Alexander's Chronicle: Chapter 5: Confessions

I secured Father's permission to go farther afield on future visits to Rebma, since the first one didn't end in disaster. I'd been prepared to beg pretty hard, but he gave in easily. Nimue took me out past the cold 'torches' which, she said, mark the boundaries of Rebma, to find underwater caves. We dived for pearls, and played with dolphins. Outside of Rebma, there seem to be vast numbers of them and they mobbed Nimue whenever we went out there. We also hunted sharks and giant eels with spears, nets and knives. Nimue also told stories of more impressive prey: orcas in polar waters and giant squid in the ocean deeps, but we both knew perfectly well that our parents would never let us go that far out.

In order to survive underwater outside of Rebma, Nimue gave me a strange object: a very thin oval 'mask' of some iridescent material, which stretches to cover mouth and nose, clinging to one's face until removed. It made all seawater act like that of Rebma, to be breatheable. It also protected one from water pressure and allowed one to maintain neutral buoyancy. Nimue has one too, carried in a silver shell locket around her neck. She gave me mine in a belt pouch of soft blue leather, embroidered with a silver dolphin.

In turn, I obtained for her a good knife of metal (I know who to trade with to get one that won't rust, something called "stainless steel" from out in Shadow). Rebmans forge their weapons from a transparent, crystalline substance called "questil" which is cold-forged somehow. Nimue's own questil knives were very beautiful, but didn't look as lethal as they were. After my experience with Shiny in Arden, I'm in favor of winning fights without having to draw blood, and I wanted Nimue to have something that *looks* lethal when she dealt with land-dwellers so she would be less likely to be attacked in the first place. Nimue seemed delighted with the steel knife and always wears it when she visits Arden.

Nimue was endlessly curious about the Forest, fascinated by such ordinary things as spider's webs and the scent of earth after rain. I taught her what I could about riding, tracking and cooking over a fire (something with which she'd no experience, living underwater).

On her first visit to Arden, I showed her the most wonderful animals we have in Arden: Storm Hounds, from well outside their pen. They are huge animals, about four feet at the shoulder and weighing about two hundred and fifty pounds, with coarse, dark grey fur and wolfish features.

One got up to move towards us before I could warn Nimue to stand away from the edge of the pen. "Stay", I shouted, "stay!" He sat back down, unperturbed. "This is as close as you want to get," I explained to Nimue. "They don't like people the way dogs do. They are only supposed to attack on command, but they're not good about doing what they're supposed to unless Father or I are there to make them do it." Actually, they like me well enough, but they think that I am a Storm Hound too (and I am, sometimes), and they know I can kick all their butts.

I was delighted to see Nimue regards the Hounds with fascination and admiration. "They're magnificent" she breathed. "Beautiful." She had struck me as a person of rare good taste.

"We can't use them to hunt deer or other food animals; they tear the poor beasts apart and eat every shred before you can even get there. But for taking care of predators and monsters, they're perfect. They're utterly fearless and pretty lethal. Smart, too, but sadly, that just means we have to watch them closer." I told her.

However, I had a plan. Nimue should be able to do more than just look at the Hounds and Father wasn't around today to say I couldn't..."Wait here just a moment." I said, entering the pen, closing the gate behind me and goes into the open door of an adjacent, covered pen. Nimue's face lit up when I emerged a moment later with a couple of squirming puppies under one arm. I came out of the pen, closed it behind me again, and gestured for her to accompany me to a nearby, empty pen, where I could set the pups down. They immediately decided to investigate her.

Nimue got down on the floor to the pups' level to make this easier for them, and seemed happy to let them clamber all over her. "Do they have names, yet?" she asks.

I called each of them by name and they scampered over to see me obediently. Nimue called to them and they rushed back to her, tails wagging furiously. I smiled proudly. "They have learned to come. Getting them to stay put isn't as easy. These are too young to understand that they're supposed to be unfriendly yet. I'm just teaching them basic commands. These two are still working on 'stay', you might have noticed." I had to return the pups to their mother within an hour, but that would be enough time for Nimue to play with them. They were as cute as dolphins. I suspected that it would not be a terribly productive lesson, but these little fellows were coming along pretty well and I was sure they'd come to no harm.

Nimue tried to help and offered to try to teach one of them. Having no experience training beasts, she wasn't very effective at it. Her technique was to stare hard at the pup, while repeating the word "stay" clearly and firmly, interspersed with encouraging noises and petting if the pup got anything right and occasionally when it didn't. But both Nimue and the pups seemed to be having a good time. She got nipped once or twice, but had the good sense to shrug it off.

She seems disappointed when the pups had to go back. I explained that these were too young to leave their mother for very long. "And she'll miss them too."

A couple of years later, we were out riding and Nimue asked me who Carmel is. "All I know is that Primrose is Carmel's horse, and Marcel referred to Carmel once, and was clearly fond of her."

I felt very uncomfortable. "Carmel is...um...was Father's wife and Marcel's and Morgan's mother. I think that she lives in Brynn with Marcel."

Nimue simply nodded, but I mustered the resolve then to settle certain issues between us. I preferred to find out now what she thought of Chaosites and shapeshifters in general before she found out certain things through some third party. Also, these were issues I couldn't discuss with anyone else.

I waited until we sat down for lunch, but was incredibly difficult to even start getting words out of my mouth on the topic, though, "Ju-just tell me if I shouldn't ask, but Alistair, he lives in the Courts of Chaos, doesn't he?"

Nimue sighed. "He does now. But we grew up in Rebma together. He used to spend most of his time there, with his mother, Lady Llewella. He... I suppose he was the closest thing I ever had to a brother of my own, really. Then, after that time in Arden, he started to stay away for longer. After about a year, he went on a visit to his father and a message came to say he had decided to stay. I-I never heard from him again." Nimue seemed upset, but I almost got the impression that she wanted to talk about it. Well, if she didn't, she could always tell me to let it drop. But, she added, "Why do you ask?"

I hunched his shoulders and couldn't meet her eyes, but had an easier time speaking, "I...was wondering. Father describes them as terrible people, Alistaire's father in particular. He...he just didn't seem the sort to come from a family of assasins and schemers."

"Don't worry about offending me, Alex." she said, "I'm aware of how many in the family regarded Alistair. He told me. Your father's feelings on the subject of the Courts are pretty well known, too. I met Alistair's father a couple of times. Duke Victor. I rather liked him. But as a matter of fact, both Alan and Marcel later told me that Alistair's father is a spy and assassin. Alan's information usually comes from Benedict or his father, so I'm inclined to believe it." She sounded very calm.

"Of course, I don't hold this, or any other aspect of his parentage, against Alistair, any more than I hold your two brothers' Chaos blood against them," She went on, looking straight at me. "But it was hard for him, being torn between two halves of his family, and always expecting both sides to treat him with suspicion. I think that's why he acts the fool so much. And why he he never seems to think before opening his mouth... wouldn't you prefer to offend people by your own actions than try to be nice and have them be offended anyway, just by what you yourself were, and couldn't help?" I had to feel bad for Alistair; he reminded me so much of Marcel.

"Personally," she continued, vehemently, "I think trying to hide such links is rather foolish. Also unnecessary. It's not as if we don't all have Chaos blood in our veins from Oberon. Who cares how recent it is? Your father is giving you all a sense of shame, and a twisted outlook which is totally uncalled for and unfair." Nimue stopped at this point, and looked anxiously at me.

She added: "But maybe I have a distorted view. In Rebma, Alistair and I were both half-bloods together. It was less important that he had more recent Chaos blood than I, than that neither of us were *pure* Rebman. We were both alien, there. It was easier for me, because of Mother, but I always knew it.

"I hope you never have the experience of being on the receiving end of such prejudice. But if you had, you would never want to see *anyone* judged purely on the blood in their veins. And you would never be capable of it yourself. I can't stand to see it. And if anyone has good reason to hate Chaos and everything linked to it, I think I do."

She smiled at me. "And you can be sure that I do not hold any old grudges against any of you just because of Carmel. As a matter of fact, I quite like you all. The only other cousins I have met are Alan, Josef and Sabel, but I think you will find they don't have any such prejudices either. I talked a little about this with Marcel when he came to Rebma. It really bothers him, doesn't it? He and Alistair are very alike in a lot of ways, you know." She seemed a little amused. "*Quite* a lot of ways, actually."

"It worries you too, doesn't it? Do you want to talk about it? I'd like to help if I can; we're friends, after all, aren't we?" Nimue kept looking at me.

I felt quite relieved that I could be certain that I was talking to someone who would not come down on me for my origins, and grateful that she had taken the chance, expressing her feelings, when I had been secretive. But, I still couldn't bring it up yet. "I don't know why Father ever married someone from Chaos, but there's no way I can ever talk to Carmel about it. It just puts us in a bad position with respect to the rest of the family, not that Father wants any of them to find out. But how does a numbskull like Alistair survive in the Courts? I'd think that they'd eat him alive! After the... incident in Arden and what Father said, I doubt Morgan or Marcel will trust him again. I just don't understand any of it. And Morgan has already commented about how much he hates sorcerors; I have no idea what the hell he knows or thinks about his own Chaos heritage."

Nimue frowned slightly. "Mm. Well, to look at Alistair first, you shouldn't underestimate him so much. I said he *acts* the fool, not that he is one. He didn't seem to think there was much to choose between Amber and the Courts, as far as how difficult things were for him. As for what happened on the hunting trip, his behavior was neither more nor less suspicious than Marcel's, or even, if you will forgive me saying so, your own. If he were here, I doubt he would trust your brothers any more than they would trust him."

I had an amusing thought at that point. "Oh, Alistair and the rest of us would be wise to be careful around Marcel, if only because he'll get us into trouble, himself too, all with the best of intentions."

More seriously, I said, "Amber, Rebma and the Courts all sound like pretty awful places for someone like Alistair, or for the rest of us for that matter. The Shadows actually sound far more pleasant on the average. I hope he's alright, he didn't seem like a bad sort."

Nimue looked pretty miserable at that point, "I don't know what it is that your father said about him to you, so I can't really comment. I'm sure he, and your brothers too, it seems, will be glad to know that Alistair will not be trying to 'survive' in Amber at all. I understand that he was invited, but no reply received. I don't understand, or really know, anything about your father and Carmel. I-I take it that she is not your mother, but you know her?"

It was a good chance to come clean with her, since that didn't seem like a very scary thing to do anymore and she was starting to figure it out anyway. "You can't really blame Father for hating the Courts. They've done some bad things, the war on Amber, killing your father (my father was very sorry to see him go), maiming Marcel and Uncle Benedict, the lies that you heard about... and then, there's the matter of my birth." Reflexively I curled into a ball, drawing my knees towards my chest, suddenly uncertain whether I had any right at all to do this to her. I looked back at her, anxiously. "I don't know if you want to hear about this..."

Nimue reached out and put her arm around my shoulders. "If you don't mind telling me, of course I'd like to hear about it."

Overcome by her kindness, I looked down. "Father says that right after the Patternfall War, he and Carmel had broken up, nothing about how or why. Apparently she contacted him, offered some hope of reconciliation, and came to visit him. She was gone by morning and when Father tried to find her again, she hadn't gone home to Brynn. Somehow, he didn't say, he found out she'd been kidnapped by people from Chaos. So, he chased after them and beat the living daylights out of them and rescued her. She just wanted to go home and told him it hadn't been her who'd gone to see him. So, he realized he'd been seduced by a shapeshifter and figured out why. You may have heard Uncle Benedict was seduced by a woman from Chaos as part of this weird breeding program that someone over there is working on. So, Father stormed off to the Courts. Some of the other children of Oberon had just finished hashing out the peace treaty, I think Aunt Fiona was one, and were on hand to stop him from cracking people's heads together. He really wanted his baby back, though he'd never seen me and had no proof I'd even been born, but they got me back. I was about four at the time, being kept in sort of a creche, no one paying much attention to me. All I remember was that Father was awfully happy to see me and have me back, so I didn't mind coming back here with me. And he's always seemed pretty fond of me, doesn't blame me for any of what happened or any of my other relatives' doings.

"I don't know what version of the story Marcel got from Carmel. I've never had a chance to ask him because it's tough to get a word in edgewise when he's around, and it's not a topic I want to bring up. Morgan... has announced that he hates sorcerors and witches because they're pretty bad news in Finndelaine. Even holds it against Aunt Fiona, who offered to paint Trumps of us and to teach Marcel." I looked back at Nimue, almost frightened of her reaction.

Nimue's arm tightened about my shoulder. She looked horrified, frightening me until she spoke. "That's awful, Alex. No wonder you're confused."

After a few moments, she released me and moved back. "Stop me if it's none of my concern" she said, "but I think you really should try to talk to Marcel about this. I think if you *asked* him to listen, then he might. If you let him know it was important to you."

That actually hadn't occurred to me. "I'll... have to think about it."

"Have - have you talked to Julian about it much?" she asked.

"He...didn't look very happy when he told me about it. A-and I didn't have anything specific to ask, so I didn't." And I didn't want to remind him of it, even he seemed to hold me blameless.

Nimue asked, "What about you Alex? As far as I can see, Marcel takes his Chaos blood in his stride, and Morgan rejects it totally, from what you say. But how do you feel about *yours*?"

I shrugged, "I don't know. I haven't seen much good from that side of the family and now the whole Courts is convinced that Marcel and I are murderers, so I doubt it will matter." Nimue patted my shoulder and changed the subject, trying to lift my spirits.

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