Alaric’s Diary part 11: An Unwelcome Guest at the Funeral

In The Doom that Came to Amber

27^th Bull 3658

Mechanically, I washed then dressed to attend a funeral and joined the family for breakfast though I do not recall if I ate or not. It was announced to the family that Peter, as well as an Elven teller of stories, is also of the Blood Royal. I congratulated him on his recognition into the family.

I must have looked nearly as bad as I felt. Peter Thrice looked curiously at me, as though he was framing a question – I am glad he did not bother to express it. Aylwin looked shocked at my appearance and asked what troubled me but I am too angry with him to begin to explain what has happened to me of late. We gathered afterwards and used the Warder’s Trump to bring us through into Amethyst.

Thousands of people were gathering for the funeral. We were split up and ‘the family’ was ushered through to the private enclosure. Mother was there with Anya. She seemed pleased to see us but I didn’t really feel that she was ‘there’ any more. She was not sharp and incisive – she was meandering slightly, perhaps distracted. She seemed broken and I knew that I was responsible.

Anya seemed more in control of her life than normal. I guess having to look after Mother has taken her out of eclipse. I gave the cloak I had bought her in Amber and she happy divested herself of the one loaned to her by grandmother and wore the new one in its place.

There was a man there who I didn’t know. It turned out to be Brand’s son Rinaldo. He had a smile like a used car salesman and I did not take to him. He chatted amiably to every one.

Grandmother appeared to conduct the funeral proceedings, which were very long. There was another period of waiting whilst Clarissa prepared herself to be consoled by the waiting thousands. Much shaking of hands and expressions of sympathy took place. This was interspersed with Clarissa dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief, which through some chemically imbued miracle enabled grandmother, the witch-bitch, to appear to grieve for her dead father.

We, the family were again left to our own devices. So Grandmother turned on Aylwin and I almost immediately. She started it off with a “Boys, boys, boys…” and it went downhill from there. The cast around us, bar Mother, took on expressions of disbelief and horror as Clarissa exposed my actions and Aylwin’s inactions for their information and edification. Two and a half thousand years of frustrated fury and anger were expressed by Clarissa, aided by her clairvoyance-gained intelligence of all of our actions via the Amethyst Gem itself and, as she said, who did we think taught our Mother to lip read?

As we walking in procession it was all laid out for us; the classic criminal mastermind’s gloat: the current Miran heresy – and our involvement in it; how Amethyst would aid the revolt against the Unicorn; how Deirdre planned to sacrifice me and how Clarissa would then deal with Deirdre and overthrow Mira to take Amber for herself and her new fiancée, one Dark – of Dark’s Circus fame!

My heart went cold. I asked if she held Corwin and she replied no – but she knew who did. But whom did she intend for King? We fenced around the issue. Not her living son, Bleys, for he was to be the power behind the throne. Her puppet was not to be Aylwin either for he had tainted blood and she made reference to Julian there. I shot a glance at Mother but she seemed not mindful of the slander – or, as I suspect, the truth of the matter.

She looked hard at Asmark (and who is his father, Bleys perhaps?) But I defended him, saying that he was but of late a schoolboy and that she should pick on someone older than he. She asked poor innocent Asmark if he was aware of my private picture gallery – poisonous bitch! She looked at me but I knew as much as she that being King of Amber was never important to me and I suspect that she knows that I am not the person I was. This left the second hand car salesman. Hmm.

Then the threats began. I do not doubt her capabilities as a sorceress and revenge burns fiercely within her. She claimed to be able to destroy Amber piece by piece: the castle, the City and all within. She had had 2,500 years to plan it.

She leant further on me and I felt anger begin to well in my heart. She proposed to make a demonstration of her power by destroying my Art School in Amber with a single lightning bolt. I was sickened by the thought of Paolo and our small band being destroyed. They are only artists, poor ones, but for her to threaten them as an attack on me tried me sorely. I had a vision of Paolo’s portrait in the basement of the house, handless and dead.

She pushed me further when she enquired as to what it was I had attempted to bring through with me to Amber this morning? And added that whatever it was I had been distressed by their failure to come through with me. I did not reply and worked only to block the screaming and to control my emotions.

The funeral itself climaxed with the sealing of the Archmage’s mausoleum with a lightning bolt cast by the bony hand and will of his daughter.

Finally, I was pushed too far. Having outlined her ten-point plan she informed me that there was nothing that I could do. But, there was. I could do something so terrible as to destroy her before her plans could fall into place.

I knew that the word I was about to say was bad. But in my badness and my madness I simply no longer cared.

I said the name. The one I’d said in front of my Mother. The one she’d bade me never to say again but I’m beginning to feel so close to them – those things that have stalked me since Lyon Abbey – that I felt no pain or guilt for myself. I just wanted to destroy her – she who’d worsened my wounds, publicly ridiculed me and rejoiced in my inadequacies as a son of Fiona.

I said the name – and it started to appear!

The screams and panic in the street started almost immediately. Mother screamed and fell to the floor in a fit – Aylwin went to her aid but I stood next to Grandmother, staring at her and at what I had summoned. This had been my moment of fey madness. It was coming.

From the panic around me I gathered that Trumps were not working. I directed Aylwin to get our Mother to safety and I took my half sister to my side and we stood next to our Grandmother as she fought to expel it from Amethyst.

It simply, though loudly, demanded “Who calls me?”

I had. I have that power though little other. Rinaldo, with smile absent, stood behind Clarissa and sourced his own power from a ring worn on his finger.

I watched as It approached and became more powerful in its Majesty.

Again it demanded the name of its summoner. Again I remained silent. Slowly and painfully Grandmother gained the better of the entity and forced it to retreat back to whence it had come.

After an age the light returned and Grandmother turned to me with hate and my death in her eyes. She wanted me dead, oh so badly, but feared to do it. A Blood Curse, perhaps? Or the knowledge that where that entity had come from I could perhaps summon another and we’d see whose power lasted longest? Or maybe it was simply that she did not choose to kill Mira’s prophet. Yet! Mira once said to me in reference to herself and the Unicorn that Gods are jealous of each other. I mused on Mira’s chances against Clarissa.

She stared coldly at me and said that I was to leave Amethyst immediately and that I was never to return. I bowed, smiling coldly at her and her assembled company and left for my sanctuary. Anya refused my invitation to leave with me.

I am no longer worried for myself. I grieve for my Mother and would pray – had I a soul – for her protection and salvation. I will return to my room and collect my Groombridge painting and Anne’s sketch of me. I will need to speak with Aylwin and discover how Mother fares. She sits most heavily on my conscience.

I need physically to be within Myra’s Church. I wish I could confess myself. I have much to think on. The Entity’s appearance marked a disturbance in Trump. These two events cannot be unrelated. If anything I feel even more unsafe in the World.