file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/Tony/My%20Docum…ssin’s%20Quest(1997)[v2](html)/Assassin’s%20Quest.htm (3 of 753)12/11/2005 20:42:19
I AWAKE EVERY MORNING with ink on my hands. Sometimes I am sprawled,facedown, on my worktable, amidst a welter of scrolls and papers. My boy,when he comes in with my tray, may dare to chide me for not taking myselfoff to bed the night before. But sometimes he looks at my face and venturesno word. I do not try to explain to him why I do as I do. It is not asecret one can give to a younger man; it is one he must earn and learn onhis own.
A man has to have a purpose in life. I know this now, but it took methe first score years of my life to learn it. In that I scarcely thinkmyself unique. Still, it is a lesson that, once learned, has remained withme. So, with little besides pain with which to occupy myself these days, Ihave sought out a purpose for myself. I have turned to a task that bothLady Patience and Scribe Fedwren had long ago advocated. I began thesepages as an effort to write down a coherent history of the Six Duchies. ButI found it difficult to keep my mind long fixed on a single topic, and so Idistract myself with lesser treatises, on my theories of magic, on myobservations of political structures, and my reflections on other cultures.When the discomfort is at its worst and I cannot sort my own thoughts wellenough to write them down, I work on translations, or attempt to make alegible recording of older documents. I busy my hands in the hope ofdistracting my mind.
