Dennis McCiernan - Into the Forge

Loric and Phais fed the animals an amount of grain from their replenished supplies, for ere the foursome had left the encampment under the Lone Eld Tree, Alaria had insisted upon replacing the small amount of grain the horses had taken when coming down through the vale. In addition to the grain, she had replenished the meager amount of provender the four had consumed as well, adding even more dried fruit and vegetables, tea, jerky, and mian- food of the Elven wayfarer.

During his watch Tip stood at the edge of the thicket, peering through the twilight and to the south, his jewel-eyed vision probing the growing dark. The moon in its last quarter had set long past, and the glimmering stars were yet to fully emerge. Even so, the Grimwall loomed dark against the gloaming, the chain but some twenty miles away. But Tip's mind was elsewhere, and not dwelling upon mountains to the east or Drearwood to the west, or Arden Vale northward and behind. Instead his thoughts lay southward, where unknown events waited.

Phais came and stood beside him, and for a long while neither spoke, but at last Tip said, "Is it true, Lady, that all things are somehow linked?"

Phais looked down at the Waerling. "What wouldst thou say?"

"Well, part of yesterday and all day today, Beau has concocted the wildest tales concerning how a seemingly insignificant event in one time and place can cause great havoc in another. Oh, he started out mildly enough, where accidental meetings ultimately result in marriages and families, and that I can readily see. And then he spoke of how a puff on a dandelion could provoke an avalanche on a distant mountain. And the chains linking the first event to the last kept getting longer and longer, where a minor initial cause eventually resulted in a major catastrophe-such as bees gathering nectar among meadow flowers giving rise to a great storm half a world away, or a simple sneeze resulting in the total destruction of the moon." Tip looked up at Phais, silhouetted against the darkening lavender sky. "But you know, each of the links in those long chains of his seemed reasonable. I mean, like the puff and the avalanche: Beau presupposed someone plucking a tufted dandelion and blowing the seeds into the air, where they are caught up by a gentle zephyr, and the zephyr in turn swirling up into the sky, where a stronger wind whirls away one of those seeds and bears it far over land and sea and over land again to a distant mountaintop, where that wind-borne seed finally lodges 'gainst a pebble on the high slopes, where months later a foraging mouse comes across the seed and takes it up and in the process dislodges the pebble, which causes the avalanche which destroys the town below and all the people therein. Who knows what might result from this catastrophe?… a catastrophe that never would have been had someone somewhere not months ago puffed on a tufted dandelion a thousand miles away.

"And so I ask you again, Phais, are all things linked? If so, then how can any of us do even the slightest of things for fear of causing ruin?"

Tip fell silent and Phais stood looking at the emerging stars-more to the east, where the sky was darkest, than in the still glowing west. Then she took a deep breath and gazed down at the wee buccan. "Thou hast asked if all things are linked, to which I say, indeed." Tip groaned, but Phais did not pause. "If not directly then, as thou hast said, through chains long and short. But e'en were there no chain whatsoever, still would all things be conjoined, or so I believe, for ultimately do not all things spring from a common source: the Great Creator Himself?

"Yet though all things are connected, events here or there need not result in disaster; good can result as well as ill. Too. events occur which seem to lead to nothing at all.

"Hear this: had the dandelion seed instead been one of flax carried aloft not by the wind but rather by a bird, and had it fallen on fertile ground far away, and years later had people discovered the resulting field, then they could create fine linen and linseed oil and their lives would be better for it.

"And so dost thou see that events here can bring benefit there?"

"Yes," said Tip, "I can see that."

"Then think on this: some events are driven by erratic chance, while others are deliberate. We do not control those which are haphazard, but we do have a say over choices we intentionally make. Those are the ones I bid thee to consider, for choices made are much like stones cast in a vast pond, the resulting ripples moving outward in an ever widening circle, causing echoes in all they touch.

"Yet as the ripples widen, their effect diminishes the farther they travel."

"Yes," said Tip, "but it is also true that the greater the stone, the greater the waves created, no matter the distance."

Phais nodded. "Indeed, thou art right. Each event is a stone cast in the water-some large, some small, some nearby, some distant-and the resulting waves and wavelets cross and recross in complex patterns-strengthening here, weakening there, diminishing with distance. Sometimes even the weakest of waves, no matter how far they have traveled, come together to spark an event which will ultimately lead to great harm-a dandelion seed, a wee mouse, a small dislodged stone, and rocks balanced precariously on the slopes of a mountain above a village. At other times strong waves in places, no matter how close, completely annul one another-tyrant slaying tyrant, where neither survive to crush the conquered. Yet for the most part we cannot know how deliberate choices will eventually interact with one another or how chance events will come into play, for there are too many, the pattern too complex, to have certainty in the outcome.

"Adding here, subtracting there, the intermingled ripples and echoes and patterns can lead to peace and plenty or to famine and war, to lofty joys or deep frustrations, to amiable comfort or petty worry, to gentle convenience or feeble bother, to a fleeting smile or a momentary frown, or can result in ends which have little or no lasting effects one way or the other, for the pebble cast into the water was too small, or the wave too diminished by distance."

Tip growled. "You mean, Lady Phais, that no matter how well intentioned our choices, the outcome may be unexpectedly bad?"

Phais smiled. "Or mayhap unexpectedly benevolent."

Again Tipperton groaned, saying, "Well, if we can't tell, why choose at all?"

"Because we must," replied Phais, "else evil will triumph through our inactions."

They stood a moment in brooding silence, and then Phais added, "This I will say, Sir Tipperton: mayhap in the majority of choices one cannot predict with any certainty whether a given decision will result in great good or great ill, or in lesser good or ill, or become so insubstantial that the effects vanish altogether.

"This does not diminish in any way the truth that all things are related, for it is in the nature of the Great Creator to make them so-some forged with links virtually unbreakable; others with links tenuous at best.

"And so, my friend, whether by choice or by chance, events can lead to good or ill… or perhaps to nothing at all.

"As to those we choose, we can only hope the choices we make are worthy and do not lead toward ill. But for those events which overtake us-be they random or driven by the choice of another-it is how we respond to them which may help determine the nature and degree of what will come about in the end."

Phais fell silent, and Tip stood long without speaking, but at last he said, "To what ends, I wonder, will our choices bring us?"

"That, my wee one, I cannot say." After a while, Phais returned to the camp, leaving Tip in the dark alone.

Although Elves pay little heed to the passage of time, of days and weeks and even months, seeming to note only the passing of the seasons, still they know at all times where stands the Sun, Moon, and stars. And at the appropriate time Tipperton was relieved in his watch by Loric.