This is my pre-campaign 'diary' - Tamash on his first meeting with Martin.
It had been a good day until then. I'd been investigating the dragons, and I'd finally worked out... well, how they worked. I had this warm feeling of contentment, and I'd decided to take the afternoon off.
As was my habit, therefore, I was basking in one of the warmer updrafts, and watching the swirling patterns of the Emptiness, as the dwellers of this shadow call it. They are fascinating, both literally and metaphorically; they have an odd hypnotic quality, but one that heightens the clarity of one's thoughts, rather than dulling them, and on occasion, I've found them a help when a problem has proved complex.
That day, though, I was more interested in relaxation. The warmth of the updraft and the display below had drawn me into a peaceful half-trance, so that when I first felt a chill, I thought for a moment that it was only that the air had cooled. It persisted, though, and despite a strong temptation to ignore it, the concern that someone I cared for might have been hurt had me reluctantly surfacing far enough to receive the contact.
That was what ruined the day. it could have been my mother, or perhaps Merlin or one of the others. Not Dara! The simple fact that it was her ruined my mood; she could have no ordinary reason to contact me. It had, therefore, to be an extraordinary reason, and I hadn't spent years alone in this shadow of mine because I was enamoured of politics. The conversation that developed in no way reassured me.
She had, she told me, a friend. He was in need of somewhere peaceful to rest and recover from injuries. She herself had pressing business, and could not attend to this also. You can imagine, I suspect, how suspicious was of this 'friend' of Dara's. Indeed, when I brought them through, his appearance only reinforced those suspicions; he appeared so harmless that he must surely be otherwise.
What did reassure me was the way he looked at me in those first moments. Unlike some of my kin, being feared gives me no pleasure. In this case, I made an exception. His wariness made me very glad indeed. It seemed to me that it meant that he might truly be no more than he appeared.
He didn't speak much, that evening. By then, his jumpiness had begun to worry me slightly. Had he not so clearly been of Amber, I would have been more concerned. Whoever had him watching the shadows like they might grow teeth (an intriguing concept, and I got a good spell out of it; I'll show you some time) woud surely also hail from that end of the world, so to speak. Now, my shadow here is unreachable by most means - the Pattern included. This was an infinitely pleasing circumstance in the context, though as it turned out, the sense of security that it gave me was unfounded.
Anyway, as I said, he was very quiet. When we retired, I knew little more of him, save that he was called Martin. Dara filled the silences with talk of the goings on in the Courts. As far as I could tell, it was the usual round of quiet assasinations, plotting and politics. Eventually, she ran out of gossip, and we retired.
The next morning was interesting. Dara had gone. Dissappeared. She hadn't left a note, or indeed any sign that she had ever been here at all. I had thought Martin was nervous before, but... He seemed to believe that I had somehow disposed of her in the night, or lured him to me using her image. It took him some time to calm down enough to listen to me, and I think he would have been long gone by then, save that he was at least as afraid of everywhere else as of where he was.
That's when I found out what had happened to him. You see, he felt compelled to apologise once he had decided I hadn't killed Dara or tricked him, and in the process he eplained what had made him so jumpy... I admit that I spent most of that night while he slept hanging a very different set of spells, and I felt nearly as nervous as he had been acting. As the days passed without the sword falling, though, we both began to relax.
We traded stories of our childhoods, tales of odd shadows and anecdotes of other worlds and other customs as the weeks passed. I was not entirely free with what I said, and I'm sure he wasn't, but we found we had a surprising amount in common given our backgrounds. Especially, neither of us was comfortable with our families - though he was worse off than me in that respect! Amber seemed like a fascinating place, though not one I would want to live in, given its residents, and I think he found the Courts as interesting.
By the time he left, perhaps a year of shadow-time later, I counted him a friend. I think he felt the same way, though I haven't heard from him much since then. At any rate, he left me a Trump of himself, as well as giving me a Trump of my shadow - a precious gift, as I have not the skill to craft one myself.
I've missed him, since, for I had grown used to the company of an equal, and someone I... well, not trusted, but trusted, if you see what I mean.
I have stayed in touch with home a little more frequently since then - I've been a little lonely (strange that you do not regret a thing's absence until you have know its presence), and besides, I've wanted to know what is afoot in the wider world. Somehow, being all alone and peacefully unaware of events at home has lost a certain amount of appeal...