Morwaith’s Diary part 14: The Battle of Vine Street

In The Doom that Came to Amber

2^nd Snake 3658

Alaric seemed content when he left my company to fetch his companion. I took a few moments to reflect that we, the prophets, would soon disappear into shadow and leave the Gods to their Apocalypse.

I was not to know that the end days loomed so close and that the weight of events would drag us all into their crushing maelstrom.

Nice lad Alaric, however has a dangerous faith in a personal ability to deny reality rather than riding out the coming storm of the unchangeable.

I hate trump, it is so unpredictable; not a thing of mechanics, but a reflection of mental anarchy. So that Alaric could return, I was forced to leave him a window in my trump resistance. Through this open portal blew the tempest that dragged me to the slopes of Kolvir.

Called from the Palace by the cards, I was informed by Asmark that religious disturbances where disrupting the city, mainly through the rioting of Unicorn worshippers.

Suddenly I was forced into the swirl of events by two causes. On the one hand, the weight of my newly acquired office threw its momentum upon me. Having been sidelined since my return by the younger princes and princesses, and granted the title grudgingly by the Regent, I was now called upon to act. The moment when the mettle of that newly forged is tested and if found wanting discarded.

On the converse I saw the actions of the Unicorn who, having had her fetters loosened, sought to break the other links in her chain by wild struggle. My office made me her keeper and this called me back to attempt to restore order.

Breakfast with the family started my day at the castle. Alaric reached me by trump (if only he had been quicker) and in that brief contact, tentative trust blinked to rampant paranoia and he broke away with not a word exchanged.

Asmark was able to tell me that Unicorn zealots had been attacking all those they saw as representatives of that trump bitch-queen. Though personally I admire their attempt, Amber city is a finely tuned machine and cannot stand such violent shaking within its delicate workings.

Over recent days I have developed an appreciation of what an adept master mechanic Oberon was, keeping the machine of state, city and universe in perpetual motion through personal intervention. Oh, such an enormous strain to be King in Amber!

Determined to bring my part of the construct back to governance, I travelled to my rooms in the Cathedral. Here zealots amongst the priesthood were encouraging the mob, but behind them I saw the actions of our hoofed goddess. To deny what was so obviously her will would be suicide. I needed to stay at the helm within reach of the levers. One advantage was some knowledge of her desires. I had a plan and decided to address the faithful.

The Cathedral staff gathered those in the square outside and more flocked in, having heard the calling. That great building echoed with the noise of the settling mob: a final roar for this, the last service it would hold for these worshippers. The clamour, contained as it was within the stones of the prison Oberon built, rang discordantly in my ears.

Resolving to remove indiscriminate murder from the street, I called to spare those who would be killed if they would accept the Unicorn and kiss the Archpriest’s ring. When the first unfortunate’s lips burnt I realised my mistake, such killing was discriminate.

By the law of connection, once together never apart, the ring and the Unicorn are one and Her will desired sacrifice. Calls came from the crowd that they should be sacrificed immediately and at that moment synergy happened.

“This is not the place for sacrifice”. I felt her will giving my words edge, she is mostly animal and as such seeks to sate her desires without thought for consequence. “In times past the rituals of the Unicorn were conducted amongst nature”.

The crowd surged; she had been trying to tell them this and now I vocalised it. “Go from the city and go to the slopes of Kolvir, go to the Grove”.

And they left, the zealots pouring forth; inspired by my words but driven by the hoofed ones will. My one thought had been to get them out of the city. Once away they would be much easier for the stretched forces of Amber to deal with and order would be restored.

I had miscalculated, I thought that the defenders of the Castle would not interfere with egress and had wildly misunderstood the fickle nature of Amberites combined with the opportunism of the bitch of trump.

Soon word reached me of the Battle of Vine Street; the Unicorn waded in the blood of her own zealots. Her bestial nature drove them on into the meat grinder of the Castle Guard. For true rebirth of the religion those most vulnerable to her immediate will had to be sacrificed, hoping that the moderates who remained with me could then be recast as a new church.

The slaughter carried on into the night but soon rumour said that the cult of art was rising on the streets as the last of the zeal exsanguinated itself on the castle approach. Ever followers of the superficial, they would want the Cathedral, with fine art and decorated interior. The new church of the Unicorn did not need such edifices. We left it to the ungrateful wretches who in their ignorance of the Dwarf’s desire to push the universal machine towards abyssal destruction. May its engraved walls and decorated plaster be as much a prison to them as it was to the Unicorn?

As my disciples moved, we gathered around ourselves a following of the new faithful. I talked of the greening of the Unicorn and the call to refresh oneself amongst nature. Finally we stopped in Unicorn Place, around the statue there. After draping the small horned horse with flowers and greenery, I said a few words and then the group rested peacefully for the night with my construct guards providing security.

3^rd Snake 3658

Rising at dawn, the fellowship left the city. The guards present at the gate did not trouble us. I believe I saw some rangers amongst them, meaning Aylwin has moved forces to the city.

I focused on the path ahead. The bitch of trump holds parts of the city, though it is now a broken machine in need of repair, and she and her control will be seeking to fulfil his plan to unpin the flywheel and rip creation asunder.

Meanwhile the pin still seeks to work herself loose with the same effect, and the chain of worship that Oberon cast about her is too weak for the task of restraint. In my father's house there is a hook and upon that hook rest some tiny silver horse shoes…

I wonder… but how to bell the cat?