The council chambers were full. Each of the five provincial leaders sat at their places at the table, and the Swordsman sat in for the King. An additional seat was prepared for Lord Felix Gawn of Crossroad's Keep. All the attendants waited outside. The King's absence was felt as much as seen.

  "Where is the King?" Lord Gawn asked, his pudgy face bouncing as he spoke.

  Councilor Manaka's subtle voice broke in, "He never attends anymore, Felix. He is otherwise engaged in his studies and combat. He leaves the running of his nation to this," the Councilor struggled to find a word that would not be construed as an outright insult, but would still get across the weight of her disdain, "youthful Knight." Her features were worn by time, her body sagging with age. Still her yellowed eyes were sharp, and perceptive, and she immediately gauged the effect of her statement on Lord Gawn. She wore a fiery red dress, an homage to her clan, the Himuras whose name comes from the fire they wield and the style of their temperament.

  "That's not entirely true, Manaka" Councilor Connolly's voice was of a tenor's quality, not high pitched, but not low, and he always spoke in a mesmeric pace. "He comes when large decisions must be made, or when great guests arrive. He is King. It is his right to rule, or not, as he wishes. Is that not the privilege of power?" Connolly was younger than most of the other Councilors. Perhaps just north of thirty winters rested upon him. His hair was a wispy red mixed with blonde, and he was clean shaven. His eyes were green, and He wore a well-woven green doublet to match. Upon the back was embroidered a fox, the symbol of the house Falhurst of the Gaels.

  The Swordsman sat in silence, the game beginning in front of him, the game he did not desire to play. Politics have ever been a weakness. I envy the King his ability to skip such things.

  Councilor Adorjan entered the fray, his one good eye, showing violet beneath his long black hair, "It's his right, aye, but Lord Gawn has traveled far with entreaties. This is not in keeping with I'aeond's wisdom. One must face their guests with utmost hospitality, and leaders must hear those they lead. But moreso, those being led must speak with tact concerning their King, lest remarks of worry or concern be misconstrued as treason." He pronounced the last word with a deep growl, his massive form dwarfing all the other contestants.

  "No need to speak of treason, Adorjan, we all wish only the peace and prosperity of the kingdom, for light to win out over darkness. By Illuvian, it will be so. Now, can we stop this, senseless posturing, and get down to the matter at hand? Lord Gawn, you have traveled far, and have come with some kind of supplication to the throne of Shir. You sit at the table of its Councilors. Speak and we will listen, and, should the King come, so too will he." Councilor Kiya's voice was firm, but not unkind. She wore a towering headdress made of pure, white samite sewn together with silver threads. It wrapped around her lovely face and connected to the epaulets of her priestly robes, made of the same material, just beneath her chin. Her eyes were a deep brown, and her skin the colour of light copper. Though in her late thirties she was filled with the blooming beauty of a much younger woman.

  "It is true, High Priestess, there have been groanings of the people. Many of my compatriots, of high and low birth, are strained under the weight of taxes, the lack of discipline in the King's army, and the extortion of those who claim to work for him. In short, rule has become, in places, tyrannical." Lord Gawn spoke with earnest sincerity.

  Adorjan's eye burned with hatred, "Treasonous indeed" he mumbled.

  "No treason, Councilor, not from me. Those I represent have a proposition of rights, a collection of freedoms to be afforded to the people of this land as rule of law. I do not wish to see the King deposed, just to make easier the ruling of our own lands and regions. The kingdom is vast. It is too much for just the five of you here and our King to make every necessary decision."

  Councilor Connolly spoke up, "That is why we have Lords and Ladies in all the provinces. What have you done in your own lands to decrease the suffering? How have you addressed banditry and poverty? You think more rights for the people will do these things?"

  "I have given my people more of the freedom of which I speak, and they thrive, in many ways, but I cannot afford to pay the King's taxes and arm my own force to combat the deserters from his own. I cannot protect them."

  "Cannot protect yourself you mean," Adorjan growled.

  Lord Gawn’s voice remained steady, "Councilor, whatever insinuations you are trying to make, do not misunderstand me. In the world I would have, we would be, all of us, equals by birth, and only by right of strength, intellect, or skill, would we rise higher. Many believe that the path to this world is through bloodshed and war. I am of a different cast. I think this is a change we make in conjunction with the King, and with you, to shape the world in a way that is more profitable for all."

  "And there is the word driving this political revolution, at least for the Nobles among you, 'profitable.'" Councilor Manaka's voice slipped in like a spider between the cracks of his speech.

  Conolly chimed in, "There is nothing inherently wrong with profit, my dear Councilor. Though it does throw into question the noble motivations of these revolutionaries."

  "No, nothing wrong with it at all. But asking to lower taxes in order to make more money for themselves under the guise of protecting the people seems hardly the most noble of causes." Manaka again.

  "I request no such thing. I have nearly impoverished myself funding mercenaries to fend off the rising tide of violence sweeping through the Gaels and the Furrato Plains, and not just from men. Beasts, of numerous and dastardly kind, have begun to wander farther, to take children, to waylay farms, even some so bold as to enter towns in the dead of night and kill drunkards in the streets. My personal guard are a retinue of twenty, but I have hired two thousand more in attempt to create a bastion for my people." Lord Gawn's plump face filled with red. "It is not just me. Lords, Ladies, merchants, and common folk from all across the six provinces have agreed that something must be done. Women are being raped and left to die. Sons and daughters are being taken by slavers, yes slavers. Travelers are waylaid upon the roads. I heard news not a half day's journey from here that a roadside tavern was taken by bandits and slaughtered. The owner, a poor Gaelic woman from my own lands, Martha, never stood a chance. Her son Boris too was beaten into a bloody pulp. Thanks be to the Spirits of Nature that an avenger paid those bandits the price of blood for their wickedness, but more events like that continue to happen all across the realm. Where is the King's peace, when many of his own men are to blame?! When will justice be done!"

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  The outburst left the Councilors sitting in derisive silence. Their skeptical grins mocked him in ways he thought he could not bear, but the Swordsman sat in quiet contemplation.

  "Lord Gawn. What would you say to the "avenger" as you call him, from that roadside tavern? Were you to meet him, what would be your request? Would it be freedoms for your people? Would it be fewer taxes so you could hire more mercenaries?" The Swordsman's monotone made all but Adorjan shift in their chairs.

  "I would ask for justice for every innocent slain."

  "Then what is your true request for the King? What does your revolution desire?"

  "Freedom."

  "Freedom begets the very violence you claim to abhor. The rule of law is the opposite of freedom. Unbridled freedom is enslavement to chaotic whims. What do you want? What does your revolution desire?"

  Lord Gawn looked perplexed, the siren call of freedom seemed so obvious. With it he could defend himself, others could defend themselves. How could anyone be against freedom? "Freedom to defend ourselves"

  "You keep using that word, but what you say and what you mean are at odds. Now, you have the freedom to defend yourself, but not the means. What you desire is the means, am I correct?"

  "I suppose"

  The four remaining Councilors looked on in silence, recognizing the Swordsman's typical games of mind. Each of them at one time or another had fallen victim to his unerring calm, his inhuman logic.

  "You suppose? Then what is it that you desire, really?"

  "Protection"

  "You are closer still to the truth, Lord Gawn. Protection is the means towards your end, but you do not yet see it. What do you desire, for yourself, and for your people?"

  There was a long pause as silence stretched out like a yawning lion upon a bed of grass throughout the room. Finally Lord Gawn spoke, "Peace."

  "Then why attempt to start a war?"

  "I am not..."

  The Swordsman stopped the elderly lord with a raising of his hand, the authority of his position at this table unquestioned in the moment.

  "The manner of political upheaval you contend for seems to be in actual opposition to your goal. If the goal is peace, maybe peace and prosperity, then what need for massive, sweeping changes that will most certainly unsettle the remainder of existing peace and set us all on a blood-drenched path? So then, Lord Gawn, is your purpose, your personal desire for protection and the peace it provides, the same as that of this revolution that is rising?"

  Lord Gawn opened his mouth to speak, but was silenced by another raising of the Swordsman's hand. "Please, Lord Gawn, simply think on it. Do not be in haste to answer – I am not trying to trap you.” The monotone wavered into a sincerity that made Manaka raise her eyebrow and Connoly snort.

  “I will speak with the Councilors and the King himself, and we can meet again to discuss further." The Swordsman rose, and with him all the Councilors as well, "Itaru," he addressed the scribe, "please be sure to compile the notes for today as well as review any documents that Lord Gawn may have brought with him outlining the plan for rights and freedoms. Such things are not done in a day. Thank you, all, for your patience."

  The Councilors bowed, and left, the wound of their silent spectatorship to such a conversation burning in each of them. Itaru nodded his assent to his duties and left, leaving Lord Gawn alone with the Swordsman. The Lord sat in suspended animation, his focus retreating inside his own mind, asking himself more questions than he had in years. Haman, Corbin, the Dragon, the revolution. He believed so strongly, but this young boy had seeded doubt. It must be purged before it could take root.

  Silence grew between them like a great, grasping vine, enveloping both before the Swordsman spoke. "I am sorry I was not able to save them."

  Startled by the sudden crack of words snapping the silent vine in two, Lord Gawn looked up, puzzled, "Save who?"

  "I was asleep when the tavern was overrun. By the time I awoke, no one remained alive. I am sorry. I should have saved them."

  "What in the Void are you talking about, young man?"

  The Swordsman approached and took Lord Gawn’s hand, squeezing it, "I am your avenger, but I should have been protector. Forgive me." And with that, the Swordsman departed.

  #

  Corbin strode toward the dilapidated hut, the missing roof the most egregious of many functional problems with the place as a dwelling. The stench that wafted his way assaulted his nostrils with rank sweat mixed with blood and some kind of wretched stew. As he pushed aside the leather flap that acted as a makeshift doorway, his stomach churned with another wave of malevolent odor.

  Pieces of the once existent thatch roof were scattered about the room, lying on the table, strewn over the straw-made bed, even some sticking out of the top of the cauldron that an ancient, hideous woman was bent over, stirring. She mumbled to herself, a mix of singing and cursing in rapidly shifting crescendo followed by diminuendo. Her words were strings of nonsense to any language known to men or gods.

  Corbin's voice slid like a snake between her utterances, "You really are quite mad, aren't you Daerfam?"

  "DON'T" she said turning her head around at an unnatural angle to gaze one good eye, one milky back at Corbin, "use that name, dearie. In-fact. Don't use a NAME at all." Her head snapped back and she continued to stir. Her inhuman utterances began anew, staining the air with their broken music.

  "As you like, Hag." Corbin said. "You know why I am here. I have only a simple question, and then I will leave you to your hovel."

  The woman did not deign to respond. Here mutterings oscillated between extremes of sound, but lent more toward being loud, and as she grew in volume, she began to stamp her feet and toss her hips and head back and forth, what could only be called a dance in the profoundest depths of some immortal hell. "Is it done? Is it done? The dragonling wants to know." She kept her movements going, and they became increasingly erratic. "Wants to know. Wants to KNOW. Wants to be, wants to SEE."

  Corbin attempted to speak but the hag wouldn't have it. She drilled her eyes into him, getting louder, her body moving now beneath her head in impossible ways as she maintained her gaze. "HEAR. SEE. SEE ME. IS IT DONE? Ask your broken father, dragonling. Ask your BROKEN father. ASK your broken FATHER, WHY HE DESTROYED MY HOUSE."

  Corbin's frustration rose, his rage at this maddened treatment melting steel within his heart, "ENOUGH!" He shouted, the force of his quickening dragging down another wall in the broken hut, and sending the cauldron flying, its profane contents spilling all over the dirt floor, their noxious fumes rising even as the mottled liquid gave itself over to mucus mud. The hag stood just as she was, though her dancing stopped. She did not even bend beneath the fury of his power, only smiled.

  "Fine fine FINE. It is done. The woman is with child, HIS child. Now..." Here the hag stood upright, her form shifting, years falling away like leaves on autumn trees until she stood a full head taller than Corbin. Her lithe form became that of the most fantastically beautiful woman the man had ever seen. She wore a dress woven of reeds and leaves and branches that moved as though from a light breeze that seemed to caress her. Her eyes were an impossible gold, molding and shifting with the light, her lips the red of fresh picked cherries. She drew up one long, soft finger to her mouth, touched those supple lips, and then blew a kiss toward Corbin punctuated by the phrase "Be gone."

  He felt his bowels leap into his throat as the wind from that kiss carried him away faster than he thought possible. He was jettisoned from the hut, down the road, and dozens of miles in a matter of mere moments. His breath caught in his lungs, as winds whipped and lashed about him, the scenes of trees and forest giving way to open plains and finally to the mouth of a cave he knew all too well where the carrying wind let him drop, and roll through the mud and stone at the entrance until, battered, bruised, and angry, he came to an abrupt stop at the feet of the Dragon.