. . .

The dream-light in him is the littlest of magic flames. It is no power worth the harnessing. He is no Hans. He is no Eldri. He is not worthy to make a hat to lens the sacred fire. He is only Thomas Friedman. He isn’t even a serpent-boy.

All that was in him, all the magic and destiny and sacrifice that was in him, was barely enough to make that first lump of hat for a lonely mortal, to give him an ugly bit of trash and ruination to wear on his head and share a tiny, elliptical glimpse of the direction of his fate.

Only —

The better the hat he makes, the better the hat he can make.

It is an accelerating phenomenon. It is a self-reinforcing phenomenon. He is as a snake that folds itself into being in the ocean’s deeps. He is like a wolf pulling itself out of a stone. He is like a storm that sees itself and folds itself down into being nithrid or a mannequin articulating into the shape of a living boy.

He is caught up by the future of him. He sees the one path that is his future. In showing itself to him, it hooks him; it drags him down along that path.

<< . . .

. . . >>