Dutiful Passage
In which Priscilla receives a history lesson.
Shan’s coaster that was a gift from Ambassador Valeking was introduced in Alliance of Equals and has appeared a couple of times, in that book and then in this one, during scenes where Padi has been meeting her father in his office.
Continue reading
In which we’re leaving together, but still it’s farewell.
This is the only chapter in the duology that doesn’t have a caption saying, however ambiguously, where it takes place.
I think the mention of Dancer, “singing sweet seduction to her makers”, must be where I got the idea that she was sent off to act as a decoy; whether that was Cantra’s intention, it’s what she’s doing. (And I love the image of the seedling adding its own insulting messages.)
Hands up, anyone who thinks the Iloheen’s being honest in its offer to promote Rool Tiazan’s lady if she comes quietly. Nobody? Didn’t think so.
I was right about Rool Tiazan’s bargain with the ambitious dramliza, it looks like. (Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards, for they are twelve kinds of twisty.)
The “vast and implacable greenness” is interesting. A last-ditch attempt by the ssussdriad? Or … something else? (Do they have Turtles in this universe?)
Solcintra
In which certain negotiations take place.
The two Solcintran negotiators both have names that recur in the Liaden Universe – which is perhaps only to be expected. Some of Nalli Olanek’s descendants will find themselves in dispute with some of Tor An’s descendants in Conflict of Honors, and Clan Hedrede is mentioned a couple of times in Scout’s Progress and Mouse and Dragon, with a Dath jo’Bern of that clan being an incidental character in the latter. (With thanks to the Liaden Wiki – my memory for obscure details is not that good.)
The Enemy have taken out High Command in its withdrawn and reinforced position, without having to pass through any of the intervening space, which just shows how much good that did.
We see the origin of Cantra’s logbook, which will become a tradition upheld by her successors; that answers something I’d been wondering aloud a while back.
Another thing I’d been wondering, though it never quite got to aloud, was about Moonhawk and Lute’s colleagues in the Great Weaving. It’s pretty obvious that Moonhawk is the same Moonhawk who is Priscilla’s guiding spirit when she’s a priestess of the Goddess, and seems clear therefore that the other guiding spirits from Priscilla’s religion are this Moonhawk’s sisters in the Great Weaving (I don’t recall that any of their names are ever given, in either context). What I’d been wondering was whether, since they’re presumably all a dramliza pairing like Moonhawk and Lute, all the guiding spirits have masculine sidekicks like Lute and it was just that somehow we’d never heard about them. The scene in this chapter where Lute learns that Moonhawk has made an independent space for him in the Weaving suggests that no, it’s just Lute.
(I think where I went wrong was at “dramliza pairing like Moonhawk and Lute”; there’s probably no other dramliza pairing that’s quite like Moonhawk and Lute. One of the other things I’ve been realising on this re-read is that my understanding of the dramliz from the first time through had been weighted too much toward taking Rool Tiazan and Lute as typical of their station, when as two of the few – or even, for all it’s said, the only two – free zaliata to have accepted the yoke, they’re each blazingly unique.)
Solcintra
In which Cantra receives a message from Jela.
I’d wondered how much vel’Anbrek had figured out of what was going on, so it’s good to have that established.
Cantra hadn’t grasped how much Jela regarded her, and perhaps had been resisting letting it count for anything; there’s a bit in one of the earlier chapters where she reflects that he doesn’t really know her, only her Rimmer pilot facade. In that I think she underestimated him: we know he’d seen through the grumpy part of the facade to the motivation underneath; what else might he have seen?
Landomist
In which our heroes shake the dust of Osabei Tower from their feet, some with more violence than others.
Jela has resigned himself to leaving without Cantra, but the Tree digs its heels in (or should that be “digs its roots in”?). It can tell that Cantra is on her way out, and that she’ll need both of them when she arrives. He sends Tor An on ahead with Master dea’Syl, to Captain Wellik, garrisoned on Solcintra. I can’t tell from the description whether Wellik is X Strain or not.
It’s an interesting coincidence that the emblem on Tor An’s ship (I’m not sure whether it’s the emblem of the ship only, or of the Trade Clan) is a dragon.
I note that the sections that are not from Jela’s viewpoint decline to commit themselves on whether they’re from the viewpoint of Cantra or of Scholar tay’Nordif.
Despite, or perhaps because, it’s naturally sessile, the Tree seems to really enjoy travelling at high speeds.
Elsewhere, Lute and his lady encounter Rool Tiazan in the aftermath of his battle with the Iloheen. We learn that Lute’s lady has, as it was foreshadowed last time we saw her, “accepted that burden which no dominant had taken up since the first had been born from the need of the Iloheen”: she has a name. (Indeed, she has a Name, although I confess I’m not clear on the distinction.) Those of us who recognised Lute’s name are not surprised to find that her name is Moonhawk.
Spiral Dance
Gimlins
In which Jela receives new orders.
So ssussdriad is the name the dramliz give to the trees, and the answer to my question of a few chapters back is presumably that at some point the Uncle got to talking with a dramliza. Which is an interesting thing to contemplate.
Also interesting to contemplate is the description of how the dramliz are interconnected. For one thing, the language geek in me is intrigued by the implication that Rool Tiazan and his lady are not two dramliz but instead collectively constitute a single dramliza. (And also amused that, in the glossary in the appendices, the collective noun for wizards is “an enchantment”.)
(Speaking of the appendices, I note with interest that the character list in the appendices includes a name that I’m certain isn’t given in the text. Commandant Harrib is presumably the ser with the interesting chair.)
(…now here’s a thing. I ran a search in the e-book to make sure I hadn’t overlooked Commandant Harrib any place, and his name does come up once in that chapter — but only in the e-book. In the trade paperback, he’s just “the commandant” throughout that chapter, including that one sentence. I wonder which way it goes in the Baen editions?)
I really wasn’t expecting Lute’s name to pop up, the first time I read this.
Tomorrow: Crystal Dragon.