More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
The Raven Tower is a tower only in comparison with any other nearby building. It stands on the farthest point of the tiny peninsula on which the fortress of Vastai is built, three broad, circular stories of yellowish stone, its roof surrounded by a parapet.
Heh — a rook chess piece
placing the burden of truth or not on the teller whose words I am merely accurately reporting.
“You don’t move speedily, but you move to the purpose,”
Could it be that language was not the source of the power, but one possible tool for using that power?
“You yourself have told me that one doesn’t win battles by planning for what one assumes or wishes to be true.”
A small crowd had gathered in front of the guesthouse door—the Xulahns among them, and presumably their snake—and you pushed your way through to find that people had gathered all around the edges of the square, to stare at Mawat, sitting naked on the ground.
A clap back to the earlier fable?
“But consequential for us is not the same as bad for us.
The stars stood bright now in the dark sky. I have heard them compared to jewels, but they do not seem like jewels to me. Gemstones may come in many colors, bright or subtle, and can flash prettily enough, but a star’s fire is its own.
The assembly works because we all agree that it should.
Why ought I care about this time, these humans in particular? When I know all are doomed to end no matter what, and shortly, from my point of view?”
What was the point, what had ever been the point, in my constant, unconscious effort to keep that view of the stars? None except that I had wanted it. It had made things pleasant for me.
Perhaps the length of one’s life was not important—except in the way it is to so many living beings, desperate to avoid death. Perhaps, long or short, it mattered how one spent that time.
The Myriad was a good friend, and a wise one. But I can be very stubborn.
“I’ve been thinking,” I said to Oissen, when he returned the next afternoon. “Yes, the Myriad had warned me you might do that.”
You know how wars are, I’m sure. There is so much waiting, while one prepares, while things happen beyond one’s control or knowledge, and then, finally, an action to take, or an assault to endure, and there is so much to do all at once, desperately.
