The Bonehunters (Malazan Book of the Fallen, #6)

by Steven Erikson

‘Twins, Sergeant,’ Touchy said. ‘But I’m older, as I’m sure you can tell.’ ‘And mentally underdeveloped, Sergeant,’ Brethless said. ‘Those last few minutes were obviously crucial, as I’m sure you can tell.’

Burdens were born from the loss of innocence. Naïveté. While the innocent yearned to lose their innocence, those who had already done so in turn envied the innocent, and knew grief in what they had lost. Between the two, no exchange of truths was possible.

When wealth ascends to a point where the majority of the poor finally comprehend that it is, for each of them, unattainable, then all civility collapses, and anarchy prevails.

Trull Sengar kills, and kills, and then, when it is done and he kneels in the blood of the kin he has slain, he weeps.’

‘with your tears suddenly loosed, friend, I see my error. Where I sought by my words to instil pride in you, I defeat your own armour and wound you deeply. With despair. I am sorry.

Discipline is the greatest weapon against the self-righteous. We must measure the virtue of our own controlled response when answering the atrocities of fanatics. And yet, let it not be claimed, in our own oratory of piety, that we are without our own fanatics; for the self-righteous breed wherever tradition holds, and most often when there exists the perception that tradition is under assault. Fanatics can be created as easily in an environment of moral decay (whether real or imagined) as in an environment of legitimate inequity or under the banner of a common cause.

‘Shit,’ Quick Ben said at his side. Kalam scowled. ‘High Mage Ben Adaephon Delat,’ he said under his breath, ‘the Lord of High Diction.’

‘My temper is fine! I am perfectly calm – seething with fury and hatred, mind you, but calm!’ Neither spoke for a time after that,