“Walls have ears.Doors have eyes.Trees have voices.Beasts tell lies.Beware the rain.Beware the snow.Beware the manYou think you know.-Songs of Sapphique”

“I have walked a stair of swords,I have worn a coat of scars.I have vowed with hollow words,I have lied my way to the stars-Songs of Sapphique”

“All my years to this momentAll my roads to this wall.All my words to this silenceAll my pride to this fall.-Songs of Sapphique”

“Sapphique strapped the wings to his arms and flew, over oceans and plains, over glass cities and mountains of gold. Animals fled; people pointed up. He flew so far, he saw the sky above him and the sky said, "Turn back, my son, for you have climbed too high." Sapphique laughed, as he rarely did. "Not this time. This time I beat on you until you open."But Incarceron was angered, and struck him down.”

“In the Sapient tongue he said softly, ‘Tellme, Master, did you know Incarceron was tiny?’‘Is it?’ Sapphique replied in the same language, his greeneyes as he looked up lit by deep points of flame. ‘To you,perhaps. Not to its Prisoners. Every prison is a universe forits inmates. And think, Jared Sapiens. Might not the Realmalso be tiny, swinging from the watchchain of some being ina world even vaster?”

“He sang his last song. And the words of that have never been written down. But it was sweet and of great beauty, and those that heard it were changed utterly.Some say it was the song that moves the stars.”

“Where are the leaders?' Sapphique asked.'In the fortresses,' the swan replied.'And the poets?''Lost in dreams of other worlds.''And the craftsmen?''Forging machines to challenge the darkness.''And the Wise, who made the world?'The swan lowered its black neck sadly.'Dwindled to crones and sorcerers in towers.”