Wittersham House, Tenterden
Mid-December, 2009
Bances Amblerash has been an interesting house guest, but if I'm being honest, I don't regret the fact that he's gone. Anyone who thinks that too much reading without church permission is heresy is someone you need to be very careful around when books are both a hobby and a source of income. And given that my beliefs are neither of the Church of the Serpent or the Church of the Unicorn, even if I respect those institutions...well, let's say it's just as well that being Swayville's grandson and an Archduke of Thelbane makes me 'holy' in his eyes.
Once he was sent safely on his way, I decided I'd earned a bit of me-time, so even though it was still early in the evening, I headed up to my personal quarters in the Mansion House, and collapsed into my favourite chair with a good book and a very large Scotch.
I was researching a potential new alternate history project. What might have happened if Henry V hadn't died shortly before his 36th birthday, but had gone on to become King of France as well as England? It was an earlier decision point than most of the books I'd written before. But on the other hand, given that I could walk in Shadow, I could probably find a world where it had happened. Possibly several at different points in history. It was an interesting one to work on when I got a bit more time.
I was just pouring myself a second Scotch when I felt and incoming Trump call. I paused in what I was doing and opened up to the contact.
"Wolf..." I said, and felt myself smiling.
"Evening, Mihai," came the answer, "how did things go with your house guest?"
"Could have been worse," I answered, "I'd never really had a chance to get to know him before."
"And?"
"And that's not something I want to discuss over a Trump call. Do you want to come through?"
"I can't just now," he replied, "I'm rather in the middle of something."
I tried to hide my disappointment - my son and I rarely got together any more, and I missed his company - but he's too good a reader of people for me to manage it.
"But soon," he said, firmly, "I promise."
I wondered whether I should say something inane like "I'll hold you to that", but in the end decided it wouldn't help anything.
"So what can I do for you?"
"I have something for you," he replied, and reached down to pick something up.
It was an interesting juggling trick when he had to hold my card at the same time, but he managed it, and I saw he was holding a box, about half the size again of a standard A4 archive box.
"And it isn't even Christmas yet," I answered, with a weak smile, reaching out and taking it from him.
It wasn't particularly heavy, which probably explained why Wolf could heft it in one hand.
"Just to warn you, I have no idea what's in it. We were searching a lock-up in the Harbour and found it."
"We?"
"Me, Andrés and Matthew. The Hawke Security people caught him trying to get into one of the old, disused units and came and got me, making sure that they guarded the place until I was present. He was less than happy."
"I can imagine. Did he say anything about the lock-up?"
"Only that it belonged to Brand, and he'd only just got the key."
"Why the Hell would be a box with my name on it, be in somewhere like that?"
"No idea, but I'll be curious to hear what's in it," he said, with a chuckle, "now, I need to go. I have a rampant Matthew on a quest for information, and I need to field him before he escapes. I'll talk to you later."
I nodded, and he broke off the contact. Hopefully Wolf would fill me in on the details later.
Which left me with the box. On the theory that you should be wary of unexpected gifts, my first action was to check it over magically. I detected a weak magical trace on the body of it - some kind of preservation spell, I guessed, with the signature I'd come to associate with my dream teacher; and a rather stronger one on the lid. I recognised the signature of the latter as being that of Dworkin, which was both unexpected and intriguing, especially if it was Brand's lock-up. Especially as I couldn't figure out what it was for, although at least it didn't feel dangerous.
Still, if it really was anything to do with Brand - which made sense as Wolf had said the lock-up belonged to him - then I certainly didn't want to open it in Amber. So I picked up the box and then used the transfer portal I'd installed in the Mayor's quarters, shortly after I'd relocated here, to jump back to Wittersham House.
I arrived in early evening, rather to the surprise of Carmichael when he saw me appear in the entrance hall. I hadn't been home for a couple of weeks, and I could see that the lawn outside the front door was white with snow.
"Sir...we weren't expecting you tonight," he said, recovering quickly.
"I wasn't expecting me, either," I answered, with a smile, "is anyone else about?"
"Not this evening," he replied, "Will you be wanting dinner?"
"A snack would be nice, but I'll take it in the library."
"Very good, sir."
I carried the box into the library, and put it down on the floor beside one of the easy chairs. Then I grabbed a glass and a bottle of Balvenie Double-Wood, poured myself a drink and sat down on the floor and got to work.
I undid the tape around the lid, lifted it off then dumped it on the table behind me. Covering the contents was a piece of green and black fabric, which was obviously there as padding. I removed that in short order, throwing it in the chair, and was somewhat startled at what I found underneath it. An SS-issue death's head cap, resting on a pile of grey cloth, which looked suspiciously like feldgrau. Between the two, protruding from under the bill of the cap, was the hilt of an SS dagger.
Now why in the world would someone leave me a box of SS regalia? Unless they knew exactly what my status in Dieter's Germania is, besides being his son-in-law, which isn't something I particularly publicise. And even then...
Puzzled, I checked again for magic, and could feel residual traces on the dagger. Not pleasant ones. Definitely Thulist, definitely sacrificial, but not quite of the school I was familiar with.
Gingerly, I lifted the cap out and turned it over in my hands. From the maker's label, it was for someone with the same hat size as myself, and from the feel of the lining, it had obviously been worn, but not a great deal. As if it was a better spare. Curious, I checked it over to see if there were any identifying marks on it which might tell me who it had belonged to. With difficulty I found a label tucked inside the lining, with a name and number on it.
Jan Falke, 00000168.
As I mentally translated the name, I dropped the thing as if it had burned me, and watched as it bounced off the side of the box, and landed on the floor. Falke - falcon...or hawk. Jan - John...or Ian.
What the Hell? And why did the number 168 sound familiar in this context.
I stood up and headed for the history section. I started flipping through the indices of anything I had on German history, 1924-45 (which is not an immaterial number of books), and eventually I found why that number had rung a bell. It was Himmler's SS serial number.
If this was either Brand's or Dworkin's - or even Wolf's - idea of a joke, it wasn't even remotely funny. I debated calling my son back and demanding an explanation. However, if he really was in the middle of something, rather than just ducking me, that would go down like a lead balloon. But I was going to want words.
I had chucked the cap beside my chair and was putting the books back on the shelf, when Carmichael came in with a tray. Whatever it was, it smelt wonderful. I indicated for him to put it on the table by where I was working. He either didn't notice what was strewn about the floor, or was too polite to mention it.
"Will there be anything else, sir?" he asked, and I shook my head.
"Don't worry. And I'll bring this back to the kitchen when I'm done."
He nodded and retreated, and I took a look at the contents of the tray. It was some kind of stew, conveniently presented in a large bowl, complete with spoon and hunks of bread. There was also a decanter of claret and a glass. I downed the whisky, poured a glass of wine, and then ate on my knees.
Once I was finished (was that Guinness in the gravy?), I put the tray out of the way, and then returned to my task. I sat back down on the floor, glass and decanter in easy range, and then forced myself to go through the rest of the box, checking everything magically as I did.
The dagger wasn't just an officer's dagger. It was a full honour dagger, of the kind Himmler only ever gave to his most trusted officers - and Klaus Heydrich had given Wolf on Tenterden as part of his participation in the Thulist ritual that long-ago day. I slipped it part-way out of its scabbard, to be hit by the mental stench of human sacrifice. It was far stronger than the one on my own equivalent blade...the one Dieter had presented me with for the Working against Random's army. In fact, this was probably even darker than Dieter's own blade. Obviously the scabbard had been shielded to make the effect less noticeable.
I did a pain relief cantrip to minimise the headache, and then looked at the blade. The steel itself was physically clean and the weapon had been oiled. On one side, I saw the expected Meine Ehre heisst Treue inscription, but the other, where the details of the award would be, was blank. I resheathed it and put it down beside the cap, making a mental note to decide later whether to try to purify it, or just pitch it into Amber Harbour.
The pile fabric was, as I'd suspected, a complete set of SS feldgrau, similar to the design I was used to seeing on Tenterden, but with national heraldry more reminiscent of Brandenburg than the Third Reich. As I took a good look at the uniform tunic, I saw the same identifier sewn into the inside seam, and noted that the size was the same as I usually wear. I didn't feel any better when I saw the collar tabs, either. The laurel wreath and oak leaves of the Reichsführer SS. I laid that aside too, and had another drink.
Next came a pair of polished riding boots, wrapped in another piece of the packing cloth. Size - check. ID mark - check. Just who or what was Jan Falke? A Shadow of me, or a full alternate...a genuine evil twin?
And finally, I made it to the bottom, where under a third piece of packing fabric, were a box file and photo album, two ring boxes and a small bundle, wrapped in silk.
I opened the file, and saw a lot of loose photographs and newspaper clippings. I put it and the photo album on the table, to look at later, before checking the ring boxes. Inevitably, one was an honour ring, perfectly sized for my right ring finger, but giving off some kind of aura that I couldn't identify. The other was a signet: the plate made of a black jet-like material, with a platinum inset of a griffin: my own arms, if my colours had been argent on sable, rather than or on sanguine. I could feel that the signet had some kind of power to it too, and as I examined it, I realised the plate flipped up. Underneath was graven a rune of some sort, with the coldness I usually associate with Trumps. I clicked the plate shut again and tucked that back in its box as well.
That just left the silk bundle. I unwrapped it to reveal a statuette of a cat, about three inches high in white quartz, and again I could feel magic on it. Very carefully, I brought up a couple of identification spells, but the enchantment was unlike anything I'd ever seen before. Definitely a puzzle for later I wrapped it back up in the material it had come in, got to my feet, and put it on the table beside the whisky bottle.
Hmm. Whisky bottle. Good idea.
Having downed another glass full, I started reaching for the box lid, and noticed that there was a note taped to the box lid propped up on the chair beside it. I reached over and tore it off the lid, recognising Dworkin's handwriting. The magic I'd felt before was still there, but obviously something had triggered it. My opening the box, perhaps?
"Dear Ian,
By this time you know about your other father in that realm of existence. I wanted you and Matthew to learn at the same time. Matthew has been carefully trained to be different. I cannot let Garnath fall to the evil Matthew and Lucius. Primal Garnath is the one in our Amber - our Amber Realm is not subject to the nonsense stairs.
There is much to tell but I will later... I need more medicine again... Dwokiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii"
Dworkin needing more medicine? Oh that can't be good.
And then I started digesting the rest of the note.
My other father? Believe me, the one I have is quite enough.
'That' realm of existence...implying not this one?
And an evil Matthew? I've not heard it said of Matthew, although that's been applied to Lucius often enough. Although I notice that this time Lucius has no qualifier.
And what about the nonsense stairs?
Obviously I needed a good chat with my great grandfather, sooner rather than later. However, maybe the paperwork would give me some clues as to the rest.
As promised, I took my tray back into the kitchen, much to Mary's surprise, and then returned to the library. Then, whisky number four poured, I put the album and the file on the table and pulled over a chair. Not without some trepidation about what I was going to find, I started to go through them, beginning with the photo album.
The pictures ranged in quality from early-20th century, now somewhat faded, through to more modern prints. The first picture in the album had two familiar faces in it: one who I'd seen in the flesh, and one I'd only ever seen in my dreams. Elizabeth Channicut and Brand of Amber. They were beaming at the camera, and I could see a roundness about her belly which suggested that was pregnant.
I gently removed the picture from its mounts and flipped it over. Scribbled on the back were the words "E&B look forward to the birth of their first child, February 1910."
Curious. I didn't realised Matthew was as old as that.
I put it carefully back, then turned over and saw one of the pair of them, sitting with a pair of bundled new-borns on their lap. "E&B and their sons, Jan and Johannes, born Beltane, 1910".
No. No way. That couldn't be right.
And yet as I worked my way through the album, it was obvious that wherever these pictures came from, it was right.
This was the visual record of the childhood of Jan and Johannes, sons of Brand and Elizabeth. Some of them were formal family pictures; others were the typical informal family shots that proud parents like to take to embarrass their children later. But I couldn't deny, even to myself, that as they got older, I was seeing more and more of myself in one of them, presumably Jan. They seemed close in the pictures, though - two inseparable little boys getting into all sorts of mischief - and I found myself envying them. Why the Hell did Bleys and Swayvanna split up John and I, and deny us that closeness?
I didn't recognise the city where they were growing up, though. It wasn't wholly Berlin; it wasn't London; and in some of the landscape shots, it looked like Amber's geography, although the tech level was more consistent with Tenterden or Ancient Earth in the 1920s.
By the time we were eleven or twelve, I was seeing other things as well. For a start, Brand was pictured in uniform more and more often: specifically, in one which, to someone like me who was largely brought up in the period between the wars, looked far too familiar. I turned the page again, and there were the twins, dressed in what could only be Brandjugend uniforms. I noticed that Jan seemed far more comfortable in his than Johannes did.
With the horrified curiosity you feel watching a train wreck, I carried on flicking through. There was mixture of pictures with them in and out of BJ uniform, but when they were uniformed, the number of badges, awards and decorations Jan wore kept increasing, while it became more obvious that Johannes was far less dedicated to the cause. And then, in a picture dated Winter Solstice 1925, the usual 'family in front of the tree' picture had fifteen-year-old Johannes in his BJ togs, but fifteen-year old Jan in the uniform of a very junior SS officer.
Interesting. Nineteen twenty-five would correspond with the year when Himmler joined the SS on Tenterden - and presumably other Shadows. Although he would have done it aged twenty-five, not as young as Jan's fifteen.
As time passed, it became apparent that Johannes never followed his brother into the regiment. From the age of eighteen or so, which was presumably when he grew too old for the BJ, he was always shown in civvies. I found myself wondering if that pissed off whoever this other Brand was, or whether he accepted them as different sides of the same coin.
I put down the album and turned to the newspaper clippings, to see if they could shed any more light. Conveniently, they were filed chronologically, and were mostly about Jan, his career, and his father's rise to power. One particularly caught my attention. Dated March 1933, it showed the obligatory Royal occasion balcony scene: Brand and Elizabeth in the centre. Jan on Brand's right, by then in the uniform of an Obergruppenführer; and Johannes on Elizabeth's left, in a smartly tailored grey suit. Nazi banners hung behind them on the wall of whichever palace they were in.
The headline was simple. Long Live King Brand!
The caption underneath described us, from left to right, as Prinz Johannes, Head of the Reichskanzlei (so obviously he'd stayed in favour at least that long); her Imperial Majesty, Queen Elisabeth; as His Imperial Majesty, Führer Brand; and Obergruppenführer Kronprinz Jan.
I returned to the album and as I flipped through the pages, I saw the less formal pictures of Jan's meteoric rise through the ranks. By the end of the 1939-45 period, he was a full SS General, although he looked like Hell in some of the ones from that time, so he obviously saw combat. I also noticed that in all the formal pictures, Jan was by Brand, and Johannes was beside Elizabeth. I wondered if that meant that my alternate was his favourite, and John's was hers.
After that, the city didn't really change, as if it had been locked in the late-1940s. As for the Imperial family, Brand and Elizabeth still looked happy and Johannes still looked healthy, and in a picture dated Beltane 1950, the twins' 40th birthday, I saw the laurel wreath and oak leaves on Jan's collar for the first time. I glanced over at the uniform, now sitting on the floor, and then back at the pictures.
The album finished in 1961 with a final photograph. Führer Brand, with his arm around Queen Elizabeth, her belly looking swollen again. Jan was again beside him, standing proudly in uniform; and Johannes was beside her, still resolutely in civvies but obviously not out of favour for all that. The perfect Nazi family.
I put the album down, drained my glass and start on whisky number four as I flick through the loose pictures in conjunction with the remaining newspaper clippings. In them I see the births of the twins' full brothers: Geran in 1961, Matthew (or rather, Matthias) three years later, and Lucius seven years after that. For some reason, they didn't rate an album - or maybe they did, but it wasn't passed on to me - but the pictures follow a similar pattern of childhood and adolescence.
In some of the formal pictures after 1968, I also see one Wolfgang Falke being accorded rank as Jan's son, and a member of the Imperial Family. By the clippings, in the early-1980s, he's a full Obergruppenführer as well, and has been appointed as Reichsprotektor of Rebma. So Wolf is also alive and well in this alternate universe.
However, as time passes, the other thing that becomes obvious is the a growing distance between Brand and Elizabeth. This becomes more apparent after Lucius is born, and by the mid-1970s, I find a newspaper clipping announcing their divorce. Come the early-90s, the woman on his arm is obviously Jasra.
Eventually, I'd been through all the photos and papers, and looking at the clock, it was rising two in the morning.
But what exactly had I been looking at?
My gut was telling me that this wasn't a regular alternate history; that I wasn't looking at Shadows, but that somehow Jan Falke was really me. Which begged the question did he actually exist somewhere? Or was I either looking into my own past - a past I didn't remember - or, just possibly, into my own future?
And yet if it was my future, there shouldn't be pictures of me as a child.
As far as I'm aware, Bleys and Swayvanna are my parents. And yet, do I really know that for sure? After all, it's not like either of them has ever given me a blood sample. And while I based my summoning of Lucius on the shared elements of our blood, what if I was keying off the Brand ones, not the Bleys ones? Yet with Patrick and Morgana, the similarities were there, which would at least lend itself to the conclusion that Bleys really is my father.
Still, none of that speculation stopped my mind developing nagging suspicions that finally I had discovered why, of all the people in the family he could have chosen - many of them far more closely related to him than I am - Brand decided to become MY dream teacher. In at least one world, I'm his son, and presumably high in his trust, if Jan is RFSS. Is that my destiny? One day I will wake up in a world where I have laurel wreaths on my collar, and everything I've known up until now is gone?
I glanced over towards the chair and saw the cap, lying where I'd discarded it. It had been worn. It would have Jan's DNA on it. If I was very careful, I might be able to figure out if he and I really were one and the same, or just very close alternates.
I packed everything else back in its box and diverted via my study to lock it safely in a cupboard. Once that was done, I collected the bits and bobs I would need for a ritual, grabbed a coat and made my way outside. At least the snow wasn't very deep - maybe a couple of inches - so the going wasn't too hard. However, it was a dark night, with the moon less than a quarter full.
I let myself through the wards into my Working space. Then I rolled back the triquetra rug on the floor, to reveal the permanent circle underneath, and got to work. My idea was to use my blood to compare against Jan's DNA to see what, if any, connection there was between them. But it was a very delicate process, as I didn't have that much of a sample from him to work with, so I took my time over it. I was familiar with the feel of a genetically uncomplicated kid of Brand and Elizabeth Channicut from having patched up Matthew once or twice. Which meant that it should be relatively straightforward to identify them in Jan.
It was a great theory. Pity it didn't survive contact with my ritual. The first piece of confirmation was simple: both Jan and I were High Bloods, ruling out the possibility that he was a Shadow. However, beyond that, his DNA and mine were identical, and neither exactly matched a full brother to Matthew. There was also something else involved that I couldn't identify.
But how was that even possible, unless we were, in fact, one and the same: that either he was my future self, or I was his.
Puzzled, I tweaked my ritual and then did the same process again, but going into far greater detail. Once again, my medical logic showed me that I was looking at two samples from the same person. But this time, my arcane senses detected differences. Parts of what I could feel in 'my' sample were very slightly different...out of phase, maybe?... with the equivalent parts I could feel in 'his'.
Which was, of course, impossible.
Fuck this. In the middle of something or not, I was going to disturb Wolf, to find out what the Hell was going on.
I closed down the ritual and burned up the samples. Then I got to my feet, pulled my Trump deck out of my pocket and shuffled out his card. There was a distinct delay before he answered, and when he did, he was blacking out the background, and he didn't look pleased.
"I said I'd talk to you later," he snapped.
"And I'd like to talk to you now," I answered, firmly.
"I'm in the middle of something."
"This will literally take you two minutes, and then you can go back to playing with your boy toy."
Crap. Why the Hell did I say that? I didn't even know if that was where he was.
Anger flashed in his eyes, and I thought for a second that he was actually going to reach through the link and hit me. Which I probably deserved after that stupid comment. He certainly raised his hand in my direction. But at the last moment he changed the movement and took my hand, making a point of squeezing it far harder than he needed to.
I felt the fingers crack, but at least nothing seemed broken..
"I was in a planning meeting," he growled, as he stepped through, his whole posture tense and angry.
"Horizontal or vertical?" I answered, trying to sound light-hearted, but that instantly made things worse.
"For starters, for all the fuck it has to do with you, it really was a planning meeting," he snapped, "And for seconds, don't you EVER say something like that to me over a Trump again."
His anger was so white hot, that I was uncomfortably reminded of the time he broke my ribs. So I stepped back, lifting my hands in a gesture of surrender.
"Okay. I'm sorry."
He glared at me for several seconds, before finally dropping his gaze from mine.
"You've got one minute. What's so bloody important?"
"I want to talk about that box. "Let me make it one minute there, not one minute here."
He looked at me, and gave a curt nod. But at least he didn't look like he was going to hit me anymore. I concentrated for a moment, reasonably sure he wouldn't thump me one by then, and tweaked the time flow up to about twenty to one. By the time I was done, he was reaching for the cap.
"Where did this come from?" he asked as he picked it up, turning it over and looking at it, much as I had before.
"That's what I wanted to talk to you about," I answered, "it was in the box."
Outside the gazebo, the snow was beginning to fall again, deadening all sound outside the gazebo. I sat back down, and gestured for him to do the same.
"Jan Falke. 00000168," he commented as he sat opposite me, and curiosity seemed to be getting the better of him, finally, "Name and serial number, at a guess, although it's a bloody low SN. Any idea who he is?"
"That's the thing. All the evidence is currently pointing to the fact that he's me. Or at least a me in another universe. Or maybe a me before me, or possibly even a me after me?"
"Well that clears it up," he said, sarcastically, "Shadow?"
"High Blood. And our DNA is to all intents and purposes identical. So I want you to tell me everything Matthew told you about that lock-up."
"Not that much really. He'd been given the key by Dworkin. The lock was very rusted, as was the key, and after my security people got me involved I went over and helped open it. Andrés tagged along, as he'd dropped by to talk to me about the Jennie Dark mess in the North-East, and was therefore about when Matthew came to find me in high dudgeon. He said that the unit used to belong to Brand, but he'd only just been given access."
"And the box was inside."
"Along with a lot of other, very interesting bits and pieces. There were almost thirty boxes. I gave you yours, and we took the rest somewhere private to take a good look at them."
"Any more with names on?"
"One for Geran, which Matthew said he'd pass on."
"I wonder if it has the same stuff in it that mine did."
"Which was?"
"A full set of SS feldgrau. My size."
"So you've joined the family firm?"
"Not my firm," I answered, "and believe me the chances of my modelling it for you, Armand and especially Artur, are next to zero."
"Why especially Artur?"
"Because Falke's rank wherever this is matches Artur's exit rank on Dominion. And two RFSSs in a single room are two too many."
"Interesting," he commented, and I could tell there was something he wasn't saying, "what else was in there."
"There were also a lot of family photos and news clippings of someone who looks a lot like me."
"Jan Falke."
"Reichsführer-SS of that parish. And before you think you're getting off scot free, you're in some of them as well. One of the clippings describes you as Reichsprotektor of Rebma. Did Matthew say anything else?"
"Okay, this is going to sound particularly weird. But apparently there are at least two more continuums, over and above this one we live in. And each one is complete with Amber, Chaos and all the worlds in between. The subject came up when we were going through the boxes, as a lot of the information in them was from one of them. He called it the Amberreich. In that one, Amber is ruled as a Fascist Nazi state, with King Brand...or Führer Brand...or however you want to describe him, on the big chair. Apparently many of us have duplicates there."
"So how do you get there?"
"That's the bit I don't understand. Something to do with a staircase guarded by a demon called Ix. That's about the only way in or out, unless you use a Trump that was actually created there, or otherwise make your way through the Abyss, which rather involves you having some way of avoiding going mad in the process. But apparently, some of our cousins have found the staircase."
"That would explain one of the things in the note Dworkin left for me."
"I didn't see a note. Was it inside the box?"
"On the lid, but I guess only I could see it. He mentioned a nonsense stair, and that our Amber isn't subject to it. I had no idea what it meant, but obviously he was referring to this. Which would also explain his 'that realm of existence' comment. So out there somewhere is a world where I exist, but according to all the photos, my parents are Brand and Elizabeth, and I'm RFSS."
"Brand and Elizabeth? How come? I thought you said before that your's and his DNA were to all intents and purposes identical."
"I did. I compared our DNA - that's why that..." I pointed at the cap, which was on the floor beside him beside him, "...is here. But whether either of us are really the kid of either Brand and Elizabeth or, gods help me, even Bleys and Swayvanna, the gods alone know. Because after what I found when I tried to check, I don't have a clue. Who else knows about it?"
"Andrés has apparently been there at least once as has your cousin Wendell. Matthew, now. And our favourite relatives, Lucius and Jericho, have been poking the place. Sounds like they wanted to keep the discovery for themselves...
"Quelle surprise."
"But at least that isn't an issue any more. Because they are no longer the only ones who know."
"It sounds like we need to do recon there."
"Ah Mihai," he said, and I finally saw a half smile cross his face, "that was what my planning meeting was about. Andres, Artur and I, and maybe Wendell, are planning to go take a look at the place."
"I'd like to come along."
"I think that would be an extraordinarily bad idea," he said, instantly.
"Why?"
"If you and this...Jan Falke...really are alternates, there's no way you wouldn't be noticed."
"I'm still a dab hand at disguise," I protested, slightly hurt, "both magical and mundane nowadays."
"When the Hell did you learn sorcery?" he asked, puzzled.
"It's not sorcery, exactly. It's something I've been developing from ritual to help me stand on the same playing field as my family."
He looked at me, and I heard him 'hmm' under his breath. He was obviously bothered about something.
"Let us do the first recon," he said, finally, "and after that, I'll have a better idea of whether you ought to go anywhere near the place. Especially if you're not actually sure whether or not you and Jan Falke, are somehow the same person."
"But you're there as well," I protested.
"Apparently...but if I'm RPK of Rebma, there's a smaller chance that I'll bump into myself, whereas I'd bet good money on the fact that Jan Falke, whatever he is, will be in Amber proper. Did you see any sign of Artur or Armand?"
"No. Nor Jowan either. On the other hand, the information I was given only goes up to the mid-1990s, and you and I met our respective offspring well after that. I don't know if the cut-off was because that was the year when I got sent the box, or whether that's the current date there."
"Jowan?"
"Jowan Daveth-Helgram. The Helgram Rep in the Black Zone."
"Why on earth is he relevant?"
"Because in this universe, he's your brother."
"Nice of you to mention it before," he commented, "When did you find out?"
"About a month ago. But I assume from the fact that he's never bothered to get back to me on my offer to talk to him about it, he isn't interesting in making it public. Or indeed in having any kind of relationship with me."
"When did you sow that little seed?"
"I'd guess sometime around 1965," I answered, assuming his sarcastic tone was revenge for my toy-boy comment earlier, "His mother was someone I thought was dead, and apparently she thought the same about me, so I had no idea there was a child."
"By which I assume she's very much alive?"
"She's living and working in Helgramways," I answered, "so why take Artur, if you aren't willing to take me?"
"Because of the four of us - you, me, him and Armand - he's the one with the most experience of the machinations of Nazi politics. Armand is too much the bluff, brash soldier and I never operated at the kinds of levels that those two did on Dominion - and in Artur's case, still does in Germania as part of Dieter's staff."
"That's fair," I had to admit.
I may not like just how high up in the SS Artur had been travelling, but he'd come out of his shell because of it. Long gone now was the uncertain, nervous young man I'd first met that Christmas on Tenterden, to be replaced by someone both mentally and physically stronger.
"The other thing you should be aware of," Wolf continued, "is that they've been doing is experimenting on their counterparts in our universe. The Brand there is alive and well, and up to his neck in the meddling, and there's some suggestion that versions of Matthew and Lucius...and an unpleasantly living Steven...might be involved in the misfortunes of our Corwin, and possibly our Brand as well."
I listened with interest, but as I did, I obviously let something in my expression slip.
"Now what do you know about that...?" he asked, his tone curious and slightly mocking.
"Why would I know anything?" I asked, with a shrug.
"When Brand's come up in conversation lately, I've seen your poker tell. And just then, I saw it again."
"I don't have a tell."
"Rubbish. You move your fingers, as if you're trying to exercise them. It's not very obvious, but..."
"But you can read me like a book."
He shrugged, and waited for me to fess up.
"He's been appearing in my dreams."
"Dreams or nightmares?"
"Definitely dreams. As a teacher."
"Excuse me?"
"The ritual stuff I've been developing...I've been working on it with him. Some other stuff, too."
"Christ, Ian. Are you insane? You've had him in your head?"
"He's a lot saner in there than the reports from Geran and Jasra would suggest. Now though...I wonder if it was our Brand at all, or whether it was Führer Brand."
"What do you intend to do about it?"
"I intend to ask him, next time he visits."
"And you have the slightest expectation that he'll tell the truth?"
"Actually, yes."
"You're sure that this whole Jan thing hasn't gone to your head?"
"I still feel like me," I answered, with a shrug, "and this business hasn't changed that. Sure, it's worried the Hell out of me, but no, it hasn't gone to my head."
"Well, I'm still not taking you to the Fatherland this time around. Trust me...let me see the lay of the land."
I looked at him and then nodded. "Okay."
"And I want to know what he says to you when you ask."
"I'll see what happens."
"I'll hold you to it."
"Understood."
At which point, he got to his feet.
"I should be getting back to Andrés and Artur. See if Wendell's shown up."
"Please keep me in the loop on what you find. This whole thing could be very bad."
"I know. And I will."
And with that, he got a Trump out of his pocket, concentrated and disappeared into a rainbow, leaving me in the gazebo. I made sure that everything was closed down, rolled the rug back over the floor, and then picked up the cap. Time to get some sleep while the ratio to Amber was favourable.