Crystal Dragon – Chapter 35

In which we’re leaving together, but still it’s farewell.

This is the only chapter in the duology that doesn’t have a caption saying, however ambiguously, where it takes place.

I think the mention of Dancer, “singing sweet seduction to her makers”, must be where I got the idea that she was sent off to act as a decoy; whether that was Cantra’s intention, it’s what she’s doing. (And I love the image of the seedling adding its own insulting messages.)

Hands up, anyone who thinks the Iloheen’s being honest in its offer to promote Rool Tiazan’s lady if she comes quietly. Nobody? Didn’t think so.

I was right about Rool Tiazan’s bargain with the ambitious dramliza, it looks like. (Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards, for they are twelve kinds of twisty.)

The “vast and implacable greenness” is interesting. A last-ditch attempt by the ssussdriad? Or … something else? (Do they have Turtles in this universe?)

9 thoughts on “Crystal Dragon – Chapter 35

  1. Jelala Alone

    I feel fairly confident the vast greenness is from Tree. Notice it came from no source ever experienced before. Makes you wonder what the Ssussdriads are. It’s possible the Clutch and the Trees are related, or born of similar origins, in a time long before humans.

  2. Jelala Alone

    Similar text:

    In Plan B, when Shan dropped his inner shields to seek out Val Con while approaching Lytaxin in the life pod, he encountered Tree’s descendant, at Clan Erob:

    “a vast and welcoming greenness, familiar from childhood, comforting as the touch of kin”

  3. Paul A. Post author

    Yes, I think you’re probably right that it’s Tree, who is associated with a feeling of greenness in several places, and who is spoken of earlier in the chapter in a way suggestive of conserving energy or biding time. And of course Tree is an established character, so if it’s Tree this isn’t a case of a mysterious intervention by someone who’s never been mentioned before.

    I just wondered, though, because the Turtles haven’t been mentioned before – if this isn’t them, then there’s no mention whatever of them in the old universe. Were they just keeping quiet, or were they not in the old universe at all? Either possibility has ramifications.

  4. Jelala Alone

    That’s an interesting observation, leading to a question I hadn’t considered. Were the Clutch in the old world, or did “we” enter their original turf? They certainly showed a lot of curiosity about Tree’s species, when they interviewed Daav at the end of I Dare.

  5. H in W

    Yes, I thought of the turtles, too, though I assumed the vast greeness was the tree.

    I think that Cantra set the Dancer free, and this is what it chose to do on its course.

  6. Engywuck

    Well, Val Con is the “brother” of turtles, so Shan noticing a greenness could in a sense also be because of the turtle connection – but the familiarity from childhood hints more to the tree.

  7. Ed8r

    I loved the bit about little Twig sending “insults of dragons” at the agents of the Iloheen! And then of course the Tree’s efforts, which accomplished exactly what it intended: a pause in the Iloheen’s inexorable advance to perfection. Basically just long enough for Rool to be able to yell “Transition, Pilots, or all is lost!” and for Cantra to hit the “operation stud.”

  8. Ed8r

    The Tree seems to have hidden its presence until its explosion as a vast implacable greenness. It is *very interesting that it is said this greenness came from planes no zaliata nor Iloheen had ever glimpsed.

    Surely we could put this in terms of a triumph of Life (with a capital “L”) over Death.

  9. Othin

    “The tree’s sacrifice” – interesting describtion of litte tree on Dancer. I think that makes the decoy role clear.

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