Berlin, Early-Morning
14th February SY154
It had been an odd sort of day. From about lunchtime onwards, I'd felt on edge without being able to pin down why. Then, as the evening had come around, I had to admit to myself that I was feeling more than a little...amorous, for want of a polite way of putting it. Claire and I adjourned relatively early, but as we were drifting off to sleep afterwards, I still couldn't shake an odd feeling of light headedness which was bordering on uncomfortable.
I was woken around 3.30am by a knock at the door which broke into a particularly vivid dream I'd been having. It was notable because it was visually so incredibly clear, like a spring day after the rains when everything seems clean and perfect, almost standing out of the landscape. I was being attacked by a force I couldn't identify, but which was intent on hurting me and mine to the extent of wiping us from the face of Shadow, and I was falling back before it. As I awoke I realised I was shaking and my heart rate was higher than normal, the way it often is if you awaken from a nightmare, and I felt very disorientated. Claire stirred gently beside me, then rolled over and went back to sleep, and I was relieved that I hadn't disturbed her.
I got quietly out of bed, pulled on a robe, headed for the door and opened it, to see Toby, my valet, looking apologetic.
"Your Majesty. I'm really sorry, but there's a woman here to see you."
"A woman..." I echoed, confused and less than pleased.
"She said her name was Morgan," he answered, and before he could say any more, I recognised the Aurellian god of...to be blunt...sex, drugs and rock and roll, standing a little behind him.
"What the Hell?" I began.
"I need you to come with me...I'm worried about your brother."
"You're worried about my brother? Do I want to know which one?"
"The Great Protector," she answered, "he threw me out of a party."
I blinked a couple of times, trying to process why she would wake me up in the middle of the night for being thrown out of the party. But then I was staggered by a feeling of hatred towards Sable in general and me in particular which was eerily similar to my nightmare. That was the point at which I realised that what I had been feeling all day was probably coming down the occasional link I share with Rupert. For it to be this strong, though... It seemed totally uncontrolled and utterly sincere, which meant either a sea change in his feelings since tea on the first, when he'd been relatively civilised, or he was in trouble.
"No one ever throws me out of a party," she added, sounding almost hurt.
"Where is he?"
"In a club in Berlin."
"Outstanding...give me five minutes and I'll be with you."
"Thank you, Robert," she said, with relief and I closed the door.
I went to the bathroom, splashed some water on my face to try to wake myself up, and then went over to the dressing room and pulled on some clothes. I also got the box containing the insignia Rupert had given me at his wedding out of the drawer where I keep it, slipped out the contents and popped them in my pocket. If I was going to Berlin, they might be useful...
I crossed to Claire and gave her a kiss on the cheek, which elicited a sleepy murmur, but not much else (she could probably sleep through an earthquake), then headed out to join Morgan.
"Feel like going into more details? The whole throwing you out of a party thing..."
"One of the abilities I have as part of my aspect is to know where a good party is happening, and I felt that one of the Aurellian gods was thoroughly indulging. So I decided, why not join in the fun? So I followed the trace, not realising who it was, and found your brother in the middle of one Hell of a bender. Sex, booze, drugs...the whole nine yards. I realised very quickly that all was not well. There was a lot of energy in that room, some of it tantric, some of it something else, and I didn't like the feel of it. And then he saw me and wasn't in the slightest bit welcoming, although by the look of the room, he'd been very welcoming earlier in the evening. So I decided to come and find you, as you seem best able to deal with him."
"Thanks," I answered, not meaning it in the slightest. Still, while normally I'd leave Rupert to his own devices when he gets into one of his black moods (which thankfully seem less frequent than in the earlier days of Sable's existence), the feelings I was getting down the link did, indeed, seem to indicate that something was wrong.
"You can get us there?" I asked.
"If you don't mind tucking the Pattern away for a few moments..."
I did as was bid and felt her bring up the Aurellian Logrus, and a short while later we arrived in a stairwell. From downstairs I could hear music and the sound of laughter.
"This way," she said, and pushed open the door into the hallway.
It was very plush, with deep red carpeting and gilt decorations on the walls, and there appeared to be several doorways off it. However, one look down the hallway, and I didn't need to ask her which room my brother was in. I could see one of the Honour Guard standing outside looking wary, and I could feel privacy wards on the room.
"How, exactly did you get in?" I asked Morgan, as I slipped the insignia out of my jacket pocket and pinned it to the lapel...which caused her some surprise, albeit she recovered quickly.
"As I said, part of my aspect is the ability to crash any party," she answered, with a mischievous look in her eye.
The Guard...I recognised him as Marius Waldemar as I got closer...watched our approach like a hawk.
"I need to see my brother," I said in German as I drew up to him.
"The Reichsführer is busy and does not wish to be disturbed."
"I have reason to believe he's in trouble," I answered.
"There's been no indication of it," he replied, his expression stubborn.
"Hauptsturmführer Waldemar. I heartily suggest you let me in," I said, trying to remain patient, and I could see his eyes flick to the insignia I was wearing.
"Even if I were inclined to do that, Oberstgruppenführer von Worcester, I would not be allowed to."
"And what if he's dying of an overdose in there? It would be embarrassing for him to die on your watch."
"His orders were very clear," he replied, but I could hear doubt in his tone for the first time.
"And I'm ordering you to let me in."
He considered for a few moments, and eventually nodded.
"On your own head be it," he commented, and opened the door with a straight-arm salute that was half respectful and half impudent. I returned it with a more regular Sable salute.
"Watch out..." Morgan said to him...or probably to both of us, "you're about to see a party gone very bad indeed..."
As I walked in I could immediately feel what Morgan had meant. The energies in the room were strange...out of balance. I glanced around the room and saw three...no four...women lying around the room in various states of consciousness and satiation. As I did, I realised that there was a coat rack spell on one of them. I recognised the one nearest my brother as Frida, which really surprised me. She always seemed more staid and upright than this. On the sideboard there were a variety of empty and partially empty bottles - champagne mostly - and traces of white powder which I was pretty sure wasn't icing sugar. Off to one side, Rikart Schultz seemed semi-conscious, arm wrapped around one of the women, and I heard a hiss of disapproval from Waldemar, who had followed us inside.
And then, faster than I would have thought possible, given the fact that when I walked in he had seemed very out of it when I'd arrived, my brother was on his feet and hurtling towards me, and I was almost knocked backwards by the waves of hate hitting me from him. It was as if he was channelling every bad feeling he'd ever had towards me and bombarding me with it like an almost physical force. As I looked into his face, I could tell that he was as high as a kite. His pupils were wide and his eyes were blank of everything except hate and madness, topped with an unhealthy slug of paranoia .
"Rupert, what the Hell..." I began, but before I could finish he was beside me, and I felt a searing pain in my guts.
I looked down at his left hand on the hilt of his Honour Dagger (God knows where it had come from...he definitely hadn't had it on him when I'd first walked in), the blade lodged, pretty much in its entirety, slightly to the right of my navel. It had gone through my shields like a hot knife through butter, as Powers weapons are wont to do. I gasped in pain as he grabbed my shoulder with his right hand and started to cut the blade upwards towards my rib cage with the left, and looked at him in shock.
And then the world stopped.
And then I realised I wasn't in my body any more, and neither was he. Both of us were in our astral forms, the lifelines connected back to our respective bodies, and mine looked distressingly faint.
"Well this is new," came a familiar voice, and I glanced towards it to see Roland Helgram standing there. A movement the other side of me also revealed Sian's presence. It was as if we were on the astral plane, looking back at the room, but they were there with us in body.
"What just happened?" Rupert asked, confused and uncertain.
"The room is time stopped," Sian answered, "it seemed the best way to break up the fight."
"It's a technique we developed to stop the family getting a little rowdy," Roland explained, "but I don't normally have to come and play Pater to you two."
My brother looked startled, to say the least, at the state of our respective physical bodies, and when I looked at him (once I'd got past the weird feeling of seeing a face rather closer to mine than he normally wore: the one I'd only ever seen once before, when we'd gone to save Silke von Halle, and which I now suspected was his original appearance) I was relieved that he seemed more rational. His pupils were a normal size, and it was confusion, not hatred and paranoia, which I could see there.
"Rupert, did no one ever tell you that it's a really bad idea for a Creator to indulge in recreational drugs?" Roland said sternly, looking at him with disapproval, "maybe you should try harder to curb your hedonistic tendencies."
"Trust me, they don't normally have that effect," he answered, his voice uncertain, "they don't normally have that much effect at all."
"How often do you do this?" I asked.
"Three or four times a year maybe," he replied, his tone slightly defensive, "I find it helps me to relax, even if it doesn't do much else, given my...metabolism. And today was just a really shitty day..."
Then he turned to me with a flash of anger "...as well you should bloody know, Mein Bruder."
"Rupert, I honestly have no idea what you're talking about."
"Your people were at work again."
"That doesn't normally cause you to want to kill me," I replied, indicating the tableau, "Harsh words, certainly. Uncomfortable meetings, definitely. Blind murder...not so much."
"I don't understand that..." he answered, sounding calmer, "all I remember is being angry...no, furious...with you, and knowing with utter certainty that the way to solve all my problems, restore the honour of my organisation and finally give my country dominance, was if you were no longer there to get in the way."
"Sounds like drug-induced paranoia to me," I commented, "as a result of which, you decided to run me through..."
"Robert, I didn't even have a weapon with me. And I hope you know me well enough by now to know that under normal circumstances, I'd never be stupid enough to try to kill you."
Which would have been comforting if I hadn't been watching myself bleeding from a gut wound, with his hand angled as if he was about to carry on the upstroke through my rib cage to my heart, which was quite possible with a Pattern dagger. Neither was I hugely comforted by the fact that Waldemar had drawn his weapon and was pointing it at the back of my head, and Schultz had somehow stirred himself and looked as if he was about to throw the sideboard at us. The fact that Morgan was off to one side watching the tableau, equally frozen, was just the icing on the cake.
"Brother, you were out of your skull, and your subconscious obviously hates me enough to want to end me, even if your waking mind doesn't. Which by the way doesn't thrill me in the slightest. Moreover, I was already feeling that before I ever got here, and the moment I did..."
"Enough, Robert," he snapped, guilt fighting anger from what I could read of his body language, and then he said abruptly, "I'm sorry. It wasn't a conscious decision."
"That's as may be, Rupert," Roland commented, "but probably the more pertinent question right now is do you intend to follow through with the upstroke?"
I breathed a metaphorical sigh of relief as I saw my brother shake his head.
"Good," Roland continued, "then there's a chance of sorting this out without one of you, most probably Robert at this point, ending up dead."
He indicated for Sian to go over to Waldemar and take the gun out of his hand. She did so, very carefully, and dropped it on the floor. Then, moments later, I was back in my body and the pain was back. However, instead of continuing with his attack, he withdrew the blade and let it fall, at which point I sagged back into Sian's arms, bleeding profusely. I was lowered to the cushions which seemed scattered over much of the room, and felt her place her hand on the wound, as if to cauterise it. Off to one side, I heard the sound of the sideboard being dropped back onto the floor.
"Robert, I need to put you into suspended animation so you don't lose any more blood...will you drop your shields?"
I weakly obliged, and moments later I could feel my body slowing considerably, although my mind was still racing. As I did, I heard Rupert cast a quick spell.
"Ah, modesty issues, I see," came Sian's sarcastic comment, albeit her voice was rather distorted by the fact that from my perspective, time was now flowing more slowly.
"It seemed more appropriate," I heard Rupert saying, obviously ignoring Sian's jibe, "I meant what I said. Drugs don't normally have that effect on me."
"Which implies that someone was interfering," came Roland's answer, "trying to make things difficult. Someone who knows you're a shifter, I'd guess, and compensated accordingly. After all, if you'd killed Robert, that would have pretty much fucked up any possibility of peace between your two nations. Our realms share enemies who would have an interest in that."
"But how did they know I'd be here? I didn't even know I was going to be here until about ten last night..."
At that point I faded out, and the next thing I remember was Schultz's voice.
"Sirs...it would seem the King of Sable is oozing..."
Sian was beside me moments later and I could feel that the bleeding had started again.
"I'm sorry," she said quietly to me, then looked at the others, "even co-operating, he's too strong for me to put him under properly."
"Rupert, are you going to help him? Or are you going to let him die, with all that would entail?" I heard Roland say, in a tone which implied that the subject had come up while I'd been under.
I heard footsteps come over to me and my brother knelt beside me. He seemed completely sober, and actually appeared concerned - at least outwardly - although I was understandably nervous that his dagger was back at his hip. He placed his hand over the external wound, and I felt it begin to close. I was still in a lot of pain from the internal damage, but at least I wasn't...oozing, as Schultz had so kindly put it. And as Rupert was using shifting to do seal the wound, I presumed that Waldemar wasn't in the room any more.
"He can be moved," I heard Rupert say to the others, "I'd like to take him elsewhere to work on him properly. Here is not the right place."
"I can leave him safely in your hands?" Roland asked, mildly, although I could hear steel underlying his tone.
"You can," came the answer, "and I give you my word that I will not harm him further."
"Then our business here is done," he replied, and with a flurry of Logrus, he, Sian and Morgan disappeared.
Rupert helped me into a sitting position, albeit it still hurt like Hell, and as I looked around I saw that the only people left in the room were myself, my brother and Frida, who was still out for the count. Schultz came back in a few moments later, also rather more clothed than he had been earlier.
"I've taken them to safety at Schloss Bremen, Herr Reichsführer."
"I'll look at them later...is the coat rack spell still on the one who was dying?"
"It is...I refreshed it, so it should last until you get to see her."
"Thank you, Rikart..." he said, then shouted out "Marius..." and Waldemar came back into the room. "Marius, I'm going to take my wife, my brother and Schultz here back to my apartment in the Village. Can I trust you to clean up here?"
"Yes, Herr Reichsführer," he answered, promptly, displaying no trace of his earlier disapproval.
"Excellent. Now..."
I felt him bring up the Pattern and we transferred through to another location. It seemed to be a guest bedroom, but I didn't recognise the architecture. It wasn't Panenske Brezany, and there was no feel of the Black Pattern, which meant it wasn't the Wewelsburg. But given that the windows were curtained, trying to look out didn't help me either. He helped me to the bed, and then walked back to where Frida was and picked her up tenderly.
"I'll be back shortly, Mein Bruder...I just want to make sure she's comfortable. Feel free to pass out while I'm gone if you get the urge: by my honour, I swear I will do you no harm if you do."
I nodded weakly, and watched blearily as he and Schultz took Frida out of the room. Then I slumped down onto the bed, unable to remain upright any longer, and was unconscious in moments.
When I awoke, I felt better. For the most part, the pain had gone, and I could feel my shifting putting the finishing touches to things, although it was pretty obvious to me that it had been helped along by my brother. Somewhere along the way, I'd been put to bed, and could see my clothes piled neatly on the vanity unit beside me, cleaned of bloodstains, the insignia sitting on top.
I threw back the covers and hauled myself up to a sitting position then, very gingerly, got up and dressed. As I did I discovered that the shirt had obviously been a write-off, but a new one had kindly been provided for me. I was just debating whether to make a clean getaway, when the door opened and Rupert walked in. He looked exhausted.
"How do you feel?" he asked, quietly.
"Better."
"Good...Schultz is rounding up a couple of steaks...we could both benefit from them."
"How's Frida?"
"I think she'll be alright, but I'm going to need to keep an eye on her. Rikart too."
"And the other women who were there?"
"Dealt with. They'll be fine and they won't remember what happened."
"What actually did happen?"
"As far as my reaction was concerned? I don't know...Roland's theory is that someone used circumstance and coincidence to try to sow chaos and confusion at this end of the universe. To try to break up our relatively united front. And lets be honest, both the Federation and the Machine would benefit from screwing that up. So I have a feeling he's right, but I have no idea how it was achieved."
"The logic is sound," I answered. After all, it made a lot of sense. Our usually civilised relationship, and the potential of a ceasefire between Sable and the Reich, wouldn't be in the interests of either of our antagonists, who would infinitely prefer us to continue fighting each other.
"But your reaction...Christ, Rupert. I thought we'd got beyond that degree of hatred."
"So had I, Robert," he answered, quietly, and he sounded subdued, "but there's no beating about the bush. There and then, I wanted you dead."
He paused a moment, sounding ashamed at his admission.
"Waldemar saved a sample of the residue of what I was taking before he burned everything else in the room...including your blood, for the record. I checked it, and discovered that it appears to have been reformulated to have a full effect on shape shifters. Even shifters as good as us. And to be more than usually addictive, if not downright fatal, to
non-shifters. What I don't know, is how it got there, or who knew I'd be there? And that worries the Hell out of me."
"How much did you take?"
"I don't remember...too much...more than I intended or indeed realised I'd taken. Enough to dredge up feelings I didn't realised I still had. But maybe you were right...and as much as anything else it was paranoia talking. In truth, I rather hope so as I didn't like what I became. Suffice to say, I won't get caught out like that again."
"It must have been a really bad day for you to be that much of an idiot. What happened?
"Still playing innocent?"
"If it was only something which occurred yesterday, I wouldn't have had the briefing yet. I've been otherwise engaged."
"Then I'll sum it up for you," he answered, his tone tired, rather than angry, "your people destroyed Gestapo headquarters in Hannover, on Niedersachsen, and damaged one of our research facilities. And one of our best ballistics experts is probably now looking for asylum in Sable, along with his traitor of a girlfriend. All of which I'm going to have to report to the Kaiser in the morning, and there is no way to spin it so it sounds good. As I said the other day, while we might achieve a ceasefire on the battlefield, the covert war isn't going to end as easily."
"No, it isn't. But the stopping the overt one would be a start."
He paused, then nodded, before adding: "Oh, and when you see your friend Ragoczy, tell him I'm going to personally take his head if he comes into my sphere of influence again."
"Any particular reason?"
"He was the one who demolished the building...he killed a lot of innocent people."
I decided not to dispute the use of the word innocent where Gestapo headquarters was concerned...I didn't feel up to the response I'd get. In fact, I was debating whether to say anything else at all, when he took the decision from me.
"Robert...I'm sorry," he said, his tone significantly more civilised. As I looked at him, I saw remorse in his expression, and as far as I could tell, it was genuine.
"At least there doesn't seem to be any permanent damage done," I answered.
He looked a little sheepish at that, then said, "I'm not sure the scar is going away...Powers weapons hurt like Hell and the injuries are remarkably persistent."
"You would know," I answered.
"Yes I would," he replied, quietly.
"Claire's going to love that..."
"No...not really. But I've done what I can. I'm afraid you're going to have to do the explaining."
Before I could say anything, the door opened, and Schultz came in. He looked tidy and sober once more, and was pushing a trolley laden with two plates and a decent looking bottle of wine in a carrier.
"Your Majesty..." he said, politely to me, then turned his attention to my brother, while offloading the trolley onto a small table to one side, which had a pair of chairs at it and was already laid out for dinner, "as you ordered, Herr Reichsführer ...it was as rare as I could manage...raw would have got some strange looks."
"Thank you, Rikart," Rupert said, with a weak smile.
"I'll go back to sit with the Herzogin."
"That would seem wise."
Schultz looked at us both, then saluted and headed out once more.
"Rupert, I..."
"Not now," he answered, "anything else can wait until another day...for now, I suggest we do justice to dinner...okay, more technically breakfast...and then you should probably go home to your wife."
And then he lapsed into silence and crossed over to the table, indicating for me to join him.