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

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.

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

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.

"Dreamers and dreaming dead, lots of them from neither here nor there with no chance of getting home again, lost in place and time.

I'm going to kill that god of yours, next. Then we'll see what you can do, and what you can't.

Niko's angular face caught a flicker of firelight and Tempus saw his future there: sharp purpose, discipline, and power in perfect balance; love of man and gods, and mercy transcending all. If war ever wore a more humane face, this one would make it so.