Forge of Darkness (The Kharkanas Trilogy, #1)

by Steven Erikson

‘True enough, there is nothing more sordid than civil failure, in particular its way of creeping up on one, in such minute increments as to pass unnoticed.

The game of living was one of focus, an ever-narrowing horizon of what was possible and what could be achieved;

And so I make masks of the worst in me and fling them upon the faces of my enemies, and would commit slaughter on all that I despise in myself. Yet, with this blood soaking the ground before me, see my flaws thrive in this fertile soil.