From: hutch@ibeam.intel.com (Steve Hutchison) Date: 14 Jun 93 17:09:05 GMT Newsgroups: alt.pub.dragons-inn Subject: [MG] Forging Fine Silver In the death of a massive storm a timefork was born, and on that fork I chose to follow both branchings. One fork goes on to an end which cannot be seen. The other is short, but long enough that I can use it. I have been given a small gift, a flame from a distant beacon. In my quiet tower I pause for meditation and reflection. Reflection. An idea in motion. Spinning, turning, showing all the facets, all the flaws, all the edges, all the cold hard facts from which it is built. The concept is Warrior. At its primal center, Warrior contests against opposition on behalf of an abstraction. And a flame, a candle in the night. A small thing, really, but it would not die and could not be extinguished. Crush it here, and it springs up elsewhere. The flame is also an idea, the emblem of possibilities, the selection from those possibilities of one true and best alternative, even in the face of the impossible, to see by its light that there are other things that can happen, that will happen if the flame is nourished. Reflection on a Name. Assuming the Power that lives in the Flame could be costly. It requires commitment, choice, deliberate assumption of risk. Becoming one with the Flame, a Warrior in service to its light, there are thousands of things which can be lost. Are they worth the one thing preserved? Decision. If the War is lost, all things are lost. The goal is worthy of the risk. I will. Taking the flame within, it burns throughout all facets, each place it touches is transformed... Assume the Role of Warrior, the Wings take shape, the Power collects. Wait and grow stronger. This Place is like unto the Beacon of Hope, it has within it the reflection of that Place. The name is spoken, and I answer. There is one, a child, who calls in fear. Her heart is burdened beyond proper limits. Speak words of comfort. Beside her is one who I love, but horribly marred. The flames of his being are wreathed in the self-consuming darkness of Vengeance. Take him into my wings. Let the light pour in, and the dark Power is revealed, isolated. The one who I love, no longer blinded by the need to return hurt, the Power is purged of its twisted nature. It will be needed, later. Speak more comfort, and now, depart before I am revealed too soon. Walk the high places. Step into the past, hearing the echoes of a voice calling my name. This Place is an open plaza. Below is again the one who I love, heart twisted by the Reaver and shaped by Despair, compelled into a form that mocks his inner nature. Approach from the other side of beyond; it is important that I not be seen by the ReaversChild nor his tools. Enfold him, inside of time and outside, wrapped in my wings he is freed from the bindings, take from him the black chains, but I cannot remove the Gift of Power from the solid stone of his being, Power which he has woven through the people here. Give out again the benediction of light onto the crowd and return to the other side of beyond. The black chains rot and dissolve away into the nothingness in the light of the flame. Again I am called, this time by One who has no End. She tells of a thing I must do, and I step Beyond time and into the alterspace, crossing in the wake of a spirit departed too early. Appear to him in his paradise: <> Wait while he decides... And he comes. Take him up into the folds of my being. The return is instantaneous and interminable, as all such journeys. Below, his body waits, halting flesh restored from dead stone but requiring the fires of his own being to truly warm it. The one who I love goes about his task of restoring those fires to their proper hearth. Move onward, quickly, the four paces away where his timefolded self holds the skein of his being, a detestable arrogance staining the pure waters of his mind. A touch of the flame burns away the arrogance; he can and must expel the twistings on his own. Quickly, go forth from this Place, lest the ReaversChild see me. His name I have deduced, but I will not speak it; though I take the Role of the Silver Warrior I am weaker than he, and have not yet the Power needed to face him full on. Stand again on the Lighthouse, that Place the other cannot see, and touch the Flame to the beacon. The Light shoots forth, across the endless Spheres. One will come, whether in time or not I cannot say, but this Place will not be abandoned to the ReaversChild. Step back into Time. A voice calls me, multiplied upon itself, a voice I know. Stoop down from the place beyond Places, an eagle upon its prey. The shard has spun off another shard, which has worked its filthy will upon the one I love. He fights fiercely, without wrath but implacable, and does not yield; he does what he must, and carries his own crystal flame from the Beacon into the heart of the shard. Striking, fan the flame, make it blaze like unto the Beacon itself, illuminating all the corners of the being. It flees. I follow.