Ending the Ending

Chapter 1
At the end of the day Art came back to the shanty to find his dad looking at him with puffy, reddened eyes. "Dad, what's wrong? And where's mom?"

His dad put aside the plow he was fixing and hugged him. "Son, your mom's not going to be coming back home today."

"What? Why?"

"All you need to know is that she'll be away for a while."

"Dad, when's she coming back?"

"Not for a very long time."

"I want to see mom, now," Art said.

His dad sighed. Listen, son, I need you to act all grown up, you understand? Since mom's not going to be here to take care of you."

"No," Art said, turning to look away. "Where's—"

"Arthur."

Art turned back, frown on his face and tears forming. "Why can't she come back? What are you not telling me?" His dad hung his mouth open. Art repeated, "tell me!"

"She's passed away. Art, mom's dead."

"What does that mean?" asked Art, but even as he asked, the tears flowed, and he gripped his dad's arms. "What's it mean, she's dead? Dad, what happened?"

"It means, it's just us two now." Tears in his eyes, his dad wrapped Art's head in his arms. Art snuggled against his chest, sobbing into his plain white shirt. "Just us."

For a long while they held their embrace.

Finally his dad leaned back and looked at Art with a thin smile, then wiped away the tears on Art's cheeks. "Art, you're a big boy now. Boys don't cry. Come now, your tears are getting on our clothes. Do you know how much it costs to buy a new one?"

Art let go and wiped away his tears. "You were crying too."

"You're right, I was," said his dad, and Art chuckled, even as more tears flowed down his cheeks.

"I'm glad I still have you, dad. You're going to stay with me forever, right? You're—"

His dad chuckled. "Yes—"

"—not going to be dead one day too, right?" said Art, staring up at him. His dad's smile wavered. "Right, dad?" His dad didn't answer. Art shuddered. "Oh no. Not you too, dad. I can't stand to lose you. Why would you ever want to be dead?"

"Son, no one wants to die."

"Then why does anyone die?"

"It's not our choice, Art. Everyone dies, sooner or later."

"Everyone dies?" asked Art. His dad stared at him, silent. Art shook his head, then shook his head some more. "No. It can't be. Dad, you told me that if someone ever beats me up, I have to fight back. Girls can just cry, but boys have to do whatever they can to defend themselves."

"Yes, and you damn well should, or they'll just keep on hitting you."

"So why hasn't anyone done anything about this dying thing? Why hasn't anyone fought back?"

"I said only fight back if you're being bullied by someone your own size, otherwise you must run away. Does death look like a bully your own size?"

"No, but you said we can't run away from death, so it's not like we have any choice but to fight back."

His dad snorted at him and shook his head. "Look at you, just heard about death a moment ago and already you're thinking about fighting it." He patted Art on the head. "You're young, son, there's many things you don't know."

"You keep saying that," said Art, arms akimbo.

"Everything is born, lives, then dies. It's the way things are. Sooner or later it catches up to everyone. No one can avoid dying forever. No one can fight death."

"Well has anyone even tried?"

"Many have. But they have all died, in the end."

Chapter 2
Since the Lord forbade working on Sundays, on those days Art would go and visit the rest of the town. His favorite spot was the Hickory Hedge, a tavern a stone's throw away from the main gate to the castle, and in good weather days always a bustle with passersby looking to buy wares from the rows of stalls up and down Merchants' Street. There he'd listen to the minstrels spin their tales of heroes and their quests. This latest one was of a knight in shining armor vanquishing a firebreathing dragon.

As Art listened, it struck him as strange how in these stories the lone hero or the hero plus a tiny following would always go and win the day. It didn't seem possible that all the big problems of the world could each be solved by one knight going it alone. If he were sent to fight a dragon… Well, he'd give up and run away, but if he couldn't actually flee the dragon forever, he'd find other people to help him. Having more people fight a dragon would make it that much easier, so why didn't they? Despite the stories saying these knights were fighting dragons, from the way these stories played out it sounded like these knights of old had never ever come across a truly challenging foe. That or they were stories.

The minstrel had just finished another tale to much applause, and one of the listeners had told the barmaid to fetch another round of ale.

"Storyteller," asked Art, "Why is it that in all these tales of dragon slayers, there's only ever the one hero, or at most a few companions? Why do they never arrange for a large group of skilled knights?"

"Oh, looking to become a bard yourself?" the minstrel replied, then looked around at his audience, some of whom snickered at Art. "Now, what story should I tell next?"

Art took a moment to realize he'd just been made a fool of by the minstrel. Who was he, to treat him so? It seemed every adult in his life thought he wasn't worth taking seriously. Well, it was time he changed that. "I'll tell a story," said Art, prompting a sour look from the storyteller and raised eyebrows from the patrons.

"Is it going to be as good as the ones he tells?"

"Have you ever told a story before, boy?"

"Well, no—"

"Who wants the honor of being the first to listen to the first story the kid has ever told?" That got laughs out of the others.

"And why are you trying to tell us a story when you've never been apprenticed to a storyteller? Maybe you can make a story out of that," said another.

"Just listen to my tale, you'll like it," said Art, and he made up a story of a dragon slayer on the spot.

…They didn't like his tale. From the start he was beset by barely contained laughter, grunts of derision, and a flood of pointless questions, and his storytelling ground to a halt. Finally the minstrel put an end to this travesty by raising a hand and asking the patrons, "Any of you want to hear the Song of Roland?" And that was that, all the heads turned to the storyteller. Cheeks flushed with embarassment, Art fled the Hickory Hedge.

As he walked home his mind dwelt on how poorly his story had been received. Why? He asked himself. They didn't like that he was telling a story about a dragon slayer hero, just like all the others. But why? Why was he even telling a story about a dragon slayer hero at all? He'd never encountered a dragon himself, and he'd not received any training from any of the storytellers. Who was he to think he could enchant an audience with mere words? And was that minstrel so much better than he was? Well, yes, probably. But why was he better? That, he could find out. All he had to do was swallow his pride and recognize that yes, the minstrel was better and he could learn by listening to him weaving his tales.

He turned around and marched back to the Hickory Hedge.

"Back with another story, boy?" said the first patron who caught sight of his return.

"No, just to listen."

"Well sit down then, and learn from the master," said the minstrel, then continued with his song.

Chapter 3
"Come in," said Father Walters.

Art entered. "Father."

"Art, my good lad, what counsel may I give you today?" he said with good cheer.

"Father, I have had this one question I've been meaning to ask for a few years now, ever since…"

The smile faltered. "Oh, might this have to do with—"

"Yes. Father, I'm not looking for a comforting answer on this one, just an honest one. Why is there death in this world?"

Father Walters looked to the window. "It seems you have been thinking on this for a long time now. It's not quite the healthy thing to be like so. You are young, you have your entire life ahead of you, but you need to move on, or you will just wallow in despair and make nothing of your life."

"Yes Father, I understand. I know I'll have to move on, and stop thinking about her being dead. But death – I don't think I can forget that. I don't think I can stop thinking about it, either. Not at least until I know why it happens."

"Ah, that I can help you with," said Father Walters as he opened up his bible. "The question of why evil, and death, exists in the world can be traced back to the beginning. When the Lord created the garden of Eden, and filled it with all manner of living things, He also created two trees – the tree of life and the tree of knowledge of good and evil. And the Lord warned Adam against eating the second tree, saying that 'in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die'."

"Yes, but why? Why would He put such a tree there?"

"We cannot hope to guess for what grand purpose He put such a tree there. We are after all ignorant of His ways."

"But Father, does the Lord not explain why He makes such a thing of death?"

"A young child may not understand when he is told to always return home before nightfall, and will not be able to understand his parents' reasons, so his parents need not bother to explain the why of it. But surely you're old enough to know why now, now that you are old enough to understand. We are as children before the Lord, and He need not explain Himself to us. It is enough to know that death is our punishment for the sins of Adam and Eve, for having not obeyed the Lord."

"Surely, Father, this sin is to be placed on Adam and Eve, for not listening to the Lord, for which they had died. But why would it be placed on us?"

"The sins of the father pass onto his children also. And this greatest of sins, of disobeying the Lord's one commandment at a time when only one had been given, was a crime so great that any number of lifetimes and any number of lives cannot wash it away. May that be a lesson you always remember, to guide you in your times of temptation, to always walk the path the Lord has given us, that you should avoid being punished also."

"I shall remember this and always walk in the path of the Lord. Thank you for your guidance, Father. I have much to think upon, and even more to learn," said Art, and with a bidding of farewells he left. As he walked down the dirt path to his home, he pondered:

Adam and Eve had been punished for stealing from the tree. But their children were also punished. Sure, thieves who steal are to be put to death. But would their children be put to death?

They were punished for eating from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, and not for eating from the tree of life. But the Lord was all-powerful, there was no need for Him to put a tree of temptation there. If He didn't want Adam and Eve to eat from it, then He would simply not have put the tree there in the first place.

Unless it was a test.

A test with two choices, to eat from either the tree of life or the a tree of death, where the correct choice was to eat from the tree of life, but the latter tree was the more tempting. A test that Adam and Eve had failed, and they were punished with death for the failing of it. A test that people must still be failing to the present day, that they be punished with death for failing it.

And yet they failed it anyway, they continued to eat of the tree of temptation, for all its temptation distracted people from the fruit they should be reaching out for. Distractions, such as tilling the soil, and cooking one's food, and trading of wares, and sleeping each night, and playing one's leisure time away.

They were all throwing their time away. They were all sinning.

And so they were all dying.

And that realization made him freeze in place.

The Lord had given Art His test, and Art was well on his way to failing. And failing meant death.

Chapter 4
Truth was, Art had no idea how he would go about fighting death.

He had kept track of all the ways people could die, and then despite his best efforts had lost track, there were so many. He gave up trying to count how many ways there were and just assumed there were ten thousand. That was such a large number he didn't think there could be more than ten thousand of anything. He then figured someone would have to come up with a way to prevent each of those ways of dying. Ten thousand inventions. Yes, other people could come up with those ways too but as he'd looked around and asked around, it seemed no one was interested in coming up with any of them, which meant he, Art, would have to invent them all.

With a bit of math from his friend the son of a local merchant, Art had figured out that assuming he'd lived to be forty, he had just enough days left in his life to come up with one invention per day and finish before he died. So he figured that's just what he'd do: one invention per day.

At first one invention per day wasn't that hard to come up with. With each one he thought up he exulted, knowing he was getting one step closer to successfully finishing his test. But then new ideas started coming more slowly. And now it had been a week since his last idea. Three months had passed, and so far he'd come up with thirty-one.

So he decided it was about time he started making his inventions, his ideas, into reality.

While tending to the forge Art turned to ask Master Smith. "Master, I have an idea."

"Oh, you have an idea?" said the smith, not bothering to look at his apprentice as he continued hammering away at his red-hot knife.

"I call it the metal apron," said Art, exuding excitement. "The idea is simple. You wear an apron in front of you, tied at your waist, except the apron is made of metal."

"And pray do tell, what is a man to do with such a, what did you call it, 'metal apron'?"

"If you were a farmer you could wear one when you go out into the field and tends to your oxen, that way when an ox kicks you it'd hit the metal apron, and you wouldn't get hurt."

"Oh. That's it?"

"Well… yeah, that's all it's supposed to do."

His master chuckled while shaking head. "Sounds like a silly idea to me."

"It's not silly," said Art. He muttered, "it would have saved mom's life."

Art had learned that, while tending to the oxen, his mom had been kicked square in the chest by a riled ox. Had she been wearing a metal apron then, she would still have been alive.

Master Smith took in a deep breath, then set down his tools, got up and put a hand on Art's shoulder. "It would be a good idea, except there's a reason why farmers don't all wear metal aprons already. Can you think of any?"

After a moment Art shook his head. What reason could be more important than not dying?

"All right, think of it this way. This 'metal apron' would be made out of metal. Where would all that metal come from? Who will mine, smelt, and smith it? Who will pay for it? The farmers can't pay for it, not for that much metal. Besides, it wouldn't feel like a cloth apron, not if it's made of metal. It would be solid, and keep banging on the knees. It would be heavy. Farmers have to work hard enough as it is, they're not going to want to put all that extra weight on them. And under the daylight sun, the metal would become scorching hot. Your farmers will come home every day with painful blisters all over their knees."

Art sagged and held his head in his hands. Why hadn't he thought of that? His idea was terrible. Of course none of the farmers would have tolerated it. Of course if the solution were that simple everyone would have been doing that already, and no one would be waiting for him to come along and suggest it to everybody. Who was he, to give other people his suggestions? He was only a child, and as would be expected of a child, he had plenty of ideas but didn't know enough to tell the good ideas from the bad. No wonder adults never listened to children. Why should they?

Chapter 5
That evening Art had thought back on his thirty other ideas and applied Master Smith's reasoning to them. For them to effectively prevent death, all of his ideas required wide-scale applications. Many required substantial materials, and he doubted that people would be willing to part with that much of what little they had. Others he knew could be done but required maths and expertise which he knew he didn't have. And without being the son of a noble, merchant or scholar, he doubted he'd ever get the maths down. Several more would be awfully hard to convince people to agree to, simply because they were tedious. One by one he'd crossed them off his list, until only two were left, and he himself wasn't in any position to make those two happen, either.

It was three months since he started brainstorming solutions to death, and he had nothing to show for it. At this rate he was never going to get to ten thousand. At this rate he was going to fail the Lord's test as badly as everyone else.

Which reminded him, this was about the most darned hard test there ever was. And the most unfair. Why was he expected to achieve as much as a king, in as little time, when a king had a whole kingdom at his command? Why were women expected to achieve as much as men could, when women were expected to do as their parents, husbands, and sons told them to do, and not encouraged to think on their own? For that matter, were babies really expected to do something about death before they died, as often happened, within the first few months of being born? Why did death not come for everyone only when they all reached the same age? Then he pondered on the sermons Father Walters had given and remembered the Lord didn't care much for being fair. Or being easy on his children, for that matter.

So what was he to do? Well, what would Saint George the dragonslayer do? Art wondered.

Saint George would probably charge at it with his lance and stab the dragon with it. Great lot of good that role model was. Art just had to stab death with a weapon. Right. And Saint George would ride at it all by himself, the lucky idiot. What if the dragon had stayed in the air and never landed, and breathed fire down at the knight? Armed with just a lance, Saint George would have had no idea how to fight back. Without anyone who could shoot arrows at the dragon, he was doomed. The dragon would have burned him to a crisp for being such a moron that he didn't go recruiting allies first. Whoever made up that story had clearly never fought a dragon. Art was fighting a dragon now, and that story wasn't really helping.

Art smacked his head. It was so obvious. He needed allies. He was a lancer fighting a dragon who kept staying in the air, and he needed people who could shoot it down.

But he was but a boy, a son of a farmer and apprentice to a smith, which made him a nobody thrice over. How in all the world was he going to convince someone to join him on his quest?

In the stories he had heard, in those few stories where the hero didn't travel alone, he had garnered a band of fellow adventurers from an inn. Well, he could start there. Art started walking toward the Hickory Hedge, and as he did yet another idea started taking shape. He had no money to give to anyone, to encourage them to join him on his quest. He had nothing to give, except a dream of hope, a way of thinking, and a tale with which to convey them both.

And as he had to work the other days of the week, he would have to do this on the Sundays. Art knew the Lord had commanded that no work be done on Sundays, for it was His holy day. But telling a story wasn't exactly work, either. And the deadline of the Lord's test came one day closer on Sundays as surely as it did on every other day of the week.

Chapter 6
Another minstrel sang now at the Hickory Hedge, this time singing a ballad that Art recognized as a love song. Ordering a drink, he sat down and listened to it, picking up the verse structure, the voice, the emotional undertones. Years of listening and paying careful attention to what made a story work – as opposed to its story – had given him a hint of how much better the masters were than he could ever hope to be, but it had taught him much.

As the round of applause subsided, Art praised the ballad for its excellent style, and praised the minstrel for his excellent taste in choosing that particular ballad. The minstrel smiled as that prompted the patrons to pass a few copper pieces his way. Then he asked them if they had heard of the story of the Order of Demonslayers and their grand quest to rid their realm of a great host of demons. To which they all said no, which of course they did not, for Art had made that up. "Ah, but then you have been missing out on a most unique tale," he said. He gave a nod to the minstrel. "It shall be quite an honor to pass along such a tale to one as worthy of the retelling of it as you." To which the minstrel could only nod.

So Art began. He told of a land far away, a world so blessed that people never died of sickness or old age, where the only threat was the demons – large flying monsters of all sorts. The smaller ones were dragons, but the larger ones were far more terrible, and could not be considered dragons at all. And there were so many – thousands upon thousands of them, and they struck with barely any warning, all over the land, making it so that even in such a bountiful land, all the people lived in fear, for they knew that one day they would be too slow-footed to escape an attacking demon. Sooner or later, everyone wound up in the gullet of one demon or another. It was thought that the demons could not be killed, so hard were their plated hides. They just were. For as long as anyone could remember, in even their oldest tales, there had been demons, swooping down every once in a while to make a snack out of a helpless peasant or king, for the demons were powerful and cared not what position their victims were.

With relief Art noted that his audience was not as quick to cut him off as they had been the last time around.

He told of how, in this land a very skilled knight by the name of Sir Amicus had triumphed in each of the sixteen jousts held by each of the sixteen kings, and had thereby become known as the greatest knight in the land, and as was said by many, the greatest knight ever. But Sir Amicus was not satisfied with merely unseating other knights. He wanted to challenge something greater than any human, and for that he looked up, and the demons who ruled the skies above all.

He told of how Sir Amicus had set out on horseback for a demon's lair, lance and shield in hand. He had chosen the lair of one of the smallest types of demons, a mere dragonling. But it was already aloft and breathed fire at him. Sir Amicus, being skilled on horseback, rode out just in time, but the dragonling was faster, flew after him, breathing more fire upon him. As it was in the sky, Sir Amicus could not attack it. He was protected by his shield, but his mount had no such protection, and was roasted alive. Sir Amicus was forced to flee into a nearby cave, one that was too small for the dragonling to enter but winding enough that the flames it breathed in couldn't reach Sir Amicus. There he was trapped, for the dragonling guarded the one exit and attacked the moment Sir Amicus tried to leave. Only after feigning his death and waiting three days so that the dragonling was convinced he was dead, did Sir Amicus manage to escape.

Art looked about and noticed that two of the children who had been playing about the market stalls outside had come into the Hickory Hedge, listening to his tale of knights and dragons.

He told of how Sir Amicus had then vowed never to give up until he had slain the dragonling. He threw away his lance and learned to use a shortbow, and five years later returned to the same lair. The dragonling flew out, killed his mount again and trapped him in the same cave, but this time he had a weapon with the range to fight back. Each time he tried to get back out the dragonling would breathe fire at him, while he loosed arrow after arrow at it until finally one pierced the dragonling's throat, slaying it.

He told of how Sir Amicus had cut out the dragonling's heart and brought it before the high king, of the hushed awe as people realized for the first time that yes, demons could indeed be slain. Of the dawning realization that came upon them, the idea that if they braved great dangers to slay each demon in turn, that one day they would live in a world without demons, a world without fear. And with that the king proclaimed Sir Amicus the First Demonslayer, and commanded him to seek out other demons and slay them, until the last day of his life. And Sir Amicus did so, slaying a good number of dragonlings. And given the great rewards heaped upon him, soon other knights set out to slay dragonlings on their own, and together they were proclaimed the Order of Demonslayers, a band of knights that were to be given free access and shelter no matter what realm they passed, for the order's mission was one shared by all the kings in all the land.

He told of how one day it was brought to the attention of Sir Amicus that a larger dragonling was attacking the next village over. He set out for that village and found that the dragonling had reduced it to ashes and made the place its nest. Sir Amicus let loose with his arrows even as the dragonling pursued him, but this dragonling, much larger than those others Sir Amicus had slain, had thicker plates protecting it, so that none of the arrows shot from his shortbow could penetrate, and once again Sir Amicus was forced to flee. He had to find a more powerful weapon.

Art stopped his story there, leaving his audience asking him why he'd stopped halfway through the retelling. Art said he'd taken enough time out of the day as it was, and the minstrel needed to earn his keep after all, and he'd continue on the next Sunday, same time, same place. With that he left.

Chapter 7
The next Sunday Art returned to the Hickory Hedge and saw the familiar faces of the previous week's audience, several of them prodding him to get back to his story.

So he continued. He told of how Sir Amicus had gone and searched out other shortbowmen with more experience than he, and had them try to aim for the dragonling's eyes, which of course were not protected; or the inside of the mouth, which were also unprotected; but the dragonling just squinted its eyes and kept its mouth shut unless it was spewing out dragonfire. Shortbowman after shortbowman was roasted alive, and stumped, Sir Amicus did not know what to do, and Art asked his listeners, did they care to guess what Amicus found to be his solution?

"Why, use a longbow of course," said the barmaid.

"Exactly," said Art, relieved that someone had come up with an answer. He then told of how Sir Amicus had traveled the many kingdoms looking for a powerful enough weapon, until finally he found the one kingdom whose army had longbowmen, for longbowmen had to be trained from a very young age and for many years and were thus not to be trained on a whim. And this band of longbowmen took on the larger dragonlings, and with their more powerful longbows could penetrate the dragonling's hide, as long as they shot at the neck where the plates were the thinnest. When Sir Amicus had taken this larger dragon's heart before his king, people realized that this larger kind of dragonling too could be killed. Thereafter point the Order of Demonslayers had included longbowmen in their ranks as well.

As Art drank from the jug of ale handed to him, he noticed that more children had come in to listen.

He told of how Sir Amicus had then encountered an actual dragon, twice again the size of any dragonlings he had faced. Against it even his longbowmen were ineffective. He sought out all the kingdom of longbowmen, set up a competition to see whose aim was truest and whose bow arm the strongest, tested them with thelargest and sturdiest longbows and picked the truest and mightiest of them all to go with him to take on the dragon. But the dragon shut its eyes and attacked by smell alone, so the truest longbowman could not target just its eyes, and the mightiest longbowman could not break its neck-hide either, and then both were roasted alive, as were the rest of his party, so that Sir Amicus was forced to flee.

Art then looked to the audience. "Now, this question is for all us children here, so you adults, don't tell us. But kids, don't blurt out the answer either if you know it. This is the question: What do you think happens next, what do you think Sir Amicus could do next to defeat the dragon? Think on it, and let me know next Sunday. I'll continue the story then," he said to cries of dismay from the other children.

Art then went from inn to inn – the town had several – and retold his tale up to this point, at each of them, as he had done with the first episode of his story. His skill grew in the telling, so that more people listened to his tale each time. And each time, he told them that he'd be continuing his tale the following week; but at one inn he told the listeners he would no longer be visiting there, and that he would tell his story at the Hickory Hedge, and that if they wanted the rest of the story they should go there on the next Sunday.

Chapter 8
The following weekend he returned to the Hickory Hedge. There he found half the audience from the other inn he'd said he'd no longer be visiting. They had come to the Hickory Hedge to hear him tell his tale, and it wasn't all that surprising they'd decide on a whim to leave their usual inn, since these were all children. There was now a group of about a dozen listening to him, only half of them adults.

He asked them to come forth and whisper in his ear, what each of them thought was Sir Amicus' solution. Only a few did so; the rest hadn't really expected him to call on them to give their answer. One of them had hit upon the answer he was looking for, the crossbow. Instead of telling them outright who was right and what the answer was, Art continued his story.

He told of how Sir Amicus had returned to the lance, which he thought was stronger than a longbow, at least when used on horseback. How Sir Amicus had tried various strategies to trick one dragon or another land on the ground (this being one of the childrens' ideas). Several times he had even offered fair maidens for them to eat, but in each case the maidens had been burned to death by dragonfire without any knight ever making it close enough to the dragon to stab it with a lance.

He told of how a defeated Sir Amicus was about to announce his retirement when he came upon a battle between warring kingdoms. The plate-armored knights on one side were being slain by crossbows. After the battle ended he had consulted the king about these crossbows, and thereby learned of how they were made. The main problem with the crossbow was the very slow rate of fire – a dragon could breathe fire half a dozen times in the time it took to reload, and that many blasts of fire could kill a good thirty men. With his amassed wealth Sir Amicus hired a great many fresh recruits, two hundred of them, and spent months teaching them to fire their crossbows at moving targets and with precision, and taught them the behaviors of the dragons. Then he brought them and a host of other archers and knights to fight a dragon.

He told of the great devastation wrought by the dragon in the ensuing battle, how the valiant knights charged to their deaths only to be struck down by the great tail and how the crossbowmen worked to reload their shots even as the dragonfire swept over rank after rank of them. How in the end the dragon, pierced at last by a couple of bolts out of the nearly a thousand that had been fired, had at last fallen. How even despite the sacrifice of almost a hundred lives lost in this great battle, the kings of all the realms began to recruit armies of crossbowmen, that one day they too could down the dragons plaguing them.

Some of the children, having figured out by now that this was a tale of Art's own making, remarked on how smart that solution was, to which Art called out for the person who had suggested the idea in the first place, to please stand up and announce himself, which he did, and Art thanked him for providing the solution, for Art had not thought of it himself, and surely the story could not go on had the solution not been provided, Art was merely fleshing out the story based on the answer he had been given. And that came as a surprise to the others, who had thought this a tale passed down to Art by some wandering minstrel.

Art told of how a few years later quite a few dragons had been slain, and how now almost all the dragonlings had been wiped out, so that the next major threat were the greater dragons, with even larger bodies and thicker hides, against which entire regiments of crossbowmen were incinerated. Suffering such heavy losses, the kings despaired, but Sir Amicus had known too many victories against what were considered impossible foes to back down now.

And now Art asked the other children once again, how would they take on a greater dragon? And told them it was up to them to come up with a solution, for how would Art continue the story if there were no solution? And then he left to visit the other inns, to repeat the stories there also. At each of those other inns he told his audience that he would no longer be telling his tale at those places, but would only tell his tale at the Hickory Hedge, so those who wanted to hear more had to go there to hear his tale.

Chapter 9
When next Art arrived at the Hickory Hedge he found the inn crowded to full with several dozen familiar faces, including his audience members from the other inns. The newcomers chatted to each other about what they thought would happen next in the tale, and Art noticed they seemed surprised that so many people were gathering at this one place to hear Art. Art called for attention, then had each of them take turns whispering in his ear what they thought would be Sir Amicus's next solution. Art noted that some had called for a bigger crossbow; others called for improved defenses.

"Interesting," said Art, eyes scanning the crowd of children before him. "Some of you have suggested we use something… big. How do you suppose we would protect it all? Come now, whisper your answers to me." After a brief pause, one of them skipped up to Art and whispered in his ear, and then another, and then another, until it seemed all of them had done so. Art nodded and smiled at them. "Some of you have come up with some really good answers."

So Art told of how Sir Amicus had met with his advisors, the other members of the Order of Demonslayers, asking what it is they could do about these bigger dragons. How they agreed to use a bigger crossbow, but that no such crossbows could be found in all the land, none of them had ever seen such a thing and neither did their contacts. Sir Amicus had then called upon the master craftsmen in the city to devise this new crossbow, as large as could readily be carried and used by any human, and soon they had created designs for the arbalest, followed soon after with several hundred of the actual thing. Having found that these took twice over as long as a regular crossbow to arm, Sir Amicus began training five hundred men in the working of the arbalests, and with the support of all the kingdoms had gathered together once over as many of soldiers of other weapons to help provide support.

He told of how the greater dragon shrugged off the bolts from these ballista just as if they were the same as the normal crossbows even as it ravaged half the army, and how the survivors broke ranks and fled before its awesome might.

He told of how Sir Amicus, disgraced, nonetheless petitioned the craftsmen in his town to work on an even larger version of the arbalest, and after several days they presented him with plans for a ballista, an enormous crossbow set on wheels, followed a month later with a hundred ballista, paid for by the treasuries of only half the kings of the land, for the other half had all but given up on ever slaying a greater dragon. And then his Order of Demonslayers marched, a hundred ballista carried by several hundred beasts of burden, accompanied with hundreds of arbalest-men and hundreds more besides, and another thousand support staff, as large an army as any one king in that land ever had.

He told of how the dragon burned through half the Order, sending ignited pieces of ballista-shrapnel flying all over the battlefield and crushing entire squadrons with each sweep of its massive wings. Of how the well trained forces, protected from the brunt of the dragonfire by great tower shields covered in newly prepared animal hide and soaked in water to ward off the flame, held the line. Of how in the end the greater dragon, impaled by over a dozen great bolts and spraying its blood all over, had finally toppled. Of how, when this victory became well known, the kings of the other realms ordered their own ballistas built, that they could kill the greater dragons in their lands also.

"Who came up with all these ideas?" asked one of the adults.

Art smiled and gestured in a way that encompassed all the children. "Every one of them came up with something interesting. I couldn't use them all, so I just chose a few to use." He looked at the children in the audience. "Do any of you want to tell him which ideas you came up with?"

One of them boasted that he had come up with the idea for a bigger crossbow. Another retorted that it was his idea also, and then another said he'd come up with the ballista, "so take that". Art looked at the adults and saw their dawning sense of amazement, that these children – some of them their own children – weren't just kids any more, not if they could come up with such ideas all on their own.

"Actually, the two of us came up with that crossbow on a wheel idea together," said another, pointing at the first person who claimed the ballista idea. "He came up with the idea of a really, really big crossbow; I thought we'd need a cart with wheels to put it on."

"How did you come up with the idea together?" asked another.

"Well, we were discussing our ideas while we were waiting for Art to show up."

Art nodded. "Yes, and your friend here came up with the idea of using soaked hide to protect against dragonfire. That was brilliant. If you three had worked on it together you probably would have wound up with a crossbow-on-a-wheel-protected-from-dragonfire as a single idea."

"So what's next?" asked another. "What's the next dragon?"

"Oh, all the dragons are defeated now," said Art, resuming his tale. He told of how the next type of demon the Order challenged was a fire-bird, a monstrous bird made entirely of living flame which cold, like fire, regenerate itself—

"What?" asked one of the kids, "How can the Order possibly take on something that's made of fire itself? You can't kill something like that."

"You've never put out a fire before?"

"Yes, but how—"

"Well, that's up to you to find out," said Art. "If you don't, then next week the story will be, the Order tries its best to fight the fire-bird, none can hurt it, they all die, and it will be the end of the story."

"No, you can't do that! That's not fair!"

"Well, as you very well know these fights only get harder and harder. You giving up already?"

"No way. We're not giving up that easily."

"That's the spirit!" said Art, and clapped his hands. "All right, that's it for today. Go home and think on it, I'll need your solution next Sunday."

"You know what," said one of the kids, "we should work together on this one." Several others turned to him. "The crossbow-on-wheels idea only really worked because those two worked on it together before getting here," he explained. "If we want the story to go on then we'll have to think of something good. We'll have to work together."

"Yeah, I want the story to go on too. Let's meet tomorrow evening, we live pretty close to each other anyway."

Art chuckled as he watched them leave. It had taken a lot of storytelling to get this far, but he could start to see the change had wrought on them, on their way of thinking.

Chapter 10
At the next storytelling time half the children refused to whisper anything to Art and instead pointed at one of the children in particular. "All right, Jane, let's hear it," he said as he turned to her. "All the children are looking at you."

Jane went up to Art's ear and whispered to him.. and whispered some more, and somemore.

"Wow," was all Art managed to say. He then turned to the rest of the children, who went to whisper their solutions to Art.

Before a hundred listeners Art resumed his story, drawing upon Jane's whispered answer. He told of how it was decided that the firebird must have been hiding somewhere when it rained, since the incessant falling of water – even though it could not completely extinguish and thus kill the firebird – would weaken it, and it would thus avoid it. So all over the realms the guards went about asking the peasants – and anyone else for that matter – who knew where caves could be found, to let the Order of Demonslayers know. The Order then dispatched teams to close off those caves, piling up masses of rock and earth, since it was believed the firebird, having no physical body, couldn't simply blast their way through earth. When this was done, there were few places left in all the realm where a firebird could hide from the rains.

He told of how, when the Order of Demonslayers tried to collapse the final cave, the one the firebird was using as its abode, the firebird had attacked, breathing gouts of flame at the Order and burning them to death while sending them scattering. Sir Amicus and the council of kings had then ordered the construction of trebuchets, all covered in soaked hide to protect them from dragonfire, and had them brought up to just two hundred yards away from the cave entrance while it was raining. The ground, all muddy from the downpour, would have caused these siege engines to sink into them if it weren't for Sir Amicus' prescience in bringing a great many wooden rafts to pave the ground over which these trebuchets advanced. This wooden path was covered in a thin layer of mud so that they wouldn't catch fire, though not enough mud for the siege engines to sink into. When the trebuchets were brought in close enough, they launched rock after rock at the cave entrance, forcing the firebird out of hiding. It withered in the rain, but survived and flew toward the awaiting army nonetheless.

He told of how the Order had also prepared still more catapults to launch water at the approaching firebird. They needed tons of water, as a great deal of it had to strike all of the firebird all at once in order to put it out. The constant stream of water came from large wooden pans laid out on the ground to catch the rainwater, enough pans to cover all the nearby plains, and they refilled with rainwater as fast as they could be used. Eight hundred catapults launched water into the skies, each launch carrying enough water to put out a firebird, but the water blasts sprayed all over and none could actually extinquish the bird alone. Yet they kept striking it, so that the firebird glowed as a cloud of steam and flame. It attempted to strike at the trebuchets, but the catapults kept a constant torrent of water flying over them, warding off the firebird, so the trebuchets continued their work, launching boulders to block off the cave entrance. For hours they kept this up. Thousands lay dead, burned to a crisp. The firebird, weakened by the rain and barrage of water blasts, was extinguished in the end.

When Art finished telling the battle scene, the inn was all quiet, so intently did everyone listen to his tale. Then one by one the children started clapping, and soon the adults joined in.

"Damn that was a hell of a fight," said one of the adults. "Jane, did you come up with all that?"

"No," she said, and she beamed. "It was the effort of a great many of us. So many things had to be covered." She started counting fingers. "One was how the firebird could survive in the rain, what could we do about its hiding place. We had a team work on that." Four had been on that team; one had thought of caves, another of blocking off the caves, another of warding off stone buildings which would act like caves, and another the idea of getting mass cooperation in locating them all. "After that, two was how to block off the entrance to the caves." She pointed at another team; they'd come up with the trebuchets, capable of launching rocks from a long distance, as well as the particulars of how something like that would have to work; as well as the idea that the firebird would come out to defend its own cave. "Three was how to use the water. We had a team for that too." She explained how they'd realized that the fight would have to be in the rain, how one of them had thought of water-catapults, drawing on the ballista idea, another had thought of pans to collect the rainwater and funnel them, another the solution to everything sinking in into the mud. One had even calculated how long it would take to launch one of those water-catapults, and thus how many would be needed to maintain a constant barrage of four per second throughout the entire engagement, as well as all the logistics behind the entire operation including how much rainwater would need to be collected how quickly and how many people would be needed to man the entire operation. She finished saying, "We wouldn't have been able to devise the solution without all three teams working together."

"You all are damn brilliant, you know that?" Art said, eyes watering. "You've thought of everything. You've managed to find a solution to something we all thought was impossible just last week. Well done." Many of them cheered in triumph.

"Yeah, we figured there had to be a solution and knew we couldn't just give up. And as we realized last week, we work best when we work as a team. So we thought we'd all work together on it, and come up with our answer."

"All right," said Jane. "What's the next demon?"

"Ah, the next demon," said Art, as he mused to himself. Were they ready for such a task as what he was going to place upon them? Then again, they had demonstrated ability enough, and he didn't have forever. Every week he waited was a week he'd lose and never gain back. He still had a few other demons planned for them to overcome, but it seemed like he could skip over them all now, all but the final one. "Well, I guess you are ready now."

A look of unease started to appear on some of their faces. "Ready for what?"

Art stood up and made a gesture to indicate he was referring to them all. "Look at yourself, then think upon what you've managed to achieve. Do you realize how far you've come? You've learned never to give up even against impossible odds. You've found just how capable you are at tackling challenges and coming up with solutions. You've understood the importance of working together and learned to delegate responsibility. You've started to get a glimpse of the enormity of scale involved with these kinds of undertakings, and just what could be done when you can have thousands work toward a common goal. You'll have to remember just how to use all that, if you are to succeed on this next quest."

"Just tell us already," shouted one among the audience, and many others nodded. "Yes, tell us!"

"Not so fast," he said. He turned to look at a guardsman sitting a short distance from him. "Good sir, there is something I absolutely must do. May I borrow your sword for a moment?"

"A sword's not a toy, boy."

"I promise you, this occasion truly is solemn enough to warrant it. I'm not going to do anything stupid, and if you think I do, I've never used a sword before, surely you can overpower me. You also have your fellow guards with you."

For a moment the guard wavered. Art smiled; him saying no would make him lose respect in front of all those arranged here. Then the guard replied, "A swordsman never parts with his sword," he said, glaring at Art.

"Do as he asks," said the boy next to him.

The guard started, his eyes bulged, as he whirled on the boy. "But my lord!"

Art's mouth gaped open. A prince? Here? Then he mentally slapped himself. Of course the prince would show up; the Hickory Hedge was right outside the castle gates and any boy would want to see what this crowd was all about.

"This should be interesting, now lend him your sword."

"Yes my lord," said the guard, unsheathing it and handing it over to Art hilt-first.

Art took it and turned to Jane. "You have passed the penultimate test. I would make you a member of the Order of Demonslayers. Do you accept?"

A smile passed over the children's faces even as the adults scowled. Of course the children would want to play at being knighted. He looked at Jane, waiting for an answer.

Blushing, Jane got on her knees. "Yes, my lord."

"I am no Lord," replied Art. He tapped the flat of the loaned sword on Jane's right shoulder, then her left. "I, a mere mortal, hereby dub you, Jane, First Knight of the Order of Demonslayers." To that the children answered with excited applause. Art then turned to the boy next to her, and asked the same of him. One by one he went, until all the children who were there had been dubbed, including those who had arrived there for the first time. After all, they too had seen what it took to come up with the answer for this episode. They too took the Lord's test. He returned the sword to the guard. "Will you, good sir, please do the same for the young lord? For I dare not do so myself."

A look of shock crossed the guard's face. "I can't, that would be—"

"Do it," ordered the prince.

"…Very well," said the guard, tapping his sword on the prince's shoulders. "I, a mere mortal, hereby dub you, Prince George, Knight of the Order of Demonslayers." He then returned the sword to his scabbard.

"Now then, Art," said the prince, "what is the final demon?"

All eyes were on Art now. Art's eyes swept across the room. "This time I'll skip over the introduction to the next episode. All right, everyone: your final exam. The final demon is death itself. Find a way to end it. You have until the day you die."

--The End. 19:43, June 21, 2015 (UTC)