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Sacrifice must be weighed by the pain of what is surrendered, and this alone was the true measure of a virtue’s worth.
The world, someone once said, gives back what is given. In abundance. But then, as Kallor would point out, someone was always saying something.
It was, she had begun to understand, integral to the very nature of belief, of faith. A need that could not be answered by the self was then given over to someone or something greater than oneself, and this form of surrender was a lifting of a vast, terrible weight. In faith could be found release. Relief.
we women have many secrets. I’m feeling generous today, so listen well. A woman is well pleased with a mate. He is her island, if you will, solid, secure. But sometimes she likes to swim offshore, out a way, floating facing the sun if you will. And she might even dive from sight, down to collect pretty shells and the like. And when she’s done, why, she’ll swim back to the island. The point is, husband, she doesn’t want her mate’s company when swimming. She needs only to know the island waits there.’
The notion of freedom could make even peace and order seem oppressive, generate the suspicion of some hidden purpose, some vast deceit, some unspecified crime being perpetrated beyond human ken.
But lessons only became lessons when one has reached the state of humility required to heed them.
that was ever the danger with possessing such an ego – its constant need to be fed, lest it deflate to the prods of sharp reality.
‘Witch, goodwill is not something that needs an apology. You were betrayed. Your trust was abused. If there are strangers who thrive on such things, they will ever remain strangers – because they have no other choice. Pity Tulas Shorn and those like it. Even death taught it nothing.’
He leads. In the ways of leading, the ways the rest of us do not – and can never – understand. I looked into his eyes, and I saw such resolve that I could not speak. Absence of doubt? No, nothing so egotistic as that. Nimander has plenty of doubts, so many that he’s lost his fear of them. He accepts them as easily as anything else. Is that the secret? Is that the very definition of greatness? He leads. We follow – he took us into his hands, again, and each one of us stood, silent, finding in ourselves what he had just given us – that resolve, the will to go on – and it left us humbled.
The lie of wisdom is best hidden in monologue. Dialogue exposes it. Most people purporting to wisdom dare not engage in dialogue, lest they reveal the paucity of their assumptions and the frailty of their convictions. Better to say nothing, to nod and look thoughtful.
‘There is no struggle too vast, no odds too over- whelming, for even should we fail – should we fall – we will know that we have lived.’
