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Message: <blockquote data-quote="talien" data-source="post: 4880160" data-attributes="member: 3285">Castle Ambrose: Part 13b – Alchemistry LaboratoryKham dreamed of Camilla, Cassilda, Naotalba and Aldones. Camilla entered the throne room, her nightgown dirty and torn, her hair stringy and damp. She held the Stranger’s robe tightly to her breast.  Her gaze wandered until she saw Aldones.  She smiled broadly, paused a moment, and then danced around the room, waving the robe in the air like a flag.“As if summoned, she appears,” said Naotalba in wonder.“Great joy, father,” shouted Camilla, “for the Yellow Sign is found!  Great joy to all who see it! Great…”“Traitor!” snarled Aldones.  “You sell us to the priests and the mob!  What price your treachery? What profit your crimes?”Camilla stopped, uncertain and confused.  “Dear father…”Aldones turned to Cassilda.  “It is a simple matter, your majesty.  If she is mad, that’s one thing.  But if she simply acts of it, if she is indeed a traitor, then we must stop her.”Cassilda eyed her daughter as she spoke to Aldones.  “Your explanations wheel like a flight of sparrows, Aldones.  I am growing impatient.”“Hardly,” said Aldones.Naotalba ignored him.  “Did she not see Carcosa’s rising tide?””No one sees it now, priest,” said Aldones.“She, like her brother before her, has dropped your dynasty’s veil behind,” he responded to Aldones.  “So crossing from your destiny to mine.”“So she’s with you, then?” “Surely she has chosen madness wisely—” “Riddles!” shouted Aldones.  “Riddles!  While war wages about us, ruin closer by the minute, you rhyme and preen and gloat! I’ve had enough!”“I am content to wait,” said Naotalba.  “The time cannot be long in coming.”“But father, how is Uoht?” asked Camilla. “I had him arrested…“Aldones interrupted her.  “The traitor admits it!”“…as you asked me,” she finished.“Calm yourself, Aldones,” said Cassila.  “She sounds to me as though her madness retreats a little, if such a thing were possible.  Hear her out.”“If you will not defend your dynasty, I will!” Aldones grabbed a musket from a guard’s hands and aimed it at Camilla.Naotalba dove to the ground.  “Save us!”Cassilda rose to her feet and screamed.  “No!”Aldones fired.  The musket flashed with fire and smoke and Camilla crumpled to the ground.  As the explosive sound echoed away, absolute silence reigned.“So.  ‘Tis true.  ‘Tis all true,” said Cassilda, resigned.  “After a fashion.”Aldones seemed to be stunned after what he’d done.  “Cassilda…”“Only ‘twas you.”  Cassilda calmly drew her sword.  “’Twas you who sent Uoht to the tower, to his death.  And now…”“Dear wife!” exclaimed Aldones.“To cover your lies…”“Not true!”“Aldones,” Cassilda said deliberately.  “It is you who are the traitor.”Aldones dropped the musket, almost throwing it away.  He shook. “You lied to me, you slack-brained piece of human filth.  How long were you lying to me?  How long?  Just today? A week? A year? When have you not lied to me, to all of us?”“No! I… I…” Aldones looked about wildly.  “Naotalba.  Yes, Naotalba…”Cassilda took a step down from the throne, growing in her anger as Aldones shrank.  “What?”“He bewitched me.”Cassidal took another step.  “Try again.”“I…I was mad.”She stepped off the dais.  “No.”“It’s not my fault.  I…”“Draw your sword.”“But she was a…that is she…ah!”Cassilda swung her sword at Aldones.  He backed away hurriedly and drew his own blade.  She swung her blade in a wicked arc at his head, and Aldones only barely blocked the blow.“Murderer! Liar!” She wounded Aldones.  “You have destroyed us!”“I sacrificed the present,” shouted Aldones, “for the future!”“Tell me—was it ambition or just a natural sense of cruelty that drove you?” She struck another blow.Aldones recovered his poise slightly and mounted a stronger defense.“Destiny drove me.”“Please…”“It was always my destiny to repudiate your dismissal of me.  You’re such an idiot, Cassilda.  You never had the will to do what was politically necessary.” “Necessary?” Enraged, Cassilda drove him back.  “Necessary?  What was necessary?” She slashed Aldones’ arm.  “Was Camilla necessary?  Was Uoht necessary?  Our children; our future, that was your sacrifice, for your anger and your ego.  Were all the murders necessary?” She slashed his other arm.  “The lies?”Aldones retreated, afraid.  “Cassilda!”“The torture—was that also politically necessary? Or did you just enjoy it?”“Cassilda…”“Why won’t you die?”  She lunged and stabbed him through the thigh.“I…I only wanted…to save us.”“See how you have condemned us?”Cassilda knocked Aldones’ sword from his hand and he fell against the throne.  She raised her sword for the killing blow and struck.Even as the breath left Aldones’ lungs, spells that had been in place for just such a contingency went into effect.  “He is dead, your majesty,” said Naotalba.Cassilda was still shaking in her rage.  “Is truth so easily dispatched?”“What shall we do now, your majesty?” asked the priest.“I don’t know.” Cassilda paused.  “Dispose of the body.”“It…it seems to have vanished.”</blockquote>

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