Steen’s next appearance was with the woman who held the household keys and distributed the linens. She stared at my near naked body and pursed her lips. “The Master said for silks and linens, velvet doublet?” she asked. “T’will stick to his wounds and removing the clothing will make him bleed ruining the material.”
“It is the Master’s wish,” he said woodenly. She nodded.
“So be it. Dress him as befits a prince, he said,” she agreed. “Although he looks like a prince of death. Is he still crazed in the head? Will he fight me when I dress him?”
“The Master will dress him and no, he won’t fight you. He can’t and he has learned that it gets him nothing but pain and torture.”
“No one of us believed he would survive this last...lesson. Never have I seen the Master so incensed. I’m to make him presentable for this evening’s Banquet. The Barons and Lords of the War are joining his Lordship for dinner. Also, the Queen. Now, there’s a true lady. Would that all his...guests... acted like her.”
“Steen,” I whispered, in my head it was a shout. “Give me something for the pain. It consumes me,” I begged. My very nerve endings seemed to be on fire yet I could not escape into unconsciousness.
“The Master said you were not to have anything, Corbel. I am sorry,” his face was stoic but as she turned to leave, the housekeeper pulled out a twist of paper and handed it to the manservant.
“Tis poppy dust,” she whispered, her lips still. “A pinch on his lips or nose will ease his pain.” She coughed. “I will return an hour before the Banquet to bring the garments and sew them on. See that he is bathed, dried and awake.”
Steen bowed and she departed. Once she was gone, he carefully untwisted the paper and poured a grayish white powder between my lips. Gritty and bitter, it tasted harsh and my lips, gums and tongue went numb. My face burned from my neck to my hairline and I sagged onto the table. I was awash in a sea of numbness and didn’t care that he rolled me onto my stomach tugging the silken shift off my body.
Despite his previous assurances of not sticking, the material had adhered to the more weeping of my sores and tore scabs loose as he removed the thin garment. It didn’t hurt, I was deliciously numb all over. Once I was naked, he brought a basin of hot, scented water and carefully washed me from head to toes. The water that ran off the table to pool at his feet ran red with blood.
He dried me with soft wool and rubbed oil into my skin, treating me as if I were a cherished doll. I dreamed I was back at Cabra and opened my eyes when Steen gasped in alarm. “What ?” I asked sleepily. I raised my head and stared. Just as suddenly as it appeared, my prison in the Lighthouse disappeared and we were in the Master’s still room on the table.
“Corbel,” he whispered, hope in his eyes for the first time I had seen it. “Corbel, can you do that spell again?”
“T’isn’t a spell,” I wondered. “I won’t leave without the Queen.”
“How did you do that?”
“Steen, if you tell the Master, I swear, I’ll kill you. I won’t rest until you’re dead,” I threatened.
“For twenty years I have suffered, boy. Do you think I would throw away my last chance of escape?”
“Somehow, you must get me to the Queen or the Queen to me,” I said. “Then, I can bring us all through to Cabra.”
“The Lighthouse of Cabra,” his eyes glowed. “I remember it from when I was a child.”
“You’ve been there?”
“Of course. You have to sail across the Straits past the Lighthouse to reach Bergman. Don’t you know any geography of Amber?”
“No. The boy I used to be lived on a shadow world they tell me. When I died and the Master brought me back, he took all my memories.”
“Who were you, Corbel?”
“He said my name was Raven, Prince of the Courts of Chaos, son of King Merlin and grandson of Prince Corwin of Amber.”
His face reflected shock and he was speechless. “What power does the Master wield that he dares to do such things to the Court’s son and Amber’s Queen? What demons does he possess?” His hands trembled and he spilled the basin of water at his feet. In his haste to leave, he left unfettered and with the windows open. I waited for a few moments and when no one came back up, spelled the door locked and sat up. Slowly, drunkenly because I was stoned out of my head. For the first time in a week, I was able to stand and after a fashion, walk. The wall held me upright it’s true but I did make it to the window without falling flat on my face. I realized I was naked and blood still dripped from the deeper cuts and lashes yet I couldn’t feel it. I pushed the window open wider and craned my neck around until I found the correct tower. Pointed my finger and uttered the spell that projected my image where my fingers aimed.
The tower was richly furnished and as my double solidified in the Queen’s chamber, I could see as well as if it were really me inside. A circular room with a thick stuffed divan, black four-poster bed and canopy, a table, mirror and chair where a lady could do her toilette. All done in deep rose and blue. A thick carpet covered the entire stone floor save for in front of a marble fireplace busily devouring chunks of ash and oak. Long tapestries of silk covered both the doorways and windows. I stood in one, holding aside the heavy rose colored damask shot with gold thread.
The air smelled of heavy, sickly sweet roses when I knew she much preferred pine and sea-breezes. She was sitting at the make-up table brushing her hair, no sign of her maid, Nellie but I supposed she was probably attending to her brothers burials.
“Vialle,” I whispered and she turned her head towards me, leapt to her feet, dropping her silver brush.
“Raven!”
“I haven’t much time, Lady. I have discovered I can reach Cabra. However, I need to be in the same place as you when I attempt to leave. And Steen would come with us.”
“Are you not here now, Raven?” she reached out a hand to touch me but I was not in a corporeal form. “Are you a ghost come to taunt me? I hear you but I do not hear your heartbeat or your breaths.”
“I am a doubler spell,” I explained. “Meant to confuse an enemy. It is one of a few the Master taught me.”
“He is not your master, Raven!” she burst out. “As Random and Corwin explained to me, once you have traveled the Pattern, you are blessed with certain powers. One of which is the ability to draw a place and trump to it. I, unfortunately, cannot do that.”
“Does the...Master, Webster, know you are blind, my Lady?”
“I kept it from him only a little while, he realized it when I tried to comfort you and treat your wounds. Raven, how are you? Are you...sane? I heard stories...”
“My mind is functioning, lady. Whether it continues to do so coherently,” I shrugged. “Right now, I’m leaning out the still room window stoned out of my mind. The...he is planning a Banquet tonight with his cronies and both of us are the guests of honor.”
“I know. He wants me to wear a gown of his choice and I refused. I’m wearing what I came in. Can’t you call that dragon to break us out of here?”
“Tiamont answers to him, not me, lady. It was his orders that he carried us off.”
“He said he gave you to the Thrid---.”
“He lied. It is his joy to make me hopeless in despair and wallow in my emotions,” I swallowed as I thought of how she had been forced to witness my degradation. She sensed my thoughts.
“Raven, rape is no different for a man than a woman. It is power over the individual. Can a child stop a mountain from falling on his head? No. Nor could you, wounded and near death fight a man both older, stronger and more vicious.”
“More vicious than the assassin, Blackbird?” I laughed bitterly, nearly in tears.
“Raven, you are not that creature. Underneath the shell he has put on you, you are nothing but a gentle 15 year old boy looking for a father and a mother who would love him for the sweet, brave, intelligent child he is.”
I was sucked back into my other self as the spell broke with the first hand on the locked door. Shouts reverberated along with the furious pounding on the thick planks and that spell burst. Servants, guards, Steen, the housekeeper and the Master nearly fell into the room as the door gave way. Black looks marred his face as he saw me leaning against the wall by the open window. First, he seized me by the throat and smashed his palm into my chest. Fire erupted and drove away the numbness. I cried out in agony as he flung his other hand towards Steen. I saw him picked up and tossed out into the hallway, he didn’t utter a sound as his body twisted around the stone pillars.
“Master!” I bleated. “Stop! Steen did nothing wrong! I used the spells you taught me to get loose!”
He forced me down to my knees and bent my head to his feet, tore the whip from a guard’s hand and laid into me. By the second, I knew it was the Kiss of Death wielded by pure rage and he used the flagellum, the whip designed with steel barbs and teeth. Four and I was flat on my face in a pool of blood, in so much pain I could not breathe. As his arm rose for the seventh time, it did not descend. The Baron Resonant held him back, his face gravid with disgust.
“Would you strip the hide from his back, Lucian? Will you present a dead body as a trophy to incense the King of Amber? Kill him and neither King nor Court will ever stop hunting you, not stop destroying this realm and all of us. Is it not enough that you have stolen his queen and Heir, raped the boy and made him a slave and a murderer? Do you think he will die for you now? You have destroyed and thrown away your most valuable weapon.”
Hands reached under and lifted me. The faces were pale blurs, so very far away. I was yet again dying and welcomed it. Felt the spell that kept me from the final release kick in and hold my weakening heart in thrall. I tried to say thank you but my words were whispers on a silent breath. They carried me somewhere, to hell I think but it was too full so I came back to the top of the tower where they laid me out and let the ravens peck at my flesh until the bones were laid bare.