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Steady, he thought, then willed himself to belief.
‘The same sages also wrote that violence is the habit of the weak, the impotent and the fool.’
Walking, eating and dreaming within a limbo of limitless patience,
‘Would anything else have stiffened your will enough to endure that first night of hardship? You gave me nothing to work with but hatred.’ The statement held brutal truth.
Honour did not act on ambiguity.
Before long, the Wheel would turn, bringing an end to all suffering.
Death would not claim him without the grace of a final struggle.
Arithon rebelled against the finality of defeat.
His hopes had gone silent as his music. There stood the true measure of his worth, wasted now, for failure
‘Your life is your own affair, but I refuse responsibility for your death.’
‘Power without wisdom eventually destroys itself.
Some men had no use for the responsibilities of power and renown.
Caught dumbfounded, Felirin struggled to recover something resembling equanimity.
Which was the nature of a spirit trained to power, not to volunteer the unnecessary; but Arithon would not say so.
Arithon said nothing for an interval. Then with clear and deliberate sting he said, ‘Why not? You know the ballads. Show me a hero and I’ll show you a man enslaved by his competence.’
‘You’re too young to live without dreams.’
Now, five centuries later, the city wore change like a tattered, overdressed prostitute.
The awful strength behind his presence spoke of purpose rather than force.
‘What is possible does not always coincide with what is wise.’
‘Lesser strength does not add up to uselessness.’
‘Hey!’ an ugly voice responded. ‘Turd who was born through his mother’s asshole!
Like the spirited dun, the prince had too much character to meet any threat with complacency.
‘The advice of old men is widespread as the mist and as easily ignored.’
‘This is a land afflicted by mismanagement, greed and vicious misunderstanding.
Your task is not to judge but to set right.
justice must be tempered by sympathy if the unity of the realm is to be restored. So I did not explain, because words cannot substitute for experience.’
‘Of course, under protest, I accept.’
And Arithon suddenly laughed, his anger absolved by admiration for her unflinching toughness.
‘How thoughtlessly quick you are with accusations.’
He was too young, too strong and too much the puppet of pity to perceive that responsibilities were always self-imposed.
Dread sapped the dregs of his nerve.
The mist-wrought wisps whipped and darted in retreat past the spelled maw of shadow.
Yet he was a man for listening before action;
A man can feed the hungry and clothe beggars all his life and not change the conditions that make them wretched.’
As Sethvir and Asandir shared this final, most vivid disclosure compounded of miscalculated risks and urgency, immediate troubles returned to roost.
‘You shall have what you asked for.’ Asandir met Diegan’s rancour with a calm made terrible by perception. ‘Battle, misunderstanding and a cause to perpetuate bitter hatred.’
Sublimely untroubled by protocol,
His protections lifted finally because fury and strength were spent to lassitude.
He spoke finally, in a rasp that sounded dredged from his bootsoles.
Halliron was not easily irritated. Years of settling vain, even senile patrons and short-tempered, envious peers had taught him to treat with human nature sparely, to unwind misunderstanding like a snarl in fine-spun wool.
Never before then had she known admiration that did not arise from flamboyance; humour that did not belittle; power not bought through brutish intrigues or bribes.
Let her own shortfalls, and not your vindictive perfectionism, be the quality that throws her to destruction.’
But words impart meaning without wisdom.
It took every shred of self-control and a humility more demanding than courage to keep still;
Revulsion did not excuse responsibility.
The headhunters who accompanied him as escort might have disdained their assignment at first; but when at last they reached the ridgetop and rejoined their commander, Lysaer’s determination had earned their guarded respect.
He scrubbed his face with his knuckles, as if tiredness could be scraped from his flesh.
Nearly too late Caolle had discovered an integrity that admitted no compromise.
He turned and, with quiet lack of ceremony, strode away
‘Guilt is no use to anybody. The only thing a man gains from his past is the power to ensure his future. You can see the same circumstances are not permitted to happen again.’
