A Knight of Spirits, Swords and Sorcery


Prologue:


"I think your boy is a Squib, Brand." Fiona's sweetly acidic tone of voice came through the oaken door to the room where the ten year old Diomedes was sitting down. A single, thin, wax candle, unlit, white in color, sat in a silver candle holder before him as the red haired boy stared at it with obvious concentration, beads of sweat on his forehead.

"He's not." Brand retorted sharply. "Boys develop more slowly, but are inevitably stronger in certain attributes. Besides, have you ever considered that the fault might lie with the teach-" Brand's response was cut off by Fiona's already forming response. Diomedes' concentration and focus not only allowed him to hear the response, but his concentration intensified as he sought to defy the words his Aunt was speaking. He had heard them before, several times, over the last year.

"You're being sexist just to annoy me."

His father now sounded positively blithe. "And the fact that you're trying to shrivel my son's self-esteem like your last lover's-"

"Don't!" Fiona's voice raised. Then she continued, her tone much more controlled. "Don't be horrible just for the sake of being horrible. I'm concerned about him, and I don't think you're paying enough attention."

"So you confuse me with Random now?"

"No," she said firmly. "The boy has Bleys' physical prowess, that much is clear, but he doesn't have arcane talent. You were lighting candles at six. Mother even thought you were going to set Castle Amber on fire. Bleys and I managed it at eight. Rosalind..." Diomedes didn't hear Fiona's next words, as his eyes flickered from the candle to the wine glasses sitting on the far side of the table, and back to the dark mahogany table upon which all three sat. "...Any road, Dio should have been able to do it by now, in that room, if not before. Face the facts, brother, we are going to have to alter our plans if he doesn't have..."

And then they both felt it, the unmistakable pulse of arcane forces being shaped and worked. Brand was first out his chair and moving, excitedly bursting through the door to the room, followed, at a more stately pace, by Fiona. When they entered, however, and looked to the candle. It was still unlit, but it only took a moment for both children of Clarissa to see that, instead, both of their wine glasses, still full of wine, had turned into miniature fountains, with Brand's son proud, bright-eyed and smiling.


Seven Years Later...

Diomedes woke up from a start and lifted his head from the desk his head had been laying upon. After shaking his head slightly and rubbing his eyes, he looked at the softly glowing mage light floating above the desk, and beyond it, to the clock hanging on the wall. It was nearly midnight.

Diomedes looked down again at the paper, the quill and ink, and the tome from which he had been copying and making notes on arcane formulas. He squinted at the formulas, and then at the tome, and back again. Father had insisted that he document all of his work, especially if he was unfamiliar with any terms or methodology or aspects used. And, here, there were lines that were unclear. The Decan and Tarot hybrid symbolic system the Sorceress was referring to was not the one he was familiar with.

Sorcery was, as Theia had often told him, as much about dry research and study as it was about the use of power. And, clearly, some more research was needed here. Fortunately, Diomedes thought as he rose from the table and strode toward the exit to his suite, he had remembered a book that could very well answer the questions he had about Sorceress Gilman's system in the Castle Amber Library.

And besides, Diomedes wanted to stretch his legs.

Diomedes only remembered to create a small light when he stepped out of his room and into the semi-darkness of the Castle, late at night. With the lemon yellow light cupped in his hands like a ball, Diomedes confidently walked through the corridors. While he had only been back in the Castle a few weeks, surely the Library would be, Diomedes thought, would be easy to find.

He made a turn, convinced that this was the final stretch before reaching his destination, when something caught his eye halfway down the hall. A junction that he didn't remember seeing before, off to his left. Diomedes stopped at the junction, and turned to look down it.

The mysterious hallway looked much the same as any of the other hallways Diomedes had seen during his stay in Castle Amber. A pair of candle holders, bronze and cobra shaped, hung at head-height on either side of the opening. Candles were lit and glowing, adding to the illumination cast upon the scene by his glow globe. Diomedes peered up it. Candles flared along its walls, on both sides. And the walls glittered from the mirrors, countless in number, that hung along the mysterious corridor's length.

He considered the sight for a few moments more, and then, as if a needle pulled by a lodestone, took a leaden step across the mysterious corridor's threshold and began walking down it.

Diomedes took one step, then two and then more as he walked past the first mirrors in the hallway. All were different, save in that they showed his reflection. Frames of gold, frames of brass, and frames of wood. And then Diomedes stiffened and turned, toward a mirror of greenish copper in the shape of an Ouroboros serpent. The image in the mirror was not of Diomedes at all.

It was, instead, his aunt Deirdre.

Dressed in an elegant dress of black accented with silver, especially her girdle, and her hair worn long, she looked quite unlike the image that some of the Golden Circle had her as a bloody-minded warrior princess. No, she looked much more like the belle of the ball that he had seen a couple of times, and how his cousin Obi had described her on other occasions. Her mouth quirked up into a mysterious, perhaps even alluring smile when Diomedes turned to face her.

"You're not who was expected here tonight." she said by way of greeting, as Diomedes stared at her, his training and parentage the only things keeping him from being slack jawed at the sight of someone other than himself in the mirror. "No, you were not the one expected at all." she repeated.

Many potential responses ran through Diomedes' head like waves breaking on a rocky shore. Finally, after a few moments, he smiled and regarded the image of Deirdre.

"Who did you expect here, Aunt Deirdre?" he asked.

Deirdre seemed slightly amused by Diomedes response and she spread her hands. "That would be telling, Diomedes." She smiled again. "And it no longer matters, nephew, since it is you who are here now."

A shudder ran down Diomedes' spine as he faced the image of his aunt. Finally he nodded his head. "So what happens, now that I am here?" he asked as his hand reached toward the glass. As he did so, the image of Deirdre appeared to withdraw slightly from the surface of the mirror, and she had a laughing smile.

"With you, here, Diomedes?" Deirdre's smile was mysterious, teasing, amused. "Who can say whom you will meet? Certainly not I. It will be interesting to observe..." Deirdre's voice began to fade out from Diomedes' ears as her image in the mirror appeared to recede, and shrunk.

"No, wait, Aunt Deirdre..." Diomedes cried, but she was quickly gone, and the mirror's image changed, to show Brand's son as an ordinary mirror would.

Diomedes whirled to look back toward the entrance to the hallway, but hesitated from taking a step in that direction. For, as he looked back the way he came, the hall seemed to run endlessly, as endlessly as it did in the direction he had been traveling.
"Ad Astra per Aspera, eh?" Diomedes said, and turned to follow the corridor in the direction he had originally been traveling.

The next mirror was perfectly round and framed in silver. Metallic silver, or perhaps chrome, and its edges were smooth and rounded, like the glass had been wrighted and set inside a silver tube with no end. His uncle Gerard peered at him.

"Wake up boy! You're dreaming," the big man boomed at him from within the glass.

Diomedes blinked his eyes, paused, and hesitated before replying, "No Sir, I was on the way to the library."

"No you weren't," Gerard answered hastily. "You only thought about it, and then you fell asleep. Now you're dreaming while sleeping in an uncomfortable position. That's no way to get a good rest. You should really wake up."

Looking down at his hands, Diomedes splayed his fingers experimentally, and then reached up to touch his face. "I really don't think so Uncle. I feel wide awake."

Gerard rolled his eyes impatiently. "That's what dreams are like boy." The dark haired giant with his closely shaved moustache and beard sighed. "Better press on then, don't stop. The sooner you do, the sooner you'll be free of this." Then Gerard turned to walk off on his side of the mirror. Diomedes shrugged and started to make his own way down the hallway again; he glanced back only once. Gerard had almost disappeared in his mirror, but was caught glancing backward at his nephew. Exchanging a last look, both men continued on their way.


The next couple of mirrors only held reflections of himself, but the next after that had a fleeting image that made Diomedes turn. He only caught the briefest sight of a girl, maybe nine or ten, with large brown eyes. As Diomedes turned to get a better look at her in the mirror, she disappeared out of sight.

Diomedes stared at that oval mirror with a tarnished silver frame for a moment, shrugged, and then continued. The next mirror was of similar character, and held a light brown haired man clad in brown and black, who prominently wore a strange ring on his right hand. He regarded Diomedes carefully for a moment. Diomedes furrowed his eyebrows in turn, trying to place him, certain that he should know who he was, but he was unfamiliar all the same.

The man raised a finger to his lips. "Shhhh." Then he glanced to the left and then to the right. "Not this time, not yet," he said very softly. Then the man turned away, fading into nothingness as he did so, once again the mirror replacing the conversant image with a silent reflection of his own countenance.

"Perhaps." Diomedes said, to no one at all. "No one else wants to speak to me."

"And I'm no one?" a voice called. A few steps further down the hallway Diomedes came to large mirror, nearly full length, and framed in priceless jade with a sheer, nearly fully transparent sheet of fine silk serving as a drape over it. "Look at me," the woman's voice almost but not quite pleaded. Diomedes could see the shape of a woman with long hair silhouetted behind the gauzy fabric. Reaching up slowly he pulled the silk aside.

The young Rebman lady was beautiful as to hurt his eyes, and while not immodest by Rebman standards, her dress (or lack thereof) would have scandalized the nobles that haunted his Castle. She didn't care a bit.

"Why?" she asked cryptically, though there was something about the way she asked that seemed to imply that she expected him to understand. "Diomedes, just tell me why?"

"You promised me a dance," she added firmly, almost sternly. "You promised me a good many things. You could try." Then she wrapped her arms around herself and a look of almost infinite sadness showed in her eyes. Closed as her body language was, she never looked away from his eyes.

"Who are you?" Diomedes asked, bewildered, but she only stepped backwards in the mirror and vanished. The silk slipped back over the glass of its own accord.

"I asked the same question and you were every bit as evasive," came a cutting voice. Diomedes whirled around to find another mirror framed in crystal. He stared at his own reflection, but the face was oddly unrecognizable, himself but not. This Diomedes looks hard, cold, and shrewd. "You humiliated me. Cost me nearly everything, you and that bitch. But mark my words, Fiona's Kin, mark them well. I will have my revenge, and it will be fivefold anything you can imagine. You know the ironic thing, even as you expect it, you'll never see it coming in time to stop it." Then the mirror turned the color of milk and would speak to him no more.

He stared down the hallway for a few moments, and then continued walking. The next several mirrors were fruitless as augurs or communication devices, only showing a pair of other Diomedes, to either side, walking down the hallway, too.

Diomedes grew so used to the sight as he passed dozens of pairs of mirrors that he didn't even register that that one of the mirrors showed something different until his brisk stride carried him almost

It was a man with short dark hair, and a thin dark beard and mustache. He was dressed in red, with silver accents. Diomedes actually saw him a second time, in a second mirror, before he turned and stopped and faced the stern looking man who seemed to be standing in a study, a den, or a library room of some kind, all done in dark wood.

"I almost supposed you were going to continue to walk past me again." the man in red and silver said in an accent that Diomedes could not place. Yet, he seemed familiar. Briefly, Diomedes turned to look back down the hall the way he came, before looking back at the figure. This seemed to amuse him.

"I'm no longer in that mirror, of course." the man said patiently. "Not that it matters, son of a brother born long after my time."

"...born long after my time..." Diomedes said aloud, regarding the man warily. "You're one of my lost uncles, then?" Diomedes eyes widened slightly as he began to work it out, but before he could speak further, the man smiled thinly.

"Yes, I am Osric, and you are not at all whom that I expected. I was expecting someone else, Diomedes."

Diomedes raised his eyebrows at Osric's identification of him but the eyebrow raise was brief and was overwhelmed by other emotions and thoughts.

"At least." Diomedes responded, his hands slightly sweaty with nervousness. "I am not the only one who feels this way. I didn't intend to enter this..."

"Hall of Mirrors?" Osric said, cocking his head and regarding Diomedes. "No, you're being here is an accident, a quirk of fate. And so it should be taken advantage of, don't you agree, nephew?"

"Taken advantage of in what manner?" A chill ran down Diomedes spine, and he stepped back a half pace from the squarish mirror with the image of Osric.

Osric shook his head slightly. "You are right to be wary and distrustful, tis the coin and hallmark of our family. However, in this instance, I do not mean you harm. What I mean is that an unexpected person in a place of spirits and portents, sounds to me like the perfect opportunity to divine the future." From one of his pockets, Osric revealed a trump deck. He held the deck in his left hand, even as his right hand reached toward the surface of the mirror.

"Come, let us do a trump casting."

Diomedes hesitated, and dumbly stared at Osric's hand for a few moments. The man in silver and red seemed slightly amused by this.

"Are you unfamiliar with that art?" Osric asked. "Has it been lost to the scions of Amber in the time since my brothers and I walked its halls? I thought you a Knight of spirits and spells." He looked at Diomedes, as if looking at him for the first time. "Perhaps you're still a Page. Or perhaps you prefer blades to magic?"

Diomedes shook his head at Osric's speculations, and finally stepped forward to reclaim the distance he had gained by his previous retreat. Diomedes then stepped forward again and extended his left hand toward the glass. Diomedes tried not to be surprised when Osric's hand extended from the mirror and clasped his own. With the tingle of a sensation like stepping through a waterfall, Osric pulled Diomedes through the mirror and into the study.

"Good." Osric said, as he gave Diomedes a moment to get his bearings.

The first thing that Diomedes did as soon as he was through the glass was to turn around. He was gratified to find a mirror that was a copy of the one he had passed through, and the dizzying sight of a hallway full of mirrors imaged in the glass. For the briefest of moments, he thought he saw, in one of the mirrors in the Hallway, the image of his Aunt Deirdre, smiling and observing. The image flickered out of sight, no matter how hard Diomedes concentrated on the confusing sight.

"This is all still part of the Hall you know." the voice of the son of Cymnea came from behind him. Diomedes turned from the mirror reluctantly, to find Osric now seated at a desk, a glass carafe of some dark purple wine, and two glasses to his right on that desk.

The only other thing on the mahogany desk was a deck of over sized cards. Trumps.

Osric gestured first to the chair in front of the desk, and then to the carafe and took the cards up into his hands as Diomedes reached for the carafe, removing the stopper and taking in the aroma of the wine.

"Epiran?" Diomedes inquired as he poured the glasses full of the wine and taking one and his seat. Osric did not answer. He continued to calmly shuffle the cards, as if he had not heard Diomedes' words. He placed the deck back on the desk.

"Cut the cards three times." he instructed. "Hand them back to me, and tell me which side is the top."

Diomedes nodded and sipped at the wine briefly before setting it down.

Taking the cards into his hands, he cut the deck three times, keeping to about halfway through the deck each time. Finally he handed the deck back to Osric. "The top faces me."

Osric nodded silently and began dealing the cards. To Diomedes' limited exposure, it looked something like what was called in shadow a Celtic Cross, but subtly different. The cards themselves, however, were familiar, the same ones his branch of the family employed for such things, the tarot of the Amber deck itself.

"Covers" he said, and put down the upside down card. It depicted a couple, together, by some sort of shore, with three cups brimming over. Three of Cups

"Crosses", and Osric placed grandfather, Oberon, upright, his eyes looking at Diomedes.

"As the Emperor" Diomedes whispered aloud. Osric ignored him, and continued.

"Behind" and the reversed card placed a nude woman, and a bird, in the night. The Star.

"Ahead", and Osric placed, reversed, the intensely gazing face with the tools of the profession below. The Magician.

"Crowns" and Osric produced a reversed, somber figure trudging through a landscape. The Seven of Pentacles.

"Beneath". And the long haired man sitting in place had closed eyes for Diomedes. The Hermit.

"Yourself" Osric intoned, and placed a card on fire, a figure trapped within a cage of wands. But the card was upside down, the Ten of Wands.

"Family and Friends" Osric explained, and another upside down card, with two figures standing in a set of swords buried into the earth. The Eight of Swords

"Hopes and Fears" Osric said, and laid down the smiling woman pouring a libation. Temperance.

"And, finally, Outcome." Osric said, and laid down the last card, and Diomedes stared at the edifice suffering destruction. The Tower.

"Given the nature of time in this place, this path may take years to unfold. As I said, being here in the Hall has great significance." Osric said, as he leaned over the deck. "Have you interpreted the cards before?"

Diomedes thought back to lessons with Aunt Fiona and Uncle Bleys, and nodded. "Yes, although I do not claim to be an expert in these matters. Trumps and Tarots are not my specialty"

"I like not the beginning and its conclusion." Diomedes continued "It starts with a lack of happiness, and ends in ruin and destructive breakdown and ruin. Uncle. It almost sounds like Oberon is the only thing that stands between me...and terrible things. Dreams leading to disgrace."

Osric looked at the cards again. "I think you misread this fortune somewhat, Diomedes. You clearly need a little more seasoning when it comes to the interpretation of a spread. The Tower, for instance." Osric's forefinger rubbed along its edge as it lay on the table. "is a powerful card to be sure. On the other hand, there is a liberation involved in the cataclysm. Just as Death is not a card that means solely what it means in the most shallow sense, neither does the Tower. And your hopes, as symbolized by Temperance, may yet mitigate any real disaster."

Diomedes looked at the cards, skeptically. He shook his head slightly, and when he looked up, Osric smiled.

"Time will tell, as it always does. I wager you will remember this spread, and as things unfold, it will come back to mind. I was hoping to offer a Tarot reading to the person who was supposed to come through tonight, but I don't think that you are a bad alternate choice."

"Deir..." Diomedes stopped and started again. "Another of your siblings said something about that. Who was supposed to come here, Uncle Osric?" Diomedes asked. "And how do you know anything about me, when not even my father was alive when you were in the Castle?"

"Now, Diomedes." Osric said, rising from his seated position. "An answer to either question would be telling. Its time for you to depart."

Diomedes rose from his seat, but he felt a reluctance to move further. He studied Osric, and took a step backward toward the mirror. "Nothing more to be gleaned tonight?" Diomedes said, as if hoping that Osric might reveal something more.

"Nothing." Osric came around the desk and put a firm grip on Diomedes' shoulder. With a strength that Diomedes associated with Eric, or Deirdre, Osric turned and urged him through the mirror. Diomedes stumbled as he reached the surface of the glass, and didn't remember anything more.

Diomedes eyes opened. His head was resting on the open pages of a book. He was slumped over his desk in his room, the yellow light of his room creating a deep, defined shadow against the book. Diomedes blinked as he moved to a upright, seated position.

Was it all a dream? Did he imagine the strange visit to the Hall of Mirrors? Diomedes yawned, and rose from the desk to stretch away the discomfort to his muscles caused by sleeping in such an awkward position.

Diomedes looked down at the book. It was unfamiliar, and definitely not a book that he had in his quarters before he fell asleep. On the left page that the book was open to was dominated by a depiction of the Tower of Babel, in the process of being destroyed in a cataclysm of some sort. On the right, the text swam to his still sleepy eyes, but the first words jumped out at him.

"The Tower is a symbol in the standard Tarot deck..."

~The End~