He was blind.
        Of course, he had been blind since birth. It was a fact of life.
        He devoted his life to the restoration of his sight.
        Of course, unlike what was thought, he knew why he was blind.
        He simply didn’t wish it to be known.

        His powers were drawn from the Dark Lord Shabranigdo. But he couldn’t tell anyone this. That would destroy everything that he had done. Possessed of Shabranigdo though he might be, he was not an agent for the Dark Lord.
        Instead, he studied white magics, the magics to counter those of the Dark Lord. And when he found nothing to control and counter that of the fragment within him, he turned to other magics.
        That had been his error.
        Locked in his lab, he reflected on the atrocities done when he lost control to the damning fragment. His Zelgadis, turned into a chimera. His Eris… baffled by his anger and hatred.
        He wanted to beg forgiveness to both, but it was long past. Zelgadis had understandably turned against him, and Eris had vanished in the night after his harsh words.
        Things had been going so well.
        He’d wanted to tell her, to promise her that the day he could open his eyes and look upon her face would be the day that he’d ask her to be his wife. He wasn’t a fool; he knew that she loved him.
        Only, caught in the emotions of her kiss, he lost control of the fragment and it took over, damning her for her foolishness. Aghast and unable to stop it, he watched her crumple and leave the room in tears.
        It was the last time that he’d seen her.

        And now the control was breaking more and more frequently. Lina Inverse was close to figuring it out, but would she before it was too late?
        He could only hope.
        Hope that she would, and could put an end to this nightmarish existence.

        He sighed as he sat writing, hoping that one day Zelgadis would find this journal.
        But tonight would be his last entry.
        He wrote it carefully, taking great care that the words not be unclear or difficult to read.
        The cure that he had discovered.
        The reversal of what Shabranigdo had done to Zelgadis.
        At least he could set one thing right.
        “Forgive me,” he wrote.

        And he left the book on the table of the laboratory, closing the door behind him and walking upstairs to his future.
        To what he knew would be his death.