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Consider this then a warning. Liars will lie, and continue to do so, even beyond being caught out. They will lie, and in time, such liars will convince themselves, will in all self-righteousness divest the liars of culpability. Until comes a time when one final lie is voiced, the one that can only be answered by rage, by cold murder, and on that day, blood shall rain down every wall of this vaunted, weaning society. Impeached Guild Master’s Speech Semel Fural of the Guild of Sandal-Clasp Makers
Menandore frowned. ‘Shadowthrone, what are advocates?’ ‘A profession devoted to the subversion of laws for profit,’ he replied, his cane inexplicably tapping as he shuffled back into the woods. ‘When I was Emperor, I considered butchering them all.’ ‘So why didn’t you?’ she asked as he began to fade into a miasma of gloom beneath the trees. Faintly came the reply, ‘The Royal Advocate said it’d be a terrible mistake.’ Menandore was alone once again. She looked around, then grunted. ‘Gods, I hate this place.’ A moment later she too vanished.
‘I wonder,’ Trull said as he watched the momentary stand-off, ‘if this is how domestication first began. Not banding together in a hunt for prey, but in an elimination of rival predators.’
‘That, Bonecaster, is what we mortals delight in doing. You bind yourself to a clan, to a tribe, to a nation or an empire, but to give force to the illusion of a common bond, you must feed its opposite – that all those not of your clan, or tribe, or empire, do not share that bond. I have seen Onrack the Broken, a T’lan Imass. And now I have seen him, mortal once again. To the joy and the life in the eyes of my friend, I will fight all those who deem him their enemy. For the bond between us is one of friendship, and that, Til’aras Benok, is not an illusion.’
