Eliminating Bleys
My peaceful interlude came to an abrupt halt perhaps eight days after
Cerridwen's injury, when I awoke to the sound of Emily knocking
frantically on my door. Much to my dismay, I learned that Gawain had
somehow managed to enter Mellisondra, and therefore was able to access the
Tir. How had he managed to do that? Some sort of back door, no doubt.
He was partially responsible for the creation of the Magic Circle, after
all. He must have left himself a means of accessing it, in case Meridian
proved difficult. It is what I would have done in his place. I cursed
myself for not including Mellisondra in my defensive plans.
Fortunately, Gawain did not appear to have invasion on the mind, at
least not yet. Unfortunately, he insisted on speaking to Cerridwen, a
request that was obviously somewhat problematic. The most obvious
solution was to jettison Mellisondra from the Tir, thus eliminating
Gawain's point of access. An excellent idea, if only I possessed the
skill to detach the damn thing. Since I did not, the second solution was
to somehow convince Gawain that he had, indeed, talked to Cerridwen, and
hope that he would leave of his own volition afterwards.
Emily left to delay Gawain, while I toyed with the idea of disguising
one of the ghosts as Cerridwen and hoping it knew her well enough to pass
for her. In our favor was the fact that Gawain was gone for most of
Cerridwen's life, and so he could not know his daughter very well. It was
still a risky prospect, though. I did not know enough about Gawain to be
certain he would not penetrate the illusion. Fortunately, Emily took
matters into her own hands, mentally convincing Gawain into thinking that
he was speaking to Cerridwen instead of her. And so she learned the
purpose behind his visit. Naturally, he was not seeking Cerridwen out of
parental concern. Rather, he wanted to use her in a scheme of his to kill
Bleys, with whom he was feuding. The gist of the plan was that Cerridwen
would bring the Tir to Avignon. Emily would then go to Bleys, plead
Katrina's case to him, since he was apparently her father, and then bring
him to the Tir. Gawain was banking on the fact that once Bleys realized
that Mellisondra was attached to the Tir, he would attempt to go there to
take the Magic Circle. At which point Gawain would spring his trap and
kill Bleys. I wondered how many Amberites would have to get trapped in
the Tir before they finally figured out that it was a place that was best
avoided.
Needless to say, I liked this plan not at all. It seemed fraught with
potential problems, the most obvious being that Bleys might do the smart
thing and simply not enter the Tir at all. Or he might defeat Gawain and
decide to take the Tir for himself. But if "Cerridwen" refused to assist
Gawain, he might decide to take the Tir and enact his plan without her
cooperation. There seemed only two courses open to us. Cooperate with
Gawain, and do our damnedest to make sure that his plan succeeded. Or
find a way to detach Mellisondra from the Tir before Gawain returned. For
obvious reasons, I favored the latter approach. But how would we detach
it? And where would we put it? I was rather loath to simply leave the
Magic Circle floating in the Abyss, or in some Shadow where just anyone
could find it. It was Emily who came up with an answer for the second
question, suggesting that we attach Mellisondra to one of Chanicut's
Shadows, since Sarah was a friend of Cerridwen's. I decided to contact
Sarah at that point, reasoning that if she liked this idea, and I was
pretty certain that she would, she might resolve the problem of how to
transfer Mellisondra herself.
Sarah answered her Trump almost immediately, and as I expected, she
was delighted by our idea. Unfortunately, she was not able to detach
Mellisondra herself, but she knew someone who could: Shaenan. She left
to recruit him to the endeavor, while I steered the Tir towards Skeltland.
Shortly before our arrival, I received a Trump call from Sarah, who came
through with Shaenan in tow. I found myself rather surprised by his
appearance. This was the man who had replaced the Serpent, after all.
The amount of power he possessed was staggering to contemplate. And yet
he seemed perfectly ordinary in appearance. Had I not known who he was, I
never would have suspected what he was capable of. A good example of
appearances being deceiving. I could only hope that my own appearance was
similarly non-threatening when viewed by others.
Moving Mellisondra proved to be a surprisingly quick task, once
Shaenan set to work. He and Sarah left soon afterwards, and I breathed a
sigh of relief at having neatly avoided a dangerous situation. I reckoned
without Emily's irritating sense of honor, however. Having agreed to
assist Gawain, she felt obligated to live up to her end of the bargain,
and try as I might, I could not convince her otherwise. The absence of
Mellisondra meant a slight change in plans, however, since it was no
longer there to trap Bleys. We decided instead to trap Bleys in the
castle, cut off his magic, and hope Gawain took care of him. If not,
Emily revealed that there were certain controls built into Gawain's
Spikard that we could take advantage of. She also let slip that the
Spikard had once been Father's, and for a moment I felt an irrational
impulse to take the Spikard away from Gawain. It was my father's, after
all, not his. Then my good sense reasserted itself, reminding me that
those controls Emily referred to could be used just as effectively against
me.
As we journeyed to Avignon, I toyed with the idea of betraying Gawain
to Bleys. It would rid me of the problem Gawain was providing, certainly,
and it would leave Bleys owing me a rather large favor. On the other
hand, it would also mean revealing myself to Bleys, and if Gawain by some
chance escaped, I would have made myself a dangerous enemy. Plus, I could
not be sure how Bleys would react if I approached him. He might assume I
was an agent of Gawain's and kill me on the spot. If I simply allowed
Gawain's plan to proceed, my involvement continued to be a secret from
both parties, no matter what the outcome. When it came right down to it,
I had nothing against Bleys, but I had no compelling reason to aid him,
either.
I brought the Tir to Avignon without incident and Emily left to plead
with Bleys, taking Werewindle with her. I very nearly did not agree to
loan it to her, not wanting to be without its protection. But Cerridwen
had said that the Tir was safe from abyssal creatures, and the stakes of
this plan were too high to risk failure. So naturally, things went wrong
almost from the moment Emily left. Somehow, Gawain managed to attach a
string of Shadows to the Tir, and thus board with a number of his men.
Even worse, Cerridwen's mother accompanied him, bearing the Amberite Jewel
of Judgment. I gritted my teeth and strengthened my spells of
concealment, cursing all the while under my breath. If Gawain and Emma
chose to take the Tir at this point, there was little I could do to stop
them. Not against one of the Serpent's eyes. Emily returned soon
thereafter, explaining that Bleys was on his way. I gave her the news
about Emma and the Jewel. She was no happier about it than I, but there
was little we could do at that point but wait.
Our wait was thankfully a short one, as Bleys boarded soon after
Emily. I immediately sealed off the Tir and used my control over the
shifting hallways of the castle to direct Bleys and Gawain towards each
other, using a scrying spell to keep an eye on their progress. Much to my
surprise, Emma received what looked like a Trump call and stepped through.
I traced the call to Cerridwen's quarters, where another spell revealed
Emily and Emma conversing about Cerridwen's condition. Emma believed she
might be able to herd the Logrus energy inside of Cerridwen into her
extremities, which could then be removed. I shuddered a bit at that
thought. She would no longer be comatose, true, but was it really any
better to be awake but no longer whole? Somehow, I doubted Cerridwen
would be overly grateful.
Emily left the room to contact me, asking me to move the Tir to Amber,
and then brought Shaenan through via Trump. Emma appeared to simply stare
for a while, then nodded to Emily, who used Werewindle to sever
Cerridwen's legs. Shaenan's reason for being there became obvious as he
immediately stopped the bleeding. Despite this, Cerridwen went into what
appeared to be cardiac arrest, and they were forced to sever one of her
arms as well before she was stabilized.
Since Cerridwen was expected to be a while in regaining consciousness,
I returned my attention to Gawain and Bleys and began moving the Tir
towards the Abyss. I decided to have the two sides eventually meet in the
room where I had been imprisoned for so long. It seemed appropriate,
somehow. Bleys and Gawain stared cautiously at each other upon entering,
each waiting for the other to make the first move. One of Gawain's
entourage, an automaton of some sort, spoke up at this point. Much to my
surprise, it spoke as if it were Gawain, telling Bleys to either call off
his threat against his daughters, or die. Bleys claimed he would opt for
the former, giving his promise not to harm Gawain or his children, while
edging for a door. Obviously, he no more believed Gawain would simply let
him leave than I did. The two of them continued to snipe for a bit, then
Gawain (or at least the man who looked like Gawain, as opposed to the
automaton that spoke like Gawain) moved to block Bleys' retreat towards
the door. All hell broke loose at this point, as Bleys ran for the
shattered glass door that led out onto the balcony. From the manner in
which he was holding his sword out in front of him, I suspected he was
carrying Auriclave. Father had warned about the capabilities of that
sword once, its ability to absorb magical spells making Bleys difficult to
defeat indeed. How did Gawain intend to deal with that, I wondered? I
did not have to wait long for my answer.
Gawain's soldiers moved to block Bleys' path, and much bloody slicing
and dicing ensued. Swordplay is so terribly messy. Gawain began tossing
spells at Bleys which were, as expected, ineffectual. Emily contacted me
at this point, asking me to tilt the castle 30 degrees and angle the
combatants towards the broken door. I did so happily, not really caring
if both sides were tipped into the Abyss. The contents of the room
quickly began tumbling through the balcony door, including the three
remaining stone prisoners that we had never managed to free. The
automaton quickly anchored itself, with Gawain grabbing hold of its ankle.
Bleys, in the meantime, managed to anchor himself with a rope, which
Gawain promptly broke with a spell. Bleys was undeterred by this, and
simply anchored himself again, this time with a dagger. And then I
learned just how Gawain intended to deal with Auriclave. Somehow, Gawain
managed to drain Auriclave with some sort of conjuration unraveling spell.
With a bit of a shock, I realized I recognized it from one of my walks on
the Magic Circle, and made a mental note to see if I could not work out a
way to protect Werewindle from its effects. With Auriclave drained, it
was a simple matter for Gawain to teleport the sword to himself. Emily
appeared at this point, grabbing hold of Gawain and telling him to finish
it. I wholeheartedly concurred. Gawain easily broke Bleys' dagger, and
Bleys quickly tumbled through the door and out into the Abyss. And just
like that, it was over.
I tilted the room back to a normal angle, noticing as I did so that
Gawain had not only Auriclave but Greyswandir as well. Was he collecting
all of the Pattern swords? Emily still had Werewindle, much to my relief.
Unfortunately, Gawain did not depart the premises, now that he had
attained his goal. Instead, the automaton left for the Shadow Gawain had
connected to the Tir, returning with what appeared to be Gawain's body and
joining Emma in Cerridwen's room. I gave up trying to figure out which
Gawain was the real one at this point. Emily filled Gawain in on
Cerridwen's current condition, adding that she wanted to take her to Chaos
to get new limbs. You can imagine my dismay when Emma insisted on staying
with her. So much for getting rid of our unwelcome guests. Still, if the
woman insisted on bringing her artifact into the very land from which it
was stolen, perhaps I could arrange for an attempt to be made to return it
to its rightful owners.
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All text on this page is © 1999 by Kris
Fazzari.
Last modified on March 31, 1999 by Kris Fazzari.