The Bedel
In which Rys makes a discovery.
I’m not sure I have much to say about this chapter, since it speaks pretty well for itself.
One detail that’s left open for speculation is why the luthia gave Rys the task of seeing Kezzi off in the mornings at the same time as she began this course of education. Is it somehow part of the lesson, too? Did Silain foresee that it would be in the act of seeing Kezzi off that he’d come to his realisation about what is going on?
The Bedel
In which several projects are underway.
Silain-luthia demonstrates another Healer-type ability. It makes sense that the luthia would have such abilities, given her role looking after the wellbeing of the individuals that make up the kompani. It makes me wonder about her apprentice, though: I don’t recall Kezzi showing any obvious signs of potential in that direction. Except her vision of the future in Necessity’s Child, which isn’t strictly a Healer-type ability, and anyway happened under the influence of a dream the luthia gave her. And that raises the interesting possibility that the dreams of the Bedel can instil psychic abilities in people who might not otherwise have them.
Somehow it does not surprise me that Kareen’s landau has made the journey to Surebleak with her. I’m impressed by its apparent ability to handle Surebleak’s roads, though.
Kamele’s offer to assist Kareen’s research is significant, because it offers a path that might lead to her choosing to stay on Surebleak for the long term. She’s not the type to have thrown over her scholarly career to stay on Surebleak just because her family’s here – the less so because Theo’s mostly not here and Jen Sar may never be here again – but if there’s scholarship to be done here…
Jelaza Kazone
Surebleak
In which the carpet shop has a visitor who wants Pat Rin to pay.
The discussion of how the dream adapts itself to the dreamer (and is not, for one thing, just restricted to “do you kill this person who is important to you?”) is reassuring in regard to the question of whether every one of the captured agents will be able to be offered a choice. But now I have another concern: The fact that many of the Department’s agents were bound unwillingly to a course and a goal they wouldn’t have chosen in their right minds doesn’t necessarily imply that there are no agents who would support the Department’s aims if given a free choice.
Quin’s story is a reminder of how long we’ve been following Korval’s recent history; “great-grandmother” sounds like such a long time ago, and I thought at first of some unknown ancestor, but count it back and it’s Chi yos’Phelium, whom we already know. (And that’s the second mention of her in two chapters. I don’t know if that’s going to be significant, or is just a coincidence.)
A garnet trade ring is pretty good; not the Master Trader’s amethyst, but only a few rungs below it.
Beslin vin’Tenzing’s attack would be a useful illustration in a discussion about why “revenge” is not always an appropriate synonym for “Balance”. It’s not a well-considered Balancing, even if one accepts that Pat Rin bears full responsibility for the people killed when he fired on Solcintra (and I think a full account of the responsibility there would need to consider the role of the Department, who chose to use those people as a human shield). If nothing else, it’s an attempt to redress vin’Tenzing’s losses that leaves out all the other people who sustained losses in the attack. There is more than one family that lost a child, and there’s only one Quin; they can’t all settle it by shooting him.
…though that doesn’t mean vin’Tenzing is going to be the only one to give it a try.
Blair Road
Surebleak
In which Val Con reflects on his dream.
Though I chose other things to talk about last chapter, I was a bit surprised that Miri’s experience of the dream was of being sliced up and reshaped, when the dream is of being an established agent of the Department and doesn’t include the training that shapes a person into a living weapon. I think I get it, now, though: the Department’s training isn’t just about forcing a person into a new shape, it’s also about instilling processes that keep them in that shape, against whatever tendencies and defences might try to return them to themselves after the training is concluded. The trimming and burning and twisting is going on under the surface of every agent of the Department all the time.
On this chapter’s other plot strand, the thought suddenly strikes me: what if Mr Kipler is smart enough to conceal how smart he is, and getting arrested and hauled in front of the Bosses is part of the plan?
Jelaza Kazone
Surebleak
In which Val Con dreams.
Rys’s dream will help, if it works, but it’s not going to be a cure-all: not every agent is going to have somebody in their life as important to them as Miri is to Val Con, or Kezzi to Rys. (It might not even have worked on Rys himself before his time with the Bedel; would his relationship with Jasin have been strong enough to do the job? We’ll never know, and that’s probably for the best.)
Wondering about the unidentified man that accompanies Miri in Val Con’s version of the dream. I thought at first maybe it was because it was Udari as well as Kezzi in the real incident the dream is based on, but enough other details have been tweaked to make that dubious. Currently thinking it’s most likely to be a designed feature to give the dream room to adjust to the dreamer: including both a male figure and a female figure in the scene means that the dreamer’s key person can be included whether they’re male or female.
The Bedel
In which Val Con prepares to dream.
I had been wondering, after the revelation about the dreams, whether all the luthia‘s abilities were of a similar nature, but the way she reads Val Con seems to be inherent. Unless there’s another device the authors are choosing not to mention for the moment. I don’t think so, though; it’s described in similar terms to the abilities of Shan or another Healer.
The thing about how detail works in drama is that the more time is spent reiterating that Miri ought to be safely shielded, the less I believe it’s going to work out that way. If Val Con comes through this safely only to find that Miri hasn’t, there’s going to be Trouble, though for whom I am not certain.
Jelaza Kazone
Surebleak
In which Rys offers his brother a gift.
The bit about the dreams of the Bedel is an answer to a question I never thought to ask, and it almost makes me want to immediately re-read Necessity’s Child just to look again with fresh eyes at all the times the luthia speaks of dreaming on a subject or Rys’s brothers dream on the design of his leg brace. (“Eleutherios”, too.) I have no doubt that when I do, I will find that they are all consistent with this newly-revealed information; I have a feeling the authors have known this about the Bedel all along, and chose not to mention it in Necessity’s Child to achieve a particular effect. Well played, authors.
(There’s also a suggestion that when he says he prayed with his brothers, that has a particular meaning to the Bedel. That one, I think we had a hint of in Necessity’s Child, the first time Rys himself heard one of the kompani use the word in context.)
I’m seeing an interesting bit of melant’i going on in the exchange between Pat Rin and Mr pel’Tolian. They’ve been together something like twenty years at this point, and Mr pel’Tolian chose to follow Pat Rin to Surebleak, so I think it’s safe to say they’ve got some degree of personal regard alongside the lord and manservant relationship; but it’s all being expressed through the forms appropriate to the lord and manservant relationship because to be otherwise would be, well, inappropriate.
Jelaza Kazone
Surebleak
In which Rys Lin pen’Chala dines with his brother’s family.
Rys has two hands. The fact is included subtly enough to not be distracting to someone unfamiliar with his story, and in fact subtly enough that it went straight past me the first time I read the chapter and I would have missed it if I hadn’t gone through again with an eye for details as part of writing this blog post. Two hands, one with gleaming fingers. Apparently his brothers have again been busy on his behalf.
Being reminded of how Rys came to be orphaned, on top of the events of the last few chapters, prompts the thought that I hope Val Con is suitably thoughtful about introducing him to Nelirikk, Hazenthull, and Diglon.
I wonder if it signifies anything that Kareen describes Rys as “the delm’s brother”, as opposed to, say, “my nephew’s brother”. (I also wonder, since she then turns to talking with Kamele, if Kamele knows who Rys is, and if not how Kareen chooses to explain him.)
I remain uncertain whether Luken’s encounter on the walkway was as harmless as it appears; part of me is still suspicious. And that, I think, says something about the atmosphere on Surebleak at this point.
In which Rys Lin pen’Chala goes home.
What Syl Vor is missing, I think, when he says that he is only a boy, is that after his experiences at the Rock he wasn’t only a boy.
Third iteration of the question of a missing ship, and on carefully re-reading it I realise that when Val Con says he’s heard from his sister he’s probably talking about Anthora, after she went through Rys’s mind checking for traces of the Department, and not that Nova brought him in on the earlier discussion. So, if this is a separate discussion, the subject of the earlier query probably was the Bedel ship after all.
(One of the free perks of reading this blog is, and will probably remain till the end, that you get to see me prove myself wrong in real time, sometimes more than once on the same issue.)
The status report on Momma Liberty (out of Waymart, I notice) contains a couple of interesting hints. Apart from establishing that Jasin is not only alive but flourishing, it’s notable for the absence of her brother in his former position of authority or in any other. Normal attrition, or did he get busted by his family over what he did to Rys? Or did he meet, in some dark alley, an agent of the Department tasked with tying off loose ends?
Coming up: “Skyblaze”, “Roving Gambler” and “The Rifle’s First Wife”, and then Dragon Ship.
In which the first day of school is an exciting time for everybody.
Rys says explicitly that he knew when Agent bar’Obin explained the mission that he wasn’t going to survive it, but it’s also implied that Agent bar’Obin, who is inside the building she’s about to blow up, doesn’t expect to survive either. The Department doesn’t care for the lives of its people.
I want to note that there are quite a few taxis in this chapter, with at least three and probably more simultaneously present outside the school at one point. I’ll have more to say on that subject in a couple of days.