This chapter is a straight-up Insequent showcase. The Harrow. The Mahdoubt. The Vizard. The Theomach. We get one of the coolest battles between “wizards” I’ve ever read in any fantasy series, as well as one of the most important “revisionist” stories we’ve seen thus far in the Last Chronicles, reaching back before the 1st Chronicles, and completely reinterpreting some of the most important events of the 2nd.
I hope I can do it justice. I haven’t been keeping up in the discussions. But I’m going to pop open a homebrew, and enjoy this gem of a chapter.
We start with the revelation of just how powerful these beings can be. —devoured them. A single man capable of devouring a horde of Demondim! Not only do the Insequent possess knowledge, as has been stressed thus far, but they can put that knowledge to use in ways that are shockingly deadly. We are starting to get a sense that they might actually be equal to the Elohim, as they like to think of themselves.
Dread and desire? I missed that “desire” part the first time around. This is a woman who craves power, certainly.“Hardly aware of what she did, she drew a subtle current of Earthpower from among the runes to counteract the cold touch of dread and desire. A man who could do that—”
Does the Harrow’s fire “which he does not replenish” remind anyone of the fire started by a Raver-possessed Triock in PTP? I’m not suggesting a connection to that fire. In fact, Donaldson implies a different comparison: Mahdoubt’s fire in “From the Depths.” It reminds Linden of her fire. But this description in the text had a similar effect on me, resonating all the way back to the 1st Chronicles. This entropy-defying detail bespeaks of an ominous violation of the limits of mortality, whether it comes from the Insequent or a Raver.
Contemplating the dangers facing her, Linden thinks:
Wow! That’s a lot of threats! And we are nowhere close to resolving any of them. Donaldson has used a “kitchen sink” approach to creating tension in this series. My only complaint is that these threats seem remote and ambiguous, and almost too numerous. And he even leaves room for the possibility that if these aren’t enough (!) Foul could throw even more at her. Again: wow!“Surely her foes had already formed new plans and started to carry them out? Roger and the croyel had escaped the convulsions under Melenkurion Skyweir. Moksha Jehanum’s role remained hidden. If they and the skurj and Kastenessen and Esmer and Kevin’s Dirt and Joan’s caesures did not suffice to achieve Lord Foul’s desires, he would devise new threats.”
We end the first section with this: “While she paced, she tried to imagine what she would have done if she had been free to exact answers from the Theomach.”
That’s a cryptic bookend to this section. Any guesses? She isn’t imagining answers—she is imagining what how far she would have gone to extract them. Perhaps she is merely expressing regret that she didn’t do more? Or is she imagining how extreme her desire for answers might have been?
Section 2.
Stave returns with the Humbled, after conveying to the Haruchai the details of Linden’s adventures in the Past.
Linden asks, “How did they react?”
Stave, “They are the Masters of the Land.”
Linden, “In other words, they didn’t react at all.”
It’s ironic how “mastery” is interpreted by Donaldson to mean “indecision, inaction, paralysis.” The Masters have made everyone helpless, and now they themselves freeze when faced with a danger larger than themselves. They are self-doubt and arrogant authority all rolled up into one package. Stave explains it succinctly: “Like the Masters, I am uncertain. Therefore I prefer to await the resolution of my doubts.”
It all depends on Linden, the woman who used to be paralyzed by her own capacity for evil. They, and the Harrow, are waiting on her.
For purely meta-narrative reasons, one of my “favorite” quotes of the book is: “He’s a bit too fortuitous for my taste.” (In reference to the Harrow.) No doubt! After all the build-up of the Demondim through two books, several centuries, and frustratingly vague encounters, they are simply gone. That’s the literary equivalent of blue balls. (Ah, I can’t believe I just said that. Forgive me Donaldson!) This quote is second only to Roger’s, “It’s so damn gratuitous” in Part 1. I get the impression that Donaldson is aware of potential narrative problems created by such shortcuts, and he handles it like a pro: letting the characters acknowledge it and feel the same frustration that we ourselves might be feeling at such moments. This way, he takes meta-narrative problems (i.e. problems in terms of the craft of writing) and turns them into literal narrative problems (problems facing or involving the characters themselves). I love this technique. It’s genius. It’s a pro in action, confidently shooting down potential reader objections by turning them into objections the characters have, too. And this opens up the possibility of dealing with potentially problematic plot twists in terms of character reactions—which nullifies the objection before it can be uttered. Instead of an external contrivance by the author, it turns into an integral part of the plot. Brilliant.
Apparently she was doomed to pursue her fate in the company of halfhands.
A nice touch.
Another nice touch:
This helps her cope with not only the kitchen sink of dangers mentioned above, but specifically the potential danger of the Harrow facing her now. “[W]hile the heavens endured, she could afford to push her limits until they broke—or she did.”“But overhead a profusion of stars filled the heavens, glittering gems in swaths and multitudes untouched by the small concerns of suffering and death. They formed no constellations that she knew, but she found solace in them nonetheless.
Following Stave through the darkness, she was glad to be reminded that her fears and powers were little things, too evanescent and human to impinge upon the immeasurable cycles of the stars. Her life depended upon what she did. It was possible that Stave and the Humbled and all of Revelstone’s people were at risk. In ways which she could not yet imagine, Jeremiah’s survival—and perhaps that of the Land as well—might hang in the balance. Yet the stars took no notice: they would not. She was too small to determine their doom.
It’s a beautiful sentiment, but it seems to come out of nowhere. I’ve never heard her place such transcendental value in the heavens, before. The very thing that bothers her—her own limitations and lack of power—strangely give her comfort?? Wildwood charged her with finding an answer to entropy (basically) and now she is comforted by the finitude of herself and her problems? Strange.
Now we come to the Harrow. His voice is loamy, his clothes are brown, and his chlamys is secured by a bronze clasp in the shape of a plowshare. Why the dirt/ground/earth imagery? Donaldson says his clothing are an expression of his identity. Answers.com defines “harrow” as:
A farm implement consisting of a heavy frame with sharp teeth or upright disks, used to break up and even off plowed ground.
1. To break up and level (soil or land) with a harrow.
2. To inflict great distress or torment on.
To plunder; sack. To rob of goods by force, especially in time of war.
Those who have read this book know by now that some of those definitions are apt (plundering, inflicting distress), but what of the “evening or leveling of earth?” Will he perform a balance of some sorts? Breaking up or tearing down to level out some feature of the earth?
Continuing on this theme, SRD says his eyes are like holes or caves leading to subterranean depths . . . depths that Healthsense can’t plumb.
Linden discovers that the Harrow didn’t consume the Demondim, but instead learned the trick of unbinding them. And this trick depends on their nature: they have no tangible forms (bodies), and would dissolve if not for a “containing ensorcellment.” Lore and purpose bind them, and unraveling a single thread unbinds them. He disposed of them because their presence in this time threatened his own purpose (though I don’t really see how).
Now she remembers when/how she had heard his voice: through Anele. He’d said, “Such power becomes you. But it will not suffice. In the end, you must succumb. If you do not, you will nonetheless be compelled to accept my aid, for which I will demand recompense”
Why do the Humbled attack as soon as he introduces himself? If they recognize danger in his name, why did they not recognize danger in his appearance? What exactly settles their doubt regarding him? Did they look up “harrow” on Answers.com too?
But their attack proves effectless. The Harrow observes, “Lady, you have not inquired into the nature of my desires.” And with that statement, he sucks away her will in the black caves of his eyes. External reality “slips sideways” into a different dimension (sounds similar to Theomach effects). She can’t summon power from her Staff; volition is gone.
And now we get an explicit statement of his desires: her Staff, her ring, and the “unfettered wrath at the center of [her] heart.” (That last bit is another piece I missed during my first read.) Why does he need her wrath? Apparently, it will “nourish” him.
Oh, and he thinks Linden is hot.
Well, as I feared, I’m unable to do this chapter justice . . . at least not tonight. I’m getting sleepy. I promise to finish up the rest tomorrow—the best is definitely to come. I’m unable to just skim over it; I have to take it sentence by sentence. So I’ll stop here and give others a chance to add as they wish.
"From his shoulders hung a short dun chlamys secured by a bronze clasp"
