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June 19 - July 8, 2024
“Your Majesty, we are not here to set right all the world’s wrongs.” Orso stared back at him. “What are we here for, then?” Bayaz neither smiled nor frowned. “To ensure that we benefit from them.”
“One cannot despise a thing without acknowledging its importance.”
But if you’re furious whenever the Closed Council does something infuriating, you’ll be furious all the time. Rare anger can be inspiring. Frequent anger becomes contemptible.”
He’d dreamed of leading armies and winning great victories, just like in the stories. He’d dreamed of fighting in the Circle and being reckoned a great warrior, just like in the songs. He’d dreamed of stepping from his mother’s shadow into the sunlight of renown and being cheered as Lord Governor of Angland. He’d done it all. And look where it had left him. That’s the trouble with songs. They tend to stop before it all turns to shit.
“I must confess I have always had some sympathy with villains. Heroism makes fine entertainment but sooner or later someone has to get things done.”
“I miss you,” said Rikke. Said it to both of them. But she wasn’t sure whether she missed them, or she missed who she’d been when she was with them. The Rikke who’d laughed and kissed and fucked and not had to choose.
It’s easy to scream about the fence when you’re on the wrong side of it. Some mad twist of fortune lands you on the right side, though, the fence starts to look like it might not be such a bad idea. Might even be worth all the sacrifices. Other people’s sacrifices aren’t that hard to make.
“Sometimes,” he murmured, “the only way to improve something is to destroy it, so it can be rebuilt better. Sometimes, to change the world, we must first burn it down.”
And loyalty? A trick those with power played on those without to make them act against their own interests.
“But easy is for the dead,” she whispered, and stood.
“I never realised before. The thing about crowns… there’s nothing in them, is there?”
They say belief is righteous, but to Muslan only doubt was divine. From doubt flows curiosity, and knowledge, and progress. From belief flows only ignorance and decay.
The priests supposed scriptural and scientific truth were opposed because their tightly strapped little minds had only room for one or the other. They did not realise they were one and the same. Muslan’s grandfather had been a locksmith. Muslan’s father had been a clockmaker. Muslan was an engineer. And so was God.
“Winning teaches you nothing,” said Tunny. “You see what a man really is when he loses.”
But a man shows his quality when circumstances are against him, his father always used to say. Where was the glory in easy victories?
What’s the point in having new generations if all we do is pick up the feuds of the old one?”
It’s after the battle. That’s when a man finds out who he truly is.
