Janet Morris quotes:

Here Stormbringer spies the Stepsons, the Theban fighters, and the 3rd Commando, attending to their own. In the face of such unflinching determination and unswerving devotion, the hurricane pauses and calms. Its ravings turn to mutters.

And what do the Theban hoplites see in this extended rending of the sky, this white-bright glory of Enlil's lightning? The future, but not theirs: paired cavalry fighters; formed ranks of armored death; grim men on their tall horses with lightning limning weapons tailored to the task; men spoiling for a fight if the gods allowed - the Sacred Band of Stepsons, out from shadows and the dark.

There must be love, and understanding, to betray. Most men haven't the wit or the honor for betrayal: not to know it when they see it; not the stomach to apprehend it as they do it. Most men, blind and dumb in their self-centeredness, don't betray: they merely disappoint.

Something awful is always going to happen, Arton. It's Sanctuary. You're a Stepson. Awful is a big part of your job.

These Stepsons tread where mortals don't belong, some of us think. They seek out battle high above their station. Who knows what powers may yet take them and their mystic allies to task, bring them their comeuppance?

For the gift of life, the only true thanks was in living fully, and facing death with honor.

I...keep trying to be perfect. For you. So you'll notice me.

"Godling? Demigod?" Lysis nearly howled. "You'd be beaten black and blue in Thebes, and staked out overnight for claims like that. In Sparta, the secret police would ambush you, violate you, skin you alive and use your skull for a drinking cup."

These warriors of the Sacred Band were inscrutable; they loved their war and death and picking through the bones of time to sort out right from wrong, good from bad, holy from profane, honor from dishonor.

For Harmony. A chance at life. To fight on other days.

The heavens listen to what is said on these cobbles. Laws of man and nature come together here. Here you must be firm. Here you must be true.

Gods have bloody hands.

In this new world, this day and forever, then, we are not only Thebans - we are all Stepsons. We are all one Sacred Band. If you will have us. And mine will fight by yours, henceforth, as brothers.

Each soul has its appointed doom. How is it you dare to raise a mortal boy so high - high enough to flout the gods? Bring godhead where a man may reach out and take it? growls Enlil, and lightning splits a clear blue sky.

We fouled up. I did. He got hurt. Badly, maybe. And the god...is not helping him today.

One lot apiece, one chance to undo an error or secure a fate.

Life was never simple, happiness never where you thought you'd left it, and right and wrong no more fixed than clouds in the sky.

The two stallions, the silver and the black, represent the equine god (whomsoever horses pray to) in this ritual so ancient that no one knows what god to thank.

Tempus would be protected, better shielded from whatever the Stepson thought threatening, if love could heal and save.

To the death with honor, shoulder to shoulder, and no one gets closer to a Stepson than his partner.

All gods are tricksters, and war gods worst of any.

There must be a corps that will battle for righteousness, for there are endless battalions who serve unrighteousness.

Listen close and you can hear, Please, bless us and forgive us, and make us good here and strong here. Let us get along here. Let those we love and left behind be blessed. Let us find the proper path and keep to it. Help us act harmoniously, and find work pleasing in the sight of god and man.

Always take responsibility for your past. It is your only collateral in life. Unless you despise yourself now, you cannot despise yourself then. Everything you did is a part of the process that brought you here. All your past is as alive and real as your so-called 'present.'

You have crossbows: Shoot early; shoot often.

You three have done quite enough today: all of you and your feckless, treacherous god.

"Mercy is not in favor in my heavens today," says Vashanka, unforgiving and combative, folding vast arms and spearing Harmony with lightning that crackles from his gaze.

Niko knew death like a sister - she was his true partner in the phenomenal world.

You've been playing gods-and-witches again, that's clear.

Wisdom, Niko thought as he leaned his cheek against his long-handled rake, cannot be had without price. And that price is blood. The sound of it in your veins. The pound of it in your head. The volume of it in a human body; the sickness when you've spilled it.

What we hold sacred is honor, justice, and glory. You need not swear allegiance to our storm god, to serve with us. Fighters are among us from many lands, with many gods and many beliefs. Believe as you will. What is between a man and his god is theirs alone to say.

The universe forgives those who give until their hearts are aching and their spirits weak, and finds a way to renew all strength and cure all ills, in this world or the next, if a soul can just have faith.

You get what you expect. Expect to heal. Expect victory.

Nature has a surer plan than mortals can devise.

It is hard to battle anger, for whatever it wants it pays from the soul.

Generosity is never out of season.

One to a customer was the rule: one body; one mind; one swing through life. - Tempus

Be careful what you pray for.

Men make their own fates - it's personal, not a matter for debate.

If, as you teach, the universe has no beginning and no end, why should we?

It was his soul's freedom that was in question. And that question was whether freedom was worth the price when it meant shirking the responsibilities of honor.

Go carefully, child of mat, where no mercy can be had, and let your faith lead you on.

Look around you. It's an honor to fight beside you. Today we choose to fight. For the freedom to fight on other days. So we remember what's worth fighting for.

So well do I love you, I go to my god singing your praises. When I meet my father, I will tell him I fought beside you.

Tempus never left a problem for another to solve. Tempus never let the pain or difficulty of an undertaking persuade him not to pursue a resolution his heart thought was right. Tempus never gave up.

Then what difference does human striving make: mortal struggle, valor, pain? If you live, then live for the test of spirit, for the celebration of the heart. Live to fight on other days. Lose your beloveds one by one. And remember. Exalt the kiss of friend and horse and wind and sun, which venality cannot cheapen nor stupidity belittle.

This was what men fought for, what men died for: a chance at life, and to fight on other days - the battle of your choice, of the body, or the heart, or the soul.

This fight coming is not a battle of weapons, but a battle of wills.

Every man's in his own hands, with a little help from his brothers.

Nothing walks the earth more savage than a mare enraged.

The Riddler says you make the world better one battle at a time.

The only unfair fight is the one you lose.

I see ranks ready for battle, stretching out. Five, six horses across, ranks in formation. Endlessly.

Sometimes the cost of winning for all the right reasons is so great that spirits die and hearts grow cold.

Gods colliding, ethos and mythos trying to combine. The Sacred Band caught up in a whirlwind not of any god's devising: he and Niko had wanted to save twenty-three pairs of fated Theban fighters. Now everything feels fated and fighting oversweeps its boundaries of time and place and plane.

I survive. I survived it all then and I'll survive the rest of it. Without your help.

Sometimes a man does what he'd most like to avoid.

I don't want to be any closer to the gods than death will bring me.

This is as 'alone' as I'm likely to get with you - you're not half so fetching as your daughter.

We know. We've seen it all before.

Proof of war, when it comes, always comes too late.

Keep your enemies at a distance, your partners close at hand.

What is needed is never to be had without price.

Bandara was not an easy place to return to: it could hide from the common worlds whose periphery it inhabited. But Bandara never had, in all its years, completely disappeared.

Be polite to all, friendly to none. Be professional. Be ready to kill everyone and everything.

When the balance is restored, people get hurt.

Men are fools who forget what really matters while time goes by.

Fury from the heavens; fury at the gods - inseparable.

Reasons never matter, once Death comes cold and bold and takes the living by the hand. You count up your dead, every one..

Die never for a god, Nikodemos who should know better - not your soldiers' god, nor any other.

Shed your mortal skin and let me take you beneath the waves.

Don't forget, Riddler, how I love thee. Or all we shared together. Or that this sea and all other seas can lead you back to me.

Honorable battle sustains a Sacred Band.

Order is its own reward.

Gods are nothing without their worshipers; they act on the affairs and the passions of men.

Gods and men honor those who have fought in battle.

But we're dying here.

Gather the shards of your courage. Patch together what resolve you can. We'll find this thing - and kill it.

And personally, I've lost my thirst for vengeance.

Men live, and then they die. It is the quality of the process of living which matters, that and that alone.

When I write what publishers call 'fantasy' I am writing in what I think is the most important tradition of fiction: starting with Homer and up through Shakespeare and Milton, the most important themes to tackle are those of the mythopoeic domain, tales of the body and mind seen through a temperament and a cosmos divorced from current reality so what is said can be more clear.

Everyone prepares for battle in his own way.

One man can make another's life so much better.

The city guardsmen were like the keres, doom-bringers of merciless vengeance.

I see all sorts of things when I'm clearing my pipes.

If, as Niko asks, you show them mercy, then the gods will be well pleased.

Use him wisely. Few have been given such a weapon by the gods or Fates before.

Nothing he knew of, enunciated life like death.

It's all the same - no good without evil, no balance...no maat. If we lose one, we lose the other. It's just life, that's all.

When you give death, you give of your own life - every time.

I am always yours to call, wherever the sea can reach.

Wars don't bring lasting peace, only lasting death.

There is no mercy in trading life for life. And certainly no righteousness. Mercy, once given, cannot be taken back.

Survival has its own etiquette.

War is all and king of all

Only from chaos does order come. The angry Fates bring death where they will, when war is king, says Enlil, storm god of the armies, and the tip of his crown rends the clouds above their heads. "Wheresoever I rule, death comes shambling after. So it has always been, is, and will be."

Painful things are quickly forgotten.

Ask yourselves if the gods are angry, you who have seen Harmony come among us, walk among us, touch us, look kindly upon us. We are the Sacred Band of Thebes. We fight in the forefront, therefore we bleed first. We live, therefore we die.

Every man heals himself.

So some will be left who remember.

If the gods sent you to fight here, then the gods are fools.

Men may not believe you, my son. But you must always say the truth, when the truth holds no danger for you or your loved ones.

Haste breeds error; error breeds woe.

If it was true today, it might be untrue tomorrow.

Something is going on everywhere, most of which no one understands.

We've the new hard-steel, though why they're all so hot to pay twice the price when men're soft as clay and even wood will pierce the boldest belly, I can't say.

I thought we'd die there, quarrels in our backs, you for what you did and me for bearing witness.

Wisdom, Niko thought as he leaned his cheek against his long-handled rake, cannot be had without price.

Such hubris could only come from a man's mouth.

Survival's the thing, isn't it?

Wanting neither too much to live, nor too much to die.

Very little in science fiction can transcend the gimmickry of a technical conceit, yet without that conceit at its heart a book is not truly science fiction. Furthermore, so little emerging thought and technology is employed by sf writers today that the genre is lagging far behind reality both in the cosmology area and the technology area: sf is no longer a place to experiment, but is now very derivative.

I think we're all in Cime's army now. But never mind, the Storm God hasn't forgotten us. Heaven is no farther away than it ever was.

Humiliation sets armies marching, empires falling, breaks hearts and minds and souls.

Revenge is fruitless.

Your honor blinds you, Tempus, to what's right and wrong these days.

And Tempus thought then that nothing was more worthwhile than what was growing in this whitewashed barracks, where he has come to build a force such as men or gods have never seen - a force worth reckoning with, if you were of a mind. And something was of that mind. And something else opposed it. He should have expected that. Battle in the heavens, battle on the earth.

Loyalty must be forged - to him, to his: stronger than iron, from experience, from risk - it can't be bought, or taught, or promised before the fact. Allegiance must be earned so it will hold, win or lose.