BROTHER AFAFRENFERE WAS SITTING ON A LARGE STONE?RECLINING actually, and looking up at
the blackened sky, where the stars should have been, though alas, there are no stars to be found in the Silver Marches at this dark time. He was not startled by my presence, for surely he knew that the stone he carried was a beacon to the dragon Ilnezhara, and so allowed her to use her magic to teleport me in beside him.
I greeted him, and he gave a slight nod, but he just kept staring up into the darkness. And he did so with an expression I surely recognized, for it is one I have often worn myself.
?What troubles you, brother?? I asked.He didn?t look over, didn?t sit up.
?I have found a power I do not quite understand,? he finally admitted.
He went on to explain to me that he had not come to the Silver Marches, to this war, alone?and that, not even counting Amber, Jarlaxle, and the dragon sisters. He tapped a gemstone set in a band around his forehead and told me that it was a magical phylactery, now holding the disembodied spirit of a great monk named Kane, a legendary Grandmaster of Flowers of Afafrenfere?s Order of the Yellow Rose. With that phylactery, Kane had made the trip beside Afafrenfere, indeed, even within the thoughts of Afafrenfere.
?To guide me and to teach me, and so he has and so he is.?
Then Afafrenfere did sit up, and detailed for me his feats of battle, where swarms of goblins would disappear in front of his jabbing and spinning limbs, where he could strike and be on his way before his opponent could begin to counter, where he had killed a giant with a slap of his hand, then using that connection as a conduit so that he could fashion his own life energy as a missile and use it to break the life energy of the giant.
I didn?t quite understand the technique, but the man?s awe at his accomplishments spoke volumes to me. They reminded me of my own realizations that I had attained the highest levels of skill in the drow academy of Melee-Magthere, that I had somehow learned to be as fine a warrior as Zaknafein, my father.
I was more surprised than Zaknafein on that day so long ago when I finally defeated him in our sparring matches. I had planned the victory down to every block and every step, to every twist and angle, but still, when I at last realized the enormity of what I had accomplished, I had spent some long hours indeed simply staring and pondering.
And so I thought I understood what Afafrenfere was feeling, but soon I discovered that his dilemma was not merely surprise at his own prowess. No, he summed it up in one word, spoken humbly and with a clear tremor in his soft voice: ?Responsibility.?
There is an emotional weight that accompanies the expectations of others. When desperate people look to you for help, and you know that if you cannot help them, no one else can ?
Responsibility.
?We will guide the dwarves well in this battle day,? I remember saying to Afafrenfere, and remember, too, that he was shaking his head with dismissal even as the words left my mouth. Not because he doubted our mission this day?indeed, he was actually more confident in it than I?but because Afafrenfere was talking in grander terms.
He was talking about the man he had been, and now, with this growth, about the man he felt he now needed to be.
Afafrenfere?s situation was complicated by the sudden infusion of power, I expect. Grandmaster Kane was training him, intimately, and so he was rising to a skill level he had never before imagined, and the shock of that had awakened within him a realization that he was part of something bigger than himself, and responsible for things beyond his personal needs.
I hadn?t ever really thought of my own situation in those terms, not specifically, and not with any confusion, but only because my very nature from the earliest days of self-reflection aligned me with those same beliefs and expectations for myself that Afafrenfere was apparently now experiencing as a sudden and confusing epiphany.
I hadn?t the time to sit and discuss it with him any longer, of course, for we were off immediately to find King Harnoth and his fighting band, that we could guide them to their place in the upcoming maelstrom.
But I couldn?t help but grin as I made my way through the pine-covered slope beside the monk from the Monastery of the Yellow Rose. He was now learning the same epiphany I had long hoped to see within Artemis Entreri.
I could see the trepidation on Brother Afafrenfere?s face, but I knew that it would soon enough fade, to be replaced by a sense of true contentment. He was given something, a blessing, that most people could never experience. Through the help of Grandmaster Kane, he was given a glimpse of his potential, and so he knew that potential to be true and attainable.
So many people never see that?they may quietly hope for it, or imagine it in their private moments, but they will never believe in it, in themselves, to go out and reach for it. Fear of failure, of judgment, of being mocked, even, will keep them curled in a bubble of security, averting risks by keeping their hands close to their vests.
So many people live small, afraid to try to do great things, conditioned from childhood to find their place in the order of things, the proverbial ?pecking order,? and simply stay there, curled and small, their arms in close.
Wanting to reach, but afraid to grab?it is the comfort of familiarity, of a niche carved within the expectations and judgment of others.
?Know your place? is a common refrain, and so many other similarly destructive ?truisms? chase us throughout our lives, particularly in those early years, exactly when we?re trying to determine that very place. Voices of doubt and warning, often spoken as advice, but always limiting, always designed to keep our arms in close, that we will not reach.