The Importance of Lore

Once upon a time there lived a maid whose job it was to clean a castle from top to bottom. But she felt cleaning was a fair trade; for, after all, she lived in a castle, and that made her feel very fancy.

   One day a old wise woman arrived at the king's behest. She was given a modest room, for she was not so important a guest as to warrant anything of particular splendor. But she was not so unimportant that the maid wasn’t sent to set the fire and to dust. The wise woman thought nothing of ‘importance’ or ‘unimportance,’ and sought a friendship with the maid, telling her of wisdom’s crafts and of its lore.

    In a few days’ time the wise woman left, having imparted what answers she could to the king’s queries; just enough time for the maid to have begun to learn the beginnings of the wise woman's trade.

    Which is why the maid went with her.

    For it will always be better to learn lore than to live in a castle.

Popular posts from this blog

The Library at the Edge of the Universe

 There was, of course, a library at the edge of the universe. It was built to fit the space. That space, for the moment, was infinite. But it was the kind of infinite that was smaller than other kinds of infinite — both space and libraries are funny that way.     This library had an agenda. Most do. But this one's was more specific than most. It wanted to hold all the books in the universe, whether they liked it or not. And it got the books by poking and prodding the universe in all kinds of different ways, until it gave up the literary ghost. Well, all the literary ghosts.     So. There sat a library at the edge of space that housed all the books in the universe. It mostly sat, anyway. Sometimes it stood. Occasionally it stretched a bit. And on two occasions, yawns were recorded as galaxies doing a funny little seismic shift.     It might yawn again. In an eon or two.     Because it is waiting.     It's been waiting for an infinite amount of time. One of the smaller infinites
Read more

The Shadows

The light shown on Anya’s fingers. It curled around her palm and danced. This, she thought, was the sheer pleasure of having magic.       But in the midst of her play, a shadow grew.   It was not unexpected; it was the cost of doing magic, for it always begot shadows.   But it never ceased to offer discomfort.   If she could find a way to practice her craft and leave behind the adjacent darkness, she would.          Anya was not fond of the dark, or shadows, or of the sense of unease that grew whenever she let the flickering brightness dance.   But, too, there was a feeling of wholeness in her work.   How could that be, such fulfillment when darkness lay about her?   A constant wonder—the weight of it only born by extinguishing the light for a time until she could bear it again.       Today was such a time.          Anya took the light, and threw it at the darkness.   The next breath, and it was gone.   Elimination brought palpable relief, while at the same time she felt the loss of
Read more

As Usual

 Once upon a time, when the air was colder and the nights more dark, a fire gleamed in the distance.      It moved and crept and finally it swept, the whole world engulfed in it's flames.     When the flames died, all that remained was char. For a time.     Until the first shoot rose. The thought of fire died a death made only by forgetting.     And, as usual, the world went on.
Read more