Shining Force
Handfuls of Magic
Drudkh
Summoning the Rain
Glare of Autumn
"... and now that the stone is wet, we can use it for its intended purpose-as a whetstone."
"So, a stone only becomes a wet stone when it's whet?"
"No. A stone only becomes a whetstone when it's wet. Until then, it's just a stone."
"Ah. Very good, sir."
Max offered a rare half-smile. Then he placed his blade against the coarse granular surface and began to run it back and forth. Each time he did, there was a dangerous metallic sching. This process repeated itself a dozen, then a hundred times... only then did Max dunk a smaller, more finely-grained stone into the creek to wet it too into a whetstone.
"I'm surprised you use such a weapon, sir. For you, I'd have thought it a little... barbaric."
"Then you don't know me as well as you think you do," Max said. "I might be from noble stock, but that life never was for me. Idleness and delegation don't whet my appetite. Only blades... tools of war."
"And then you whet your stone with the blood of your enemies?"
"No," Max grinned. "I wet my tongue with the blood of my enemies."
There was relative silence for the moment. The birds sang and the brook babbled, yet the sching of the sword cut through them all.
"Do you ever wonder what you'll do when there's no more war?"
"I'll cross that bridge when I get there. Just as I crossed that bridge," Max said, nodding at a little wooden thing across the meadow, "and the ones before it, and the ones before those. You need not plan your life out decades in advance, my young friend... you only need to live it."
"That's a very swordsmanly thing to say, sir. In my field, you cannot advance without planning. You need to know what you're going to do years-decades-centuries before you do it."
Max smiled fully for the first time in... he didn't know how long.
"Cursed are we mortals," he said, "with mortal life. I only have one life to live, my friend. I don't have a lifetime to plan... only a lifetime to live. And in my line of work, that may not be very long at all."
He hefted his sword. Too short to be a longsword, too long to be a shortsword. Its hand-and-a-half grip tempted some to call it a bastard, but they rarely said that to him. Most just called it... a middle sword.
A single shimmering green leaf fell. Max seemed to twitch-and seconds later, the leaf fell in two.
"You may be the most talented swordsman this side of Runefaust. Maybe anywhere, sir."
"Don't flatter me," Max rasped. "I'm just a boy... just trying to make my way in the world."
"Facts aren't flattery. If you keep working as hard as you do, and keep thinking... and if you keep moving forward fearlessly, without planning too much... I have every confidence that you will end up exactly where you belong."
Max didn't speak much. Never had. But often, it was because he learned more in silence. This time, it was because he was lost for words.
"I am very touched, my friend," he eventually managed. "Your words are worth more to me than half of the empty songs they've written about me... the useless poems... even the curses cut into stone itself."
"My words are poetry."
"That they are," Max agreed. "That they've always been."
At last he sheathed his sword. Then he sat with his back to a tall firm holm oak, looking out into the distances... into the possibilites, and adventures, and, yes, the terror, and the struggles, and the violence, and the hatred they might bring. And his silent companion watched with him, too.
"It's a strange fate that brought us together," Max said. "And a stranger fate yet that's kept us apart. It's hard to imagine that even now, we haven't yet made time to meet."
"Our time will come, my friend."
"How can you be so sure?" Max said. "In such a world as this, with such tumult, and chaos... and with a man like me. I'm a man of the moment, an creature of impulse. Few change as much or as rapidly as I do... as I have. You know that."
"And yet as much as you change, you remain the same.
"In a way, you are as the world is. Dynamic, chaotic, unpredictable, merciless, yet fundamentally static, solid, true. Even beautiful, in your own way. Even gentle, at times. You only need to find the situations, and the people who can bring that gentleness to the surface, so you don't have to keep it so damned buried all the time."
"Maybe someday," Max said. "Maybe some place. Maybe in the future, maybe in the past; maybe at the gates of Runefaust or in its womb itself.
"Maybe in Heaven. Maybe in Hell."
"Well. Until you can be gentle, truly... promise me that at least you'll be like water. Shift, flow, adapt, overcome, overwhelm... and above all, never stop moving."
Max nodded once. He wasn't cocky, wasn't even confident. He was simply certain of his fate, wherever it might take him.
Eventually, he stood. It wasn't to a sound, nor to a motion. It was to the inexorable restlessness that had defined him for he didn't know how long.
"I can't sit still or rest," he said to himself. "Not when there are mountains to be climbed, glories to be seized... enemies to be killed. I'm going to battle, my friend," he glanced at his ally. "And once the last enemy is slain, and I finally enter the former Lord Ramludu's celestial abode, Vaikuntha... will you still be there?"
"I know not. I'm not unlike you, my friend. Defined by chaos, and nature, and infinite other powers beyond my control. By the time you get there, I could be a thousand leagues away."
Max smiled emptily.
"Sadgeo," he rasped, "no matter what happens, or what doesn't... my life is bettered by your aura."
He drew his sword. Then he jabbed it into the ground and knelt, his head bowed, to receive the mystic's blessing. And in time he felt a levity in his chest... a lightness in his step.
And so he stood. Alone, again, yet stronger, wiser, and more dangerous than ever before.
Again he looked at the word before him. So full of possibilities... so full of opportunities. All he had to do was to go forth-and seize each one of them.
No more time to plan. No more time to think. It was time to be like water, all at once a force of nature, and a force of chaos.
He lifted a hand full of shimmering magic, then threw it to the ground with a tumultuous roar-
And then he was in the sky, flying, unblinking, racing on to the forthcoming battle.