The Tyranny of Faith (Empire of the Wolf, #2)

by Richard Swan

“No event simply occurs. Each is the culmination of countless factors that trace their long roots back to the beginning of time. It is easy to bemoan an era of great upheaval as a sudden commingling of misfortunes – but the discerning eye of history tells us that there are few coincidences where the schemes of man are concerned.”

“‘The man who hears but one voice speaks with one; the man who hears a thousand speaks with all the world,’”

“When a wound becomes pustulent, it must be debrided; and if it festers further, the limb must be removed. A painful and dangerous process, to be sure, but a necessary one to save a life. The same can be said for the preservation of the state: sometimes, we must cut out those which would enpox it – lest the rot spread.”

“Stupidity loves company, whilst wisdom must prepare for a lifetime of solitude.”

“Knowledge is the key that unlocks all doors except that which leads to the halls of contentment.”

History is neat. It is packaged, artificially broken up into epochs, and dissected remotely, both geographically and temporally, with the benefit of long hindsight. The reality of living through these turbulent times was much different. Matters are insidious. They build up over time, like small pieces of wood being chipped out of a supporting beam.

“Heraldry can be compared to the colourful markings of poisonous toads in the Qareshian rainforests; those who display it most proudly are often those it is best to avoid.”

“Lawkeeping and the pursuit of justice must take place in the light of day. The prosecution of criminal activity is a house of glass built on the bedrock of public scrutiny.”

“The father of misfortune sires many children.”

“Long life and old age are the rewards for cowardice.”

“At the end of a hard day’s study and labour, the exhausted initiate would do well to think on all the innocent lives that have been spared thanks to a lawkeeper’s tenacity.”

“One day you will see that men are wolves; and on that day you will learn that you must either be part of the pack or be consumed.”

“Never ascribe to malicious contrivance that which can be ascribed to naked stupidity.”

“Criminal activity is rarely confined to the sum of its constituent parts. The wise Justice would do well to remember that tangled matters have tangled outcomes.”

If there was no afterlife – no afterlife in the way the Neman Church describes it – then what reason is there to behave morally, ethically? The Church would argue that belief as a reward system, whereby good behaviour admits you to paradise and poor behaviour sends you down the Broken Path and into the Halls of Hell, is the only way to keep the peoples of the Empire in line.”

“I would go willingly to nothing at all, to an unconscious eternity of black nonexistence, than any single one of the alternatives that I have seen both the Neman Church and the Magistratum unearth.”

“The wise man seeks to please his friends; the fool seeks to please his enemies; the lunatic seeks to please everyone.”

They just gleefully spouted mistruths that were so outrageous and stupid there was no way to properly engage with them.

“Death is the reward for hope.”

powerful men can still be killed by the most basic of methods. In my experience, that means something small and hard travelling very fast.

“In peace send me the kind, the goodly, and the strong of heart. In war give me the cruel, the hardy, those who will act in want of all honour. The latter build nations; the former sustain them.”

“If the Justice is not acting against the state’s interests in all things, then she is not performing her role with sufficient zeal. She must be a bulwark against institutional oppression, not its facilitator.”

“A man will go to great and abominable lengths in the name of honour.”

“Binding nations into empires is like tying together a pack of hounds; first they squirm, then they bite; then they tear each other to bloody ribbons.”

“But you said some of the entities are malevolent,” I said. “They appear to be. Tell me, Helena, what are the elements of the crime of murder?” I shrugged. “To kill another human being—” “No, give me Caterhauser.” I thought for a moment. “The premeditated killing by one human being of another without lawful excuse or justification, under the Emperor’s peace.” “Right. So, to put my analogy to the rack, an elephant may trample and gore a man and leave his body a broken ruin, and do so without having the least idea of the impact of its actions. The elephant does not ‘murder’ the man, out of some heinous desire to inflict fear and anger on us. It does not premeditate the crime. To the elephant, it isn’t a crime. It does so because it is driven by some base instinct. “When we see creatures of the afterlife feeding off a person’s life force, or turning them insane, or taking possession of their body, it appears to us that the entity is acting from a place of malevolence because the effect on us is one of horror and revulsion. But the entities are inscrutable to us. Their thought processes exceed and outstrip ours. Perhaps malevolence may form a part of it, in the sense that we understand it – the considered desire to inflict evil upon a person – but we cannot truly understand how their minds work.” He shrugged. “Either way, there is no sense in only armouring oneself against the intentional when the accidental is just as likely.”

“I have never known a road more littered with the corpses of senators, Justices, jurists, and philosophers, than that by which we attempt to convince the common man that his political superiors act in their own interests before those of any other.”

“I fear for the future of mankind when the destructive power of blackpowder is beheld as an opportunity, instead of a threat to every aspect of the civilised world order.”

“The shepherd who hides away from the wolf will only live long enough to starve.”

“You will be alarmed at how quickly the commonfolk turn on a suspected criminal, and how swift and intense the demands are for violent punishment. Never be cowed by this; you are an officer of the law, not the whims of the people.”

“The hallmark of a nation’s civilisation is how well it treats its criminal class. That they are kept well, in spite of their alleged crimes, is doubly incumbent on the state; one can certainly not rely on the people who comprise it.”

“Why do the commonfolk expend so much time, effort, and treasure in shielding their political oppressors from criticism? ’Tis a depressing state of affairs which persists like a tenacious wart.”

“Keep your counsel, seal your lips, abide the silence, guard your tongue. The quiet man has many opportunities; the garrulous man has none.”

“Humankind is not so self-terminating that we would allow our greatest quality – that of our capacity for hope – to be fully extinguished. But I shall readily admit that there are times when we are reduced to fanning the embers.”

I have always loved you, Helena, in different ways. I would have loved to court you; to have enjoyed the things that courtship entails. We might have travelled together, or eaten good food and fine wine, or perhaps visited the Philosophers’ Palace, or the chariot races. They would have been ends in themselves, simple pleasures enjoyed in good company. How I would have loved to have been familiar and intimate with you, in public and in private. To have been able to admire the beauty of your body and mind openly and without fear. It crushes me to think of what might have been if circumstances had been different.

“The struggles of mortal men, the rise and fall of empires, the decimation of entire peoples; all of it pales into the most fleeting insignificance when confronted with the vast and profound indifference of the holy dimensions and the creatures which inhabit it.”

“Tyranny loves apathy.”

“The exigencies of life should be dealt with as they arise; who knows what evils will fester if left unattended?”

“No nation will survive where there is inequality of means. Where there is inequality, there is resentment; and for as long as there is resentment, there will be no shortage of men and women willing to act with violence.”