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  Abrss
February 7,1994Brion looked across the room full of his cousins and other assorted relatives, taking in view each in their turn. Picking up his tumbler, he took a sip and ambled over to the fire place. Sighing, he set the glass down upon the mantle and warmed his hands at the roaring fire set within before turning back to regard those in the room. Striding over to the side of the fire place, he leaned slightly against stone and cleared his throat. "We have been telling brief stories about our childhood's and experiences" he began. "We have heard of Malithon's exploit's and growing up here in castle Amber and his first trip off into shadow. And I'll not get into any pigeon jokes this evening" he said with a slight smile. "No, this will be a tale filled with no such mirthās for it has shaped me as surely as the Pattern in yon basement has." Reaching up he took a sip from his tumbler before continuing his story. "Each of us has gone off into shadow to learn from experiences found there. Whatever we desire, sooner or later we shall find. No matter how odd or strange. After my walking the Pattern and going off on my own, I lived in many different shadows. As most of you I studied the things that interested me and learned those that were necessary to survive." Turning he paced back and forth in front of the fire place as if looking for a place to start this particular tale. Sighing, he began. "As most of you know, I studied warfare in various forms to a large degree. Became somewhat proficient in arms and tactics. But that was not all that I did in shadow. There was simply too much to do besides be shot at and in fights. Wine, women and music, is that the quote, or part of it? Anyway, I've always enjoyed building things and where ever I went in shadow, there was always something new to do or try. A most exciting time for me was in a shadow country called Russkia... 'Vstavaitye, lyudi russkiye, na slavny boi, na smeyertny boi', "he half chanted to himself. "At that time, the country was changing from a semi feudal agrarian society to a fully industrialized one in a few short years. A truly exciting time to have lived there. So much to do, to build... and all of the people working together. It was hard for all, and dangerous, but rewarding too. I worked on three of their so called 'Hero Projects' where large masses of people were mobilized to achieve a goal in as short of a time as possible. It meant great hardship for those involved and for those around the site, but was also rewarding in the end. There were always shortages of skilled workers there, and engineers were doubly welcomed and blessed. My name was changed slightly to fit in with those of that place, and any mistakes in culture I made, were attributed to being from a far away part of the State. As usual in a shadow where we stay for a long time, I made friends there, many good ones. My first project was a steel mill, one of the first of it's kind to be built. The next was a major dam on the Dneiper river and then the underground railway around Moskva. When the war came, I was in a city called 'Stalingrad' named after the dictator who ruled the country. The battle for the city was long and fierce. Before it ended, I was sent else where to build more defenses and the like. There were many lost comrades in those days and afterward I soon left that shadow for others. Whenever I came back to that shadow earth that Uncle Corwin stayed in so long, I would disguise myself to a suitable age and visit my friends from those long ago days. What does all of this do to shape a scion of Amber you ask yourselves? Not much I readily admit. That comes now. I was visiting a young man now grown into an old one in the southern province called 'Ukraine'. He lived in the capital city there called 'Kiev'. We sat in a park in the spring sunlight and drank vodka and talked of the old times and what had happened in the world since my last visit with him. That had only been five or six years before, and then he was a much younger seeming man than the old man sitting hunched in a sweater beside me now. I had made up stories about being far away and working in the furthest reaches of the world to cover the gaps in what I knew, but I was unprepared for what he told me. A couple of years since my last visit, a nuclear power station nearby had an 'event'. A catastrophe only slightly better than the worst case scenario. A place called Chernobyl was now a ghost town, a toxic site and the damage wasn't limited to just the city. Sergetov had tears running down his face as he told me the story of how the reactor had gone critical, then exploded. The rush of rescue personnel and the bumbling of bearuecrats to deal with the situation. Of the needless loss of life and spread of contamination. The valor of the firefighters trying to cope with the impossible, knowing something was wrong, but not how much so. "In the old days, this thing would not have happened my friend" he said. "We would have built better and stronger, and not as much would have been siphoned off to built the checkist bastard's dacha's. Even as old as I am, I too helped to defend the people and the land! We did what we could, I directed the men under my command and ignored the bastards. But the worthless scum cut off our supplies, and all of our cries for help were ignored. 'To protect the state', they said. How many died that needn't have? How many sick today?!" he cried. "But worst of all are the children. They do nothing for them! As if it is an embarrassment! How can we still be men and live in such a world, Branovsky? How?" He stood suddenly and led me to the tramline and we went down town, and then to the specialist center where they treat children. Where they treat children, the pride and hope of the future of the State..." Brion paused for a moment and his eyes were lost in some vision of the distant past, but one obviously not distant enough.... "We went in and up a couple of floors to a wing where they were treating cancer patients. There he introduced me to a grand niece. Her daughter was in being examined. Somewhere nearby, a child was crying... No, a child was wailing with the desperation of a terrible pain that had gone on for so dreadfully long. But it wouldn't stop, and it kept hurting. Worse and worse. It was a long hopeless cry beyond enduring. You see, his great niece was four and a half years old. She looked like she was only two. So small, so terribly small and thin... They laid her upon a hard table and examined her. She had a tumor on her liver and it wasnāt responding to treatment, so they were stopping it and just letting her died from her disease. I looked into his grand nieces eyes and saw all of the pain she had. You didn't need to be an Amberite to feel the desperation and suffering in the woman. It shone from her eyes each time the child shrieked. Sergie was no better, the tears were running freely down his face as he held her in his thin old arms. The endless wails cut through me, through my soul, if we have such things. She was only a child in some far off shadow, what did her suffering mean to me? Long ago I would have made soothing noises to Sergie and his grand niece, pushed the grief back in their minds for a time. Less long ago, I would have perhaps favored him with my mercy and hellrode the baby to a place of healing and then brought her back to him and all would have been well for him and his family. At least in this regard. But what could I have done for all of the other children stricken by the fallout? For the countryside that would not have disrupted the shadow? Nothing. A prince of great Amber, who could do nothing for a simple child dying in shadow. No matter what I did, there would always be another little Oskanva, suffering somewhere. Was this the reflection of someone in Amber with a stomach ache, or suffering some similar malady? Who knows? I did what any normal man in that shadow could do, no more and no less. "Bring this child morphine'" I told the nurse. When there was hesitation, then excuses I roared at them with all of the fury a scion of Amber could have..."I am a Hero of the Soviet Union twice! I fought the Germans in Stalingrad and before Moskva. Wounded so many times that I have no memory of them. I have bled for the state, built for the state and now it is time for the state to care for it's children and to honor those who fought, bled and died for it! Take me to whomever is in charge of this. You are not responsible, but somewhere there is someone who can do this thing. Or else I will shoot them myself!" Of course I had the necessary identification, being a retired major general in a guard's tank division and was soon able to get the child relief, however temporary from her death pains. I saw to it that the girl was cared for and reached an understanding with the nurse. While it is a sin there before God to murder, and doubly so to kill a child, it was an act of charity to end the suffering of an innocent babe. Sergie and I ate with his grandnieceās family and afterwards drank vodka together. They were good people, shadow dweller's or not. They were all so pathetically grateful to me. To me, who had done nothing. I swore to them then, in a language that they didn't understand, being Thari, that from then on, I would never be so careless or callow to mindlessly slay those of shadow or needlessly make them suffer. I take responsibility for my actions, shortfalls as well as triumphs by both the Pattern and the Unicorn. So, if I fail in something, I will admit it, and hopefully learn from it. As long as I am true to myself and my beliefs, then what others think of me has little importance." Taking up his drink, Brion finished his tea and then set it upon the table.
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