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BELTAINE


Played by Jane Winter.


"I seemed to move among a world of ghosts,
And feel myself the shadow of a dream."


Appearance

Beltaine's Trump

"Half light, half shade,
She stood, a sight to make an old man young."

Beltaine has not aged visibly since walking the Pattern in her eighteenth year. Tall and willowy, a little too thin, with delicate features and deep shadows beneath her fey green eyes. Her expression is sweet, but a little lost-unless she is focusing hard, she has a slightly distant look; a fey effect which only enhances her (sometimes literally!) ethereal and slightly exotic beauty. When she does concentrate, her gaze and expression become very intense - her resemblance to Brand is very strong on these occasions. As the moon over Amber waxes, her hair slowly turns from midnight black to moonlight pale, as her skin pales and takes on a silvery sheen. Since walking the Pattern in the Sky, she fades to a ghostly, semi-ethereal state when the moon is at its fullest and Tir-Na Nog'th is visible. As the moon wanes, her dark colouring and more human look return. Only the green eyes remain constant.

Even at its darkest, her hair somehow reflects as silver in certain lights (think of that black stone that looks gold if you turn it into the light). She wears her hair long and loose and prefers to dress in simple dark colours (she is particularly fond of darkest red), occasionally varied with white and silver. She never wears the 'unlucky' colour green (her father's colour, and Caine's) - however well, per Florimel, it would match her eyes, dear. Her customary mode of dress is best described as a mixture of New Age and Gothic, though she can and does play the Court Lady when the occasion demands. She wears at all times a simple choker necklace of five multi-faceted stones: one each of blue, rose, green, red and amethyst (her Soulstones). She has a large collection of Tarot decks, crystals, essential oils, and carnival masks.


Background And History

The last of the guardians was gone. Beltaine knew it as she woke, cold silver light spilling over her face. Old Math, the last of all, had known his time was close, fading as had all his kind after her father left and never returned. And at the last he had wept, not for himself but for the loved, warm-blooded girl he would leave alone in that lonely place, waiting for the father who never came. Her secret would have comforted him, perhaps, but he could not be trusted. He was what he was, and would have raised his last strength to prevent her leaving, even as those fragile crystalline tears fell.

No one would prevent her now.

Silently, she gathered Math's pale blue soulstone, touched it to her lips, and placed it with the others shaken from her pouch - blue, rose, green, deepest red, clear amethyst. The stones made a faint sighing, singing sound as she ran her hands over them. She smiled.

"Show me," she sang to them. "Teach me the way." A series of notes, inhumanly clear, kindling a flame in each stone until their harmony joined her own. "Yes..." For a moment she relaxed, letting their power flood her mind, soothe her fears. Then she summoned will, picturing it as a silver net to catch their fire, just as her mother's song had shown her. The last song, the very last her mother's loving, grieving mind had sung before she was called away, back to her own.

"Show me..." she sang to them again, and on a clear, high note, she joined her song with theirs and made it her own. Power of Blood from her father, siren Voice from her mother. The curtain of silver fire parted at a gesture, and she stepped through into the city of ghosts.

Her silvery laughter rose through the song, drowning it, and the stones were abruptly cold and dead in her hands. Argent fire blazed at her back as if there had never been a door, and she was alone. "I had to," she whispered, as if accused. "You promised, and you never came back." The flames blazed up, so bright that she flinched back, shielding her eyes. Just as abruptly, they died. Behind them was nothing she knew. Clenching her hands around the spellstones, Beltaine turned and ran.


She had run free in the city for what felt like days when she became aware of the stranger, and was drawn to watch him as he walked seemingly at random, occasionally pausing before this shade or that, even addressing their unheeding forms. Beltaine felt sorry for him.

"They don't speak, often. You can talk to me if you want." Her clear, soft voice brought his bright gaze round fiercely in her direction, his hand moving to the hilt of his sword; and she saw his face for the first time.

"Oh! You came!" Impulse took her towards him joyfully, hands held out, before her mind corrected that first impression - her father's green eyes, certainly, but hair midnight dark where she looked for burnished red. So close, though, so close...

She came to an uncertain stop, out of breath, pushing back tousled raven locks to gaze up at him with solemn curiosity.

Gerard of Amber looked back; saw a pale child with his dead brother's eyes and that same intense, fey look. Reached out a hand slowly (the other never leaving the hilt of his sword) and gently touched fingertips to a pale cheek, cold but unmistakably flesh and blood. Green eyes studied him trustingly, and a small hand crept up to take his own.

"I think I should come with you," the soft voice said, seriously. "You look lonely."

"I think ... perhaps you should."


Beltaine is Brand's daughter. She was found by Gerard during a visit to Tir-Na Nog'th in the year 89 PPF, apparently a child some seven years of age. Officially declared Random's Ward, she was brought up largely by Vialle until the age of thirteen, when a separate household was set up for her in Castle Amber - a move predominantly designed to allay any Family fears that she might be fully adopted by the King and thus find her way into the line of succession. To all appearances, though, once he got past an initial wariness of her, Random has treated his ward almost like his own daughter. She was always a little hurt deep down that he didn't adopt her fully - even though as she got older she did understand why. As a result, she feels somewhat 'half-accepted' and uncomfortable in the Family. No one knows when her real birthday is, so Vialle decided they would celebrate the day she was found by Gerard instead.

Beltaine was a quiet child, inclined to daydream - and also to talk and walk in her sleep, especially around full moon. She suffered nightmares for months after Flora 'accidentally' let slip the full story of Brand's actions during Patternfall and the nature of his death, when the girl was aged around twelve. With Random's time mostly taken up with ruling Amber, Beltaine's upbringing was mostly left in the hands of Vialle, and a series of private tutors (some of which she shared with Caleb). Precociously intelligent, she made few friends among other children but never seemed to mind.

Random always distrusted her attraction to Tir-Na Nog'th and did his best to keep her away from it, and from using her strange powers. Despite this, as she grew older, Beltaine continued to feel herself drawn back to Tir-Na Nog'th, a compulsion which reached its most unbearable as she neared her eighteenth year and actually began to sicken when Random kept her away. Finally driven to run away, Beltaine made her way back up into the city of ghosts, ran unerringly to the place she knew she would find the Pattern, and walked out into the heart of it. Gerard found her the next morning, unconscious beside the stone steps on Kolvir where the stairs to Tir-Na Nog'th began. The hair spilling across her face was pure silver, and she was half dead from exhaustion, unable to remember anything at all after the wild exultation of reaching the Pattern's centre.

For a few months following her Patternwalk, Beltaine was terribly ill - fevers, dreadful headaches, delirium and a terrible lack of energy - although no one knew why the experience should have resulted in more than the usual exhaustion. It took her several months to recover properly. Her strange dreams (and sleepwalking too), previously concentrated around full moons in Amber, now became more vivid and likely to occur at any time.

Since recovering, she has divided her time between Amber and travelling in Shadow, gradually staying away for longer and longer periods. In Shadow, she will almost always be found travelling as some kind of musician; her voice seems to literally fascinate Shadow folk. Her current hang out is a dark-ish version of shadow Earth, where she is indulging her gift for Voice with a goth-type band called Shadowplay, but she is just as likely to be found as a harp-playing travelling minstrel.

In Amber, she is most likely to be found absorbed in her music (which is known to be some kind of channel for her magic). Florimel ropes her into a lot of 'behind the scenes' preparations for Castle events (planning of decorations, themes, music), but discovered a long time ago that Beltaine is deeply uncomfortable in any kind of more public hostess role.

She is also much in demand as a dress designer these days - her clothes tend to incorporate elements of colour therapy and the like, and are styled to create certain moods in the people wearing them rather than with any regard for current fashion. She is rather choosy about who she will and won't design for.

Having found Beltaine, Gerard remained interested in (and protective of) her. As Beltaine got older she began to spend quite a lot of her time with him, discovering a love for sea travel which outlasted her adolescent years; it satisfies both her restlessness and her urge for solitude. Her yacht, the 'Demeter', is usually to be found in Amber's harbour, and she is fond of throwing parties (usually costume parties) on board.

Her household in Amber is run by Lucien; a combination of surrogate grandfather, mother-hen, confidant and teacher. Silver-haired and serene, nothing phases Lucien. He has served long years in Castle Amber and seen and heard it all. He seems to think of Beltaine as an innocent amongst the Family wolves (in fact, he occasionally seems unaware of the fact that she is no longer a child), and can be overly protective of his mistress, as well as an incurable matchmaker and gossip. In his role as matchmaker, Lucian seems to hope that 'the right man' would cure his charge of some of her stranger habits and compete with the ghosts of Tir-Na Nog'th for her attention. Her rooms are fairly sparsely furnished and hold a large collection of Tarot decks (she is known for very accurate readings), crystals, essential oils, and the carnival masks she enjoys making.

Beltaine shares a cautious sort of friendship with Caleb, although his father, Caine, has made his own dislike of her clear, and a sporadic but close relationship with her cousin Esmée. She is clearly very fond of her uncle Tristan and seems to get on surprisingly well (considering their respective parents) with her cousin Tamarind.

Beltaine has grown up with her family's mistrust of her mysterious link to Tir-Na Nog'th and is torn between wanting to be 'like everyone else' and trusting her own instincts and feelings. She has complete faith in her dreams and visions, but at the same time resents them as something which set her aside from other people. She is subject to rapid mood swings and her silvery laughter often has a fragile edge. She visits the Sky City regularly. And she still tends to talk, and sometimes walk, in her sleep, though not so frequently as she did as a child.


Notes on Beltaine's Pre-Amber Memories

"Sleep, Death's twin-brother, knows not Death,
Nor can I dream of thee as dead."

The place in which she remembers living was essentially an empty, temple-like building, bonded on all sides by a curtain of silvery fire. In the centre was a wide open space, with a fountain of silver water at the centre, and apple trees with silver and golden fruit. The water in the pool beneath the fountain reflected Beltaine and Brand, but nothing else. The sky was a golden colour and never darkened beyond deep dusk (Beltaine found full darkness very frightening in her earliest days in Amber) and held no stars, no moon, no clouds.

Brand is remembered by Beltaine as an infrequent, affectionate, magical visitor who would appear out of nowhere, with a gift and new stories for her, and then vanish again. Considering she only saw him in the very earliest years of her life, and for a very short time, she remembers him with surprising clarity. She did remember him with affection before she learned of his history; then she got confused - her instinctive reaction towards him, though, would probably be affection first, rational thought (and fear) second.

Her mother's blood (not just the walking of the Tir-Na Nog'th Pattern) is what gives Beltaine her link to Tir-Na Nog'th, and her gift of Voice. Beltaine remembers her mother, Persephone, mostly by the sound of her voice. Persephone was always pale - silver-haired and -eyed, silvery white skin. And ethereal - increasingly so. She seemed to be both desperately in love with Brand and desperate to escape from him at the same time. She spoke (or more usually sang) of 'her own people' occasionally to Beltaine, with longing but never in detail.

After Brand's visits ceased, she grew more and more distant, as if she spent a lot of time listening to music Beltaine could not hear. Eventually, just as her daughter had started to pick up some of the song from her mother's mind, Persephone simply faded away, her last song a mixture of wild joy at being free and regret at giving up her daughter. Beltaine thinks she tried to fight this calling, but isn't sure - it happened when she was no more than five or six years old, after all. For all she knows, it could have been Persephone dying, not 'going away' at all.

After Persephone 'faded' Beltaine was for a few years completely alone, with only the remaining Guardians for company. She spent the time recalling what she could of her mother's mindsong and gradually learning to twist it to her own ends and also to 'tune in' to the Soulstones as they appeared. She drew on their power, and the echoes of magical knowledge/memories within them to escape, but the stones seemed to be largely burned out by that experience and have been near-dormant since. Certainly, abandoning herself to the influence of the stones is not an experiment she has ever been keen to repeat - it was the kind of thing a child didn't think twice about and just did intuitively but which is a thoroughly terrifying thought to Beltaine now she is older.


Beltaine's Powers

Beltaine possesses a number of unique, apparently Tir-Na Nog'th-related powers.

The first of these is her power of Chimeromancy - she is real to the ghosts in Tir-Na Nog'th, and they are real to her (similar to Corwin's ability to interact with the ghosts there using Greyswandir). She is also able to actually seek things out Tir-Na Nog'th and remove them to other places (though they fade away within a lunar month). She also sometimes 'visits' the place while asleep - weird dreams very akin to Tir-Na Nog'th visions (this latter ability is currently uncontrolled). Beltaine's intervention in Tir-Na Nog'th visions is based on our take on how it works for Corwin in the books. That is, she can observe invisibly for as long as she wishes; intervening in a vision makes her (from the point of view of people in the vision) suddenly appear within it. She can actually touch the ghosts - which is really quite double-edged as an advantage. It means she can, for example, bring things back from there, but it also means it isn't great news that a vision of Caine is pointing a crossbow at her. She probably wouldn't die if he shot her, but some damage would almost certainly be taken. This is also similar to the way Corwin could physically interact the ghosts there, too, at least in the part where he duels the ghost Benedict and hacks off his metal arm. Usually people can't intervene in visions, only watch - unless they have something like Grayswandir to help them. As far as Beltaine knows Corwin and herself (and presumably Oberon, too) are the only people able to interact with the ghosts in Tir-Na Nog'th; there isn't any information one way or another on whether other Pattern swords (such as Bleys') also allow interaction with the ghosts there. But sometimes visions just seem too elusive and (when Beltaine tries, at least) can't be found, or found again.

Secondly, there is her Harmonic Magic, the channelling and control of magic, both her own and that of others, by means of song.

Her Pattern imprint, perhaps deriving from its being of the Tir-Na Nog'th Pattern or perhaps because of her other Tir-Na Nog'th-related powers, is very Moon-aspected. Although not giving any fundamental differences, it does mean that when shifting through shadow Beltaine tends to travel through darker and more Moon-lit shadows than someone who has walked (for example) the Amber Pattern.

Beltaine is also known for casting very accurate Tarot readings; whether this results from natural ability or is another aspect of her link with Tir-Na Nog'th is currently unclear.

With Tamarind, Beltaine has also developed a Meta-Concert - a power based on trust, linking the two of them to become greater than they could be individually.


Beltaine's Rooms

The entrance hall is circular, and resembles more an indoor courtyard than anything else. Doorways lead off in several directions. The walls are bare, pale-coloured stone. There are no windows. In the centre of the room, a fountain splashes water into a pool around which an intricately wrought metal staircase spirals upwards. After dark, candles in niches and floating candles in the pool itself throw wavering shadows of the filigree staircase onto the walls; the air is heavy with their scent.


The Soulstones

"Jewels five-words long
That on the stretched forefinger of all Time
Sparkle forever."

The individual power sources around which Brand built the guardians/jailers he placed over Persephone and Beltaine. The outward form and freewill of these creatures faded away after he disappeared, along with much of their power, leaving just the stones. As a child, Beltaine perceived them as 'dying' since Brand had at least seen fit to give them a congenial physical form. They are, in other words, conceivably more powerful and complex than Beltaine thinks they are.

They work as a focus for Beltaine's fledgling magical skills, though it is quite possible that she might not be dependent on them in any real way. She also employs them in Tarot readings, by scattering them over the laid out cards. The different Soulstones seem to have different affinities, as follows:

  • Rose - Illusions/ghosts.
  • Red - Physical invasive magic/Physical damage or injury/the Physical.
  • Blue - Mental invasive magic/mental damage, injury, etc/the Psychic field.
  • Amethyst - Self-alteration.
  • Green - Physical alteration/interaction.

These 'affinities' cover their spell-casting use, and are also used in interpreting Tarot/scrying readings cast by Beltaine.


Beltaine's Diary


Other Contributions


"Dreams are true while they last, and do we not live in dreams?"


Go to a Page describing some of Beltaine's Visions in Tir-Na Nog'th.

Or go to the Altair, Damien, Ibrahim, Owen, Phoenix, Tamarind or Tristan pages.

Or go back to The Last Enemy Page.