House of Chains (Malazan Book of the Fallen, #4)

by Steven Erikson

‘Darkness,’ he muttered. ‘A place where one is left blind — a strange thing to worship.’ ‘Perhaps the most realistic worship of all,’ the Daru replied, wrapping another severed head. ‘How many of us bow before a god in the desperate hope that we can somehow shape our fate? Praying to that familiar face pushes away our terror of the unknown — the unknown being the future. Who knows, maybe these Tiste Andii are the only ones among us all who see the truth, the truth being oblivion.’

One day, perhaps, you will see for yourself that regrets are as nothing. The value lies in how they are answered.’

‘Oh, you are amusing company, old man! A priest cast out by his god. An historian once gaoled for his theories. A thief with nothing left worth stealing.

Cutter had once imagined that competency was a reward in itself, that skill bred its own justification, creating its own hunger and from that hunger a certain pleasure. A person was drawn to his or her own proficiency

‘If she was a friend, you will miss her company, and that is the true source of your grief — your sorrow is for yourself. My words may displease you, but I speak from experience. I have felt the deaths of many of my kin, and I mourn the spaces in my life where they once stood.

‘A faith betrayed does not destroy the notion of faith itself,’ Strings retorted. ‘In fact, it does the very opposite—’

it is human nature to transform loss into a virtue. So that it might be lived with, so that it might be justified.

Stone, sea, forest, city — and every creature that ever lived — all share the same struggle. Being resists unbeing. Order wars against the chaos of dissolution, of disorder.

What do the gods themselves worship, but perfection? The unattainable victory over nature, over nature’s uncertainty. There are many words for this struggle. Order against chaos, structure against dissolution, light against dark, life against death.

Punishment belonged to the living, after all. The sentence was to survive, staggering beneath the chains of knowledge. A sentence not just of living, but of living with;

‘You think too much, Pearl. It’s your most irritating flaw, and, let us be honest, given the severity and sheer volume of your flaws, that is saying something.

Love changes, aye, in the manner of growing to encompass as much of its subject as possible. Virtues, flaws, limitations, everything — love will fondle them all, with child-like fascination.’