PATTERNS REPEAT THEMSELVES

Blood, Fire, Lightning, and Lyre

 

FIONA'S TALE: LIGHTNING

 

      I awoke again from the dream.

      What price immortality?  Mortal poets have asked it, and while taking tea with Florimel and my brother Bleys, we answered it mockingly.  "I could be bound in a nutshell and consider myself King of Infinite Space."  Were it not that I have bad dreams.

      Was Amber your nutshell, father?

      The dream is always the same. 

 

      I stand before the Grove, awash in power.  Bait.

      There is a tapestry that hangs in the Great Hall, and it was Cymnea, first of Oberon's wives, that wove it.  It shows a peaceful scene, a Unicorn asleep in a maiden's lap under a tree of roses.   Cymnea's irony lies bitter and metallic in my throat.  Perhaps that is why father kept it where almost all other things of that time were destroyed.

      We had timed this trap.  We had tested, and pushed, and proven its worth.   Ah, our vainglorious dreams!  We would open Amber to the worlds beyond, removing the (seemingly artificial) barriers that prevented us from seeking the limits of our power, gain true initiation into the Jewel, and teach our father that despite his attempts to pull us apart, we were stronger than that. 

      We were all children then, and we grew up at the edge of the Abyss, watching our brother fall.

 

      I await his approach.

      There is surprise and confusion in his face for a moment, before the power takes its toll.  It is more than he can resist, despite our bond, blood to blood.  I see for a second his fury, and then he changes.  It is like a flash of lightning, a moment of vulnerability.

      I run.

 

      The dream does not spare me this.  I run, naked, the trees of Arden whipping and stinging at my sides.  I dare not look back.  I dare never turn, never wonder how close the sound of his animal breathing is to me, my mind filled with how one mighty paw could raise and knock me senseless, left to his whims.

      "The appeal is in the chase," Brand explained to me.  "He will not attempt to catch you immediately, or the game is over, and his ardor left cold."

      I ran.  The leaves of fallen seasons crackled underneath my feet, and I took in huge gulps of air, breathing in the sudden silence that made his pursuit so loud behind me.

     

      I remembered this place.  I remembered running, I remembered being prey, with the rush of the predator not far behind.  I saw myself running past the boundary of Arden where it becomes the Black Forest into Chaos.  I saw Ygg's leafless branches in the distance, and I remember thinking I was safe, that Brand or Bleys could pull me away from this if He… our father… came too close. 

      I remembered running forever, lost, and stumbling.  I remember the flash of teeth, the look of the creature that had been our father.  I remember the silver horn glinting in the sunlight as he brought it down towards me, the hunger that overwhelmed me in its sheer intensity. His mane was drifting in the wind, still black with streaks of silver.   I saw that his eyes had not changed, still green, still angry.  I saw his lust and his passions and how they worked upon this four-legged body.

      There was a whisper, a sound from a voice I could not recognize.  It almost saved me.  Then…

      "I would have let him have you."  Oh, Brand. 

      A flash of lightning.

      I wake up.

 

      I remind myself that Bleys was there.

      He dropped the golden net.  He led the beast away.  I remember trembling and crying at the touch of its breath.  I wanted the shelter of the whisper.   I remember it, but I cannot get there in my dream.  I cannot get to the place of safety where Bleys holds me, and makes weeping, shuddering promises.

 

      To conquer my dreams, I face the Tir.

 

      The moon was a pale slice of slate in the violet-tinged sky. There was nothing to fear from the physical moon.  I repeated to myself one of the lessons of the Tarots.  "The Moon symbolizes a situation in which the querent has only herself to rely on. Its appearance can indicate a danger and deception from outside forces, or it can indicate the presence of hidden enemies and/or false friends who pose an imminent threat."

      I paused on the threshold.   The city of lies, illusions, and secrets awaited me.

 

One step into madness…

 

      Bleys awaited me, dressed in gold and black.  He stood at the edge of a pathway into what looked to be Arden.  He held out his hand to me in an evocative gesture.  I smiled with only a second of hesitation and then crossed to join him.

      He stood there silently, looking at me in a pleased introspection.  I considered what to say, as he placed his hand on my cheek.  He bent over, as if to kiss me.  I turned my head.

      "Close your heart to what is there, close your heart to what you learn, or you may be taken in, and you may not return," he said, in my ear.  His tone was light, playful.  Had it been any other tone of voice, I would have…

      I don't know what I would have done.  Bleys was no longer cowed by threats, neither was he hurt by words or tears.  Since Brand's death he had been incorrigible… invulnerable.   Brand's legacy left us our lives, but not our hearts.  I wondered briefly about Bleys' soul, then shook my head of it.  Mine was in no condition to judge.

      I looked up towards him, my expression solidly of disapproval.  He now wore green and gold, the livery of a harlequin.  He skipped ahead of me down the path, and then turned and beckoned.  I began to follow him through the silver and faint green-tinged leaves of this ghostly Arden.

      Bleys waited for me on a bit of a hill.  "Over there, Fiona," he said, and his voice was young, as was his countenance.  He looked as he did just into adolescence.  "I saw Her," he pointed.  "A glimpse of white and gold, and She was gone.  She still watches over us, just like Dworkin said."

      I smiled, my mind racing to remember what I had said then.  I had said, "Like an animal begging for scraps, too shy to approach."  This time I climbed up to meet him, and looked around. "Where?" I asked.  "I want to see Her, too."

      He laughed.  "She would rest Her head in your lap, if you could ever be quiet," he hopped onto a rock outcropping, then jumped to land below it.  His perfect landing triggered another transformation.  This time, it was Brand who looked up at me, dressed in pale green.

      I held my breath.  This was how I remembered him, the sun catching pure red-gold in his hair, the green in his eyes like the deepest forest.  He laughed with a feral joy.

      "Catch me if you can, sister."  He crowed it out as challenge, and like Cerridwen, I followed.

 

I had run after him a thousand times before.

      The Tir saw me in skirts of green, and the pace was easy at first.  I heard his merriment as an explosion of mirth, the guffaws of cleverness like little aftershocks.  His voice piped through the trees, a quick succession of small notes that led me forward.  The branches whipped past me, and I caught up with little effort.  I was almost within reach to tag him in the friendly game when he rounded on me.

      I saw the green flash in his eyes, and I stopped, scared. 

      "She would rest Her head in your lap…" the memory of Bleys' voice.

 

I remembered the whisper.

I remembered Bleys throwing the golden net, just before…

"I would have let him have you," Brand said, the madness like fire in his veins.

-I would have let him have you,- and I died, bathed in that fire.

 

      I looked up at this young vision of Brand, and he smiled. With a silvery flash, he twisted, and changed, turned into a dove, flying into the trees.

      I followed at an easy pace, watching the white tinge of his feathers against the silver of the hills and strange colours of the Tir's leaves below.  It seemed for some time that I was running far in the air above the forest, my feet dancing bare upon the night air.    

 

Witcheries, and madness, as if for an instant we frolicked under the moon.

 

      He plunged into the forest, and I dove after him.  A moment later, I ran against the solidity of the ghostly forest, and then he was human again, leaving his wings behind him. 

      Brand was no angel…rather, he was…

      Fallen. 

      I pulled myself away from the edge just in time.  He floated for a moment, arms raised, martyr'd, deep into the grey of the Abyss. 

      Again.     

 

      I wrenched away, but that led me straight to Caine's eyes, their darkness as cold as the Abyss below.  The silver arrow waited in his ghostly hands, and he smiled…

      Bleys tackled me, knocking me to the dirt.  I looked up at him.  I knew now that Julian had laid a hand on Caine's shoulder, silent but shaking his head.  Bleys eyes were full of something I could not describe, something to which I couldn't…wouldn't… give a name.

      -I won't lose both of you.- You were wrong, brother.  I was lost the day Brand spilt Martin's blood.  I was lost the day I did not turn away from him despite his madness.  I have lived past the end of all things, a shade, a dream, a ghost, unable to touch or feel.  I was but an itinerant wish for oblivion, haunting Random's castle.

 

      I rose from the dream and into the darkness of the night sky.  Brand lay against me as he doodled.  I watched the stars for a while, before he turned and considered me.

      "You do Bleys a disservice," he said. 

      I shook my head.  I did not want to relive this conversation.

      "For whom are you waiting?" he asked.  "Your white knight?  Julian rides on his fiercesome charger.  I know he fancies you.  Borel? Corwin, perhaps?"  His laughter was tinged with hatred and mockery, but it didn't seem directed at me.

      "I don't fancy brutes," I remember saying. 

      "Fops, then?  Lord Rein?  I know father had hoped to marry you to Karm, except for that so-unfortunate incident.  I have attempted to introduce you to the Sawallian Duke.  Perhaps he would strike your fancy?" I couldn't tell if he was sarcastic or playful.  "Or are you smitten with some secret lover?"

      This time I was honest, and I told him.

      The stars shimmered, in the way they only can in dreams and poetry.  Every instant before he spoke again was like a thousand knives splitting my flesh, seeking the perfect fillet from my heart.  My chest hurt.  The breath I took was hesitant, shallow, full of fear.

      He laughed.  It freed itself from the anger and grew wistful.  "No," he said, finally.  "You want someone who has a heart, love.  You need someone with a soul."

      He passed me the picture he had been working on; a Trump of Bleys.  I let it drop between us.  It flapped in a sudden breeze, and with it I could hear children's voices, and the beating of wings.

 

      I stood up and followed the sound to a ghostly shore.  An ethereal tide (moved by what peculiar moon, I wonder?) splashed against indistinct rocks.  I saw Dworkin and Brand making sandcastles.  Dworkin left strange footprints as he wandered up and down looking for seashells.

      Bleys was at sea, I remember.  Serving his time on the ships, a time I recalled seeming shorter for his frequent Trump contacts.  It irritated Eric to no end to have Bleys contact him from exotic locales far from the ships themselves.  A "mockery of the responsibilities of a Prince," and yet, Amber was in its golden age.

      "Fiona!" Brand's voice was that of the child he once was.  I lifted up my skirts and moved down the shore to join him.  My footsteps left a glittery trail.  "Watch this!" he cried out.

      A cantrip, nothing more.  "Brand loves Fiona" spelled out in silvery flames against the castle.   "I can do words!" he said proudly. 

      Dworkin looked up and drew a heart around it, with a sprinkling of sand.   He looked at me, as if he was seeing this moment as I experienced it now.  I ran back up the hill as the words burned away.

 

      I ran into the castle, ignoring the faint call of spirits and their whispered possibilities and memories.  I dared not pray in this place, not unless I was entirely certain for what I wished.

      King Brand rested on the Throne, and I stopped cold.  He gestured to me, and his eyes were black. Something of an unworldly nature hovered behind him.  I paused on the threshold.

      "I see you, Fiona," he said, and his voice echoed. "Another ghost of my past to taunt me, I suppose."  His voice was resigned, as if this was the way of his world.

      I paused, and moved inwards, closer to the dais.  I did not answer him, uncertain of this future.

      "Fine, be silent," he spat.  "You were always afraid of giving me your opinions."  His hand dismissed me, but I did not leave.  I stared at him uncertainly.

     He sighed.  "I see that you pity me.  Pity, always.  Admiration, sometimes.  Lust, well, we had a go around or two of that, didn't we?"  The leer drew the attention of the strange presence, but it settled again over his shoulders.  "You never loved me, Fiona.  You loved what you thought I could be, or you loved what you thought you could make me, but you were afraid, at the end.  You hid behind Corwin, and were well rid of me, you thought.  Did Caine strike the blow for you?   Or was your only attempt the one in my back you were too timid to finish?" 

      I shook my head, denying it.

      "Do not lie to me.  I will not have it!" He stood, and put his hand on the hilt of his sword.

      "I have always loved you," I said aloud, and it echoed in an empty room.   Gone was the presence, gone was the light of Brand on the Throne.

 

      I followed the path down to the Pattern.  A turn here, a counting of passages… I felt lost, and weary, drained by the visions.  There was no resolution to be found here.

     My weariness weakened me.  I remembered, and my memories conjured him here, at the door.

 

      "Let me go," he said simply, reasonably, as if the madness had never been.

      "How can I?" I pulled away from him, as if to push past, but his ghostly form held my arms.

      "I fell in the Abyss."  He paused.  "I died."

      "Not in my heart."

      "Corwin threw a pack of Trumps to Bleys," he pointed out in accusation.

      "If Trump had worked, you would have done that.  You didn't need them."

      "Bleeding? Dizzy?  With a struggling Deirdre in my arms?"

      "Are you dead?" I demanded.

      "Isn't that what you want? You killed me.  Both of you."  He let me go.

      "You were dead already," I whispered.  "Dead since…" I trailed off.  I couldn't move.

      "Martin? Jasra? You still hold a list of crimes against me in your head.  You reinforce it with sins of desire, and wrap it up into a clever package you give yourself as a present any time you have feelings of safety or craving for something but solitude.  You have raised my ghost.  Exorcise it."

      "I need you."  I realized I was crying.  There were silvery tears on his face, as well. 

      "I need you," and it was Bleys answering me.  "I have said it a thousand times, but you will never hear it."  I ran past him, through the door to the Pattern.  I shut it behind me.

      I shook my head and closed my eyes, holding my hands over my ears.  I finally sat down, wrapping my arms around my knees, trying not to hear my own sobs.

       

      "I chose madness," Brand said as I opened my eyes. 

      I could feel that dawn was close.  A fitting golden oblivion in this place of silver and darkness.

      "Madness, and lies.  Deceits, and illusions.   Madness, rather than that I would give up what I loved.  Madness out of fear and weakness."  He was only a shadow, a ghost, a dream…a wish.

      He came closer to me, and I saw him dressed in his finery of the night of the Masquerade.  He reached for my hand with a velvet glove.  "But there was a strength that supported both of us.  A love we never had to give up," he said. 

      "You risked us all," I said, simply, allowing him to help me to my feet.

      "Madness," he reminded me.  "You chose the Moon, but do not choose Death." He looked up towards the gold of the sky.  He guided me over to the start of the Pattern.  "With the morning comes the Sun."  I felt there were hidden meanings in each of his words.

      I saw a ghostly shadow behind him.  One golden horn, and She stood behind him.  She looked at me.  Her eyes were green, full of a strange intelligence. 

      A whisper.  I had heard that voice once before, when all was dark.  I recognized it this time, and took the step onto the glowing line.

     

      Bleys walked softly towards me.  He was dressed in one of his more somber robes, and was barefoot and blurry-eyed given the morning hour.

      "Fiona?" he asked, confused.

      I stood there, shivering in the pre-dawn cold.  I couldn't speak.

      He came closer.  "You should have a coat, a blanket, some…" he broke off.  "Are you alright?" 

      I trembled under his hand, and he looked softly at me. I considered what to say, as he placed his hand on my cheek.

      I kissed him.

 

 [Bleys' poem is from "L is for Lair" from The Halloween ABC, Eve Merriam.]