The Blade Itself (The First Law, #1)

by Joe Abercrombie

Once you’ve got a task to do, it’s better to do it than to live with the fear of it.

Say one thing for Logen Ninefingers, say he’s a survivor.

That was an awful lot of hoping, but he had no choice. He never had any choices.

If Glokta had been given the opportunity to torture any one man, any one at all, he would surely have chosen the inventor of steps. When he was young and widely admired, before his misfortunes, he had never really noticed them. He had sprung down them two at a time and gone blithely on his way. No more. They’re everywhere. You really can’t change floors without them. And down is worse than up, that’s the thing people never realise. Going up, you usually don’t fall that far.

If Glokta had been given the opportunity to shake the hand of any one man, any one at all, he would surely have chosen the inventor of chairs. He has made my life almost bearable.

He remembered other times and other campfires, when he had not been alone.

Jezal had often observed that the ever so slightly stupid will act more stupidly in clever company.

“Every day is its own little hell for me. Every day. So tell me, can you seriously believe that anything you might say could scare me?”

It’s a sorry fact that the man who strikes first usually strikes last,

The bathroom seemed a mile away. Or more. I’d rather walk a hundred miles as I used to be, than to the bathroom as I am. But that’s my bad luck, isn’t it? You can’t go back. Not ever.

It was like staring at a whitewashed wall, but without all the emotion.

“Do you have an appointment?” demanded the secretary in a shrill voice. You know who I am, you self-important little shit. “Of course,” snapped Glokta, “do you think I limped all the way up here to admire your desk?”

You have to love the small things, when you’ve nothing else.

Hard words are for fools and cowards.

Fights might find Logen depressingly often, but he was long, long past looking for them.

“Commands, does he?” Bayaz frowned. “Bring great Juvens back from the land of the dead. He may command me. He alone, and no other.”

I like to talk to the horse’s head, not the horse’s arse.

“It’s mending well. You’re a fast healer.” “Lots of practice.”

I’ve no doubt the world would be a better place if I’d been killed years ago, but I haven’t been, and I don’t know why.”

But some things have to be done. It’s better to do them, than to live with the fear of them.

“If a man seeks to change the world, he should first understand it.”

“I’ve settled a few scores in my time, but it only led to more. Vengeance can feel fine, but it’s a luxury. It doesn’t fill your belly, or keep the rain off. To fight my enemies I need friends behind me, and I’m clean out of friends. You have to be realistic. It’s been a while since my ambitions went beyond getting through each day alive.”

“All my life I’ve sought to know things. What’s on the other side of the mountains? What are my enemies thinking? What weapons will they use against me? What friends can I trust?” Logen shrugged. “Knowledge may be the root of power, but each new thing I’ve learned has left me worse off.” He sucked again on the pipe, but it was finished. He tapped the ashes out onto the ground. “Whatever it is you want from me I will try to do, but I don’t want to know until it’s time. I’m sick of making my own decisions. They’re never the right ones. Ignorance is the sweetest medicine, my father used to say. I don’t want to know.”

The dead are no help at all.

“Ninefingers! The Brynn! The Bloody-Nine! It’s right good to see you again.” “Blacktoe,” muttered Logen, forcing a friendly smile onto his face. “It’d warm my heart to see you too, if things were different.” “But they are as they are.”

“Funny thing,” muttered Logen, looking down at the long grey blade of the sword, dashed and spattered with red. “All that time I fought for Bethod against you, and now you fight for him against me. Seems we’re never on the same side, and he’s the only winner. Funny thing.”

Logen threw his sword down, point first. He had it in mind that it would bite into the soil and stand there, swaying back and forth, but it toppled over and clattered against the dirt. It was that sort of day.

“I’m glad it’s you, Ninefingers,” hissed Blacktoe through gritted teeth, “for what it’s worth.” “I’m not.” Logen swung the blade down.

“That was a good man. Better than me.” “History is littered with dead good men.”

Logen stared at the blade for a moment. It was clean, dull grey, just as it had always been. Unlike him, it showed not so much as a scratch from the hard use it had seen that day. He didn’t want it back. Not ever. But he took it anyway.

“Life—the way it really is—is a battle not between good and bad, but between bad and worse.” —Joseph Brodsky

“There’s nothing left of me. What am I?” She pressed one hand on her chest, but she barely felt it. “I have nothing inside.” “Well. It’s strange that you should say that.” Yulwei smiled up at the starry sky. “I was just starting to think there might be something in there worth saving.”

“Well that was charming,” said Ardee. “Are those the manners you should use before a lady?” “I really couldn’t say. Why? Was there one watching?”

The great wage secret wars for power and wealth, and they call it government.

Say one thing for Logen Ninefingers, say that he needs to piss.

But that was civilisation, so far as Logen could tell. People with nothing better to do, dreaming up ways to make easy things difficult.

Not the eyes of an idiot. He may look an ape, but he doesn’t talk like one. He thinks before he speaks, then says no more than he has to. This is a dangerous man.

It was a fact, he was only now beginning to realise, that the conversation of the drunk is only interesting to the drunk. A few glasses of wine can be the difference between finding a man a hilarious companion or an insufferable moron.

A friendship between a man and a woman was what you called it when one had been pursuing the other for a long time, and had never got anywhere.

Fencing, the war, his friend West, his obligations. One kiss, that was all. One kiss, and his resolve had leaked away like piss from a broken chamber pot.

The time you spend thinking is the time you’ll get killed in.

“Aye, I’m the Mire. No need to ask your names! When they find you’ve killed some o’ the King’s collectors you’ll be dead men all!” “Black Dow, they call me.” The Mire’s head came up, his mouth wide open. “Oh fuck,” he whispered.

“Call me coward, would you?” growled Dow. “You who’s killed children for the sport of it? You had a blade and you let it drop. That was your chance and you should have took it. The likes o’ you don’t deserve another. If you’ve anything to say worth hearing you best say it now.”

“I can’t make this out… something about the Maker’s daughter?” “You sure?” “No!” snapped the old man. “There’s a whole section missing!”

Say one thing for the First of the Magi, say he’s a cheating bastard,” growled Logen.

“My father used to say the seeds of the past bear fruit in the present.”

My suspicions grow with every passing moment. They are never laid to rest. They only change shape.

“Good. Knowing your own ignorance is the first step to enlightenment. Between you and me, though, I’d think of something else to tell the Arch Lector.”

The First of the Magi, if such he was, grinned still wider. “I like you, Inquisitor, I really do. I wouldn’t be surprised if you were the only honest man left in this whole damn country. We should have a talk at some point, you and I. A talk about what I want, and about what you want.” His smile vanished. “But not today.”

Sometimes, when old friends meet, things are instantly as they were all those years before. The friendship resumes, untouched, as though there had been no interruption. Sometimes, but not now.