God, my children, is the wilderness.
A wayward wind drew a wintry breath across the scene with a sound like a gasp, shivering the grasses.
How many of us bow before a god in the desperate hope that we can somehow shape our fate? Praying to that familiar face pushes away our terror of the unknown – the unknown being the future. Who knows, maybe these Tiste Andii are the only ones among us all who see the truth, the truth being oblivion.
She drew a long, deep breath, then surged forward, sword’s point extended.
Soldiers now and soldiers to the end of their days – none would dare leave to find peace. Solicitude and calm would unlock that safe prison of cold control – the only thing keeping them sane.
Histories, they’re just what’s survived. But they’re not the whole story, because the whole story can never be known. Think of all the histories we’ve gone and lost. Not just kingdoms and empires, but the histories inside every one of us, every person who ever lived.
The blood in the fine, white sand was only a few hours old, still gummy to the touch. The stench of loosened bowels soured the hazy air.
Two sets of memory warred in the woman, and the war was getting worse.
Every body that darted within his reach he grasped, twisted, bent and broke.
The world outside is in flux – your love of ignorance is not worthy of these precipitous times. Attend this field, travelers, or remain lost at your peril.
Armour encumbers, restricts the body and soul within it. But it also protects. Blows are blunted Feelings lose their edge, leaving us to suffer naught but a plague of bruises, and after a time, bruises fade.
They take us at this moment, these unwavering men and women who presume to rule over us, and but point us in the direction of a weaker victim. This is their game, knowing or not, and as ever the assumption is that we’ll never turn on our masters – so long as an enemy remains within reach of our blunted, frustrated fury. And.
At some point, no matter how repressive the regime, the citizenry will come to comprehend the vast power in their hands. The destitute, the Indebted, the beleaguered middle classes; in short, the myriad victims. Control was sleight of hand trickery, and against a hundred thousand defiant citizens, it stood no real chance.
We don’t even know where we are. What realm is this? What world lies beyond this forest? Cousin, we have nowhere else to go.’ ‘Nowhere, and anywhere. In the circumstances, Nimander, the former leads to the latter, like reaching a door everyone believes barred, locked tight, and lo, it opens wide at the touch. Nowhere and anywhere are states of mind.
Eddies of dry wind whipped tatters of cloth and reed paper about in dancing circles.
Then we’re all restless, Withal, because at the very heart, none of us know where we came from. Or where we’re going.
Compassion is never enough. Nor is the hunger for vengeance. But, for now, for what awaits us, perhaps they will do. We are the Bonehunters, and sail to another name. Beyond Aren, beyond Raraku and beyond Y’Ghatan, we now cross the world to find the first name that will be truly our own. Shared by none other. We sail to give answer.
Compassion. Love. It was not civilization that birthed these gentle gifts... A civilization was the means by which too many people could live together despite their mutual hatred. And those moments where love and community burgeoned forth, the cynics descended like vultures eager to feed, and the skies soured, and the moment died away.
Crowd control.’ ‘Excuse me?’ ‘That’s all civilization is, T’riss. A means by which we manage the proliferation of our kind. It increases in complexity the more of us there are. Laws keep us muzzled and punishment delivers the necessary message when those laws are broken. Civilizations in decline are notable when certain of their members escape justice, and do so with impunity.
Expectation is the hoary curse of humanity.