The winter of ignorance could come, the cold stoked by a thousand bonfires. There would always be loveless souls ready to kindle such blazes with the… - Esther Friesner

Listen, Noel, I don’t believe in the occult—not the dime store demonism all the right people are barking about. They see devils everywhere but in the mirror, and they raise such a hunting howl about it that they distract attention from the real evils. What I do believe is that there are great powers walking this world—forces for true good, forces for evil we can’t begin to imagine. Too many of the small-souled can only feel good by proving how bad everyone else is. They find it easier to turn a searchlight on some imaginary wickedness outside than to strike a single inner spark that might show them their own hearts.

A high-handed air of command was one of the first symptoms of increasing power-hunger.

We are all doomed, condemned to have the flesh seared from our bones, our blood gouting from our headless necks as the dragon rends limb from limb!"
"Wait a minute," the first guard said. "How can the dragon rend us limb from limb, blood gouting and all, if it's already seared the flesh from our bones?"
Another Gorgorian guard gave him a smart thwack in the head and said, "It's a holy vision, you clod. Things don't need to make sense when they're holy visions.