Message: 37731278, 68 lines Posted: 10:33am EDT, Mon Aug 15/94, imported: 10:33am EDT, Mon Aug 15/94 Subject: Ahab's diary #53 To: Kris Fazzari, thari@umich.edu From: jlarke@us.itd.umich.edu I don't think Felix is real thrilled with me. On the other hand, it was worth a shot... not everybody is sadistic enough to start making cuts when they know it's not going to work. Or maybe Sand knew Felix well enough to figure it was going to work. Hard to say. Me, I never liked hostage tactics and never will. If anyone ever tries to take me hostage, I intend to make things very difficult for them, by either escaping or making them carry through on their threats anyway. Once you start letting people pull that shit on you, it starts catching. Anyone who needs something from you is going to be watching you, waiting for you to slip, and then spring. On the other hand, if you just write off the hostages as dead and head straight after the kidnapper, you can discourage the practice pretty effectively. If you're good, it's less of a risk in the long term that way. Vetch blew that one, straight up. He failed to protect his assets (assuming he still counts Ariana in that category, but I'll never know), cooperated with the kidnapper, and then went after her after he'd already made himself some enemies. Not too great a plan, any way you look at it. OK, granted, I didn't do anything about it. I don't want the grief from Ariana and the Hendrakes. I just never want to see that bastard again. I'd like to raise my son without having him stolen every week or so. I don't really feel like this is too much to ask. If it turns out that it is, I'm not sure what I'm going to do. Somehow I doubt Kimbdyl would like to hole up in a magicless Shadow for very long, although it would be a fairly defensible location. I wonder if there's anything we can do to get better protection for ourselves in Amber? All of which aside, I think it would be really satisfying at some very basic level to watch the look on Vetch's face when I push that iron spear through his liver. I'm not sure he believes I'd do it. Then again, I don't believe I will do it, so maybe he's right. But it felt good to tell him what I thought of him just once. Even if he doesn't care. I feel really bad for Ariana. Or maybe I don't. I have to find out what's been going on with her. But she didn't wear the look of a happy honeymooner. I fear that living her life is taxing her to excess. But then, as the English used to say, she shouldn't have joined, should she? Lyss is the one who really bothered me, though. At some level, none of this arcane trickery we're both fond of is a game. It's about power, how to tap into it, and how to use it. I don't have any problem with horsing around with it, but it has other uses. Someday someone's life might depend on me or on her. When that happens, whoever's in the hot seat is going to be real sorry if they haven't learned everything they can. I never thought of it that way until I suddenly realized that in fairy form, I'd lost the power I'd been working with all my life. I've never really used the Pattern as a weapon- it's more of a convenience for me, while my real edge has always come from the fact that I'd as soon die in battle as not. But it would have been real nice to be able to throw Sand that curve ball, and it didn't have it to throw, and it pisses me off. It was necessary; fair enough. But I rather hope Vetch undoes it soon, lest I be cross with him. Because if I'm angry at him, I'm thinking about him, and thinking about him makes me sick.