At the end of the day Art came back to his home to find his home burned down. After he got over the shock of it, he turned to ask, "Dad, where's mom?"

His father Garvin hugged him. "Son, your mom's not going to be coming back home today."

"What? Why?"

"She'll be away for a while."

"Dad, when's she coming back?"

"Not for a very long time."

"I want to see mom, now."

Garvin sighed. Listen, son, I need you to act all grown up, you understand? Since Allie won't be here to take care of you."

"No," Art said, turning to look away. "Where's—"

"Arthur."

Art turned back, frown on his face and tears forming. "Why can't mom come back? What are you not telling me?" His dad hung his mouth open. Art repeated, "Tellme."

"She's passed away, Art. Mom's dead."

"What does that mean?" asked Art, tears flowing as he shook his father's arms. "What's it mean, she's dead?"

"It means, it's just us two now." Tears in his eyes, his dad wrapped Art's head in his arms as Art sobbed into his chest. "Just us." For a long while they held their embrace. Finally Garvin leaned back and looked at Art with a thin smile, then wiped away the tears on Art's cheeks. "Art, you're a big boy now. Come now, your tears are getting on our clothes. Do you know how much it costs to buy a new one?"

Art let go and wiped away his tears. "You were crying too."

"You're right, I was."

Art chuckled. "I'm glad I still have you, dad. You're going to stay with me forever, right? You're—"

"Yes—"

"—not going to be dead one day too, right?" said Art, staring up at him. His dad's smile wavered. "Right, dad?" Art shuddered at the pause. "Oh no. Not you too, dad. I can't stand to lose you. Why would you ever want to be dead?"

"Son, no one wants to die."

"Then why does anyone die?"

"It's not our choice, Art. Everyone dies, sooner or later."

"Everyone dies?" asked Art. His dad stared at him, silent. Art shook his head, then shook his head some more. "No. It can't be. Dad, you told me that if someone ever beats me up, I have to fight back. That we have to do whatever we can to defend ourselves."

"Yes, and you damn well should, or they'll just keep on hitting you."

"So why hasn't anyone fought back against all this dying?"

"I said only fight back if you're being bullied by someone your own size, otherwise you must run away. Does death look like a bully your own size?"

"No, but if we can't run away from it, we don't have a choice."

Garvin shook his head. "Look at you, just heard about death a moment ago and already you're thinking about fighting it. Everything born lives, then dies. Sooner or later death catches up to everyone. No one can fight death."

"Well has anyone even tried?"

"Many have. But they have all died, in the end."

No matter how hard he tried, Art couldn't run away from fire. He'd neededthe fire in their now rebuilt home to keep from freezing. Years had passed since his mother's death, but he always felt the pangs of anxiety from watching the licking tongues of flame. It reminded him that their indoor fire would one day burn their house down again.

Now he sat at the Hickory Hedge inn, listening to minstrels spin their tales of heroes and quests. Minstrel Jared's latest told of a knight in shining armor vanquishing a dragon, one that just happened to breathe fire.

As Art listened, it struck him as strange how in these stories a lone hero always won the day. If he had to fight a dragon… Well, he'd give up and run away, but if he hadto fight, he'd find other people to help him. From the way these stories played out, it sounded like these knights had never faced a real challenge. That or they were just stories.

The minstrel finished another tale to much applause. Beside him, Brad the carpenter shouted at the barmaid. "Carla, give him another another round of ale, on me. And get me another round too while you're at it."

"Jared," asked Art, "How come no one ever tells a story where companions help him fight?"

"Oh, you could try telling such a story. Looking to become a bard, kid?" Jared replied, looking down at the seven year old, then turned to his audience. Art's heart pounded as he saw Brad snicker at him. Jared asked them, "Now, what story should I tell next?"

"I'll tell a story," Art said with a cheer.

Jared shot him a sour look. Next to him, gruff old Taylor turned to Art, asking, "Is it going to be as good as the ones he tells?"

"Have you ever told a story before, boy?"

"Well, no—"

"Who wants the honor of being the first to listen to the first story the kid has ever told?" asked Brad, laughing. He added, "And why are you trying to tell us a story when you've never told a story before? Maybe you can make a story out of that."

"Just listen to my tale," said Art as the blood pounded in his head, and he made up a story of a dragon slayer on the spot.

…They didn't like his tale. From the start Brad and the others beset him with snorts and jeers, grunts of derision, and a flood of questions, grinding his story to a halt.

Finally Jared spared Art from further humiliation by asking the patrons, "Any of you want to hear the Song of Roland?" All the heads turned to him. Cheeks flushed with embarassment, Art fled the Hickory Hedge.

As he rushed home he dwelt on how poorly his story had been received. He'd never trained to tell stories the way the minstrel had; how could he expect to tell a good story? But he could learn. That made him stop mid-stride. He felt nausea at the thought of swallowing his pride and admitting Jared's skill. He turned around and marched back to the Hickory Hedge.

"Back with another tale, boy?"

"No, just to listen. You're right, your tales are better."

"Well sit down then, and learn from the master," said Jared with a snicker, then continued with his song.

Art had to admit, he had no idea how he would go about fighting death.

He'd kept track of all the ways people could die, and then despite his best efforts had lost track, there were so many. He gave up trying to count them all and just assumed a round ten thousand, a large enough number that he didn't think there could be more than ten thousand of anything. Ten thousand inventions. Art figured, as he was now nine years old and assuming he'd lived to be forty, he had just enough days left in his life to come up with one invention per day and finish before he died. And he set out to do exactly that: one invention per day.

But soon new ideas started coming to mind only with difficulty. And now a week had passed since his last idea. Three months had come and went, and so far he'd come up with only twenty ideas, so he figured it was about time he started making his ideas into reality.

While tending the forge Art turned to ask Master Smith. "Master, I have an idea."

"Oh, you have an idea?" said the smith as he continued hammering away at his red-hot knife.

"I call it the big row of buckets," said Art. "Very simple. You have a whole bunch of these buckets in your home, all of them filled to the brim with water."

Behind him, Smith's other apprentice Pip snorted.

Smith ignored Pip. "And pray do tell, what's a man to do with such a, what did you call it, 'row of buckets'?"

"You could use it if the house ever catches fire."

"Oh. That it?"

"Well… yeah, that's all it's supposed to do."

His master chuckled while shaking head. "Sounds like a silly idea to me." At that, Pip could no longer hold back his laughter.

"It's not silly," said Art, clutching his fists as he stared at the ground, indignation swelling in his chest. "It would have saved mom's life."

Smith took in a deep breath, then set down his tools and put a hand on Art's shoulder. "Nice idea, except there's a reason why we don't do that. Can you think of any?"

After a moment Art shook his head. "What reason more important than not dying?"

"Alright, think of it this way. If it's made out of wood, the water would make the wood go bad, and then start to leak. Can't make it out of leather. Even iron would start to rust. But let's say we make it out of iron. Where would all that iron come from? Who will mine, smelt, and smith it? Who will pay for it, you?"

Art sagged. "You're right," he admitted with a sigh. Of courseif the solution were that simple everyone would have been doing it already.

That evening Art applied Smith's reasoning to his other ideas. All of them required wide-scale applications. Many required substantial materials, and he doubted that people would part with that much of what little they had. Other ideas required skill and expertise which he knew he didn't have. One by one he crossed them off his list until none remained.

He held his head in his hands. He'd spent three months brainstorming with nothing to show for it. At this rate he'd never get to ten thousand. He'd fail this test as badly as everyone else.

Which reminded him, this was about the most darned hard test God had ever given, and the most unfair. How could anyone expect him to achieve as much as a king, in as little time, when a king had a whole kingdom at his command? Why did death not come for everyone only when they all reached the same age? Then he pondered on the sermons Father Walters had given and remembered the Lord didn't care much for being fair, or being easy on his children, for that matter.

What would Saint George the dragonslayer do?

Saint George would probably charge at it with his lance and stab the dragon with it. Art just had to stab death to death. Great lot of good that would do. Besides, the dragon would have burned Saint George to a crisp for being such a moron that he didn't go recruiting allies first.

Art smacked his head at the realization. He needed allies. He was a knight fighting a dragon that kept out of reach, and he needed someone to shoot it down.

In those few stories he'd heard where the hero traveled with companions, they'd all met at an inn. Well, he could start there. He'd have to tell quite the tale if he were to convince people to help him when he had neither wealth nor power. That would take time - time to plan his story and improve his storytelling, so that the likes of Brad and Pip wouldn't dismiss him off hand.

He hated how everything took time. His smithing work took the weekdays, which left him only the Sundays, and the Lord had commanded no work be done on Sundays. But telling a story could hardly be considered work, and the deadline of the Lord's test came one day closer on Sundays as surely as it did on every other day of the week.

Another minstrel now sang at the Hickory Hedge, this time singing a ballad that the twelve year old Art easily recognized. Ordering a drink, he sat down and listened to Myron, picking up on the verse structure, the voice, the emotional undertones, elements he'd learned to pay close attention to after years of studying the art.

As the round of applause subsided, Art asked the audience if they had heard of the story of the Order of Demonslayers and their grand quest to rid their world of a great host of demons, which of course they did not. "It shall be quite an honor to pass it along to one who could retell it much better than I," he said to Myron, to which the minstrel could only nod.

Art told of a land threatened by all manner of flying demons where the lesser ones were dragons, killing humans with barely any warning, and whom none believed could be killed. Of how Sir Amicus, greatest knight in the land, wanting to challenge something greater than any human, looked up to the demons who ruled the skies. Of how Sir Amicus challenged a mere dragonling, but its blowing torrents of flame at him left him no opening to use his bow.

Art looked about and saw two youngsters–his core audience–had come in and sat down to listen. But Art didn't just want them listening passively; he needed them thinking. He looked at the two of them and said, "But Sir Amicus remembered why he couldn't get off any arrows. He couldn't use bow and shield together. Can you guess what he did next?"

The children looked at each other, neither venturing to speak. "Sam?" Art called out to the boy, who shook his head with wide eyes. "Jane?" he turned to the girl, who looked down in silence. Art's heart sank.

To his side Brad sniffed. "That all to your story?"

Art turned to stare him down. "Myron, or any other capable storyteller, could have taught you that some stories are best told with audience input. Now, anyone have an idea?"

"Get someone to hold the shield for him?" asked Carla as she set down another jug of beer.

"Exactly," said Art, releasing the breath he'd been holding. He told of how Sir Amicus had then hired a pair of guardsmen to go back to the lair with him and hold up their large shields to block the dragonfire, freeing him up to loose his arrows, but his bow could not penetrate its tough hide, and the trio fled.

Art saw that several more youngsters had sat down to listen to his tale. "So what do you think Sir Amicus decided to do next?" he asked. Knowing that they'd all wait for someone else to speak first, he gestured for Sam to come over. "First idea you thought of. Whisper it into my ear." Sam looked to the others. "If my ear doesn't like what you say, you can slap my ear," said Art, prompting a few nervous chuckles from the audience and a whispered answer from Sam.

Art asked for and received ideas from the others in turn, but none of them had come up with anything workable. Some had just whispered 'no idea' before retreating back to their stools with cheeks flushed. He hid his disappointment. "You're shy, so you don't have to come out and say who you are, but one of you had got the answer just right," he said, prompting all the other kids to look at each other.

Art told of how Sir Amicus had traveled the world looking for a ranged weapon more powerful than the great bow he used, and after traveling half the world had come upon a land where the soldiers used crossbows with more power than bows but which took much longer to shoot, so Sir Amicus had hired a company of two dozen crossbowmen and twice as many shield-holders. He told of how the enraged dragonling struck out with fire and claw and tail and sent men flying, and how the shield-bearers held up their red-hot shields against the dragonfire sweeping over their ranks till in the end the dragonling fell.

Cheers rose up from the youngsters in the audience, and Art smiled along, seeing the smile on Jane's lips, hearing Sam's shout of "Eat that, dragons!"

He then told of how Sir Amicus had cut out the dragonling's heart and brought it before the high king, of the hushed awe as people realized for the first time that demons could indeed be slain, of a vision of a world without demons. How the king proclaimed Sir Amicus the First Demonslayer, commanding him to seek out and slay demons until the last day of his life, and how Sir Amicus founded the Order of Demonslayers as a band of knights that served all the realms.

"Decent story," muttered Taylor. Brad glared at him as if betrayed. Taylor shrugged. "Though he did forget how the story went halfway through."

Art then told of how the Order formed companies throughout all the land and brought down every last dragonling, so that the dragons–with larger bodies and thicker hides by far–became next most common threat, against which entire companies of crossbowmen died in vain for no crossbow could punch through the dragons' armor.

"Now, don't shout out the answer if you know it, but here's the question: What do you think Sir Amicus could do next to defeat the dragon? Think on it, and let me know next Sunday, here at noon. I'll continue the story based on what you come up with," he said to pouts of dismay. As he strode from the inn, he said, "All good things come with time."

And Art went from inn to inn, retelling his story in each, for like Sir Amicus, he too could never have enough allies for his quest.

When Art returned to the Hickory Hedge the following Sunday he found to his surprise nearly a dozen youngsters regaling each other with what sounded to him like spinoffs of his story. He hadn't seen several of them the last time around so he figured Sam and the others had brought their friends along. He sat down, clapped his hands for attention. "I see some new faces today. Why don't you take turns telling me your names and what your ideas are?"

Jane leapt up, rushed to whisper "a very big crossbow mounted on wheels," before sitting back down next to Sam.

As the next youngster stood up, Art recognized him as Pip. "If you're looking for more ideas, how about interlocking shields. Let's see how you use that. Or you could just use a row of buckets," Pip whispered, smirking.

Then another boy got up. "I'm Dan. um... water-soaked hide? Like, to keep the shields cooled? From dragonfire, I mean."

And others followed.

"These are all great ideas. Some of you have suggested we use something… big. How do you plan to protect it all?"

After a brief pause, Dan raised his hands. "What about what I suggested?"

Pip grunted at Dan. "And just what silly idea did you come up with?" Turning to Art he said, "Remember what I told you? I could actually make that at my forge."

Art nodded and told of how Sir Amicus demanded a bigger and more powerful crossbow than existed in all the land, even though the craftsmen told him that no man could wield such a thing. How they'd built hundreds of ballista out of the shared treasuries of an alliance of kingdoms, for none could not afford to pay for them all alone. He told of how the dragon smashed through half the army, sending flaming shrapnel flying all over the battlefield, and of how the soldiers held the line with their interlocking tower shields covered in water-soaked hide to ward off the heat and the flame, and in the end had felled the dragon.

When he mentioned the ballista, he saw Sam pumping his fists in cheer. When he mentioned the interlocking shields, Pip looked snugly at the others. When he mentioned the water-soaked hide, he caught Dan blushing and grinning. And when he recounted the felling of the dragon, all of them burst into applause and clapped hands with each other in congratulations.

"Who came up with all these ideas?" asked Carla as she set down a mug of beer. "It's on the house. I hadn't heard a story like that in forever."

Art smiled and gestured at the others. "Jane, Pip, Dan... Every one of them came up with something interesting. I couldn't use them all, so I just chose a few to use." He turned to them. "Do any of you want to tell Carla which ideas you came up with?"

Pip puffed out his chest. "Remember those shields? That was my idea."

Jane stood up and gave a nod to Sam. "Sam told me his idea of a giant crossbow, but knew that something that large wouldn't be easy to handle. So then I thought, why does it have to be held in the hand? Why not mount it on wheels instead?"

Art nodded, beaming, and turned to Dan. "And you came up with the idea of using soaked hide to protect against dragonfire. That was brilliant. If you had worked on it together with Jane and Sam, you might have wound up with 'crossbow on a wheel protected from dragonfire' as a single idea." Art turned to look at Taylor, Brad, and the other adults who'd been listening in, and saw amazement written on their faces.

"So what's next?" asked Sam, eyes shining with excitement. "What's the next dragon?"

"Oh, all the dragons are defeated now," said Art, resuming his tale. He told of how the Order next challenged a firebird, a monstrous bird made entirely of living flame which could, like fire, regenerate itself—

"What?" asked Dan, creasing his brows. "That's not fair at all. How can the Order possibly take on something that's made of fire itself? You can't kill something like that."

"You've never put out a fire before?" asked Pip with a wry grin.

"Yes, but how—"

"Well, that's up to you to find out," said Art. "If you don't, then next week the story will be, 'the Order tries its best to fight the firebird, none can hurt it, they all die, they all did notlive happily ever after, the end.'"

"No, you can't do that, that's not fair," protested Sam.

"Well, you know these fights only get harder and harder. You are giving up already?" asked Art.

"Not so fast. We'll work on this together and we'll beat this firebird, you can bet on it," said Jane.

"That's the spirit," said Art, and clapped his hands. "That's it for today. Go home and think on it, I'll need your solution next Sunday," he said before chugging his beer.

"Um, Pip," Dan said as he turned to Pip, "Maybe we should work together on this one."

"What makes you think I want to work with you?"

"Well... The crossbow-on-wheels idea only really worked because Jane and Sam worked on it together, right? You have good ideas, but wouldn't they be more useful combined with other ideas? If we want the story to go on then wouldn't we need to work together?"

Pip stared at him, then at Sam and Jane, then at Art as he left the inn, then back at Dan, before lowering his head. "Yeah, I want the story to go on too."

"Great. Let's meet tomorrow evening, we live pretty close to each other anyway. Oh, and since Sam and Jane did come up with that great idea, why not meet up with them to discuss it all together?"

Art strode away, waiting until he'd turned a corner before chucking a fist into the air and bursting out, "Yes!"

He'd told everyone to meet at the Hickory Hedge, it being in the busiest part of town, right outside the castle gates. That following Sunday, he found several dozen youngsters waiting for him, half of them packing the inn and the rest spilling out onto the market street outside. Several of the children recognized him and gestured at him, and soon a hush fell over the crowd.

Art found that a good third of them refused to whisper anything to him and instead pointed at Jane, so he turned to her. "Alright, Jane, looks like you've been working with a lot of people, so let's hear it."

Jane went up to Art's ear and whispered to him, and whispered some more, and some more, and Art whistled in disbelief. That group had come up with a lot of ideas.

Art resumed his story, drawing upon Jane's whispered answer. He told of how the Order realized that the firebird must have been hiding somewhere whenever it rained, so all over the realm the guards went about asking the locals for the locations of nearby caves, so that the Order could close off those caves with boulders.

He told of how Sir Amicus and the council of all the kings of the land had ordered the construction of a dozen trebuchets, massive constructs capable of lobbing boulders across immense distances, and had them brought before the firebird's own cave entrance on a rainy day, traveling on great wooden tracks to keep from sinking into the mud. How the trebuchets launched boulder after boulder at the cave entrance, forcing the firebird out from hiding and collapsing the cave mouth.

He told of how the Order had prepared hundreds of catapults to launch water nonstop at the firebird, with the rainwater collected from wooden pans extensive enough to cover all the nearby plains. How even as thousands burned to their deaths, the catapult operators timed their launches so that massive torrents of water struck the firebird all at once, extinguishing it in the end.

Art finished to find the inn had fallen silent. Then one by one, Sam, Pip and the others started clapping, and soon even Taylor had joined in. "What a crazy battle," he said. "Jane, did you come up with all that?"

"No, it took the effort of a great many of us. So many things had to be covered." She started counting fingers. "First, we had to do something about its hiding places. We had a team work on that." She pointed at a group sitting in the corner of the inn, who raised their hands, blushing. "They thought of blocking off the caves and getting mass cooperation in locating them. Our second team came up with trebuchets to launch rocks to collapse the caves, and how to prevent their sinking into the mud. Our third team thought of water-catapults and pans to collect and channel the rainwater. We wouldn't have been able to devise the solution without all three teams working together."

Brad's gape grew wider with each mentioned team. "I don't believe it," he muttered to Taylor.

"You all are damn brilliant, you know that?" Art said, eyes watering. "You've thought of everything. You've managed to find a solution to something we all thought impossible just last week. Well done." Many of them cheered in triumph.

Standing between the three teams she had worked with, Jane turned to Art. "So Art, what will the Order take on next?"

Art smiled. He told of how with the killing of the firebirds they'd learned of another demon of flame, a phoenix able to manifest out of an unsuspecting peasant's indoor fire and instantly set the entire house aflame, then be in another fireplace half the world over, a second later.

"So let me get this straight," said Pip. "We're supposed to make it so that for one moment, there isn't a fire anywhere in the entire world."

"Yep."

"When there's a teleporting flying demon that's literally made of fire and can set things on fire."

"Yep."

"And you can't extinguish it because if you domanage to put it out, it rebirths out of another fire."

"Exactly."

"Oh Lord," said Dan, hanging his head.

"This'll take more than just an army–"

"Impossible," said someone else to several nods of agreement.

"That's what we said last time, about the firebird. We managed to put it out anyway," said Jane.

"Yea, but this phoenix can'tbe put out," said Dan.

"No, it's possible. I'm sure it is," Jane replied, staring right at him.

"Sure, when there isn't a single flame left anywhere in the world. Hell will freeze over first."

"That's right," said Art, standing up. "There's no way you can defeat this one. You're going to fail," he said with a grin as he left the inn. No way they would live that down.

They didn't live that one down. A hundred fifty children greeted Art's arrival the following Sunday with wry smiles that told him that they had a plan, just he wait and see. He smiled. "So, you came up with a plan even though I'd told you that it's impossible?"

"Then listen, for we have devised just such a plan," said a boy as he leapt on top of a stool and thus stood higher than all the rest. The others parted, allowing Art to get a clear look at the boy's face and his fine clothing.

And he gasped. "Prince Sigered," he said, bowing, "I am honored. What brings you here?"

The princeling turned his head to indicate several of his guards, decked out in full leather, swords on their belts. "My men noticed the commotion here and smelled a rebellion with all this talk of catapults and killing. But killing a phoenix? That sounded like fun, and before I knew it..." He lifted up a sheet of parchment filled with writing, strike-outs and insertions. "It turned into an endeavor with contributions from all of us."

"Read it!" Sam called out, and a moment later the entire inn pulsed with chants of "Read it, Read it!"

Sigered motioned for silence, and gave a dramatic cough. "Ahem. We hereby present the grand plan for extinguishing the phoenix." He described how a fire-ban would be declared for the winter solstice, coldest day of the year, for the attack on the phoenix, though the peasants would freeze. How a system of neighbor-monitoring and the passage of new laws would keep the populace from violating the fire-ban. How water towers would be raised throughout the land, from which water would flow into a system of aqueducts stretching across the countryside, so that any fires might be put out with haste. How every town and village would be razed and replaced with buildings of stone, every forest and meadow burned to ash ahead of the fire-ban, that the phoenix may have nothing to burn. How the people would toil for years, sweating and dying, to make all the metal and stone that would go into these new buildings, to make a world that looked nothing like before.

When Sigered finished, Art realized he'd been standing there, mouth agape, the entire time. The solution they'd come up with was just insane. Insane, but well reasoned. These people–mere children–had thought of everything. He shivered, felt a swell of pride.

"Surely it will take you quite some time to swallow all that and tell a story out of it," said Jane, looking smug. "In the meantime, let us get started on the next one. What's the next demon?"

"Ah, the next demon," echoed Art, and pondered. They had demonstrated ability enough, and every week he waited was a week he'd never gain back. He had a few other challenges planned, but it seemed like he could skip over them, all but the last one. "Well, I guess you are ready now."

They turned to each other, questioning. "Ready for what?"

Art stood up and made an expansive gesture at them all. "Look at yourself. Think what you've achieved. Do you realize how far you've come? You've learned never to give up even against impossible odds. You've found just how capable you are at overcoming challenges with creative solutions. You've discovered the benefits of working together and learned to delegate responsibility. You've started to get a glimpse of the massive scale involved with these kinds of undertakings. You'll have to remember just how to use all that, if you are to succeed on this next quest."

"Just tell us already," shouted Pip, and many others nodded. "Yes, tell us."

"Not so fast," Art said. He turned to look at a guardsman sitting a short distance from him. "Let me borrow your sword."

"A sword's not a toy, boy."

"Do as he asks," said Sigered.

"But– Yes milord," the guard said, unsheathing his sword and handing it over to Art hilt-first.

Art took it and turned to Jane. "You have passed all but the last test. I shall make you a member of the Order of Demonslayers. Do you accept?"

Excited murmurs spread through the crowd of youngsters.

Blushing, Jane knelt on one knee before him. "Yes, my lord."

"I am no Lord," replied Art. He tapped the flat of the loaned sword on Jane's right shoulder, then her left. "I, a mere mortal, hereby dub you, Jane, First Knight of the Order of Demonslayers." To that the children answered with excited applause. Art then turned to Sam, who went down on one knee with a broad smile. One by one he went, until he'd dubbed nearly all the children there, even those who'd only started coming today. After all, they too had seen what it took to come up with the answer for this challenge. They too took the Lord's test.

"Art, what do you think you're doing?"

Art turned to see Garvin passing the crowd and striding up to him, a scandalized look on his face. He replied in a low voice so only his father could hear: "Remember when you told me no one could fight death? Well, I will not be fighting it alone. I will have an army at my back." He returned the sword to the guard. "Will you sir please do the same for Prince Sigered?"

The guard looked to the young prince who nodded. The guard tapped his sword on the kneeling prince's shoulders. "I, a mere mortal, hereby dub you, Prince Sigered of Essex, Knight of the Order of Demonslayers."

"Now then, Art," said Sigered as he stood up, "The final demon?"

All eyes fell on Art now. Art's eyes swept across the crowd, all of them staring intently at him, holding on to his every word, ready to accept whatever challenge he would throw their way. "All right, everyone: your final test. The final demon is death itself. Find a way to end it. You have until the day you die."