The Fires of Heaven (The Wheel of Time, #5)

by Robert Jordan

Only men and dim-witted girls take blame where there is none, and you are neither.”

“Listen to me close, Nynaeve. I take no blame for what was done to you. I saw, but I could not twitch. Had Moghedien tied you into a knot or cored you like an apple, still I would take no blame. I did what I could, when I could. And you did the same.”

“A man is an oak, a woman a willow,”

Men usually responded to a firm voice. Most did. Sometimes, anyway.

Men always seemed to think violence could solve anything. If she had had a stout stick, she would have thumped all three of them about the shoulders until they saw reason.

only the officers wore con, the small pennants on their backs in solid colors meant to pick them out for their men rather than signify a House.

Mat grimaced, and swore under his breath. He should have known as much. If Rand had been here, he would have had to pass through a circle of Maidens right around the tent. Most likely he was up at that new-built tower. A good idea, that. Know the terrain. That was the second rule, close behind “Know your enemy,” and not much to choose between them. The thought put a sour twist to his mouth. Those rules came from other men’s memories; the only rules he wanted to remember were “Never kiss a girl whose brothers have knife scars” and “Never gamble without knowing a back way out.” He almost wished those memories of other men were still separate lumps in his brain instead of oozing into his thoughts when he least expected.

Always leave a way out, unless you really want to find out how hard a man can fight when he’s nothing to lose.”

Mat laughed aloud. “Everything always changes. The best plan lasts until the first arrow leaves the bow. This would be easy enough for a child to handle, except for Indirian and the rest not knowing their own minds. If they all decide to go over to Couladin, you toss the dice and hope, because the Dark One’s in the game for sure. At least you’ll have enough strength clear of the city nearly to match them. Enough to hold them for the time you need. Abandon the idea of pursuing Couladin and turn everything on them as soon as he’s well and truly begun crossing the Gaelin. But it’s my bet they’ll wait and watch, and come to you once Couladin is done for. Victory settles a lot of arguments in most men’s heads.”

Weariness still marked their faces, but as long as they could channel at all, they would be useful. That gave him pause. Did he ever think of anyone now except as to how useful they were?

Only a battle lost is sadder than a battle won.

In short, the camp was bedlam and a ball rolled into one. He recognized it, mainly from those memories he could still assign to other men if he concentrated hard enough. A celebration of still being alive. One more time they had walked under the Dark One’s nose and survived to tell the tale. One more dance along the razor’s edge finished. Almost dead yesterday, maybe dead tomorrow, but alive, gloriously alive, today. He did not feel like celebrating. What good was being alive if it meant living in a cage?

Mat had not learned the lesson that he had. Try to run away, and the Pattern pulled you back, often roughly; run in the direction the Wheel wove you, and sometimes you could manage a little control over your life. Sometimes. With luck, maybe more than any expected, at least in the long haul.

“There’s an old saying in the Two Rivers,” Rand said dryly. “ ‘The louder a man tells you he’s honest, the harder you must hold on to your purse.’ ” Another said, “The fox often offers to give the duck its pond.”

“What do the Wise Ones believe?” he asked, as quietly as she. “That what must be, will be. We will save what can be saved, Rand al’Thor. We do not hope to do more.”

Trust no one, he thought bleakly. For an instant he did not know whether it was his thought or Lews Therin’s, but in the end he decided it did not matter. Everybody had their own goals, their own desires. Much the best to trust no one completely except himself. Yet he wondered, with another man oozing through the back of his mind, how far could he trust himself?

What amused him was that however hard Tairens or Cairhienin or anyone else tried to puff up his head, he could rely on her and the Maidens, at least, to take the swelling down. And Egwene. And Moiraine. And Elayne and Nynaeve, for that matter, if he ever saw either again. Come to think of it, the lot of them seemed to make that a large part of their life’s work.

The fellow was all subservience now, and in an hour he would be talking as to someone too feeble-witted to understand facts held under his nose, but beneath it all lay a contempt and hatred that he believed Rand did not see although they shone in his eyes. Contempt because Rand was not a lord—not truly, as Meilan saw it, by birth—and hatred because Meilan had had the power of life and death before Rand came, with few his equal and none his superior. To believe that the Prophecies of the Dragon would be fulfilled someday was one thing; to have them fulfilled, and his own power diminished by them, was quite another.

it was easier to trip a fool than to knock him down,

Even if none of these seven was actively plotting against him at the moment—something he did not think even Mat would bet on—men in their positions could do much to disrupt his plans without being seen to, and they would do so from habit if for no other reason. Or they would have. He had them off balance now. If he could keep them that way, they would be too busy watching each other, and too afraid of being watched in turn, to trouble him. They might even obey for once without finding a hundred reasons why things should be done differently from what he wanted. Well, that might be asking too much.

A pebble in your shoe was small compared to having your head cut off, but if the pebble was there and the chopping block might never be . . .

‘Waiting turns men into bears in a barn, and women into cats in a sack,’

“An open sack hides nothing, and an open door hides little, but an open man is surely hiding something.”

‘To know two, you must first know one.’

“The best way to keep a secret is to tell no one,”

When the boat’s sinking, you plug the hole with what you can find.”

“Wish” and “want” trip the feet, but “is” makes the path smoother.

The Aes Sedai’s voice gained a rime of crystal frost as she spoke, almost in an echo. “We all do as we must, as the Pattern decrees. For some there is less freedom than for others. It does not matter whether we choose or are chosen. What must be, must be.”

“Stopping a man from what he wants to do is like taking a sweet from a child. Sometimes you have to do it, but sometimes it just isn’t worth the trouble.”

“So you are going, too, Mat. Learn to trust the Pattern. Do not waste your life attempting to change what cannot be changed.”

There was a saying in the Two Rivers, not that anybody said it where women could hear. “The Creator made women to please the eye and trouble the mind.”

If he needed any confirmation that the Aiel woman was bedding al’Thor, he only had to see the way she looked at him; a woman who had taken a man to her bed always looked at him with that light of ownership in her eyes after.

“A clean wound heals quickest and pains shortest.”

Lan bent from the saddle to catch Rand’s shoulder in a hard grip. Rand remembered calling the man a half-tame wolf, but those eyes made a wolf seem a lapdog. “We are alike in many ways, you and I. There is a darkness in us. Darkness, pain, death. They radiate from us. If ever you love a woman, Rand, leave her and let her find another. It will be the best gift you can give her.” Straightening, he raised one hand. “Peace favor your sword. Tai’shar Manetheren.” The ancient salute. True blood of Manetheren.

It is said that a Borderlander will take a dagger’s wound to avoid harm to a woman and count it fair trade.

We all make our limits. The thought slid up surprisingly from somewhere. And we set them further out than we have any right.

Sometimes women were stranger than anything else the Creator could possibly have made.

Take what you can have. Rejoice in what you can save, and do not mourn your losses too long.

‘It’s too late to change your mind after you’ve jumped off the cliff.’