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October 15 - October 26, 2024
Now these ashes have grown cold, we open the old book. These oil-stained pages recount the tales of the Fallen, a frayed empire, words without warmth. The hearth has ebbed, its gleam and life’s sparks are but memories against dimming eyes – what cast my mind, what hue my thoughts as I open the Book of the Fallen and breathe deep the scent of history? Listen, then, to these words carried on that breath. These tales are the tales of us all, again yet again. We are history relived and that is all, without end that is all.
“Every decision you make can change the world. The best life is the one the gods don’t notice. You want to live free, boy, live quietly.”
Truth can’t be danced around, not out here, not now, not ever again.
“You have begun to learn, Paran. Never be too easy with the knowledge you possess. Words are like coin—it pays to hoard.”
He smelled of sweat—his own and the mare’s—travel and grime, and of something else as well . . . Old blood and old fear.
“I’m sure they were good men, the ones you lost.” “Good at dying,” he said.
The scars without are the scars within.
“The only death I fear is dying ignorant.
“Hardly surprising,” the woman drawled, “that Death has no taste.”
“Pathos makes me ill.”
None could call Kruppe a fool, after all. Fat with sloth and neglect, yes; inclined to excesses, indeed, somewhat clumsy with a bowl of soup, most certainly. But not a fool.
What are gods, after all, if not the perfect victims?”
“Play on, mortal. Every god falls at a mortal’s hands. Such is the only end to immortality.”
“The easiest thing to break is a man’s heart,”
The closest-held secret is the one that never sours with age.
“No soul can withstand the sun’s bones of light and reason dims when darkness falls— so we shape barrows in the night for you and your kin.”
“Forgive my interruption, then,” said I. “The dead never interrupt,” said the mason, “they but arrive.”
Despair, he told himself, always demands a direction, a focus. Find the direction and the despair goes away.
You sure it’s necessary?” “No.” Quick Ben looked up. “Personally, I’d rather we just dropped everything and ran—away from it all, from the Empire, from Darujhistan, from war. But try convincing the sergeant to do that. He’s loyal to an idea, and that’s the hardest kind to turn.” Kalam nodded. “Honor, integrity, all that expensive crap.”
Seeking is not the same as finding, and finding is not the same as succeeding.”
Before he passed from sight Pearl spoke again. “Ben Adaephon Delat, do you pity me?” “Yes,” he replied softly, then pivoted and dropped down into darkness.
“Forged in darkness, it chains souls to the world that existed before the coming of light.
Come to me, Gear. I’m tired of being used and death doesn’t seem so frightening anymore. Let’s be done with it.
The Tiste Andii glanced at Paran. “Whatever you’ve done to draw the attention of gods, it was unwise,” he said, in Malazan. “It seems I never learn,” Paran replied. The Tiste Andii smiled. “Then we are much alike, mortal.”
The herd had come to a stop.
Does fear hold me in check? No. As powerful as fear is, it is no match for what compels me. Duty.”
“Those whom the gods choose, ’tis said, they first separate from other mortals—by treachery, by stripping from you your spirit’s lifeblood. The gods will take all your loved ones, one by one, to their death. And, as you harden, as you become what they seek, the gods smile and nod. Each company you shun brings you closer to them. ’Tis the shaping of a tool, son, the prod and pull, and the final succour they offer you is to end your loneliness—the very isolation they helped you create.” Never get noticed, boy.
Grallin will come down to us, one day, to our world. And he’ll gather his chosen and take them to his world. And we’ll live in those gardens, warmed by the deep fires, and our children will swim like dolphins, and we’ll be happy since there won’t be anymore wars, and no empires, and no swords and shields. Oh, Crokus, it’ll be wonderful, won’t it?”
“Silanah!” she screamed, laughing. “Dragnipurake t’na Draconiaes! Eleint, eleint!” The day of the Tiste Andii had come.
His power was absolute, the vessel that carried it had little relevance. If need be, the Tyrant would find other bodies, bodies in the thousands. He climbed once more to his feet. “Now,” he whispered, “I deliver death.”
“It is easy to fool oneself,” Rake answered, “into viewing those beneath one as small and insignificant. The risks of oversight, you might say.”
she turned the blade on herself then to steal the magic of life.
is knowing you’re being used better than not knowing?”
Tell me, do you pity the ones who used you?”
