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Back to the diary entry for 'Out Of The Frying Pan' (Part 2).
Congratulations, brother, you have finally gone too far.
You have finally reached a sufficiently high degree of initiation into assorted arcane powers that you can no longer conceive of others not having similar powers; your ability to know things regarding matters of personal concern merely by thinking of them; your ability to travel where you wish with but a thought. No longer imagine how we mere mortals cope without such abilities. No longer put power and knowledge after family ties, but now before all else.
Welcome, brother, to the world of the late Prince Brand. I hope you are very happy there. Without me.
Damn. I'm crying. I did not think myself capable of that any more. Perhaps I should thank you, brother, for proving me wrong...
And the thing which hurts the most is that, although one expects, as a member of this family, to have one's Trust betrayed, this is the one direction from which I never expected such a betrayal to occur. His excuses did not make me any happier either. 'You should have known yourself that K'del was about to go.' How, precisely, did you expect me to know, brother? By the use of great mystical powers such as yours? Or perhaps by people I thought I could rely on telling me things?
Unicorn help me, I think I even begin to understand Caine now.
How could sacrifice a family member - my mother - to save everything. How he could kill a shadow of himself to provide cover for himself. All of it. See how far I have sunk! As Khortez now lives in Brand's world, so I now, I think, live in Caine's...
It seems that the number of things which I care about, now, becomes smaller and smaller. I did care about Khortez, but he has now thrown that care away. I care about those of my people I left in K'del. I care about the upcoming war, and what I may do to contribute to our victory and the destruction of Chaos. I care about Random's murder.
I do not really care about Nicholas (who we may rescue but who, it seems, Cymnea can retrieve whenever she wishes and who will thus not be safe until Cymnea and her allies are dead), or Martin, and why he has taken over the Royal Quarters so quickly. I do not even care about the Blood Curse, really, other than in how it impacts the other things I must do.
I must, however, see what progress has been made in the investigation of Random's murder. And if none has been made, why this is so. That, at least, is one thing I do still care about.
I must also visit Yvonne and Charles in shadow Praxis, or at least their graves, before it is too late.
I do wonder. Why did Arran and I feel the urge to kick down the door to Martin's rooms like that? If it were myself alone I might put it down to the blood curse affecting me, or someone playing with my mind, but Arran is not so cursed and has a stronger mind than I. So I do not know. The Pattern did not provide any revelations when I walked it, so I suppose it cannot be anything, really. Perhaps we were just not getting enough sleep...
He does seem to have moved into Random and Vialle's old quarters very quickly, though. Not wasting any time taking control. But it does seem ... unseemly ... moving in with such haste.
In the midst of all this learning that Tony and Adeira have apparently spawned a child, which might normally have garnered more of a reaction from me, went almost unnoticed. However, I stand by my statement to Arran that Mandor must be intending to breed a strong but easy-to-control slave race.
Likewise, learning that I have now progressed sufficiently far to be able to give sensible tactical and strategic advise to Corwin (though not, yet, to be able to beat him) has had much less of an impact than it might at other times.
It feel as if my soul, my heart, my self, is being pared down and down. There is less and less of me left. As if I remember a past that was in warmth and glowing, living colour from this cold, dead, monochrome place in which I now must dwell. No life. No hope. No love. Only duty. And death. And despair. I feel hollow, as if my heart is gone, to be replaced by the cold.
I think I may die soon.
On to the diary entry for 'A New Hand On The Wheel' (Part 2).