Spiral Dance
In which some are parted and others are reunited.
One thing I’m finding about reading a chapter a day, instead of speeding through both books in a single weekend the way I did the first time, is that I’m feeling the emotion more at the places where people are lost to one another, because they’ve known each other longer. I mean, in the story it’s the same amount of time, but the relationship has more weight to me when it’s been sitting in my head for weeks instead of hours.
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.
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.
Spiral Dance
Transition
In which Jela and Cantra nail their colours to the mast.
I once encountered, somewhere online, a very disgruntled review of this novel written by someone who’d picked it as their introduction to the Liaden Universe. Looking at the amount of assumed knowledge in this chapter alone, I can see where they were coming from. (And in fairness I’ve gotta say the cover doesn’t really do much of a job of warning you that this is part two of a two-volume novel.)
Though it does at least find plot-appropriate excuses to recap the tree’s history (I like the description of the trees holding the enemy at bay by will “and by won’t”) and the appearances of our principals.
We get the first explicit statement of Jela’s built-in time limit, and something approaching an explanation. “Safer that way,” says Jela, though I notice he doesn’t say for whom.
On Port
Gimlins
In which a second opinion is sought and given.
I found this chapter quite affecting, but I’m not good at talking about emotional stuff, so I’m going to fall back on plot details as usual.
I had forgotten that detail about the origin of the M Series. (You hadn’t, though; I remember it coming up in a comment. See, that’s one of the reasons I wanted other people around for this.)
And here we have the introduction proper of Rool Tiazan and his lady, of whom history records that they will have many diminutive red-headed descendants, who will be among the closest allies of Clan Korval. (As this is a prequel, the question of their survival is of course not “if” but “how”.)
Spiral Dance
Gimlins Approach
In which Jela receives assistance from several unexpected directions.
Or else: In which events take a dramatic turn and shoot off into left field. If I didn’t already know what was coming next, I think I would be having real trouble not going straight on to the next chapter.
(Incidentally, explicit confirmation that Jela’s whip thing is a shib. Now I can consider that question settled, and stop second-guessing myself.)
Spiral Dance
Shift Change
In which the crew give thought to the future.
The tree has a lot to say for itself in this chapter. (I kind of wish I’d thought to tag for the chapters where the tree speaks. Too late to go back and find them all now.)
Spiral Dance
The Little Empty
In which Cantra and Jela have a talk.
The first aid kit offers to make Cantra not only good as new, but better. One is inclined to wonder, if it had been given permission to install a few upgrades, what else it might have slipped in at the same time.
Most of the chapter is Cantra and Jela talking. He tells her about the tree. She tells him about what happened to her family.
(It’s interesting that Jela says the tree hasn’t told him its name or that of its species, just because there’s a scene, in a much later novel, that mentions in passing that the Uncle does know the name of the species. It makes sense that he would have wanted to learn more about them after the encounter just finished — but who is there that he could have learned it from?)
Rockhaven
In which you still don’t get rid of Jela that easily.
It’s always amusing when fictional characters have philosophical discussions about whether their life is proceeding according to some pre-ordained plan.
I do like the Uncle’s comeback when Cantra says she doesn’t believe in fate. And the verbal fencing on the topic of being raised up to be civilized.
I was right, or remembered right, about the “teaching devices” being trouble. (I wonder, all the same, whether there’s any connection between them and the teaching devices that show up later in the series.)
The tree flexes its muscles. (Or whatever. As Cantra realises when she’s fixing to worry about what the tree might get it into its head to do next, there are a lot of metaphors that don’t really fit snug on a tree.)
Arin. There’s a name I wasn’t expecting to encounter quite so soon.
The Uncle’s last play for Jela’s loyalty is interesting. He really does keep up on the latest gossip, but he doesn’t know as much as he thinks he does.
Rockhaven
In which the Uncle is at home to visitors.
Cantra doesn’t entirely trust the Uncle or Jela, Jela doesn’t entirely trust Cantra or the Uncle, and the Uncle doesn’t trust Jela nor, it would be safe to assume, entirely trust Cantra. Things are probably about to get Interesting.
The Uncle is, to all appearances, the same man Cantra met before, though much rejuvenated and reinvigorated. Cantra doesn’t trust appearances, though; interestingly, it’s not because she doesn’t believe such a rejuvenation is possible, but that what she’s heard about how it might be possible is so unpleasant that the idea she’s being successfully fooled is more palatable.
Dulsey’s bow to Cantra on the ship looks to be the ancestor of the Liaden bow acknowledging a debt truly owed, which we’ll be seeing in about two months from now. The latter version, after several centuries of Liaden refinement, is … a tad more elaborate.
I hadn’t remembered how … is “talkative” an appropriate word? … the Tree is in this book. Its conversations with Jela are getting to be some of my favourite bits.