“O Imber, thou art indeed a fool,” said Howkan.

But Imber was dreaming.  The square-browed judge likewise dreamed, and all his race rose up before him in a mighty phantasmagoria—­his steel-shod, mail-clad race, the lawgiver and world-maker among the families of men.  He saw it dawn red-flickering across the dark forests and sullen seas; he saw it blaze, bloody and red, to full and triumphant noon; and down the shaded slope he saw the blood-red sands dropping into night.  And through it all he observed the Law, pitiless and potent, ever unswerving and ever ordaining, greater than the motes of men who fulfilled it or were crushed by it, even as it was greater than he, his heart speaking for softness.