I Dare – Chapter 11

Teriste Casino District
The Practical Statistician

In which Pat Rin is offered a piece of jewelry at a price he is not willing to pay.

In a way, the Department is doing Pat Rin a favor, by forcing on him the melant’i of Korval. It is a considerable burden, to be as far as he knows the last person left to uphold the Clan, but it also allows him options he would not otherwise have had. Before, when he was literally the last person in the Clan’s line of succession, he had no choice but to decline Natesa’s offer of assistance in accordance with the Clan’s policy; now that he speaks for the Clan, he has not only the right but the responsibility to make a choice for the best good of the Clan.

I’m not sure how long the situation would have held together if Pat Rin had agreed to the Department’s offer; for one thing, the rest of the clan might be scattered and hidden but Anthora is plainly still alive. Perhaps at this point they were still confident they could fix that problem by the time Pat Rin got home.

The scene in the casino is the first time we’ve seen Pat Rin handle dice since that day when he was a child and he found he could make dice come up with any number he chose. That might be happenstance; another interpretation is that Pat Rin still has that facility with dice but has chosen, as an honorable man, not to use it except in cases of dire need, a distinction for which this situation might reasonably be held to qualify.

2 thoughts on “I Dare – Chapter 11

  1. Ed8r

    Curiously, somehow I knew that that the issue of “perfect” emeralds was going to be the deciding point of recognition. I vaguely remembered that “Emeralds typically contain inclusions that are visible to the unaided eye,” which would mean that those who know Korval’s ring might know what to expect. Not that Korval was not wealthy enough to obtain the finest emeralds, but rather I assumed that they owned stones for which the value was not only intrinsic but also from provenance that we have no details about (to my recollection).

  2. Ed8r

    Oops! Second-time through, I left my comment about emeralds at the first chapter, and here it is, repeated again in reading order. Paul if you want to delete one, please feel free.

    This time through, I actually understand better, exactly what Pat Rin felt he was taking on. Not only was he thinking about how to bring Balance for the clan members he was afraid he had lost, but he also must be afraid that it is up to him to rebuild the entire clan from scratch!

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