Control yourselves. Be orderly. Don’t blow any of us up. Am I understood?’ A quick nod. ‘Aye, sir. Bless you, sir.’ Startled, Paran’s voice sharpened… - Steven Erikson

Show me a mortal who is not pursued, and I’ll show you a corpse. Every hunter is hunted, every mind that knows itself has stalkers. We drive and are driven. The unknown pursues the ignorant, the truth assails every scholar wise enough to know his ignorance, for that is the meaning of unknowable truths.

Stone, sea, forest, city — and every creature that ever lived — all share the same struggle. Being resists unbeing. Order wars against the chaos of dissolution, of disorder.

A title as meaningless as the woman bearing it. The Empress—just another face she’d seen somewhere before, a mask behind which someone hid from mortality.
“No use hiding,” she whispered, frowning down at the dead leaves and branches around her. “No use.”