TheMandateOfHeavenIndex | Time Under Chaos | Game Logs | The Mandate of Heaven There was a flash of light, and suddenly the two who were one were in a very different place, a place where a mixture of oriental and occidental furniture was alike in its dusty white cloth coverings. Johann still held the card of Bleys' face, and focused upon it rather than the pain coming from various extremities. He was still naked, but neither was especially inclined to care at the moment. They had a purpose. Bleys came into view. He looked a little dusty, and more than a little annoyed. "We lived. I'm sane, and hurt. I'll explain," Johann said. Larissa, standing beside and to Johann's side, nodded along, though "I'm sane" earned him a smirk and a sidelong glance. He gave her a tender, meaningful look of his own which was obscured from Bleys' view by the side of his head. "I suggest you do so," said Bleys coldly. "Whatever happened disrupted an important piece of research I was conducting and - quite frankly - I doubt if your recovered sanity was worth it. We can always beget more of your generation; I'm not sure I'll find that Codex again in precisely that form throughout Shadow." "As I recall, it was your idea for us to go take a stroll inside an active volcano," Larissa said flatly. "My belief was that Johann was going to do the strolling," said Bleys, "while you held a watching brief." He was regarding her narrowly now. "Your memory isn't that short," Larissa snapped. She left the range of view of the Trump, stripping off the aluminized suit as she went to reveal the sort of utilitarian clothing she had been affecting since leaving Amber. The only light in the room was coming from a broken window, where one of the shutters had been torn loose, by a storm or something less benign. Unfortunately, along with the light, it admitted a cold wind, which had blown the dropcloths off the nearest furniture and rimed it white, though with salt, rather than frost. Larissa stood in that wind, sweat freezing in her hair, as she looked out over the whitecapped ocean a stone's throw distant. The cold was welcome now, but she suspected that would change in short order. ~We've got a long hike ahead of us. ...Yes, I know you already know that.~ She paused. ~This is going to take some getting used to.~ "So tell me what happened," said Bleys impatiently. "In fact - bring me through." ~Might as well. He'll just force his way through if you don't,~ Larissa told Johann. ~Bugger them all when we bring the worker's revolution to Amber,~ Johann said, Larissa having a perfect understanding of just how much of that was joking and how much wasn't. Johann extended his blistered hand, though, so his uncle could grasp the forearm. "Mind the palm. Burns," he said even as he decided it was unlikely the Deigan bacteria analogs would seriously infect his wounds. ~Quit thinking within a scarcity paradigm,~ Larissa complained mentally over Johann's spoken words to Bleys. She whipped the cover off one of the chairs, dropping into the seat with a puff of dust, and started to tear the cloth into bandages. Bleys, however, didn't step through immediately. He threw Coirann through first, almost with sufficient force as to knock Johann backwards, and then came through himself, fastidiously brushing his sleeve as though removing microscopic lint. "It wasn't my fault!" said Coirann hotly, as she scrambled back to her feet. Bleys was looking from Larissa to Johann, and there was a muscle jumping in his cheek. "Tell me you didn't try any little experiments out there," he said coldly. "Active. Volcano." was Johann's reply. Larissa leaned forward in her seat and retrieved one of his hands, which she bandaged with exquisite gentleness as she expanded. "I didn't feel up to any 'experiments' with fresh lava, and there was no chance of that broken thing holding the eruption back after the forces of a Pattern walk were brought into play. So I caught up to Johann at the filigree and we left together from the center." ~You'll take a week or so to heal without any treatment,~ she said. They both knew that was too long, so she left the question of what he wanted to do about it unformed, but hanging at the front of her mind. "Wait," said Bleys. "Does that mean ... when you caught up, was there any physical contact between you? And are there any after effects now?" "Yes." Johann answered, then meaningfully glanced at a chair as if to ask if his uncle would like to sit down for a somewhat longer explanation. ~You sit.~ Larissa vacated her chair and steered Johann into it, then started bandaging his feet. "I doubt Johann would have made it through the Final Veil without my support," Larissa said. "Though the physical contact was quite inadvertent, resulting from a misjudgment on my part," she continued with the dry delivery of someone reading off a technical paper. Bleys looked at her sharply, and then at Johann. "So it was Johann who was weaker when you passed through the Final Veil together?" he asked. Larissa cocked her head at this, pausing in her first aid, and her eyes met Johann's again. "Johann was physically weaker from his injuries," she concluded. "I was more tired from sprinting the Pattern to catch up with him, and from loaning him psychic strength for the Veil. Prior to that, I would have said Johann was the weaker in both areas." She went back to bandaging his feet. Johann was doing his best to think about pink elephants, rather than the podiatric nerve damage he had suffered. ~I'm still thinking on your question,~ Johann thought, coupled with a wave of gratitude. ~I know,~ she replied with a ripple of laughter and the psychic equivalent of a supportive embrace. ~The pain means the nerves are still there.~ He knew she meant it reassuringly. "There's a problem," said Bleys. "Every time you take the Pattern, you rewrite yourselves. You give it the healthy you you want rebuilt. But there's sometimes a danger that it takes what it has and imprints that on your body. Here - it believes that the stronger of you wanted above all else to support the weaker. So ... you will go on doing that - pouring more and more of your energy into it until ... one of you is dead. "And we'll know which way the Pattern has decided by how quickly Johann's feet heal." Larissa paused in her bandaging, and an unidentifiable expression flitted briefly across her face. "That," she said levelly after a moment, "is quite the design flaw." She resumed wrapping Johann's foot. "So. What does one do about this--put one's affairs in order?" Johann coughed softly, nodded, and looked like he was paying attention. "Or you separate," said Bleys. "By distance ... and by time." Another pause. "Then Johann should leave immediately," Larissa said. ~Unless you want to wait long enough to see if your feet will heal more quickly near me~, she added. Johann's answering thought, which came as soon as he had understood what she was offering, was wordless, emphatic, and negative. "How far, and how long?" she continued. "Will we have to act like a pair of fermions for the rest of our lives?" Johann's matching raised eyebrow indicated his matching interest. "I don't know," said Bleys. "It's happened - or something similar - twice before. To my knowledge. But neither time was to a pure Amberite - you realise that skilled mortals may sometimes master the Broken Pattern? Once ... we didn't understand the phenomenon, so watched as one lived and the other died. They second time ... " He shrugged. "They fought each other for the right to live - and both died." "We are such a delightful lot," Larissa muttered. "But they were, at best, great grandchildren of Amber, several generations farther off than you. Whether your nearness to the blood will help you or make you worse, whether the aeeft will be lifelong ... frankly, I'm rolling dice." Larissa smiled faintly. "Aren't you the one who always plays with loaded dice?" She rose and offered Johann her hands to help him to his freshly-bandaged feet. "Would a walk on the true Pattern reverse the effect, d'you think?" she asked Bleys over her shoulder. "It might," said Bleys. "It might also sear the result of this own even deeper within you." "Uncle, you're too fond of... experiments. I shall go alone. One day, infer the results..." Johann said, and Larissa sensed his decision was close to final. Bleys glanced at Larissa. "You're welcome to stay," she told him, intentionally misinterpreting the gaze, "but this Shadow won't be particularly hospitable for a few days yet." ~It's likely you'll find a horse,~ Larissa said. There were other things she didn't say, but Johann understood those as well. "I'd advise a slow Shadow," said Bleys. "Do it gradually ... until we're sure it will work. Then ... as far and as deep as you can." Bleys got a single nod. He grunted and nodded, and after an uncomfortable moment, had a plastic-and-foil wrapped piece of computer printout, on which he'd sketched. ~This will give me a~ "Head start," he said, finishing with a grunt aloud. ~All my love to the revolution. Tell dad he is still a cock if you see him,~ Johann projected, then he vanished in a rainbow cloud of light. "Not that I don't appreciate your honesty, if honesty it was," Larissa said to Bleys after Johann had Trumped out, "but I have some solitary work to do--unless you want to keep me company on a couple days' jog through the tundra?" "I took you along for the ride," said Bleys. "At least, that was the theory. I did tell you I had things to do. As you have neatly managed to destroy two vital research sites totally, I think I'll pass on your company for a while." Larissa gave a very Johann-like snort, then paused and seemed to collect herself. "I'm trying to play the host, Uncle," she said. "Immediately showing you the door is hardly in keeping with hospitality." At this, the arctic wind blew up again through the broken window, as though to point out the place wasn't particularly hospitable to begin with. She did not voice her opinion on Bleys's version of recent history, though some of it made it to the set of her jaw. ~Johann?~ she tested, quite careful to keep her roiling emotions off her face. There was no response. "Be careful," [Bleys] cautioned. "It wouldn't hurt for you to take some time to heal too from this." "It might hurt other things, though," Larissa responded with a sigh. "Ah well, I suppose I can spare a few hours." She reached up and picked at the dust in his hair. "I will miss you. Try not to get yourself killed? I'm running frightfully short of uncles," she told him with a sad smile. Bleys smiled back, a little quizzically. "Well then," he said. "Don't be a stranger. You have my trump? I'll be there if you need me. And sometimes, perhaps, closer than you think." "Is that meant to be reassuring?" Larissa asked with a chuckle. "Well. I won't be hard to find." She kissed him on the cheek, like always. "Farewell. Tza y'haeln ni--ah, that is," she caught herself, "'May you never run out of reaction mass.' ...It sounds better in Tradespeak." "And may you find whatever it is you seek," said Bleys. He paused and then added, "One thing - you can grind Mandor's bones to make your bread for all I care but ... make sure Merlin doesn't get in the way." "The bile-roiling thought of ingesting any part of Mandor aside, that's twice you've cautioned me about Merlin's safety," said Larissa, regarding Bleys narrowly. "I'm the one who least needs to be warned off hurting family...why is Merlin's wellbeing paramount? Don't feed me some nonsense about the Crown, either. We both know the only good Merlin does by the throne is keeping the seat from getting dusty." "Merlin may serve other purposes than keeping the throne warm," said Bleys. "Here's one for you to chew on - as far as we can tell, he's the only living being in this Universe to have seen Corwin's Pattern. That makes him rather valuable in itself." "Valuable, but not indispensable," she replied. "You were much more adamant that morning in your sitting room." Larissa closed her eyes, and recited in a rhythm much more closely approximating Bleys's intonation than her own: "'If you value Amber as she once was, and as she could be again, you will defend Merlin's life and health with your own.' "It's not about Corwin's Pattern," she said, opening her eyes again. "Keep your own counsel if you must, but do me the courtesy of saying as much. Merlin will be safe at my hands either way." |
