Witch, do this for me,
Find me a moon
made of longing.
Then cut it sliver thin,
and having cut it,
hang it high
above my beloved’s house,
so that she may look up
tonight
and see it,
and seeing it, sigh for me
as I sigh for her,
moon or no moon.
-Christopher Carrion, Abarat: Days of Magic Nights of War, Clive Barker, 2004
‘What difference, being a pawn for the Light or a pawn for the Dark?’
There was a short silence.
‘There is a great difference,’ said Cadvan softly. ‘One difference is that for the Dark, certainly, you are a pawn. For the Light, you are a free human being, free to make mistakes, to do wrong, even. You are free to choose, whether or not you believe it.’
‘Funny idea of freedom.’
‘It is the difference between commitment and slavery,’ Cadvan said. ‘Between working for what you hope for and believe in the depths of your heart, and what someone forces you to do.’
-Maerad and Cadvan, The Naming, Alison Croggon, 2005
‘Listen to me very carefully. Nothing is the same. Nothing will ever be the same again. There lives in this earth a woman who can be my friend and my lover. Do you understand that? Do you understand what a marvelous thing that is?
. . . ‘You’re in love, my lord,’ Amin sneered. ‘Take a cold bath and it will pass.’
I stood up and grabbed Amin. I pulled him up next to me and put my face very close to his. ‘You know nothing,’ I told him. ‘You’re an ignoramus. Haven’t you the imagination to think what it will be like to love such a woman? At that moment, our two bodies and our two souls will become one. I would travel to the ends of the earth, I would die, my friend, in search of such a consummation.’
-Prince Mahmud, Seven Daughters and Seven Sons, Barbera Cohan and Bahija Lovejoy, 1982
So Many Thoughts 