Branches grew from his hands, his hair. His thoughts tangled like roots in the ground. He strained upward. Pitch ran like tears down his back. His name formed his core; ring upon ring of silence built around it. His face rose high above the forests. Gripped to earth, bending to the wind's fury, he disappeared within himself, behind the hard, wind-scrolled shield of his experiences.

I do not want to choose which one of you I must love or hate. Here, I am free to do neither. I want no part of your bitterness.

I thought of you with your hair silver as snow all through that cold, slow journey from Sirle. I felt you troubled deep within me, and there was no other place in the world I would rather have been than in the cold night riding to you. When you opened your gates to me, I was home.

The man was hit in one eye by a stone, and that eye turned inward so that it looked into his mind, and he died of what he saw there

Then you will have to trust me. Beyond logic, beyond reason, beyond hope, trust me.

Men see what they are most afraid of.

...that once were urgent and necessary for an orderly world and now were buried away, gathering dust and of no use to anyone.