R. Salvatore: The Bear

I'm not an old man. I'm barely a man! But I feel old and worn and as if the rest of my life will be no more than a long and empty wait to die. For I have failed; I cannot escape that truth.

The irony of that reality does not elude me. I have spent most of my life simply trying to find physical control, trying not to drool on those with whom I speak, or trying not to trip during the most basic activity of walking.

From the depths I ascended, beyond my expectations or highest hopes, to what I considered perfect physical and mental control. Even beyond that I incorporated gemstone magic as if it were a mere extension of my will and want. From the valley to the mountaintop I journeyed, and the point of my life was the climb.

The climb. The meaningless, self-delusional ascent to nothingness… What is it worth to Jameston, dead because he walked beside me? What is it worth to the memory of my mother, Sen Wi, her prized sword taken from me by a Hou-lei warrior woman whose very philosophy is anathema to that which my mother and father held dear? What is it worth, truly, to Garibond Womak, the man who raised me as a son but was mutilated and died because of his defense of me?

What is it worth? What is any of it worth? I want to believe in something bigger than myself, in some higher, noble purpose. I want to believe that the words inscribed in the Book of Jhest, the words my father so carefully penned to relay the guiding philosophy of the Behr mystics, are more than a selfish mental exercise.

I want to believe that Jameston Sequin was right in leaving the woods to walk a path of greater consequence beside me.

But I cannot.

For a brief moment, I dared to hope. Under the brilliance of the extraordinary Dame Gwydre, I allowed myself to believe in something bigger and to hope for a better world. My steps south were light, my steps to the east even lighter, since I believed I was moving toward a more worthwhile destiny.

Now I know the truth, and my folly, and that the nature of man is not divine but selfish. As water seeks its level so, too, will the unscrupulous-those unbounded by morality or empathy, by their very lack of personal shackles-rise to dominate their more community-minded brethren. Worse, I live with the certainty now that any gain is merely a temporary illusion. Even in Vanguard, where Gwydre rules well, she will be replaced. Perhaps the line of honor and decency will hold through another generation, perhaps two, but in the end evil will prevail. The first time the line of good Gwydre is succeeded by a man of evil intent-or even a man without empathy-that last flicker of the light of decency will be snuffed to darkness. And once the darkness takes hold, it does not let go. Delaval begets Yeslnik, Laird of Pryd, begets Laird Prydae begets Laird Bannagran. The descent is evident in the first instance, and in the subsequent incarnations the moral line is level at best and will inevitably slide.

This is the sad nature of things: Unshackled and unbounded, evil men will surely rise. Hou-lei defeats Jhesta Tu because Hou-lei holds no honor. To Hou-lei, there is no fair fight, there is only victory or defeat, and the victors write the histories.

And so did Affwin Wi intervene when Merwal Yahna could not defeat me, when I was proving to be the stronger. Am I now to hold my head high and claim a moral pedestal elevating me above her treachery? How so? She has my mother's sword and the brooch of magical gemstones given me by Father Artolivan. My indignation seems a feeble weapon against the reality of her victory, and my indignation will not bring Jameston Sequin back to life!

Even if we battle on, even if we somehow win… win? Alas, I do not even know how to define such a term! Yeslnik or Ethelbert? Will the fate of Honce sit with Yeslnik the Fool and his brutal armies or with Ethelbert and his paid assassins?

There is no victory to be found there, at least not for the common folk of Honce. Whichever side wins this war, the cost has been far too high, and the outcome will offer little more than a temporary stay from the next bloodletting campaign. I do not want to believe it, but I cannot escape this conclusion.

That is my folly, my false hope, the trap into which I walked because of the seduction of a woman, Dame Gwydre, who truly is different from the many lairds who rain their selfish whims like the lash of a nine-tail on the backs of the common folk. I see no hope for a better Honce.

Jameston should have stayed in the forest, a place more civilized by far.

What is left for me, then? Where might I turn? To Cadayle, obviously, and our unborn child, and there is nothing more. This is not my war, because there is no victory of any positive consequence. Even if I were to accept that any goodly gain must be a temporary thing because of the nature of man, what goodly possibility do I see before me? The fop… or the laird who hires assassins? Vain Yeslnik or Ethelbert, who gives his gold to those who murdered Jameston Sequin?

Would that I could kill them both and be done with them, but even then I suspect that I know what would rise in their stead.

I feel old and worn and tired of it all. -BRANSEN GARIBOND

Every now and then he glanced at the rising sun just to ensure he was going north, though most of the time he would discover that he was not. He meandered aimlessly, not sure of where he was or who he was or, worst of all, why he was.

Bransen still wore his black silk pants, but he had taken off the distinctive shirt, replacing it with a simple shift he had found in an abandoned house. Gone, too, was his mask, the signature of the Highwayman. Soon after being chased out of Ethelbert dos Entel without his prized sword and gemstone brooch, Bransen had pulled the mask from his head and thrown it to the ground, thinking to be done with it, to be done with that persona forever. Almost immediately he angrily retrieved it. Fashioned from the one sleeve he had torn from the black silk shirt, that headband, like the rest of the outfit, had been the uniform of his Jhesta Tu mother, though he wasn't exactly certain of what that might mean anymore, given the beating Affwin Wi and Merwal Yahna had inflicted upon him.

However deep Bransen's despair, however lost he might be, he would not dishonor the memory of his mother.

He wandered throughout that first day after fleeing, finding water at a small stream. By late afternoon his stomach began to growl. He'd need a way to hunt, and so he started out, halfheartedly, to find implements-a stick he might fashion into a spear, perhaps. He got distracted rather quickly, though, as the smell of stew cooking wafted past on the breeze.

Bransen had no interest in meeting anyone, but his stomach wouldn't let him ignore the aroma that led him to lie on a knoll outside a small cluster of houses. In the center of the village burned a roaring cook fire with a large cauldron set atop it tended by a pair of old women. Bransen noted well the many inhabitants of the town milling about. Most were very old or very young; the only people near his age were women, many pregnant, probably from when the press-gangs came hunting. Like so many villages of Honce, this one radiated the unbearable pain of the protracted war.

The ridiculous, horrid reality of a world gone insane stung the young man anew, but it was, after all, just another in a long string of profound disappointments. He surveyed the area, looking for a way to sneak in, preferring to remain unseen and unnoticed. He glanced to the western sky, estimating another hour of daylight. The villagers were gathering to enjoy their meal. More and more would likely come out of those small cabins, and Bransen wondered how much of the meal would be left for him to pilfer.