In which Clonak tells Aelliana a story about Daav, and Korval responds promptly to an insult.

As usual I’m going to duck talking about how this chapter was emotionally affecting, and talk about something else instead, like how this chapter does some clever work of incluing and foreshadowing. For instance, the list at the beginning of the chapter of the people who have been entrusted with Daav’s private number does multiple duty by introducing the reader to Olwen and Frad, so that their names glide smoothly by in Clonak’s story later.

I even caught myself thinking that the last scene of this chapter did a remarkably good job of foreshadowing the end of Mouse and Dragon, considering that this was written so many years before that was, before I remembered that that end had already been established in another book that was in its turn published many years before this one.

Another interesting thing about the list of Daav’s near ones is that it includes, apart from Aelliana, his brother, and his former Scout teammates, one Fer Gun pen’Uldra, Daav’s father. One gets the impression that there are not many Liadens who know their out-Clan parent at all well, let alone remain so close as to include them in such an exclusive list. (The situation with Aelliana’s father illustrated in Chapter 9, where he has had no further contact with Mizel since the conclusion of contract and Aelliana doesn’t even know his name, seems more typical.) Is there a story there? If so, it’s one we haven’t been told yet; Daav’s father is mentioned only rarely, by name even more rarely, and as far as I recall has never made an in-person appearance.