Berlin/Manira
Ephiphany RY154
January 6th. The first day back in the office after what had been a difficult end to RY153, and the snow on the ground had been something of a shock to the system after the tropical climes of my favourite holiday, training and research Shadow, a variant of Maui, where I'd spent a couple of weeks - local time - trying to deal with Dominik Gerlinde's injuries.
Being shot in the small of the back with a blue crystal bullet is never the easiest thing to recover from. However, my own lack of innocence in the matter, even if I hadn't actually fired the shot, as well as the fact that he was both one of my Knights and one of my adoptive 'children', as I'd come to think of Andrew's progeny within the Fatherland, had left me feeling obliged to attempt to help him. I'd even consulted with my brother on the subject, as well as discussed the circumstances which had led up to it with him, over coffee and cakes on New Year's Day, but Dominik was still confined to a wheelchair, and pissed with it.
And to cap it all, today I'd got back to a pile of paperwork a mile high.
Sadly, it's the lot of those in positions of responsibility that business must continue, even over a so-called holiday period, and one of the flaws of a bureaucratic system is the sheer amount of paperwork generated by the very nature of a bureaucracy. I had therefore been working most of the day sorting through the urgent from the mundane, and while my personal assistant, Marja Tomas, had helped to a degree, there was just certain things she wasn't cleared to see. Like my preliminary thoughts on who I would admit to the Second Circle of SS Knights, which I was planning on establishing at Imbolc.
It was about 9.30pm, and I'd just finished a hurried meal in the mess and returned to my desk, when I felt the stirrings of a Trump call. I checked my mental deck, and was rather surprised to discover that my caller was brother Robert. Given that we'd only seen each other a few days before, I certainly wasn't expecting him to contact me. Curious, I opened the link to see what he wanted, hoping he wasn't calling about another disaster of multiversal proportions. We'd had too many of those lately, what with Valhalla (okay, only a personal disaster), Stefan (another personal disaster), Karstadt, Rensburg and Riversend.
"Robert. Short time no see."
"Do you have a few minutes?" he asked, and even through the link I could feel that he felt ill at ease. Whatever it was, this wasn't a social call, and I sighed, resigned to another major problem.
"Any particular reason why?" I asked, looking at him.
"Need a hand with something...it may be to your advantage."
Robert wanted me to do something to my advantage, not his? Maybe doom and gloom wasn't on the agenda this time. Curiouser and curiouser.
"You know I can never resist an opportunity to obtain something to my advantage," I said, with a slight smile, and got to my feet, "especially from you, Mein Bruder."
I debated whether to call Torres in from her post outside my office door, but in the end decided against. After all, he had called me, and he obviously wanted something from me, so unless he was being more devious than usual, I figured I should be fine. So I offered him my hand and went through to join him. Immediately, I saw that he wasn't alone, and as I glanced at his companions, recognising the majority - including one of those who had been responsible for the destruction of Rensburg - I wondered if I'd miscalculated.
We were in some kind of underground chamber, and even as I arrived I could tell that something was very, very wrong at that location. I know a little about the energies of life and death, and this place psychically wreaked of the latter. How could this possibly be to my advantage? As I contemplated whether he'd actually had the balls to double-cross me, my attention was drawn to the centre of the chamber, and what looked like a pool of mercury, but which I realised as a collection of energy, drawn from the living to fuel something that seemed to be dead.
"You pick the nicest places, Mein Bruder," I commented, returning my attention to Robert, "location?"
"Manira."
"Ah."
I was well aware of the history of that particular Broken Pattern Shadow, of course, but had never particularly bothered with it before. After all, its leader's argument was with Robert and Andrew, not with me, and in truth I had some reason to be thankful to him, given that it had been his actions which had ultimately led to my being able to pick up my nephew in Shadow in his Pattern-charged state, so many years before. And so I'd left it to its own devices as a thorn in Sable's side, because the more it kept our enemies occupied, the happier I was.
However, I could tell immediately that this was different, and I swore mentally as my premonitions of disaster were realised.
"They appear to have been careless," I said, mildly, "care to fill me in?"
"It would seem that the Triumvirate enacted a ritual which has drained the energy from the Maniran Broken Pattern," Robert replied, "only they didn't leave anything in its place. So it's trying to rebuild itself by killing everything else on this world."
"Short, succinct and to the point," I answered, "and what happened to the fucking idiots who did this?"
"Not sure. For all we know, they might be the puddle on the floor."
"Marvellous. Anything else I should know?"
"Away from Martyr's Island, where we are currently, there's a civil war going on between the remains of the government forces and the rebels. And it looks like it's going to get nastier before it gets better..."
"Or this drains all the life out of them, so no-one wins."
"Basically," he replied.
He paused for a moment, and I had the distinct feeling that there was more to come. Something he was deciding whether to share with me.
"Go on..." I prompted, gently.
He nodded to one of his minions, who handed me a couple of photos. They showed a meeting, and to my surprise and dismay, I recognised one of the participants.
"Tristan Heydrich?" I asked, hearing the uncertainty in my own tone and annoyed at telegraphing.
Another traitor? Or a private enterprise gone wrong? I'd had a bellyful of traitors with Andreas Delatz, and I considered Tristan to be a friend.
If he'd turned...
"Did you send him here?" Robert asked, directly.
"I did not," I replied, "you're sure it's him?"
"You seem to be," he replied, "and it certainly looks like him. Apparently he's running the government forces on the Northern continent. Has been for some while. And it seems that he and the Southern general have taken more than one leaf out of Francisco Franco's book on the conduct of a very uncivil war."
"To my knowledge, talented though he is, in both senses of the word, Heydrich can't be in two places at once, and he's not been absent from Berlin, except when I've assigned him to be."
"Then we have another mystery," Robert replied, and turned back to looking at the mess in the middle of the chamber, his expression pensive...worried even. There was still something else and he was holding it back. I debated whether to push him on it, or to let him come to it in his own time, as I had no doubt that he would, and decided on the latter...for now.
"Thoughts?" I asked, instead.
"Some..." he replied, with an odd reticence which left me with the distinct impression that whatever they were, he didn't want to share them in front of his minions.
"I can make some guesses," I commented, but decided to honour his obvious caution and refrain from discussing it further until we were alone. Instead, I looked at his people, and handed them the photo, then ordered, "I suggest you find him and bring him here..."
There was a moment or two of surprise at my tone, and I belatedly realised that these were his people, rather than mine. The possibility that Heydrich was a traitor had obviously rattled me more than I'd realised. I spent a moment or two collecting myself, and attempting to re-establish my internal equilibrium, before adding...
"Or failing that, the one he was talking to. Either will be useful in both finding out what's going on and implementing a solution."
They still looked at Robert, of course, but he nodded.
"Jack, if you could do the honours and take us back upstairs, we can decide on the next move," Robert suggested, "however, I suspect my brother is right on this one."
I so enjoy hearing those words.
Then one of them - I noticed Aurellian pilot insignia on his lapel, which surprised me slightly - nodded, and they made contact with him and disappeared, leaving me alone with just the feeble silver light of the ruined Broken Pattern in front of me for company, contemplating where to go from here.
I could see the lines where it had formerly been inscribed, but drained definitely seemed to cover its current state. As if the very energy had been sucked from it, leaving the skeleton of its former self, save in one place, where there remained a faint glow. I switched from mundane sight to consider it on an arcane level, and could feel the streams of life energy flowing sluggishly into it, as if it was trying to replenish itself from without by reaching for anything alive nearby which it could feed on. In fact, it was a reasonable guess that if I hadn't had my personal wards up, it would have been trying to feed on me. It was almost vampiric in that regard.
What needed to be done, was that the energy needed to be rebalanced to its former level, so that the malformed, misshapen abomination in front of me was restored into balance with the other eight Broken Patterns, thereby stabilising the ring. The question was, how to do it? How to generate enough energy to make a difference. I had worked well enough with Joss that I was reasonably skilled at channelling energy, but to generate energy on this scale would involve a death ritual, which I very much doubted Robert would accept.
Of course, one of us could probably walk it and donate some of our own energy to it, but it would leave whichever of us did it at a disadvantage unless we had something to draw on. The Jewel within, maybe? But then, unless whoever did this was very careful, that might be too much. After all, both of us were sufficiently powerful and sufficiently skilled with the Pattern, that we might end up feeding too much energy into it, thereby buggering up the balance in the opposite direction.
Another Pattern initiate, maybe? Someone of a lower level - like Robert's grandson, Alex Gibson, who had been in the group with my brother when I arrived. But then, at a guess, given the amount of energy which would need to be given to the ruin, the process would probably strip him of his Pattern and potentially even leave him incapable of reinitiating, as he would need to sacrifice part of his Reality, his Blood, to the process.
I was still pondering possibilities when he returned about ten minutes later.
"So, Robert," I asked as he reappeared, "what have you come up with which you didn't want to discuss in front of your minions?"
"A couple of options. Not that I like them..." he replied, cautiously, "one, a full Pattern initiate walking what's left...I'm thinking a lower level initiate than either of us, though, as we might accidentally wipe it out, but there's no guarantee that they would come out of the experience unchanged...the second involves an initiate of the original, but I like that one less as he wouldn't survive the experience, and I wouldn't want to ask someone to sacrifice themselves to achieve that method."
"Fuck sacrifice," I answered, a little annoyed at his insistence on giving people a choice when the fabric of the Sable universe might be endangered. Which it would be if the balance of the Broken Patterns in the system stayed out of kilter for too long. "Why do you think I asked your merry men to bring me one or both of the generals? It wasn't only to find out how long the head of the SD has been betraying me for. I have an idea of how to fix this - akin to one of the one's you've just mentioned - and I have no intention of asking for volunteers, if you give me a free hand."
"It sounds like you have a plan."
"If all else fails. Of course, if we go that route, then I'll need the other prisoner, rather than Heydrich, as I don't believe the latter is an initiate of this place. In fact, I know he isn't."
"Unless..."
"Unless what?" I asked.
I'd been right. There had been something else. Still at least he appeared willing to spill the beans.
"Unless it isn't him," he answered, which wasn't the response I'd expected.
"Make sense, brother," I snapped, tired at his dithering.
"Apparently they found a Machine agent on this island when they first arrived."
Now he fucking tells me.
"The Machine doesn't work here," I pointed out, but even as I did, I hoped I was right. The worry that we might have screwed up the exclusion ritual came unbidden to my mind.
"The technology doesn't, certainly. But what if Andreas had arranged for one or more of his creations to be initiates of this place? In that case, while a duplicate wouldn't have the automatic contacts and links back to the Machine, it would still be functional after a fashion, as it has something other than just Andreas's bastard creation to sustain it...and, of course, a Broken Pattern initiate could get somewhere else to report. So is this Heydrich? Or is it a copy?"
It was a question which gave rise to mixed feelings. On the one hand, it meant that Heydrich was probably still loyal, which was a relief as I really hadn't wanted to stand him up against an obscure wall and shoot him. On the other, it meant that my erstwhile assistant's claws had dug deeper into my realm than I had realised.
"When do you think Andreas went overboard?" he asked, slightly out of the blue.
"I was certainly worried about him long before the whole sorry beheading incident," I replied, thinking back to my earliest contact with the Machine itself, rather than just its Master, almost thirty years before.
On that occasion, I'd visited a Shadow in which the Reich had had an interest in securing, and which Andreas had promised he'd deal with. At that point, he was apparently still keen to prove himself to me. However, when he contacted me to inform me that it had been suppressed, and I went to inspect what we had captured, there was nothing. No vegetation. No life. Just scorched earth, patrolled by thousands of identical soldiers. I'd feigned my delight at his efficiency, but inside it had scared the Hell out of me.
Of course, back then, while he was a monster, he was my monster, or so I'd thought.
"I've mentioned that to you before," I pointed out, remembering the conversation we had had as we'd watched Andrew and Andreas trying to murder each other, on the day of my nephew's latest wedding.
"Why?"
"I'd seen what the Machine could do. I didn't like it. But I thought we were allied so I let it pass and continued to afford him the status his rank deserved in the hope it would keep him sweet."
"What if he just spent that early time lulling you into a false sense of security...getting to know your people..."
"Duplicating my people...that's what you're saying?" I replied, not liking the implications.
"It's got to be a possibility."
Even though I was half way to that conclusion myself, it didn't stop me cursing roundly to hear it from his lips.
"This is one of those moments when I both hope you're right and hope you're wrong," I said, voicing my thought process from a few moments before, "if you're wrong, then Tristan Heydrich, a man I've come to realise is a friend as well as one of my more gifted officers, has been a stinking traitor for some time and I was too stupid to notice. If you're right, then potentially the Reich has got as much of a problem with the Machine as the Empire is growing, and again I was too stupid to notice. Although, one the bright side, in the latter case at least Tristan is still onside. It would be embarrassing to have to replaced the head of the SD again."
"At least we'll know the answer to that one when they get back," he offered, attempting to sound reassuring, but instead really only sounding superior.
"If they get back," I growled, in response.
"They've got help. They'll be okay."
I looked at him, thoughts of double-cross again surfacing in my mind.
"Help you called in while I wasn't about?" I asked, and I could hear suspicion in my voice, "I'm not going to like who it is, am I?"
"Probably not, but if by some chance we are dealing with the real Heydrich, they won't be able to take him down without assistance."
Much as I didn't like it, he had a point. The trouble was who I suspected he'd called. Bloody Andrew again. Subconsciously, I felt my hand move to my face, tracing the scar my nephew had left there some months before, and didn't immediately trust myself to speak. Instead, I hid my unease by moving over to the ruins of the Maniran Broken Pattern, and considered it further.
"What about the Jewel as an option?" I asked after a few moments, seeing if he had any thoughts along the lines I'd been considering before.
"I'm not sure you can build a Broken Pattern directly with a Jewel, although you might be able to use it to boost your own energies," he replied, having obviously considered the possibility himself. Of course. "However, the designs within it are whole, and a full Pattern here would unbalance things. Given the way the multiverse works, it needs to be Broken to keep the power lines balanced..."
"And it needs to be Dark," I commented, well aware of the inherent balance of the three-three-three breakdown of Broken Patterns within the Sable universe: three Light, three Dark, and for want of a better term, three Grey...the equivalent of neutral. Two of the Dark ones were within my control. Manira had always been the third, and the one I'd never been able to hold onto.
"Trust me, Rupert," he answered, "that piece of information hadn't escaped my attention, either."
"Can you even build a Dark Pattern?" I asked.
"I helped you create Sanguine," he pointed out, and sadly I couldn't argue with that.
Still, it least he didn't rub it in by saying "bail you out when you fucked up".
"I also kicked the Sable Pattern off," he added, "even if you...modified it....later."
"True."
"However, when I invited you here, I did say this would be to your advantage."
I looked at him and smiled.
"You knew as soon as you saw what had been done that this wasn't going to end well for someone, didn't you? That a blood ritual was the most likely solution, as it was instrumental in creating the problem in the first place?"
"Pretty much."
"And you decided to get me to do your dirty work for you," I continued, "because Robert the goody goody doesn't want to get his hands dirty performing what he considers to be Black Magic."
There are times when I despair of my brother, and am certain he's gone soft. Left behind his Blood arrogance, natural superiority and political awareness in an attempt to be everyone's favourite uncle. And then my faith is restored when I'm reminded that he can be just as much of a bastard as I can if he chooses to be, even if he has been known to indulge in psychological self-flagellation afterwards.
"Nicely played," I said, with a short, slow handclap, "you knew I'd be willing to do anything to protect the Reich, and this qualifies, eh? And as a bonus, Sable benefits as well."
For once, I felt admiration that he'd had the balls to come up with a solution in a way that gave the responsibility of undertaking the necessary actions to someone else. However, one question still remained.
"But what is the advantage to me?"
"Aside from the fact that the universe won't crumble?" he asked, mildly, "simple, you get control of a third Broken Pattern, plus the island we're standing on...in...whatever. My people take control of the rest of Manira and try to stop the civil war."
That caught me by surprise. The Reich had only ever had two of the three Darks, despite our better efforts, and here he was, handing me the third one on a plate. Not that it was an entirely selfless gift, of course, and I suspect he knew that as well as I did.
Dark Broken Patterns are inherently corrupting to those who walk them; even to those who live in their proximity. I'd discovered this when I had made an in-depth study of them, after we had first secured Sachsen and Thueringen, the two which the Reich has controlled for most of its existence. My solution with them had been to excise the corruption within them, take it temporarily into myself, knowing that metaphysically, it wouldn't do me any harm given my inherent nature, and then incorporate it into the Wewelsburg Pattern when I redesigned it. That way, at least I could focus that corruption in a direction which would help me.
Robert, however, had never studied the Dark Broken Patterns to my knowledge. He certainly hadn't ever spent time on the ones in my sphere of influence, and I was reasonably sure he wouldn't have had access to Manira, which still had the inherent corrupting influence. In fact, pretty much any general either of us had sent there had ended up going native if they'd stayed. The smart ones - which, now I thought about it, included both Heydrich and Andreas - had left.
"Of course we both know that in the case of Manira, taking control is a poisoned chalice," I pointed out, for appearance sake at least, "look at your Francis Edwards...my Gregor Konstantin."
"Maybe the shake-up will be enough to break that cycle," he replied, "however, we'll only find out if we try."
Of course, if he was going to give me a free hand to fix the problem, I could make it right as I knew what to change, whereas I'm not sure that he did. But none of this was going to be easy.
"From the fact that you aren't disagreeing with my course of action, Rupert, I assume you've come to the same solution as me."
"The blood of a Maniran initiate, used and spread in ritual to refill the lines where the power no longer flows, and ending the life of said initiate to form the bridge from the life energy that it has leached in for itself in a vain attempt to restore itself, and the rest of the Broken Pattern as was. Probably bound together with elements of full Pattern from the person doing the ritual, but not so much that it unbalances the result."
"It would seem we're on the same page," he replied, and while I could tell that he hated the solution, he knew it was the only one which could sort the mess out.
"Do you intend to stay and watch?" I asked.
"I do."
It wasn't what I'd expected, but maybe trust only went so far, and he wanted to keep an eye on me to make sure I didn't screw him over. Either that, or he wanted to see me self-destruct when I got it wrong.
"And your people?" I said, knowing that your average Sable citizen would find what I was going to have to do distasteful at best, illegal to most, and actually punishable by death to some, and amused at the irony that I was being asked to perform a death ritual by the head of the Sable Magical Oversight Committee.
"What's Andrew going to make of this, for example?"
"It will be their choice whether they go or stay," he answered, neatly dodging the question, but I decided not to push. It was obvious his conscience was troubled enough as it was.
"Sobeit," I replied, "let's hope they bring us some material to work with, or we're going to have to find an alternative...Still, while we wait, I don't suppose you happened to bring a bottle of The Macallan with you did you, brother?"
"I could probably get one. But do you often perform Black Magic intoxicated?" he answered, and I was pretty sure he wasn't actually joking. Sadly, he was also right.
"Fair point," I conceded, "perhaps that pleasure had better wait. Now, I need to prepare."
He nodded, and drew back to the staircase which was the only entrance to the room, seating himself on the bottom of the step. Obviously, he really was planning on giving me a free hand. I mentally thanked him, for his common sense, and then leaving him to his thoughts, I moved once more to the ruins of the Broken Pattern, and began to figure out exactly how to perform the ritual and still walk away alive afterwards.
The others returned about half an hour later, and brought with them a pair of bodies, and as I crossed to join them, I saw that one of them was, indeed, Tristan Heydrich. At least physically. The other looked Hispanic, probably a native.
And then, of course, there was Andrew. Our eyes met as I joined the group, and I could still see the hatred in his, but thankfully his hand stayed away from the hilt of his sword. That didn't stop me staying out of his range, however, in case he changed his mind. After all, I was bloody certain that what I was about to do was going to bring back various memories for him, most of them probably unpleasant to him, and there was no guarantee that he'd stay rational.
Robert noted the tension between myself and his son, and broke it by indicating Heydrich's body.
"Do you want to check or shall I?" he asked.
"Allow me," I replied, and I brought up the Pattern. An interesting experience just beside the ruins of one of its Broken children. I focused the lens, and looked at the body, and I suspect I couldn't hide my relief when one thing became blatantly obvious. The unconscious body in front of me had no full Pattern imprint...just that of the Maniran power whose ruins were behind me. Moreover, as I checked further, while he was real, because he had, after all, walked a Broken Pattern, he wasn't fully of the Blood. It was as if it was an early prototype of the technology that Andreas had later come closer to perfecting.
Not only was it not Tristan, but I could also use him for the ritual.
"It's a copy," I informed my brother.
"You're sure?"
"Check for yourself..." I invited him, gesturing to the body, "Tristan Heydrich has a Pattern imprint. This doesn't."
I felt him bring up the Pattern in turn, and he quickly came to the same conclusion as I had.
"I guess that answers that question," he commented, and handed over to me. I looked at his people, to make sure none of them were planning to do anything rash.
"I imagine some of you are going to be squeamish about what happens next," I said in my best matter of fact voice, "feel free to leave if it's likely to offend you..."
In response to my comment, I saw Andrew look over at Gibson, and I noted that their body language indicated a degree of familiarity. A working relationship perhaps? Interesting.
Then he glanced back at the others.
"It would seem wise for someone to be upstairs watching out for trouble," he said, his tone neutral, and somewhat to my relief, the pair of them made for the stairs. It was a neat way of saving face.
I waited to see if anyone else was going to follow them, but no-one else moved. No doubt they were hoping I'd incinerate, and didn't want to miss the show, although I was going to have to trust the fact that my brother would stop them if any of them decided to take advantage of the fact that I was going to be vulnerable to outside attack while I worked, to do me harm. After all, it wasn't as if I could ward this particular Working area effectively.
Trust is a whole new experience for me and I find it...disturbing.
Then I looked at Robert, and he nodded again, and I took that as the signal to be about my business.
"Everyone ready?" I asked, looking at them, but there were no further comments, "Marvellous."
I took off my uniform jacket and threw it to one side of the room, to give myself more freedom of movement. Then I bent down and picked up the copy of my subordinate and carried it to the centre of my Working area. As I did, I took the opportunity to strip its mind of any information which might be useful, temporarily filing it away in a corner of my own for future study. After all, it would have been foolish to waste such a resource, and it was possible that in its thoughts was some information about the Triumvirate's plans, including the location they were planning to use for the transferred energy of the Maniran Broken Pattern; or equally, something about Andreas's intentions, as he'd obviously had an interest in Manira for some time.
Once I had what I needed to know, I dumped the unconscious body unceremoniously beside the energy puddle, disintegrating the clothes it was wearing with a simple spell, so it would be easier to do what I needed to do with it. Then I drew my Honour Dagger and concentrated for a few moments, so I was in touch with those of my inherent abilities which were akin to using the Jewel, to give me access to a source of energy. Once that was done, I reconsecrated the athame to the Work, as I always do at the commencement of a new project, and began the ritual I had derived on the fly while I was waiting for Robert's people to return.
Somehow, I needed to get the energy and design inherent in the body's Maniran imprint back out of him to the former lines of the Broken Pattern, backing the power of it up with my own energy, drawn from myself and the Pattern. It was going to hurt like crazy, but it would get the job done. As the best arcane connection for such things is blood, the ritual I had devised involved flaying the body, and spreading its blood in the old path of the Broken Pattern, using the dagger as the focus to link it all together. Much as I had the night I'd sacrificed Andrew for the good of the Reich back in '75.
At the same time, I had to filter out any possible influence which might come from the Machine, given that the subject I was using was a Machine creation. After all, the last thing I wanted to do was to give Andreas's bastard creation a new foothold this near to Magica Superior. Still, in that I had my nephew's experience and knowledge from the working the previous May to draw on, and once I began, I found myself well able to purge the Machine from my work.
I spoke only to offer those incantations which were needed to set up the links between the blood in the gullies, myself, the dagger and the body. I'll admit, it felt rather strange to be doing this on the occasions I caught sight of the oh so familiar face of my friend, but I couldn't afford to let that put me off what I was doing, and steeled myself to ignore the apparent familiarity, taking comfort in the fact that Tristan would thank me for destroying his doppelganger. Other than my own words, I was aware of no other sound within the cavern. Even the shuffling of feet from my audience faded into the background as I bent all my concentration to what I was doing.
It was a lonely process, and as I worked I could feel my own weariness. Ritual magic is never easy and always tiring, especially on the kind of scale I was playing with, and on this occasion I had no-one to share the burden with. However, eventually I was satisfied that I had laid the foundations to transfer the energy back out from myself via the body's Maniran imprint, and I returned to the centre of the ruin, kneeling beside the not-yet corpse. Then I began to weave the energy pool in the centre into my own plans, such that its energy would be redistributed evenly, along with everything else.
By now I was tired, but I couldn't let that stop me. I rolled the clone onto its side, so that its neck was close to the pool, and then with a quick movement of my dagger, I sliced the artery and let the blood flow. Then I thrust the dagger into the pool at the place the blood and energy met, gasping in pain at the burst of power which erupted through me as I did. As I began to direct that power, at the same time making sure that I didn't surrender too much to it so that it would be too strong, it hurt like Hell. I could feel every nerve in my body jangling, as I effectively used myself as a transformer to convert the various components of my ritual into the specific energy required to restore the Maniran Pattern.
I steeled myself to it by using shifting to desensitise my nerve ends, and concentrated on what I had to do. I could feel the energy spreading out through the blood lines, to re-establish the design of the Maniran Sign. To add form to it, I ripped the imprint out of the clone and sent the resulting energy after the rest, while making sure that any Machine elements remained within the body. I also did my best to separate out the corrupting influence that I could feel trying to returning to it, bringing into myself and warding it internally, so I could transfer it to the Wewelsburg later, and replacing it with part of myself, so that this place would know its loyalty was to me in the future.
Finally, the flow of energy trickled and ceased, leaving me gasping but euphoric from the sheer freedom that wielding that kind of energy can give you. Until the renewed pain hit me. And as I looked around me through somewhat bleary eyes, I could see the lines of the Maniran Broken Pattern restored and shining, and the pool in the centre reduced merely to an inscription, as should be the case with a Power. After taking a few moments to centre, and to re-persuade my once again jangling nerves that they needn't send messages to my brain for a bit, I got slowly to my feet. I cast a simple disintegration spell, rendering the corpse to dust, and then carefully made my way over to where my brother was standing.
To say there was disapproval on his face somewhat understates his expression as I approached. I don't think I'd seen hate on his features since the day we'd first met.
"It's done..." I said, looking him in the eye. There was no way he was going to escape the responsibility for what I'd just done, even though he'd kept his hands lilywhite, as ever.
"So I can see..." he replied, obviously trying to keep his tone neutral, but I could hear the underlying disgust in his voice, and he looked as if he was trying to stop himself throwing up. I suppose he doesn't see my style of ritual magic very often, poor baby.
But what the fuck did he expect? Flowers and kittens?
"You wanted to stay," I pointed out, trying to keep my tone as matter of fact as I could. Still, I could feel my annoyance at his holier than thou attitude, and wasn't too concerned about hiding it from him, because just then he was being a self-righteous, hypocritical prick. However he remained silent, as if he didn't trust himself to speak, and in the end I just shrugged, and turned my back on him, to face the others.
"Anyone fancy trying it out?" I said, mustering as much brightness as I could.
"Why not?" said Jack, the Pilot, and I had to mask my surprise. He actually seemed keen. But then, where everyone else saw the Reichsführer-SS, he only saw the Great Protector.
"What do I do?" he asked.
"Come with me," I answered, and let him to the restored Sign, burning happily on the ground, giving him the instructions on how to walk a Broken Pattern. It was going to be interesting to see how it reacted to his ATS imprint, of course...
He indicated that he understood, and then set his feet on the path to initiation and began to walk. I felt myself holding my breath initially, as this would be the big test of whether what I had wrought was stable and up to the task, but as he made his way around, I became more confident. I saw that it was good, and moreover, that it was compatible with the original Maniran Pattern, thus restoring the balance, with the sole change that I had removed that which would corrupt those around it.
Once he had finished, I stepped across to him and guided him back to the others, so that they could see he was alive, well and unharmed.
"Anyone else?" I asked, mildly, but unsurprisingly, no-one else took up my invitation. I shrugged. "As you wish."
"What should we do with Rufino?" asked one of them. I think his name was Cooke. I'd seen him once before during an interrogation, on one of those rare occasions when my people and Robert's were working together to destroy a common threat.
By then, I was tired and knew the pain would be back as soon as I stopped concentrating on keeping it at bay, and I really only wanted my bed. But such would have to wait for a while yet. I looked at the body of the second Maniran general, decided I wasn't too keen on Robert's people keeping him, and decided to dispose of him. I bent down and lifted the body, and then in one smooth movement, drawing on my Amber-born strength, I threw it towards the centre of the Sign. My aim was perfect, and as it landed exactly where I wanted it to, I saw it burst into a shower of sparks, and burn away.
"Interrogating him might have been useful," my brother commented, and I turned to him and smiled.
"Don't worry about that, Robert...I'd already learned everything I needed to know from the Heydrich duplicate. I'll make sure to write you up a full report."
Our eyes met, and I thought I could see fear in his eyes. Still, I suppose there was no way I could hide behind the carefully cultivated mask of civility I usually wore when I was with him, given what he had just witnessed. Restoring his trust, if that was the right word, would take more than a few cups of tea.
"We should go," he said, finally, to his minions. Jack gathered the group together, and I decided to take advantage of the lift.
As we arrived upstairs, my nostrils were assailed by the stench of death and rotting fish, and as I looked around me, all I could see was ruins. We separated from the Pilot, and as we did so, I laid my hand on Robert's shoulder.
"It needed to be done," I said quietly, trying to sound reassuring, which is never easy when you feel like death warmed over, "you knew that when you called me here."
He just looked at me, and I could tell he just wasn't sure what to say, so in the end, I let him off the hook.
"I think I may stay awhile, just to make sure everything's stable," I offered, and he nodded, then moved away from me to where the others were standing, waiting for Jack to retrieve their carriage from wherever he'd left it.
I watched my brother go, realising that I actually felt a little hurt at his apparent rejection, and was still pondering the irony of that when I became aware of Alex Gibson at my shoulder. Across the way, Andrew was observing us both very closely. Perhaps waiting for me to harm his protégé, so he had and excuse to run me through again.
"Herr Reichsführer," Gibson began, a little nervously.
"Captain Gibson?" I replied, turning to him, more than a little puzzled that he would approach me.
"Sir, given the current situation here, you need to know that there are portraits of people in Sable that contain elements of Trump and of the Broken Pattern you just repaired."
I gave him my full attention, and waited for him to continue.
"These portraits have the potential to harm or kill the portrait's subject, in a way that would otherwise appear to be due to natural causes or old age. The artist goes under the name of Olivia Perrett."
I knew the name. You couldn't really dip a toe into the art world without doing. She was a society artist who had done work for one or two of the Party higher-ups in recent years. Including, unless I mis-remembered, both the NSRAP Chairman and the Reichskanzler.
"Given the links between the Reich and Sable it is more than possible that some of her portraits may have been commission by Reich citizens. This is something your people may need to look into."
I looked at him, trying to hide my surprise that he'd actually told me any of this, and could see he was tense as he waited for me to say something.
"I fear your suspicions may very well be correct, Captain," I said, finally, "thank you for bringing this to my attention. Believe me, I will make sure the matter is addressed at the first opportunity."
He looked at me and nodded, and then turned on his heel and returned to the others, arriving as Jack materialised with the carriage. I followed after, intercepting Robert as he reached the carriage.
"Until our next meeting, Mein Bruder," I said, politely.
"Until then," came his reply, his tone still cold and unfriendly, and he climbed into the carriage.
Once everyone was aboard, Jack slammed the doors, and moments later the carriage disappeared, leaving me alone on an island of the dead. Below me, under the ruined cathedral in the centre of the island, I could feel my new science project and returned to the cavern to run a few last arcane checks, to make sure everything was stable. It certainly appeared to be, and my guess was that the fact that Jack had walked it had helped to anchor it. I wondered if he knew how important he had been to be to its future.
With a smile, I brought the Pattern to mind and transferred myself back to the Wewelsburg, immediately heading downstairs to the Pattern Chamber beneath. I didn't want to keep the Maniran Pattern's corrupting influence internalised any longer than it had to be. My wards are good, but I wasn't sure how much longer I was going to be able to keep control of things.
As soon as I reached the Chamber, I strode to the start and began to walk. As I did, I released that which I carried within me, binding it into the Wewelsburg Pattern using my inherent abilities as a creator, as I had with the equivalent energies from Sachsen and Thueringen. It had been through using these that I had rewritten the Sable Pattern such that if someone walked it first, they would feel inclined to follow my worldview, and if they didn't walk another Pattern before mine had finished spreading its influence within them, their loyalty would be absolute.
By adding in the Maniran influence as well, and modifying it so that rather than corrupting people for itself, it would corrupt them for me, I could shorten the window during which future initiates might be changed from my course. In fact, once I was done, I was reasonably certain that it would only take weeks, rather than months, to bring them over to me in the future.
Robert had been so right when he had said that what he'd asked me to do would be to my advantage.
By the time I reached the centre, I was almost dead on my feet, and the residual pain from the ritual I'd undertaken on Manira was almost unbearable. Even my shifting couldn't make it fade any longer, as I could barely concentrate, and I felt myself burning up inside as my nerves came back online. However, I extended my arcane senses one last time, touching the Pattern than sustained me and gave me life, and I could tell that I had again wrought well.
From the centre of the Pattern, I transported myself up to the infirmary, reasonably sure that at this time of night...or should that be morning...there would be no-one there. And sure enough, as I materialised, it was dark. I flipped on the light, then made my way over to the supply room which held the drugs cabinet, almost gasping in agony with every step and feeling sweat on my brow, and opened the lock on the cabinet. Then I scanned my eyes across the shelves and identified the two substances I wanted. Morphine, and a shape shift inhibitor.
I pulled both down from the shelf, and dug a syringe and tourniquet out one of the medical supply drawers. I stripped the sterile packaging from around the syringe, and then drew a quarter inhibitor/three-quarters morphine mixture into it. I knew from past experience that my inherent shifting would purify my body of morphine too quickly for it to do any good, and just then I wanted to drug myself into a stupor to relieve the pain, hence the combination. This way, the morphine would remain in my system long enough to take away the pain and send me to sleep. Then, if I'd got my dosage right, by the time I woke up, the inhibitor would be gone, and my own body would be able to repair itself of the damage I was bloody sure I'd done to myself through the ritual, and from what was about to be a fairly significant overdose.
I returned the drugs to the cabinet and locked the door once more, and then triggered a teleport up to my rooms in the castle. Once in my bedroom, I stripped, sat down on the bed, applied the tourniquet to my right arm, and injected the drugs cocktail into my vein. Almost immediately, I could feel the it coursing into me, and began to feel light headed and euphoric. I withdrew the syringe, and then concentrated on it - which was far from easy - and watched it disintegrate.
And finally, once it was gone, I laid myself down and let the drugs take me into a deep, deep sleep, with my final thoughts being of a job well done.