A Knight at the Opera pt2

The personal diary of Sorashi, daughter of Deirdre, pt 6

And again, I dream.

I dream, not of recent events, nor the faceless horrors and unresponsive limbs which such events should give me, but of home.

It is the dry season, the grass is brown and scatters its seed under my feet as I walk towards the meeting tree. The insects chirp lazily in the afternoon heat and I walk to the group of elders sitting in the banyan’s shade, eating as they discuss village matters.

One of them is my father, hair grey with age but face still strong as it was before the sickness took him. He looks up and smiles and I feel my heart smile in response, but as I approach he seems to age until his hair is white and his face lined and sunken as it was before he died, although without the grey of illness marring his features. He leans over and whispers ‘Priya, do not keep your mother waiting’. I kiss his forehead and leave as he turns back to the conversation.

I do not look back, but I am glad that I said goodbye once more.

As I walk away from the village, the trail changes from how it should be. Plants writhe into alien shapes, low-growing woody things with red needle-like leaves or fat-leafed flowers covered in white hair, the trees now stand like dark green needles against a lowering grey sky. The very air seems different as the sun races across the sky to set as though running from the night, and the stars dance in the mad delirium of Chaos.

Against this reminder of my present location, a group of mud huts stand in what looks like the Kush. About a dozen members of House Drobe watch me silently as I walk towards them. In the middle of the village is a hut made of tanned skins, outside which stands Brak N’Kumela.

Brak inclines politely at my approach and says ‘Do not keep your mother waiting’. As I enter the hut, upon a dais covered in skins lies Mother. Her eyes open and she utters ‘Daughter, I’m waiting’.

Outside comes the raucous cry of a corvid. The flap lifts and the bird flies in over Mother’s body and, as it alights on the ground, transforms into a woman dressed in a ragged gown of black feathers. She is followed by Margrath.

This is no random dream, I realise, no strange mix of hope and memory and imagination, but a sending from the higher plane. I do not know who the bird-woman is but Margrath speaks with spirits. He must have been sent to help and so I ask for his aid.

As he and the bird-woman work their craft, it is apparent that this is not Pattern magic – I remember my ignorance in such matters and cease to try and understand it in such a dualistic way, non-Pattern is not automatically Chaos, if such a description is even relevant. The working reaches a climax and Mother’s shade appears.

Remembering warnings of genie who take up the pretence of another’s form, I ask her my father’s name. She answers she knew him by another name, but I knew him as Rashid.

It seems close enough, so I incline my head to Margrath to continue his work. There is a scream of pain, almost like childbirth but I see no more, all I know is Brak’s voice advising me that we need to discuss the price.

There are no anxious faces peering down at me as I wake, so the dream is at least not a vocal one. I wash, dress and breakfast with Tajal, who seems to have developed the ability to speak, breathe and eat at the same time and whose attention leaps around like a denga on hot sand.

Rama stops me as I leave the room, and advises me that she needs to learn sorcery – which is not one of my skills so his offer for her to be taught by his House is accepted (though I may be drawing deeper into debt, I have little choice). He also politely mentions that I would do well to learn ‘flexibility’ – perhaps my new order can be of assistance although I have no idea what the Undulating Thing refers to. Do I worship it? Emulate it? Throw soup at it?

I must be patient – the Universe will not rush itself for me.

And to occupy my mind in the meantime, Rama and I talk inconclusively about Alhambra, and he tells me that my Order have invited me to a meal.

But before this, I need to see about Mother. Mahabali takes me to House Drobe where Brak awaits me with Mother – looking well, if a little bald, and dressed in a shapeless blue garment. She gives me the ‘You took your time’ look but I am more concerned with sorting out the payment to Brak – a lock of hair as agreed. He seems almost sorry to see Mother go and says that his House has been honoured by her presence. I thank him again for his work and we leave.

We talk on our way back – well, I supply information and Mother wearily accepts my failure of not having lipstick of the right shade for her. She does, however, warn me against trusting Havelock to draw my Trump as he is a redhead, and seems genuinely shocked at Random being made king of Amber.

As we journey, I am aware of something new – within me, as I slowly realise. Mother is not much different, her casual barbs the same but somehow my responses are different. I do not feel the failure of before, of my being lacking in – what? Grace, charm, beauty, confidence?

Ah, but wait. The first three, possibly but I accept it with little rancour – as the old tale goes, a fish who cannot climb a tree is still a fish. The last, no longer the case. The Courts have changed me, and I have found my centre. I have made alliances, arranged trades – saved HER from the Abyss – worked for the common good with family and strangers alike and I realise I am now truly no longer a child – no longer running after the shimmering mirage of maternal approval.

It is an unsettling thing to realise you are now an adult.

When we return to House Indus, I introduce her to Rama as my ‘Aunt Khali’ – a convenient fiction which fools him not at all (and a subtle dig which passes my mother by) – and I leave her with Mahabali showing her the bath facilities.

Rama lets it be known that his House is most honoured by my ‘aunt’s presence, and Alhambra would be maintained for as long as she resides with them. One less thing to worry about.

I travel to the Order’s meal and end up at a large windowless building. The door is opened by an animated tree – this is Eigen of House Oparin, according to its introduction, and I am ushered in to a large and sumptuous hall (at odds with the plain exterior) and introduced to the other Order members.

Names are given – but I cannot link them to the forms, none of them Barimen-esque, some monstrous, some undefined blobs, others merely odd – spiky beings, some looking like pink Ganeshas with hands at the end of their trunks (a specific house, I remember but I cannot think of their House name). Eigen explains that these are their usual forms, rather than the Barimen-like ones assumed for Amber sensibilities. Although it does not vocalise it, there is a slight uncertainty as to how I will react (or I may be imagining it) but I feel strangely more comfortable with this – it seems more honest, somehow.

Also explained to me is the nature of the Order. It was founded by House Protean on the premise that eating the flesh of a creature under the right circumstances and frame of mind allows one to absorb the ‘essence’ of the creature and to be able to become it both in form and (I presume) spirit.

I am led to a seat at the end of the table and prayers are said to the Undulating Thing whilst the dish is presented.

This proves to be a large bird of some kind – the talons and vicious hooked beak identifying it as a hunter – and cooked to perfection. As I eat, I can almost feel the wind in my face as I fly high above a large plain, and I look forward to exploring this new form.

It will, of course, involve me learning to fly. Life is dull without challenges.

I return and chat to Tajal – she has been invited to play with her brother (whose name is Lacertin, I am told) and she is most anxious that I will allow her to do so. She is most pleased when I say yes, and chatters constantly as I help her dress and arrange her dolls on the floor. I am both nonplussed and amused, however, when she informs me that she wants to be ‘a traitor and a heretic, just like you’.

Leaving her in the care of my hosts, I dress for Zae’s ascension. Mother is, to be fair to her, breathtaking in a black silk sari complemented by silver belt and jewellery, the worst of her burns hidden under makeup and a fairly convincing wig. We travel to the appointed place and I finish my synopsis of recent events.

The appointed place is the Keeper’s Residence, the entrance an opening in the ground from which trickles a noisome vapour. I try and avoid walking through the tendrils where possible, I am in front so have no idea if Mother does the same.

Down stone steps we go into a stone chamber where the seeming of daylight streams through windows set with coloured glass which swirls and writhes, settling from time to time into depictions of warriors against fantastical beasts.

It seems we are early for this occasion – those already here are predominantly Amberite, huddled in groups like shy girls at a wedding. Actually, I’m not sure that simile can be used for either Caine or Bleys, hugging a corner like a moneylender’s enforcers.

William and Constance monopolise another corner, the two of them seeming to be forever in each other’s company, lacking only Darig to complete the usual triumvirate, but Constance does not look happy about it. In fact, as I nod to her (and she ignores me) I see she looks strained and anxious, her eyes carefully decorated to hide the traces of redness and her fingers twisting into each other with unconscious persistence. I can only guess at what is so afflicting her – I want to be catty and think that with her there is a wide range to take one’s pick of – but I quash such churlish thoughts and remind myself it may be something important. If William and Darig cannot solve it, I may even find out.

Mother, of course, moves toward Sand and Llewella and I trail in her wake, noting fleeting surprise in the younger family’s faces. Sand is a little cool with Mother – some old slight, or barb, or snub, no doubt – but Llewella seems happy to see her – and at least I do not have to endure another round of moaning about status and precedence and all the other tedious posturing that family women seem reduced to. Darig, who was talking to the two before Mother’s arrival, was shooed off with the warning that this was ‘girl talk’ – I assume he moves back to William and Constance, but am more interested in Mother’s tale of how she fell into the Abyss.

In essence, as Brand fell, he grabbed her by the hair and pulled her in with him. She felt she was falling, burning, through the firmament until she woke up in a leather tent here in the Courts. I am given a little credit, well, mentioned in passing, but fortunately no-one shows any willingness for full details in this respect.

In an aside, she asks me to point out Darig; as he is standing with William I point him out as well. The conversation begins to bore me so I drift over to Darig but he and William are discussing a recent attack on Brú na Bóinne and seem disinclined to include me in it.

Constance, in the meantime, has moved to talk to Caine and Bleys. The talk degenerates into an argument between her and Caine – about Julian, but I cannot hear the specifics.

It answers one question, at least, that of the cause of Constance’s distress. I note he is not here, and wonder if House Karm have followed the example of House Spectrum with their Amberite houseguest?

Whatever the argument is about, it is interrupted by the arrival of House Zigo. We are to be seated at an oval table with an empty centre and I wonder briefly if this is where the Ascension will take place. There are vacant seats – late arrivals or late declinatures?

We seem to be drifting towards the table; I seem to be seated between Dirk and Suhuy (who has not arrived yet) and thus get Dirk all to myself. He is bearable, he would be more so if he could resist overdoing the charm quite so much. It is not unpleasant to be flattered by such male attention, however, perversely more so because I know it is to an unknown extent political on his part (though probably mostly vanity-driven) and I entertain myself guessing as to why.

Suhuy and the Lady Zae arrive – food is conjured and we eat. Zae does not, and looks understandably apprehensive of the ordeal ahead. I would rather walk the Pattern a hundred times than go through it.

Suhuy explains that the vacant seats are for ‘fallen friends’ but does not elaborate. As we eat, he looks at me sharply and, feeling the need to make some vaguely intelligent conversation, I mention the recent attack on Brú na Bóinne. He looks surprised and I direct him to Darig, sitting three seats down, for more details. His response included the statement that Melvin is a ‘weak reed’ who (paradoxically) holds everything together.

I am not sure I understand what he means.

As the meal progresses, the vacant seats become less vacant as first Delwin, then Lantari appear. Lastly, everyone’s favourite relative, Brand. Strangely, few flock to greet him, as though ignoring him would negate the fact of his presence.

The plates fade from the table and Zae folds back part of the table to enter the middle. She stands before Flora, addressing her in formal language regarding the imminent trial. Flora kisses her on the forehead and Zae leaves the room.

Rising, the rest of the guests follow suit and, through impossible architecture, reach the ‘Chapel’ where this is to take place.

Zae stands at the back, eyes focussed a world away, as we file in. Suhuy warns us not to ‘disturb the incumbents’ – skeletons and corpses with impossible and bizarre injuries, the windows helpfully portraying their fates. Incentive or hurdle, I wonder?

I sit on a bench behind a corpse whose naked charred skull still seems to glow and steam. For some reason, no-one seems willing to share the bench with it.

Another warning – a power will be summoned, and any impulse to use Amberite protection should be sternly resisted. An atonal barrage of noise erupts from some large instrument, played by what I think is a Chaosite but it turns out to be Grandfather Dworkin. The two being the same thing, I suppose.

Zae walks forward and speaks to tell us to remember her as she was before the transformation, then Suhuy circles her like a witch raising a ghost, only it is the power of Chaos he raises, stronger and stronger as the music builds. I feel fear rising in response, and an urge to bring the Pattern to bear arrives as my body’s instinct provides fangs and claws. I resist the urge, but note that quite a few of our hosts have changed form in response to the same instinct as mine. Dirk grips a dagger in each hand like twin talismans, so tightly I can see knuckles white against the hilt, as the music and power builds.

The music peaks and two guests scream as a huge reptilian face appears from the wall, swallowing Zae whole and disappearing into the floor.

As we are hustled out, in silence, still somewhat shocked, I look over and see Constance talking to Brand. Whatever the topic, it leaves her white and shaken. We leave, and the ghosts fade.

There is little conversation as we leave to go to our separate abodes.

When Mother and I get back, I take my leave of her as I need to take Tajal to see her brother. I almost begin to make some witticism about the trials of motherhood but decide against it. I change, collect Tajal, and leave for House Hendrake.

At the Dragon Hall, we are met by a female with four arms and a large sword. The place seems empty but we are shown into the presence of Duchess Bellisa.

She is half armoured, play-fighting with Lacertin, who seems pleased to see his sister. As he hands her a sword and they launch into the part rough-and-tumble, part game-with-constantly-changing-rules peculiar to children, Bellisa and I talk (interrupted only when I have to tell Tajal to let go of her brother’s ear).

She tells me of her own elevation, and the change it wrought in her, and we discuss Tajal’s future. She seems pleased that Tajal is being taught sorcery, and is satisfied that I will do my best to instil an appreciation of her heritage. I got an invitation to return to visit, once the present situation is resolved, and she gave me her promise that we would be both welcome and protected – when Tajal is of age, she would need to return and obviously it would be better if she had knowledge of what she was returning to.

Obviously, as an Amberite, even with my shapeshifting abilities, I would never make a home here – and that I cannot argue with.

For all our differences, I feel Bellisa and I have more in common than the children and I feel pleased that I have met her.

Now all we need to do is find a way to leave.