Alaric in Mirabeau part 3: Alaric & Mira
In The Doom that Came to
Amber
That Evening – First Meeting with Mira
Alaric wanders back towards his rooms – hopefully sobering up on
the way. This is a man with some painting to do. If Flora is deep undercover it’s
just tough – he’s seen Flora at work before in the past, notably with Rupert!
Alaric is nowhere near as pissed as Paolo; you’ve drunk about the
same but obviously you’re tougher and probably more used to heavy drinking.
Still you’re far from sober and you weave a little on your way home. As you put
your finger on your doorlatch, you recall Salli in the Cathedral, “Haven’t you ever painted when
drunk?”
You open the door and dump your portfolio on the bed, followed by the
one bottle rescued from Paolo’s. After a brisk visit to the latrine and some
water on the face, you’re ready to start; drunk or not.
You lift up the cover protecting the drying painting and find your
easel bare.
It’s gone!
“Fk!” Alaric stares stupefied at the
empty easel. He looks to see if he left it anywhere else [he knows he didn’t]
and he’s furious. He looks down at the floor for evidence of unexpected
entrances – and checks the walls and door frame for evidence of wet paint.
There’s no sign of anyone having been in the room since you left a
few hours ago. In fact the cover to the painting looked the same, even with the
same slight fold you left when you pulled it over. [It’s slightly tented to
avoid smearing the paint.]
“Who’s knicked it? “Fk!”
After searching about for evidence, you find just one thing.
Directly beneath the easel is a fly. It’s got paint stuck to its legs but
obviously fell free before the painting was taken. It’s alive but too gummed up
to fly. It’s buzzing brought it to your attention and it’s the one thing in the
room that’s different to when you left.
He storms back out and heads towards Salli’s
room [if he knows where that is] – if not he is off to the Cathedral to demand
where his painting is!
You angrily ram your hat on your head and reach for the door. Then
you hear a feminine chuckle of amusement. Turning, a redhead dressed in purple
and green is standing by your easel, hand lightly resting on the frame of your
picture as if it had never moved.
There’s no way she could have been hiding anywhere in your rooms
and she wasn’t there when you picked your hat up just seconds ago.
Alaric bows very deeply and says “Mira?” questioningly. “I have
more work to do on that picture – but I take it that it does in some way meet
your approval. Would you take wine with me, or are you here in a more official
capacity?”
“I’m never anywhere as anything else.” She smiles; rather
girlishly, actually. She suddenly looks very like that deck of trumps of the
young girl growing up. “Being a deity is a full time job...Yes,
I will take wine with you.”
She watches you pour a goblet of wine for her and waits for you to
fill your own. “I see you have a head start on me already.” She raises her cup
in salute before sipping delicately and perusing your picture.
“It’s good! A firm style and a novel method of
getting the perspective, too.” She turns back to you. “When it’s
finished we’ll have to come to terms but for now, Alaric, I think we should
just get to know each other. I know what I want from you; pray, what want you
of me?”
“What do I want of you Mira? Your patronage, obviously, and medium
term I suppose access to the knowledge of Trump that seems to have been hidden
from we of the younger generation in Amber.”
She nods thoughtfully at each of these points in an ‘of course’
sort of manner.
“I am not content to be thought of as a good artist – I am rarely
content to be described as merely good at anything. Or at least anything that
truly matters. Do you mind if I am seated?”
She gestures to the bed but remains standing as she moves to the
centre of the room, catching the late afternoon sunlight, still regarding the
picture.
“I want to be the best. I may not have it in me to be the best –
but I would at least know if I have the talent.”
“Oh yes!” She half turns to reconsider the painting. “I would
think so.”
“Finally, and most wanting of all, I want your respect so that I
may maintain my neutrality over the respective desires of your Church and the
“I am unsure of your meaning. I respect all artists, however mean,
and you are no mean artist.” She sips her wine again. “But you obviously have
never spoken with the numinates [noo-min-ah-tays]
before, have you?”
“No!”
“There is only one thing any deity requires,
needs or craves and that is ‘worship’. Would your respect prevent you from
paying me the one currency tender in this realm?”
“I need to paint Mira. I have needed to paint most of my life –
and, for most of my life the twin pillars of politics and religion have
interfered with my need to paint. You know me as a son of Amber and I think you
know that my background imposes certain loyalties upon me. I will not vow to be
celibate – I would not place such artificial strictures upon myself. Equally, I
can never knowingly betray Amber, or her interests. If we can put our
respective politics aside, let me stay and paint here as I am. I have no desire
to be a priest anywhere. I came here to paint and to ask you for the return of
my Trumps. I do not know if I can worship you – I more than half suspect that
we are related. How can I worship you without knowing you? My only current
desire is to capture your likeness in the light of the afternoon’s Sun. Will
you let me do that now?”
“You hedge yourself around with your words. Why should I stop you
from painting? Let me speak plainly.” Her voice loses its sweet, girlish
quality and becomes hard, strident, adamant. “There
are two ways you can give me what I want. You can stay here and serve me as a
priest or you can be my prophet, taking my worship to places new: Amber! That
is what I want from you and yes that means I must oppose the Unicorn, for are
we not all jealous gods?” As she speaks these last words, her voice attains a
profundity that rattles the furniture, even the building.
From across half the room, she stares deep into your eyes. “And I
know all those things you dream of and more. Give me what I want and you will
be rewarded; otherwise, why are we talking?” She puts down her goblet, still
half full, and when she speaks, her voice is normal. “Think on these things as
you finish your painting and we will settle terms formally after.”
And she’s gone!
Alaric stares long and hard after her departure. Finally, after
about thirty minutes which have been spent trying to shuffle through the
ramifications of what Mira said, he decides that if he wants to work with her
it would have to be as her prophet although he would prefer to have it
described as being a natural extension of his role of Patron but exactly how
great an act of treason he is about to commit is a question he will reconsider
after the completion of this painting!
He yawns and stretches; drinks the last of the wine. Walks over to
the canvas and recommences work on the smaller of the two chambers and, now
that he’s seen her in person, starts to detail the figure on the throne. He’s
particularly interested on how the afternoon’s sunlight caught her hair and
skin. He will again work as long and as hard as he can on it this night.
Since the person on the throne is painted from the perspective of
that person, the hair and skin really aren’t in evidence. [Unless this is
supra-daliesque :-)]
Nope – that ain’t his style
You continue working on the painting. The cavern itself is
something like Death’s in the second chapter of ‘Song of Orpheus’ in ‘Fables
& Reflections’, the Gaiman graphic novel, but the
base colour is a dark purple and there’s a lot more decoration; pictures and
murals of all sizes, a mozaic on the floor.
There is no sunlight. You don’t know where the light seen in the
picture comes from. As you study your original drawings, it becomes clear that
this some sort of mini-shadow that interpenetrates Mirabeau.
Although separate in 3D terms, they occupy the same space in the 4th D.
There’s a suggestion of red-gold hair at the side, seen as if out
of the corner of the eye and far too close to focus on. Skin can be seen on the
hands folded on the lap and in a glimpse of thigh through a slit in the skirt.
The painting suggests rather than depicts these murals.
OK! But your heightened sense mean you can see them clearly in
your mind’s eye. At times, you think you’re actually seeing the place through
Mira’s own eyes.
OK – so this means he getting somewhere towards painting what he
is seeing – if so, this is progress – and good progress at that! Alaric is very
pleased but keen not to loose what he’s doing so he will be working like a man
possessed [hmmm, maybe not a good piece of language].
At one point, you seem to catch wisps of conversation; Mira’s
voice and that of a much older man you don’t recognise.
Old Man: ”…is he doing now?”
Mira: “Finishing his apprenticeship!”
M: “He’s made up his mind to start though he’s unsure how far he
wants to go.”
<indistinct murmurs
M: “Are things that critical?”
M: “And only one goddess can counter another.”
<indistinct murmurs
Alaric is keen not to be distracted by this.
It’s not distracting. You’re trying to form a deep psychic link
with your subject and this is indicative of that.
He will think back at Mira. “If I can help you I will consider
helping you Mira.”
“Hush!” comes the reply. “Keep
working! We will talk later.”
“Yes I am” thinks Alaric snapping at them. “Get off-line
now!”
M: “Oh yes! I can feel him working in my head.”
M: “Yes! But only those things I want him to hear.”
M: “It is d...”
And you hear no more. Your senses are fractionally reduced but
still remain acute.
You find your senses heightened to the degree you felt in the
church and your concentration is total. You run out of lamp oil early in the
evening and have to go out to get some more. You buy several lamps to increase
the lighting in the room but hours later the light of the false dawn makes you
realise that you’ve been painting in the dark since the lamps ran out the
second time – somehow you could still see the canvas and didn’t notice the
stygian conditions.
Hmmm – interesting and worrying at the same time – but Alaric has
to keep working!
Yes – he feels driven by something inside him.
The Next Day – Visiting Mira
Stopping only to eat a brief breakfast, you finish perhaps a
week’s work by mid-afternoon the next day. You are again starving and
exhausted.
Alaric tries to activate the painting as a Trump/icon he is
concentrating on Mira as if bidding her to come to view the completed work.
As your painting frenzy ebbs, your senses return to normal. You
stand, dizzy and weak-kneed before the still wet picture, wondering if you’ve
the energy to make it work. But at the first touch of your mind, you feel the
way open and some powerful force pulls you in. You fall into and through the
painting in a swoon.
You come to, still exhausted, sitting on the throne exactly as
depicted. Everything is exactly as in your painting.
Alaric looks about him with a certain smug satisfaction.
From somewhere off to the right comes a titter of amusement. For a
moment you suffer a feeling of deja vu, thinking
you’re back at the bistro, but this is Mira, not some teenager.
Alaric turns quickly to see who is laughing at him.
She’s walking towards you from a passage to the right. “Excellent, Alaric! But I really don’t think it suits you.”
Then you realise that everything you can see is exactly as painted
– including you! You’re wearing a dress just like Mira’s, the glimpse of leg
showing through the wraparound skirt is female, as are the slim hands in your
lap, seen over the [admittedly slight] swell of bosom.
She passes in front of you and smiles mockingly. “May I have my
chair back, now?”
“I’m not sure Mira – perhaps I should paint myself on the throne
next time.”
“Alaric! cuts in Mira. “You have come to
ask me a favour,” She lowers her head and glowers in a way that reminds you of
someone. “I have asked you once; now get off my chair!”
In that motherly way that Alaric is familiar with perhaps? In
terms of features just how much is she like Fiona – perhaps she is the artist
that Fiona put aside for Science?
No, not of Fiona. Someone you haven’t seen for a
while...damn! You’re sure it will come to you with a bit of thought.
Alaric nods and raises himself carefully from the chair 1] because
he’s in unfamiliar costume and 2] because he is presumably still exhausted. “I
ought, given the circumstances to beg your pardon Mira” and he attempts to bow
towards her.
She sweeps up the low steps to the throne in angry silence. As you
descend, you feel your body flowing back into its usual form. By the time she’s
looking down on you from her seat, you are yourself again; still wearing a
dress, though.
“Yes! You should!...I’m waiting!”
“Then, Mira, I do, most humbly, beg your pardon for my abject lack
of respect in remaining seated on your throne and inhabiting your mode of
dress”
“Accepted!”
“Might I not be returned to my accustomed mode of dress now?” He
bows deeply to her with a flourish [trying to manage the dress] but with an
Alaric amount of arrogance to the bow and gesture.
“You made it; you wear it!”
“From the conversation you made me privy to, it seems
that we may have mutual favours to request Mira” he says. Alaric addresses this
question to an area some foot above Mira’s head and ends by looking at her
directly. “But am I judged fit to have completed my apprenticeship with you?”
[Just how tired and hungry is Alaric Steve?]
[Extremely.]
She smiles and nods once, her anger thawing slightly. She seems to
listen to something far away and then, with a wave of her hand, a table laden
with sumptuous foods appears; hot dishes still steaming. She gestures to the
two chairs at opposite ends. “Let us eat together.”
She descends and takes the nearer seat.
Alaric walks quickly towards her seat so he might draw it out for
her and then goes to his own seat.
She graciously waits for you to do so and you discover why ladies
wait for gentleman to move their chairs for them; a flouncy
skirt definitely gets in the way of courtly gestures. Luckily, your dress isn’t
as flouncy as some and you manage to get her chair
under her and off your hems.
When you’ve taken yours, she grants permission to begin and
reaches for the soup. With plenty of hot bread rolls and fresh butter, this
spread is fit for a nobleman. There’s even little
candles keeping the main courses warm. The cooking isn’t Chinese but the manner
of serving is; many small dishes which you sample onto your plate; variety. The
preparation is superb.
“In answer to your question; yes, I thought your effort most
impressive. If your willingness to serve matches your innate ability, I think
we can come to terms. But first I need an idea of what exactly it is you wish
to learn.”
“It is my desire to gain the knowledge about Trump that was held
by my Uncle Timon, perhaps by Brand, and I believe
may have been offered to my mother – and that knowledge which would extend my
abilities as both an artist and a Trump artist is, I believe held now by you. I
desire that trump/Icon should hold greater sway in the greater affairs of the
Worlds. And I desire that I should be an articulator of a new age of culture –
Renaissance indeed, Madam”
“Nice sentiments! You’re certainly making all the right noises.”
You catch just a whiff of cynicism, here. “Mmm! Brand? Timon? I don’t think I’ve heard of them. For that matter, I know
not your parentage, either. What about their ‘knowledge’ did you have in mind
exactly?”
You don’t know my parentage Mira? Really?
The gentleman you were discussing me with whilst I was painting indicated that
he at least knew my mother” Alaric smiles.
“Grandfather is given to cryptic utterances,” she replies with
slight bitterness, “when I asked him who your mother was, he said ‘what is
important is who you are’ and wouldn’t elaborate.”
“Then I must stand by Grandfather’s decision – it is obvious that
any young Amberite might do in this task and besides
my mother has not seen fit to acknowledge me in any legal sense.”
“That is not what he meant. Any young ‘Amberite’...”
she grimaces as if finding the word distasteful, “…will not do. Grandfather
meant your talents and proclivities are far more important than who your
relatives are. But I do wonder how much of your professed sentiments will
disappear once you have what you want.”
“I might wonder the same of you Mira – in terms of your
professional sentiments. But I have yet to learn directly what you would have
of me – and why my particular proclivities are of value to you, and your Grandfather.”
She smiles archly. “I want you to be my prophet, Alaric. I want
you to be the champion of my cult in Amber. I shall extend to you some superior
personal qualities only for so long as you continue to function in that
capacity but the knowledge you gain will be yours. Is that clear enough for
you?”
“It would be clearer Mira if you told me what you would have me
prophesise. I was never very fond of the ‘end of the world is nigh’ as a
statement. And I am a little hazy as to what superior personal qualities you
are offering me. I am, of course, blissfully unaware that I am lacking in the
qualities deemed desirable by a gentleman. And, of course, my natural good
taste would preclude me from wearing the robes of a prophet – or indeed, a dress.”
Alaric looks down pointedly. “Costume was far more interesting in the late
Seventeenth Century, Mira.”
As you speak, your senses are again enhanced so that you feel you
can see all around you in magnificent detail. Every piece of
the mosaic in the floor beside you, for example. “This is what I mean.”
Abruptly things return to normal. “Would that be any use to you in your
‘profession’?”
Alaric stares at the room again in stunned silence
“And please don’t be so obtuse about
serving as my prophet. I will expect you to go into the city and recruit me
worshippers – as you well know. How you do it is up to you but I’d suggest you
utilise those talents you’re so proud of.”
“They are rather more than sentiments Mira. I would see Trumps
more closely balanced with Pattern – and I would be less than pleasingly
youthful if I claimed just to be an artist – which, of course I do. However,
that does not exclude my desire to see Art better respected in various places,
including Amber – and those who can create Trumps treated with greater respect
than one would treat a common scribbler. There, is currently a lack of style in
the artistic circles I mix in. It is moribund and needs someone to shake us all
out of our reveries. As of Timon and Brand – they
were, possibly are still my uncles. Princes of Amber both.
The deck you recently returned to one of my relatives [the monochrome deck I
have heard it called]...”
Mira’s face clouds at this mention.
“…was created by Timon. He had certainly
painted you – or, a shadow of you. Timon’s work is
rarely discussed in Amber – those who know do not care to discuss it publicly
and certainly not in front of younger relatives like myself. After all, I am
not to be trusted with a Trump deck in these troubled times.” Alaric is incredibly
bitter sounding during that last sentence.
“If you lack a deck, Alaric, you should paint yourself one. If you
want one in monochrome, you should make it that way. What specifically do you
want of me? What exactly was Timon’s work? You are
speaking in terms of which I have no knowledge. I might very well know what you
talk of but I do not know of Timon or what he knew.”
“I will not make myself a new Trump deck Mira because I would have
you to return the old one to me.”
As she reaches for a spicy meat dish, she nods, as if she’d been
expecting this.
“I was, and remain rather fond of it and replacing it wouldn’t
just be the same thing. I certainly wouldn’t work in Timon’s
style – I would work in my style. I find it generally suits me better.”
“Well if you aren’t interested in his style,” she says in mild
exasperation, “what do you want?”
“I want to learn how to advance my skills with art Mira to see
where Trump can be taken – or, I want to be a reasonably good painter of
portraits. I do not view the two as being mutually exclusive. Could I trouble
you for more bread please – and a great deal of wine – oh, and some water”
She gestures to the table for him to help himself; as I assume he
does, she holds out her empty crystal goblet to him for filling.
“Alaric, you don’t exactly need my help to be a ‘painter of
portraits’. You do that already with consummate ability and style. It is not
art you are interested in but power.” She chews a morsel thoughtfully as you
return to your seat. “But you continue to talk in vague terms such as ‘what
so-and-so knew’ or ‘advance your skills’; you don’t know what you want, do
you?”
“No, Mira. I do not entirely know what I want – very few ever do
and even fewer attain what they desire.”
She rolls her eyes at your filibustering.
“The last few days however, are leading me to think that the fewer
actual lines the better for an Iconer.”
Her eyebrows crease in a puzzled frown.
“My foray into your space would suggest, that ultimately, a fine
enough Iconer/Trump artist could dispense altogether
with the painted work and that new freedom could free the mind from the burden
of reproducing what is seen in the mind onto paper. Thus, I would not be
clothed as a woman and would be freer to interpret the talent that remains virtually
untapped in my mind. Art, is after all, about thought
and interpretation.”
She shakes her head. “You can improve the memory to the extent of
lessening the need for the actual picture in many cases but you can never
remove the need for brushwork entirely; as an artist, I can hardly believe that
to be what you ultimately want. However, I think I do begin to see a glimmer of
what might satisfy you.” She pushes her bowl away and sips some wine, musing.
“Why don’t you tell me of the things you have in your mind that you’d like to
do and then maybe we can work something out. And please don’t waffle about
‘better portraits’ or ‘advancing skills’ or I shall terminate this interview
until you show more sense.”
[A nasty thought just occurred to me [and probably Alaric] does
Mira look familiar in that she looks like Alaric – ie
is his great/grand daughter ...]
[Well, she’s red haired. But then when he meets her in the flesh,
she’s clearly the young lady in Dworkin’s family
snapshot deck. How does that fit in with Alaric’s great granddaughter?]
Eventually, he looks up and says – “but my work, my ability to
sense and interpret – is, nothing ... compared to seeing as you see Mira. To sense the painting as I sensed it in the near dark last night.
To truly feel colour – to paint myself and appear within a painting as I
appeared here – with the effort of a night rather than a full week. Mira, you
offer a wide range of opportunities – very exciting possibilities...” he stops
off in mid sentence again.
She sips her wine and just watches you.
Eventually he looks her straight in the eye and says “I believe
that I may feel enabled to champion you in Amber Mira. I truly do.” Alaric has
stopped eating all together at this point.
She smiles. “Good! Then it looks as if I can get what I want, so
the question returns to what I can do for you.”
“And as for what I want ... “ he looks down briefly considering
how to express himself and picks up a random morsel from his bowl. “there is some stuff I’ve been doing ... in other places. We,
artists, are all familiar with the practice of using our works in order to tell
the future – or at least to clarify the present and look towards the near
future?” – he looks to her for affirmation of this.
“Well, I have been experimenting with what I term free association drawings,
random scribbles if you like. They are very rough and ready but, when I have
got my mind sufficiently clear to both scribble and interpret, I found them
illuminating – and worrying. They were clear in their indication of a problem
that was at the time well beyond my comprehension – but proved to be true. Have
you done such Mira?”
She shakes her head. “No, I’ve never been without cards but I
recall Grandfather saying something about it being a possible technique with
its own advantages and disadvantages over a standard reading. I’d recommend
practise but it would probably be a long while before it could be as reliable
as reading the cards. Grandfather did say he knew people who preferred that
method, though. He didn’t say who or why.”
“There are other things – more obvious perhaps like holding Trump
memory so strongly that I may activate it by the very act of bringing it to my
mind. But in such a way that is useful to me – an immediate use” he smiles
ruefully thinking of the hounds that nearly got him” – “and of course it would
free me from the physical difficulties of holding them in the first instance.
Being allowed to eavesdrop is neither here nor there by the way.”
“I’m sure not.” She snorts sarcastically. “A skilled trump artist
can bring the image of a trump already drawn to mind but it takes more effort
and is much more easily disrupted than contact via a card. In any difficult
situation, you’d be better off pulling a card and using it. But I know some
simple tricks to enhance your visual recall and it’s obviously a useful adjunct
to using the cards. Spying is another matter but I have no need for such
techniques; I am instantly aware of all trump use anyway.”
“How?”
She raises an eyebrow in mock startlement.
“I’m sorry. That was impertinent of me.”
She, slowly and emphatically, nods her agreement.
“But can you sense both the physical use of Trump as well as
bringing the image to mind Mira?”
“My dear sir, I am the Goddess of Trump, the avatar of the mystic
image. I know everything that happens connected with the power.”
“And, there are less obvious things. Can, for example, an artist cause a Tr – I’m sorry I can refer
to them as Icons if you would prefer?”
She shrugs
“…Icon to take on its own physicality so that a landscape takes on
its own reality as Shadows do with a suggestion of
people and landscape? Is this very room real, or is it a product of your, or
even possible my, art work? A room in a house with a different reality painted
in a painting in each of its rooms; each reality is somewhere to be, or to hide
and observe?”
“I’d rather not say about this room; it’s...special. But you sit
there in clothes of your own making and ask me if these things are
possible...?”
“Can therefore people not also be changed in subtle ways as I was
when I appeared, dressed as you see me?”
She mock claps, ironically.
“Hmmm” he says, “and that would depend on their ability – or
inability to believe in the Trump.”
“Not exactly like that. It’s not a belief, but what the image
means to them personally.”
“But, if I had drawn myself upon a rack would I have appeared
before you on a rack. Unsubtle perhaps but a weapon none the
less.”
“Yes, this is possible though I can’t quite see how placing yourself upon a rack would be ‘subtle’ use of a weapon.” She
laughs girlishly again. “The trouble with such use of Trump is that art only
has meaning in terms of the observer; if the observer didn’t see himself as
bound on the rack, then he wouldn’t be. But I’m sure you can think of far more
constructive ways to use such a talent.”
Alaric looks a little uncomfortable at this. “My cousins have
skills that enable them to perceive things as being different – how can I learn
to use Icons as a tool to determine what is and isn’t real. How can I draw a
lens Mira...”
“I know nothing if which you speak. You are already well aware of
the analytical dimension to trump artistry or you couldn’t have painted what
you did but I know of no way of discerning degrees of reality. From my
experience, the term is meaningless. You people seem to equate ‘reality’ with
‘amount of Pattern’. Trump is not concerned with such things.”
“Or can I learn to bring a particular distortion to my minds eye.
Breathtaking possibilities and I know so little.”
“An artist who wishes to see things less clearly;” she chuckles,
“perhaps a very jaded palette would desire such a thing.”
“I mean in the sense that the world when viewed through a filter,
or polarising aid looks and feels differently to how it is normally perceived.
Or, I suppose I could be thinking of how the riverbank looks when observed from
beneath the waterline.”
“Ah! A filter! Yes, I’ve heard of such things and a suitable
filter can screen out excess light to reveal a hidden truth but the user must
beware reliance on such things. He may one day find he has screened the truth
out with everything else.” Her gaze drifts thoughtfully toward some stained
glass behind you. “You have also to find an adequate filter, of course.” She looks
back to you and her wine. “Perhaps t’wer best you
cultivate your perceptions and see more rather than less.”
“How did you learn Mira?” he looks at her expectantly
“Grandfather taught me most things. Some I have worked out for
myself.” She leans forward and serves herself a syllabub. “Art is personal,
Alaric, ergo Trump is personal, too. Each of us is potentially unique in our
art and in our use of the power.”
Hmm. Syllabub. Hmm.
[It’s freely available. :-) ]
“I was taught to apply the basics of Trump artistry by my mother –
I had been painting for many years by then of course. There are a very few
research papers in the Library of Castle Amber of course but much, as you say,
relies on the artist – and their environment. I know little of my new
environment Mira. Are there theological treatises I should study – or perhaps a
general history of this place I could study? I would
like…no…will need to know about you and your Land when I champion your
cause back in Amber.” He sets to the syllabub with haste!
“Well perhaps a book on table etiquette might be a start.”
“I beg your indulgence Mira – I get ravenous after a concentrated
period of working – and this really is very, very good food,” Alaric smiles.
She smiles graciously back, her smile turning to irony. “But if
you mean for your new role as my prophet in Amber, you have little need of true
history. Merely the knowledge that I am the Goddess of Art and Trump, that all art flows from me and all art is mine in return.”
“As for history, the icons show how I came to this place when it
was afflicted by Philistine, who suppressed all beauty, calling it evil. I
overthrew him and so my worship brought in a new era of beauty and elegance. If
you want more details, look around you or visit any of my churches to view the
iconography. When you’re in Amber, you’ll be my principal iconographer yourself
and as an image is worth a thousand words, no Holy Scripture is necessary. And
there’s no need to mention Mirabeau – the faith is
important but not its origin. Coffee?”
“Yes. Please, black with no sugar. I feel a study trip to a
Cathedral coming upon me. At least this time I will concentrate on the
iconography rather than seeking for my own work like the vain creature I am. There
were very few of my works there Mira – are the others kept in storage or are
they kept in private chapels for the higher clergy?”
“They are wherever I wish them to be.” She says as she pours two
black coffees. “Since that is an issue for you, I shall return your cards to
you as an act of faith.” She passes you a cup but remains standing near your
chair. “Among your own cards is one of my own, so we may communicate when you
have returned to Amber.”
Alaric nods then stops and says “but what of the Trump barrier
Mira?”
“Oh that?” She chuckles. “Trump here is totally obedient to my
wishes. If I want a communication to pass the boundaries of Mirabeau,
then it does so; otherwise not!”
She beckons you to follow as she drifts gracefully towards the
passage she originally emerged from. “There remain just two things to do. We
must agree a start to your tutelage and sign the contract.”
Alaric follows her.
As you throw your napkin down, a kneeling monk appears facing the
throne in an attitude of prayer. Mira clicks her fingers and points to the
table when the astonished monk looks up at his goddess. “Indeed! And you may
start serving me by clearing the table and wiping the floor around. Once you
have finished, saying your credo will return you to the cathedral and you may
distribute the leftovers to the poor.”
She leads you into an anteroom. There, a parchment and paper are
laid out on a beautifully made table. The parchment reeks of trump power, and the
beautiful illuminations look familiar. You’ve seen something similar before.
Alaric is trying to remember where he might have seen something
similar before. It must be somewhere where he could have seen an illuminated
manuscript and beautiful copperplate handwriting: er,
the Library at Amber – the Papal Library – his Aunt Fanny’s knicker
drawer ...
You’re closest with the first but still relatively cool.
Mira gestures to you to read the parchment. It sets forth, in
formal language but not dense legalese, a contract between you and Mira, to the
effect that you will serve as her prophet in Amber in return for training in
the arts of trump. The state of affairs to be continued until
mutually agreed by both parties. Forfeiture appears to amount to a curse
upon the head of the breaker.
“It may seem vague but contracts made by Trump Writing are best
written so.”
Alaric looks long and hard at the parchment – still trying to
remember where he has seen such a thing before. His heart says to sign it but
his head is warning him to take care. He will take as long as he can to read
and digest it.
“Mutual agreement to discontinue the arrangement does seem to look
a long, long way into the future Mira.” He eventually says.
“Well would you like to set an upper limit...?”
“Seven years was the traditional length for an apprenticeship
Mira.”
“Very well!” Smiling, she takes up several
quills and inserts a clause ‘or until passage of seven years by the Dworkian Calendar, whichever the shorter.”
“You know of Dworkin, Mira?”
“Mmm? Who? Oh, well I suppose a Dworkin must have created the calendar. Have you heard of
him? Anything interesting?”
“Always interesting and always ambiguous,” Alaric smiles
“Old myths can be like that.” She nods.
[How long is the Dworkian calendar Steve
in comparison to Earth years?]
[According to Corwin, an Amber year is roughly 2.5 shadow earth
years. The Dworkian Calendar is that used in Amber
and most close shadows. The indenture is dated 13th Dolphin
3657 DC; please write this down on your character sheet.]
Mira seems perfectly patient.
“And my tutelage starts ...?”
“You may view this document as an indenture to an apprenticeship.
Your training will commence on your signing.”
“And the return of my deck?”
Still smiling with amusement, “I told you, that’s
already done. It’s waiting for you in your room and is entirely different to
this. All you have to do is apply pen to parchment and choose one of the
various talents you mentioned to be first…Satisfied?”
Gulp. Alaric picks up the pen and applies it to the parchment…
Her hand stays yours for an instant. “Make sure your signature
encompasses the essence of your being; if not I would recommend a quick
self-portrait, perhaps.”
…with a brief sketch of himself bowing in black and white [white
of the parchment]
[Pale cream, actually but what the hell! :-) ]
“Perhaps, Mira, as you said, perhaps t’wer
best I cultivate my perceptions and see more rather than less. Let’s start with
that and see where your new ‘prentice can go.” He bows deeply and says “M’lady.”
Mira scatters a handful of fine sand on the parchment before
picking it up and blowing on it gently.
“No! That is not what I meant. We were talking of knowledge, not
personal qualities; or would you rather I had you doing press-ups? You seem in
far greater need of physical enhancement than of expanding your perceptions.
Rest assured that while you are on my business, the more acute your senses will
seem and the better they will get as you show more success in your mission.
What I am offering is knowledge of power.”
“Very well, I desire to sense Trump as you do Mira and to enable
Trump to take on its own physicality so that a landscape, or a room, or a
person takes on its own reality as Shadows do with a suggestion of people and
landscape. A room like this one perhaps – but mine where a Trump has all the
characteristics of a shadow. I would learn to view a person or a scene and know
its past – the recent or not so recent events that have taken place there.”
Will that suffice for a beginning Mira? Alaric draws himself to his full height
and looks towards her with his eyebrow raised.
“Well if you want to ‘sense Trump as I do’ you’ll just have to be me.”
She smirks. “As for the rest, it seems you’re asking for two different things.
One I can definitely teach you, the other is ridiculous.” She looks you
straight in the eyes. “You of all people, so steeped in the impressionistic
styles, must understand that Trump, like art, is not about knowing; it is about
inference – it is subjective. If you want to pay more attention to a thing’s
past, it is there to be read in its current condition but these things are not
books with chapter headings for an hour ago or a year ago. A picture of a woman
standing with a bloody dagger over a dead man in a bath reveals the recent past
quite clearly. The new, hard, and the older faded, bruises on her arms might
tell us something more. I recommend practise to learn the subtleties.”
“I have heard of a Trump Artist achieving this very thing Mira,”
says Alaric thinking of Asmark’s work with Otto’s
body.
She looks up into your eyes, squinting slightly. “Are we talking
about the same thing?”
“I would think so, but it is possible that the Artist was picking
up psychic resonance as much as anything else.”
She gives you a curious look, as if she’s not sure what you’re
talking about. “However, you wish to create a place by trump. Mmm! Very well! What you must do is go away and think hard
upon the shadow you wish to create. Then you must create a Trump of the
landscape, concentrating hard on the details of your shaping; I will guide your
hand. Once you have made such a Trump, use it! If you go to it, you will have
succeeded but I suspect it will take you several attempts and I’m sure we shall
have to talk further on this subject. Now I think it is time for you to go.”
“Thank you Mira – until next time.”
And with a brief moment of disorientation, you find yourself back
in your room, next to your easel. You still wear that outlandish dress and your
own clothes lie discarded in a heap at your feet. You feel exceptionally tired
as well as replete and the sun is just going down. [Your room seems to be in a
perpetual sunset.]
Alaric
really must learn to get up before sunset! He takes off his ridiculous dress
and stretches out on his bed and, I hope, falls sound asleep.