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July 7 - September 29, 2018
Their foe is uncertainty and stubborn courage the only weapon worth wielding.
They are resolved to make a defiant and heroic last stand in the name of redemption but can deeds be heroic when there is no one to witness them? And can that which is not witnessed change the world? Destinies are rarely simple, truths never clear. The only certainty is that time is on no-one’s side
‘Generally speaking, people useless at everything else become academics.’
Giving advice to a child is like flinging sand at an obsidian wall. Nothing sticks. The brutal truth is that we each suffer our own lessons – they can’t be danced round. They can’t be slipped past. You cannot gift a child with your scars – they arrive like webs, constricting, suffocating, and that child will struggle and strain until they break. No matter how noble your intent, the only scars that teach them anything are the ones they earn themselves.’
Nobility could be admired even when not met eye to eye.
The mind shaped its habits and habits reshaped the body.
The other issue was a far crueller judgement, in that it had to do with the recognition that in the world there were numerically far more stupid people than there were smart ones. The difficulty was in the innate cleverness of the stupid in disguising their own stupidity. The truth was rarely displayed in an honest frown or a sincere knotting of the brow. Instead, it was revealed in a flash of suspicion, the hint of diffidence in an offhand dismissal, or, perversely, muteness offered up to convey a level of thoughtful consideration which, in truth, did not exist.
The true danger, Yedan Derryg understood, was to be found in the hidden deceivers – those who could play the fool yet possessed a kind of cunning that, while narrowly confined to the immediate satisfaction of their own position, proved of great skill in exploiting the stupid and the brilliant alike.
With a talent for combining offhand casual rapport with the grimmest of subject matter, a careless repose and loose discipline with savage professionalism. He was, he admitted, oddly charmed.
A soldier must place his or her trust in the one who commands, and by extension in that which the commander serves in turn.
‘Sometimes,’ Brys ventured, ‘when nothing can be shared except regret, then regret must serve as the place to begin. Reconciliation does not demand that one side surrender to the other. The simple, mutual recognition that mistakes were made is in itself a closing of the divide.’
‘Beware the leader who has nothing to lose.’
It does no good to ignore one’s own flaws, Hetan. The delusion comforts, but it can prove fatal.’
“The object of justice is to drain the world of colour.”’
state that employs torture invites barbarism and deserves nothing better than to suffer the harvest of its own excesses.’
Justice without compassion was the destroyer of morality, a slayer blind to empathy.
Discipline among a few could defeat a multitude
Being optimistic’s worthless if it means ignoring the suffering of this world. Worse than worthless. It’s bloody evil. And being pessimistic, well, that’s just the first step on the path, and it’s a path that might take you down Hood’s road, or it takes you to a place where you can settle into doing what you can, hold fast in your fight against that suffering. And that’s an honest place, Cuttle.’ ‘It’s the place, Fiddler,’ said Brys, ‘where heroes are found.’
Is there anything more worthless than excuses? Emperor Kellanved
There was triumph in that beast’s struggle, something that made its death almost irrelevant, a desultory, diminished arrival – no capering glee this time.
a prince must choose when he is expendable.
My advisors are even more pathetic than the man they purport to advise.
‘The old ones among my people say that sometimes you find a person with the roar of a sea squall in their eyes, and those ones, they say, have swum the deepest waters.
‘Legacies are never what one would hope for, are they, Captain? In the end, it does not matter what was achieved. Fate holds no tally of past triumphs, courageous deeds, or moments of profound integrity.’ ‘I suppose not, Adjunct.’ ‘Conversely, there is no grim list of failures, moments of cowardice or dishonour. The wax is smooth, the past melted away – if it ever existed at all.’
‘would you slay your best warriors simply to prove your right to rule?’ ‘Any who dared oppose me, yes!’ ‘Then, you would command out of a lust for power, not out of a duty to your people.’
Hetan, my love, forgive me.
Some roads were easier to leave than others. Many walked to seek the future, but found only the past. Others sought the past, to make it new once more, and discovered that the past was nothing like the one they’d imagined. One could walk in search of friends, and find naught but strangers. One could yearn for company but find little but cruel solitude. A few roads offered the gift of pilgrimage, a place to find somewhere ahead and somewhere in the heart, both to be found at the road’s end. It was true, as well, that some roads never ended at all, and that pilgrimage could prove a flight from
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Among all warriors, the commander was the loneliest by far, and he could feel that isolation thickening around him, hard as armour, cold as iron.
‘Sometimes respect must be earned the hard way, Shield Anvil.’
She longed for yesterday, she longed for the solid presence that was her adopted father. Once more the sight of his face, a face wide and weathered, with every feature exaggerated, oversized, his soft eyes that had only ever looked upon his children with love – against the twins, it had seemed anger was impossible. Even disapproval wavered in a heartbeat. They had worked him like river clay, but they had known that beneath that clay there was a thing of iron, a thing of great power. He was a truth, resolute, unbreakable. They worked him because they knew that truth.
‘I have reached an age when youth itself is beauty.’
And this, she now realized, was the reason why the gods did nothing. Proof of their omniscience. After all, to act was to announce awful limitations, for it revealed that chance acted first, the accidents were just that – events beyond the will of the gods – and all they could do in answer was to attempt to remedy the consequences, to alter natural ends. To act, then, was an admission of fallibility.
‘We lie about our past to make peace with the present. If we accepted the truth of our history, we would find no peace – our consciences would not permit it. Nor would our rage.’
Strong emotions are ever a barrier to perception, and this must be true of you.’
Awed, humbled by complexity, assailed by compassion. Uncomprehending in the face of cruelty, of indifference.
the real meaning of ‘tradition’ was … what had he called it? ‘Stupidity on purpose’,
Introspection was an act of supreme courage, one that few could manage.
Seek out what is freely given Come find me
The culture of attackers seeks submission and demands evidence of that submission as proof of superiority over the subdued. The culture of defenders seeks compliance through conformity, punishing dissenters and so gaining the smug superiority of enforcing silence, and from silence, complicity.’
Against attackers, your surest defence is cold iron. Against defenders, often the best tactic is to sheathe your weapon and refuse the game.
Reserve contempt for those who have truly earned it, but see the contempt you permit yourself to feel not as a weapon, but as armour against their assaults. Finally, be ready to disarm with a smile, even as you cut deep with words.’
In your mind, it would seem, these are but titles. Responsibilities one grows into, as it were. But the truth of it is, the title awaits only those who have already grown into a person worthy of the responsibility.
The perfect hero is one whose heroism none sees. The most precious glory is the glory lost on senseless winds. The highest virtue is the one that remains for ever hidden within oneself. Do you understand that, Mortal Sword? No, you do not.
Truth was the hardest and purest and rarest metal of all.
They will walk as if the future did not exist.
And her eyes would look both beyond and within, and in looking within she would find her private truths. Truths that belonged to her and no one else. Who cared to be generous in those final moments? She’d be past easing anyone else’s pain.
They didn’t need their Fist spreading his hams on a crate at the fire, passing a jug. Such nights should be rare events, on the eve of battle, perhaps, but even then no one should ever be permitted to forget an officer’s position.
Useless officers, unreasonable orders, the pervasive conviction that the ones in overall command were all incompetent idiots.
She thought of all the careless acts and indifferent, impatient gestures she’d seen among parents in civilized places, as if they had no time for their own children. Too busy, too full of themselves, and all of that was simply passed on to the next generation, over and over again.
Among the Dal Honese, in the villages of both the north and the south, patience was the gift returned to the child who was itself a gift. Patience, the full weight of regard, the willingness to listen and the readiness to teach – were these not the responsibilities of parenthood? And what of a civilization that could thrive only by systematically destroying that precious relationship? Time to spend with your children? No time. Work to feed them, yes, that is your responsibility. But your loyalty and your strength and your energy, they belong to us.
