OrciniVisitingTheGoalKeeperSB Orcini Visiting the Goal Keeper“Yes, this is what we will do. Go and speak with the Keeper. The Serpent has commanded you to come, my nephew has permitted you to come here, and I will not contradict either. Should the Serpent permit you to survive the experience, you, Orcini, will serve in my place. You will journey on my behalf to Benedict, and serve him in his call to arms.” Now it is Orcini’s turn to look surprised. ”I am hardly a fit replacement for you, Queen Mother.” He states simply. ”Yet I shall go all the same and gladly. You offer fair terms and a chance to useful and for both I thank you.” “Well, then.” Dara says. She rises. ”I suspect that you, Orcini, do not wish to reveal your excommunicated status in front of his Majesty, and so I will trust your brother to conduct you to meet the Keeper.” “I will so serve” Huttner says. “With your leave then, Queen Mother, we shall withdraw.” Orcini bows low and once given permission to leave, he follows his brother out. "I must say" Huttner says, once they have a comfortable number of steps away from Dara's meeting room "this has been all unexpected, brother. To have you show up at an opportune time, help stop the Jesby's, and get us to the City of Brass and thence here." "Maybe there is something to the Serpent wanting to speak to you that will turn positive." he offers. After one false start, Huttner finds the current passage that leads into the bowels of Sawall, and to where the Keeper's demesne lies. It's a relatively dark and deliberately creepy passage designed to unnerve any and all. The number of casual visits Suhuy gets not related to a Logrus attempt are extremely small. "Maybe not your business at all, but this Benedict was pretty popular with the Cults." Huttner continues. "Even with the attempts to stamp them out." "I was part of the attempts to stamp them out." Orcini comments. "If only a tenth of the stories I heard about the man are accurate, then he is a formidable being. It will be most interesting to see how close the Marshall of Amber is to his reputation." "From all accounts." his brother nods. "the stories are that he is better than any Chaosian commander and most of the swordsmen." Huttner agrees. "I hope that the Serpent doesn't order you to try and kill him as an act of contrition or penance, Orcini." Huttner says. "That might be as good as a request for you to kill yourself." Huttner doesn't say anything for the next few moments, as an extremely agoraphobia-inducing ledge along the wall of a canyon is the next leg of the journey. He exhales a breath of relief as the more usual set of tunnels replace the narrow, treacherous path. "The family and I were never quite sure of what you were doing, where or why." Huttner says. "A few inquiries posed in that direction were shut off and blocked. Or, if you prefer, vigorously discouraged." "It is the Church's nature ever to be inscrutable." Orcini observes. "To tell you the truth, I was never quite sure what I was doing or why. Where I could usually figure out." Orcini smiles thinly. "By contrast, I have followed your career from afar. They knew that the only way to keep me from the information would be to set a better operative between me and you and that would be a waste of two resources." "Speaking of the use of resources." Huttner says. He doesn't get the next word in, as he begins coughing. The passage at this point appears to be like a rough-hewn cavern, the air still and full of dust. The nearest water seems to be leagues away. "Serpent, curse it, why did it have to be bone dry in this cavern?" he frowns. "I feel like I'm in a desert, the air is so bare of moisture here." He coughs, twice more, and then begins speaking again. Unconsciously, Orcini makes the sign of the Eye, the ritual gesture that makes cursing by the Serpent's name a holy ritual as opposed to a blasphemy. Orcini catches what he is doing in mid gesture and stops with a smirk. Huttner shakes his head with a smile at Orcini's gesture, and resumes speaking. "I don't understand the Church using you as a resource to try and aid the retrieval of the scions of Sawall. Sawall is not precisely an exceptionally pious House yourself excluded. And the Church will not appreciate you having struck out for yourself. Even if you don't know much of why you were asked to do the things you did, you know what you did." "And I appreciate you looking out for me, Orcini. I'm lucky that the Queen Mother's nephew took a shine to me. And, well, now my link to her daughter." "Doing a favor or being useful to those in power is often an investment that pays dividends as you yourself now know." Orcini points out. Huttner nods in agreement as his brother speaks. "No doubt my involvement was something similar. You are right that my knowledge of Church activities is a liability to the Church now that I am no longer bound by oaths of fealty and secrecy. No doubt they will attempt to silence me. They are welcome to try." Orcini permits himself a small smile. "This is a reason why the Queen Mother's task for me is welcome. It will get me away from the Courts for a time and give the Church and the House of Sawall to try official diplomacy while they ponder a choice of assassin. No doubt once I have killed enough of them, I will be offered a deal." Orcini shrugs. "We shall see what the future brings." "The deal at the moment, Knight of the Church, is if I am going to let you come into my Ways." comes a disembodied voice. Huttner and Orcini are still in the middle of a passage, with no obvious doors, portals or entrances or exits. "Hello?" Huttner says, stopping his movement. He pauses a beat and adds. "Keeper?" "Yes, yes." the disembodied, unseen voice says. "A Fish and a Paladin, wandering in my Ways. Will they stay to talk, or will they run away?" "I have no intention of running away, Keeper." Orcini replies. "I have broken my ties with the Church and the Serpent has summoned me here to face his judgement. If I must face yours first, then so be it. What shall we talk about, Keeper?" "The Serpent has summoned you?" comes the voice of Suhuy, skeptical, questioning. "Well, there is something to talk about, and make no mistake. The breaking of your oaths, too. Yes, Yes, you may come, and speak with Suhuy. Perhaps even speak to the Serpent. Both you and the Fish, Knight Errant." The voice pauses a beat. "Come forward, fifteen paces. Prepare to fall." Huttner looks at Orcini. "Fifteen steps. Right. On the same mark, brother." "Prepare to fall. Literal directions, I hope rather, than oracular pronouncement." Orcini sighs and nods. In unison, he walks fifteen paces forward side by side. With each step, the wings out of his back sprout out a little farther. It turns out not to be a metaphysical fall at all. The ground beneath Orcini's feet. and his brother's too, cracks and gives way, as if standing on too-thin ice. The plunge is immediate and sudden. Huttner does not shift as ably as Orcini does, but fortunately, the fall is only about 10 meters or so, but it is a descent into darkness that takes a little shifting of eyes to make out. "I must learn more flight forms." Huttner says, landing with a carefully timed bending of the knees to absorb the shock. "We're here..." Huttner calls out. The cavern is shaped like a large bulb, with a shaft of light from the broken ceiling one of the two major sources of illumination. The other is set some distance away from the hole, a ruddy light in one portion of the cavern. "There you are." the horned, hunched figure in that corner of the room says. The Keeper. He leans against a wall of the cavern. "The unlikely set of brothers. Come here. You will soon face worse than I." "It is disturbing how often those words have been said to me." Orcini comments to the room in general as he strides towards the Keeper. "In this instance, however, I have no doubt as their veracity." Orcini comes to a respectful distance and bows to the Keeper. "I thank you for this audience, Keeper." Huttner bows in turn, but Suhuy waves a hand and shakes his head. "Ceremony at this point is somewhat moot, I think." he says. "We may as well be to the point, and not spend an hour in honeyed words. We're not in Duke Sawall's court here, or the Throne Room of the Emperor." "It is a curious thing, Orcini. I know you speak the truth of being summoned by the Serpent. I know you do not prevaricate or lie, and in fact, he has given me counsel for just this eventuality." "You see, he has told me to expect you, assuming that you survived to come here. No doubt you had aid above and beyond your brother to do so?" "At first it was I helping them." Orcini replies. "My brother journeyed with the Athas who had found Esperance daughter of Dara, Alex also a Sawall, and Swan of Amber among others. I led them along the path of the Aspirant's Stair and is was during that crossing that I severed myself from the Church in order to cleave closer to the Serpent. From there the Athas led us to the City of Brass where Lord Ingrey the Ambassador let us use a teleportation circle to the Thelbane in return for lobbying for a position he wishes to hold. We then came straight to the ways of Sawall and after a brief rest and paying my respects to the Queen Mother, my brother led me here." "The Queen Mother's daughter, a hero and one of the most capable agents of Sawall, an Amberite, a noted Ambassador..." Suhuy chuckles and laughs. "Quite the party of individuals you met and journeyed with." The Keeper chuckles for a few moments more and then stops, suddenly and speaks. "The reason why I asked this, Orcini, is that I already had a request from the Priesthood to detain you here, keep you occupied and distracted while they came to collect you, given how their efforts to do so on the road to Chaos were so cleverly thwarted. I judged that you would be loath or unable to do so without aid, and thus wanted to know how you came all the way to my Ways from the Mountain without harm to yourself." The smell of salt water, a side effect of Huttner's nervousness rising, fills Orcini's nostrils. "So Keeper, do you so distract and detain me now, or do you follow the counsel of the Serpent?" Orcini asks. "You speak and think before you act." Suhuy replies. "This is the beginning of wisdom. No, Orcini, I did not permit the Priesthood to right to come and spring their trap. I did wonder what you would do, if confronted by the potential of treachery by me. Some would have acted in haste or speed, seeking to avoid danger. Your brother's fear stinks of the sea, however." he says in admonishment. "Yes, Keeper" Huttner says. "No, I see no benefit in turning you over to a temporal authority. The greater authority wishes you to face him. I am not so arrogant as to think myself greater than he. Better I should leave and join the Lessimans than to do that." "I admit that this is most unusual, for one to enter the Logrus for reasons unrelated to attempting to master it." Suhuy says. "Although that may be a side effect, if you survive the experience, Orcini." Suhuy points. Without so much as a tremor, much less a temblor, a rift opens in the floor of the cave behind Orcini. "Have you any questions ere you go?" "Many." Orcini answers. "But I think the answers would distract me from the task at hand." Orcini looks at the rift. "I do have a request, Keeper. If I do not survive and it can be retrieved, I wish this sword to go to my brother." Orcini indicates the sword over his back. "I..I can't take your sword." Huttner protests. He shakes his head firmly. "The choice is not yours to make." Suhuy says. "Custom and tradition say that if the weapon is willed to you, the weapon will be yours. And in my presence, it is a binding oath, that shall be executed." "Thank you, Keeper." Orcini nods to Suhuy then looks to Huttner. "Should I fail brother, I certainly won't need the blade, but you might. It is that simple." Suhuy looks at Orcini. "I look forward to our conversation, should you survive the experience. I expect it shall be rather longer, and even more interesting than this one. I would wish you luck, but it is fate and destiny that rule you know, Orcini. May they guide you." Huttner turns to his brother and puts his hand on Orcini's shoulder. "You're braver than I am. I'd likely would still be swimming in the opposite direction. Trust in the element that binds us, brother. Its who we are, at the bottom. Surely the Serpent knows that." He removes the hand, and then embraces Orcini. The fear on him is still that of the smell of the sea. He steps back after the embrace, and nods, straightening his back. "Until next we meet, brother, farewell." Orcini traces the sign of serpent in the air. Even he is unsure if he blesses Huttner or himself. Then before he can change his mind, Orcini turns and leaps into the rift. Falling into this rift is an experience similar to the one that brought him to the presence of the keeper, save for one small, telling detail. It's a hell of a much longer fall. At one point, falling in the dark, a dark that fights even shifted-eyes attempts to resolve it. This eventually results in a bit of sensory deprivation as Orcini at one point barely can tell anything about his environment or that he really is falling. Momentum and the laws of physics finally do apply as Orcini's fall, stops, suddenly, or Orcini's sensory deprivation leads to a loss of consciousness. Its not exactly clear which happens. A timeless interval later, Orcini is lying flat on his back. Its' a perfectly hard, smooth surface. Opening his eyes, he is in a tiled chamber of some sort. The floor is an off white with highlights of blue that reminds Orcini of marble. The rest of the walls are similarly off white, with highlights and a sprinkling of black. There are no features in the room besides a single doorway yawning into darkness and, improbably, an oxbend of a stream of water running through the room, flowing into the room near where Orcini lays, meandering enough to serve as a source for bathing or washing, and then flowing out on the same side of the room. Orcini sits up gingerly and takes a moment to verify that all of him is still there. "Well, as descents into madness goes this seems pretty mild. Granted I lack a basis for comparison." Orcini comments to the room. Orcini moves over to the stream. Huttner's words about trusting their element struck a chord with Orcini so he moves to the stream to drink his fill and wash his face before turning his attention to the only apparent exit from this room. While Huttner might have gotten more of the Marid heredity in him than Orcini does, the element of water is still something Orcini is more familiar and attune with than the vast majority of the Courts. The water is pure, almost painfully pure, without trace of any minerals or anything that give water its usually flavors. Its the element of water, in the most natural form possible, as if it were created out of nothing on the far side of its entrance. The yawning doorway itself is relatively unremarkable, save for its contrast from the white tiled room. Beyond the archway appears to be nothing in all eight cardinal directions. Its not clear if its outer space, a three dimensional sea of blackness, or simply nothing at all. Whatever the answer, it is a seemingly endless space, one that might swallow up anyone and anything that dares to enter it, inhumanly, pitilessly. From back in the room, comes the refrain of some sort of shadow music and the sound of a ticking metronome. Words waft over Orcini's ears. "We've only just begun..." For once, Orcini finds himself unwilling to simply launch himself into the unknown even if that does appear to be the only option. Orcini turns his attention to the stream once more. The water must flow to somewhere or so he supposes. Would he be trading one unknown void for another? It is worth a try. Orcini shapes himself into a fish small enough to navigate the stream and let's the painfully pure water carry him along with its flow. The amount of mass Orcini needs to streamline is not actually that much, as the opening is nearly large enough for Orcini to swim through shaping. The strains of the music are soon left behind. The tunnel for the water is light enough for Orcini to navigate, and the current carries him along without tremendous effort. The tunnel fails to surface for far longer than Orcini could, unaided, hold his breath. In point of fact, it gets rather monotonous to travel. At least for a while. It's when the current flows into a multidimensional space filled with water that things get really interesting for Orcini. It's not the void that was sitting outside the room by any stretch, but the bending of time and space are of an order that a human mind finds difficult to process, if not actively dangerous to do so. The dimensions are in-equal in size, and so as Orcini swims along, he can see himself from the rear, the pulsing of his brain, the path he has taken, and the path yet to take. Tentacled multidimensional entities float just out of swimming reach, calling, cajoling, beckoning. Instinctually, his fish form wishes to avoid anything with tentacles and Orcini decides that this is an instinct worth following. He chooses a tack along the path of probability between past and future and resists the urge to stare in fascination at the workings of his mind. Living neither in the future nor the past, but the preeminent present appears to satisfy the cravings of the tentacled things. Resolutely skirting and threading the needle, Orcini manages to survive. Its still a continual cavalcade of pleas and whispers, which start to echo in Orcini's head. And then it abruptly all stops. The multidimensional sea. The whispers and desires. The ability to travel into the past and the future. It all collapses into a single, crystallized reality: The reality of emerging into a small koi pond. Orcini is the only fish in this pond, and through a distorted look up and out of the water, there is a garden that this pond is just one part of. High above, a sun-like object shines its golden light upon the water of the pond. The lush green vegetation surrounding the pond casts reflections across the water. "I appear to be a big fish in a small pond. How apt." Orcini thinks to himself. Orcini wills himself back to his humanoid form to look around this new patch of stability. The area of this new patch of stability is, indeed, a garden, once Orcini emerges and no longer has to contend with looking through a water-air boundary to distort matters. The garden is distinctly not very Chaosian. The trees are a lush green, as is the grass. One of the trees appears to be decorated with fruit, but they do not appear to be blood apples, , or other typical fruit found in and near the Courts. On the other hand, the largest thing in the garden is a truly massive tree, whose roots that run along the ground are as thick across as Orcini himself. The trunk of the tree is perhaps a hundred feet in diameter at its widest, and the crown of the tallest branches is out of sight. Draped on one of the lower branches, about the same size as the roots, is a serpent, a snake that regards Orcini with its gaze. The green iridescent serpent, equally proportioned to the branch it is draped on, flicks its tongue out as it watches and gazes at Orcini. A gaze that is one-eyed. For a moment, Orcini just drinks in the scene. Clearly there is a serpent before him but is this serpent, the Serpent? Surely he would know his deity upon see him wouldn't he? Would he? The fact that he is unsure unsettles him more than he would admit. Well, best more with caution. Orcini moves toward the massive tree and once close he drops to one knee and makes the sign of the coils. "I apologize for having to ask but nothing is as it seems in this place. Are you the Serpent? Have I reached the place of my summons?" "I am entirely of the Serpent." the creature in the tree says, slithering forward somewhat, regarding Orcini with that one eye, and tasting the air with sharp, quick extensions of its forked tongue. "And entirely am not the entirety of the Serpent." "I am a jouten of the Serpent, and to speak to me, is to speak to the Serpent, Orcini. You have reached a place where the task of your summons might be discharged." "It pleases us that you have come, child." the Serpent's jouten continues. "Despite the difficulties I perceived would be in your path." There is a pause. "I speak of the institution that speaks in Our name." "But do they truly speak in Your name, my Lord?" Orcini questions. "It was my doubts on that which caused this whole series of events that led me here." "That is the essential question." The Serpent says. "The Church of the Serpent is the oldest institution save the original Houses in the Courts of Chaos. The priests of Ambelrash have seen Emperors come and go and have seen my interests through milestones of history. The imprisonment of the Jaghut. The Lessiman Secession. The Chrysanthe Annexation. The Black Road War with the children of Barimen." The Serpent continues to wind along the branch, the coils iridescently shining. He continues to speak. "To say that they have strayed from the path of the Serpent is a serious and grave thing to say. To say that they no longer represent Me, and only represent themselves, or their own temporal power, is something that none have said aloud, to Me." "Do you say so aloud, Orcini?" "I do." Orcini answers without hesitation. "I cannot speak for the whole but those that have been giving me orders of late seem more interested in playing politics than tending the faithful." "Of late" The Serpent says. The Serpent flicks its tongue out, close to Orcini, as if tasting him in full, before withdrawing. "It has been thus for hundreds of years, but with none who dared express it aloud to Me. What was once a small shadow across the Church has grown such that the Church now lies entirely in its penumbra, the light and vision of my visage obscured by their own needs and faults." "Long I have waited for someone to express what you have said ,Orcini. Long indeed. The gift of true and perfect prophecy is something that the Unicorn and the child of Barimen stole from me long ago, when they stole the Eye. But even so maimed, I still knew that someone would fill the role that you shall." "The Mantle of truth is a difficult one to bear, and one that may be too much for any to bear. But for the faithful to remain blinded by the shadow of a church that no longer can hear my voice, it is a Mantle that must be taken up." "Will you?" The Serpent says. Orcini is silent for a long moment. "I'll be persecuted worse than the Lessimans for this. For every one the hears the truth and rallies to it there will be two spies waiting to betray me and three more trying to use me in some kind of gambit. I will be seen as a charlatan at best and a political rival at worst. I won't have a peaceful moment for the rest of my life." "Such is the clouded vision I foresee if you accept." The Serpent intones. Orcini's smile is feral. "Of course, I'll do it and woe betide anyone that stands in the way of the Truth of the Serpent!" Can a one-eyed serpent be said to smile? If a one-eyed snake can smile, the Serpent does so. At the very least, there is a gleam in His, It's single eye. "Your acceptance is taken as word and bond, Orcini." The Serpent says. "You shall be bonded to Me, and go forth in my name, to follow your destiny." "What remains, beyond your word and the great task that lies before you, Adiutor, are two things." "First, you will be imbued with the Logrus. Though some may call what you say to be the madness that afflicts the less fortunate, without such imbuing, your task will face no success." "Further, you shall be endowed with a measure of the poison of my fangs. It will...change you, slightly. And thus, those who truly wish to see you for what you are will not be able to mistake you as mine." "A measure of your venom? In me? " Orcini swallows thickly. "Let it be as you say, Lord." "This is something not given since the Priests of old, before they fell from favor." The Serpent says. "I will bite you, and you will sleep. Upon waking, you will undergo the initiation into the Logrus." "I cannot promise your survival, Adiutor, for certainty is not in the nature of chaos. Should you survive, whole and unharmed, you will emerge from here, and back into the greater world." "I will be near to you from then on. But your paths and goals will be clear." "Do you understand?" "Not fully." Orcini smiles. "But that doesn't matter. This is a time for faith after all." Orcini strides forward to within easy striking distance of the snake. "I am ready." "As you wish." the Serpent says. And strikes. The bite of the snake is at the side of Orcini's neck. The fangs sink, and Orcini can feel the warm injection of something, presumably venom, into the wound. And then Orcini slumps to the ground. The interval of time that Orcini spends unconscious is something difficult to ascertain. Orcini's period of unconsciousness, however, is not empty, or dreamless. Visions of serpents twisting into ouroboros shapes, serpents that walk as men, ment And, finally, a vision of a cathedral, a cathedral crumbling to the ground in real time underneath a purple sky. When Orcini awakens, aside from the dreams, he doesn't feel terribly different. There is something there, though, inside of him, awaiting to be unlocked, to be unleashed. The Serpent is gone, now, and there is only the sound of Orcini's own thoughts. Aside from the koi pond, the only way out appears to be a passage in one of the walls, a tunnel leading into darkness. Something tells Orcini that this is the passage that will eventually lead to the exit...if Orcini can survive it. Orcini stands up gingerly and goes through some light stretching exercises to prove to himself he was all there and that everything still worked. He then moves over to the pond and looks down in hopes that still water's reflection to see if he looks any different. After that, Orcini moves into the tunnel. He is not sure if he wakes or dreams but either way his path is clear. In addition to not being sure if he is awake or dream or something that is in between, the next period of time lasts a subjective and objective length of time that Orcini is, in the end, unsure of the actual duration. What Orcini does remember, in the end, is a lot of shapeshifting. Survival shapeshifting, to deal with things like rivers of boiling steam, rockfaces composed of rock chilled colder than a hellmaiden's heart, skies filled with toxic gas, and slurries of earth that are not so much traveled through as bulled through. The changes come fast and furious, with Orcini dealing with changes and adaptations on an ever changing basis. Instinct takes over from conscious reaction at many points. Orcini manages to survive it all, finding that many of the forms he winds up taking have a serpentine cast to them. From a feathered serpent soaring through skies with an infinite view, to drilling his way through soft rock moments later, the serpent forms not only help him survive, but he can feel it is going to be an integral part of his new Logrus imprint. But it is the obstacle of the waterfall that appears to be his latest, or perhaps his last test. Orcini emerges onto the river from a transition whose memory is already fading as he follows the current. The swiftness of the current drags him over a waterfall before he can do anything about it, and Orcini falls, and falls. It might be at the quarter-mile mark when Orcini realizes that the featureless, indistinct, dream-like background all around himself, falling in the column of water is a clue that what he is experiencing is no longer real. If anything he experienced before ever was, that is! And that if the veil of illusion is not broken, he will fall and fall until he dies. The certainty of never reaching the sudden stop at the end brings with it a strange calm. Orcini calms himself, closes his eyes and begins to meditate on the strange energies flowing inside him. Within is the joy of Chaos. Serpent and Logrus flow through him like great snakes burrowing through his soul. Like Hercules in his cradle, Orcini grabs each snake in his hands. These powers will respond to his will and he wills that this illusion around him shall fall. He diverts the rivers of powers to eyes and calls upon the power of the Serpent's remaining eye to show him the truth of where he is. Its the first time Orcini has reached for this sort of power, or perhaps even recognized that such power was within him, or could be within him. And as he falls, the energies, sluggishly at first but then with greater rapidity, come to mind. The two logrus tendrils, for that is what they are, emerge from the sign of the Logrus that Orcini has successfully summoned. It feels and sounds different than the way that he has had the Logrus described to him, perhaps a consequence of the Serpent's bite. The arcane energy that conducts through the tendrils is like electricity, running through their length, shredding the veil of illusion. The eye of the serpent, through the sign itself, shows what the world is really like. Orcini isn't really falling down a waterfall. He's not falling anywhere. He's really standing in an ankle deep pool of water in a deep, wide crater open to a powder blue sky. With every movement of the tendrils, the veil of the false world of the endless waterfall is giving way, and within a minute of effort, the sensation of falling is gone, and in two, the false world of the waterfall is gone entirely. The tendrils of the Logrus hum and shiver at Orcini's command as the world beyond the illusion and the world he sees are now one and the same. Orcini is loath to release the power now flowing through him. He had dealt with Logrus users in the past. What should he be able to do? Orcini sends the tendrils spreading out to search this plane for anything of interest. Should he find something, Orcini will wrap a tendril around a nearby area and pull himself there. Orcini has heard of how the Logrus is used, and even seen the Logrus in action, as much as one without the imprint can be said to understand it. It is certain that Orcini has a Logrus imprint--what else could it be? But it seems not to act in the way he expects. He can bring forth a mindthread of the Serpent, (just where that term came from is unknown to him, it certainly is new to Orcini as well) and send it out to find something interesting, an interesting area. From what he understands, he should be able to just pull himself there with an invisible tendril. But he doesn't. Instead, it is more that Orcini winds up walking along the visible (possibly to everyone!) ebon black tendril, as if he had laid down a road to his destination and followed it down. He finds himself in the room with the cloth of gold walls, just as he expected. But the way he got there was not the way he had anticipated. It is clear. The bite of the Serpent has meant that the Logrus imprint he has obtained is the Logrus, but it is a different Logrus than the Logrus in practice in the Courts. As far as he can tell, or has ever heard, he is the only one with this altered Logrus, or, perhaps, he is meant to be the first. "I wonder if the Keeper foresaw this when he said our next conversation would be most interesting." Orcini chuckles. Flexing his newly found metaphysical muscles, Orcini sends forth another mindthread out to seek the chamber of the Keeper and pull him from the Logrus. There is much to be done and obligations to fulfill. The mindthread of the Logrus leads to a black pathway that leads Orcini unerringly through a double dozen rooms, caverns, pools, aeries and other scenes, finally and decisively allowing him to burst through a rock wall, and back into the chamber where the Keeper sits quietly, sipping from a cup. He looks up with an expression more of pleasure than of surprise. "I see that you have done what must be done and you were found acceptable to the Serpent." Suhuy says. "Not all potential futures I saw when last we met indicated that was going to be the case." "How do you feel?" "Strange. Powerful." Orcini pauses a moment. "Full of purpose yet unsure of just what I am. I have a new office but my mandate and the resources to carry out that mandate are unclear. Also, I haven't been this happy in a long, long time." Orcnin smiles and bears his pointed fangs as he does so. "I can see your Imprint, shining, different, unique." Suhuy says. "You have undergone an Investiture that has not happened in a couple of thousand years, Orcini." The Keeper says. "I should think that your role and place will require some not uncharacteristic flexibility. Doubtless that in most cases, the Serpent will guide you Herself. Other times, it has been revealed to me that I will act as your conduit. Your handler, as it were. It must be emphasized, though." Suhuy smiles. "that your mandate, in the abstract, is clear." "Reformation." "In keeping with that." he continues. "Your course of actions are to put yourself into a position where your voice will be heard, and where you will be able to act and influence others, and end the corruption of the Church. So great is the corruption of the Church, that the Serpent would find favor if you would find common cause with those who rebelled from the Courts long ago." "Tell me, Orcini, what know you of Prince Benedict of Amber?" "Mainly what I gleaned from crushing the cult that worshiped him." Orcini replies. "Peerless warrior and tactician. Aloof and disciplined. Slayer of Lintra and many others during the Black Road gambit. Revered for his ability to see all of the Chaos about him and still take clear and decisive action. Also, I am to be sent to answer his call in the Queen Mother's place. That she feels compelled to make an answer at all speaks volumes." "Have you indeed?" Suhuy says, scratching his chin with a finger whose nail has in the last few moments grown to suit the purpose. "I had expected the General of Amber to contact his descendant. I had also expected her to rebuff his overture in the matter, rather than answer his call. I certainly had not expected her to give the duty to you, Orcini. This is an unexpected move on her part." "However, I am aware, thanks to the Serpent, of the reason why the General calls his spawn and family to service." "These Omphalos have attempted to invade several times already and will doubtless continue to do so. My sources tell me that they continually improve and update their tactics, and likely have agents preparing the way for their next attempts, both here and elsewhere in Shadow. "The Serpent considers these interlopers a threat to be handled without quarter, and would have you participate in dealing with them with the talents you bring to bear. " "Doubtless it would be impossible for you not to bring your brother, on this and the other deeds to be done." Suhuy adds. "Although he is not yet worthy of the honors and position you are to accrue, a Champion needs Companions, is this not so?" "It is said that one can never be a prophet in one's home ways." Orcini replies. "Yet I think my brother will stand by me in this if I ask of him. Knowing what I may face, I hesitate to do so." "I understand." the Keeper replies. "But he should be allowed to make that choice. If he does not take the role, doubtless there will be others. A thought strikes Orcini. "Keeper, is it not common that those that assay the Logrus bearing a token often find it imbued with some aspect of power from the journey?" Orcini's hand moves to his sword's hilt to draw it. Would he find it changed as he has been?" "If you did not bear an object specifically to have done so, then an item that you will carry will bear that imbuing." the Keeper says. "Or, as the Emperor did, even a small amount of string will take the charge." Pulling out his blade, the sword is not as it was. Angrvadill, Rushing harm is no longer as it was. The black leather is now some other sort of leather, the feel of the hilt is slightly moist. The crosspiece and hilt are the same spartan design. The blade itself is now something more resembling obsidian, and looks sharper than ever. In addition, both the blade and crosspiece's runes are different. Orcini cannot read any longer, the runes morphed, flowed and changed into a script he does not recognize whatsoever, and the runes are now in a yellowish-gold color. The energy of the Logrus is bound into the blade. No, a tendril of the Logrus, *his* Logrus is bound into the blade. Orcini simply stares at the blade in wonder. "I have heard tales of the slaying of Borel by Corwin of Amber and of his blade that sets our blood to burning. I never thought to hold a blade that might be its equal and opposite number." Orcini holds the blade out for the Keeper to examine. "Can you read this script, Keeper? I would know what it proclaims." Suhuy takes the blade. There is just the slightest hesitancy in his doing so, letting the blade rest across his palms before he takes the blade in his left hand, raising it up. "This is a very old form of Chaosian, Orcini." The Keeper says. "Old High Chaosian. Not many can read it, these days. Fortunately, I can." He looks up and down the blade. "Via Serpens, Gladius of the Adiutor." He pauses a beat. "Roughly, Way of the Serpent, Sword of the Aide" "Your blade has been renamed." The Keeper says,handing it back carefully. "You will need to blood it, Orcini, and soon." "Well if the blood of the Omphalos will serve the purpose, the blade will not wait long." The Keeper nods. Orcini accepts the gladius back from the Keeper and with a little difficulty sheathes it. "Time for me to be about my purpose. The Queen Mother bid me seek her out should I survive." Orcini smiles and shows his fangs. "I think this shall be a most interesting encounter." The Keeper smiles toothily in turn. "Collect your brother, and see to the Queen Mother. It is a most interesting state of affairs in Chaos. Our Monarch is not weak, and yet the Queen Mother and his brother are both strong." "There may be some formal way of binding others to your cause, but perhaps it will be something you have to develop, or discover." He pauses a beat. "I would say walk with the Serpent, Orcini, but I suspect you now do in a way that perhaps only I understand." "It is a comfort that one of us understands, Keeper." Orcini chuckles. "Though they say that enlightenment comes through the journey not the destination. I'd best be about it." "Until your return" Suhuy responds. Orcini inclines his head and strides forth towards the Marid subWay with the Sawall enclosure. Orcini was not sure how long he was gone but food was a high priority. Coincidentally, Huttner tended to snack when he was truly nervous about things so he might find both family and sustenance in the same place. Orcini sought out the feeding pools where the various fish and crustaceans swam for those in the mood to catch their meals. Away from the Keeper's realm, it is not long before Orcini can find a mostly water-filled channel that Ways such as Orcini's family tend to be connected to, or never migrate far away from. Orcini is relatively fortunate in the current configuration of Sawall Ways, he emerges from the water passage and only needs to portage, as it were, a short hallway before reaching one of the entrances to the Ways. Orcini gets polite nods and greetings from distant cousins and relations as he makes his way toward the quest for food, and his brother. As he enters one of the caverns, a figure breaks the water of the feeding pool, wrestling an oversized, clawed creature not unlike a rock lobster several feet long. His brother. It takes a few moments for Huttner to subdue the armored and clawed crustacean, and a few moments more for him to get it to stop fighting with the aid of bashing it against a handy nearby exposed rock outcropping. Consumed in this, he only notices Orcini when the lobster-like creature is subdued, "Brother!" he says. His surprise at seeing Orcini causes him to drop the crustacean into the water. "Oh, by the Serpent!" he says as his prey falls into the water. He scrambles for a moment, and dives back in, before breaking the surface, bearing his prize once again. "I did not mean to make you lose your lunch, brother." Orcini chuckles. "But I thought you would wish to see that I am whole with all speed. How long was I gone? Time had no meaning or reference for much of my recent journey." Huttner grins, wading through the water toward Orcini, lunch in hand. "I am so very happy to see you survived, and seem relatively untarnished by the experience. I had started to worry." he says. He slaps the crustacean on the rock shore of the pool and hoists himself out. "By Court standard time, its been three and a half days. Most of Sawall, though, has been on a relatively fast time schedule, at least according to the House Horologist's Almanac. It was two days *here*." "It might be a night, maybe less for some areas of Sawall." he adds. He picks up and slaps the crustacean against the rock. "Hungry? There is enough meat on her for two." "Ravenous!" Orcini smiles and shows off his new fanged grin. "My journey has left me mentally energized but physically fatigued." Orcini admits. "Oh I have so much to tell you brother. I scarcely believe it all myself. Some part of me wonders if I am still within the Logrus and this is merely my mind reaching out for a comforting vision." "I can't say whether or not I'm real. You're the one who joined the Church to ask such questions and answer them, sometimes with a sword." Huttner says. "Whether or not you are dreaming or delusional, I'm just as real to myself either way." "I do want to hear of what you have to say and what you saw and did." Huttner says. "First..." He breaks the crustacean in half. He then holds up both pieces of the creature. "Head or Tail though?" "Head." Orcini answers. "I cede the sweet meat of the tail to the founder of the feast." Huttner grins and hands over the head and forequarters. Orcini devotes himself to a swift devouring of the morsel before him. He could use several more but this quiets the hunger pangs enough to let him focus on words. Huttner stops his mastication as he listens. "Much of my journey is unremembered or indescribable. There are realities within the Logrus irrational even as defined by our loose standards. The key event is seared within me though brother. The Serpent spoke to me. He accepted the truth from my lips and charged me to act upon it as his agent." Orcini smiles showing even more fang. "As of this moment, my task is to dismantle the Church of the Serpent as it is now and rebuild it to properly serve and honor the Serpent as it did in ages past." Orcini turns zealous eyes towards his brother to gauge his reaction. "The Serpent wishes you to destroy the institution that venerates the Serpent? Completely?" Huttner says. "Take it out root and branch and begin again from the beginning?" His reaction is more puzzlement rather than revulsion or agreement. "A mighty task, and not a light burden to be given, if I understand you, brother." "What was once a small shadow across the Church has grown such that the Church now lies entirely in its penumbra, the light and vision of my visage obscured by their own needs and faults." Orcini intones. "That is how the Serpent described it to me. The Church of the Serpent no longer venerates the Serpent not at the highest echelons of power and influence. They use the Serpent's name as a shield and a lever to achieve their own ends. I should know. I was a cog in that machine for many a turning, but no longer." Orcini smiles with contentment. "My life has never truly been my own, brother, but now at last I feel I am serving a worthy master and that counts for much no matter how dangerous the path and tasks ahead." Huttner nods his head, rapidly, several times. "You were the first of our line to join the Church for a couple of generations, you remember." Huttner says. "It was rather surprising, especially since you are the older brother. It would have been more rational if I had, and you carried on our small cadet Marid branch of Sawall." "Speaking of which, I think I know what you are asking, even if indirectly. And, for the nonce, I would be proud to support you, brother." Huttner says. "You already know I've sworn allegiance to Esperance. Doubtless by this point, Queen Dara has formally adopted her as her daughter. And doubtless, she is going to serve in this War of the Amberite General, which you have sworn to aid the Queen Mother in." "So we three will set off together against this enemy. And be it that no competing loyalties between you and her hold, I will continue to aid you afterwards." "Someone has to keep you out of trouble." he adds with a grin. "And if we're going to dismantle a corrupt theocratic House, I think trouble is going to be our bed-companion." "Without doubt." Orcini nods. "As it happens, I would be seeking out the Amberite General without my promise to the Queen Mother. The fight against the Omphalos and to treat with Benedict of Amber are part of the geas laid upon me. And thank you for accepting what I did not ask." Orcini adds. "My future is a very uncertain one and I hesitated to bind your fate to mine." "Whose future is certain?" Huttner counters, tearing another piece of meat into his mouth. "Certainly, the river you are swimming down is fraught with peril and danger, but I'd rather not lounge in a pool while my brother sees where that river goes, and shapes it course." "You said part of your geas is tied with the Omphalos and Benedict of Amber?" Huttner says. "Even the Serpent, too, sees common cause with the Barimens?" He pauses ."I wonder if the Church feels differently." "I was sent on many a mission to stamp out Amber cults, brother." Orcini points out. "While I agree without reservation that the Barimens are not to be worshiped it is quite possible that the Church wished to suppress positive feeling towards the Barimen line for political rather than theological reasons. Our Emperor and the Queen Mother descend from them after all. Anything that weakens their legitimacy could be used as leverage." "I doubt that the Church is strong enough to go back to the days when Emperors and Empresses fully danced to their tune, but the point is well taken." Huttner agrees. "Politics seems to be to be their stock in trade. Maybe they feel a new Emperor is a chance for them to play those games harder. Certainly Emperor Merlin is new and untested. He hasn't even gone through the rituals and trials of selecting an Empress yet and presenting her before the Diet." "Neither here nor there, for us, for now." Huttner adds. "We support the Serpent and deal with the current problem, which is this Omphalos that the Serpent, blessed his name, wants you to deal with." He cracks the shell and grabs the last piece of tender flesh. "So, then, our next stop is to her Highness the Queen Mother, then?" Backlinks |
