The Shadow Saint

The city's like a big machine, right, an engine rattling along the tracks. If you keep it fuelled and oiled, bread and money and shit, and don't fuck with the levers too much, it'll run along nicely as long as the tracks stay safe.

That is a fucking heresy. To imply that the gods are not all-wise and all-knowing. To suggest that sainthood's a matter of bad luck and circumstance, like getting caught out on the moor by a sudden storm and getting hit by lightning - it's shameful.

Olthic said she was at the Palace of the Patros, but he can’t show up at the gates and ask for her. Excuse me, I’d like to talk to my sister-in-law. You can’t miss her, she just manoeuvred her pawn onto your throne to seal her own coronation. Can she come out and play?

“Ah, Mr Idgeson, I know that your father and Mr Kelkin had considerable disagreements once upon a time.”
“Kelkin had his dad executed, but, sure, considerable disagreements.”

“The knife wounded you, but the bullet didn’t?”
She shrugs. “Some saints can teleport, some get flaming swords. I’ve got a city with a martyr complex looking out for me.”

“Sorcery,” says Ramegos, “is a perfectly healthy mental exercise, with only a small chance of self-immolation.”

Черта между божественным промыслом и откровенной придурью в Ишмире давным-давно стерта.

Ты снискала святость, вот и наслаждайся, мама. Богам в тебя вливаться уже, наверно, не так и трудно - ведь душу-то ты потеряла.

Намечалось героическое противоборство.

У смертных здорово получаются героические противоборства.

Пока бог не наклонится пониже и не смахнет их с глаз долой.