The Power That Preserves

Do not be too quick to judge the makers of worlds. Will you ever write a story for which no character will have caused to reproach you?

He smiled because he was alive.

Verily, wisdom is like hunger. Perhaps it is a very fine thing—but who would willingly partake of it?

You did not cause his despair. Had you treated him with distrust, you would have achieved nothing but the confirmation of his distress. Distrust—vindicates itself.

Then he grinned. “But it is said that hunger teaches many things. My friend, a wealth of wisdom awaits us on this journey.”

I rest and rest, but I do not become young.

He no longer accused himself; he knew then that no one could be blamed for being inadequate in the face of such unanswerable malevolence. Destruction was easier than preservation, and when destruction had risen high enough, mere men and women could not be condemned if they failed to throw back the tide.

Retribution—ah, my friend, retribution is the sweetest of all sweet dark dreams.

The answer to death was to make use of it rather than fall victim to it—master it by making it serve his goals, beliefs. This was not a good answer. But it was the only answer he had.

Yet this withholding of knowledge ran against every grain of his character. He believed intensely that the refusal to share knowledge demeaned both the denier and the denied.

“Are you wise, Unbeliever?”

“Who knows? If I am—wisdom is overrated.”

“We will soon know.”

“Yes, indeed,” Covenant muttered. “Only I hate surprises. You never know when one of them is going to ruin your life.”

She said that it is the responsibility of the living to justify the sacrifices of the dead. Otherwise their deaths have no meaning.

“Are you so ashamed of what you were?”

Bannon cocked a white eyebrow at the question, as if it came close to the truth. “I am not shamed,” he said distinctly. “But I am saddened that so many centuries were required to teach us the limits of our worth. We went too far, in pride and folly. Mortal men should not give up wives and sleep and death for any service—less the face of failure become too abhorrent to be endured.”

Abruptly Loerya joined the probing. “And if there is no Creator? Or if the creation is untended?”

“Then who is there to reproach us? We provide the meaning of our own lives. If we serve the Land purely to the furthest limit of our abilities, what more can we ask of ourselves?”

Power was dreadful and treacherous. When it was not great enough to accomplish its wielder’s desires, it turned against the hands which held it.