Long Savannahs of the Blue
In which Cantra comes to a decision, and Rool Tiazan’s lady comes to an arrangement.
I get the feeling that the tree is worried about Cantra, and trying to help her, but most of what it knows about getting around Cantra comes from watching Jela doing it, and even aside from the fact that what works for Jela won’t necessarily work for anyone else, imitating Jela is not the most helpful thing to be doing right now.
The tree can, it seems, speak words on occasion, within limits. The words it gives to Cantra in this chapter are all memories of words, its answer to her question a reshuffling of the question itself. I wonder whose memories; the ones I recognise are from occasions when both Cantra and the tree have been present. The images it usually used to communicate with Jela were obviously drawn from its own store of memories, though, and I don’t offhand recall it ever talking to him with his. Perhaps it hasn’t spoken in words before because it doesn’t have very many words to draw on, and wasn’t used to using the ones it had; Jela was the first verbal person it had ever met, and he didn’t talk much, at that.
Meanwhile, Rool Tiazan and his lady (whose current state of existence does remind one of Aelliana’s, later) are making a house call. We see that not all the free dramliz are as altruistic, or as balanced in themselves, as Rool Tiazan and his lady, or Lute and Moonhawk. Which is saddening, but not really surprising, given the way the dramliz are brought up.
It’s indicated that Simbu’s dominant is only one of a group of dramliz plotting to supplant the Iloheen, which – on the one hand, obviously that’s not something it would be remotely reasonable to contemplate attempting on one’s own, but on the other hand, given the kind of person you’d have to be to want to supplant the Iloheen, I suspect that if they actually did succeed they’d be backstabbing each other in less time than it takes to say “Lords of Unmaking”.
Rool Tiazan is the kind of being you find in fairy stories about people who come to grief by not being precise about wording, and I think it’s significant that what he and his lady have agreed to is to lend one third of his strength as measured by the borrower – particularly since he has a track record of making his strength appear less than it is. (See also: not “it cost him an effort”, but “he knew she would see that it cost him an effort”.) Not that I blame him, since honest-and-upfront is clearly the wrong approach to take with an ally like this.
What decision did Cantra come to in this chapter?
Yes, as you say, Tree spoke to Cantra in a different style than we’ve seen before. Keep in mind, in Necessity’s Child, Syl Vor hears Tree address him by name, when he goes out to the garden at midnight and falls asleep.
Rool is a clever dude, keeping his power cloaked.
As far as we know, Simbu’s ambitious dominant wins, at the end. Far as I can figure, this book does not end with a conclusive victory for either the Iloheen or the power-seeking dramliz faction. That leaves both options open, for the final battle — if there is one, and if the two universes eventually merge, as I suspect they might. Maybe.
“comes to a decision” was probably the wrong way of putting it, on reflection, because that usually implies that the decision has been made, whereas what Cantra’s doing in this chapter is facing the need to make a decision. I don’t know if she’s settled on an answer yet.
The decision she’s facing is whether, having delivered Jela’s logbook to his troop, she should stick around and help try to save the universe, or declare her obligation to Jela at an end and go back to her old life of flying under the radar and avoiding getting enmeshed in the problems of others. One consideration, as she says to her memory of Garen, is that staying quiet and aloof hasn’t actually worked as well as intended. Another, which she doesn’t say out loud but is present in the conversation all the same, is that with the tree’s revelation she’s already enmeshed in the problem of saving the universe for the next generation; it’s no longer merely a problem of others, because part of the next generation will be hers and Jela’s.
Oh, indeed. Excellent point. Funny, as emotional as I can be, for some reason “saving the world for the next generation” never struck me before. That had to be a motivator.
Good thoughts.
Why mimic a dope stick? Can Rool Tiazan’s lady’s sister (Simbu’s dominant) permit a drug to affect her brain (if she has so physical a thing as a brain)?
Cantra was deliberately non-fertile, and therefore is having to make considerable adjustment to her plans and ideas. Not something to put her in charity with the tree, which she has always viewed with some skepticism.
That’s a good question about the dope stick, now you mention it. Having a character lying around on a chaise longue smoking a cigarette-equivalent through a decorated cigarette holder gives the reader an implication of what kind of person the character is likely to be, but that’s a reason for the writer to portray the character doing that, which is not the same thing as a reason for the character to be doing that. Why pick that image of herself to present, particularly to someone who knows that it’s just an image?
It could be that the dope stick was selected as a prop that could be used if needed to create a distraction or cover for something else, as in the case of the smoke ring that wasn’t just a smoke ring.
(I expect Simbu’s dominant, when embodied, can permit a drug to affect her brain, or forbid it to affect her brain, to precisely whatever degree she chooses. That’s small potatoes compared to some of the physical manipulation the trainees were doing in the prologue.)
I’m in agreement that the authors’ use of these images does not seem to have much (if any) internal rationale, but I confess, it didn’t even occur to me until stepping outside my suspended disbelief (i.e., it did not throw me out or spoil that state). The stereotype told me all I needed to know, with no need for taking time out of the plot for character-building…which is what stereotypes will do for an author.
Well, given what happens in Neogenesis, I wonder if the entire faction of dramliz still exist ?
@Paul, in the OP: he and his lady have agreed to is to lend one third of his strength as measured by the borrower.
It seems you forgot to include an additional important condition: It is not only “as measured by the borrower” but it is “as measured by the borrower here and now” (emphasis mine). Rool has been carefully acting weaker than he truly is, and continues to do so, protected by his lady, when he is tested by this one who wants to supplant the Iloheen.
I still suspect we will see more of her, perhaps empowering those of the Lyre institute to do their work/?