Fantasy fiction; Magic -- Fiction; Science fiction; Witches -- Fiction
Remigorius. The doctor would say this was not what he thought, but what
he had been taught; they had quarrelled on this issue before, and
Remigorius would say how Rodvard’s reasoning led straight as a line to
the support of all the things that both desired to throw down; how it
was precisely the rejection of witchcraft as devilish and unclean that
Episcopals and Queen stood for. If there were a good God, as the Church
said, He could not allow a free choice that might be turned against
Himself and so deprive Him of godhead.
Mathurin would chime in at this point to say that no man under tyranny
would by free choice choose freedom, the generality preferring rather to
have a chance of rising to the tyrant’s seat. They must be compelled to
take the better way to their own betterment, so that even in the secular
affair free choice was a dream—and then he, Rodvard, would be overborne
by the whirl and rush of their arguments.
A high destiny? Let us, Sons of the New Day, compel them, then; ride the
stormwind to greatness by setting men free. Oh, it would be noble to be
acclaimed as one of those who had brought about the change. But no; no;
that honor would go to those of the High Center, the leaders now hidden
in shadow, whose forms would stand forth in granite with the dawning of
the New Day—while the name of Rodvard Bergelin was never heard.
A high destiny? He thought of battle, the close combat where steel bows
flung their sharp messengers against the double-locked shields and
horsemen went past, while the trumpets shouted. The war-tune rang
through his head—“Lift the star of old Dossola, brave men rise and
tyrants stare . . .”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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