Earwa > The Almanac: TAE Edition
The Slog WLW - Chapter 10 [Spoilers]
H:
Chapter 10:
--- Quote ---"I saw you, Horse-King. I know you called to me... And yet I rode on." He glared like someone speaking against a mob of baser instincts. "I will be forever finding my way out from your shadow."
--- End quote ---
Perhaps foreshadowing here too, that Sorweel and Zsoronga will form an alliance after the Great Ordeal?
--- Quote ---And that, Sorweel suddenly realized, was the Aspect-Emperor's goal: to have a believer become Satakhan.
--- End quote ---
We know Zeüm is important (it has to be) and apparently it is to Kellhus too. If this is true, the Great Ordeal can't simply be completely sacrificed, there must be a plan for some to survive...
--- Quote ---"A mighty lord died here..." he heard the man mutter.
--- End quote ---
But which is a mystery I have yet to solve.
--- Quote ---She draws a pouch from the pit below her stomach, raises it pinched in fingers of filth and bone. She smiles. Tears of blood stream from her earthen eyes. The watching men gasp for the sorrow of a mother's endless Giving...
--- End quote ---
Wow, either this is just some symbols of Yatwer reused, or telling us something very deep about chorae. The allusion to the uterus, the tears as blood, all Yatwerian symbols we have seen with Psatma, but here, it brings up interesting points about chorae that have been speculated on before. The connection between chorae and uteri. The connection between a chorae and a tear of god.
--- Quote ---He pulled the pouch from his belt. The muck had dried to ash about its edges. He brushed it away with trembling fingers, noticing for the first time the dizzying patterns burned into the age-old leather. Crescents. Crescents within crescents.
Broken circles, he decided, glimpsing the gold-thread circumfixes embroidered along the hem of his own tunic.
Broken circumfixes.
He tugged free the clip of chapped bronze that held its mouth closed. He already knew what it contained, for as King of Sakarpus, he was also High Keeper of the Hoard. Nevertheless, he tipped the pouch so that he might hold it in his callused palm: a sphere of ancient iron...
A Chorae. A holy Tear of God.
--- End quote ---
What once protected an Anasûrimbor will now protect their enemy? No, not protect, be a weapon?
--- Quote ---"That motif... the triple crescent..."
"What about it?" he asked, far too aware of the proximity of her gaze to his groin.
At last her eyes climbed to meet his own. Her look was cool, remote in the way of old and prideful widows.
"That is the Far Antique mark of my family... the Anasûrimbor of Trysë."
--- End quote ---
Certainly not a coincidence, that they stopped there, that the battle was faught there, that he would find it either. But what does it really mean? That the Anasûrimbor will be undone by their own past?
--- Quote ---And he continually doubted...
--- End quote ---
Kellhus the heir of certainty, Sorweel the heir of doubt?
--- Quote ---A Narindar proper—a servant of Ajokli, the evil Four-Horned Brother.
--- End quote ---
Perhaps this is what Kel is as well?
--- Quote ---The learned told tales of Sheneor, the least of the three nations divided between the sons of the first ancient Anasûrimbor King, Nanor-Ukkerja I.
--- End quote ---
I wonder if we are told this because the satchel with the chorae was his?
--- Quote ---The Aspect-Emperor leaned back into the glow of his unearthly halo. As always the hearth's twirling light sketched smoky glimpses of doom across the canvas walls behind him. For a heartbeat, the Exalt-General could swear he saw children running...
"Choice," his Lord-and-God said smiling. "Willing...
"Your shackles are cast from this very iron."
--- End quote ---
I do wonder, what is Proyas' role to be later? There certainly seems to be something to his "ensalvement." Is it that he will eventually have to choose between Akka and Kellhus?
--- Quote ---"A brother!" the Successor-Prince whispered with startling violence. "Sakarpus has a brother in Zeüm!"
--- End quote ---
More foreshadowing a later alliance?
--- Quote ---"You are troubled, I know," Kellhus said, grinning at his Exalt-General. "For all your yearning, for all your faith, yours remains a pragmatic soul, Proyas." The slaves continued their silent labour, binding straps and laces. The Aspect-Emperor glanced down at his garb, rolled his eyes as if offering himself up as a poor example. "You have little patience for tools you cannot immediately use."
--- End quote ---
Is this why Kellhus tells him that Akka's book is all true? To better enslave him with the truth?
--- Quote ---"I am Nin'sariccas," the Nonman announced in High Kûniüric, a language Proyas had spent years mastering so he could read The Sagas in their original tongue. "Dispossessed Son of Siol, Emissary of his Most Subtle Glory, Nil'giccas, King of Injor-Niyas..." His bow fell far short of what jnan demanded. "We have ridden long and hard to find you."
--- End quote ---
I do wonder if they know where Nil'giccas is? Does Kellhus?
--- Quote ---A serpentine blink. The preternatural eyes clicked to the Aspect-Emperor's right—to the sorcerous arras, Proyas realized.
--- End quote ---
Is it just me, or does the Intact Nonman's nature seem much like a Dûnyain, with the pauses and scrutiny?
--- Quote ---Proyas was one of few who knew something about their acquisition, how Kellhus, during one of the longer truces that punctuated the Unification Wars, spent several weeks studying with Heramari Iyokus, the Grandmaster of the Scarlet Spires, learning the darkest ways of Anagogic sorcery, the Daimos.
--- End quote ---
So, I wonder what else Kellhus learned? He has the Gnosis and the Daimos. I always did wonder, is Kellhus capable of figuring out the secrets of the Aporos? I doubt it though.
--- Quote ---"Such thefts..." Nin'sariccas said with passionless tact. "Such substitutions. They have happened before."
"Why should you care," Kellhus said, "if your hatred is satisfied, your ancient foe at last destroyed? Ever have Men been ruled by tyrants. Why should you care what soul lies behind our cruelty?"
A single inhuman blink. "May I touch you?"
"Yes."
--- End quote ---
Again, the pauses, the non-sequiturs. Dûnyain-like perhaps?
Blackstone:
I've always found the bit with the chorae to be interesting. It would seem that Yatwer was somehow steering where the battle took place or it would be too coincidental. I am assuming that the leather pouch is somehow ensorcelled and that is what hides the chorae from sorcerers and kept it from deteriorating over the 2000 years that it was in the dirt. I wonder who it belonged to.
On a related note, does a chorae have to make skin contact to protect the wearer? Sometimes it seems like it does (people bind them to their palms in battle), but if that was the case, the pouch seems like a bad idea. And we've seen other characters carrying them in pouches too.
H:
--- Quote from: Blackstone on April 15, 2016, 02:50:11 pm ---I've always found the bit with the chorae to be interesting. It would seem that Yatwer was somehow steering where the battle took place or it would be too coincidental. I am assuming that the leather pouch is somehow ensorcelled and that is what hides the chorae from sorcerers and kept it from deteriorating over the 2000 years that it was in the dirt. I wonder who it belonged to.
--- End quote ---
Perhaps this guy:
--- Quote ---Mygella, Anasûrimbor (2065-2111)—The famed Hero-King of Aörsi, whose deeds are recounted in The Sagas.
--- End quote ---
He is never mentioned again, even passingly. Why include it then?
--- Quote from: Blackstone on April 15, 2016, 02:50:11 pm ---On a related note, does a chorae have to make skin contact to protect the wearer? Sometimes it seems like it does (people bind them to their palms in battle), but if that was the case, the pouch seems like a bad idea. And we've seen other characters carrying them in pouches too.
--- End quote ---
I think that skin-to-chorae contact is the maximum protection. Otherwise, it's effect it just proximal, perhaps.
MSJ:
--- Quote from: Blackstone on April 15, 2016, 02:50:11 pm ---On a related note, does a chorae have to make skin contact to protect the wearer? Sometimes it seems like it does (people bind them to their palms in battle), but if that was the case, the pouch seems like a bad idea. And we've seen other characters carrying them in pouches too.
--- End quote ---
I think that skin-to-chorae contact is the maximum protection. Otherwise, it's effect it just proximal, perhaps.
[/quote]
I believe it states explicitly somewhere that it has to touch skin to afford you protection. You have Xerius wearing one tied to his hand when meeting Moe. Cnaüir fumbling for his at Kyudea and during the holy war, knowing without him touching it he's done. I think it's established pretty well that you have to be touching it.
I keep waiting for Akka to use a ward to protect Mimara. He hasn't since she picked up the chorae in Cil-Aujus. When Soma reveals himself hecouldnt get to her in time. But, he ruminates to himself how he wants to stay close to her in case of attack, to protect her with his wards. How could someone with a chorae be protected by a sorcerors ward?
Bolivar:
This is one of my favorite chapters in terms of scenes and the poetry of the writing. Yatwer coming out of the ground, Obotegwa's passing, the Nonman Embassy. TAE may not have earned it's due like PoN (it's not done yet to be fair) but I think the full on fantasy elements allows for some really powerful stuff in this cycle, which in turn brings out the best in the writing IMO.
--- Quote --- “But his war … Porsparian! Look around you! Look around you and tell me his war is not real!”
“What? Because he has sent his followers against the Sranc? The world is filled with Sranc!”
“And what of the Consult Legion … the Sranc who killed my comrades?”
“Lies! Lies!”
--- End quote ---
This is a huge tension throughout WLW, where the reality of the Sranc is taken as proof as the reality of Kellhus' Ordeal. Sorweel and Zsoronga share skepticism but only here is it called an outright lie.
Assuming Kellhus arranged for the Skin Eaters to find Nil'Giccas, he would also know why the king left Ishterebinth, that they've fallen to the Consult. It would make sense for him to be behind the Nonman directing the Consult legion.
--- Quote --- All this time, he had mourned his manhood, had made a flag of his humiliation. All this time he had confused his lack of certainty with the lack of strength and honour. But he was strong— he knew that now. Knowing his ignorance simply made his strength that much more canny.
“… and so they break.”
As ever, the world was a labyrinth. And his was a complicated courage.
“Are you such a fool, Sorwa?”
No, Father.
--- End quote ---
This reminded me a lot of the PoN reread, how the more confident the characters get, the more certain they seem, it all signals how deeply they're falling for Kellhus' plot. At the very least, Sorweel is being set up for some hard hitting reality.
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