Quotes from Attrition: the First Act of Penance

“Please. Don’t try and play games with me. It’s belittling. I’m not stupid — I can spot a wolf in sheep’s clothing when I see one - and your claws are showing.” -Enoch Michelson”
― S.G. Night, quote from Attrition: the First Act of Penance

“I clench my teeth and push forward. My pen grinds out the first and eldest word: an Ink-borne lance of black fire, scratched into a sheet of ice.

-The Penitent God”
― S.G. Night, quote from Attrition: the First Act of Penance

“Racath admired them — well, most of them. Not the deacon. People like the deacon had spent their lives down on their knees while others had fought and died defending them from the Demons. Shameless swine."
-The Penitent God”
― S.G. Night, quote from Attrition: the First Act of Penance

“Rachel snorted derisively. “You don’t seriously buy into all her prophetess hocus-pocus, do you?”
“I do, actually,” Notak said, frowning. “She is the augur, Rachel.”
“She’s exasperating!”
“She is eccentric,” Notak corrected. “And you would be too if you had lived the life she had.”
“She’s a whore!” Rachel spat, ignoring him.
Notak looked at her, plainly puzzled. “I am fairly certain that she is a virgin, actually.”
― S.G. Night, quote from Attrition: the First Act of Penance

“It’s difficult to explain…you see, I have met her, and so I know that same powerful aspect in her eyes that Racath saw that night. But it is not easily put into words, not so easily described to someone who hasn’t seen it. It was just…something.
Liken it to meeting a star. You do not know the star, have never spoken to it before, nor have you ever picked it out of the sparkle of its sisters in the night sky. But the star knows you. It has spent your whole life watching you from the sky. You can keep no secrets from it. It knows every thought in your mind, every move you have ever made, every flaw you have hidden, every pain you have felt. Like the millennia it spent before you were born were years in waiting. Waiting for you and only you, like you are what gives it purpose. Like watching over you is the dedication of its entire life. So it knows you better than you know yourself.
And while the star is bright, a twinkling gem that brims with youth and beauty, there is an intangible wisdom to it. It is undeniably experienced. But not old. It may have lived for a thousand of years before you were born, counting every second until you were brought into the world. But, for a star, a thousand years is still very, very young. Young enough to kiss.
That feeling, that meeting with a star, is what pierced Racath’s heart when Nelle looked into his eyes. She was starlight, nightfire on an ebon velvet sky. Rapture.”
― S.G. Night, quote from Attrition: the First Act of Penance

“If you were to look on him fleetingly, to spare him only a passing glance, you would see only a man. If you looked a moment longer, you might get the feeling that there was something about him, something distinctly different. You might notice something peculiar about his eyes, might spot something strange about the tattoos running the length of his arms. Something out of place, something you cannot quite put your finger on….But to you, he still would be just a man.
But a clever eye…a clever eye could see him for what he truly is.
A clever eye would notice how his pupils taper at their tops and bottoms. A clever eye would see that his irises are no natural color. A clever eye would see that the patterns coiled on his arms, like blackened tongues of roiling flame, are not sunken into his skin like a tattoo’s Ink, but gently beveled at their edges — a part of his flesh. A clever eye could tell that, no, he is not just a man. Not just a Human.
He is a Majiski — one of my people.

-The Penitent God”
― S.G. Night, quote from Attrition: the First Act of Penance

“This is not my story.
-The Penitent God”
― S.G. Night, quote from Attrition: the First Act of Penance

“Of course, the Genshwin are almost as enigmatic as our hero himself: they were some of the last Majiski, those who had managed to survive by taking up refuge in an underground fortress beneath Oblakgrad. Most of them were young, the children of those who had perished in the purges, too young to remember the times before the Wall. They were a secret, hidden from the Demons’ sight. They were assassins and spies, thieves and mercenaries — masters of shadow and steel.

-The Penitent God”
― S.G. Night, quote from Attrition: the First Act of Penance

“His is the name of fire, the name that rides the whisper of the candlelight. His name was…is…Racath Thanjel. And this is his story.
-The Penitent God”
― S.G. Night, quote from Attrition: the First Act of Penance

“Hmm,” Joseph shrugged. “Good point. Who needs a caravan guard when you’ve got a Genshwin?”
― S.G. Night, quote from Attrition: the First Act of Penance

“Oh, God in heaven, kill me now…” Rachel groaned. “I hate going to see Mrak. I always feel awkward going back to Velik Tor. After being a Scorpion for so long, after everything Oron’s told us about Mrak’s past…” she shook her head darkly. “I don’t know if I’ll be able to resist the temptation to perforate his bowels.”
Notak looked back down at the letter. “Post script,” he read aloud. “Rachel, please leave Mrak alive and unharmed. We still need him, unfortunately, no matter how tempting it is to perforate his bowels.”
“You made that up, he did not say that!”
Notak handed her the letter, pointing. “Right there at the bottom.”
Rachel squinted at the writing. “Faul.”
― S.G. Night, quote from Attrition: the First Act of Penance

“No one really knew who (or what) the Curator actually was, nor could anyone guess as to where he came from or why he stood guard over this gate. He was like the rainclouds outside or the sun behind them: you didn’t question where they came from or what they were doing, simply because they had always been there. Some of the more sociable Genshwin had tried several times to wring some interesting answers out of him, but no one had ever been able to get past his enigmatic grin.
It made Rachel uncomfortable. As a youth, she had often tried to provoke him to anger without success. He would just laugh and shake his head at her like a patient father ignoring a petulant child. He was too patient, and she resented that; he was intentionally cryptic and she hated him for it. And the Curator knew it, too.”
― S.G. Night, quote from Attrition: the First Act of Penance

“I see you are still unnerved by my presence,” the Curator noted. He was still smiling. “My apologies.”
― S.G. Night, quote from Attrition: the First Act of Penance

“Their lives had no value; killing a Goblin was like killing a rabid dog — everyone was better off for it.”
― S.G. Night, quote from Attrition: the First Act of Penance

“Racath tapped the offending Goblin’s shoulder. Growling, the creature reluctantly turned away from the woman to face him. It did not release her arm.
“What?” it growled, baring its teeth threateningly.
The Genshwin said nothing in reply. He just stood there, towering over the mongrel, a pillar of black shadow and burning eyes. He had more than a full head of height in his favor.
The Goblin snarled impatiently. “You gots sumthin’ you wants to say, whelp?”
“No.” Racath’s voice was lethal-flat. “I just wanted you to see this coming.”
He straight-punched the Goblin in the snout.”
― S.G. Night, quote from Attrition: the First Act of Penance

“Thinking,” Vrag interrupted. “Is not your prerogative, dog. That is my calling. You go where I tell you to go, you take what I tell you to take, and you kill what I tell you to kill — do I make myself plain?”
― S.G. Night, quote from Attrition: the First Act of Penance

“Look, you don’t have to believe me,” Nelle told him. “Hell, you can even try and resist fate if you want. But God has a plan for you, Racath Thanjel. Fate has a plan for you. Sooner or later your own choices will bring you into that plan.”
― S.G. Night, quote from Attrition: the First Act of Penance

“That brought Rachel up short. Getting any sort of response out of Notak was hard enough. She could count one hand the times she had ever seen him actually hurt by something. It was like seeing a mountain cry. Something you really didn’t want to see.”
― S.G. Night, quote from Attrition: the First Act of Penance

“Unlike the rain-slicked streets of Oblakgrad, Dírorth was a stir of activity. The streets were lined with vendors selling greasy meat pies to passersby. The clogging crowd of Humans cramped together as they pushed past one another, rushing from one errand to the next. The shouting of a thousand voices melted together into a perpetual buzz, like a great swarm of bees hovering over the street.
And yet a strange silence hung over the city. It filled in the background, inhabiting dark corners where the din of the crowd could not squelch it. It had a strange omnipresence, like something that you are subconsciously aware of, but do not consciously see with your eyes.
It was a silence ignored, hidden by the façade of hectic traffic. You wouldn’t really notice it, not unless you were looking for it. Not unless you actually stopped to listen.
If the city folk had stopped, frozen, if they had stilled themselves for a moment, the silence would have gaped wide open like a dark, hungry maw. But they ignored it. For the past century, they had covered that silence with the commotion of everyday life, refusing to let it control them. To define them. They did not hear it. They would not hear it.
I myself did not hear it for years and years, not until the day that I actually stopped to listen.
Can you hear it, now? Can you hear it in the words your reading, the words I say to you? Listen. Hear its empty resonance across the cobbles. Feel it in the dust beneath Notak’s boot, damp with last night’s rain. Smell it on the ragged clothes of the peasants, hidden in the folds of dirty fabric. See it in their eyes, latent beneath the gloss of the everyday. Taste it in the clamor of the streets, clamor born out of a unconscious urge to fill the quiet with something, anything to drive it away, anything to stave off the silence that reeked with defeat.
It was the echo of a hundred years of slavery. It was the song of a people, waiting for God.”
― S.G. Night, quote from Attrition: the First Act of Penance

“Well, then. I guess I’ll make my way over towards Redborough and the houses of ill repute.” Rachel grinned impishly.
Notak did not take his eyes off the street, but a grin found his face. “The brothels? If you are looking for new employment, then you definitely should not have dressed like that.”
― S.G. Night, quote from Attrition: the First Act of Penance

“And through it all was the pervasive sound of money. Money lost. Money found. Spent. Earned. Exchanged. Gambled. Wasted. Tainted lucre, wealth corrupted by those who found success on the suffering of others.”
― S.G. Night, quote from Attrition: the First Act of Penance

“These people were the Demons' ilk. They were no different than the Arkûl that constrained them, or the Goblins that terrorized them. And if, one day, the Dominion fell, they would face the same punishment as their Demon masters.
But today was not that day, and Notak was not their judge, their jury, nor their executioner. Today, he was just looking for answers.”
― S.G. Night, quote from Attrition: the First Act of Penance

“His stride was long, tall, and proud. He wore a mask of proprietary disinterest, as though everything before his eyes belonged to him and his whimsy. He looked arrogant.
He fit right in.”
― S.G. Night, quote from Attrition: the First Act of Penance

“Westward Trade doesn’t have stalls, sire.”
― S.G. Night, quote from Attrition: the First Act of Penance

“Ah, 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. Night, quote from Attrition: the First Act of Penance

“Forgive me, I have yet to introduce myself.” The Human spread his arms expansively and bowed in his chair. He made grand gestures at his stall full of paper, ink, charts, and graphing tools, like they were his subjects, and he their king.
“I am Enoch Michelson, adept cartographer, recluse, and the lord and master of a tiny, dark corner of Patrician’s Market. I am a knower of many useless things, and a knower of a few things that matter. Finder of lost items. Gossipmonger.” His smile grew even slyer. “And an informant for a little band of Majiski assassins.”
― S.G. Night, quote from Attrition: the First Act of Penance

“I am Notak,” he answered in his dry, normal voice. “I kill Demons.”
― S.G. Night, quote from Attrition: the First Act of Penance

“They invented words like scum and slime for people like him.”
“My friend tells me that they invented whores for the same reason.”
― S.G. Night, quote from Attrition: the First Act of Penance

“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.”
― S.G. Night, quote from Attrition: the First Act of Penance

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