The Spine of the World - By R. A. Salvatore Page 0,40
any community thrive. How much stronger might that community be if those sacrifices came from the heart of each citizen and not from the edicts of the elders or matron mothers or kings and queens?
Freedom is the key to it all. The freedom to stay or to leave, to work in harmony with others or to choose a more individual course. The freedom to help in the larger issues or to abstain. The freedom to build a good life or to live in squalor. The freedom to try anything, or merely to do nothing.
Few would dispute the desire for freedom; everyone I have ever met desires free will, or thinks he does. How curious then, that so many refuse to accept the inverse cost of freedom: responsibility.
An ideal community would work well because the individual members would accept their responsibility toward the welfare of each other and to the community as a whole, not because they are commanded to do so, but because they understand and accept the benefits to such choices. For there are, indeed, consequences to every choice we make, to everything we do or choose not to do. Those consequences are not so obvious, I fear. The selfish man might think himself gaining, but in times when that person most needs his friends, they likely will not be there, and in the end, in the legacy the selfish person leaves behind, he will not be remembered fondly if at all. The selfish person's greed might bring material luxuries, but cannot bring the true joys, the intangible pleasures of love.
So it is with the hateful person, the slothful person, the envious person, the thief and the thug, the drunkard and the gossip. Freedom allows each the right to choose the life before him, but freedom demands that the person accept the responsibility for those choices, good and bad.
I have often heard tales of those who believed they were about to die replaying the events of their lives, even long past occurrences buried deep within their memories. In the end, I believe, in those last moments of this existence, before the mysteries of what may come next, we are given the blessing, or curse, to review our choices, to see them bared before our consciousness, without the confusion of the trappings of day-to-day living, without blurring justifications or the potential for empty promises to make amends.
How many priests, I wonder, would include this most naked moment in their descriptions of heaven and hell?
Chapter 7 LETTING GO OF AN OLD FRIEND
The big man was only a stride away. Josi Puddles saw him coming too late. Squeamish Josi hunched against the wall, trying to cover up, but Wulfgar had him in an instant, lifting him with one hand, batting away his feeble attempts to slap with the other.
Then, slam, Josi went hard against the wall.
"I want it back," the barbarian said calmly. To poor Josi, the measure of serenity in Wulfgar's voice and his expression was perhaps the most frightening thing of all.
"Wh-what're ye lookin' t-to find?" the little man stuttered in reply.
Still with just one arm, Wulfgar pulled Josi out from the wall and slammed him back against it. "You know what I mean," he said, "and I know you took it."
Josi shrugged and shook his head, and that bought him another slam against the wall.
"You took Aegis-fang," Wulfgar clarified, now bringing his scowl right up to Josi's face, "and if you do not return it to me, I will break you apart and assemble your bones to make my next weapon."
"I . . . I . . . I borrowed it . . ." Josi started to say, his rambling interrupted by yet another slam. "I thought ye'd kill Arumn!" the little man cried. "I thought ye'd kill us all."
Wulfgar calmed a bit at those curious words. "Kill Arumn?" he echoed incredulously.
"When he kicked ye out," Josi explained. "I knew he was kickin' ye out. He told me as much while ye slept. I thought ye'd kill him in yer rage."
"So you took my warhammer?"
"I did," Josi admitted, "but I meant to get it back. I tried to get it back."
"Where is it?" Wulfgar demanded.
"I gave it to a friend," Josi replied. "He gave it to a sailor woman to hold, to keep it out of the reach of yer call. I tried to get it back, but the sailor woman won't give it up. She tried to squish me head, she did!"