“Of course, sire,” Thor responded.
Thor’s mind was swimming. He could hardly believe it. For the first time in a while, he felt as if luck was finally turning his way. Now he was first squire to the greatest knight of all. He felt as if he had leapfrogged over all his friends.
The five of them continued on, heading west into the setting sun, Erec walking slowly on his horse beside them.
“I assume you have been to the Canyon, sire?” Thor asked.
“Many times,” Erec responded. “My first patrol. I was your age, in fact.”
“And how did you find it?” Reece asked.
All four boys turned and stared at him as they went, rapt with attention. Erec rode on for some time in silence, looking straight ahead, his jaw set.
“Your first time is an experience you never forget. It is hard to explain. It is a strange and foreign and mystical and beautiful place. On the other side lie unimaginable dangers. The bridge to cross it is long and steep. There are many of us patrolling—but always, you feel alone. It is nature at its best. It crushes man to be in its shadow. Our men have patrolled it for hundreds of years. It is a rite of passage. You do not fully understand danger without it; you cannot become a knight without it.”
He fell back into silence. The four boys looked at each other, queasy.
“Should we expect a skirmish on the other side then?” Thor asked.
Erec shrugged.
“Anything is possible, once you reach the Wilds. Unlikely. But possible.”
Erec looked down at Thor.
“Do you want to be a great squire, and one day, a great knight?” he asked, looking right at Thor.
Thor’s heart beat faster.
“Yes, sire, more than anything.”
“Then there are things you must learn,” Erec said. “Strength is not enough; agility is not enough; being a great fighter is not enough. There is something else, something more important than all of them.”
Erec fell back into silence, and Thor could wait no longer.
“What?” Thor asked. “What is most important?”
“You must be of a sound spirit,” Erec replied. “Never afraid. You must enter the darkest wood, the most dangerous battle, with complete equanimity. You must carry this equanimity with you, always, whenever and wherever you go. Never fearful, always on guard. Never restful, always diligent. You don’t have the luxury of expecting others to protect you anymore. You’re no longer a citizen. You’re now one of the King’s men. The greatest qualities for a warrior are courage and equanimity. Be not afraid of danger. Expect it. But do not seek it.
“This Ring we live in,” Erec added, “our kingdom. It seems as if we, with all our men, protect it against the hordes of the world. But we do not. We are protected only by the Canyon, and only by the sorcery within it. We live in a sorcerer’s ring. Don’t forget it. We live and die by magic. There is no security here, boy, on either side of the canyon. Take away sorcery, take away magic, and we have nothing.”
They walked on in silence for quite some time, as Thor turned Erec’s words over in his mind, again and again. He felt as if Erec were giving him a hidden message: he felt as if he were telling him that, whatever power he had, whatever magic he might be summoning, it was nothing to be ashamed of. In fact, it was something to be proud of, and the source of all energy in the kingdom. Thor felt better. He had felt he was being sent out here, to the Canyon, as a punishment for his using his magic, and had felt guilty about it; but now he felt his powers, whatever they were, might become a source of pride.
As the other boys drifted ahead, and Erec and Thor fell back, Erec looked down at him.
“You’ve already managed to make some powerful enemies at Court,” he said, an amused smile on his face. “As many enemies as you have friends, it seems.”
Thor reddened, shamed.
“I don’t know how, sire. I didn’t intend to.”
“Enemies are not gained by intentions. They are often gained by envy. You have managed to create a great deal of it. That is not necessarily a bad thing. You are the center of much speculation.”
Thor scratched his head, trying to understand.
“But I don’t know why.”
Erec still looked amused.
“The Queen herself is chief among your adversaries. You have somehow managed to get on her wrong side.”
“My mother?” Reece asked, turning. “Why?”
“That is the very question I’ve been wondering myself,” Erec said.
Thor felt terrible. The Queen? An enemy? What had he done to her? He couldn’t conceive it. How could he even be important enough for her to take notice of? He hardly knew what was happening around him.
Suddenly, something dawned on him.
“Is she the reason that I was sent out here? To the Canyon?” he asked.
Erec turned and looked straight ahead, his face growing serious.
“She might be,” he said, contemplative. “She just might be.”
Thor wondered at the extent and depth of the enemies he had made. He had stumbled into a court he knew nothing about. He had just wanted to belong. He had just followed his passion and his dream, and had done whatever he could to achieve it. He did not think that by doing so, he might raise envy or jealousy. He turned it over and over in his mind, like a riddle, but could not get to the bottom of it.
As Thor was mulling these thoughts, they reached the top of a knoll, and as the sight spread out before them, all thoughts of anything else fell away. Thor’s breath was taken away—and not just by the strong, gusty wind.
There, stretching out before them, as far as the eye could see, lay the Canyon. It was the first time Thor had ever seen it, and the sight shocked him so thoroughly he stood rooted to his place, unable to move. It was the grandest and most majestic thing he had ever seen. The huge chasm in the earth seemed to stretch for eternity, and was spanned only by a single, narrow bridge, lined with soldiers. The bridge seemed to stretch to the end of the earth itself.
The Canyon was alight with greens and blues from the second setting sun, and they bounced off its walls, sparkling. As he felt his legs again, Thor began to walk with the others, closer and closer to the bridge, and was able to look down, deep into the Canyon’s cliffs: they seemed to plummet into the bowels of the earth. Thor could not even see the bottom, and didn’t know if that was because it had no bottom, or if it was because it was covered in mist. The rock that lined the cliffs looked to be a million years old, formed with patterns that storms must have left centuries before. It was the most primordial place he had ever seen. He had no idea his planet was so vast, so vibrant, so alive.
It was as if he had come to the beginning of creation.
Thor heard the others gasp all around him, too.
The thought of the four of them patrolling this Canyon seemed laughable. They were dwarfed even by the sight of it.
As they walked towards the bridge, soldiers stiffened on either side, at attention, making way for the new patrol. Thor felt his pulse quicken.
“I don’t see how the four of us can possibly patrol this?” O’Connor said.
Elden snickered.
“There are many patrols beside us. We are merely one cog in the machine.”
As they walked across the bridge, the only sound to be heard was that of the whipping wind, and of their boots, and Erec’s horse, walking along. The hoofs left a hollow and reassuring sound, the only real thing