My comments on chapter 2, sorry for the long delay.
"No. We've not seen this 'kind' before. None has moved this fast, or with such cunning. Maithanet is no mere enthusiast. Within the first three weeks of his tenure two plots to poison him were uncovered-and here's the thing-by Maithanet himself. No fewer than seven of the Emperor's agents were exposed and executed in Sumna. This man is more than simply shrewd. Far more."
Very nice foreshadowing of Maithanet being a (half-)Dûnyain, I for one I'm embarrassed of how long it took for me to realize what was going on with him (I only put the pieces together early in TTT, but then again I did go through these books very fast the first time).
Like Madness once said in the Quorum, a PON prequel with Maithanet as one of the main characters would be just so interesting. Seriously, the mention of how he uncovered these plots and identified these spies makes it out to be a very good example of what TVTropes would refer to as an
"offscreen moment of awesome" (well, off-page in this case).
The ancient sorcerer had always possessed a disconcerting presence: intimidating because of his height and yet pathetic because of his great age. His skin seemed an insult to the silks that draped him.
Wow, that's some extreme ageism right there, Achamian. Especially bad after I checked Nautzera's birth year in the wiki and realized that he was born in 4038, meaning he would be 71-72 in 4110. That means that Nautzera in PON was just a couple of years older than Achamian himself during TAE. Suddenly, I don't feel bad at all when I remember Sorweel and Kelmomas' POVs referring to him as "an ancient beggar" (or something similar).
Unlike the others, those like Nautzera, he could distinguish his age from the one he dreamt night after night. He could see the difference. The Mandate was not merely poised between epochs-it was poised between dreams and waking life.
This becomes wonderfully ironic after Achamian becomes a "prophet of the past" in between series and over the course of TAE, doesn't it? Living more in the dreams than in the present, having the separation between the two grow more and more blurry and indistinct...
Achamian turned to him, caught by something in his tone.
Simas's gaze faltered. A small struggle darkened his face. He continued.
"You've noticed how intense the Dreams have become. I can see that much in your eyes. We've all become a little wild-eyed as of late . . . Something . . ." He paused, unfocused his eyes as though counting his own heartbeat. Achamian felt his hackles rise. He'd never seen Simas like this. Indecisive. Frightened, even.
A clue something is off about him. Interesting that this comes after the "Perhaps dangerous enought to be sceptical even of our scepticism" line. We know all about skin-spies' issues with paradoxes and the like, might be his own comment confused him a little and rendered him unable to "function properly" for a short while, which Akka interpreted as fear? Yes, I know that this probably shouldn't happen in the case of this particular skin-spy, due to him having a soul, but they're still artificial beings, and we have no idea what were the circumstances that caused thing-called-Simas to have a soul in the first place. There could be some "strangeness" there, even with the soul.
And yes, I'm in the "Simas was already a skin-spy at this time" camp. I do think it's plausible that he had been around for a few decades (after all, the same was presumably true of Skeaös). While skin-spies are either functionally immortal or, at the very least, seem to have extremely long lifespans (if I remember correctly, the Serwë skin-spy mentions having been a Scylvendi a couple of centuries before), it does make sense that they could acurately mimic aging.
But where Proyas had gone proud, overfed on the knowledge he would someday be King, Inrau had remained . . . Inrau.
Wait a minute, Proyas was never supposed to be king of Conriya. He had an older brother, who was still alive and well at the time Achamian was Proyas' tutor. There might be an inconsistency here, and I believe something similar later comes up in TUC...
How many years had passed since he'd last visited Sumna? Five? Seven? He idly wondered if he'd find Esmenet there, whether she still lived.
Just keeping note of these temporal references to try to figure out when exactly did Achamian and Esmenet first meet (I don't think there's enough information for that, but I can try).
Why did he begrudge Simas so? Was it because the man's eyes had yet to fail, while Nautzera, like so many others, had to rely on his students to read to him?
See, this to me is evidence that Simas
had to be a skin-spy at this time. Sure, it's not implausible that human Simas would be still be able to read (especially since he'd be over a decade Nautzera's junior - only 57-58 as of 4110, thank you wiki). But this taken together with Skeaös' abnormal agility for his apparent age later on does make it seem like Simas was indeed a skin-spy at this point.
But if the years had taught Nautzera one thing about Polchias Simas, was that the man was so shrewd as he was devoid of sentiment.
Something already present in the original Simas? A personality deliberately cultivated by the skin-spy? Or another indicator that he was not actually human?
It's kind of a shame that this is the last we see of Simas (whether or not he's the thing-called-Simas at this point) until the skin-spy's reveal in TTT. To me, Maithanet revealing he was an anomaly with the soul just brought to mind so many questions and made the whole situation so much more intriguing. I wish we could have seen more of this skin-spy, given how unique he was.