HeadingForBleysIndex | Time Under Chaos | Player Characters | Larissa Rohl | Threads involving Larissa | Heading for Bleys
Larissa made her way out of the Castle, first by the secret passages as far as her knowledge of them would carry her, and after that by sneaking (with a brief detour to leave the law book, minus an inconspicuous bookmark, on an end table in a deserted receiving room.) The lateness of the hour aided her, and she was a shadow--a shadow listening carefully for alarms. The next guard patrol would soon find their unconscious comrades piled outside Johann's empty cell, and the chain of reasoning she had laid out to Clytemnestra would begin. Analogies about dogs notwithstanding, Larissa had no especial wish to skewer anyone, and not solely because it would slow her down. When she shut the little-used wicket gate soundlessly behind her, she put the Castle out of her mind. Larissa drifted through the upper City's lovely and well-behaved Wards like a phantom. The orderly peace of an evening in Clifftop, usually soothing, tonight made the spot between her shoulderblades itch in expectation of an arrow. She was far too tired to have a good chance of plucking one out of the air tonight. Down through Silver Dance and the groups of merchants attempting to impress one another as they mingled outside the clubs and theaters. The troublemaking part of her, suppressed for a century, urged her to throw back her hood and give the social climbers someone worth impressing. Larissa smiled mirthlessly and ignored the troublemaker within and the socialites without, gliding along the streets, merely a black shape that no one would notice, much less remember. She silently attached herself to the rear of a sobriety-impaired party that had loudly announced its intention to go to the Artist's Quarter for reasons obscure but apparently unanimous. Some of the tension left her after she slipped with her unknowing companions through the upper gate and into the anonymity of the City proper. Larissa let her drunken escort make its staggering way on its own, purpose served. Through Five Corners, still active, but sedate, with denizens sipping coffee, laughing and arguing at a hundred cafes along the streets. Solitaire lived here. Larissa had never visited, didn't know where to go to slip in and leave a note, and regretted this small thing as she had not regretted much larger ones. She hurried, to leave behind the voices that eddied around her, yet failed to envelop her--and this was the first time the knowledge of what she was doing hurt. Then, at last, into the crowds that circulated through the Artist's Quarter at all hours, living camouflage in which no one would notice one more figure with hood raised against the chill air that sometimes blew up from the sea. It was all light and noise, and as Larissa walked, the voices and music blended into a babel, a roar that beat against her ears the same way that profound silence often did. Her eyes did not know which way to focus, and she did not force them, turning the world into a kaleidescope. Here a skirt, there a shop window became colored tiles that whirled around and around and meant nothing. She was no longer a part of any of this. Had she ever been? "Unreal city," she murmured, and broke the wrist of a man who was trying to cut her purse. Larissa all but floated through the lower gate on a cloud of memory. The guards didn't even look up from their dice. She was beside Gerard as they approached the South Gate, riding--Larissa having bowed with no grace whatsoever to the inevitable. Lucius ("that smelly beast") was a magnificent champagne chestnut, almost gold, with a beautifully arched neck and a liquid stride. "I'll walk, thanks," Larissa had said. "No, you won't," Eric had said. That was another argument Eric had won. Gerard had dragged her to the stables, ignoring her protests with the sort of buoyant cheerfulness only he could manage, all but tossed her into the saddle, and insisted they get lunch. That getting lunch involved riding was the first surprise. The second was riding through the gate and out of the Upper Tier. By the time they made it to the lower gate, Larissa had decided that being surprised was a waste of effort. She steered the unbearably perfect Lucius to match Gerard and his mount Zephyr, an unlikely name for a horse that had the build of Morgenstern crossed with a bulldog. Clamor Smoke smelled of fires and hot metal, reminding her of when Eric had presented her with her sword, which now hung at her side, its weight grown familiar. "The prevailing winds carry the smoke out to sea," Gerard told her, not having to raise his voice to be heard over the clang of hammers on anvils. "And how do the windward inhabitants feel about that?" she replied. Larissa did have to raise her voice. "I don't believe Dad asked their opinion. Here," he said suddenly, kneeing Zephyr left, "we'll take a shortcut through Tattersail." Leaving the highway worried Larissa. All the surface streets seemed to be filled to bursting with pedestrians. She had no idea how she would proceed without Lucius trampling someone, or many someones. Ahead of them was a sea of people, shouting and laughing and haggling. Gerard rode forward as though the streets were clear--and, somehow, as he passed, they were. The crowds melted away before Zephyr, and Lucius followed without any prompting from Larissa. She was very aware of the stares of the displaced merchants and shoppers, and even more aware of those faces that were averted. It was as though a hush traveled in the clear space that surrounded the two Royals. When she tried to catch the eye of a man wearing a bright orange scarf, he was immediately looking elsewhere. So also with the woman in the green skirt, and the one with the purple shirt underneath a burgundy tunic. Disturbed, she urged Lucius forward until she was riding knee-to-knee with Gerard again, and the crowds accommodated her. "We're not...we're not part of their world." She wished she'd stayed silent as soon as the words crossed her lips. But Gerard was his reliable, stolid self. "Of course not. They're commoners. Would you want to live here?" He gestured at the weathered buildings, so different from the Castle. "That's...not what I meant," she said, but quietly, and Gerard either didn't hear her or pretended it. After that she kept her gaze fixed on Lucius's ears as Gerard detailed locations where he and the mysterious Uncle Caine had gotten into an improbably large number of bar fights. She wished she were back in comfortable freefall, with her newsfeed an eyeblink away and the unnerving world of dirt and decay lightyears distant. Larissa was so distracted that she didn't notice the dish Gerard ordered for her at the restaurant called Bloody Bill's was fish, and ate the lot of it with a good will. Later, she was sick, not because she had eaten it, but because she had enjoyed it. It was the smell of fish that awakened her from her reverie, and she realized with a shock that she had made it all the way to the docks while lost in thought, and was standing dumbly in front of Bloody Bill's, where not a few of the restaurant's unsavory customers were looking at her with what were unmistakably unfriendly intentions. With a sigh, she flipped the edges of her cloak back, revealing her sword and freeing her sword arm. The patrons reevaluated the situation and decided she could stand and stare as long as she cared to. Larissa had a headache, and the reek of the docks was not helping, nor was the memory of a certain meal eaten long ago. She turned, rearranging her cloak once more to make her sword less obvious, and surveyed the dock. How hard can it be to find one flamboyant uncle? she asked herself. As hard as he wants it to be, she answered. There was the Trump, but the thought of exerting any more mental effort made Larissa's hands tremble. She sat on a nearby bale of something, which didn't make any suspicious squishing noises, and tried to think, though it felt like sand had been worked all through the gears of her mind, which protested and refused to turn on account. The troublemaker part of her brain had no problem presenting her with idea that this was what it felt like to be a Shadowling all the time, but then fell stubbornly silent when she asked it to do something useful. "His Royal Gingerness said I should be expecting to find you soonish," Coirann said, plopping down on the bale beside Larissa. "You look beat." Larissa fixed the shorter woman with a singularly unimpressed look. "C'mon," Coirann bounced unrepentantly to her feet and offered Larissa both of her hands. "Captain Thingummy says we sail with the tide. I haven't the faintest clue when that is." "Coirann." Larissa rose without assistance. "Yes'm?" "Remind me to toss you overboard when we're underway." "Righto," said Coirann cheerfully, and set off across the docks, her mistress trailing. Coirann led her not immediately to a ship but to a quiet inn in an sidestreet on the very fringes of the docks area. The place looked almost respectable - indeed, so close to respectability that it would not have occurred to Larissa to look for Bleys there. Nor was he in the downstairs bar. The man behind it blearily eyed Larissa and Coirann as they made their way up the wooden steps to the upper regions, but he said nothing. Bleys was in the bay-fronted upper room, looking out on the street. Clearly he had seen them coming, and was ready. "You have him?" he asked. "We need to move cautiously - there's trouble on the docks." Larissa patted her chest, whence came a rustle of the paper she'd tucked within. "I slowed time in the pocket as far as I was able, but we'll need to pull him out in an hour or so before he wakes up and starts trying to shift Shadow, or does something unspeakable to my luggage. Or we can drag him out now and thump him again. He still has one good temple." She put back her hood and gave her uncle a kiss on the cheek, the tableau almost identical to the one yesterday (had it only been yesterday?) in the Star Chamber. "What sort of trouble? Related to whatever it was at the end of dinner?" "I don't think so," said Bleys. "The docks are being cleared. Families loaded up onto carts and driven away. Those who say they want to wait for the Rambling Queen to return are being give short shrift - but those involved seem to prefer a gentler form of coercion wherever possible. Money is changing hands. Either Vikund or Damien, I suppose. Still, it's good to dust down the wharves now and then - Father used to do it regularly. We'd better hurry, though - how did you get on in the dungeons? Obviously successful - but what sort of a mess did you leave behind?" "Damien," Larissa said. "Petra would have words for Vikund if he tried strongarm tactics. "As for the dungeons," she sighed. "You remember Mandor's least favored daughter? I found her drugging guards and attempting to open the cell with a pair of hairpins, at which point I abandoned subtlety and left the place with a Pattern resonance that won't dissipate for weeks." She shook her head. "I wonder if she even realizes what she owes me. "At any rate, the guards at the entrance saw me go in, so I expect I shall be stripped of my titles and branded a traitor." Larissa finished with a hand pressed theatrically to her breast. "Good thing I transferred my assets to Islain and Morgan as of last week," she added dryly. Bleys's eyebrows lifted. "Did you see fit to warn them?" he asked. "Or will all this come as a wholly delightful surprise?" She just smiled. Evilly. "Shall we be on our way?" After Bleys failed to object, Larissa restored her hood and slipped out of the tavern and onto the docks again. If there was a tightness to her jaw as she watched the forced exodus going on outside, the shadows hid it. "Which berth?" she asked. "That one over there," began Bleys, pointing to a ship flying the flag of Persa. Then his attention appeared to be drawn to a vessel standing near. "That's interesting," he said slowly. "Isn't that our Master Spider, speaking to the Captain of that vessel?" And indeed it was. The Captain, from his dress, appeared to be a massive Begman, but the first mate, hovering at his shoulder, was clearly a Kashfan. "Taking advantage of his rival's absence on the Queen, perhaps?" Larissa wondered aloud. "Who cares?" Coirann muttered, but the complaint was obviously to herself. "How well do you understand ships' flags?" asked Bleys, who was studying the fluttering pennants with interest. "Quite," Larissa said. She looked at the flags, firelit by the torches and braziers by which the docks worked at night, and blazoned what she saw... It made it clear - the Lively Lady sailed under the flag of Kashfa and its home port (and destination) was Port Omar ... handy for the capital. The other flags suggested the ship was taking on fresh water - an indication that she meant to depart shortly. "She's Kashfan flagged, destined for Port Omar," Larissa said after a glance. "She's to sail soon...likely with the same tide we plan to use. All perfectly normal, except for the Begman." Bleys nodded. "Some ships do have a mixed crew," he said. "And Master Anansi seems to be retiring now ... perhaps not worth troubling ourselves further. Shall we find our ship?" "The flags she's flying now may bear small relationship to those she'll be flying by sunrise," Larissa said. "Still. Even though Vikund be up to something scurrilous, I don't see that it concerns us--in the immediate future, I would prefer to indulge my interest in the intrigues of the Court from a safe distance." She shivered a little and pulled her cloak more securely around her, against the sea spray and cool breeze from the water. "And to sleep." "Then sleep you shall have," Bleys assured her. He led her down the dock to where a small, neatly-rigged sloop was drawn up against the dock. "The first stage of our journey," said Bleys. "You'll find she has all the basic comforts necessary for a civilised life. However, by the time you wake up, you'll find she'll have undergone some ... refurbishment." His serene expression gave nothing away. Larissa favored him with a sidelong look, but centuries as a professional diplomat had tempered her patience to a remarkable degree. He might actually have been overstating the case with regard to the sloop. Larissa's cabin was forward and poky. There was also a strong smell of herring. But there was a bed - not a hammock, a bed, and with clean white sheets, too. Larissa bade her uncle something that may have been a good night, then collapsed into bed without more strenuous preparation than unhooking her cloak and letting it fall behind her. She dreamed, Bleys's Pattern manipulations ignored because they were expected, and if her dreamworld was slightly redolent of fish, well, that was no stranger than any other thing encountered in dreams. One hand resting over a breast pocket, which crinkled slightly with the rise and fall of her breathing, the princess slept. When she woke up, she appeared to be in a stateroom on the QE2 or something very like it. Prolonged exposure to the Royal Family of Amber makes one blase about sudden changes to one's surroundings, and Larissa went about her toilet unhurriedly. When she emerged and went to seek out Bleys, letter in hand, there was an unfamiliar rubbery feeling in her neck, and two feet of black braid coiled in the trash bin beside the vanity. There was also a deep-seated feeling of unease, almost loss. There was a strange feeling in her mind, similar to when she had lost several teeth in an unexpected mineblast accident on the planet Shog IV, and had had to accustom herself to the strange gap in her jaw until the teeth had regrown. Bleys was in the main dining room, breakfasting on what appeared to be kidneys cooked in a cream sauce. He smiled at her genially, but she could see hard little creases of stress around his eyes. "Help yourself," he said, gesturing towards a generous buffet arrangement. "Not vat grown, so no bacon for you, I suppose. But they have an excellent selection of fruits and they do some fascinating things with grains. And, in a few cases, artificial colouring as well." Larissa regarded his breakfast with disfavor. "Do you know what kind of dreck filter organs accumulate?" She loaded her own plate with various fruits and a pastry that looked like a collision between a bagel and a cheese danish. She poured herself a cup of whatever was in the urns on the side table, and drank about half of that before speaking. "Johann will need to have his mind put back together before he'll be of any use, which will take me off the field for some time. I can get myself to a fast-time shadow if you're bound elsewhere." "We'll both go," said Bleys. "There's at least one where I need to do some research - and they have excellent facilities for dealing with damaged minds. At least, they will have by the time we get there. Do you really like brawberry tea? I believe there's some passable Darjeeling if you'd prefer." "I'm largely indifferent to which leaves are steeped in my hot water, as long as there's caffeine," Larissa said, and proved it by downing the rest of her cup at a gulp. Staring blankly somewhere in the vicinity of Bleys's right bicep, she absently pushed the fruits around her plate with a fork, finally stabbing a blue one that could have been a large berry or a small stonefruit. "I have an epically bad idea," she informed him. "Do share," said Bleys, tucking into the kidneys. "The Pattern has the effect of repairing mental damage, at least in those who are already Initiates. See also, 'Corwin.'" Larissa munched her fruit. "Thus, ideally, one could simply push Johann onto the Pattern and let things sort themselves out. He's nothing if not stubborn," she continued, tapping the letter with a nail for emphasis. "There is, I admit, a troubling flaw with this plan--to wit, the seeming absence of physical manifestations of the Pattern." She laid down her fork, and with it the archness. "But there is at least one place where the Pattern is still inscribed." With the same finger that had indicated Johann's letter, Larissa tapped her temple. "As I said, an epically bad idea." She started in on her bagel-danish. Bleys was looking at her a little oddly. "Yes," he said slowly. "It is. "But are you willing to try it?" Larissa swallowed her mouthful. "I wouldn't have brought it up if I weren't willing." She cocked her head. "Unless you know of a risk worse than insanity, death, or indelible psychic connection with Johann, all of which I've already considered." "Retaining your sanity - well, for the moment - and yet not coming back," said Bleys at once. "Some call that becoming a pattern ghost - others use that term differently. It's one of the things I need to research. I was thinking of reading up on it - I wasn't expecting a practical demonstration." He considered her thoughtfully. "You're not pregnant by any chance, are you?" Larissa snorted. "If I were, I'd be giving quite a few Shadow demigods a run for their money. And if that's an offer--no, thank you. "Subsumed into the Pattern?" she continued. "Depending on the degree of autonomy retained, that could be useful." "Ah," said Bleys. "Now you're rolling dice. But, after all, that has long been one of my favourite past-times." "Probability is a family specialty," Larissa said with a half-smile. "Though when it comes to rolling the metaphorical dice, I've always preferred to use a weighted set." "I've found it an advantage with physical dice too," he said blandly. "If you're going to cheat, you might as well just pick their pockets," Larissa said. "Do you want to enjoy the beauties of the ocean?" he went on. "Or should we be closer to land than our good captain suspects?" "It's all the same to me as long as we're making a comparable amount of progress towards our destination," Larissa told him over her shoulder as she went for a second helping of brawberry tea. "Had you heard about Uther Helgram's impending pogrom?" she asked. "Yes," said Bleys. "Why? Do you fancy writing your own, as a defensive measure?" "'Why?' Oh, I'm just making conversation. 'Lovely weather we're having. Had you heard about Chaos's stated intention to kill our entire family? And didn't Flora look charming last night?' That sort of thing." Larissa impaled a red, round fruit on her fork and held it up. "But since you're so-intent on discussing distressing things over breakfast...if you can produce the Jewel, I'd not necessarily be unwilling. I've decided to act at last--there's no point in half measures." She bit a chunk out of her ersatz Jewel of Judgement. "It killed Grandad, though, so I'd require some convincing." "It killed your father too - or so Fiona believed," said Bleys. "Cholera victims die of dehydration, not the disease itself," she retorted. "Dad was pouring his life force into the thing--it was his own damn fault he was too tired to parry a blow and too weak to heal the wound after. He could have handed field command to Julian for a week and led from the rear and it wouldn't have hurt our position." "That's one theory," said Bleys. "I don't have the Jewel, by the way. Last time I saw it, Fiona was attempting to persuade Random not to stake it in a high stakes poker game in Chaos. It was shortly before we had news of what had happened here ... and everything changed. "The Serpent still has another eye," Larissa muttered into her teacup. "Anyway, land ho shortly. Would you prefer a Mediterranean port, a fjord or a link to a spaceport?" "Spaceport, of course." She had the momentary incongruous image of an ocean liner docked at an airlock. In fact, the ship docked at a modern port in a technologically advanced Shadow (the ship, it seemed, was an amusing anachronism, much beloved by the wealthy). Ground cars waited to bear them to their destination - including the space port. Bleys seemed to have acquired an inordinate amount of luggage and it took some little while to pass through Customs. "You went through the effort to get yourself a wardrobe, but you couldn't be bothered to take care of Customs while you were at it?" Larissa seemed skeptical of her uncle's priorities. "Would you prefer a nap before I retrieve Johann?" she asked after they made themselves comfortable in their car. "I'd rather have you present--Johann is desperate, I'm not, and that will serve him better than it will me." "I'd rather be somewhere where we can thrust him out of an airlock should it prove necessary," said Bleys. "A few minutes unsuited in the vacuum usually brings most people to their senses. Or ends the problem entirely if they don't have blood of Amber." "I've never spaced anyone before," said Larissa meditatively. "Though I did once kick a fellow out an airlock at 10 kilometers." She frowned at the memory. "He had the gall to look surprised even though I'd warned him that was how things would turn out." Bleys smiled. "So where, then, do you want to release Johann?" he asked. "I suggest we have all things arranged before we proceed. And no, my dear niece, I do not need a nap." Larissa raised an eyebrow at that. "You are slipping," she said with mock opprobrium and a mischievous sidelong glance. Without waiting for a riposte, she went on. "If he weren't an Initiate, I would just leave him in a pleasant institution somewhere he couldn't do any damage. However, the Pattern will have offered him some mental protection, which leaves me hope he's not entirely illucid." She leaned back in her seat and shut her eyes. An expression of concentration flitted across her face. "Ah, good. The local physics will cooperate. What I would like to do, then," Larissa said, sitting up and turning slightly toward Bleys, "is set up a room where either of us can slam the gravity up to 10 or 15 G if he's completely unmanageable. Five or so would slow him down enough to listen to us. "He will, of course, tell us what he thinks we want to hear, and then do something characteristically impulsive," she finished with a sigh. "He was enough trouble when he was sane." "Well, yes," said Bleys. "Which is why I'm surprised you want to make the attempt now. But go ahead. Just make a safe area for me to observe and operate a failsafe switch." "Well, there's my legendary soft-heartedness," said Larissa dryly. "Johann is an expendable way to test my hypothesis about the Pattern," she continued. "Besides. His absence will discomfit certain people whom I find more attractive in that state." She retrieved a slip of parchment from her pocket and toyed with it, running it end over end through her fingers as she stared out the window at the scenery flicking by. "As I told a certain cousin not long ago, spite makes a poor meal, but an excellent sauce."
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