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If anyone has read R. A. Salvatore's Dark Elf trilogy, you may equally enjoy the following Demon trilogy.
The following is an excerpt from the second book entitled "The Demon Spirit."
I am sharing this excerpt first to give u an understanding of the war the hero wages for good over evil. Later (perhaps tomorrow), I will type up my favorite excerpt that I hope many will find relevant to their own lives.
I cried for the death of Brother Justice.
That was not his real name, of course. His real name was Quintall; I know not if that was his surname or his birth-given name, or if he even had another name. Just Quintall.
I do not think that I killed him, Uncle Mather- not when he was human, at least. I think that his human body died as a consequence of that strange broach he carried, a magical link, so Avelyn discovered, to that most evil demon.
Still, I cried for the man, for his death, in which I played a great part. My actions were taken in defense of Avelyn and Pony, and of myself, and given the same situation, I have no doubt that I would react similarly, would battle Brother Justice without hearing any cries of protest from my conscience.
Still, i cried for the man, for his death, for all the potential lost, wasted, perverted to an evil way. When I consider it now, that is the true sadness, the real loss, for in each of us there burns a candle of hope, a light for the betterment of all the world. In each of us, in every man and every woman, there lies the possibility of greatness.
What a terrible thing the leaders of Avelyn's abbey did to the man Quintall, to pervert him into this monster that they called Brother Justice.
After Quintall's death, I felt, for the first time, as though I had blood on my hands. My only other fight with humans was with the three trappers, and to them, I showed mercy- and mercy well repaid! but for Quintall there was no mercy; there could not have been even if he survived my arrow and his fall, even if the demon dactyl and the magical broach had not stolen his spirit from his corporeal form. In no way short of his death could we have deterred Brother Justice from his mission to slay Avelyn. His purpose was all-consuming, burned into his every thought by a long and arduous process that had bent the man's free will until it had broken altogether, that eliminated Quintall's conscience and turned his heart to blackness.
Perhaps that is why the demon dactyl found him and embraced him.
What a pity, Uncle Mather. What a waste of potential.
In my years as a ranger, and even before that in the battle for Dundalis, I have killed many creatures- goblins, powries, giants- yet I shed no tears for them. I considered this fact long and hard in the light of my feeling towards the death of Quintall. Were my tears for him nothing more than an elevation of my own race above all others, and if so, is that not the worst kind of pride?
No, and I say that with some confidence, for surely I would cry if cruel fate ever drove my sword against on of the Touel'alfar. Surley I would consider the death of a fallen elf as piteous and tragic as the death of a fallen man.
What then is the difference?
It comes down to a matter of conscience, I believe, for as in humans, perhaps even more so, the Touel'alfar posses the ability, indeed the inclination, to choose a goodly path. Not so sure about giants- it may be that they are simply too stupid to even understand the suffering their warlike actions bring. In either case, I'll shed no tears and feel no remorse for any of these monsters that falls prey to Tempest's cut or to Hawking's bite. By their own evilness do they bring their deaths. They are the creatures of the dactyl, evil incarnate, slaughtering humans- and often each other- for no better reason than the pleasure of the act.
I have had this discussion with Pony, and she posed an interesting scenerio. She wondered whether a goblin babe, raised among humans, or among the Touel'alfar in the beauty of Andur'Blough Inninness, would be as vile as its wild kin. Is the evil of such beings a blackness within, ingrained and everlasting, or is it a matter of nurturing?
My friend, your friend, Belli'mar Juraviel, had the answer for her, for indeed his people had long ago taken a goblin child into their enchanted land and raised the creature creature as if it were kin. As it matured, the goblin was no less vicious and hateful, and no less dangerous than its kin in the dark holes of distant mountains. The elves, ever curious, tried the same thing with a powrie child, and the results were even more disastrous.
So, I'll not cry for goblins and powries and giants, Uncle Mather. I shed no tears for creatures of the dactyl. But I do cry for Quintall, who fel into evil ways. I cry for the potential that was lost, for the one terrible choice that pushed him to blackness.
And I think, Uncle Mather, that in crying for Quintall, or for any other human or elf that cruel fate may force me to slay, I am preserving my own humanity.
This is the scar of battle, I fear, that will prove to be the most everlasting.
-Elbryan The Nightbird
 Gweener · Mon Oct 15, 2007 @ 06:07pm · 2 Comments |
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