, however,
and there had been no diplomatic repercussions after the incident. Peculiar
matter, all in all.
"I'll keep my eyes peeled for anything interesting," I said.
"I think I'll check out the scene in Quendor first. At least I know how to
find that place." He nodded non-committally. "Another thing," I
added after a moment's consideration, "I don't know whether you have at
your disposal any means of quickly travelling from one side of the Universe to
the other?"
"You mean
faster than a Hellride, without actually having a Trump of the place you are
going to?"
"Something like that."
"I never really felt the need for such a thing," he said
coolly. I sensed that he could see the use of such a shortcut all to well, but
apparently he felt as if I was trying to trick him or something. I gave a mental
shrug, got out my spare copy of the Trump of Ygg and handed it to him, as I had
been deliberating all along. I explained to him what and especially where it
was, and how it had come into my possession. He seemed relieved that this was
all I had been on about. Well, it never hurts to cultivate a bit of goodwill
with one's relatives, especially if one had to colaborate on some important
scheme. And I guess one should look after one's brother now and then. As always
we promised to keep in touch, particularly if one of us should happen to come up
with some new bit of information.
As it so
happened I wasn't leaving right away. Since there was a little bit of planning
involved this time, I figured I had better officially say my goodbyes and inform
my various Chaosian acquaintances that I would be away for a while. First on the
list were people like Lady Emall, Lady Rosala Thurston, Keral and Fanya, and all
the others in those circles. I would have to be excused for all the upcoming
occasions that I had already been invited to, but I simply couldn't wait till I
had run out of invitations. Of course everyone wanted to know when I would be
returning to Chaos, myself included. However, considering the way things had
turned out on my last few forays, I kept it deliberately vague: I would be
coming back when the time was right, and not before.
All these
goodbyes didn't take up too much of my time, but my dealings with two other
people who had to be informed of my leaving proved to be the true cause of my
delay. It concerned Taureth and Caine. Ever since Caine had arrived in the
Courts I had supposed he had been assisting Taureth in his studies as he had
promised he would, but when I finally stopped by Taureth's lab again I found
that things hadn't been going all that smoothly between them. The main problem
was Caine's inherent suspicion, which didn't exactly make him forthcoming with
all the necessary information. Taureth on the other hand was getting quite
unnerved by Caine's constant scrutiny to the point where it was beginning to
affect his concentration on his work. As the liaison who had brought the two
gentlemen together, it was up to me to look for some kind of workable solution.
This meant a lot of walking back and forth between them, talking matters over
again and again, and trying to discover what the real problems were.
Caine would only
open up to me in the strictest of privacy, meaning with the Pattern shield
firmly in place. I took the opportunity to explain the down side of this little
trick as it still left us open to the scrutiny of the Pattern Itself, but while
he acknowledged the validity of this info, Caine still felt that we needed this
shield between us and the rest of the Courts. Oh well, can't say I didn't warn
him.
One of his real
worries concerned the true intentions of the House Ornach, apart from the
immediate one of reuniting all its long-lost members. I couldn't tell him
anything he didn't already know, but I emphasized that on a strictly personal
level I placed full trust in Taureth. Caine told me with a characteristic frown
that he had a bad feeling about Ornach, and that trusting Taureth was in his
opinion very much of a gamble. After some persuasion from me he was willing to
go along with my assessment for the time being, but insisted that we'd stay on
our guard. Not that I could see him not staying alert all the time, but alright.
Taureth was a
lot more frustrated by the whole thing than I had thought. He claimed that he
really needed all the information Caine could give him, and while he could
understand his reluctance to place his trust in a total stranger like that, he
felt that without the necessary details he would be getting nowhere. He once
again made it perfectly clear that this was a matter of personal honour to him:
he had given me his word that he would help to find a solution to our problem,
and he could be counted upon to maintain a perfect level of discretion.
It took a lot
more talking and persuading before the two of them finally got together again,
and very slowly information started to trickle forth from Caine to Taureth,
though still very much on a need to know basis. The probable genetic connection,
however, added a lot to Taureth's understanding of how the Curse had been
intensified in Diana. I had been spared solely for the fact that I was male; had
I been a woman, I would probably have suffered the same fate as she did. Let's
be thankful for small favours.
Taureth had
already come quite a long way towards determining the actual problem. As said
before, there were certain Houses in the Courts that had learned to live with
the consequences of similar Blood Curses, but they all had something we didn't
have: the shape shifting ability. Our inability to regulate our own bodies
according to our needs left us without direct physical methods of suppressing
the Curse's symptoms. One of the things Taureth was currently looking into was
the use of drugs as a surrogate repressant, although he wasn't as yet ruling out
a solution that would remove the Curse entirely; we had still a long way to go
before we would get that far, though.
The problem with
chemicals and drugs lay in the possible side effects. As an option it would be
very much a personal choice depending on the severity of each individual's
situation. Caine and I, for instance, had matters more or less under control,
but the same thing couldn't be said for Diana and Deirdre. Taureth indicated
that he would want to examine Deirdre's case as well, rather sooner than later,
at which Caine and I exchanged meaningful glances. Very subtly I tried to make
clear to our host that my mother could make life very difficult for everyone
involved and that we'd rather leave her out of it until her involvement became
truly unavoidable. As for chemical treatment, I wasn't too keen on it, but
perhaps it might do the trick for Diana.
Both Taureth and
Caine merely nodded when I said that I would be absent for a while, although
Taureth wanted an assurance that I would keep in touch in case of any
emergencies. Before I left Caine had something else he wanted to tell me in
private. Apparently Murlas had come to him with questions about a possible
brother, claiming that he had been alerted to the possibility through a
prediction made to him. Of course, the things Murlas had told me about the
intimations of danger came immediately to mind. Could this have come from one
and the same prediction? It would be like Murlas not to tell me about the
brother thing, figuring that it had nothing to do with me. How wrong he was this
time, but never mind. I didn't tell Caine anything about my own little
conversation with my brother; strictly need to know. It wasn't foremost on his
mind anyway, for he was worried that Murlas might have got the knowledge about
his brother from Deirdre, who could be using him as a way of putting Caine under
some pressure. Of course he had not revealed the truth to Murlas, since there
were more reasons against than for involving him in the whole matter of the
Curse. He suggested, however, that I could try and find out how much he really
knew, for instance by dropping a hint of having heard some other prediction or
prophecy pointing towards this mystery brother. While I could appreciate the
irony of the situation, I decided for myself that I wouldn't let it take
precedence over the investigation that Murlas and I were conducting together.
Still, he had to be told one of these days.
There was one
last person I needed to talk to before I could set off, and I had been putting
it off long enough as it was. I found Diana in her own chambers in Ornach Ways,
reading and drinking tea. She seemed more relaxed than she had been in ages and
was quite happy to see me, but when I started shaping a Pattern shield around
the room she knew that this wasn't merely a courtesy call.
"I have to go away again," I began, cutting right to
the chase.
"What's so important?"
"Oh, there are certain matters in Shadow that I need to look into. I
can't say how long it will take, though." She nodded, accepting my wish to
keep her out of whatever it was that I would be doing.
"Taureth says that there may be some medicine I could take,"
she said softly. "What do you think?"
"I'm sorry," I said, "but I think it's a choice you have
to make for yourself."
"I'm asking you for your honest opinion," she insisted.
"Would you do it?"
"Not in the state that I am in, but your situation is a lot worse
than mine."
"I'm still thinking it over."
"Take your time. I'm sure that if you do take the drugs, Taureth
will keep a close eye on you, and if anything goes wrong he will be quick to
react."
"I take it you place a good deal of trust in him?"
"As far as this matter is concerned, yes, I do trust him. When it
comes to his family, however, I have my doubts."
"That seems to be the norm," Diana said a bit dejectedly. Then:
"I like him." Hmm, how much, I wondered. Still, leave it for now. I
smiled back at her.
"I'm glad," I said. This brought a smile to her face too. She
started telling me of the way that Taureth had helped her find suitable partners
to cope with the Curse. Discretion in establishing the right connections had
been of the essence, and they had managed to keep anyone from knowing all the
particulars of her case. It had been necessary, however, to pass her off as
someone who suffered from such a Curse, but more an ancient Chaosian one that
had through some fluke cropped up in her personally. No mention of either me,
Caine, or Deirdre had been made.
Once the
connections with the right Houses had been made, Diana had had a chance to
discuss the Curse with several people who had a lot more experience in dealing
with similar ones. Some of them had learned simply to accept it as inherent part
of their make-up, something that turned them into sexual predators. From early
childhood on these people were taught to deal with the realities of the Curse.
Others had found ways of keeping things under control by means of shape
shifting, while others still used different combinations of control and
acceptance. Taureth had also suggested to Diana that he might try and stimulate
her own innate shape shifting abilities as a way of dealing with her problem.
Since there were several cases of Amberites learning how to develop these
abilities, there was a good hope that he could do the same thing for her. I
tried to remain non-committal in this, feeling that anything that would make
life easier for her was worth considering. It was just that I really disliked
the idea of shape shifting myself; funnily enough I have come to accept it in
others (it's very hard not to when most of your children have the ability), but
I was quite happy with my body as it was, and I'd rather have a fixed form than
constantly having to worry about what I looked like. Still, it could be the best
thing for her as long as there wasn't a permanent solution.
A long silence
ensued after this while Diana waited for me to start telling her whatever it was
that I had come to tell. "There is something you need to know," I
finally began. "I didn't tell you this before, because I wasn't sure
whether Caine would want me to, but he appears to have left the decision
entirely up to me, and I think you have a right to know. It is an aspect of our
common problem, and you're a part of it too." I sighed and took a deep
breath. "One of the things that I had never really stopped to consider was
why Deirdre had me in the first place."
"You mean why she did take the risk?" Diana asked.
"Not specifically that... Well, try and imagine what it would be
like for you to get pregnant yourself in your current condition."
"It wouldn't be possible."
"Exactly. Yet Deirdre went through with it. The information that
Caine supplied throws a rather ugly light on the whole situation. According to
him she had a theory that the Curse would leave her in favour of the child she
would bear." Diana looked shocked, naturally, but she managed to keep a
stiff upper lip.
"But this didn't work," she said quietly.
"No, it didn't. At first it seemed that the Curse had not even
affected me at all. Caine was very much surprised to find its presence in you,
and even more so when he discovered how strong it really was. From this and the
fact that I too appeared to be affected by the Curse after all, he drew a
tentative conclusion that the man who everyone believed to be my father couldn't
be so at all."
"What do you mean?"
"If Vilcon Harolan had truly been my father, I would never have
suffered from the Curse in the way that I do. If, on the other hand, both of my
parents had been bearing the mark of the Curse, it would explain both my and
your present condition."
"So... Caine is your father, my grandfather?" This didn't go
down well, I sensed.
"We are, of course, not a hundred percent sure of this, mainly
because Deirdre has refused to give Caine any kind of confirmation, but all the
evidence points towards it."
"I see," she said and nodded slowly.
"Probably Deirdre, keeping her theory in mind, decided to try and
rid both herself and Caine in one go of the Curse. However, the upshot was less
pleasant than expected."
"And Caine tried to kill me, knowing that I was his
granddaughter?" Diana asked, a slightly hysterical note creeping into her
voice.
"He wanted to spare you all of this suffering, for which he could at
that point see no solution whatsoever," I replied lamely. "If he had
known earlier on that you bore the Curse, he would probably have raised you in
an entirely different manner. But then such choices are often hard to appreciate
in hindsight." The fact that he had kidnapped Diana in the first place
still kept nagging at me, for instance. He was still a long way from redeeming
himself on that count, I felt.
"I can't help but think that there are still some gaping holes in
his story," Diana said, voicing my own doubts. "It's a neat little
explanation, but I don't know whether I really want to believe him. Do
you?"
"As far as
my true heritage is concerned I do, but I'm sure that all other matters have
been coloured rather a lot by his own perception of events." I felt a need
to trust him, though. I couldn't say so out loud, cause I was well aware of how
naive that would make me sound, but wordlessly I tried to convey this feeling to
her. We were Family, closer than this it didn't come, and it was my private hope
that someday we would be able to form some sort of collective, a tight group
amongst our other relatives. Stupid dream, perhaps, but considering the strong
bond between Deirdre and Caine or the way that Diana and I had taken to each
other, I believed it wasn't entirely impossible.
Diana heaved a deep sigh. "I'm so tired of being such a drag on all
of you," she said.
"You're no such thing," I said fiercely. "Sure, we've got
our problems, but we share those problems."
"Well, ultimately Deirdre and Caine never asked for any of this
either, that much is true."
"I don't know whether it means anything to you, but regardless of
all the things they have done in the past I sense both with Deirdre and with
Caine a desire for... Well, what shall I say? More attachment perhaps, or a
certain sense of belonging to one another." She nodded gravely.
"I think I would rather like to believe that," she said. Well, as I said, we could always hope.