 |
January |
 |
Issue 40 |
 |
 |
 |
|||
  
Vehement the MercifulJohn KuhnFantasy
To the one who finds these words, greetings. I write them on a winter's day, in the third year of the reign of Vehement the Merciful. Tomorrow I will be burned alive.
 It tires one, etching words into stone with the mind. I choose my words carefully. The stone is large, but the mass of it lay buried in the loam. I can just see it through this barred window. The stone is a rectangle the size of a bread loaf, laying flush with the ground. It is my slate. I will small strokes into being, and I will them disappear as they are etched, to appear in their entirety only when a nobleman—a true nobleman—should happen upon them. I wager the date of their discovery shall be many years hence, for the last knight of my generation will die tomorrow. Few know in these evil days that magic and power are inherent in genuine nobility. Chivalry itself fuels our sacred abilities. Knights whom I have known—the true ones, not those of purchased title—have slain the most wicked of beasts without unsheathing a blade. They have scaled towers by walking upright on the face of their precipitous walls. They have sensed their lieges' danger from afar and have ridden their mounts with a fury that outpaced the wind. I have seen it; I have ridden along. I will these words to appear in your language, friend and reader, when you lay eyes on them. It is my hope that you might tell my story. I long ago covered my shield with a donkey's hide, and I wear beggars' rags over my mail. The people of Fairgaarden have not held knights in high esteem since Vehement the Merciful took the throne. Under Pierce the Wise we were respected and loved. We rode shining mounts over the length and breadth of Fairgaarden, and the people showered us with good wishes and rose petals. I cannot count the occasions when my fellow knights and I watered our horses at the troughs of simple folk, at their insistence, and went into their homes to share their bread, never uninvited, always finding it difficult to tear ourselves away from them when the time came for us to depart. Pierce—God rest his courageous soul—understood that knight was not a name he could bestow. God himself knighted us when he rewarded our chivalry and courage with these powers. Pierce and his fathers before him merely beseeched that we serve them. None of them ever made a man into a knight. Rather, they made knights into their protectors. It was Pierce's son Vehement who knighted friends and the sons of favored supporters. It was Vehement who issued the One Law, and we put our swords away. For a time, we rode about Fairgaarden and kept watch, but it was idiocy. Knights in full armor carrying the banner of their king throughout the land, but lacking swords. Lacking a decree. A thousand enforcers for a single law that erased all others. 1Requires a PDF viewer such as Adobe's Free Acrobat Reader
Dragons, Knights, & Angels ISSN 1558-9803
Copyright© 2005 Double-Edged Publishing. All rights reserved. All contents belong to Double-Edged Publishing or the original authors. Reproduction of this site, in whole or in part, is prohibited without written permission. |
||||
 |
 |
|||