There, conspicuous in the light of the conflagration, lay the dead body of a woman__he white face turned upward, the hands thrown out and clutched full of grass, the clothing deranged, the long dark hair in tangles and full of clotted blood. The greater part of the forehead was torn away, and from the jagged hole the brain protruded, overflowing the temple, a frothy mass of gray, crowned with clusters of crimson bubbles__he work of a shell.The child moved his little hands, making wild, uncertain gestures. He uttered a series of inarticulate and indescribable cries__omething between the chattering of an ape and the gobbling of a turkey__ startling, soulless, unholy sound, the language of a devil. The child was a deaf mute.Then he stood motionless, with quivering lips, looking down upon the wreck.
What I am trying to tell you,_ Trinka said softly, looking back at him, __s that there are good ways to live, and bad ones. This is not a matter of opinion; it is objective truth. The Empire fights the Wilders because we need their land; that__ true. But there are other reasons. We fight them because they are unworthy. They are not fit to share this world _ this divine gift _ with folk who do not murder children. With people who do not rape women, or make slaves of the weak. The Wilders are undeserving of the gift of life, of divine choice. They are not fit to be called Children of Bræa. Their way of life is a blight upon the earth. They may look like men, but they live, and behave, like beasts.__f they were able to learn to live like civilized folk,_ she sighed, __hen we would make it our business to teach them; indeed, I would account it our duty to bring them into the light. We have tried. It has been more than a century since we first began settling the frontiers beyond the mountains, and in the three-score years since Duncala, we have tried many times to bring them the gift of civilization. But if they will not learn to act like civilized men, then civilized men are not obliged to tolerate them. The whole of Bræa__ creation, her divine intent, and her gift of choice to all of us _ the gift of choice that grants us the possibility, and therefore the obligation, of bettering ourselves! _ cries out against tolerating what by any reasoned definition is utter, bestial depravity. __e are Bræa__ heirs, the inheritors of her divine design. We are not obliged to endure depravity,_ she said gravely. __e are obliged to redeem it, if we can; but if we cannot, then our obligation _ to ourselves, our posterity, and the Holy Mother__ design _ is to end it._ She cocked her head. __n this wise, it might help to think of the Wilders as little different from the hordes of Bardan, whose legacy of death and devastation ended the ancient world, and plunged all into darkness for twice a thousand years._ Her fist clenched involuntarily. __e will not suffer the darkness again, Esuric Mason. My brothers...my former comrades, I mean...they will not allow it._ She looked down at her hands. For a wonder, they were steady. __ will not allow it,_ she whispered.- The Wizard's Eye (Hallow's Heart, Book II; Forthcoming)
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What I am trying to tell you,_ Trinka said softly, looking back at him, __s that there are good ways to live, and bad ones. This is not a matter of opinion; it is objective truth. The Empire fights the Wilders because we need their land; that__ true. But there are other reasons. We fight them because they are unworthy. They are not fit to share this world _ this divine gift _ with folk who do not murder children. With people who do not rape women, or make slaves of the weak. The Wilders are undeserving of the gift of life, of divine choice. They are not fit to be called Children of Bræa. Their way of life is a blight upon the earth. They may look like men, but they live, and behave, like beasts.__f they were able to learn to live like civilized folk,_ she sighed, __hen we would make it our business to teach them; indeed, I would account it our duty to bring them into the light. We have tried. It has been more than a century since we first began settling the frontiers beyond the mountains, and in the three-score years since Duncala, we have tried many times to bring them the gift of civilization. But if they will not learn to act like civilized men, then civilized men are not obliged to tolerate them. The whole of Bræa__ creation, her divine intent, and her gift of choice to all of us _ the gift of choice that grants us the possibility, and therefore the obligation, of bettering ourselves! _ cries out against tolerating what by any reasoned definition is utter, bestial depravity. __e are Bræa__ heirs, the inheritors of her divine design. We are not obliged to endure depravity,_ she said gravely. __e are obliged to redeem it, if we can; but if we cannot, then our obligation _ to ourselves, our posterity, and the Holy Mother__ design _ is to end it._ She cocked her head. __n this wise, it might help to think of the Wilders as little different from the hordes of Bardan, whose legacy of death and devastation ended the ancient world, and plunged all into darkness for twice a thousand years._ Her fist clenched involuntarily. __e will not suffer the darkness again, Esuric Mason. My brothers...my former comrades, I mean...they will not allow it._ She looked down at her hands. For a wonder, they were steady. __ will not allow it,_ she whispered.- The Wizard's Eye (Hallow's Heart, Book II; Forthcoming)
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