[The sentiments that Silco spits at him now bring Liem uneasily back to his time under the Regent, when he had been firmly within Kenoma's grip. Back then, he had felt much the same — though out of pity, rather than spite. He knew his world to be full of cruelties and horrors. That he had managed to work his way into a position of relative comfort and prestige didn't erase that.
He knew Oppara's slums still thronged with people (refuse, to the rest of the city) who had nowhere else to go, and that Taldor's countryside was full of a lower class who could barely scrape together a living, and that the people of Cheliax and Nidal and Geb still toiled under the rule of tyrants far worse than any self-interested Taldan emperor. He knew that, just as there were realms of ease and bliss, there were also planes where mortal souls were condemned to suffer for untold ages, until they might finally be snuffed out for good — or else be transformed by the enormity of their suffering.
He had thought, back then, that it would be a mercy to leave those souls to their sleep, and look forward instead to a Creation where such things didn't need to exist. And even now, with Meridian's promise dangled before him, Zenith whispers the truth of that mercy in his ears.
What if we fail? says a warm, melancholy voice in his mind. What if Pythareus wins his throne, and our reward for your hope is another 500 years of war?]
We cannot know what the future holds, [Liem argues, and he almost sounds as though he is talking to himself.] To stop striving for something better is to cease to live. Are you saying those people would prefer to lay down and die, rather than continue to struggle? Is that what you would do, in their place?
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He knew Oppara's slums still thronged with people (refuse, to the rest of the city) who had nowhere else to go, and that Taldor's countryside was full of a lower class who could barely scrape together a living, and that the people of Cheliax and Nidal and Geb still toiled under the rule of tyrants far worse than any self-interested Taldan emperor. He knew that, just as there were realms of ease and bliss, there were also planes where mortal souls were condemned to suffer for untold ages, until they might finally be snuffed out for good — or else be transformed by the enormity of their suffering.
He had thought, back then, that it would be a mercy to leave those souls to their sleep, and look forward instead to a Creation where such things didn't need to exist. And even now, with Meridian's promise dangled before him, Zenith whispers the truth of that mercy in his ears.
What if we fail? says a warm, melancholy voice in his mind. What if Pythareus wins his throne, and our reward for your hope is another 500 years of war?]
We cannot know what the future holds, [Liem argues, and he almost sounds as though he is talking to himself.] To stop striving for something better is to cease to live. Are you saying those people would prefer to lay down and die, rather than continue to struggle? Is that what you would do, in their place?