And Judas wept....

In an infinite number of probabilities that I have seen, Shasta dies by my hand. The details change: I killed her accidentally, I killed her on purpose, I killed her unknowingly, I killed her unwittingly. I kill her in love or in hatred or with sheer indifference.

 In an infinite number of probabilities, I died by Shasta’s hand. Again, the details vary: she killed me accidentally, she killed me deliberately, she killed me unknowingly, she killed me unwittingly. She killed me in love or in hatred or with sheer indifference.

In an infinite number of worlds, we never met: either or both of us never existed. In an equal number, we were killed attempting to escape the blood-hunt in Grenoble. In others, we escaped Grenoble and happily lived out our days. In some, we stayed in Grenoble as friends, as antagonists, as lovers, as people living together in separate lives, as strangers.

But in the framework of this world, she has died for the crime of talking with me, of answering what I had believed to be innocent questions. She died because when I asked what she’d been told, she answered my questions. Perhaps the words that signed her death warrant were not so much that she told me, but because she was warned not to tell me what she had been told. My ignorance has contributed to, and perhaps precipitated her death.

I have been warned not to interfere, not to offer her warning or sanctuary. I can disregard that warning or abide by it; in countless worlds, I have done both, with all possible degrees of success. In the worlds where I break my word to the Prince, I have seen many former friends and comrades-in-arms fall by my hand; whether or not I died in the struggle, everything and everyone I had hoped to protect is destroyed. In worlds where I did not break my pledge, those whom I had called friend saw how little my offer of friendship actually meant. In the myriad worlds where I offered my life in exchange for hers, my offer was accepted, or rejected; we lived and we died according to the whim of the Prince.

And as much as I hate it, as much as my soul screams that this thing must not be, if I force my values on their society, how many others will die? I see no good answers, save rewriting history, and that answer is not much good either. Torn between conflicting loyalties to friends and loyalties to a city… and other people I thought to share similar values… here beyond the world's end, this Judas weeps.