O’olish Amaneh sighed impatiently. “Listen closely to me. When you become a Knight of the Word, you become one forever. You cannot stop. The choice is not yours to make. You accepted a charge, and the charge is yours until it is lifted. That has not been done. The staff cannot be returned. You cannot send it back. That is the way things are.”

Ross came forward a step, stumbling against a pile of books and magazines and nearly falling. “Do you know what happened to me?” he asked angrily. “At San Sobel?”

The Indian nodded. “I know.”

“Then why is it so hard for you to understand that I want to quit? I don’t want to have what happened at San Sobel ever happen again! I can’t stand for it to happen again! So I quit, now, forever, and that’s the end of it, and I don’t care what the rules are!”

He knew he had crossed some line, but he didn’t care. Even his fear could not control him. He hated who and what he had been. He had met Stefanie, and there was something special happening there. For the first time in years, he was feeling alive again.

The Indian walked right up to him, and Ross flinched in spite of himself, certain he was about to be struck. But the big man stopped before reaching him, and the flinty eyes bore deep into his own.

“Did you think, when you accepted your charge, you would make no mistakes in carrying it out? Did you think no innocents would die as a result of your actions? Did you think the world would change because you had agreed to serve, and the strength of your convictions alone would be enough to save the lives you sought to protect? Is that what you thought, John Ross? Were you so full of pride and arrogance? Were you such a fool?”

Ross flushed, but held his tongue.

“Let me tell you something about yourself.” The Indian’s words were as sharp as knives. “You are one man serving a cause in which many have given their lives. You are one man in a long line of men and women, one only, and not so special that you could ever afford to hope you might make a significant difference. But you have done the best you could, and no more was ever asked. The war between the Word and the Void is a long and difficult one, and it has been waged since the beginning of time. It is in the nature of all life that it must be waged. That you were chosen to take up the Word’s cause is an honor. It should be enough that you have been given a chance to serve.

“But you disgrace yourself and our cause by denigrating its purpose and abdicating your office. You shame yourself by choosing to renounce your calling. Who do you think you are? The burden of those children’s deaths is not yours to bear. Yours is not the hand that took their lives; yours was not the will that decreed those lives must be sacrificed. Such choices and acts belong to a power higher than your own.”