Solcintra
In which Rool Tiazan comes visiting.
Rool Tiazan warns Cantra that her actions on Vanehald have attracted the Enemy’s attention, and that the fact that Spiral Dance obeyed her then doesn’t mean it’s free of the Enemy’s influence, only that the Enemy has not chosen to exert that influence – yet.
Cantra expresses some doubt to herself and to Rool Tiazan that humanity is either saveable or, perhaps, worth saving, but I think it says something that when his lady asks her if she wants to keep Jela’s child, she doesn’t hesitate to say yes.
(I also appreciate that the pregnancy needs a bit of dramliz-healer help to be confident of a good outcome. It underlines how much work the tree had to do to get it going at all.)
Tor An’s Aunt Jinsu, whose advice about being well-rested he starts to offer, has been mentioned before: she’s the aunt who used to travel with Scholar tay’Palin in her younger days.
Liad dea’Syl is an observant man, and I wonder how much he has observed about Rool Tiazan. (Apart from the fact that Lucky likes him, which would have been pretty hard to miss.)
Liad dea’Syl may have observed much about Rool Tiazan, but I suspect that he doesn’t care that much once he discovers that Rool Tiazan can help him with the math.
So Cantra, having given so much, now faces the prospect of losing her most faithful ally and the element that has defined her life for decades: Spiral Dancer. Understandable that she’d be holding on to it until she had to let go, and, having said her goodbyes, send it off her own self.
During Cantra’s shower, she thinks to herself that it was a rare blessing that the local’d took exception to the ‘strands and cried pirate before she’d taken coin whereby to sneak Dulsey and team out from under Wellick’s nose. So…apparently she was determined to sink back into being the Rimmer-pilot who trades gray and even dark, and who would have betrayed Wellick’s “hospitality” for the right price. But note…this is before she tells Rool’s lady that she intends to carry the child to term. I think maybe making that decision changed her for life.
I don’t recall whether this chapter is the only time we are given the following information, but it seems like an important point: Cantra thinks, Jela insisted that the Enemy’d been human once. Thus the Enemy understands human nature and how to manipulate it…witness the Tanjalyre/Lyre Institute.