We can never be gods, after all – but we can become something less than human with frightening ease.
The shadows of Ina-Karekh are the place where nightmares dwell, but not their source. Never forget: the shadowlands are not elsewhere. We create them. They are within.
Immortality gets very, very boring. You’d be surprised at how interesting the small mundanities of life can seem after a few millennia.
There is no greater warrior than a mother protecting her child.
But when I got angry, my nerves sought an outlet, and my mouth didn’t always guard the gates.
But perhaps that was just the way of power: no such thing as too much.
It is important to appreciate beauty, even when it is evil.
There’s truth even in tainted knowledge, if one reads carefully.
Loneliness is a darkness of the soul.
Fortunately, where reason failed, blind panic served well enough.
You are Insignificant. One of millions, neither special nor unique. I did not ask for this ignominy, and I resent the comparison. Fine. I don’t you like you, either.
And in that sliver of time, I felt the power around me coalesce, malice-hard and sharp as crystal. That this analogy occurred to me should have been a warning.
But love like that doesn’t just disappear, does it? No matter how powerful the hate, there is always a little love left, underneath. Yes. Horrible, isn’t it?
This means, in a way, that true light is dependent on the presence of other lights. Take the others away and darkness results. Yet the reverse is not true: take away darkness and there is only more darkness. Darkness can exist by itself. Light cannot.
They live forever. But many of them are even more lonely and miserable than we are. Why do you think they bother with us? We teach them life’s value.
Rising from the dead? Glowing at sunrise? What did that make him, the god of cheerful mornings and macabre surprises?
You are what your creators and experiences have made you, like every other being in this universe. Accept that and be done; I tire of your whining.
The Cloud Roads has wildly original worldbuilding, diverse and engaging characters, and a thrilling adventure plot. It’s that rarest of fantasies: fresh and surprising, with a story that doesn’t go where ten thousand others have gone before. I can’t wait for my next chance to visit the Three Worlds!
The priest’s lesson: beware the Nightlord, for his pleasure is a mortal’s doom. My grandmother’s lesson: beware love, especially with the wrong man.
There is no logic to grief.
We worship Him not because He is the best of our gods, but because He is, or was, the greatest killer among them.