THE WAR LOG OF SKYRIE VOLUTIUN

I could speak at length of the place of Amber, its castle, its people. Unfortunately, the thoughts I'd meant to scribe there were lost - the Assistant didn't survive the journey, and indeed, little magic works in this place. I think it is the Pattern that does this. Its presence will tolerate nothing else. At least Terminus Est still works.

Impressions. The size of it. The vivid colours, the realness of it. The age of it. The permanence. It makes the Fourteen Empires seem infantile small. Perhaps Amber, too, started this way?

Caitlin and Etienne told me many things I should know and record, yet I paid them little attention at the time - fabrications, half-truths they could have been. The Pattern has corrected this. And made other things known.

I remember some of my thoughts before the Pattern - I remember thinking, when I first saw it, that I must have it, conquer it, and then drawing away from such thoughts, the quelling of all sorcery appeasing my lust. Yet thinking I had a foothold, at least. I have been given a room, you see. A permanent place here. So a pitiful foothold, but a foothold nonetheless. I conquered the Fourteen Empires with far less.

I have touched Etienne's mind. A careless mistake, to Trump her. I should have known to expect what followed from her casual disregard for her own safety, her lack of fear, her scrying. But I had never dreamed to touch a mind so fierce. And Caitlin - how easy to dismiss her as an idiot and a fool, yet I watch the way she moves, her eyes which miss nothing. I would see her in a fight. From a great distance... No, without sorcery, this place can wait. Even with, these 'cousins' (and that is what they are - they have been nothing but truthful, which I would do well to remember) would be fearsome adversaries.

I have so much to learn.

I am glad.

Caitlin says she is over a hundred years old. I didn't believe her at first. Now, though...

I can restrain myself no more. The Pattern. I have sought it, on and off, for a decade, since the mysterious mentor I now know to be my true father let slip its name. I thought it's power would be vast, and take years top master. Vast it is, but the power was within me all the time. In a mere half an hour, I have mastered it. Or begun its mastery - I don't know.

A 'mere half an hour' How un-apt. A 'mere half an hour' to die and be reborn. I remember thoughts, as the memory of my entire life flashed before me, that such a thing was supposed to happen in death, so I'm told. And so I have died and been reborn without death itself. There is no better way to describe it. The Pattern is a part of me, and I am a part of the Pattern. And have always been.

I remember my father, dressed in green and black, with jewelled daggers. I was less than a year old. His name is Caine.

I have so much to do. I have so much I want to say about what has become of me, and yet, whenever I pause for words, they cannot come. They are all too small and frail for where I have been.

I must find out if I have sired children. They will have my blood. They will have the Pattern within them.

I can open paths from the Fourteen Empires to other worlds and give my impatient armies new realms to conquer. I can bring all I have to offer to offer to a million new worlds - Etienne was telling the truth about that (again). Conquer or be conquered. It is the way of things. In the face of so many realms, the Fourteen Empires is nothing. We are, therefore, threatened once more, by the simple vastness of what lies beyond our borders. Too large for conquest? We shall see.

I have much to do. Much thinking, much planning, much action to take. Words can wait.

I have offered my assistance to these cousins, in exchange for the power of the Pattern. They would have given it to me anyway, I think. Out of duty. Foolish. But I have offered, and my word is now given. I must help them find their missing siblings, cousins, and King. For this too, I must prepare.

So I give Caitlin a sketch of myself, so she may contact me - to her, not to Etienne, for I will not risk touching her fearsome mind again until I have fathomed some method of protection. I will practice these new powers. I will find the realms adjacent to my own, and send the were-leopard sorcerers and the hunting wraiths to scout them, to learn if they are a threat to us and how they may be conquered.

And I will prepare what magic I can, in case my cousins are not as honest as they seem.