75
" The Fool in the Tarot deck frequently depicted a boy with a dog at his heels, staring at the sky while he walked blithely off a cliff, burdened only by a bundle on a stick. The diabolist had admitted a relationship to the card.
No single detail was quite right, but much as something might appear similar if one were to unfocus their vision…
The young diabolist walked with the sparrow at his shoulder, eyes on the windows without looking through the windows, walking forward as if he were afraid to stop. His burden here was the gas containers.
No, he was burdened not just by the gas containers, but by some notion of responsibility.
A man, when facing death, aspires to finish what he started.
What had the custodian of the Thorburn estate started? What drove him?
She knew he sought to do good and to vanquish evil, and she could surmise that both good acts and the existence of evil had touched him deeply.
The Fool card was akin to the ace. Depending on the game being played, it was often the lowest card or the highest. Valueless or highly valued. Powerless or powerful.
It all depended on context. He sought to kill the demon, and he would either catastrophically fail or succeed.
This Fool sought to slay the metaphorical dragon. He felt his own mortality, which was quite possibly her fault, in part, and now he rushed to finish the task he’d set for himself. To better the world.
The Fool was wrought with air – the clouds he gazed at, the void beyond the cliff, the feather in his cap, even the dog could often be found mid-step, bounding, just above the ground.
He was a Fool wrought with a different element. The familiar didn’t quite fit for the departure from the air, but the traditional dog didn’t conjure ideas of air right off the bat either.
What was he wrought with? That was another question that begged an answer. "
― , Pact
76
" Why don't you just do it, then?" Racath hissed. " Just kill me. I dare you." Now, I assume you know what this is. You've seen this before in other stories - the part where the disgruntled villain stands over the hero. He is triumphant, the hero now at his mercy. But when commanded to slay him, he hesitates. He lowers his sword. And he says: " I cannot." If you are to take away but one thing from the words I have spoken, let it be this: there is a world of difference between " I Cannot" and " I will not" . " I cannot" is a surrender. It implies a lack of options. Someone who says such a thing does so only because they have no other choice. They do not WISH to relent - in fact, they usually want to obey their mandate and destroy the hero at their feet. But they cannot, because the guilt is too unbearable. But that does not make him a better man; all that a man who says " I cannot" has done, is given in to the compulsion to repent.Allow me to make myself perfectly clear - I HAD other options. Easy options. Simple options. I could have killed Racath Thanjel that day. I could have killed him and all the others, too. I could have left them dead and bloody on that grassy hill, and gone trotting back to the Imperator's lap. I could have shrugged off the attrition that had dogged my every step, thought better of my disenssion, given up on all hope of absolution and accepted my damnation. And I could have spent the rest of eternity destroying God's green earth at Lavethion's side.I could have. It would have been so easy. So simple. So wrong. And I didn't want to.And so I took a sickened step away. Stabbed Osveta into the grass. Shook my head. And said: " I won't. "
78
" There is no silence upon the earth or under the earth like the silence under the sea;No cries announcing birth,No sounds declaring death.There is silence when the milt is laid on the spawn in the weeds and fungus of the rock-clefts;And silence in the growth and struggle for life.The bonitoes pounce upon the mackerel,And are themselves caught by the barracudas,The sharks kill the barracudasAnd the great molluscs rend the sharks,And all noiselessly--Though swift be the action and final the conflict,The drama is silent.There is no fury upon the earth like the fury under the sea.For growl and cough and snarl are the tokens of spendthrifts who know not the ultimate economy of rage.Moreover, the pace of the blood is too fast.But under the waves the blood is sluggard and has the same temperature as that of the sea.There is something pre-reptilian about a silent kill.Two men may end their hostilities just with their battle-cries,'The devil take you,' says one.'I'll see you in hell,' says the other.And these introductory salutes followed by a hail of gutturals and sibilants are often the beginning of friendship, for who would not prefer to be lustily damned than to be half-heartedly blessed?No one need fear oaths that are properly enunciated, for they belong to the inheritance of just men made perfect, and, for all we know, of such may be the Kingdom of Heaven.But let silent hate be put away for it feeds upon the heart of the hater.Today I watched two pairs of eyes. One pair was black and the other grey. And while the owners thereof, for the space of five seconds, walked past each other, the grey snapped at the black and the black riddled the grey.One looked to say--'The cat,'And the other--'The cur.'But no words were spoken;Not so much as a hiss or a murmur came through the perfect enamel of the teeth; not so much as a gesture of enmity.If the right upper lip curled over the canine, it went unnoticed.The lashes veiled the eyes not for an instant in the passing.And as between the two in respect to candour of intention or eternity of wish, there was no choice, for the stare was mutual and absolute.A word would have dulled the exquisite edge of the feeling.An oath would have flawed the crystallization of the hate.For only such culture could grow in a climate of silence--Away back before emergence of fur or feather, back to the unvocal sea and down deep where the darkness spills its wash on the threshold of light, where the lids never close upon the eyes, where the inhabitants slay in silence and are as silently slain. "
