[quote][i]How much time can one have to save the world? How long is enough? And what can one do when it’s been far too long, and there is no more to save?[/i][/quote] [i]Come to me. Come to the lake.[/i] I see it, a deep mirror pool in a remote valley, mountains flanking it like ancient white-haired sentinels. There, she beckons to me, calling again and again, and I feel the urge in my tired old heart, to soar somewhere again with a purpose, to have something to fight for, something to defend, something other than just drawing breath in order to draw another. [i]Come to me. Come now.[/i] And the voice is so clear, close and real that I wake up. I lie there listening to the throb of my old, old heart and hear the breath whistling in and out of me, and they are loud noises, but they do not drown out the dream. Over the workings of my body, I still hear the call. It was more than a dream. She does want me to go. I rise slowly, and do not bother to step into my four golden shoes, nor shrug my way into the confining peytral of gold. Naked I rise and fly, and as I reach my zenith, I toss my head, and with the power of persistent millennia flaming in my horn, I pull a flickering old orb of flame up into the sky with me to light the way. Someday I shall just let the thing rest. Someday, someday. It will rest when I do. I need no map to find the lake; the mountains are burned into my memory and the call is still clear. I land by the lake and the breeze of my wings ripples the waters. And amid the ripples, under the surface, stirs a flash of silver, then a pretty creature with a flat face arises, and her arm with a five-fingered hand reaches out to me. [i]Where will it go?[/i] I ask. [i]Will it do any good there?[/i] [i]It will be many things to many people,[/i] she says. [i]Sunk in stone, it will test a king. In his hands, it will build a realm that shall never die as long as heart beats and tongue tells the tale. And when he has done, I shall take it back to give another, just as I do now.[/i] [i]Then do that quickly,[/i] I say, and bow my head and close my eyes. The hand reaches out and closes around the base of my horn, and pulls down hard, and there is a crack of the loudest sound I shall ever hear as my skull is both cloven in twain and relieved of a mighty burden. At that moment, I am free, and I remember running lightly over golden fields as I did in my youth, as the darkness rises about me to take everything away, and my last sight is of the point of my horn, borne in that alien hand, sinking into the deep dark waters. [quote][i]She was an ancient ruler who used an ancient tool to do well by her people. Now she has laid herself down along with her weapon, and the torch has been passed. And the one who takes up that fiery brand, wherever it may go, will also have lives to save, kingdoms to build, setbacks to suffer… But all of this lies somewhere in the future and yet also the past, in that fifth dimension, beyond that known to mare or to man–deep in the furthest reaches of the Twilight Zone.[/i][/quote]