The midwife has been sent away for a time, the baby is asleep, and the mother would probably like to be. The father might like to be, but he's a little too anxious for that, still. Also, it's something like impossible to run Martin out of energy.
They've been left in a chamber in Benedict's castle that probably isn't his but might have been his wife's if he had one in residence. There's a giant bed with curtains against the chill and a fire in case Folly gets cold. Food has been left in case Folly gets hungry. Martin's been intermittently nibbling on it since the actual birthing stopped and the baby was cleaned up.
When the door shuts behind the midwife on the way out, Martin settles on the edge of the bed. "I think I'm supposed to say something about the miracle of new life, but um, mostly I'm thinking I know why they kick the men out of the birthing chamber in Rebma. I feel like a wimp. How are you?"
Folly looks up from contemplating her daughter, swaddled and sleeping in her lap, and gives Martin a mischievous, if tired, smile. "Well, I've just grown the most gorgeous thing in the universe and pushed it out between my legs. I'd probably feel like a superwoman if I weren't about to pass out." She settles back against the pillows and pats the space next to her on the bed. "Why don't you fix me a plate and come sit with me, and we can be wimps together?"
Martin immediately begins to gather up the things he knows Folly likes best from the spread left for them. "Second most gorgeous thing in the universe, you mean, because the most gorgeous thing is you," he tells Folly over his shoulder. "Are we keeping Lorelei for the name? I know we talked about it a while ago, but now she's really here and if she's not a Lorelei, we should call her something else."
"No, I think Lorelei suits her," Folly says, "and if she turns out to hate it, there are some good nickname possibilities. But I was thinking...." She hesitates, as if carefully considering how best to say what she wants to say. "Well... it's quite possible this will be the only child we have -- for a long while, anyway. And... with her being descended, like, six different ways from royal families, it wouldn't be inappropriate for her to have several names; at least that seemed to be the tradition where I'm from. If nothing else, it might give this naming ceremony thing your father wants to have a bit more heft." She hesitates again, then asks, gently, "Is there anyone you might want to honor -- or remember -- by naming your child for them?"
"I think if her name is Lorelei, that will be the name attached to her legend, and it won't matter which ones we attach to her." Martin finishes gathering up a plate for Folly and brings it to her before returning to the food to make a plate for himself. "How many different names has Dad gone by? But he's still Random."
"Yes, yes he is," Folly agrees around a bite of food. She chews, swallows, and continues, "But even the names that don't stick to the legend can tell a story, or send a message. And... well, you know me -- I'm a songwriter, I'm into that kind of shit." Her eyes twinkle as she takes another bite.
"So am I, but we don't always write to the beat of the same--okay, bad metaphor there. Answer hazy, try again later." Martin piles his plate up high before he returns to Folly's question. "So what metaphorical songwriting shit do you want to land on our daughter's head?"
Folly gazes at the sleeping pink bundle in her lap as she considers the question. "I was thinking... something that gives her a sense of her own history, maybe. Of who we are, and what we value. There's a tradition in my mother's family of giving children a middle name taken from a relative a generation or two back -- usually the mother's or father's name, but not always. If we were gonna do that with a name from my side, I'd probably want to pick something that remembered my papa."
It's clear she has other ideas as well, but she pauses to get a sense of Martin's reaction.
Martin brings the laden plate over to the bed and settles in next to Folly and the baby. "Obviously I didn't know your Papa, but I don't see a reason why not, if we're going to do this at all. The Rebman custom is for long names and titles; we can say we're honoring that." He starts in on his food and lets his eyebrows ask the question of what else.
"Yeah, I was wondering if there was anything in your own background or history you might want to honor," Folly says, "given how... complicated... how fraught... a lot of that history is." She lets that mammoth understatement hang in the air for a long moment before she adds softly, "What about your friend... the Libertist? Or would that come off too blatantly political?"
"Cassia?" Martin's hand stops moving between plate and mouth. His tone and expression could best be described as uncertain. There's a long pause while he considers the question. "It'd be a hell of a statement. But I didn't think--she wasn't just my friend, Folly. Naming my daughter after her--"
He pauses again and the care he's putting into his next few words is written all over his face. "It seems creepy. And disrespectful."
Folly thinks about that for a moment, then asks, "To me, or to her? Because... yes, on the one hand I think I see what you mean -- I do have just enough sense not to suggest we name her after your father, after all -- but on the other hand I think you know it doesn't bother me, or I wouldn't have brought it up. Love in all its guises is a thing to be celebrated."
"Our daughter will probably get a name from Dad anyway: Chance. She'll learn to use it as a patronymic from me. Unless you want her to be Lorelei Mayhap instead." Martin looks at Folly, and something about the twist of his mouth telegraphs wry humor. "It's a little late for me to change my name, though. And Martin Mayhap sounds like a character from a bad fantasy novel. It's worse than Random Chance."
Folly chuckles; it's obvious they are in agreement on this point.
"Anyway, we have a while before we have to make a decision, unless we're going straight back for a naming ceremony when things here are finished. Which I'm not inclined to do unless you really want to. And I'd just as soon defer the question of any Rebman names until we're further away from all things Rebman."
"I'm rather of two minds on what to do next," Folly says. "I admit that part of me misses Xanadu already and feels a little guilty for abandoning it, and our friends and family, even temporarily.
"On the other hand, your father did give us six months -- although I did rather lose track of how much of that we used up trying to find this place. I do still like the idea of holing up somewhere and just being a family for a little while -- if you think you could stand it without getting too bored." Folly gives Martin an affectionate smile.
"I do think we should probably check in soon, though," she adds. "By trump, I mean. Just to let everyone know we're all ok. Unless you think it's better we don't yet go spreading too loudly that there's now a new Amberite/Rebman/Xanadhavian royal baby?"
"We're checking in by Trump. From further away, after we finish here. Because I'm not ready to have our daughter--have Lorelei--dragged into the Rebma mess until she's old enough to walk." Martin is very firm on that point. "Preferably old enough to Walk, but I know that would be pushing it."
"Indeed," Folly says. "That would only work if we really were fostering her somewhere far away from family. And despite what Benedict said -- and how much sense it would make on some fronts -- I just don't think I could do it."
"Who would we foster her with that wouldn't use her?" This seems to be something of a rhetorical question, because Martin continues, "I grew up without parents. I can't recommend it. I've had a child grow up without me. I don't recommend that either. I've fostered a child not mine, and that mostly worked out for me." The slight downward tug of his mouth suggests that Martin is less happy with that relationship at the moment than the words indicate. "I want to try raising my child this time."
Folly nods her emphatic agreement. "You're gonna be a great dad," she says. "And WE are gonna be the most functional goddamn nuclear family this family has ever seen." Not, the sparkle in her eyes seems to say, that they have so much competition on that front.
She carefully scoops up the sleeping bundle from her lap and offers it gently to Martin. "You should hold her," she says.
There's a moment where Martin looks kind of terrified and then he takes his daughter gently, supporting her body and head properly, and curls her against his body. "Hey hey, kiddo, your mother and I need to compose a lullaby for you. Sadly, you're going to have to put up with the classics until then."
She ignores Martin and continues to sleep.
Folly smiles fondly at them, and leans her head tiredly but contentedly against Martin's shoulder. After a few moments she begins to sing, very softly, "Whenever I'm alone with you, you make me feel like I am home again...."
Though it is more than passable as a lullaby, it's clearly meant more for Martin's ears than for the sleeping baby.
He budges up and waits for Folly to run out of either breath or song before he tells her, "Yeah, but by definition we're not going to be alone for a long time now." He pokes a finger at their sleeping child.
"Do you think we can have a band while we're parenting, or is this strictly a two-people-in-their-bathroom lo-fi laptop exercise we're talking about for the time being?"
"I am of the strong opinion that the best ways to help prepare children for the adult world is to let them live in a world that actually has adults in it," Folly says. "So... band. Definitely." She grins up at him.
"All right, band. Selected for co-parenting and musical talent; good thing we've got the resources for that." Martin grins and moves the finger of the hand on the back of his daughter's head in a set of gestures that Folly recognizes as the opening sweep of the Pattern, in reverse. "Not immediately, though, because we've got this business to get through here first. And I'm pretty sure there'll be no working laptops in Ben's castle."
"Nooooo," Folly agrees, eyeing the medieval furnishings of their bedchamber. Changing the subject somewhat, she says, "I thought our talk with him went pretty well. How did he... seem... to you?"
"In what sense?" Martin asks, because it's obvious to him she's looking for a specific answer and he's not sure he knows what it is.
"Before we came here, you'd expressed some concern that he... didn't quite seem himself recently," Folly says. "I was just curious if you were still getting that sense from him."
"Oh--that." Martin takes a moment to piece his recollections of the discussion together. "Hard to say. He's changed some, but I think they all have. I can't tell now what's the change between him with his arm and him without--like Gerard--and any other changes.
"I wish Merle were here. He'd have a better insight, maybe, if he were actually talking to me."
Folly frowns. "You think he's avoiding you?" she asks, concerned. "Why?"
It's not clear whether she means 'Why is he avoiding you?' or 'What gives you that impression?' Probably both.
"Because I can't remember the last time he trumped me, and he wasn't exactly pleased with me the the last time we talked in person. About Meg," Martin clarifies.
"Ah." Folly is silent a moment, thinking. "I seem to recall at the last big family meeting that he said he would be traveling beyond Ygg with Vere -- so it's possible he's not avoiding you so much as unaware of just how much time has passed, from your perspective. What was he displeased about, exactly?"
"He's kind of used to being my kid." Martin thinks about that, looks at Lark, and looks at Folly again. "Not her. Meg. Who is his half-sister."
"Was it jealousy he was expressing?" Folly asks. "Concern that your relationship with him would no longer be as close now that you had another child? Concern that your somewhat cool attitude toward Meg would translate into coolness toward him as well?" A small crease of concern appears between her brows. "What did he say, exactly?"
"With Merle it's never what he says. It's a lot about what he doesn't say. He didn't know Dara and I were--" Martin struggles for words "--that there was any situation that might have led into her and me having offspring in the Ordered manner. By the time he was old enough to remember anything, she and I were at war already.
"It made no difference to me that he was hers. But maybe he doesn't see it that way. Or maybe it makes a difference to him that I was hers that way at some point."
Folly nods slowly. "I think I told you a little bit about the conversation I had with him, months ago now -- it was right after Paige found out she was pregnant -- in which he tried to make sense of the ways in which your relationship with her had changed, and why. I don't pretend to understand what he's thinking, or even his frame of reference, but at the time I got the sense that changes in people's relationships, or in his understanding of those relationships, just naturally threw him for a bit of a loop. It may have been Paige who suggested that Chaotic relationships are in some ways much more structured than our so-called Ordered ones, what with the whole... affination... thing" -- she frowns, not entirely sure of the proper terminology there, but presses on -- "and changes in relationships happen when the beings themselves change in some way. I could certainly imagine him trying to work out how this new information about your relationships means that you are different than he thought. But... I dunno." She looks at Martin to see if any of that resonated with his own understanding of Merlin.
Martin finds himself nodding, clearly reluctantly so to Folly's eyes. "But there's more to it than that. I think--his experience of Ordered children is that they're competitive? That our aunts and uncles all competed with each other for their dad's approval. And if I'm his dad, and now I have this other child--you know?
"Even though Meg has no real interest in competing for my favor and I've got no interest in being a father figure to her. She wants to be more like a mother to me. When she doesn't want to be a spoiled brat," he adds, sounding rather annoyed. "She can be hacked off at me for not showing up until now, and I get that--do I ever get that--but I had no idea she existed for a long time, and I cleared things up as soon as I knew. I'll never be her father, even less than Dad is mine. But I'll always be the guy who helped raise Merle, and that won't change no matter how many other kids we have. I don't think he gets that, that the love piles up just like the rivalry."
For a long moment Folly is quiet, thoughtful; then she says, gently, "Is it possible what Merlin was really upset about is this new child he knows you are going to love, and raise, and -- perhaps to his eyes -- who might grow into a rival? And perhaps whatever argument you had about Meg was actually, consciously or unconsciously, about his insecurities over that?"
"Maybe? But he was also upset about Meg. That was the point in the discussion where things... broke down, I guess," Martin says.
Folly nods. "You say you can't remember the last time he's called you, but have you tried calling him? I know we don't want to go making any big announcements just yet, but it might mean a lot to him -- and let him know that he is still one of the most important relationships in your life -- if he were the first person you called about your new daughter. Who is his half-sister in spirit as much as Meg is in body." She smiles down at the baby sleeping in Martin's arms.
"Would it help, do you think, to lay out your thoughts to him in a letter?" she asks. "Or even better, a song, if he's the sort of person that responds to music."
"No, I'd do better to trump him," Martin says. "Because he can feel what I have to say then."
"Good point," Folly says. She lays a hand on his arm and gives a gentle squeeze of comfort and support. "Do you want to try it now? This... seems like something you shouldn't put off any longer than you absolutely have to."
"That's probably not a bad idea--but I'm not sure she should be in the contact. You're my Trump expert. What do you think?" Martin shifts slightly, but does so carefully enough that he seems unlikely to wake the slumbering infant.
"Nooooo, I think probably not," Folly replies, and moves to collect her sleeping daughter slowly and carefully from Martin's lap, so as not to wake her up. She hums soothingly under her breath as she gathers up the little bundle.
After Benedict briefs his various nephews, nieces, and children about their respective tasks, Brennan throws himself into preparations with some enthusiasm: He brought his own blades with him, of course, but not armor or any other particular supplies. And until he puts some distance between him and the castle, he won't be able to conjure any. So, there is armor to select and weather, gear to select, and even clothing to select-- what Brennan brought was a rough guess at something suitable for Benedict's court, not scouting or infiltration.
Too, there are the lands surrounding Avalon to understand in as small a period as possible. Surely, even if Benedict has no one assigned specifically to such duty, he still has old soldiers about his castle who've been in his service for years, if not decades-- soldiers who know the outlines of the lands, the peoples, the conflicts. There is a limit to what Brennan can learn in a day or two, finding a few of those grizzled veterans and huddling up with a good map and asking questions: Where they've been, what they've seen, who they've encountered, and so forth. At least enough to provide a gloss of the area.
Eventually, Brennan decides he's done enough, or at least, all that is reasonable in his situation. But he doesn't want to leave without talking to a few people, and Folly is one of them. At some point, he seeks her out and knocks very softly at the door: "How are the new mother and her child?" he asks quietly.
There's a long pause, and then the door opens to reveal Folly, looking tired but happy, holding a little bundle that squints up at Brennan with dark eyes. "Brennan, welcome! Why don't you come in and see for yourself?" She gestures Brennan into the room, toward chairs that have been arranged before the fireplace where a low fire burns merrily.
It's a good bet that the rocking chair draped with blankets and smaller cloths is where Folly has been sitting.
Brennan's face lights up when he sees the baby, "Oh, she's beautiful," he says, stepping in softly. Unlike Bleys, Brennan has always understood the virtues of volume control. "Hello, little one," he smiles and waves at her.
She's still too young for her eyes to focus quite reliably yet, but she works out that the new person with the new voice is talking to her; she gurgles and wriggles... companionably...ish... in response.
She is a lovely baby, even if it's already apparent that the poor thing has inherited her father's chin.
Once inside, he says to Folly, "You're looking well, too. I know it's a little early for toys and rattles and whatnot but somehow I don't think Avalon will have quite the range of baby toys as it does of sharp objects." He reaches into a pocket, and draws out a small baby rattle: it looks handmade, out of apple wood from the island. But it smells faintly of coffee, which beans might be the rattling element inside. He gives it a shake before handing it over to Folly.
"Oh, it's perfect!" Folly says with a bright grin. She rubs a thumb over the wood, appreciating the craftsmanship, and then shakes out a soft rhythm where the baby can see it. "Look, little lark, look what your Uncle Brennan has brought for you!" The baby seems fascinated by the sound and the motion.
Still keeping up the rhythm of the rattle, Folly says, "I daresay at least one of her paternal relatives will heartily approve of your jumpstarting her appreciation for both percussion and coffee. On that front, I suppose the only thing that might've been better is if you'd filled it with malted barley and dried hops...."
Brennan smiles. "It seemed appropos," he says. "I lean more toward a blues-y harmonica myself, but she won't be ready for that until, what, six months, you think? I'll keep my eye out for a good one on the road."
Folly laughs. "A baby with a harmonica will either be really fabulous or really.... No, I think I'm gonna have to go with fabulous." She gestures toward the fire and moves to settle into the rocking chair. "Do you have a little time to sit and talk? And... would you like to hold her?"
"Yes, I'd hoped to," Brennan says. "To both questions." When Brennan takes her, it might be a surprise, but it becomes apparent that he actually knows how to hold a baby, smiling down at her and providing a gentle enough motion to keep her peaceful.
After he's settled in, he says, "Not to be dramatic, but this is probably the last chance I'll have to just sit and talk, and I intend to savor it as long as I can. Barring further disaster, I intend to leave tomorrow morning." But for the moment, Brennan looks close to content holding a baby.
"Well, I'm glad we can help you perhaps soothe your soul a bit before the journey," Folly says, smiling at the tableau of wizard-warrior and child. After a moment, she adds, "We're calling her Lorelei. Well, I'm mostly calling her Lark, and she may end up with a few other names besides, but... officially, it'll be Lorelei."
Brennan tries both names out, then nods-- not that Folly particularly needs his approval-- "It suits her. They both do, I think." Then he looks down at Lark, "Yes, it does. Lark." Back up to Folly he says, "Well, she is an important child, in a lot of different places. It would probably be easier if it were otherwise, but..." he shrugs. "Names and titles are inevitable. She is a precedent-maker, whether anyone wants it or not."
"Yeah," Folly says; and that one syllable contains hope and sadness and resolve and resignation in roughly equal parts. "We're trying to work out how to keep the weight of that burden from twisting or crushing her before she's even got her legs under her. I am encouraged that at least some of my cousins seem to have turned out more-or-less all right -- even with growing up knowing who and what they are, which she inevitably will." She gives Brennan a little smile, then adds more seriously -- and gently, aware she may be treading dangerously close to unpleasent memories -- "How much did you know about your own family history and heritage when you were a child, if you don't mind my asking?"
They are unpleasant memories, and it shows on Brennan's face, but they're unpleasant memories from centuries ago. "I knew enough," he says.
It seems he might let it drop at that, but then continues, "I knew the most important things-- descent from Oberon, Amber, the Pattern, and the power over Shadow that it represents. I knew who most of the Family of the time were, from looking at Trumps and hearing about them." Brennan looks into the middle distance, adds, "And Brand's Trumps were... devastatingly accurate images, that did not encourage me to make contact with anyone.
"The big thing I knew was, what my blood could do to the Pattern, and why I had to get out of Uxmal under my own power. Everything after that was the school of hard knocks and desperate experimentation."
"That's a lot for such a young person to bear," Folly says. "What grounded you? Gave you the strength to do what you needed to do without going mad yourself?" She hesitates, thinking.
Brennan says nothing while she thinks, but tilts his head in a way that suggests a raised eyebrow, even though he raises no such eyebrow. It is a strikingly Fionine expression.
"I think what I'm asking is, looking back, do you think you would eventually have become the man you are, regardless of the path you took to get here, just because that's who you inherently are -- or were there... influences... that helped keep you from going completely off the rails when things got bad?"
That is a better question, with fewer unfounded assumptions. "That's more than an idle philosophical question, for us. We are, after all, Ordered. In some sense, Fixed. Even young, I had sufficient Fixity to withstand the Pattern above. But Fixity is not... or need not be... absolute. Even Patterns are mode and broken. Even Oberon died. Given that, then, no, if things were otherwise, I think it is impossible that I would be absolutely who I am now. But how different?" He shrugs.
"Here is what I think," Brennan says, and his words are slow enough that the effort to speak concisely but usefully is apparent. "We have, by birth, vast internal resources and vast potential strength. Potential. But we are embedded in a system of vast external constraints, and it is against these constraints that we struggle, sometimes rage. Perhaps that is a result of our ancestral ties to Chaos, perhaps not. Either way, it is the struggle against these constraints that makes us who we are, that converts that potential strength into actual strength and makes us who we are... to a point. We are not stones in the surf being pounded to sand. We struggle, we strive, we say, 'No, I will that this were different,' and the universe shudders. The two most important words for us: 'I will.' I will. I choose. What we choose truly makes us who we are; we choose who we are; we cannot be constrained or fore-ordained. Brand could not constrain a fourteen year old Brennan to his temple district in his Shadow-- even less could he constrain me from being who I choose to be. I may choose in reaction to the universe, but I will choose who I am, and no one else.
"This little one, too," Brennan says, "probably with enough strength of self that not even the Pattern can unmake her choice. I think the best you can do is to try and teach her to see that every choice has consequences, and that her choices of self are no different. Making a bad one takes... a very long time to overcome. Our own choices bind us more completely than anything else."
He looks down at Lark, and says, "But don't choose to go it alone, Lark. Always know you can ask for advice."
"And that right there is the advantage we have over our parents' generation," Folly says. "Martin and I between us had maybe one really solid parenting role-model; most of our cousins were brought up hidden from if not made actively fearful of the rest of the family. But we've got an actual peer group that we actually trust" -- Brennan may hear the implied 'more-or-less' in that statement; it's easy to guess which side of that line Martin and Folly each fall on -- "so that when she inevitably decides her parents are the uncoolest people in all of reality, she's still got people to look up to. Who'll be looking out for her. Who can help show her -- by example if nothing else -- how to navigate being-one-of-us without bringing the whole world crashing down around her ears. Well..." She blows out a sigh. "Assuming we can keep her safe and pointed in basically the right direction until she's old enough to understand those lessons."
Brennan does pick up on the unheard. "It's not nothing," he says. "But yes, with a few exceptions due to the vagaries of personalities in combination, our mutual trust level is a whole lot higher than our parents'.
"Let's turn your question around, though-- how do you make a Trump of someone that lasts a century or more, if there isn't some fixed core element of their self? And if it isn't present from birth, where does it come from?" he asks.
"That is an interesting question," Folly says, leaning forward in her chair, "and one I've actually been thinking about recently. I'm curious whether Benedict's trump will continue to function, since his.... trauma.... or whether he's too changed. I've been tempted to make a bit of a study on that, but was afraid it might be rather rude to our gracious host that I hardly know to start asking him a bunch of questions about unpleasant recent experiences." She gives a little shrug. "Also, y'know, baby."
"Celina trumped him before I departed Rebma," Brennan says. So in his mind, that pretty much settles that one.
"Speaking of which, turning the question around yet again, is it possible to make a trump of a baby and have the trump function once that baby reaches adulthood? Or adolescence, even? On the one hand, I think probably not; while I'm sure there is a core personality, or essence, that is present from birth, we are also shaped enough by our experiences -- particularly our early experiences -- that I don't think you'd have quite enough to work with to make something that would endure. But on the other hand, I have quite a bit of confidence that I could make a trump of my baby that would work when she was older. But then, that's cheating: I've already seen her when she's older."
Brennan's expression turns from skepticism to outright alarm when Folly raises the idea of making a Trump of the infant Lark, but whatever he was going to say about that is put on hold. "You've... seen her when she's older?" Brennan asks. He does a very credibly job of expressing both urgent concern and urgent curiosity without using a tone of voice that would upset the sleeping baby in his arms.
"...Oh," Folly says in a tone that suggests it's only just now occurred to her that that might have sounded a bit insane. "Er, yeah. On the Pattern. At the time I figured it was just some kind of weird symbolism -- but then later when I realized I was pregnant (which I wasn't yet when I Walked, and was not planning to be), I just... knew it was her." She gives a little shrug.
Brennan thinks about that for a while, and by the expression on his face, he doesn't like the thoughts that he is thinking.
"All right, then," he says at length. "I can see I need to promote on my list of topics to discuss with Dworkin the nature of time and the role of the Patterns in keeping everything from happening at once. Because clearly someone's mental model of how these things work is broken." Whether it's his model or Dworkin's model that's broken, it seems like Brennan may be philosophically offended either way.
"At any rate, I hesitate to give anyone any advice on Trumps, but..." Brennan hesitates for more than theatric affect, looking for the right words, "I don't really need to mention all the ways that's a bad idea, right?" he asks.
"Oh... no," Folly reassures him, emphatically, once she's worked out the precise thing he's worried about. "I was speaking purely theoretically. A thought-experiment, I guess you'd say -- although I understand your concern. It's a line of thought I might be hesitant to pursue too deeply around some of our more experimental trump-artists."
Brennan nods. "I felt obligated to say that, but, yes, fair enough. And point taken."
A thought strikes him: "Speaking of artists, I had a conversation with Benedict that I don't fully understand. Who exactly can draw Trumps? I don't mean names in the Family, I mean what is the determining factor in whether someone can draw a Trump?"
"You know, Dworkin and I talked about who could have Trumps made of them, but not who could draw them," Folly says. "It's fundamentally an Ordered art -- I think of it as being to Pattern as music is to maths -- but we know that one doesn't have to be a Pattern initiate in order to draw a trump: Merlin and Brita have demonstrated that. On the other hand, one does need a certain... sensitivity to the Reality of the person or thing being drawn, in order to form the image into a Trump. So it seems reasonable to me that one must have the potential to be a Pattern initiate in order to be an Artist, but I don't know that as an absolute certainty. Why, what did Benedict say?"
"The context was a conversation about why I should use a Trump to communicate with Celina rather than the mirror she gave me," Brennan says. "It was an offhand comment about Rebma being the only place that favored mirrors, which I thought was an odd phrasing. I'd reached the same conclusion you had, more or less-- that descent from Oberon was the key. But to favor mirrors over Trumps implies a choice in the matter, so I pressed a bit. He implied strongly-- hell, he just about said outright-- that it was a skill anyone could learn, limited more by the subject of the Trump than anything else.
"I don't actually think he meant to be cryptic, but it was so far outside my mental model and expertise both that all I could think of in response was to ask if he was serious, which..." Brennan smirks. One does not ask Benedict if he's serious. Then he frowns. "He brought up Merlin as a counter-example, too, which I didn't understand. I infer that Merlin and Brita were making Trumps prior to walking the Pattern, then?"
"Yessss... oh, right, you were off fighting in the war when Brita arrived in Amber," Folly says. "She was already able to draw Trumps even before she came to us -- she'd learned from Reid -- but she didn't have the chance to walk the Pattern until sometime after Random's coronation. Likewise for Merlin, who studied with Paige before the war. I don't know of anyone who could draw Trumps who didn't also turn out to be able to Walk." She pauses, frowning in thought. "I'm no expert in mirrorwork, but anecdotally it seems the same does not hold. Because of that I've been thinking of mirrorwork as similar but not strictly analogous to trumpwork, but perhaps that bears reconsideration."
Brennan nods understanding. "I don't think it surprises me, I just didn't know. If pressed for an opinion a few days ago, I'd have thought that the ability to Walk and to create Trumps both depended on descent of Oberon, but that neither one depended on the other. But Benedict indicated otherwise, that creating the Trump was comparatively easy but surviving it was the limiting factor." His brow furrows in thought. "Perhaps similar to how surviving a Walk is the hard part. And perhaps that's part of why Moire was so offended by Lucas' actions.
"As for mirrorwork," he says, "I don't really know. Celina's promised to teach me some of it, and I've promised her some of my insights on Pattern and Sorcery, but we haven't really had the chance. My gut tells me that it's critically important to understand it at least academically, if not practically, but there are higher priorities." He looks around to indicate the situation in Avalon and possibly Rebma.
"I think the key may be descent of the Unicorn rather than Oberon, which might explain why some Rebman royals can do mirrorwork, but I'd have to know a lot more about that particular bit of ancient family history to form a more specific hypothesis," Folly says. "What do you make of the fact that it was so hard to shift when we got close to Avalon?"
Brennan nods rather forcefully when Folly mentions the Unicorn, saying, "The Unicorn or Dworkin, yes, rather than Oberon. I don't know anything at all about Moins' or the other one's origins, either, but my hunch says... I think you're right. I think it's the Unicorn."
He follows the shift in topic, and answers, "What, other than the functioning Pattern beneath the castle?"
Folly arches her brows. "It seems a logical conclusion, but I've never heard anyone speak of it before. Do we know who drew it, and when -- relative to the other Patterns we know about, I mean?"
"It's not just the difficulty of conjury. It's not even just that Fletcher and I came along the Faiella-Bionin from Rebma to here. Everything about this place speaks of Order and Substance, the same way Xanadua and Paris and Rebma do," he gestures carefully, as though he could grab a physical chunk of the air around them to demonstrate. "As for who, why assume anyone other than the obvious?"
"For me it's really of a piece with the other question, about who can draw trumps," Folly replies. "I think you may have more knowledge of family history, and certainly more Pattern theory, than I do, so maybe you'll see something I'm missing here, but: We know Dworkin drew the Primal Pattern using the Jewel. We know Corwin and Random did the same for their respective Patterns. I don't think I've heard definitively from anyone who drew Amber's, or Rebma's, or Tir's. Dworkin again? His descendants? Did he loan out the Jewel to all of them, or is there some equivalent item of power that could also be used to the same purpose? And perhaps the thing that's been nagging at me the most: who are -- or were -- the Unicorn's other children, and can they and their descendants also walk and draw Patterns? As you say, the Walk is harder than drawing Trumps, but actually drawing a Pattern is even harder still, as I understand it." She gives a little shrug. "I just feel like there's something I'm missing somewhere that will make the whole puzzle click into place, but I don't really know where to start looking or how to work it out."
Brennan shakes his head, "More Family history maybe, but you'd probably be surprised by how little formal education or training I have-- and what I do comes from Grandmother. I'm just old, with a long memory, and a willingness to do some fieldwork when no one will answer my questions. And in this case," he continues, "I think most of our parents' generation may have been just as much in the dark as we were until recently. Fiona, Bleys and Brand might be exceptions, and probably some of the very oldest... but we've lost a lot of those." Osric. Finndo. Eric. Deirdre. Possibly others they've never even heard of.
Folly nods.
"At any rate... Oberon, Moins, and the other one, is my understanding. I haven't asked Dworkin that directly, but it's so clear to me that I'd probably ask him something else. The circumstances, I can't even guess at. Their origins, other than Oberon's, unknown to me. And I know there's considerable interest in them among our generation. The mechanism... is an interesting question that I also don't know the answer to," he says.
"What makes you think the Unicorn had other children, though?"
"I asked Dworkin -- specifically, if he or the Unicorn had had other children. He said, 'We did have other children. Time has not been kind to our offspring.' Which could mean a lot of things, but it certainly could apply to those we hypothesize drew the three Patterns, who are now dead, dead, and mad."
She spares a glance at her daughter, still in Brennan's arms, to make sure she does not have any immediate needs, and then goes to the fireplace. She sweeps ash from the edge of the low fire out onto the hearth and begins tracing designs into it with a poker. "I asked Dworkin about the nature of the Jewel -- what it is, where it came from, and why we have it. He said that the Unicorn made it, and gave it to him so that he would make a Pattern to...create a boundary between Order and Chaos. He described the Pattern and Shadows as being like a pearl that protects Chaos from the irritant of Order." She has traced concentric circles into the middle of the ash-pile. Rendered in a three-dimensional medium like that, it evokes the ripples of a pebble dropped into a pond. "He also said that 'we' have the Jewel because no one has been able to take it away from us. But I don't know whether that 'we' includes or included the supposed other Pattern-scribes, back in the day, or if they had other means of creating the other Patterns."
Equally spaced around the central 'Pattern' she sketches four other sets of concentric rings, which she connects with straight lines -- like four walls and four corner turrets around the Primal. "In all the old Amber and family history I know of, Amber" -- she taps one of the outer circles -- "connected to Rebma by the stair below and to Tir by the stair above." She indicates the two lines connecting it to adjacent circles. "We don't know the origin of Avalon, but Conner's story of escaping Rebma up the back stair suggests it's certainly older than Paris and Xanadu, and maybe significantly older. And after Vialle's... abduction... Benedict said at the big family pow-wow that his realm guards the back way to Tir, which gives us the last connection." It's unclear whether Folly's hesitancy is because she's unsure how best to describe what happened to Vialle, or because she's sensitive to the other events surrounding Vialle's disappearance. "That's not to say that perhaps Rebma and Tir weren't connected at some long-ago time now lost to memory and history, and Avalon came later, but still long ago.... Oh."
A stricken sort of look crosses her face. "Maybe that's how Osric and Finndo 'died for the good of Amber'. Maybe someone had to draw a new Pattern, and it turned out they weren't up to it. So Benedict had to."
It's probably clear to Brennan that she has some additional speculations about the Patterns, but she falls silent and looks at Brennan to see if he has any thoughts on what she's said so far.
Brennan's eyebrows raise at the mention of Dworkin's and the Unicorn's "other children," but he waits for her to finish what she has to say.
"...Interesting," he says, "if perhaps a bit Order-oriented. I do not think our less Orderly kin would regard the Pattern or any of its results as 'protective.' But that probably works both ways, and at multiple levels-- the Tree is a border marker, if not a protective boundary. So, I think, are the lesser Patterns and the Faiella-Bionin, farther in. Whether the Primal literally is another layer of boundary, or is just generating one..." Brennan thinks about it, "...Maybe both. It does have an inside and an outside, after all.
"Your history matches up with mine, mostly-- I always heard about a line from Rebma, through Amber, to Tir-na Nog'th, and nothing more. Even as a boy, I didn't think that made much sense, but no one ever said anything to me about the road being a ring, but it just made sense to me. I primed myself, I guess, to correctly interpret all the little hints since then. My hunch-- and it's only a hunch-- is that Avalon wasn't well known even to our parents. Or that it might have been one of the 'secrets' that that was widely known and never ever discussed because everyone thought they were the only ones who knew." Brennan tries, and fails, not to roll his eyes.
Folly can't help but smirk at that.
"That Dworkin and the Unicorn had other children, though... If they were Moins and the other one, then I'm back to square one about why descent from Oberon is different from descent from, say, Moins. And nothing thus far explains what the Rebman jewel is, either."
"I talked a little bit about that with Celina," Folly says. "Khela had just become queen, so I told Celina a few things that I thought might help her help Khela make well-informed decisions." She shakes her head minutely; Brennan might be able to read the regret in her expression. "Anyway, she had already heard about the weather-control aspect of the Jewel of Judgment, and said that there had always been rumors in the Rebman court that Moire had a similar kind of control over the seas with the Rebman Sapphire. She didn't seem to put much stock in the rumors -- but I suppose she might know more, now. But then again, maybe not; I did warn her what might happen if she tried to attune to it -- assuming it does work more-or-less like Amber's. Which... I dunno. If it did, it would explain a lot of things -- but not how anyone who can't walk one of the Patterns would be able to attune to it. Assuming Moire really had attuned fully. Maybe not." She gives a little shrug, but it's obvious the wheels of her mind are still turning.
"Yeah, I got nothin' either," Brennan says. "A few years ago, I'd have said it was obvious that it was a shadow of Amber's Jewel, like it's Pattern was a shadow of Amber's. Now that's not so obvious. It's almost obviously wrong, but I just don't have enough information to say much of anything." A pause, then, "Why, what do you think happens if you attune yourself to it?"
Folly opens her mouth to respond, then closes it again; Brennan may get the sense that she guessed he might know this already, and is now deciding whether it is really hers to tell. After a moment, she tries again: "Well, if it's like the Amber one... it is the nature of being attuned to the Jewel that you will inscribe a Pattern or die." Something about the cadence of that last makes it sound like a direct quote.
Brennan's eyebrows raise, and stay raised. 'Inscribe a Pattern or die,' he mouths a moment later.
"I see," he says hollowly. "Well, then. It would seem Moire did not attune herself to it."
"Not if it's like Amber's, no," Folly says, "but...."
She turns her attention back to the diagram on the hearth. She gestures with the poker toward the central "pattern", hesitates, and then gouges out a small imperfection, a bit off-center; she winces as she does it, as if she finds even this symbolic depiction of what happened to the Primal Pattern disconcerting. "As far as we know," she says, "the damage to the Primal, and the attempt to fix it, affected Amber's pattern but not the others." She draws a line through one of the outer patterns. "Then, when Corwin and Random drew their Patterns, they filled in the space on the Faella-Bionin left vacant by Amber, rather than connecting in anyplace else." She adds two more sets of circles near Amber's pattern, but a bit farther from the Primal, as if they might become the first two vortices of an octagon surrounding the square of the original four patterns. She sketches in the new paths between them, noting, "Tir to Xanadu, Xanadu to Paris, Paris to Rebma. I mean, it could be that they filled in there because that's the one that was missing. But if the other Patterns arose in some other way than being drawn by Amber's Jewel, there could be some other symmetry at work here." She looks at Brennan. "What do you think?"
Brennan frowns thoughtfully, and answers, "Well. I think the damage to the Primal did affect Rebma, at least. They tell of a Black Tide war, which I think was their counterpart of the Black Road, and I'll make you a deal-- you ask Benedict if it affected Avalon, and if I ever pin down a Moonrider long enough to have a civil conversation, I'll ask them about Tir-na Nog'th. And a working hypothesis for why only Amber's was broken is that Oberon is the one who actually repaired the Primal, and died for the effort. That doesn't explain Rebma," he admits, "but I don't know why Rebma mirrored Amber, either.
"Aside from that..." he says, "...there's not a lot of data to go on. Honestly, we'd not only need to know about these hypothetical other methods of Pattern inscription, we'd need to know a lot more about the Faiella-Bionin as well, which isn't the most widely-studied structure in the world."
"Yeah," Folly says, "I mostly have been thinking of the Faiella-Bionin as an artifact of the Patterns interacting with one another, but even then there's a lot to discover about why it manifests the way it does. I asked Bleys some of these questions; he suggested I spend some time in a shadow where they're working on maths for 'obscure cosmological questions', and then maybe the equations would tell me some of what I'm trying to figure out. And I guess if you're off working on the lab practicum in the meantime, perhaps next time we get together we might actually make a little headway." She grins. "And I will see what I can find out about Avalon's history, while I'm here."
"I don't think so," Brennan says. "It might be taking advantage of natural principles. It might even be a reinforcement of natural principles. But it's a made thing, presumably made by Faiella. Both Benedict and Weyland have made comments that imply that it's as much a defensive structure as anything else... but the scale of it! Ambrose and I both think it may have involved the Jewel or something like it, but just for the moment ignore the how. Even the why of it is fascinating. I doubt it was done on a whim. It was almost certainly a reaction to something. And so, I'll wager is this place itself." He thinks over what he just said, then adds, "But not necessarily to the same thing. I don't know that the events happened near each other in time."
Folly nods; she doesn't have any answers, yet, but she's filing those ideas away for later contemplation.
"I don't know that I'd use it for news of the Faiella-Bionin, but I've got your card if I learn anything you urgently need to know," he says, shifting topic slightly. "Should I infer you'll be making ones of Lilly and I, to help coordinate?"
"Of you, definitely -- and I've already got a few preliminary sketches to help me work out an active one," Folly says. "Actually, seeing you with her" -- she nods to the baby -- "helps rather a lot. Something about the eyes I wasn't quite getting right before." She taps a spot just beneath the corner of her eye, the place where Brennan's eyes crinkle when he smiles a genuine smile.
Brennan actually gives that smile as he looks down at the bundle in his arms, but says, "Please don't paint of Trump of me holding a baby."
Folly laughs. "Don't worry -- as charming as that would be, it wouldn't be right for your Trump.
"I'm less sure what to do about Lilly," she continues. "She's never given me explicit permission to make a trump of her, although she's had several opportunities. Of course, she's never explicitly told me not to, either, given those same opportunities, but... I prefer to err on the side of caution." She does not say 'given family history', but with Brennan she probably doesn't need to. "If I weren't worried we might need to get a message to her quickly, probably I would just wait to see if a vital need arose, and then make a temporary sketch on the fly -- but that could take some hours. Perhaps what I'll do is make an incomplete sketch that could be finished quickly if the need arose, and plan to destroy it once the mission is over unless she gives me permission in the meantime to make it more permanent."
She offers up a wry smile. "Unfortunately that would mean any messages to her would have to get relayed through me -- but on the plus side, in that case I would be of use for more than just being the little lark's own personal milk bar."
"That's a rather unfortunate omission," Brennan says, "given what we're about. Hopefully she's at least got one of you-- that's the important part. I don't think Lilly and I will need to communicate much with each other, but relaying news back to you here is the important part."
"She doesn't have mine," Folly says, "but I think she might have her father's. She might also have Martin's."
"Here's another question, though," he says. "Do you know Celina well enough to make a Trump of her? Hypothetically-- I don't have her permission, unfortunately. I didn't expect to find any Artists here. I primed her for the question, asking her to consider who she would allow to make such a thing, if anyone, but no one in Rebma knows you're here. Not from me, anyway."
Folly nods. "I believe I could, yes, although it would take some time. We talked in generalities once about having trumps made -- back before I knew how to do them myself -- and from what she said I think she might forgive me for trying it without her express permission, if we had real need of it." She hesitates, then continues with a touch of wariness, "I know you'll be following your hunch about Moire while you're here, if you can. Are there other things you expect to need to report back to her about?"
"From Avalon?" Brennan is surprised at the question, "No, nothing comes to mind. After? No idea. It was a question, not a request, because she hasn't given her permission." Brennan is quite clear about that. "Even something as important as Moire's existence here can probably be handled by other methods. I'm just thinking ahead to the hypothetical point where we have learned that Moire is here, and learned that she's well along the way to mounting a counter-invasion of Rebma by the Faiella-Bionin. That's a huge hypothetical, but it has huge ramifications, so it seems prudent to think about what then, and how we communicate. We, in the sense of Avalon to Rebma, which so far as I know includes only Trumps of Benedict and Llewella."
"I know Merlin was working on a trump of Celina when they traveled together," Folly says. "We hope to be speaking to him soon; it may be that he has a spare he'd be willing to loan us. And in the meantime I'll work on some preliminary sketches, in case we need to come up with our own card quickly."
"I trust your judgement about whether that... oversteps the bounds of etiquette," Brennan says.
She pauses, looking at her child in Brennan's arms; after a moment, she says, "And I have a bit of a favor to ask you, if you do speak with Celina while we're still in Avalon: we haven't yet made any big announcements about the arrival of the little Lark -- haven't even told Random yet, in fact -- and Martin thinks we ought to wait at least until we're out of Avalon and, more to the point, a more comfortable distance from Rebma, before we say anything. Not that I would necessarily expect the question to come up in any conversation with Celina -- or any other trump conversation, for that matter -- but if it does, I would appreciate your discretion."
Brennan grins, "Not a problem. Celina knows Fletcher and I have arrived safely, because I borrowed a Trump of Llewella from Benedict and passed that news, and a few other matters of state importance, through her-- Benedict's thoughts on opening the Faiella-Bionin, that sort of thing. I figured you were both here to keep a low profile for a while so I just didn't mention either of you. It's not the sort of thing that could be unsaid or unwritten. I know how to keep my mouth closed."
"I knew there was a reason I liked you," Folly says, returning the grin. "Since I've got you here, do you mind if I work on a few sketches? And you can also let me know if you have any other requests about what your trump should or shouldn't look like."
"Seems like the best time for it," Brennan says. He moves carefully to hand off Lark without waking her, before standing up.
"As to what it should look like, well, we covered the 'no babies,' clause, so I guess we can move on to 'no lounging around in a dressing gown, drinking wine.' Anything that reminds people that, like everyone else, I'm probably busy doing something when they call. Looking up from a chessboard or a tool bench, perhaps. Or looking down at one might even be better," he says.
"Or perhaps looking at the viewer with that 'are you sure you really want to bother me right now?' look, if I can manage to capture it," Folly says with a grin once the sleeping baby is safely settled into her bassinet. She gathers up her sketchbook and flips to a blank page. "I do like the idea of showing you busy with something that requires careful thought...."
"You know me too well," Brennan says. "That's exactly what I'm looking for."
Last modified: 26 February 2013