StealingIntoIshtarwaysIndex | Time Under Chaos | Game Logs | Stealing into Ishtarways Helena drew the cloak hood tighter over her face as she entered the entrance to the emergency ward of Ishtar Hospital. A mother and father with a sick child shared the stairs with her, and she fell in casually behind them. Their House was at war with Sawall. Due to that security was tight, the barriers into Ishtarways impossible to cross--even for her. Trumping in would be the easiest method, assuming Torren hadn't blocked their use, but it was a moot point for she didn't have her trumps. She could always show up at the front door, but there was the chance Torren would refuse to see her and send her back to Amber. And she couldn't go back to Amber, wouldn't go back! Not without talking to him first! Her best bet was to enter through the hospital, for it was still public. She needed to get past admitting without attracting attention, and then once in the hospital proper, she could use the private Way that her stepfather employed to travel between the hospital and the household wing. Once in the household wing, finding him would be easy. Should be easy. She knew he'd be furious that she came back without his permission, but she had to talk to him...and see for herself that her mother still lived. She entered the emergency ward filled with people waiting to see one of the physicians on call, walking a small distance behind the mother and father and child she followed. Some who came here were not walk-ins and had appointments, and they passed through this room to a smaller one ahead and to the right. That was the way she needed to go. Guards in House colors of red and grey held strategic positions throughout the ward, and she could see in her peripheral vision that the number of guard here had definitely increased. Her training had taught her the art of not being seen and she adopted it now: a slight slouch, her shoulders dropped, her face turned downward. Too much and it looked contrived. Too little and she failed at not being noticed. It took a delicate balance, and she paid attention to her modest shuffle as took advantage of the admitting attendant's distraction as he talked to the anxious parents. Past the attendant...through the room...don't turn right at appointments but continue on into the hospital proper... "Wait a moment," said a deep voice. Some demon blood there, unquestionably—lower ranks of the guards often had it; Torren was remarkably tolerant. "Where you you think you're going?" A furred claw rested on her shoulder. Helena widened her eyes appropriately as she glanced up at the demon guard. She paused just long enough to let the guard get a good glimpse of her young feminine face and frightened expression before lowering her head again. She affected a more low-born manner of speech. "M-m-my mother...she be old and fell and b-b-broke her hip. I came to see her. But I don't know where she be!" It suddenly occurred to Helena that a guard escort through the hospital could be very convenient. "W-w-would you be so kind, sir, as to help me find her? She must be so scared, all by her lonesome in this huge place! She be old, and frail-like, and it would mean so much to me family to know she was still alive, all twelve of us, her chil'ren... and puir Timmy with his dutchy leg misses his puir mum so..." The guard hesitated, clearly thinking this over. "What's her name?" he said finally. "Miry, " Helena replied, picking a common enough name. "Miry Steward. I think I remember she's on the fourth level. Yes, the fourth level! Oh, thank ye, sir!" The fourth level was where her stepfather's Way was that lead from the hospital to the private areas of Ishtar. The guard frowned. "Miry...Steward. I don't seem to recall..." And then he gave a slight start. "Miry Steward. Yes. She's on the fourth floor." Oddly enough, he looked just as puzzled as when he couldn't remember her. Helena smiled in satisfaction under the cover of the hood. As they made their way through the hospital, Helena began to realise that anyone might have difficulty in remembering the names of all the patients. Clearly, the hospital had been placed on a war-time footing, and with reason. The casualties were appalling. Her stomach lurched as she wondered if Ishtar had been victorious so far. It didn't look like it, and real fear for her stepfather and mother's safety stole over her. Corridor after corridor, the dead and dying lay piled together. Harried demons and other staff ran to and fro, desperately trying to help those for whom damage was too great to allow the usual shifting...and there were all too many of these. At last they came to the fourth floor. A cry from lower down made the guard halt. "Here," he said. "Third room on the left, that's the one you want." And then he turned and stomped off. Helena watched him go with relief. She looked around surreptitiously, decided that no one was paying much attention at all to a young girl in the midst of all the casualties, and inconspicuously made her way toward the end of the corridor. A doorway stood there, unassuming, looking like all the other doorways around her aside from the faint runes running up one side and down the other. She knew this one to be different, though—behind it lay the hallway outside her stepfather's study, the two incongruent places joined together through a Way, and in it stood a sentient door. Helena stood in front of the door and placed her palm against the dark wood. She concentrated. "Helena..." the door named her in its soft, rich tones. "Enter." She smiled brightly, believing she would be in her stepfather's presence within the next few minutes. With a swift turn of the handle, Helena pushed open the door and stepped through. As she passed into the Way, the inconspicuous runes around the door flared brightly and an alarm sounded. Instantly half a dozen guards appeared, their weapons lowered—a war time footing; normally there would be one, or two. And then she saw him, standing at the end of the corridor, staring at her in disbelief, but making no move to approach her. Lord Torren, an ugly gash on his cheek that was already covered in the spider lines his Wereathe grandmother had bequeathed as a way of healing wounds. "What are you doing here?" he demanded. "Where's Helena?" Helena blinked. His distant reaction wasn't what she expected at all. "Father, what are you talking about? I'm Helena!" Lord Torren looked startled, and then his eyes widened slightly. With a gesture he dismissed the guards to their duties, and then said, in a gentler voice, "Come with me." He held out a hand towards her and, when she took it, led her down the corridor to a small private office he kept there. It was in darkness when they entered, and, surprisingly, he did not commanded light immediately. Instead he led her until she was standing before a great looking glass on the wall. So dark was the room that they both appeared shadows in the reflection. "Why are we here? Why aren't you lighting the room?" Helena asked. "Now," he said, still speaking gently, "I want you to look at yourself in the mirror. Clearly, my dear, with your mind's eye fully open...as though you had never seen yourself before and needed to give a description to a stranger." "Father, what is going on? I need to talk to you!" Helena insisted, not in the mood for games. And then, very slowly, he raised the level of light in the room. "What's to see? It's me, look! Blonde hair, blue eyes, mother's chin..." But as the light level increased, that's not the reflection Helena saw. Black hair and dark eyes greeted her, a face that was wholly familiar, but just not looking at her out of a mirror... It was the eyes that arrested her protests. The deep, piercing blue eyes, with their characteristic epicanthal fold, staring back at her as she looked, first with confusion, then with dawning realization as she took in the rest of herself. Slowly, she zipped down her bodysuit just enough to allow her to shrug out of the shoulder as she placed her hand on her dragon. Closing her eyes now, the presence of her tattoo brought her back closer to her own psyche, as she almost inaudibly breathed a word, bringing an answering flare from the tattoo, and finally, as if laying a stencil over the drawing made from it, brought her back to herself. Amba. She remembered when she fell away, to give rise to Helena—all of what she remembered and knew of her. That had been the only way, but she shuddered with the thought. She had lost herself. Totally, and completely. If not for... Then her eyes snapped open, finding Lord Torren looking at her, studying her for signs, she supposed, that she was not herself. She flushed as she put her clothes back aright, turning to face the Lord of Ishtar and bowing her head. "Lord Torren," she started, then faltered. "I- I apologize for coming here in this manner, but I needed to be sure that you would see me—and that I could get through...." She trailed into silence again, her head still bowed, as she waited for his response—any response—before continuing. "Of course," said Lord Torren gently. "Of course." He indicated a comfortable seat. "Sit down. I generally find a little wine helps..." A glass of a rich ruby liquid was set at her elbow on the little table beside the seat. "You realise what you did was very dangerous, don't you? You and Helena are...very close. That makes it easier for you to assume the shape...and much harder to cast it off. Have you tried to do that before?" Amba took the proferred seat gladly, trying to maintain decorum as she sat, but half-failing as she plopped tiredly into the seat. "I'd read it was dangerous, but I didn't have a choice," she said, finding it difficult to talk now that the full weight of her exertion settled upon her. She took a bit of the wine, continuing, "That's why I'd never attempted; I also wasn't sure that I would be able to." She drank a bit more of the wine, finding that it did help as he said. "Helena," she started, putting the glass down with a bit too much force. "I had to find help, and no one in Amber could I trust, so I had to leave her with that horrid man," she said rapidly. Then seeing the look on Lord Torren's face, she forced herself to calm, taking a deep breath. "Duke Helgram was sent to Amber to destroy all vestiges of the Pattern—and I don't think it will stop with their physical manifestations, either. From what I've read, each user is like an imprint—he'll have to destroy them too. He was ascending to Tir to destroy the Pattern there, and forced Helena to go with him. I tried to contact Princess Fiona, but I didn't get a response; then I tried you, and someone directed something through the trump, destroying it." "That was the first hint I had of how bad things actually are here," she said, remembering through the haze of her shifting the conditions in the hospital. "All of this seems a bit too orchestrated—with House Ishtar and House Sawall at war while the Duke tries to pull Amber down. And..." She looked down, sighing. "I don't know what happened to Helena. I had to take her trumps to contact you. I sent them back to her, but I haven't heard anything. And with her with that man, I hesitate to contact her. I'm no one—I can't demand anything of him. I could only make things worse," she said morosely. Almost before Amba had finished speaking, Lord Torren was on his feet, pressing on a hidden spring to release a secret drawer in his desk. He withdrew a trump, cradling it in his hand, staring down into its depths for a long, tense minute, as though willing it to life. At last, with finality, he set it down. "Her trump is warm," he said. "Somewhow...she has passed beyond the limits of our experience." It was a Chaosian acknowledgment of what Amberites tended to term death. Amba looked up suddenly at this, her eyes wide. This was much worse than the previous loss of self. "No," Amba said, shaking her head. "She can't be—there's another explanation. There has to be." She thought about what Helena's father had said, forcing her mind to keep functioning by pure will, shoving the emotions that threatened to overwhelm her aside with cold logic. "Trumps are... Cold... When someone dies. Not warm, from what Helena told me. Something about the link being severed." She struggled with the memory the two of them and Claudio going over trump theory. "If it is warm, then the link still exists. But if you can't get through to her, there is something preventing it—something other than her death," she said, hope still in her voice. That memory of the punishment for their outing brought another issue to mind. "Princess Fiona," she said. "How is she?" Torren hesitated. "Not...well. The Emperor... "Lord Sawall has demanded that the Emperor punishes her for the attempt on his son's life. I have been trying to defend her...without angering the Emperor. If she is taken...they will send her to the Abyss." "Hells," Amba replied succinctly. "Things just keep getting worse." Even though Amba would have felt the need to help not given the situation, with Helena... Not here... She felt even more responsibility to keep her friend's house in order until she returned. "I know this is forward of me," she said, at first haltingly, but more sure as she spoke, "but it seems that it is perhaps time that your caged bird fly free. If you will but allow Princess Fiona to leave, perhaps you can negotiate under better circumstances? From what I saw of the hospital, even if you do 'win', the victory will be phyrric at best. If she were to flee, that could take the pressure off of House Ishtar." "It would certainly do that," said Lord Torren with a slightly wry smile. "The price for a Lord of a House concealing a fugitive or for aiding one's escape is obliteration—not just of my own entity, but of my House. "If only I could speak to Despil...to convince him to call off his father... " After that last misstep, Amba was hesitant to speak, but her perceived duty to Helena pushed her forward. "I'd be willing," she ventured. "If you have an idea of how to put it into action?" Torren hesitated. "You should rest," he said. "And then...we should test your skills... "But Helena...why can't we reach Helena?" "I don't know," Amba said truthfully. "But she's not dead. If she was... If she was, I'd know." Torren nodded slowly, then rose to his feet. "Do you want to see the Lady Fiona? It might show you...what is at stake." Amba rose at the same time as her host. Nodding, though not without some trepidation at his ominous wording, she said, "Yes, I'd like that very much." Lord Torren led her back into the corridor, but this time they turned away from the main hospital and took a long curving staircase up into the core of the house. Amba recognised it at once—it was the private entrance to Torren's laboratory, where she had been on several memorable occasions before. Amba followed in silence as they went, and her mind turned over several possibilities to what Lord Torren's odd phrasing meant. Her mind began to work overtime as they approached the laboratory, for she couldn't see any reason why Princess Fiona would be there. The laboratory was much as she remembered it...except that, to one side, there was a long pale box, with a curved lid. It was a little larger than a coffin. A shiver went down her spine as she instinctively moved towards it. She felt like she was divorced from her body, as she ran her hand across the lid lightly. "She's not...what...happened?" she heard herself say. As she ran her hand over the coffin, the opacity cleared, and she was able to see Fiona lying within. Her eyes were wide opened—and she looked angry and terrified together. Her left arm seemed to end in a bandaged stump—her right hand was tightly bandaged too. She stared up at Amba—and Amba saw the flash of recognition in her eyes. "Step back—now!" said Torren. She didn't so much step back, as she was startled back a step, her hand still stretched forward. She took another wooden step backwards, turning to face Lord Torren, finally able to ask, "Why? What?" "In part for her healing," said Lord Torren. "In part for her own protection—that casing masks her presence. And in part... " He hesitated, gazing at the small prison. "It stops her from destroying half of Chaos in her anger." Amba blinked at that last. "She could do that?" She looked back at Fiona's prison with new respect. "Let's say the consequences of her actions would achieve that end," said Lord Torren. "Even if if she was unable to affect it directly." "How did you get her in there in the first place?" Then she shook her head, looking back at the small casing. "I don't think I want to be privy to that information," she amended. "So... You said consequence? What happens if Despil won't see reason? Do you just hand her over to them, or fight until one house is wiped out?" She looked at Lord Torren, a calculating look on her face. "Neither seems optimal," she added. "No," he said. "I agree. So you understand what is at stake here—and why you must not fail." Amba nodded soberly. "Do you have some idea of how I am to get in to see him?" she asked. "I'm taking it that Lord Sawall has him ensconced in some secure, unknown location—do you know where he is?" "You made a convincing Helena," said Torren. "Do you think you could be as convincing as Merlin, who has not been in Chaos these many years?" "I...don't know," Amba said. "Not to Lord Jurt, nor Lord Mandor, I think," she said after a moment's consideration. "And I did not have that much contact with him." She considered further, turning over what she did know about Merlin in her head. Dinner and a conference. Not much to go on. She looked at Fiona's prison again, sighing. Finally she looked back to Lord Torren, determination in her eyes. "Yes, I could." Lord Torren nodded. "Do you know a private place where you could change? If not, I can help you. But you should not be seen leaving here as Merlin—nor as Amba of House Heldt." A strange expression crossed Amba's face, as she sighed—almost one of acceptance of some long put off fate. "I can manage. I'll see you once things are done." She then looked at Lord Torren, then away, as she said, "And if I don't, tell Helena..." She paused then, as a small smile made it's way to her face. "Never mind. She knows." Then she disappeared from sight in a shimmering, rainbow light. [Amba continued in Welcome Back] |
