Tag Archives: Grudent tel’Ashon

Crystal Dragon – Chapter 11

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 10

Osabei Tower
Landomist

In which the First Prime wasn’t expecting Scholar tay’Nordif’s pilot… so soon.

The luck is with Tor An in earnest, this chapter. Several times he is narrowly saved from disaster.

I still find the business of the expected pilot puzzling. Claiming a non-existent pilot to buy time is one thing, but claiming an actual pilot who has arrived on other business, without knowing anything about who he is or whether he can be trusted, is quite another. (Though I suppose she does know a few things about him. The fact that he’s engaged in the puzzle of a disappearing system is quite informative in context. As is, come to think of it, the fact that he allowed himself to be brought in without immediately denying that he was the pilot she wanted.)

Also, I’m side-eying the moment where she fumbles her data-wand in her haste to download Tor An’s data. We’ve seen before what can happen when Maelyn tay’Nordif fumbles something in her haste.

(That makes two pilots now who have instinctively felt the Truth Bell as equivalent to an alarm signifying the utmost emergency. I wonder if that was a deliberate design feature, bearing in mind that the scholars themselves don’t seem to have the same reaction.)

It turns out that the scholar who had a go at Jela last chapter is Den Vir tay’Elyd, the same whose office Grudent tel’Ashon took such pleasure in raiding. He seems like a very unpleasant fellow, even compared to the general level of unpleasantness in the Tower.

Crystal Dragon – Chapter 8

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 7

Osabei Tower
Landomist

In which Scholar tay’Nordif acquires a robe, an account, a grad student, and a cat.

Scholar tay’Nordif seems to have a fondness for quoting the philosopher bin’Arli, to the disconcertion of those around her.

Twenty-four qwint make one flan. I very much doubt that this is a piece of information that will prove useful in future, but it’s there, so I figured I might as well make a note of it.

There’s something oddly familiar about the business of ser’Dinther’s cat, but I can’t quite put my finger on it…

(I remember thinking the first time I read this that whereas ser’Dinther’s experiment was based on the assumption that he was located in the line of causality the cat would escape from, the grudent’s account of the cat’s progress sounds very much like what one would expect to see from the viewpoint of the line of causality the cat was escaping to.)

(What I’m thinking this time around is that the description of the what the cat is supposedly able to do by instinct reminds me of what Rool Tiazan is able to do deliberately, and in particular that the description of a creature in peril for its life shifting to a situation in which the peril is non-existent is, on a different scale, pretty much what the Great Migration will turn out to be like.)

(Also that the casual way these people discount their servitors is really unpleasant.)