not much on this chapter for me.
With the knife, he cut a lteral line across her forearm. The pain was sharp and quick, but she bit her lip rather than cry out. "Swazond," he said in harsh Scylvendi tones. "The man you have killed is gone from the world, Serwe. He exists only here, a scar upon your arm. It is the mark of his absence, of all the ways his soul will not move, and of all the acts he will not commit. A mark of the weight you now bear." He smeared the would with his palm, then clutched her hand.
"I don't understand," Serwe whimpered, as bewildered as she was terrified. Why was he doing this? Was this his punishment? Why had he called her by name?
(I.14 at 412).
this is bit that made me love the series. it is a nice nutshell of vulgar derridean linguistics: the writing is the mark of an absent presence.
we know that CuS did not know serwe's name earlier (I.13 at 385). perhaps the writing of the swazond has sufficient ritual significance for him to be troubled with her name now.
we might loop the writing of the swazond back to the chapter epigram:
Some men continually war against circumstances, but I say they perpetually flee. What are the works of men if not a momentary respite, a hiding place soon to be discovered by catastrophe? Life is endless flight before the hunter we call the world.
(I.14 at 404).
swazond marks the hunter with the mark of the hunted. just as the derridean signified continually flees the signifier, the writer of the swazond flees catastrophe, seeking momentary respite in the writing of the swazond.
[ETA--likely this epigraph must be read in pari materia with the epigraphs on I.1 (re: hunting a hare and finding something else) and I.2 (re: hunting that extinguishes the hunt)]
we might also note the dual use that
mark receives in this writing: the sorcerer is marked also by swazond: but who is the hunted therein?
and so too is AK marked by swazond:
She smiled tears of rapturous joy. She could see him as he truly was now, radiant with otherworldly light, haloes like golden discs shining about his hands. She could see him!
(I.14 at 417).
putting aside the issue of whether this is JE or insanity or both or whatever, serwe plainly perceives the mark on AK's arms and is seized by "rapturous" emotion. who then is the hunted represented in AK's golden swazond?
in answer to the ultimate question from my reading of chapter 13: if CuS is moses, then what is the law? it is plain to me that the law is swazond:
You are my prize, Serwe. My tribe
(I.14 at 412). i.e., the law of the tribe as it crosses the mountain into the promised land.