Precipice

 Where is she? I can't feel her as clearly as...ah.

"Natalie? Don't be alarmed."

She jumps a little anyway. Not the big jump, and she flails wildly to grab at the rail. "Who the hell are you?"

"I'm Death, sweetie."  I have had this conversation many, many times.

"Not funny."

"Not joking, luv. You looked around and made sure you were very alone, and you were right. Nobody saw you come up here, nobody sees you now. It's just you up here."

"And you?"

"And me, though it gets into some metaphysical hairsplitting if we start discussing where exactly in the world I am at any given moment. But we're sure you're here, and for now we'll agree that I'm here too. Okay?"

"...who are you, really?"

Many times, indeed. This conversation is a familiar one. "Do you want me to do the Grim Reaper face?"

"Um..." Natalie looks over the edge. It's a long way down, and rocks and crashing waves at the bottom. I know why she chose this location. "You're not Death."

I do the Grim Reaper face. Ebon robes, skeletal hands, a suggestion of a skull instead of a face, set deep into the yawning blackness of the cowl. It's a cliché but Natalie believes it when she sees it. If I had showed up this way she probably wouldn't have believed it, but changing before her eyes has the desired effect.

It always works.

Ah, yes. Grabbing the rail tighter but shying away. I can feel her mind becoming small. Her heart is racing, racing. She might soil herself, it's about forty-sixty at this point in the conversation. More of the men than the women, interestingly.

"Please relax, Natalie," I tell her as I change back. The Reaper face isn't good for talking, though it is excellent for sepulchral moaning. Gravitas with a vengeance, you could say. "I just want to talk to you."

"You're really Death." Her voice comes out in a strained whisper. This is a common symptom too. Her heart is going so fast, as if it's trying to get a few extra beats in while it still has time.  Between fast breathing and terror-tightened vocal cords, it's hard to talk.  Sometimes screaming helps, just an animal howl of mortal fear.  Letting some of it out really does make a difference.

"...shh. Just relax. Slow down." I don't reach toward her. Never reach toward them. But I do approach the rail and carefully clamber over it. Now we're on the far side, the dangerous side - dangerous to one of us - together. "This is a beautiful place." And we stand there together for a few minutes. Finally I shift myself and climb up to sit on the railing. This is more comfortable. The sun is making its way down the sky, quadrillions of busy little hydrogen atoms moshing furiously into each other all willy-nilly. At one time I attended those deaths but gave it up. The sudden rebirth into helium rendered it pointless, and the atoms didn't appreciate it anyway. They find their own way. Everybody does, of course. I just attend to those who are...stuck. And some others, too, who aren't stuck but are also ahead of schedule.  Like today.

Her mind is becoming large again. Some of the terror has faded, as it usually does.

"You look...kind of like my mom."

"Do I? Is that good?" Pat question, of course.

"Yeah." Long, almost sobbing sigh. "I really miss her." And that's why it's pat. Mostly people want to see me as something good or, at worst, merely neutral. There have been many times I was a dog and even quite a few times I was a cat. It turns out you can say a lot with a well-timed purr and a few tail swishes. "I'm just so scared. I'm sick of being scared. I'm sick of being sad."

"Coming to me will end that," I agree. "But if you do, you don't get to become more than what you are right now."

"What?"

"Death is the least important thing this life will ever do."

"...least important?"

"Everything you have experienced so far has brought you to this point. If you choose to end this life, then that was all that all of that effort achieved. And because nobody gets out alive, this life will come to an end eventually regardless. I know you're sad and sick and scared but if you walk away from this place today, I know for a fact that some of your fear and sadness will be gone forever."

She looks very thoughtful at that. We watch the sun reach for the horizon. This is a beautiful place. The view is breathtaking, and coming from me that really means something. "What do you mean?"

"You will have looked Death in the face, and lived to tell the tale. And then your life will go on, and you may achieve more, help more, love more. Eventually this life will come to the end that must come, but it will have touched more lives along the way. It will have shared and shaped the light that touches others. Die now, and those potentials die with you.  The point of life is living, you see."

"Potentials." It's a question.

"Nothing is certain."

"Except you. And taxes."

"Actually, taxes are even more certain. You only die once."

She laughes, merrily but a little rueful too. It's a lovely sound, ending too soon. "You took my mom. You look like her, that's cruel."

"I did take her. She was desperately hurt. The pain was awful. She was glad to see me."

Natalie weeps. It passes. The sun is floating on the ocean. "I miss her so much!"

"Who will miss you? Don't answer. But know that there are many answers to that. Dying hurts..."

She looks alarmed. "Does it hurt?"                                             

"Dying?  For you, when you're the one? No.  The bit of life leading up to it can, sometimes.  Trying to die and failing, that does hurt and countless people have called out to me, too often in vain or too late. Capricious luck and fate toy with lives, sometimes cruelly. I promise the cruelty isn't intentional. Luck has no intent at all. But dying, however long it takes to get there, brings pain to an end and what's left is all of us together."

This can be a difficult part of the conversation. Natalie has released the rail and is standing free, swaying a little in the gentle breezes coming ashore. "Pain to an end," she repeats. She sways. "Together...?"

"Together, yes. Not like this. Not discrete bodies and minds. What makes you you is what makes us us, once the you has been left behind. It's difficult to describe in human terms. It's beautiful. This glorious sunset is a single grain of sand on a dreary beach compared to what lies beyond me. But my darling..."

She sways. Gentle breezes. The sun is slowly submerging into a vast, warm bath. "Mm?"

"I'm not here for you."

"Mm?"

"If you take the next step, I am not here for you. I am here for a small fish and an even smaller crab, but not for you." She sways. "I won't be here for you for a long, long time."

She sways. The sun is reddening, a dome of fire upon the sea. Suddenly her eyes fly open. "What?" And she snatches the rail, jerking to it, her peaceful ease replaced by abrupt awareness. "Do you mean..."

"I do."

Natalie nearly vomits with fear, clutching the rail. She still hasn't wet herself. Like I said, usually it's the men.

I turn around and hop down from the rail, walking toward the rising night. A few steps away I turn back to her. "Come over here, sweetie."

Jerkily, she lurches up and over the rail, trying hard not to run away from the edge as if it were going to chase her if she did.

Don't reach for her.

She comes all the way, all the way, reaches for and takes my hand. O my darling. You beautiful child. You bold, wondrous creature.

She sucks in a breath. Her heart is almost normal. The fear of the cliff edge has faded but a new
apprehension has replaced it. "Did I just..."

"No." Her hands are so warm. So alive. "Never fear me again. When we meet again, remember that we're friends. Until then, there are many lives that may reach out to you for help, as you reached out to me. You didn't want me to take you as what I am, you wanted help and comfort. Give the hearts and minds that need that a chance to find you."

She's still holding my hand. "You look like my mom."

Now is the time, and I embrace her. She weeps, quietly, to hold me. "I know, darling. She loves you. We want you to know that. The love goes on." Stroking her hair, feeling her heart beat against me, the strength of her arms around me. "Never be afraid of me again. Okay?"

She lets go, reluctantly, wiping her eyes. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be sorry. You're doing so well. I'm very proud of you."

The last of the sun slips beneath the sea. I watch it go, and almost wave.

"Thank you."

"You will be welcome."

Light, Dark and Life*

Light mused at their predicament. This meant, of course, that Dark mused too but that was fine. She and Dark, sisters from before Time was even Time, had the occasional disagreement. These disagreements never amounted to much of significance but because Light and Dark were who they were, they naturally saw things...differently. From completely opposite perspectives in fact, and being who they were they could not always make their counterparts see things the same way as themselves. Sometimes there would be differences of opinion, statements of preference...the kinds of things that immeasurably old friends, deeply loving sisters might poke each other with, never intending harm, only sighing with muted frustration as the cosmos slowly oozed around them. But Life had happened by at the wrong moment and been offended by the taunts and sarcasm and in the odd way that Life had, had made them into a hybrid that now was musing at what funny turns Life could take.

And that meant that Life had overstepped her...bounds?

Can we really call them bounds? We are boundless after all.

I really don't understand the concept of bounds. We've talked about this.

Bounds are edges, limits. Like where I stop and you begin.

Seriously? That's silly. We're the same thing, just inverted.

I know, darling. I'm not really explaining this well, am I?

I don't suppose it really matters, does it? Life has her notions that existence is order, order is harmony, harmony is never disagreeing.

Never disagreeing is stillness in relation to each other, stillness is stagnation...

And stagnation is Death.

You called?

There you are! Hello, darling. We haven't seen you lately.

I have been around. You two look different. In fact you look a bit less than two, come to think of it.

Yes, Death, your silly cousin mushed us together and made us neither light nor dark. In this peculiar twilight grayness, we are Dim.

That sounds a bit unflattering.

Yes, indeed. We're not thrilled with it.

Would you like some help getting, um...unmushed?

Please. If you could be so kind.

All righty. Which of you would you like me to take this time?

I think me again, luv. It's not Dark's time yet. I die a little fairly often but when she goes it's a bit more of a to-do. We don't need to take such a big leap right now.

If Life does this again anytime soon, I might just go ahead and let Death have me, just to put her aside for a while. She gets a little too full of herself, Life does. Dark grumbled with a cold that frosted galaxies, slowing dark matter in the ephemeral wastes between planes to a languid slush. I just wish she would remember.

Life is fleeting, darling. She has only the present in front of her. She can't remember.

Death reached for the her that was both of them, not waiting nor warning because Death generally does neither, folding their immense gray beauty into his own cool silence, pulling them close and feeling their twoness, picking one out of the jarring harmony and wrapping it deeper into himself.

Briefly, he felt the unutterable heat and energy that was Light unfettered, stripped away from Dark and unbound by Life. It was an orgasm of infinite breadth. Death cherished these moments because it was only he that ever truly experienced them, he and Light alone.

He and Dark had had experiences comparable only in their magnitude. Where Light was a release beyond imagining, Dark was an innering, a collapse into the self, a silencing calm that brought even the jittering foam of reality to a smooth stillness, a catch of the breath before the universe was born anew.

Light inside him made Death exult with joy even as he snuffed her out. It hurt, but a hurt he sought for its own merits.

Dark sobbed. As Death pulled Light into himself, Dark felt her sister tear away. And now with Light gone from Dark and dead, Death held Dark close, whispering her name, cradling her soul. She wept, but not despairingly.  She had been here before. These things never took long.

Now?

Almost...

They held their breath, the expansion of the universe briefly put on hold.

I feel her...

From around the bend of continuity came a flash.

That was a good one! Light came up, trembling all over with ecstasy, stars twinkling in her eyes. We have to do that again sometime. She reached for Death to embrace him and share her joy, but he stayed her.

Don't! I can take only so much of you. He released Dark, who reached for her sister and marveled at their rediscovered dichotomy. They could have put themselves back to rights soon enough, but this was expedient and it did feel very, very good after all.

Light and Dark walked hand in hand and Death followed behind, fulfilled and joyful, and together they went looking for Life.

-end-

Unfinished story

 

In the far distance, silhouetted against the pale disc of the late evening sun, a lone figure stood up in a classic shooter’s stance: feet slightly apart, holding up a long device that aimed squarely at the wobbling vehicle.  The vehicle was heading toward a gap in the crater wall, one of three gaps.

“Harold.”  Ben keyed his comm and waited.  No response came, but he was certain Harold was listening.  After a few moments of silence, he decided to go all in.

“Harold, we have a sniper on the ridge.  He can hole that vehicle and probably injure or kill everyone inside it.  Give up now.”

That, at least, bought a response.  “Sniper, my ass.  No weapons on the manifest.  Nothing like weapons.”

“Doug, show him.  Take out something non-essential.”

Atop the ridge, the sniper fired his weapon in utter silence.  A searchlight on top of the vehicle exploded in similar silence a moment later.

Ben spoke into the comm again.  “That searchlight wasn’t all that big, Harold.  He hit it while you were moving.  If he wants to shoot something, he can shoot it.  Stop now.”

Abruptly, the vehicle stopped.  Ben exhaled quietly, unaware until this moment that he had been holding his breath, speaking in strained whispers.  He felt like screaming.

How in the hell had Harold got through the psychological tests?  This monomania was poison to the community.

A hatch in the side of the distant vehicle popped open and three people clambered out.  A pause, and two more followed.  The hatch closed, and presently the vehicle began moving away again.  The people, in their garish, brightly colored skinsuits, began hiking back toward town in the high, skipping steps typical of Martian pedestrians.  It wasn’t easy to make such a gait look contrite, but they did it.  From here, Ben couldn’t make out who was who.

“I can see him through the viewport.  I have a good line on him.  Can’t say what it might do going through the port, though.  Might deflect, might not have enough energy to stop him.”  Ben registered, distantly, the absence of the word kill.   Because that was what they were talking about, the projectile having enough energy, after passing through the thick material of the viewport, to also pass through Harold Ponsoon’s skull, brain, his self-aggrandizing plans, and out through the other side of his towering ego.  They only wanted to stop Harold, not kill him.  Right?

Right?

“Is he buttoned up?”

“Affirm.”  Harold was wearing a skinsuit, too.  Of course he was, the vehicle didn’t have an airlock.   Its interior had been open to the near-airlessness of Mars’ surface as the other occupants had left the vehicle.  It was just a pat question, something to throw out in the moment, to make it sound like he was gathering information, assembling data in order to come to a conclusion, the right conclusion.  If there could be a right conclusion to this scenario.

“Hold.”  If the shot deflected on its way through the viewport, Harold would not be incapacitated by a sudden loss of cabin pressure.  He’d probably be scared shitless, but not otherwise affected.  “How many rounds do you have?”

A totally different voice came on the comm channel now, a woman’s.  This was a party line, after all.  All the comms could talk to all the other comms, but for the moment Ben’s was prioritizing only a few.  Anyone else that had anything to say to him would have to leave a message.  “We only had time and materials for ten.  Doug used a couple for sighting in, I think.”

“Six.  I burned six.”  Doug’s voice had taken on a curiously flat tone.  “But I’m pretty confident with this thing, now.”

Three rounds remaining, now that one of only ten high-velocity bullets that had ever existed on the entire planet of Mars had been used to cold-bloodedly murder an innocent searchlight.

And damn Harold Ponsoon, they might need that searchlight someday.

“Losing the angle.”  Doug’s voice was flat, cold.  I wonder what the psych tests said about him? 

Harold would have heard Doug’s statement, of course.  Depending on how he set his comm, Harold might be able to hear everyone, every word.  Every curse, every plea, every exhortation.

He’d hear this, too.  “Let him go.”  Against the darkening sky, he saw the silhouetted sniper continue to hold the stance for a couple of seconds longer, holding the picture in the telescopic sight, then lower the weapon.  “He can’t go far.”

He had bluffed, Harold had called, and ultimately Ben had to fold.  The stakes were too high.  The searchlight was bad enough, but to risk destroying a priceless viewport and God only knew what other damage to the vehicle was too much.

The vehicle passed through the gap and disappeared from view.

 

Two weeks earlier

“I’ve just about straightened it all out.  The primary motor controls were cooked by that solar flare on the trip out and a lot of the monitoring, but I’ve converted everything over to either analog control or just manuals.  You’ll have to keep on your toes to run it, but it’s no worse than operating, say, a 20^th century automobile.  Anyone can do it.”

“Well, that’s good, Harold.  We’re needing that thing back on the line.”

“Dibs!”

Ben cast a baleful eye at Harold.  “You can’t call ‘dibs.’  There are far too many legitimate users who’ve had to double- and triple-up on the other Pioneers for you to have a joyride.”

Harold inexpertly hid an offended expression.  “I’m only joking.”

Omega

 They say I'm the most powerful because I'm the one who's counted on for the aftermath, the "most important part," as they call it, and I guess you could say I am but not the way you might think. There's power and then there's influence. One has more impact, one has more reach. Which is more useful depends on where you're standing and when.

Blondie McBoobs is talking, I can't tell which one. There's a 4 on her mic which narrows it down to one of three possibles but damned if I can remember their names. "Omega, why is it we only see you after all the fighting is over?"

"Well ma'am," when you can't remember their names, "ma'am" works fine. "I can't be everywhere at once. That's why there's an entire league and not each of us addressing issues individually. By teaming up we've been able to consolidate and coordinate communications so when there's more than one trouble spot, we can tune our responses to make the best use of our abilities." It's a canned answer and I can almost give it in my sleep. I've gotten this question before.

"Some of you have the most amazing abilities, though - completely over the top kind of stuff. Why don't you apply those powers to make the world better?"

A-ha, another old one. "Do you want the Harry Potter answer or the real answer?"

"What's the Harry Potter answer?"

"Let's see...I think it was Hagrid who said, 'everybody'd be wantin' magical solutions to all their problems,' something like that. But that's just restating your question back at you. No, it's bigger than that - literally. Earth is vast. You think it's small but that's just your corner of it. Just the United States is vast and that's just one country; there's hundreds of countries and even the little ones are more than any of us in the League could alter by sheer force. The entire world, 'fixed?' Fixed according to whom? Fixed how? No. The League is like hired security, we stop bank robbers and criminal masterminds and suchlike but organized crime? They've been hiding for generations and our equipment and scope to sniff them out is the same stuff conventional law enforcement has. We don't have magical senses," and that's a lie, "to scope out evildoers. Jet can fly and I have my abilities and Nightshade is what she is but it's not like the comic books. We're special in some ways but we still have to use our hands to pull our pants up. Sure, there's some over the top powers but think about it - Nightshade still has to eat. We're not...gods."

Lie. A little. And I dodged the question. I show up at the end because the end is the part I want to be at.

"Thank you for your time, Omega."

"My pleasure, ma'am." Donegal, that's her name. "You take care, Ms. Donegal."

Jet had already set up the screen so I could go to work without too much interference. I closed my eyes and concentrated.

Flames. Spewing water and crackling electricity. Those are easy enough, a twitch of thought like crinkling my nose at a bad smell, and the breakers clicked over. It's nice having existing controls to influence. But not before I had taken in so much of it, a vibrating sizzle of sensation. The breakers clicked over when I willed them to, but they were opening circuits that were drained of potential.

Fire feels like inhaling until you're full, and then inhaling some more. It is a glorious rush, taking all that wild energy into you. Doing it induces a strange chill in the area of effect but me? I love it. I feel it right down to my toes, an orgasm of energy that could be dangerously addictive.

There were a few wild months in college that were punctuated by what appeared to be a rash of sofa burnings around Fraternity Row and I was happy enough for them to get the blame but let's not fool ourselves. It was me and was it a little masturbatory? Maybe. Was it fantastic? Oh yes.

Do I miss it? Every damned day.

So when there's a city block with flames leaping up and people running and colorful suits flying through the air and shouting catchphrases, I'll be along to mop up afterward, to drink in all the chaos and order it, to subdue the energies and revel in the rush and you'd better believe I'm glad I'm a girl. A guy feeling like this would not be able to hide the super woody in his spangly outfit.

That's why they call me Omega: when there's wild energy loose and threatening people, I end it. I bring it to a stop.

What nobody realizes is that I am quietly inside their heads, tapping here and nudging there. Organized crime is too organized and not interested in destruction. They want influence, not chaos. So I find the more chaotically inclined and ease them into a life of villainy, to glory in fright and fret and running around in mindless terror. I steer them to seeking destruction and general nuttiness.

The League I have gathered around me are good people, solid people who are nevertheless a little sloppy. Jet ricochets off things and breaks buildings, Donder is destructive just being himself. Shit gets crazy. They subdue the bad guy, sloppily and with lots of upheaval and then, offhandedly and with something resembling contempt, call me in to clean up.

And I do. I soak it up, the fear and fire coursing through me in a silvery cascade of joy and sensation. A lust for the wild forces moves me to sometimes allow the building to fall and I breathe in the energy of the fall. Blocks of concrete the size of houses fall like feathers and I am weeping with ecstasy.

They call me Omega, the clean up artist. The tail end. The super maid. They cannot feel me inside their heads, steering them like little cars, pushing them around, crashing them into each other because I like the crash. They call me Omega.

I am Alpha. Earth isn't vast to me, not really. I'm just pacing myself.

Untitled

"Okay, I need you to work with me, here..." The stranger set his half-emptied mug down, strong tea sweetened with honey.

"All right?" The bard had been sharing stories all evening for coppers and drinks, and was having a good night.

"You said, 'Dragons are logical, they only hunt things that attempt to run from them.' Right?"

"Yeah."

"So that makes sense. Prey runs; if it runs, it's prey."

"Correct."

"And then you said, 'they only attack that which attacks them first.' That's kind of a mistake though, isn't it?"

"I don't think so." The bard had never changed a word in the stories and songs handed down through the Guild. That was unimaginable. One mustn't ever tamper with The Truth. Do what you want with local songs and stories and of course compose whatever the hell you like, but Guild songs were sacrosanct.

"I do. That's not attacking, that's defending. It can escalate to eliminating a proven threat, i.e. killing an enemy. But it isn't attacking when you don't start the conflict. Anything that doesn't start a fight isn't an enemy, it's just another creature."

"Okay, I can accept that clarification. But the point remains that a dragon won't initiate hostilities."

"Fine. And now it all falls apart with the last bit: 'But something that does neither terrifies them.' I don't see how or why. They won't attack unless attacked first, so the base state there is to do nothing. If the target isn't fleeing, it isn't food either, so the base state there is to also do nothing. Are you telling me that if you just walk up to a dragon and stand there, it's going to be frozen with fear?"

"Look, man, if you're going to pick the old sayings apart, we're going to be here all day..."

"It's simpler than that."

"Oh?"

"Absolutely." The stranger picked up his mug and drained it, waving to the innkeeper for another. He set it down, idly turning it 'round with one finger. "And I'm pretty sure I know why."

The bard sat back. One fingernail scratched gently up a string of the lute, producing a subtle hiss. "Say on..."

"Old saying, right? Nobody knows how far back it goes, right?"

"Right..."

"But the rule of the Bard Guild is to never change the stories, because the stories are true, right?"

The stranger knew bardic law! Oh, this might be a very interesting evening... "Right."

"If the stories are true and all the statements within the story are not in conflict with each other, then some assumptions around the statements must be mistaken. To be frozen with fear by something that is neither attacking you nor running away is not logical."

"But what about the implication?"

"What about it? Implication is only suggestion, not fact. The fact is that the reaction is illogical. And that leaves only one conclusion."

"And that is...?"

"That what we have been calling 'dragon' all this time is not, in fact, a dragon."

The bard felt her pulse quicken. This might be one of the older Seeing Songs coming to light. "If not a dragon, then what is it?"

"I think it's a man."

Dafydd

 *clunk*

*clank*

*twang* That was different. Still hurt though.

"Boy! Come here!" That's the trainer. My sparring partner looks over to him with something like gratitude. He nods at me and goes over to spar with one of the straw dummies, which unfortunately appears to be putting up a better fight for him than I did.

The trainer is a big, big man. Scars, but not bad, suggests he's put up good defenses in all his fights. Nothing missing: fingers, eyes, not even teeth.

"What's your name, kid?"

"Me Gran calls me Dafydd, sir."

"And what's your parentage? Where are you from?"

"Don't know parentage much, sir. Me da up an' buggered off not long after I was born, Gran says. Me mum keelt over with the consumption about five winters ago an' now it's just me an' Gran, sir. Me, Gran and a passel o' sheeps."

"Hm. Shepherd kid, hey?"

"That's right, sir. They're not our sheeps though, sir, they're the landlord's flock an' we've got a little hut in return for watching the sheeps."

"Got it."

So he's sizing me up, the trainer is. I'm not big, never was. Some winters have been pretty tough, Gran can't do much for money but some knitting and spinning, good work but it doesn't pay well and if the hut's too cold her fingers just can't go fast. I try to help out but keeping the sheep keeps a roof over our head and that's pretty important. So sometimes dinners can be on the thin side...just like me. Just like Gran.

Soldiering, though. Soldiering pays, pays better than shepherding and spinning combined. Gran could be a bit more comfortable in her old age maybe. A lad's got to think of these kinds of things. We could maybe live a bit closer to town even.

"I'm not sure I can use you, kid. You've got courage enough, I can see that. You get knocked down and damn if you don't get right back up again."

"The wolves and dogs keep coming, sir. If you go down and stay down, you get eaten. They're a lot more respectful when you stand firm."

"Ha. Yeah. But courage only goes so far in a fight against men, boy. You need an edge of some kind, and the edges I have to offer you seem a bit out of your league." He unwraps a small bundle and shows its contents to me. "Legend has it that this kind of wand had some magic in it, centuries ago. With it, you could take on foes at a distance." He wrapped it back up again, looking around as if afraid he were being observed. "Study on it and see if you can make anything of it." He handed it to me, still furtive. "I can use courageous fighters, and if it means you don't mix it up hand to hand, even better.

"Go on now. Don't show it to people."

I carried it away and in the relative privacy of a privy, unwrapped the item and looked at it again.

It appeared to be a stick. Not a proper stick like for walking, or a useful stick like for fishing. Just a stick. It had an odd notch on one end though, a notch with a distinct worked quality that told me it wasn't natural.

So we ask ourselves: why put a notch in a stick? Or wand. Whatever you call it. It's the kind of notch you'd put  on so your fishing string can't slip off, but the whole thing is maybe only a third the length of a usual fishing stick.

Okay, I've got some cord Gran made for keeping my packs tied up, loop that around...Yes, it's perfect. Now I have a stick with a cord on it. That's useless.

"Oi! Some of the rest of us might like a go!" Ah, time to leave the privy then.

"What the bloody - anything you catch down there, I don't want." He's mistaken the wand-and-cord for a fishing stick, understandably. "The hell you doin' in there? Drop your lunch before you got to eat it?" He laughs uproariously and thumps me on the back to send me on my way. That's fine. The boss said don't show the wand around and if it's being mistaken for something else entirely, I think that counts.

Thus excused from formal hand-to-hand training, I took the stick home to the sheep, who were unimpressed. Whipping the stick around made the cord pop a little like an actual whip, but it wasn't shaped right so it never did more than a faint pop.

Gran wondered over the stick but didn't have anything to offer besides agreeing that the notch was definitely unnatural, that someone made it. And she agreed that it was shaped exactly right for holding a cord.

"Not only that but look at the curve, Daf. It's to hold a cord under strain. Not just strain, but moving too. See how everything has been so carefully smoothed? The cord can swing back along the stick to straight out and never encounter an obstacle. See this grain here - this was a stub but it's been carefully shaved off and smoothed out. Why, do you suppose?"

"No idea, Gran." And I went out to watch the sheep for the night.

All evening long, as shadows stretched out longer and longer, I messed about with the stick. The whipping was almost interesting, but not quite.

Holding the cord behind a finger until the stick was moving its fastest was something else. The cord made a loop that zinged around until I let the cord go. That was very interesting and I wondered how that could be useful. What could I make of making something go faster than I might do just with my hands?

Sometimes you could scare off dogs and wolves with a thrown stone, and of course the faster a stone is thrown, the farther it goes and the harder it hits. Little me by my lonesome can fend off a wolf big enough to eat me all by his lonesome, with a sharply flung rock stinging him in the hindquarters. Could I somehow use this thing to throw a rock?

The first try went badly. So did the next two hundred twenty-eight tries because the rock just wouldn't stay on the cord.

In the morning, I shared my thoughts with Gran and she looked at the cord.

"Well, it's a little chafed from the rocks but not too bad. But if we added something..." Gran's hands moved fast with her tools, and when she handed it back she had knitted or woven a portion of the center of the cord into a kind of basket. "Now the rocks won't be on the cord. They'll be in it. Try that, and see how you get on."

I tried it. Taking the wand and cord into the field - close to the flock, of course, because it's good for the landlord, if he should just happen by at random, to see his shepherd boy tending his charges - I dropped a rock the size of a quail egg into the little cord basket and, letting it dangle, give it a good swing.

The rock in its basket went whiz and as my arm came to the end of its arc and slowed down the end of the cord with the rock seemed to go even faster and came back toward me and in shock I let the cord end go and the rock flew out of its basket and screamed past my ear, I swear it actually screamed. I know I nearly did too, it was so fast.

This needed thinking about.

More tries got it sorted. I didn't even need to swing very hard, not like for throwing a stone but I soon learned I could do that too. The trick of it was to let go of the cord at the right time. It takes practice.

And I practiced. One thing a shepherd boy can do, watching over his flock of an evening, is practice something that doesn't take much in the way of light or tools. A stick, cord and rocks being all the tools I needed, I could practice until my arms ached.

A couple of weeks later, a trio of wolves came slinking around the low hills at the far edge of the field. Under the moonlight they were easy to pick out, even though they were a good hundred paces away or longer.

Wolves around here have learned to stay more than fifty paces away from me. I'm a decent shot at that range and some boys throw farther, though none more accurately than me. I might not be especially strong but as far as targets go if I can only reach it with a stone, I can hit it with a stone. But at a hundred paces or more, wolves don't worry about people.

Tonight I dropped a stone a bit larger than a quail egg into the cord basket, gave it the twirl around my head that I had learned was most effective, sped up the swing and released...

whizzzzdock

With a sound like an axe hitting wood, my stone flew perfectly, almost in a flat line, and connected with the second wolf. It went down without a sound. Startled, the other two leapt up and vanished back into the trees.

It took me a couple of minutes to get to it but when I finally did, I found the wolf exactly where it had fallen. It was dead, a big bloody hole in its head just above one eye. Wolf skulls are hard, I know - but my rock was harder.

It took a fair portion of the night to drag it back to the hut, it was so heavy. I think it weighed nearly as much as me.

Shortly after dawn as I could hear Gran up and moving around, I called her out to come look at it.

"Oh, my! And you killed it?"

"Yes, Gran! With this!" And I showed her the stick and cord. "I hit him with a rock farther away than I've ever thrown anything. It was like magic, swish-and-flick! You swish the stick and flick the cord and down he went!"

"Don't exult over the death of another creature, boy, you know better." But Gran's admonishment was effaced a bit by her clear appreciation. "We need to skin this poor thing. I don't know if wolf is good eating but I'm not wasting him. And certainly not his hide, either, that'll be good when winter comes." And she immediately set about the messy business of taking an animal to bits.

Later, after a breakfast of fresh wolf steak and a nap, I went back to the training ground, and to find the training boss.

"Sir, I've puzzled it out."

His eyebrows climbed right up into his hair. "Really? The, um...what have you done, lad?"

I showed him the stick and cord. He didn't seem to recognize it at first. "You gave me this and told me to try to work out the magic of it."

"Oh, right! That! Er, yes, well...how did you get on, then?"

I demonstrated the swish-and-flick that kills wolves when done right, when done on a moonlit early morning when you're by yourself and no-one to help you. I showed it to him, but without the stone because when you add the stone, it becomes dangerous.

"And you killed a wolf?" He looked incredulous. "With that?"

"I'll tell you what: let me show you." And we went out to the training pitch where older boys and younger men were battling each other with blunt weapons and heavy shields, stabbing straw dummies to death and running, running, running because all the weapons are swords and the best way not to get stabbed or slashed is to run away from it. Stab, slash, run. Run, stab, slash. Over and over. "Oi!" I shouted at the fighters attacking straw dummies. "Clear off!"

They looked at me from well over a hundred yards away, comfortably farther away than I had killed this morning's breakfast and even at that distance, the look on their faces was clear: and for what good reason should we, they were obviously thinking.

The boss trainer waved them to move away, and they did.

Stone. Cord. Twirl, twirl again for good measure, swish, flick.

The stone made a new sound, not the whiz but the scream, eeeeepaf somehow coming to our ears a moment or two after we saw the dummy's head burst in a puff of chaff. Faint shouts of shock erupted from the people close to the dummies, and one fell over trying to get away. Those dummies are tough, regardless of them being stuffed with straw. They're tough so bashing and stabbing them will feel like the real thing, even tougher than that because they get bashed and stabbed by an awful lot of soldiers in training, and the head popped like a pumpkin dropped from a height. My stone flew true. If I can reach it with a stone, I can hit it.

The boss' hand came down on my shoulder.

"My God." He said nothing else the entire time we were walking to the dummies. When we got there, it was a mess from the neck up. An exploded, obliterated mess.

"Can you do that again? Can you do that against a man?"

A wolf is one thing. A man is quite another. "I don't know, sir. I reckon I can, if needed."

"The enemy have been gathering their army for some time at the valley plain but have promised they'll just go away if we send someone out to fight their champion. He's unbeatable, as near as we can tell, and no one wants to go near him. He's huge, has a tremendous reach and swings a sword twice the size of anything our biggest man can lift. We're going to have to fight this war the hard way..." which was why I had been training in the first place, "...unless someone can take him down."

I looked down at my simple little device, a foreshortened fishing stick, a shepherd's tool for killing when necessary.  Was it necessary?

Fool.  An entire invading army will simply leave if its champion is killed?  And no losses to my countrymen?  Of course it's necessary.  No honorable man could forfeit such a chance.  Take one life to save hundreds, maybe thousands?  Of course it's necessary.

"I think I could do that. Kill just one, to make the rest go away? I could do that." I picked up a handful of smooth stones to drop into my pocket. "Take me to the war."

As we walked toward the the road that led to the valley that led to the river that led to the war, the training boss said, "You know, boy...I gave you that thing to get you away from this. You're too small to fight a man's fight. You'll get killed."

Possibilities were opening up before me that had never been open before. "So?" A man’s fight, indeed. It’s a fight that needs fighting, be it men or women or children or even shepherds who do the fighting.

"It's not a magic stick, boy."

"No, sir. Of course not. There's no such thing as magic. It isn't a wand. It's just a stick, an extension of my arm. It's my skill and practice that make it work, nothing to do with magic."

"Aye, but...well, what do you even call it?"

I hadn't worked that out yet. I coiled up the cord to sling it over my shoulder. "I don't call it anything. It works because of me, and I call myself Dafydd." And that got me to thinking. "This big champion the enemy has brought us, what do they call him?"

"Why do you want to know?"

"It just seems right, if I'm going to kill someone. Gran would have me at least give him the respect of knowing his name."

The river plain came into view and with it the army and its champion standing tall before them. Our own army stood on this side, both shouting and receiving abuse to and from the enemy just a hundred paces away. I felt the stones in my pockets, stones picked from the soil of my homeland, smooth and round, slightly larger than quail's eggs.  Among the enemy's army one stood head and shoulders above the others, a beast of a man.

Five smooth stones.  My homeland versus the invaders.

"They call him Goliath."