A Spell for the Lost

In which Moonhawk and Lute, pooling their varied resources, find that which is lost.

Moonhawk and Lute have been travelling together for a month now. Underneath all the teasing banter, Lute has come to regard Moonhawk highly, surprising Moonhawk when she gets an idea of how worried he is for her safety. What she thinks of him is not as clear, since he doesn’t do anything to frighten her the way she frightens him.

Speaking of frightening, the scene where Moonhawk is working her spell is very atmospheric.

We learn that Moonhawk is from Dyan City (like that other Moonhawk, and that settles the question I had about whether Dyan and Huntress are the same). One of the undercurrents of these stories makes another appearance with Lute’s comment about the differences between life in the cities and elsewhere.

The people in this story are named after plants: Cedar is a tree, and Laurel, Aster, Senna, and Tael are flowering plants. (Tael, being a plant that doesn’t exist on Earth, is carefully introduced in passing a few pages before the girl’s name is first mentioned.) The mention of Laurel, Moonhawk’s old teacher, is reassuring; it’s evidence that this kind of theme naming is widespread, and that Tael and Cedar had a better basis for their relationship than the coincidence of both having parents who named their children after vegetables. I also hope that Senna was named for one of her namesake’s more congenial properties than the one that first came to my mind; medicinally, senna is useful but unpleasant, which is not bad for a plant but would be an unhappy reputation for a person to bear.

You know who Lute reminds me of in this story? Shan yos’Galan. They have the theatrical mannerisms in common, of course, but the resemblance isn’t usually so strong. I think maybe it’s the lounging about with a glass of wine in his hand that does it.

6 thoughts on “A Spell for the Lost

  1. Late to the party

    I think that Moonhawk is rather young and inexperienced. Well-trained and well-endowed with talent, but in need of real-world experience and application. I rather think that’s what the Goddess had in mind in sending her out of the Temple. Learning to think through possible consequences of her use of power would be an important thing to learn. I imagine that Moonhawk herself was unpleasantly surprised by having successfully found Tael only to have her settle into Moonhawk’s body until her own had been found and her death rites carried out. That was probably pretty scary!

  2. Paul A. Post author

    There seems to be a pattern in the Lute and Moonhawk stories of Moonhawk being young and talented and sent out of the Temple to gain real-world experience, implicitly by the Goddess in this life and explicitly by the head priestess in “Moon’s Honor”. And of course she’s young and talented and sent out of the Temple again in “Moonshadow”, though in that case it’s less clear whose idea it was to send her and with what aim in mind.

    This multiplicity of stories about Moonhawk going out of the Temple to gain real-world experience is not, I notice, matched by any stories about what she does when she comes back (although I have my suspicions). Presumably the authors are saving that up for when they tell the Priscilla-and-Shan version.

  3. Ed8r

    RE: Lute’s comment about the differences between life in the cities and elsewhere.

    It is actually Moonhawk who first mentions being used to “city comfort.” But later, Lute puts this comfort in a slightly different perspective: For the most part, the Goddess blesses those more who live nearest the Temples, implying either 1) criticism of the Goddess or 2) criticism of those who distribute her blessings to others or 3) criticism of both. And Moonhawk then recognizes that “his voice reverberated with Truth.” She is about to respond when they are interrupted by Aster.

    This is not one of my favorite stories. It neatly ties up all the loose ends, but was such a downer. And I thought it left Lute, who is usually so clever about human nature, a victim of the “idiot plot” trope. I suppose we can rationalize that his worry over Moonhawk interfered with his usual awareness of those he’s dealing with, but still . . .

  4. Ed8r

    I think this may be my least favorite of the Lute and Moonhawk stories . . . although it is interesting to see how Lute panics when Moonhawk is possessed by Tael and then how he susses out by observation what the explanation might be. He doesn’t get all the details precisely accurate, but close enough to elicit a reaction from the one responsible. But in spite of demonstrating his ability to read people, then he goes to bed and leaves the perpetrator alone? That seems out of character.

    Also interesting is a comment Moonhawk makes, after they’re back on the road: “I was never a free woman, you know. In the circle, there is—duty. Some of Tael’s memories were—interesting. I shall have to think on them more fully, as Sister Laurel would have said.” To what do we suppose she is referring here? Physical intimacy, perhaps? Or what else?

  5. Ed8r

    RE: My comment above . . .

    I see that my sentence structure made it unclear what I meant by “and then how he susses out by observation what the explanation might be.” Not the explanation for Moonhawk, but the explanation for the missing person.

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