TMOHD Chapter 11: A Few Days With Nothing to do

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TMOHD Chapter 11: A Few Days With Nothing to do

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After the awkward court audience with the Prince, Terisa is shown back to her room by some of the Castellan's guards. She looked out the window in time for the sunset.
For a moment, she forgot everything else and simply watched the sunset, entranced by the way it made Orison look like a place in a fairy tale - old stone immured in winter and darkness, and yet reaching like hope or dream toward the ligth and the sky and the delicate touch of the sun's glory. Now she was able to rememebr the sound of horns. For a long moment, she ached to leave the castle, not to escape back to the illusion of her old life, but to go out into Mordant's world and find the spot among the trees and hills where it was possible to hear hunters or musicians calling joy and passion into the cold.
After supper she fell alseep, only to be woken up by someone pounding on the hidden door in the back of her wardrobe.
Does everyone here spend all night sneaking around behind everyone else's back?
The knocking person turns out to be Master Quillon, ho has come to warn her against speaking to Geraden. He has enemies who might kill him if he knows too much of the secrets of the Congery...

Terisa decides to avoid Geraden in order to keep him safe. But he shows up at her door the next morning and
Geraden's grin nearly ruined her good intentions: he looked so happy to see her tha tshe wanted to break down immediately and tell him everything. It was all she could do to glance at him and force her mouth into a smile.
The two begin to talk of the King, and Terisa asks geraden why he trusts him so.
As if the words were being forced out of him by a deep but involuntary conviction, he replied, "I have the strongest feeling he knows what he's doing."
he then tells terisa about his first meeting with the King, when he was only a child who had fallen into the pig wallow...

Terisa tells him that Master Eremis had convinced her that she was not real, because of the reason of language. Geraden explains to her that the magic and power in the translation changes things, and that perhaps language is one of the things that it changes...
Geraden then asks her what went on at the meeting of the Congery. She finally tells him
"They told me not to tell you. They told me that if you knew what the Congery was going to do your enemies would have you killed."
Geraden doesn't understand, but finally pulls himself together. And then
Nothing in her father's dour unlove or Reverand Thatcher's weakness or Master Eremis's desire has prepared her for the way geraden unknotted his throat and swallowed his desires and gave her a smile like a gift.
The two then spend a few days exploring Orison. Terisa notices that the highborn people look down upon Geraden, but all of the workers seem to respect him very much...they are up on the battlements when they see a group of horsemen approaching through the snow. Geraden thinks that the leader looks like the Tor, and that they bear a litter with them. The two run down to courtyard to see who it is.
It does turn out to be the Tor, and the litter contains the body of his oldest son, killed by a wolf produced by Imagery. The Tor wishes to see the King, but the Castellan does not wish to let him, as the King is busy and has not granted him an audience. Geraden then takes charge as a son of the Domne.
the boyish prance-and-fumble of exuberance and mistake was gone from his manner entirely. The way his chestnut hair crowned the strong lines of his face made him look incontestable, as sure of himself as if he had power and knew how to use it...At once Geraden turned toward Lebbick. "No, Castellan." He had become taller almost without transition, cetain of his authority. "Be warned yourself. You might yet despise me as much as you wish. But the day has not come when you speak for the Domne. I speak in his name. In his name I claim the responsibilty. Let it crush me if it will. The King will see my lord Tor."
Terisa is returned to her rooms as Geraden, the Tor, and the Tor's slain son are taken to the King. She rememebrs how her father had hit her when she cried after her mother's death... Later Geraden joins her there to tell her that the King had become very upset over the dead son.
"When King Joyse saw it, he seemed to stand up inside himself. He took the body out of the Tor's arms. He raised his head as if he was going to howl. There was so much outrage and hurt in him that it practically shouted from his face. I thought that finally - finally - he was going to get angry enough to do something. I was wrong."
the King instead returns to playing hopboard with Adept Havelock.

Later in the day more groups of the leaders of the Cares arrive at Orison. The King refuses them all audiences, even to the one who carried messages from his wife and daughter.

In the morning Terisa asks Saddith to help her dress in a seductive gown. She then dismisses the maid and alone finds her way to Eremis's quarters.
She lets herself in and sees Eremis and Saddith having sex on his divan. She remembers once seeing her father having sex with one of his mistresses in her mother's bed...
She finds her way back to her room and puts on her clothes from the real world, then stares out the window for the rest of the day, and sees yet another group of Mordant's leaders arrive by horseback...
Last edited by duchess of malfi on Tue Jul 29, 2003 4:00 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by duchess of malfi »

Just a general question -- are Geraden's "feelings" ever wrong? They usually seem to be spot on, to me anyway...
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Post by Earthblood »

I think this is the beginning of Geraden's 'awakening' to his true self - not self-conscious and accident prone, but a son of The Domne(?sp) a proud and caring man who will not stand by & watch a friend suffer, if there is anything he can do about it.
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Post by danlo »

I think even a 3rd read is nescessary (4 me at least) 2 understand xactly what it is that makes Terisa "unreal" 2 members of the Congery--I think it's a little more than just language--I think that they precieve what's in the mirrors 2 b tools and not actually sentient. I sorta have a hard time being convinced by Eremis and other as 2 why Terisa is not real. Is it her "alieness", is she seen as more of shadow (it's here that MN comes closest 2 Amber...)? Xactly what was it about the language that negates her existence? Is the accent so different, is Terisa just so withdrawn and emotionless (comparetively speaking) that makes her seem unreal?

Here comes the Tor! One of the best characters! Yea! Who will howl outside Joyce's chambers until he is granted audience!
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Post by Skyweir »

LOL .. we have our own Tor's at the Watch!!
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Post by duchess of malfi »

I do not fully understand the attitude of the Masters towards what comes from their mirrors myself, Danlo...

I believe the gist of the language arguement was that if Terisa had not been created by the mirror that she would not be able to speak the language of Mordant, that she would only be able to speak the language of her native place. Geraden suggests that the mirrors change the users so that they can function in the new world (be able to breathe the air, talk the language, etc.)
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Post by danlo »

I see...(it's a good thing the Lord's didn't use the same logic re: TC's summoning(s)--but he was paradox and was closed 2 them...)
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Post by duchess of malfi »

One of the things I don't understand is even if the mirrors created these things/beings/people it is quite obvious that they are real when they arrive in Mordant...so even IF Teresa hadn't existed before, she obviously does after she is brought to Mordant...so why all of the doubts??
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Post by Ryzel »

It is the slave argument. If they are not really real it does not matter what you do to them.
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Post by duchess of malfi »

I had responded to this previously, but I think that my post must have been lost. :?

Ryzel, I think you just got it. That reason, the slavery, makes my skin crawl, but I think that must be it! :?
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Post by Ryzel »

I saw your reply earlier. The argument has been used for several other purposes in one form or another, but it is all but it is all about dehumanizing your subjects, thus placing them outside all normal bounds of ethical conduct. War crimes is often excused by a similar type of argument, but the slave argument is better suited to Mordant because the imagers (and especially the imagers of the Congery) needed to have an excuse to treat their translations as tools.
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Post by Ryzel »

Note that, by implication, the really evil imagers would not necessarily need to consider their translations unreal, they just used them anyway. It is hard to say if this is really a point in their favor, but at least they did not spread dubious metaphysical arguments around.
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Post by duchess of malfi »

Yes, I agree that such reasoning could lead to war crimes, genocide, and other such horrible things. :(
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Post by Cord Hurn »

Slowly, the Tor raised his black-gloved hands and lifted his hood, revealing thin white hair that straggled from his pale scalp; features the shape and color of cold potatoes, bleak eyes. His fat cheeks were hurt with cold.

In a husky voice, he rasped, "I will see the King."

The sharpness of the air made everything distinct. Terisa saw the shadow of a wince pass across Lebbick's hard face. "My lord Tor," he replied, "King Joyse has been informed of your coming. At present, he is busy with other matters." He couldn't keep his disdain for those "other matters" out of his tone. The King was probably playing hop-board. "I'm sure he'll grant you an audience shortly."

The clouds sealing the sky were the color of tombstones. Cold seemed to close around the courtyard. The guards were silent. The champing of the horses and the squelching sound of his boots in the mud could be heard clearly as he moved like an old man among his people toward the litter.

From the litter, he lifted in his arms the black-draped shape of a man or woman who must have been taller than he was. He didn't look strong enough to bear so much weight; nevertheless he cradled the body against his belly, carrying it forward until he stood directly in front of Castellan Lebbick.

In the same dried-out hollow voice, he said, "This is my first son. I will see the King."

Now the Castellan's stress was unmistakable. "Your son, my lord Tor? That's a terrible loss." Terisa remembered that Lebbick was acquainted with loss. "All Mordant will sorrow with you. How did he die?"

For a moment, a flicker of passion lit the Tor's speech. "His face was torn away by a wolf such as Mordant and Cadwal and Alend together have never known. Do you care to see the wound?" He extended the shrouded body toward Lebbick.

But almost at once his energy faded. Dully, implacably, he repeated, "I will see the King."
The Tor is immediately a sympathetic character to me when we see him appear like this, in the aftermath of an intensely painful personal tragedy. The King's response to the petitioning of the Tor makes Joyse seem to be especially impotent in the face of Mordant's need to defend itself from deadly Imagery.
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