Corisande: Shining

It was always a sunny day in Bleys's manor.

Cori didn't know quite what Bleys had done to the windows in his sprawling claim to Amber's marches, but no matter how the wind might bring in clouds or the rain might fall, the light that flooded in was clear and cheery, untainted by the inconvenience of weather. Bleys liked his days bright, and if he couldn't control it outside he would certainly control it inside.

The only downside to this otherwise mood lifting spell was that it was always set to slowly dim on around six-thiry in the morning, no matter how tired the manor's occupants were.

The twins shared a suite at the heart of the manor, a complicated set of rooms encompassing everything from bedrooms to an art studio to a small area for practicing swords. Cori, groggy as she was, could feel something was wrong in her room... Something was out of place... And then she felt the hands taking a hold of her comfortably warm quilt and yanking, hard.

"C'mon, Cor! It's nearly seven!"

(All right, let's try this again, and see if I can get into the correct persona)

Cori thought about about grabbing the quilt back and pulling it over her head again, but since it wouldn't do any good, she gave the idea up. Instead, she opened her eyes as she sat up, rubbing the sleep out of their corners.

"What is it? Apart from me not getting to sleep in *again*?"

"You can sleep when you're old!" Crispin laughed, fanning the blanket up so that cold air rushed in about her, crowding out the warmth she had been revelling in just moments before. "Come on! There's some fruit set in the tower. It isn't getting any fresher." He jumped on her mattress, landing just in the spot that threatned to tilt both of them to the floor if he landed hard enough. The bed tilted up... then landed back on it's feet. He smiled, pushing back his locks of hair, so like hers, so like their father's.

Cori slid down the bed as it rocked, bouncing acrobatically to her feet at the end as the bed returned to its own. "I suppose I should be happy that you weren't in her a half hour ago," she grumbled, but her exasperation was more mock than serious. Cori was not and had never been a morning person, so the dispute between the twins was old, if not particularly contentious.

She found her robe and donned it, belting it with the knot that she'd learned last week from the retired Naval officer Bleys had hired to teach them knotwork. Her slippers were under the bed, and she donned them, too.

"All right, lead the way," she told her brother.

Crispin was already dressed, of course, having inherited Bleys abhorance for being seen in his bedclothes by the staff. He bounced to the center of their rooms, making for the spiral staircase that climbed to the small, enclosed tower atop the manor house. By the time Cori had trudged her way up it, he was at the top, snacking on bananas and watching the sun turn from a hazy red to a brilliant yellow.

Cori sat down and plucked a grape from the bunch on her plate. "So what's the plan for today, bror? Anything exciting, or just more of the same old same old?"

She popped the grape into her mouth with a sucking noise and a sort of popping-smooching sound as her lips came together behind it.

Crispin looked out of the window, his gaze locking onto something across the marches... A grey stone mansion, low to the ground and marred by boards secured over the windows. Uncle Brand's Mansion. Barred from everyone. Rumored to be haunted. Abandoned all these years since Patternfall. Crispin smiled.

"I have an idea..."

Crispin's ideas always presaged interesting times, and generally thorough punishment from Bleys or his duly appointed deputies.

Cori followed his gaze, examining the distant building. "Should I choose something suited for a stomp through the marches?" she asked her brother, sounding more interested than irritated all of a sudden.

She popped another grape into her mouth, then a third.

"Stomp!" Crispin rolled his eyes. "With perfectly good horses in the stables? No..." He frowned, turning the problem of the wide expanse of land before them over in his mind. "We take the horses, and tell father... tell him we're off to the Castle! To court, even. That should make him happy. Then we backtrack through the woods, and go in the backway."

"It will involve some wardrobe calculations," Cori said thoughtfully. "You don't have to worry about wearing a dress to court, so it's less of a problem for you. Maybe I should just pack a pair of trousers and change when we get there."

Several more grapes disappeared as Cori thought about the possibilities.

"What else should we take?"

"A lunch." Of this, Crispin seems certain. "And a pry bar of some sort. You and I can make light well enough on our own... Oh! And empty knapsacks." He gave her a wide smile. "In case there's things worth bringing back."

"You get to explain the trophies to father," Cori said, and stuck out her tongue at Crispin.

"All right, let me finish breakfast. You go grab the stuff and I'll get dressed. Then we're off to--court!" She broke off a handful of grapes and stuffed three of them in her mouth at once.

He was gone down the steps before his smile had faded, and she could hear him rummaging about, whisting a tune he had heard their father singing once, when he was in his cups. As Cori rose, she could see the sillouette of Bleys against his drawing room in the east wing, studying something as he marked out the length of his room, pacing.

A last handful of grapes and Cori was off down the stairs as well. It was a risk to talk to father too much before leaving on one of these escapades--he had been known to catch on to them before--but the pacing concerned her.

She thought about it all the way down the stairs, and found her feet had taken her towards the east wing rather than back to her bedroom. She paused in the doorway.

"Father?"

He turned, and before she could see the expression that had been on his face, he was smiling. "Cori! What a sight, you up and about this early! Of course, the outfit could use a little work if you're not spending the day abed..."

"I was just on my way to get dressed, Father," Cori said, presenting her kiss for a cheek.

"Is everything all right?"

"Of course!" She saw the card get tucked away into his top drawer, then locked with a careless flick of his finger. "What would be wrong? And why are you over here to get clothes? A cantrip make them go awry and start wandering off?"

"No!" Cori giggled. "I just came over here because I saw you and I wanted to say good morning. I'll go get dressed now."

She turned to leave, and stopped. "I love you, Daddy."

Bleys looked as near to surprised as he ever got. "Well, I love you too, sweetheart..." His eyes narrowed. "Have you done something...?"

"No!" Cori said, a little indignantly. And it was true, she hadn't done anything--yet. "Unless you count getting up late."

And thinking about picking the lock on that desk later, but that was particularly ambitious, and she'd need Crispin's help for it.

Bleys smiled, but he didn't move from where he stood to accompany her back to her side of the manor. "Alright, I can wait. Are you dressing for anything special today? Or was it Crispin that had you up before the eggs were cold?"

"He said I was late. He pulled off my blanket." Cori let petulance creep into her voice. "It wasn't even seven o'clock yet."

She took her father's hand and started to lead the way back to her dressing chamber.

Bleys allowed her to lead him away after a moment's hesitation. "Nearly seven? A crime. Do you have a suitable punishment set up for him, or are you going to brew upon it?"

Cori shrugged. "I'll think of something appropriately horrid later." She padded back towards her dressing room, father in tow.

"Are you going to need me for picking something out?" Bleys peered curiously at Cori's armoires and drawers. "I thought these days were done, once we learned that plum and burgundy didn't go, and not to mix your patterns."

(OOC: don't ask me what this kid is up to, 'cos she ain't telling me either--I don't even know what she's going to say before she says it!)

"Noooo." Whether that was in answer to the question or the subsequent comment wasn't immediately clear.

"It's just--whatever it is, Daddy, I'll help you with it. I help Crispin all the time. I can help you too. OK?" Cori looked at her father earnestly.

"Cori," Bleys's hand pushed her hair back from where it had fallen over her eyes. "There is nothing going on, dear. I was trying to make a call, and not getting through. That's all. It happens quite a bit, you know."

Cori had found that when adults got something into their head that they didn't want to tell their children, they could become very insistent about not telling. Once the offer of help had been made, it was often best to step back and let them maintain their dignity.

Adult dignity was very easily bruised sometimes by children's actions, Cori had found.

"Yes, Father," Cori said obediently, reverting to her more customary formal usage. "Of course." She didn't ask who he was trying to call, either.

"Good girl, for understanding." He ruffled her hair again. "Now, where did you say you were off to, today?"

"I didn't." Cori grinned.

This would be the tricky part. She would be in trouble with both her father and her brother if she muffed it. "Crispin said something about going to court." Technically he had, so it wasn't quite a lie. Just ... misleading.

"Court?" Bleys raised an eyebrow, very nearly impressed. "Going to go mettle in Random's affairs? I always thought he needed more challenges in his kinging."

"Probably just going to watch. There's always something to learn," Cori said. She thought, but didn't say, he'll never be as good of a king as you would be, Daddy.

He kissed her brow, then turned, leaving her to her clothes selection. "I'll want a full report of all the gossip over dinner. There are days I miss that place..." He trailed off as he wandered back to his side of the house.

Cori dressed quickly, something that was plausible for the ride to court but that she wouldn't regret losing if it were stained in the marsh or got something hideous on it in Uncle Brand's lab.

Then she waited for Crispin to show up, and tried to think of a way to have a good answer for Father at dinner.

She didn't have to wait long. Crispin seemed to be waiting for her. He cocked an eyebrow at her outfit. "That took you forever to pick out? I thought you were having a change of heart!" He gave her a wicked little grin. "Not having a change of heart, are you?"

"Father's suspicious." Cori answered. "He thinks we're going to court. He wants all the gossip at dinner."

Crispin considered the problem as he strolled to the stables, enjoying the complication rather than letting it spoil his adventure. "Well... That's simple, then. We'll spend the morning at the Mansion, then ride up to the castle and offer Alexius dibs on what we find out for some gossip."

"Let's hope he's not out for a ride too," Cori said phlegmatically as she fitted out her horse.

"If he was, he'll bribe a servant to give him some tidbits! What are you so worried about?" He mounted his horse and grinned down at her. "I think you're scared. Admit it."

"When I came downstairs, he was trying to Trump somebody, and the contact wasn't going through. He said it was nothing, but he made sure to lock up the Trump in his desk without letting me get a look at it."

Cori mounted her own horse. "I'm worried about him. Is that OK?"

Crispin frowned. "He wouldn't let you see? But who could he be calling? It's not like anyone would care if he was talking to someone in the family..." They cantered out of the stable, both lost in thought.

They were part of the way to the woods when Crispin turned to Cori. "Do you think he's getting into trouble?"

"I hope not," Cori said, a little too quickly.

"Maybe it was Sand or Delwin?" she added, a little too hopefully.

'It could be, but then that would be trouble. They're not well liked." Crispin brightned as he mulled the matter over. "Which drawer did you say it was? I think I remember the tumblers on that one..."

"Top drawer," Cori replied, biting her tongue on the reply that there were a lot worse people than Sand and Delwin that their father could be talking to.

She paused. "Do you think maybe he was trying to talk to our mother?"

Crispin licked his lips. "Maybe... He told me she wasn't around any more, but that's not quite the same thing as dead, is it? There's only one way to find out..."

"Well, for a fellow who can get into Uncle Brand's Mansion and out with his prize, all without mussing his doublet so that he can go to tea with the King's son, filching a Trump from father's study ought to be child's play," Cori replied archly.

The slight splashes of the horses' hooves through the marshy grass accompanied her words.

"Oh ye of little faith!" He grinned over his shoulder. "When have I ever steered you wrong?" He turned to the path again. "And don't answer that."



Back tracking turned a fifteen minute ride into an hour, but at the end of it, Crispin declared with a certainty only he seemed to possess that they hadn't been followed.

They were behind Brand's mansion, looking down on a rose garden long since overgrown with bloomless vines of thorn and grasses waist high. Statuary, missing limbs or heads, peeked out from the foliage prison, looking onto the only part of the garden that was clear: the brick path.

Cori made a moue of distaste at the state of the garden. "You do the cantrip when we get in. I'll take the bar. Unless you'd rather do it the other way around," she said, holding out her hand for the bar.

"We each take our own lunch," she added, recalling that when Crispin carried the lunches she always ended up short.

He stuck his tongue out at her, then slid down the hill to the path leading up to the garden. "You can hold the bar, and your own silly lunch. I swear, paranoid much...?"

He tossed his hand up as they came to the gate, and it opened easily. He gave it a pleased smile, then hopped down the path as if he were strolling through his own garden.

"Just likely to be hungry come noon," Cori said with a toss of her head, and followed her brother into the garden.

She kept the crowbar in hand, and watched carefully from a few steps behind as Crispin sallied ahead, cataloguing the plants as they passed and noting any she didn't know.

Either strange weeds chose to grow in this unkempt place, or Uncle Brand collected unusual specimens from shadow... One was a tiger lily, except all in black, from the bloom to the leaves. Another was a vine that produced soft, feathery blossoms the color of pulled taffy, that drifted back and forth even when there was no breeze.

Crispin came to a boarded over window and studied the wood. Whoever had picked it chose something that wouldn't rot with years of neglect. He frowned and motioned for the crowbar.

Cori handed it to him, eyeing the strange moving plant in case it tried to come closer to them.

He eased it in a small gap, taking his time worming it around until it was safe. He braced a foot against the wall, leaned back... Pulled... Growled... Uttered the smallest little helping (ie: cheating) spell... Then fell back as the board dissolved into a shower of splinters. He was no sooner on his rump than he was jumping back up, eager to look inside.

Cori stepped neatly aside as Crispin landed on his rear. She was right behind him as he looked in the window, the odd plants in the garden suddenly forgotten.

Inside, they could both make out the dim outlines of a sun room. Light streamed in, catching glints of gold and silver entwined in the breakfast setting that was set out on the table, as if waiting still for the prince to return and take his morning coffee.

Crispin pushed the window up, then hefted himself up to crawl in.

Cori helped hold the window open for Crispin, then slid in behind him. She went over to the breakfast table to examine things there more closely, noting the doors out of the room and where they led as she moved.

There was one door out, and she could catch a glimpse of an entry foyer from where she stood. There was one lone setting of china, complete with butter dish (butter long gone to time) plates, a bowl, a flute for champaign, and a coffee cup. Even through the dust covering them all, she could still make out the shimmer of metal set into the china.

Crispin frowned, obviously disappointed with their first room. "Not even any old spells laying about!"

Cori picked up the champagne flute in a gloved hand and blew the dust off it. "Uncle Brand had decent taste in crystal, anyway. What did you think, Crispin? He was going to keep his spells in the breakfast nook?"

She held out her hand for the crowbar. "If a spellbook is what you want, we need to look for a study, or a workroom, maybe. Let's go find it."

He stuck his tongue out at her as they wandered into the foyer, but it quickly wilted back into his mouth as he craned his neck up. Above them, swinging in an unfelt breeze, a chandelier creaked from side to side, a multitude of finely shaped crystal tinkling with every sway. Above it, a domed ceiling was painted in a strange, dreamlike landscape, where perspective seemed a whim, and monochromatics prevailed.

"And dad won't even let me do a little mural in the sitting room..."

"I've heard the stories about Uncle Brand's *paintings* and so have you. Don't look at it too hard. Unicorn alone knows where it would take you."

But Cori, too, was admiring the dreamscape. After a moment, she blinked a couple of times and looked around for the likely route to the workroom.

The front rooms contained a parlour and a smallish library, most likely only the more mundane of Uncle Brand's collection. Crispin noted a small volume of leather, and Cori watched as he popped it into the bag and galloped up one of the arching staircases in the foyer.

Upstairs showed a little more promise, as a little wandering revealed a trophy room... but not trophies like Cori had ever seen. Animals, strange and stuffed, adorned the walls, some of their skin and fur so well preserved she could have sworn they were still alive. Blades of curious metals and makes took up the space not taken by creatures. There were paintings as well, and woodcarvings, places fantastic and unreal, and small bits of mechanical creations that had no hope of working in ever stable Amber.

Cori left the books intact. In the trophy room, she found a small carving of a woman of some material, probably the tooth of some animal that only existed in the wild shadows near Chaos, and that she added to her own knapsack.

She considered a dagger, but decided against it, as there was no telling what sort of spell Uncle Brand might have cast on his weapons.

Crispin had no such qualms about the weapons, picking up a quicksilver foil held together by some long ago magic. He cut the air with it, his eyes wide and dancing as they scanned the treasures of the room. "All this... he must have found in shadow! Incredible..."

"I'm sure our father has as many interesting things locked away," Cori said loftily. She gave into her impulse and picked up a dagger, examining its pommelstone of pearlescent green.

"I bet he has better stuff in his lab," she added after a moment.

"I bet so, too!" Crispin found a sheath for the sword and slapped it on his hip, obviously not wrestling with the problem of hiding it yet. He peeked out into the hallway, then chose the left side to walk down. "I don't know about dad having a collection, though. From the way I've heard him and some of the others talk, I think his trophy room would look a whole lot different than that. More headshots and stuff like that." He came to a door, and trying it, found it locked. He frowned and settled down in front of it, staring at the keyhole. He reached in his pocket and withdrew a set of slim, sliver picks.

Cori waited until Crispin's back was turned to stick her tongue out at him.

She followed him down the hall, attaching the dagger's sheath to her belt as she walked, and stopped with him at the locked door. "Careful of any watch spells," she whispered.

"I know that!" he hissed back at her as he slipped the first pick into the keyhole. Where he has picked up this particular talent he had never let on, and guarded the knowledge of it fiercely. As far as Cori knew, she was the only one that locking any of her drawers or jewelry boxes was a lost cause when Crispin was in the vicinity.

The lock was a tricky one, taking a good fifteen minutes of slight pushes and shoves with the picks until there was an audible click. Crispin jumped to his feet, then gently eased open the door, a feather-lipped cat grin on his face. They peered in, and it ran off of his face.

The light spell flooded the room as the door opened, and Cori could see what must have been Uncle Brand's mater suite. Velvet curtains hung in decaying tatters, the gold brocade dingy with time. Paintings looked down from every wall, ghostly women and men that neither of the twins knew. The bed was rumpled, as if the maid had neglected to rescue it from it's occupants nighttime mangling. None of that was what caught the twins' attention though... it was an end table, placed next to an innert fireplace. There was a plate...

And half of an eaten apple, only slightly browned at the edges.

"Preservation spell," Cori said, her wide eyes only slightly belying the calm demeanor. "It's just taken this long to start to fade."

She stepped around her brother to take a closer look at the apple, and then at the rest of the room--particularly the night tables, to see what Uncle Brand might have left on them.

As she picked it up, she could see where the flesh had dried out, much like when she and Crispin forgot to bring down the breakfast dishes from the tower, only to discover them the next morning. Crispin narrowed his eyes at it.

"He was trying to perserve an apple?" There was a slight quaver in his voice, one he was fighting hard to hide. His eyes drifted down to the table, where lines were traced into the dust.

On the night table there were candles, wicks burned out and drips of wax on the fine cherry wood. More lines were traced over there, mostly around a forgotten tinderbox.

"Over everything in the room, or maybe what was on the table," Cori replied, keeping her voice firm and calm. She set the apple back down on the plate. "Must have been a powerful spell to hold it to a night's rot in twenty years."

She hoped that Crispin wouldn't consider that the tapestry belied the first thesis.

"Or," she added, "a perfectly human haunting, in which case we may be glad of that blade you're wearing."

He nodded, slowly backing away from the nightstand. "I think whoever it is hasn't been in here for at least a while," he said, "If it was anyone, of course. Maybe we should move on? It looks like Uncle Brand didn't keep much in here for going over."

"Yeah, I think you're right." Cori looked at the floor to see how much they'd tracked in the dust, and whether there were any other footprints.

She also adjusted the dagger sheath on her hip to make sure that it was at the correct angle for a fast draw, in case she needed it.

She caught sight of other footprints, most of them larger than her or her brothers, though one set wasn't bigger by much more. Crispin obscured several of the making his retreat. He shut the door behind him, listening as the lock set in with a click.

"Right... The Lab!" He wandered down the hall, testing more doorknobs and peeking in more rooms.

Cori followed her brother, keeping an eye out for any of the other possible inhabitants of the house, and any sign of where an intruder might have entered.

"If someone is using this place as a hideout, do you think we ought to mention it to someone? It might be important," Cori asked. Her voice was quiet.

Out in the hall, she didn't find any more of the ghostly tracings or footsteps, and the other rooms seemed to have been left alone for decades. Crispin's breathing grows a bit easier.

"Well, looks like they only wanted the bedroom-- Ah! Here we go!" He eased open a door, and Cori peered in, seeing a flight of stairs trailing down into darkness.

Cori let Crispin evade her question for the nonce, but filed it away for later. Her own breathing grew a little easier in time with her brother's as they found more undisturbed rooms.

The unlighted stairwell sent her heart racing again. "Maybe. Could be a servant's stairwell." Cori set her hand to her dagger. "Do you want to go first, or shall I?"

He laughed, the sound echoing down the stairwell much further than one mere story. "I'll go first!" he said as if this were a given all along. He pounced down the stairs, his blade drawn and cutting lazy arcs into the still air.

At the bottom, they were faced with another door, wooden but as solid as stone for the weight of it. It took the two of them several minutes and a handful of helping cantrips to get it open, and by the time they it pushed aside, they were both wet with sweat and shaking. Crispin peered in, and by the grin that flooded his face, Cori knew it had been worth it.

It wasn't a lab like Aunt Fiona's, austere and blinding in its white and metal fixings, or like their father's, more a mishmash of papers and half-formed ideas and sketches... it was almost homey, complete with a fireplace, a decaying velvet armchair, and small side bar. Besides the counters and cabinets dedicated to a multitude of experiments, there were also bookshelves taking up every possible expanse of wall. Crispin wandered to the center of the room, glancing about for a place to possibly start.

Cori didn't hesitate; she went at once to one the bookshelves, examining the books and working out how her uncle had filed them. She cocked her head to the side to read the title of a particularly narrow tome.

"What have you got?" she asked Crispin. "These are principles of magic in various shadows."

Crispin was silent, and Cori wondered if her brother were affecting deafness these days. Finally, he rose from his shelf and pulled out a slim, green book of leather and gold leafing on the side. He opened it and began to skim through.

"It's his journal."

Cori almost ran over to her brother's side. She peeked over his shoulder, as anxious to find out what was in the journal as he was.

"It's from before walking the Pattern," he breathed, turning the carefully perserved pages. The book was thick with magic, layer upon layer of it applied over countless years. Crispin frowned as he started to decipher the slanting scratchings.

Crispin might well be at it for some time. Cori let him go on, and looked at the books immediately surrounding the empty spot from which Crispin had removed the journal.

Cori was looking for another volume of the journal, but another interesting book might prove equally distracting.

There were a multitude of journals sprinkled throughout the various books, ranging from his early years in shadow, up until several years before the start of Patternfall. Other tomes included treatsies on Chaos, the workings of Pattern, ruminations on the Unicorn, and even several sparse volumes of poetry and art theory.

On the floor, Crispin's eyes suddenly grew wide, and lifted a hand to do some reckoning on his fingers.

Cori had settled down with a volume of Brand's journal that dealt with his travels in Shadow when Crispin's gestures drew her attention.

"What is it?" she asked.

"Dad... told us a fib..." His lips spread in a slow smile. "When I asked him how old he was when he walked the Pattern, he said he was in his fifties... When I asked about Uncle Brand, he said the same. But here...

"Brand was eighteen. And he had just walked it."

"That stinker!" Cori gasped indignantly, and came over to review the volume her brother was perusing. She found the relevant passage and did the math herself, counting the years on her fingers just as he had.

"Huh. You're right. I wonder if Dad was really as old as he said, or if he conveniently omitted some facts there, too. Maybe we need to look for his journal next time he's away."

"Maybe he just didn't want to admit his little brother had bested him," Crispin laughed. It died as he looked up, and his eyes caught the still swinging pendulum of a grandmother clock. "Uh... do you think that thing is still right? Because if it is... We've got to fly up to the castle."

[OOC: ooh, cool! a grandmother! I own one of those and I love her!]

Cori muttered an imprecation under her breath. "I don't think we can chance it. Quick, get whatever books we're going to need, and let's grab a bribe for Alexius from the trophy room. Then we're out of here. We'll eat while we ride."

She started stuffing the most interesting of her acquisitions into her knapsack, encouraging Crispin to do the same.

He stuffed the journal of his uncle into his bag, then several more. As an afterthought he grabbed something vaguely educational, then drew the string tight. "Right... I think that dagger I saw on the desk will suit him..."



They were a mess of sweat and food crumbs by the time they came to the castle. The horses panted as they left them to stable hands, and Crispin brushed at his rumbpled jacket with a frown.

"Let's find Alexius. It's getting close to dinner time. We can trade over food."

Cori paused to brush as many crumbs as possible off herself before they entered the castle.

Her knapsack was bulging with several interesting tomes from Brand's library and some knick-knacks from the trophy room. She had set aside a book about the Rebman Pattern from Brand's collection as her own bribe to Alexius.

"Yes, let's. I hope he has some good gossip, or we're for it. We'll have to say we raced home."