The Redemption of Althalus

I’ve seen this all before, Althalus ... many, many times. An idea that’s born in glory starts to tarnish almost immediately.

“If he’s only a boy, what was he doing in a war?”

“He comes from a warrior culture. They start earlier than civilized people do. It was his first war, and it was supposed to be a quiet one. The half-wit who sits on the throne in Kanthon got carried away, though, so he ordered the soldiers he’d hired from Eliar’s Clan Chief to invade your father’s territory. It was a stupid thing to do, and it wasn’t supposed to happen. It was his fault that your father got killed, not Eliar’s. Eliar was only following orders. The whole business was the result of a series of stupid mistakes, but that’s what most wars are all about, I guess. Nobody ever really wins a war, when you get right down to it.”

The theorists make high-minded speeches. Their followers cheer and applaud—briefly—and then they get back to the business of appropriating everything of value.

“I’d pay a premium for this one, your Highness.”

“That one isn’t for sale[.]”

“Everything’s for sale, your Highness,” Althalus replied with a cynical laugh.

The prosperity of all Arum might well hinge upon what we do here in this day... [If] Arum Chiefs are dishonorable men, who will ever come to these sacred mountains again with gold to deal with us? '''Take less, my sons, that ye may gain more.

The fate of man might very well depend on what we’re doing. He’s doing the right thing for the wrong reasons, but it’s still the right thing.

“Why must they always set fires?” Bheid asked Althalus as the two of them stood on the portico of the temple waiting and watching the columns of smoke rising from various quarters of the city.

“I’m not really sure, Bheid,” Althalus confessed. “It might just be accidental. Looters are usually fairly excited, and sometimes they get careless. My best guess, though, is that the fires are being set deliberately to punish the noblemen for their bad habits.”

“That’s pure stupidity, Althalus,” Bheid objected.

“Of course it is. It’s the nature of mobs to be stupid. A mob’s only as clever as its stupidest member.”

Wars are a summer pastime, Althalus. Politics is a year-round entertainment.

"His father was killed in a war several years ago, and Eliar became his mother’s only support. [...] [His] mother needed his soldier’s pay to keep eating. [...] Your father was unlucky enough to get in his way while he was showing his veneration for his parents. Isn’t that sort of what you were doing when you were planning to kill him before Althalus came along?”

“It’s not the same thing at all, Bheid [...] My father was the Aryo of Osthos. Eliar’s father was just a common soldier.”

“And do you believe that Eliar loved his father less than you loved yours? We all love and revere our parents, Andine, and the peasant or common soldier loves—and grieves—as deeply as the aristocrat. You might want to think about that just a bit before you launch yourself into your next tirade.”

“I’ve looked deeply into the hearts of my fellow men, [...] and to be honest with you, I’d rather look into a cesspool.”

If you’d keep your nose out of things that don’t concern you, you wouldn’t hear so much that offends you.

“Class distinctions are an impediment to understanding, Althalus,” Bheid told him, “and anything that interferes with understanding should be discarded.”

“You might want to give some thought to keeping that particular opinion tucked up under your arm, Bheid,” Althalus advised. “It won’t make you very popular in certain quarters.”

“What’s it like?” Andine asked curiously. “Hearing the thoughts of others, I mean?”

“Disturbing,” Leitha replied. “What people say and what they’re thinking don’t always exactly match. We’re much closer to being animals than most of us would care to admit.”

The most important part of strategy is keeping your men alive. If you take care of your men, they’ll take care of you.

“I wouldn’t have any trouble working for a woman,” Chief Gweti bleated, “as long as she’s rich enough. I’d work for a rich goat, if he offered me enough gold.”

You want gold, I suppose? she asked in an accusatory tone.

“Oh, gold’s all right, I suppose, but I’d really rather get paid in love. Love can’t be counted, so it’s probably even more valuable than gold.”

Why do men always want to tamper with the natural order of things?

“When something breaks, we fix it, that’s all.”

What gave you the absurd idea that [the world]’s broken?

“It’s not the way it was before, Em. To our way of looking at things, that means that it’s broken.”

[...]

Change doesn’t necessarily mean improvement, Althalus. Change is just change. “Better” and “worse” are human definitions. The world changes all the time, and no amount of complaining’s going to stop it from changing.

"This grey’s sort of depressing.”

What on earth has that got to do with anything?“It’s a question of aesthetics, Em. We should always strive to fill our lives with beauty.”

I don’t see anything beautiful in something that was designed to kill people.

“There’s beauty in everything, Em. You just have to learn to look for it.”If you’re going to preach at me, I think I’ll just curl up and go back to sleep.

Somehow you’ve managed to redefine the concept of evil. In your view, evil’s no more than a disagreement about the way things are supposed to be.

The word “coincidence” always seems to start religious arguments for some reason.

I don’t like to contaminate a good story with truth, Em. That’d be a violation of my artistic integrity, wouldn’t it?