ALEX : INCANDESCENCE
Alex, Fiona's son, your hair like
fire,
Your eyes as green as emeralds or grass,
Grace of a dancer as you turn and
pass
Following your latest and your best desire.
Dancer between the worlds, no constant
shade
To stay and rest: however far you roam,
Your footsteps always turn to your true
home,
To golden Amber that will never fade.
Bard of the Court, a minstrel famed by
right,
Your music fair and perilous as flame,
Lover untouched by bitterness or
shame,
Phoenix that burns and drives away the night,
Constant in given oath and
promised word:
Moonlight and magic, music and a
sword.
APOLOGIES
I might have been mistaken:
possibly
My actions could be viewed as ill-advised:
Perhaps I seemed to harbour
treachery:
You're waiting for me to apologise?
I doubt that anything that I could
say
Would be the true contrition you desire:
Maybe my motives might seem slightly grey
-
And I suppose your own were so much higher?
I will not make apology to
you,
Will not admit I ever could have erred,
Whether it's false, or whether it is
true:
Do not expect a single contrite word.
Apologies are not a thing I give,
Not
now, not ever: never while I live.
BLAINE : CONFLAGRATION
Some say that fire is dangerous,
A bitter thing, that burns and
sears,
But others think it beautiful,
A light to them throughout their years:
Myself,
I think it glorious,
And if I had my heart's desire
I'd wrap the world in leaping
flames
And gaze into that endless fire.
Some think me wandering and
obsessed,
Inconstant as the changing flame:
I thank them for their courteous
words
That they should think us thus the same:
For surely nothing is so fair,
Nothing
can give so bright a light,
Nothing so joyful and so warm,
Nothing else can dispel death's
night.
As I pursue my changing life
I am reminded with each breath
That we
grow old and will decay,
In all of us awaits our death:
But with the fire that I
command
I burn away mortality
And leave true beauty in the ash
To last for all
eternity.
CATHERINE : A WHILE LATER
I'm sorry.
No, I am. Just listen, please,
I treated you unjustly and was cruel,
I was unkind,
unreasonable, cool,
I hurt you when you tried to give me ease:
I'm sorry. Here in
darkness, on my own,
With only silence and the cold to find,
Trapped in the shadows
with my daughter's mind,
I've changed. I really have. Matured and grown.
I realise I was
wrong: please let me go,
Please let me see my daughter, see her face,
See you again:
show me that little grace,
If I meant something to you long ago,
Then give my child to
me again to hold,
Please let me see her. Please. I am so cold...
CORAZON : AFTER THE FIRST DEATH
Knowledge for innocence: unwanted trade,
A gain that I'd refuse if I but
could,
An insight that forbids all thoughts of good,
Ethical action, or unselfish
aid:
Now all I see is malice and deceit,
Gnawing ambition, hunger for revenge,
My
knife as honed as any to avenge,
My heart the mirror of all those I meet.
The family game
seemed simple: black and white,
You played, you won or lost: unwritten rules
Governed
our actions and our use of tools,
Kept us within the limits of our right.
Now certainties
dissolve in scarlet flood,
And innocence is drowned in family
blood.
DORIAN : FAMILY MATTERS
Family
relationships can be sheer hell,
And that's just in the normal run of things:
More awkward
yet if all your closest kin
Are royalty, nobility, or kings.
A certain family tension, you
might say?
My friend, you're underrating it by far!
You cannot even choose a place to
stand
Until you're sure just who your allies are.
That is the problem here: who are
your friends?
Who can you trust to help, who to betray?
Though linked to you by closest
ties of blood,
Your dearest kin may turn on you to slay.
I've found a family that I never
knew,
A daughter unsuspected and unknown:
How can I trust my uncle who
betrayed?
How can I hate him, who restored my own?
And more than that: my
mother, now returned,
I never knew before, do not know yet:
My daughter is my
new-found heart's desire:
How can I lose her, how can I forget?
How can I change the
world to make some sense,
Or loose the family bonds that break my heart,
Before
conflicting duties and desires
Bring down disaster, tearing me apart?
KATRINA : TO ARTHUR, AFTER WALKING
THE LOGRUS
Arthur, my friend, I am the same,
I have not changed
my mind or soul:
I have not changed from what I was,
I walked the Logrus: that is
all.
Our bodies change with us each day
As we proceed from youth to age:
The
Logrus changes them yet more,
Erases then rewrites the page.
But still our minds
remain the same,
Untouched, unmoved, unchanged within:
My body may yet change
again,
My soul will still remain therein.
If you have known me well, in
truth,
Then you will see, and understand,
I am not demon nor your foe,
I am your
friend, at your command.
My loyalty and heart still yours,
My friendship, as has
always been,
Affection, if you so desire:
So do not value what you've seen.
Any
of us could do as much,
Our Amber blood, that gives us power,
Makes us as mutable as
clay,
Our bodies changing with each hour.
But if my face was your desire,
My
body all you ever saw,
Then keep your distance, if you wish:
I will not press you any
more.
But I confess I would regret
The loss of one I call a friend:
These bodies
are such tiny things,
We will all change them, in the end.
KIRYS : A MINIATURE
Framed by the light that pales the
sky to gold -
Dark woman seated on the window ledge,
Glancing below as she waits
on the edge -
Caught in this image, something one could hold,
Could touch: yet shadows
stir behind quiet eyes,
Run in the blood like malice or like joy,
Spring out like thorns from
one who seemed mere toy,
Twist on her hands in sudden sharp surprise
As she looks up:
a moment, all is gone,
She sits again so quiet, the portrait still,
A piece of fragile silence,
frozen will,
Untouched by time or movement, wind or sun,
A portrait on old ivory or
stained glass,
Where harm may never enter nor time pass.
MADELEINE : DEATHWATCH FOR SARIEL
She was a long
time dying. I sat there
And listened as she struggled for each breath
Of filthy air: the other
side sat Death
And ran white fingers over her lank hair.
Outside the smell of mud and
mortal ending
Hung in the world like angels of decay,
Passed by the corpses where they
quietly lay
And whispered round the shadows in descending:
And I knew as I watched
her: you can die
While still the body lives: the body's breath
Is simple, set against the
spirit's death:
You choose which coin you take, which death you'll buy.
What left her
body was my living mother:
The body dead was all Death left me of
her.
MARCIA
Will
someone please put on the Ride of the Valkyries?
There, that's better.
Look up:
she's passing now,
All gold and steel, eyes cut blue glass or ice
With just as much
compassion or control
Or anything that might have been a soul.
Nobody asks a blade to
have a mind:
A weapon's joy is in the sudden spin
Through air and light, and down
through iron and flesh:
An axe has no great thoughts of wrong or good,
But merely slices
through another life
And finds its answer in the running
blood.
MAXWELL
Smoke trickles like old ghosts or part-told
stories,
Muddied by gaudy lies and faint excuses,
And twists around a figure in the
shadows.
He's watching from a corner of the street, now,
Rags of old papers twisted
in the gutters
And writhing round his feet as he drifts backwards.
A trenchcoat
wraps around him like a cerement,
The colour of dead ash and empty mourning,
Futility
and smudged old printers ink.
I tried to stop him yesterday in passing:
But with a
smirk he faded in the shadows,
Stale cigarette smoke whispering behind
him...
MAYA
Pretty
little
Butterfly,
Never dared to
Try her wings,
Fly outside the
Castle
walls,
Walk among
Forbidden things.
Bowed to elders,
Smiled at
kin,
Curtseyed nicely,
Quiet and still:
Never argued,
Disobeyed,
Never tried
to
Test her will.
Silent in her
Dark attire,
Black and purple,
Silent
shade:
Never known
The threat of death,
Never truly
Yet afraid.
If she
loved,
She never spoke:
If she cared,
She didn't say:
Would they miss her
If
she left?
Would they notice
If she'd stay?
Make your move
And choose your
side,
Strife is coming
Hard and fast:
Now, at last,
It's time to act:
Step
beyond
Your shadowed past.
MELISANTHE : SONG FOR A
TRAVELLER
Fair Melisanthe, now where are you wandering?
Why do
you travel so far into Shade?
Why leave proud Amber, the source of reality?
Why leave
the city that never will fade?
I have no chains that should bind me to Amber,
I have
no duties that I must obey:
If others wish, let them serve her and save her,
I'll have my
freedom, and choose my own way.
Say, Melisanthe, now where are you
hastening?
Who is the man that now stands by your side?
Whose are the children you
carry within you?
Why now such haste, and to where do you ride?
I ride in haste
now to rescue my father,
Though I am weak, yet I'll do what I can:
I did not seek it, yet
duty has found me,
Love for my children, my father, my man.
Where do you travel
now, daughter of Amber?
What is the path that you now will pursue?
If you wish
freedom, then reach out and take it:
Choices and future are now up to you.
Though
I must journey through death and through blindness,
I shall remember the love I have
known:
I will abide by my own chosen duties,
Service, protection, and love for my
own.
MORDRED
It seems so long now, aeons now,
Since first I looked into
Ymis,
The Pattern-whirlpool, Shadow-stream,
Binder and link of all that is.
Ymis is
silent now, its stream
Marred and defiled by twisting blood:
My honour, once my
proudest boast,
Is now a rag that's stained with mud.
So proud was I then in my
youth
Of honour, justice, loyalty,
I never thought I could be stained,
Or malice leave
a mark on me.
But Gwen, that lady poison-sweet,
Ever my bitterest of foes,
Has
marred all things I ever loved,
And now no bounds my fury knows.
And Judas,
Brand, your name may change,
But still my hate remains the same:
Yours was the hand
that marred Ymis,
You shed the blood: on you the blame.
I have no words to tell my
rage
For all that you have done to us,
But constant bitterness and hate
At your
delight in doing thus.
I swear now by Excalibur,
By sword, and blood, and Holy
Grail,
I'll spend the last strength that I have
Ensuring that your malice fail.
I'll wash
my honour clean again
In my own blood, and in my death:
I choose this path most
willingly -
I curse you with my final breath.
NATHAN
: FENCING LESSON
"This is the truth." That's what the guarding
button
Muttered as it fell to rattle on the floor,
And left the foil's point sharp and
glittering
Under the salle's hard lights, with unused newness.
I moved: the steel slid sharp
through cloth and flesh
And touched the heart with unexpected trueness:
I stepped away.
This is the end of conflict -
A human body that complains no more.
With one swift
stroke an author may write finis:
He spills the ink and mars the page with pen,
Draws a
rough line without a word of warning
To all the characters who end that story.
I do not
waste my time in wishful thinking
And follies of vain ethics or proud glory:
I end my
dreams as does the easy author
And place brief period on the lives of
men.
PRINCE OF AMBER
I am a Prince of
Amber,
I'll suffer none to thwart me,
My will supreme by birthright,
By right of blood
and power:
How can you then compare me
To those who dwell in Shadow,
Whose
lives are naught beside ours,
Who perish in an hour?
I will not suffer insults
From any humble mortal,
For they are merely Shadows,
Are not as real as
I:
While I will live for ever,
They die within a moment,
Their only real
existence
When I am passing by.
I have no duty to them,
I find them of no
value,
If any of them perish,
They were of little worth:
Amber may cast her
Shadows,
But I think little of them,
My blood is that of Amber,
My rule by right of
birth.
SUMMERTIME
Summertime, and the Trumping
is easy,
Pattern's glowing, and the blue flame burns high,
Your Daddy's Oberon, and your
Mummy's a Princess,
So hush, child of Amber, don't you cry.
One fine day, you're
gonna walk the Pattern,
In the Castle cellars or the moonlit sky:
Then you'll walk the
Shadows and wear the Jewel of Judgement,
So hush, child of Amber, don't you
cry.
To the tune of the Gershwin song, "Summertime".
TIRION
: EXCUSE ME, I THINK YOU HAVE THE WRONG IDEA...
All this
misjudgement is a wearying thing.
Although I do not hope for total trust,
I would prefer
assessment that is just
Rather than biased looks and gossiping.
I am a simple man: polite
and plain,
Courteous and honest, elegant and mild,
Trained by my parents since I was a
child,
Only the better parts of me remain.
My parents I admire in every way,
I imitate
their styles as best I can:
I am a constant and unchanging man,
Unfailingly polite from day
to day.
Believe me, everything I say is true:
Surely you can trust me, as I trust
you?
TRUMP SCRYING
Spread out the pack. Your
family looks at you,
Their faces still and silent on each card,
Each barred against you,
watching, on their guard,
Never a way to judge if they speak true.
So cast the cards, and
tell me what they say:
Do they suggest betrayal or deceit?
A chance for friends or
enemies to meet?
A quiet sunrise and a peaceful day?
There is no way of ever being
sure
What the cards mean, what future they portend:
Whatever fate comes to us in the
end,
They shall foreshadow it in pasteboard war.
You say this is uncertain and not
plain?
Only one thing to do. Cast them again.
WALKING THE
PATTERN
Walking the Pattern:
The fire rises round me,
The
constant blue shimmer
Has caught me and bound me,
And all of my memories
Have
risen and found me.
Why did I come here?
I sought for true power:
Not wealth
or nobility,
Which last but the hour,
But power over Shadow
Before which all
cower.
But now I am lost
In a tide of the past,
As all of my
memories
Round me flow fast,
And I relive my life
From the first to the
last.
I will not be stopped
And I will not be slowed:
I am child of Amber,
I
make my own road,
I'll have the control
By my birthright bestowed.
I'll pass
through the Veils
And I'll walk the Grand Curve,
I'll live through the memories
I
must reobserve,
And I'll gain the true power
That by blood I deserve.
Walking
the Pattern:
The fire rises round me,
The constant blue shimmer
Has caught me and
bound me,
And all of my memories
Have risen and found
me.