The Tower of Swallows (The Witcher, #4)

by Andrzej Sapkowski

The evil and decisive fling down those who are moral, honest and noble but maladroit, hesitant and full of scruples.”

“I love you, Waxwing.” “I love you, Little Falcon. Now go.”

cri

The conclusion thus being that the most effective defence against intellectual domination is roundly to affront the domineering intellectual.

For, after all, the result of all great crackdowns on miscreants is always that the miscreants enter the ranks of the guardians of public order en masse. Your vision is a world of bribery, blackmail and entrapment, a world of turning imperial evidence and false witnesses. A world of snoopers and coerced confessions. Informing and the fear of being informed upon. And inevitably the day will come in your world when the flesh of the wrong person will be torn with pincers, when an innocent person is hanged or impaled. And then it will be a world of crime.

Arithmetic wasn’t his strong point, but he calculated that five was considerably more than three.

quick maths

“I’m a realist,” he whispered. “I mean, she won’t want me. But as the emperor’s spouse I could at least see her.”

The Swallow, the symbol of spring, is the saviour, the one who will open the Forbidden Door, signal the way of salvation. And make possible the world’s rebirth. The Swallow, the Child of the Elder Blood.”

Eeeh, I’d go with you… I’m sick with the desire to fight! And I dreamed as a child of one day charging at people with a witcher on me back!

loved this dude

“Farewell, O Spy.” “Farewell, O King.”

And you, Crach an Craite, Yarl of Skellige, will help me in my undertaking. Because you took a similar vow. Ten years ago. Right here on the wharf, where we stand. To the same person. To Ciri, the granddaughter of Calanthe. The lion cub of Cintra. I, Yennefer of Vengerberg, regard Ciri as my daughter. Which is why I demand on her behalf that you keep your vow. Keep it, Crach an Craite, Yarl of Skellige.”

“Because when you start thinking,” she added hollowly, “killing stops making sense. Revenge stops making sense.

“Rience,” said Ciri, still smiling. “You were going to teach me pain, weren’t you? Do you remember? With those hands. With those fingers. Those ones? Those, the ones you’re holding the ice with?”

go ciri

You are now Master of the Worlds, Ciri. You have a mighty Power. Do not let criminals or rogues take it from you and use it to their own ends…