Brotherly Love

Sunrise found Brennan at the highest point he could find, looking eastward, thinking.

No one dares disturb the god's son until he chooses to come down from the top of the pyramid.

Not even Ambrose? After a time, when the sun has burned off the fog of the dreams, Brennan notices that no one has dared disturb him-- not even Ambrose. That almost cheers him up.

He stays there a few more hours, until the lure of a late breakfast is too much to ignore. The sun has not reached its apex when Brennan decides it's time to come down, have breakfast served to him, and then (if Ambrose still hasn't found him) go find Ambrose.

The god's son is treated to whatever he requires. The High Priestess has inquired of him, but is now busy with her duties.

Brennan sends word that, should her duties permit, he shall visit with her later in that day.

[Note to GMs-- I don't think I have an agenda there. If I think of one I'll let you know, but we can either take it as happened, or parallel it if the GMs have something.]

Ambrose is in their father's study, and has requested that he not be disturbed. Certainly that does not apply to his brother the godson, however.

When Brennan arrives, Ambrose answers the knock on the door quickly enough, but not so quickly that Brennan feels he was waiting. He is dressed in khaki trousers and a linen shirt, and is barefoot. "Come in," he says, and gestures for Brennan to join him.

Brennan nods. He is dressed reasonably close to his standard garb, as the local materials and style dictates.

The Uxmali like their styles (and their gods) gaudy, but to a degree, they'll have to adapt. If Ambrose can get away without the feathers, so can Brennan.

When he comes in, Brennan looks around the room quickly, taking in the changes since the last time he'd been there, picking out changes he thought had been made by Brand and changes he thought had been made by Ambrose.

Brand's study is a stone chamber with geometric, animal-oriented tapestries. It's lit by crystal lamps, but it still a bit darker than Brennan would have expected, had he not remembered it being so. It's full of books and arcane accoutrements, including a number of code-wheels. Several of them seem to have seen recent use.

Brand kept the place messy, and Ambrose seems to have something of the same instinct. He's a piler, not a filer, or that's the way he's working through the remaining business Brand left behind.

Brennan shares the same tendency, which is why his quarters are so spartan-- if they weren't, the place would never be clean, and the servants would refuse to go in.

[I imagine Bleys being the same way, but that's a GM call, obviously.]

One of the walls has a huge glyph pinned to its tapestry. Brennan suspects it is the current object of study.

He selects the chair in the study most suitable for sprawling. Likely, it's the chair Bleys would have occupied by force of the same habit. Unless Brand had it burned, in a fit of temper.

There is such a chair. Ambrose seats himself in a clear space on the desk, his bare feet in the desk chair. Were Brennan an artist, he would be well-situated to sketch Ambrose.

Brennan is willing to indulge in idle small talk, but one expects it would be rather strained, all things considered. So before it gets to the point of being painful, Brennan shifts to the important part of "catching up with lost brothers." The happy familial details will fill themselves in around that core.

[Ambrose is not a small-talker]

"Okay, we're going to have to get to this eventually, my brother. I hardly know where to start." He considers briefly enough that that statement is probably not entirely true. "Let's start with Dara and Cleph?"

There's a range of questions in there, but Brennan leaves it open-ended for a number of reasons.

"Inherited alliance. I needed to walk a Pattern; they offered me a road into Amber that didn't involve a guardhouse and probably a dungeon. They were going to betray me somewhere down the road, but with the abilities of our joint heritage, it would have been enough to give me a fighting chance. I have theoretical training that Dara doesn't have in the use of Pattern skills."

Ambrose gives a tight smile to Brennan. "I didn't have enough training to walk a Pattern with a crack down the center of it, however. After that, things went haywire."

Brennan grunts. "Does your theoretical training tell you when Dara was most likely to betray you?" The tone is flat, but not angry, and Brennan's controlling some anger very well but it's not directed at Ambrose.

"Yes."

Brennan raises an eloquent eyebrow and holds it for a beat. "Okay, now you have my curiosity up. All theory aside, in practice, to say that you'd have been somewhat distracted at that point is a massive understatement. How were you planning on staying alive, rather than waiting for me to exact a fitting vengeance for your death?"

"Ah, ah, that would be telling. I did have something, and let's leave it at that for the nonce."

"Tease," Brennan murmurs into the intersentential pause.

"Something even beyond my deathcurse, which I left Dara quite clear about how I meant to use if I were to experience untoward difficulties. I wasn't counting on a vengeful brother, either, although I'm sure after your run-in with her at our great-grandfather's funeral, that would be combining obligations with, well, if not pleasure, other business." Ambrose looks significantly at Brennan.

Brennan gives a quarter of a very sardonic smile. "Oh, you heard about that, did you? Dish, brother, who's been spreading rumors?"

"Grandmother was thrilled to have seen you and told me all about your exploits. She contacted me after the funeral to tell me about--our father's death." Ambrose's expression goes unreadable.

Brennan does not directly address the topic of Brand or his death, but he does drop the smile. "I might have known," he said. "Grandmother's perspective is often unique. I'd tell you to be very careful around her, but you saw what she did to Aisling. And Paige. So you already know, and I'll let it pass with a paralepsis.

"I never did make amends for killing that her squad of grackleflints," he says.

[Brennan]
Then, more seriously, "All well and good, but take some brotherly advice and don't be too confident. The prospect of blood curses, at least, has not been a deterrent in the past."

Brennan reflects, "Okay, so what you got out of Dara's Daytrip-- or would have got-- is obvious. What'd she get out of bringing you? Let me be more specific: Once she made appropriate noises about not double-crossing you, what did she tell you she was getting out of it?"

"Her son, who had been kidnapped by his father." Ambrose looks vaguely disgusted. "And who turns out to be so terrified of returning to Borel that he practically fainted when I proposed it to him."

Brennan's mouth twists. "Perhaps Grandmother neglected to mention that our previous escapade came about because I stalled Dara Dearest while Merlin ran from her like she was leading a company of Moonriders after him."

He leaves Ambrose to meditate on just how many levels his inherited alliance partners lied to him and used him.

Brennan notices that Ambrose is wiggling his toes occasionally as they talk, although there doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to when he does so.

Brennan also notices that the family protocol has been observed in that the elder brother asked the first questions, and that the younger brother hasn't visibly chafed about not getting a turn.

He's not done by a long stretch, but he inclines his head for Ambrose's first question.

"Are you planning to stay in Uxmal? And if so, what role do you plan to take?"

Ambrose's toes curl around the slat of the desk chair he's using as a footrest.

"I hadn't planned on it," he says bluntly. "A lot of unpleasant memories. And I never did go in for being worshipped," he understates. "I suppose much depends on the situation here in Uxmal. For instance, this Chantico girl who seemed so easily upsettable."

Ambrose's eyes narrow.

"Ah, yes. It is speculated that she is our half-sister, by one of the lesser goddesses. As you know, our father had some--difficulties and mood swings--such that even a devoted servant like our mother had a hard time staying in his good graces. He appears to have sired Chantico while he and Mother were estranged."

Ambrose shares the redheaded gift for understatement.

He continues: "Chantico is actually older than I am, although she has only come into prominence during my lifetime. The death of our father is not well-known outside the temple community. I've been able to keep some of the magics up since then, but the more complex ones seem to require a Pattern initiate. That includes the one keeping Mother alive and young. They're beginning to fray, and I'm not sure I can figure out how to keep them up, much less how to repair them.

Brennan nods, having suspected as much.

"Chantico claimed the position of heir to our father before his death. Since his--disappearance, she has pressed more and more, with the results you saw today. I'd rather not kill a woman who is probably my sister--even if the only real proof can't be made--but I'm running out of options."

Both Brennan's eyebrows raise at that.

"Wait. That was very careful phrasing there, wasn't it. Proclaimed herself his heir before his death, you say. Did she claim it before his disappearance? And if so, what was the response to that?"

"He was only intermittently present by that time. He disappeared for several years, and even when he was here, he had--other goals and interests. I think on a good day, he'd have said 'more power to her if she can take it', and on a bad day, he wouldn't have planned on there being an Uxmal for her to be heir to. He never intimated to me that he planned to bring her to Amber."

On a good day, he wouldn't have planned for there to be an Uxmal for her to claim either, Brennan doesn't say.

"All right. We'll talk out the Chantico situation later, unless there's something I need to be made aware of right now? Mean time, if there's a brain in her head, she'll be sending an envoy if she doesn't come herself. Shake him down for sorcerous gewgaws, if you like, but don't send him away."

Ambrose looks down at his suddenly-still toes.

He ponders while Ambrose answers (or just ponders if Ambrose doesn't answer) and then: "If she's willing to die trying, you may not have a choice unless you're willing to cede the claim. What are your wishes in this regard, anyway? Do you want me to stay? If you convinced me, what role would you want me to take?"

"What I want is for my mother not to die," Ambrose says, suddenly angry. "Besides that, I'm not sure I give much of a damn any more. As you have been careful to imply, I have fouled myself royally with King Random, and he has no Pattern to walk anyway, even if I can save her that way. What about Paris? Do you think our uncle Corwin will let me walk?"

Brennan assumes Ambrose's anger is existential, not directed at him personally.

Pursing his lips for a moment, he says, "Yeah. Well. You didn't really make any friends on that one."

He lets out a long, puff-cheeked sigh.

"To be honest... I don't know Corwin all that well. But this is the Corwin whose son you scared half to death trying to take him back to Borel, right?" The tone is gentler than one might expect-- there's no need to twist the knife, but there's no point to whitewashing the situation, either.

"Understand, he might not be inclined if you just dropped in unannounced. Actually, I think that would be extraordinarily dangerous for you. You'd probably be better off with Random, if that were an option. But, I can make inquiries for you.

"You might consider other ways to keep her alive. Grandmother could manage it. Bleys and Fiona, unknown. Who do you want to owe your mother's life to?"

If Brennan has misgivings on the idea of keeping a Shadowwoman alive past her appointed span, he chooses not to voice them at this time.

It occurs to Brennan, perhaps for the first time, that he has no idea how old his mother is. She might have been long past her appointed span when she bore him.

Not the first time.

"I think I am deep enough in Grandmother's debt. Do you think she could be trusted to--no, don't answer that. Even if the wards here are such that we can speak honestly. Fiona, I have been told, doesn't like my mother. I know nothing to Fiona's discredit in terms of her willingness to keep such a bargain, but will she make it? And at what price? As for Bleys, I might think more inclined to help me, if only because I have never heard that he has a reason not to help my mother. But still, he will demand a price, and it won't do me much good to have my mother's life held long if Chantico comes up here and massacres everyone while I'm off doing some return favor for her benefactor. I've had enough of that, I think. So, no easy options."

Brennan does not interrupt or contradict, but there's something, just a small glimmer, that speaks to a certain level of amusement. It's not without sympathy, but amusement nevertheless.

If he thinks Corwin is going to let him go without a price, that education is beyond the scope of this conversation.

Ambrose sits back again, and his toes, which have been curled against the chair, release again. He shakes his head so that his hair falls away from his face. "What about you, Brennan? If you don't plan to stay, what's your stake in all this? We're none of us altruistic, and yet you're offering to put my case in front of the king of Paris. Curiosity isn't enough for that, and I've been told enough about family history to know about fraternal love among our uncles. What's your angle?"

Eyes wide, hand over heart, "Fraternal love is not enough?" Brennan drops that pose before he ruins it by cracking a smirk. "It's that kind of cynicism that's gotten us to where we are today," he continues, dry as dust.

"And it's a lack of it that got me in trouble with Random and Corwin, wouldn't you say?" Ambrose responds, equally drily.

Brennan is grinning. On the inside he's grinning. Really.

Too bad Ambrose can't see it.

"All right, then, since you asked. First, I've already made my peace with Tayanna-- I've assumed she's been dead three centuries odd, now. That hardly means I want to see her die again.

"Second, don't underestimate curiosity. A few months ago, I was an only child. Now I'm an eldest brother whose younger brother and sister are fighting over the ancestral home. Staying, leaving, or reserving visitor status, did you think I'd have no interest? And speaking of that, any other sibling surprises heading my way?"

Ambrose shakes his head in the negative.

"Third, call it a karmic debt. Someone gave me a chance, once, when the smart money said he should have killed me out of hand. And it's always good to have a Sorceror owe you favors.

"Fourth, I want to make sure you never work with Dara again." Brennan holds Ambrose's eyes until he's convinced that point is perfectly crystal clear. "The easiest way is to work together.

"Which leads into, Five, our common interest: Brand's numerous projects." Brennan reaches into an inner pocket and withdraws a painstakingly traced copy of the papers he had from Ossian. "I took these back from the young man who absconded with them, recently." He tosses it to the desk.

Ambrose takes them up and begins tracing the glyphs with a fingertip. His toes begin wiggling again as he works. After about half a minute, he nods. "Yes, quite a problem. He really didn't want that read, did he? Who had these papers, and where did he get them?"

"No, he didn't. Enough so that he stored them in Amber, where code wheels degrade in significantly less time than the average required to solve that problem.

Ambrose's toes stop wiggling.

"I had them from a... relative... named Ossian. Ossian swiped them from the collapsed wing of the castle where Brand's quarters stood. His claims that he was just watching over them or protecting them would have rung less hollow had he bothered to inform me of their existence as soon as I arrived in Amber, instead of concealing them. For that matter, had he not tried to barter them to me like a common merchant."

If Ambrose is perceptive, or thinks like Brennan, he'll realize that if Brennan were trying to barter the same way, he wouldn't have given Ambrose a copy already.

Ambrose pushes the chair aside with his foot and slides off the desk. In the drawer he opens is a box that Brennan recognizes. It's Brand's trump deck. He draws out a card, then pads over and presents it, face down, to Brennan. This is correct Trump etiquette, as Brennan recalls from Brand's handling of Trumps.

When Brennan flips it over, it's that little weasel Ossian. And Brand had his number when he painted it, too. Crafty, feral, and just a touch nasty.

"His name eludes me, although I'm fairly certain it starts with a vowel. Lord Oman, perhaps?" Ambrose says quietly, with a smile. He sounds like he's quoting someone.

If the distant smile on Brennan's face wasn't enough, he says, "Why, yes, that's the sticky-fingered lad himself. Those aren't the only things I've caught him trying to appropriate, either." He places the card face down on the desk, with body language that indicates that the card might be happiest there for a while.

Ambrose nods, and leaves it there.

"A student of Brand's, evidently falling sometime in the stretch of years between my departure and your arrival. Know anything about him?"

"No, not even his proper name, until now. I inherited the deck at his death and have been trying to identify the extra cards since then. Our father never discussed his other students with me. I could never decide whether he meant that as cruelty or kindness." Ambrose's smile has gone a touch bitter.

"Pity," Brennan says. "That would have been information worth bargaining over. And it depends on who he was when he was witholding information-- don't drive yourself nuts over it."

Brennan is aware of the word choice he just made.

"Paige, of course, I've met, and made my own judgements about. Do you know how she came under his tutelage?" he asks.

"He... found her," Brennan says, remembering speculation over a chess game that Brand had been looking for Family members in Shadow. He lets it hang there to study Ambrose's reaction before adding, "Bleys chased them apart when he found out about it."

Ambrose expresses no significant reaction to that.

He nods to the deck, indicating that Ambrose should turn cards if he wants to attach more names to faces.

"Curious, are we?"

Brennan shrugs. It's for Ambrose's benefit, too.

"I've got a couple of others you might know. What about this fellow?"

The trump he flips over is of a stocky fellow in yellow and white with short-cropped hair and a heavy brow. Brennan doesn't recognize him at all. The card is old, and a little soft with age.

This card, unlike Ossian's, has a name on it: Huon.

"Never seen nor heard of him."

Is this in a style Brennan recognizes?

To the extent that Brennan can tell such things, Brand's. Brennan is by no means an expert, though, being neither an artist nor exposed to a wide variety of Trumps.

Ambrose puts Huon's trump face down atop Ossian's. Next he draws out another trump, a tough-looking blonde woman in brown and green. Brennan has a feeling he's seen her somewhere before, but can't quite put his finger on it. The card is old, but probably not as old as Huon's. It reads: Ysabeau.

"She's dead, I think. It's not cold," Ambrose says, and places it with the others.

Brennan looks carefully at that one, but after a moment, "No. Familiar, but no."

Next he flips over a trump of Paige. She's only half-dressed, and a man of the world like Brennan has no trouble imagining the circumstances under which she posed for Brand.

Unlike Huon and Ysabeau, and like Ossian, the Paige trump has no name on it. It seems to be newer than either of the named trumps, as does Ossian's card.

Ambrose seems to be waiting for a comment from Brennan.

Brennan snorts. Whatever surprise there is in seeing the context of the Trump is masked pretty well-- in retrospect, it couldn't really have been any other way, could it?

"And now you know Paige, of course," he says just a bit tartly.

"Not as well as our father, methinks," Ambrose says, hard on the heels of Brennan's comment. Then he flushes slightly.

Ambrose made an off color joke. It's not clear if Brennan is more amused by that fact, or the joke itself, but he looks up at his little brother with a certain spark of levity in his eye.

"Do you think they know?" he asks after another moment.

Brennan adopts a slightly different tone for emphasis as he mock acts out the question: "'Hey, Bleys, did you know your brother and your daughter were--'" He then almost makes a universal, if crude, hand gesture but like the question cuts it off prematurely.

He shakes his head.

"The man's not an idiot. But I know I'm not going to take any pains to find out unless I have a really really good reason to."

"Not that they were," and Ambrose makes enough of the lewd gesture that it's clear to Brennan what he meant, flushing again slightly as he cuts it off prematurely, "but that she's--" and he cuts that thought off too.

"Never mind."

Brennan's eyes narrow, just a bit.

He flips over another card. Brennan takes a moment to recognize the wicked dark-haired fellow with the glint of malicious intelligence in his eyes. He looked more handsome before he lost part of his ear to that flying card.

Lucas.

"Our cousin Lucas. Flora's kid. Smarter than he lets on," Brennan says. "That's... extremely interesting." Somewhere in the murky depths of Brennan's mind, the rich tapestry of history is getting a little richer. But it's doing so quietly. "Your partner in crime cost him an ear. I don't think he's going to forget about that."

"The ear will grow back," Ambrose says, sounding not particularly concerned. "We do that. It's the slight to dignity or vanity that will last forever."

"You sound like you know him already.

"But let's backtrack to Paige again. Assume, charitably, that I'm on a completely different wavelength than you are. Knows she was his lover? Was his student? Is an Artist?" He spreads his hands, waiting for Ambrose to confirm or fill in.

Ambrose looks at Brennan, arching his eyebrows. "That she's still in love with him."

Brennan takes some time to think that over before responding, considering past actions, conversations, and choices of word. "I don't know if she's really hiding it, as such, or just not advertising it. But she's close to Bleys, too, and Bleys is not a fool. If he doesn't see it... he probably doesn't want to. And unless it becomes important to someone's well-being," he shrugs, "I'm still not getting in the middle of it."

Ambrose shrugs. "If you don't see the concern, far be it from me to insist."

"I see the concern, brother. I also see a backlash from running to Bleys right now, or even Fiona. Paige is an adult," he says, with nary a twist to his lips, "and if she cherishes Brand's memory...."

He shrugs.

"So, patience, the practiced art. Unless there's something more."

"As long as you recognize that it was irrational affection for a Master that got us here in the first place," Ambrose replies.

"Touche," Brennan says. "Still doesn't change what I'm doing tomorrow, but, touche."

[Ambrose] scoops up the trumps and returns them to their box. "That's all the finished ones I found, although there may be another box buried in here somewhere. He had some preliminary sketches in some of his notebooks, but they're not active."

"So. Father Brand to the Courts of Chaos came, right? Trumps in one hand, lightning in the other? Why leave these behind? I know perfectly well Lucas is alive, so the others might be as well. And none of Dara or Cleph or Borel, and this inherited alliance of yours? Hardly considerate."

The comment about Cleph gets a funny look from Ambrose, as if Brennan has said something surprising or perhaps nonsensical.

Brennan files that away in the deck of many things to be worked out later.

Brennan pauses, but only briefly. "And speaking of them, figured out what you're going to do when they come looking for you? And when they discover Chantico and take advantage of what I suspect to be her ignorance of the situation?"

Brennan looks at his brother, neither particularly friendly nor unfriendly, but definitely assessing. Brennan's just referenced two of Ambrose's big problems in as many sentences. Only a fool wouldn't be thinking of the third.

"I suspect our father took his trumps of Dara and Borel with him to his final battle. In any case, trumps aren't so reliable across Ygg. Sorcerous communication is easier," Ambrose explains. He steeples his fingers and smiles. "As for the other, if they showed up right this minute, I suspect my biggest problem would be explaining you. I haven't solved my problems, but staying flexible to deal with contingencies has kept me alive so far."

His toes stop their intermittent wiggling. "If worst comes to worst, I have an exit strategy. But if it comes to that, our mother will already be dead, and almost certainly Chantico as well."

And Brennan's assessment is faintly disappointed, and even fainly weary, as though he's been here before.

"Ambrose, you don't want to talk about exit strategies, and you don't want to talk about Tayanna's death, or we wouldn't be sitting here chatting about your many problems.

"Take some brotherly advice on this: Get realistic about your situation. You have former allies that you crossed, and are going to try and kill you. You have a sister that is already trying to kill you. Tayanna is dying and her salvation is not within your grasp.

"All things considered, this is a good time to start flexing.

"On the plus side, you have a brother who just gave you a copy of Brand's old papers to work on together. He's also offering to talk to Corwin for you, as circumstances permit.

"Now, I'm not going to claim I'm high in Corwin's council, but I at least know him, and have fought with him, and I know and like his son. Now, he's going to want to know why he should trust you after recent events. He's going to want to know what's in it for him, even if he indulges in royal generosity. And he's going to want to know what I think about it all.

"I need to take something more than a shrug, Ambrose.

"Talk to me like I'm Corwin."

"All right, then, I'll tell you like you're Corwin," Ambrose says, and his eyes are sparking with anger. "I've held my hand from my sister when it would have done nothing but profit me to kill her. I spoke with Merlin to convince him to come back when I thought he was held under duress, and when it proved otherwise, I Let. Him. Go. I am on the s**t list of Merlin's mother and her brother because I Let. Brita. Go. And the only thing in the universe I give a damn about right now is the thing that, as you put it, is 'not within my grasp'."

He glares at Brennan. "I'm the son of the greatest sorcerer Amber ever produced and heir to his power. And yet I'm not interested in politicking with Amber; the only time I've ever set foot in the place is in an attempt to stay out of Amber's business. Favor for favor, that I understand--but what I want is to be left alone. And the power to enforce that desire.

"You're not taking Corwin a shrug. You're taking him evidence of my goodwill towards that side of the family, in terms of risks I've taken and enemies I've made to undo what Amber's real enemies have done. I've already put some cards on the table. How many do you think Corwin wants?"

Brennan lets Ambrose's burst of temper bounce off him. If some of it gets reflected back from Brennan's eyes just for a moment, well, it's hardly intentional.

"Don't get mad at Corwin," he says mildly in response. "It's not graceful to get mad at someone who might be doing you a big favor in the near future."

Then, a moment later, he shifts his sprawl and, just a bit, his tone. "How many do I think Corwin will want? I don't know. I've heard he's up with Caine and Eric on the ruthless scale. He's certainly in the right age bracket for it, so 'I didn't kidnap your son,' might not be as effective as you'd like, all things considered. On the other hand, I've heard he's changed. So maybe it will.

"That's your gamble.

"Here's another one-- decide whether or not you really trust me enough to talk to Corwin on your behalf, and give you some advice on everything you have going on. It doesn't work if you don't trust me enough to level with me," he finishes with the faint but bitter tang of personal experience.

"You don't have to answer now. I don't plan to leave until tomorrow, and I haven't even properly visited Tayanna, yet. But think about it. And think about what order your priorities are in if they start to conflict."

Ambrose starts to say something to that, then nods.

He waits for Brennan to rise before speaking again.

"Brennan. Who let you walk the Pattern?"

This is the funniest thing Ambrose has ever said. Brennan doesn't tell him that, but he does look back with a brilliant, foxish grin: "You show me yours, I'll show you mine," and the devil dances in his his eyes.

He turns to leave, then turns back again to make sure that Ambrose understands that he's not just being jerked around. "Promise."

Ambrose looks like he might have been offended, but at Brennan's gesture he merely nods.