Moderators: lucimay, Onos T'oolan
I'm heading to the UK on a business trip in a week. There is no way in hell I'm lugging that book with me. I'll probably have to pay 50 bucks each way to take it on the plane (assuming it gets through security). So, I've got to wait.Onos T'oolan wrote: And what do you mean "in a few weeks"?!?!?!!!!! I'll be done with RG before that!! Now who's dragging!!
Ok so you're looking at it this way: everyone got the honey smeared on them. They all go under and talk to their gods. When they wake up they're healed. Naturally the honey was magical and healed them. Right?-Page 614 of my 794-page book:
"What about Balm?"
"He's Dal Honese."
"I know that, idiot."
"Well, his skin's crawling, is my guess."
"So's mine, Bottle."
Ah, that explains it, then. "She's with us, now. Again, I mean."
"She?"
"You know who."
"The one who plays with your-"
"The one who also healed you, Sergeant."
But as far as I remember, the only healing Fiddler had had was the honey healing his burns and wounds under Y'Ghatan. I
There are two wolves, therefore there are two sets. Remember, most of the Toc etc group are women. So, they're with Fanderay. The Grey Swords are with Togg. Maybe. Maybe the two groups will go to war. Maybe Maybe is the real Sword, Destraint, and Anvil of Togg and Fanderay.But what's with the Grey Swords?? Are they the Grey Swords?? They sure seem to be the Destriant, Shield Anvil, and Mortal Sword of the wolves. I could see there having been people in another part of the world who have an awesome fleet, who turn to worshipping the wolves. But what happened to Toc/Anaster, Captain Norul, and Recruit Velbara?
) and i've gone back to bonehuners to re-read them all again from there because stuff happens in TtH and RotCG that made me need to start from bonehunters and read forward again so i am and.... 
I believe because of the Song of the Bridgeburners. Ascending the Bridgeburners was accomplished partially by bringing soldiers back from the ancient past. And that meant bringing back lots of the ancient past. That's so cool! I love Fiddler being so lost in that pain and the song, and Bottle's questing, flinching, then returning.Strings sat on the boulder, his head in his hands. He had flung off the helm but had no memory of having done so, and it lay at his feet, blurry and wavering behind the waves of pain that rose and fell like a storm-tossed sea. Voices were speaking around him, seeking to reach him, but he could make no sense of what was being said. The song had burgeoned sudden and fierce in his skull, flowing through his limbs like fire.
A hand gripped his shoulder, and he felt a sorcerous questing seep into his veins, tentatively at first, then flinching away entirely, only to return with more force - and with it, a spreading silence. Blissful peace, cool and calm.
Finally, the sergeant was able to look up.
He found his squad gathered around him. The hand fixed onto his shoulder was Bottle's, and the lad's face was pale, beaded with sweat. Their eyes locked, then Bottle nodded and slowly withdrew his hand.
"Can you hear me, Sergeant?"
"Faint, as if you were thirty paces away."
"Is the pain gone?"
"Aye - what did you do?"
Bottle glanced away.
Strings frowned, then said, "Everyone else, back to work. Stay here, Bottle."
Cuttle cuffed Tarr and the corporal straightened and mumbled, "Let's go, soldiers. There's pits to dig."
The sergeant and Bottle watched the others head off, retrieving their picks and shovels as they went. Etc.
"All right, Bottle," Strings said, "out with it."
"Spirits, Sergeant. They're... awakening."
"And what in Hood's name has that got to do with me?"
"Mortal blood, I think. It has its own song. They remember it. They came to you, Sergeant, eager to add their voices to it. To... uh... to you."
"Why me?"
"I don't know."
Strings studied the young mage for a moment, mulling on the taste of that lie, then grimaced and said, "You think it's because I'm fated to die here - at this battle."
Bottle looked away once more. "I'm not sure, Sergeant. It's way beyond me... this land. And its spirits. And what it all has to do with you-"
"I'm a Bridgeburner, lad. The Bridgeburners were born here. In Raraku's crucible."
Bottle's eyes thinned as he studied the desert to the west. "But... they were wiped out."
"Aye, they were."
Neither spoke for a time. Koryk had broken his shovel on a rock and was stringing together an admirable list of Seti curses. The others had stopped to listen. On the northern edge of the island Gesler's squad was busy building a wall of rubble, which promptly toppled, the boulders tumbling down the far edge. Distant hoots and howls sounded from the tel across the way.
"It won't be your usual battle, will it?" Bottle asked.
Strings shrugged. "There's no such thing, lad. There's nothing usual about killing and dying, about pain and terror."
"That's not what I meant-"
"I know it ain't, Bottle. But wars these days are fraught with sorcery and munitions, so you come to expect surprises."
Gesler's two dogs trotted past, the huge cattle dog trailing the Hengese Roach as if the hairy lapdog carried its own leash.
"This place is... complicated," Bottle sighed. He reached down and picked up a large, disc-shaped rock. "Eres'al," he said. "A hand-axe - the basin down there's littered with them. Smoothed by the lake that once filled it. Took days to make one of these, then they didn't even use them - they just flung them into the lake. Makes no sense, does it? Why make a tool then not use it?"
Strings stared at the mage. "What are you talking about, Bottle? Who are the Eres'al?"
"Were, Sergeant. They're long gone."
"The spirits?"
"No, those are from all times, from every age this land has known. My grandmother spoke of the Eres. The Dwellers who lived in the time before the Imass, the first makers of tools, the first shapers of their world." He shook his head, fought down a shiver. "I never expected to meet one - it was there, she was there, in that song within you."
"And she told you about these tools?"
"Not directly. More like I shared it - well, her mind. She was the one who gifted you the silence. It wasn't me - I don't have that power - but I asked, and she showed mercy. At least" - he glanced at Strings - "I gather it was a mercy."
"Any, lad, it was. Can you still... speak with that Eres?"
"No. All I wanted to do was get out of there - out of that blood-"
"My blood."
"Well, most of it's your blood, Sergeant."
"And the rest?"
"Belongs to that song. The, uh, Bridgeburners' song."
Strings closed his eyes, settled his head against the boulder behind him. Kimloc, that damned Tanno Spiritwalker in Ehrlitan. I said no, but he did it anyway. He stole my story - not just mine, but the Bridgeburners' - and he made of it a song. The bastard's gone and given us back to Raraku...
"Go help the others, Bottle."
"Any, Sergeant."
"And... thanks."
"I'll pass that along, when next I meet the Eres witch."
Strings stared after the mage. So there'll be a next time, will there? Just how much didn't you tell me, lad? He wondered if the morrow would indeed be witness to his last battle. Hardly a welcome thought, but maybe it was necessary. Maybe he was being called to join the fallen Bridgeburners. Not so bad, then. Couldn't ask for more miserable company. Damn, but I miss them. I miss them all. Even Hedge.
The sergeant opened his eyes and climbed to his feet, collecting then donning his helm. He turned to stare out over the basin to the northeast, to the enemy emplacements and the dust and smoke of the city hidden within the oasis. You too, Kalam Mekhar. I wonder if you know why you're here...
Farm Ur-Ted wrote:I'm about 180 pages out from the end. Things have picked up, but for the life of me, I can't remember who the godess was that cured Fiddler. Was it the Goddess of Dreams? Soliel? Some other freak? Or did they not tell us? It's bugging me.
Onos T'oolan wrote:If you mean healed him from the injuries at Y'Ghatan, I guess it was the honey.
But how did you know it happened in book 4?Farm Ur-Ted wrote:I forgot about the honey. Well, as you'll find out, some mystery goddess (at least she's a mystery to me) becomes a major plot-point in book 4. I feel like I must've missed or forgotten something, but maybe Erikson hasn't revealed who she is yet.
You expect me to remember something I couldn't remember from like 4 months ago?Onos T'oolan wrote:But how did you know it happened in book 4?
'I would tell you a tale, brother. Early in the clan's history, many centuries past, there arose, like a breath of gas from the deep, a new cult. Chosen as its representative god was the most remote, most distant of gods among the pantheon. A god that was, in truth, indifferent to the clans of my kind. A god that spoke naught to any mortal, that intervened never in mortal affairs. Morbid. The leaders of the cult proclaimed themselves the voice of that god. They wrote down laws, prohibitions, ascribances, propitiations, blasphemies, punishments for noncomformity, for dispute and derivations. This was but rumour, said details maintained in vague fugue, until such time as the cult achieved domination and with domination, absolute power.
'Terrible enforcement, terrible crimes committed in the name of the Silent God. Leaders came and went, each further twisting words already twisted by mundane ambition and the zeal for unity. Entire pools were poisoned. Others drained and the silts seeded with salt. Eggs were crushed. Mothers dismembered. And our people were plunged into a paradise of fear, the laws made manifest and spilled blood the tears of necessity. False regret with chilling gleam in the centre eye. No relief awaited, and each generation suffered more that the last.'
L'oric studied the demon at his side. 'What happened?'
'Seven great warriors from seven clans set out to find the Silent God, set out to see for themselves if this god had indeed blessed all that had come to pass in its name.'
'And did they find the silent god?'
'Yes, and too, they found the reason for its silence. The god was dead. It had died with the first drop of blood spilled in its name.'
'I see, and what is the relevance of this tale of yours, however modest?'
'Perhaps this. The existence of many gods conveys true complexity of mortal life. Conversely, the assertion of but one god leads to a denial of complexity, and encourages the need to make the world simple. Not the fault of the god, but a crime committed by its believers.'
'If a god does not like what is done in its name, then it should act.'
'Yet, if each crime committed in its name weakens it...very soon, I think, it has no power left and so cannot act, and so, ulimately, it dies.'
I think maybe I'm just an idiot savante.Onos T'oolan wrote:The healing Bottle mentioned happened in HoC, in the passage I quoted in my previous post.
But you knew that "some mystery goddess becomes a major plot point in book 4." Well, sure enough, that's where the Eres'al was introduced. But she wasn't really known to be a major thing even in this thread's book, where you brought it up. Yet, you knew she would be. How??
