Bill Martin

“To see a dead body was to recoil, mind spinning a dust-devil of thoughts - that is not me - see the difference between us? That is not me, that is not me. No one I know, no one I have ever known. That is not me . . . but . . . it could be.

So easily it could be.”
― Steven Erikson, Toll the Hounds

“To stand in the heart of Dragnipur, to stand above the very Gate of Darkness, this was, for Anomander Rake, a most final act. Perhaps it was desperation. Or a sacrifice beyond all mortal measure.”
― Steven Erikson, Toll the Hounds

“There is nothing just in death. When the moment arrives, it is always too soon. The curse of incompletion, the loss that can never be filled. Before too long, rising like jagged rocks from the flood, there was anger.”
― Steven Erikson, Toll the Hounds

“The cascade of sudden deaths, inexplicable and outrageous accidents, miserable ends and terrible murders filled every abode, every corner and every hovel in a spreading tide, a most fatal flood creeping out through the hapless city on all sides. No age was spared, no weight of injustice tipped these scales. Death took them all: well born and destitute, the ill and the healthy, criminal and victim, the unloved and the cherished.

So many last breaths: coughed out, sighed, whimpered, bellowed in defiance, in disbelief, in numbed wonder. And if such breaths could coalesce, could form a think, dry, pungent, fugue of dismay, in the city on this night not a single globe of blue fire could be seen.

There were survivors. Many, many survivors - indeed, more survived than died - but alas, it was a close run thing, this measure, this fell harvest.

The god walked eastward, out from Gadrobi District and into Lakefront, and, from there, up into the Estates.

This night was not done. My, not done at all.”
― Steven Erikson, Toll the Hounds