From: "Mordaxy" Fair Warning! I am cleaning out some old fanfic vaults of mine, and what do I come across but a strange, out-of-the-way fic I wrote years ago and never posted. So here it is, be gentle, I wrote it when I was still a newbie. Castlevania and all the stuff from it (basically just Alucard in this case) belongs to Konami, I assume. The Chronicles of Amber and all contained therein belong to Roger Zelazny and I wouldn't dare dream of pretending otherwise. I probably shouldn't have even done this to them, but ah well... ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Shadows In Tir-na Nog'th A Castlevania: SotN/Chronicles of Amber Crossover 'Fic Orrin "Mordaxy" Smith mordaxy@powwwer.net Pale silver… moonlight and spirits and darkness… shadows on the wall, moving erratically… Alucard stood on a balcony and stared across the world spread out beneath him. The breeze stirred his long white hair. Below him, he could see a city atop a great mountain, he could see a forest stretching out below it, and an ocean. Shining in the depths of the ocean was an exact duplicate of the city atop the mountain. His eyes narrowed. "Where am I?" he asked, casting his eyes down to the object he held squeezed tightly in his left hand. The Eye of Xerxes stared back at him. He had used it to bring him here, to open a gateway, but now that he was here, he didn't know where here was. The command he had given it had been vague at best, issued on passion, without thinking. Perhaps, he mused, turning away from the stunning view the balcony offered, just perhaps, he had bitten off a bit more than he had intended. So to speak… ***** Corwin stood on a balcony. The light from the room behind him showed through onto his perch somewhat, backlighting him. He stared at nothing, his eyes unfocused across the dark ocean and the sky, where the full moon shone on Tir-na Nog'th. Perhaps the ghost city's presence was what had drawn him out into the night, or perhaps it was just the odd mood he had been in. He felt… wrong somehow… There was no basis for it, but in his years spent in Shadow, he had learned to trust his instincts. Random was behind him, somewhere inside the room. Corwin didn't need to look. He could feel his presence. Grayswandir was at his side. Why he wore the blade on that particular night, he couldn't really say. He presumed it had something to do with the strange feeling of wrongness. He smiled a grim smile. "What's wrong with you tonight?" Random asked, approaching his back. "Just… edgy…" Corwin replied, turning his gaze more directly on the floating city in the sky. "Ever since our friendly neighborhood reflection in the air reappeared, I've been feeling a little off." Random strode up to his side, cast his gaze more directly on the floating city as well. For several moments they stood in silence, but then Random sucked in a breath. "Corwin," he whispered. "Yeah?" "Have I had too much wine, or is there someone coming down the stairs?" ***** Alucard jerked his blade free of the twitching corpse. His cold gaze swept the burning remains of the village. All of them had been... changed. Twisted, reshaped, transformed into monstrous creatures. He had come on a whim, almost. A gray-haired youth had asked him to help his village, and he had accompanied him to it. But as the villagers began to surround him, screaming for his blood, the youth had transformed as well, until it was a wolf-creature that crouched at Alucard's side. It had been the first to feel the bite of his family sword. Now the entirety of the village burned around him, all its inhabitants lay dead by his hand. And there, in the village's center, the huge altar, above which he had seen a ghostly shape hovering during the battle, was empty. Vacant. He remembered, dimly, the villagers-turned-horrors shrieking the name of their god as they fought and died. Calling out the name Ayam'Bar. Alucard strode to the altar, all shining black stone and strange, twisting runes. He reached into his pouch and drew out the Eye of Xerxes, newly acquired in his travels. He sheathed his blade and thrust the Eye out before him, holding it in both hands. The world began to turn foggy and indistinct around him. "Take me to it," he said. ***** Corwin drew in his horse's reigns. The animal skidded to a halt, whinnying slightly in protest as Corwin vaulted from the saddle. Before him stood the three stone steps, and above those the rest of the steps, cast in stark moonlight. A man he didn't recognize was descending them. His long white hair and similarly long black cape (with red lining) whipped about him in the wind. There was a sword sheathed at his side, but he did not draw it, so Corwin kept Grayswandir equally put away. However, his hand never strayed too far from its hilt. The pale-haired stranger stepped onto the first of the three stone steps. He descended them rapidly, and soon he stood on the wet grass before Corwin. "I am Prince Corwin of Amber," Corwin said, nodding his head to the stranger. "May I ask your name and what you were doing in Tir-na Nog'th?" "My name is Alucard," the stranger murmured, "and I come seeking the blade Grayswandir. Do you know where I can find it?" Corwin narrowed his eyes. "It seems you seek well, then, for this is Grayswandir at my hip. May I ask why you seek it?" "I need it," Alucard replied simply. "I'm afraid that isn't a good enough reason," Corwin informed him. "Pity," Alucard said, drawing his blade in a smooth arc. He was good, Corwin had to admit. He had Grayswandir out in a breath. Alucard began to circle to his left. Corwin followed suit, keeping an even distance between them. Alucard lunged forward suddenly, swinging his sword in a wide arc which Corwin didn't even bother trying to block as it fell rather short. When the pale man followed the swing through with a rapid slash from another, far shorter sword that he had drawn from somewhere to his back, however, Corwin realized this fight was going to be a bit more interesting than he had expected. He smiled, parried, and pressed the attack. ***** Alucard stumbled, his ankle striking the bottommost of the three stone steps that seemed to anchor the strange, ghostly city to the earth. His sword flashed like lightning, but his opponent was beginning to wear him down and Alucard, traveling light, had few backup items to use in situations like this. He tried to run down a catalog of them in his mind, but the blade he sought was coming too close to finding him, he couldn't concentrate enough. He had to keep his mind on the fight. He backed onto the steps, using his slight increase in height to his advantage, holding his foe temporarily at bay. The man fought incredibly, better than any other swordsman Alucard had met in his travels. The way he moved, it was almost superhuman… Grayswandir came out of nowhere, and it was all Alucard could do to block it. As it was, he had to retreat upward a bit more. Again and again the blades clanged together, the sound shattering the peace of the early morning. Alucard suppressed a shudder when he saw that Prince Corwin was still smiling as he drove him back. Alucard knew that if he was forced back another step, they would be fighting on the phantom staircase that cut through the sky. Alucard lashed out with the short sword he was wearing as a supplementary weapon, only to have Corwin catch his wrist and twist it sharply. He dropped the sword, grunting in pain, but only caught a glance of it as it spun down to oblivion. He brought his sword, grunting in pain, but only caught a glance of it as it spun down to oblivion. He brought his sword down hard, but, as always, Grayswandir was there to block it. And what a block it was, shoving his arms back the way they had come and driving him back two steps with its sheer force. He was now standing on the upper staircase, and Corwin had begun to ascend the stone steps. Their swords clanged together a couple more time, but Corwin seemed to be wearing down. But he still held that infuriating grin on his face, as if he knew something that Alucard did not. The blades clashed again. The first rays of the sun slashed across the sky over the horizon, casting the scene in brilliant red-gold radiance. Alucard narrowed his eyes and prepared a new attack, but then he felt himself slide downward. He looked down. The staircase had become more insubstantial. He tried to step forward, but his foot could not find purchase. The sun hurled itself fee of the horizon, and Alucard fell. ***** Corwin grinned. He wasn't sure if his opponent had fainted from the shock of falling or from that fact that, when Corwin caught him, all the blood rushed from his brain for a moment. It didn't really matter, in the end, except perhaps to the pale man's pride. But that might be seriously damaged very soon anyway. Alucard's eyes flickered open. He seemed surprised not to be lying crushed at the bottom of the cliff. He looked down, shuddered slightly, then glanced up and met Corwin's eyes with cold confidence. Corwin smiled back and tightened his hold on the pale man's wrist. "I think we sort of got off on the wrong foot," Corwin offered. "Perhaps we should try to start again? Hello, my name is Prince Corwin of Amber, and you are?" "My name is Alucard. Where is my sword?" "If you mean the one you used to fight me, then it's right over there," Corwin replied, gesturing loosely toward where the Alucard sword was stuck into the ground. "If you mean the sword you fought to take from me, it is still here, safe in its scabbard. Sorry." "I meant the former, of course. I have no right to call the second sword my own if I could not succeed in winning it from you. What do you intend to have done to me?" "Well, for one thing, I'm a very special kind of prince, and I don't have things done to people, I DO things to people. For another, I'm going to have you tell me why you are after my sword. I find that I have some personal interest in the matter." "I doubt you'd be inclined to believe me…" "I've heard a lot of things in my life. I believed some of them," Corwin informed him. A flicker of a smile crossed Alucard's aristocratic countenance. "Very well, but be it on you head I warned you. Where would you like me to begin?" "I want to know why you want my sword. Begin wherever you feel the need." "Well, I was traveling, nowhere in particular, just moving, when I came across a youth in the forest. The youth said that his village was being plagued by the undead…" For several minutes, all of them spent hanging by Corwin's grip alone above a drop that yawned almost certain death, he told Corwin why he need Grayswandir. Everything from his journey to the village, slaying the monsters that had been the villagers, his ill-advised transport command to the Eye of Xerxes a she pursued the villagers' dark and hungry god. He told of how, when he did this, the Eye had taken him to Tir-na Nog' th; and of how he had spent some time just wandering its halls. Then he explained that he eventually found the god the villagers had worshipped, and that it did indeed turn out to be localized in Tir-na Nog'th. When he tracked it down, he had gotten his first good look at it as its ghostly form hauled itself out of the darkness of some forgotten well or hole somewhere. He hadn't taken a really good look, he was too amazed by what was before him. And it rose, and rose, and rose. It seemed as if it was roaring a challenge, but he could hear nothing. It reached down to pick him up with one of its grasping, grating feeler-hands, but found that it could not. Once more, it roared silently in impotent rage. But Alucard knew, somehow, that while it was powerless here, on other worlds, like his own, its power was immense. He then told how he had learned, from strange writings and portents in Tir-na Nog'th, that the only way for him to have a chance of destroying the thing or, in fact, interacting with any of Tir-na Nog'th's specters, was to use Grayswandir, so he had come for it. As Alucard's story wound down, Corwin slowly placed him on the grass. Alucard looked around, almost as if he had gotten *used* to hanging like that. Well, maybe not EXACTLY like that. Despite Corwin's own silence on the subject, he knew what Alucard was. A half-vampire, son of Dracula, Alucard could be a truly dangerous individual. "And you expect me to believe that story?" "It's the only one I have…" "I guess it's your lucky day then," Corwin said. "I believe it." ***** Alucard looked around himself, marveling at how much like the ghost city in the sky this Amber was. Without the silvery moonlight, without the strange flickering shadows and the drifting apparitions, but architecturally almost an exact duplicate. It was amazing. He wondered if the city down there beneath the waves was the same as well. He assumed it probably was. The man who had identified himself as Prince Corwin, the man who had defeated him in a drawn-out sword fight, strode before him through the halls, the clicks of his boot heels echoing in the stillness. All Alucard knew of the man's intentions was that he claimed to believe his story, and he had told him not to worry, that Tir-na Nog'th would appear the next night as well. He had gone on to explain the strange character of the city that caused it to appear only on nights the blazing light of the moon. He told him of how it was populated only by specters, and that the things seen within were supposedly prophecy. Alucard gathered, from how he spoke, that this man placed little stock in prophecy, however. After a time, they stopped at a doorway and Corwin raised his fist, rapping sharply on the door. `Who is it?" a voice asked from inside. "It's me, Corwin," Corwin replied. "Corwin!" the voice came again, followed by the sounds of a door being unlatched. "Did you catch up with them? Why didn't you Trump me?" the man beyond the door stopped speaking as he swung it fully open, his eyes falling upon Alucard. "Random," Corwin said. "This is Alucard. He came from Tir-na Nog'th last night. Alucard, this is my brother Random." ***** A fire blazed warmly in the hearth of one of Amber's many sitting rooms. Alucard was standing next to the fire, staring absently at the flames. Random had been sitting on a couch, but Corwin noticed him stand and approach his back. Corwin turned. "Why are you helping him?" Random asked, jerking his thumb toward Alucard. "My reasons are my own," Corwin replied. "Come on, Corwin. This is me…" "I… I'm not really sure. I just have a feeling. I don't know what it is, but I felt that if I let him die, it would be… I don't know… bad? That doesn't seem right, but I can't put it to words…" Random nodded. "And besides, if there's something like what he describes in Tir-na Nog'th, wreaking havoc in Shadow, I want to know about it. Maybe even DO something about it." Random nodded again, solemnly. "It'll be back tonight," he said. "You're going up there with him, correct?" Now it was Corwin's turn to nod. "I'll be here on the ground, with your Trump. Waiting. If I see the city break up, even a little, I'll bring you across." "Thanks," Corwin said, clapping him on the shoulder. "Don't think I'm doing it for you," he replied. "It's just that Vialle likes you, and she'd kill me if I let you get killed before she got to know you better." Corwin chuckled. "Tell her I thank her for forcing her husband to save my life, next time you see her." "Seriously, though, be careful up there. Just because they're all spirits doesn't necessarily mean you're safe…" "I'm always careful," Corwin said, fingering Grayswandir's hilt. ***** The silvery moonlight, the same… the drifting shadows, the same… the ambling spirits, the same… only different too, changed by his perspective and by Corwin's place at his side… this was Tir-na Nog'th… Together they walked through the moonlit halls. Corwin had Grayswandir out, presumably in case he needed it to interact with the spirit world around him, and so Alucard drew his sword as well. Corwin cast a glance at him when he did so, but said nothing. Alucard led on, toward the room that contained what he assumed to be the god Ayam'Bar. The halls of the ghost city passed by them quickly, and soon, too soon, they stood before the doorway Alucard remembered. Something was different this time, however. Blood was running out from under the door. The two of them stood before the large door, watching the blood for a moment. As they stood, the crimson fluid began to flow out of the keyhole as well, and from around the edges of the door. They exchanged a glance, and Alucard threw the door wide. The room was empty. No blood, no devil-god, no nothing. A large black it yawned in the center of the room. "Is this the place?" Corwin asked. "Yes. It came from there." Alucard gestured to the pit with the point of his sword. "I don't recognize this room. It doesn't seem to click with any room in Amber," Corwin mused. "I wonder what it could mean?" Then, there was a scream. It seemed to echo off the walls, cascading around the room and building rapidly in volume. Soon, the scream was joined by others until dozens, perhaps hundreds, of voices were roaring in torment. The sound was all but deafening, and surrounded by its cacophonous wailing, the thing rose from the pit. It towered in height, and seemed more substantial now than when Alucard had first confronted it. One huge face burned in its chest, a face of smoldering darkness, like a negative of a face instead of a face itself. Around it, all over the thing, were other faces, all of them mouthing the same word over and over. Even through the terrible screaming, they could hear the faces chanting. "Death," they said. "Death, death…" The thing had at least five things that could've passed for arms. Three of them pulled it free of the pit, the other two were reaching for Alucard and Corwin. Alucard prepared to defend himself. He slashed as the arm approached, but his sword slid right through. The hand grasped at him, but could not touch him. He glanced toward Corwin, who drove Grayswandir into the palm of the hand that had gone for him. The thing unleashed a whistling roar and snatched its hand back, slamming it against the ceiling as it did. Corwin moved forward, Grayswandir shining in his hand, grim determination shining in his eyes. ***** Corwin had known that there was a reason for all of this. He had felt it. Now he knew, at least part of it, if not all. He recognized some of the faces that decorated the horror before him. Eric's face was there, so too was Lorraine's and others he had known. All of them shared one thing in common. They were all dead. The thing tried to crush him again. It whistle-roared as the screaming continued to rebound off the walls, threatening to drive him mad, if he was not already. He slashed at the things arms as it swung at him. A wide slash appeared as the deadly fist plunged right through him. He smiled. This thing could not harm him. He felt Random then. He had left his Trump contact with Random open, so that Random could intervene if something went terribly wrong. "Corwin!" Random's voice cut through his mind. "You have to get out. Let me bring you across! Now!" "Just a moment, I've got to finish this thing off," Corwin hissed. "A cloud bank has come in, Corwin. The moon's going. That place is going to vanish soon!" "Dammit," Corwin cursed. "One moment." Still making its terrible noises, the thing looked as if it were reconsidering this battle. As Corwin watched, it began to release its hold on the sides of the well. To drop back into its pit. He couldn't allow that. He rushed forward, jammed his blade as deep as he could into the thing's chest. It shook with rage, but it had already released its hold. It slid by him, plunging down into the darkness. Grayswandir split it in two as it fell. When the thing was gone from sight, and the terrible noise was beginning to fade, Corwin turned to make sure Alucard was okay. He noticed then that he could see right through the far wall. Then the ground fell out from beneath them. ***** Random stood on his balcony. Corwin and Alucard stood before him. "Next time, Corwin, let me bring you across before you're taking a pleasure dive into the ocean," Random chided. "I was busy before," Corwin replied. "And now I've got to check on something." He stood straight, sheathing Grayswandir, and made for the door. Without a word, Alucard followed him. Shrugging, Random picked up the tail of the party. They walked rapidly through the halls of Amber, coming to a door that Random recognized immediately as being the Amberian equivalent of the door they had gone through in Tir-na Nog'th, an exact duplicate, only without the blood. Corwin threw it open and all three of them stared inside. It was a sitting room, here in Amber. One of many. There was no huge pit in the center, but all of them understood why almost immediately. A huge chandelier was suspended in the room, setting it apart from the other sitting rooms in Amber. The chandelier was attached to a complex circle of black stone set in the ceiling. The stone within the circle was obviously newer than the stone around the outside. The room's reflection was simply cast upside-down in the ghost city for some reason. They all understood. They would still have understood, even if it hadn't been for the extenuating evidence. But it was there anyway. Desiccated corpses hung from the chandelier. Parts of them poked out of the new stone of the black circle, as if they had always been there. Two or three lay on the floor. "This room will be burned," Corwin whispered, "and then sealed off. See it done." Random nodded. He didn't trust himself to speak. ***** Corwin stood on the three stone steps. The sunlight bathed the world in its golden glory. Behind him, he knew Alucard was staring across the landscape as well. "You seem to understand what happened," Alucard murmured. "I think so, yes. I think that all the deaths in Amber lately, the wars, the battles, the back stabbing, had somehow been reflected into Tir-na Nog'th in some twisted, altered way. It is famous for bringing to life fears and hatreds, secret desires. All the deaths somehow got to it, and created that thing that we slew. I'm not certain how the connections work, but that's the best theory I can come up with." Alucard nodded. "I was thinking along vaguely similar lines." Corwin was silent for a moment, and when he spoke, it was on a different topic altogether. "You are welcome to stay in Amber for as long as you would like. You have done us a great service, and I think that both your sword arm and your wit could prove useful in the future. Amber has known its fair share of strife of late, it seems." Alucard cast his gaze up into the sky, to the space where Tir-na Nog'th had hung. "I think," he said, "that I would enjoy that." ========================= -- Orrin "Mordaxy" Smith mordaxy@powwwer.net ICQ # 36595002 'Mordaxy' www.powwwer.net/~mordaxy It is a fiction... =========================