Fathers and Sons
Tenterden, Mid-November 2007
I spent about a week in hospital, getting over my misadventure with - whoever the fuck it was - before my physician, Dr Haley, was finally willing to check me out. She'd seemed surprised at my progress - and indeed my survival, apparently - and more than once, when they'd thought I was asleep, I caught her asking Ian pointed questions which he was politely refusing to answer. However, from the fact that I was actually alive, if not entirely well, I knew that he must have had a hand in my recovery.
I'd seen him heal once or twice now, and I knew I'd recovered faster than even Family physiology would normally have allowed. What puzzled me was how he'd suddenly learned how to do it. He certainly couldn't do it when we first met. I'm not sure he could even do it when he first went to Amber. And it wasn't a ritual thing. Sure members of the Group can do the odd fatigue banishing or pain banishing cantrip - even I can - but full blown healing by laying on of hands?
Maybe that phrase means something different to a Witch than to a good Catholic. Perhaps a Witch doesn't see the religious significance of being able to do that. But the fact that he had learned, or somehow been gifted with, the ability, and moreover could still do it, even after what had happened in Germania, did make me view him in a slightly different light. Maybe he wasn't actually damned for what we'd done...and therefore, perhaps, by association, neither was I. In a way that actually made me feel better.
Trust me, Catholic guilt can be a real bugger.
Michel offered to let me stay with her for a few days afterwards, and I gladly accepted. What with my job, Ian's new responsibilities, and my increasing involvement in Amber, I'd not seen as much of her as I would have liked over the last few months. Of course, she and Tony had their own lives now, and I didn't want to intrude. However, the idea of staying with them at their place in Richmond certainly appealed, and she agreed to pick me up when I was discharged.
She'd told me a couple of months before that she and Tony were expecting a baby in February - something I'd been strangely reluctant to tell Ian, given everything that had been going on, although it would become bloody obvious if we met up at Christmas, as usual - and she'd only been taking more gentle assignments since she'd found out. After all, forty-three is a little late for a first child. But everything seemed to be going well, and it was good to spend some time with her. Ava seemed pleased to see me, too, when I showed up, and I realised I'd missed the little fur ball.
I guess that makes me a cat person, despite my name.
We talked a lot, walked in Richmond Park or Kew Gardens, and I did most of the cooking while I was there, in payment for their hospitality. She told me about the latest projects she'd been working on, and I told her about some of my cases and various other bits and pieces. But it was sometimes hard to know what to say. I love her as if she were my own daughter, but there were two subjects I just couldn't discuss with her: Amber, and what had landed me in hospital in the first place. After all, when all is said and done, Michel is mortal, and her child will be mortal, and sharing knowledge of worlds outside of Tenterden with her was something I just didn't want to inflict on her.
Of course, she assumed immediately that my injuries had been something to do with Ian. Long ago, over a hospital bed in Northolt, Susanne had told my father that he was dangerous, and that she didn't want me associating with him. Of course, it hadn't ended up that way, but she'd passed her feelings on to Michel, who had been an impressionable teenager at the time, and my step-daughter had been left with the view that her 'grandfather' was someone who should be treated with caution. Living in Scotland for so many years had helped things, but after I'd come back to England, the underlying suspicion was still there.
And the trouble is, there was truth to it. Before I'd met him, I'd never killed anyone, and I'd never been seriously hurt. Since I'd met him, both had happened more often than I would have liked - and for some reason, he never ended up as the one in the hospital bed. It made for occasionally awkward family gatherings.
I stayed with them for about ten days - with one brief interruption related to helping various of my relatives recover the Jewel of Judgement, for which I wouldn't say I was on my best form - before finally putting Ava in her carry basket, and heading back to my place. As I walked in the door, one look at the dust accumulation from my month's absence had me realising that I needed to negotiate with Ian about borrowing his cleaner at least once a week. I let the cat out of the basket, and then settled down to clean the place. I was dog tired by the end - the daily walks hadn't really got me my fitness back - but at least that evening, I could settle into my armchair, take-out pizza and a glass of red wine on the table beside me, and cat on my lap, with a feeling of a job well done.
It was good to be home.
The following morning, I did an hour on the weights machine I had set up in the smallest of the rooms downstairs - which was really too small for anything much else, despite having been on the estate agent's paperwork as the fourth bedroom -then showered and declared myself ready to face the day. I nipped out to buy groceries, and then spent the rest of the day at my desk. I went through my post, paid my bills and started doing the prep work on a couple of case requests which I'd received during my absence.
By 18.00, I was debating what to have for dinner when the phone rang. I reached for the kitchen extension and answered.
"Hey, Wolf," came Ian's voice.
"Evening, Mihai."
"How are you doing?"
"I'm good," I answered, and realised that actually, it wasn't too far from the truth. I no longer felt like an invalid: I felt to be back in charge of my destiny again.
"Mind if I stop round? I have something I need to talk to you about."
"Have you eaten yet?"
"Not yet."
"I'll make pasta. Bring something white. See you shortly."
By the time he arrived, the carbonara sauce was bubbling on the stove and Ava was in a corner, happily munching the couple of cubes of pancetta that had somehow fallen on the floor while I'd been cooking.
"You look better," he commented, as he came into the kitchen and presented me with a couple of bottles of pre-chilled Soave Classico.
"I feel better," I answered, putting one of them in the fridge and tossing him the bottle opener for the other, before going back to my stirring, "although I could have done without having to get involved in the Jewel working."
"They specifically asked for your help..." he commented, as he got down a couple of glasses, "and it was worth doing."
"I know. But I probably wasn't ready to be participate in a high-powered ritual just then."
"You did fine," he said, pouring, then pushing one of them towards me, "Don't worry. Just be warned that Dad is going to hold a party to celebrate."
"As usual."
"At least this time, it's actually for something good...unlike Germania."
"True enough," I conceded, before adding, "thanks again for coming for me."
"As always, you're welcome," he answered, and raised his glass, "I'm glad you're safe."
"I'm glad to be safe," I replied, chinking glasses with him and taking a sip of the light golden liquid. As always, he'd made a good choice. "You should take the Sommelier exams...you'd walk them."
"Maybe one day, in my copious spare time," he answered, then gave a wry smile, "although what with Medical School and a Doctorate in Nuclear Physics, I've been doing a lot of studying lately."
"But they were for work, as it were." Yes, I consider Amber to be work. "When did you last do something like that to amuse yourself?"
"Probably my War Studies Doctorate," he admitted, "but you can talk. I'm not sure you've ever done something like that for fun."
"Not entirely true...how do you think I learned to cook?"
"Fair point," he admitted, "and that was definitely time well spent. But isn't there anything else you'd like to do?"
"I'd love to be able to draw," I admitted.
"So learn. I'm sure you could find somewhere in Shadow which was relatively fast and go to Art School."
"I'm not sure I'm heading very far into Shadow on my own again anytime soon," I replied, "not after this..."
I saw a look of sympathy cross his features.
"I suppose not...I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said anything."
"Let it pass," I answered, with a shrug, I returned my attention to the stove and took a last check of the sauce. Perfect. I checked the penne, decided it was ready and drained the pan, before digging out a couple of plates. Then I poured the sauce over the pasta, and we adjourned into the lounge to eat.
"So, is this actually a social call? Or is there more to it...as usual?"
"A bit of both," he admitted, "that and I never pass up the opportunity for dinner. You know that."
"Sad but true. Still, at least it means I have an audience for my culinary experiments."
"So how's Michel?"
"She's well, it was good to see her."
"And Tony?"
"Overworked, as usual. Apart from weekends, he's pretty much at the office all the hours God sends. I guess that's the peril of being a Senior Partner at Morgan Stanley."
"That must be hard on her."
"She has her own job, remember. And photography takes her to various interesting places. Her last project was street photography in Paris and Brussels. She was looking through the images while I was staying with her. She's really good, even if I do say it myself."
I debated for a moment, then decided perhaps it was fair to tell him.
"I'm going to be a grandfather...well technically step-grandfather, but you know what I mean."
"Congratulations," he said, apparently genuinely pleased, "When's the baby due?"
"All being well, mid-February."
"Give her my love, when you talk to her again."
"I will. And what about you and the good Dr Haley? Did you have that dinner yet?"
"Not yet."
"Why not?"
"Because I'm afraid of what might happen."
"Why? She's smart, she's funny, and she seems interested in you, for her sins."
"Which is partly the problem."
"Because of the whole Marina thing?"
"Yes."
"What's going on with that? Didn't you say you'd taken her to the Pattern?"
"On Dieter's request."
"So things are more serious between you than I'd realised?"
"I don't know. That's the problem. That's what I need to figure out before I decide where I might want to take things with Samantha."
"Samantha is it?" I said, with a chuckle.
"Enough, you," he answered, with a grin, "dinner's getting cold."
I accepted the diversion, and after that, I steered the conversation towards generalities, heading off whatever else he wanted to talk about until after we'd eaten. After all, there's no point spoiling good food with serious conversation, and I was getting the impression this was going to be one of those talks.
I really wish my father would occasionally just come round to watch a football game.
"So what's really up?" I asked, finally once I'd cleared the plates and we'd adjourned to the comfortable chairs with the second bottle of Soave.
Despite my culinary prevarications, I could read from his body language that he was genuinely concerned about something. What I wasn't expecting, was his opening comment.
"Have you ever talked to Michel about Amber?"
"Nope...and I'm not planning to."
"You probably ought to."
"Why? What good would it serve? She's not Family - not that sense. Susanne and Michael were both human."
"Perhaps not physically. But given the fact that your profile is now substantially higher in certain quarters, interested parties within the Family who want to know more about you might not realise that. They will find out that you were married, and that you raised a daughter, and they might not dig much deeper than that."
I leaned back in my chair, sipping from my wineglass, and studied him, trying to read where he was going. He was definitely worried, and he meant what he said about Michel.
"What's going on, Mihai?"
"Geran has been in touch with me. Apparently Random is on the warpath."
"That's not new."
"He's taken it up a gear. Remember, around the time he persuaded Rebma to attack Amber, he grabbed Erik?"
"And from what you said, wanted to have a go for me, as well, but you got there first and headed him off at the pass."
"Indeed. Well, apparently he's now stepped that up a notch. He - or at least his agents, who work for something called the Rand Corporation, which in turn answers to him - grabbed Erik again the other day. He wanted to use the lad to power a ritual to attack Brandenburg."
"Perhaps someone needs to teach Erik how to defend himself," I commented, tartly, then reconsidered, "...actually, that's probably not fair. The lad is pretty handy in a fight."
"And as I said, Random's not playing any more. He also grabbed Thorsten."
A variety of thoughts passed through my mind when he said that, most of them unprintable, and I cursed. My feelings are conflicted about Thorsten, but he's still my son. I want to love him because of that...but it's hard for me to accept what he's become. When I first met him, when Ian brought him to Wittersham House, he'd seemed so innocent. Now I knew that was far from the truth. He'd felt what we did on Germania was right, and that was hard for me to reconcile.
Ian waited in silence for me to work it through.
"Is he alright?" I asked finally.
"Apparently he's fine. Brandenburg forces freed them."
"How did Random get past Dieter?"
"Unknown at this point. You probably need to talk to Geran about that. It may be he wasn't on Germania."
"I'll see if he'll speak with me." I paused a moment, before adding. "Do you have any more details?"
"Just that they were taken to try to power a ritual against the Brandenburg Pattern, and that they were kept drugged. Something which paralysed them both physically and on an arcane level. Geran is going to get me some samples of the substance that was used, in case I can make head or tail of it."
"But the upshot of it is Random is now grabbing family members to use as weapons against his enemies."
"Pretty much. Which means you need to be careful to protect your loved ones. And that has to include Michel."
"Would he attack them on Tenterden?"
"If he did, indeed, take Thorsten from Germania, I wouldn't rule it out. If he didn't...I probably still wouldn't rule it out. Random doesn't seem to understand why no-one is listening to him, and it feels like he's getting pretty desperate."
"I hate that little Untermensch."
"I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news."
"Fucking Amber," I snapped, "if we'd never heard of the bloody place, none of this would be happening."
"Do you really believe that?" he answered, surprised.
"Yes, I do."
"Then I have to disagree," he said, quietly, taking a drink and then meeting my less than impressed stare.
"Why? Because you're Crown bloody Prince?"
"No. Because of what happened long before that, under Eric. Caine and his people killed our family - my brothers, and my cousins; your uncles and great uncles - regardless of whether they knew of their Amber heritage. Hell, by the sound of it, he specifically targeted the ones who weren't aware of who and what they were, because they were soft targets."
"But they never touched us."
"Because we got bloody lucky, you and I. We lived, and thrived, and survived - even if we hit bumps in the road along the way. But I'm coming to the conclusion that it was only because Dad kept his distance, and Mother was way more formidable than either of us realised, and stayed around until she felt that we were better able to look after ourselves. Either of us could so very easily have been buried in the Courtyard of the Palace of Justice if it hadn't been for that. Ignorance would have been no protection at all."
"But Michel shouldn't have to deal with this shit. Not now. Not ever. She's the one good, untainted thing in my life."
"You think being Family makes us tainted?"
"Perhaps not automatically. But once Amber comes into the picture, then yes. As I've said before, you've changed since you became involved with the place. You're colder, more calculating, more willing to risk everything to get the job done."
"I was never what I'd call a nice person. Think of the SOE."
"No, but in the SOE you were a soldier; you were fighting a war. And there were lines you wouldn't cross. And within the beliefs of the Group, there is an awareness of people, and a respect for the world around us. Even when you came to Russia for me, and later with Kirishi, you stayed the right side of those lines. At least as far as a soldier trained in the sphere you were ever could. You would never have done something like the attack on Rebma...or Heaven Forbid, what happened in Germania, before Marcus took you to Amber."
"You were beside me willingly for the Rebma attack," he pointed out, quietly, "even if the circumstances on Germania weren't as clear cut."
"Which supports my case. I wouldn't have done that before you became involved with Amber, either. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. And that's what we have. That's what the Pattern gives us. It's just I'm not sure either of us really realised what the downside of it was, until you ended up getting involved. Certainly to me, the Pattern was a tool...it was fun, it was different, it opened up possibilities which I would never have seen before. But it didn't consume me. However, now we're on the radar, Amber is the elephant in the room all the time."
"Do you regret my taking you to the Pattern? Introducing you to the Family?"
"The Pattern, no. The Family...you realise, don't you, that the first thing most of them saw me do, was help with the Rebma ritual. Which at its deepest roots, however much we don't want to admit it, was tantamount to genocide. That's going to have coloured their view of me. And because of that, things have changed so much, and in ways I never would have believed possible."
"You've never said this in so many words before."
"That's because the genie is well and truly out of the bottle, and it's never going back in. But never, in a million years, did I think it would threaten Michel."
"Maybe I'm being overly paranoid," he said, with an apologetic shrug.
"And then again, maybe you aren't. That's what sucks about this whole conversation. At least I've trained Armand a little, and he has a chance of defending himself - although given that Random grabbed Thorsten, perhaps even that is a vain hope. Perhaps, like Marina, he needs to walk the Pattern. But Michel...she can't defend herself. She doesn't know about the Group. She could never walk the Pattern. She's wholly, beautifully and oh so breakably, human."
"I'm sure you'll make the right decision, Wolf...find a way to protect her...but I wanted you to know what was going on. Especially about Thorsten."
"I appreciate you telling me what happened to him...even if I don't like the implications."
"Out of interest, have you talked to Armand lately?"
"I was supposed to meet him on the Second Road a couple of weeks ago, but for obvious reasons, that didn't happen."
"Do you want me to talk to Marcus about arranging for him to walk the Pattern?"
"It's a big step from his being arcanely aware, to telling him that his father's family hails from another world. But I suspect I have to have that conversation with him, and sooner rather than later by the sound of it. Especially if there is any chance Random might find out about him. I'll let you know for sure when I've spoken to him."
"That's fair."
Ian feel quiet, finishing his wine and obviously thinking.
"What is it?" I asked, curious.
"This all having come to light, I'm having second thoughts about whether it was actually Caine - or one of his minions - who grabbed you," he said, finally, "especially if Random is going after Family. After all, as you said, he's targeted you before, albeit unsuccessfully."
I paused for a moment, seriously considering what he'd said, before answering.
"Eviscerating me for pleasure still seems more like Caine to me," I answered, "if Random's aim is to capture Family to use them in rituals, then he wouldn't have done that. At least, not without framing it in a ritual setting. What happened to me definitely wasn't that. And you said the men who chased you were wearing black and green. It's Caine who wears those colours in the Trump Deck, not Random."
"True," he acknowledged.
"But either way...Trust me, Ian. I'm not got going to let myself get caught like that again. I like to think I learn from my mistakes."
"Sometimes I wish I did, as well," he said, with a wry smile, then looked at his watch, "it's getting late, and I should probably leave you in peace."
He got to his feet and I joined him, disturbing a rather disgruntled Ava in the process.
"Thanks for dinner, Wolf."
"Thank you for the wine. Are you staying on Tenterden for a bit?"
"I need to get back...but you have the Key, so you can keep the time here how you want it. Will you be back in Amber any time soon?"
"I should probably check in. Wave the flag. Congratulate Grandfather on his elevation to Prime Target."
"Then I'll either see you there...hopefully before too long."
I nodded, and then saw him to the door and let him out. Then I closed it behind him, suddenly grabbed by the feeling that I needed to talk to Armand. I glanced at the clock. 22.15. Danzig was only an hour ahead, so there was at least a chance he would be awake. I suppose it depended on his duty schedule.
Unlike Ian, I don't have a Working circle inlaid in the floor of my office. For going onto the Second Road, I usually find that a comfortable chair suffices well enough. I headed downstairs to the second-smallest bedroom, which I had laid out as a small but comfortable den, complete with TV and home entertainment system, and lit a few candles and an incense burner, before sealing the room. Then I sat down in my usual chair, and started casting out onto the Second Road for my other son.
I knew well enough which direction to look for him in - regularly meeting that way for four years had given us a familiarity for each other which meant we could find each other with relative ease - and my astral self moved quickly towards him. I tried to ignore the vaguely queasy feeling I always got as I passed over certain parts of my homeland, and relieved as always that the Wewelsburg wasn't on a direct line between London and Danzig. I quickly reached the area where I would expect to find him, and then started casting about to see if he was around. It took me a few minutes to home in on him, but soon I found his dreaming self.
Very gently, I made contact, and after a little while, I felt him move from dreaming, to astral contact. My form looks like a younger version of myself - a lot like I was when I was still in Germany, before I met my father - and wears a generic uniform, which might or might not be German. His looks like a teenager, on the way to the beach. His hair is longer than in his waking form, and seems sun lightened from his usual dark blond, and he appears wearing a white t-shirt, grey below-the-knee-shorts with lots of pockets, and is barefoot. Obviously, despite his chosen career, my son isn't really that much of a disciplinarian at heart.
"Hey, Dad," he said, as he recognised me, "I missed you last time we were supposed to talk. Is everything okay?"
"I'm fine...things got a little out of hand, but they're sorted out now."
"I had a nightmare a couple of weeks ago...that you were hurt. Badly hurt. I saw grey figures and a man with a knife, and I felt as if I was dying...or you were dying...but none of it made any sense. I tried to contact you, but I couldn't get in through. I was worried."
I was surprised, which probably showed: astral contact isn't that great for keeping secrets. But how could he have tapped in to what was happening to me from worlds away?
"It's in the past now," I said, with a mental shrug, "hopefully it won't happen again."
"It's good to hear from you," he said, and I could feel that he meant it, "you're sure you're okay."
"I'm fine...but we need to talk. In person. Can you get away for a couple of hours?"
"It's 23.30 here...but I could probably sneak out. Where do you want to meet?"
"How about that bar we ended up in at last time? In, say, half an hour?"
"I'll see you there."
I nodded, then let my astral form come back to my body and brought myself around. Then incense had largely burned down, so I consciously extinguished both that and the candles, before bringing down the wards, and opening the door. Ava was sitting outside looking decidedly put out, so I picked her up, gave her an apologetic cuddle, and then headed into my room to put on something more appropriate for going out to a bar in the middle of the night.
Using the Pattern for a shortcut, and making sure I wasn't being followed, I arrived at Bar Rosenthal, in the Old Town, a few minutes before Armand did. I ordered a beer, then sat at a table in a quiet corner to wait. I saw him come in shortly afterwards, wrapped in a heavy peacoat against the early snow. He scanned the bar, spotted me and came over. I signalled the barman to bring over another beer.
"Bloody awful night you've picked," he commented, as he shook off his coat and hung it on a hook beside the table. Beneath it, he was wearing an oversized fisherman's jumper, and a pair of jeans. As always, when I saw, him, I was aware, as always, of how much he'd changed since we'd first met. Gone was the gangly student, to be replaced by the solidly built, confident Waffen-SS Obersturmführer. I was a little surprised that he'd grown a light beard since I'd last seen him - it hadn't been regulation in my day - but maybe he had a superior officer who cared more about what his men did, than how they looked.
"It wasn't snowing in London," I said, with an apologetic shrug, as I greeted him and we sat down.
"Are you okay? You look pale."
"I've had a rough few weeks," I admitted, "I found myself in the wrong place at the wrong time, and ended up in hospital. That's why I missed our last contact."
"That nightmare wasn't a nightmare, was it?"
"No. Somehow you must have subconsciously tapped into what was happening to me. But as I said, it's in the past. As you can see I'm alive and well now."
"So how did you get here from London so fast?"
"There's some things I need to talk to you about...that's one of them."
"You couldn't do it on the Second Road?"
"It's a bit more complicated than that," I answered, then paused as the server brought over his beer and deposited it on the table. Once we were alone again, I spent a few moments putting up a ward which would prevent us being overheard too easily, which he watched in fascination.
"You've not taught me that one."
"I probably should," I admitted, "but not just now."
"So what's so important that you've got me out of bed in the middle of the night to meet you for a beer?" he asked, chinking bottles with mine as he said it.
"Ian suggested that I warn you that you might be in danger," I answered.
I'd told him in the past that Ian was my father, rather than my brother, but he hadn't ever really believed it - which I suppose I could understand, given that I look older than Ian - so in the end it was just easier to refer to him by name.
"Any particular reason? Is it related to whatever happened to you?"
"No...this is something different. He has an uncle. His name is Random. Apparently he's kidnapping other members of the Family and using them for his own purposes."
"Given that my official family comprises about four people, none of them called Random, I assume this is something to do with the mythical 'Family' you have occasionally mentioned by accident, and then try to change the subject when I ask about."
I looked at him with a weak smile.
"Guilty as charged."
"So what's going on?"
"There's an on-going Civil War where our people come from. Ian and his father are on one side of it. Random is on the other, and he's not pleased about it."
"So Ian does have a father? He isn't some kind of Pod Person."
"Nope. His father's name is Bleys, and he recently became King of Amber, the Family Pile."
"The Family Pile? Sounds like you aren't best fond of the place."
"This is my home, not there. But Amber is where Bleys comes from, and that makes it relevant. It's a very long way away from here."
"And it's in the middle of a Civil War which is likely to spill over into the GGR?"
"Not the GGR, but onto members of our Family specifically."
"And I'm in the firing line?"
"Possibly."
"So how much do they know about me?"
"I don't know. That's the problem. But there are some very smart people in the Family, and it's quite possible that they can find out about you. So I wanted you to be on your guard."
"Where is this place? I'm pretty decent at geography, but I've never heard of anywhere called Amber. Is it even on this world?"
That caught me out, but then, Armand always had been a bright lad with a far more active imagination that might perhaps be wise, given his line of work and the organisation he served in.
"Interesting question. What prompted it?"
"One time I attended a lecture Oberstgruppenführer Ritter was giving. He mentioned somewhere called Germania. He framed it as an ideal...the greatest of the German Reichs...but the way he spoke of it made it sound like it really existed. It got me curious, but he wouldn't answer my question when I asked him about it afterwards."
"It does. And you're right. Amber isn't on Tenterden. It's many worlds from here."
"So there really are multiple universes?"
"The speculative authors who suggest that there are an infinite number of worlds, based on universes splitting at key decision points. They're on the right track."
"Ian Michaels being one of them?"
"Yes," I concurred, remembering far too late that Armand and I had discussed a mutual love of SF in the past. I suppose he must have read one or two of Ian's novels under his SF pseudonym when he was in London. "He's written a few books along those lines in his time."
"Some of the alternate history stuff...it's not fiction, is it?"
"It's fiction here. But it's got some basis in places he's visited. Much like some of the War Studies 'alternative scenario' lectures you probably went to while you were at Kings."
Armand took a swig from his beer, and then smiled.
"I used to enjoy those. He made them very plausible, and they led to some spirited discussions" he answered.
"He's a good lecturer. As his student pass rate attests."
"But the upshot of what you're saying is my Grandfather is an alien."
"Technically, it's your Great-Grandfather who's the alien. Ian was born and bred here on Tenterden, as was I. It's just he was probably born a little earlier than you perhaps realise."
"Early enough to have actually been at the Nuremburg Rally he wrote about in his history of the early years of the GGR? When the First Führer announced the Laws for the Protection of German Blood?"
"Yes. He was at Berlin when the Armistice was signed, too. In fact, I think he may have been involved in drafting it."
"I guess it's a new version of 'what did you do in the War, granddad'."
He paused a moment, taking that in and considering the implications, before looking almost impressed.
"He's seen it all...lived through it all...the whole history of the GGR. That's quite something. And as the years pass, that will be true of fewer and fewer people."
Armand lapsed into silence and sipped his beer for a while. As we were both getting close to the bottoms of our respective bottles, I ordered two more which came over in short order.
"So just how old is he?" Armand asked, genuinely interested now, which boded well, "Come for that, how old are you?"
"Time gets relative when you start messing around travelling between worlds. But in rough terms...I'm the easy one. I was born in Ansbach in June 1936."
"About nine months after the 'Rally of Freedom'."
"He met my mother at around that time. They weren't together for long, but it was long enough for me to come into being. Since then, I've lived most of my life here on Tenterden. Sure, I've travelled a bit off world, but it's only added about five years to my overall score."
"So you're a well-preserved what...eighty?"
"Thereabouts."
"Even though you only look to be in your early-forties? And he's older, but looks younger?"
"Quite a bit older, actually. He waved goodbye to his first century about thirty years ago in his personal timeline."
"Yet I'd put him in his mid-to-late-thirties. What happened? When I asked him about you after that time you came to a lecture, about why you seemed older than I'd been led to believe, he said you hadn't had the easiest life."
"And he'd be right," I answered, my tone level.
"Is that why?"
"Maybe I need to backtrack a bit. One of the reasons we get about so much, is that we have access to something called the Pattern. It's a magical initiation, of sorts, which gives us the ability to move around the multiverse...visiting different worlds, visiting Amber, or in Ian's case, doing a comparative history project across multiple universes, and making shit loads of money as an SF author. So for me to get here from London in half an hour, I took a walk, diverted over a couple of nearby worlds, and then came back in the vicinity of Danzig."
"Neat trick. So what stops anyone walking this Pattern thing? It sounds pretty handy."
"The fact that it's going to kill you, if you aren't of the right bloodline."
"Which is?"
"The descendants of King Oberon of Amber. My Grandfather, Bleys, was Oberon's son."
"Okay. But that doesn't exactly explain the age thing..."
"The way it was described to me is that we are functionally immortal. We're basically as old as we feel, and we probably aren't going to drop dead unless someone helps us on our way."
"And you feel older than Ian?"
"For a number of reasons, I felt older than Ian when I walked the Pattern. You knew before you came to England that in the eyes of the GGR, I was officially dead, right?"
"Yes...although I'd been told that I could reach you through Professor Hawke."
"Did you ever wonder why?"
"It wasn't my place to ask."
"I suppose it wouldn't have been," I admitted, with a slight shrug, "okay, then I'll cut a long story short. When Bleys took Ian to the Pattern, it wanted him to remember when he last felt alive. In his mind, that was during the War, and the years that followed, when he would have been in his mid-thirties and was happily married to someone other than my mother. And that's how he came out looking.
With me, a lot had happened to me in the eighteen months or so before Ian took me to it, and that influenced things, along with the fact that I'd been living under a new identity since my 'death'. I guess it confused my subconscious view of myself, and I ended up permanently looking like Rudi Hawke, the identity I'd been living under."
"But your astral form is younger..."
"I know. And maybe, if I'd actually understood better what was happening, then that's how I would have turned out. But I didn't, and I didn't."
"Can that ever change?"
"I don't know...walking the Pattern isn't something you want to do without thinking about it. It's dangerous, and if you get it wrong it will kill you, even if you are of Oberon's line. So I've been around it exactly once. And to be honest, I've kind of got used to how I look now. Even if it is a little weird that Ian seems younger."
"How many people are there in this Family of yours...ours."
"Living? Bleys has eight brothers and four sisters, albeit most of them only share a father. Many of them have children - I'm aware of something like thirty others of Ian's generation, of which he's the oldest as far as I know, although I haven't met all of them. Of my generation, there are a few, of which I'm the oldest by quite some way, but not very many of us are on the radar, probably because our parents have tried to protect us."
"And Bleys is now King of Amber?"
"As of about a month ago."
"So Ian is what...Prince of Wales?"
"Equivalent to."
"Which makes you Prince William."
"Unfortunately."
"And Ian thinks I might be in danger from this Random guy? Why's he so pissed off at the rest of you?"
"He thinks he's King of Amber, and doesn't appreciate the fact that none of the rest of us do."
"Does he have a good reason to believe that? Or has he been smoking something he shouldn't have?"
"That's an interesting legal one. The Charter Oberon laid down stated that after his death, his successor would be whoever the Unicorn - our Patron beast - and the Wizard Dworkin chose. And if they couldn't agree, then it should be put to a vote of the Family. Random got the Unicorn's support, but not Dworkin's, probably not helped by kidnapping and threatening Dworkin's protégé to try to force him to back Random. However, he Crowned himself anyway."
"And Bleys?"
"Was chosen by a vote of the Family, as none of the rest of us were willing to accept Random after he staged a coup in Amber to try to take the throne by force. So under the Charter, Bleys has the right of it and Random is a Usurper."
"But Random's trying to change that? By threatening the children of his brothers and sisters?"
"Their loved ones in general, not just their children. And as Ian, and therefore me, and unfortunately by extension you, are of Bleys's line, we have bigger targets painted on our backs than some of the others."
"This sounds like something out of the Middle Ages. The Lion in Winter, and all that."
"You aren't far wrong in that. The politics are pure Medieval, and potentially fatal if you don't keep up."
He paused for a moment, drinking beer and thinking, before continuing.
"Realistically, is there anything I can do to protect myself from this?"
"That's the trouble. For all he's the ratfink juvenile delinquent of the Amber Family, Random is far older and cannier than either me or Ian. However, I hope that by warning you, at least he can't take you unawares. That was how his people took a couple of other young Family a few days ago, whereupon Random tried to use them in a magical ritual to attack his enemies."
"Did it work?"
"Thankfully, they got found in time. But there's nothing to say that he wouldn't attack those members of the Family loyal to Bleys. In fact, given that his ultimate aim is to become Amber's King, I could definitely see him going after Bleys's support base to try to weaken it for his own return."
"I'm not sure that I wouldn't rather have been kept in the dark about this."
"That's what I said to Ian, but as he said, without foreknowledge you become a soft target."
"It sounds like I'm going to be an soft target anyway."
"Not if you watch your back, and are aware that the threat is out there. And not if I can get you to the Pattern. Then, at least, you'd have some defences."
"You can do that?"
"Ian can. And will if I ask him to. He's the one who raised the possibility. I just wasn't sure how you'd take it, but I have to say, you've been surprisingly sanguine about discovering you're descended from aliens."
"I'd realised there was something odd going on. Admittedly this is rather beyond my wildest suppositions, but I know you well enough to realise that you aren't insane, and I'm pretty sure you wouldn't make something like this up. I assume there are pros and cons to this Pattern thing?"
"Yes. Walking the Pattern brings you onto the Family radar...something I've had cause to regret in recent times, as Ian's dragged me into various degrees of trouble because of it. That's the major con."
"Does various degrees of trouble involve being tortured and knifed by little grey men."
"Yes."
"So the Pattern didn't protect you from that?"
"Only because I was stupid. I went off into Shadow - that's what we call walking between worlds - without thinking that someone might grab me. Now I know better, and I'm passing the warning on to you."
"Was it Random?"
"I don't think so - unfortunately, he's not the only uncle with an unpleasant disposition. Walking Shadow isn't something to be done lightly, as I'm now well aware."
"So what are the pros?"
"If you walk it, you'll have a much better idea of what you're dealing with, and believe me, with the Family of Amber, knowledge is power. You can use it to defend yourself if you know that you might be under attack, or in certain cases, to try to stop someone hurting you with magic. And it gives you a chance to make yourself scarce if everything goes to Hell in a handcart."
"It sounds like the pros outweigh the cons...at least to start off with. So if you can arrange it, I'd like to do it."
"Then let me talk to Ian, and I'll be in touch in the next couple of days"
"Do you have a picture of this Random guy? So I know who to look out for."
"Assuming he does his own dirty work...Let me show you," I answered, getting my Trump Deck out of my pocket. Then I started looking through the cards, until I found the Untermensch.
"This is him."
"He looks relatively normal, apart from looking like he fell out of the court of Elizabeth I. From your build-up, I was expecting someone with two heads and spitting fire. And the others...are all of those members of our family?"
"Most of them. Some are hangers on. Some are relatives I haven't fitted together yet."
I started slowly dealing them onto the table, looking for the other one I thought he ought to see.
"What are they? Some kind of Tarot cards?"
"They're called Trumps. They're a means of communication. Here..." and I shuffled out my own card for him to look at, before carrying on searching.
"You look so serious."
"Better than being immortalised looking like an idiot," I answered, with a half-smile, then found the one I was looking for, "...this is Ian's father, Bleys, King of Amber, Emperor of the Golden Circle."
"Sounds impressive. Handsome devil, isn't he?"
"He has a way with the ladies, that's for sure. Ian used to have several brothers...but most of them are dead now."
"What happened?"
"Family politics. Bleys was on the wrong side of the last Civil War, and his children paid the price."
"Amber doesn't sound very stable, if it has that many Civil Wars."
"It had the same King for thousands of years, and he kept his children on a tight leash, when he wasn't setting them up against each other."
"Sounds like a textbook sociopath."
"I doubt the textbooks were considering the possibility of immortality. Living for thousands of years, and knowing that the only way you're going to die is if someone kills you or you really screw up, is going to change a person. You see your friends grow old and die around you, and in the end, the only constants are your family."
"And you can't choose your family."
"Especially this one. The problem was, once Oberon was gone - he disappeared a couple of hundred years ago or so, Amber time - the gloves came off, and Ian's aunts and uncles started settling scores. The younger members of the family were, by and large, the main victims. And unfortunately, with the current situation with Random...and also with a guy named Caine, who was heavily involved in the murder of his nephews and nieces, and I have in the frame for my recent problems...the overall situation is still potentially hairy for those of us who aren't really involved in Amber."
He regarded me in silence for a while, taking in what I'd said and obviously not liking any of it. I waited while he drank from his beer and processed, and eventually he spoke again.
"So how do these Trump things work?"
"You concentrate on them, and think of the person on the card. If you do it right, you should feel it go cold, and if they answer, you'll be able to speak with them. Try it with mine."
He did as I bid, and I saw a look of puzzlement on his face as he felt it change. And moments later, I felt the stirrings of the call. Very gently, I opened up to it.
"See what I mean?" I said, mentally, and saw the surprise on his face.
"I can hear you in my head."
"That's the point," I answered, "long-distance communication, not limited to a single world."
"Must be handy if you're doing a comparative history project."
"They can be...although you need to be aware that they're also potentially dangerous. If you someone calls you with hostile intent, it can get messy. However, hopefully no-one is likely to do that to you, are you aren't known."
"I hadn't realised that being your son was such a minefield."
"I feel the same way about being Ian's. Now try to break the contact...either pass your hand over the card, or mentally thing of something blocking it. A curtain maybe."
He paused a moment, and the link went down.
"I suggest you keep that for now. It's a quicker way of getting in touch with me if you need help than trying to go onto the Second Road.
"So why do you have one of Oberstgruppenführer Ritter?" he asked, pushing half a dozen of the cards aside, and separating out the one of my other grandfather, "Is he one of this Family as well?"
"Ian's cousin. Bleys and Brand, Ritter's father, are full siblings."
"And this one?" He paused a moment, then separated out another card. "He has your eyes...Bleys's eyes."
"Yours too. His name's Thorsten. He's your brother."
"What about this one? Are he and Thorsten twins?"
"That's Matthew. And no, but they share a mother. Technically, he's your great uncle. Another of Brand's children."
"I'm confused. Why would that make him my great uncle?"
"Don't worry about that now. It'll make more sense once you've walked the Pattern."
With that, I started collecting the cards together and put them back in my pocket, with the exception of my own.
"Why didn't you tell me I had a brother?"
"He lives on Germania. He's Ritter's protégé. However, when you get onto that one...the relationship between Dieter - that's Ritter's real name - Ian, Thorsten and me...well, suffice to say it's complicated."
"Don't you get on?"
"Thorsten's views and mine are very different, which despite the fact that he's a lonely soul, makes him hard to care about at times. I don't know him as well as I do you. And I don't keep in touch with him the way I do with you."
"I can see I have some catching up to do."
"Don't worry. I've thrown a lot at you this evening. And on the back of waking you up unexpectedly. But hopefully, once I've arranged things with Ian, all will become clearer."
"Thanks for coming to tell me, Dad."
"You're welcome."
"Despite all this, which I don't really begin to understand, it's good to see you."
"And you."
"And you're sure you're okay? I still think you look pale."
"I'll be fine...don't worry about that. Just look after yourself until I can get this sorted out. And Trump me if you think you're being watched."
"I'll do my best. I promise."
"That's all I ask."
"I should probably try to sneak back into barracks...I'm due on duty at 06.00, and I don't want to end up with a black mark on my disciplinary record."
"I understand," I answered, remembering my own days living in barracks, and we finished our beers. Then we got to our feet as I brought down the anti-eavesdropping ward and he shrugged on his coat.
"I hope you can see why I didn't want to have this conversation on the Second Road," I said, quietly.
"Believe me, the Second Road wouldn't have done it justice. And to be honest, I'm not sure I would have believed a word of it if I hadn't been watching you as you spoke."
"I'll be in touch in the next couple of days."
"And in the meantime...I'll watch my back and keep an eye out for psychotic juvenile delinquents."
"Pretty much."
"Be careful, Dad," he said, as he gave me a goodbye hug.
"And you, Armand," I answered, "and call me if you need me."
"I will," he replied, "I promise," and headed out of the bar.
I watched him go, before crossing to the counter. Then I paid the bill, and followed him out into the snow, to make my way back to London.