Westward Trade doesn’t have stalls, sire.
S.G. NightAh, good day, friend. Nice of you to drop in on my little corner of the world. How might I assist you on this delightfully dreary day?” - Enoch Michelson
S.G. NightI am Notak,” he answered in his dry, normal voice. “I kill Demons.
S.G. NightThey invented words like scum and slime for people like him.”
“My friend tells me that they invented whores for the same reason.
This will do,” Notak said. “I need to meet my colleague to discuss details. How much do you want for the map?”
“Go ahead and take it. No charge. One map is a small price to pay to help put Hammon in the ground. Hell, you can have the pencil too.
Racath’s eyebrows drew together. “Terms?”
“Yes, terms,” Briz’nar replied, a forked tongue dancing behind its sharkish teeth. “Conditions for the riots to cease. The rabble must have some sort of price if they are sending one of your kind to do the bargaining. What is it, then? Coin? Food? Perhaps a much needed bath?” Some of the Arkûl chuckled.
Racath rolled his eyes. “I’m not here to negotiate with anyone!” he answered incredulously. “The only terms I have are that you die, this Bridge is destroyed, and the Dominion never even thinks about looking at the Burrows ever again.
This," Racath shouted to them. "Is freedom! Feel it, let it carry you!
S.G. NightTags: freedom
This is your first lesson.” He went from Arkûl to Arkûl, taking spears, belt knives and shortswords from their corpses. When he was finished, he tossed the weapons into the crowd.
“A man without a weapon is a subject,” he said to them as they snatched up the new tools. “A man with a weapon is a citizen!
Tags: freedom weapons citizenship
I am the Penitent God. And tonight, I have begun my battle. My siege. The hundred-thousand Ink-borne arrows, flying forth from my flaming pen, to assault the walls of tyrannical Cold that hold this man in awful rapture. My campaign for my friend’s very soul. My war of Ice, Ink, and Ember.
S.G. NightTags: writing ink attrition penitent-god
Why don't you just do it, then?" Racath hissed. "Just kill me. I dare you."
Now, I assume you know what this is. You've seen this before in other stories - the part where the disgruntled villain stands over the hero. He is triumphant, the hero now at his mercy. But when commanded to slay him, he hesitates. He lowers his sword. And he says: "I cannot."
If you are to take away but one thing from the words I have spoken, let it be this: there is a world of difference between "I Cannot" and "I will not".
"I cannot" is a surrender. It implies a lack of options. Someone who says such a thing does so only because they have no other choice. They do not WISH to relent - in fact, they usually want to obey their mandate and destroy the hero at their feet. But they cannot, because the guilt is too unbearable. But that does not make him a better man; all that a man who says "I cannot" has done, is given in to the compulsion to repent.
Allow me to make myself perfectly clear - I HAD other options. Easy options. Simple options. I could have killed Racath Thanjel that day. I could have killed him and all the others, too. I could have left them dead and bloody on that grassy hill, and gone trotting back to the Imperator's lap. I could have shrugged off the attrition that had dogged my every step, thought better of my disenssion, given up on all hope of absolution and accepted my damnation. And I could have spent the rest of eternity destroying God's green earth at Lavethion's side.
I could have. It would have been so easy. So simple. So wrong. And I didn't want to.
And so I took a sickened step away. Stabbed Osveta into the grass. Shook my head. And said: "I won't.
Tags: repentance hero dissension penance villain attrition penitent-god
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