Assassin's Quest

Not being able to think of a reply is not the same thing as accepting another's words.

I healed. Not completely. A scar is never the same as good flesh, but it stops the bleeding.

I thought we had lost you. I thought we'd done something worse than let you die.' His old arms were tight and strong about me. I was kind to the old man. I did not tell him they had.

There is a dead spot in the night, that coldest, blackest time when the world has forgotten evening and dawn is not yet a promise. A time when it is far too early to arise, but so late that going to bed makes small sense.

But a living is not a life.

Someday is someday, and maybe it will be or maybe it won't. This is a human thing, to worry about things that may or may not come to be. You can't eat meat until you've killed it.

Besides, if there were no dragons of flesh and blood and fire, whence would come the idea for these stone carvings?

Sometimes a man doesn't know how badly he's hurt until someone else probes the wound.

Six Wisemen came to Jhaampe-town Climbed a hill, and never came down Found their flesh and lost their skins Flew away on stony wings. Five Wisemen came to Jhaampe-town Walked a road not up nor down Were torn to many and turned to one, In the end, left a task half-done Four Wisemen came to Jhaampe-town They spoke in words without a sound They begged their Queen to let them go And what became of them, no one can know. Three Wisemen came to Jhaampe-town They’d helped a king to keep his crown. But when they tried to climb the hill Down they came in a terrible spill. Two Wisemen came to Jhaampe-town Gentle women there they found. Forgot their quest and lived in love Perhaps were wiser than ones above. One Wiseman came to Jhaampe-town. He set aside both Queen and Crown Did his task and fell asleep Gave his bones to the stones to keep. No wise men go to Jhaampe-town, To climb the hill and never come down. ‘Tis wiser far and much more brave To stay at home and face the grave.

...To free humanity of time. For time is the great enslaver of us all. Time that ages us, time that limits us. Think how often you have wished to have more time for something, or wished you could go back a day and do something differently. When humanity is freed of time, old wrongs can be corrected before they are done.

No. This is right. I feel it. I am the Catalyst, and I came to change all things. Prophets become warriors, dragons hunt as wolves. Fitz in Assassin's Quest

If a minstrel must embroider the truth to help us recall it fully, then let her, and let no one say she has lied. Truth is often much larger than facts.

...sometimes it only makes one more lonely to know that somewhere else, one's friends and family are well.

I feared my own kind more than anything the natural world could ever threaten me with.

Useless to worry until we find outselves blocked. ... If it happens, then we must simply find a way around it. It may slow us down. But we will never get there at all if we stand still and worry.

Fishing and ear scratching the two reasons men were given hands.

Somewhere inside me, a madman raged in his cell, but I chose not to know of that.

Starling tries to seduce Fitz. "Be with me" she said simply "Just for here. Just for now. With gentleness and friendship. To take...the other away. Give me that much of yourself." I wanted her. I wanted her with a desperation that had nothing to do with love, and even, I believe, little to do with lust. She was warm and alive and it would have been sweet and simple human comfort. If I could have been with her and arisen from it unchanged in how I thought of myself and what I felt for Molly, I would have done so. But what I felt for Molly was not something that was only for when we were together. I had given Molly that claim to me; I could not resend it just because we were apart for while.

You will live to love again. You know you have lost your springtime girl, your Molly on the beach with the wind in her brown hair and red cloak. You have been gone too long from her, and too much has befallen you both. And what you loved, what both of you truly loved, was not each other. It was the time of your life. It was the spring of your years, and life running strong in you, and war on your doorstep and your strong, perfect bodies. Look back, in truth. You will find you recall fully as many quarrels and tears as you do lovemaking and kisses. Fitz. Be wise. Let her go, and keep those memories intact. Save what you can of her, and let her keep what she can of the wild and daring boy she loved. Because both he and that merry little miss are no more than memories anymore." She shook her head. "No more than memories.

Starling lowered her voice, but it carried anyway. “He is FitzChivalry, son of Chivalry the Abdicated. And you are the Fool.” “Once, perhaps, I was the Fool. It is common knowledge here in Jhaampe. But now I am the Toymaker. As I no longer use the other title, you may take it for yourself if you wish. As for Tom, I believe he takes the title Bed Bolster these days.” “I will be seeing the Queen about this.” “A wise decision. If you wish to become her Fool, she is certainly the one you must see. But for now, let me show you something else. No, step back, please, so you can see it all. Here it comes.” I heard the slam and the latch. “The outside of my door,” the Fool announced gladly. “I painted it myself. Do you like it?

I made a sudden decision. "and my dog has followed me from town and cought up with us here. I left him with friends, but he must have chewed his rope. here, boy, come to heel." I'll chew your heel off for you, Nighteyes offerd savagely, but he came, following me out into the cleared yard. "Damn big dog," Nick observed. He leaned forward. "looks more than half a wolf to me." "Some in Farrow have told me that. It's a buck breed. We use them for harding sheep." You will pay for this. I promise you. In answer I leaned down to pat his shoulder and then scratch his ears. Wag your tail, Nighteyes. "He's a loyal old dog. I should have known he wouldn't be left behind." The things i endure for you. He wagged his tail. Once.

One does not have to be Witted to know the companionship of a beast, and to know that the friendship of an animal is every bit as rich and complicated as that of a man or woman.

I accepted their ridicule by sulking manfully.

I am a minstrel. I know more about lying than you will ever discover. And minstrels know that sometimes lies are what a man needs most. In order to make a new truth of them.

That is one thing that in all my years among your folk I have never become accustomed to. The great importance that you attach to what gender one is.

I looked at her, wanting her with all the lust of my months alone and untouched. But I knew also that for that deeper hunger for companionship and understanding, she offered me no more solace than any man might find in his own hand.

Her nakedness was not vulnerability, but armour.

I was the Fool and the Fool was me. He was the Catalyst and so was I. We were two halves of a whole, sundered and come together again. For an instant I knew him in his entirety, complete and magical, and then he was pulling apart from me, laughing, a bubble inside me, separate and unknowable, yet joined to me. "You do love me !" I was incredulous. He had never truly believed it before. "Before, it was words. I always feared it war born of pity. But you are truly my friend. This is knowing. This is feeling what you feel for me. So this is the Skill". For a moment he reveled in simple recognition.

It was, after all, a time for heroes and all sorts of marvelous things to occur.

You are not a man as ordinary men are. They think they have a right to all beasts; to hunt them and eat them, or to subjugate them and rule their lives. You know you have no such right to mastery. The horse that carries you will do so because he wishes to, as does the wolf that hunts beside you. You have a deeper sense of yourself in the world. You believe you have a right, not to rule it, but to be part of it. Predator or prey; there is no shame to being either one.