Entry 1, Personal Journal
Dearest Father;
I start this journal tonight in order that, if I should have a chance, I might pass it to you so that you might understand what has happened to me, both in the past and in the future. I will go into the specifics of that night, and of other nights so long as to tear at my soul, in due course. But first, I will re-acquaint you with your son.
I am a Master Craftsman for the Guild, and while I am acknowledged as of the Blood, I still have no station with the Family. I help out where I may, serving as an unofficial Trump Artist, unofficial liaison to the Guild, and unofficial everything else. I try to avoid going into the Castle itself - as I do believe Dara only vaguely trusts me, even today - but I tend to make sure that I am available by Trump, and I maintain a small residence in the city, in the Guild Quarter. It has a studio, a laboratory, a conservatory, but lacks most of the amenities most people associate with living space - a bathroom, a kitchen, a bed. My lamps are lit throughout the night as I continue my work. My door is always open, and occasionally a drunk from a nearby bar wanders in. I allow the guest to linger briefly, and on a few occasions I have sung to them. But I soon enough turn over the wanderer to the local constabulary.
I have many friends, for that is one of my goals. But there are few people I really trust. Parallax Coil, the Guild Master of Kolvir, is one of them. He has seen me through my recovery, assists me in my progress, and allows me freedom to explore my capabilities and my new form. There is always the knowledge that he has done what he did for me for his own benefit, and that of the Guild - but I see a gleam in his eyes from time to time. It is a shade of what I saw in your own eyes, Father, the first time I showed you the painting I made of you riding into the castle in Avernus. While his is the pride of a craftsman, I still feel its warmth.
In addition to indulging my usual passions - art, song, science and the Trump - I have taken to becoming a somewhat amateur archaeologist. The sunblasted deserts of Ghenesh, which are so lethal to most that the entire people of Ghenesh only move about under the light of the moon, hold the occasional treasure and relic of a forgotten age. I am, through the arts of the Guild, one of the only people capable of exploring this harsh desert for the treasures it offers. Many is the time I have strode out, my only accompaniment being a satchel containing some minor digging equipment and a set of goggles to prevent upblown sand from entering my eyeslots, and walked out into the desert for a week or more. If I find a single small object, I will denote its location and take it. If I find a larger site in need of more serious investigation, I draw a Trump of it so that others can be brought on-site to investigate it more fully. When I return, I try to spend some time in the City and near the Castle. I've spoken with many of the Elders in my new...skin. They remain inveterately suspicious for the most part.
Ah, Amber. The Eternal City, the One True World - is changing, slowly and surely. Dara's harsh and untamed love for power is bleeding into her surroundings - and, I believe, into Shadow. Tension surrounds the Castle, and is the pulse of the Golden Realm. When she grows dissatisfied with a sovereign of another country, she makes a token effort to negotiate - and then simply takes. I love the people of Amber, and the land itself. Most of the Elders remain loyal to the place, rather than to the woman. But she is slowly perverting it to her own whim and style. I dearly wish I had the patience and the concentration to have finished my work of so long ago - but that time is passed, and will never return. All I can wish for now is freedom, sooner or later - freedom for me, freedom for my family, freedom for Amber. I find Shadow a more and more irrelevant domain as her influence grows and twists the way Amber is reflected. When I travel further than the bounds of Arden, I cannot but think I move in a dream...little more significant than ripples in a pond. It is the stone that made the ripples that is of concern, not this stuff of ephemerae.
And I will pause a moment, Father, to answer a question most Fathers might ask. You were, of course, aware of many of the romantic flings I had in Avernus. These were tainted by the peoples' worship - it is difficult to respect a woman who constantly fawns over you and calls you the 'son of the divine', but they were happy times. When I was Mikel, Guildsman Apprentice and friend to Eregnor, I knew a few more meaningful relationships over the six decades I spent that way. Ah, dear Daller, my sweet. I still miss you so. She was a delivery girl in public, and a runner for the Eregnorian Resistance in private. And she...she met a bad end, when Eregnor was 'suppressed'. I find I cannot write of it now - perhaps it is a tale for another day. But as to my current prospects? I smile within my mask, even as it imprisons me. Between the fact that my face is garish at best and that I have frequently been seen without clothes, exposing my lack of the appropriate equipment, makes me at best an objet d'art for the ladies at Court. I am alone as far as that sort of companionship goes - and it rarely troubles me. I am sorry, Father - but you shall know no grandchildren through my line.
And you will be pleased to know that I have finally - if someone forcibly - more embraced the nature of my heritage. To wit, I walked the Pattern some years ago. I have only undertaken it twice myself. I am told that I walk it faster than most - but it is a concentration of energy. After I walk, I have a burst of vitality that lasts perhaps twenty minutes, and then it runs away from me faster than I could ever catch it. The only two times I have slept without deciding to sleep were after I had walked the Pattern. And I know it will come as a surprise to you, but it was Dara the Damned who watched over me! I have no choice but to smile at the irony. I know it was always a disappointment to you that I did not walk the Pattern with you, that I did not serve with you during the War. But at the same time, you wanted to keep me safe. I appreciate that - and at the same time, sometimes I wish to hurl it against you. Had I known more of the family's ways, I might not have been so brash that night, and things might be much different.
But then again, perhaps such should not be said. For at times I believe I have grown too patient, too willing to wait. Even now, I know that I will not be ready to do what I attempted before for a long time - perhaps longer than I have. But part of me burns that she - the bitch who cast me from her window that night with a cold laugh in her eyes - is still the Monarch. Still uncontested, still unquestioned. Whereas my rashness was perhaps the fracture of my youth, now I wonder if my willingness to wait, to compromise and to observe without action is not now even worse.
But it will be a slow thing. I imagine that it will take at least a decade of being the helpful relative before I am welcomed back into the cheerless bosom of the Castle of Amber. I might be able to, after a long time, accept appointment as either the official liaison to the Guild, or the Official Family Artist. I would welcome either. I see encouraging signs in the populace - a knowledge that this life is not how it should be. Perhaps war will come again to Amber, and to the Golden Realm. It may take decades, it may take generations - but I will be there to assist it when it may come, from within. I will learn more about Trump, as I suspect it will be one of the two levers on which such a conflict would swing. The other is the Pattern itself - but most of the experts on that subject are now denied to me. And mayhap, one of them may return and fill the role that will be needed if Dara is to receive the fate that is her due. I hope one day to reclaim my name - and yours.
I am truly sorry, Father, that you were caught up in my failure. Even now, when I let my mind wander, I might still see the dagger as I began my descent out of the window - Dara smiling hideously. I knew then that I would not suffer alone for my mistake. I hope that, wherever you are, you might eventually find it in your heart to forgive me.
I will stop writing for now. It is enough for the night. I keep this journal with me now, in my Trump Deck. It is a little thing I have learned, but a valuable one. I can make Trumps with the ability to contain small objects. The drawing is irrelevant - for when I activate it, it forms a gateway to a microspace in which some manner of things can be stored. In my Trump deck, they are the Cups - a clever twist, eh, Father?
I pray to see you once again some day, that we might laugh again together. Your loving son,
-- Andreas, Mikel, Laertes, and now, Laughing Boy