PATTERNS REPEAT THEMSELVES

Blood, Fire, Lightning, and Lyre

 

BRAND'S TALE: FIRE

 

The last thought, the last breath, was fire.

She touched me, taking the Jewel from my grasp. 

And I fell into nothingness and died.

 

I waited in the Grove.

      Some can make waiting look easy.  Gerard just sits and goes to sleep.  Benedict's mind rests as if balanced on the edge of a metal blade, every breath in cadence.   Corwin paces, restless, a certain amount of steps this way and that.  Llewella simply observes, taking  everything in her view and examining it one small piece at a time, adding it to the whole. 

      I am not like them. 

      I played with the grass, pulling blades of it up at my whim.  I created a small bridge out of leaves for a passing ladybug.  I hummed a little in the summer sunshine, and occasionally closed my eyes, as if to take a nap or to ease the glow of the sun.  I changed positions maybe once every four or five minutes.  I am the restless sort, the type who needs to do.  Not so much as Bleys, perhaps; he is the fire in motion. 

      I have learned little of my power through patience.

      Time was meaningless, I remembered.  This place had been, would be, will be again.  Perhaps if I pulled up the turf it would have an imprint of Caine (and that image brought the fire again to my throat.) 

 

      I waited.

      The sun stretched its way past the midday mark and slowly made its descent.

      I attracted one of the many dryads who frolicked amongst Arden's green.  "Wherefore, whyfore loneliest?" she asked, wrapping herself in the thorns of the nearest rosebush.  Scratches left evergreen marks on her faintly olive skin. 

      "I am not lonely, Fair One," I said in my most comforting voice.  They are fond of me, and so I am gentle with them.  I do not share the intense love that Bleys does with them, nor the respect they have for Fiona, but I am pleased by their occasional company. 

      "No seeks?" she asked.  Many of the fey will pluck the language out of the land, but she seemed proud of her few words of Thari.

      I smiled at her, and shook my head.  "No seeks," I repeated.  "I wait for," I carefully measured the phrase, "She who the even the Roses call the Thorn."  The Unicorn's names were many amongst the fey, but to please my audience, I had to choose carefully.  The Unseelie's terms were always the most honest, but there was poetry in the Seelie.

      "Ahhhh."  The dryad's eyes lit up.  She bowed her head in some form of respect, and wove even deeper into the bush.   A few drops of green blood were all that were left, as she twisted and -became-, the way the fey could.  I mentally underlined an internal memo I had written years before about the differences of shapeshifting between the fey and those of Thelbane.

      I leaned back against a tree, musing.    Fiona claimed the fey worshipped the Unicorn, much as the people of the city did.  Bleys thought it some sort of generalized respect for nobility.   Dworkin laughed and called it love, but he is sentimental when it comes to Her Horniness.  I just pondered what Oberon's baby pictures showed.

      I felt the Presence, first.  A faint whisper at the back of my neck, and I resisted the urge to reach out with my mind.  I'm no fool; even the Tarots suggest otherwise.  I left one hand on Werewindle, and held my breath.  She doesn't come when called, but if you're patient enough… you might stake out where She drinks.

      A whisper… that's all you'll ever get of Her, if you're lucky.  I'm not particularly flush with fortune.   I knew better than to be taken in by any prancing, mincing, fairytale hesitancy.  The Unicorn is a carnivore.  Don't forget that.  Our predator blood is from Her side of the Family.

 

      She entered the Grove, one soft hoofstep at a time.  She showed no trepidation.  There was no point in trying to hide, although for Her sake I remained still.  It fit the moment, the atmosphere around Her. 

      The mental capitalization is a habit from studying with the Priests as a boy.  She does have a certain air of…majesty.  It's hard to explain; things change from being in contact with Her.   No, that's not right.  Perhaps it is merely that things do -not- change, like She is the source of stasis, and at the same time…fire.

      The memory of the Pattern burned in me, still.  The cold years will never quench that fever.

      She dipped Her head down, and looked at me.  Green eyes, just like mine.

      I rose and called Her by name.

     

      You might ask where I came by this little piece of information.  If you made it worth my while, I might even tell you what it cost.  I know who else knows it.  It's something you can See, if you look into the depths.  It was enough to draw Her attention.

      Silver.  She dripped silver and gold before changing.  I knew it could be done, but I had not understood the transformation.  I had no time for the frustration of my youth, the wish to know Power and glory.  She stood before me.

      I repeat: She stood before me.

      She stood as a woman with red-gold hair and skin like the moon.  Those are the only details I remember from that first moment.  Her voice was in chords, triplicate.  "You are a ghost, a shade, a dream."  It was the voice of mothers, maidens, and goddesses…

      "A wish," I agreed.  It takes a certain amount of bravado to meet your Maker and crack jokes.  It would be second nature to Bleys.  For me, it was a desperate measure.

      She stepped closer.  "What is your desire?" She asked.

      There was no way to plan for this.  I had had a million dreams of what I would say to Her, but I never would have guessed the desperation that drove me to answer her honestly.

 

      She laughed.

      A thousand golden kisses of sunshine, and that only begins to describe the sound.  It did not anger me, for it was not the laughter of derision, but the laughter that only certain innocence, certain immunity to awkwardness can provide.

      She danced before me, moving a couple of steps closer, and I could feel myself stretching towards Her, wanting that golden feeling at every tip…and She moved a couple of steps back.  I felt my hands clench with a certain sense of surprise, as if I had reached out unknowingly.

      "Are you a hunter?" She asked, suddenly.  One voice of the three seemed more prominent.  Vast in timbre, and cultured, it was a voice that reminded me of my mother in Court.

      I shook my head.  "I am merely a dreamer, a poet…" I trailed off.   "A wish," I repeated.

      She reached out for my hands, and wrapped Her fingers against my wrists.  She looked up into my eyes, and they were indeed the same green. On me, they are the indifference of a cat.  On Her, it was the green of Arden, and the lush provisions of Paradise.

      My hands felt as if they were radiating heat.  She looked down at them, suddenly, releasing my wrists, and stepping back.  

"Are you a lover?" She asked, running a hand through Her hair.  The younger voice, this time… it sounded disconcertingly like Fiona.

      Hubris won out, and I smiled.  My grin was the, "Try me," leer I had seen so many times on Bleys.  She caught just the hint of it, and Her face changed.  It became feral, a wild gleam in those green eyes.  She said nothing, but it sparked into a smile.

      I realized that my breath had caught, and had been held, and I could not let it out while I was still ensnared by Her gaze.  I felt faint, dizzy…no, raging… drops of sweat were beginning to form behind my ears.  I could hear only the distant sounds of Arden; the rustling of wind through the trees, and birds calling out warnings.

      She moved without sound, with a speed reminiscent of Benedict's blades.  I was ill prepared to catch Her as She stirred against me, and Her lips touched mine without any foundation in thought.  They left almost as soon as they met, with the hint of teeth brushing and bruising my mouth.  She tasted like blood, and like earth, and like the source of life itself.

      I could feel Her power between us, raising every hair on my body briefly with a magical charge.  It smoldered through me, heavy and thick.  The vertigo caught me again, and I reached out to ground myself against something.  I heard a whisper of Her breath, as She stepped away.

      "Pain." The last voice, the one I remember from the Abyss as She snatched the Jewel from above me, leaving me in darkness and cold.  I realized, opening my eyes again, that it was a question.

      "Yes," I answered it.  "It's like being born," I said.  I was shaking.  The depth of my answer surprised me, and it left silence in the Grove once more.

 

      I float here, between times.  I cannot hear the screaming, but I know that something in me still weeps.  It was born in fire and lightning, and was tempered by song.  It was not satisfied with anything less than blood.

     

"Who are you?"

"I am your Uncle," I said, carefully.  The knife glittered in my palm, runes touched by starlight.

"From Amber?" The boy's question was suspicious.  I sensed his inquisitiveness, his youth, and his hunger for the touch of Family.  Ah, dear Moire, you taught him well.

"Indeed.  I have heard many good things from your Aunt Llewella, and I wished to extend an invitation.  Perhaps you would like to see the Golden Realm."

Not well enough, Moire. 

"I would like that," he said, hesitantly.  "How do I…"

"Just take my hand."  I could hear the blade sing.

 

      "Dreams," I heard Her say, and I was brought back to the Grove.  She was lying across from me, Her head resting on one hand.   I felt my throat tighten, and I could still taste blood.

      "Am I dreaming all this?" I asked.  I sounded like a child, but a child has the freedom to ask questions an adult would not.

      "Is that your wish?"  All three voices returned.

      I felt angry, suddenly, and I moved towards Her.  Red drops marked my passage across the grass. "What kind of game is this?" I demanded.  Red drops fell from my throat, and I couldn't breathe.  As I fell, Her green eyes met mine.     

 

      I remembered the demon witch.

      "Jasra," she hissed, as I spoke the words of naming.  She lunged for me, and I gave her the taste of flesh.  My blood ran freely, dripping through her teeth, and I saw that her thirsts echoed mine.

 

Her horn drips silver and gold into my veins.  I can hear Her heartbeat match mine.

 

      "Grandfather, I…" I reached out to Dworkin, but he turned away from me.

      He hissed at me.  "You stink of treachery and lies."

      "Is it treachery to ask questions?  Is it lying to think there is more?"  I advanced on him, carefully.  He growled a warning, and I stepped back.

       "Go back to your father.  I have taught you all I will."

      "Then there is more to learn?" I pleaded.

      He laughed at me, and it was a terrible laugh.  I stood in the force of it, listening to its waves beat against my mind.  "Go," he repeated, and he banished me in a swirl of light and colour, and I was somewhere else.

 

      I didn't recognize the noise at first, as the thrumming strangeness rose and fell against my cheek.  Almost a growl, but not quite.  I realized She was purring.