Darrell Schweitzer

"Men called me a philosopher once, but as the years burdened me further I cared less and less for the pressing questions of astronomy and geomancy and metaphysics and the like. They had been pressing since long before I was born, and I knew they would continue to be so as long as there were two students left to argue over the difference between the real and the ideal."

"This place was not divine. It was enchanted, which was a different thing altogether."

"Nothing frightens a miser more than the prospect of not getting paid."

"“Have I come to a second Bedlam? Are you all mad here?” “Madness is the order of the day,” the lord replied. “Even God is mad. We follow divine example.”"

"“Were you not at the Holy City when the army of the faithful burst in? Did you not yourself partake in the slaughter of the pagans, and the women and infants of the pagans, those who were born in lands where the gospel never reached? Did you not do this and much more, all for the glory of God? And does not that same All Mighty and All Merciful God damn men for sins of weakness and ignorance when He himself made them imperfect and prone to weakness, and taught them not so that they remained ignorant? Did He not allow the serpent to enter the Garden, make no move to stop it, then punished severely his beguiled servants?” “Lady, as you said, you know the answers. All these things are true.” “Then I ask you, Julian, are these actions of a loving God?” “I—I—don’t—” “Know! But you do. This knowledge is the heritage of all men. You know they are not, and yet more shall you know. God is mad, Julian. He babbles on his throne of light, and the sound of his gurgling fills his angels with fear. He sends them forth with flaming swords to raze the cities of men, and when thousands upon thousands have been slain, and the smoke of their pyres rises into the heights of the sky, when pestilence and famine slay thousands more, then God laughs and roars like some mindless beast, ‘THIS IS PLEASING TO ME!’” “Why do you tell me these things? Why have I been brought here?” “Because you are to join us in our war against the Father. He has grown weak in his madness, so preoccupied with dreaming new ways to torture men that he will not notice when the very gates of Hell fly open and the armies of his old Adversary issue forth.”"

"Behind her, far away, filling the skies that were not of Earth, was the face of another, a mountainous Dark One who sat awash in a lake of molten metal with a sword in his hand. When I gaze upon him I knew the truth of all. I knew that if God is mad, and the signs show that he is, his Foe is mad also, and there can be no hope for the world between them, for creation is but a battleground for two maniacs in their death struggle."

"So now the tale is done. What moral? There was in the abbey a learned man who insisted that all things have a greater meaning, that life is but a symbol of motions on a higher plane. Nothing, he said, is random. Nothing is without purpose. Yet I blundered into my adventure and out of it, seeking only to save my own life. I came to the only place a wretched fugitive could have come on such a night, and my escape was miracle enough. A meaning? A purpose? When others, as the ballads tell, pass into Faerie, or into the lands of the dead, it is for some lofty purpose, to learn some deep wisdom, or to rescue a loved one, or to save a kingdom. It was not like that with me. My life will make a poor amusement if it is ever told. There is no form to it, no order. No conclusion, no moral, no answers. Only more questions."

"“Christ and Satan!” “Swear by whomever you like,” laughed the King. “Why not Jupiter, Thor, Mithra, and Ahura-Mazda also? It’ll do you as much good.”"

"I listened to all this with the dull incomprehension of a pig in the slaughterhouse overhearing the talk of two butchers."

"“One more thing I will tell you, the great secret I learned through my experience.” “What was that?” “Never listen to idle tales. They make you mad and lead you through the bowels of a god.” “Of course,” said one of the disciples after he had left, “it is the nature of the madness that one never heeds these warnings.”"

"I lost my faith on a foreign shore, in the shade of the conscience tree. In the shade of the conscience tree, on a foreign shore, where the sand ran wet with the blood of children."

"I saw again in the morning with the holy Tancred, Bishop of Anjou, of Averoigne, and Poictesme, stood before the troops in the dim light of dawn with the walled city at his back. There was complete silence, save for the cawing of expectant crows and the flapping of banners in the brisk wind. He spoke: “Soldiers of Christ, in yonder city wait ten thousand pagans, idolaters, devil-worshipers, atheists, and Jews, each of them by every breath he breathes an affront to the God who created him and a triumph for the Adversary who corrupted him. This is your task, mighty men of valor and virtue, your task set for you by God on high, to rid the land of this infection, to cleanse with fire and sword the very pavement on which the unclean ones walk. I have prayed for victory this day, and just before I came to you I had a vision. I saw in the sky, above the hills and above the pagan city, the great sign of the Cross, blazing as it did for Constantine when he embraced the Saviour, in this sign we too shall conquer. Jesus looks on. His Holy Mother waits to take any who die today in her own arms into paradise. Onward! For Christ and the Cross! “Christ and the Cross!” The cry returned from every throat, and the host surged thunderously forward like an inexorable tide. The first wave broke against the stone walls of the city, and the battle was joined. “Christ and the Cross!” men shouted as they fell screaming beneath curtains of molten iron poured from above. “Christ and the Cross!” resounded once more as mangonels, catapults, and ballistas filled the air with death."

"“Stand here and look,” he said. “Look, and you’ll see the Earth as it always was, even before the death of The Goddess. I come here sometimes to reflect, when the toils of my station are more than I can bear. I come out here to where it seems that mankind and all his works have made no more impression on the Earth than the passing shadow of a cloud. I told myself not to worry, to face what I must face with courage and dignity, for nothing matters ultimately. I come out here to watch the sun rise.”"

"I am going into a far country, from which I shall never return. They say that when we depart thence, when we walk the last long road, if we are brave and true and avoid all the perils, we come to paradise, and sit there listening to The Musician play beautiful songs for all of eternity. But this is uncertain, for no witness has ever come back to report it."

"“What can I do without you?” “Whatever is within you.”"

"“I wish something would happen,” he said after a long silence. Amaedig stood beside him, fidgeting with a clump of ivy. “Don’t,” she said. “What?” “Don’t wish something would happen. If it does, you probably won’t like it.”"

"“Listen, and listen well. This is the wisdom to end wisdom, the secret of all secrets.” They both leaned very close, and he told them. “Some people…will believe…anything!”"

"“What’s the matter?” said Gutharad after a while. “You seem glum suddenly.” “I was thinking of something.” “Well don’t. If you forget your troubles and just go where your feet take you, you’ll be happy. That’s the real secret of life. Not that load of camel crap I fed you this afternoon.”"

"Prophecies and mysteries. The world was full of them. He didn’t care."

"At last he understood that he was a prisoner within the palace as much as he was within his own body, that it was not his power which mastered anything, that he would no more rule the world than the glove on a king’s hand actually holds the scepter."

"Now he truly knew, for the first time, that there was no one out there to hear him, that any prayer he might utter would drift and tumble through eternity like a shard of a broken mirror falling through the space beyond the world, turning over and over, glittering, never, never coming to rest."

"Horror is not quite as elusive as science fiction, for which there are as many definitions as definers. Most modern practitioners will agree that it's a matter of mood, not of specific content. A story can be horrific without being supernatural or even fantastic, as much of Edgar Allan Poe readily demonstrates. In the simplest sense, a horror story is one that scares us."

"The true horror story requires a sense of evil, not in necessarily in a theological sense; but the menaces must be truly menacing, life-destroying, and antithetical to happiness."