Tag Archives: Elvred dea’San

Crystal Dragon – Chapter 14

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Osabei Tower
Landomist

In which Cantra renews an old acquaintance.

Though Scholar tay’Nordif experiences the revelation that tay’Welford is aelantaza as a spur-of-the-moment inspiration, I suspect this is just an opportune occasion for it to come out and the actual recognition occurred some time ago. At least as far back, say, as the evening when she found vel’Anbrek’s suspicions of tay’Welford worth mentioning in Jela’s hearing. (Conversely, he probably recognised her on day one, since his skills and experience don’t have years of dust on them and it’s implied he’s seen Cantra more recently than Cantra has seen him.) I wonder if researching his rise to the Prime Chair was one of the ways she passed the time in her office when she was supposedly progressing her life’s work.

It’s interesting that we’re getting so much backstory for Maelyn tay’Nordif as she fights against losing herself. It shows how much detail needs to go into constructing a person. (And I’m intrigued that she puts her succession of “patrons” in quotation marks; it might just be that she doesn’t consider them all proper patron material, given that she adds that some of them were no better than bandits, but I do wonder if it also means that some of them were interested in her for reasons other than her mathematical ability — which is, I admit, a thought that had already occurred to me back when her last patron’s cover letter was calling her things like “the most precious sister of my soul”.)

Jela is finally able to ask about the world-shield of somebody who can answer. It’s not physically present at the Tower, just that the Tower has a record of its location. And has apparently been unable to secure a grant to study it, which seems typical; saving entire populations is all very well in its way, but where’s the money to be made in it?

Oracle Odd Lots, the supplier of the “shortcut”, was also the merchant who sold Cantra the three learning toys. I don’t know if that’s significant; Cantra did say to Jela that there’s a lot of odd-job traders on the Rim who have sheriekas tech pass through their hands.

Veralt has only himself to blame for ending up with a knife in his throat. Taunting the hero with her parent’s death right when you have her at your mercy and she’s on the point of giving up is one of the classic blunders, and I should have thought they’d teach better than that at genetically-engineered-assassin school.

Crystal Dragon – Chapter 13

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Osabei Tower
Landomist

In which we’re all mad, here.

Well, what do you know. Score one for the reasonable motivation.

Speaking of reasonable and unreasonable motivations, we were having a discussion in one of the comment threads about High Command’s decision to draw back to the Inner Worlds, and whether it made any sense. Given Jela’s explanation to Tor An in this chapter, I’d call it… well, not reasonable, but maybe “comprehensible”?

(What it still isn’t, of course, is the least bit honorable or admirable.)

Cantra is starting to leak through now, to the confusion and distress of the Scholar as she prepares to draw fire and give Jela and Master Liad an opportunity to slip away unnoticed.

(And as someone who’s read this book before, I note that the memory of Garen’s death is, apart from being the kind of powerful memory one might expect to slip through, an instance of the authors sneakily refreshing the reader’s memory about something that’s going to become relevant again shortly.)

It occurs to me that what she’s doing now is the same thing, on a different plane, that Rool Tiazan and his lady were doing last chapter (which might, for all the indications we got, be simultaneous with this one): playing the target to keep the enemy occupied. I don’t know if that means that the sheriekas do have an interest in what’s happening at the Tower, or just that the dramliza wanted to make sure that now of all times wasn’t the moment they started.

Crystal Dragon – Chapter 11

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Obasei Tower
Landomist

There’s another thing that I hadn’t been taking into account in considering why Tor An might seem like a good risk: the famous aelantaza pheremones. In the last scene, Scholar tay’Nordif is maintaining close proximity in the way Cantra habitually avoids, and it’s definitely having an effect.

I’ve been trying to figure out what the point of antagonising tel’Elyd and escalating with tay’Welford was, bearing in mind that mission control couldn’t have known it would be helpful with getting Tor An settled in. My best hypothesis is that the duel was intended as a general distraction that would get everybody, including Scholar tay’Nordif, out of the way and give Jela some space to snoop around on his own. Though if that’s what she had in mind, apparently she hadn’t counted on Jela needing to watch the duel himself and see that she was all right.

On the other hand, maybe it was just that she wanted to stop tel’Elyd before Jela was seriously hurt, and judged a stick duel to be an affordable cost to achieve that end. In which judgement she may have been underestimating Prime Chair tay’Welford. tay’Welford is clearly a rat bastard but I wonder if his conduct of the duel wasn’t at least partly tactical. Things would have been considerably simplified for him if tel’Elyd’s enthusiasm had unfortunately resulted in a fatal wound for Scholar tay’Nordif. If so, the luck was in it (again) that Tor An was on hand to raise a protest.

Jela’s remark that there’s no use trying to figure out whether the luck sent Tor An to the Tower or alerted Scholar tay’Nordif to his approach is a wise one, and I shall heed it henceforth.

The home garden in Tor An’s dream is very similar in purpose and philosophy to the home garden Korval is going to establish. I rather doubt, though, that the piata tree’s resemblance to Jela’s tree is drawn from memory; I suspect that’s a message of support coming in through the back channels.

Scholar ven’Anbrek is appearing quite helpful, but I’m not sure what his stake is. I can construct a reasonable motivation from the things he’s said, but by this point I’ve given up on expecting the inhabitants of the Tower to have reasonable motivations.

(Incidentally, I find myself softening toward Maelyn tay’Nordif somewhat. She’s still not a nice person, but it pales in comparison when she’s so much outclassed by the people around her.)

Crystal Dragon – Chapter 9

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Osabei Tower
Landomist

In which Scholar tay’Nordif has a meeting to look forward to.

Scholar tay’Nordif seems to have been rather upset by witnessing the proving. Perhaps she has been considering how she might have done, had she been the one facing such a test — and how likely it is that before too long she’s going to find out.

I do like the line about the subdued paroxysm of joy.

Jela has a good question: where did the idea of a pilot come from? Is it just a story Cantra seized on as likely to buy more time, and it’s just her luck that there actually is a pilot coming?

Crystal Dragon – Chapter 8

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Osabei Tower
Landomist

In which Kel Var tay’Palin proves a point.

It’s very tempting to speculate about what might have happened had Prime tay’Palin survived a bit longer. (Tempting, too, to assume that it would have made things easier, if only because why else would the authors have killed him off?)

I’ve been trying to remember why Scholar dea’San’s surname sounded familiar. I thought at first that it was the same as the crime boss with the assumed airs, but he was dea’Sord, not dea’San. I’ve got it now, though: Vertu dea’San, Clan Wylan, is the protagonist of the novella “Skyblaze”, which is currently scheduled at the very end of the re-read.

I had also been wondering why Scholar tay’Nordif had decided to take a liking to the cat, but I think this chapter answers that question. Clearly she had been feeling a lack of somebody to talk to who would appreciate the excellence of her thought. (Either that, or she had been feeling a lack of somebody to steal her chair and lie on her keyboard while she was trying to work.)

Crystal Dragon – Chapter 6

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Osabei Tower
Landomist

In which you may call a scholar anything you like so long as you don’t call her late for dinner.

There’s a lot going on in this chapter.

We’re reminded a couple of times in this chapter that Scholar tay’Nordif, unlike Cantra, lacks a dancer’s or a pilot’s grace. There’s her wobble when she’s turning on her heel to look at the entrance hall — by the way, I would not handle ascending a stairway like that with anything approaching calm — and there’s the bit where she fumbles her data-case.

The scene where she accidentally assembles a jamming device and, in general, the whole business of her unconsciously acting in Cantra’s interests for reasons which she insists make perfect sense to herself, is one of the things that really stuck with me from the first time I read this.

(I was reminded, the first time I read it, of Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency, in which being possessed by a disembodied spirit is similar: one finds oneself doing unexpected things, and unconsciously inventing explanations for why one did them. There’s also something similar in A Fire Upon the Deep, though I don’t remember whether I’d read that yet. And there are also cases in real life, although not — as far as we know — with another consciousness directing them: some psychologists reckon that our motivations are, to a greater or lesser extent, a story we tell ourselves after doing what our instincts and unconscious urges prompt us to do.)

(Superficial aside: Scholar tay’Nordif talking about her patron from the house of the horticulturists reminds me of Mr Collins talking about Lady Catherine de Bourgh. Carnivorous Rosings?)

Meanwhile, it begins to become really apparent that in the Tower the cut-and-thrust of academic debate is taken rather more literally than we’re used to. And I’ve got to say that I’m detecting an undercurrent to Scholar tay’Welford’s expressions of concern about his boss’s health.

Speaking of health, the news that Liad dea’Syl’s students have been dying untimely is unreassuring (although not, by this point, very surprising). I wonder if that includes Jela’s instructors?