In which Mar Tyn asks an unaccustomed question.
It seems a bit late in proceedings to be introducing a whole new category of probability-workers, but I suppose that if there are only a few of them and they keep to themselves, and their gifts only affect their immediate vicinity — and the Healers and dramliz choose to have nothing to do with them — one can understand why we haven’t heard of them or seen them at work before now.
Although, are there only a few of them? Three separate guild houses suggests there are more of them than I might have expected. Though if one is the guild you can only get into by being born into it, it would be a small and exclusive group, and mean that for Lucks in general there are really only two guild houses. Two is a plausible number; in a place like Low Port, any field of enterprise would have at least two services, those being the good one and the one that picked up the people who couldn’t afford the good one.
Updating my notes, I see that “House of Chance” is also the name of Betea sen’Equa’s gambling house in Solcintra Mid-Port in “Certain Symmetry”. Well, it’s an obvious enough name for an establishment associated with the manipulation of probabilities, after all. I wouldn’t be surprised if there were even more houses bearing that name in various places.
There are some missing details in Mar Tyn’s story, such as the manner of his mentor’s death — and whether it was the end of a happy or an unhappy period in Mar Tyn’s life. Whether these will be filled in later, or are just texture, remains to be seen.
Another striking detail in Mar Tyn’s story is that he describes the woman who raised him as “the woman he supposed to have been his mother”. I wonder if it’s going to turn out that he was born into the exclusive guild and just never knew it.
Paul: turn out that he was born into the exclusive guild and just never knew it
Ooo…..nice speculation. I’ll enjoy watching for that in the future.
“the woman he supposed to have been his mother”
Mar Tyn must have been very very young indeed.
“Three separate guild houses suggests there are more of them than I might have expected. Though if one is the guild you can only get into by being born into it, it would be a small and exclusive group, and mean that for Lucks in general there are really only two guild houses.”
This suggests at least two things.
1. The gift to be a Luck is hereditary and thus can be passed from one generation to the next. That also makes clear how Her Nin gets the idea that Aazali is Luck. It must be quite rare for a Luck being born into a family/clan of pure Healers as it happens to Mar Tyn’s teacher. It makes me assume that skipping talent altogether for one generation or producing a child with just enough talent to go for scout is more common in one of those clans than producing a Luck. (I might be wrong with this). Also this hereditary thing – that the gift to be a Luck is passed on – is much more likely if both parents are a Luck. Within house Chance it must be quite rare that a child is other than a Luck.
2. Luck is clearly a gift and it is somehow related to the other gifts.
3. Luck is a quite a rare gift, but it is a bit more common in Low Port than anywhere else on Liad. This is mostly due to most if not all the Lucks of Liad having been escorted to Low Port for generation after generation. If my theory of enhancing gifts by sharing genes between Liaden and Terran groups has some merit (like all 3 yos’Galan children having greater gifts than Er Tom or Anne) at all the Low Port gene pool might even be more Luck prone.
Note that the Low Port gene pool is very special indeed. Low Port consist of rests of poor or broken clans, people, pilots and ship crews that were betrayed or left behind, foreigners (Terrans) as well as all those people that where cast out or declared dead. But most of those outcasts and “dead” people would have been too selfish to get pregnant or care for a child. (I for one can’t imagine dead Ran Eld Caylon raising a child on Low Port. And his chance of having survived there long even with his gun is low indeed.) Child mortality rate on Low port must be very high. Also for a women with child or the wish for a child in Low Port race must matter far less than the kind of partnership and security or money a partner might bring. Low Port must be the only place on Liad where the “taboo against mixed breeds” is powerless. So the Low Port gene pool will have mixed in a significantly higher percentage of Terran as well as Luck and Pilot, while most other Dramilz gifts are significantly rarer or absent.
@number of guild houses
I don’t think that is all that much, if you consider that those are the only once on Liad. How many Lucks might live there? 50-100 per house? Maybe not even that much, even if you count the children. Okay, most Lucks can’t afford those houses and free-lance, but how many will that be? Twice the number of those within the houses?
“It seems a bit late in proceedings to be introducing a whole new category of probability-workers” …
We have seen some Lucks before. Do you remember Lucky? Cantra’s cat. He surely must have been a Luck. And then there was red-headed gambler who helped Jela to elude capture and get Tree out of his room on Faldaiza. Back then this red headed gambler lead those Dramliz that wanted to leave Solcintra on Quick Passage, although he was quite clearly a Luck. After the Dramliz settled on Liad, something must have changed.
On this re-read, I was reminded that there’s also a kind of precedent for Mar Tyn’s feet in Lute’s experience at the beginning of Moon’s Honor, although in that case the power behind was a different one and not the Luck. (Or was it…?)
Paul: the power behind was a different one and not the Luck. (Or was it…?)
Well, back in Crystal Dragon (right after Cantra sighs, “Who let the cat in?”) a whole parade of characters show up in the tower of the Quick Passage to sue for the right to be included as passengers. One of the motley group Cantra recognizes as the red-headed woman she calls “Gambler,” after which the woman herself says she is a “runner-with-luck” and proceeds to call upon Rool Taizen as kin to them all. Both he and his lady confirm that they are all “what we all will become, formed from a far different forge.”
This would seem to indicate that the influences of the ley lines and matrices, “the winds which bear [Rool] high,” apply to both, just in different—and unpredictable—measure. Thus: Lute’s feet and Mar Tyn’s feet certainly must be propelled by the same power/?
When Lute’s feet carried him to Maidenstairs, it was at the bidding of the Goddess. The question is, is it accurate or sensible to say that the Goddess and the Luck are the same power? Though, as you say, the power wielded by the Goddess is probably, on some level, the same kind of power as the power channelled by the Luck.