WereGonnaNeedABiggerBoat[continued from Rude Awakenings and other threads] As Seabhac had predicted, Malachi discovered a cete of badgers mulling around the Commons, discussing the realism of Magical Girl combat - namely why didn’t villains simply brain the stupid bints during their intricate and prolonged transformations. Upon the offering of Afro, they abandoned this heady debate and sought each of the Scoobies with unerring speed and accuracy; passing along Malachi’s missive verbatim. Suspecting the badgers may be less than circumspect, Malachi sends a terse message: "Malachi of Karm sends this message. I have things I must tell all of you immediately. I suggest that you do not bring loved ones. Please meet me at the Red Stag at sundown." Gillian thanked the badger and continued her walk across campus. Malachi? The boy that came looking for her in the library? The one Temnal knows? she wondered. At last she would get to meet him. Don't bring loved ones? That sounds dire. A trap of some sort? Possibly. But with some of the spells she already knew coupled with access to Cybele's trumps she felt fairly safe. Or just stupidly overconfident. She sighed. The Red Stag was a tavern of middling repute in a quiet and residential area of the city. It was frequented by the craft and smithing guilds and was generally not terribly noteworthy. It had several private rooms and a staff willing to forget what and whom they'd seen, a necessity when so much business was done over tankards of ale and glasses of wine. Joao had just finished work for his last class when one of the bribed beavers found him. Furrowing his eyebrows, Joao made his away from the campus and into the city. "What was wrong with the lab?" Joao said to himself as his footsteps brought him to the doorstep of the Red Stag. He looked around in the hopes that one of his compatriots were already there. "Surely Malachi himself will be here early." Joao added in self reflection, and then plunged inside and looked about. Shortly before sunset, Gillian arrived at the Red Stag. Feeling extremely self-conscious, she smoothed her skirts, assumed a bland expression, and opened the door. As she stepped inside, she suddenly realized that she had no idea what Malachi looked like. <Don't bring loved ones?> Cynwyd thought. <Now that's not ominous at all.> He grimaced as he thought of Cole's complex love life- made even more complex as of late. <Relations are a definite anchor. Cole does seem more grounded, his priorities more immediate because of those connections.> But the cynical part of him couldn't help adding, <But anchors can also drown you if tied right.> He looked around for Cole, or indeed any of the others as he came to The Red Stag. He'd not been here before, and that made him nervous. Especially at this time of night. He circled the establishment taking note of its construction, exits, windows, and what lay around. He got the feeling that this was going to be a way of life now- a measure of paranoia was definitely more a survival trait than not. That done, he circled back to the front, and saw Joao just entering the tavern. He caught the door on the backswing, walking into the tavern behind the other man just as he caught sight of Gillian. He didn't know either of them that well, but after all that they had seen and done, it seemed less important than it would have otherwise. "Joao. Gillian. I see that the master of the badgers hasn't arrived yet," he said, slowly moving his head back and forth, cataloging the establishment behind them. "Maybe in his absence, we should go ahead an procure a table?" "Da. Or perhaps more private accommodations." Joao suggested. "Our business is hardly public." A tiny figure in a long dark green cloak slipped in behind the group. Her entrance was nearly silent, except for the breathing. Though not exactly breathing heavily, the person under the folds of the cloak had obviously exerted herself to arrive here. Seeing the group before her, she flipped back the hood to reveal Raina. "I ran all the way here," she announced, moving over to stand closer to Joao and Gillian, the two she was most familiar with. "Papa would kill me if he knew I was in this part of town!" "Then we will not tell him you were here." Joao said confidently. They found Cole sitting at the bar. Cynwyd noted that he hadn't changed since leaving the fencing salon, and by all appearances had come here directly after they'd encountered the badger. His new sword and bracers were conspicuous. He drained a mug of something as the others entered, and placed it on the bar next to another empty mug, which was equally conspicuous. Malachi emerged from a back room. Cole was the first he's recognized. "Glad you could come," he said. "I've gotten us a room in the back where we can talk privately." "I'm Malachi." He extended a hand. "Good to see you alive," Cole replied. "Funny you should say that," said Malachi. "We have much to talk about." "Good evening, Gospodin Malachi." Joao said with a nod of the head. He looked at his compatriots. "Shall we?" "Good evening," Malachi returned. "Is this all that's coming? I had hoped to gather everyone. There are more of us, aren't there?" Malachi led the way to the small but well appointed back room, laid out with bread and wine. He ducked his head to clear the door's lintel and poured himself a goblet of red wine while waiting for everyone to find a seat. He checked to make sure none of the serving staff were nearby and then shut the door. "Gentlemen, ladies. Thank you for coming. I know that some of you are sorcerers. You should probably cast a warding spell on this place, then. So no one can listen in." "I have some important things to say," he continued without waiting, looking for all the world like a coach addressing his players before the game. "Disturbing things I thought you might want to hear with just us in the room. To give you time to decide what to say to those you love who do not share our...condition. I'm going to be quite embarrassed if you all tell me that you already knew them. I have been told more than once that I am not the smartest man in this room. So be it. I have been through something extraordinary and if you do not already know it, it is my duty to tell you of it. Though I am now an agent of the Crown and have told King Random and Prince Rook some of what I experienced, I have not yet told anyone the whole story. You deserve to be the first to hear it." He paused, took a sip of wine and set it down. He rubbed his right temple a moment and then began speaking. "Some few nights ago I met two rather nasty agents of the Power behind the Dark Hour. I bested one but the other killed me." He said it with the matter-of-fact simplicity that comes of having rehearsed the line a dozen times. "Put one of those cards, those..." he fished around for the word. "One of those trumps, right through my heart. Rather contrary to my mother's expectations, I did not then wind up someplace very hot. I met the Power I spoke of. More about that later. But then I was whisked away by another, a man variously calling himself Ted and Bob and many other things, but whose name I have learned is Dworkin. Wizard to old king Oberon and, evidently, his father." "Dworkin, whom I knew as Ted, brought me back to life. He made me sign in a great big book that I would work for him when the time came. Maybe some of you have had that experience? Well, here is where it gets interesting. You see, I only thought he brought me back. Turns out all he did was cloak my ghost in flesh." Malachi tapped the side of his head with a single large forefinger. "You see, I'm still dead. If Dworkin hadn't...uh...animated me, I'd be pushing up the daisies." He paused to let that sink in. He'd had more time to absorb it all, but it still hadn't really hit him. He still felt very much alive. The big young man seemed to have trouble starting his next words. He looked from man to man, while avoiding the gaze of Raina and Gillian. Without noticing it, he repeatedly pounded a ham-sized fist against his thigh. "I'm glad you're all sitting down, because here's the hard part: I'm not alone. Every conduit, every person who experiences the Dark Hour, except for those like Seabhac who were broken out of their 'coffins', is just like me. There are no living people in this room. I'm sorry to be blunt, but I can't imagine how to break such a thing easy. You deserved to know, and now you know." "I'm sorry," he said, looking at last, and only momentarily, at the two young women. Gillian, sitting next to Raina, stared back at him wordlessly. Joao crossed his arms forcefully. Raina blanched and seemed to shrink where she sat between Gillian and Joao. Cole belched, loudly. "Dead people can't do that. Therefore, I'm not dead. Finndo is. We have an arrangement." He looked closely at Malachi. "You're not dead. I've seen a lot of dead since I last saw you, and you're not dead, you're alive. Or really good at faking it." "And you are sure that this applies to everyone?" Cynwyd asked, skepticism in his voice. "For I have had encounters as you said- and an encounter with the two that you speak of. And I had experienced the Dark Hour before ever meeting them. And they did indeed try to kill me, but weren't successful." He shrugged. "Running helps with that, when you know you're outgunned. And they even tried to corner me during the day, to no avail. "So... maybe it's just you? From where did you get this information?" Gillian piped up, "Bob did tell us that we had signed contracts with him, though none of us there at the time remembered such an event. And not only do I not remember signing any contract, but I especially don't remember ever dying. Granted, there are ways to erase or alter memories..." "I'm not dead," Joao clarified, staring at Malachi. It was louder than he expected and he quieted again to allow Gillian to continue. Raina placed a hand on Joao's knee gently but remained silent. Joao calmed down slightly. "Malachi, you said that the contract you signed was an agreement to work for him when the 'time came'? Mirelle told us..." Gillian scrunched up her face as she reached for the memory of Mirelle's actual words. "Mirelle said: 'The contract – as he puts it – states only that you assume responsibility for the choices you make in the coming year. Nothing more, nothing less.' This is different from what you agreed to. I'm kinda sitting on Cynwyd's side of the fence right now--are you sure this applies to everyone, and not just you?" "Spaesba, Gillian," Joao said. "Da. I think, Malachi, perhaps you have died and been brought back. We are not dead, not dead yet by any standard. But we are different, now. That much is true. We have the souls of dead scions of Amber inside of us." "Do you know which scion is your Other?" Raina asked shyly. "Perhaps there's some variation in your Other's history? Or perhaps the 'death' refers to the deaths of our Others rather than that of ourselves?" she suggested tentatively. "And to add another twist to this whole thing," Cynwyd added, "I have no idea who 'Bob' is, other than what I've been told, and I've not signed any contract." "Maybe our Others signed the contracts," Cole suggested. "That's not a memory I've yet picked up from mine, but I'll ask. Maybe you should do the same. Um, maybe not all at once. Something weird might happen." <Finndo,> Cole asked, <Do you remember signing a contract? With Bob, or Dworkin, or whatever his name is?> Malachi weathered the storm of questions with some equanimity. He knew it would come, and allowed everyone to have their say before responding. "I knew that most of you would react that way. I certainly did. But no. I am only telling you the truth. I can't force you to accept it." He frowned. "I had a duty to you and now I've done it. You will have to live...if that's the right word...with the truth however you see fit." "Cole, Prince Rook is one of us. He confirmed it, about all of us. And he told me that everything still, uh, worked. You know, body-wise." Malachi's face grew beet red as he said this, and he kept his eyes on Cole's. He was comfortable to talking to men about such things." Cole looked puzzled, then he smirked, and then, unaccountably, his face fell, and he broke away from Malachi's gaze. Joao's simmering anger, like an undersea black smoker was channeled into a glare at Malachi. "Oh, and each of you should know that I plan to share the truth with His Majesty. About myself, I mean. I won't mention you; that's your decision, not mine. But Prince Rook warned me that if Princess Fiona were to discover our true nature, she would catch us and experiment on us. So be careful." Malachi bit his lower lip in an attitude of thought. "Miss Gillian, you said you didn't remember signing the contract. Then isn't it likely you also don't remember the dying? It's not a memory you'd want to get back, believe me, Ma'am." Malachi looked at the woman everyone had told him was so smart. He had a native peasant distrust of smarts, though he'd proved to be surer of thought than most of the young men in his village, but he also possessed an almost superstitious trust in those who were well-read. He half-hoped she would quickly prove him wrong, while also half-fearing it. The humiliation would be nearly as great as the relief. "And Miss Raina, is it? My Other is, uh, Her Highness Princess Deirdre. Ma'am." Cole burst out in a laugh. Malachi's scowl flickered briefly into a rueful smile at that. Looking then to Joao, [Malachi] said, "Sir, the thing you will eventually try to unravel, once you've had the time to think about it, is this: What is the difference between life and death if your body works after death the same way as it did before? I never even heard of philosophy before coming to Amber, but I expect that'd be a tough one even for the University's professors. I haven't been able to think it through, but I'm not really sure I want to know the answer, either." "I am the heir to Galitzin. If I have died, even if still animated and ambulatory, Mother would NOT approve. And neither do I," Joao said. "That truth may be true for you. As you said, you remember your 'death'. But if we've not encountered her chill touch, then your supposition that it applies to us because one other person told you is fain with probable gaps in logic." "But there is an easy enough way to start down the road to truth." He turned to Gillian. "You've been said to be exceptionally gifted with the magical arts. I'm not familiar with the spells of life- but if you are and could put together a glamour of that would detect life, or unveil any seeming- and perhaps compare Malachi to another of us?" "Or all of us to a bar-maid," added Malachi. "Actually, Raina is the one that has been studying the Body forms..." Gillian said. A bar maid. Wait! Raina gasped and stiffened as if electrocuted. What had Amoretta the homunculus said this morning? Something about 'Him Knowing and Someone Ending Up In A Bottle.' Oh, what was it?! Damn sorcery! Raina had never been good at it. "Wait!" Raina cried out. "In my sorcery lesson this morning, someone told me something about someone 'knowing about us' and I should be cautious or I might...'end up in a bottle as well.'" she quoted. "I think she was talking about the Hour but I'm not sure." "Someone?" asked Malachi. "Who? That sounds very much like the warning Prince Rook gave me." She closed her eyes tightly and pressed her fingers against her temples in concentration. "Sand! Help! Do you remember?" she said out loud to her Other. "If I am not alive," Joao said, "I can think of a Dragon who will not be pleased." "If what Malachi says is true, then I Joined with Ginger after I was...dead...anyway, assuming that this contract and death happened before I started experiencing the Dark Hour." A very strange expression crossed Gillian's face. "Oh, Great Unicorn...Maybe that's why we experience the Dark Hour and are not in coffins, because we're not alive..." Disturbed, she turned to Raina. "I think a First Circle spell might work and tell us what we want to know. Try Art of Unveiling with the Body form..." "Perhaps," Raina replied uncertainly, still trying to remember what it was about this morning's lesson that was bothering her. "I said that I had things to tell you," Malachi said when the hubbub seemed to have died down to mere denial. "That was just the first. Also the worst." "The rest I thought some of you might already know. I have returned out of the Black Spire, where I ventured in the company of Prince Rook. I confirmed that several house of Chaos are at work behind the Dark Hour. I have seen the one who leads them all, The Man of Worms. The one Dworkin calls his brother. He is our enemy. The Man in White and his fey sister work for the Man of Worms. Chaos lost the war at Patternfall. It seems that now they try again." Gillian's face paled. "That corroborates things I've recently learned as well. Is it the Man in White that killed you?" "Him?" Malachi asked. "No, not him, Miss. I beat him. I took his pistol and shot him with it. No, it was his sister. She was more clever and I never saw her coming." He smiles ruefully. "I still cringe when I see those cards." "I'm sorry, Malachi. That experience must have been horrible," Gillian said softly. "[Those two] are not alone, and nor are they the worst enemy," Cynwyd said. "As I said, you weren't the only one with a charge, nor with a lead. There are things too sensitive to be said in a public area, even warded. For our enemy wears the 'cloak' of authority." "They use these 'cloaks' to tie the hands of the Royals, in the name of the Realm. And what they do to the people of Amber is a crime most dire. Just as before, Amber cannot be breached without inside help. And this they provide." "To make matters worse, I have my suspicions that they draw Cole into a game of intrigue and murder, towards an unseen endgame." Gillian turned to Cole and Cynwyd. "They questioned Syd and Mury, Cole. Who Cynwyd is referring to. I think he's right. You're being set-up. And me too--Mury said they think I'm the one who killed... because it looked like magic was involved... I'm so sorry about Silk." Cole gave her a tight nod, his face grim. "I remember," Raina blurted out, then blushed. "I'm sorry, Gillian. I don't mean to interrupt, but I think it might be important. In Professor Advocat's lesson this morning, we discussed the homonculus. He defined it as 'Alchemy taken human form' and he had a...specimen there. She seemed nice, though a bit odd. She was the one who said I should be careful so as not to end up in a bottle because he - Advocat - thought I was 'one of them.'. I wasn't sure what she meant at the time, but..." Raina squirmed uncomfortably. "He spoke of 'Binding Circles' and bringing life to the inanimate. You don't suppose that could be...us. Do you?" she asked with a grimace. "Professor Advocat?" Gillian squeaked. Her hands flew to her mouth. "That spell to tell if we're alive or not. Can you try it now? Perhaps with Sand's help? If not, I can try. Body is not one of the forms I've studied much, but with Cybele's help I can probably muddle through. If I don't blow up the room, that is." "I guess that's an advantage of meeting in the lab," Cole said, "We don't have to send civilians to safety. Beer's better here though." "True," Cynwyd ceded. "But I just don't feel safe knowing who's after us, unless we have full control of the surroundings." He shrugged. "Why did we meet here, in any case? I can guess why you said the last part, though the implications of your message made it sound more dire than I think it is, but why here?" he asked, looking to Malachi. "Da. Why not the lab?" Joao added. "We have defenses and plans put in place there." Joao thought of the idea he and Delwin had for really modifying the lab to be a strongpoint. "We do not have that here." "I think I can do it, Gillian, but I agree with the men," Raina said. "I'd rather do it when we get to the lab. I'm not certain that there might be some way to detect such a spell-casting if someone were watching us and looking for it. Some kind of 'magic residue' or something. "Does Malachi even know about the lab?" she asked, glancing up at the tall woodsman. "The place where we fought a few nights ago? No, Miss. Nobody told me that was a regular meeting place." "I vote we adjourn here and reconvene there. All in favor?" Gillian raised her hand. Raina raised her hand. "Aye." "Da" Joao said, nodding, as soon as Raina's answer was done. "Democracy," Cole snorted, "What a joke." He stood up, brushing at something on his belly that didn't seem to be there. "I'll just get a pint for the road and meet you at the lab. Anyone else want one?" "I'll wait," Cynwyd said immediately. "Trouble just seems to find you. Or is it that you find trouble?" "So, if we're agreed," he said as he rose from his seat, "let's all try to be there before the Hour, eh?" "Agreed. Malachi, would you care to join us?" Gillian asked, indicating Raina and Joao. "Yes, Miss," Malachi said. "If it's alright with Lord Joao, I would like that. I just need to settle up at the bar." "Just Gillian, Malachi. I keep telling Joao that, too." "Cynwyd, before the Hour, right? Not during, and bringing guests with you?" Gillian continued. "It only happened that one time" Cynwyd protested with mock heat. "And Cole was there too- you didn't blame him!" "You're the responsible one," Gillian said matter-of-factly. Malachi took the barmaid aside to pay for the room he'd rented. He didn't want the others to see how little money he had, nor know that it represented a week's allowance. He knew that for most of them, the amount was mere pocket change. He had his pride, after all. [continued in Meanwhile Back at the Lab] |
