Perhaps, Gaborn wondered, there was an approved list of reactions. If someone violated your Invisible Domains, you should warn him about it. Simply speak to him. But if he violated your Communal Domains, if, say, he sought to ruin your reputation, you would take your case to others, publicly confront that person.

Yet if a person sought to violate your Visible Domains, if they sought to kill you or steal your property, Gaborn could see no other recourse but to take up arms.

Perhaps that was the answer. Inevitably, it seemed to him, each type of Domain became more intimate as you moved from the outer circle toward the center. Thus, protecting that more intimate Domain required a more forceful response.

But would it be good to do so? Where did goodness fit in here? A measured response seemed appropriate, just, but the diagram suggested to Gaborn that justice and virtue were not the same. A good man would enlarge the Domain of others, not merely protect his own Domains. Thus, when administering justice, one had to choose: Is it better to be a just man at this moment, or a good one?

Do I give to the man who robs me? Praise the man who belittles me?

If Gaborn sought to be good, he could do little else. But if he sought to be a protector for his people, was that not also good? And if he sought to protect his people, he could not afford to be virtuous.

The Days’ teachings seemed muddling. Perhaps, he thought, the Days hide these teachings from the Runelords out of compassion. By the Days’ standards, it is a hard thing for a man to be virtuous/Raj Ahten seeks my realm. By their standards, if I were good, perhaps I would give it to him.

Yet that seemed wrong. Perhaps it is a greater virtue for a Runelord to be just and equitable?

He began to wonder if even the Days understood the implications of their diagram. Perhaps it was not three circles of Domains, but more. Perhaps if he rearranged the individual types within the Domains, forming nine circles, he could better gauge how to react to an attempt at invasion for each.

He considered Raj Ahten. The Wolf Lord violated men’s Domains at every level. He took their wealth and their homes, destroyed families, murdered, raped, and enslaved.

Gaborn needed to protect himself, his people, from this beast who would ravage the world. But he could not simply frighten Raj Ahten away, could not bully the man or reason with him or cow him by denouncing him to the people.

The only thing Gaborn could do to save his people would be to find a way to kill Raj Ahten.

Gaborn listened closely, asking Earth if that was its will, but felt no response—no shaking of the earth, no burning in his heart.