Who Needs Sleep?
Chapter read and lesson learned
I turned the lights off while she burned
So while she’s three hundred degrees
I turn the lights off and I freeze
--Barenaked Ladies, "Who Needs Sleep?"
A
h, wedded bliss.I wonder what it’s like?
I’ve spent the last few month in
HELL, folks, trying to act like I belong there and doing a damn spiffy job of it. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate the fact that I live in a great, big castle where people listen to me because they have to. And my wife is the queen, which makes me the prince consort -- read: the queen’s bitch – but I can handle that, too. She’s a real peach. Sweetest girl I every met. When she’s asleep.Let me tell you what happens when she’s not. She’s convinced that I’m getting naughty with chambermaids every time she turns around, and has no problem telling me that. That’s
good. Honesty in a relationship is good. It’s just that the moments she picks for "sharing" are usually full of other folks. Who hate me. It doesn’t help when she makes me out to be the Official Ass Grabber and Maid Bouncer of the Summer Olympics ™.Unfair, man.
I would spend my time trying to perfect my domestic skills, but unfortunately, there’s a war going on and my Darling, Sweetie, Honeybunch’s Royal Old Guys Who Hate My Guts ™ insist that I be at the front. "The king would be at the front, fighting along with his men," they say. Of course, when I point out that I am not the king, they say, "Eh, you’ll do," and send me out there, anyway. Like a dork, I go, hoping it’ll make her happy with me. Or at least un-unhappy. I’m still young. I think I’m invincible, right? Just hoping I don’t get proved wrong by somebody rotten-assed and shriveled with easily removable limbs. Yuck.
You know the phrase, "I’m gonna rip off one of your arms and beat you with it?" Been there, done that. Not as much fun as it sounds.
I know they keep sending me out there hoping that I won’t come back. But lemme tell ya, those old, crusty bastards are going down before I do. I don’t give a shit if I have to crawl back on my tongue. Of course, when I do, the little woman will be waiting at the door with a rolling pin.
HELL, I tell ya.Got a call from Awn-Tee Deer-druh, asking me to march my wife’s army into what sounds to me like senseless slaughter thinly disguised as an attack. Our senseless slaughter. Just thought I’d clarify that. I’m sure that’ll clear things up between me and the missus. "Uh, Sweetheart? I’m gonna take the only thing that stands between Aramyst and total destruction and march it off a cliff, okay? Kiss, kiss."
I headed off to the family meeting to discuss the aforementioned suicidal maneuver, happy to be out of there for awhile. She’s got my trump in case anything happens. Of course, she’ll probably be imagining that something is happening every minute I’m gone and keep calling in an attempt to break it up.
That’s what I get for letting my dick make all the decisions. Of course, now that he’s been relived of duty, he’s thinking a little more clearly.
Took Quinn’s train to Aretia, spent a lot of time sitting in a room with the family. Didn’t say much. They don’t expect me to. I just grunt to let them know I understand them and that seems to be enough. All heck’s been breaking loose, and despite the fact that none of it’s my fault, they want my help. The One True Do-Boy, at your service. ‘Course, I’ve got my own country to think about, now, and if this whole thing wasn’t somehow remotely in Aramyst’s best interest, I would actually consider telling Auntie to bugger off. It would feel
good.One person talked to me like I wasn’t a monkey, though. Quinn tole me something I didn’t want to hear, but he didn’t use small words to do it. Note to self: when ya get home, ick-proof the palace.
Who needs sleep?
Well you’re never gonna get it
Who needs sleep?
Tell me what’s that for
Who needs sleep?
Be happy with what you’re getting
There’s a guy who’s been awake
Since the Second World War
--Barenaked Ladies, "Who Needs Sleep?"
Sander's Diary, Session 57 -- Colonel Sander
From Being on Mars, to Just Feeling Like It
or
Who Are You and What Have You Done With My Universe?
A
fter the meeting, and a short discussion about killer chandeliers, Quinn suggested that I take his VR training room (aka The Danger Room – with a name like that, how can you go wrong?) for a spin. So I did.There were all these instructions and stuff to read, but I thought, hey, I’ll figure it out as I go along, right? Wrong. So all these computer-generated Mori were poppin’ up all over the place. It was cool. I messed them up, I felt good about it. Then the difficulty level raised and it cracked my ass. Okay, glad nobody was watching.
I went back out and read the instructions. Oh. Megan came by, wanted to join in. Not my funeral, Babe, sure. She didn’t read that stuff first, either, so I didn’t feel so bad. We did alright for awhile, a few bumps and bruises. Then we got to the mondo tough level and we were lucky to lay a hit. But we did, so we’re bad, anyhow.
Quinn called me while I was in the shower (who the hell puts intercoms in showers? -- oh yeah, Quinn) and asked me if I wanted to go back to Aramyst with him when he went to discuss mambajahamba sorcery stuff with the folks back home. ‘Sure, what the hell,’ I said, ‘it’s not like she’s gonna ream me too bad in front of company.’
So we got on the train, headed for Aramyst…
…and suddenly I’m walking down the road toward the capital and I’m, check it, by myself!
It didn’t hit me at first, for some reason, at least not until I saw the road…
the landscape…the city…Whoa, what the hell was that? Anyhow, at first I thought that something horrible had happened while I was away. But I wrote that off pretty quick. It looked as though things had been this way for awhile. Burnt out, beat up, torn down. People hid as I went by, like they had no idea who I was.
What in the hell…?
I reached the palace, which was, um, less than resplendent, let’s say. At least they acted like they were expecting me, and somebody took me to the queen. Okay, now we’re getting somewhere…So they take me to this room where a bunch of folks, some of whom I recognize, are standing around a map talking war stuff. Disturbing, okay, but I’m dealing. Then one of them turns around, and it’s…my wife…wearing armor. God, she looks good. Tired, but really, really good. And for once, she looks somewhat pleased to see me.
It dawned on me suddenly that wherever I was, it wasn’t the same place that I left before, and the we probably weren’t even…
"Lord Lysander," she says. "I’m glad to see you made it through."
…married.
I played it cool. She asked me about the meeting, and hoping that the details I remembered would make sense to them, I told them all about it. I got a few raised eyebrows at the mention of certain folks, like Julian, for instance. She thanked me (now I know I’m in the wrong place) and told me there was a guest suite set up for me. Confused as I was, I wasn’t in much of a hurry to leave her, but I did, anyway.
What in the hell..?
I passed Caine in the hall. He looked different, but since he acted like I was supposed to be there, I figured I’d just let it be. I found myself a servant and dragged them into a sitting room where I pried the story out of them by starting with the requisite, "I know this is gonna sound crazy, but…". So he filled me in and tried his best not to look at me like I was nuts. I know this because he did a really shitty job. I made a mental list as he went along, and it looked something like this…
Bad Guys
Not bad guys
Okay, now here’s the part where everyone looks at Sander and says, "Damn, you’re a sap."
I went back to Daelyn and told her I had to speak to her. She dropped everything and told everyone to get lost. Oh, cruel irony. I told her that things weren’t supposed to be like this. I showed her my wedding ring, a traditional number from Aramyst made specifically for someone marrying the crown Princess. For once, she was speechless. But she believed me. Or at least she did a good job of faking it. I wanted to kiss her. She made the point, of which I was already aware, that knowing all this wasn’t going to help our present situation. Well, maybe not…
Then an idea hit me like the side of a mountain (better than a ton of bricks because at least it’s familiar). It was tough, but I left her, sneaking out of the palace, out of town, out of Aramyst. I biked aways, then rode off a cliff and glided the rest of the way, coming down just outside of a Shadow place closely resembling Collingwood, Australia and biking into town. Why, you might ask? Well, I’ll tell ya. It had to do with my idea.
Ya see, I didn’t know exactly who I could trust anymore, but I knew that there was still a war going on, just like before. Daelyn certainly wouldn’t be looking to me to lead her army, and as far as my own family was concerned, I was just the errand boy. No problem. I realized that though I wanted like anything to protect Aramyst, and Amber, I was now officially on my own side.
Yeah, but what the hell does that have to do with Collingwood? Keep your pants on, I’m getting there. I realized that in order to keep things somehow okay until I could figure out what had happened and set it right, I was going to need to assemble my own army. People with no knowledge of family politics to confuse them. Not your run-of-the-mill army, either. Not a bunch of guys from some archaic frigging Shadow where they had only recently discovered soap. No. What I wanted was an entire army’s worth of guys who were just…like…me. If that don’t put the fear of God into someone, I don’t know what will.
Collingwood, Australia is the home of the Mighty Magpies, one of
the best-known Australian rules football teams in existence. In several surrounding towns
and cities are several other teams. Now, let me tell you a little bit about the
guys that play this game. They don’t wear pads, they don’t wear helmets,
they’re out for blood, and they fear nothing – and if I’d done this right,
they’d be willing to follow me off a cliff if I asked them to. They were exactly what
I’d come for.
I spent as long as I dared collecting people from all over. Every fearless, gung-ho, jumping-off-a-cliff-with-his-hair-on-fire son of a bitch I could lay my hands on. Fortunately for me, a great deal of them are, in addition to Extreme Sports enthusiasts, members of one of the armed forces or another. I mean, where the hell do you think they find those guys. Oh yeah.
I picked out the best eleven guys and told them to stick with me. We had our own, particular job to do. Mainly, taking out Dad before somebody could kill him. I also found myself a couple guys with fast feet whose sole purpose in all this was to get to Theseus with a letter. If there’s one guy who would believe the crazy ass story I had to tell, and maybe even find some way to verify that things were, indeed pretty fucking far from okay, it would be him. Hopefully he hadn’t changed enough to be in the thick of things, and they would be able to find him at the palace. I showed them his picture and they said, "Yes, Sir." I could get used to this.
My brain hurt from shifting Shadow, but there they were. Uniformed, armed, and climbing onto a couple of great, big, dirigibles headed for Amber. Now all we gotta do is jump…
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WHAT THE
HELL WAS I THINKING?or
If You’re Not
Confused, You Must Be Dead
…and so we did. Jump, that is, just in case I lost anybody.
I’ll probably file today’s little adventure under "WHAT THE HELL WAS I THINKING?" (see above). Let me explain. No…it’s too much. Lemme sum up.
Hit the ground running, told the Magpies "that way!" and told my Badasses "this way!" Went after Dad, and despite Edward sticking his big, fat head in the way, we didn’t end up dead. Of course, I didn’t get Dad, either. So, after about five minutes of picking sod out of my teeth, I got up and went after him again. No good.
We regrouped, and the bad guys ran off to attack somebody more helpless. Their big mistake? Attacking some islands with primo surf. I don’t think so.
Long story short, we caught Dad and took him back to Amber. I had to dip, but before I did, I told Edward to take good care of my old man, because if anything happened to him, it was going to happen to Edward, too.
And somewhere along the way…I wandered back into the really real world. Now, I know there was probably a whole lot more to it than that, but if there was, I sure as hell wasn’t involved with it. Somebody up there likes me.
So there I was, standing outside the palace with Quinn, and my foxy mamma leans over the balcony and says, "What just happened?"
I did a little dance. Quinn, in his amazing presence of mind says, "Hey, now would be a good time to go upstairs and comfort her." Good man. I bolted up the stairs, fingers crossed, hoping that she’d remember everything that happened in dreamland and that she might actually be happy to see me for once. Not only was she happy to see me, but…well, you know. Despite the fact that some of it happened in plain view of the public, the details are none of your freakin’ business.
We, um, celebrated for awhile. Unfortunately not long enough before Aunt D busted in and sent me scrambling for my pants. Again. She had me drag the missus to Amber for who knows what, made the two of us sign a bunch of stuff (which I made Sugar Lumps read first because I’ve always been super paranoid of things in writing) and then dropped my jaw by whipping out a sword and knighting the Theez and me. Of course, my first reaction was to duck.
So I went back home and resumed my, uh, duties. Basically, we’re waiting around to storm the Baron’s place. Why, you ask? Maybe a few folks are reeling, but enough of us are still standing to make it count. I’ve thought about asking Aunt D exactly why we’re waiting around and being *&%!ed with instead tearing that guy a new asshole now, but it’s tough to think about that stuff when Daelyn’s chewing on my ear, ya know?
Then there’s these earthquakes. I figured that they didn’t happen a lot when the wife started yelling "What the hell was that?", so I did what I could to make it settle. Which it did. Wha-ptch! Back in line, I say!
Figuring that he knows all, or at least a whole lot, I called the mighty Theez and said, much as my woman had earlier, "What the hell was that?" He said that there was heavy cosmic shit going down in Amber and that the earthquakes were the result of it. "Okay," said I, "Will it happen again soon?" He said, "No." Whew, what a relief. Then he said, "In about six hours."
Dude, that’s soon. At least I was ready the next time. Made sure everybody else was, too, though I guess some of them wondered how I knew it was going to happen again. Of course, most folks have wisely learned to quit wondering when it comes to me. It was a whole lot worse that time, but we had it covered even though I had an headache thiiiiiiiiiiiis big when it was over. There was one more after that. Nothing like the others, though. Handled. Thank you, Oh Mighty Lysander, we will now lick your boots. Line forms to the left.Leave it to Aunt D to deflate my moment of joyitude. Hey, Lysander, we’re having a Shit-Has-Hit-the-Fan Party here in Amber…Wanna come? Oh can I?
Please? Please? Huh?
Amber was full of people gone apeshit. Rounded up the Magpies and told them to knock ‘em all out as politely as possible, which they went about with gusto. Gotta say it was pretty keen. Like the biggest mosh pit ever.And in the midst of the knocking out, somebody tapped me on the shoulder. Trained from an early age to turn the opposite way when tapped (Dad and practical jokes bad, very bad), I did. Not that it mattered. The guy touched me – touched, I say – on the shoulder and sent my ass flying. Followed by the rest of me.
So I got up (say that a lot, don’t I?) and tried to hit him. Ehhhh! Sorry, wrong answer! Bounced off. Fight good – magic bad. Just so ya know.
So I tried again with something pointy. Specifically with the something pointy that I got from Theez for a wedding present – the God-Only-Knows-What-Else-It-Does-But-It-Sure-Does-Cut-Good Sword. So, part of him hit the ground, and then the rest landed on it. Yeah, baby, yeah!
Well, all quiet, now. Going on about…oh, five minutes…
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The Weather
’s Here, Wish You Were BeautifulOr
You’re WHAT?!!
I need a vacation.
Who’da thunk that having responsibility would mean I’d have to be so…responsible?
Quinn asked me to do something. Something important. This makes me wonder if I even made it back from Not-Quite-Amber. He wanted me to take Theseus and Megan and do some recon in Ys. I said ‘sure’, before I’d really thought about it and realized that the wife was gonna kill me.
Went home, hung around waiting for Megan and Theez, told the wife what we were going to do, swore up and down that we were only going to look around, hoped I wasn’t lying.
When Meg got there, we hit the kitchen for a snack, which turned into an eating contest. She cheated – made her mouth all grouper and stuff – but I gotta admire a girl who can pack the chow like that. I guess Guy, one of my Badasses, thinks its cool, too, since he started hitting on her. Drooling on her, too. They wandered off somewhere. Great, now I’m running a male escort service.
Picked out Russell and Mel to go with me, since I figured Guy wouldn’t be able to walk for a while. NICE image, Sander. Places We Don’t Need To Go for 500, please, Alex.
Theseus finally showed up, asked for Megan. I said, "that way, but don’t go there". He went there. We knocked on the door, thus rescuing Guy from the death that every man prays for.
So, in totally unsubtle fashion (cause I’m so sure they’re not gonna know it’s us, anyway), we strolled into Ys. Theseus kept tossing these little rocks all over the place. Didn’t ask. Didn’t want to know. Didn’t see anything until this big guard tower, which we thought we’d avoid. Okay, well, we avoided the guard tower, but not the shitload of zombies that just happened to be standing around. We sent the horses off in one direction and headed up a hill, hoping to get over and out of sight before they caught up. Not. Didn’t bug me too much. Zombies are squishy, they fall down no problem. It was the big, ugly flying things that came next…
A little scorched and somewhat ass-kicked, too, we made an, uh, tactical retreat. Okay, okay, we ran screaming.
We ended up back at one of those little rocks that Theez had dropped earlier. Aha. I get it now. This gave me an idea. Throw the rock as far as we can, hop to it. Throw it again, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. So we did. And we were lucky enough to not end up at the bottom of a lake or something, which was good, too.
We found the Baron’s palace. Totally empty. Nobody home. Shit. It could’ve been a good thing, but I was pretty damn sure it wasn’t.
It wasn’t.
You wanna know why the palace was empty? Do ya? Huh? Do ya? Cause a few miles away every friggin thing in Ys was lining up to put their foot in our asses, that’s why! There were so many smelly-ass zombies that we couldn’t see the end of them. This is not good. So we made another tactical retreat.
Okay, we ran screaming…again.
I went home and told the wife. Fortunately the news was serious enough to distract her from the fact that I’d obviously been in a fight. I readied the Magpies and the Aramyst regulars and did some tweaking with the Shadow again. If they were going to come in here, they were going to do it where I wanted them to. Dammit. Pointed everything we had at the spots they would have to pass through, and made sure that most of it was flammable. Bound to smell really bad, but not much worse than they smelled when they weren’t on fire. Julian and his Rangers were stationed here, too, which made me feel a little more confident. A little.
There were a lot of those damn things. Heaps, mounds, shitloads…did I mention there were quite a few? We kept killing them and they kept coming. Dead jerks.
Then Muriel has to keep popping into my skull unannounced and calling the fight like it’s freaking Tyson vs. Hollyfield. She tells me that Deirdre just got dropped and maybe I should head that way. First thought? If somebody just dropped Aunt Dee, why the hell would I want to go anywhere near them? I went anyway. Oh. Look. The Baron. &*$! me sideways.
He was already fighting with Megan, which in no way stopped him from knocking my ass clean off my horse. We weren’t tangling for too long before Bree showed up and jumped him, too. He kept floating around and not playing fair. We hit him, but we couldn’t hit him. He was messing with us, which I thought was a little weird, seeing as how if he could manage to stay away from us the way he was, I was pretty sure he wouldn’t have much more problem nailing us with his bad mogumbo, too. But he didn’t. He fooled around with us until finally Bree looked at me, and I looked at Meg, and for once we all understood each other. We jumped him all at once…
…And I don’t remember too much after that. Woke up floating in a tank of goo with a note taped to the outside that said, "Don’t break the glass. We won." Great, we won. Now get me the hell out of this nasty shit.
N
N NDragged my tired ass home. Planned funerals – and monuments -- for those who got pasted, but at that point I was just happy that I wasn’t one of the guests of honor. The wife was actually happy to see me. Must be that Not-Amber thing at work again.
She also had some news for me. "How do you feel about children?" she asked me. True to the genetic programming of Amber’s royal family, I was alarmed by this question at first. Then I thought about it. I get along with my dad. Always have. Unlike most folks in the family, our affection for each other runs a little deeper than just figuring one of us would care if the other was hit by a speeding bus. If she’s ready to start a family, it’s cool. Besides, trying would be loads of fu…
"I’m pregnant."
"So my answer to that question had better be something like ‘I love them, Honey, let’s have some right now?"
"Yep."
"I love them, Honey let’s have some right now."
I meant it, too. I mean, Day would make a great mom. She puts up with me, right?
N
N NMuriel called to tell me there was going to be a family meeting. I really wanted to tell them all to sod off just this once. If there was an "errand" waiting for me, I’d be plenty cheesed. I’ve known for a long time that they only want to talk to me when they’ve got something for me to do, but lately they’ve taken to telling rather than asking, not to mention asking a little too much. Just because I’m married to the queen does not mean I’m cool with sending Aramyst’s army to die because we made some stupid mistake, pissed the wrong person off, or would prefer not to do it ourselves. I mean, sure, despite the fact that I don’t live there anymore, I’m glad to do my part to defend Amber, but I’m not willing to risk Aramyst to do it. Don’t tell anybody I said that. They’d fit me for a sport coat that buckles in the back and toss me in a padded room.
Day was invited to the meeting, too, and she wanted to tell everyone the good news. I tried to explain, without sounding cynical or bitter or anything, that maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to let everyone know. So I said:
"I love my family, Sweetheart, but they’re mostly a bunch of plotting, scheming, bitter, morally questionable, self-centered types who might consider using the information against me." There, that didn’t sound too bad.
She pouted.
I begged.
We compromised and decided to just tell Dad for now. Couldn’t wait to see the look on his face. I wasn’t sure if it would be happiness or panic. It’s a tossup.
The meeting went well. NOT! Theseus rode piggyback in my skull until he decided he really had something to say. That being: "Flora, you bitch, you helped kill my dad and had something to do with Deirdre getting her ass kicked, too!" Okay, it didn’t go just like that, but you get the point. Flora fingered Caine, apparently trying to drag him down with her. I just kind of sat there with my jaw hanging open, and told Day that now might be a good time to hit the powder room, since violence was becoming more and more likely as the meeting went on.
We also went over why exactly it was a bad thing to kill the Baron. Bree said the fact that it was so easy meant that there was something else going on.
"You call that easy?!!" I guess easy takes into account that fact that her mom just about got pasted and is now visiting the Coma Land Cerebral Theme Park. Then we got onto the subject of who’s in charge now that Aunt Dee very, very isn’t. I nominated Dad, since despite what folks think he’s got more sense where it counts than most. He didn’t want to do it, though, thus proving that he really is smarter than everybody else.
Somehow, Theez got the job. I’m good with that. I’ve always gotten along with him, he seems to make sense most of the time and he doesn’t seem to have it out for anybody. Okay, well, I’m sure he’d have it out for Fiona, but that’s not what I mean. Bad Sander. Bad dog.
Told Dad about the impending thundering of little feet (pitter patter my ass). I saw the panic coming in a hurry, but then he decided to be happy after all. Whew.
...and right about here Beatha attacked... everything in the Golden Circle. Insert big battle here. Don’t remember too much about it. Musta got hit in the head a lot.
Afterwards, went home and messed with the borders of Aramyst some more. Narrowed them down and stationed a bunch of whup-ass near the points where folks could enter, then settled down, put my feet up…and took them down again so I could rub Day’s because A, I didn’t want to get hurt, and B…well, you all don’t need to know about B.
N
N NWoke up to somebody who was going to get a beating pounding on the door. Answered in my shorts. What are they gonna do, fire me? It was The Guy That Hates Me. I slammed the door in his face and waited for him to either take the hint and get lost, or start knocking again. Not only does he hate me, he must be pretty ballsy, ‘cause he knocked again. I opened the door, trying hard not to laugh in his face. Didn’t do a real good job, though.
He said there were some diplomats requesting permission to enter the kingdom and have a word with the missus and me. Great. Woken up by that guy and now I gotta wear stuff I can’t get dirty. Shit.
They’re Gonna Build a Monument, Someday
Or
You Want Me to
WHAT?!!
Enter the Three Stooges from Kredic. We greet them, they greet us. So far, so good. Then they start talking and everything went downhill from there.
Apparently, in Kredic, I’m some kind of war hero, having slain the Baron single-handedly and all (yeah, whatever, just go with it, Sander). Foreseeing an attack by the forces the Baron left behind, these guys want me to lead their army against them.
Okay, back up. WHAT?!!
Good stuff about doing this…the satisfaction of having done a good thing? Nah. Kredic will owe us and it’s always good to be pals with your neighbors so they won’t kick your ass when they get the chance.
Bad stuff…HELLO?! Marching into another army of zombies is not high on my "Gotta" list. Of course, with no Baron, maybe they won’t be so tough. Here’s me, dreamin’.
I could feel Day drilling a hole in my skull. I thought about it. I said it might be a good idea to help them out. Nobody deserves to get jumped by those nasty bastards. Listen to me, being all noble. Too much time away from Amber, I guess. I thought it would make her happy if I said yes.
I said yes.
She wasn’t happy. I got briefed on the fact that she’s having my child and I’m just going to leave her here and run off to fight yet another battle. She says this like I do it for kicks. Okay, I felt bad. Nobody gives guilt like my little Peaches.
So, feeling like the ass-end of a mule, I rode off with these guys on their big-ass, dopey looking six-legged lizards. When we got to Kredic, I was even sorrier than I was when we left Aramyst. The "army" they had was about…ya ready…? Two hundred and thirty guys. Let me say that again. TWO HUNDRED AND THIRTY GUYS.
Okay, so, we need more guys.
Called home, brought through the Magpies. Six hundred and forty one guys. Need more guys. Got some more volunteers from Kredic. So now we’ve got a thousand guys.
We’re gonna freakin’ die.