Kirill Yeskov

“I have filled the gaps in Tzerlag’s story at my own discretion. The old soldier bears no responsibility for my inventions, especially since many will now passionately charge the storyteller – who else? – with deviating from the mainstream version of the events of the end of the Third Age. One has to note that the public’s knowledge of these events is mostly derived from the adapted Western epos, The Lord of the Rings, at best, and often from the Sword of Isildur TV series and the Galleries of Moria first-person shooter game.”

““In two or three decades the Elves will turn Middle Earth into a well-tended tidy lawn, and Men into cute pets; they will deprive Man of a very small thing – his right to Create, and grant him a myriad of plain and simple pleasures instead.””

““Craft the Final Solution to the Mordorian problem, sure, but when it’s time to implement it, you always hide in the bushes. It’s executioners you need, so that you can later point at them in disgust: it’s all their excesses.””

““You know, those who are motivated by greed, lust for power, or wounded pride are half-way tolerable, at least they feel pangs of conscience sometimes. But there is nothing more fearsome than a bright-eyed enthusiast who’d decided to benefit mankind; such a one can drown the world in blood without hesitation. Those people’s favorite saying is: ‘There are things more important than peace and more terrible than war.’””

““What are we wizards but consumers of that which our predecessors have created, while they are creators of new knowledge? We face the Past, they face the Future. You have once chosen magic, and therefore will never cross the boundaries set by the Valar, whereas in their science the growth of knowledge – and hence, power – is truly unlimited. You are consumed by the worst kind of envy – that of a craftsman for an artist.””