Amber

Chapter 6 - Of Trumps and Swords

@copyright Jean G Hontz and Sharon Pickrel

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  Fiona Gerard woke with a start. She needn't have. She had the place warded and her own personal bodyguard was on duty.  He'd been with her since she was a child.  Watching over her, he'd saved her twice now.

She lay there for a time and thought about Cayden Alaster.  He confused her. He was powerful, and stubborn as hell. But she knew what happened every time an outsider got sucked into her family's politics. They ended up dead, or as yet one more pawn in the overall game.

Granted, since the Patternfall War, the games the princes played had become marginally less lethal, or at least no one was openly plotting an armed invasion of Amber.  But by the same token, the relationships in the family had become, if anything, even more convoluted, especially with her own generation now taking a hand in things.  Trying to figure out who you could trust at any particular time was as confusing as trying to understand the Ways of the Courts of Chaos. Everyone had something they could hold a grudge about. And each and every prince and princess had been at one time or another a part of some cabal whose aim was to off someone else.

She sighed, giving up on making sense of anything.  She rose, showered and dressed in her colors. Then she moved to her desk. She pulled out her cased deck of trumps. But then she hesitated. Instead of taking off right then, she reached for a blank card and her drawing tools.

She closed her eyes and concentrated. She remained that way for perhaps 15 minutes, then she began to draw. A few quick and sure strokes, and a face began to emerge on the card. An open face, brown hair, slightly unkempt, straight nose, a mouth that generally, when he wasn't irritated with her anyway, quirked up at the ends. The eyebrows regular, the eyes set wide but a bit deep, brown with flakes of green in them, eyelashes many a woman would die for. A few last quick strokes and she sat back.

Already she felt the card beginning to go cold. She broke the budding contact with a wave of her hand across the card and added Cayden's card to her deck at the bottom. She fanned the other cards regarding her relatives. Bastards all, sometimes literally.  She passed up the faces, instead looking for the card she had that would transport her directly to her rooms in the castle.

There it was.  She didn't plan on being there long. She just needed to retrive a few things, and maybe.. She bit her lip. Did she dare talk to her father?  Knowing him, he'd insist she brief Random. Yeah, he would. And that would make her look weak, thus encouraging anyone else to take a shot at her. Hell no, she didn't dare talk with her father. Although... perhaps someone at the Courts?  Mandor?  No, he was twice as Machiavellian as most of the others. Best she just get what she needed and get back here to Earth.

She stood, held her hand out to her guardian and once he was with her, regarded the card. She felt it grow cold to her touch, then as the scene in the card took on depth and substance she stepped through.

She let out a breath she hadn't realized she was holding. Her apartments were as she'd left them, the magical cleaning crew well trained in not messing with the stuff of the family that occasionally lived here.

She walked over to the cabinet where she kept the things she valued, the spell she'd worked into the wood reassuring her that no one had touched it.  She concentrated a moment and the door opened, revealing a rather meager array of things lined up on a shelf.  She slipped on the ring, which immediately went invisible. She also picked up her sword. Her uncle Benedict had crafted it for her as a birthday present.  She pulled it from the scabbard, and stared into the gleaming metal, regarding the living bit of the Pattern that was what made the blade magical. Cinead. It had named itself. It was a thing in its own right, sentient, aware, and not always attuned to her wishes, which she'd learned to her detriment not long after receiving it.

She slipped it all the way from its scabbard and lifted it so that the flat of the blade rested against her forehead. She listened to its song, and admitted, yes, she was probably quite a silly girl, but that she was doing her best.  The sword laughed at her then went silent, accepting her request.

She slipped Cinead back into its scabbard and donned the swordbelt.

She sent a small probe out through her entry door into the corridor. Quiet. No one around. It was late at night in Amber and quite possibly no one was in residence other than the King and his wife.

Fiona opened her door silently and tiptoed down the corridor past the suite Merlin had expanded after the magical bomb that had blown up half of the castle. Brand, possibly the best sorcerer in the family, had once lived there. Possibly he was dead, but she doubted it. 

Next was her father's rooms. She walked up to his door and knocked quietly. No answer. She tried whispering, but was not willing to send a probe through his door. That was the worst possible etiquette in Amber. One never invaded another person's rooms. Well, unless... Well, she wasn't going to do it. She'd just have to accept that he was out, possibly at sea. Maybe she'd try his trump.

Then she heard the drums. Oh shit. Random was awake. She drew out her trump of the apartment she had on Earth and winked out.


*********

Power to Cayden Alaster was the backdrop, the scenery behind everything he saw or felt or did. Each thread in that backdrop was a power source, whether human or not, living or not.  And the greater the power source, or the more attuned to it he was, the more important it was, the more threads belonging to it that were woven into the backdrop.  He'd spent his whole life with that tapestry of threads, connected to it.  It was as much a part of his consciousness as his thoughts, his memories and his emotions.

Often, most of the time, he wasn't even consciously aware of it, but some part of his was always in touch with it, monitoring it for any hint of change or disturbance.  A change in the backgound of power was reflected there in many ways, in changes of color or texture, or variations in the warp and woof of the weave.  A dying or diminishing of power was seen in the dulling and fading of color, the loss of texture and complexity in the fiber, a loosening of the tension in the weave.  Growth in strength was the opposite.  New power sources expanded the tapestry. 

It was the way his gift worked.  And he could tap into any and every thread in the weave, use it, or follow it to find what or who he sought.  And the finer the thread, the more power it took to follow it.

But when a thread broke, when the tapestry unwove a pattern, forcing it to the edge as the fabric disintegrated it meant only one of two things.  The power source had removed itself from the scope of his radar, or it was dead.

Fiona was a subtle pattern, one still forming, a weave of rich, jewel tones and complex, silky textures.  Her power showed still at the edge of the designs, shaping itself into the uniqueness that was her.  In the days since he'd met her he'd spent a lot of time studying her pattern, learning it, watching it unfold.  He was aware of it like he was aware of almost no one else's except Ashley Jacobs.

So he knew, instantly, when it simply disappeared from the tapestry, leaving a blank place in the backdrop of his mind.  The awareness slammed into him like a freight train.  The suddenness of it, the resulting blankness, had never happened to him before.  And all around where it had been threads were shredded, broken and fraying.

He wasn't a man who had much experience of fear.  He fought the vampire, the talented gone corrupt, the mage, the were, the ghosts and demons.  He couldn't be what he was, and do what he did and let fear find a rooting place inside of him.  He'd proved himself in battle hundreds and hundreds of times.  He knew his abilities, understood his gifts, the extent and limits of his power and there was very little that even caused a raised eyebrow anymore.  It wasn't hubris or cockiness or typical male ego.  It was the confidence that came with experience and self-knowledge, with testing himself and being tested, over and over again and succeeding, winning the fight, coming out alive.

When the weave that was Fiona disappeared he felt fear blossom, its claws gripping hard, raking his insides.  She might not be dead but she was far beyond his ability to help, or even to follow her.  She didn't trust him, he knew.  It infuriated him that she was so sure of her own judgment she hadn't even availed herself of the opportunity he'd given her to know him as intimately as she needed to in order to see that she could trust him.  She persisted in misjudging him because she refused to even consider the possibility that he was telling her the truth seriously enough to actually find out.  And now she was busy being right, so busy making decisions based on incorrect information she had placed herself in danger. 

With the fear came the slow burn of the pain of her rejection of his help, of her refusal to even try to see what he was trying to show her.  At every encounter she'd pushed him away, pushed him away hard, with all the force at her command.  She persisted in thinking him capable of using her, of being her enemy. She refused to consider any other alternative, to acknowledge the possibility she might be wrong about him.  She refused to see that in the fight she was walking into she needed allies.  There was only one way, the one she'd always clung to and no other was possible.

She was so busy being right, being alone and so determined to need nothing and no one lest it make her weak in her own eyes and the eyes of the world she'd placed herself in needless danger.  She refused to even examine the chance that allies were possible, that someone would be willing to have her back for her, would want to and expect nothing in return. 

It infuriated him, frustrated him beyond anything he'd ever known.  Now she was terrifying him, while writing her rejection of him and his caring in neon letters seven storeys high.  He wanted to turn her over his knee.  He wanted to shake her for her stubborn pride.  He wanted to force her to look inside his mind and see just how wrong she was.  And with every day that passed without her, leaving the tapestry blank, the backdrop wounded and aching with its emptiness and incompleteness, his frustration grew along with his hurt and anger, mutating from a white hot fire in his gut feeding on her blatant rejection of him to the ice-blue cold of controlled and contained fury.

He knew the instant she returned, just as he'd known the exact second she'd left.  He knew from the colors and textures she was safe and unhurt and it just made it worse.  He moved through the day, his eyes flat and his expression frozen trying to decide what to do.  And when the day ended and another passed and she hadn't called, hadn't answered the messages he'd left the four days she'd been gone, all he knew for sure was that she knew where he was, she knew how to find him and if that's what she wanted, that's what she could do.  He'd never forced a woman in his life, not to do anything and he'd be damned if he was going to start now.

That was when his cell phone rang.

He knew it was her without even looking and he was more tempted than he'd ever been in his life to not answer.  She wanted to keep him compartmentalized, on the edges of her life.  She wanted him there when she wanted and to be able to send him on home when she decided it was time.  That was the safe way, the way to not get hurt because that was the way to stay uninvolved, to not have to risk caring, to not have to engage with him on an emotional level.

He waited until the last second, fighting the temptation and when he answered it was only because he wasn't vindictive.  "Hello?"

"Hey," she said. "I thought I'd have to leave you a message. Uhm, when are you free?  Can I talk to you?"

"Talk about what?"

"Me asking for help."  Her voice faltered then, but quickly she added, "I know I should have...I'm sorry."

Understanding sent elation exploding through him.  She was taking a step in his direction.  He raked his fingers through his hair.  He was so angry with her he wanted to shake her until her teeth rattled and the elation was slamming into him, into his anger, creating a volatile mix.  He held himself go rigid, his muscles so taut they ached with the effort to control his reaction. 

He glanced at the clock on the mantle piece.  Four-thirty.  He was supposed to meet Buffy and Ash in Queens as soon as it got dark.  Robyna was guarding Sal, though he didn't know it.  Dec was out with Gillian.  That left Damon, who might or might not have plans with Penny tonight, but the odds were stacked on the side of plans he'd be reluctant to change.  "I've got a few hours now.  I can meet you at the bar in half an hour."

"Thanks, see you then."

He hung up the phone and took the stairs two at a time.  He would have to go to Queens straight from the bar and he wasn't dressed to battle a trio of rogue vampires.  He stripped the jeans off pulling on a pair of black leather pants and a leather jacket that flowed to his ankles.  Leather helped protect against razor sharp claws and teeth, provided some defense against a sword or a knife.  He laced up a pair of boots, steel toed, the spurs invisible until he needed them, and slipped a knife into one and a pair into the sheaths on each calf, another pair up the sleeves of his jacket to lay flush along his fore arms.  The final one went between his shoulder blades.  His throwing stars, scalpel sharp, went into his pockets.  His sword was where it always was, in the spaces between, where he could pluck it out of the ether in a flash.  And all the while he dressed he tamped down his emotions, banking the fire down, searching for the center of calmness and patience that existed within him, finding and slipping into the place he usually operated from.

Ready, he left a message for Henry, slipped his cellphone in his pocket and zapped himself to the alley next to the bar.  He automatically scanned his surroundings, his senses extended to their limit, scenting the late summer afternoon for any danger, any threat.  Satisfied, he stepped out of the alley and around the corner, moving like he always did, confident and sure of himself.  Only this time he unmasked the power inside him slightly, just enough for those around him to become aware of it, to sense the subtle threat of it, read the 'challenge me at your own risk' message it exuded. 

He scanned the street one last time and then the interior of the bar as he pushed to door open, his eyes adjusting to the dimness automatically.  She was sitting at the bar, talking to Sal.  In a booth in the back Robyna sat, an imperceptible glamour changing her appearance totally.  She looked up as he came in, let her gaze slide over him, incurious, without recognition and then return to her beer. 

He wasn't fooled.  Robyna was focused on everything around her, just as he was.  She sensed the faint taint of power that was there, a taint colored with the suppressed hunger for violence, for blood and pain and death, just as he did.  It was impossibly faint but it was there.  Whoever had carried it in with them was gone, but he wasn't fooled by that either.  Whoever it was would be back.

Fiona looked around when Sal reacted to Cayden's entry. There was an aura around her, one that hadn't been there before, but he wasn't sure what it was.

Fiona colored when he looked at her. She waited until he was very near and said, "Thank you for coming. I appreciate it."

Sal looked from one to the other and walked off to the other end of the bar.

She was nervous, tense and afraid.  It vibrated off of her in waves.  He signaled to Sal and while he waited he scanned the room again, sending his awareness deeper.  There were a couple of businessmen at the other end of the bar, watching the Braves beat the Cubs at home.  In a booth, a couple sat, talking in low hushed voices.  He could hear them if he wanted to but the energy around them said they were focused only on each other and the sexual awareness flaring between them.  They'd be looking for a bed real soon.

"Not a problem," he said, taking a beer from Sal and grasping her elbow.  "Let's sit down and give Sal back the bar."  He steered her to a table where he could see the door and the two men at the bar, and Robyna had a clear line of sight to the back door and the entry to the kitchen, along with the bar and the couple.  He put his back to a wall and hooked the chair next to him out of the way giving him a clear pathway.

Fiona swallowed, her throat gone dry. She couldn't quite bring herself to drink the beer she was clutching tightly. It was warm now anyway. She didn't even know where to begin. How could he possibly understand. He could, maybe, understand some personal parts of it, but how to even begin to explain her world?

"I'm a bastard. Literally. I grew up on the streets, one of the generally dirty urchins who tend to hang out in ports on every world where there are ships. It wasn't until my mother was dying that I ever knew anything about my father. She sent for him because she was afraid for me."  She swallowed again and hurried on, "I'm telling you this because you need to understand the complexity of my relationship to my family."

He kept his eyes on her, his attention split  between the room and her.  He didn't like the feel of the place.  Robyna didn't like it either.  She was coiled, waiting in the booth, still but coiled.  Ready like the predator she was for whatever it was they both sensed to strike.  But whatever it was, it wasn't here in the room with them.  When he scanned past the room they were in, into the kitchen and the storerooms, the loft above, bathrooms, everywhere he could reach, he couldn't find it there either.  Just that faint taint of depraved power, sickly sweet like the sweat of a diabetic. 

He couldn't believe Fiona didn't sense it.  But maybe it wasn't related to whatever was hunting her.  "It's fine, angel.  If I have a question I'll interrupt.  Just say it before you lose your nerve."

"I'd had one friend when I was little. You might term him a dwarf. A funny little fellow, a bit mad. He taught me magic. He gave me what you are sensing now. It won't hurt you."

He doubted it, unless her friend's gift was a twisted, sadistic killer.  "I'm sensing the taint of a power that feeds on pain and suffering and decay, on blood and death.  Something that's been here and gone and, I think, left something behind."

"Then perhaps my guardian frightened whatever it was away."

He shrugged, not relaxing at all.  "So your mother sent for your father."

"Yes. I couldn't believe it when he appeared. He couldn't believe I existed. He thought, at first, it was all a trick, not that I blame him. I told him I didn't want his help and that I'd be fine. He left."  She paused. "Later he returned and forced me to go with him. He took me to the castle that stood on the mountain Kolvir that looked out over our town and told me I would live there now."  She took a breath. "He meant well. He has been very kind to me.  Most of them have, as quite a few of them are, in essence, in some way, bastards." Her knuckles were white as she gripped her beer glass.

"But they took me in, raised me, educated me, put up with me. But I've never felt at home there. So immediately following the first attempt on my life, I left.  I'd heard about this Shadow. Many of my family - uncles, cousins, even an aunt or two - have come here and spent time here. I thought I could make a life here for myself."

"Honey, what's happening now doesn't mean you can't."  He stilled the hand playing with her long dead beer.  "It just means there's a little work needed to make it habitable."

"But it does. They've been calling me. I've been refusing to communicate with them, but it won't be long before they Shadow walk here to find me. And truthfully, I understand that this is something I should tell them about. I'd just rather take care of this myself and not rely on them."

"Why?"

"Why?  Because I don't know who to trust. All of them are too busy trying to angle to gain power if not the throne. All of them want to settle scores, paybacks, gain an edge. They're pretty exhausting."

"You said you wanted help."

"I need to find out who is sending these creatures after me and seal up whatever passageway they've created between Shadows.  I'd prefer the Amberites not be involved."

"And all of a sudden you're willing to trust me?"

"I've .. I'm trying."

"What made you decide to try? A choice between the lesser of two evils?"

"Fine," she said. "Thanks for coming by.  Feel free to leave now," she hissed.

"You expect me to to just accept this at face value?  Five days ago you were so unwilling to trust me that you..." He stopped himself.  "I think I have a right to know what's changed."

"I'm just.. tired. Tired of suspicion all the time, tired of being guarded. Just... never mind.  I'm sorry to have drawn you away from wherever it is you need to go."  She stood up and started toward her office.

He grabbed her wrist, stopping her in her tracks, his grip unbreakable even as he was careful not to hurt her.  "Get off your high horse, angel.  That's the sort of thing that gets people killed."

She glared at him but he wouldn't let go of her wrist. "And if it does?"

He stood up, furious at her.  "You've done nothing but turn your nose up at every offer of help I ever made and now all of a sudden you want it.  I did everything I knew how to prove to you you could trust me and you just couldn't be bothered.  And now you're willing to try.  Well forgive me for wondering just how much worse things have gotten to make you ask me for help.  You may take a cavalier attitude about dying but I sure as hell don't.  So if you want my help you're going to have to tell me what's going on instead of copping an attitude."

She was furious right back. "Let go of me. I won't let the bloody king bully me, and I'm certainly not going to let you."

"You think I"m bullying you?  Instead of getting all huffy and haughty, not that it isn't sexy as hell, why don't you just treat me like a real person and ask."

"Fine!  Let me go!  Please."

He dropped her hand.  "What changed, Fiona?"

She blushed. "I thought .. You aren't interested in my world. I thought .. I thought you could be a friend."

"I already am, angel."

"And yet you .. "  she shook her head.

"And yet I what?  Don't behave the way you want me to?"

"I'm asking for your help, Cayden. I've trusted you with my story. What more do you want?" she asked, exasperated.

He sighed.  "Well, at least you've figured out you can't do it alone.  I suppose that's something."

She growled at him. "You are as arrogant as they are."

"Am I?  Why?  Because I'm not falling at your feet, delighted at the news you've decided I might be trustworthy.  And you call me arrogant?"

"I never would expect that!"

"No?"  He shrugged.  "So now what?"

"So go to your job and I'll see you when you are free again. In the meantime I'll see what I can learn. Using some methods I have that could be helpful."

"So I'm dismissed?"

"Rather called to arms, from what I can see," she replied an eyebrow raised. "I haven't even seen Uncle Julian that well armed."

He let it go.  "Uncle Julian ever fight vampires?"

"He prefers wyverns and brothers."

"Really?  He clearly has no taste."

She laughed. "Quite possibly not. Especially since he cares nothing about what anyone else thinks of him."

"Be careful Fiona," he said.  "You only want to be invincible."

"Is that what I want?" she asked, clearly wondering about it.

"Something close to it," he said. 

"I only want to be allowed to live my own life. I don't think that is the same thing."

She didn't get it and he wasn't her therapist.  "I have to go."

"Be careful," she replied.

"You too, angel."  He gave her a cocky grin and then he was gone.

She watched the door after he'd gone. Then turning she hurried to her office. She slammed the door behind herself. "He's right. I'm arrogant. Worse than they are, since they have reason."  She looked up toward the ceiling. "Oh, shut up."

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