Chapter 096: Schizophrenia

"Maybe it's a part of me you took it to a place I hoped it would never go

And maybe that fucked me up much more than you'll ever know"

Ruiner - Nine Inch Nails

            It was the morning after Boadice's party in Amber when I decided that I should finally address the Fiona situation. Having a pocket Shadow with its own adjustable time stream was, of course, all very well for putting the issue on hold in order to deal with more pressing matters, but I couldn't keep on putting it off indefinitely. Although I realised that the strange effects of the Primal Chaos on the Shadows around the former Keep of the Four Worlds had not entirely been dealt with, the situation had to a large degree been stabilized, and I didn't feel like going back when there was still a good chance of running into aunt Flora's underlings. Besides, of the people who had taken part in trying to resolve that particular crisis only Janice and Boadice remained, and before I even had had the chance to wish her a good morning my cousin had already left the breakfast table by Trump, called away on yet another urgent matter.

            Perhaps I should have felt some consolation at the thought that I was not the only one completely caught up in events. It didn't give me much relief, though, for the short conversation I'd had at the party with Koras Lavassar had left me in a fairly despondent mood. It had again struck home the realisation that his and Aliane's friendship was something that I could no longer go back to, yet at the same time it had also evoked the feeling of not-belonging, the lack of community that was the Family of Amber. Powerful as we are, in the end we seem little more than a scattered group of acquaintances, allies at the best of times, with nothing but our blood and the Pattern to connect us to one another. Maybe Koras's words had hit me just a bit harder than they ought to have, or maybe it was just that none of the relatives I felt some closer connection to - Diana, Deirdre, Caine, hell, even Murlas - were currently in Amber, I just couldn't say. Or maybe it was simply time for my regular dose of resentment and depression. There was only one cure for it, though, and even if facing Fiona's condition might not have been the most cheerful of prospects, it would be bound to keep me busy enough to stop me from merely moping around.

            As we had agreed when I'd escorted her back to her guest chambers the night before, I had first gone to pick up Janice before attending to breakfast. Not that she didn't feel conformtable moving around the castle on her own, but to all intents and purposes she was still my guest, and lately I had come to take my responsibilities as a host a bit more seriously. The last few days had seen me dragging her along from one crisis to another, all of which seemed to have very little to do with her personally, and although she had accompanied me with an overall air of equanimity, I sometimes wondered what went on in the privacy of her mind. I would assume that she felt at least some concern over the situation in Quendor and the current condition of her friends there, yet during all this time she had never suggested that we'd head back there to take stock. I wouldn't say that she had forgotten about it or that she didn't care, but she seemed to have decided that the state of Quendor would be of a lesser priority to her for now. She was a deep one, though, for she had not urged me to deal with Fiona's problem, with which she had promised to help, any faster either, instead of continually getting sidetracked by other emergencies. Still, when I broached the subject that morning, she smiled determinedly and nodded. Yes, she was ready and up to the task.

            Breakfast finished, we went back to my chambers, where I could open the pocket Shadow under the safe protection of a Pattern shield. It took me a little while to synchronise the time stream with that of Amber before we could step inside and calmly assess the damage. The pocket was a fairly uncomplicated one room affair with stark white walls and nothing but a quite modern-looking bed as its single piece of  furniture. As we entered through the one door, Fiona, or rather Eugenie Lablanche, looked up at us with tears still streaking down her face. For her the experience of her abduction was still all too recent. Her lovely wedding gown was torn and in disarray, and her mascara had faltered under the onslaught of her grief. Even though Janice and I were no longer wearing our earlier disguises, the arrival of two new faces in her new prison was enough to increase the deluge even more.

            "What do you want from me?" she whimpered, cowering on the bed. Then she let out another wail: "I was just about to get married…! Please, take me back to him."

            "Look," I said, holding up my hands in what I hoped to be a calming gesture, "we mean you no harm. We've brought you here for your own good, even if you cannot see that now. You're not quite yourself…"

            "Of course I'm not!" she cried. "Look at me! I look terrible! And I was about to get married… And now my make-up is all ruined…!"

Another bout of unintelligible sobbing ensued, giving me ample opportunity to bring up my Pattern and take a closer look at her. Funnily enough, I couldn't seem to detect any clear immediate traces of Power at work, not even anything hinting at the corrupted Nexus Power that had brought on this condition. As I stood there looking somewhat perplexed, I heard a discreet cough beside me. Janice was there smiling at me, sort of silently inquiring whether she could have a go at it. By all means! Her knowledge of this new Power, as limited as it may be, was the reason why I had asked her help in the first place.

            Calmly, trying to seem as unthreatening as possible, Janice moved up to Fiona, who still shrank back a little. She softly began to talk to her in a reassuring tone. Gradually, Fiona appeared to quieten down, sniffing instead of sobbing loudly, and in the meantime Janice could work her peculiar brand of magic. For the most part I couldn't see what she was doing, because it was done all so subtly and because I didn't want to interfere, but I could tell that she didn't venture too far into Fiona's psyche. I guess I wouldn't have done so either, had I been in her shoes.

            Janice took her time studying Fiona, and when she emerged her expression told me that things were more serious than we had thought. "We need to talk," she said, and I nodded. We only had to step through the door to find ourselves back in the privacy of my chambers. However, I took the precaution of slowing the pocket down again before sitting down to hear what she had to say.

            "It's a lot worse than I feared," she began. "Normally, what I would expect to happen in a case like this is for the victim to have been brainwashed. That is, some new artificial persona would have been forced on top of the existing one, which can be pierced and penetrated when a sufficient amount of mental force is applied in just the right places. However, this is not what has happened to Fiona. Somehow, her current persona is not an artificial one at all, but rather a part of her own subconscious that has been raised to the surface and to a dominating position in her mind. It's something that she has been carefully suppressing for an awfully long time."

            Janice sighed. "From what I've seen I'd say she's simply a woman who has had to stand her ground in what appears to be by and large a male society, and that's been going on for a very long time. She's had to take on an attitude of never-failing competence and power just to survive. Well, we both know how hard it is to trust anyone here. Still, somewhere deep down inside her this part of her personality which has now emerged has been residing, waiting. The part of her that wants to be dependent on others, that shies away from responsibilities, that wants to let go of everything and simply be taken care of."

            I was stunned and a bit saddened, of course, but I could see she was telling me the truth. And in all honesty, I could all too well understand this yearning for dependency and uncomplicated love. Hell, you've been reading this probably as long as I've been writing, I don't have to spell it out to you. It was distressing to learn that aunt Fiona had done nothing but suppress these feelings all these ages. She had felt a need to be an icon of Competence and Power, and that was what she had become, yet if she only had been truthful to herself and perhaps had confided in me a little more, I might have been able to help her somehow. The Unicorn knew I cared enough to make up for the rest of the Family.

            "All this is so very bad," Janice continued after she had given me a minute or two to take it all in, "because it means that her Eugenie persona is not fake. It's not a fabrication, it's not something that has been imposed upon her and that we might be able to break through, it's something that has been dragged up from the lower reaches of her own mind and that now eclipses her other persona, locking it completely away because she does not in any way wants to be reminded of what she used to be like.

            "The other complicating element is your aunt's incredible raw mental strength, which will make it quite difficult to retrieve the original persona. I suspect, but you know more about these things than I do, that even walking the Pattern may not be of any help to her, since Eugenie is really part of her own personality. There's even a possibility that Fiona might not be restored in such an attempt, but that you'd simply end up with an Eugenie Lablanche who has Pattern abilities. And who doesn't take too kindly to either of us, I might add."

            "We wouldn't want that, no," I said. "I guess she would immediately try to make her way back to Quendor. And aside from the doubts I might have about the idea of Eugenie actually walking the Pattern, I have to agree with you about not being so sure It would be able to bring her to her senses anyway. I know it supposedly cured uncle Corwin's amnesia, but this is a different matter altogether. So what can we do?"

            "Well, my best guess - and it's no more than that - is that we've got a choice between two options, and I don't think you're going to like either of them." She crossed her legs and wriggled uneasily around in her chair, but I gave her a look that told her she could speak plainly. The situation was graver than expected, so I figured the solutions would be likewise more extreme. "You may still want to search for other alternatives," she continued, "but even so… My first option would simply be to let her go. Just set her free to pursue her own desires and hopefully the effect will wear off by itself. Sooner or later the original persona is bound to reemerge. It may take ten years, twenty, or even longer, but it ought to happen one day. Perhaps the reversal will occur when she's had a chance to explore and to develop this part of herself to its fullest. After a while, she might simply become bored with it and unwittingly start longing for her former existence. If we let her go, she will probably get married, have children, be perfectly happy, and not get involved in anything of importance. Then, ultimately, discontent will set in, and bang, the other persona will take control again."

            The images from the Quendorian newspapers I'd seen with the pictures of the intended couple flashed before my eyes. "I've never been happier in my life," glowing bride comments. And she would be, for a while at least. But would she really revert to her old self eventually? And how long would that take? Janice guessed at decades, but knowing the average lifespan of us Amberites and the amount of time she must have been suppressing this side of her, it could easily be centuries before she'd become sufficiently bored. Could we afford to do without Fiona for that long a period?

            "And the other option?" I asked.

            "That would be a lot quicker, but it would also be quite unpleasant for everyone involved. What it boils down to is that you would have to submit her to some kind of shock treatment. You'd need to traumatize her either mentally, or physically, or even both, and to such an extent that she will have no other choice but to let her original persona resurface and take charge again. In other words, you'd have to deal with her as if she were schizophrenic, and maybe even aggravate her current condition in order to get her out of it. It would require a very severe, very harsh sort of treatment. Her will is much stronger than usual, so you may really have to go to extremes to achieve any result."

            She sighed and regarded me with an expression of patient but grave expectancy. She was right, of course, in assuming that this was not her decision to make, but I didn't think it was mine either.

            "I believe we ought to talk to Random about this," I said, "for this is the kind of choice I'm not willing to make on my own."

            "Quite so," Janice grimaced. "In more than one sense your aunt is quite vulnerable right now. It would be good to have the King's permission for whatever treatment we ultimately decide upon."

***

         I knew Random had not been at the party last night, so I was fairly sure it would be alright for me to Trump him, even at this early hour of the day. I was rather surprised, therefore, when he answered my call in the clearly bleary state of consciousness that is so characteristic of a hangover. “Can it wait?” he groaned, seeming to be only barely aware of who it was who was calling.

         “No problem. I’ll give you a couple of hours.” He looked relieved, and I expected him to go straight back to bed. Just a few hours would be enough to revive him. Just one of the benefits of having an Amberite constitution, I guess, though I couldn’t help but wonder what kind of party he had attended to have left him in this sorry state in the first place.

         While we were waiting, we naturally continued our discussion of the measures that might help to cure Fiona of her condition. I tried to fathom what form of shock treatment might be  appropriate if we were to essay the second option.

         “We would, on the one hand, probably have to work along the lines of the current persona’s desires and expectations,” Janice opined.

         “Anticipating on what it is that she wants. Hmm, that’s quite a task already.”

         “Well, at the moment she’s not too hard to figure out, is she? She wants love and affection, she wants someone to care for her, someone who’ll be her shield and protector and who’ll make all the decisions for her. She wants security, she wants to feel at home. And I’d say she’s willing to go pretty far when it comes to blindly going along with the object of her adoration. That’s one part of the shock treatment, manipulating these desires of hers.

         “The other part would have to be the first part’s complete opposite: torture, torment, and other general forms of mistreatment. There are various methods available, both physical and mental. Her willpower is to our disadvantage, though: it’d take a lot to break her. On top of this, Aurelia has not only forced this condition on her, she has also cemented it firmly into place with her Crystal Spire Power, giving it extra permanence and solidity.”

         Somehow I was reminded of the way I had unsuccessfully tried to disguise myself with my Pattern weaves before going back to Quendor to rescue Fiona. At that time, when I had been unable to mask the signature of the weave itself, I had theorised that it ought to be possible to apply the weave to such an extent that its magical energies would drain away, leaving the illusion in a state of near permanence. I had shied away from that possibility, feeling quite ill at ease with the idea of actually altering my appearance in this fashion. However, what Aurelia had done to Fiona sounded a lot like this, only on a psychic level. And she’d had the full force of the Crystal Spire behind her too. I couldn’t help but recall that one of the main reasons to keep me from trying the technique had been the quite likely possibility of the process becoming irreversible. Sigh. The more we talked about this problem, the worse it was beginning to look.

         “If only this had not been such a basic part of her,” Janice  mused, “the effect wouldn’t have been so strong, and it might have worn off of its own accord by now.”

         “If only she weren’t so awfully stubborn,” I added for good measure, “or mentally just about the strongest person I know, or if only she weren’t an arch-mistress of the Pattern, the cosmic sign of Order.” If only, if only, if only… Yes, there were lots of ways in which this situation could have been better, and there were still other implications and complications that I would have to discuss with Random. He’d expressed it most succinctly himself when I’d first told him she had been captured: what a mess!

         It was just before lunchtime when I tried Random’s Trump again and found him half-heartedly at work behind his desk, looking a far cry from the regal splendour one would expect from the King of Amber, dressed as he was in a pair of faded jeans and an old shirt.

         “Come on through, come on through,” he muttered, “I don’t feel like keeping Trump contacts open for very long.

         “That’s alright,” I said, as I beckoned Janice to come along, “this isn’t something we would want to discuss over Trump anyway.”

         Random had clearly not yet completely recovered from his hangover, but he had apparently decided he was well enough to talk and felt that the usual sort of business might help improve his condition. Unfortunately, ours wasn’t just any usual business, as the Pattern shield I erected once again was quick to inform him. Our business wasn’t about to make him feel any better either. Frankly, while I was telling him the bad news, I couldn’t remember a time when I’d seen him look as miserable as he did right then. But he was the King, and to a degree he had gotten used to having to deal with all sorts of unexpected unpleasantness.

         “Alright,” he sighed when I had fallen silent, “so you know about this, and she knows about this,” he nodded to Janice, “and now I know about it as well. Who else?”

         “No one as yet.”

         “That’s something at least.” He leaned his head back and wearily rubbed his eyes.

         “Maybe you have some ideas about an alternative third option we could try?” I ventured.

         “Are you kidding?” I smiled a bit sheepishly, but he could tell I was as serious as ever. “I usually ask Fiona about these things,” he sighed. “But, well, since you’re asking me, perhaps you could try to form a direct psychic link with her, try to snap her out of it that way. No offense to Miss Fabre here, for I’m not about to question her assessment, but there are others in the Family with rather substantial psychic abilities who may be able to break through her conditioning. That would be a third option.”

         He gave me an awkward grin, implying that he knew very well that such an attempt could result in having one’s brains fried, but as far as he was concerned that would simply be the risk we were going to have to take. Well, I was willing to essay it in any case, and I conveyed this in a similarly wordless fashion, but if things did go wrong Amber might stand a chance of losing two Pattern experts instead of just the one, and recent events had seemed to demonstrate how rare such people actually were. Random frowned, looking rather annoyed.

         “Look, you have to be careful, that goes without saying. Much as I would like to, I don’t think it’s a good idea to get Bleys involved in this quite yet. You never can tell what his reaction might be.”

         “It’s not entirely my field, but I remember Fiona mentioning a thing or two about it, and I was wondering whether somebody with further knowledge of Trumps might not be able to help us.”

         “Why Trumps?” Random asked in surprise.

         “Well, from what I’ve gathered their art involves a fair degree of what might be called mind magic…”

         “Yes, yes, you base the images on psychic impressions,” he said impatiently. “They’ve taught me how to do it myself, you know. But I fail to see how it could be of any help.”

         “Perhaps you ought to have a look at Fiona in her current condition,” I proposed. He nodded, so I summoned the door again and bade him enter. Unsurprisingly, Fi was still on the bed, softly crying to herself. Our return with yet another stranger didn’t help to improve matters either. Her timid, frightened glance shot from me to Janice to Random and back again.

         “She’s totally changed,” Random said, with something of amazement creeping into his voice. “It’s almost as if she were another person altogether.” He shook his head, then walked back to the door. It was indeed better not to talk too much within Fiona’s earshot.

         “Yes,” I said when we were back in his study, “perhaps now you can see why I wanted you to be present when we were going to decide on a cure.” He regarded me squarely, and I could see the understanding dawning in his still bloodshot eyes. Yes, there was someone else in the Family currently suffering from a condition that might well be very similar to hers. If we were to find a solution to Fiona’s problem, as drastic and desperate as it may turn out to be, this could very well also lead to a cure for his condition, and at our latest Family meeting Random himself had decreed that Fabian was not to be tampered with until the Crown decreed otherwise.

         “I see,” he said sternly. “In that case this whole matter will have to remain subject to the utmost secrecy. Quite simply, this means that no one else is to be involved in this matter, or in other words,” he added with a grim smile, “congratulations, you’ve just been hired.”

         Damn! That wasn’t what I had bargained for. I’d wanted a certain degree of caution and discretion, yes, but to have the burden put squarely on my shoulders was just a bit too much. Some assistance at least would have been nice.

         “Of course, I want you to keep me informed on how you intend to tackle this problem and your progress and such,” Random said. Oh no, he wasn’t getting out of this that easily.

         “Well, you’ve heard the three options we’ve got to choose from,” I said hurriedly. “There’s your suggestion of direct psychic contact, there’s the maybe-not-so-short-but-definitely-sharp shock, and then there’s the more time-consuming alternative of having her live out her dreams in some controlled environment in the hope that sooner or later she’s going to snap out of it on her own accord. Those are the ones to choose from. Now you decide, because I’m not going to make this decision for you.” Random’s expression became rather uncomfortable, maybe even a bit reproachful, but he could see that I was not going to let him off the hook. Not this time. This was too important, and he was the King, damn it.

         “In that case,” he sighed, “I want you to try my alternative first, but carefully of course. Try to estimate how far you would be able to go and on no account go any further. It’ll be the quickest and simplest solution at any rate. I guess we could also put her onto the Pattern, though, and see what happens.”

         “No, we’ve been over that already,” Janice cut in, ”and it won’t work. It’ll be option number four, in case none of the others have any effect, but as long as we’ve got something else we’re not going to try that one.”

         “Fair enough,” Random nodded, accepting her judgement. “There are, however, a few problems with the solution involving the controlled environment, as you put it. For instance, how long will you be able to keep it a secret, and how controlled will such an environment really be? How easy will it be for her to escape if she wants to?”

         “Good questions,” I said. “And there’s already one reason I can think of not to go for this long term alternative. You asked just now who else is aware of Fiona’s condition, and I said no one, but that’s not strictly true. While nobody but us knows the complete state of affairs, Alexander has at least seen something of Fiona when she was about to get married in Quendor. He may not know everything, but he’s bound to have figured out that there’s something wrong with her. He mentioned it to me the last time we spoke, and I’ve politely requested him to keep it quiet for now. However, knowing Alexander it is not impossible that by now several other people are aware of the situation too.”

         “So the news has already reached Galoria,” Random said, looking grim. “That would make it too risky. The environment would have to be completely controlled and really secure. And another problem is Fiona’s own expertise with the Pattern. If she should become restless, it might be all too easy for her to plan a getaway.”

         “And sooner or later somebody at least is going to start a search for her. Unfortunately, Bleys springs to mind again.”

         “Hmm, yes, he’ll go to quite some trouble to look for his sister once he finds out she’s missing. I could of course waylay him by giving him the story that she’s on a secret mission for the Crown, but that will only work for so long. No, if I were to tell him that, he’d want to know what kind of mission she’s on, and he’d want to get in touch with her privately to discuss it amongst themselves without the Crown’s knowledge. So, that wouldn’t work either.” He gave me a long, uneasy, appraising look. “And as for the third alternative,” he finally said, “well, how do you feel about this?”

        What did he expect? That I would joyfully embrace the task of torturing my dear aunt without so much as a guarantee that it would help to cure her? That I would be happy to watch her suffer just because we couldn’t have her indulge in her secret desires? Surely he knew me better than that. But I knew him as well, and this was just another sign of his basic reluctance to order his relatives about. It was a trait that had marked his entire reign as King of Amber, and while it may have helped him cope in the past, lately I had seriously begun to wonder whether it would not ultimately come to stand in the way of our surivival. Perhaps this was why I had placed the responsibility for the decision so squarely in his court this time, no pun intended. I just needed him to be a bit more decisive.

         As for his question, though, there was but one answer imaginable: “If it’s to be our final recourse, then so be it.” It was not a task I would willingly have chosen under any other circumstances, but here and now, for his sake, for the sake of Amber, and foremost for Fiona’s own sake, I would do it and find a way to bear the consequences.

         Random nodded gravely. “I still want you to essay my alternative  first, but if it comes to a choice between a controlled environment and the shock treatment, I fear the latter will be quicker and leave you more in control of both her and the people she might come in contact with, so in the end it is the solution I would prefer. And of course I will do everything I can to keep her from taking some form of personal revenge afterwards.” He smiled ruefully. “From what you’ve told me, I gather you’ll have to go very far.”

         “Alright.” Actually, I found that for me the possible threat of  Fiona’s wrath existed only in the abstract at that moment. What worried me more were the scars that such a treatment would leave on me.

         “You’ve got one advantage with that pocket Shadow of yours,” Random said, clearly in an effort to cheer me up a bit. “As I’ve come to understand it, you can regulate the rate at which time passes inside, am I right?” I nodded. “Well, that could help you deal with this problem all the quicker.”

         Perhaps. I guess I could speed up time in the pocket while working on her therapy, but for it to be successful I would probably have to be inside with her as well, so I would still experience all the grief in real time. No fast forward escape for me.

         “I’ll need some time to draw up an adequate strategy first, I think. This is something that has to be planned carefully, not something just to rush into blindly.” And we could still try the mental contact option first. However, considering Fiona’s mental prowess I didn’t expect it to work, and I found myself already planning for the eventuality of us having to subject her to the trauma programme. It would probably be wisest to keep her inside the pocket, but like Janice, who I hoped at least was still going to assist me, I would need to be able to step outside now and again, if only to take a breather and plan our next moves. Castle Amber wasn’t the place for this: too many nosy relatives running around, and while people generally respected the privacy of one’s personal quarters, it would only take so long before somebody would get too curious. Yet on the other hand staying close to Amber would have the benefit of the proximity of the Pattern masking Fiona from anyone who might go out in Shadow to look for her, even if it would make the pocket Shadow manipulations just a bit harder.

        It may have been my meeting with Koras the night before that sparked the idea, but the more I thought about it, the more sense it seemed to make. In the course of our awkward conversation he’d mentioned Aliane’s unfortunate forced marriage, the one I had not been able to help her avoid either, even though she had at the time tried a fair amount of persuasion on me. However, she had accepted my offer of the stewardship of Ayland, the duchy I really hadn’t known what to do with anyway, and I hoped she’d found enough distraction in this task to keep her happy (and to have her do a good job too). For now, as I found myself in need of a secluded spot near to Amber, my thoughts turned to Ayland. Perhaps it was time for the Duke to take stock of his land and property.