"The Blade Itself", ("Eric of Meinibone")

[fiefoe]

Joe Abercrombie's doorstopper would have been 30% better had it been 30% shorter.

• And here it is. That horrible, beautiful, stretched out moment between stubbing your toe and feeling the hurt. How long do I have before the pain comes? How bad will it be when it does? Gasping, slack-jawed at the foot of the steps, Glokta felt a tingling of anticipation. Here it comes . . .
• He had not expected to leave that room alive. And now I find myself moving in powerful circles. A personal task for the Arch Lector, squeezing a confession to high treason from one of the Union’s most trusted officials. The most powerful of circles, but for how long? Why me? Because of my results? Or because I won’t be missed?
• Each thing alive in the forest was in search of its own kind of food, and he was the same. He let his mind settle on an animal close to him, moving cautiously through the woods to his right. Delicious. The forest grew silent but for the endless dripping of water from the branches. The world shrank down to Logen and his next meal.
• His mind went back to other times and other campfires. The Dogman was there, grinning, the light gleaming on his pointy teeth. Tul Duru was sitting opposite, big as a mountain, laughing like thunder. Forley the Weakest too, with those nervous eyes darting around, always a little scared. Rudd Threetrees was there, and Harding Grim, saying nothing. He never did say anything. That was why they called him Grim. <> They were all there. Only they weren’t. They were all dead, gone back to the mud.
• Jezal had often observed that the ever so slightly stupid will act more stupidly in clever company. Having lost the high ground already they scramble eagerly for the position of likeable idiot, stay out of arguments they will only lose, and can hence be everyone’s friend.
• ‘Fires have spirits. I will keep this one under my tongue, and we can use it to light another fire later.’ Quai looked too ill to be surprised. Logen sucked up the spirit, coughed on the smoke, shuddered at the bitter taste.
• The corpse of the big one with the helmet was still smoking, making a disgustingly appetising smell.
• On the whole he agreed with that way of doing things, but the cleverness sat well on West’s sister, and she had more than caught his curiosity. Fat and peevish were off the menu, of that there could be no doubt. As for coarse, well, handsome people are never coarse, are they? Just . . . unconventional.
• The ignominy of it. To think that I, Sand dan Glokta, the greatest swordsman the Union has ever seen, must be carried to my bath by an old man so that I can wash my own shit off. They must be laughing loud now, all those fools I beat, if they still remember me. I’d be laughing too, if it didn’t hurt so much. But he let the weight off his left leg and put his arm round Barnam’s shoulders without complaint. What’s the use after all? Might as well make it easy for myself. As easy as it can be.
• ‘The world changes, Glokta, the world changes. The old order crumbles. Loyalty, duty, pride, honour. Notions that have fallen far from fashion. What has replaced them?’ He glanced over his shoulder for a moment, and his lip curled. ‘Greed. Merchants have become the new power in the land. Bankers, shopkeepers, salesmen. Little men, with little minds and little ambitions. Men whose only loyalty is to themselves, whose only duty is to their own purses, whose only pride is in swindling their betters, whose only honour is weighed out in silver coin.’ No need to ask where you stand on the merchant class.
• The Closed Council is where the power lies. More than ever since the King’s illness. Twelve men, in twelve big, uncomfortable chairs, myself among them. Twelve men with very different ideas, and for twenty years, war and peace, Feekt held us in balance. He played off the Inquisition against the judges, the bankers against the military. He was the axle on which the Kingdom turned, the foundation on which it rested, and his death has left a hole.
• Logen had always found killing easy, and Bethod had seemed a man well worth fighting for—bold, proud, ruthless, venomously ambitious. All qualities that Logen had admired, back then, all qualities he thought he had himself. But time had changed them both, and the price had risen.
• But not here. Good . . . day!’ If you could have stabbed someone in the face with the phrase ‘good day’, the head of the Guild of Mercers would have lain dead on the floor.
• ‘No. He is here in the Agriont, under lock and key. I thought it best to hold on to him.’ Glokta did his utmost to contain his surprise. Clever. Very clever. Fools do not become Arch Lectors either, it seems. ‘Rews will be your bait. I will have my secretary carry a message to Kalyne, letting him know that I have relented. That I am prepared to let the Mercers continue to operate, but under tighter control. That as a gesture of goodwill I have let Rews go. If Kalyne is the source of our leak, I daresay he will let the Mercers know that Rews is free. I daresay they will send this assassin to punish him for his loose tongue. I daresay you could take him while he is trying. If the killer doesn’t come, well, we might have to look for our traitor elsewhere, and we have lost nothing.’
• His face was in constant, twisted, sneering motion. His bulging eyes twitched and blinked as they stared crazily round at the assembly. His thin lips smiled and grimaced and frowned by turns, never still.
• a sword is different from other weapons? Axes and maces and so forth are lethal enough, but they hang on the belt like dumb brutes.’ He ran an eye over the hilt, plain cold metal scored with faint grooves for a good grip, glinting in the torchlight. ‘But a sword . . . a sword has a voice.’
  ‘Eh?’
  ‘Sheathed it has little to say, to be sure, but you need only put your hand on the hilt and it begins to whisper in your enemy’s ear.’ He wrapped his fingers tightly round the grip. ‘A gentle warning. A word of caution. Do you hear it?’


• His rock of a head seemed almost an afterthought on top of all that brawn, his skull a good deal narrower than his neck. He had a great block of jaw, a flat stub of a nose, and furious, bulging, arrogant little eyes.
• But Bayaz only laughed. ‘A real sorceress, and you have the golden voice! How wonderful! It’s a long time since I heard that one, but it will not serve you here.’ Logen shook his head clear and his hatred rushed back in, hot and reassuring.
• He’d learned a long time ago that great fighters are only good for one thing. Fighting. At pretty much everything else, and at waiting in particular, they’re fucking useless.
• He leaped up, flinging the bone onto the ground, squaring up to Threetrees with a fighting look. ‘I . . . say . . . south!’ he snarled, eyes bulging like bubbles on a stew.
• * ‘The Fall of the Master Maker, in three volumes. They say it’s one of the great classics of history. Lot of boring rubbish,’ she snorted derisively. ‘Full of wise Magi, stern knights with mighty swords and ladies with mightier bosoms. Magic, violence and romance, in equal measure. Utter shit.’ She slapped the book off the table and it tumbled onto the carpet, pages flapping.
• Base magic is wild and dangerous, for it comes from the Other Side, and to draw from the world below is fraught with peril. The Magus tempers magic with knowledge, and thus produces High Art, but like the smith or the carpenter, he should only seek to change that which he understands. With each thing he learns, his power is increased. So must the Magus strive to learn all, to understand the world entire. The tree is only as strong as its root, and knowledge is the root of power.’ <> ‘Don’t tell me, Juvens’ Principles of Art?’
• There were three horsemen, waiting for them as they rounded a blind corner, well armed and armoured, dirty faces but clean weapons, veterans each man.
• * ‘Life—the way it really is—is a battle not between good and bad, but between bad and worse.’ Joseph Brodsky
• ‘but I guess that the Northmen are loose and that, by now, they have overrun half of northern Angland. A mining community or two, several penal colonies, nothing so far of major importance, no towns to speak of, but they are coming, West, and fast, you may be sure of that. You don’t send heads to your enemy, then wait politely for a reply.’
• ‘Those?’ A group of tall youths, dressed in gaudy suits of red or bright green cloth, a couple with outsize hats. They were at least wearing swords, of a kind, but they hardly looked like fighting men. Fighting women, maybe. Logen frowned, staring from one group to the other. The dirty beggars, the gaudy lads. It was hard for him to say which were the stranger.
• * ‘Always.’ Logen had barely slept since they arrived. It was never properly dark here, never properly quiet. It was too hot, too close, too stinking. Enemies might be terrifying, but enemies could be fought, and put an end to. Logen could understand their hatred. There was no fighting the faceless, careless, rumbling city. It hated everything. ‘This is no place for me. I’ll be glad to leave.’
• ‘I gave them this,’ hissed Bayaz. Logen felt the unpleasant creeping sensation that always seemed to accompany the old wizard’s displeasure. ‘I gave them freedom, and this is the thanks I get? The scorn of clerks? Of swollen-headed old errand-boys?’
• * The nearest of the carvings seemed strangely familiar. Logen walked over to it, looked it up and down, then grinned to himself. The First of the Magi had gained some weight since it was sculpted. Too much good eating at the library, maybe. Logen turned towards a small man with a black hat, walking by with a big book under his arm. <> ‘Bayaz,’ he said, pointing up at the statue. ‘Friend of mine.’ The man stared at him, at the statue, back at him, and hurried away.
• The carvings marched on down either side of the avenue. Kings of the Union, Logen guessed... They all had the same tall crowns and the same stern frowns. You wouldn’t have thought to look at them that they’d ever said a stupid word, or done a stupid thing, or had to take a shit in all their lives.
• * Logen frowned at her, turned sideways to him, lounging back on the bench in the sun, her long smooth neck stretched out, chest rising and falling gently. ‘I see you.’
  She rolled her head to look at him. ‘You . . . are a gentleman.’
  Logen snorted with laughter. He’d been called a lot of things in his time, but never that. The young woman didn’t join him in his amusement. ‘I don’t belong here,’ she muttered to herself.
  ‘Neither one of us.’
  ‘No. But this is my home.’ She got up from the bench. ‘Goodbye, Logen.’
  ‘Fare you well, nobody.’ He watched her turn and walk slowly away, shaking his head. Bayaz had been right. The place was strange, but the people were stranger still.
• * He turned to the right, then to the left, the better to admire that magnificent chin. Not too heavy, not brutish, but not too light either, not womanly or weak. A man’s jaw, no doubt, with a slight cleft in the chin, speaking of strength and authority, but sensitive and thoughtful too. Had there ever been a jaw like it? Perhaps some king, or hero of legend, once had one almost as fine. It was a noble jaw, that much was clear. No commoner could ever have had a chin so grand. <> It must have come from his mother’s side of the family, Jezal supposed. His father had rather a weak chin. His brothers too, come to think of it. You had to feel a little sorry for them, he had got all the looks in his family.
• Jezal drained his wine glass, and stared round at the unpromising faces. Damn, he was bored. It was a fact, he was only now beginning to realise, that the conversation of the drunk is only interesting to the drunk. A few glasses of wine can be the difference between finding a man a hilarious companion or an insufferable moron.
• You won’t see Black Dow in the dark, not if he don’t want to be seen. You won’t hear him neither, but the Dogman knew he was there as he crept down through the trees. You fight with a man for long enough, you get an understanding. You learn how he thinks and you come to think the same way. Dow was there.
• * ‘Taxes, eh? That’s a fucking southern fashion and no mistake! And if they can’t pay?’ asked Dogman, feeling sick to his guts. ‘You hang ’em, do you?’
• ‘Aye, me! I may be no fighter, but I’m no coward neither! I’ll go and talk to him. Maybe he’ll listen.’ Dogman stood and stared. It was so long since any one of them had tried to talk their way out of a fix he’d forgotten it could be done.
• ‘Kanedias,’ murmured Glokta, the image of that dark figure with the flames behind clear in his mind. ‘The Master Maker. Was he real?’ <> ‘Hard to say. He’s in the ground between myth and history, I suppose. Probably there’s some grain of truth in it.
• Glokta spread his arms out wide. ‘Stop me! Why don’t you? I’d like to see it! Can you imagine? We two cripples, floundering around in the stacks with a bird loosing its droppings on us, tugging this old piece of paper to and fro?’ He giggled to himself. ‘That wouldn’t be very dignified, would it?’ <> The Adeptus Historical, exhausted by his pitiful efforts, crumpled back into his chair, breathing hard. ‘No one cares about the past any more,’ he whispered. ‘They don’t see that you can’t have a future without a past.’
• ‘Not I!’ shouted Longfoot, setting off on another circuit of the room. ‘I did not resist it! Why would I? That would not be my way! To journey to the very edge of the World? What a tale that will make! What an inspiration to others! What an—’ ... ‘On that you may depend,’ said the Navigator, scooping up the heavy bag of coins. ‘To sail in slow vessels is not my way! No! I will find for you the fastest ship in all Adua! Yes! She shall fly like the breath of God! She shall skip over the waves like—’... ‘I shall convince you!’ shouted Longfoot. ‘Indeed I shall! You will come to trust my word before your own! Yes! This way is the quickest!’
• A bit of dirt didn’t bother Logen any. Skilled and beautiful all sounded too complicated to him. One girl caught his eye as they passed, leaning against a door-frame with one arm up. Watching them pass with a half-hearted smile. Logen found her pretty, in a desperate sort of a way.
• It was the voice of Arch Lector Sult. ‘Two wars. One fought with fire and steel, and another one beneath—an old war, long years in the making.’ Glokta frowned. How ever could he have mistaken that old windbag for his mother? And what was he doing in Glokta’s chambers in any case? Sitting in the chair at the foot of his bed, prattling about old wars?
• ‘May I too congratulate the winner?’ came a voice from over his shoulder. It was that old idiot, the one from the gate, the one whom Sulfur had called his master. The one who had used the name Bayaz. He had sweat on his bald skull, a lot of it. His face was pale, his eyes sunken. Almost as if he had just done seven touches with Gorst. ‘Well done indeed, my young friend, an almost . . . magical performance.’
• Still, he knew that he wanted to be a big, important man some day. To wear things with a lot of fur, and a heavy golden chain of office. To have people bow and scrape and fawn before him. He had made that decision long ago, and he supposed he still liked the idea. It was just that, up close, the whole thing seemed so awfully false and boring. He would much, much rather have been on his own with Ardee, even though he had seen her the night before. There was nothing boring about her . . .
• ‘The key,’ said Bayaz, holding it up to the candlelight. It barely shone at all. ‘Less lustre than the one in your play, perhaps, but the real thing, I assure you. Kanedias never worked with gold. He did not like pretty things. He liked things that worked.’
  The Arch Lector’s lip curled. ‘Do you simply expect us to take your word for it?’
  ‘Of course not. It is your job to be suspicious of everyone, and I must say you do it exceptionally well. It does grow rather late however, so I will wait until tomorrow morning to open the House of the Maker.’
• * ‘Good for you,’ muttered Bayaz, looking slightly put out. ‘In King Casamir’s reign, the bravest fifty men of the King’s Own were appointed Wardens of the House, to guard this gate. There was considered to be no higher honour.’
  ‘That was a long time ago,’ said the one and only Warden, plucking at his dirty shirt. ‘There were nine of us when I was a lad, but they went on to other things, or died, and were never replaced. Don’t know who’ll take over when I’m gone. There haven’t been too many applicants.’
• ‘Indeed. He took clay, and metal, and left-over flesh and he made them.’
  Logen stared. ‘He made them?’
  ‘To fight in his war. Against us. Against the Magi. Against his brother Juvens. He bred the first Shanka here and let them loose upon the world—to grow, and breed, and destroy. That was their purpose. For many years after Kanedias’ death we hunted them, but we could not catch them all.
• * This was not entirely true, but since joining the Marshal’s staff West had more or less given up on telling the whole truth to anyone. That was no way to get anything done. He now employed a mixture of wheedling, bluster, and outright lies, humble entreaties and veiled threats, and had become quite expert at judging which tactic would be most effective on what man. <> Unfortunately, he had yet to strike the right chord with Major Vallimir, the Master of the King’s Armouries. Somehow, their being equal in rank made matters all the more difficult: he could not quite get away with bullying the man, but could not quite bring himself to beg.
• ‘The First Law is a paradox. All magic comes from the Other Side, even ours. Whenever you change a thing you touch the world below, whenever you make a thing you borrow from the Other Side, and there is always a cost.’ <> ‘But the cost of this might be too high! It is a cursed thing, this Seed, a damned thing. Nothing but chaos grows from it! The sons of Euz, so great in wisdom and power, this Seed was the end of them, of all of them, in different ways. Are you wiser than Juvens, Bayaz? Are you more cunning than Kanedias? Are you stronger than Glustrod?’
• My life began in Gurkhul, in the Emperor’s prisons. The memories since then are much more real. Stretched out in bed like a corpse after I came back, in the darkness, waiting for friends who never came. He looked at West, and he knew that his glance was terribly cold. Do you think to win me with your honest face and your talk of old times? Like a long-lost dog, at last come faithfully home? I know better. You stink, West. You smell like betrayal. That memory at least is mine.
• ‘Life has been . . . difficult for her. I could have done something. I should have done something.’ He stared miserably down at the table and an ugly spasm ran across his face. I know that one. One of my own favourites. Self-loathing. ‘But I chose to let other things get in the way, and I did my best to forget all about it, and I pretended that everything was fine. She has suffered and I am to blame.’ He coughed, then swallowed awkwardly. His lip began to tremble and he covered his face with his hands. ‘My fault . . . if something were to happen to her . . .’ 
• None of ’em liked letting one of their own put himself in danger, but Forley was right, someone had to do it, and he was the best suited. Sometimes weakness is a better shield than strength, the Dogman reckoned. Bethod was an evil bastard, but he was a clever one. The Shanka were coming, and he needed the warning.
• * ‘Good,’ said Glokta, ‘so we understand each other then. I see that you hurt your face.’
  She shrugged. ‘I fell. I’m a clumsy fool.’
  ‘I know how you feel. I’m such a fool I knocked half my teeth out and hacked my leg to useless pulp. Look at me now, a cripple. It’s amazing where a little foolishness can take you, if it goes unchecked. We clumsy types should stick together, don’t you think?’
  She looked at him thoughtfully for a moment, stroking the bruises on her jaw. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I suppose we should.’
• Root out everything disloyal. Everything and anyone. Light a fire under them! I need to know what’s going on, if you have to toast the Lord Governor until he drips gravy!’

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("Eric of Meinibone" by Michael Moorcock)
Background music throughout, why??

• Of course, no mortal brain could absorb so many experiences or hold so many memories and remain sane and it was frequently argued that there were few sane emperors of Meinibone.
• an untried creature, whose vast sorcerous power was balanced by his own moral uncertainties.
• These are the people of Melnibone, the Dragon Isle, which ruled the world for ten thousand years and has ceased to rule it for less than five hundred years. And they are cruel and clever and to them 'morality' means little more than a proper respect for the traditions of a hundred centuries.
• From the galleries, the music grows louder and more complex as the slaves; specially trained and surgically operated upon to sing but one perfect note each, are stimulated to more passionate efforts. Even the young emperor is moved by the sinister harmony of their song which in few ways resembles anything previously uttered by the human voice. Why should their pain produce such marvellous beauty? he wonders. Or is all beauty created through pain? Is that the secret of great art, both human and Melnibonean?
• The paradox was that Elric tolerated Yyrkoon's treachery because he was strong, because he had the power to destroy Yyrkoon whenever he cared. And Yyrkoon's own character was such that he must constantly be testing that strength of Elric's, for he knew instinctively that if Elric did weaken and order him slain, then he would have won.
• interrogator: 'Have they informed you of what they were doing in our maze, doctor?' <> 'They still tantalise me with hints. They have a fine sense of drama. I appreciate that. They are here, I would say, to map a route through the maze which a force of raiders might then follow: But they have so far withheld the details. That is the game. We ail understand how it must be played.'