As for their healers and their worship of gold books of old lore, there had been tribal stories of this, too, all nonsense, as anything chattered by … - Tanith Lee

Somewhere in me was a rod of steel to which I clung. I’d had a vision, as good as any vision given to any poet, sage, or prophet in the past. I wasn’t elated, I wasn’t confident even, but somehow, I knew, and with the end of doubt had come the death of despair.

The thought had taken hold: Only the best must survive, not a hierarchy of riff-raff. Gods, who had such power of life or death as he, must choose carefully. And one day he would have to choose: Shall I immortalize this one, or this? But not yet.

Tonight it was to be a play for aristocrats to watch, concerning gods and shepherds; it was the humble villages that clamored for princesses and emperors.