-16 NA, Avernus
Andreas stood in his studio, Brand beside him. Andreas was working on a painting of a field in Avernus that he'd seen once as a boy, and Brand lounged on a couch nearby, slowly drinking a brandy.
Andreas finished a tree in the background - it was standard form for a painter to move forward from the horizon with their features. "Does the steam fitting have a tolerance of variance of more than 10 PSI?"
Brand looked up and studied the painting for a second. "15 PSI, but no more. Apprentice Mikel, do you believe the pressure will exceed the predicted values?"
Andreas applied another stroke, starting in on a row of corn he remembered standing in front of - he remembered the field vividly because it was the first time he'd ever eaten corn on the cob. "No, sir - but I have an eye to fault tolerance. If a blockage developed elsewhere in the system--"
Brand cut him off, standing up quickly and moving to the painting. "The overflow capacititators would handle the excess pressure. You know that, Apprentice." He gestured at the tones of the sky, and then pointed outside. "Do you think that the Master Craftsman has not considered the effects?"
Andreas nodded with agreement as he noticed the variations in color between the sky he had painted and the one visible outside his balcony. It would be two more years before he would paint the Trump of himself there. "You are right, sir. I lost sight of the whole in pursuit of the function of the subsystem. Journeyman Povar, I see my mistake."
Brand sighed, took another sip of his brandy, and slowly strolled to the balcony. "It is a common enough mistake, Apprentice. But I have a note of merit for you - few Apprentices notice so soon in this design that the possibility of a pressure increase in the armature could cascade into a system failure. When you master the concepts in metasystem design, you will be a formidable engineer." He took in the afternoon breeze. "Do you think it is merely the brush that gives life to the image you create?"
Andreas looked glassy-eyed at Brand. "Sir? This is an automated sorting device for the different grades of root crops. Does it have an imaging system in later iterations?"
Brand's eyes narrowed. "Pay attention, boy! We're tapping into a fundamental power of the universe, and you're talking about farms? Are you mad?"
*Yes, yes, yes yes yes yes*
*It is not the Craftsman I expected - when IS the Craftsman to appear?*
*Brand's eyes must have been wildfire when he was infused with the power - wildfire---*
Andreas was inside a red glass bottle. It was sitting in a flask case on his workbench in his old laboratory in the country estate he had stayed in during the time after the Black Road War. He watched with silent fascination as a larger - much larger - Andreas gathered his supplies.
"Now then, Mordred had said that the ritual would require a half-liter of blood." He gestured idly at the vial in which Andreas watched in amazement. "The journey will take only a half hour each way, so that leaves me five hours to negotiate. I'm not sure what exactly he referred to as 'that uniqueness you bring to bear to the table', but the lords of that land do often talk in riddles."
I never said that out loud! I would have been too afraid that a servant would have heard! I--
He pulled out a dagger and laid it on the table. "I think this will be an appropriate weapon to bear the toxin." He smiled with a wicked grin as he tested the dagger again for balance.
It won't work! She's got scales when you strike! You need to find Mordred again, get him to give you a charm of shape--
He coughed, and then cleared his throat audibly. "Heooou vkellt xarianj cjtoph, Akklioesth."
No, no, no! You muck that up, too! You spend an extra thirty minutes wasting time clarifying why you complimented his shoes! Hold the vowel for--
Andreas took a series of deep breaths. "By the Unicorn, I'm nervous. I've heard awful things of the nobles of Chaos - I can't imagine what their criminal element must be like. But I will bring an end to the tyranny of the people by her Royal Bitchness, Queen Dara. May her liver ever fester..." He continued, but Andreas was agog even at that.
I never said THAT! That's like a poor man's opera version! I started with something like 'I go now into the dens of the foulest iniquity, so that in tainting myself, I might bring purity once again to the land I love so.'!
But Andreas had finished his speech, and looked down at his workbench. "Oh, dear, silly me. I never filled the silly flask! How was Mordred going to do anything?" And he picked up the flask, violently throwing Andreas around inside it. But the larger Andreas never noticed as the small Andreas clinked against the side. The flask was deposited onto the space on the table directly in front of Andreas. He then picked up the dagger and rolled up his sleeve.
What are you DOING? Andreas pounded on the side of the flask, even as Andreas drew down the dagger. Mordred himself had to take the blood! The knife was special, not that accursed blade that dragged Dara's dogs to my father's door! Stop! But then a tide of blood came out of Andreas' wrist and into the flask, a veritable flood of vitae. Andreas took a deep breath - and then was swimming in a sea of red. He tried to make headway up the flask, but the fluid was too viscous. It was swimming through a sanguine molasses. He exerted himself, exhausted himself, and made no headway. He had held his breath for as long as possible, though, and his mouth reflexively opened and sucked in a lungful of his own bl--
*The dagger on the bed, the world swiveling and turning as I twisted and fell*
*He said two days, right? I can't have dreamt that, it was REAL*
*I can't even feel my own blood, my own body, my own...anything...my ME*
Andreas was floating on top of a cloud, gently surfing far above the surface of Amber City. He looked down at the small and far-away shapes with fascination. He turned to the cat who was softly purring by his side.
"It's a fine Janember eveafter, isn't it, Daller?"
Daller looked over at Andreas with a familiarly loving gaze. "It is indeed, Mikel. It is indeed. See how the sugar falls so heavily on the coast?" They looked over at a small cloud formed of pink fluff hovering near the dockside. A white powder drifted down from it a fine mist, and the dockhands opened their mouths and let it pile up in their throats. They hummed a song of thanks for the good weather. Andreas and Daller watched for a while as they continued to feast on the sugar, even as they loaded black crates of anxiety onto a ship bound for the Harbor of Ill Omen.
Andreas had been laying down to see the city better, but he twisted up into a seated position. He looked down and saw the backs of his legs and his own backside. He put a hand to his forehead. "All the way now, please!" And then his legs kicked up and around and joined the orientation of the rest of his body. He pushed himself forward, leaning on both hands, and extended a hand to Daller. She took his hand gently in her paw, and he brought forward his arms and folded them neatly in his lap.
"When was the last time I told you I loved you, Daller?"
She laughed girlishly. "Why, silly fool - it was just before you watched that building I was hiding in explode. Remember? I was destroying the evidence that tied you to the revolt, but a patrol discovered me too soon. I Trumped you - but it was too late. All you could do was tell me you loved me as you felt the searing pain of my mind blast away."
I nodded. "Oh, yeah. Hard to forget that, I suppose. Well, let me remind you again - I do love you." And Andreas picked up the cat and kissed it, tongues winding against each other in a fervent and passionate embrace.
*Daller's heartlife, dying away even in the Trump contact*
*I'm flying above Amber - no wait, falling down towards Amber*
*It's got to have been two days, hasn't it? Got to---*
Andreas was sitting in the passenger seat of a nice red sportscar. The seat was leaned all the way back, and his jeans and boots protected his legs from the air as they dangled out the side. Corwin was in the driver's seat, in a brown leather bomber jacket, and the car hugged the road magnificently as he drove along the coastal highway.
"Enjoying the ride, kid?" Corwin looked over at Andreas, sprawled like a rag doll in the seat.
"Yes - but I can't move." His voice was slightly tremulous, and his eyes darted around him - but always moved back to meet Corwin's.
"You never could, kid. I made my play to get Amber out of Eric's damn hands - and you stayed home. I went out to fight your idiot Uncle Brand as he tried to wrestle reality away into the palm of his hand - and you stayed home. I came home with the most evil and vile creature bound to me and to the line of Amber - and you stayed back at the estate Gerard parked you at. I think this is the fifth time we've actually spent more than a minute together."
Andreas' eyes widened. "But this never happened. I've never been to Shadow Earth while you were alive." A bead of sweat formed at the corner of his brow.
"You ain't kidding about that. And that's the last point. You let that demon harpie from Hell poison me until I coughed up my intestines and died on the throne - and you only visited twice." He sneered openly at Andreas, even as he shifted the car into higher gear. The engine responded with a low growl that climbed in pitch.
"What was I supposed to do? As it was, even after waiting for the time to be right, I still failed! And besides - nobody knew how bad things would get while you were alive. You were going to keep her in line, it was said!"
Corwin coughed in a laughing fit for a moment. "WHEN? Who said that? Goddamn, kid, I was sickly the moment I got back! I think I hit only two parades between when we returned from Patternfall and when I died. You saw me at the Feast of the Unicorn - I was just about as white as the pork, and half as healthy! You KNEW!"
Andreas would have flinched - but he still couldn't move. His eyes were wild with fear. "NO! NO! I'd been kept away, I..." But his throat ran out of steam, and his voice died to a stillness. Had he known? There had been explanations, sure - but fitful in their logic and almost unintelligible in their connection to any known illness.
Corwin reached over and stroked his shoulder. Andreas noted with a smooth clarity that Corwin's hand was icy cold - as cold as it had been that rainy morning when he'd last felt it. And the smell was there, too - he could smell the funereal spices and the harsh ash of the torches inside the mausoleum.
"It's okay, kid. Nobody did anything - you're hardly special. I'm just joyriding around Earth now, having fun in my mind with you. But there's a problem, of course. The only reason I can pull this out of my ass is that this is a special day. This is the day Brand takes me out of the picture so that he can get on with his crazy plans. Oh, and just for reference - you weren't here THEN, either." He took his middle finger behind his thumb, and snapped it forward to thwack Andreas on the forehead. It was like a small stone mallet tapping at his brain. "I think he's going to open fire in five or ten seconds. See that turn up ahead? It's a blind turn with a small knoll above it. I never knew for sure, but since this is my dream - he'll be up there." Corwin reached into the back seat, and dropped a rifle onto Andreas' lap. "If you can, take him out. Before he takes me out - before he takes out Amber's last hope for peace and goodness."
Andreas' face turned pale. "I can't move. You'll have to shoot."
Corwin looked over with disgust. "I can't do everything, kid. I'm driving the thing. If you can't do it, live with the consequences."
*POP POP*
Corwin suddenly lurched, trying to maintain control of the car. It skidded sideways - and rolled over onto the right side. Andreas had fallen in a heap against the door - and his eyes were looking down over the surface of a rocky drop of over a hundred feet. He heard a voice behind him - still recognizably Corwin's, but now thick and congested. Andreas heard mucus erupt from his nose and mouth - as it must have done as Corwin lay dying years later.
"Too late, kiddo. You snooze, you lose." And the car rocked over, tumbling down into a suddenly erupting void--
*The castle streaming away from me, my father looking on as I plummeted towards*
*Would cars work in Amber? An interesting problem*
*I HAVE to feel him - to know something is there! I can't--*
There was no world. There was no Andreas. There was nothing. Whiteness - not even a white light, but just an absence of everything but white - filled the space available to a consciousness that might have once been Andreas.
It mused quietly to itself. That's interesting. Whenever I snap out for a moment, it's usually all black, not all white. At least there's variety.
And then it laughed. It laughed in hideous, high-pitched keening and low, deep, demonical guffaws. It laughed for two hours, and then it was blessed with unconsciousness complete.
The blood mages stared at the Carapace. It remained a roiling sea of red. Somewhere in there was the remains of a skeleton - at least most of it, now that some had regrown - and a brain. One blood mage looked at the other.
"Didn't Parallax Coil say he would visit today - keep an eye on it, and see how it was doing? He was here the day before yesterday."
The other Blood Mage shrugged. "I can't say I've heard anything, but I guess he isn't coming today." He stared down into the vat. "I don't think it's a big problem. After all, it's not like it misses him or anything." They shared a private giggle and returned to their concentration.