Sable Palace Infirmary/Shadow Veil 50
18th October SY154
"Robert..." came Claire's voice, and I was aware of being shaken out of a deep sleep, "...wakey, wakey sleepy head."
Bleary eyed, I looked up at her, pleased that at least she didn't look pissed off with me. It took me a moment or two to remember where I was, and how I'd got there.
"What time is it?" I asked, groggily.
"Six in the morning...you've pretty much slept round the clock."
"Round the clock?" I pulled myself up to a sitting position. "So what day is it?"
"October 18th."
"Why didn't you wake me before?"
"Roland told me what you'd been up to, so I thought it was better to give you a chance to recover. But I think 36 hours is enough, even for a slug-a-bed like you."
"Is everything okay?"
"We've had some problems," she admitted, "we got hit by a bad storm, which I'm guessing corresponded with when you were walking the Aurellis Logrus again. Your upheavals often have side effects, and as I understand it this time it was both you and Bloody Rupert remoulding the universe without due care and attention. But that's blown over now, and we've moved on to clean-up."
"Dammit! Why didn't you wake me sooner?"
"What could you have done? You were exhausted. And anyway, Andrew, Will and I had everything in hand."
"Was anyone hurt?"
"There were some casualties, but thankfully no fatalities. However, once you're up and about, you might want to do the concerned monarch thing. I've been filling in in your stead, but I've been fielding questions on why you haven't been around."
"Give me an hour or so to wake up, and then I'll put my duty hat on."
"Alright," she concurred. She seemed worried about something, but I got the impression that she wasn't sure whether she wanted to raise another problem.
"What is it?" I asked.
"Robert, did Michael go with you to Eboracum?"
"No reason why he would," I answered, "why?"
"He's not here...which is out of character for him."
"Has anyone checked with his wife?"
"Apparently he told her he was going out of town on business for a couple of days."
"Then I'm not sure what the problem is..."
"It's just...well, I think I would have expected him to cut his trip short in light of the storm damage and the injuries."
"Maybe he's just out of touch," I answered, with a shrug, "he's quite capable of looking after himself."
"I guess you're right," she replied, not wholly convinced, but seeing that at least it might be possible, "see you downstairs in half an hour or so."
And she gave me a kiss on the forehead, before heading out of the bedroom and leaving me to make myself feel human again.
* * * * *
After getting myself up, bathed and breakfasted, I spent the day visibly helping with the clean-up effort after the storm and looking in on some of the injured. Perhaps I was deluding myself, but I did have the feeling that the general populous was relieved to see me actively involved. As the day progressed, though, Claire's concerns about Michael became a nagging suspicion at the back of my mind. She was right. I would normally have expected him to have cut short a trip out of town if he'd heard that he was needed. Which meant he either hadn't heard – implying that he was off-Shadow – or he couldn't get back.
By evening, I decided that I ought to check in on him, and tried to bring his Trump to mind. Blocked. I felt for the nature of the link, and was left with the feeling that I was being prevented from reaching him, rather than he had chosen not to answer my call. My concern levels jumped skywards, especially given Rupert's nebulous new aspect. I was on the point of bringing Grey's image to mind and calling to see if he'd heard anything, when I felt an incoming Trump contact
Speak of the devil...
"Grey?" I asked, as I opened up the link. He looked worried. In the background, I could see the Maze courtyard, and a group of familiar looking faces.
"Could you go to the palace infirmary and give me a call back?" he asked.
"Of course," I replied, trying not to show my concern, "give me a minute."
I broke the link, then teleported down to the infirmary and re-established it. Grey answered almost immediately.
"You take him...I'll be over to explain later," he said, and passed through Michael's unconscious body. I took my brother from him as he added "...once I know what's going on myself" and he broke off the link.
I swung Michael round into a carrying position, and lifted him onto one of beds in the infirmary. He was positively anaemic, as if he was light three or four pints of blood, and his clothes were bloody, especially around what looked suspiciously like a bullet hole in the back of his shoulder. I could also see track marks inside his elbows, where blood had been drawn. I called for Malcolm Carlisle to help me, and after donning some gloves, we began to make him comfortable. Once we'd revealed the bullet hole, I took a good look at it. Medium calibre, fairly close range, and still weeping slightly. And it looked to have shattered his shoulder blade.
"What happened?" Malcolm asked.
"No idea," I answered, "but what's bothering me, is that he isn't healing himself. Needle marks ought to be gone in seconds, and yet..."
I brought up a magical investigation spell, but quickly discovered that most of the area around and in the wound registered as a null spot. And where I could get a reading, I detected merasha in his bloodstream. Which meant some bastard had shot my brother with a blue crystal bullet, and then kept him drugged and helpless.
"We're going to have to clean it out before we go any further."
Malcolm and I set to work very carefully, cleaning the wound of both broken bone and any shards of the damned crystal, locating the latter by magically seeking what we couldn't see. It took an hour or so, and all we dredged out were splinters, but eventually there were no more blanks spots. The merasha was going to be harder to deal with, and I quickly came to the conclusion that all we could do would be leave it to work out of Michael's system. Thankfully, left to his own devices, he's a good enough shape shifter that his own inherent abilities would speed that process up, now the crystal was no longer a factor. I left Malcolm to bandage the wound while I conjured up a shielded box to put the crystal slivers into, and then went to clean up.
Once I was presentable again, I brought Andrew's Trump to mind. As always, Carragher answered.
"Evening, Your Majesty," he said, pleasantly, "presumably you want to talk to the boss?"
"Yes," I answered, and offered my hand, "bring me through, and I'll explain."
Carragher shrugged, and pulled me through to him. Looking around, we seemed to be outside Sable army HQ
"Thank you Major," I answered, and we headed inside to Andrew's offices.
"Hey Robert. How are you feeling?"
"Better," I answered, "but I was wondering if you could help me with something."
"Shoot."
"You and Alex have figured out a way of identifying the different sources of blue crystal, haven't you?"
"We have. It works if you do it technologically."
"Could you run these through it?" I asked, and passed him the shielded box.
"Who's been shot?"
"Michael."
"Do we know who by?"
"Not currently. He's safely back in Sable now, but I still don't know the story. However, given that this..." I indicated the box, "...could only have come from one of three places, and we control two of them."
"You suspect the Reich?"
"To be honest, I don't know," I answered, but it was a logical conclusion to have reached, "I hope not."
"Leave it with me," Andrew said, then paused a moment, before adding, "why didn't you just give me this over a link?"
"Major Carragher, you need to know this as well," I answered, looking at Andrew's friend and then back at my son, "something happened in Aurellis last night which means that Rupert's abilities with Trumps are now better than mine. I just don't know how much better, so I'm being careful."
"Can you be more specific, Your Majesty?" Carragher asked.
"I wish I could," I answered, "but I think it's going to be a while until I figure it out. I certainly need to talk to Michael about possibilities, but that isn't going to happen until he's recovered."
"I've thought for a while that we relied too heavily on Trumps," Andrew commented, "you think Rupert could have ordered his assassination, as he knows he's the only one who can help you figure this out?"
"I don't think so," I answered, "for one thing, I'm pretty sure Rupert doesn't know quite how good Michael is, and for a second, as best I can tell from the timing, Michael may well have already been injured before the events in Aurellis even took place."
"Which were?"
"Maybe later... now I need to get back. I'm expecting a call from Grey. But let me know as soon as you can about the source of that crystal."
"Will do," Andrew answered, and with that I teleported myself back to the palace.
I checked in with the infirmary, where Michael was resting peacefully. As I looked in, I saw a figure sitting protectively by his bedside, and recognised Jason Reingard, head of Michael's Royal Guard detachment, and a physician in his own right. I wondered where the Hell he'd been when Michael had needed him, but decided that this wasn't the time to cross-examine him. Instead, I headed for my office. I poured myself a whisky, and then occupied the time while I was waiting for Grey by catching up on some paperwork. He called about half an hour later, and I brought him through.
"Where do you want me to start?" Grey asked, after I gave him a brandy, and we crossed to sit by the fire.
"The beginning sounds good," I answered.
"Okay. The rough version," he said, "you remember he was heavily involved with sorting out the plague on Azoulas?"
"Of course. He only got back a couple of weeks ago."
"Well, after his return, I received a report which had come the long route through military intelligence, which indicated that Janezh, one of the major nations there..."
"The one which was originally about as anti-shifter as the Reich?"
"Until the plague hit, destabilised it and the shifters took it back, yes. Anyway, the report indicated that certain elements in Janezh were openly talking about the possibility of making Michael their poster boy for all that's right, true and good about shape shifters. Some have even gone so far as proposing making him either their president, or their god."
"Was this something he had anything to do with?"
"I don't think so. In fact, knowing Michael, I think he'd be appalled. But I did ask someone to look into it, and they went to Janezh."
"And let me guess. They found him imprisoned with a bullet in him."
"Pretty much."
"I don't understand. If they want him as their poster boy, why try to kill him?" I began, then remembered the state he'd been in, "no, not kill...contain."
"Having debriefed the group in question...that's why it took me a while to get back to you...it seems as if he was invited to Janezh to discuss the matter. However, according to the only conscious witness we have to that conversation, Major Reingard, Michael refused to be put in that position. At which point all Hell seems to have broken loose."
"So why didn't Reingard protect him?"
"Apparently he was shot in the head early in the fighting."
"He looked pretty healthy for a corpse when I saw him a little while ago."
"From his own testimony, he was pretty much left for dead at the time, and thrown out with the bodies of his detail subordinates. But Michael's been teaching him a few tricks, and he managed to recover. His subordinates didn't."
"Convenient."
"Says the man who was shot in the head himself a couple of years back, and is still here to have this conversation with me."
"Fair point.
"I have no reason to believe that Reingard was either derelict in his duty or complicit. What happened...happened."
"So then what...they kept Michael prisoner."
"While one of their own people learned how to impersonate him. The team I saw witnessed what sounds a lot like a Cathedral of Light-style rally, with 'Michael' as the main speaker. However, they also report that when they investigated further, they came to the conclusion that whoever is doing the impersonating is far from healthy. Major Tyson's assessment – and he would know from experience - is that the man absorbed Michael's blood into his own bloodstream, and is using that to work from."
"Which is going to kill him."
"Ultimately. About the only person who might be able to save him would be Michael himself. And while your brother is a dedicated doctor, with all that entails, I'm not sure he'd feel that generous."
"Maybe, maybe not. But right now, that isn't relevant. He's in no state to do anything."
"How is he?"
"I think he'll be fine, but he'd been shot with blue crystal..."
Grey didn't say anything, but a look passed his face that I couldn't help noticing.
"...which you already knew," I acknowledged, with a sigh, "Where's the bullet now?"
"In safe hands."
"Tell Bond that if it comes back to haunt us, I'll hold you personally responsible."
"Yes sir," he answered, not denying who I'd guessed had the bullet. After all, I'd seen Bond in the courtyard when Grey had first called, and he'd been itching to get his hands on one of the damned things for months...years even.
"However, when we were working on him, I'd have said that Michael was light between three and four pints of blood. If this Janezhian imposter had absorbed that much, he'd be dead already. So where's the rest?"
"They don't know," Grey answered, "all they could confirm was that it wasn't with him in Janezh."
"We have to get it back."
"We're well aware of that," Grey replied, "and the best person to guide them to it is your brother. How quickly do you think he'll be up and about?"
"Once the merasha clears from his system, it shouldn't be long. A couple of days probably. Maybe less. I have great faith in his powers of recuperation, if he's left to his own devices."
"Here's hoping," Grey answered, and started to get to his feet.
"Hold on," I said, gesturing for him to sit once more.
"What?" he asked, curious.
"You need to know something."
"To do with Michael?"
"No, to do with Rupert."
He looked a little surprised at the non-sequitur.
"You think Rupert was behind this?"
"That's a different question, which Andrew may be able to give me an answer to. But no, this is something different. But it's important, so while you're here."
"Go ahead."
"No easy way to say this, so I'll just come right out with it. It's possible that the Trump network is compromised."
"Excuse me?" Grey said, his voice getting louder in surprise.
"Let me back up. You know I was down in Aurellis?"
"Claire mentioned something to the effect when she suggested I don't disturb you after the storm. She didn't give me the specifics, though."
"Roland came up with an idea to sort out the problem Rupert and I have been having since June."
"Thank the gods for that. Did it work?"
"Yes...but..."
"But..."
"Our respective aspects were reorganised, potentially leaving Rupert with an affinity with Trumps which he didn't previously have."
"How?"
"The Aurellis assigns aspects, and he came out of it with the aspect of Trumps."
"Which means what?"
"I don't know yet."
"Then what happened to you? I thought that was one of yours."
"I haven't had time to figure that out, either. Although I suspect it's because he was willing to screw Gaia and I wasn't."
"This could be very bad."
"Which is why I'm telling you. Just how bad will depend on a) exactly what we're talking about, and b) whether he actually wants to exploit it."
"I've never known him not to want to exploit something that fell in his lap."
"True...but on the other hand, there's no way he can devote all his time to being 'God of Trumps', whatever the Hell that actually means, if he wants to keep control of the SS. Especially after the bloodbath at Summer Solstice. He can't afford to."
"I'll issue an advisory to my agents, warning them to be circumspect in the use of Trumps until we're more certain what this means."
"Thank you. And in the meantime, I've told Andrew, and I've let Will know, so that he can deal with telling the Staff Council."
"Thanks," he said, looking serious, "Robert, if the cards are seriously compromised, that's going to cripple our communications network. Especially compared to the Reich itself or the Empire, given that within the Empire they're very much a secondary communications method."
"I'm well aware of that," I agreed, with a sigh, "once we have more information, we're going to have to settle down and work through some worst-case scenarios, but it's likely to result in some major policy revisions."
"Out of interest, what happened to the whole Great Protector thing?"
"Rikart Schultz seems to have inherited it."
"How?"
"He went into the Aurellis with Rupert...and he came out alive."
"Whew. That's a bit of a promotion."
"Tell me about it."
"Good luck to him. He deserves it more than Bloody Rupert. On which note...I'd best be getting back to the Maze, unless there's anything else?"
"Not that I can think of. I'll keep you informed on how Michael is doing."
"Thank you."
And with that, he stood once more, and made his way out of the office.
* * * * *
The following morning, when I checked in on my brother, he seemed in much better shape. His colour was better, and when we checked the bullet wound, we saw that it was well on the way to being healed. The merasha had obviously worked its way out of his system, and now his shifting was doing its thing. I sat down on the chair beside him.
"He's going to be fine," Malcolm said, coming into the infirmary holding a steaming mug of coffee.
"Thank goodness. Have you told Veronica?"
"She was here yesterday evening, and again this morning. And Major Reingard spent most of the night with him. He's been in good hands."
"Thought it was you, bro," came a voice from the bed, and Michael opened his eyes and looked at me. He was obviously tired, but at least he seemed more like himself.
"How are you feeling?"
"Groggy. Sore. But on the mend. And as amazed as always that someone as crazy and self-centred as Delwin could father so many brilliant physicians."
"You do wonder," I said, more lightly, and he smiled, "although of course he has us beat in the geneticist department."
"True," he acknowledged, then smiled weakly, "thanks, Robert."
"Don't forget Malcolm as well. It was a team effort."
"Then thank you as well, Dr Carlisle," he said, shuffling until he could sit up. Probably with anyone else, I'd have stopped him even trying, but the chances were that Michael knew his tolerances far better than we did.
"You're welcome, Duke Michael," Carlisle said, and then took his coffee and headed for his office, leaving me with my brother.
"So what happened?" I asked.
"It was one of those 'no good deed goes unpunished' moments," he answered, "remind me not to get shot in the back again. It bloody hurts."
"Been there, done that," I answered, "Grey was wondering when you're going to be up and about."
"As soon as I can be. There's something I need to do which isn't going to wait."
"Your missing blood?"
"You figured that out, huh?"
"Hard not to."
"I suppose so," he answered, "cut a long story short, I think the Brotherhood has it."
I thought back to a conversation I'd had with Andrew earlier that morning. He'd identified the crystal as being sourced from a world called Khachuran. It had been the last of the three source worlds found, and while it was currently under Sable control, the Manirans had certainly had people there for a while.
"You know..." he said, obviously mistaking thought for confusion, "...the Brotherhood of the Royal Martyr? Used to base out of Manira until they did something really stupid?"
"Oh, I know the Brotherhood alright. And from something else I've been told I think you're probably right. But how do you know they were involved? Did you see something before they took you out?"
"No..." he said cautiously, "I can't explain for certain. I just do. I've felt kind of weird since I woke up...hence lying here quietly, thinking to myself about it. And best as I can explain it, the weirdness reminds me of the old Maniran Broken Pattern. Before it disappeared and brother Rupert had to redraw it."
"Where the heck do you get that from?"
"Well, you know that blood can be sentient, right..."
"What?"
"Ah...maybe we haven't had that conversation."
"Sentient blood? No, we haven't had that conversation."
"You can do blood creatures, right?"
"Yes. Not that I've ever had much cause to."
"Well, think about it. They can operate autonomously."
"They're more fire and forget than sentient in my experience. They go, do a task and either come back or dissolve."
"Huh?" he answered, obviously puzzled, "hmm...oh, well maybe it's just me then."
"Michael, make sense!"
"I kind of keep in touch with mine, and to an extent they carry my knowledge and abilities with them. For example, about the last thing I consciously thought of as I passed out in the Chancellor's palace was sending a blood creature to Matthew Tyson. Seeing as I'm now here, I'd guess it found him and brought him to rescue me."
"What's this got to do with the Brotherhood?"
"Keep up, Robert. They have my blood and they're doing something weird with it."
"I'm going to do something weird to you if you're not careful."
He looked at me and sighed.
"I don't need to have formed blood into a creature to maintain a link to it. It just has to have been extracted."
"That must get distracting when you cut your finger opening a can of corned beef."
"I don't," he answered, puzzled at the whole concept, and thinking about it, he probably was. How could a shape shifter of his abilities ever not realise where any part of his physical body was? He would have been a superb martial artist if he'd ever bothered.
"So anyway. I think they're using it for a ritual. And I think that ritual involves the Maniran Pattern."
"Can you tell where it is?"
"Not exactly. It's a long way out. But I can get a direction. So I want to go after it."
"Are you in any fit state?"
"Does it matter? I can find it. I'm not sure anyone else can. And I'd rather find it before they finish whatever it is they're trying to do."
"What about Tyson? Can't you send him? It sounds like that worked before."
"But my little creature would have been doing the Pattern shifting on that occasion."
I opened my mouth to say something, and then decided I just didn't want to know. Instead, I asked.
"If you're that closely linked to it, can't you just tell it to come home?"
"Again, too far away," he answered. Which, if I thought about it too hard (before my brain hurt), implied that if it had been closer, then he could have done just that.
"If the Brotherhood are doing a ritual, especially given the last one..." Visions of Rupert gutting a Machine clone to fix it came unbidden to my mind, "...I'm not sure I'm happy about you heading off after it if you're not in peak health."
"You may have been the closest thing I had to a father, Robert, but you aren't my keeper. I'm a big boy now. And I have to do this, because no-one else can."
I looked back at him, but his mind was obviously set on his course of action.
"At least talk to Grey. Get some back-up. And if you need me, for God's sake call."
"Of course."
I felt I should argue more, but part of me knew that it wouldn't make any difference. I wasn't going to talk him out of this.
"Please, be careful."
"I will. Don't worry...you know, the whole remind me not to get shot in the back thing."
"Good luck."
"Thanks, Robert," he said, and with a sigh, I headed out of the infirmary.
* * * * *
That evening, there was a knock at my office door, and Malcolm came in.
"Our patient's back."
"How badly hurt is he?"
"Not hurt exactly...well, maybe you'd better take a look."
Worried, I followed Malcolm back to where my brother had apparently taken up residence again. The one good sign was that he wasn't bleeding. The bad news was that he looked even more pale than he had before, he was tossing and turning, and when I felt his forehead, he was burning up. I brought up a diagnostic spell, and was surprised at what I saw. It was as if there were shadows of himself linked to him, and there were signs of Power around him. I switched to a Pattern-based diagnostic, and realised that he was radiating both the Maniran Broken Pattern, and the full Amber Pattern.
"Crap."
"What?"
"I've seen something very like this before. And last time I did, it nearly killed the person in question."
"What is it?"
"A fundamental, metaphysical incompatibility."
"Anything I can do?"
"I think I'm going to have to deal with this one, myself. But stay close – if I need help, I'll shout."
He looked uncertain, but stepped to one side, and I started to work. I brought up the Sable Pattern – the Maniran one being a broken version of it – and then very carefully I brought up the Amber Pattern in tandem with it. It was a long time since I'd accessed it, and I felt rusty. I concentrated on balancing the two for a few moments, and then set to work seeing what I could do for my brother.
As I worked, I felt more confident. The Maniran Power was around him, rather than within him, acting more like a leech or a parasite, trying to drain energy out of him. I breathed a sigh of relief. At least it hadn't been what I'd initially thought: that some idiot had tried to repair a Broken Pattern using the blood of an initiate of the wrong parent Power. Realising that, I knew that all I needed to do was to separate the one from the other, and then neutralise the incompatible energy. I bent to the task, and eventually the two were separated , leaving his old Amber initiation clean and shiny. He stopped tossing and turning, and feel into a deep, peaceful sleep. I overwhelmed the Maniran traces with the Sable Pattern, and they were gone. However, I still got the impression that something was linked to him.
I sat down beside him to puzzle it out, when I caught a flash of movement out of the corner of my eye. I turned to look, and saw some kind of oversized beetle or cave cricket perched on the bedstead above his head. It was the colour of dried blood, and I'd swear it was staring at me. I turned the Pattern towards it, and was almost blinded by the flash of concentrated power that came off it. It felt like some mixture of a newly initiated Grand Pilot, something reminiscent of Jewel energy, and the same odd mix of Amber Pattern and the Maniran Power that Michael had had when I first looked at him, with the difference that this time, the two were fully integrated in some kind of metaphysical gestalt.
As I looked at it, I felt a Trump call, and when I checked my mental deck, I identified my caller as Michael. Kind of. Cautiously, I opened up to it, and realised I was talking to the insect. And no, it wasn't standing on a Trump card.
"Didn't anyone ever teach you that it's rude to wave the Pattern at a chap without asking first?" it said, sounding positively hurt.
I looked at it, speechless.
"How am I?" it continued, and rocked gently so it was pointing towards my unconscious brother.
"He's going to be fine. What are you?"
"Oh, I'm Michael," it answered, "they tried to get me into a carriage. And then they didn't. And then the Pilot brought the carriage here and didn't notice that I was on the step when she left the door open. So I got carried with her. And it was silly, really. Because if they'd left me there, then I wouldn't be here without him, because all three of us would have gotten back together again."
I barely followed what it was saying except for the last part. "Three of you?"
"Me...and him...and Michael."
"I need a drink."
"You've got another call coming. Please don't tell him about me. I think he'd probably dissect me."
And the next moment, the creature's presence was gone, and I felt a new Trump contact coming in. Rupert. I looked at the creature, which stared back at me, imploringly (Have you ever seen a cave cricket do imploring? I sure as heck hadn't.) Not sure what else to do, I walked away from the bed so that neither my brother nor...it...would be visible. I just hoped that Rupert's new suite of powers didn't include knowing what was going on at the other end of a Trump link before it actually opened.
"Rupert..."
"You'd better come and join me, Mein Bruder," he said, and offered his hand. I resisted the temptation to look back at the bed, instead taking his hand and stepping through. From the traces of Power as I arrived, it was obvious that he'd been doing some pretty hefty Pattern work very recently. I tried to get a feel for the place and decided we were out in Shadow. Way out in Shadow. Moreover, he was alone. No sign of any of the Honour Guard.
"Veil 50," he supplied.
"What are you doing here?"
"An acquaintance of mine brought me through to take a look at things. And when he headed off to talk to his people, I thought it only polite to contact you. Bring up the Pattern and tell me what you see?"
I did as bid, and checked about me. Immediately, I saw what he was getting at. There was a barrier between the world we were in and the next Shadow around the Veil. And it had the same Manira/Amber hybrid signature as the creature in the infirmary.
"Is our little brother alright?"
"Why?"
"He's the only source of Amber Pattern that I can think of on the Inside."
"What exactly do we have here?" I replied, realising I didn't want to answer the question, as I had no idea what I'd say.
"From what I've discovered from talking to my acquaintance, we've found Manira 2.5."
I concentrated harder, carefully working my way around the barrier, both by walking the perimeter and using the Pattern to gently probe within it as far as I could. I crossed a couple of internal Shadow boundaries, until I eventually reached a barrier that I couldn't penetrate. However, I had a bad feeling that whatever was beyond that barrier was Primal, probably of Rock of Creation solidity.
"It's shielding a huge area, spreading three Veils either side of here," I commented, "it looks like we've got a central block of what used to be seven Shadows now fused into one and infused with Power, with two Shadow rings around it."
"You've got more than I did. I had realised that the central block was bigger than it ought to be...but yes, thinking about it you're probably right."
"So seven Shadows fused in the middle, surrounded by rings of worlds which look like ground zero of a nuclear explosion, sans the fall out. Rough guess. Someone tried to create a new Power. Or at least modify an old one. And it didn't go so well."
"Didn't father try this once? Trying to mend a Broken Pattern with Family blood and not being careful who he picked?"
"Yep. And look how that turned out."
"St James is a lovely place," Rupert chided.
"Now. After I redrew it to repair the damage. Before it was going to shake itself apart."
"At least this doesn't feel that unstable," he answered, then looked me in the eyes, "is Michael still alive?"
"Yes."
"Well, that's an improvement over your grandson, when he was used as a blood bag," came the replied, "is our little brother linked to this?"
"No," I answered, telling myself that he was obviously thinking of Michael himself, not whatever the damned insect was, "he doesn't have any form of initiation to the Maniran Broken Pattern, either the old one or this one."
"Well that's a mercy."
"So, do you think we have a new Power here?" I asked him, knowing that he had a better feel for things Maniran than I did, even if I didn't like to think why.
"It feels more like an augmentation," he answered, "by using Michael, who could never walk the parent Power to this one, they've certainly strengthened it, but in my opinion it isn't complete. Although if my acquaintance was right, it does apparently have an avatar beast. Some kind of sabre-tooth tiger."
Sabre tooth tiger? And then I realised that the cricket had mentioned that there were three of them, not just himself and my brother. Was Michael – or some aspect of Michael - now the avatar of the Power that had been built on his blood? Richard certainly was as far as St James was concerned.
"Do Broken Patterns usually have avatars?" I asked.
"I wouldn't have thought usually. But then, this one isn't usual. Still, after Düdesch, I would be the first to admit that my knowledge of avatars is not as good as I thought it was. What I don't understand is why they chose to do it here. How did they know that this place was real enough to take it."
That was puzzling me too, until the light dawned on me.
"Where did Joss's Denmark used to be? Before he crossed the floor and signed on with Aurellis?"
"It must have been around here somewhere," Rupert answered, following my chain of thought, "thinking about it, the feel of Shadow around here is reminiscent of where I met Frida."
"After he Ascended, it was moved to the Aurellis end of the universe, but we had to put a placeholder this side – equivalent to where Denmark ended up - to balance it out. Question is, how did Chartris figure it out?"
"He always was too clever for his own good," Rupert answered, "but why him? I thought he was long dead."
"If only. Our working theory about the Brotherhood is that he set it up himself."
"It would be just the kind of blatant self-aggrandisement that would have appealed to him. That young man really does love himself."
"Indeed."
"If this was Chartris, my guess is that he remembered Michael as a bumbling innocent...a soft target, if you will...which is why he chose him. Not realising that our meek, mild-mannered brother has become really quite formidable in his quiet little way."
I wondered if Rupert knew just how formidable that was.
"You're probably right," I said, neutrally, "however, speculation aside and back to the problem at hand. If we're right and this is already balanced off against the new Denmark location, then it should be okay. If not, we're going to have Shadow-wide instability. I'm going to have to talk to Joss and Roland and find out for certain."
"I'm sure I can leave that in your capable hands. On which note, I need to be getting back."
"Thank you for telling me about this," I said, quietly, well aware that he hadn't had to do so.
"I'm sure you would have found it yourself, in time," he answered, with a smile, "until the First, Mein Bruder."
And with that he disappeared into a rainbow of Trump light. What was depressing, is he did it far too fast for him to have even concentrated on a mental Trump. The last person I'd met who could do something like that was Brand. Still, the Rupert problem could wait. For now, it was more important to check on Denmark, so with a final sigh I brought up my mental Trump of Roland, and gave him a call.