however , just as life and warmth had been drained from it , erat rin seemed to have had a similarly harmful effect on his abilities , condemning him to enormous depths of self-doubt and misery , and affecting others like a curse : first hed been unable to save the nameless girl from the storm , and then to the guilt of her death had been added his lamentable failure to live up to the legends written about him by being unable to illuminate the stone and letting down so many people .