TOT-Chapter 23: Withdrawal from Service by Durris

[danlo]

The One Tree, Chapter 23--Withdrawal from Service by Durris

This will be more a response than a summary, and it may not track altogether linearly: the chapter left me too molten inside for coherent logic.

As the curtain rises, the First, Pitchwife, Covenant, and Linden (and, far on the periphery, Brinn and Cail) have been at the rail of Starfare's Gem watching a gavotte of preternatural waterspouts move in to surround the becalmed ship. Then a Song is heard.

The call of the merewives went through Covenant like an awl, so bright and piercing that he would not have known it for music if his heart had not leaped up in response,...The song consumed him. Its pointed loveliness and desire entered him to the marrow. Vistas of grandeur and surcease opened beyond the railing as if the music had words,
Come to us for heart-heal and soul-assuage,
for consummation of every flesh.

Would I be rude to suggest that the song of the merewives might have been better left untranslated? At a Renaissance music concert I once attended, one performer recited a portion of Beowulf. His introduction stuck with me: he said that the poem never gives an explicit description of Grendel, because the Grendel each of us 'sees' unbidden is much scarier than any Grendel spelled out. The song of the merewives personifies longing, and one's own heart's desire just barely glimpsed is more painfully acute than another's heart's desire described explicitly.

The merewives lose interest in Covenant when they sense his power. (What cowardesses! They only want to seduce their ontological inferiors.) But their interest in the Haruchai is reciprocated.

Together, Brinn and Cail bounded onto the railing. For a fractional [that classic Haruchai adjective!] instant, they were poised in the sunlight, crouched to leap forward like headlong joy. Then they dove for the sea as if it had become the essence of all their hearts' desires.

Very cinematographic moment. Sun coruscating off a turquoise sea and burnishing teak-colored quadriceps and glutei for the instants of their arcing flight. Cut to a close-range shot of abandoned robes scattered randomly on the deck.

Covenant's mouth stretched into a lost shout... He had placed so much faith in the Haruchai, needed them so much. Were their hearts mortal and frangible after all? Bannor had commanded him, Redeem my people. He had failed again.

I had two responses to this passage. Why does Covenant see this as his failure? And Spoiler:

Spoiler

in SRD's long design, subtler and more patient of fruition than the schemes of the Despiser, this is part of the redemption of the Haruchai. Brinn's (soon) and Cail's (later) further development as characters, and their entire culture's further evolution, would not have happened the same way without it

.

Covenant's fear for Brinn and Cail raises involuntary wild magic, which he fights down laboriously lest it provoke the merewives further or endanger the ship. The First and Galewrath dive to the rescue. On deck, Covenant demands help of Findail; as usual, Findail refuses. The Elohim's only contribution to the emergency is an explanation of where the merewives came from.

...the tale that they are the descendants and inheritors of the woman whom Kastenessen loved;that she took with her the power and knowledge which she gained from him, and also the daughters of all men-betrayed women, and set herself and them to seek restitution from all men who abandon their homes in the name of the sea

.

This description reminded me of the ballet Giselle, which features the Wilis, a tribe of female spirits: ghosts of maidens who died unlucky in love-who attract and vanquish men who disappoint their living loves.

Mrs. Kastenessen probably was far over Sea from the Westron Mountains, so I won't suggest that she literally recruited there. But I couldn't help thinking of 6000 years' worth of abandoned Haruchai brides and betrotheds when Findail said this.

Meanwhile, the rescue has succeeded, sort of. The Giantesses return to the ship with two very unconscious Haruchai draped all over them. Linden flinches under the First's and Covenant's request that she use her percipience to break them free of the merewives' hold, and finally says a fearsome, teeth-grinding TFH to the task:

It can't be any worse than what I've already done.

So many layers in that sentence. Even if she fouls up completely now (First, do no harm) she can't possibly do more damage than she willed to do to Ceer scant days ago, because this time her intent is to heal, whatever the results are. Also, whatever her percipience encounters in this attempt can't possibly be worse than what she's already seen inside Covenant at various times...the Marid/Sunbane Covenant is pretty hard to top.

But she doesn't have to touch their minds; threatening Brinn's bones gets his and Cail's immediate attention. When Brinn recovers the power of speech, things start getting interesting.

Oh dear God, here it comes.

We withdraw our accusation against the Chosen. She has adjudged us rightly. [Huh? When did she judge them at all? Or does Brinn mean when she said You don't have the right; when they were judging her?] Mayhap she is in sooth the hand of Corruption among us. But there are other Corruptions which we hold in greater abhorrence.
We speak neither for our people among the mountains nor for those Haruchai who may seek to wage themselves against the depredations of the Clave. But we will no longer serve you.

The First misunderstands, thinking they intend to go back to the merewives right now. Brinn corrects her.

"That is not our intent. We do not seek death. We will not again answer the song of the Dancers. But we will no longer serve either the ur-Lord or the Chosen." His tone did not relent. He spoke as if he were determined to show himself no mercy. "We cannot."

We've already seen that Brinn had no mercy for Linden. At least he doesn't have a double standard...but this seems like entirely too much consistency.

Covenant can't take refuge in incomprehension any longer.

Was he going to lose the Haruchai? The Haruchai, who had been as faithful as Ranyhyn from the beginning?

In this one sentence SRD makes present Bannor's entire trajectory in The Power that Preserves: it was the Ranyhyn's surpassing fidelity that drew Bannor back to the Land from his self-imposed exile after the Vow. Brinn and Cail had no actual Vow, but their private fealty is ending in a very similar spirit to the Vow's disruption. Bannor's post-Vow experience was, in the most constructive sense of the term, purgatorial: he's a completely different person at the end of TPTP. Brinn and Cail too will each have their own purgatory, very different from Bannor's and from one another's.

But then Brinn met his gaze for the first time; and the passion in those dispassionate orbs made him tremble.

Yikes. We all knew the capacity for passion was there under the surface all along; nevertheless, seeing it come to the surface like this !

But Covenant has no room for other passions than his own single-minded purpose; and he preempts Brinn for pure fear and refusal of the pain Brinn's words will bring.

"You made a promise...I didn't want to accept it. I didn't want to be responsible for any more service like the kind Bannor insisted on giving me. But I had no choice." He had been more than half crippled by loss of blood, might have died of sheer remorse and futility on the upland plateau above Revelstone if Brinn had not aided him.

This paragraph makes present the entire Soothtell/The Quest trajectory from TWL, in which Covenant and Brinn mutually accepted each other's commitments. What's happening right now on Starfare's Gem is exactly what Covenant wanted to prevent when he kept on hesitating to accept Brinn's service. (Of course neither knew about the merewives back in Revelstone. I mean that Covenant could scarcely bear the thought of reciprocating Brinn's Tan-Haruchail only to find history repeating itself and fidelity becoming discontinuity. He did accept, for pure need left him no other choice; right now he must be thinking that he did the wrong thing, because it's ending as neither of them can bear for it to, after what happened with the ancestors.)

But mere obligation is no match for Brinn's passion.

"Mayhap you know too little of us. The lives of our people in the mountains are strict and costly, for peaks and snows are no gentle bourne. Therefore are we prolific in our seed, that we may endure from generation to generation. The bond joining man to woman is a fire in us, and deep. Did not Bannor speak to you of this? For those who became Bloodguard, the loss of sleep and death was a little thing, lightly borne. But the loss of wives... It was that which caused them to end their Vow when Corruption placed his hand upon them. Any man may fail or die. But how may one of the Haruchai who has left his wife in the name of a chosen fidelity endure to know that even his fidelity may be riven from him? Better the Vow had never been uttered, no service given."

And suddenly it comes into focus why it had to be Korik who broke the Vow long ago. In Gilden-Fire Korik's awareness of this precise cost of the Vow is made wrenchingly clear:

He could not forget any detail of the last night he had spent with his wife, whose bones were already ancient in the frozen fastness of her grave. The Vow sustained him, but it was not warm

.

I'm remembering something Thomas Merton, ascetic of Covenant's world and ours, wrote late in his monastic life:

The tragic chastity, which suddenly realizes itself to be mere loss and fears that death has won: that one is sterile, useless, hateful. I do not say this is my lot, but in my vow I can see this as an ever-present possibility

.

Covenant and Linden have just healed each other of parched years of tragic chastity. In the song of the merewives Brinn and Cail suddenly see their own renunciations as wasted and tragic.

"Ur-Lord." Brinn did not look away. He hardly blinked. Yet the unwonted implication of softness in his tone was unmistakable. "In the song of the merewives we heard the fire of our yearning for that which we have left behind. Assuredly we were deluded, but the delusion was sweet. Mountains sprang about us. The air became the keen breath which the peaks exhale from their snows. And upon the slopes moved the women who call to us in their longing for fire and seed and offspring." For a moment, he broke into the tonal tongue of the Haruchai; and that language seemed to transform his visage, giving him an aspect of poetry. "Therefore did we leap to answer, disregarding all service and safety. The limbs of our women are brown from sun and birth. But there is also a whiteness as acute as the ice that bleeds from the rock of mountains; and it burns as the purest snow burns in the most high tor, the most wind-flogged col. For that whiteness, we gave ourselves to the Dancers of the Sea."

ai. Just as prose that's one of the two or three most splendid paragraphs SRD ever wrote.

Their rigid and judgmental stance against the world came from this, that every breath they took was an inhalation of desire and loss.

Almost as though it's too dangerous to be owned, they again transmute this newfound passion into the more familiar ferocity of judgment.

They blame themselves for succumbing to the merewives as intransigently as Bannor once blamed himself for Korik's succumbing to the Illearth Stone; and no one on Starfare's Gem can convince them otherwise.

Even now, Brinn's manner of speaking to Covenant recalls his deep solicitude during their trek to Glimmermere in The Quest.,

At last, Brinn spoke. He sounded almost gentle. "Ur-Lord, have we not served you well?"..."Then let it end."

He ends his service because that is what "compromised" Haruchai have always done; but he doesn't know how to end linamia (those strong friendships that are limited to two or three in a man's life). Come to think of it, Bannor didn't know how either.


........
*Durris swallows hard and reaches for spouse*

[Myste]

Covenant and Linden have just healed each other of parched years of tragic chastity. In the song of the merewives Brinn and Cail suddenly see their own renunciations as wasted and tragic.

Durris! YES. That is EXACTLY what my little brain has been trying to think for ages, only it couldn't do it on its own. Plus, you thunk it purdier.

"Ur-Lord." Brinn did not look away. He hardly blinked. Yet the unwonted implication of softness in his tone was unmistakable. "In the song of the merewives we heard the fire of our yearning for that which we have left behind. Assuredly we were deluded, but the delusion was sweet. Mountains sprang about us. The air became the keen breath which the peaks exhale from their snows. And upon the slopes moved the women who call to us in their longing for fire and seed and offspring." For a moment, he broke into the tonal tongue of the Haruchai; and that language seemed to transform his visage, giving him an aspect of poetry. "Therefore did we leap to answer, disregarding all service and safety. The limbs of our women are brown from sun and birth. But there is also a whiteness as acute as the ice that bleeds from the rock of mountains; and it burns as the purest snow burns in the most high tor, the most wind-flogged col. For that whiteness, we gave ourselves to the Dancers of the Sea."

This paragraph is the one that makes me start wishing to be Haruchai, "fire of yearning"..."whiteness as acute as ice", mmmm.

This really is one of the great Haruchai tragedies, in the sense that their faith in themselves is so badly damaged. Though Brinn does say that he doesn't speak for the rest of his people, he must understand that when he and Cail are reunited with them, they will be forced to somehow rectify their failures.

Spoiler

(As Cail does in WGW at the cave of the Waynhim.)

Compared to Kevin and Korik, the scale of Brinn & Cail's failure is definitely smaller, but when has scale meant anything to the Haruchai? Their self-judgment wrings my heart. Not that they care. <sigh>

[SoulBiter]

I love this chapter and you have done an outstanding job dissecting this one!!!

We withdraw our accusation against the Chosen. She has adjudged us rightly. [Huh? When did she judge them at all? Or does Brinn mean when she said You don't have the right; when they were judging her?] Mayhap she is in sooth the hand of Corruption among us. But there are other Corruptions which we hold in greater abhorrence.
We speak neither for our people among the mountains nor for those Haruchai who may seek to wage themselves against the depredations of the Clave. But we will no longer serve you.

I wonder about that. It appears to me that even though the Haruchai seemed to shrug off things said like that, I think they are always wondering if perhaps even they arent worthy of the same service they give.

"Did you ever ask yourself why Kevin Landwaster chose the ritual of desecration?

snip

"I'll tell you. The god^&* Bloodguard happened to him. It wasnt bad enough that he was failing - that he couldnt save the land himself. He had to put up with them as well. Standing there like God Almighty and serving him while he lost everything he loved". Her voice snarled like sarcasm but it was not sarcasm. It was her last supplication against the dark place toward which she was being impelled.
"Jesus Christ! No wonder he went crazy with despair. How could he keep any shred of his self respect, with people like them around? he must've thought he didnt have any choice except to destroy everything that wasn't worthy of them."

snip

"You've got all the power in the world and you're so pure about it. Everything you do is so dedicated."

The Haruchai remember the fact that they never judged Kevin or judged him rightly and as such their vow was corrupt but they couldnt see it. Then the Bloodguard broke the vow and left the service of the Lords when the three Bloodguard were made to serve the Despiser. Then they lost themselves to the Clave when they first came to the Land to see what help they could offer. What worse punishment could you give the Haruchai than to make them helpless like that?
Then to have Linden throw that in their face it must have been another brick in the wall of doubt they were building among themselves since the rescue from the Clave. The final straw was to lose themselves to the merewives when their companions did not.

I dont think that she had ever really judged them but they considered it a form of judgement and I think that they were judging themselves at this point. They were saying... "Look we cant speak for the Haruchai as a people but WE have lost ourselves and cant continue to drive others to such extemeties when judge others against a pure service when we ourselves, having been tested, dont measure up."

[srtrout]

I have always seen a parallel between the story of the Haruchai with the merewives and that of addiction.

The Haruchai give up everything, and almost their lives, to seek the pleasures of the merewives. Of course, the pleasure proves to be an illusion; they will simply drown and somehow satisfy the hunger of the merewives.

It's not just a false promise, though; even knowing that, the Haruchai are still attracted to the merewives.

Spoiler

And later in the series, announce their intention to return to that false promise!

I have seen this in friends/patients with serious addictions. Whether it be drugs, alcohol, sex, or gambling, they are absolutely obsessed with the false promise of the addiction. This remains even when they are getting no pleasure out of it at all; the drugs don't feel good, the sex is over, they are losing at gambling. They may even be aware of this but still return to the "merewives" that are ruining their lives.

As always, old SRD shows us the real stuff of human nature (Are the Haruchai human?)

srtrout

[Durris]

srtrout, though I see what you're saying (many people in this world are heedless of drowning themselves and others as they leap to delusory satisfactions) the focus of this chapter looked a bit different to me. Brinn and Cail, not less than their Vowed ancestors (if less immortally), prematurely renounced both their capacities for passion and the women to whom that passion had been given. In the merewives I see less a delusional attraction than the no-longer-deniable return of that unacknowledged and unlived life.

[Seafoam Understone]

The call of the merewives went through Covenant like an awl, so bright and piercing that he would not have known it for music if his heart had not leaped up in response. He did not feel himself plunging against Pitchwife's hold, did not know that he was gaping and gasping as if he could no longer breathe air, were desperate to inhale water. The song consumed him. Its pointed loveliness and desire entered him to the marrow. Vistas of grandeur and surcease opened beyond the railing as if the music had words;
Come to us for heart-heal and soul-assuage,
for consummation of every flesh.
As if the sun-glistered and gracile dance of the waterspouts were an utterance in a language he understood. Only Pitch-wife's hands prevented him from diving into the deep sea in reply.

This reminds me of Homer's Odyessy's and the Sirens. I personally didn't mind the translation of their song. Because it tells us exactly what they were offering in their seduction. I am presuming that is what Homer had in mind as well.

Abruptly, a hand struck his shoulder, turned him to the side. The First confronted him, her arm raised for another blow. "Giantfriend, hear me!" she shouted. "Withhold your might, lest they find means to bend it against you!"
"They're my friends!" His voice was a blare of vehemence.
"And mine!" she responded, matching his ire with iron. "If they may be reached by any rescue, I will do it!"

Atta girl Gossamer! Amazing that she after a short time considers the Haruchai her friends as well. It had to been the joined battle against the Hustin that made her feel close to these guys.

Durris wrote: I had two responses to this passage. Why does Covenant see this as his failure? And Spoiler:

Spoiler

in SRD's long design, subtler and more patient of fruition than the schemes of the Despiser, this is part of the redemption of the Haruchai. Brinn's (soon) and Cail's (later) further development as characters, and their entire culture's further evolution, would not have happened the same way without it

I think your spoiler says it all Durris, something that TC is recognizing on a subconcious level.

"It wouldn't do any good." His voice choked between his teeth. "Even if I tore his heart out with my bare hands." But he believed in restraint. Blood-willingness appalled him, his own more than any other. Why else had he let Lord Foul live?
Her soft eyes regarded him as if she were about to say, How else can you fight? Bitter with vulnerability, she had once said, Some infections have to be cut out. That pain was still apparent in the marks of death and severity around her mouth; but now it took a different form, surprising him. Arduously, she said, "After Hergrom rescued you, killed that Guard- For a while, we were alone with Kasreyn. Brinn wanted to kill him then. And I wanted him to do it. But I couldn't- Couldn't let him. Even though I knew something terrible was going to happen to Hergrom. I couldn't be responsible for more killing." Her mother was vivid in her eyes. "Maybe Brinn's right. Maybe that makes me responsible for what happened. But it wouldn't have made any difference. We couldn't have killed him anyway."
She stopped. She did not need to go on. Covenant understood her. He could not have killed Lord Foul. Despite was not something which could be made to die.
Yet she was wrong about one thing: it would have made a difference. The same difference that killing her mother had made to her.

My apologies if this is turning out to be another dissection of the same chapter... but this I felt needed to be pointed out. An understandable oversight (??) as the withdrawl of the Haruchai was more dominate in the scheme of things. But here it shows how much growth TC (and Linden) have undergone since arriving at the Land (way back when and presently). I kinda wonder if Findail wasn't cringing inside after turning his back on TC...waiting for that blast of wild magic. I wonder also if he wasn't surprised at underestimating the man.

This passage says a lot about the durability of the Giants and Haruchai

The First snatched a look upward, caught one of the ropes with her free hand. Galewrath did the same. Immediately, they were pulled out of the sea.
The First clutched Brinn to her chest with one arm. Gale-wrath had Cail draped over her shoulder.
Both the Haruchai hung as limp as sleep.

It's a wonder that they weren't keeling over from the bends. As the First pointed out

Then the First was on her feet. With her stern, iron beauty, her arms folded like bonds across her chest, she towered over the Haruchai. "There is delusion upon you." She spoke like the riposte of a blade. "The song of the mere-wives has wrought madness into your hearts. You speak of doom, but that which the Dancers offer is only death, nothing more. Are you blind to the peril from which you were retrieved? Almost Galewrath and I failed of your rescue, for we found you at a depth nigh to our limits. There you lay like men bemused by folly. I know not what dream of joy or transport you found in that song-and I care not. Recumbent like the dead, you lay in no other arms than the limbs of coral which had by chance preserved you from a still deeper plunge. Whatever visions filled your unseeing eyes were the fruit of entrancement and brine. That is truth. Is it your intent to return to these mere-wives in the name of delusion?" Her arms corded with anger. "Stone and Sea, I will not -- !"

I can imagine that she (and Galewrath) must've been scared at just how far down they had to go to retrieve the two. That (they) were aware of the dangers of diving too deeply, thus her anger is understandable, I mean just risked their lives to save them and now they want to go back! Do they Rave!

As Linden tries to wake them from their coma... I loved this...
Imagine Brinn, way down deep in his subconcious... "hey..... there's pressure on my arm, the kind of pressure that's going to... " then he hears Linden's voice (hand of corruption) speaking:

...her mouth close to his ear. Slowly, explicitly, she articulated, "Now I'm going to break your arm."

WHAM! did he ever come out of it! You want to get a Haruchai's attention... threaten bodily harm!
Yet again they show they're masters of their emotions, and he's back to the same flat mein as always. ... Or maybe this was the real reason...

Brinn dropped from the table, landed lightly on his feet. Galewrath planted herself in front of him, cocked her massive fist to keep him away from Linden.

Think ye a moment gentlemen of the watch... A man/male struck a woman when she was trying to help him, here another (Giant) woman who's strength probably equals or (slightly) surpasses the Haruchai and mayhap the First's and she's ready to cold-cock him into tomorrow should he take another step towards the woman he struck. Could you blame him for not moving?

Durris wrote: Even now, Brinn's manner of speaking to Covenant recalls his deep solicitude during their trek to Glimmermere in The Quest.,

Quote:
At last, Brinn spoke. He sounded almost gentle. "Ur-Lord, have we not served you well?"..."Then let it end."

He ends his service because that is what "compromised" Haruchai have always done; but he doesn't know how to end linamia (those strong friendships that are limited to two or three in a man's life). Come to think of it, Bannor didn't know how either.

I'm with you there Durris, and that word... woah! linamia (those strong friendships that are limited to two or three in a man's life) something that I know first hand.
........
Seafoam gropes for his beanie baby bat (because there's no spouse) and hugs it hard.

[dlbpharmd]

Wonderful job, Durris!

And suddenly it comes into focus why it had to be Korik who broke the Vow long ago. In Gilden-Fire Korik's awareness of this precise cost of the Vow is made wrenchingly clear:

Quote:
He could not forget any detail of the last night he had spent with his wife, whose bones were already ancient in the frozen fastness of her grave. The Vow sustained him, but it was not warm

Wow, what a great thought. 'Nuff said.

[Durris]

This reminds me of Homer's Odessy's and the Sirens.

Me, too. In the film version of the Odyssey I saw, when Ulysses (safely tied to the mast) hears the song, he thinks he's back home in Ithaca, which makes the comparison even more condign.

The question of whether Mrs. Brinn and Mrs. Cail waiting in the mountains were more like Penelope or Lysistrata by this point will have to wait for another time.

I'm with you there Durris, and that word... woah! linamia (those strong friendships that are limited to two or three in a man's life) something that I know first hand.

Thou art truly fortunate. In this age and culture, not everyone does know it firsthand.

[Haruchai]

Wow, great dissection Durris.

For a moment, he broke into the tonal tongue of the Haruchai; and that language seemed to transform his visage, giving him an aspect of poetry.

Empathy twisted Pitchwife's mien. And the First, who understood extravagance, stood beside Brinn and Cail as if she approved.

Just hearing Brinn's speech would tug anyones heart-strings, but do you think that because the giants understood what Brinn said, they had even more sympathy for the Haruchai?

[Durris]

It appears to me that even though the Haruchai seemed to shrug off things said like that, I think they are always wondering if perhaps even they arent worthy of the same service they give.

*flinch* Always. Always from Kevin forward, unremittingly. If what was done to Korik et al. had been merely enacting an accusation from outside, Bannor and his brethren could have withstood it; but since it made tangible and external a self-judgment that had been going on inside them for 2000 years, there was no reply.

Just hearing Brinn's speech would tug anyones heart-strings, but do you think that because the giants understood what Brinn said, they had even more sympathy for the Haruchai?

Yikes, that hadn't occurred to me! As you say, what Brinn said in the common tongue sufficed; but given the voltage that comes through even in English, that brief untranslated outcry must have been potent indeed...wonder if the First and Pitchwife sought a caamora--or other relief--after this conversation?

[matrixman]

Brinn dropped from the table, landed lightly on his feet. Galewrath planted herself in front of him, cocked her massive fist to keep him away from Linden.

Think ye a moment gentlemen of the watch... A man/male struck a woman when she was trying to help him, here another (Giant) woman who's strength probably equals or (slightly) surpasses the Haruchai and mayhap the First's and she's ready to cold-cock him into tomorrow should he take another step towards the woman he struck. Could you blame him for not moving?

LOL Seafoam! I would not want to upset any Giant, especially one named 'Galewrath'! She puts up with Nicor, tsunamis, Bhrathair warships hurling fireballs at her, and having to risk her own bloody neck to rescue Haruchai from silly merewives. Does she qualify for hazard pay??

[Seafoam Understone]

LOL Seafoam! I would not want to upset any Giant, especially one named 'Galewrath'! She puts up with Nicor, tsunamis, Bhrathair warships hurling fireballs at her, and having to risk her own bloody neck to rescue Haruchai from silly merewives. Does she qualify for hazard pay??

Indeed, I've dated a body builder once (yes, she was definitely a woman, I've had the chance to check her out first hand ... ) who stood 6-1 and was wonderfully built, (I'm 5-10 and skinny). Not bulging with veins or muscles but you could tell that this woman would definitely knock one into tomorrow should she want to do so. Thus I had a personal appreciation for what Brinn was facing. But then knowing Haruchai as well as we all do (by now anyway ) Brinn most likely mastered himself in that split second before jumping to the floor, and saw no need to continue.

But you brought up an interesting question ... hazard pay? Or any pay? Did the Giants of the Dromond Starfare's Gem (or any Giantship for that matter) recieve pay? In what? Tales or the chance to behold tales to pass on to their children (whom they love second to Tales)? If that be the case then the Starfare's Gem's crew were well paid indeed.

[Fist and Faith]

Oy! Durris, you're killing me here!!! (In a good way! )

Would I be rude to suggest that the song of the merewives might have been better left untranslated? At a Renaissance music concert I once attended, one performer recited a portion of Beowulf. His introduction stuck with me: he said that the poem never gives an explicit description of Grendel, because the Grendel each of us 'sees' unbidden is much scarier than any Grendel spelled out. The song of the merewives personifies longing, and one's own heart's desire just barely glimpsed is more painfully acute than another's heart's desire described explicitly.

No, not rude. And you're right. But I don't think SRD really tried to give a meaningful translation anyway, so I don't feel the disappointment that you're talking about. The words - Come to us for heart-heal and soul-assuage, for consummation of every flesh - only give us the intellectual side. We can't feel what we know they do. Every cell in their bodies knows that all it wants and needs is here for the taking. Absolute fulfillment is imminent. Even my saying that about it doesn't change what any of us imagine such a thing feels like, or what would so completely fulfill each of us.

Very cinematographic moment. Sun coruscating off a turquoise sea and burnishing teak-colored quadriceps and glutei for the instants of their arcing flight. Cut to a close-range shot of abandoned robes scattered randomly on the deck.

Hey, lady, get your mind out of the gutter! They leapt with their robes! But yes, that scene has always been very visual for me too.

I had two responses to this passage. Why does Covenant see this as his failure? And Spoiler:

Spoiler

in SRD's long design, subtler and more patient of fruition than the schemes of the Despiser, this is part of the redemption of the Haruchai. Brinn's (soon) and Cail's (later) further development as characters, and their entire culture's further evolution, would not have happened the same way without it

True enough. But we can hardly expect Covenant to have known that, eh? His usual self-reproachment is right on track.

...the tale that they are the descendants and inheritors of the woman whom Kastenessen loved;that she took with her the power and knowledge which she gained from him, and also the daughters of all men-betrayed women, and set herself and them to seek restitution from all men who abandon their homes in the name of the sea

Holy cow! It's Anya from Buffy the Vampire Slayer!!!

Mrs. Kastenessen probably was far over Sea from the Westron Mountains, so I won't suggest that she literally recruited there. But I couldn't help thinking of 6000 years' worth of abandoned Haruchai brides and betrotheds when Findail said this.

Wow! That's not entirely out of the question, is it!

It can't be any worse than what I've already done.

So many layers in that sentence. Even if she fouls up completely now (First, do no harm) she can't possibly do more damage than she willed to do to Ceer scant days ago, because this time her intent is to heal, whatever the results are. Also, whatever her percipience encounters in this attempt can't possibly be worse than what she's already seen inside Covenant at various times...the Marid/Sunbane Covenant is pretty hard to top.

Your way of looking at things from so many different angles is why you're so damned good at this!! (It's also why I'm so often scared to read your posts, and why it took so long for me to get to this! )

But then Brinn met his gaze for the first time; and the passion in those dispassionate orbs made him tremble.

Yikes. We all knew the capacity for passion was there under the surface all along; nevertheless, seeing it come to the surface like this !

This needs to be in my Haruchai "showing" emotion thread! Perhaps the strongest example, and I forgot about it!!!!

"Ur-Lord." Brinn did not look away. He hardly blinked. Yet the unwonted implication of softness in his tone was unmistakable. "In the song of the merewives we heard the fire of our yearning for that which we have left behind. Assuredly we were deluded, but the delusion was sweet. Mountains sprang about us. The air became the keen breath which the peaks exhale from their snows. And upon the slopes moved the women who call to us in their longing for fire and seed and offspring." For a moment, he broke into the tonal tongue of the Haruchai; and that language seemed to transform his visage, giving him an aspect of poetry. "Therefore did we leap to answer, disregarding all service and safety. The limbs of our women are brown from sun and birth. But there is also a whiteness as acute as the ice that bleeds from the rock of mountains; and it burns as the purest snow burns in the most high tor, the most wind-flogged col. For that whiteness, we gave ourselves to the Dancers of the Sea."

ai. Just as prose that's one of the two or three most splendid paragraphs SRD ever wrote.

Oh, oh, oh... YES!!! If a person wrote only one paragraph in their entire life, and it was as good as that!!! And I think it's VERY interesting that these people who are born into, and, we presume, normally live thier entire lives in, ice and snow describe it all with words like:
the fire of our yearning
longing for fire and seed and offspring
it burns as the purest snow burns

Of course, that's because he's describing their own extravagent souls.

And the image of Brinn speaking Haruchai!!!!!! Ah, I can barely breath!!!!

He ends his service because that is what "compromised" Haruchai have always done;

Yes. As I was just saying in your Tuvor thread, just as Mhoram and Quaan were discussing in Variol-son, the Haruchai psyche has no middleground.

*Durris swallows hard and reaches for spouse*

You have a very lucky spouse.

[Durris]

Oy! Durris, you're killing me here!!! (In a good way! )

Glad to hear my armaments (to use flatlanderese) have found their mark!

Your way of looking at things from so many different angles is why you're so damned good at this!! (It's also why I'm so often scared to read your posts, and why it took so long for me to get to this! )

Just think of it as reciprocity. My response to your posts is frequently somewhere between "scared to read" and "anticipatorily moved " (is there a word in Haruchai for that mixture?) ever since the day "The Search" caught me unawares.

And I think it's VERY interesting that these people who are born into, and, we presume, normally live thier entire lives in, ice and snow describe it all with words like:
the fire of our yearning
longing for fire and seed and offspring
it burns as the purest snow burns

Their souls are as incandescent as their environment is frozen.