Tag Archives: Veralt

Crystal Dragon – Chapter 24

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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

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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.

Crystal Dragon – Chapter 17 & Interlude

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Spiral Dance

In which some are parted and others are reunited.

One thing I’m finding about reading a chapter a day, instead of speeding through both books in a single weekend the way I did the first time, is that I’m feeling the emotion more at the places where people are lost to one another, because they’ve known each other longer. I mean, in the story it’s the same amount of time, but the relationship has more weight to me when it’s been sitting in my head for weeks instead of hours.

Crystal Dragon – Chapter 15

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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.

Crystal Dragon – Chapter 14

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Osabei Tower
Landomist

In which Cantra renews an old acquaintance.

Though Scholar tay’Nordif experiences the revelation that tay’Welford is aelantaza as a spur-of-the-moment inspiration, I suspect this is just an opportune occasion for it to come out and the actual recognition occurred some time ago. At least as far back, say, as the evening when she found vel’Anbrek’s suspicions of tay’Welford worth mentioning in Jela’s hearing. (Conversely, he probably recognised her on day one, since his skills and experience don’t have years of dust on them and it’s implied he’s seen Cantra more recently than Cantra has seen him.) I wonder if researching his rise to the Prime Chair was one of the ways she passed the time in her office when she was supposedly progressing her life’s work.

It’s interesting that we’re getting so much backstory for Maelyn tay’Nordif as she fights against losing herself. It shows how much detail needs to go into constructing a person. (And I’m intrigued that she puts her succession of “patrons” in quotation marks; it might just be that she doesn’t consider them all proper patron material, given that she adds that some of them were no better than bandits, but I do wonder if it also means that some of them were interested in her for reasons other than her mathematical ability — which is, I admit, a thought that had already occurred to me back when her last patron’s cover letter was calling her things like “the most precious sister of my soul”.)

Jela is finally able to ask about the world-shield of somebody who can answer. It’s not physically present at the Tower, just that the Tower has a record of its location. And has apparently been unable to secure a grant to study it, which seems typical; saving entire populations is all very well in its way, but where’s the money to be made in it?

Oracle Odd Lots, the supplier of the “shortcut”, was also the merchant who sold Cantra the three learning toys. I don’t know if that’s significant; Cantra did say to Jela that there’s a lot of odd-job traders on the Rim who have sheriekas tech pass through their hands.

Veralt has only himself to blame for ending up with a knife in his throat. Taunting the hero with her parent’s death right when you have her at your mercy and she’s on the point of giving up is one of the classic blunders, and I should have thought they’d teach better than that at genetically-engineered-assassin school.

Crystal Dragon – Chapter 13

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Osabei Tower
Landomist

In which we’re all mad, here.

Well, what do you know. Score one for the reasonable motivation.

Speaking of reasonable and unreasonable motivations, we were having a discussion in one of the comment threads about High Command’s decision to draw back to the Inner Worlds, and whether it made any sense. Given Jela’s explanation to Tor An in this chapter, I’d call it… well, not reasonable, but maybe “comprehensible”?

(What it still isn’t, of course, is the least bit honorable or admirable.)

Cantra is starting to leak through now, to the confusion and distress of the Scholar as she prepares to draw fire and give Jela and Master Liad an opportunity to slip away unnoticed.

(And as someone who’s read this book before, I note that the memory of Garen’s death is, apart from being the kind of powerful memory one might expect to slip through, an instance of the authors sneakily refreshing the reader’s memory about something that’s going to become relevant again shortly.)

It occurs to me that what she’s doing now is the same thing, on a different plane, that Rool Tiazan and his lady were doing last chapter (which might, for all the indications we got, be simultaneous with this one): playing the target to keep the enemy occupied. I don’t know if that means that the sheriekas do have an interest in what’s happening at the Tower, or just that the dramliza wanted to make sure that now of all times wasn’t the moment they started.

Crystal Dragon – Chapter 11

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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

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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 9

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Osabei Tower
Landomist

In which Scholar tay’Nordif has a meeting to look forward to.

Scholar tay’Nordif seems to have been rather upset by witnessing the proving. Perhaps she has been considering how she might have done, had she been the one facing such a test — and how likely it is that before too long she’s going to find out.

I do like the line about the subdued paroxysm of joy.

Jela has a good question: where did the idea of a pilot come from? Is it just a story Cantra seized on as likely to buy more time, and it’s just her luck that there actually is a pilot coming?

Crystal Dragon – Chapter 8

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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.)