As crown prince of Dalaam, Poo had been educated in all manners of society. Many of his subjects fawned over their warrior prince, praising his fighting prowess. Less known, however, was that his various tutors had trained him to be equally adept in such subjects as traditional dance and classical poetry as he was in Mu-style fighting. Of all the alternatives to practicing the art of war, Poo was most partial to ink painting.

Grinding the ink blocks, mixing in the water, Poo carried these out in ritual silence. Ink painting provided him a certain calm that deep meditation could never offer. The feel of slight resistance between his fingers with each brush stroke hypnotized him; and when the brush passed over a wet spot it was nothing less than a miracle to witness the back flow spreading in fibrous patterns, dispersing pigment making shapes from nothing, then settling back into unrecognizable oblivion. And though he told no one, in the space between the brush and the paper, between the brush and his fingers, sometimes he would hear strange somethings flowing out from inside these unseen cracks, and he swore it was the universe whispering its secrets.

With a sword, his father had once told him, one can build a throne; Poo knew this to be true as he head read many an account of bloody coups, of great wars and unprecedented conquest. Men rise to glory for a sword, his father had said. But outside the bindings of the palace's scrolls, Poo could only ever know any blade, even the most noble Sword of Kings, to be an instrument used to cut men down. Honor, courage, peace, all these thingsÑmen like Poo's father, like the warrior sages of Old Dalaam, they said that these were the most powerful of all and that they lay at the end of the path made by the sword.

Poo once loved the sword, loved it because he feared it. He held it in shaking hands because he couldn't believe that honor or glory could have the strength to defeat such a weapon. The sword broke the back of honor and forced men to bow; and those who would not lose their honor would lose a hand, or a head, or a heart. Poo scoffed at the old tales, because for all their grand ideas, in this age they were nothing more than words. And Poo wondered, what is a word to a sword, when a sword will cut out a man's tongue?

When the young prince confided his fears to the Mu Master, the old man dashed the weapon from his student's hands and forbade him from the art of war until he gave up his wicked thoughts. In his despair, Poo heard a song from a traveling bard about a sword that protected. Indeed, Poo thought, that is the only reason a man with honor will stain his hands. He returned to his Master with this, determined to overcome his own weakness and his training resumed.

And now, because he understands this, he knows his father and the sages were indeed right; that those entities intangible, they are stronger because a sword might cut out his heart but it will never carve out his honor. Because he understands this, he will take up the blade without hesitation. Knowing its weakness he no longer fears the sword, nor loves it.

The King, Poo's father, follows the path of the sword because he loves his people. Because he loves his son. Because he will protect them with every last bit of his life's flame. He follows the path of the sword as the great warrior sages had done when they founded Old Dalaam so many centuries ago. But as much as he respects his father, respects the great sages, Poo does not swear his life to a sharpened edge. He knows that the universe does not speak in the harsh clashes of metal upon metal but in the gentle whispers of brushstrokes. Poo has heard the voice of the universe call his name from between the brush and the page. There is a secret communion in the act of painting.

Poo lets the ink swell into the belly of the brush, then lifts it up and over to the blank white surface of the page, holding his sleeve back with the other hand. A sword for a throne; a life for an empire. Building by destroying, perhaps a throne can be raised on the corpses of enemies.

Dragging the brush across the rice paper, Poo raises mountains upon mountains.