The Creation of Murray
The RoC Shadows, June SY113
When I first heard of the Rolandae motion on the partitioning of Shadow, my immediate reaction was one of outrage. For a long time I've known just how high-handed an attitude many other members of my extended family have towards Shadow, but the proposal to annex the whole of open Shadow was going way too far. Especially as Rolandae's stated objective was to strip the region they were claiming for resources, in the name of their internal security. The fact that they felt they needed to was a sobering one, also...mainly as it seemed to imply that they had exhausted the resources actually within the closed realm of Rolandae itself; which meant they had used an infinite amount of materials and men.
Over the next couple of days, I watched the press with some dismay as ruler after ruler of the other Powers came out in support of the motion, and also as Rolandae, mainly in the form of Kirk's pet Mrrr - who I have to say I prefer when he isn't being a politician - attempted to shout down anyone who argued that the Rolandae motion shouldn't be the first thing on the agenda for the up-coming Great Powers Committee meeting.
In the end, rather to my own surprise, I found myself commenting publicly about their behaviour, and the arrogance they were showing in claiming that the motion they wanted to pass was the most important thing in the universe - although more on the principal of the thing, than speaking my opinion on the motion itself: there, I knew I would be overruled, as it was obvious that nothing was going to stop the motion going through.
I have to admit, Aven went up in my estimations over that period. After all, at least he didn't bow to the demands to re-draft the meeting agenda to reflect Rolandae's demands. Had he done so, however, I firmly believe it would have ended the farce of the GPC there and then, as it would have proved that the Council's purpose had become to rubber stamp the demands of the person who shouted loudest. In fact, that may yet be what occurs at the meeting, but at least the revelation has been delayed that long.
It was some days until I started to hear good reasons for the passing of the motion: from those Creators I consider more moderate. Piers and Mordred, among others, both declared that they believed it might actually make Creators more responsible for the people they had created - not that I think that will ever happen with Rolandae - and at least one of them, Mordred, I think, stated that his and Cat's region of Shadow would be willing to effectively accept refugees from the lands claimed by the other Creators. Finally, someone was making some sense, and that was the point where I decided that while I didn't like the motion, I could live with it if I worked on similar terms.
Of course, the next problem was where, if anywhere, did I fit into either the discussion, or its ultimate outcome.
From what I had done with Sable, by effectively severing it from the Amber universe, I initially wasn't certain whether any of the Shadows which had been created in the Amber universe when I had built my own Power still existed, or if they did exist, whether their nature had been overwritten by first the appearance of the ersatz-Sable, and later by the creation of Viridis.
If they did not, then my opinion on the Rolandae proposal was going to be of little consequence, as I would not be allowed to claim lands under it, even as a refuge for those Shadow dwellers who did not like the sphere of influence in which they found themselves. Unless, of course, I could persuade the GPC that they should allow me to claim some regions of open Shadow created with the building of various others of the newer powers. While it was possible this could be done, trying a claim on that basis was likely to open me up to accusations of power grabbing, and that is far from my motivation in this issue.
If, however, the old Shadows built with the creation DID exist, the situation would be very different. The question was, could I prove whether they were still there? And in terms sufficiently clear that they would be understandable to the other members of the council? And further, whether they were separate from the ones created with the building of Viridis.
The last thing I wanted was to strain relations in that direction with what could again be seen by my enemies as an attack against Myth.
Bearing this in mind, I settled down to try and work out a way of first discovering if they existed, and second, trying to find a way of making them identifiable. My guess was that I'd need to look at them at the most microscopic level - in a Pattern manner of speaking - seeing if there was any kind of identifying tag in the Shadows within my closed Sable system. It took time...months...but finally, I found something which I might be able to work with.
The next step was to return Amberwards and see if the theory worked there, also.
I memorised my notes, closed my books, and headed back into the Amber universe. Thelbane seemed a reasonable place to start, and I could work outwards from there. After all, at least until the GPC meeting, open Shadow was still... open, and so I could still investigate those unclaimed worlds which still had a couple of weeks of independence left.
Once back in Clarion, I brought up the augmented Pattern lens I was using for my investigation, and started taking a look at the Shadow around me. More quickly than I had expected, I managed to isolate something which could be the Thelbane "tag". Holding that in mind, I moved outwards into Shadow, and soon managed to identify a number of lands outside of Thelbane itself demonstrating the same mark.
The theory was beginning to look provable. However, I still needed more evidence. Next, I headed towards the other end of the universe... although I decided to stay well out of Amber itself. I repeated the procedure, and once again I found a new identifying mark that differed from the ones I had found in Sable, and around the Thelbane Shadows.
It was looking very provable.
The next logical step seemed to be to make a circuit around Earth Prime - at least metaphorically - at a fixed distance from that world, and try to get a feel for where the "slices" of Shadow fell. I set off from the Amber sector of Shadow, and started to search. It wasn't a quick process, somewhat naturally - Shadow being nothing if not large - however, with perseverance, I began to see the pattern. The sectors were of similar size to each other, and now I knew what I was looking for, working out which sector was definitely possible. Sufficiently so, that I reckoned I could show someone else the technique if I needed to.
I passed fairly quickly through the main bulk of both Axis and Viridis Shadow - my intention being to stay only long enough to identify the signatures of those two powers, before moving on. However, as I moved out of the sphere of influence of Viridis, I noticed a discrepancy. It was as if there was something else there also... something that had been moved out of the way when the Viridis Shadows had been created, but which didn't belong to the next Power around the clock. Indeed, whereas there were signs that the other Shadows I had investigated were anchored into the scheme of things by their originating Power and Earth Prime, these were fixed only to Earth Prime.
Intrigued, I investigated the phenomenon in greater detail, and - somewhat to my surprise - quickly found the identifier I had come to associate with the Shadows of my own universe. Bearing this in mind, I proceeded on around the circuit, and after a while the identifier changed to fit with the next Power, and the Shadows I was in felt anchored once more. The logical conclusion was that there was a section of Shadow which did not belong to the current Powers within the Amber universe, and which, in all likelihood, was ultimately going to suffer from the fact that their place in the scheme was not properly defined: possibly in a manner as drastic as fading away altogether.
The next step was to discover how extensive the block of dispossessed Shadows was, and to try to work out if there was any way to either flag those Shadows as the ones I had effectively created when I created Sable, or somehow anchor them to stabilise them. Confident now that if anyone questioned what I was doing, I could prove my right to be there, I settled down to see what I could find.
It took a while. However, what I ultimately determined was that I was dealing with a block of Shadows which was, to all intents and purposes, of an equivalent size and complexity to those whose native Powers were still in place. In addition, the more I studied the Sable block, the more convinced I became that unless I could find some method to anchor them, they were likely to ultimately disintegrate. Along with those souls who lived there.
Knowing that meant it became my responsibility to do something. However, the question was what.
I had absolutely no desire to bring the Sable universe back into the Amber one. Things were exactly as I wanted in that regard, and I had every intention of keeping it that way. Therefore, a method needed to be found to duplicate Sable's anchoring effect in another manner.
When I had built my Pattern, there had been a belief that the universe only had room for four Powers of each variety: Pattern, Logrus and Neutral. However, since my absence, the number of Neutrals had grown far beyond that, which seemed to disprove the four-four-four balance theory. Therefore, could one possibility be to use a single Pattern - without its associated reflections and new Shadows - to hold the Sable Shadows in place?
After all, the specific design of Sable's Pattern was graven into me by now, in more than just a metaphorical sense, and so it would be quite possible to replicate. Now, I even had the focus to be able to do so outside of my own universe. The trick was going to be scribing the single Pattern, and binding it into the existing Shadows, rather than having it generate others.
It was time to return home and work out the specifics in more detail.
Working out a method took some months. However, after trying out a number of possible permutations, I finally came up with a solution. First, I needed to establish a link between myself and the Shadows I wanted to knit together, and then I would need to bind that link bound into the Pattern as it was being drawn. That way, it should be possible to anchor them into the new Power, without causing any other Shadows to be spawned in the process.
At least it worked in theory. Now to put it into practise.
I returned to the Amber universe, and located a slightly more stable Shadow than most at the extreme of the Sable block, which seemed suitable as a foundation for the new design. Then I contacted Michael and asked to borrow William and James, plus some of their men, to watch my back while I worked. Dominic also agreed to stand guard. As to whether the Hags were likely to be interested...well, there didn't seem any harm in bringing along some blood bags, just in case, even though they'd already had their pound of flesh from me, as it were.
As with the scribing of the original Sable Pattern, I decided to pace myself to music - using the crystal I had originally used to help keep me following the path I had chosen and set out so many years before when I had first done this, and later with the building of Tenné. If nothing else, the music would serve to remind me how I'd done this before.
Once everything was ready, and William, Dominic and James were in position, I knew it was time and I started to walk. I focused on the black diamond, and began to trace the path I wanted to take. However, instead of using the focus to build new Shadows around me, this time I worked by calling the extant Sable Shadows to me. In the diamond, I began to see them. I was visualising them as shards of a broken stained glass window: currently broken and disordered, but all still present and ready to make up a whole picture if they could be reassembled. Thankfully, as I looked at them, I became more certain that I was capable of piecing together the puzzle.
I lost myself in the music and the puzzle, trying not to pay any attention to the memories that inevitably came to mind as the Pattern was scribed. The task was hard enough without allowing myself to be diverted. Soon I could feel the new Pattern - Murrey was the name that occurred to me - stretching out behind me, and as I built the Veil points, sections of the displaced Shadows began to be locked into place once more.
I don't know how long the process took, but soon the number of shards I could see in the diamond began to reduce, and finally, after an eternity of a walk, the last few were locked into their places. I pulled my attention back out of the diamond, and found myself in the centre of the new Pattern. I could feel its familiar design all around me, and knew that it was brother to the ones back home: although the only link between Sable and Murrey was myself. I felt out for other Patterns, and was pleased to discover that I had achieved my aim of a single design.
Then I looked around me in the physical world. We seemed to be in an underground vault. Slowly and carefully, because I was very tired, I brought up a Pattern lens and scanned the area. Initially I bounced off the defences I had built around the vault. However, with a little fine tuning, I managed to persuade them that they didn't need to keep me out or in: although I made sure that if anyone else tried anything similar, without either myself present, or a token from me to say they had the right, they would be destroyed.
I'm afraid I had learned well enough from the lessons of the accounts of the attack on the ersatz-Sable to risk it being otherwise.
Once I made my way past the wards, I discovered that we were in the basement of a castle - or, at least, a fortified manor house: one that reminded me strongly of one I had seen in Scotland many years before. The place seemed defensible, if it needed to be, and comfortable as a place to live. Well, it would make a change from Millbank and Sable Palace, and at least I wouldn't be relying on Kenneth's good graces any more.
I dropped the lens, and then teleported from the centre to join the others. William, James and their men seemed fine, although Dominic appeared ill at ease. The blood, I noticed, had gone.
"Are you okay, Dad?" William asked, concern crossing his face as he saw me.
"Just tired...nothing a week's rest won't fix," I answered, although in truth I was beginning to feel like I wasn't going to be standing for much longer, "anything happen that I should know about?"
"Those Hags are ugly bitches," he answered, "...oh, and as they left they said the vintage was still one of the better ones...whatever the heck Hell they meant by that."
I smiled.
"The subject apparently came up last time I drew one of these things here, too," I answered, then looked at Dom, "what's up?"
"I didn't like being looked at as if I was the vintage they came here to eat," he answered, "I swear they stared at me with dinner on their mind, before we persuaded them to take the bags."
I looked at him, puzzled for a moment, and then I realised why. It hadn't even occurred to me before. I'd made sure Andrew was a long way away when I first built Sable, because of the red in his hair... just in case they decided he was a better offering than the one I had provided. And while the colouring wasn't as obvious in Dom, in certain lights it was still there.
I looked at him, my expression apologetic.
"I should have realised. I'm sorry."
He looked at me, as if wondering what to say, but in the end he just shrugged.
"I guess they decided I was blond today," he answered, "and it was interesting to see you working. However, next time - if there is a next time - I hope you'll understand if I decline the offer to watch."
I met his gaze, then nodded.
"I'll remember."
"So do we stay here, or go somewhere else?" James asked.
"Lets head upstairs."
"There's an upstairs?"
"Yes."
I concentrated for a short while, and then teleported the whole group of us, including William's and James's men, up into the great hall of the castle above.
"The barracks are outside the main keep," I commented to William, "if you're willing to lend me those men, I could do with a guard force here. At least until I can get a couple of legions of O'Connor's men here."
"I expect that can be arranged," James said, with a smile, and looked at his men, "this way."
He headed out, the men falling into step behind him.
"You should go and get some rest," Dom commented, "you look white."
I nodded, as I couldn't deny to myself any longer that I was exhausted.
"Do you two mind holding the fort for me while I'm gone?"
"Like James said," William answered, "I expect that can be arranged." Then he smiled. "Just get the Hell out of here, and don't come back until you can stand."
"Aye, sir," I answered, throwing him a mock salute, and then I concentrated on the Pattern once more, and with my last reserves of strength I returned to Millbank, and teleported to my bed.