Animal Crackers

The personal diary of William, son of Finndo

A fish Supper

Breakfast with Grandmother. Again. I swear that those days when I slept but an hour between demon attacks and ate leaves and mud to fill my stomach when the supply trains were disrupted were preferable to this. De Lambre swears I am overly romanticising what were desperate times; in fact, his exact words are “Stay low. Shut up. You are warm, dry and fed regularly and no one has tried to kill you in hours.”

He may have a point. Though my riposte to him concerning the deep joy that is discussing sex and reproduction with one’s Grandmother he left unanswered, merely indicating which clothes I should wear today with a remarkably concealed shudder. Or perhaps that was me.

Breakfast today and my prospects were tabled. Grandmother suggested that Maria Marevna of House Winter is someone that I might invite to House Zygo’s unveiling of artwork that honours House Amber this evening. Grandmother swears I will like her – she is Warrior Ice Maiden, Mistress of the High Winds and many other things. I ask if she is Lady of the Steely Sabatons as she might well be if we are asked to dance. Grandmother merely sniffs slightly and points out I don’t have to marry Maria – merely treat her well enough that her uncle Suhuy doesn’t decide to turn me inside out.

Grandmother asks my plan for the day. I discuss the matter of the other me and the duel with Darig with her. Whoever created or summoned the other me acted hastily, thinking that Benedict was Darig’s father. That suggests that all they know of him is what they have seen here; not in Amber, not on the journey. And also – that is two of Cymnea’s grandchildren attacked. Is their target her, and if so, is Benedict next or will the attack be redoubled on Darig and myself?

Grandmother thinks that the other me was someone shapeshifted and mind-controlled to believe they were me, or a me from the far future when I have retrained completely how to fight. I am not so sure – I cannot imagine expressing the amount of subtlety displayed ever while still remaining me. A me from the far future? Or a me from an alternate present, brought up by Karm instead of Ascaris?

To Darig, where Mandor also is. He, like Grandmother, thinks of shapeshift. I disagree, as politely as Mandor’s position allows. He smiles and hands the other William’s sword to Darig “as a trophy”.

Darig thinks he did not do well out of the bets from the races, with many debts to pay. I retort that win or lose, he showed the Courts that he is a Player – and while being a good player is best; a bad player is better than one who will not play at all. We discuss our childhoods on the way to the Aesir where he will repay a debt by training Lady Goldenhair in axe and shield. Neither of us have been in Amber much – me 200 years (3000 years?) ago. Him banned there by Benedict so as not to interfere with his training and partly to protect him from his relatives.

He says ‘they’ a lot. I wonder if he and I are House Amber, or if he is as much House Benedict as I am House Barimen?

At the home of the Aesir, a castle of clouds in the sky. Inside the buildings are long wooden huts with golden straw roofs, and we are shown in immediately. Woden, their lord, greets us and summons Agneta, who calls for her sword and axe, eager to claim her winnings. The Aesirs’ numbers are small. Bearsarks do well when their side wins, for forces flow into the holes they create, and those who heal can act. When a Bearsark force loses, and are pushed back from the line, many Bearsarks die. As a Doppelsöldner, I can sympathise. The Aesir fought Amber, and it cost them dear. And from Agneta’s attitude, they hold it against us.

Woden gives the word and Agneta leaps. And history repeats. Darig hunkers slightly, and holds his position, shield to shoulder. Agneta’s momentum cannot carry her through him and she bounces back. Darig laughs, I think appreciating her move, but those who watch think he mocks, and the murmur of hands dropping to weapons surrounds me. I crick my neck and shift balance, my hands on Claideb and my eyes moving.

Agneta breaks, and demands to know what Darig has come here to teach. With a diplomatic air worthy of … well … me, he begins to point out her faults. Clearly. Loudly. In detail. In front of her family and the warriors that she must lead. The warriors who the forces of Amber have recently defeated. The warriors who surround us.

This looks to be an interesting afternoon after all.

And the best of it? Every word he says is true, and he gives her a lesson that many would have travelled years to receive and count themselves thrice blessed for it. His main complaint is that her defence is too light and her attack too heavy. She snarls, and demands of Woden that he lend her his shield; a great iron monstrosity that I would not be ashamed to wield. Darig then admonishes her for not moving her shield well enough in defence, punctuating each point with a touch. Eventually, as the crowd begin to shift from sullen to angry, Woden calls a halt and gives the victory to Darig, ordering a feast where we must sit opposite him. From Agneta’s look and sullen conversation, Darig has made no friend here, but he may have sown seeds from which respect will grow.

I’d walk down dark alleys with caution were I him though.

Back to Ascaris to find that Grandmother has both written an invitation to Maria for me and received an appropriate response. She is to accompany me to the unveiling so I go with De Lambre to wash and be dressed appropriately. Armour and sword are always appropriate, Grandmother mentions.

Time passes, and soon Maria is here. She is, it has to be said, stunning. Her form is attractive, her poise grace itself and her manner reserved. She carries a well-balanced dagger and two intriguing weapons – weights on cords that she can wield around herself in a dazzling pattern, blades and poison darting out of the balls as a snake’s tongue flickers.

(DeLambre, who reads this over my shoulder, suggests that I note that the Lady’s dress was blue, of a shade that caused her eyes almost to glow, and that ice fell down one side of her face like a waterfall frozen in winter. I can’t think why.)

We do not talk much on the journey. She seems to be an admirer of silence, and I hold my tongue lest I say something foolish too early in the evening. As we arrive though, silence becomes action as we find my cousin Havelock surrounded by a pool of ichor and Constance near him. Maria’s reaction was even quicker than my own, one of these weights beginning a series of deadly parabolas as we sought to see what might have caused the issue. Havelock is bent over a body, and explains that he and his companion were attacked on the way into the hall.

The rest of the Family arrive in various orders of precedent. Sorashi is with Melvin who dresses like a man desperately wishing to be almost anywhere else, and above all else, not to be noticed. My sympathy for him wars with my frustration! This is not the position he chose, but it is the position he is in. Were all his brothers and uncles alive, he would not fit in. What to do with Barimen?

We admire art and Sorashi tells me that she was attacked in a garden, rescued by Dirk. She also tells me that Wendy, the last demon of Larsa, has died. I sympathise deeply with this. Larsa had been nothing but kind to me and to see her House fade so upset me.

Cobol of Oberammagau, senior of Zygo, announces that a painting has been stolen – the very one that Havelock was escorting. There were to be two paired paintings depicting the end of the recent battle – a fight that Zygo had refrained from and therefore a fight that had put them in a much stronger position in the Courts, relative to those Houses that had fought and lost. Zygo were not subtle in pointing this out.

I talk with my cousins of the attacks that we are now all beginning to face. Margrath and I discuss if the attacks were aimed, or if they have a purpose and I tell him I am beginning not to care. One can waste energy starting at shadows, or one can carry on with ones plan and deal with what ones foes throw, trusting to one’s own strength.

Mandor approaches and asks if we have reconsidered his offer. I prevaricate, saying we have discussed little else. He tells me that he owes me something because of the attack on Darig the day before, but then simply tells me that whatever that creature was, someone had put a lot of effort into convincing it that it was me. Unlikely to be Karm he thought because it wasn't their style. Too subtle.

About then, the world starts to shift. People start to fade, to become see through, to disappear. Those who understood the flows of magic began to talk of an alternate world where Chaos had won and Amber lost, where our presence here was one of prisoners rather than of victors. That the painting that showed the end of the war could be manipulated to show a different end.

Letting them flap, I found Maria and warned her to be ready for action. Once the attack came, we could not count that any of Amber would necessarily remain. Not though lack of their courage or desire, but simply through the fortunes of war. What if Benedict had fallen in the fight? Or Darig? I had not fought so in whatever world we were about to see, I would fight now.

Maria nodded, her hair tied back to keep it out of the way, her breathing calm. Only the flash of joy in her eyes lead me to understand the woman who stood in front of me a little better.

Eventually, the decision is made. The critical moment in the battle was a squadron of Orca, fighting sharks upon which the whole battle hinged in the way that for want of a nail … Those who opposed us were at the Duomo, using a massive amount of power to reach back through time and to make the Orca countercharge where they did not before.

Sending DeLambre to find a bow and arrows for Constance, we made our way to the Duomo under Benedict’s command. Sorashi, Havelock and Constance scout for us and report the following:

There's an amphitheatre, a sacrifice at the centre and the high priest of the serpent with a knife over her throat. There's a troop of orca ready to go through the gate and some other stuff. The only useful strategy is to charge and disrupt while the spell casters try to keep the nasty stuff off our backs.  I catch Marias eye and grin. At Benedicts command we form a wedge and charge down towards the Orca and the sacrifice in the centre.

They notice us of course. Shouts from behind tell me that Constance and Sorashi have engaged, and a flight of the orca come towards us. Maria rolls under the charge and deploys her weights. I, clumsily, trip and have to regain my footing. As I do, an orca swoops - the first swing of Claideb fillets the fish, the return swing takes the Tritons head, it's trident wrapped up in a tine of der Rukenshild. Maria engages with more grace, but no greater effect.

It's at this point that magic happens. Something distracts the caster in the centre of the temple and in a flash of dark light, he disappears.

The rest is mopping up. There are sufficient scions of Amber on the floor that the 50 cavalry fish around us cannot even begin to compare. Within a few moments 4 tritons lay around me, cut in twain, and my cousins and uncles account for as many or more each. I take a moment to appreciate the beauty of Maria's dance as she deals death with delight.

Havelock squares off against the largest triton. He fights around it, wearing it down, until Bleys skewers it with an axe.   

The figure in white stands by the altar, glaring at us. She ripples through several forms, angry with us. Claiming we have ruined her grand exit. "who will slay me now?". Last of her house, we leave her there. Zilaph Calipha.

Maria and I exchange pleasantries - she says my style is "unpolished but effective." As the "fun" is over, she asks me to escort her home. Finding DeLambre outside with a bow and a sheaf of arrows, I ask him to take us home, via House Winter.