From jlarke@us.itd.umich.eduMon Mar 27 12:16:13 1995 Date: Mon, 27 Mar 1995 11:49:01 -0500 From: Jason Larke To: thari@umich.edu Subject: Ahab #63 Well, that was trippy. I didn't think anyone could do that. But I suppose that my "daughter" is not just anyone in this case. Apparently Abe was not as real as I thought- Lyss is still, basically, half Pattern ghost and half Spider. Certainly helps explain that fleeting and insubstantial quality her thoughts tend to have. It was a very near thing. Brand is a bad man to have coming at you, and while Lyss-in-the-Pattern is a more formidable opponent than Jack-in-the-Box, I would not care to estimate by how much. Bart's sorcery turned the trick, though, and left most of the sorcers in the room flat on their backs. Makes me wonder why my branch of the family has ignored sorcery for so long; it is becoming clear to me that sorcery, properly used, can be more powerful than any of the other arts. Although each of them has their place... Lyss' ability to become the Pattern, or sink into it, or whatever, gives me several ideas for how we could fight off Brand in the future. You would think that the Pattern itself could duplicate the effects of the Jewel, at least on a local basis, and alter the rules to turn off Trump and Sorcery. At that point Brand would be stuck with his swordsmanship and pattern skills, which are of course considerable, but hardly the better part of his arsenal. Since he'd be up against my parents and I, even if Bleys and Fiona decided to stay home, I would expect him to be disadvantaged. If he had the real Jewel, he could doubtless make trouble with it, but that requires concentration, and we might be able to deny him that. Mom's a fair shot with a crossbow, when the mood takes her. My main worry is that certain felines are no longer as contained as they once were. Bart strikes me as the sort of person who is no more discreet that gaining an advantage requires, which means that barring utter stupidity (which, though a significant force in Bart's life, is not something I will depend on) Llewella will be trading it around whenever circumstances require. And while some of my relatives may be passing fond of me, and others might decide not to risk going up against whatever bizarre inbred power I may have, someone is going to follow Dworkin's login and try to kick my ass for the good of civilization. It may be time to try altering that calculus for them, but it's hard to draw the line there. If I act too inoffensive, people will start thinking I'm weak and cease to take me seriously. Try too hard to be bad, and people will assume that I need to be taken down, a peg or all the way. No matter where I go on that continuum, someone is likely to see me as a threat, or a challenge. I guess, if it comes down to that, it's all fine with me. Those are the rules we play by. They aren't the rules I was taught when I was young, but that is just something I need to get over. That's why I'm raising Nicholas as I am- I know for a fact that Arken and Kimbdyl are going to teach him to be a nice young man, and I think he needs to have some Machiavelli in the back of his mind. By the time he grows up, I want him to be able to see things tactically as well as morally. It's something I can never do well, nor did my Mom ever really get the hang of it. But a child who was kidnapped twice before his was a year old has need of it. And no matter how mean and dangerous he turns out to be, it still won't make up for Lyss.