[LOG] Through a Corwin, Darkly
Corwin takes a Dream Quest to get to his new body in Tir Na-Nog'th. In it, he is confronted with the decisions he made through his life and realizes some of the consequences.
There's a vague memory, a feeling of being pulled time out of joint, like something from a Vonnegut novel. Like an overwhelming taste of prophecy, it's a flash of seeing two women, their backs turned, fighting off a horde of Amber Palace Guards who all wear the same face. Bodies fall at their feet. There's the Pattern, but the wrong one -- it's not in Amber. The way it glows, it has to be Tir Na Nog'th. And in the middle of it is Mordred, arms crossed over his chest, eyes full of victory and at his feet Liam, ritual dagger in his hand, carving up what looks like Corwin's body while chanting. And then there's a feeling of being syphoned away, down around the Pattern and then...
It's a very nice day in the Amber Palace. It's spring. The birds are singing. It's quiet. King Corwin stands at the window of his suite and surveys his peaceful domain.
Corwin lifts a hand to touch his temple, reflexively, though his eyes remain fixed out onto the country side. "Too nice of a day," he murmurs absently, and his expression changes to one of a man searching his memory for.. something.
A knock comes at the door. "Your Highness!" It's a page. Not a relative.
Corwin snaps back to reality, or this version of it anyway. "Enter," he bids.
The page enters and he looks like a very young Corwin. "You're needed in the Throne Room. We're receiving diplomats from the Queen!"
Corwin repeats, maybe a touch slowly, "The Queen," before adding, "of what?"
"Why the Queen of Sea and Sky, my King," the page says. "What other Queen would there be?"
"Don't tell her I forgot," Corwin says with a wink, and moves to follow.
The guards who line the halls all have Corwin's face. The servants, as Corwin passes, all look suspiciously Corwin-esque. There's no sign of the rest of the Royal Family, no nieces and nephews hanging on to annoy him, no brothers or sisters to conspire against him. He is King Corwin, alone, in a King Corwin universe. The Throne Room is sparkly and clean and full of lesser Corwins.
Corwin might have let the first couple of Corwin-esque faces slide, but when he has enough time to survey the throne room, he lets out a pronounced, "Huh." Then, to himself. "Can I be dreaming? I.. haven't slept in months."
Everyone in the Throne Room is a Corwin. Including a few courtiers who try to sneak in their business beforehand -- something about sewers or docks or buildings or something completely boring. They don't seem to be of the Major Houses of Amber. They're just Corwin-esque courtiers.
Corwin grows decidedly more unhappy and brooding as the 'Court' itself commences.
Eventually the lesser Corwins clear out. Then comes the main show -- people in silver and grey, wearing either stars or squids. But their faces are forgettable. Blank. Not even Corwins. Nothing. A diplomat, faceless, stands before the Throne and bows. And it seems to intone anyway: "The Queen of Sea and Sky wishes to bid her Holy Father Good Day."
"Holy Father.." Corwin repeats, and his troubled countenance becomes even moreso.
"She has said she wishes to finally claim Amber," the faceless diplomat says full of confidence. "She says the end of your life has come, and it is time for Amber to complete and the Sea and Sky to merge with Stone."
"And if I refuse?" Corwin asks, pointedly.
"Refuse?" the literally faceless diplomat says with notes of confusion. "She gave you a thousand years, Holy Father, as promised in her own blood. And now that time is done."
Corwin smiles faintly. "Thousand years, my how time can fly," he says. "So that's it, huh? Step aside. No calamity, fire, day of reckoning."
"Yes, Holy Father," the diplomat says patient. "That's it. Step aside. No calamity, fire, or day of reckoning."
Corwin smiles and stands up, looking right into where a face should be. "I don't think so. Surely, any daughter of mine knew that her old man wouldn't go quietly."
"Do you claim you love your life as it is so much you would fight for it?" the diplomat asks. No weapon in his hands, yet. "You would continue to live alone in this enormous Palace?"
Corwin gives the flickers of another smile. "I'm starting to think I went about things wrong for the past thousand years. Maybe I don't have to be alone after all."
"But there is nothing left for you, Holy Father. Only this island," the diplomat says but not unkindly. "Everything else is hers. Only this is yours and it is old and you are old and it is time to move on."
Corwin blinks, and for a moment his mind is racing. His eyes turn toward the ground and he says, "No.. it can't be."
"I'm afraid it is, Holy Father," the diplomat says to King Corwin of the small Kingdom of Amber. "And now, please. This does not need to be difficult."
"Is this really what I've done?" Corwin asks himself, and though his only audience is a faceless diplomat, it is delivered with true remorse. "It will have to be," he decides. "For even if Amber is but one man on an island, I will die before I cede her."
"The only proper way to die," the diplomat says, "is on the Pattern. It is right and holy and what the Queen demands."
Corwin weighs this decision, and his reply does not come in words; instead, he begins walking the familiar path to the Pattern.
All the diplomats of the new realms of Sea and Sky, faceless all and one, look quite surprised. And now there is no one in the Palace except the diplomats and Corwin; no Corwin-faced pages, no Corwin-faced guards. The Palace is still beautiful but covered in dust and cobwebs. It is all slow decay on the way down to the Pattern Chamber.
"I know that you're not real," Corwin says bitingly towards the diplomats as he walks. "Things are never peaceful when I'm King."
"Of course we are real," the diplomat says confident of his existence. "We could not be here talking otherwise, Holy Father."
"You may be real, in some sense," Corwin agrees. "But I will make sure that she never truly gets Amber."
"She has already won, the diplomat says and then, "Aaaaaah, this is the door to the Pattern, is it not?"
"Why don't you open it and find out?" King Corwin says with a smirk.
The Faceless Diplomat lays a hand over his chest where his heart should be and he says, "I would never be so gauche as to open the door to the Pattern."
Corwin lets out a laugh at that, and pushes the door open.
It's the stairs to the Pattern, just like they have always been, carved into rock and disappearing down into the gloom.
Corwin blows out a breath. He appears calm and collected, perhaps too much so, as he starts down the stairs.
Down down down Corwin descends and sometimes the faceless diplomat is there and some times he is not. Sometimes it is Corwin alone descending the stairs to the waiting Pattern.
Corwin descends the stairway, betraying no signs of curiosity as he nears the bottom.
Slowly the faceless diplomat shifts and changes and forms into the form of Dworkin, who now waits at the bottom of the stairs. "If you walk the Pattern," Dworkin says, "it may change everything. The ritual may work, but then again, it may not."
"I've heard that before," Corwin shoots back. "I'm lost," he continues, flatly. "Drifting and wasting away while the only things I love crumble. I've got to get back, to stop it."
"The boy's ritual is from the furthest, maddest part of Dreaming," Dworkin says to Corwin. "A body, yes, but at what cost?"
"What cost could be greater than this destiny?" Corwin wonders aloud.
Dworkin cackles and says: "What cost indeed! What cost indeed, my boy? I always liked you. A real go-getter."
Corwin grunts. "Spare me the compliments," he replies, and with that, he stalks towards the Pattern.
And the body lies in the center of the Pattern, covered in ritual runes, glowing faintly blue, and waiting. Tantalizingly waiting. And inert.
There's a vague memory, a feeling of being pulled time out of joint, like something from a Vonnegut novel. Like an overwhelming taste of prophecy, it's a flash of seeing two women, their backs turned, fighting off a horde of Amber Palace Guards who all wear the same face. Bodies fall at their feet. There's the Pattern, but the wrong one -- it's not in Amber. The way it glows, it has to be Tir Na Nog'th. And in the middle of it is Mordred, arms crossed over his chest, eyes full of victory and at his feet Liam, ritual dagger in his hand, carving up what looks like Corwin's body while chanting. And then there's a feeling of being syphoned away, down around the Pattern and then...
It's a very nice day in the Amber Palace. It's spring. The birds are singing. It's quiet. King Corwin stands at the window of his suite and surveys his peaceful domain.
Corwin lifts a hand to touch his temple, reflexively, though his eyes remain fixed out onto the country side. "Too nice of a day," he murmurs absently, and his expression changes to one of a man searching his memory for.. something.
A knock comes at the door. "Your Highness!" It's a page. Not a relative.
Corwin snaps back to reality, or this version of it anyway. "Enter," he bids.
The page enters and he looks like a very young Corwin. "You're needed in the Throne Room. We're receiving diplomats from the Queen!"
Corwin repeats, maybe a touch slowly, "The Queen," before adding, "of what?"
"Why the Queen of Sea and Sky, my King," the page says. "What other Queen would there be?"
"Don't tell her I forgot," Corwin says with a wink, and moves to follow.
The guards who line the halls all have Corwin's face. The servants, as Corwin passes, all look suspiciously Corwin-esque. There's no sign of the rest of the Royal Family, no nieces and nephews hanging on to annoy him, no brothers or sisters to conspire against him. He is King Corwin, alone, in a King Corwin universe. The Throne Room is sparkly and clean and full of lesser Corwins.
Corwin might have let the first couple of Corwin-esque faces slide, but when he has enough time to survey the throne room, he lets out a pronounced, "Huh." Then, to himself. "Can I be dreaming? I.. haven't slept in months."
Everyone in the Throne Room is a Corwin. Including a few courtiers who try to sneak in their business beforehand -- something about sewers or docks or buildings or something completely boring. They don't seem to be of the Major Houses of Amber. They're just Corwin-esque courtiers.
Corwin grows decidedly more unhappy and brooding as the 'Court' itself commences.
Eventually the lesser Corwins clear out. Then comes the main show -- people in silver and grey, wearing either stars or squids. But their faces are forgettable. Blank. Not even Corwins. Nothing. A diplomat, faceless, stands before the Throne and bows. And it seems to intone anyway: "The Queen of Sea and Sky wishes to bid her Holy Father Good Day."
"Holy Father.." Corwin repeats, and his troubled countenance becomes even moreso.
"She has said she wishes to finally claim Amber," the faceless diplomat says full of confidence. "She says the end of your life has come, and it is time for Amber to complete and the Sea and Sky to merge with Stone."
"And if I refuse?" Corwin asks, pointedly.
"Refuse?" the literally faceless diplomat says with notes of confusion. "She gave you a thousand years, Holy Father, as promised in her own blood. And now that time is done."
Corwin smiles faintly. "Thousand years, my how time can fly," he says. "So that's it, huh? Step aside. No calamity, fire, day of reckoning."
"Yes, Holy Father," the diplomat says patient. "That's it. Step aside. No calamity, fire, or day of reckoning."
Corwin smiles and stands up, looking right into where a face should be. "I don't think so. Surely, any daughter of mine knew that her old man wouldn't go quietly."
"Do you claim you love your life as it is so much you would fight for it?" the diplomat asks. No weapon in his hands, yet. "You would continue to live alone in this enormous Palace?"
Corwin gives the flickers of another smile. "I'm starting to think I went about things wrong for the past thousand years. Maybe I don't have to be alone after all."
"But there is nothing left for you, Holy Father. Only this island," the diplomat says but not unkindly. "Everything else is hers. Only this is yours and it is old and you are old and it is time to move on."
Corwin blinks, and for a moment his mind is racing. His eyes turn toward the ground and he says, "No.. it can't be."
"I'm afraid it is, Holy Father," the diplomat says to King Corwin of the small Kingdom of Amber. "And now, please. This does not need to be difficult."
"Is this really what I've done?" Corwin asks himself, and though his only audience is a faceless diplomat, it is delivered with true remorse. "It will have to be," he decides. "For even if Amber is but one man on an island, I will die before I cede her."
"The only proper way to die," the diplomat says, "is on the Pattern. It is right and holy and what the Queen demands."
Corwin weighs this decision, and his reply does not come in words; instead, he begins walking the familiar path to the Pattern.
All the diplomats of the new realms of Sea and Sky, faceless all and one, look quite surprised. And now there is no one in the Palace except the diplomats and Corwin; no Corwin-faced pages, no Corwin-faced guards. The Palace is still beautiful but covered in dust and cobwebs. It is all slow decay on the way down to the Pattern Chamber.
"I know that you're not real," Corwin says bitingly towards the diplomats as he walks. "Things are never peaceful when I'm King."
"Of course we are real," the diplomat says confident of his existence. "We could not be here talking otherwise, Holy Father."
"You may be real, in some sense," Corwin agrees. "But I will make sure that she never truly gets Amber."
"She has already won, the diplomat says and then, "Aaaaaah, this is the door to the Pattern, is it not?"
"Why don't you open it and find out?" King Corwin says with a smirk.
The Faceless Diplomat lays a hand over his chest where his heart should be and he says, "I would never be so gauche as to open the door to the Pattern."
Corwin lets out a laugh at that, and pushes the door open.
It's the stairs to the Pattern, just like they have always been, carved into rock and disappearing down into the gloom.
Corwin blows out a breath. He appears calm and collected, perhaps too much so, as he starts down the stairs.
Down down down Corwin descends and sometimes the faceless diplomat is there and some times he is not. Sometimes it is Corwin alone descending the stairs to the waiting Pattern.
Corwin descends the stairway, betraying no signs of curiosity as he nears the bottom.
Slowly the faceless diplomat shifts and changes and forms into the form of Dworkin, who now waits at the bottom of the stairs. "If you walk the Pattern," Dworkin says, "it may change everything. The ritual may work, but then again, it may not."
"I've heard that before," Corwin shoots back. "I'm lost," he continues, flatly. "Drifting and wasting away while the only things I love crumble. I've got to get back, to stop it."
"The boy's ritual is from the furthest, maddest part of Dreaming," Dworkin says to Corwin. "A body, yes, but at what cost?"
"What cost could be greater than this destiny?" Corwin wonders aloud.
Dworkin cackles and says: "What cost indeed! What cost indeed, my boy? I always liked you. A real go-getter."
Corwin grunts. "Spare me the compliments," he replies, and with that, he stalks towards the Pattern.
And the body lies in the center of the Pattern, covered in ritual runes, glowing faintly blue, and waiting. Tantalizingly waiting. And inert.