Morgan Rice - A Land of Fire

They turned down another corridor, and his mother stopped and turned to Thor.

“You are not just a Druid, Thorgrin, not just a warrior. You are the greatest warrior that has ever been, or ever will be—and the greatest Druid, too. Yours is a special destiny; your life is meant to be bigger, much bigger, than this place. It is life and a destiny meant to be shared with the world. That is why I set you free. I had to let you out in the world, in order for you to become the man you are, in order for you to have the experiences you had and to learn to become the warrior you are meant to be.”

She took a deep breath.

“You see, Thorgrin, it is not seclusion and privilege that make a warrior—but toil and hardship, suffering and pain. Suffering above all. It killed me to watch you suffer—and yet paradoxically, that was what you needed most in order to become the man you have become. Do you understand, Thorgrin?”

Thor did indeed, for the first time in his life, understand. For the first time, it all made sense. He thought of all the suffering he had encountered in his life: his being raised without a mother, reared as a lackey to his brothers, by a father who hated him, in a small, suffocating village, viewed by everyone as a nobody. His upbringing had been one long string of indignities.

But now he was beginning to see that he needed that; that all of his toil and tribulation was meant to be.

“All of your hardship, your independence, your struggling to find your own way,” his mother added, “it was my gift to you. It was my gift to make you stronger.”

A gift , Thorgrin thought to himself. He had never thought of it that way before. At the time, it felt like the farthest thing from a gift—yet now, looking back, he knew that it was exactly that. As she spoke the words, he realized that she was right. All the adversity in his life that he had faced—it had all been a gift, to help mold him into what he had become.

His mother turned, and the two continued to walk side-by-side through the castle, and Thor’s mind spun with a million questions for her.

“Are you real?” Thor asked.

Once again, he was ashamed for being so blunt, and once again he found himself asking a question he did not expect to ask. Yet he felt an intense desire to know.

“Is this place real?” Thor added. “Or is it all just illusion, just a figment of my own imagination, like the rest of this land?”

His mother smiled at him.

“I am as real as you,” she replied.

Thor nodded, assured at the response.

“You are correct that the Land of Druids is a land of illusion, a magic land within yourself,” she added. “I am very much real—yet at the same time, like you, I am a Druid. Druids are not so attached to physical place as are humans. Which means that a part of me lives here, while a part of me lives elsewhere. That is why I am always with you, even if you cannot see me. Druids are everywhere and nowhere at once. We straddle two worlds that others do not.”

“Like Argon,” Thor replied, recalling Argon’s distant gaze, his sometimes appearing and disappearing, his being everywhere and nowhere at once.

She nodded.

“Yes,” she replied. “Just like my brother.”

Thor gaped, in shock.

“Your brother?” he repeated.

She nodded.

“Argon is your uncle,” she said. “He loves you very much. He always has. And Alistair, too.”

Thor pondered it all, overwhelmed.

His brow furrowed as he thought of something.

“But for me, it’s different,” Thor said. “I don’t quite feel as you. I feel more of an attachment to place than you. I can’t travel to other worlds as freely as Argon.”

“That is because you are half human,” she replied.

Thor thought about that.

“I am here now, in this castle, in my home,” he said. “This is my home, is it not?”

“Yes,” she replied. “It is. Your true home. As much as any home you have in the world. Yet Druids are not as attached to the concept of home.”

“So if I wanted to stay here, to live here, I could?” Thor asked.

His mother shook her head.

“No,” she said. “Because your time here, in the Land of the Druids, is finite. Your arriving here was destined—yet you can only visit the Land of the Druids once. When you leave, you can never return again. This place, this castle, everything you see and know here, this place of your dreams that you have seen for so many years, it will all be gone. Like a river that cannot be stepped in twice.”

“And you?” Thor asked, suddenly afraid.

His mother shook her head sweetly.

“You shall not see me again, either. Not like this. Yet I will always be with you.”

Thor was crestfallen at the thought.

“But I don’t understand,” Thor said. “I finally found you. I finally found this place, my home. And now you are telling me it is just for this once?”

His mother sighed.

“A warrior’s home is out in the world,” she said. “It is your duty to be out there, to assist others, to defend others—and to be become, always, a better warrior. You can always become better. Warriors are not meant to sit in one place—especially not a warrior with a great destiny such as yours. You will encounter great things in your life: great castles, great cities, great peoples. Yet you must not cling to anything. Life is a great tide, and you must allow it to take you where it will.”

Thor furrowed his brow, trying to understand. It was so much to take in at once.

“I always thought that, once I found you, my greatest quest would be finished.”

She smiled back at him.

“That is the nature of life,” she replied. “We are given great quests, or we choose them for ourselves, and we set out to achieve them. We never truly imagine we can achieve them—and yet, somehow, we do. Once we do, once one quest is complete, somehow we expect our lives to be over. But our lives are just beginning. Climbing one peak is a great accomplishment in itself—yet it also leads to another, greater, peak. Achieving one quest enables you to embark on another, greater, quest.”

Thor looked at her, surprised.

“That’s right,” she said, reading his mind. “Your finding me will lead you now to another—greater—quest.”

“What other quest can there be?” Thor asked. “What can be greater than finding you?”

She smiled back, her eyes filled with wisdom.

“You cannot even begin to imagine the quests that lay ahead of you,” she said. “Some people in life are born with just one quest. Some people, none. But you—Thorgrin—have been born with a destiny of twelve quests.”

“Twelve?” Thor repeated, flabbergasted.

She nodded.

“The Destiny Sword was one. You achieved that marvelously. Finding me was another. You have achieved two of them. You have ten more to go, ten quests even greater than those two.”

“Ten more?” he asked. “Greater? How is it possible?”

“Let me show you,” she said, as she came up beside him and draped an arm around him and led him gently down the corridor. She led him through a shining sapphire door, and into a room made entirely of sapphires, sparkling green.

Thor’s mother led him across the room to a huge, arched window made of crystal. Thor stood beside her and reached up and placed a palm on the crystal, sensing he needed to, and as he did, the two windowpanes gently opened.

Thor looked out at the ocean, a sweeping panorama from here, covered in a blinding haze and fog, a white light bouncing off of everything, making it seem as if they were perched atop heaven itself.

“Look out,” she said. “Tell me what you see.”

Thor looked out, and at first he saw nothing but ocean and white haze. Soon, though, the haze turned brighter, the ocean began to disappear, and images began to flash before him.