Alaric’s Diary part 11: An
Unwelcome Guest at the Funeral
In The Doom that Came to
Amber
Session 11
I am here in my sanctuary.
The light is diffuse but does nothing to ease my heart. It should be calm but I
cannot be calm. I can feel the shock and panic coursing through my veins. I can
smell my own fear – I could paint my own fear but strangely, despite all of
these emotions, I feel numbed, psychically numbed.
I can hear a great deal.
It’s mostly screaming. There is a natural hierarchy to the screaming. That of
the children’s nurse in Groombridge is out-matched by
that of my wife and children. The childrens’
screaming is more piercing, though, and I can still feel their hands in mine as
I left.
The most disturbing
screaming is that of my mother’s. The muted mutterings of a mad woman was
changing into the shrill shrieks of the insane. The muted screams of the
funereal observers in Amethyst are but a background of a shrill demented choir.
I can, underneath all,
detect my own screaming. It’s not audible in a measurable sense but I know it’s
there and I know that I cannot express it because if I do my already tenuous
grip on reality might slip further. T’is a pity that
I no longer possess a soul for, alongside my Mother, I would grieve most for
its loss.
26th Bull 3658
My Fey madness, (with
apologies to my new cousin) began on a reasonably ordinary day. I rode early in
the morning to Church and to speak with Paolo. He told me that everything was
coming together nicely. I expressed concern about the speed in which things
were happening and asked about uniforms for Mira’s followers – I suggested half
in jest that he should speak with the Marshal about such matters. Paolo seemed
unsettled at the prospect. It seems that I am not the only one who feels
worried by Deirdre.
I then went back to the
castle via my tailor and collected my funereal clothes and ordered a suitable
cloak for Anya. Finally I took myself up to my
office.
Appleby greeted me with the news
that senior priests from the
So they did! The
Archpriest had died last night and the Unicorn herself had instructed him to
name Morwaith as his successor!
I received this news
coldly and went up to see the Prince Regent. His Rotweiler
seemed reluctant to give me access but after a little delay the Prince Regent
gave me an audience. He seemed his usual cold self and made a couple of cryptic
remarks about members of the family following a more religious bent than had
been the case. I wondered at the knowledge that would enable him to make such a
remark but said nothing.
He asked my opinion as we
walked back down to meet with the Priests. I followed my Mother’s line of
keeping the Unicorn in check and suggested that a less emphatic Archpriest
might be of more benefit to Amber’s government.
I returned to my room and
looked closely at my painting. It still pleases me – especially now the
inference of wild animals has been removed. I decided to invest my
It was early morning and
all seemed well. I greeted my wife and children with real joy. Over breakfast,
Mira and I discussed Church and Father Paul’s desire for me to attend and I in
return expressed a wish for our family to go for a ride and a picnic lunch
together. She was unnerved by this suggestion and I was worried by the depth of
her concern – for what could threaten us in this rural idyll? We compromised.
The family would picnic within the estate boundary and John would ride with his
mother and Beatrice with me.
I went out to the stable
yard to judge John’s horsemanship. He is doing remarkably well with a fine seat
but even though I felt that his mother was being over protective I acquiesced
to her desire. John was very disappointed and we persuaded his sister to swap
parent with her brother. Mira also insisted that we took weapons and footmen. My
alarm increased further with this news but I calmly went to the armoury and
collected and distributed laser rifles. Father Paul arrived as we were leaving
and I invited him to join us.
We had a happy family
picnic, though I was aware of being watched from the thicket beyond our
boundary. On our return I mistook Beatrice’s bravery and frightened her by
taking our horse over a fence. I handed her back to her mother in a state of
tears, poor child, and instead took her brother back over the fence. He, predictably,
loved it. I thought that I’d have him jumping within the year.
On our return I had a chat
with Father Paul. He told me that he bore me no ill will for marrying Mira and
that I was not to feel guilty for the death of my first wife. I don’t. Well generally
I don’t. He complimented me on my painting of her death and pointed out that I
should exhibit it, that the Academy had banged on my door to exhibit it on more
than one occasion. He was critical of my experimental stuff in the basement.
Being curious of my own work I suggested we went up to the attic to retrieve Le
Mort de Comtesse d’Anglais.
There she was, my Anne!
Hands in supplication an instant before the guillotine fell on to her fair
neck. It did not have Trump quality. I so much wanted it to be a Trump so I
could rescue her from her death – but to what? And who is she? A painting of my late wife? Or a painting
of a shadow of my late wife? But it was very good work and next to my first
portrait of Mira, my best.
I still love Anne. I do
not care about degrees of consanguinity. I love her with a depth of emotion
that I had thought I’d eradicated, along with most other human emotions. I
could make a Trump of her could I but re-pattern the past and undo the errors
of my life. It’s tempting.
After much small talk as
is normal between a Priest and his flock (though again Paul seemed to make a
reference to my nervous disposition – some
After dinner, and bidding
goodnight to my children I went downstairs to investigate the cellar. This wasn’t
a good experience and I felt uneasy the moment I set foot in it. Uncle Bleys
had said to beware of what I might find in the dark corners of my Trump shadow
and he was right. There were a number of paintings. They were all deeply
unsettling. Is this what goes on in the darkness of my mind?
The first was of Nayda; an accumulation of all of the sketches I had done of
her whilst in Mirabeau. As I looked at her the very
portrait seemed to writhe and I could see maggot-like things moving under her
skin. If I required further evidence that she was possessed this was it.
The others were of similar
lines. Mira and myself painted under a tree – a
pastiche of Gainsborough’s Mr & Mrs Andrews but again disturbing; the tree
seemed alive. There was Paolo in a painter’s smock, dead with his hands
removed. There was Clarissa. There was a room that looked like an abattoir, but
a many-eyed thing was visible lurking under a manhole cover.
Finally there was a
self-portrait of me. There was clearly something missing of me in this
portrait. It hit me like a force. The subject had lost his soul!
I determined there and
then to destroy the lot of them. I picked up Nayda’s
first and took it up through the kitchen to the Courtyard beyond. The mere
sight of this portrait frightened the sense out of a kitchen maid. I found a
flammable liquid and then found myself unable to destroy my work. It would be
like killing my child. But Father Paul is right. They are but studies and I
need to destroy them and undertake new works. I need to clear my head of my
past and I need to clean my mind.
Chilled by my inability to
destroy one of the darker aspects of my mind, I withdrew to my wife’s company
for the evening. She, clever woman, sensed that something was amiss and it
became clear from her conversation that I had in my past here been mentally
unwell. No change there then.
Having promised to go to
Church the next day with my family I took my wife to my bed. I would have
cheerfully engaged her in my bed for the whole of the following day but chose
instead to indulge her in agreeing to accompany her and the children to Church.
Despite the sense of misgiving – I had apparently imagined myself being happily
married to the self-styled Goddess of Trump – I felt content with her. I knew I
loved our children, especially John, and I knew that I had sought escape from
my current troubles by retreating into the happier periods of my past. We set
off in the carriage with laser-rifle armed footmen.
The Church service was not
much changed. Paul’s sermon did not suffer from the pontificating of many of
his cleric brethren. But I grew uneasy. I felt watched – not, in the interested
sense I always felt in Mira’s Church but in a malign sense. I knew that it
emanated from the crucifix and this both worried and distracted me.
I elected to take mass
with my wife – playing the part of a dutiful husband and Lord of this land – a
natural enough role. But I was not mindful of my other role as Prophet. The
host tasted as decayed flesh and I fought to hold it in my mouth. Was the Body
and Blood just that in this land? Or, was it my body’s reaction to a Mass taken
in the name of another God? Or, was Groombridge (and
therefore my mind and absent soul) itself so unwholesome and corrupt that only
through the Mass I could recognise the truth of it. The Blood was blood and
this was too much. I regarded it with horror and spat it impulsively to the
floor where it lay congealing on the stone.
There was shock throughout
the congregation. It began at the front with my wife’s emphatic “Richard!” and
Paul’s “Richard – are you well?” – and rippled back
through the pews.
I took Mira by the hand
and fled the Church, only slowing to gather my children. My only question to
their mother was as to whether the children had taken confirmation yet? She
replied that they hadn’t. I wanted to leave this place urgently – and rescue my
family.
We fled in our carriage
after a scene outside the Church. I sat up on top with my children and their
endlessly screaming nurse. I had forced Mira into the carriage. The children
were panicking and I was nearly beside myself with fear and confusion.
As the children had not
yet received Communion, I decided to take them with me immediately. I drew out
my Trump deck and came across Uncle Benedict’s image first. I tried to make
contact and found him but he was within a dream of sorts for, having been
there, I suspect his mind, if not his person, lies within Faerie.
I swiftly went through my
deck looking for someone to bring us through and this drew more screams of
sorcery from the nurse and footman. Through their yells and screams I could
sense that we were observed closely by something in a nearby thicket – and it
was drawing closer!
I came down from the top
of the carriage as a footman started to take close aim at me. It was a laser
rifle. He fired at my chest but my Trump armour appeared on me, immediately
reflecting the bolt straight back at him and killing him instantly!
I could hear the rattle of
something unwholesome in the undergrowth coming closer and closer to our new
family tableau. Mira, holding the children, screamed at me in shock. I snatched
the children from her hands, brought the Trump of my room to mind and Trumped out. Their hands were in my hands. I could feel them
warm and living. I heard their screams turn into wails as I appeared in my room
and they did not. Then the low wailing that had started in my own mind turned
to screaming.
I felt awash with waves of
emotion and eventually the sensation of physical pain invaded my head for my Groombridge clothes had also vanished. I stood naked under
my armour – and there is the clue.
I
have killed my children, but they will be back in Groombridge
and if, no – when, I return there I will have determined how to cleanse
my mind and maybe Groombridge also. There must be a
way to bring them back. I feel the urge to start work immediately on the
creation of my first Trump Gates. Or perhaps I should try the more mundane
approach and Shadow Shift them out?.