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Photo from www.dars-home.com.
Tao: It’s one thing to create an illusion, but it’s something totally different to cheat a cheater or fool a fool.
Tao: Are you going to the forest?
Dar: Yeah.
Tao: Well, good. I need to get myself some flint. I’m going to make myself a big fire and cook us a couple of mice.
Sorceress: There are those that believe life began in the sea. It would make sense for them to seek the ability to return.
King Zad: Think of the power: to conquer the land and retreat to the sea. An impregnable defense. Brilliant! And I want it.
Sorceress: You want everything.
King Zad: Why not? It’s all there for the taking.
King Zad: There are ways to get a man to do what you want.
Tao: You know, I’ve always marveled at the properties of flint, having saved the human race from extinction.
Dar: You really think flint did that?
Tao: Yes, by allowing man to make fire. You see, fire provides warmth and illumination. It’s also a means of cooking.
Ancient One: And we must all face that reality.
Sorceress: Why do you say “we”? You don’t have to face reality.
Ancient One: But I do. Different kinds: the reality of opportunity lost, hideous transgressions, promises broken, and oaths of vengeance kept.
King Zad: Beastmaster, welcome.
Dar: You have a strange way of welcoming people.
King Zad: I have many strange ways, perhaps none so strange as yours.
I’m fascinated with you gift of communicating with animals. You really are one of a kind. A legend. Just like me!
Dar: I don’t wonder about your world.
King Zad: Of course you don’t. You wander around the forest, chatting with monkeys, cooing with crocodiles, sleeping with tigers. You know nothing of the real world, Beastmaster.
Dar: I know enough about your world.
King Zad: And what, pray tell, is that?
Dar: You steal. You pillage. You destroy. You kill.
King Zad: Did you hear that? The savage gives me compliments!
Dar: In the real world, real men don’t find happiness in other people’s misery.
Sorceress: You once told me of a presence, a figure in the Burning Forest.
Ancient One: The Apparition.
Sorceress: Is that one of the horizons you mean?
Ancient One: Yes, it is.
Sorceress: And you mentioned that for one of you it would not end well.
Ancient One: A devil’s deal, a mistake I never should have made.
Sorceress: I thought you didn’t make mistakes.
Ancient One: One a day, more if I’m not paying attention.
Ancient One: Having a conscience is a mistake, although I didn’t know it when I let it happen. The Apparition is a mistake that has haunted me for years.
Sorceress: Tell me about it.
Ancient One: For my part it was weakness.
Sorceress: Something else I’ve never seen in you.
Ancient One: And you’ll never see again!
Tao: Dar, I have a question for you.
Dar: What?
Tao: What kind of Terron idiot would possibly ever want to hold someone in a prison like this? I mean it’s wide open.
Dar: I’m not so sure it is.
King Zad: How easy it is to deceive someone who craves, even begs to allow the deception.
Sorceress: That’s the heart of magic: to fool the natural way of things.
King Zad: I learned a long time ago never to succumb to tricks or illusions. I’d be dead by now if I had.
Tao: Is it different when you speak without words?
Dar: Very different.
Atlantia: Words can make things clear, but only if they are true.
Tao: That’s how illusions work. The person who is being seduced by the illusion already thinks he knows what he wants to see.
Dar: I want my staff back.
Tao: Well, then maybe you should ask for it. Very politely.
Dar: Good idea.
Tao: Never hit a Terron on the head. That’s the one place you can’t hurt them!
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