Voyage of the Fox Rider (8 page)

“But to answer your question: yes. Joy. Love. Grief. Hate. Any and all the great emotions can sustain a casting, furnishing the energy needed. But in their absence, youth is taken from the caster instead.

“Heed: my Folk are as yours, or as are the Elves—ordinarily, age visits us not. Even so, we can grow old…but only if we exert our inborn power to control and shape the energies about us, only if we mold reality and alter the world at hand, only if we do that which others call magic, only if we cast spells.…In the absence of castings, youth is ever ours.”

“But then, Alamar, why did Drienne urge you to go to Vadaria?”

“Just this: on Vadaria, if we rest a special way we can recover from the ravages of casting—we can regain our youth.”

“If rest is all you need, why not here on Mithgar?”

Alamar smiled again. “Very good, Jinnarin. You would indeed make a suitable Mage’s apprentice had you the inborn power. Once more you have asked a cogent question, one that deserves an answer:

“On Mithgar, it takes many, many centuries to recover from casting spells, but on Vadaria, that time is but a tenth—nay! but one one hundredth of what it is here.”

“Oh,” said Jinnarin. “Now I see.”

Again silence fell between the two. This time, though, it was Jinnarin who broke the quiet. “Two things, Alamar:

“First, the arrows are coated with a paste made from the bark of a certain tree mingled with the juice of a certain flower to which is added the pulverized powder of a certain rock; beyond that I will say no more.

“Second, you have implied that my Folk have not the power to become spell casters, yet this I say to you: there are many among the Hidden Ones who can and do ‘cast magic,’ and some Fox Riders are numbered among these.”

The
Flying Fish
at last came into the Avagon Sea, Captain Dalby swinging the ship onto an east-northeasterly course, and with all canvas flying, the little caravel made the best of the light winds abaft. The weather for the most part continued fair, though now and again rain swept across the waters and down upon the craft. Dalby ran the Straits of Kistan without undue incident, although the lookout did espy the maroon sails of a Kistanian Rover, but nought came of it, and on toward Arbalin they plowed.

And in Alamar’s cabin—“I have been considering the question of evil,” announced Jinnarin one day, “and though I’ve come to no final dictum, there are a few things I can say.”

Alamar looked up from the paper he scribbled on, then turned his chair to face the Pysk. “Say on, Jinnarin. I would hear you.”

“Well, Alamar, it seems to me that much of what I consider to be evil falls into the realm of someone asserting control over another purely for selfish ends. This control can take many forms, but regardless, it is a control which ignores the wishes of the one being controlled. Domination is what I speak of here, domination to satisfy the whims of the dominator. In the extreme, the domination, the control, is over life itself, and the dominator may even slay the victim merely to prove that he holds the ultimate control. Power, authority, dominion, command, control, obedience—all for the pleasure of the wielder: these are the things a truly evil being seeks.”

Alamar smiled. “Let us speak of these things you name, Jinnarin: power, authority, dominion, control, obedience. Are these not the rights of a King, or for that matter, anyone in authority?”

“Yes, Alamar, they are. Yet a King should exercise these with great circumspection, and only with the good of his subjects in mind. If he wields his power only for
his own gratification, without regard to the needs and desires of his subjects, then I say he is evil.”

“Hmm,” mused the Mage. “What about, oh say, the dominant Wolf in a pack—is he not evil? He is dominant, after all, exercising his will over the other Wolves.”

Jinnarin made a negating gesture with her hand. “But he does not do so merely for pleasure. Instead, he leads the pack to ensure their survival as well as his own. The fact that he dominates does not make him evil; instead, in this case, it simply means that he is the one best fit to lead.”

“What about those who lie, cheat, steal.”

“Alamar, I would say that there are varying degrees of evil. Some things being worse—more evil—than others. Lying, cheating, stealing, if they are done merely for gratification, if they are done merely because the liars, cheaters, stealers have no regard for the feelings of those they wrong, then they are acting in an evil manner.

“But take the case where one steals to feed his family. Or lies to protect his King. Or steals to save the lives of others. Then I think that perhaps evil is not being done, although in some cases the doer is accomplishing wrong.…

“Is that possible, Alamar? Is it possible to deliberately do wrong without doing evil?”

“Ah, Jinnarin, this is a question the philosophers have long pondered: the degree that motive ameliorates wrong. But I will let you search for the answer on your own, for it is a deep question deserving much thought.

“Instead, Pysk, let me ask you another: what about the control we exert over criminals? We lock them away. At times we put them to hard labor. At other times we exercise the ultimate control and take their lives from them. Is it not evil to control another being so?”

Jinnarin thought long ere answering. “We do those things because, just as the dominant Wolf cares for the pack, so too do we care for our own. To let an evildoer run loose is to allow an unfettered ravager into the midst of our own social order. Hence, because the criminal has demonstrated that he is a ravager of others, he must not be permitted to run free to the ultimate harm of any one of us, or to the harm of us all.”

“Well said, Pysk. But now let me ask you this: What
about the control of children? If domination is evil, then is it not evil to dominate their lives?”

“Oh, Alamar, the young are a special case. They need to be given as much liberty as their experience allows, or perhaps even a bit more. When they are young, they have little or no knowledge, in which case they need looking after and guidance. As they grow older, they can and should be allowed more and more freedom, for after all, they are coming closer to adulthood. Here, if they’ve been nurtured to think responsibly for themselves, if they’ve received loving guidance, if they’ve been allowed to accumulate experiences that will stand them in good stead throughout their lives, then they will act more and more like the independent adults we would wish them to be. And, of course, there comes the time when we must let them go, to be the masters of their own fates, to control their own choices and thereby their own destinies.

“And so, the control of children is not an evil thing in and of itself unless the one doing so seeks only dominion, and that for his own pleasure, his own satisfaction, for his own sense of control of another being.”

Alamar nodded, agreeing. “Tell me this then, Jinnarin. What is the nature of evil?”

Jinnarin stood and paced the floor. “This, Alamar, this I think lies at the heart of evil and defines its nature: Each of us should be free to control our own destiny. Only under very special circumstances should we yield limited control of our individual destinies to others, circumstances such as, say, defending one another against a common foe, circumstances where someone must lead and others follow. In the absence of those special circumstances, no one should be allowed to willfully interfere with the life of another, unless that other seeks in some fashion without our permission to exert control over one or more of us. Then and only then should steps be taken to stop this interference, and then in a minimal manner to do so. Evil is when a person or persons or thing for its own satisfaction seeks to wrench our destiny from our own hands, seeks to take away freedom of choice, to take away our physical, emotional, spiritual, or intellectual life, seeks to force us into a mold of his choosing and not our own.

“And that, Alamar, is the nature of evil: power, authority, dominion, command, control, obedience, removal of choice, suppression of freedom, usurpation of the destiny of others—all for the gratification of the wielder.”

Alamar smiled and slowly shook his head. “Adon, but you would make a wonderful apprentice.”

Jinnarin blushed. “I take it then I’ve well defined the essence of evil, neh?”

The smile vanished from Alamar’s face, and he barked, “Don’t get uppity, Pysk. It’s a start. That’s all. Just a start.”

Jinnarin drew herself up to her full twelve inches. “What did I leave out?” she demanded.

“Why, much, child, much.”

“Such as…?”

“Well for starts, you spoke of giving up the right of self-determination under ‘special circumstances,’ yielding control of your life to someone else, someone you called a ‘leader.’ Yet you did not mention the fact that here you have stepped upon a very slippery slope, and that one person’s view of special circumstances is another person’s view of unneeded interference. One must always ask, ‘Who is naming this a “special circumstance”?’ and, ‘Are these circumstances truly dire enough to surrender my free will to the judgement of another? And if so, then whom?’

“That is but one issue; here are others:

“Although you talked of lying, cheating, and stealing, you spoke not at all of lust, greed, avarice, gluttony, addiction, and other such; are these in and of themselves evil things? What of waste and want, and of neglect—benign, deliberate, vengeful—are they always vile, or instead are there cases where they are warranted? What of hate, fear, envy, sloth, jealousy, prejudice, and the like? And what of coldly taking of the life of another? Is it ever justified, is it evil here but good there? And what of religions or societies that attempt to control, to regulate even the finest detail of everyday living—of course, for the benefit of all, or so it is claimed—are these inherently evil? And the debate between Adon and Gyphon—was one side good and the other evil?
Were both sides good? Both evil? What does this debate say concerning the nature of Adon, of Gyphon?

“And lastly, child, we circle back to your original query: what about gods who never answer, or who always answer? Gods who ignore their creations, who let them be or who seldom interfere or who interfere continually? Gods who exert no control, or some control, or continuing control? Are we like children who need godly guidance, or are we instead adults who should be on our own, who should be allowed to make our own decisions and live with the rewards or consequences of such? And what of guidance that is not loving but instead has its origins elsewhere?

“Does your definition of the essence, the nature, of evil cover all these cases and more?”

“But, Alamar,” protested Jinnarin, “you are asking me to practically define the entire body of ethics, of religion, of philosophy, of—of all!”

Alamar nodded. “I know I am, Jinnarin, but heed: any definition must be tested against all relevant cases and modified where found lacking.” Alamar smiled sadly unto himself. “Perhaps, Jinnarin, you will ultimately circle back to your original definition of evil, concluding only that evil is bad.”

They sailed into Arbalin in the middle of the night fifty-six days after departure from Rwn. Alamar bade his good-byes to Captain Dalby and the ship’s crew, and carrying his knapsack and dragging Rux after—the fox lying on his side and thumping down the gangway while growling and snapping at the rope tied to his harness—the Mage and his familiar disembarked from the caravel.

“Lumme, didja see that?”

“Wot?”

“‘E was talkin’ to ‘is knapsack.”

“‘E wos? Wot’d ‘e say?”

“Somethin’ about being glad ‘e’d not ‘ave to clean up no more fox poop.”

Alamar rented an isolated cottage set on the marge of a wood. The Mage also intimated that Rux was his familiar…and abruptly, almost instantly, fox hunting became a lost art throughout the whole of Arbalin Isle.

Alamar soon was a well-recognized figure down on the docks of the bay, for every day he trudged into town seeking word of Aravan and his swift Elvenship. But no one knew when the
Eroean
was due, nor even its ports of call. All they could say was that there had been times when the ship had been gone for years. And the last that it was seen in Arbalin was two years agone, and then it had laid over but a week ere it had set sail once more. But as to when it might again drop anchor in Arbalin Harbor…well, that was anyone’s guess.