My dearest Alex,
For most of my life I've handed letters such as this to my attorney to keep - just in case. Because of the nature of our work, the end can come in an instant with so much left unsaid. Therefore, I've always tried to be prepared. I don't know how many letters Hewett has tucked away for me over the years, only to shred them, when I've sent him a new one after some incident or other. This, however, I fear will indeed be the last batch.
I've not "seen" anything, but in the weeks since Megan's death, I've felt the "pale horse" breathing hotly upon my neck. I suspect this is why I've felt the need to be away so much. The truth is I've been bending over backwards to find matters that needed to be attended to in person, rather than by video-link or telephone. I simply haven't wanted to be in San Francisco.
Fortunately, the Ruling Council has obliged by providing absurd reasons to keep me here in London. At least I've had the chance to consult with Fr. Thomas over an arcane volume recently found in Istanbul, a sister copy of one in our library - quite interesting. I've also visited some old haunts. It's been a pleasure to stay here at Claridge's, rather than at London House. I called upon Patty Sloan. The girls are now young ladies in every sense of the word. It seems but yesterday that I stood as their godfather. I spent a couple of days in Amsterdam and visited Mother as well. I'm going to take my own advice and do some living. Before I return home I plan a brief holiday. I've always wanted to see the "Roof of the World". I've made arrangements to climb K2 with an old friend. He might be a bit long in the tooth for such adventures, but he could teach almost anyone I know a thing or two about survival. Nick would like him. It will be the last expedition of the season. I wanted Everest, but in some ways K2 is the more challenging peak and only metres shorter.
But I am diverting from the task at hand. I've tried again and again to write this letter. A mountain of white paper balls is growing beside the trash basket. It keeps turning into a muddle. It's like a cup of spilt milk that splatters everywhere. I want so much for it to be just right, yet I know that if I use words from every language I know, I should still not find the right ones. There are so many things I want to say. I'm sorry if it is a long, rambling mess.
"Something Wicked This Way Comes" as Ray Bradbury wrote. But long before him, Shakespeare wrote that of Macbeth, and all I can say is the witch's next line, "Open, locks, whoever knocks!" So be it and amen. I am ready now. This too shall pass.
The truth is that I do not fear death. It will be a relief to be finished, so do not mourn my passing. I don't think I could bear another loss, another death. What I fear the getting there. Will I have the strength to stand firm this one last time? Afterwards, I pray for oblivion. Leave Heaven and Hell to their battles and just let me find the peace of nothingness.
Every teacher wishes for one pupil in his life that will make his entire career worthwhile. You were mine. I was so excited when I brought you into the Legacy. No one could have been a more perfect candidate.
I know that at times you have bridled at my treatment of you. You wanted to be in the field more, but your talent lies as a researcher and as the support that can keep a whole organization running. I'd have been lost without you over the past few years. It is a rare quality that any commanding officer, CEO, or precept prizes. You were too valuable in that position to risk in the field. Sometimes I think your "Sight" communes with that infernal machine.
But it was more than that. This is the most difficult to explain. Because I cared about you, I wanted you safe. When I sent you to that apartment building that time, it was a test for me as much as for you. I had to discover if I could leave you to face that danger alone, whilst I went off on another case on the other side of the world. I had to know how we would both respond - you in a moment of crisis with no back-up and me having to stand aside, focus on something else, and allow you to do your job. That is often what commanders must do - send their subordinates, people about whom they care, into action whilst they stay behind. It is my weakest trait as a precept. I'm the old warhorse who hears the trumpet and smells the smoke and wants to lead the charge.
Was I wrong to bring you into my world? I don't know anymore. I've always pretended, even to myself that I was certain about everything. Doubt has always been a weakness to be exploited by the enemy, but so was love.
It all became too complicated. I have always cared deeply for you, but to have ever said more would have been inappropriate of me first as your teacher, then as your precept. Had such a step been taken, decisions would have had to have been made which neither of us would have liked. Perhaps, that is not what you would like to hear. I have not been unaware of your emotions, but I cannot bring myself to say that I love you - not in the way you want it to be said. I told you that I regretted not having told Megan that I loved her, and I even wrote that in my journal, but I'm not sure I have ever loved any woman in the way that they would want those words to be meant. Did my coldness drive Alicia into Randolph's arms? Is that why Serena chose Croft?
I don't know. When I look back over the years, I recall passions. I recall old-fashioned, male lust. I recall the grief of loss, but I simply do not know if the true emotion was ever there in the first place. Perhaps, that part of my soul never existed. Or, it may be that when the Legacy took my loyalty and devotion, it also took such a large part of my heart that I no longer had the capacity. Perhaps I simply padlocked that door against the choices and pain that I knew would come.
I've had my down moments, my weak times, when I tried to fool myself, but there has never been a time when I would have yielded my battle against the Darkness for the sake of love, nor anything else. I know that no one else could wage a better fight than I, and it would have been dishonourable for me to turn my back, walk away into my lover's waiting arms, and tell someone else, "You carry on the battle without me. You go get yourself killed and sacrifice your soul," when, all the while, I was the one better equipped to fight. My soul would have been lost for the sake of love. The battle has been my choice, my destiny, my curse, my obsession. I'm not sure I could live without it.
When one hits middle age, one thinks on the choices not made. How one's life would have been different with another decision. What if I had pursued my music rather than those disciplines that could further my hunt for the sepulchres and could ultimately serve the Legacy? I'd never have met you. I'd not have been there for Nick, when he was floundering. Rachel and Kat might have been lost. On the other hand, how many others, like Megan and Frank Carmack, would be alive. We spin on Fate's wheel and hindsight is our purgatory. What was it Emily Dickinson wrote?
Remorse is cureless - the Disease
Not even God - can heal -
For 'tis His institution - and
The Adequate of Hell.I cannot grieve very long for what might have been. Perhaps it existed in another world, one of those alternate universes science fiction writers like to play with. If so, I've had my cake and eaten it too.
I wanted to give you a way to have a normal life. I knew that you one day wanted to meet someone, to have a family. The more you slip into field work, the less of an option that becomes - especially for a woman. Men and their families handle it like soldiers have always handled war. It sounds sexist, but it's the truth of the matter. The tradition of the soldier off to the battle and the "good soldier's wife" keeping the home fires burning is age old. What is not "age old" is the wife and mother off to the front lines. Even as the military wrestles with it, so does the Legacy, but you have a better chance at a settled family life if you never go down that path.
Which brings me to your "Sight". Guard it carefully and learn more about it. Cultivate it. As it is now, you permit it to go "au naturale". When treated that way your type of "Sight", which is much more empathetic than my own, can be used against you. The enemy will not only try to make you doubt and misread your impressions, it will manipulate the impressions themselves - feed you false ones, as you now well know. You will never be able to make your "Sight" colder, as mine is, but you can improve your ability to distinguish between truth and illusion. You are already part way there, you have felt evil in your soul and have beaten it, but it will still take a lot of hard work and a lot of faith in yourself.
When this is over, take a sabbatical. Go away. Travel, teach for a while, get your Ph.D., learn more about your "Sight" and yourself, find someone. I know you will. David Royce is a good man, but Rachel may have a leg up there (pun intended). There is a trust fund that will allow you to do whatever you wish. No strings attached. There will always be a position waiting for you within the Luna Foundation. The door at Angel Island will always be open for you and a room waiting. That has all been seen to. I don't ask that you forget about me or about what might have been in some other life, some other world, but simply that you get on with the life you have. Just live your life.
Realize that this world may exist so that evil can exist. That sounds self-defeating, does it not? But perhaps the old Manichaeian heresy is correct in its premise of the duality of good and evil. It is the yin and yang of Buddhism. Horton spouted, "The truth is darkness. There is no light." On the other hand, if there was only light, there would be no darkness. If either was the case, would we know what each was. Would we comprehend goodness without the knowledge of evil? Would we know what light was, if all we had ever known was light? Such complexities, even for my Machiavellian mind. All I know is that try as I might to oppose it, I was born to a destiny. I know the end that I hope for. I know the end that I fear. But I don't know which will be mine.
Return to the Legacy only if you feel in your heart that you must continue the battle in this way. It must be a need, a compulsion. There are many other ways to fight against the Darkness - feed the starving, fight ignorance, stand against oppression, or just reach out a helping hand to someone in need. It is all the same great evil, within and without. We can fight the Great Serpent face to face as I have chosen to do or we can save people one by one from its million little, poisonous offspring, as Mother Theresa and Raoul Wallenberg chose to do. Don't let my downfall determine the path you choose.
Do you recall that after Horton, I told you that it was time to do some living? I later wrote in my journal what you had said, that we were all too busy with death to have a life, so preoccupied with saving a world from which we are increasingly isolated. My dearest Alex, I wrote above that I fear I am incapable of loving in the way any woman would want to be loved, but that is not to say that I do not love at all. Please, do that living for me.
One last thing. What an inelegant way to end a letter such as this - with a P.S. - but my hand won't manage another rewrite, nor would this fit gracefully in anywhere above.
God alone knows what my end will be. Even if I do not fall to the Darkness, it may be speculated that I did. The Legacy is far from perfect. It will play it safe and certain members who have resented my influence will take advantage. Don't fight it publicly. Above all, the Legacy must protect itself. If it cannot do that, its ability to carry on the battle is diminished. Don't let Nick do anything stupid, look after him, and, if you chose to leave the Legacy, let it be because you want to, not because of anything the Legacy may say about me or try to do concerning the foundation.
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E-mail: Dubricus 
