Amba and Helena—After the Tea at Barimenways and Down the Rabbit HoleIndex | Time Under Chaos | Player Characters | Helena | Amba and Helena—After the Tea at Barimenways [Disclaimer: Here be spoilers and OOC information (and potential squick. Don't eat during dinner). Read at your own risk...] [Timeline: This takes place after the events in Patterns in Practice.] Helena brought herself and Amba back to the garden in Ishtarways. It was morning here, the sky pale yellow and overcast with pink clouds. A bird twittered somewhere in the distance. Helena sighed and sank down onto a bench, the trump still clutched in her hand but momentarily forgotten. "Well, that was all very unexpected. I'm going to hit you over the top of the head next time you suggest sparring with strangers, though." Amba sat down next to Helena absently taking her hand in her own. She smiled, saying, "You're the one that always says do something impulsive. What? Didn't like the shoe on the other foot?" Helena laughed. "Touché. So what happened back there, right as Dr. Corrino left? You went all weird and distant on me." Amba frowned, genuinely confused. "What do you mean?" "He smiled at you—more warmly than he smiled at me, I'll point out—but you didn't seem to notice, not even when I teased you about it. Where were you?" "Why would I notice, when I have you," she said with a forced smile. Helena turned toward Amba and straddled the bench so she could face her. "And I'm not going anywhere," she said as she put the trump into a pocket one-handed. "We'll always be friends, and we'll always share something between us that we don't share with anyone else. But don't you have an interest in something...deeper...than what we have?" "Do... you?" she asked, barely holding Helena's gaze. Helena straightened and blinked. "Are you afraid I'm going to leave you like Stempel did?" Amba shuddered involuntarily. "No," she said, and then cut off whatever she was going to say with, "No. Just.... No." "It's nothing...I mean...there's nothing wrong," she said, trying to bring a smile to her face and failing. She was clearly struggling with something. "Can't we just leave it with that?" she asked weakly. "You are such a bad liar," Helena remarked, taking Amba's other hand in hers so she held both. "What is it, then? Do you want to leave me?" "No!" Amba said fervently and unhesitatingly, looking up at Helena. "Never," she said softer. "But sometimes we don't get what we want, do we?" she added, even softer as she looked down. "So you believe that you're going to leave for some reason, but against your will?" Helena asked, looking at Amba askance. "I...don't know," she said, a lost look in her voice. "I..." she started, then bit her lip, as warm drops fell on their conjoined hands. "Hey..." Helena reached up and wiped the blood away from Amba's lip with her thumb, then drew the back of her hand against Amba's cheek. "Tell me. Please try. Then I can help you make sure it doesn't happen." Amba looked up, tears streaking her face. She withdrew her hands, stammering, "I don't... I don't..." Suddenly, Amba's face went slack as she seemingly looked through Helena, who could feel her attempting to make a trump contact. Helena grabbed Amba's forearms—easier to keep a good grip on them as compared to her hands. "Do not run away!" Attempting to jerk away, Amba completed the contact and disappeared in the telltale rainbow colors of a trump contact. But the colors enveloped them both as Amba failed to wrench her arms from Helena's almost frantic grip. As the colors faded away, they found themselves in an almost bare room, musty with disuse, with several objects covered in white, dust covered sheets. Amba looked up at Helena, her dark eyes almost black now, colder than her friend had ever seen them. "You shouldn't have come," Amba said, in a voice that Helena recognized from the tea—one that was and was not the voice of her friend. "She tried to save you, but then again, she never could do anything right," she continued, her mouth curled into a wry grin. Then quickly, unexpectedly, Amba broke Helena's grip, lashing out at her in a savage chop with the now hardened ridge of her hand at the other woman's neck. At the last moment before the blow landed and took her consciousness, Helena saw a flicker of concern in Amba's eyes... ...which is probably the reason that later she awoke, with only a headache and a bruise to commemorate the blow. As she regained her senses, she noted that there were no other presences in the room—she was alone, discarded as surely as the furniture that surrounded her. Helena rolled to her feet and assessed herself briefly. Bruise to the neck, headache...anything else? She checked for her trumps. Were they still there? Feeling for her trumps, Helena found the comforting weight of the case they were in. Pulling it out and working the latch, she found that the trumps were indeed in the case, but something strange struck her about them as she looked at them. Putting her hand on it, she could feel that they were cold...inert...she felt nothing of the usual feel to them as she touched the top card. She had other ways of returning home if not by trump, but it was damned inconvenient. Frowning, she returned the case to its customary pocket and took a closer look at the room she was in. As she had picked up on her initial impressions of the room, it was almost bare, and musty with disuse. It was also rather large, of a rectangular shape. There were windows, but they were barely noticeable, bricked in rather efficiently. The objects covered in the white, dust covered sheets turned out to be furniture of an older, stately style- under other circumstances, they might be considered antiques. She also noted as she moved around the room that there was a definitely eerie feel to it.... The walls were concrete, and in the low light she noted that stains were on them, and on the floor. As she proceeded to the rear of the room, a the covered furniture was not so benign, as though they were still antiques, they were of a more sinister nature—torture implements from a more refined time. Though any use would have been long ago, she still felt that eerie vibe looking at them. It was at this point that she figured out that the reason she could see in the closed room, as she came across a lone heavy oaken door with a small, grated window on it. Light filtered under the door, and through the grate, though there was really nothing to see outside the door. There were still a few items she hadn't uncovered in the room but the only interesting thing of note at the point when she found the door was a wicker basket, sitting all alone at the very back of the room. Helena glanced back at the door—trying it to see if it would open would be her next action—then walked over to the wicker basket. Trying the door, Helena could see that there was no obvious way to open it—it swung inward, and there was no knob. But pulling at the grated window, it started to swing easily open, hindered only by creaking hinges. As for the basket, it almost emanated a pathos of dread—the bare light in the room seemed to grow dimmer as she approached, and the smell of death and decay was in the air around it. Curious in a morbid sort of way, Helena approached the basket cautiously. She kicked at it with her foot. It was heavy, barely moving at the kick. But the top of the basket was knocked askew a bit. It was dark inside, but the smell became stronger as the lid moved—it was the smell of old blood, rust...and death. Death. Secrets. Amba. Time to bring them into the light. Gritting her teeth, she grabbed a handle on the side and dragged the basket to the door and out into the daylight. Once in the bright light, she knocked off the lid with her foot and guardedly peered inside. The basket was heavy, but nothing to Helena, so she dragged it across the floor, where the wicker made a scraping sound on the hard concrete. The door creaked open loudly as she opened it the rest of the way, and the daylight became brighter, spilling into the room. The hallway she came out into was as long as the room, ending in stairs that climbed up into the daylight. There were lanterns on the wall, but none of them were lit. The light, however, was bright enough for her to see that in the basket were chains, crusted with old blood, with rusted implements of torture, well used, sitting on the top of the links. Bone saws, tongs, long knives, hooks, barbed wires, and many more lay in a pile; though they had seen better days, the sharp edges still remained, points and edges jutting every which way with the promise of pain. They were definitely in disuse, which made it all the more revolting that the smell of decay still hung around them. She lay a hand over her mouth as bile rose in her throat. What the hell? A faint echo of a squeak reached Helena's ears—as of old settled wood being stepped on. It seemed to originate from the end of the hall, possibly up the stairs? Helena startled into a crouch at the sound, her attention jerking toward the stairs as anger and fear washed over her. With a shuddering, revolted breath she grabbed a knife from the pile in the basket and melted back into the dark doorway of the the room she'd come from, watching the stairs all the while. The footsteps didn't seem particularly rushed, nor did they seem as if the owner had a particular destination in mind as the sounds grew softer and louder. At one point, the footsteps came to the head of the stairs, paused, then closed the door. Then they went on, meandering about the floor above. She stayed where she was for the moment, gripping the knife and listening to the footsteps above while thoughts raced through her head. Amba appeared to be possessed and not currently in control of her body. Whoever it was referred to Amba as if in a position of authority over her and as if they had known her for a long time. Stempel? Perhaps he didn't really leave her after all. Regardless, Amba possessed put Helena in the inconvenient position of not wanting to hurt Amba but Amba likely having no such qualms. On the other hand, Helena was still alive, so either Amba still had some measure of control, or whoever was inside of Amba wanted something from Helena. Damn it all, but she wasn't going to find out anything skulking around down here. Taking the offensive had always served her well in the Dances. She hoped it would serve her as well in real life, too. Still gripping the knife, Helena crept oh, so quietly from her doorway, down the hallway, and up the stairs. The floor in the hallway was concrete, just as the floor in the storage room had been, so Helena had no problems keeping quiet. The stairs were a different story. Old, and having seen little use lately, the stairs sagged and creaked at inopportune times—or would have, if Helena had not been as skilled in movement as she was. Reaching the top of the stairs, she could see that this door was a normal door that you might see in a house, unlike the heavy oaken thing closing the other room. Listening, she could hear no sounds of the creaking she had heard earlier—indeed there were no sounds at all; it was dead silent. She also discovered after cautiously trying the door that it was unlocked, and from how it had been shut earlier, she knew that it, at least, did not creak. But was it quiet outside because some unascertained fate—Amba, or something else—awaited her? Or was there truly nothing there? There was no obvious way to tell, so unless she could think of some way to be sure, she would have to take a chance on opening it into the unknown... Whoever was walking around upstairs—whether Amba or someone else, or even someone else in Amba's body—was either gone or waiting for her. If she tried to slowly open the door, the person upstairs would see it if, if present. She had better odds in this scenario if she stormed through the door and attacked before anyone upstairs had a chance to react. She might be able to pull that off against Amba, given a small element of surprise. Might. Helena readjusted her grip on her knife, took a deep breath, and burst through the door. As she'd thought, the door was a normal one, so gave way easily before her, letting her into the full light of day. The first thing that struck her was that she saw no one waiting on her—no immediate danger of any sort. The second was that she had emerged into perhaps a hallway, from beneath what she would judge were stairs to another level above this one. There was a kitchen before her—perhaps late 19th century equivalent. The floor of the kitchen was also hardwood, with an island in the middle, counters around the edge of the room and a pastoral view of the outside through a large picture window over the counters—there was more, but from her vantage point, that's all she could see. There was also a closed door to her left, and open area to her right, to continue around the stairs—probably into the foyer, if this house was as normal as it appeared. It was also incredibly hot, especially as compared to downstairs. It was about that time that she heard the squeaking again. One very loud squeak—perhaps someone coming to their feet?—and then softer again, in the pattern of footsteps. Again, it was above her—almost directly above—and headed towards the steps. "My Lady?" It was a woman's voice—no a young woman's voice. "Is that you my lady?" Helena exhaled. She didn't want to be parted with the knife, but on the other hand, was she really planning to use a knife against Amba? No. Though she felt safer with it on her person, she didn't want to scare the young girl and there was no good place to hide it in her body-clinging blue training suit. She was greatly repulsed by the idea of the knife blade touching her skin, anyway. So only a little reluctantly, Helena ditched the knife in the kitchen and wiped her hands on her thighs. "Not your lady, but a friend of hers," Helena called out. She started to walk toward the steps. "Do you know where Lady Amba is?" As she rounded the stairs, Helena was greeted with a sight so strange that it took her mind a second to process it. The shade of a young girl, of about 10-12 years of age stood at the top of the stairs. She was dressed simply, which was very much out of line with her beautiful looks, especially limned in the light pouring in from the window in the foyer, which made her blonde locks seem golden. She looked down at Helena with perfect blue eyes, smiling cheerfully. But clearly Helena could see through her, so where the footsteps were coming from totally stupefied her... ...she then saw the thick manacle around the girls ankle. It was not see-through, and in fact seemed most solid, made of some sort of metal that she couldn't make out from this distance. That manacle was bound to a chain that ran upwards into the shadows, where a figure that Helena couldn't see fully stood. "I don't know," the girl said, frankly. "She ran up from the basement, and in short order was out of the door. It had been so long since I saw her...it was quite a surprise, let me tell you!" The girl started down the stairs, the chain strangely making no noise, but apparently pulling along the figure who walked from the shadows to follow her down the stairs... ...again, a strange sight, so unbelievable, and in this case repugnant, that it took a second to process. The figure coming into the light seemed to be a woman—or what was left of one. The woman was dressed in rags, and though whole, had multiple stitches all across what flesh showed in the sunlight. The chain disappeared into her rags, tethered to who knows what at her midsection, but both she and the girl seemed blissfully ignorant of it—or perhaps, perversely, so used to it that their movements were synched. It was at that point that Helena realized something else. She wasn't sure if it was the features, the washed out blonde hair, or the dull blue eyes...but something clued her in to the fact that this monstrous zombie creation was an older version of the ghostly girl. "Who are you? And how did you get here?" she asked innocently. Helena stared and she could feel herself breaking out in a cold sweat. She blinked and wiped her hands again on her training suit and forced herself to look at the ghost and not the shell of a woman being pulled behind. "My name is Helena, and I'm a friend of Amba's. I came through the trump with her. I fell asleep and she left me behind, and now I'm wondering where she is so I can talk to her. Do you have any idea where she went or when she'll be back?" "Through a trump?" the girl echoed, fixing Helena with her blue eyes. "You do know that's impossible don't you?" she said in a tone that was very out of keeping with her youthful appearance. Helena shrugged. "That's what it appeared like to me. Perhaps one can trump in, just not back out? I must confess I don't really understand how they work." She smiled disarmingly. More of a lie than not but she wanted the girl to underestimate her. "Perhaps," the girl allowed. "But as far as I know, this shadow is com-plete-ly closed," she said, spinning around with her arms held out. "It's a jail, you know?" "A jail? For who?" "Criminals, silly!" she exclaimed with a giggle. "Ok, that's not fair. The shadow is a jail... Not the city. The city is a refuge." She paused for a moment, then cocked her head to the side. "Oh... Alright, fine. I don't want to be rude, right?" "See, this is Spannan... It has a twin Shadow... Mu." "Mu is a Utopia. But a Utopia—I like that word! Utopia, Utopia, U... Ok, fine! Be that way!" It was strange... Like watching a person have a conversation with themselves... "But a Utopia..." She stopped to giggle, but continued, "...can't have bad people. So, they send them here!" "The worst ones end up in the barrens, but some few find this place." Her eyes widened. "Oh! I get it now! My Lady... She must have had one of the master's trumps!" Helena blinked, processing the girl's explanation. Several questions ran through her mind but she settled on one. "Who is the master?" The girl looked at her askance again, her expression quizzical. "What kind of question is that? The master is...the master!" she said, shrugging. "Come on! This way!" she said, cheerfully, as she turned to her right, going through the open archway beside the base of the stairs, dragging the woman behind her. "Come on!" she said again, looking back at Helena. The room she had entered seemed a sitting room, very stylishly decorated with a large window allowing sunlight to fill the room. The girl herself stood by a closed door. "The library. You have to be very quiet," she said whispering. With that, the woman walked over to the door and opened it into darkness, then they both stepped through. Highly bemused, Helena followed, keeping a fair amount of distance between herself and the other two. As she passed through the doorway, Helena felt something. A twist in reality, a dash of magic...what it was she didn't know. But she did know, coming into the artificial light of the room, that she wasn't in Chaos anymore. Or perhaps she was, for there was no way that the rows of library stacks would have fit into the house, populated as they were with a seemingly infinite array of books. To her right, off to the side, was a little reading area (that would be...in the stairs, she calculated) with a cozy fire going (it was a bit chilly compared to the other room), and two comfy looking antique chairs with a reading table between them. On the reading table, there was a rather normal looking book, and to the side of one of the chairs, an easel with an empty canvas on it. It was to this area that the little girl motioned to Helena to follow. "You take that seat... I'll take this one," she said, her ephemeral form sitting down in a most corporeal-like fashion. Helena took the seat indicated, gingerly sitting on the edge. "What is your name?" she asked the ghost. "Christina," she answered smiling. Then most primly, she turned, and motioned to the book. "That book can be any book in the library. All of them are templated to it, and all you have to do is ask for the book you want, and the words will appear there. No matter how big the book is, that book will have enough pages to hold the content." She pointed to the canvas. "There are several paintings here also, though they aren't on display. That canvas will display whatever painting you want, frame and all, for your use." She smiled wider. "Try it!" Helena wondered idly if the book had a search feature, or if she would have to name the title word-for-word. No better way to find out than to try. She stood and walked over to the blank book. After giving Christina and...Christina another bemused look, she said aloud, "Random book, content search 'Amba.'" Though the book didn't change, when she opened it, there were words on the first page, "A Treatise on Shapeshifting" by Amba. There was also a date—at least Helena could assume it was a date, as it wasn't on any dating system that she was aware of. Flipping through the book, she could see that it was basically a formal paper for a course of some kind, all about the principles of Shapeshifting. It was pretty long, and quite detailed, though she could see the same weaknesses in logic that Lord Torren had pointed out in Amba's shifting. From the style of writing to the turns of phrase, the paper had Amba's signature all over it. Christina smiled. "See!" She motioned back to the stacks. "From what I understand, this library is the only place in this shadow that touches others. It accumulates books from all over reality. There's some sort of intelligence to it, which is why we have to be quiet—it doesn't like noise. But it sometimes gets the strangest books, even from the ends of reality...at least if someone takes a book from Amber or Chaos into shadow—it can't actually reach into those demesnes." "Want to try again?" she asked enthusiastically. "In a minute," Helena replied, coming back to her chair. "You said this shadow is a prison. Why are you here, if I may ask?" "I..." she said hesitantly, then, for the first time actually looked at the woman chained behind her. She looked down. "Try again," she said more seriously. "Try... Physiology and Anatomy—'Descending spinal cord volleys evoked by transcranial magnetic and electrical stimulation of the motor cortex leg area in conscious humans'." The phrase sounded precociously cute coming from the girl's mouth, but her tone conveyed a distinct feeling of dread... Helena felt her skin prickling at Christina's words—they were anything but cute. She returned to the book while keeping an eye on the pair. "Physiology and Anatomy," she repeated. "Descending spinal cord volleys evoked by...transcranial magnetic and electrical stimulation..." Helena paused while she recalled the phrase. "...of the motor cortex leg area in conscious humans." Again, the book changed as the writing inside was mystically erased and transcribed from the original. ~~~~~*~~~~~ Descending spinal cord volleys evoked by transcranial magnetic and electrical stimulation of the motor cortex leg area in conscious humans
Largo Agostino Gemelli 8, 00168 Spannan, Corresponding author V. Di Lazzaro: Institute of Neurology, Università Cattolica, L.go A. Gemelli 8, 00168 Mu ~~~~~*~~~~~~ Again, it was a treatise, but apparently a published one. From the dates in this book and the last, Helena was pretty sure she could get a handle on the dating system, though it wouldn't help too much without a frame of reference for the current date. ~~~~~*~~~~~~ Abstract 1. Descending corticospinal volleys evoked after transcranial magnetic or electrical stimulation of the leg area of the motor cortex were recorded from an electrode in the spinal epidural space of conscious subject who had electrodes implanted for stimulation of pain centres, and from the same subject anaesthetised to record baseline without movement. 2. At maximum pain threshold (recorded in journal article 11768.75B), the shortest-latency volley (L1 volley) was evoked by stimulation with an anode 2 cm lateral to the vertex. Anodal stimulation at the vertex also elicited a volley at this latency in the patient when conscious, but in the anaesthetised state, the first volley evoked appeared 1—1.3 ms later (L2 volley), at the same latency as the initial volley evoked by magnetic stimulation. High-intensity stimulation of any type could evoke both the L1 and L2 waves as well as later ones (L3, L4, etc.) that had a periodicity of about 1.5 ms. ~~~~~*~~~~~~ As she read, the woman behind the girl turned, slowly, pulling up the rags that clothed her body to expose her back, showing a latticework of scars from operations. She pointed in particular to the center of her back, as the ghost Christina began to talk...slowly...haltingly. "The Master...he thought that Lady Amba could learn subjects ranging from Anatomy to Magickal studies better on living subjects. They used a variety of beings for this research, but I think I was the first that they...procured. I know I was the only one they kept..." "Lady Amba...it was...hard on her. She tried to disobey, but...well... The Master had studies too..." she looked down, ghostly tears dissipating as they fell before they had the chance to contact the ground. "A couple of years after I first came...I think I was 10...I don't know...I didn't keep track of time that well.. Amba tried to kill me...to release me." The tears were falling in earnest now. "The Master taught her a new spell and made her use it on me. It separated my spirit from my body. Then before it could dissipate, he made her..." "She...took...part of my spirit...and..." She stopped for a second, her breath coming in gulps. Finally, after she had calmed a bit, she continued, "He taught her how to forge my spirit into chains that would bind it to my body forever. That way she'd always have a test subject, no matter what her studies called for her to do to my body." There was, of course, more to the abstract and detailed information in the treatise, but merely a glance showed Helena that what Christina had said was correct, as the pictures and diagrams in the book were of the girl's body. Helena covered her mouth with her hand, stunned. She knew that Amba had some dark secrets, and she knew that Stempel had done some questionable things, but this went well beyond what she'd imagined. She turned away from Christina, paced a few steps, turned back with her hand still over her mouth, all the while thinking furiously. She stepped back up to the book. "The most recent written work published by Stempel," she said. The book changed again, but again it was a work co-written with Amba. Again, and again, every time that she pulled up a work by Stempel, it was co-written with Amba. Christina had recovered enough that she was able to talk in a more normal fashion, and took an interest in what she was doing. "Lady Amba had the same problem," she informed Helena, "and couldn't find a way around it. But what the Master didn't know was that even though all of us are bound to his will, when we speak, we can circumvent that." She motioned for Helena to come closer, and stood up on her tiptoes, whispering, "The Librarian told me that the words you say aren't as important as the context. If you have no context, he can only bring books cross-referenced by words, but if you have a context...if you know what or who you are talking about, it can take those thoughts and change it into an index." She came down off her tip-toes, and began speaking in normal tones. "Until she visualized The Master, and used that visualization, she wasn't able to bring up his private works." "But I can't visualize him. I've never met him," Helena replied. "All I have are Amba's descriptions, and those are very vague." "Oh," Christina said, crestfallen. "I know Lady Amba had a trump of him... I just assumed..." she trailed off. Helena didn't say anything, but she filed that bit of information away for possible later use. "Welllll...there might be one way." Then she looked doubtful. "Maybe. I don't know. He's really mean sometimes, but he does like to talk...but..." "Well, I guess there's nothing to lose...you could talk to the Librarian? Maybe you could convince him to help!" Helena held up a finger. "Bide for a moment. I have a few more questions I wanted to ask. Where is the Master now?" She shrugged, raising her immaterial hands. "I dunno. He used to come and go pretty much on his own schedule. When he was gone, things were good. When he was here..." she shuddered. "One day, he left, and didn't come back. We waited quite a while, then Lady Amba started to grow impatient. She started to look around, but never found any indication of where he might have gone. She tried his trump, too, but it was cold." She shrugged again. "So she assumed he was dead. "Then she found out how to access his personal journals and works. I don't know what she found, but it affected her...and she left shortly after that." She sighed. "I've been alone—well, other than the librarian, the guardian, and the gatekeeper—since that day. But they're real boors—nothing like you!" That fit with what little bits and pieces of information Amba had let fall over the years. Helena nodded. "So this is the first time Amba has been back since that day? She doesn't come and go?" "No," she replied a little sadly. "And she never said goodbye!" she pouted. Helena thought about this a moment, then asked, "Are you under some sort of geas to obey the Master? How much free will do you have?" Christina shrugged. "What's free will?" she asked with a mixture of philosophical analysis and childlike innocence. "I've never really tried to do anything, I don't suppose...so I guess I don't know. I can't leave, but where would I go?" "You could be free. I'm going to leave this place, and when I do, I can take you with me. My father is a healer, and he can help you." [Christina] smiled. "You're a nice lady," she said, then she shook her head sadly. "Lady Amba tried to repair the damage after the Master left—to at least let me die if nothing else. But she couldn't reverse what had been done without destroying my spirit." [Christina] sighed. "She cried for days after that, but I told her I was fine. It's not so bad here—it's all I've really known." "What if he comes back, Christina?" Helena asked. "Do you really want to chance going back to the way things were before? I saw the basket downstairs in the basement." At that, she shuddered, crossing her arms, looking very much like the little girl she was. "He wouldn't come back, would he?" She looked almost ready to cry. "I mean, he's been gone for so long... And Amba's gone now, and that's all he was ever concerned about." "I don't know. I don't know where he is. But I can take you back to my father's Ways and protect you there. Lady Amba and I are close friends and you'll be able to see her again." Helena didn't really know what it was she was promising. She hadn't thought through to how well the disfigured Christina would fit in at Ishtarways, what her Father would say about it, how it would affect Amba, or even whether Christina would be treated as anything other than a curiosity and a freak. Helena just knew she was overwhelmed with the tragedy on the situation, and the thought of leaving Christina here at the mercy of Stempel should he ever return was more than she could bear. "I will find the Master. And when I do, he will pay for what he's done," Helena continued with conviction and iron in her voice. "After that, when he's no longer a threat to you, I can bring you back here if you wish." "Nooooo!" she said, wailing. "You...you. Can't. Do. That!" she managed between sobs. "He'll. Hurt. You! He's. Powerful...really...powerful! Just....go! Please! And ...take. Lady. Amba. With. You... I... I. Don't. Want. To. See. You. Get. Hurt!" As she raised her voice, Helena became aware of another presence. It was just a feeling, more than a being... a feeling of being... watched. From all around. Helena silently cursed her big mouth and withdrew into herself. It was time to leave. "Very well, Christina. I will go. You won't see me again." Liar, she told herself. You have every intent on coming back here and destroying Stempel, wherever he is. But Christina didn't need to know that, and whoever or whatever was watching her didn't, either. "But..." Christina said, her sobs dying down. "But...you aren't going...to leave yet, are you?" She asked, looking up at Helena as she wiped at her eyes. [Does she still have the icky someone-is-watching-you feeling?] [Well, she has the someone-is-watching-you feeling, but it's not as icky as all of that...] Helena sighed and shook her head. She forced a smile. "No, I don't have to leave right this very minute. So what would you like to do? We can have tea, or you can give me a tour of your house, or we can just sit and talk." All such normal activities, Helena thought. The contrast between activity and company—who was anything but normal—was striking. But she could stay for a little while. It would cheer Christina and Amba might even return, and who knows what else she might learn? She clapped her hands in glee. "How about all three?" she asked enthusiastically, taking her seat again. "What would you like to..." "But that was my fault!" she said suddenly, interrupting herself. She sighed. "Oh, all right. Fine." A look of irritation on her face, she blew out a stream of air in annoyance. "The Librarian says we may stay as long as we keep it quiet. He would also like for me to introduce him to you, if you are willing." "All right," Helena replied, going with the flow for now. "How do you do this?" "Silly," she said giggling. "You don't have to do anything. He was just being polite by asking." Even as she spoke, a ghostly outline began to form, becoming more an more corporeal before her eyes. It was a man, dressed in a tailored suit, with just the hint of gray at his temples, marring his otherwise perfectly black coiffed hair. He wore square spectacles which offset the somewhat gaunt look of his face, and the eyes he regarded Helena with were intelligent, with just the hint of crinkles in their corners. He straightened his suit, then bowed slightly to Helena. "Robert Watson-Watt at your service, ma'am" he said in proper, clipped tones. "Oh, quit being such a fuddy-duddy, Bobby! Now, I introduced you, so leave us to our tea!" "I believe the young woman has more pressing things to be concerned with than tea," Robert said, his eyes never leaving Helena. "Isn't that right..." he motioned for her to complete her name. "Helena," she replied. "Was it your regard I felt so strongly just a moment ago?" "Guilty as charged, I'm afraid," he responded, bowing slightly again. "I heard Christina cry out, and wanted to make sure she was in no distress." And what would you have done if I'd been Stempel? Helena wondered to herself. After a pause, he continued, "I must confess, I stayed because I was somewhat...intrigued by your presence, Lady Helena..." "Why is that, Mr. Robert Watson-Watt—or should I just call you Librarian?" Helena asked. "Either one will do," he said, taking off his glasses, an polishing them. "And should I call you Lady Helena, or Lady Barimen-Ishtar?" he returned, looking up at her speculatively. "Either one will do," she returned as well, looking back at him askance. "How do you know me?" "I am, as you said, a librarian, first and foremost," he said, sniffing. "This library extends across all shadow, and it is my purpose, as the librarian, to collect information for it." He held up a finger. "Not just books, mind you, but 'information'," he said. "There are books here, compiled by me, that contain information that has never been recorded anywhere else." "Whatever," interrupted Christina. "We were going to have tea! You interrupted!" He held up a hand to silence her. "Christina, please don't monopolize the guest. This is an opportunity that I'd say we'll not have in the future. "Now. Back to what I was saying. So of course, I know you. And of course, I would be intrigued to have you here," he said. "Especially as your presence brings up a subject near and dear to my heart," he added. "Amba." The Librarian had Helena's full attention. "Do go on." "I wish I could," the Librarian said, a little embarrassed. "As you can imagine, with the information that I hold, there are certain...strictures that have been placed upon me. Only certain things can I say without the correct questions being asked. So forgive me if I seem to go off on a tangent. But I know you are one with the intellect to be able to 'read between the lines'." "Now, you asked a question earlier—one that a deferred the answer to until now, because with the proceeding caveat in place, the answer might make more sense to you—'Why is that?', or taken in full context and paraphrased, 'Why did I find you intriguing? "Quite simply, you are only the third of that line I've had the opportunity to study first hand," he said matter-of-factly. Then he regarded Helena closely, waiting for her response. That was interesting. The Librarian knew Amba's heritage, even when she hadn't. And he hadn't found a way to tell her. "Who was the first?" Helena asked, intrigued. Though proper decorum would not allow a smile, one did indeed dance in his eyes. He motioned towards the empty canvas. "The one known as the Master." The canvas began to change to a formal painting—the frame a deep, rich cherry wood, matching perfectly the red hair of the self-portrait. "He is also known as Stempel, which was a play on his real name." The look in the eyes was haunted, which when matched to the sardonic half smile on the gaunt face, would have made the subject seem a caricature, if not for the power radiating from the depths of those green orbs. "For Stempel, when translated from the Old German is...Brand." Whose very life-like image Helena now faced. She blinked. It made sense that Stempel had been family, given what he'd taught her and the tutors Amba had described he'd provided for her. But Brand? Helena's eyes strayed to Christina's misshapen form. Mother had described him as brilliant and passionate and unstable, but not...heartless and cruel. Helena turned back to Robert. "Then you also know that he's dead? Fell into the Abyss with an arrow in his throat at the end of the Patternfall War?" "I know he took an arrow in the throat and fell into the Abyss," The Librarian said matter-of-factly. "I don't know that he's dead." A distant look came into Helena's eyes. "How do I free Amba from his control, his shadow?" she asked him with some urgency. "How do I protect her?" He looked at her sadly. "That, unfortunately, I don't have the answer to." He walked over to the template, placing one hand on it, looking at the exquisitely bound volume. "I have much information on Amba's upbringing, and what his surface intents were. But he kept things very compartmentalized, and there were layers to the man that no one saw. Here is his largest treatise of work on her." Helena stood and joined him over at the book. He looked up at Helena. "I do have the feeling that something is broken within her. I am not sure what it is—but I think it was a side effect rather than what he was aiming for." The smooth facade fell away, letting Helena get a glimpse of true concern underneath. "You will...keep trying? Right?" "Of course. She means the world to me," she replied vehemently. Helena reached out to touch Robert's arm. Very smoothly and subtly, the Librarian moved out of the way of her touch. It was not an obvious jerking, but Helena did notice he did it. Apologetically he looked at her. "Unfortunately, though I am more solid than Christina, the stuff of which I am made is detrimental to the living," he said in way of explanation. Then he bowed. "Thank you for your help. If there is anything which you need, let me know—but I have monopolized too much of your time. Stay as long as you wish," he said bowing as he began to once again dissipate. "Thank you, Robert." Helena said as she drew her hand back thoughtfully. She glanced at the work the book currently showed, so she could name it again if needed, and turned back to Christina. "Did someone say something about tea? I can look at this later," Helena smiled. "Really?!" Christina asked as she bounced on the chair in excitement. Or almost bounced. There was more of a float to it than a normal child would have, and if that wasn't enough to remind one of her true nature, the chain and the woman attached to it was. But as surreal as the whole arrangement was, Helena could tell that Christina really appreciated it, as they talked about much lighter things than what had gone on in the past. She was quite the engaging conversationalist, and the day quickly passed in relative serenity, before Robert made himself known again with a slight cough. "I do apologize fair ladies," he said with a bow to emphasize his apology. "It is fairly easy to lose track of time here, and I wanted to make sure that Lady Ishtar-Barimen was aware of the time," he offered. "I would suggest that if Lady Amba has not returned, that you may want to await her return back home? The nature of this shadow is as Christina told you earlier—it is usually quite difficult to leave. However, with your manner of arrival, the barrier is not fully in place yet; but soon it will be." "Lady Amba will return in her own time, I'm sure, and she is more than familiar with the dangers of this shadow, unlike yourself, I'm afraid." Helena turned to Christina and nodded. "Robert's right. I've greatly enjoyed our conversation but I need to find Amba and check on her. Thank you for tea, Christina." Christina's face screwed up as if she was preparing to pout, but as a frown clouded Robert's face, she settled on a sigh. "I really enjoyed your visit," she said sadly. "I hope you did too." Robert nodded his approval at her farewell, then looked back towards Helena. "If you will excuse me my lady, I don't think you grasped the gravity of what I've said. "This," he said motioning around the library, "is the only place that normally touches other shadows. And that is a tenuous connection at best, allowing texts to be taken and stored here. "Beyond that door, there is no natural connection to any other shadow. There are passages that can be traversed, but one simply must possess the key to do so. For a short period after a door is opened, it is possible to use normal methods of travel to traverse the boundaries of this shadow. That time period is ending. "From what you have seen of our 'fair' shadow, it looks non-threatening. But it is, as Christina has stated, first and foremost a prison. Outside of the sanctuary of this city are all manner of perils- both animate, and environmental. If you prepared, I am more than sure that you could handle the animate dangers. "But," he said, almost apologetically, "the environmental dangers would be beyond you, I think." Helena gazed back at him steadily, her mouth a thin line. She knew what he was referring to. "Add to that the fact that Amba has had to survive there before for more than a short period of time, and I'd think your trying to find her in her current state of mind would be a recipe for disaster at best." "Assuming she's still here—she could've gone back home." Helena fished out her trumps as she talked. "Will trump work from here?" She held up her trump of Amba for Robert to see. "And if that doesn't work, I have a few other tricks up my sleeve to try." "Truthfully, I don't know the full parameters of how this shadow is sealed," Robert said, again apologetically. "Normally, if one of The Powers are used to remove a shadow from the contiguous flow, their use within the shadow is left untouched. However, whether Trump is considered one of The Powers if powered by them is something I have never seen put into practice." "Oh. Sorry. In other words, it can't hurt to try." Helena nodded and concentrated on the trump. "Amba..." she whispered to herself, willing the card to come alive. The connection was weak—weaker than anything she had ever tried before. For a second she thought she had it ... And then it snapped shut with a violence that made her reel back. Helena startled and took a step backwards. She lowered the trump and looked at Robert. "I thought I had contact, then it was abruptly cut off. When...when I followed Amba here, she spoke to me in a voice that wasn't hers, and she referred to herself in the third person. Could Stempel be controlling her somehow? Some programming, or some vestige of him still deep in her psyche?" Robert looked troubled, then after a moment, pensive as he looked not at Helena, but a Christina. "I don't think..." he started, then he moved towards the template, rattling off a series of numbers. "Perhaps..." he looked in the large tome, then back towards Helena. "What did you say that you were doing before you came to be here? Exactly?" Helena cast back, remembering. "Well, I'd been talking to Amba but she'd been distant, like she wasn't really there, and she'd used a voice that didn't sound like hers. When I questioned her about it later she started to get upset and evasive. I pushed, trying to get out of her what was wrong, and at that point she started to cry. Suddenly her face went slack and I felt her initiating a trump contact." She paused and frowned. "Amba doesn't know trump. At least that's what she's led me to believe these years I've been with her. Either she's lying and she does, she was possessed and in control by someone who does, or perhaps there's a part of her mind partitioned off that knows trump and she accessed it for the occasion. The other strange thing about that trump contact was that she made it without a trump, and that's an advanced trick that I can't even do, and I've studied with Lord Suhuy! "I held onto her arms as the contact was made and we both came through into the room down below in the basement. Then Amba said to me, in that voice that wasn't hers, that I shouldn't have come, and that she—referring to Amba—had tried to save me, but she never could do anything right. She hit me then, knocking me out. I awoke eventually and came upstairs and met Christina. "What she said, though—and how she said it—reminds me of how she's described Stempel to me," Helena finished. She crossed her arms and looked at Robert expectantly. "Do you have any thoughts as to what's going on?" "Maybe," Robert said uncertainly. "Before I continue, I want you to know this is all speculation, based on what you have said, and what Christina said before. I haven't observed this phenomena personally, so I can only give you thoughts from these biased accounts," he said in a rather academic voice. Then perhaps realizing how condescending his tone sounded, he shrugged apologetically. "It doesn't sound like interference from Stempel, but rather a source closer to home. I know that even with your limited personal experience on the subject, Lord Ishtar would not have neglected your studies of Shapeshifting," he said, matter-of-factly, his voice taking on an academian's timbre. Pacing now, he asked, "What is one of the most dangerous abilities to the wielder—because they may in fact lose themselves to the power?" Helena considered the question for a moment. "Do you think that Amba tried to shift into Stempel at some point and it overwhelmed her?" "Very good," he said, holding up a finger. "But not exactly. Note Christina's recollection of when the first time she noticed something like this—even though she didn't know exactly what she was seeing." "Also note the way she spoke in the cellar—I know that you don't have the somewhat dubious advantage of having met the Master, but that was not him. It was not his way to belittle the way that this persona did." "I think that Amba tried to partially shift her persona—to attempt to lessen her sensitivity and perhaps become what Stempel wanted her to be—in effect, creating a second persona. I'm not even sure that this was conscious—but perhaps instinctive," he mused, now deep in thought. "You see, most people are under the mistaken impression that a shapeshifter's core being only shifts to meet physical threats. Perhaps... Perhaps this is a reaction of her subconscious to a psychological threat to her well-being..." "Of course..." Helena intoned. She laid a hand on her mouth, deep in thought, her eyes gazing at the middle distance between them. "Was trump artistry something Stempel taught Amba?" she asked Robert. "Although she says she doesn't know it, she's a good painter, as if she's had instruction. If so, that would support your 'second persona' theory." "That, unfortunately, I don't know," Robert said. "We weren't privy to all of the things they did together." Helena thought some more, then shook her head. "That must be it. I can't account for how else she could have trumped us away without using an actual trump, otherwise. And she's apparently not of a mind to talk to me while she's in her current one, as was demonstrated by her refusing the contact I just recently attempted. "Will she naturally revert back after a period of time, do you think? Because you're right, I can't go looking for her outside—I can't shift to protect myself from the environment—and she's not taking trump calls. I don't have a lot of other options aside from waiting for her to return to me at Ishtarways." Helena sounded rather upset by this. "She's still in there somewhere," Robert reassured her. "That's shown by the fact of the struggle that you indicated—that she didn't use lethal force." "She'll come back to you," he said gently, almost close enough to comfort, but ever mindful of the distance between them. Helena nodded her acknowledgment of his statement. She suddenly raised her head and looked around at the library, at Christina, and at Robert. "I'll be back," she stated matter-of-factly to them. "When, I don't know. But this thing with Amba isn't over and I'm going to see it through to the end." |
