The Darkness That Comes Before (The Prince of Nothing, #1)

by R. Scott Bakker

“Though all men be equally frail before the world, the differences between them are terrifying.”

Kiyuth who’s lost faith in the ways of his kinsmen. Remember, like all peoples, the Inrithi think they are the chosen ones, the pinnacle of what it means to be upright men. Lies that flatter are rarely disbelieved.”

So changed . . . What’s happened to him? But even as he asked this, Achamian recognized the answer. Proyas suffered, as all men of high purpose must, the endless exchange of principles for advantages. No triumph without remorse. No respite without siege. Compromise after anxious compromise, until one’s entire life felt a defeat.

“There’s faith that knows itself as faith, Proyas, and there’s faith that confuses itself for knowledge. The first embraces uncertainty, acknowledges the mysteriousness of the God. It begets compassion and tolerance. Who can entirely condemn when they’re not entirely certain they’re in the right? But the second, Proyas, the second embraces certainty and only pays lip service to the God’s mystery. It begets intolerance, hatred, violence . . .”

He possessed, Achamian realized, that arrogance peculiar to barbarians, the thoughtless certitude that the hard ways of his land made him harder by far than other, more civilized men.

“But I’ve always believed,” Kellhus continued, “that one must ride another man’s horse for a day before criticizing.” “To better understand him?” “No,” the man replied with an eye-twinkling shrug. “Because then you’re a day away and you have his horse . . .”

Let us be moved, you and I, by the things themselves. Let us discover each other.

The silences between men are always fraught with uncomfortable significance—accusations, hesitations, judgements of who is weak and who is strong—but silences with this man undid rather than sealed these things. The silence of Anasûrimbor Kellhus said, Let us move on, you and I, and recall these things at a better time.

Xinemus nodded thoughtfully. “They forget how much they’re hated.” “Who doesn’t?”

“Interruption is weakness, young Kellhus. It arises from the passions and not from the intellect. From the darkness that comes before.”

So long as one possessed the bearing of a prince, Kellhus discovered, one was treated as a prince. Acting became being.

play at war when you should kennel with your mothers. You know nothing of war. War is dark. Black as pitch. It is not a God. It does not laugh or weep. It rewards neither skill nor daring. It is not a trial of souls, not the measure of wills. Even less is it a tool, a means to some womanish end. It is merely the place where the iron bones of the earth meet the hollow bones of men and break them.

“You have offered me war, and I have accepted. Nothing more. I will not regret your losses. I will not bow my head before your funeral pyres. I will not rejoice at your triumphs. But I have taken the wager. I will suffer with you. I will put Fanim to the sword, and drive their wives and children to the slaughter. And when I sleep, I will dream of their lamentations and be glad of heart.”