Last Argument of Kings (The First Law, #3)

by Joe Abercrombie

There is no Third Law, Yulwei.”

Ah, sweet confirmation, at long last.

Vengeance is a fleeting thrill. The doubts, we carry to our graves.”

A strange thing, though. I could have sworn, as I lay there, that it was Kanedias who fell first, and Tolomei second.” “Memory can tell lies, especially to men who have lived as long as we. The Maker threw down his daughter, then I him. And so the Old Time ended.” “So it did,” murmured Yulwei.

Holy shit Bayaz killed Tolomei?!

A man in a stained shirt led them up a long stairway, towards a dark arch high in the high wall of the Agriont. He had a bunch of jingling keys in his gnarled hands, was muttering something about eggs.

10/10 egg callback.

Trust. It was a word that only liars used. A word the truthful had no need of.

What had Bayaz said, on the island at the edge of the World? Where does the wise man hide a stone? Among a thousand. Among a million.

Holy shit the seed is the black sphere at the center of the dial in the Maker’s Hall!!!! Fuck yes!!! Well…Adua & Midderland are for sure fucked, unfortunately, but still!! Full circle moment!!

a grating chuckle floated up from the far side of the hall. From where Quai’s ruined corpse had fallen. Bayaz did not seem surprised. “So!” he shouted. “You show yourself at last! I have suspected for some time that you were not who you appeared to be! Where is my apprentice, and when did you replace him?” “Months ago.” Quai was still chuckling as he pushed himself slowly up from the polished floor. “Before you left on your fool’s errand to the Old Empire.” There was no blood on his smiling face. Not so much as a graze. “I sat beside you, at the fire. I watched you while you lay helpless in that cart. I was with you all the way, to the edge of the World and back. Your apprentice stayed here. I left his half-eaten corpse in the bushes for the flies, not twenty strides from where you and the Northman soundly slept.”

AHAHAHAAHAHA I FUCKING KNEW IT! FINALLY FINALLY.

“We knew each other well, in times long past.” The First of the Magi frowned. “Who are you? Speak!” “Taking forms.” A woman’s voice, soft and low.

ITS TOLOMEI. ITS TOLOMEI. ITS GOTTA BE TOLOMEI.

“You said that you would love me forever.” The air was icy chill. Ferro’s breath was smoking before her mouth. “You promised me that we would never be parted. When I opened my father’s gate to you…” “No!” Bayaz took a faltering step back.

AHAHAHAHHAHHHAHHHHHHH NO WONDER SHE HATED BAYAZ’S RECOUNTS OF THEIR STORY IN BOOK TWO.

He saved my life.” “And mine, more than once. But good men will only go so far along dark paths.”

Not one hundred strides away, on the other side of a row of smoking ruins, stood the statue of Harod the Great where he had met Ardee in the darkness, it seemed a hundred years ago.

damn.

Courage can come from many places, and be made of many things, and yesterday’s coward can become tomorrow’s hero in an instant if the time is right.

“Your fucking Majesty,” she said. He rubbed at his eyes with finger and thumb. “You do me too much honour with your kind attentions.”

What good does blame do? We all do what we have to. I gave up looking for reasons a long time ago.”

The more you kill, the better you get at it. And the better you get at killing, the less use you are for anything else.

Logen. Answer me this. You ever touched a thing that wasn’t hurt by it? What have you ever had, that didn’t turn to dirt?” Logen thought about that. His wife and his children, his father and his people, all back to the mud. Forley, Threetrees and Tul. All good folk, and all dead, some of them by Logen’s own hand, some of them by his neglect, and his pride, and his foolishness. He could see their faces, now, in his thoughts, and they didn’t look happy. The dead don’t often. And that was without looking to the dark and sullen crew lurking behind. A crowd of ghosts. A hacked and bloody army. All the folk he’d chosen to kill. Shama Heartless, his guts hanging out of his split stomach. Blacktoe, with his crushed legs and his burned hands. That Finnius bastard, one foot cut off and his chest slashed open. Bethod, even, right at the front with his skull pounded to mush, his frowning face twisted sideways, Crummock’s dead boy peering from around his elbow. A sea of murder. Logen squeezed his eyes shut then prised them wide open, but the faces still lingered at the edge of his mind. There was nothing he could say. “Thought so.”

“They appear somewhat unreliable,” he murmured. “Unreliable? Nonsense, Superior! Out of luck is all, and we both know how that goes, no? Why, there’s not a man of them I wouldn’t trust my mother to.” “Are you sure?” “She’s been dead these twenty years. What harm could they do her now?”

Can there be a more miserable occupation than getting drunk on one’s own? Wine can keep a happy man happy, on occasion. A sad one it always makes worse.

“I’ve been trying to get through this damn book again.” Ardee slapped at a heavy volume lying open, facedown, on a chair. “The Fall of the Master Maker,” muttered Glokta. “That rubbish? All magic and valour, no? I couldn’t get through the first one.” “I sympathise. I’m onto the third and it doesn’t get any easier. Too many damn wizards. I get them mixed up one with another. It’s all battles and endless bloody journeys, here to there and back again. If I so much as glimpse another map I swear I’ll kill myself.”

Hah, how meta.

“Shit,” said Cosca. “I mean… damn.” Ardee frowned down at the knife. “I’d say shit.”

When I fall in love, I fall hard, and, as a rule, I do it no more than once a day.”

One is loyal, the other… we shall find out. Severard unravelled himself and got up with the usual grin around his eyes. “Alright, chief, so what’s all the—”

Just clicked...Severard has been informing Valint & Balk?!

The eyes of the guilty. How well we know them. We see them on our prisoners. We see them in the mirror, when we dare to look. One might have hoped for better from a man of his experience, but holding the blade is a poor preparation for being cut by it.

“I have learned all kinds of things from my many mistakes.” Cosca stretched his chin up and scratched at his scabby neck. “The one thing I never learn is to stop making them.”

His middle finger was down to the knuckle, almost. Severard stared, his eyes wide with horror, his breath coming in short, fast gasps. Shock, amazement, stunned terror. Glokta leaned down to his ear. “I hope you weren’t planning to take up the violin, Severard. You’ll be lucky if you can play a fucking gong by the time we’re done here.”

“Wait!” sobbed Severard. “Wait! Valint and Balk! The bankers! I told them… I told them…” I knew it.

I KNEW IT.

“No! No! Please… I didn’t… please…” How I tire of the pleading. The words “no” and “please” lose all meaning after half an hour of this. They begin to sound like a sheep bleating. We are all lambs to the slaughter, in the end.

I do not mind dying. But I refuse to be beaten.

Glokta noticed that she had a piece of one of Severard’s fingers caught in her hair. “You have something…” he pointed at his head, “just here.” “What? Gah!” She tore the dead thing out and flung it on the ground, gave a shiver of disgust. “You should find another way to make a living.” “I have been thinking that for some time.

“Sewers?” Cosca grinned. “I like nothing more than wading through life’s filth, as you well know, but sewers can be quite… confusing. Do you know the route?” “Actually, no.” But I know a man who says he can find a way through anything, even a river of shit. “Brother Longfoot!” he called out as he hobbled towards the steps. “I have a proposition for you!”

Everything beautiful has a dark side, and some of us must dwell there, so that others can laugh in the light.

Wasn’t long before the crowds thinned out and they were marching down empty streets, quiet except for some birds calling, happy as ever, not caring a thing for there having been a battle just now, and caring even less that there was another one coming.

The world teeters at a precipice. All scared to take a step in case they put a foot into empty air. The instinct of self-preservation. It can destroy a man’s efficiency.

Ah, the world-ending fear of unrequited love.

“I’ll pay you! Whatever he’s paying you, I’ll double it!” Cosca held out his open palm. “I prefer cash in hand.” “Now? I don’t have… I don’t have it with me!” “A shame, but I work on the same principle as a whore. You’ll buy no fun with promises, my friend. No fun at all.”

Enough, in the end, for Glokta to recognise whose parts were scattered so widely around the freezing room. Who else but my last hope, my third suitor, High Justice Marovia?

WHOS WITH JEZAL? Such a good reveal!!!! I thought he was acting weird!!

Might I ask how General Poulder is doing with the docks?” “The docks are back in our hands, but General Poulder… is dead.” There was a pause. “Dead?” Kroy’s face had turned deathly pale. “But how did he—”

Losing an enemy can be worse than losing a friend, if you've had them long enough.

“I take no pleasure in this, Bayaz. This is what must be done.” “Ah. A righteous battle? A holy duty? A crusade, perhaps? Will God smile on your methods, do you think?” Mamun shrugged. “God smiles on results.”

fusty.”

“Musty”…but with Flair!

Have they been sitting here all this time, I wonder, just being menacing to each other?

Fucking love how Glokta thinks😂

His harsh chuckling echoed out and bounced back from the walls. “It works!” he shouted.

"ITS ALIVVVE"

The blade clanged harmlessly into the stone floor and the man tottered forward. She seized him under the armpit, bent her knees slightly, and flung him shrieking through the ceiling. Broken plaster rained down as she grabbed another Knight round the neck and smashed his head into the wall with such force that he was left embedded in the shattered stonework, armoured legs dangling.

“Once you set your mind on killing, it is hard to choose the number of the dead.”

He stared up, eyes wide open. “That’s a fucking beautiful ceiling.” The Dogman swallowed. “Aye. I reckon.” “Should’ve died fighting Ninefingers, long time ago. The rest was all a gift. Grateful for it, though, Dogman. I’ve always loved… our talks.”

Healing is for the young. As one gets older, one finds one has less and less patience with the wounded.”

“Punishment doesn’t always come to the guilty.”

great journeys start with small steps,

“Help me, Logen!” “Aye. Right.” He bent down and dug his hands under one end of the great length of scarred wood. Two kings, dragging at a beam. The kings of mud.

Logen put a hand on his shoulder. “Jezal, wait. Wait. You know me.” “Of course. I like to think so.” “Alright. Tell me something, then. Am I…” He struggled to find the right words. “Am I… an evil man?” “You?” Jezal stared at him, confused. “You’re the best man I know.”

🥲

Ah, well. No one tricks the hangman forever. Perhaps we’ll have some answers, at least, before the end. I always dreamed of dying well-informed.

Your life would seem to be entirely unbearable. And yet you fight so very, very hard to stay alive. With every weapon and stratagem. You simply refuse to die.” “I am ready to die.” Glokta returned his gaze, like for like. “But I refuse to lose.”