Editors From England

"For this was the other thing that Elric knew; that to compromise with Tyranny is always to be destroyed by it. The sanest and most logical choice lay always in resistance."

"“As I believe I observed earlier,” said the albino prince to the still-cowed Gaynor, “the most powerful of beings are not necessarily the most intelligent, nor, indeed, sane, nor well-mannered. The more one knows of the gods, the more one learns this fundamental lesson...”"

"“In my own world, sir, sad to say, human prejudice is matched only by human folly. Not a soul claims to be prejudiced, of course, as there are few who would describe themselves as fools...” Elric, chewing on a piece of barely palatable salt beef, remarked that this seemed a quality of a good deal of society, throughout the multiverse."

"You desire power only for that most selfish of all ends, and therefore you know no boundaries in the seeking and the gaining of it."

"Did you not tell me once that patronage of the artist was the only valuable vocation to which a prince might aspire?"

"One by one, with appalling deliberation, the villages of the Gypsy Nation crawl to the edge and plunge into the abyss. To stop is obscene. They do not know how to stop. They can only die. Elric, too, is screaming now, as he forces his horse forward. But he screams, he knows, at the apparent inevitability of human folly, of people who can destroy themselves to honour a principle and a habit that has long since ceased to have any practical function. They are dying because they would rather follow habit than alter their course."

"“One may mirror the truth or seek to assuage it,” said Elric. “Sometimes one can even try to change it...” Wheldrake took a sudden pull on his bumper. “I was not raised to a world, sir, where truth was malleable and reality a question of what you made it. It is hard for me to hear such notions. Indeed, sir, I will admit to you that it alarms me. Not that I fail to appreciate the wonder of it, sir, or the optimism which you are, in your own way, expressing. It is just that I was born to trust and celebrate certain senses and accept that a great unchanging beauty was the order of the universe, a set of natural laws which, as it were, coincided in subtle ways with a mighty machine—intricate and complex but ultimately rational. This Nature, sir, was what I celebrated and worshipped, as other might celebrate and worship a Deity. What you suggest, sir, seems to me retrogressive. These, surely, are closer to the discredited notions of alchemy?”"

"“Be silent!” That is the perpetual admonition of Tyranny. Tyranny bellows ‘Be silent!’ even to the screams of its victims, the pathetic moans and groanings and supplications of its trampled millions.”"

"“Intelligence and power were never the same thing,” murmurs the Rose, departing from her own train of thought for a moment. “Frequently a lust for power is nothing more than an impulse of the stupidly baffled who cannot understand why they have been treated so badly by Dame Fortune. Who can blame those brutes, sometimes? They are outraged by random Nature. Perhaps the gods feel the same? Perhaps they make us endure such awful trials because they know we are actually superior to them? Perhaps they have become senile and forget the point of their old truces?” “You speak truth in one area, madam,” said Elric. “Nature distributes power with about the same lack of discrimination as she distributes intelligence or beauty or wealth, indeed!” “Which is why mankind,” says Wheldrake, revealing a little of his own background, “has a duty to correct such mistakes of justice that Nature makes.”"

"“Human love,” says Fallogard Phatt, turning his eyes from his vision, “it is finally our only real weapon against entropy...”"

"There are subjects forbidden by good manners, it seems. As in many societies, I suppose, where the very fundamentals of their existence are the subject of the deepest taboos. What is this terror of reality, I wonder, which plagues the human spirit?"

"The man is a relic, gentlemen, from an age most of us have only read about. He would have us judged by our wealth and our martial glory rather than our goodwill and tranquility of spirit."

"Elric was recollecting what was best and noblest in his own people and in himself, and even as he celebrated this he mourned the self-obsessed creatures they had become, using their power merely to preserve their power and that, he supposed, was true decay..."

"Their glory in earthly power had brought them to decadent ruin, as it brought down all empires who gloried in gold or conquest or those other ambitions which can never be satisfied but must forever be fed."

"I am for no master nor moral persuasion. I am for myself. What your yearning soul, madam, might mistake for loyalty to person or Purpose is merely a firm and, aye, principled determination to accept responsibility only for myself and my own actions."

"“I am so weary of gods and their struggles,” he murmured as he mounted his golden mare. Moonglum stared out into the desert. “But when will the gods themselves weary of it, I wonder?” he said. “If they did, it would be a happy day for Man. Perhaps all our struggling, our suffering, our conflicts are merely to relieve the boredom of the Lords of the Higher Worlds. Perhaps that is why when they created us they made us imperfect.”"

"“It is a dilemma known to all men, perhaps,” Rackhir said. “At least to some degree.” “Aye—to wonder what purpose there is to one’s existence and what point there is to purpose, even if it should be discovered.”"

"With a crash, the cover fell to the floor, sending the bright gems skipping and dancing over the paving stones. Beneath Elric’s twitching hands lay nothing but a pile of yellowish dust. “No!” His scream was anguished, unbelieving. “No!” Tears flowed down his contorted face as he ran his hands through the fine dust. With a groan which racked his whole being, he fell forward, his face hitting the disintegrated parchment. Time had destroyed the Book—untouched, possibly forgotten, for three hundred centuries. Even the wise and powerful gods who had created it had perished—and now its knowledge followed them into oblivion."

"I do not know. That is the only real truth, Shaarilla. I do not know."

"“Despairingly, sometimes, I seek the comfort of a benign god, Shaarilla. My mind goes out, lying awake at night, searching through black barrenness for something—anything—which will take me to it, warm me, protect me, tell me that there is order in the chaotic tumble of the universe; that it is consistent, this precision of the planets, not simply a brief, bright spark of sanity in an eternity of malevolent anarchy.” Elric sighed and his quiet tones were tinged with hopelessness. “Without some confirmation of the order of things, my only comfort is to accept the anarchy. This way, I can revel in chaos and know, without fear, that we are doomed from the start—that our brief existence is both meaningless and damned. I can accept, then, that we are more than forsaken, because there was never anything there to forsake us. I have weighed the proof, Shaarilla, and must believe that anarchy prevails, in spite of all the laws which seemingly govern our actions, our sorcery, our logic. I see only chaos in the world. If the book we seek tells me otherwise, then I shall gladly believe it. Until then, I will put my trust only in my sword and myself.”"

"“Men may trust men, Prince Elric, but perhaps we’ll never have a truly sane world until men learn to trust mankind. That would mean the death of magic, I think.”"

"“You blame the gods, then?” “I blame the despair that the gods brought.”"

"“All this is doubtless pre-ordained. Our destinies have been linked from the first.” “Such philosophies can lead to unhealthy fatalism,” said Terndrik of Hasghan. “Best believe our fates are our own, even if the evidence denies it.”"

"“We are fated,” he said. “We have little free will, for all we deceive ourselves otherwise. If we perish or live through this venture, it will not count for much in the overall scheme of things."

"Everything you have done, my nobles, has been stupid. You have been cruel, greedy, careless of others’ lives and wills. You have been blind, thoughtless, provincial and unimaginative. It seems to me that a government so careless of anything but its own gratification should be at very least replaced."

"“Fate is cruel, Oone. It would be better if it provided us with one unaltering path. Instead it forces us to make choices, never to know if those choices were for the best.” “We are mortals,” she said with a shrug. “That is our particular doom.”"

"I now know that legends in themselves have no power. The power comes from the uses that the living make of the legend. The legends merely represent an ideal."

"They blinded themselves to the obvious. That is the great triumph of mindless need over intelligence and the human spirit."

"He gasped as he stepped forward to peer at them, observing living faces, eyes which were undying, lips frozen in expressions of terror, of anguish, of misery. They were like so many flies in amber. “That’s the unchanging past, Prince Elric,” said Oone. “That’s the fate of those who seek to reclaim their lost beliefs without first experiencing the search for new ones.”"

"We have a scanty notion of justice and the obligations of rule involve little more than inventing new terrors by which we may cow and control others. Power, I think, is a habit as terrible as the potion I must now sip in order to sustain myself. It feeds upon itself. It is a hungry beast, devouring those who would possess it and those who hate it—devouring even those who own it."

"We set high store by prophecies here in the desert. It seems that our longing for help might have coloured our reason."

"This was Elric’s dream, more coherent now than it had ever been. This was his dream and it was why he traveled the world, why he refused the power which was his, why he risked his life, his mind, his love and everything else he valued, for he believed that there was no life worth living that was not risked in pursuit of knowledge and justice. And this was why his fellow countrymen feared him. Justice was not obtained, he believed, by administration but by experience. One must know what it was to suffer humiliation and powerlessness; at least to some degree, before one could entirely appreciate its effect. One must give up power if one was to achieve true justice. This was not the logic of Empire, but it was the logic of one who truly loved the world and desired to see an age dawn when all people would be free to pursue their ambitions in dignity and self-respect."

"Here information and philosophies were exchanged, together with all manner of goods. This was a court whose energies were not devoted to maintaining itself unchanged for eternity, but to every kind of new idea and lively, humane discussion, which welcomed fresh thought not as a threat to its existence but as a very necessity to its continued well-being, whose wealth was devoted to experiment in the arts and sciences, to supporting those who were needy, to aiding thinkers and scholars. The Bright Empire’s brightness would come no longer from the glow of putrefaction but from the light of reason and good will."

"“If your people spent less time maintaining their own devalued myths about themselves and more upon studying the world as it is I think your city would have a greater chance of surviving. As it is, the place is crumbling beneath the weight of its own degraded fictions. The legends which offer a race their sense of pride and history eventually become putrid...” “We are unconcerned with matters of philosophy,” Manag Iss said with evident poor temper. “We do not question the motives or the ideas of those who employ us. That is written in our charters.” ”And therefore must be obeyed!” Elric smiled. “Thus you celebrate your decadence and resist reality.”"

"The albino reflected on the power of the human mind to build a fantasy and then defend it with complete determination as a reality."

"“It takes little intelligence to draw the obvious conclusion...” “Especially if one is blessed with only the barest information concerning other lands and peoples.”"

"And upon those three lies was Elric’s destiny to be built, for it is only about things which concern us most profoundly that we lie clearly and with profound conviction."

"But regret was useless now, so he forgot it."

"But beware of gods Elric. Beware of the Lords of the Higher Worlds and remember that their aid and their gifts must always be paid for."

"“Has Fate been thwarted?” “Fate is never thwarted. What has happened has happened because Fate willed it thus—if, indeed, there is such a thing as Fate and if men’s actions are not merely a response to other men’s actions.”"

"How the weak hate weakness."

"If he wished he could resurrect the Dragon Isle’s former might and rule both his own land and the Young Kingdoms as an invulnerable tyrant. But his reading has also taught him to question the uses to which power is put, to question his motives, to question whether his own power should be used at all, in any cause. His reading has led him to this “morality”, which, still, he barely understands."

"There is, in my view, a level at which the hero can become faintly ridiculous, often because he never fundamentally questions the rules. For instance, John Wayne’s characters were always basically in favor of old-fashioned paternalism, no matter how much they pretended to be rugged individualists. Later, I became fascinated by the kind of book examining the myths which make such heroes attractive (Lord Jim, for instance) and came to understand that there is a level at which the heroic ideal can be used as a mere manipulative propaganda designed for instance to make young women sacrifice their futures in unjust marriages or young men sacrifice their lives in unjust wars."

"Violence creates nothing but violence, no matter what we call it and what the excuse. And so it goes, down all the centuries."

"“We are all guilty,” he said. “We are all innocent. Only when we accept responsibility for our own actions do we become free. And only when every one of us accepts their share of responsibility will the world become safe for us all.”"

"What good is a martyr, Captain Bastable? A martyr shows us the power of faith. But what if that faith is misinformed? While people believe in heroes and the magic power of an individual to save them from the human condition, they will never be free."

"She was grumbling. “The least he could have done was drop us near a town. Although in these parts they’d probably burn us as witches before asking any questions.” She shuddered. “I’m an awful snob about peasants, I’m afraid.” I mentioned dryly that I thought those of her political persuasion had some sort of egalitarian duty to resist such prejudice. “Egalitarianism isn’t about prejudices,” she said, “it’s about equal shares of power. It’s the only means we have of steering some sort of even course through a future which is forever, by the very nature of the multiverse, unguessable. We have only institutions and a crude, fragile kind of democracy standing between us and absolute Chaos. That is why we must value and protect those institutions. And be forever reexamining them.”"

"I realized I was fulfilling mankind’s greatest dream—to fly like a bird, as naturally and as joyously as if the air were our familiar habitat."

"Here the idea of God has been replaced by the idea of the Future. The two notions are, admittedly, all but identical in the way in which they are self-contradictory and thus always fundamentally confusing to their worshippers, who must look to priests for translation, and so inevitably the priests (or whatever they call them) gradually take power..."

"“Oh, I believe very much in cause and effect,” she said, “but not in the linear sense. Every action has a proliferation of consequences. We can’t remain alive without being responsible for thousands of actions and their consequences. We simply have to live with that fact and decide, morally if you like, how to formulate a civilized, secure environment for ourselves. So far we haven’t succeeded.”"