Tag Archives: The Moment of the Question

Crystal Dragon – Chapter 24

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?

Crystal Dragon – Chapter 22

Long Savannahs of the Blue

In which Cantra comes to a decision, and Rool Tiazan’s lady comes to an arrangement.

I get the feeling that the tree is worried about Cantra, and trying to help her, but most of what it knows about getting around Cantra comes from watching Jela doing it, and even aside from the fact that what works for Jela won’t necessarily work for anyone else, imitating Jela is not the most helpful thing to be doing right now.

The tree can, it seems, speak words on occasion, within limits. The words it gives to Cantra in this chapter are all memories of words, its answer to her question a reshuffling of the question itself. I wonder whose memories; the ones I recognise are from occasions when both Cantra and the tree have been present. The images it usually used to communicate with Jela were obviously drawn from its own store of memories, though, and I don’t offhand recall it ever talking to him with his. Perhaps it hasn’t spoken in words before because it doesn’t have very many words to draw on, and wasn’t used to using the ones it had; Jela was the first verbal person it had ever met, and he didn’t talk much, at that.

Meanwhile, Rool Tiazan and his lady (whose current state of existence does remind one of Aelliana’s, later) are making a house call. We see that not all the free dramliz are as altruistic, or as balanced in themselves, as Rool Tiazan and his lady, or Lute and Moonhawk. Which is saddening, but not really surprising, given the way the dramliz are brought up.

It’s indicated that Simbu’s dominant is only one of a group of dramliz plotting to supplant the Iloheen, which – on the one hand, obviously that’s not something it would be remotely reasonable to contemplate attempting on one’s own, but on the other hand, given the kind of person you’d have to be to want to supplant the Iloheen, I suspect that if they actually did succeed they’d be backstabbing each other in less time than it takes to say “Lords of Unmaking”.

Rool Tiazan is the kind of being you find in fairy stories about people who come to grief by not being precise about wording, and I think it’s significant that what he and his lady have agreed to is to lend one third of his strength as measured by the borrower – particularly since he has a track record of making his strength appear less than it is. (See also: not “it cost him an effort”, but “he knew she would see that it cost him an effort”.) Not that I blame him, since honest-and-upfront is clearly the wrong approach to take with an ally like this.