In which Anne comes home to find Er Thom and Shan gone.
The dragon on Korval’s shield, so Er Thom tells Shan, is named Megelaar. I didn’t think anything of it the first time I read Local Custom (why shouldn’t the dragon have whatever name Korval chooses to give it?), but having read “Dragon Tide” it’s interesting that the name fits the pattern of the dragon family in that story. It’s not inappropriate – there are plenty of parallels that make it clear the Laar is a relative of Korval’s Tree – but I do wonder how Korval knew, when the only person who could have told them is the Tree, and the Tree isn’t one for generating vocal utterances. (I also wonder whether there was a real dragon named Megelaar, and if so why he was singled out for having his name immortalised. The first of the line, perhaps? …or the last?)
Another thing I wonder, speaking of having read other things first: I read the novels in more-or-less publication order, so when I reached Local Custom, I already knew how Er Thom and Anne’s story turned out. How does this chapter read to someone coming to it from the other direction, who knows Er Thom only from the eight preceding chapters? Does it seem more likely that Anne’s fears are justified?
This was the second Liaden novel I read, after Fledgling, so yes, I felt a lot of jeopardy for Anne. To me, this is the anchor novel that taught me about Liad and Korval.
Thanks for writing these – I’m enjoying them as a companion to my own reread. You might sticky a post that has chapter 1 of each novel somewhere – it can take a bit of fishing to guess where each one starts, especially since I’m not going in order.
In Crystal Soldier Chapter 32 we learn that the dramliz know the name of the Ssussdriad – and their connection with dragons: “Had we a dozen worlds of ssussdriad at the height of their powers, with legions of dragons at their call” – which makes it possible that they also know the name of dragons (perhaps they “spoke” with the trees?). The dramliz worked with Cantra yos’Phelium, so maybe that’s the reason Koravl knows of a dragons name or how thoase names were formed?
I’d missed that; thanks for pointing it out.
Also, a belated note for anyone reading this thread later: I’ve created the list of chapter 1s poltroon requested above, and it’s now included in the sticky intro on the home page.
Although I’ve now come to this chapter a second time, I can tell you that yes, actually, as soon as I realized that Er Thom had Shan in his ship, I was worried he was just going to kidnap him from his mother. Unfortunately the incidence of one parent kidnapping a child/children away from the other parent is quite high in the US, so I wasn’t sure where the story was going.
I found another reason why Korval might know the dragon names:
“there were the dreams, usually not so loud as to wake him, and behind them the conviction that he could almost smell the water, hear the surf on the beach, recall the dragons hovering over the world-forest, and know their names.
This last was the most perplexing—for he must assume that the dreams and wistful memories were the tree’s, channeled to him by a mechanism he accepted without understanding—and how would the tree know the names of beings who rode the air currents?” — Crytal Soldier, chapter 6
So Jela himself knows the names – or almost knows them, depending on how one interprets the sentence.
But at least Jela knows that the Tree knows the names of dragons, and even if the small Tree on its homeworld was only able to “almost” make Jela dream the names, the fully(?) grown Tree of later stories should be more than able to, if someone asked.
Yes, that rationale sounds plausible…nice thinking!
Another thought on the name Megelaar:
First – I agree with Engywuck’s ideas for how Cantra perhaps knew the name of a dragon to put in her journal.
Second – the name itself—what if it was Tree’s own name for Jela, its own first dragon? We all agree that Jelaza Kazone (the name that Korval has given to the Tree) must be related to the Laar we meet in “Dragon Tide,” right? We learn there that dragons are named according to the Tree they are accepted by, the Tree they come home to, that they protect from the root eaters. Next, we know from the scene that brings tears every time in Crystal Soldier, when Jela gives his life, that the Tree sees him as a great black dragon who lies down and doesn’t get up, while above, a “golden dragon danced.” The dragn shown as part of Korval’s sigil on board Daav’s own ship is described as “bronze,” which would look somewhat “golden.”
Could it represent this Tree’s own first “dragon”: Jela? Or, the dragon who carried it into the New Universe and—presumably—planted it on Liad, that is, Cantra?