Note: Last edited 12/22/20. Title added 12/29/22.

Ban’s armor gleamed in the sunlight as he strode forward, passing between the two tall walls of stone. He was bound for the Great Way all his kin had walked or would walk, to adventure in the strange land where the earth held man to the ground, where laughter mingled unbid with sadness, and where principles become actions undeniable. At his side swung an empty scabbard; in his pack he held no food nor clothing. He strode forward through the cleft in the rock towards his destination, clad only in steel armor unrusted and unpolished.

Ban smiled widely, his milk white teeth gleaming beneath his visor. Then his eyes alighted on the sole protuberance in all that place, and he laughed aloud for joy, racing forward to see what this new wonder might be.

He came to a widening in the cleft, into the sunlight, and looked up the sheer sides of the cliff towards the sky above. A small plain sat here barren save for the few bits of grass along its centerline, leading to the way out. To him it seemed the steppe lands, for in all his life he had seen naught but the narrow crevice from which he had issued, but in truth a small cottage would seem almost overlarge in that place.

A small, slim woman, clad in strictly fitted armor in color and sheen like unto a black beetle’s wing and with thin lips in a flawless face, sat alone upon the heptagonal stone which arose from the ground before him. Her eyes were level with his while she sat on her perch, and in her hand she held a scepter tipped in cold ivory.

Ban stood before her, his smile wide and his hand outstretched. “Hail, stranger! I am Ban, a traveler to the Great Way. Who are you and why do you seek the way we will both walk?”

“I am Macha, and I seek my own way,” she said, and Ban’s smile dimmed. Nevertheless, he spoke forth bravely to her.

“Mayhaps we will walk this way together?”

Macha raised the scepter for a moment from where it lay in her lap. “I think not,” she said, with a glint in her eye, “I do not abide the company of those who hold me back. Such, I think, are derelict.”

“Yet is not,” Ban said, “the Great Way to be walked in company? Wherefore do you loath me?”

“I feel little for such a waste in my flesh as you. I seek freedom to walk in my own way, unconstrained by man, and therefore I excise you as a waste from my flesh.”

“I will be no encumbrance to you in this path,” Ban said, his hands outstretched in supplication, “simply let me walk before or behind you in this endeavor.”

Her eyes, he thought, softened from its flint for a moment, but perhaps he was mistaken, for she said to him, “I wot you will be an encumbrance to my chosen path, and I do not abide such.”

Ban’s eyes closed, then opened. He looked up at her from his knees. “I must abide by your judgements.”

He stood still before her, for he could not walk the way before him without an aid. Macha, for her part, laid aside the scepter. Even as her hands became a rubbery blue, she reached forth and wrapped her hands around Ban’s neck. With trembling arms he pawed at his throat, but to no avail.

As Ban died he looked up into her unflawed face and wept.

-<=>-

Ban raced forward to see what this new wonder might be, disregarding the small, square patch of other colored stone and the base of the cairn behind him.

Upon the regular stone seat sat a well-formed woman, half clad in coarse scarlet cloth, her breasts bared, a single golden earring in her right ear, a great scar peeking out from the cloth wrapped around her waist and legs. Her features were such as men love, and her eyes were of two sorts- the one as hard as the stone she reclined on, the other soft and speaking of pleasure.

Ban stood before her, his smile wide and his hand outstretched. “Hail, stranger! I am Ban, a traveler to the Great Way. Who are you and why do you seek the way we will both walk?”

“I walk the way I must,” she said, “and I am Fedelm. I walk in the way I chose.”

Ban took heart and said, “May I accompany you along the Great Way?”

“It cannot be,” she said, as the hard eye streamed tears and the soft eye looked askance, “for such as you cannot come in the way with me.”

Ban’s heart fell, and his hands grasped the edge of her cloak in supplication. “Cannot I follow you at least in the beginning of this way, even if we must part so soon as the Great Way is begun? I cannot reach it without your aid.”

“In truth, I do not love this choice,” she said, “but you cannot come with me.” Her back straightened and her tears dried. “I do not desire you in this journey.”

Ban stood upon his feet, his head resting on his chest, and wept. Then, as he wept, her cloak leapt forward, half prompted by a lazy flick of her finger, the scar on her side grew inflamed and grew farther up towards her heart, and where the red cloak passed Ban’s flesh melted into the air, till his last sight was her disparate eyes looking at all else but him.

-<=>-

Ban raced forward to see what this new wonder might be, and now behind him he left two short cairns and two squares of polished stone.

Before him sat with her back at straight as an iron rod a young girl, a child of thirteen years, or perhaps one more, in a white cloth tunic frayed at the seams and worn threadbare in some places, with eyes like puddles in a thunderstorm- wet and fraught with turmoil. Her hands were knotted together and bound by cord, and her feet did not reach the ground as she sat upon the pedestal.

Ban bowed down before her and spoke. “I ask mercy of you,” he said, “to grant me passage at your side to the Great Way down which I must travel. I am Ban, and I seek your grace.”

She did not respond for a long while, but at last she spoke, in two voices, the one soft and the other rough, saying, “I do not know or understand your question, knight. Are you what I was not promised?”

“I do not know,” Ban said, “what promise has been made to you, nor how we come to meet. I simply ask your grace to travel with you.”

“Can I?” she said, and this time the voice was soft and without its rougher twin. She did not look at Ban as she spoke, listing instead to gaze into the sky beyond the edge of the cliffs which encircled them. Her countenance changed and twisted, a compound of bewilderment and fear, and the other voice issued from her mouth again in answer.

Ban understood the verdict, though he knew she did not, and endeavored not to weep, for he did not wish her pain. He stood still as her hands, still bound, reached forward, rested on his chest, and reached in, looking only at the confused and fearful eyes of the girl as he died.

-<=>-

Ban raced forward to see what this new wonder might be, seeing not the three engraved plaques now behind him.

The woman on the stone was rent and torn with great and gaping wounds, her flesh riven by great gashes only hastily bound in blood-crusted gauze. Her arms were wound about with wire, wire that cut into her skin, wire covered in barbs around which blood was welling up, and her eyes stared at him, not of her choice, but because both of her eyelids had been ripped from her face so that she could not long cease watching.

Ban knelt before her to speak. “Dear lady, I am Ban, a seeker of the Great Way. May I come with thee to it, even should it bring great anguish to you? I kneel here at your mercy.”

Her eyes did not focus on him, but she spoke, saying, “I am Brig, wounded and broken. Do not come to me for aid, for I am not worthy nor can I aid you.”

Ban wept for the grief of her estate, and he said, “I ask of you, Brig, aid me, even in so little as the first journey of the Great Way, and I cannot seek any other nor would I.”

Her fingers wound together again and again as she sat in silence, silence disturbed only by the slow, heaving sobs which racked her. Her eyes tried to shut, but could not, and her eyes ran dry of tears before she spoke again. “I cannot. I would, but in truth I cannot. Please, I beg, should you have mercy you will not ask again.”

Ban knelt still before her, but he could not weep, for all his tears had flown forth besides hers. “Godspeed,” he said, and his voice broke in the word.

He stood watching her un-closing eyes as the wires with which she had been bound entangled his chest and he sagged back against the binding, a corpse.

-<=>-

Ban raced forward to see what this new wonder might be, a fourth marker behind him.

The woman’s hair was cut in tufts, half long and grey, half black and cut close to the skull, and despite her youth her skin sagged with sores. She was clad in the tattooed pelts of dead men, sewn together with rough stitches and black thread, and clamped to her wrists by two thick metal bracelets and two thick metal anklets. A skull rested its jaw on her head, held their by the stretched pelt its scalp still clung to, the only pelt with clear, unblemished skin, save that the flaps of skin which hung of the cheeks of the skull were striped with bloody red. Beside her lay a small mallet of wood, finely polished and balanced on a well-crafted platform of the same wood.

Ban stood before her, looking into the still eyes which looked back at him. “Milady, I am Ban, and I seek your aid in walking the Great Way. Who are you? Why do you walk this way?”

“I do not walk this way,” she said, “but am born without my say. Do not ask Fionnuala for aid, I beg you.” Her eyes still stared before her, with only a slowly growing limpidity to indicate life in them.

“Yet, fair lady, I must beseech aid from you, for I cannot seek another. Can not you accept me, bring me with you along the Way?”

“I would indeed I could bring you along that Way,” she said, and her head raised to look towards the sky, away from Ban, “But I doubt you would thank me even if I could.”

Ban laid his hand upon his empty scabbard and spoke with unaccustomed ferocity, saying, “Fionnuala, should I be able to aid ye in your plight, you have but to ask and all my might shall be at your service.”

“Brave words, brave heart, but you shall not see the day, nor shall I. Simply be glad we do not walk together, and know I would could I but choose,” the lady said, turning back at last to stare at Ban, drinking in his face. “I am sorry, child.”

The skin in which she was clad enlivened, and gripped her limbs, though she did not seek to fight, and the clean, well-groomed dermal hands which engulfed hers gripped the mallet at her side. In its grasp, the tool became a great warhammer. The first stroke of the gavel crushed Ban’s ribs inside his armor, and the second took his life, even as he watched her cry in silence underneath the smiling skull.

-<=>-

Ban raced forward to see what this new wonder might be, and he did not regard the fifth pile of stones behind him.

The smooth, flawless skin of a man without need to work hung in loose flaps from the thin, attenuated frame of the girl child before him. Rich gold rings bound the cloak to her hands, and a thin rivulet of blood trickled down her feet, dripped onto the ground. Her hair had been arranged with meticulous care, and her head was so still not a single strand of it had broken free. Two thin bits of wrinkled skin hung from staples over her cheeks, and from beneath the skin which wrapped about her too-thin arms, smoke curled in a nigh invisible wisp.

Ban knelt before her. “I am Ban, a child at your service,” he said, “I come seeking aid to walk the Great Way. Will you take me with you?”

The girl did not speak above a whisper, but Ban heard her in the soft silence of that place. “I may not name you.”

“Lady, I am at your mercy. Will you not, can you not aid me? I seek only to walk the Great Way.” Ban’s hand clasped the air where a sword should be in his scabbard, then let it wander futilely back to grasp his own chest plate so that one of the articulated joints in his gauntlet gave way, drawing blood from his finger.

“Once I was Nuala, they say,” she whispered, his voice hoarse as her hands rested without motion on the stone, “and now I cannot aid you, for I cannot aid you when my name is no longer.”

Ban choked on his next words and fell silent.

“I think I ought to be sorry,” she said, and Ban looked straight into her eyes with a fixed purpose.

His eyes did not waver as the skin she wore tightened around her and her limp hand touched his stomach, not even as his flesh began to melt and bubble where she touched, not even as his eyes began to rot in their sockets.

-<=>-

Ban raced forward to see what this new wonder might be, a sixth mound of debris behind him unnoticed.

Upon the rock sat a tall, willow-slender woman, with a singular monocle in one eye, hair straight at a ruler, and with five long, crooked fingers on each hand. Her hands were pressed against the smooth, synthetic black armor of her legs, and her breastplate gleamed silvery in the bright light of the canyon. Her cheeks, which once might have been called rosy, were stony white and colored only by precisely placed red powder. A small, sharp blade lay beside her on her left, and to her right lay a sheaf of papers. At the sight of Ban, she began to shuffled through there, glancing from him to the paper and back.

“Milady,” spoke Ban, “I seek your grace. I am Ban, and I seek your aid on the-”

“You are deformed,” she said, “and I will not aid you. Nemain does not bring forth the infirm and the feeble. In truth, I give you mercy, for the Great Way is a burden for such as you.”

“Be that as it may,” Ban said, “I must have your aid. Why will you not aid me? Do not you desire life?”

“Aiding the life of the feeble and the perpetually infirm is a crime towards society, towards myself, and towards you. Do not seek my mercy.”

“Yet,” Ban said, “I require your aid, and I have been told to ask the woman whom I here meet to aid me. Would it not be sin greater than this crime to refuse this boon?”

“I will not bow down my back for your convenience, nor will I put a blight upon the world or upon you. I will not aid you.” Nemain looked at the ground behind him as she spoke, though her eyes never dropped to see her own malformed fingers where they lay twitching against the unfeeling ceramic of her carapace.

“God forgive you,” Ban said. Nemain picked up the scalpel at her side, strode forward, and began to carve away his armor and flesh, comparing him all the time to the diagrams on her paper. In her eyes, Ban thought he saw pain, and he grieved to see it there in the moment before he died.

-<=>-

Ban raced forward to see what this new wonder might be, never seeing the seventh lump on the ground behind him.

The woman before him had clad herself in a thick flowing black garment with long, sweeping sleeves which hid her hands. Her mouth was clenched tight, and her lips seemed bloodless under the pressure. Her head was bald at first sight, but a second glance showed a sunken cranium concealed under thick, painted plaster, save that her brow and the lower part of her forehead protruded a full inch. On her lap sat a set of calipers, a compass, and scroll.

“Lady, I come seeking your mercy,” he said, “I, Ban, call upon you to aid me in reaching the Great Way, for by no other way can I pass.”

The woman’s long, blue fingernails scraped noiselessly against the fabric of her scholarly gown as she raised the calipers from her lap. She peered between the two planes of the instrument towards Ban’s head, then sighed and shook her head. “Not sufficient, I am afraid. Wrong plans for the mind will do little good in this world. I cannot bear that my name should be linked to yours, that the name of Babd should be spoken alongside yours.”

“Lady, I do not understand you in full, yet I still must beseech you to give me succor. The stigma you fear you can avoid while still bringing me forth,” Ban said, bowing his head in supplication.

“I cannot do it,” she said, “Even if they never spoke of Babd in the same sentence as they spoke of your deficiency of mind, it would still be an atrocity to force you to suffer the Great Way and its adventures, both on you and on those around you.”

Ban stood and watched as she walked forward, her robe disintegrating into shreds of black velvet as she walked forward, a long white coat appearing in its place. Babd wrapped her hands around his head, felt for a moment, then tore it from his neck. His eyes gazed into hers as he died, though she would not answer them back in kind.

-<=>-

Ban raced forward to see what this new wonder might be, the eighth mound behind him.

The woman he saw sitting before him wore a loose, long brown sack. Her cheeks were sunken in, her feet bore a hundred calluses, and her swarthy skin was powdered with dirt. Her wild hair was bound with a once-bright tie-dye scarf, and her right hand’s skin was rough, while her left hand was smooth as a duchess’s.

“I, lady, am Ban,” he said, “I seek your aid in reaching the Great Way. What is your name, and why do you walk the way?”

“My name,” she said in a hoarse voice that ended each breath with a whish, “is Bocht, whose name is given for her way and not her birth. I cannot give to aid you.”

“Will you not give me aid? I seek so little from you, and so much it gives to me,” Ban said, “Want and weariness I would aid where I can, should you aid me, I swear.”

She looked at him with two-colored eyes. “I want for all save a way to walk,” she said, “I cannot give what you need.” She shifted under her sack, and the dirt which caked it trickled down her, pooling in her lap, over her hands.

“In truth, I need nothing save the short walk to the Way, though the path be fraught with peril. Will you not aid me, as is the duty given to you?” Ban held his hand forth towards her in fearful hope.

“I will not,” she said, and turned her back upon him, letting loose a great cloud of dust towards Ban.

Ban saw the dust rising up his legs, licking away his flesh and eating his bones. Bocht turned back towards him, looked him in the eyes, and he saw tears wetting the dust of her cheeks as she watched his death.

-<=>-

Ban raced forward to see what this new wonder might be, his nine monuments unseen behind him.

The woman wore a rich, red dress, embroidered with gold, spangled with gems, and crusted all down the front with festering excrement. Her face was painted in stark monochrome, the left side white and the right side black, and the palms of her hands were laid flat down on the stone she sat upon, with thin red fluid leaking out from under them. Her lips shone red and brilliant, and a thick gold ooze dripped from them towards her lap.

“Milady,” Ban said, “I am Ban, who seeks your aid in reaching the Great Way. What is your name, and why do you walk the Way?”

“Fand is my name,” the woman said, her voice smooth and alluring, “I will not give you aid, for I walk the path I wish to. You do not belong on this path, nor can I bring you to it.”

“Forgive me, my lady, I do not understand. Can you not aid me at least?”

“I will not risk my way for yours,” she said, “I cannot bring you with me.”

Ban’s brow wrinkled in puzzlement as he spoke. “Why cannot you bring me with you? Did you not choose the way that brought us here?”

“Aye, lad, I did,” she said, her entrancing voice becoming higher and more brittle, the mask-like paint on her face growing a nigh invisible spiderweb of cracks, “and I will not reveal it now to all. I will not risk my way to follow you. Begone.” Her long hair, dyed to red like a poppy, came loose from its bonds as she spoke, tumbling down her back, and the weight of its descent tore the wig from her bald head. She screeched, whirling and grabbing the wig, securing it back into her head in a moment, before her hands returned to their places with a wet and violent slap of a soft palm against a small puddle of blood.

Ban paid no mind to the small flecks of too-thin blood on his breastplate as he looked at her. “I see I am not worthy of your suffering,” he said, his voice calm, though with a slight shakiness near the end of each sentence, “and I know that I must abide by your decisions. I merely ask you once more to consider.”

“No matter how I wish it,” she said, “I cannot risk your discovery, I cannot wonder if you will bring a diversion in my way. Begone.”

Ban stood looking into her eyes, and orbs like glass peered back at him as her hand grew, reached forth, and encircled him, grasping till he broke, and he died.

-<=>-

Ban raced forward to see what this new wonder might be, oblivious to the tenth marker he left in his wake.

The woman before him held her hands over his stomach, but above her clasped hands could be seen a bleeding, gaping hole through and through her, with two floating ribs just barely poking into it. Her skin had melded with her thin, stiff white gown, and her mouth was masked, invisible behind a blue-white shield. Her finely groomed hair gleamed, and her eyes seemed dull with pain.

“I am Ban, and I come to seek your aid in reaching the Great Way,” he said, “What is your name? Why do you walk the Way?”

“I am Aebinn, and I am walking the way into health.” Aebinn leaned forward languidly, sighing shortly. “I cannot give you aid.”

“Why not?” Ban said, leaning towards her, “Why can you not help me?”

“I cannot walk the way, for it would bring pain to me,” she said, “and leaving you behind is the best way to avoid that pain, that risk of death. Would not you do the same?”

“I do not know,” Ban said, “what I would do. I have never faced such a choice. Can you not endure the risk and the pain? Can you not avoid that pain and risk while you aid me?”

“The other ways,” she said, “do not offer the same chances of success. I will not risk it. I am sincerely sorry, but you are not enough compared to me.”

Ban grimaced and fell silent.

“Goodbye,” she said.

“Do you wish it?”

“Insofar as you are a person,” Aebinn responded, and she lifted his helm off of his head so that she might lay her hand over his mouth. She pinched his nose with the other. Ban did not struggle, nor did his eyes stray from her eyelids as he died.

-<=>-

Ban raced forward to see what this new wonder might be, not seeing the eleven cairns in a line behind him.

The waifish woman before him sat completely still, without apparently moving save for her flitting eyes. Her cheeks were sunken in, the gown welded to her skin was patched in places, and what little red her complexion had only served to illuminate her paleness. Her hair hung unkempt and frizzled, and the gaping, ragged hole in her stomach seemed more a natural progression of her attenuation than anything else.

“My lady,” Ban said, “I, Ban, seek your mercy in reaching the Great Way. What is your name? What do you seek on the Way?”

“Airmed is my name,” she said, her voice wispy and hoarse by turns, “and my time on the Way may soon come to an end. I seek life, I suppose.”

“I seek succor and refuge from you, lady, and would fain aid you if I could,” Ban said, but his shoulders had fallen and his outstretched hand had sagged down in anticipation of failure.

“Alas, I cannot aid you. In truth, were I to try, both thee and me would perish. The last I could bear, but I find little worth in sacrificing so much for nothing,” Airmed said, her eyes wet with what few tears were left in her, her hands shaking without ability to stop, “Please, I beg you, forgive me.”

“My lady, I bear you no malice,” Ban said, and he could hardly speak for the crack he felt in his throat, “I would that I could take the whole of your burden upon myself. Godspeed.”

Airmed rose from her seat as if pushed by a phantom hand, reached forward, and touched Ban’s breastplate. A scalpel materialized in her hand, and as her blade cut deep into him and severed his heart in twain, he looked steady into her eyes, though neither could see the other’s face for their tears.

-<=>-

Ban raced forward to see what this new wonder might be, a twelfth death-sign newly minted behind him.

The woman before him wore once beautiful garments, now near rags and smeared with dirt. Her hands, scarred as they were, lacked any calluses, and scars crept over her half-exposed shoulders from her back. Upon her shoulder sat a malformed raven, a creature carved from metal, with a single eyed face emblazoned on its chest, and wherever she looked, the creature’s head followed, sometimes without a sound, sometimes with a hideous groaning screech of agonized metal. Her hair was ragged, and near the raven, all her hair had been plucked away and the bone of her skull could be seen where her flesh had been picked at. As she saw him, her eyes lit up, her hands started shaking, and great hacking sobs ripped through her frail body, while the raven looked on in silent observation, its blank steel eyes regarding Ban without emotion, save for a single silent rustle in its tail feathers.

“My lady,” Ban said, bowing before her, “I am Ban and I come to petition your aid. Who are you and why do you walk the way?”

“I,” she said, “am Tailtiu, accursed by men, and I walk a way I will not. You petition me-“ her voice began to crack and break- “you petition me for aid, but I do not know that I can. Nevertheless, I will try.”

“I thank you,” Ban said, crying slow tears that trickled through his visor. He stood, and reached forth to lay his hand in hers.

“What?” she said, suddenly turning to face the steel raven on her shoulder as if it had spoken, her voice a hoarse, desperate scream. “No! You cannot!” Ban paused, his hand drifting towards his sword, his smile dimming with his joy. As he watched, her thumbs found that thing’s eyes and pressed against those impervious orbs till her bones began to snap. Then, with a single screeching flap of its gunmetal wings, the raven took to the air above her. She reached after it, her face a rictus of despair and fury.

Her arms snapped back and her head snapped forward, till she was bent double on the stone, arms wrenched into the air behind her back till they broke with a meaty crack and were let go to dangle helpless at her side. Ban stood transfixed, unable to aid, his hand working convulsively over his scabbard.

Tailtiu sagged, her face falling into her knees as she sobbed, as her back writhed in impotent anguish.

The raven descended onto Ban’s head, and even as it sprouted a hundred heads, even as it snatched his eyes from their sockets and his heart from its cage, Ban still watched Tailtiu, his eyes steadfast and blurred with tears.

-<=>-

Ban raced forward to see what this new wonder might be, the thirteenth stone unremarked behind him.

The woman on the stone sat like a statue, her statuesque face remarkable under the faded kerchief holding her hair. Around her wrists and about her ankles were wrapped thin steel chain-link bands, and she wore a modest, unassuming dress, neither exceptional for squalor or beauty. About her neck hung a thick metal necklace, and at the end of the necklace, a small gavel. She almost seemed to smile, save for the downturn in the ends of her lips.

“I am Ban, my lady, and I desire your aid in reaching the Great Way,” he said.

“I am Bebinn,” she said, “and I walk in a fruitful path. I would aid you most gladly.” Here she fell silent, and her eyes grew sad, though Ban minded it not.

“My eternal thanks and love to you, my lady,” Ban said, bowing before her.

“Yet,” she said, and her hands were clenched tight against the stone, “I will not be allowed to. I have transgressed what is desired.” She picked at her wrist-band.

“My lady?” Ban made to stand.

“I am sorry, sorry, sorry,” she said, wailed rather, and as the phantom hands grasped him, sucked at him, and drank him in like a starving mosquito, she screamed for mercy until she ran out of breathe and until her voice could no longer make a noise while he looked her in the eyes, smiling for her sake.

-<=>-

Ban raced forward to see what this new wonder might be, fourteen cairns in his wake.

The woman before him was clad in a tight red suit, sequined and gaudy, with a white handkerchief artfully dyed to look dirty hanging out of the singular pocket. Her limbs were malformed and unalike, the one round as a sausage and jiggling when she breathed, the other too thin to hold up its own eager weight. Her face was covered in makeup, emblazoned with vile words in childish scribble, and framed in poorly groomed, meticulously dyed hair the color of a sunburn. Her eyes locked onto Ban’s as he drew near.

“I am Ban,” he said, and got no farther.

“As is typical,” she interrupted, “you start with yourself and get no farther. I’m Morrigan, and my beauty is without compare. What way I walk is no concern but my own, and you shall not taint it.”

“What?” Ban said, thrown out of his equanimity by the onslaught.

“To aid you would be to submit myself to your power, and I will not be part of the old oppression of my kind. Go away, now!” The last word came out with a sputtering hiss that died for lack of air.

“I beg you, lady…,” Ban tried.

“Lady! Don’t call me a lady,” she spat, “I won’t be called a lady by someone who demands this of me as if I had a duty!”

“But you do have a calling,” Ban pointed out, his hand lifting aimlessly to emphasize his point.

“See! Always demanding and controlling,” she said, “but now’s the time for change!” With this last declaration of slogan and dogma, she stood and stumbled forward, half falling with each step, till she laid hands on him, leaning her weight up against him. He sagged beneath the load, almost losing his footing when she spat through his visor.

A moment later two blue-clad hands forced poison down his throat and his last sensation was his legs failing as her weight overcame his poisoned body. His eyes sought hers, but could not find them.

-<=>-

Ban raced forward to see what this new wonder might be, the fifteenth mount of rocks behind him.

The woman on the rock wore a haphazard amalgamation of chain mail, studded leather, and fancifully spiked plate armor, and she had hung at her back a long lead sword tipped with a massive wooden ball, with a glossy hilt that had never been touched. Her teeth all gleamed white save for two which were half-rotted in their sockets, and her hands lacked any sort of strength, lying limp and unused at her side.

“Madam, my name is Ban, and I seek your aid in my journey to the Great Way. I would also know your name and your path in walking that Way.”

“I am Peduine,” she said, “and it seems a mite tedious to aid you.”

“My lady, it is a grand and noble task,” he said, for to aid one in coming to the Way was indeed a grand duty.

“I don’t care,” she said, half-heartedly examining her fingernails, “The road seems difficult and dangerous; I will not go out of my way for yours.”

“I cannot understand,” Ban said, “Should this not be a moment of joy? Have you not sought this moment and prepared?”

“I have not,” she said, lifting her nose in the air. She sniffed for effect.

Ban fell silent. “I have no power to ask for redress of your decision,” he said, “though I beg you to take council and consider.”

“Not happening,” she said, “Good bye and good riddance.” She unslung her unused sword, gripped the dull, rectangular blade halfway down, and began to bludgeon him, over and over and over, as blood began to pool in his armor and about his feet. As he died, Ban cried, but he kept his eyes upon hers till a blow of the cross guard beat his visor in and locked him in darkness inside his helm.

-<=>-

Ban raced forward to see what this new wonder might be.

Upon the stone sat a woman clothed in white, neither ugly nor of exceeding beauty. As Ban approached, she stood, held out her hand, and spoke.

“I, Emer, rejoice to see your face, Ban, whom I have waited for a thousand days and a thousand nights. Let us now walk together to the Way.”

“My lady?” Ban said, stumbling and losing his balance.

“Come,” she said, sweeping forward with the majesty of an assured and composed matron, “I will aid you.”

They walked towards the Great Way, out of that little plain into the crevasse of the path forward, and Ban leaned on her shoulder, suddenly weak, his chest heaving with tears, his mouth sore with smiling as they laughed in harmony.

As they left that place, Ban looked behind him for a moment and saw sixteen piles of stone, monuments of death, but he paid them no mind.

I cannot speak of the adventures of Ban, of his walk on the Great Way. Whether a great man or a coward, whether a saint or a sinner, whether dead in his youth or ripe in his old age, I cannot say.

All I can offer is the assurance that this story at least is true.

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