Apprentice In Death Quotes

Do you have a death wish?" he asked. Will grinned at him. I'm just relying on your judgment," he replied. "I can't keep track of everything in my head.

What do you mean, Araluen? Death?" Halt made a careless gesture. "The usual, I suppose: the sudden cessation of life. The end of it all. Departure for a happier place. Or oblivion, depending upon your personal beliefs.

Evanlyn smiled grimly as she thought how once she might have objected to the cruelty of the bird's death. Now, all she felt was a sense of satisfaction as she realized that they would eat well today. Amazing how an empty belly could change your perspective, she thought.

Evanlyn opened her mouth to scream. But the horror of the moment froze the sound in her throat and she crouched, openmouthed, as death approached her. It was odd, she thought, that they had dragged her here, left her overnight and then decided to kill her. It seem such a pointless way to die.

Fireheart tensed, waiting for whatever had hunted down these apprentices to emerge from the trees and attack, but nothing stirred. Feeling as if his legs hardly belonged to him, he sprang down and stumbled across to Swiftpaw. The apprentice lay on his side, his legs splayed out. His black-and-white fur was torn, and his body was covered with dreadful wounds, ripped by teeth far bigger than any cat's. His jaws still snarled and his eyes glared. He was dead, and Fireheart could see that he had died fighting.

Love changes everything. I proposed to my wife after we limped away from a physical altercation with another serial killer. Good times.” “Feels

That night I grasped another piece of the puzzle that Burrich had always been to me. For there is a very strange peace in giving over your judgment to someone else, to saying to them, “You lead and I will follow, and I will trust entirely that you will not lead me to death or harm.

. . . the first spring in five free from the rumour of guns across the Channel, a spring anxious to make up for the cold winter, life bursting out after four years of death. All of England raised her face to the sun. . .

Enlightenment, and the death which comes before it, is the primary business of Varanasi.

That is because you don't yet know how to deal with time," said Wen. "But I will teach you to deal with time as you would deal with a coat, to be worn when necessary and discarded when not." "Will I have to wash it?" said Clodpool. Wen gave him a long, slow look. "That was either a very complex piece of thinking on your part, Clodpool, or you were just trying to overextend a metaphor in a rather stupid way. Which, do you think, it was?" Clodpool looked at his feet. Then he looked at the sky. Then he looked at Wen. "I think I am stupid, master." "Good," said Wen. "It is fortuitous that you are my apprentice at this time, because if I can teach you, Clodpool, I can teach anyone.

Your brother kills you." Fett hopped tpo his feet as lightly as any unarmoured jedi apprentice, the n added," Some things are worsse thean death. I know that better than anyone, except maybe Sintas-and Han Solo. Send your father my sympathies.

Nature, nurture, both matter, both form us. But at some point, at so many points, the choices we make, the paths we take, they define us.

No. Nature, nurture, both matter, both form us. But at some point, at so many points, the choices we make, the paths we take, they define us. You made yours. She’s made hers.” “Yeah.

I was the apprentice of Robert James Bakker. I'm sure you've heard of him. I am a sorcerer. I was there when Bakker died. We... made it happen. I too have met death, and did not have to peel the bones away from my chest to survive the encounter. I am also, and incidentally, the Midnight Mayor, the blue electric angels, the fire in the wire, the song in the telephones, and we are having a bad week. Be smart; fear us.

Whatever she’d been, whatever she’d become, she was more because he loved her. So

Why do they stare? They’re always staring. Like dolls,” she said as they walked into the building. “Or sharks.” “I

Roarke wondered if she thought of how many more would be hers—victims and killers. And knew, as he knew her, she did.

As for dying we can only assay that once; we are all apprentices when it comes to that

For there is a very strange peace in giving over your judgment to someone else, to saying to them, “You lead and I will follow, and I will trust entirely that you will not lead me to death or harm.

THE OXFORD UNIVERSITY I came up to in 1917 was a shadow of her normal, self-assured self, its population a tenth of that in 1914 before the war, a number lower even than in the years following the Black Death.

The man could stop her heart, then send it into full gallop. Just a look at him. They’d been married more than two years, she thought. Shouldn’t that ease off? Where was that in the Marriage Rules? But a man who looked like Roarke broke every rule. That absurdly beautiful face set off with the wild blue eyes of some Irish god, and the perfect poet’s mouth. The black hair, silkier than Summerset’s tone, tied back in work mode. The tall, lean length of him all in black—no tie or suit coat, the sleeves of his shirt rolled to the elbow. So he’d been home, and working, for some time. Yeah, the look of him broke the rules, stopped the heart. But it was that instant, just that instant when those amazing blue eyes met hers that sent it into the gallop. In them lived love. Just that simple, just that extraordinary.

The mere mention of the Farakka Express, which jerks its way eastward each day from Delhi to Calcutta, is enough to throw even a seasoned traveller into fits of apoplexy. At a desert encampment on Namibia's Skeleton Coast, a hard-bitten adventurer had downed a peg of local fire-water then told me the tale. Farakka was a ghost train, he said, haunted by ghouls, Thuggees, and thieves. Only a passenger with a death wish would go anywhere near it.

But when all roads lead to death, there is no point to running down any of them.

Truth can come in an instant, and when one looks into Her eyes, one's vision is forever altered. From Death on the Danube (fictitious book)

Lord Miles Naismith Vorkosigan. Occupation: security risk. Hobbies: falling off walls, disappointing sick old men to death, making girls cry.

Just when I despaired -- she was there, filling me as a melody fills a cottage. I was with her, running beside the Acis when we were a child. I knew the ancient villa moated by a dark lake, the view through the dusty windows of the belvedere, and the secret space in the odd angle between two rooms where we sat at noon to read by candlelight. I knew the life of the Autarch's court, where poison waited in a diamond cup. I learned what it was for one who had never seen a cell or felt a whip to be a prisoner of the torturers, what dying meant, and death. I learned that I had been more to her than I had ever guessed, and at last fell into a sleep in which my dreams were all of her. Not memories merely -- memories I had possessed in plenty before. I held her poor, cold hands in mine, and I no longer wore the rags of an apprentice, nor the fuligin of a journeyman. We were one, naked and happy and clean, and we knew that she was no more and that I still lived, and we struggled against neither of those things, but with woven hair read from a single book and talked and sang of other matters.

Rose reached out and touched his fingers. He immediately covered her hand in a firm grasp. His warm fingers entwined with hers and made her heart beat erratically. The snake had nearly scared her to death, but his touch and his presence overwhelmed her with comfort and safety. The darkness gave her a feeling of intimacy with him. They could hold each other’s hand and no one could see. She liked it—so very much.

In the wars it had been different. Men dropped from the columns all the time on the long marches, in the cold months. First they fell to the back, then they fell behind, then they fell over. The cold, the sick, the wounded. Logen shivered and hunched his shoulders. At first he’d tried to help them. Then he became grateful he wasn’t one of them. Then he stepped over the corpses and hardly noticed them. You learn to tell when someone isn’t getting up again. He looked at Malacus Quai. One more death in the wild was nothing to remark upon. You have to be realistic, after all. The apprentice started from his fitful sleep and tried to push himself up. His hands were shaking bad. He looked up at Logen, eyes glittering bright. “I can’t get up,” he croaked. “I know. I’m surprised you made it this far.” It didn’t matter so much now. Logen knew the way. If he could find that track he might make twenty miles a day. “If you leave me some of the food… perhaps… after you get to the library… someone…” “No,” said Logen, setting his jaw. “I need the food.” Quai made a strange sound, somewhere between a cough and a sob. Logen leaned down and set his right shoulder in Quai’s stomach, pushed his arm under his back. “I can’t carry you forty miles without it.

The moon fled eastward like a frightened dove, while the stars changed their places in the heavens, like a disbanding army. 'Where are we?' asked Gil Gil. 'In France,' responded the Angel of Death. 'We have now traversed a large portion of the two bellicose nations which waged so sanguinary a war with each other at the beginning of the present century. We have seen the theater of the War of Succession. Conquered and conquerors both lie sleeping at this instant. My apprentice, Sleep, rules over the heroes who did not perish then, in battle, or afterward of sickness or of old age. I do not understand why it is that below on earth all men are not friends? The identity of your misfortunes and your weaknesses, the need you have of each other, the shortness of your life, the spectacle of the grandeur of other worlds, and the comparison between them and your littleness, all this should combine to unite you in brotherhood, like the passengers of a vessel threatened with shipwreck. There, there is neither love, nor hate, nor ambition, no one is debtor or creditor, no one is great or little, no one is handsome or ugly, no one is happy or unfortunate. The same danger surrounds all and my presence makes all equal. Well, then, what is the earth, seen from this height, but a ship which is foundering, a city delivered up to an epidemic or a conflagration?' 'What are those ignes fatui which I can see shining in certain places on the terrestrial globe, ever since the moon veiled her light?' asked the young man. 'They are cemeteries. We are now above Paris. Side by side with every city, every town, every village of the living there is always a city, a town, or a village of the dead, as the shadow is always beside the body. Geography, then, is of two kinds, although mortals only speak of the kind which is agreeable to them. A map of all the cemeteries which there are on the earth would be sufficient indication of the political geography of your world. You would miscalculate, however, in regard to the population; the dead cities are much more densely populated than the living; in the latter there are hardly three generations at one time, while, in the former, hundreds of generations are often crowded together. As for the lights you see shining, they are phosphorescent gleams from dead bodies, or rather they are the expiring gleams of thousands of vanished lives; they are the twilight glow of love, ambition, anger, genius, mercy; they are, in short, the last glow of a dying light, of the individuality which is disappearing, of the being yielding back his elements to mother earth. They are - and now it is that I have found the true word - the foam made by the river when it mingles its waters with those of the ocean.' The Angel of Death paused. ("The Friend of Death")

The truth was that we all faced death here. For my part I was somewhat fatalistic - if it happened, then so be it. But I wanted to survive. The future - even without Alice - called to me, and I didn't want that taken away.

You lie!” Polter exclaimed. “Speak out of turn again, Andrew, and I will have you removed from these proceedings,” Draeden said. The edge of his voice was so sharp I was sure thousands of air molecules went screaming to their death just being too close his mouth.

But death wouldn’t deter her killer. It would whet his appetite. He’d look at her corpse and see only an object of desire. Someone he can control. She doesn’t resist him. She is cool, passive flesh, yielding to any and all indignities. She is the perfect lover. The

Purity in Death Portrait in Death Imitation in Death Divided in Death Visions in Death Survivor in Death Origin in Death Memory in Death Born in Death Innocent in Death Creation in Death Strangers in Death Salvation in Death Promises in Death Kindred in Death Fantasy in Death Indulgence in Death Treachery in Death New York to Dallas Celebrity in Death Delusion in Death Calculated in Death Thankless in Death Concealed in Death Festive in Death Obsession in Death Devoted in Death Brotherhood in Death Apprentice in Death Echoes in Death Secrets in Death Dark in Death

And what is the religion Wesley prescribes? Not a religion of laws or ceremonies or mystical knowledge, but of love and kindness. Our world is badly in need of people who love, and it is hungering for people who demonstrate genuine kindness. We are so deprived of it that we are astonished when we encounter it. And what is the point of this religion? To get us to heaven? No, to get heaven into us. To help us discover a relationship with God wherein we enjoy God and are easy in ourselves. If we can discover such a life, Wesley believed, we can even face our death with calm assurance and the certainty of a joyful eternity.

elephants were huge not only in size but also in heart. Unlike other animals, they comprehended death; they had rituals to celebrate the birth of a calf or to mourn the loss of a relative. Lions were fierce, tigers were regal, monkeys were smart, peacocks impressive – yet only an elephant could be all of those things at once.

I remembered the verses and recited them slowly, with a pleasure that I had not felt before. I heard them as a soft whisper, harmless, without dark overtones: Bareheaded and barefoot, Shahin the acrobat stepped onto the tightrope, over which the breeze alone passes without fear. Shahin, the falcon, feared no danger, asked for God’s help and crossed over to the other bank. And the little falcons, his apprentices, passed over the chasm. Above the water, on which the sun glistened, they looked like pearls strung on a thin thread. The deep gorge beneath them, the distant heavens above them. And they on the unsteady tightrope, on the dangerous path of life.

There is a certain unbending rigidity about Augustine that offers little compassion to anyone with whom he disagrees. Cadfael was never going to surrender his private reservations about any reputed saint who could describe humankind as a mass of corruption and sin proceeding inevitably towards death, or one who could look upon the world, for all its imperfections, and find it irredeemably evil.

parents, bystanders. Didn’t matter as long as she hit the number. “That’s what you spawned, Mackie. I figure maybe she was born wrong. Maybe she had that twist in her right from the jump. But you nurtured it. You stoked it, educated it, brought it along. She had choices, sure, but you made the choices she made easy for her. You made them righteous.” She felt nothing for him when he began to weep. Nothing. “I want you to think about that for the rest of your life.” When she walked away, his sobs echoed as Willow’s curses had.

And so we have the result noted: the resources of God’s kingdom remain detached from human life. There is no gospel for human life and Christian discipleship, just one for death or one for social action. The souls of human beings are left to shrivel and die on the plains of life because they are not introduced into the environment for which they were made, the living kingdom of eternal life. To counteract this we must develop a straightforward presentation, in word and life, of the reality of life now under God’s rule, through reliance upon the word and person of Jesus. In this way we can naturally become his students or apprentices. We can learn from him how to live our lives as he would live them if he were we. We can enter his eternal kind of life now.

Is a stronger Force user’s lightsaber stronger, too? What happens when two Jedi fight each other?” “The blade isn’t stronger. Only the Force user’s ability to wield it,” Obi-Wan said. “In ceremonial combat, of course, we’re displaying forms more than actually testing strength—” “But what about non-ceremonial combat?” Fanry persisted. “When two Jedi are on opposite sides of a conflict. What happens?” “It… it doesn’t happen.” The idea made so little sense that Obi-Wan could hardly parse it. “We are members of one Order. We serve the Jedi Council and, through the Council, the Republic. The Jedi are united in this way.” “Well, that’s boring.” Scowling, Fanry kicked her little feet beneath her throne. “And nobody but the Jedi ever uses lightsabers? You’d never fight anyone else who had one? For real, I mean. Not ‘ceremonially.’ ” “The ancient Sith used lightsabers,” Obi-Wan said. “But they’ve been extinct for a millennium. So, no. A Jedi just wouldn’t be involved in a lightsaber duel to the death. It couldn’t happen.” Fanry seemed to realize she was being a bit bloodthirsty, because she smiled impishly and made the next question a joke. “Never?” He smiled back as he shook his head. “Not ever.

The 1890s were apprentice years for Yeats. Though he played with Indian and Irish mythology, his symbolism really developed later. The decade was for him, as a poet, the years of lyric, of the Rhymers’ Club, of those contemporaries whom he dubbed the ‘tragic generation’. ‘I have known twelve men who killed themselves,’ Arthur Symons looked back from his middle-aged madness, reflecting on the decade of which he was the doyen. The writers and artists of the period lived hectically and recklessly. Ernest Dowson (1867–1900) (one of the best lyricists of them all – ‘I cried for madder music and for stronger wine’) died from consumption at thirty-two; Lionel Johnson (1867–1902), a dipsomaniac, died aged thirty-five from a stroke. John Davidson committed suicide at fifty-two; Oscar Wilde, disgraced and broken by prison and exile, died at forty-six; Aubrey Beardsley died at twenty-six. This is not to mention the minor figures of the Nineties literary scene: William Theodore Peters, actor and poet, who starved to death in Paris; Hubert Crankanthorpe, who threw himself in the Thames; Henry Harland, editor of The Yellow Book, who died of consumption aged forty-three, or Francis Thompson, who fled the Hound of Heaven ‘down the nights and down the days’ and who died of the same disease aged forty-eight. Charles Conder (1868–1909), water-colourist and rococo fan-painter, died in an asylum aged forty-one.

In some cultures, apprentice shamans receive a call as well as shamanic knowledge, powers, and spirit relationships from shaman elders or shamans within their own families. Benefactors may set up arduous training designed to foster specific achievements or trials and initiations that the apprentice must successfully complete. They may lead an apprentice through specific cultural rites of passage. Benefactors may also transmit knowledge, powers, and spirit relationships to the apprentice at the moment of their death. A shaman who has passed may return to an apprentice in dreams, as might that shaman's helping spirits. Potential shamans selected by shaman elders are usually (though not always) chosen at a young age, when the elders notice something special or extraordinary about them. Sometimes something special happens during or shortly after their day of birth or the child is heard talking or seen behaving in certain ways that indicate spirit connection or possession. Sometimes the initiate experiences unique, profound visions or dreams or successfully performs healing without training. The initiate might display an undeniable compulsion to learn shamanism at a young age when other children are focused on play or learning to hunt or fight, or an initiate might be able to easily memorize long stories or songs. Elder shamans are always on the watch for individuals showing signs of contact with the spirits.

spilling from his eyes. Cassis screamed, panting, and flapped her fingers wildly, like she was trying to cool down. Her face glowed red like molten embers.  “Water…water,” she gasped, and glanced around. The scintillating luminescence of fire raged inside her body. Talis shielded his eyes from the intensity of light pouring from her body. Another sorcerer flew to them, as if drawn by the attack, and scowled at Talis. Cassis lifted her hands at the sorcerer, as if in a grave struggle against the hand of death itself. The sorcerer curled his fingers, aiming at him, and prepared to strike.  “No, Cassis, stop!”  Rikar ran in a hobble towards her, and in a brief glance at his face, Talis could see love and fury and a terrific sadness. Despite the shouts of warning, Cassis released an enormous fireball at the enemy, vaporizing him in an instant. But she couldn’t contain the power. It burned too strong inside. The light rose to a frenzied brilliance as many apprentices around her started running away.  Her neck dropped. Her flaming, brilliant body exploded in a powerful wave, burning chunks of fire and flesh searing everywhere around her. Those fleeing nearby were cut down by the blast. Some were knocked against the stone walls. Some were blasted over the edge and plummeted helplessly to the ground far below. The ones refusing to leave her side were incinerated where they stood. Talis felt his stomach twist and flip around, and he vomited, coughing, choking on his own bile.  Gasping for air, for life, he tried to expel the image from his mind. A primal fear burrowed its way inside. What had just happened? Was this the terror of magic? He still felt the fire burning inside his body. Why would he risk his life and the lives of his friends? The power roared so strong. Could he ever learn to contain it? Or would he find a fate like that of Cassis? Rikar balled up his fists and pounded the ground, sobbing. Nikulo came over and tried to comfort him, but Rikar just pulled away and curled up. A lightning bolt shattered a nearby tower, jolting them to attention.

Blackbeard the pirate was actually Edward Teach sometimes known as Edward Thatch, who lived from 1680 until his death on November 22, 1718. Blackbeard was a notorious English pirate who sailed around the eastern coast of North America. Although little is known about his childhood he may have worked as an apprentice on an English ship, during the second phase in a series of wars between the French and the English from 1754 and ended in 1778 as part of the American Revolutionary War. The war had different names depending on where it was fought. In the American colonies the war was known as the French and Indian War. During the time it was fought during the reign of Anne, Queen of Great Britain, it was called Queen Anne's War and in Europe it was known as the War of the Spanish Succession. During the earlier period of hostilities between France and England, some English ships were granted permission to raid French colonies and French ships and were considered privateers. Captain Benjamin Hornigold, whose crew Teach joined around 1716 operated from the Bahamian island of New Providence. Captain Hornigold placed Teach in command of a sloop that he had captured and during this time he was given the name Blackbeard. Horngold and Blackbeard sailing out of New Providence engaged in numerous acts of piracy. Their numbers were boosted by the addition of other captured ships. Blackbeard captured a French slave ship known as La Concorde and renamed her Queen Anne's Revenge. He renamed it “Queen Anne's Revenge” referring to Anne, Queen of England and Scotland returning to the throne of Great Britain. He equipped his new acquisition with 40 guns, and a crew of over 300 men. Becoming a world renowned pirate, most people feared him. In a failed attempt to run a blockade in place and refusing the governors pardon, he ran “Queen Anne's Revenge” aground on a sandbar near Beaufort, North Carolina and settled in North Carolina where he then accepted a royal pardon. The wreck of “Queen Anne's Revenge” was found in 1996 by private salvagers, Intersal Inc., a salvage company based in Palm Bay, Florida Not knowing when enough, he returned to plundering at sea. Alexander Spotswood, the Governor of Virginia formed a garrison of soldiers and sailors to protect the colony and if possible capture Blackbeard. On November 22, 1718 following a ferocious battle, Blackbeard and several of his crew were killed by a small force of sailors led by Lieutenant Robert Maynard. After his death, Blackbeard became a martyr and an inspiration for a number of fictitious books.

She spoke so passionately that some of the Historians believed her, even the ones like Dr. Karuna who had been passed over for promotion when Crome put Valentine in charge of their Guild. As for Bevis Pod, he watched her with shining eyes, filled with a feeling that he couldn’t even name; something that they had never taught him about in the Learning Labs. It made him shiver all over. Pomeroy was the first to speak. “I hope you’re right, Miss Valentine,” he said. “Because he is the only man who can hope to challenge the Lord Mayor. We must wait for his return.” “But …” “In the meantime, we have agreed to keep Mr. Pod safe, here at the Museum. He can sleep up in the old Transport Gallery, and help Dr. Nancarrow catalogue the art collection, and if the Engineers come hunting for him we’ll find a hiding place. It isn’t much of a blow against Crome, I know. But please understand, Katherine: We are old, and frightened, and there really is nothing more that we can do.” The world was changing. That was nothing new, of course; the first thing an Apprentice Historian learned was that the world was always changing, but now it was changing so fast that you could actually see it happening. Looking down from the flight deck of the Jenny Haniver, Tom saw the wide plains of the eastern Hunting Ground speckled with speeding towns, spurred into flight by whatever it was that had bruised the northern sky, heading away from it as fast as their tracks or wheels could carry them, too preoccupied to try and catch one another. “MEDUSA,” he heard Miss Fang whisper to herself, staring toward the far-off, flame-flecked smoke. “What is a MEDUSA?” asked Hester. “You know something, don’t you? About what my mum and dad were killed for?” “I’m afraid not,” the aviatrix replied. “I wish I did. But I heard the name once. Six years ago another League agent managed to get into London, posing as a crewman on a licensed airship. He had heard something that must have intrigued him, but we never learned what it was. The League had only one message from him, just two words: Beware MEDUSA. The Engineers caught him and killed him.” “How do you know?” asked Tom. “Because they sent us back his head,” said Miss Fang. “Cash on Delivery.” That evening she set the Jenny Haniver down on one of the fleeing towns, a respectable four-decker called Peripatetiapolis that was steering south to lair in the mountains beyond the Sea of Khazak. At the air-harbor there they heard more news of what had happened to Panzerstadt-Bayreuth. “I saw it!” said an aviator. “I was a hundred miles away, but I still saw it. A tongue of fire, reaching out from London’s Top Tier and bringing death to everything

His apprentice was just beginning to grapple with this experience, coming face to face with the sombre realities of their ministry, that there was an entire unseen universe not any less real simply because it was invisible to mortal eyes most of the time. An ancient war was yet raging against enemies that never sleep, always plotting, continually ensnaring, sadistically feeding off destruction, despair and death, physical and eternal, glutted and glutting, never filled, never satisfied.

Her mother had always quoted an expression which, loosely translated, meant "Danger wears a cloak of silence." And it was true that she did not hear danger approaching." From (fictitious book) Death on the Danube.

You didn't make lieutenant without wading through, and learning to cut through, the usual crap.

She has told me everything," Wen went on. "I know that time was made for men, not the other way around. I have learned how to shape it and bend it. I know how to make a moment last forever, because it already has. And I can teach these skills even to you, Clodpool. I have heard the heartbeat of the universe. I know the answers to many questions. Ask me." The apprentice gave him a bleary look. It was too early in the morning for it to be early int he morning. That was hte only thing that he currently knew for sure. "Er...what does master want for breakfast?" he said. Wen looked down from their camp, and across the snowfields and purple mountains to the golden daylight creating the world, and mused upon certain aspects of humanity. "Ah," he said. "One of the /difficult/ ones.

It’s her high school—I’m sure of it, as I found this document as well.” Roarke called up a blueprint of Hillary Clinton High School. “Certain classrooms, certain areas were highlighted, egresses marked.

Standing at the mirror, resentments reawaken that Nehemiah’s become less inclined, over the years, to address; since the death of his daughter, Rahab, the unpredictability of living is a bother; to get rolling each day he likens himself to Abraham and painstakingly slaps mortar on crabbed nooks in his character he hadn’t noticed until they showed up in his grandson’s glances, the ones that tell him he’s no longer formidable, the quick once-overs that say, yes, his judgment is suspect, and it’s only right that he relinquish the responsibilities that give his character shape.

As late as 1742, London hatters beat to death a man who dared shape headgear without having gone through the apprentice system.

color as

I can’t take any more of this intense classical shit, it sounds like we’re on our way to destroy the fucking Death Star or take down Voldemort or compete on The Apprentice. If I have to listen to any more of it then I’m gonna take my bat to the motherfucking speakers back here.

For there is a very strange peace in giving over your judgement to someone else, to saying to them, ‘You lead and I will follow, and I will trust entirely that you will not lead me to death or harm.

When he was a small child, six years old or about that, his father’s apprentice had been making nails from the scrap pile: just common old flat-heads, he’d said, for fastening coffin lids. The nail rods glowed in the fire, a lively orange. “What for do we nail down the dead?” The boy barely paused, tapping out each head with two neat strokes. “It’s so the horrible old buggers don’t spring out and chase us.” He knows different now. It’s the living that turn and chase the dead. The long bones and skulls are tumbled from their shrouds, and words like stones thrust into their rattling mouths: we edit their writings, we rewrite their lives. Thomas More had spread the rumor that Little Bilney, chained to the stake, had recanted as the fire was set. It wasn’t enough for him to take Bilney’s life away; he had to take his death too.

Early in its education every mind learns how to use words to threaten, to punish, and to destroy. If that fact sounded harsh to his apprentices, he had only to remind them of how they spoke to themselves—how they attacked themselves on a daily basis. The mind is its own kind of predator, whether it belongs to the body of a bashful woman or a brawny man.

Even though I was very young, I still remember some of the men who would come into my village, the soldiers, the death squads. Most were nothing but jackals, men who killed and raped and looted for fun, because it was the easy thing to do. But some of the killers, they had a fear about them, like an aura of death. They would look at you and your blood would turn to ice and your heart would feel like it had stopped beating in your chest. Those were the men who killed and killed and would never die themselves, time after time. Whether they knew it or not, they had made a pact with the Reaper, a pact to stay alive as long as they kept sending souls in their place.” “And you think Richard is like these men?” “Don't you? Killing is like breathing to him. He has bathed in the blood of countless murders. I have seen him kill three times, and on each occasion, he should have died time and again, but the other men were a heartbeat too slow, or the bullets a few inches to the left or right. No man is so lucky for so long without something making that luck for him.” “Do you think he is evil?” “Killing and evil are not always the same things. I do not think he is a good man, but I don't think he is an evil man, either. I think he is like an earthquake, or a bolt of lightning. If you are in his sights, you die. The only question is, what put you there.” “Do you feel the same aura around Richard that you felt around those men in El Salvador?” “You are comparing a candle to the sun. Those other men, they were apprentices in the ways of Death. Richard is a master.

Roarke called up a blueprint of Hillary Clinton High School. “Certain

jumped close, close enough to see blade marks scoring the surface. All those people, the brightly colored hats, gloves, and scarves. A couple, holding hands, laughing as they stumbled over the ice together. A girl with golden-blond hair, wearing a red skin suit and vest, was spinning, spinning, spinning until she blurred. Another couple with a little boy between them, their hands joined with his as he grinned in wonder.

targets destroyed, the training, the discipline, the hours of study, all led to this moment. This cold, bright afternoon in January 2061 marked the true beginning. A clear mind and cool blood. The apprentice knew these elements were as vital as skill, as wind direction, humiture, and speed. Under the cool blood lived an eagerness ruthlessly suppressed. The mentor had arranged all. Efficiently, and with an attention to detail that was also vital. The room in the clean, middle-class hotel

Get out of here, all of you," I continued. "This grave has been paid for by me and it belongs to nobody else. I died and am allowed to organize my funeral as I see fit. So, begone! My home is my castle and I will not tolerate any trespassers." "It's a scandal!" cried the decorated one. "A scandal without precedent!" A Public Prosecutor turned to me. "These inanities should be called to a halt," he hissed. "I arrest you in the name of the law, and I command the policemen to do their duty!" The policemen descended into the hole and placed their broad paws on my shoulder. But I looked at them sharply and said: "Have you no respect for the dead?" "But he is not dead! This is a complete sham!" a particularly brave Judge's apprentice cried out. "Ah, I beg your pardon!" I laughed, handing over my death certificate to the policemen. "Here, see for yourself. And in case the coroner's report is not sufficient you can always have a whiff, old donkey that you are." The decorated one leaned towards me. "The devil!" he exclaimed, hastily drawing back. "Please keep your distance, Sir," I admonished him. "Do I have to remind you of your whereabouts? It is a red-hot day in July, close to noon and you are in the presence of a corpse. I have every right to stink!" ("My Burial")

Whitney’s giving a push on Russo. We’ll

I set the gun down gently. I had just shot a man and watched him die. There had been no dignity in his death, no glory in killing him, no snappy one-liner on my lips to punctuate the moment. There was fear and anger, but no happiness that he was dead.

If death, mused the great thinker Dr. Samuel Johnson, is merely a gateway on the path from life into eternity, a portal from mortality to immortality, then what does it matter how a man dies? The act of dying is not of importance. It is how he lives that counts.

Boy,” Chade remarked quietly. “Never pretend we are anything but what we are. Assassins. Not merciful agents of a wise king. Political assassins dealing death for the furtherance of our monarchy. That is what we are.

And since even the thought of winter precipitation caused the majority of drivers to lose any shred of competency they might own, she spent most of her trip avoiding, leapfrogging over, and cursing every cab and commuter. The

Red’s just dark pink when you think about it.” When

Looks like, and sounds like, a hell of a party.

It is just after 2 p.m. and the restaurant is packed with dozens of diners when a suicide bomber from the West Bank, a 27-year old female apprentice lawyer, shoulders her way into the restaurant. She detonates herself using a bomb that is packed with ball bearings and shrapnel to ensure the maximum number of deaths. Because Zvi’s mother is running a bit late, when she arrives at the restaurant she is still far enough from the blast for her life to be savable. The horrific aftermath of the explosion leaves some of the dead still sitting upright at their tables, while others, including children and babies, are slammed against the walls.

those rent with option deals. You can do that

Had he felt pride in Sofia before? Of course he had. On a daily basis. He was proud of her success in school, of her beauty, of her composure, of the fondness with which she was regarded by all who worked in the hotel. And that is how he could be certain that what he was experiencing at that moment could not be referred to as pride. For there is something knowing in the state of pride. Look, it says, didn’t I tell you how special she is? How bright? How lovely? Well, now you can see it for yourself. But in listening to Sofia play Chopin, the Count had left the realm of knowing and entered the realm of astonishment. On one level he was astonished by the revelation that Sofia could play the piano at all; on another, that she tackled the primary and subordinate melodies with such skill. But what was truly astonishing was the sensitivity of her musical expression. One could spend a lifetime mastering the technical aspects of the piano and never achieve a state of musical expression—that alchemy by which the performer not only comprehends the sentiments of the composer, but somehow communicates them to her audience through the manner of her play. Whatever personal sense of heartache Chopin had hoped to express through this little composition—whether it had been prompted by a loss of love, or simply the sweet anguish one feels when witnessing a mist on a meadow in the morning—it was right there, ready to be experienced to its fullest, in the ballroom of the Hotel Metropol one hundred years after the composer’s death. But how, the question remained, could a seventeen-year-old girl achieve this feat of expression, if not by channeling a sense of loss and longing of her own? As Sofia began the third iteration of the melody, Viktor Stepanovich looked over his shoulder with his eyebrows raised, as if to say: Can you believe it? Have you ever in all your years even imagined? Then he quickly looked back to the piano and dutifully turned the page for Sofia almost in the manner of an apprentice turning the page for his master.

The readings during the meal, probably chosen by Prior Robert in compliment to Canon Gerbert, had been from the writings of Saint Augustine, of whom Cadfael was not as fond as he might have been. There is a certain unbending rigidity about Augustine that offers little compassion to anyone with whom he disagrees. Cadfael was never going to surrender his private reservations about any reputed saint who could describe humankind as a mass of corruption and sin proceeding inevitably towards death, or one who could look upon the world, for all its imperfections, and find it irredeemably evil. In this glowing evening light Cadfael looked upon the world, from the roses in the garden to the wrought stones of the cloister walls, and found it unquestionably beautiful. Nor could he accept that the number of those predestined to salvation was fixed, limited and immutable, as Augustine proclaimed, nor indeed that the fate of any man was sealed and hopeless from his birth, or why not throw away all regard for others and rob and murder and lay waste, and indulge every anarchic appetite in this world, having nothing beyond to look forward to?

IT’S BEEN EIGHTEEN MONTHS SINCE ALYSS’S DEATH,

Did you ever hear the tragedy of Darth Plagueis The Wise? I thought not. It’s not a story the Jedi would tell you. It’s a Sith legend. Darth Plagueis was a Dark Lord of the Sith, so powerful and so wise he could use the Force to influence the midichlorians to create life… He had such a knowledge of the dark side that he could even keep the ones he cared about from dying. The dark side of the Force is a pathway to many abilities some consider to be unnatural. He became so powerful… the only thing he was afraid of was losing his power, which eventually, of course, he did. Unfortunately, he taught his apprentice everything he knew, then his apprentice killed him in his sleep. Ironic. He could save others from death, but not himself.

honored

Many people think that eternal life refers to a quantity of life after death, but for the New Testament writers it also meant a quality of life that starts now for the apprentice of Jesus, grows in scope over a lifetime of apprenticeship, and then continues into eternity.

I can’t take any more of this intense classical shit, it sounds like we’re on our way to destroy the fucking Death Star or take down Voldemort or compete on The Apprentice.

Apprentice yourself to the curve of your own disappearance.

Her trade is death and torture.

A witch should not fear her own death. It is just the setting of a sun and a promise of the darkness that is our true home.

I have become the mother of death.

After their time in the monastery, most young men and women will return to their villages, having completed their training with the elders. They are now accepted as “ripe,” as initiated men and women, respected in their community. Outwardly they will have learned the religious forms and sacred rituals of the Buddhist community. Inwardly, these ancient forms are intended to awaken an unshakable virtue and inner respect, fearlessness in the face of death, self-reliance, wisdom, and profound compassion. These qualities give one who leaves the monastery the hallmark of a mature man or woman. Perhaps as you read about this ordination process, its beauty will strike a chord in you that intuitively knows about the need for initiations. This does not mean that you have to enter a monastery to seek this remarkable and wonderful training. By reading about this tradition, you may simply awaken that place in yourself, which exists in each of us, that longs for wholeness and integrity, because the awakening that comes through initiation is a universal story. In our time we need to reclaim rites of passage, we need to honor elders, we need to find ways to remind our young people and the whole of our communities of the sacredness of life, of who we really are. Remember, too, that initiation comes in many forms. I have a friend who has three children under the age of five. This is a retreat as intensive as any other, including sitting up all night in the charnel grounds. Marriage and family are a kind of initiation. As Gary Snyder says, All of us are apprentices to the same teacher that all masters have worked with—reality. Reality says: Master the twenty-four hours. Do it well without self-pity. It is as hard to get children herded into the car pool and down the road to the bus as it is to chant sutras in the Buddha Hall on a cold morning. One is not better than the other. Each can be quite boring. They both have the virtuous quality of repetition. Repetition and ritual and their good results come in many forms: changing the car filters, wiping noses, going to meetings, sitting in meditation, picking up around the house, washing dishes, checking the dipstick. Don’t let yourself think that one or more of these distracts you from the serious pursuits. Such a round of chores is not a set of difficulties to escape so that we may do our practice that will put us on the path. It IS our path.

Even in death, however, its neighbors had tried to support it, keeping it from the ignominy of the ground, holding it in the grip of their tangled branches so that it lay at an angle of thirty degrees to the horizontal, seemingly supported between heaven and earth by its closely packed fellows.

THE WARRIOR CODE 1. Defend your Clan, even with your life. You may have friendships with cats from other Clans, but your loyalty must remain to your Clan, as one day you may meet them in battle. 2. Do not hunt or trespass on another Clan’s territory. 3. Elders and kits must be fed before apprentices and warriors. Unless they have permission, apprentices may not eat until they have hunted to feed the elders. 4. Prey is killed only to be eaten. Give thanks to StarClan for its life. 5. A kit must be at least six moons old to become an apprentice. 6. Newly appointed warriors will keep a silent vigil for one night after receiving their warrior name. 7. A cat cannot be made deputy without having mentored at least one apprentice. 8. The deputy will become Clan leader when the leader dies or retires. 9. After the death or retirement of the deputy, the new deputy must be chosen before moonhigh. 10. A gathering of all four Clans is held at the full moon during a truce that lasts for the night. There shall be no fighting among Clans at this time. 11. Boundaries must be checked and marked daily. Challenge all trespassing cats. 12. No warrior may neglect a kit in pain or in danger, even if that kit is from a different Clan. 13. The word of the Clan leader is the warrior code. 14. An honorable warrior does not need to kill other cats to win his battles, unless they are outside the warrior code or it is necessary for self-defense. 15. A warrior rejects the soft life of a kittypet.

And a moment later he was telling me how one could sicken a man just by feeding him rhubarb and spinach at the same sitting, sicken him even to death if the portions were sufficient, and never set a bit of poison on the table at all.

Chapter 27 “Mapleshade!” Dreaming, Crookedjaw raced through the forest. Dark earth sprayed behind him as he barged through the tangled undergrowth. “Mapleshade?” Where is she? He had so much to ask her. Questions that had been churning in his belly for days, nagging and nagging till he had to have answers. Why had she put Willowbreeze’s life at risk? Why had she clawed him for saving a Clanmate? What about his destiny? When was he going to get his first apprentice? How long till he became deputy? Would he follow Hailstar? Or Shellheart? Shellheart? Crookedjaw stumbled to a halt. Who, if he became leader, would have to die over and over before Crookedjaw took his place? Crookedjaw felt sick. It was bad enough waiting for Hailstar to lose his last life. He didn’t want to count off his own father’s deaths while he waited for his destiny to come true. “Higher!” A sharp growl sliced through the mist.

You are so stupid.” Astonishment broke through his pain. Could I still undo what I had done? “I lied!' I spat my whisper at him. “I knew you read my journal. I knew you read my dreams. I wrote there what I thought would hurt you most! I lied to hurt you. For letting him be dead while you lived. For being loved by him more than he loved me!” I took a breath. “He loved you more than he ever loved any of the rest of us!” “What?” His mouth hung open after that word, his eyes wide. He made a stupid face of astonishment. As if he hadn’t always known he was loved the best. That he was Beloved. “Stupid again! Asking stupid questions. Go with him. Go now. It’s you he wants, not me. Go!” When had my voice risen to a shout? I did not know, I did not care. Let it be a spectacle, let all the camp be roused and folk stare at me. For that was what was happening. Dutiful had come to his feet, a sword in hand, looking around for an enemy. They were all half-awake, roused by my shouts. Hap was staring with his mouth hanging open. Nettle’s hands clutched her face in horror at the truth I had shouted. And my father lifted a hand. His face was so ravaged, it was like looking at death itself. Except for the smooth, silvered part of it. By creeping degrees, his human hand lifted. He turned it over, showing a bloody palm. His cracked lips moved. Beloved. He could not say the word, but I knew it. So did his Fool. He rose, the blanket that had draped his shoulders falling to the earth. He pulled the glove from his hand and let it fall. He walked uncertainly, like a puppet with his strings pulled by an apprentice puppeteer. He reached my father. So tenderly, he set his hand into my father’s. Then he leaned down until he lay upon the wolf, his face turned to my father’s face. He put his arm across my father’s bony back. He drew him close and set his silver fingers to the wolf. For a moment all was still. Then I saw Beloved’s fingers stir the soft fur of the wolf’s back. The firelit bodies of my father and Beloved softened and merged. I felt something I could not describe. Like the whoosh of air when a door opens, and then closes again, but it was in the Skill-current, and so strong that I saw Nettle flinch at it, too. Briefer than an instant, I saw light striate out from them. A nexus, a node on the path of fate. Then it was finished. Something finally complete, as it should have been. Their colors dimmed and the wolf’s eyes gleamed. It was slow and it was sudden, that they were gone and only the wolf remained. The snarl faded. The wolf’s ears pricked and swiveled. His broad head turned slowly. He lifted his muzzle and snuffed the night air. Such eyes he had! They were a darkness full of the brilliance of life. For one brief instant, light caught in them and glowed green. We were all motionless, as if a huge predator faced us. Then, like a wet dog, the wolf shook himself and tiny fragments of stone flew in all directions, as if he had rolled in them. His slow look roved over us, pausing at each in turn. His gaze lingered on me the last. His eyes were both hard and amused. Those we’re astonishing lies, cub. And the very last one the most inspired of all. You have your father’s talent for it. He have one final shake of his coat. I go to the hunt!

You are so stupid.” Astonishment broke through his pain. Could I still undo what I had done? “I lied!' I spat my whisper at him. “I knew you read my journal. I knew you read my dreams. I wrote there what I thought would hurt you most! I lied to hurt you. For letting him be dead while you lived. For being loved by him more than he loved me!” I took a breath. “He loved you more than he ever loved any of the rest of us!” “What?” His mouth hung open after that word, his eyes wide. He made a stupid face of astonishment. As if he hadn’t always known he was loved the best. That he was Beloved. “Stupid again! Asking stupid questions. Go with him. Go now. It’s you he wants, not me. Go!” When had my voice risen to a shout? I did not know, I did not care. Let it be a spectacle, let all the camp be roused and folk stare at me. For that was what was happening. Dutiful had come to his feet, a sword in hand, looking around for an enemy. They were all half-awake, roused by my shouts. Hap was staring with his mouth hanging open. Nettle’s hands clutched her face in horror at the truth I had shouted. And my father lifted a hand. His face was so ravaged, it was like looking at death itself. Except for the smooth, silvered part of it. By creeping degrees, his human hand lifted. He turned it over, showing a bloody palm. His cracked lips moved. Beloved. He could not say the word, but I knew it. So did his Fool. He rose, the blanket that had draped his shoulders falling to the earth. He pulled the glove from his hand and let it fall. He walked uncertainly, like a puppet with his strings pulled by an apprentice puppeteer. He reached my father. So tenderly, he set his hand into my father’s. Then he leaned down until he lay upon the wolf, his face turned to my father’s face. He put his arm across my father’s bony back. He drew him close and set his silver fingers to the wolf. For a moment all was still. Then I saw Beloved’s fingers stir the soft fur of the wolf’s back. The firelit bodies of my father and Beloved softened and merged. I felt something I could not describe. Like the whoosh of air when a door opens, and then closes again, but it was in the Skill-current, and so strong that I saw Nettle flinch at it, too. Briefer than an instant, I saw light striate out from them. A nexus, a node on the path of fate. Then it was finished. Something finally complete, as it should have been. Their colors dimmed and the wolf’s eyes gleamed. It was slow and it was sudden, that they were gone and only the wolf remained. The snarl faded. The wolf’s ears pricked and swiveled. His broad head turned slowly. He lifted his muzzle and snuffed the night air. Such eyes he had! They were a darkness full of the brilliance of life. For one brief instant, light caught in them and glowed green. We were all motionless, as if a huge predator faced us. Then, like a wet dog, the wolf shook himself and tiny fragments of stone flew in all directions, as if he had rolled in them. His slow look roved over us, pausing at each in turn. His gaze lingered on me the last. His eyes were both hard and amused. Those we’re astonishing lies, cub. And the very lady one the most inspired of all. You have your father’s talent for it. He have one final shake of his coat. I go to the hunt!