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Ironically the Dunyain are an athiest sect.

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So I'm not sure if Bakker edited the False Sun at some point but a user by the name of Zacherson[/b][/u] has made an interesting observation:

"It appears as though Shaeonanra and Aurang lose the ability to use sorcery after their acts were deemed “outrages” by whatever force judges them, either referring to their destruction of the Nonman mansion, the murder of Titirga, or both. This is something that is unprecedented in the series, although we are not entirely sure whether this prohibition is permanent ... Not once have readers seen one of the Few being stripped of their abilities."

The part he's referring to, I believe, is this:

At last they paused to regard their labour, the Inchoroi alighting upon the same spectral floor that bore Shaeönanra. Crimson sunlight bathed the southern ramps, inking the numberless crevices across the wrack and ruin. And they rejoiced, Man and Inchoroi…

They had no inkling of the greater violence their sorcery had unleashed.

The sky cracked. Iros shuddered. The impossible sun tipped and stumbled. Plumes of ejecta exploded from points along the mountain’s perimeter, scarcely visible for the Diurnal’s encompassing glare. The mound that had been Nogaral shrugged then slumped into its contradiction. It was as if a dome of cloth had been pressed into a dimple. Summit became basin. Illumination became shadow. The mountain had been rotten with Viri, its innumerable ways fractured by the cataclysmic impact of the Ark thousands of years before. The underworld mansion imploded, collapsed inward and downward, tier upon tier, hall upon hall, undone by this final indignity. This last outrage.

The Man and the Inchoroi toppled with it. Though suspended, they remained bound to the earth, and as with all drastic changes of circumstance, the meaning of their sorcery ceased to be. Only Aurang’s wings saved them. The Inchoroi seized the Man from kicking emptiness, bore him up beyond the Diurnal blue into the truth that was cold and night ... Shaeönanra laughed in the crazed, marvelling way of children who find their destruction multiplied beyond belief. Once again, he succumbed to the sacrilege of Fate, he who walked ways invisible to the Gods. He exulted at this Sign, rejoiced that his hated foe would have a pit and not a barrow to memorialize his fall.

I mean, it sounds like they just bore too deep trying to bury Titirga. However... Thoughts?

EDIT: In rereading, it sounds like they were using the echo of the Mountain, which was itself a rotten Nonmen Mansion, itself to float - sorcerers don't truly fly. Mansion collapses, no echo to walk on, the sorcery is momentarily useless, not permanently.

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I think there are various references in the series to how sorcerers simply walk an echo of the earth. I think the sorcerer of the 'stone trolls' (IIRC) has a scene where the ground runs out for him and with it, so to the sorcerous echo he walks upon - and so he falls.

It's worth wondering why Earwa can't damn you when your alive, though. Why does merely being alive put you outside the grip of the very gods?

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I saved the text of the false sun in a word doc the day it was posted, since revisions kept happening to the first atrocity tale.

here's the same passage from day 1

At last they paused to regard their labour, the Inchoroi alighting upon the same spectral floor that bore Shaeönanra. Crimson sunlight bathed the southern ramps, inking the numberless crevices across the wrack and ruin. And they rejoiced, Man and Inchoroi…

They had no inkling of the greater violence their sorcery had unleashed.

The sky cracked. Iros shuddered. The impossible sun tipped and stumbled. Plumes of ejecta exploded from points along the mountain’s perimeter, scarcely visible for the Diurnal’s encompassing glare. The mound that had been Nogaral shrugged then slumped into its contradiction. It was as if a dome of cloth had been pressed into a dimple. Summit became basin. Illumination became shadow. The mountain had been rotten with Viri, its innumerable ways fractured by the cataclysmic impact of the Ark thousands of years before. The underworld mansion imploded, collapsed inward and downward, tier upon tier, hall upon hall, undone by this final indignity. This last outrage.

The Man and the Inchoroi toppled with it. Though suspended, they remained bound to the earth, and as with all drastic changes of circumstance, the meaning of their sorcery ceased to be. Only Aurang’s wings saved them. The Inchoroi seized the Man from kicking emptiness, bore him up beyond the Diurnal blue into the truth that was cold and night.

They set foot upon the depression’s edge. The Day Lantern painted a dishevelled landscape, drawing their shadows into the darkness of the great concavity below. The earth still shivered, resounded with hidden percussions, knocking dust into smoky halos about the debris.

Shaeönanra laughed in the crazed, marvelling way of children who find their destruction multiplied beyond belief. Once again, he succumbed to the sacrilege of Fate, he who walked ways invisible to the Gods. He exulted at this Sign, rejoiced that his hated foe would have a pit and not a barrow to memorialize his fall. And as the echos trailed into cavernous thunder, he began singing, as a true Long-boned Son of Umerau should,

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I was thinking before if Earwa is round, then the center of the universe is at it's core. Perhaps that's where the well led to? And maybe that and sending debris down into it has something to do with...

He hears it, a faraway wind, the groan of impossible multitudes–the collective shriek. His lungs become as stone. Horror makes pins of his skin. And he feels it, the burning vaults above, the smoldering glimpses...

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posted this at westeros, but wanted to snark here too.

The Math-Thesis Point?

Really?

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I Lol'd.

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I Lol'd.

mainly I'm kicking myself for missing the "point" until now!

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I vaguely remember that someone discussing this... Is the Onkhis mentioned (twice) in The False Sun, the same as the Onkis that Inrau prays to, in TDTCB? If so, what is the significance? There might be some link between Onkis and Nonmen too, according to the PON wiki...

And tangentially, do we know if any of the Hundred Gods has an earlier or later origin than the others?

And Lockesnow, I didn't get the Mathesis connection until you pointed it out!

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Tangentially, we do not.

The Onkhis and Onkis are one and the same in my mind. The significance, I think, is mundane, that Shaeonanra comes from a culture with pervasive Kiunnat belief, which Inri Sejenus amends into Inrithism - still reflecting belief in the same Gods but as aspects of the God.

Its like the Greeks calling a storm Zeus and rough seas Poseidon, it reflects a culture's, and an individual's, explanatory style, how they make sense of the world.

But, I agree, Twooars, something seems strange. Why, if the IF cleanses the cognitive palate so, would Shaeonanra's explanatory style still reflect a belief in the Gods? To the point, that they move him still?

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The darkness always moves us Madness.

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True . Still curious.

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I'm going to be that annoying nitpicky guy again and suggest that Psyche and Eros are better examples of your point than Zeus and Poseidon, Madness.

I think it's hard for us to look down on Shae for using a god's name to describe part of his own unconscious mind, when we modern and enlightened humans use the names of gods we haven't even believed in for 2000 years for the exact same purpose.

Incidentally (and probably quite irrelevantly), Psyche was sometimes portrayed on Greek vases as looking exactly like a Synthese (probably from Egyptian influence).

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I certainly have an explanatory style but it doesn't reflect Onkis, or any other God, moving me.

You'll have to enlighten me on the Psyche and Eros references beyond Plato or myths of Cupid and Psyche - though, you clearly got my communication by the conception.

+1 for imagery. Neat irrelevancy.

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I certainly have an explanatory style but it doesn't reflect Onkis, or any other God, moving me.

I'm not really sure what you mean here.

You'll have to enlighten me on the Psyche and Eros references beyond Plato or myths of Cupid and Psyche

Again, I'm not sure what enlightenment you're looking for. 21st century humans use the word 'psyche' to refer to our own mental structure, and the word 'erotic' to refer to things we consider sexy. That does not imply we still worship those two gods, or even that we consider them gods any more. Likewise, Shae's use of the word 'onkhis' doesn't necessarily imply that he still feels that goddess is moving his soul, merely that 'onkhis' is the word, in his language, for that part of the mind where thoughts arise.

You could actually replace the word 'onkhis' in The False Sun with 'his psyche', and it wouldn't significantly change the meaning.