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Index | Time Under Chaos | Player Characters | Helena | Coming to Amber: Torren's Reaction

After searching in the usual places inside House Ishtar, Torren found his youngest daughter (his other children were long grown, his current wife Fiona his third) in one of her usual places outside—on the roof feeding the blood imps.

There was a place on the roof where three slopes met, forming a valley just the right size in which to sit. Helena found it years ago one afternoon after she'd slipped out her bedroom window and went exploring along the roof line—despite having been relegated to her room for the day over a minor offense. The valley between the slopes was very short, just deep enough to give Helena a good seat while allowing her to dangle her legs over the very high edge that looked down a mountainside to where the ground was lost in mist thousands of feet below. She could rest her back up rather comfortably against the third slope.

The hand-sized blood imps flew and keened around her, begging for the kitchen scraps she'd brought. There'd been crustaceans for supper tonight. Not her favorite source of protein, so she had plenty of crunchy bits to toss to them.

And toss she did. It gave her something to do while she thought. About the invitation to Amber. About Mandor. About Mother. About Father. About all of it.

A large black raven circled overhead, then slowly descended to land beside her. Distance was as deceptive as ever in Chaos—when the raven landed, it proved to be fiully as large as Helena (the imps took off in a flurry of fear), and after a few moments proved to be no raven at all, but Lord Torren, moving as seamlessly as ever between one form and the next. It was, however, not a skill he often used before her, knowing of her own handicap all too well. For him to do this now suggested he was troubled in his own mind.

He said nothing, however, shifting his human form to sit beside her, a quiet, comforting presence, waiting for her to speak.

"I don't want to go," Helena stated defiantly. She threw another crab leg out over the edge to punctuate her statement.

"Would it help at all if I said I don't want you to go?" Torren replied, his voice picking up some of her own inflection. "Mandor ... I do not trust at all. And when he comes into the equation, I trust your mother less than I usually do. Which is not very much at all."

Helena cocked her head to look at Torren and smiled. "I think Mandor will keep Mother in line. Their agendas are bound to be at odds."

She turned back to regard the clouds along the mountain range lining the horizon. "I just don't relish being in the middle of it, as I suspect I will be.

"He must want something from me, or Mother, or both. I just wish I knew what it was. I'll be going in blind into enemy territory and that's not the way to ensure a successful mission, according to basic military strategy as taught by Hendrake," she finished wryly.

Helena idly tossed another crab leg over the edge.

"You're not just going into enemy territory blind," said Torren. "You'll also be alone. The invitation makes no mention of your mother."

She stiffened and turned to stare at her father, her eyes wide. "But...I just assumed...I mean...oh, crap." Helena slumped back. "It's just an invitation, right? That means it's not an order, and I can decline, right?"

"You can," said Torren slowly. "If that is what you truly wish."

Helena exhaled forcefully and looked away back toward the horizon. "I don't know what I truly wish. It's safe to stay here, sure, but it's also rather boring and predictable—hard to have it both ways, I suppose.

"Going to Amber though... Mandor scares the little imps out of me. And I haven't seen Ness in close to twenty years. But it would be educational to get to know Mother's side of the family better...and hopefully better understand myself..."

Helena stretched out her hand and frowned at it, wanting it to shift, willing it to shift, but knowing it wouldn't.

She dropped the hand and tossed the last crab leg.

"If you will forgive another of my insights," said Torren, "it seems to me that it is only when you have seen and understood your Amberite heritage that you will know where you truly belong. Which, I trust, is here with us."

Helena smiled at her father. "I do belong here. I know I just claimed home was boring and predictable a moment ago, but there's really no other place I'd rather be, here with you...and Mother," she added. "I understand what you're saying, about my Amber heritage and all that, and part of me knows you're right—you always are—but it's going to take a little while to convince the rest of me to go along with it."

She leaned up against Torren and rested her head on his shoulder. "Have you ever met Mandor? I have Mother's point-of-view, but I'd be happy to hear another."

"I've met him," said Torren quietly. "He's good ... he's very good. I'm surprised he's settled for being the power behind the throne at the far end of the universe. If I were the Emperor ... " He shrugged. "I'd rather not see you become a cog in his wheel, my Helena. And sometimes ... I think your Mother feels the same."

Helena was quiet for a time while above them the sky slowly shifted colors. "I remember feeling this way when I was sent to train at House Hendrake," she mused. "It was an almost even mix between excitement at leaving home and doing something different and all on my owm, and terror at leaving home and doing something different and all on my own.

"I was fifteen then and barely grown. I'm twenty-four now and no longer a child to live at home in the safety of my parents' shadows. I should do this. I should go."

"Yes," said Torren. "But ... remember Amberites are not to be trusted, despite all their charm. And Chaosians in Amber ... I fear they have gone native. More pious than the High Priest ... "

He smiled at her—it was an old joke of his for designating anyone who espoused an extreme.

She chuckled and sat back. "I've no intention of converting. I'll be fine in that regard. How long do I have to stay to be polite?"

"Perhaps," said Torren, "the question should be—how long should you stay to be politic?" He smiled at her.

"Perhaps long enough to discover what your father's intentions are."

She nodded, thinking about that. "All right...all right. Any last words of wisdom before I plunge into the depths?"

"Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer still," said Torren. "But most importantly, learn to distinguish between the two."

He leaned forward and gently kissed her forehead—he, of course, did not have to worry if he fell from the roof.

"I'll miss you—even if we speak daily."

Helena looked into his blue eyes and smiled. "I'll call regularly, I promise. And I'll be careful, I promise. And I'll return soon, I promise."

Torren nodded. "I can think of only one thing that might prevent that."

"Only one thing?" The corner of Helena's mouth quirked.

"If Mandor means to marry you off," said Torren slowly, "you could still return to Chaos. Unless ...

"Unless your husband was the King of Amber."

Helena sputtered and laughed. "You're kidding, right?" She paused as she took in Torren's expression. "Oh...all right...I see you're not kidding...."

She reigned in her own expression and attempted to think about it seriously. "To what end? So he could control the throne in Amber through me? But he's already doing that through Merlin, as I understand it. Besides, I'm an unknown variable. Wouldn't Ness make a better pawn?"

"I would see it as more prevention," said Torren. "At the moment, Mandor controls Merlin—but for how long can he continue that? Merlin is the son of two of the strongest-willed people in the universe—one day, he's going to wake up and realise that. And a wife could help him ... or try to control him too."

Helena exhaled and leaned back against the slope of the roof. "I've no desire to be wife to a drunk philanderer who's nominally in charge of an occupied kingdom located in the backwater of the other side of the multiverse. Really."

"Good," said Torren. "I would hate to have to forbid you your heart's desire."

She gave him an arch look—smiling, yes, but with a hint of challenge.

He was smiling as he spoke—but the smile faded. "It would be hard to spare you to a mortal—or even an Amberite—of Mandor's choosing."

"I'm not marrying someone of Mandor's choosing. I'm not marrying anyone at all," she protested, shaking her head. "What's all this talk about marrying, anyway?"

Helena smiled mischievously. "I'm never going to marry. I'm going to be a spinster and live here forever and you'll never get rid of me."

"That sounds an excellent plan," said Torren. "And in anticipation ... shall I begin to draw up arrangements for the construction of your Ways? You can send plans and ideas home from Amber."

"That sounds an excellent idea," Helena agreed, not backing down. "I'll start on those right away. Oh, I know!" Helena's impish smile continued and she reached out to touch Torren's forearm. "I know! I can start my Ways from outside your bedroom door so I'll never have to be away from you and Mother. We'll be together always. Won't that be fabulous?"

Torren turned slightly towards her, smiling. "Would you always think it so fabulous, Helena? To be so close?"

Helena sat back again and gazed at Torren, at his blue eyes. She'd been mesmerized by them as long as she could remember, since she was a little girl. Her eyes were blue too, but pale, like the sky at midday. His eyes were dark, like deep water.

"It was a joke," she said a bit uncertainly, her own return smile much more subdued than the impish one of a moment ago.

He held her eyes a moment longer, and then the smile faded.

"Of course it was," he agreed, and looked away.

"If I were you," he said, "I wouldn't make that sort of joke around your mother."

Helena blinked. It was a joke, and she didn't intend a different meaning aside from the ever-present-child-and-isn't-that-annoying-to-the-parents one. She felt her cheeks flush—why was she blushing?—and she looked down at her lap.

"I didn't want... I mean, it wasn't my intent to... Um," she said.

He laughed now, openly.

"Never mind, puss. Take it as my teasing in turn," he said. "Although the warning about your mother holds." The smile faded. "Your mother ... I think she will have her own agenda for you in Amber."

"You know, she's always been somewhat of an enigma to me," Helena remarked idly as she toyed with the hem of her shirt. "She acts strangely sometimes, almost as if she's another person, or under some sort of constraint." She glanced at Torren out of the corner of her eye.

"Not even I know all your mother's schemes," said Torren dryly. "As for her behaviour... She has her own defenses, Helena—some of which Chaos has attempted to blunt. Some of which persist."

He smiled suddenly. "Some see it as an honour that she was given to me, others as a curse. You should perhaps ask yourself why I was chosen as her...jailer."

Helena frowned. "Because you can control her? Because she can't control you? Because you want something from her? Because you're professionally curious about House Barimen and you wanted to study her? Because you like living dangerously? Am I close at all?"

Torren stretched. For a moment he was fully human still, and he turned and smiled at Helena. "One day," he said, "you'll know the reason why."

And then he lifted again, a black raven diving into the whirling skies of Chaos.

Helena frowned as she watched him fly away, annoyed and unsettled by their entire conversation. Out of crab legs for the imps, he picked herself up and climbed the steep roof back to her bedroom window.