This declaration of hers seemed to seize Aileron's imagination. "Bodyguard? Yoooouuu?" he inquired.

I cleared my throat uncomfortably.

"Wellllllll?"

I looked at the princess. Her head was flat against the ground, one of the Harpers keeping her head immobilized by the simple expedient of having one of his taloned feet atop it. And for a moment-just a moment-I saw fear in her eyes. She had been so filled with arrogance, so confident that Tacit was going to be taking her away, so sure that she would be a.s.sociated with me for the briefest of times and then whisked off by her hero. And now, in just a few short moments, it had all fallen apart. Despite her bl.u.s.ter and bravado, she was a ship with no anchor, and she was looking to me-her last hope-for some sort of succor.

I did not hesitate.

"She's lying," I said.

"Apropos!" she bellowed, or at least came as close as she could to bellowing considering she was near to being smothered.

"I'm not even one of them, okay?" I was speaking very quickly, nearly babbling. "I'm not a knight or anything . . . I'm just a guide . . . look at me! Look at my leg! See? It's crippled! I'm a cripple! Who's going to want a cripple for a knight?"

"Apropos!" I now knew why purple was considered the royal color, because that was certainly the hue her face was becoming.

"Hoooowww abooouuuut," Aileron crowed, "if we killllll her . . . and let yoooouuu go. Yeeesss or noooo?"

"You . . . you'd do that?" I couldn't believe it.

Aileron waved in the direction of the dead Harper. "Yooooouuu kiiiiill Seeeeefla the Annoyyyyying. No mooore annnoooyyyance, thanks to you. Yooouuu beg for liiiife . . . weeeee let you gooooo."

So I begged.

Naturally.

Five minutes of imploring and pleading, with outright sobbing visible toward the end. I thought Entipy's head was going to explode, she was clearly so furious. I didn't care. She'd been a right pain in the a.s.s and whatever she had coming to her, I didn't give two figs about.

My display was greeted with great amus.e.m.e.nt by the Harpers Bizarre, however, who hung on every word and chortled and laughed and in general had a great old time. Finally Aileron put up a hand, his chest so convulsed with laughter that he clearly could barely get a word out. "Yooooouu go! Goooo, cooowwardd! Gooo and liiiiive full, coooowwardly life. As for giiiirl . . . we haaaave plaaaaans. We sennnnnd home to faaaather . . . one piiiiiece at a tiiiime. You oooookay with thaaaat, Aproooopos?"

I bobbed my head. The princess was beyond fury. If she could have killed me with a glance, I would have been dead on the spot.

"Faaaaareweeelllll!" cried the Harper Bizarre, and the rest of his kind joined in. With their contemptuous laughter and wishes for a safe journey ringing in my ears, I hobbled off into the forest as fast as my good leg would carry me.

Once upon a time, I had been able to move through the woods with something vaguely resembling alacrity. The woodcraft that Tacit had taught me had served me well. Certainly I had not been at Tacit's level, but I could nevertheless handle myself quite well in virtually any forest environment. At least, I could do so when my mind was clear, my thoughts not tumbling helter-skelter over one another.

Such was unfortunately not the case here.

I tripped, I fell, I sprawled, I pulled myself to my feet and kept on going, and all that was going through my head as I did so was that I had to put as much distance between myself and the Harpers Bizarre as I possibly could. I was giving no thought to the princess whatsoever, nor considering my failed mission. She had been a royal pain in the a.s.s to me, and I held little sympathy for her.

Still . . ."little" sympathy I did have. I envisioned her in the clutches of those creatures, and felt that she was probably more than a little frightened. Then again, I could not be sure. Considering the princess's temperament, it was entirely possible that at that moment, the Harpers were the ones finding themselves in a disadvantageous position. I tended to doubt that they were going to kill her. She was far too valuable a prize. But I certainly didn't think they were going to make life easy on her. Not that she had tried to make life easy on me, or anyone else. She was a bully, an arsonist (I suspected), and not particularly lovable.

Still . . . did anyone, anyone, anyone, deserve to fall into the clutches of the Harpers Bizarre with no means, no hope of escape? With no one to act as her hero or rescue her? deserve to fall into the clutches of the Harpers Bizarre with no means, no hope of escape? With no one to act as her hero or rescue her?

I slowed in my flight. This was as much an acknowledgment of the reality of my personal situation as it was any thought being given to the princess's predicament. My breath was ragged in my chest, sweat cascading down my face. My good leg was throbbing since I had been favoring it so heavily. I balanced myself on my staff, taking in great lungsful of air, licking my dry lips and wiping the stinging perspiration from my eyes.

I pondered. I thought, Should I do it? Should I risk myself, in the hope of doing the genuine, heroic thing? Even though it meant likely throwing my life away- The thought got no further as I resumed my voyage away from the princess. I felt a sizable degree of self-disgust and self-loathing, but these paled in comparison to self-preservation, so my survival instinct told my newborn (stillborn would be more correct) conscience to shut up and let me get on with the important business of saving my own hide. Truthfully, I have no idea how far or how long I ran. Every time I slowed down, I was certain I could feel the wings of the Harpers beating somewhere nearby, as if they were tracking me and waiting to descend upon me when I slowed down or displayed weakness. It was always more than enough to spur me on, and I kept going.

I felt a chill beginning to settle into my lungs. The air was cooling again. I had to admit, this was beginning to disturb me. We had developed some very odd weather patterns, and I had no idea what that could possibly portend. Although there were cold seasons moving into other regions, Isteria should have been fairly temperate. The paranoid aspect of me began to wonder if this weren't happening for the simple and sole reason of inconveniencing me. Certainly the colder it got, the more raw my lungs began to feel. With my luck, some sort of virus would settle into them. How ironic-and yet just-a way that would be for me to expire. Not at the point of a sword, as I feared, and not of old age, a peaceful death that I never truly figured would be mine. No, I would probably meet my end thanks to a really nasty cough that developed into something worse.

It was then that I felt a gust of warmth. The contrast between that and the air around me was so significant that it felt like a hammer blow of heat. I almost ran past it when the current snagged my attention, and I took a few steps back to appreciate truly the warmth of it. I stood there a moment, allowing the warmth to wash over me. It seemed to be coming from somewhere to the south. I didn't know what was causing it, but I did know that warmth was preferable for my purposes than cold, and so I set off in that direction.

I continued to cast furtive glances over my shoulder every so often, still alert for any possible pursuit by the Harpers Bizarre. But as time pa.s.sed (how much, as I noted, I could not discern nor do I really know now), I slowly became more confident that they would not be after me. I posed no threat to them. They thought me an object of contempt. Indeed, they probably would not have wanted to waste a claw on tearing me to pieces. Such efforts would likely have been considered a needless squandering of effort.

I should have been insulted, I suppose. But the fact was that I was able to see me from their point of view, and to be honest, if I had been in their position, I wouldn't have bothered with me, either.

The warmth was growing, indicating that I was getting closer to the source. I didn't know what that source might be, but I tried to be alert to all possibilities. It might very well have been some sort of enemy camp, with a great fire burning in the middle being stoked by individuals who would take one look at me and see me as potential kindling, just another f.a.got to be tossed onto the fire. Well, I had no intention of being considered a f.a.got.

I strained my ears, tried to listen for the sound of talking, or boasting, or snoring . . . anything that might indicate that a large number of men had gathered and therefore posed a potential threat. And after a time, I did hear something. I heard it only once, and even as I heard it, I didn't know what it was. Not at first.

What I heard was a high-pitched screech. At first I thought it to be a cry torn from a female throat, and I wondered whether I hadn't accidentally gone in a giant circle. Perhaps what I'd perceived was the dying screams of Princess Entipy herself. For the briefest of moments, I felt a twinge of guilt, but quickly pushed it away. Better her than me, I kept telling myself.

But even as the screech died away, I ran the echoes of it through my mind and came to the conclusion that I had been mistaken. That was no human sound. It was the sound of a creature . . . a bird, most likely. From the depth and volume of it, though, I was certain that it was a large one.

A very large one.

I had stopped walking and didn't even realize it at first, because my mind was racing so frantically that it had left my body far behind. All my mother's blatherings about destiny and such came roaring back to me, for I was remembering things that she had told me about when she had witnessed the death and birth of a phoenix. Of how that rare event seemed somehow inextricably intertwined with my own fate, right down to the flame-shaped birthmark I bore. Could it be . . . ? Was it possible . . . ? A phoenix, dying and being reborn somewhere nearby?

Suddenly, everything seemed to make a hopeful sort of sense. Even as it clicked into place, I was moving. Believe it or not, it was as if my lameness of leg was forgotten, a minor thing, a triviality. I moved through the forest with the speed of a deer. Well . . . a lame deer, admittedly, for I did trip a few times, but I did not let such mishaps even begin to slow me down. I was absolutely positive that the warmth was definitely wafting from the south, and the gusts of wind that bore it into my face only confirmed it. Moreover, the faster I moved, the more intense the warmth became. I felt it searing the hairs of my eyebrows and inside my nostrils, and my mouth and throat were becoming completely dried out. I didn't care. At that point, it would have been irrelevant to me if my entire body became overheated and blistered. I was dedicated . . . no. No, not dedicated. Consumed. Consumed with a need to witness the miracle that my mother had spoken of so often.

I had spent so much of my life drifting, and hadn't even realized it. I had told myself that the fact that my existence seemed to have no purpose was not a problem for me. It was only at that moment, on the trail of the possible phoenix, that I really and truly began to think for the first time that there might be something more. Not only that, but that if there was something more, then I might indeed be ent.i.tled to some of it.

I gave up any effort to move with stealth. Branches cracked under me, brush was rudely shoved aside, and at least twice I sent small animals running away while making annoyed chittering noises. Anyone who was listening for an intruder would have no trouble detecting my approach, but it didn't matter. I felt as if events directly pertinent to my life were moving forward with unstoppable force, and I was happy-no, delighted-to be a part of them. I suppose the timing factored into it, in part. After all, the men all around me had been wiped out, and I dared not return to the palace at that point. Not without the princess. I was going to wind up with less than I'd started out with.

But if there was a phoenix up ahead . . . truly a phoenix . . .

The tapestry, as I'm sure you can surmise, was uppermost in my mind. The tapestry that hung on the wall back in the palace, depicting the great hero of Isteria, the savior who was to come. There was coincidence there that could not be ignored. It could be me. Why not me? Granted, it didn't seem terribly likely. I had never had aspirations to be anyone's savior aside from my own, but . . . anything was possible. The timing was just too perfect. To be s.n.a.t.c.hed from my lowest ebb and brought up to a point of triumph . . . why not indeed?

I heard a second screech, and this one was of a different timbre than what I'd heard before, I was sure of it. Instantly, even as I clambered over a fallen tree, I realized what the difference was. The first cry had tapered off with what could easily have been a sort of fading energy. It was a death cry, the last gasp of something aged. What I had just detected now was the birth cry of the new. It was young and vital. The first cry had been like a last answer being provided; the second cry was that of a first question being asked.

The heat was now almost overwhelming. The energy being unleashed in the process must have been unimaginable. It was coming from just over a rise, and I climbed it with no problem, as if my lame leg were a thing of the past.

It was then that I heard another voice. This, however, was not a bird or some other creature. This was a voice emerging from an all too human throat. Worse: Not only was it all too human, but it was all too familiar.

I peered over the rise, my heart pounding, knowing what I was going to see before I even saw it.

It was Tacit.

He looked a bit banged up, and his clothes were still a bit sodden, obviously from having been tossed into the river by Aileron of the Harpers Bizarre. However, he was clearly not dead, but simply a bit the worse for wear. Furthermore, his clothes were rapidly drying off from the heat of the emerging phoenix.

And that was definitely what it was: A phoenix. The ashes of its predecessor were scattered everywhere, and the newborn was sniffing the air in curiosity. It did not appear to have focused its vision upon Tacit yet, but it was definitely aware of his presence. It let out another ear-piercing screech, then leaned forward and nuzzled Tacit's chest. For a joyous moment, I thought the creature was going to bite him in half, but it did no such thing. Instead it seemed quite content to bring its entire ma.s.sive head up against him. Even though the creature was newborn, it was still as big as five full-grown men, and when it experimentally beat the air with its wings, all the brush and undergrowth within a thirty-foot radius bent.

Not Tacit, though. He kept a firm grip on the phoenix's feathers and held his place. He was singing to the d.a.m.ned thing. Naturally he had a great singing voice.

It was a ballad that he sang. From the refrain, I could discern that it was about the Coming of the Great Hero. It was further evident, from the way that he sang it, that he was quite certain that he was singing it about himself. The verses all centered on mighty deeds that the Great Hero was to accomplish, of the enemies and dangers that he was to overcome. It smacked of prophecy, of verses crafted by farweavers who enjoyed producing "future histories," as they liked to call them. I had heard them from time to time in my life, but since they usually involved matters that were of little consequence to me, I'd rarely paid them any mind. They were of a unique style, though, and I could recognize their cadences and rhythms.

What Tacit was singing now, though, had tremendous relevance to me. Because every word out of his mouth sounded like aspects of his life; at least, some of them were aspects that I was familiar with. And as he sang each successive verse, the phoenix bobbing its mighty head up and down as if keeping time, it became clear from the touch of pride in his voice that all the accomplishments of the "Great Hero" in the ditty were things that he himself had done.

And then I heard the one that brought the greatest chill over me, even though the warmth of the newly born phoenix bird still filled the air.

"The Hero grew to help the poor, and they all cheered his name "Except for one, a foolish lad, who had a leg so lame "Who cursed the hero's name because his nature was so frail "And wandered to obscurity, to vanish from our tale, "And then our hero-"

So the song went on as Tacit bonded with the phoenix and sang of the Great Hero's future, rescuing the princess, ruling the land.

And I stared into the small ring of fire that surrounded the phoenix . . . and I understood.

For the first time in my life . . . I truly understood.

Most people do not have an epiphany, a sudden revelation and comprehension that realigns their thinking. Usually something occurs to them, but even if it is a major revelation, they cannot encompa.s.s it or embrace it all at once. It filters through their sensibilities a bit at a time, and does not have an immediate impact upon their lives. Instead it changes things for them in a hundred different ways, and it is only upon looking back, with clear hindsight, that one is able to localize one moment in a life and say, "Yes. Yes, that is when it all changed for me. That began it."

Such was not the case here. I got it all, right then and there.

In retrospect, I would have to recommend against epiphanies. They are very difficult on an emotional level, and they also sometimes move you to foolish and inopportune acts, which was what happened in my case.

My epiphany, in case you are wondering, was this: All people are, at heart, egocentric. We all exist in the center of our own little universes. We believe that we are living out our lives as best we can, and that we have our own sphere of influence which exists of both friends and enemies. They in turn have their own friends and enemies with whom they interact. That is a given. But we, each of us, tend to put ourselves ahead of others because we believe that we are significant. We must attend to our own needs, desires, wants, and aspirations, because each of us is our own greatest priority. No one else cares for us as much as we do, no one else can exist in our skin. We think we're important. It is where our sense of self-worth comes up, where our egos reside, where "we" are. And we believe that each of our lives means something.

In staring into the great truth of the fire of the phoenix, in seeing Tacit bond with the creature and prepare for his next great deed, I came to an understanding that I would have reached even if I hadn't heard Tacit performing his charming ditty to point the way.

My life meant nothing.

I meant nothing.

In all these years of attending to my mother's talk about my great and glorious, but unknown, fate, and even nursing the hope that she was right, I had overlooked one of the inescapable realities of destiny. If it truly existed-and I was beginning to believe that it did-it meant that nothing I did mattered. Everything was preordained. Destiny, and predictions thereof-ranging from my mother's convictions to the Great Hero tapestry in the palace-hinged entirely on the concept that the future was immutable. It was all laid out, all planned, and all foreseeable if one had the foresight to see it.

Basically, all of life was nothing more than a story. A tale, a fable, with all the beats and twists and turns meticulously mapped out, all the parts a.s.signed, all the characters positioned in their proper places and carrying out their ordained tasks.

Which was all well and good if one was the hero. It meant that your destiny would be a magnificent one, with many hardships that you would overcome before getting your just rewards.

But now I saw clearly, the shrouds dropping from my eyes. I saw myself for who and what I was. Saw all my weaknesses, both in body and spirit, heard my position in the scheme of things, looked back upon my life and where I was in relation to Tacit, and was forced to an inescapable and inevitable conclusion.

Tacit the brave, Tacit the determined, Tacit the unstoppable, was clearly the protagonist of some sort of epic tale. He was the Great Hero, whose coming was foreseen. G.o.ds help me, Entipy-that raging brat of a princess-had been right. He would indeed save her, most likely with the aid of his newly found phoenix bird, which he'd probably been led to through some riddle or sorcerous turn or clue in a quest or some other d.a.m.ned twist of fate that was so prevalent in those annoying fantasy yarns. Tacit was the hero, THE hero.

Me . . .

I was a supporting player.

I had a bit part. I was a walk on, a one-off, whose presence was worth a chapter or two at most, a few lines in a ballad. I was there not to serve any purpose or goal of my own, but instead to highlight and underscore Tacit's greatness. I was comedy relief at best, a throwaway character at worst. I was never intended to amount to anything. I had been placed at the outskirts of the epic to be someone who fleshed out Tacit's world. I existed to showcase the fundamental humanity and gallantry of Tacit, who was the leading player.

My entire life didn't matter. Everything that had happened, from the circ.u.mstances of my birth to the nature of my mother's death, from my betrayal by Astel to my experiences in the castle . . . and anything I was to do in the future . . . none of it was remotely relevant to anything or of any real consequence.

I didn't have a life, not a real one. I simply had a backstory which existed to flesh me out as a mildly interesting subsidiary character.

On some level, I must have sensed it all along. Perhaps it had derived from the constant sense that I needed Tacit far more than he needed me. Or perhaps it came from the realization that Tacit probably had given me not a moment's thought since that day I had told him what I really thought. He had walked away secure in the knowledge that what I believed didn't matter one iota in the grand scheme of things. Because he didn't disappear from my life; I disappeared from his. I became an offstage, forgotten character, relegated to the early chapters of Tacit's great adventure and then forgotten. At most, I would be mentioned in pa.s.sing, with appropriate contempt, by Entipy, as she clutched onto his middle while they rode astride the phoenix, being carried away to their new home and his new position as ruler of Isteria. All his previous "crimes" would be forgiven, for his greatness would be recognized immediately and his incontrovertible place would be a.s.sured.

He had moved beyond me. He was on to the climax of his adventure. All he had to do was gain the phoenix's trust, use the creature to free Entipy from the Harpers Bizarre, and head back to his new home in triumph. Oh, Entipy wouldn't want to go back to the palace, but he would probably insist. "Your parents must know that you're safe," he would say n.o.bly, and when they returned to the castle, then would come the hero's welcome and the happily ever after . . .

And I would be stuck living out the rest of a life that had no purpose, no point, no worth . . .

. . . other than to make Tacit look good.

And that song he was singing . . . the one to the phoenix, about precisely where I stood in the order of things. Only two possibilities existed: Either it was some sort of tribute to his own wonderfulness that he was in the process of composing, in which case my so-called friend was putting together ballads which aggrandized him and made me the fool . . .

. . . or else, as I had first surmised, it was some weaver ballad that he had learned, in which case it was entirely possible that he had known it when we were younger, and had befriended me not out of generosity but because he knew it was supposed to happen, and was fulfilling that which had been predicted so that he could have his great, happy, wonderful ending.

To h.e.l.l with me, and my concerns, and my own aspirations. Only Tacit the Mighty, Tacit the Daring, Tacit the Hero, mattered. The one ostensible friend I'd ever had in this world . . . and even to him, I was nothing but something to be stepped over . . . or stepped on.

That was when I snapped.

In all fairness, I think if you had realized that you were fairly irrelevant, you would have, too.

For the briefest of moments, my rage went inward, and I came that close to throwing myself upon my sword as a final testament to my frustration and sense of bleak hopelessness. But just as quickly, I aimed my hostility in the proper direction: Outward. Outward toward the one who had made my life inconsequential: Tacit.

There was a rock in my hand. I had no idea how it came to be there. I didn't even remember picking it up. It was perfect and smooth and cool in my overheated palm. It was as if my hand was moving before my head had processed the information, and then I drew back my arm and I threw.

Under any other circ.u.mstance, Tacit would have sensed it. A movement of a rock hurtling toward him would have been as loud as a gong to him, just from the violent way in which it sliced through the air. But Tacit was completely lost in the bonding between himself and the phoenix, oblivious to the world around him. And that obliviousness cost him.

The rock struck him squarely in the side of the head.

Because he was completely unprepared for it, Tacit went down. He looked stunned and confused, as if ejected from a place of peace, even ecstasy. Clearly he hadn't even fully registered what had happened; all he knew was that he had been severely jolted and he wasn't entirely sure why or how. As for the phoenix, it seemed just as confused. The way its head whipped about, I could tell that its eyes were still not completely focused on the world around it. Doubtless within the next minute or two it would know what it was about, but at the moment it was as perplexed and uncertain as any newborn.

In all my wretched existence, I never moved as quickly as I did then. I covered the distance between us in just a few strides, using my staff to vault the final few yards. Tacit was still dazed, and only in the last second did he see me coming. Even as he did, though, his mind was trying to make sense out of what was happening. Consequently, he did nothing to stop me because he still hadn't quite figured out what the h.e.l.l I was doing there. In his perplexed state, determining the why of why I was there was more important than antic.i.p.ating and blocking my next move.

I braced myself and swung my staff as hard and fast as I ever had in my life. I slammed it into his skull, and if the rock had dazed him, the damage my heavy staff did was far worse. I heard something break, and it wasn't the staff. Instead it was the satisfying snap of bone. Tacit went down, his jaw at an odd angle, little "unhhh" sounds floating from his throat. He tried to sit up. I saw a small puddle of blood where his head had been a moment, and spotted a couple of his teeth in the middle of it. I wondered if he was in pain. I wondered if he was feeling anything. I wondered why I wondered even as I swung the staff once more. This time he tried ever so slightly to put up a defense, but it was utterly inadequate. The staff came in on his blind side, on the side covered by the patch, and it struck home, opening a huge gash in his forehead. Blood poured down his face. There was always a lot of blood in such wounds, far out of proportion to the severity of the cut itself, but in this case the collateral damage was devastating, for the blood blinded his good eye.

The phoenix now knew that something was desperately wrong. It screeched in fear, and flapped its wings. This time it managed to do more than move air around, and I saw the wings developing the strength required to move the creature. This was a being of a magical origin, not bound by normal rules of natural development. Its strength and abilities were growing not by days, but by seconds. The phoenix started to rise into the air.

Tacit began to stand, his legs bending wildly, and I swept his legs out from under him with the staff. He went down and I heard him call out my name, heard him say "Apropos!" in a tone that had confusion, betrayal, anger, and a thirst for revenge all intertwined. At least I think he said "Apropos." With the combination of the newly missing teeth and apparently broken jaw, it wasn't the most articulate couple of syllables I'd ever heard.

Then I drove the staff home. I didn't swing it in an arc this time, but instead rammed it forward like a spear, taking Tacit squarely in the forehead. Mercifully for Tacit I didn't have the blade extended, or I would have driven it straight into his brain. I figured I owed him something for all the help he had given me, and here I had repaid the debt: I was letting him live.

Tacit tumbled backward with a huge bruise on his forehead. He lay on his back, staring sightlessly toward the sky, and for just a moment I wondered if he wasn't actually dead, my "mercy" a bit too late. Then I had no time to give it any thought, for the phoenix was airborne. Confused, frightened, and determined to put as much distance between itself and this place of violence as it possibly could, the phoenix was getting out of there.

I wasn't about to let that happen. As I had moments before, I took several quick steps forward, jammed the pole into the ground, and drove my body upward powered by the only part of my body worth a d.a.m.n, my arms. For a split second I thought I wasn't going to make it, and then my desperate hand snagged onto the feathers on the phoenix's back.

The bird let out an alarmed yelp, pivoted, tried to shake me off. We were already twenty feet in the air and rising fast. A fall from that height was not going to do me a lot of good. Several feathers came loose from the creature, and I almost lost my grip. Somehow, displaying strength I would not have thought I had, I propelled myself upward and snared one arm around the phoenix's neck, securing my hold.

Thirty, forty feet in the air, higher still, moving at a dizzying pace, and then the phoenix flipped over, trying to toss me, and I was dangling. My right leg was useless, my left leg seeking purchase and finding none, and the only thing that was preventing me from falling was my left arm wrapped around the bird's neck. In my right hand was my staff. The blade was still contained in the staff, which meant I could probably have killed the stupid thing, but one quick glance down convinced me of the folly of that notion. If the bird died at that moment, it would predecease me by only a very short time.

I thrust upward with my right hand, bringing the staff across the phoenix's neck, then shifted my grip from the bird's neck to the other side of the staff. "Stop it, you overgrown parakeet! You're mine now!" I shouted, even as I performed the equivalent of a midair chin-up. In accomplishing that I was able to bring my left leg up and around, under the creature's belly, so that even though I was upside down I was now flat against the creature's back and clearly not being shaken off anytime soon.

"You're mine!" I said again, not knowing if the creature understood me and not caring, hoping that my tone of voice alone would underscore the fact that I was serious. The creature screeched in protest, but I ignored it. "You're mine, and you will go where I tell you, now! Now! Now!"

And with that I secured my grip on the back of the bird's head and angled the beast forward and down. It continued to try and fight me, but I could sense its resolve was weakening.

The creature was confused. I couldn't blame it. On some level, it sensed that it was supposed to figure into the grand scheme of things. It knew-as Tacit obviously had-that it had a role to fulfill in destiny's master plan, and that role was to be fulfilled now. But it obviously sensed that something wasn't right. It wasn't sophisticated or intelligent enough to determine just what precisely was wrong.

As for me, I no longer cared about right and wrong. All I knew was this: I had "wanted" my entire life. Wanted something, anything, to call my own. Wanted to break out of the little box that I had been placed in, first by society, then by the knights, and now by destiny itself. I didn't want to go through my life and end up Apropos of nothing.