Today’s #bookqw keyword is “Prepare.” Here’s a quote from “Stone Eater” by Brent Knowles of BioWare fame, in Abyss & Apex. Link to the story: http://www.abyssapexzine.com/2012/03/stone-eater/

Gaven said, “They mourn you then, I think.” Ongar said nothing. The captain continued, “My son, he rode with me. He’s not one of the prisoners the conjurling took, he’s dead, out there, his bones in the sand. I never should have allowed him to accompany me. He was not prepared . . . I was not prepared.”

“You could not have known.”

“Perhaps,” the captain said, There was a long pause before he continued, “If you swear to me that you’ll slay that rotting conjurling I think I might have the means to free you.”

Ongar shifted uneasily, pain ripping through his stretched and sore joints. In what way could the man free him? It was madness, nonsense from a sun-baked mind. “The wizard is with him, always. It would be impossible.”

The captain said, “Destroy the tower.”

Ongar tensed. “No. I could not. I have no-”

“Look here,” the captain said, raising his arm slightly, revealing a metal band on his finger. “By the same power that will transform this chunk of iron into the means to your freedom, you could make that tower fall. You could end it all.”

Ongar looked away.

“Don’t be the fool. You are no common dwarf: that’s why they have suspended you from the earth, bound you without iron. That is why your badger feeds you rocks. By the Four Fathers what I would give for the chance to save my men from slavery, from death. I can’t. But you can.”