The Storm Lord

There was no room in him for curiosity; The capacity for observation had long since starved on the aridness of his soul.

“I have a plan,” said Xaros, “improbable only in its genius.”

Men think for themselves when they’re men.

Such an accusation is as stupid as it is absurd.

What a son I’ve made. The midwives must have turned me in my labor so that I lay on your brain and crushed it.

A day out from the bay of Saardos, Drokler honored the brass Rorn god in the prow with a pound of incense.

The blank god mask stared back at them through the pall of sweet blue smoke....It gazed in myopic stillness out over the long shock of the waves, ignoring their words, their presence, their costly offering.

A man hunted only for food or clothing or in self-defense. It was another mark of the effete and the sadistic to take life as a sport.

“Anackire asks nothing because she needs nothing, being everything,” Raldnor said tightly, using a quotation of the temple.

The Ommos laughed gently and shook his head.

“Such undemanding gods.”

“Is it the regency you want, or me?”

“The regency. You, sweetheart, are the worthless dross that comes with it.”

“I think Kathaos fears no divine forces.”

“Then he’s a brave man.”

“Oh, men make their own gods,” Yannul remarked. “I have a god with a fat belly, and a house full of expensive women to attend his every need, and I call him Yannul the Lan in Five Years from This.”