Earwa > The Almanac: PON Edition
TDTCB, Ch. 12
What Came Before:
--- Quote from: lockesnow ---Although, if you accept God as the logos and the universe as the uttering of logos, world and word are very close to the same thing.
edit: that made more sense when I typed it, my mental associations didn't come through. Riffing off the Christian apologist bit about language being 'more.'
--- End quote ---
What Came Before:
--- Quote from: Madness ---+1 Demonic Narrator, Church. And lockesnow you made sense there.
Also, +2 lockesnow that this is multiple chapter’s worth of information.
I have explained how Maithanet yoked the vast resources of the Thousand Temples to ensure the viability of the Holy War. I have described, in outline, the first steps taken by the Emperor to bind the Holy War to his imperial ambitions. I have attempted to reconstruct the initial reaction of the Cishaurim in Shimeh from their correspondence with the Padirajah in Nenciphon. And I have even mentioned the hated Consult, of whom I can at long last speak without fear of ridicule. I have spoken, in other words, almost exclusively of powerful factions and their impersonal ends. What of vengeance? What of hope? Against the frame of competing nations and warring faiths, how did these small passions come to rule the Holy War?
- DRUSAS ACHAMIAN COMPENDIUM OF THE FIRST HOLY WAR
+1 Solo. I’m struck as well by omissions from our “experience” of the Compendium as Achamian actually wrote it – the parallel has been there to assume our narrative is the one he tells in reflection. Certainly, we are missing the reconstructed reaction of the Cishaurim in Shimeh.
Back to our boy, Cnaiur.
Early Spring, 4111, Year-of-the-Tusk, the Northern Jiunati Steppe[/b]
§12.1 – Kellhus meet… Moenghus
Cnaiur rides out to the Barrows of the Utemot. “Why had he come here? What purpose could such a solitary pilgrimage serve?” (p359) He wonders not that his people think him mad because he’s a “man who took counsel with the dead rather than the wise.”
Cnaiur sees vultures circling the Barrows and approaches warily. He finds a “dead man was unmutilated. The Sranc had not finished” (p360). We have a nice contrast between Cnaiur reading the mundane world as easily as Kellhus later reads him. “What outland fools woud risk the Sranc to travel to Scylvendi lands?”
The conception of the battle preceeding Cnaiur’s discovery is one of my favorite implied by the series. I’d love to read Bakker’s description of just this fight.
Cnaiur approaches from “behind one of the larger barrows … he came across the first of the Sranc bodies, its neck partially severed. Like all dead Sranc, it was as rigid as stone, its skin chappy and purple-black” (p361). He’s amazed that a “Sranc killed by a Sranc weapon.”
(click to show/hide)Despite the fact that Bakker and TTT Glossary hint that Sranc manifest rudiments of social hierarchy when left to their own devices
He “found himself aware that he crouched on the side of a barrow … he was outraged at the sacrilege, but he was more frightened by far. What could this mean?” By calling attention to Cnaiur’s self-awareness, the reader is explicitly drawn to the words on the page. Highlights some of Scylvendi beliefs by omission.
At the top of this mountain of dead, purpling Sranc, the “survivor sat cross-legged on the barrow summit, his forearms resting against his knees, his head bowed beneath the shining disc of the sun.”
(click to show/hide)Immediate introduction of prevalent Prophet imagery. The world conspires? Ordains Kellhus’s conception by the principle characters.
“No animal possess senses as keen as those of vultures … the survivor lifted his head … as though his sense were every bit as keen as a vulture’s, he turned to Cnaiur” (p362) – Cnaiur’s senses have seemed every bit as keen, thus far.
Cnaiur thinks with horror: “I know this man…”
He notes “The Sranc at his feet seemed to howl soundlessly … as though the horror of the man on the summit above was enough to transcend the abyss between their races” – I also love this quote. For my part, I’d hazard projection, that Cnaiur has such horror of the Dunyain that he could find accord with Sranc first.
The lone survivor sits in meditative pose “blood welling like pitch from a hidden wound, blackening his grey tunic.”
(click to show/hide)Kellhus is no doubt utilizing some kind of meditative technique to slow his blood loss… or the world conspires? Or God? Cnaiur himself has no reasons for his being there.
“With the deranged certainty of one who’s dreamed a moment a thousand times, Cnaiur climbed five more steps, then placed the polished tip of his blade beneath the man’s chin. With it, he raised the impassive face to the sun” (362-63) – One of my favorite quotes. This is as others have noted where the books really pick up.
(click to show/hide)The introduction of the Prince of Nothing marks the boundary of the introduction to the Prince of Nothing.
“’You are Dunyain,’ he said, his voice deep and cold,” identifying Kellhus and uniting Kellhus finally with his father.
“What does this mean?” Cnaiur thinks as he notes that “he stood atop the summit of his father’s barrow.”
What does this mean?
(click to show/hide)I’d like to remark that this is Cnaiur at his best and most coherent – the whole series is a maddening deterioration as Kellhus pervades the world.
§12.2 – The Tale of Anasurimbor Moenghus & the White Yaksh
Cnaiur lays with “Anissi. The first wife of his heart” (p363) – Arc opened…
“Anissi… How I love this peace between us” – This is one of the few moments where Cnaiur is at peace. Hold tight. He thinks on Kellhus. “Him … The son of Moenghus. The Dunyain. Through rain and hide walls, Cnaiur could feel the itch of the man’s presence across the dark encampment – a terror from beyond the horizon” (p363)
(click to show/hide)Although, we haven’t had a description of the No-God, this is it. Seeded to forever prime us towards those associations. Among many others already noted.
Anissi relates to Cnaiur that Kellhus had followers from Atrithau. “He is the same… He possesses men the way his father once possessed-” (p364)
“Everything mattered when it came to the Dunyain” – though I suppose its incidental that Kellhus used the Atrithi.
Cnaiur has but one thought since finding Kellhus,“Use the son to find the father.”
“A life for a life. A father for a father. Vengeance. Wouldn’t this remedy the imbalance that had unhinged his heart?”
“What if it happened again?” – Yes, Cnaiur, heed your own warning, live a life in peace.
Cnaiur starts to reminisce about Moenghus’ journey through the Utemot. His cousin had “taken the man from a band of Sranc travelling across Suskara … few men survived such capitivity,” (p365) though some men obviously have, so its not unheard of.
Cnaiur notes that “for a Dunyain, even degradation was a potent tool – perhaps the most potent”
(click to show/hide)Circumfix?
Note that Skiotha gives Moenghus to his first wife, Cnaiur’s mother, as a gift – to a woman who owns property (p365).
Moenghus waits to speak to Cnaiur until the Rite-of-the-Spring-Wolves (p365) to speak to Cnaiur. “You have killed the wolf” (p366).
“Nothing had happened as it should have” – I’m interested in what happened on Cnaiur’s rite of manhood. Is he forever emasculate because of this instance?
As Moenghus is tending to Cnaiur’s wounds the next day, “All the marks of his slavery … fell away. The transformation was so abrupt, so complete, that for several moments Cnaiur could only stare at him in wonder.”
(click to show/hide)Kellhus pulls this same move on Achamian later – “The God is remote”
The narrative highlights “violence between men fostered an unaccountable intimacy” (p367) “and by demonstrating need, he’d opened his heart, had allowed the serpent to enter.” – Biblical reference? Analogy between modernism and Satan? The Eden narrative couldn’t be sexist could it ;)?!
Note again Cnaiur’s mother accuses him of damaging her property.
Moenghus does the Dunyain Vulcan move thrice before revealing to Cnaiur that “You alone” can understand what he has to impart.
The reminiscence highlights the complete Trackless Steppe metaphor (p368).
I find it really interesting that Moenghus is so thoughtless with his reveals. And in light of Moenghus exiled story being false, why was Moenghus sent out into the world? “We Dunyain, Cnaiur, are guides and trackers, students of the Logos, the Shortest Way. Of all the world, we alone have awakened from the dread slumber of custom. We alone” (p370).
He offers to show Cnaiur the shortest way to anything he desires. “To become a great chieftain of the People” also happens to be what Moenghus needs to accomplish the shortest way to freedom.
There’s a neat analogy of Cnaiur feeling like Conphas after the Vulgar Holy War – center of events, sheltered by the cocoon of other’s ignorance (p370).
“two seasons later, the other woman strangled his mother for giving birth to a blonde girl” – Moenghus’s world-born child #1?
“My father is dead. I was the knife. And Anasurimbor Moenghus had wielded him” (p371) – Dunyain make tools of all peoples.
Solo noted the Whirlwind metaphor (p371) as well, which I find interesting along with the spoiler noted one above.
“By some unearthly cunning, he had been tricked into obscenity after obscenity, degradation after degradation, and he had wept with gratitude” (p373) – Dunyain cunning.
Cnaiur marks the feeling of revelation of his ignorance noted again with the rewriting whirlwind metaphor. “Awake, it moved through him without breath, with the curious flatness of performing a task with empty lungs” (373)
Cnaiur marks that a face from his dreams has come to his waking life (p374).
“Dare he cross the Trackless Steppe?”
Anissi shakes Cnaiur from reverie and we’re giving more notes about how knowledgeable Cnaiur is of the Dunyain - “’I fear you,’ she continued, ‘because you’ve told me this would happen. Each of these things you knew would happen. You know this man, and yet you’ve never spoken to him’” (p375)
Cnaiur attributes omniscience to Kellhus – which is possible as Kellhus has had chance to dominate everyone but Cnaiur “smallest happening was soaked in waters of fate and portent.”
“no greater intimacy between him and this man. With his bare hands he had choked him to death in dream after dream”
“’Through you. He sees me through you.’ For a moment he wondered what is was the outlander saw … Much of the truth, he decided”
“’Lord, this is sacrilege. He’s a witch. A sorcerer’” – notes on hierarchy and social order.
“Sleep, Anissi” – Don’t be awake, be ignorance… and its implied at peace.
“Dare he use the son to find the father?(375)
Note the reversal of the rite of passage. Moenghus saves Cnauir on the night of his ritual and Cnaiur has certainly saved Kellhus during the Dunyain’s rite of passage into the world.
§12.3 – Plying Kellhus in the Old Ways
Cnaiur goes to see Kellhus for the first time. Cnaiur pays homage to the rituals of his peoples, though his lack of conviction makes them hollow? (p376)
Kellhus is described in Cnaiur’s eyes as “naked limbs, grey like dead branches.”
He throws a Chorae to Kellhus who, though of the Few (as he sees the distortion of the Nonmen’s sorcery in the prologue), catches in nimbly. This reflects the proportion of the mark threshold for Chorae?
Kellhus asks what the Trinket is: “A gift to my people from very ancient times. A gift from our God. It kills witches” (p377).
Kellhus notes that Cnaiur fears many things and Cnaiur immediately notes that “Again. It was happening again! Words like levels.”
Something that is distinctly novel since Cnaiur’s encounter with Moenghus is that he reclassifies Kellhus/Dunyain using Conphas’s perspective. “This man is intellect… War” (p378)
Cnaiur decides to think like a Sranc and tortures Kellhus in the old way.
(click to show/hide)Like… the Inchoroi disseminated torture techniques among the Scylvendi culture?
“For hours the man sobbed and howled, shrieked for mercy as they plied him in the old ways … and he [Cnaiur] believed none of it.”
§12.4 – Cnaiur’s Wager
Cnaiur returns hoping to be protected by darkness. Kellhus offers Cnaiur exactly what Cnaiur’s been thinking about… As far as I recall Kellhus never actually thinks about killing his Father in Shimeh before this. “’For my kind there’s only mission. I’ve come for my father, Anasurimbor Moenghus. I’ve come to kill him… I offer you the very cup you desire. Is it poison or no?’” (p379)
“Dare he use the son?”
§12.5 – Taking the Shortest Way
One of my favorite paragraphs and passages in PON. This chapter among all else really kicked off my love for Bakker. I remember loving the political intrigue because I think fantasy does this poorly for the most part. The human characters sucked me in. But Kellhus and Cnaiur. Wow.
“They sensed the monolithic hatred of the one and the godlike indifference of the other … the man who had mastered them or the man who had known them” (379)
As for the latter part who is who? Because Kellhus most certainly mastered them.
§ 12.6 – The Trackless Steppe
And now having highlighted all the ways that this can go seriously wrong, Cnaiur subjects himself to the Trackless Steppe with Kellhus, another tracker of the Shortest Way.
They cross Kuoti lands and it is known that “at last the Utemot were without Cnaiur urs Skiotha, breaker-of-horses and most violent of men” (p380)
“Now he was alone with a Dunyain, and he could imagine no greater peril” (p381)
And thus begins the epic battle of minds and some infodump.
Note some Scylvendi beliefs - “We are the People of War. Our God is dead; murdered by the peoples of the Three Seas”
Dunyain Mechanism - “Every detail, every word, was a knife in the hands of this outlander”
Scylvendi beliefs - “’Death is greater than man. It should be worshipped.’
‘But death is-‘
Kellhus probes about details of Moenghus’ travel from the Utemot building upon his father’s narrative and discerning the way conditioned by Moenghus (p382).
“Again! … Conquering the movements of his soul”
“When he returned some months later, it was decided that he must be exiled” (p383) – We’ve decided this is likely false. However, why does Moenghus go among the world-born then?
“’Sorcery,’ Cnaiur said.
The Dunyain nodded. ‘Yes. Although we didn’t know this at the time.’” – Is this an indication that the Dunyain relearned of sorcery since Moenghus’ intial dreams? Or does it mean that Kellhus has been in contact with them since?
However, as lockesnow said, we have to walk some kind of balance between truth and false. Clearly, the Dunyain principles (p384) as Kellhus highlights are true?
“Thoughts arising from darkness? … Who moved me to do this? Who?” – Onkis has been cited by Inrau as the Goddess who is the darkness that comes before.
(click to show/hide)Also, there’s lots of hindsight about other Gods coming before
“Sentiments … make us slave of custom and appetite … I do not love” (p385)
(click to show/hide)Love is for lesser souls.“Sons murdering fathers”
§12.7 – The Dunyain Anasurimbor Kellhus
The conversation across the Steppe reverts to Kellhus’ perspective and we’re granted his first perspective since the prologue as he proceeds to try and dominate Cnaiur, his greatest obstacle so far.
Note the Living Book metaphor (p385) again.
“Father… at last I’ve found you… Each of them had seen Anasurimbor Moenghus in the face of the other” (p386)
Cnaiur “knew of their [Dunyain] ability to read thoughts through faces … Of their intellect … their absolute commitment to mission… and that they spoke not to share perspectives or to communicate truths but to come before – to dominate souls and circumstances” (p387) – too much for Kellhus.
“Is he an obstacle or accident”
Kellhus thinks he sees “the Shortest Way. The Logos” shows him that “nothing deceived so well as the truth” (p388).
“Either they assume they’re the origin [of their thoughts] or they think it lies somewhere beyond the world – in the Outside, as I’ve heard it called” (p389) - …?
“What comes before determines what comes after” – Dunyain princple
“But what you do, Dunyain, makes all men your foe” (p390) – Does it?
“Truth. Unspeakable truth … shared the unspeakable with Moenghus’s son” (p391) – Kellhus seems perfectly willing to take Cnaiur all the way to Moenghus should he prove useful.
“The Steppe … is trackless, eh, Dunyain?” (p392) – Cnaiur is saved from Kellhus’ domination by Kellhus imitating Moenghus.
“Kellhus saw only murder and riot in his face. Shining vengeance in his eyes” (p393)
CNAIUR!!!
§12.8 – Most Violent of All Men
“Measure is unceasing”
“My father is at war, plainsman. What father fails to call on his son in times of war?” (p394)
“At war against whom?”
(click to show/hide)I enjoy the incidental layering that the reader is allowed to make a perfectly innocuous assumption.
“With his shining knife, Cnaiur sawed-off another chunk of amicut, the strips of dried beef, wild herbs, and berries that were the mainstay of their provisions. He stared impassively at the Dunyain as he chewed.”
Just highlighting Cnaiur’s badass resolve against Kellhus. A Dunyain!
--- End quote ---
What Came Before:
--- Quote from: lockesnow ---
--- Quote ---Anissi shakes Cnaiur from reverie and we’re giving more notes about how knowledgeable Cnaiur is of the Dunyain - “’I fear you,’ she continued, ‘because you’ve told me this would happen. Each of these things you knew would happen. You know this man, and yet you’ve never spoken to him’” (p375)
--- End quote ---
Do you see Kellhus' manipulation in this as I do? Note that she strokes and stokes Cnaiur's ego perfectly. She give him her fear, she says the fear is because of his predictive--Dunyain like--abilities. She elevates, in her sight, Cnaiur above Kellhus and Cnaiur feels it even if he doesn't consciously understand it. Kellhus has carefully achieved this by conditioning Anissi, Cnaiur's subconscious even tries to alert him, because he remembers how degradation is a potent tool for the Dunyain, and by degrading himself, Kellhus helped Anissi to place Cnaiur above Dunyain in her mind. This process would be the lever that finally moves Cnaiur to speak to Kellhus, because of Anissi's flattery he finally feels secure enough in his status and stature to confront the Dunyain.
--- End quote ---
What Came Before:
--- Quote from: Madness ---I haven't decided, lockesnow.
(click to show/hide)I really think that we have further evidence that something is watching Kellhus. Leweth and now Cnaiur. Kellhus seems to just survive as necessary..
I'm not sure I can believe that Kellhus manages everything instantly, as Cnaiur seems to believe. And Cnaiur does say he sleeps with a knife because he knows Kellhus can come to him as anyone, even Anissi. Kellhus inhabits them, probably, certainly Anissi as you say.
So Kellhus wants Cnaiur to be vulnerable to his entreaties but ultimately to wants him to take Kellhus to Moenghus...?
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What Came Before:
--- Quote from: lockesnow ---
--- Quote from: Madness ---I haven't decided, lockesnow.
(click to show/hide)I really think that we have further evidence that something is watching Kellhus. Leweth and now Cnaiur. Kellhus seems to just survive as necessary..
I'm not sure I can believe that Kellhus manages everything instantly, as Cnaiur seems to believe. And Cnaiur does say he sleeps with a knife because he knows Kellhus can come to him as anyone, even Anissi. Kellhus inhabits them, probably, certainly Anissi as you say.
So Kellhus wants Cnaiur to be vulnerable to his entreaties but ultimately to wants him to take Kellhus to Moenghus...?
--- End quote ---
I'm not sure, is something watching Kellhus? Is something watching Cnaiur? Is something watching Conphas? All three are kahiht, perhaps, but consider the following passages from Chapter six:
--- Quote ---A great iron ache radiated from the back of his head, and for a time he lay still, crushed by its weight. Convulsions wracked him, and he heaved bile into the footprints before his face. He coughed. With his tongue he probed a soft, salty gap between his teeth.
For some reason, the first clear thought to arise from his misery was of his Chorae. He scraped his fingers through vomit and gritty muck, found it quickly. He tucked it beneath his iron-plated girdle.
Mine. My prize.
The pain pressed like a shod hoof against the back of his skull, but he managed to push himself to his hands and knees. The grass was whitewashed with mud and sharp like small knives between his fingers. He dragged himself away from the rush of the river.
The turf of the embankment had been trampled into mud, now hardened into the brittle record of the earlier slaughter. The corpses seemed cemented to the ground, their flesh leathery beneath flies, their blood clotted like crushed cherries. He felt as though he crawled across one of those dizzying stone reliefs that panelled the temples of Nansur, where struggling men were frozen in unholy representation. But this was no representation.
(p. 185)
---
For a long time he felt nothing. He remembered those mornings in his youth when, for whatever reason, he would awaken before dawn. He would creep from the yaksh and steal through the camp, searching for the higher ground where he could watch the sun embrace the land. The wind would hiss through the grasses. The squatting sun would rise, climb. And he would think, I am the last. I am the only one.
Like now.
For an absurd moment, he felt the queer exultation of one who’d prophesied his own destruction. He’d told Xunnurit, the eight-fingered fool. They’d thought him an old woman, a spinner of preposterous fears. Where was their laughter now?
(p. 186).
---
He squeezed tears from his eyes, beat a scabbed fist against the turf harder and harder, as though he stoked a furnace. The face from thirty years ago floated before his soul’s eye, possessed of a demonic calm.
“You task me!” he hissed under his breath. “Heap burden upon burd—”
A flare of sudden terror silenced him. The sound of voices, carried on the wind.
(p. 187).
---
It was as though a great stone had been dropped upon Cnaiür’s chest. He could not breathe. It was him. Him! Ikurei Conphas!
(p. 188).
---
Cnaiür tried wrenching himself from the ground, but he could not. In his ears the disembodied voices had become mocking thunder. Murder him. He must!
(p. 189).
---
A sudden awareness of himself and his environment struck Cnaiür. It was as though he saw himself from far away, a cringing man huddled next to the body of a horse, surrounded by ever-widening circles of dead. Even these images triggered recriminations. What kind of thoughts were these? Why must he always think one thought too many? Why must he always think?
Kill him!
“Exactly,” Martemus replied.
Rush them. String their horses. Cut their throats in the confusion!
(p. 189).
---
So cold. The ground was so cold. Where should he go?
He had fled his childhood and had crawled into the honour of his father’s name, Skiötha, Chieftain of the Utemot. With his father’s shameful death, he’d fled and crawled into the name of his people, the Scylvendi, who were the wrath of Lokung, more vengeance than bone or flesh. Now they too had died shamefully. There was no ground left to him.
He lay nowhere, among the dead.
(p. 191).
---
--- End quote ---
Italics original, bolding mine.
this is followed by the extremely oddly written flashback to Cnaiur and Moenghus. This piece of prose stands out because it's written in a second person, I think, "Some events mark us so deeply..." it's not written from Cnaiur's perspective, it's not from the third person omniscient perspective, it's written in present tense, not in past tense. As though we the reader are reviewing memories together with Cnaiur.
but setting aside that flashback. Note how Cnaiur is paralyzed here, he's moving about before the vision of Moenghus' face, he's paralyzed after the vision. He's clutching his chorae the whole time. and he has out of body experiences, visions of himself on a nansur relief sculpture (a game piece?), and a vision of himself from far away as from another person watching from afar. He's paralyzed at precisely the exact time, the only moment, when Conphas will give his silly aphorism that 'war is intellect' that will later prove crucial to Cnaiur seizing control of the holy war.
It's reasonable to guess the Moenghus is performing some mind control on Cnaiur here. or it could be the gods/the world conspires.
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