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Seerdoh Anyone could reason themselves into a corner, and so justify surrender It was even easier when courage itself was vulnerable to abuse and sordid mockery Because, after all, to persist, to live on, dee, and that was only possible when the virtue remained worthy of respect

Seerdolared over at the decapitated corpse ‘Can you understand any of that, Harak? Can you grasp, now, finally, how the very existence of people like you gives e a face, and ry for faces’ It was either that, or the fury within him would devour his own soul No, better to keep the face he slashed open so them, one after another Justice was so weak The corrupt won, the pure of heart failed and fell to the way-side Graft and greed crowed triuht that, and that fight need not even be in his own naht for Black Coral, for the Tiste Andii, for humanity itself

Even for the Redeemer-no, that cannot be What I do here can never be healed-there can be no redemption for me Ever You must see that All of you -but to whom? He did not know We were put in an impossible situation, and, at least for us, the tyrant responsible is dead-has been punished It could have been worse-he could have escaped retribution, es-caped justice

There was trauma in war Some people survived it; others were for ever trappedin It Foron their part Not some form of sickness, or insanity It was, in truth, the consequence of a pro«foundly moral person’s inability to reconcile the conflicts in his or her soul No healer could heal that, because there was nothing to heal No elixir swept the malady away No salve erased the scars The only reconciliation possible was to make those responsible accountable, to see them face justice Andrarely ever took place And so the veteran’s wounds never e never subsides

So Seerdomin had co here, eapon in hand, solved nothing of the conflict within him For he was as flawed as anyone, and no hteous fury, he could not deliver pure, unsullied justice-for such a thing was collective, integral to a people’s identity Such a thing must be an act of society, of civilization Not Tiste Andii society-they clearly will not accept that burden, will not accede toout justice on behalf of us humans, nor should they be expected to And so… here I am, and I hear the Redeemer weep

()tie cannot murder in the name of justice

Irreconcilable What he had been, what he was now The things he did then, and all he was doing here, at this moment

The would-be usurper knelt beside him, headless in sour symbolism But it was a complicated, messy symbol And he could find for himself but one truth in all of this

Heads roll downhill

It may be that in the belief of the possibility of rede Redemption waits, like a side door, there in whatever court of judge-ment we eventually find ourselves Not even the payotiation that absolves responsibility A shaking of hands and off one goes, through that side door, with the judge benignly watching on Culpability and consequences neatly evaded

Oh, Salind was in a crisis indeed Arguments reduced until the very notion of rede all within hi absolution as if it ithout value, worthless, whilst the reward to those ereater than a tyrant’s hoard

Where was justice in all of this? Where was the punishs enacted? There is, in this, no moral compass No need for one, for every path leads to the sa is passed out, no questions asked

The cult of the Redeeun to understand how priesthoods were born, the necessity of sanctioned forms, rules and prohibitions, the mortal filter defined by accepted notions of justice And yet, she could also see how profoundly dangerous such an institution could become, as arbiters of morality, as dispensers of that justice Faces like hooded vultures, guarding the door to the court, choosing who gets insideand who doesn’t I low soon before the first bag of silver changes hands? How soon before the first reprehensible cri Redeemer?

She could fashion such a church, could forion, and she could i sense of justice But what of the next generation of priests and priestesses? And the one after that, and the next one? How long before the hard rulestyranny? How long before corruption arrives, when the hidden heart of the religion is the simple fact that the Redeeuaranteed to breed cynicism in the priesthood, and from such cynicism secular acquisitiveness would be inevitable