[HQ Ignorance] Re : Re : Scene 42: The Reuniting of the Fellowship

[Nic Hughes]

OOC : I'm not sure how this fits into the story but lets do it anyway. 
Consider it an aside...

Aalmon watched as they discussed what they had been doing and their 
plans, he could see Azhur's knuckles whitening on the hilt of his sword 
as they chuckled over the plans for Throblanc. When the talking was done 
he noticed that Azhur had walked off to one side and by the light of a 
campfire was polishing his sword, again and again.

He walked over to to the warmth and sat down next to next to the former 
knight.

"You look troubled, I don't think you like our ideas much. I can 
understand that, we do tend to look at things differently.

Take this sword that you are polishing. You believe it to be a good 
sword, a strong straight and true sword. But when you first picked it up 
did you know it was a good sword? If you are anything like me you do 
this to each new sword you pick up" he reached over and gently took the 
sword, then struck the side of it against his knuckles so that it rang 
loud and true "to test it. The thing is that with a shape that seems 
good and a surface sheen and shine a sword can appear good yet have 
flaws deep within. Flaws that will cause it to shatter and betray you to 
your death. So you test the sword before you use it, you test the sword 
in some way other than taking it into battle for a sword that does not 
have the virtue to survive a battle will also lack other virtues. Such 
as the fine sound your excellent sword made."

He handed he sword back respectfully.

"As to men the same applies, a man utterly lacking one virtue soon 
becomes weak and deficient in the others for a man without honor cannot 
truly maintain any virtue, only the semblance of it. We cannot simply 
rap a man with our knuckles to listen for the deep moral flaws hidden 
under the surface. We have to find other ways, another way to test the 
virtue of those whose honor we doubt. When it comes to Theoblanc if we 
think he might truly be behind the condemning of men to the unending 
hell of undeath then the flaws must be deep indeed, yet he hides behind 
such a facade of piety and purity as to fool everyone. We need some way 
to test him and in truth Baros is the only test I have to hand, he is 
the knuckle that will rap so hard that all men will hear if the sound 
made is not true - if the sound reveals fatal flaws that will betray 
unto death any who trust him."

"I understand that you do not like the tools we use and you are perhaps 
a better man than me for that distaste, if we had many tools to hand we 
could debate the merits of each and find one we were all content with. 
Yet we are just us few and we are in a forest so far from home that I 
can barely remember the smell of the river Janube or the sounds of the 
streets of my home. We have only the tools we brought with us and it is 
our fate to do what we can to avert the catastrophe with those tools. 
And if we see a grim humour in that perhaps fate will forgive us, people 
often laugh at things that make them feel uncomfortable and laughter is 
a way to deal with the fear of what will happen if we fail. For if we 
fail then there are worse things than death that we face."

Nic



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