The Blacktongue Thief

Only the strong, the rich, and the dying think truth is a necessity; the rest of us know it for a luxury.

Shall we journey East together?" She considered me. "What will you do for me?" "It's what we'll do for each other." "So tell me." "I'll watch while you sleep. Sleep while you watch. I'll lie to you when it doesn't matter, but I'll also lie for you when it does. If you let me do the talking, I'll make sure you miss the penny-cock with the pizzle-itch and get the best wine in the merchant's barrel. You'll never again meet a door you can't get through nor a wall you can't get eyes over. I need your arms, yes, but you need my nose. If you do the worst of the fighting, I'll make sure you know where your foes are coming from and cull the weak ones. I won't be your dog, but if you are half the wolf I think you are, you've found a fox to run with.

I was so scared, I half wanted to piss myself, but the difference between the strong and the weak isn't that the strong don't piss themselves. It's that they hitch their pissy pants up after and go through with it.

What a fabulous kingdom the mind is, and you the emperor of all of it. You can bed the duke's wife and have the duke strangled in your mind. A crippled man can think himself a dancer, and an idiot can fool himself wise. The day a magicker peeks into the thoughts of commoners for some thin-skinned duke or king will be a bad day. Those with callused hands will rise on that day, for a man will only toil in a mine so long as he can dream of sunny fields, and he'll only kneel for a tyrant if he can secretly cut that tyrant's throat in the close theater of his bowed head.

My five Upstart sons are all bloody and brave I’ve got one on the gallows, and two in the grave One is your prisoner, and none is your slave “Pish,” said Gormalin. “That’s a war song!” I’ve got one in the hills that you never have met And though he is young, he will murder you yet For the hour is coming you’ll answer your debt “That song’s illegal!” he protested, and right he was. It’s the very song that got Kellan na Falth hanged. “You can’t sing about men killing men since the Goblin Wars! Especially not a song against a proper king of Holt, even an old, bad king!” Now, of course, I joined in. My five Upstart sons have declared against you Their tongues are as black as their promise is true And they’ll call you to answer whatever you do! No Coldfoot guard was going to be left out of an illegal Galtish rebel song, so Malk picked up the next verse with us, his strong, confident baritone suddenly making the whole insurrection seem credible. The crown you so love sits but light on your head The castle you stole has a cold, stony bed And though I am old, I will yet see you dead You’ve hundreds of men with long swords and long knives But you’ve lain with near half of their fair Galtish wives And none of them love you to lay down their lives Abandon your tower and open your gate No silver-bought army can alter your fate If all my five perish, my neighbor has eight Our ten thousand sons have declared against you Their tongues are as black as their promise is true And they’re coming, they’re coming, whatever you do

if she had to summon a smile to put out a fire, half the town would burn.

I won’t be your dog, but if you’re half the wolf I think you are, you’ve found a fox to run with.

When listening for danger, one must never mistake silence for safety.

the rich hold grudges the poor can’t afford,

Spear had picked up her lost hand and run into the forest like she knew a sewer-on of hands whose shop closed soon.

Shyte! What the sixteen ways to fuck a fuck is that?

We know too much about the gods to hope for their benevolence, do we not?

Weapons!” Malk cried, but he had none. I drew my dagger, feeling I’d do just as well to wave my manhood at it, had that not already shrunk itself as far in my body as it could go.

Monarchy is a bad system because, no matter how smart you are, you can still squirt a moron out of your plumbing. Maybe you get lucky and your son or daughter is at least half as smart as you--what about your grandchild? Probably a knob, and when they inherit the throne, everything you built falls to shyte.

It's sad, but the world's made of sadness. if you hadn't noticed, great gray bricks of it and mortared all together with pain and obligation.

I'm a man who will always choose to know.

I held my hand up in kinship, and her elbow moved, so I think she would have held her palm to me as well were she not manacled. When the hangdam yanked the block, she said ah as she fell, and that ah before her neck broke seemed the realest thing I'd ever heard said. Her voice as expressed in just that one syllable was perfect, not the deceiver's purr she'd used before the fight or the harpy's cry in the fray, but it was her essence; killer, lover, thief, daughter, all of it together with something of the divine as well. I loved her for that ah.

All but Malk, that is, who brushed himself off and limped over to me, saying, “You want to give the old bird a go?” “Fuck if I will,” I said. “Fuck if I should have. It's got to be magic.” “I didn't see any magic,” I said. “It's the only explanation,” he said. “Is it?” I said. “I saw her run up and down a hill for breakfast while you were lying in, sorting out whether to pick your arse or you scratch your nuts.” “Magic,” he said, and spat, and limped off.

When it croaked out of my mouth, I meant it as statement of fact, but looking back, it sounded perfectly weird, ambiguous, and off-putting, so it was just the right thing.

Our cellmate stared over his gathered knees at the far wall, drunk as a pickled fish, bony in that old-man way, like he’s easing into his coming skeletonhood.

He was the kind of god you prayed to for making water wet and fire hot, or for keeping giants out of a land where nobody has seen a giant for a thousand years. He was good at the easy things.

but my da was a sad bastard miner and couldn’t play the arse-horn after a quart of beans and cabbage.

It's always the big, thick wankers saying "don't lie," isn't it? Only the strong, the rich and the dying think truth is a necessity. The rest of us know it for a luxury.

The surest way to make one love you is to hurt them.

It was nice, that moment with the baton aloft. A man who can pitch a tent and live in a valley three heartbeats wide is a happy man. I heard the seagulls call, I heard a gurgle and a crunch in the water as some tide or other rushed against the hull. It wasn't so bad, that instant. the baton fell.

Funny, the thing that hooks you. It’s not always the eyes or the wifely parts; sometimes it’s just the curve of a well-made arm against dark oak.

Men love a woman who doesn’t seem to give a damn, so long as she’s handsome. We also love a happy woman, so long as she’s fair, or a sad pretty one, or an angry girleen with a good face. You see how this works.

Molrovan sounds like a man getting kicked to death with hot broth in his mouth.