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3d82d50
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One's own yesterday is a ghost that will not be laid down.
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past
past-life
yesterdays
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Glen Cook |
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253c032
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Pull up a step, Ace," I told him. He did, but he had the fidgets. He kept looking for his lucky exit. I told him, "I didn't really want you. But I can't get ahold of Winger." Not that I'd tried. "What? Who?" "Your girlfriend. Big blond goof with no common sense, always has an angle, never tells the truth if a lie will do. Her." "Part of that fits everybody in this thing," Morley said. "Even up on the Hill, they turned the truth to quicksilv..
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Glen Cook |
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f336e83
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Relway mused, "Now that it's happened I'm not so sure I'm happy with the outcome. Spared their racial theories The Call would've been good for TunFaire." He would appreciate their interest in law and order and proper behavior. "Here's a challenge you still need to meet. Glory Mooncalled. He's weak now but he's still out there somewhere. If you don't get him now he'll try to put something back together someday. He can't help himself." "It's ..
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Glen Cook |
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7494396
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A man lay before me. He had sunk as low as any I had ever known. Then he had fought his way back and back and had become worthy. A man far better than I, for he had located his moral pole star and set his course by it though it had cost his life.
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Glen Cook |
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71257dc
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The lower ranks have the privilege of questioning the sanity and competence of their commanders. It's the mortar holding an army together.
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Glen Cook |
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a6c4565
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Fate is a fickle bitch who dotes on irony.
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Glen Cook |
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7828189
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will ever really understand. Not even those who shook our hands when we left. Not even those who welcomed us back with mighty hugs and no conception whatsoever what it was like to sit there watching the life bleed out of a man whose throat you'd cut so you could go on, undetected, to murder some other poor boy whose bad luck had placed him in your path at the wrongest time possible in the entire history of the human species. So that someday..
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Glen Cook |
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d5b347e
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Something he had heard some wise man say. About the three stages of empire, the three generations. First came the conquerers, unstoppable in war. Then came the administrators, who bound it all together into one apparently unshakable, immortal edifice. Then came the wasters, who knew no responsibility and squandered the capital of their inheritance upon whims and vices. And fell to other conquerers.
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Glen Cook |
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017804d
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Singe stopped. "You are quite right about Medford Shale, Garrett." Great-uncle Medford had figured prominently in the case where I'd first made Singe's acquaintance. "Just as you were right about me needing no distractions if I am to follow this trail. Perhaps I can have Doris knock you out, then have Marsha knock Doris out, then pray that a building collapses on Marsha." "Or we could all take a hint and save the chatter till later." "You c..
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Glen Cook |
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bd98800
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These boys both fell out of the ugly tree at a young age, hitting every damned branch on the way down. Then their mommas whupped them with an ugly stick and fed them ugly soup every day of their lives. They were Uh-glee, with a couple of capital double-ugs.
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Glen Cook |
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f560dc4
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The law isn't always about what's right. Or wrong. A lot of times it's about somebody being guaranteed an advantage over somebody else. And that's human nature. That's the nature of any sentient species,
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Glen Cook |
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be84088
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The Dead Man once told me that monsters aren't born, they're made. That they are memorials which take years of cruelty to sculpt. And that while we should weep for the tortured child who served as raw material, we should permit no sentiment to impede us while we rid the world of the terror strewn by the finished work. It took me a while to figure out what he meant but I do understand him now.
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Glen Cook |
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9f5946c
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The age is sorrowfully short of characters of the magnificently villainous vitality of those the Dominator took in olden times: Soulcatcher, the Hanged Man, Nightcrawler, Shapeshifter, the Limper, and such. Those were nastymen of the grand scope, nearly as wild and hairy in their wickedness as the Lady and Dominator themselves.
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Glen Cook |
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468183d
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My guess is, six of one, half a dozen of the other. Crows
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Glen Cook |
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056b2f7
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The Hanged Man stopped gesturing and struck a pose: man listening.
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Glen Cook |
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cba1f1a
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Maybe propinquity was counterproductive. *
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Glen Cook |
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fbcf61f
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There was no peace inside the bounds spanned by God's Peace. Because men did not just demand submission to the Will of God, they demanded submission to themselves. Nor could they agree what the Will of God might be.
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Glen Cook |
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7557745
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'Did I snore again last night?' -'You solidified your grasp on the all-time women's championship. You're ready to compete at the next level.
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Glen Cook |
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4dd89c1
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He'd described himself as looking like a child molester waiting for a chance to strike. He wasn't comfortable with his appearance.
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Glen Cook |
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dedbb26
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We all have our pasts. I suspect we keep them nebulous not because we are hiding from our yesterdays but because we think we will cut more romantic figures if we roll our eyes and dispense delicate hints about beautiful women forever beyond our reaches. Those men whose stories I have uprooted are running from the law, not a tragic love affair.
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Glen Cook |
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10573cb
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When I reflect on my companions' inner natures I usually wish I controlled one small talent. I wish I could look inside them and unmask the darks and brights that move them. Then I take a quick look into the jungle of my own soul and thank heaven that I cannot. Any man who barely sustains an armistice with himself has no business poking around in an alien soul.
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Glen Cook |
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514059b
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That is something I like to look at with any villain. What twists and knots went into the thread tying the creature at Charm to the little girl who was? Consider little children. There are not many of them not cute and lovable and precious, sweet as whipped honey and butter. So where do all the wicked people come from? I walk through our barracks and wonder how a giggling, inquisitive toddler could have become a Three Fingers, a Jolly, or a..
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Glen Cook |
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286fcb1
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Mercy's platoon hastily established a strongpoint near the Rubbish Gate and held off all three cohorts. Most of our men were killed, but none ran. Mercy himself lost an eye, a finger, was wounded in shoulder and hip, and had more than a hundred holes in his shield when help arrived. He came to me more dead than alive. In the end, the mutineers scattered rather than face the rest of the Black Company.
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Glen Cook |
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996baa2
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Okay, Croaker. What the hell happened?" "I don't know. The falling sickness?" "Give him some of his own soup," somebody suggested. "Serve him right." A tin cup appeared. We forced its contents down his throat. His eye clicked open. "What are you trying to do? Poison me? Feh! What was that? Boiled sewage?" "Your soup," I told him."
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medicine
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Glen Cook |
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7e9c584
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I reserve the right to be unreasonable, inconsistent, and arbitrary in an unreasonable, inconsistent, and arbitrary universe.
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Glen Cook |
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9574681
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Evil is relative, Annalist. You can't hang a sign on it. You can't touch it or taste it or cut it with a sword. Evil depends on where you are standing, pointing your indicting finger.
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Glen Cook |
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78b94b4
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An army without faith in itself is beaten more surely than an army defeated in battle.
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Glen Cook |
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ad96683
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About you and me, Croaker and his gang, the Lady, Silent, Darling. About all the things we had in common but still couldn't get along." "I didn't see all that much you had in common. Not once you got past having the same enemies." "Neither did I for a long time. And none of them saw it, either. Else we all might have tried a little harder." I tried to look like I gave a shit at three in the morning. "Basically we're all lonely, unhappy peop..
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Glen Cook |
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12beef0
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Seems to know you," the Captain observed. "He thought I was dead." Jalena rejoined his party. He gabbled and pointed. Pale-faced men looked our way. They argued briefly, then the whole lot fled the garden. Raven did not explain. Instead, he said, "Shall we get to business?" "Care to illuminate what just happened?" The Captain's voice had a dangerous softness. "No." "Better reconsider. Your presence could endanger the whole Company." "It won..
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Glen Cook |
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d72b6eb
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I snuck a glance at her. She wore a teasing little smile. I shifted my attention to the fighting. What she did to me, just sitting there, amidst the fury of the end of the world, was more frightening than the prospect of a death in battle. I am too old to boil like a horny fifteen-year-old.
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Glen Cook |
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c64eacb
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Over coming days, when I sneaked down to the Buskin, he revealed everything recorded where he appears as the focal character. I do not think I have met many men who disgusted me more. Nastier
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Glen Cook |
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b223cb9
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We gathered our things and began taking leave of camp followers who had trickled out from the city. Our animals and equipment would be their reward for faith and friendship. I spent a sad, gentle hour with a woman to whom I meant more than I suspected. We shed no tears and told one another no lies. I left her with memories and most of my pathetic fortune. She left me with a lump in my throat and a sense of loss not wholly fathomable.
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Glen Cook |
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cd79122
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The Lady made a few gestures around Bomanz--who looked pretty moth-eaten--and said a few words in a language I did not understand. Why do sorcerers always use languages nobody understands? Even Goblin and One-Eye do it. Each has confided that he cannot follow the tongue the other uses. Maybe they make it up?
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Glen Cook |
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3db2051
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My name is Case. Philodendron Case. Thanks to my Ma. I've never even told Raven about that. That's why I joined the army. To get away from the kind of potato diggers that would stick a name like that on a kid. I had seven sisters and four brothers last time I got a head count. Every one is named after some damned flower. A girl named Iris or Rose, what the hell, hey? But I got a brother named Violet and another brother named Petunia. What k..
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Glen Cook |
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663b34b
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Madle named names. Some were on my list and some were not. Those that were not I assumed to be spear carriers. Tally had been well and reliably scouted. The last corpse went out. I gave Madle a small gold piece. He goggled. His customers regarded him with unfriendly eyes. I grinned. "For services rendered." Madle blanched, stared at the coin. It was a kiss of death. His patrons would think he had helped set the ambush. "Gotcha," I whispered..
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Glen Cook |
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d922eac
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Lightning from a clear sky smote the Necropolitan Hill.
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Glen Cook |
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52c1ce1
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I had to search a moment before spotting the soft glow advancing along the aisles between enemy divisions. It surrounded a child on a big white horse, bearing a standard of red emblazoned with a white rose.
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Glen Cook |
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19c4e6e
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They steal our yesterdays and leave us no youth but that of our children....
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Glen Cook |
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ef0f08d
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The fugitive blew through a doorway. I was only two steps behind, but when I got there the door was closed and locked. I flung one granite shoulder against it. It gave about a thousandth of an inch. "You do it." Morley indicated Slither. "Stop whimpering, Garrett." "I dislocated everything but my ankle bones." Slither knocked on the door with his very large feet, smashing away numerous times before he risked his own tender shoulder. The doo..
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Glen Cook |
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0de68f9
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One-Eye scowled at Goblin. "Keep it up, Barf Bag. You'll be grocery shopping with the turtles." What the hell did that mean? Some kind of obscure shop talk? But Goblin was as croggled as the rest of us. Grinning, One-Eye resumed gabbling with his relatives."
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Glen Cook |
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6ef0f88
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There is nothing so unreasonable and irrational and blind--and just plain silly-looking--as a man who works himself into an obsessive passion.
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Glen Cook |
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fc33e8d
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I admitted, "This might not have been one of my brighter ideas." "On the contrary. It confirms our suspicions that there's a greater interest in us than should be for simple travellers. They mean to use us." She was disturbed. "Welcome to life in the Black Company, sweetheart," I said. "Now you know why I'm cynical about lords and such. Now you know one of the feelings I've been trying to get across." "Maybe I get it. A little. I feel demea..
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Glen Cook |
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1ed5321
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He surveyed his audience with that look of sublime solemnity only a drunk can muster.
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Glen Cook |
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fa9aaa0
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can't get my people inside. These crackpots are abidingly paranoid. If a man has even a tenth part nonhuman blood, he's a breed and part of the problem. Never mind he might have been a war hero. The spiders spinning the web of hatred are sure humankind can be redeemed only through the extinction of the rest of the races. Even to the extreme of hunting down and expunging every drop of nonhuman blood. Otherwise us uniques might breed back to ..
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Glen Cook |