Eliminating Bleys

My peaceful interlude came to an abrupt halt perhaps eight days after Cerridwen's injury, when I awoke to the sound of Emily knocking frantically on my door. Much to my dismay, I learned that Gawain had somehow managed to enter Mellisondra, and therefore was able to access the Tir. How had he managed to do that? Some sort of back door, no doubt. He was partially responsible for the creation of the Magic Circle, after all. He must have left himself a means of accessing it, in case Meridian proved difficult. It is what I would have done in his place. I cursed myself for not including Mellisondra in my defensive plans.

Fortunately, Gawain did not appear to have invasion on the mind, at least not yet. Unfortunately, he insisted on speaking to Cerridwen, a request that was obviously somewhat problematic. The most obvious solution was to jettison Mellisondra from the Tir, thus eliminating Gawain's point of access. An excellent idea, if only I possessed the skill to detach the damn thing. Since I did not, the second solution was to somehow convince Gawain that he had, indeed, talked to Cerridwen, and hope that he would leave of his own volition afterwards.

Emily left to delay Gawain, while I toyed with the idea of disguising one of the ghosts as Cerridwen and hoping it knew her well enough to pass for her. In our favor was the fact that Gawain was gone for most of Cerridwen's life, and so he could not know his daughter very well. It was still a risky prospect, though. I did not know enough about Gawain to be certain he would not penetrate the illusion. Fortunately, Emily took matters into her own hands, mentally convincing Gawain into thinking that he was speaking to Cerridwen instead of her. And so she learned the purpose behind his visit. Naturally, he was not seeking Cerridwen out of parental concern. Rather, he wanted to use her in a scheme of his to kill Bleys, with whom he was feuding. The gist of the plan was that Cerridwen would bring the Tir to Avignon. Emily would then go to Bleys, plead Katrina's case to him, since he was apparently her father, and then bring him to the Tir. Gawain was banking on the fact that once Bleys realized that Mellisondra was attached to the Tir, he would attempt to go there to take the Magic Circle. At which point Gawain would spring his trap and kill Bleys. I wondered how many Amberites would have to get trapped in the Tir before they finally figured out that it was a place that was best avoided.

Needless to say, I liked this plan not at all. It seemed fraught with potential problems, the most obvious being that Bleys might do the smart thing and simply not enter the Tir at all. Or he might defeat Gawain and decide to take the Tir for himself. But if "Cerridwen" refused to assist Gawain, he might decide to take the Tir and enact his plan without her cooperation. There seemed only two courses open to us. Cooperate with Gawain, and do our damnedest to make sure that his plan succeeded. Or find a way to detach Mellisondra from the Tir before Gawain returned. For obvious reasons, I favored the latter approach. But how would we detach it? And where would we put it? I was rather loath to simply leave the Magic Circle floating in the Abyss, or in some Shadow where just anyone could find it. It was Emily who came up with an answer for the second question, suggesting that we attach Mellisondra to one of Chanicut's Shadows, since Sarah was a friend of Cerridwen's. I decided to contact Sarah at that point, reasoning that if she liked this idea, and I was pretty certain that she would, she might resolve the problem of how to transfer Mellisondra herself.

Sarah answered her Trump almost immediately, and as I expected, she was delighted by our idea. Unfortunately, she was not able to detach Mellisondra herself, but she knew someone who could: Shaenan. She left to recruit him to the endeavor, while I steered the Tir towards Skeltland. Shortly before our arrival, I received a Trump call from Sarah, who came through with Shaenan in tow. I found myself rather surprised by his appearance. This was the man who had replaced the Serpent, after all. The amount of power he possessed was staggering to contemplate. And yet he seemed perfectly ordinary in appearance. Had I not known who he was, I never would have suspected what he was capable of. A good example of appearances being deceiving. I could only hope that my own appearance was similarly non-threatening when viewed by others.

Moving Mellisondra proved to be a surprisingly quick task, once Shaenan set to work. He and Sarah left soon afterwards, and I breathed a sigh of relief at having neatly avoided a dangerous situation. I reckoned without Emily's irritating sense of honor, however. Having agreed to assist Gawain, she felt obligated to live up to her end of the bargain, and try as I might, I could not convince her otherwise. The absence of Mellisondra meant a slight change in plans, however, since it was no longer there to trap Bleys. We decided instead to trap Bleys in the castle, cut off his magic, and hope Gawain took care of him. If not, Emily revealed that there were certain controls built into Gawain's Spikard that we could take advantage of. She also let slip that the Spikard had once been Father's, and for a moment I felt an irrational impulse to take the Spikard away from Gawain. It was my father's, after all, not his. Then my good sense reasserted itself, reminding me that those controls Emily referred to could be used just as effectively against me.

As we journeyed to Avignon, I toyed with the idea of betraying Gawain to Bleys. It would rid me of the problem Gawain was providing, certainly, and it would leave Bleys owing me a rather large favor. On the other hand, it would also mean revealing myself to Bleys, and if Gawain by some chance escaped, I would have made myself a dangerous enemy. Plus, I could not be sure how Bleys would react if I approached him. He might assume I was an agent of Gawain's and kill me on the spot. If I simply allowed Gawain's plan to proceed, my involvement continued to be a secret from both parties, no matter what the outcome. When it came right down to it, I had nothing against Bleys, but I had no compelling reason to aid him, either.

I brought the Tir to Avignon without incident and Emily left to plead with Bleys, taking Werewindle with her. I very nearly did not agree to loan it to her, not wanting to be without its protection. But Cerridwen had said that the Tir was safe from abyssal creatures, and the stakes of this plan were too high to risk failure. So naturally, things went wrong almost from the moment Emily left. Somehow, Gawain managed to attach a string of Shadows to the Tir, and thus board with a number of his men. Even worse, Cerridwen's mother accompanied him, bearing the Amberite Jewel of Judgment. I gritted my teeth and strengthened my spells of concealment, cursing all the while under my breath. If Gawain and Emma chose to take the Tir at this point, there was little I could do to stop them. Not against one of the Serpent's eyes. Emily returned soon thereafter, explaining that Bleys was on his way. I gave her the news about Emma and the Jewel. She was no happier about it than I, but there was little we could do at that point but wait.

Our wait was thankfully a short one, as Bleys boarded soon after Emily. I immediately sealed off the Tir and used my control over the shifting hallways of the castle to direct Bleys and Gawain towards each other, using a scrying spell to keep an eye on their progress. Much to my surprise, Emma received what looked like a Trump call and stepped through. I traced the call to Cerridwen's quarters, where another spell revealed Emily and Emma conversing about Cerridwen's condition. Emma believed she might be able to herd the Logrus energy inside of Cerridwen into her extremities, which could then be removed. I shuddered a bit at that thought. She would no longer be comatose, true, but was it really any better to be awake but no longer whole? Somehow, I doubted Cerridwen would be overly grateful.

Emily left the room to contact me, asking me to move the Tir to Amber, and then brought Shaenan through via Trump. Emma appeared to simply stare for a while, then nodded to Emily, who used Werewindle to sever Cerridwen's legs. Shaenan's reason for being there became obvious as he immediately stopped the bleeding. Despite this, Cerridwen went into what appeared to be cardiac arrest, and they were forced to sever one of her arms as well before she was stabilized.

Since Cerridwen was expected to be a while in regaining consciousness, I returned my attention to Gawain and Bleys and began moving the Tir towards the Abyss. I decided to have the two sides eventually meet in the room where I had been imprisoned for so long. It seemed appropriate, somehow. Bleys and Gawain stared cautiously at each other upon entering, each waiting for the other to make the first move. One of Gawain's entourage, an automaton of some sort, spoke up at this point. Much to my surprise, it spoke as if it were Gawain, telling Bleys to either call off his threat against his daughters, or die. Bleys claimed he would opt for the former, giving his promise not to harm Gawain or his children, while edging for a door. Obviously, he no more believed Gawain would simply let him leave than I did. The two of them continued to snipe for a bit, then Gawain (or at least the man who looked like Gawain, as opposed to the automaton that spoke like Gawain) moved to block Bleys' retreat towards the door. All hell broke loose at this point, as Bleys ran for the shattered glass door that led out onto the balcony. From the manner in which he was holding his sword out in front of him, I suspected he was carrying Auriclave. Father had warned about the capabilities of that sword once, its ability to absorb magical spells making Bleys difficult to defeat indeed. How did Gawain intend to deal with that, I wondered? I did not have to wait long for my answer.

Gawain's soldiers moved to block Bleys' path, and much bloody slicing and dicing ensued. Swordplay is so terribly messy. Gawain began tossing spells at Bleys which were, as expected, ineffectual. Emily contacted me at this point, asking me to tilt the castle 30 degrees and angle the combatants towards the broken door. I did so happily, not really caring if both sides were tipped into the Abyss. The contents of the room quickly began tumbling through the balcony door, including the three remaining stone prisoners that we had never managed to free. The automaton quickly anchored itself, with Gawain grabbing hold of its ankle. Bleys, in the meantime, managed to anchor himself with a rope, which Gawain promptly broke with a spell. Bleys was undeterred by this, and simply anchored himself again, this time with a dagger. And then I learned just how Gawain intended to deal with Auriclave. Somehow, Gawain managed to drain Auriclave with some sort of conjuration unraveling spell. With a bit of a shock, I realized I recognized it from one of my walks on the Magic Circle, and made a mental note to see if I could not work out a way to protect Werewindle from its effects. With Auriclave drained, it was a simple matter for Gawain to teleport the sword to himself. Emily appeared at this point, grabbing hold of Gawain and telling him to finish it. I wholeheartedly concurred. Gawain easily broke Bleys' dagger, and Bleys quickly tumbled through the door and out into the Abyss. And just like that, it was over.

I tilted the room back to a normal angle, noticing as I did so that Gawain had not only Auriclave but Greyswandir as well. Was he collecting all of the Pattern swords? Emily still had Werewindle, much to my relief. Unfortunately, Gawain did not depart the premises, now that he had attained his goal. Instead, the automaton left for the Shadow Gawain had connected to the Tir, returning with what appeared to be Gawain's body and joining Emma in Cerridwen's room. I gave up trying to figure out which Gawain was the real one at this point. Emily filled Gawain in on Cerridwen's current condition, adding that she wanted to take her to Chaos to get new limbs. You can imagine my dismay when Emma insisted on staying with her. So much for getting rid of our unwelcome guests. Still, if the woman insisted on bringing her artifact into the very land from which it was stolen, perhaps I could arrange for an attempt to be made to return it to its rightful owners.

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Last modified on March 31, 1999 by Kris Fazzari.