Juliet Marillier

“Tales within tales. Dreams within dreams. Pattern on pattern and path beyond path. For such short-lived folks, the human kind seem determined to make things as complicated as possible for themselves.”

“I would hold on, and hold on, until my hands clutch at emptiness.”

“I'm here, Sorcha.I would not believe it at first; it had been so long since he had touched my mind in this way.I'm here. Try to let go, dear one. I know how it hurts. Lean on me; let me take your burden for a while.I could scarcely see him; he was on the far side of the fire, behind the others and half turned away, with his head still in his hands. It seemed as if he had scarcely moved at all.How can you? How can you know?I know. Let me help you.I felt the strength of his mind flow into mine, and somehow he managed to close off the terrible, the dark and secret things that he had dreaded sharing with me, and fill my head with pictures of all that was good and brave.”

“But I believe we all have an inner goodness; a little flame that stays alight through the worst of trials.”

“I cannot expiate my sin, yet I am compelled to try. My mind will not let me rest. There must be something I could have done, some way I could have acted, something I could have changed to snatch victory from bitter defeat.”

“Later I stirred again, knowing the night was passing, but unwilling to wake fully lest this fair vision be lost forever. There was an arm across me, holding the cloak around me; and the same old blanket covered the two of us. Darragh lay behind me, his body curled neatly against my own, his living warmth a part of me, his slow peaceful breathing steady against my hair. I kept quite still. I did not allow myself to return to full consciousness. I thought, if it all ended right now, I wouldn’t mind a bit. Let it end now, so I need never wake. And I slipped back into sleep.”

“Because if I see you defeated, then I think I will see Alban defeated, and if that happens, none of us can go on. To guard you is to guard the heart of this land of ours.”

“There is the darkness of a moonless night out of doors, and there is the darkness of a house with its shutters closed and the lamps quenched. There is the darkness of sleep, relieved by the bright images of dreams. But no darkness is as complete, as blanketing, as terrifying as the utter darkness of underground.”

“At the end of the parapet, a long black coat lay neatly folded on the wall. At the other end stood my sister and her lover. Tati’s arms were wound around Sorrow’s neck, her body pressed close to his, as if she would melt into him. His hands were enlaced in my sister’s long hair as he strained her slight form against him, white on black. Their eyes were closed; their lips clung; they were lost in each other. It was beautiful and powerful. It was impossible.”

“We’re all trapped in a net of consequences, condemned to paths outside our control. It’s the way of things.”

“What sort of man would you choose for yourself, Liadan?, he asked me. One who is trustworthy, and true to himself, I answered straightaway. One who speaks his mind without fear. One who can be a friend as well as a husband. I would be contented with that.”

“The greatest tales, well told, awaken the fears and longings of the listeners. Each man hears a different story. Each is touched by it according to his inner self. The words go to the ear, but the true message travels straight to the spirit.”

“He and I…we share a bond. Not love, exactly. It goes beyond that. He is mine as surely as sun follows moon across the sky. Mine before ever I knew he existed. Mine until death and beyond.”

“She seemed fragile like a moonflower – destined to bloom for a single lovely night, and then to fade and fall.”

“Real life is not quite as it is in stories. In the old tales, bad things happen, and when the tale has unfolded and come to its triumphant conclusion, it is as if the bad things had never been. Life is not as simple as that, not quite.”

“The man journeyed far, and he heard and saw many strange things on his travels. He learned that - that the friend and the enemy are but two faces of the same self. That the path one believes chosen long since, constant and unchangeable, straight and wide, can alter in an instant. Can branch, and twist and lead the traveler to places far beyond his wildest imaginings. That there are mysteries beyond the mind of mortal man, and that to deny their existence is to spend a life of half-consciousness.”

“For the others, it was still just a tale, like all the tales we told, night by night, tales comical and strange, tales heroic and awe-inspiring, the tales that formed the fabric of our spirits.”

“We all accepted that this land was a gate to that other world, the realm of spirits and dreams and the Fair Folk, without any question. The place we grew up in was so full of magic that it was almost a part of everyday life - not to say you'd meet one of them every time you went out to pick berries, or draw water from your well, but everyone we knew had a friend of a friend who'd strayed too far into the forest, and disappeared; or ventured inside a ring of mushrooms, and gone away for a while, and come back subtly changed. Strange things could happen in those places. Gone for maybe fifty years you could be, and come back still a young girl; or away for no more than an instant by moral reckoning, and return wrinkled and bent with age. These tales fascinated us, but failed to make us careful. If it was going to happen to you, it would happen, whether you liked it or not.”

“Though it was dark, I could see how his eyes came alive with enthusiasm and the way he used his hands to illustrate with surprising grace. There were hidden depths beneath that impassive exterior. A sweet kernel shielded by a tough shell; dancing fire concealed in stone.”

“I wept in self-pity, and because I knew you could never go back. You chose your path, and that was it.”

“Aquilo pertubava Bridei porque lhe parecia que só havia um mundo e que, se tinha defeitos, as pessoas não se deviam queixar deles, mas dar passos para o mudar”

“Death, of course, should not be feared, but awaited with certain wonder. To die was to step across a threshold into a new world, unknown, unimaginable.”

“Man sets his hand to games of power and influence, he quests for far horizons and wealth beyond imagining. He thinks to own what cannot be possessed. He hews the ancient trees to broaden his grazing lands; he mines the deep caves and topples the standing stones. He embraces a new faith with fervor and, perhaps, with sincerity. But he grows ever further from the old things. He can no longer hear the heartbeat of the earth, his mother. He cannot smell the change in the air; he cannot see what lies beyond the veil of shadows. Even his new god is formed in his own image, for do they not call him the son of man? By his own choice he is cut adrift from the ancient cycles of sun and moon, the ordered passing of the seasons. And without him, the Fair Folk dwindle and are nothing. They retreat and hide themselves, and are reduced to the clurichaun with his little ale jug; the brownie who steals the cow's milk at Samhain; the half-heard wailing of the banshee. They become no more than a memory in the mind of a frail old man; a tale told by a crazy old woman.”

“A fine man", observed my sister, pouring mead for the two of us. "Well trained.”

“He was sitting not far away, watching me, and I surprised a smile on his face, the first real smile I had ever seen him give, a smile that curved and softened the tight mouth, and warmed the ice-cool eyes; a smile that brought the blood to my face and made my heart turn over.”

“The world is simple, I think, in its essence. Life, death, love, hate. Desire, fulfillment. Magic.”

“Ask us for any help you need...Let us be strong for you.”

“You bound him to you with your courage and your tales. You hold him to you now. You captured a wild creature when you had no place you could keep him.”

“We draw our strength from the great oaks of the forest. As they take their nourishment from the soil, and from the rains that feed the soil, so we find our courage in the pattern of living things around us. They stand through storm and tempest. They grow and renew themselves. Like a grove of young oaks, we remain strong.”

“The girl is not yours, or mine, or anyone’s. But for now, she travels under my protection, and let him who lays a hand on her answer to me.”

“I felt Red’s arm close around me like a shield against the rest of the world. His mouth was against my hair, and his heart thumped violently under my cheek. I shut my eyes, and held onto his shirt with both hands, and wept.”

“I told you once,” said Red, “that I wanted to hear your voice. I did not think the first words I would hear would be these.”“Those were not the first words,” I whispered, fighting tears. I would not weep.”

“I know how it feels, dear one. As if your heart were torn in two. I feel your pain.”I took a deep breath. Another.“Finbar?”“I know how it feels. As if you will never be whole again.”I reached inside my dress, where I wore two cords about my neck. One held my wedding ring; the other the amulet that had once been my mother’s. I left the one, and took off the other. “This is yours. Take it back. Take it back, it was to you she gave it.”I slipped the cord over his head, and the little carven stone with its ash tree sign lay on his breast. He had grown painfully thin.“Show me the other. The other talisman you wear.”Slowly I took out the carven ring, and lifted it on my palm for my brother to see.“He made this for you? Him with the golden hair, and the eyes that devour”?“Not him. Another.” Images were strong in my mind; Red with his arm around me like a shield; Red cutting up and apple; Red kicking a sword from a man’s hand, and catching it in his own; Red barefoot on the sand with the sea around his ankles.“You risked much, to give your love to such a one.”I stared at him. “Love?”“Did you not know, until now, when you must say goodbye?”

“How can he do this? If you were mine, I would fight to keep you. I would die, before I let you go.”

“I almost forgot,” said Red. His voice sounded very strange, as if from a long, long distance. He reached into his pocket. “I have something for you.”He put it into my hand. A round, shiny, perfect apple, green as new grass with a faint blush of rosy pink. And now his eyes had changed so that I saw what lay there, hidden deep, so deep only the bravest or most foolhardy would seek to find it.He has always understood me better, without words. So I laid my hand on my heart, held it there for a moment, and then moved it over and touched my palm against his breast. My heart. Your heart.”

“There is no good or evil, save in the way you see the world. There is no dark or light save in your own.”

“Why should I be polished and improved like goods for sale? I might not even want to marry! And besides, I have many skills. I can read and write and play the flute and harp. Why should I change to please some man? If he doesn’t like me the way I am, then he can get some other girl for his wife.”

“I had learned how it felt to want more than the sweet touch of hand to cheek or lips to palm, more than a kiss, more than an embrace. I was starting to discover that it is not only the mind that understands love, but also the body.”

“Trust can be a hard lesson; hope still more difficult.”

“The most powerful weapon is hope.”

“Hope is such a tenuous quality. To feel it and then to be denied what one most longs for ... Better, surely, not to hope at all, than to open the heart to a hope that is impossible.”

“I do not view suicide as wicked, just terribly sad. There is only one death, but it is like a stone cast into a pond - the ripples stretch far. Such an act must leave a burden of sorrow, guilt, shame and confusion on an entire family. A natural death, such as my father suffered, is hard enough to deal with. A decision to end one's life must be still more devastating for those left behind. I cannot imagine the degree of hopelessness someone must feel to contemplate such an act.”

“With courage and hope, we can conquer our fears and do what we once believed impossible.”

“As for me, I had found love, and that was a gift worth suffering for.”

“Trust is a thing you know without words.”

“If a man has to say trust me, Gogu conveyed, it's a sure sign you cannot. Trust him, that is. Trust is a thing you know without words.”

“You will find the way, daughter of the forest. Through grief and pain, through many trials, through betrayal and loss, your feet will walk a straight path.”

“What came next is very hard to tell. Indeed, I have told it but once before, when I needed to, and I will tell it this time only becaude it forms a strand in the fabric of my story, and it wove itself into what came after.”

“Only - only that, if you believe the tales, it's in the nature of our people to go to war and to kill, just as it is to sing and play and tell stories. Perhaps they are two halves of the same whole.”

“Nothing comes without a price.”