InuYasha Fan Fiction / Fan Fiction ❯ Shattered Minds, Shattered Hearts ❯ Dreams, Nightmares, and Ghosts ( Chapter 8 )

That night, I dreamt of Lorraine and the black circle.

 

I awoke suddenly, the image of the long dead goat-thing fresh in my mind.

 

“Why do you strive with me? It was you who gave us this passage, this way…”

 

His long-lost words brought back memories of what my blood-curse had done. I shuddered, and tried to push back the memories, but they came back with a vengeance. Sitting up, I rested my forehead on my cupped hands, and tried to fight the flood of memories, to no avail. They assaulted me anyways.

 

It hurled its blade at me, point forward, like a thunderbolt. And the sound of its passage came like a clap of thunder. The elements outside the tower echoed it, a deafening response.

 

With Grayswandir, I parried the blade as though it were an ordinary thrust. It embedded itself in the floor and burst into flames. Without, the lightning responded.

 

For an instant, the light was blinding as a magnesium flare, and in that moment the creature was upon me.

 

It pinned my arms to my sides, and its horns struck against my visor, once, twice…

 

Then I threw my strength against those arms, and their grip began to weaken.

 

I dropped Grayswandir, and with a final heave broke the hold it had upon me.

 

In that moment, however, our eyes met.

 

Then we both struck, and we both reeled back.

 

“Lord of Amber,” it said then, “why do you strive with me? It was you who gave us this passage, this way…”

 

“I regret a rash act and seek to undo it.”

 

“Too late—and this is a strange place to begin.”

 

It struck again, so quickly that it got through my guard. I was slammed back against the wall. Its speed was deadly.

 

And then it raised its hand and made a sign, and I had a vision of the Courts of Chaos came upon me—a vision that made my hackles rise, made a chill wind blow across my soul, to know what I had done.

 

“…You see?” it was saying, “You gave us this Gateway. Help us now, and we will restore to you that which is yours.”

 

 

 

 

 

I climbed the tower to the room that housed the big light, spyglass at my side. I moved to the window facing the shore and focused on the valley.

 

There was a mist hanging over the wood. It was a cold, gray, wet-looking thing that clung to the tops of the small, gnarly trees. The trees were dark and their branches twisted together like fingers of wrestling hands. Dark things darted among them, and from the patterns of their flight, I knew they were not birds. There was something evil present in that great wood, I knew, and then I recognized it. It was myself.

 

I had done this thing with my curse. I had transformed the peaceful Valley of Garnath into what it now represented: it was a symbol of my hate for Eric and for all those who had stood by and let him get away with his power grab, let him blind me. I didn't like the looks of that forest, and as I stared at it I realized how my hate had objectified itself. I knew it because it was a part of me.

 

I had created a new entranceway into the real world. Garnath was now a pathway through Shadows. Shadows dark and grim. Only the dangerous, the malicious might walk that pathway. This was the source of the things Rein had mentioned, the things that troubled Eric. Good—in a way—if they kept him occupied. But as I swung the glass, I couldn't escape the feeling that I had done a very bad thing indeed… I realized that I'd unleashed a thing that would take an awful lot of undoing… I had done a thing which had never been done before, not during the whole of Oberon's reign: I had opened a new way to Amber. And I had opened it only to the worst… If I won out in Amber one day, I might have to cope with my own handiwork, which is always a devilish thing to attempt. I lowered the glass and sighed.

 

So be it, I decided. In the meantime, it would give Eric something to have insomnia over.

 

 

 

As I drew nearer, I saw that it was as I had suspected. He had been kneeling to tend an injured man who rested upon the ground. It was Eric.

 

I nodded to Gerard as I came up beside him and I looked down at Eric. My feelings were quite mixed. The blood from his several chest wounds was very bright and there was a lot of it. The Jewel of Judgment, which still hung on a chain about his neck, was covered with it. Eerily, it continued its faint, glowing pulsation, heart-like beneath the gore. Eric's eyes were closed, his head resting upon a rolled-up cloak. His breathing was labored.

 

I knelt, unable to take my eyes off that ashen face. I tried to push my hate aside just a little, since he was obviously dying, so that I might have a better chance to understand this man who was my brother for the moments that remained in him. I found that I could muster up something of sympathy by considering all that he was losing along with his life and wondering whether it would have been me lying there if I had come out on top five years earlier. I tried to think of something in his favor, and all I could come up with were the epitaph-like words, He died fighting for Amber. That was something, though. The phrase kept running through my mind.

 

His eyes tightened, flickered, opened. His face remained without expression as his eyes focused on mine. I wondered whether he even recognized me.

 

But he said my name, and then, “I knew that it would be you.” He paused for a couple of breaths and went on, “They saved you some trouble, didn't they?”

 

I did not reply. He already knew the answer.

 

“Your turn will come one day,” he continued. “Then we will be peers.” He chuckled and realized too late that he should not have. He went into an unpleasant spasm of moist coughing. When it passed, he glared at me.

 

“I could feel your curse,” he said. “All around me. The whole time. You didn't even have to die to make it stick.”

 

Then, as if reading my thoughts, he smiled faintly and said, “No, I'm not going to give you my death curse. I've reserved that for the enemies of Amber—out there.” He gestured with his eyes. He pronounced it then, in a whisper, and I shuddered to overhear it.

 

 

 

 

 

“Long live the king!” cried the nobles, three times.

 

Then Eric leaned forward and whispered to me, “Your eyes have looked upon the fairest sight they will ever behold… Guards! Take Corwin away to the smithy, and let his eyes be burned from his head! Let him remember the sights of this day as the last he might ever see! Then cast him into the darkness of the deepest dungeon beneath Amber, and let his name be forgotten!”

 

I have no idea how much later it was that I awakened within absolute blackness and felt the terrible pains within my head. Perhaps it was then that I pronounced the curse, or perhaps it had been at the time when the white hot irons had descended. I don't remember. But I knew that Eric would not rest easy upon the throne, for the curse of a prince of Amber, pronounced in a fullness of fury, is always potent.

 

I clawed at the straw, in the absolute blackness of my cell, and no tears came. That was the horror if it. After a time—only you and I, gods, know how long—sleep came again.

 

 

 

I screamed, and snapped out of my trance, and touched my eyeballs to ensure they were still there. Miroku, who had been on guard duty, ran to me to see what disturbed me. At first glance, I thought him to be Ganelon, and addressed him as such in Thari. I was hyperventilating, and tears streamed unnoticed from my green orbs.

 

He slapped me then, not too had but enough to draw my attention. I noticed the other had awoken, most likely to my scream, and stared, on in Inuyasha's case, glared at me.

 

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Inuyasha practically shouted, right in my face.

 

I measured my words carefully, “just… ghosts from my past, come back to haunt me.” My mind was rational again, and I had control of my breathing.

 

“Ghosts from your past, indeed… Brother.” An oily voice drawled from the trees. The speaker emerged from the thicket, sporting a baboon suit. “Or should I say,” he continued, “Brothers?”

 

“Brother?” Sango cried.

 

“Brothers?” Shippou squealed.

 

“Naraku.” Miroku groaned.

 

I knew that voice, it just wasn't possible.

 

“Tell me, did you truly believe my `beloved' siblings could kill me that easily?”

 

“I had hoped… I watched you fall into the Abyss. How—“

 

“How indeed? You see, while you and that Shadowling were sifting through that compost heap, scrying for the Serpent's eye, I was using it to walk the Logrus. It adopted me, you see. Nothing like having an enemy who knows your innermost secrets, eh, `Brother'?”

 

I shook my head in disbelief.

 

“Oh, yes, I fell into the Abyss. That infernal lot of nothingness. You forget it is the essence of Chaos, to which I am aligned. It may have destroyed my body, but the Logrus allowed my essence to find another host, that fool Onigumo. He offered it so willingly, as well.”

 

“What the hell do you want?” I inquired, trying to keep some level of calm.

 

“The Shikon Jewel, of course.”

 

“Why? What good will a Shadow plaything such as that do you?”

 

“Shadow plaything? Your stupidity amuses me. That `Shadow plaything' is the Unicorn's Heart. Farewell, Brother. I suggest you enjoy your Shadow amusements for now. Soon, Amber will fall.”

 

With that, he faded. A Logrus ghost.

 

“Why did he address you as `Brother'?” Miroku questioned, raising an ofuda.

 

I sighed. This was turning out to be one helluva day. “That was my once-dead brother, Brand.”

 

“Oh, and Miroku,” Brand's voice filled the air, “I see you've met your grandfather, Corwin.”

 

 

 

 

 

**Sections in Italics are taken directly from Roger Zelazny's “The Great Book of Amber”