The Cycle of Arawn: The Complete Trilogy

by Edward W. Robertson

he'd begun to understand just how large the world was once you'd learned to face the fear of leaving everything you knew behind.

legends make it sound grand to be swept into causes you have no part in, but in truth it's grim and it's unfair and it wears you down."

By habit and instinct as deeply felt as the drive that calls sea-salmon to take to the rivers and streams of their birth, the men with fine dress and tongue-tripping titles had settled in the benches at the front, and like the striations of rock the boys had seen in the shelves of the Dunden Mountains, the men and women who filled the temple grew progressively grubbier the closer they got to the front doors.

With the gods and the stars so far removed from human matters, the only justice to be found was what you took for yourself.

Dante had always wanted to take an extended trip via water, but he was soon glad he hadn't. In a word, it was boring. In another word, it was repetitive,

"These are things we believe, you know. I don't know where you're from that you don't even pretend to take them seriously, but it must be a rude place. Many shoving-related deaths."

neither was Cally a banner-waving proponent of the islands south of Mallon, where they appointed leaders based on some sort of common vote—when the matter had once come up in passing at a council meeting, Cally had dismissed the notion by asking "Why not just put a pig in charge?"

Are you familiar with the border?" "Big black line, right?" Blays said. "Very invisible, in fact,

By and large, everyone deserves nothing. The rightness of this belief is proven by the fact that's precisely what they get."

the main perk of being the master is making your apprentices do your work for you."

Many people would like to become great painters, but very few of them are willing to spend ten years of their lives learning to do so."

There is nothing more suspicious than a man who leaves the pub with ale still in his glass."

"In any institution, the staff always knows more about what's going on than its own leaders. This makes the help bitter. And that makes them susceptible to bribes.

If we fought for everything worth fighting for, when would we not be at war?"