Dennis McCiernan - Into the Forge

Loric and Phais tended the steeds, tethering them to a tree-strung rope and removing saddles and harness and cargo and racks, and then giving them a small bit of grain while they curried any knots from their hair. And Tip and Beau cleared a space on the ground and gathered stones into a ring and built a small fire to brew tea to go with a light evening meal. And they spread bedrolls on the ground nigh the blaze.

And as the kettle came to a boil, Loric said, "Though I deem it safe in Arden Vale, once we are gone from it we will need keep a watch, and we might as well start now." He held out a hand in which he grasped four pine needles trimmed to four different lengths. "Short draw wards first, long draw guards last, the others in between."

But Phais shook her head, saying, "Nay, Loric; though Waerlinga see well by moon and stars, Elven eyes see even better. Thou and I shouldst stand the midwatches, while our two friends take first and last."

Loric touched his own temple. "Thou art right, Dara, I had forgotten."

"Oh," said Beau, disappointed. "But I say, let's draw straws anyway just to see what would have happened."

Loric glanced over at Phais, and when she shrugged, he held out the trimmed needles. And when they compared, Tip had the first watch, Beau the last, and Phais followed Loric in between.

"Ah," said Loric, grinning, "Sense and Fortune agree."

That eve, as Tip and Beau took a trip to the river to draw fresh water for the morrow, "Coo," said Beau, squatting by the run, the flux chill with high-mountain snowmelt. "Something that Phais said, well, I just never thought of it that way."

"Never thought what way of what?" asked Tip.

"That the choices we make now may have consequences so far in the future that none then will know the cause of it all."

"Like what?"

"Oh, I dunno," replied Beau, scratching his head. "Oh wait, here's one: how did your da meet your dam?"

A soft look came over Tipperton's face. "He said that once when he was delivering a load of flour, he saw her pass by in a wagon, and was so smitten by her that the next time he was in Stonehill he asked after her, and met her, and events went their natural way."

"Well, then, what if your da had chosen to deliver the flour a different day? Perhaps, bucco, you wouldn't have been born, we wouldn't have met, and there'd be no one to deliver the coin to King Agron, and the whole course of the war would have been changed because of it. So, it's because of your da's choice to deliver flour that day, and your dam's choice to be riding in the wagon, that the entire war will be won."

"Oh, I do hope you're right, Beau. -About the war being won, that is."

A silence fell between them as they filled water skins. But then Beau said, "Oh. Here's another one. And this one is about a choice even further back-one made two thousand or so years ago. Imagine this: what if Lord Talarin and Lady Rael had never decided to settle Arden Vale way back when they did. Wull then, we wouldn't have been rescued those two thousand years later by Vanidor and Loric and such. And that means we wouldn't get to deliver the coin, and who knows what would have happened then?"

Tip's eyes widened, then narrowed, and he said, "Listen, bucco, we still haven't delivered the bloody coin. What if we never do?"

"Oh, Tip, don't say such things." And the wee buccan looked over his shoulder, as if attempting to see dark fate lurking in the shadows behind.

"Or how about this one?" said Beau to Tip at breakfast the next morn. "When Gyphon and Adon had their debate long past, who then could have known the consequences? I mean, here we are involved in a struggle, one that may be a direct result of that quarrel."

Phais looked up from her tea. "Indeed, I never thought then that the disputation, though bitter, would lead to the darkness which followed."

Tip's eyes flew wide, but ere he could say aught, Beau asked, "Darkness? You mean the war, eh?"

"That and more," replied Phais. "For Gyphon not only ruled the Low Plane, He also seduced others on other Planes unto His unworthy cause, and these became Black Mages and rovers and ravers-any who were won over to His precept that the strong shall take whatever they wish to gratify their desires, regardless of the consequences to those they take from."

Phais fell silent, but Tip said, "Lady, did I hear you right, that you never thought then that the disputation, though bitter, would lead to the darkness which followed?"

Phais nodded.

"But then, I mean," stammered Tip, "that is, by putting it that way, it makes you sound as if you were there. I mean, there during the debate itself."

Phais smiled gently. "I was there, wee one. Indeed, I was there."

Now Beau's mouth fell open. "In the glade with the gods? Oh, my. Oh, oh, my."

"Then you actually witnessed what we saw depicted on the tapestry in Talarin's hall?"

Phais turned up her hands and said, "The artisans who wove it did so from my description."

"Oh, my," said Beau again.

Tip took a long pull on his mug of tea. "I see what you mean by unforeseen consequences arising from things long past."

"Are they really beings of light?" blurted Beau. "The gods, I mean?"

Phais turned to the buccan. "That is how they seemed to me, Sir Beau, as beings of light; yet 'tis said that each one sees them differently."

"Oh, my," said Beau, his eyes wide and gazing at Phais as if she were somehow touched by the gods themselves.

Phais laughed and stood. " 'Tis time we were on our way."

That morning as they rode southward through the vale, with Tip practicing on his lute and Beau, as soon as he had recovered from his astonishment, prattling about unforeseen consequences of even the simplest acts, and he kept up a running chatter with Tipperton:

"I mean, I could jump up a coney and it run into the jaws of a fox and the fox not raid a henhouse and the farmer sell the nonstolen hen to a sailor who would take it across the sea to Jung or another one of those faraway places, where it lays eggs which are sold to a peddler who in turn sells them to a royal cook, who prepares them wrong and as a result a king or emperor or some such dies, and then the realm falls into ruin… all because I kicked up a coney one day."

After perhaps the hundredth example-where a sneeze in the Boskydells resulted in the total destruction of the moon-Tipperton stopped chording his lute and said, "Oh, Beau, I just remembered: Jaith told me to tell you my da's tale of the curious fly and the sleeping giant."

"That's right, she did," said Beau. "Though I don't remember why."

"Well, bucco, it was right after you had declared we were country bumpkins and totally inconsequential."

Beau shook his head. "Haven't you been listening to me, Tip? I mean, I don't believe that anymore. Look, if a sneeze in the Bosky can destroy the moo-"

"Yes, yes," interrupted Tip. "But I'll tell you the tale regardless." And before Beau could object, Tip began:

"It seemed there was this curious fly, and a very clever fly at that, who wanted to travel the world and see all it could see in the time allotted to its short life. Well, one day it came across the greatest fortress it had ever seen. Huge it was, with solid stone walls hundreds of feet high and set on a sheer-sided headland above the rolling waves of a sea. Formidable it was, this mighty bastion, and it belonged to a great giant, and none had ever conquered it, though several fools had tried, for 'twas rumored that there was a great hoard within.

"Now on this spring day when the fly flew by, the windows were open wide, for the giant's wife was airing the bedchambers to clear out the winter just past. 'Well, as long as they're open,' says the fly to itself, 'I think I'll see what's within, for I've certainly never been to such a large and fine and invincible fortress in all my life.' And so the fly, curious as ever, flew through the window and in.