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Was this how she would see her struggle end? Had she conceived in her womb a flock of restless fledgling hawks that simply lay in her nest, waiting impatiently for the hour when their wings were strong enough to carry them beyond the most distant blue peaks? And their father would clap his hands and laugh: Fly, fly, my young birds.

They would take with them bloody threads from the roots of her heart when they flew off, and they wouldn’t even know it. She would be left behind alone, and all the heartstrings, which had once bound her to this old home of hers, she had already sundered. That was how it would end, and she would be neither alive nor dead.

Not long ago, there were only thought to be six thousand bird species on earth. Ten years from now, most ornithologists believe, there will be three times that many. It isn’t that new species are evolving; rather, scientists are arriving at new definitions of what species are. This advanced thinking – and birds are on the cutting edge of it – has profound implications for human understanding. Speciation is evolution. Evolution is at the heart of who we are, what life is on this planet.

The organ pealed forth, though never except in fiction does it do this, rather blaring and bursting, or in more refined cases quavering. In every heart began to spring that exquisite hope, seldom if ever realised, that the bride will have had a fit, or eloped with someone else.

As Fisher told me his story, I found myself wondering how much of what we end up doing – or being – is inevitable, and how much is choice? Dad told me that he had to accept responsibility. Most of us have met that moment where we suddenly realize the things that we once sought are now falling into a different order of priorities. Sometimes, we have to find a way to change our lives, to re-embrace that which seems to be vanishing.

Other times, we simply abandon our dreams.

I’ve seen this all before, Althalus ... many, many times. An idea that’s born in glory starts to tarnish almost immediately.

“If he’s only a boy, what was he doing in a war?”

“He comes from a warrior culture. They start earlier than civilized people do. It was his first war, and it was supposed to be a quiet one. The half-wit who sits on the throne in Kanthon got carried away, though, so he ordered the soldiers he’d hired from Eliar’s Clan Chief to invade your father’s territory. It was a stupid thing to do, and it wasn’t supposed to happen. It was his fault that your father got killed, not Eliar’s. Eliar was only following orders. The whole business was the result of a series of stupid mistakes, but that’s what most wars are all about, I guess. Nobody ever really wins a war, when you get right down to it.”

The theorists make high-minded speeches. Their followers cheer and applaud—briefly—and then they get back to the business of appropriating everything of value.

“I’d pay a premium for this one, your Highness.”

“That one isn’t for sale[.]”

“Everything’s for sale, your Highness,” Althalus replied with a cynical laugh.

The prosperity of all Arum might well hinge upon what we do here in this day... [If] Arum Chiefs are dishonorable men, who will ever come to these sacred mountains again with gold to deal with us? '''Take less, my sons, that ye may gain more.

The fate of man might very well depend on what we’re doing. He’s doing the right thing for the wrong reasons, but it’s still the right thing.

“Why must they always set fires?” Bheid asked Althalus as the two of them stood on the portico of the temple waiting and watching the columns of smoke rising from various quarters of the city.

“I’m not really sure, Bheid,” Althalus confessed. “It might just be accidental. Looters are usually fairly excited, and sometimes they get careless. My best guess, though, is that the fires are being set deliberately to punish the noblemen for their bad habits.”

“That’s pure stupidity, Althalus,” Bheid objected.

“Of course it is. It’s the nature of mobs to be stupid. A mob’s only as clever as its stupidest member.”

Wars are a summer pastime, Althalus. Politics is a year-round entertainment.