Fatal Revenant: Part 1, Chapter 2, Difficult Answers
Posted: Sun May 18, 2008 4:10 am
The second chapter in Fatal Revenant, Difficult Answers, is close to twice the length of the first chapter. While the first chapter used metaphor to pave the way for the naïve to find revelation through illusion and truth, the second chapter takes that paving several steps further. Linden and we the readers are those naïve, and much is revealed in the difficult answers provided in this chapter. It’s just that what gets revealed is not exactly what was being sought after…
After the reunion in Revelstone’s entrance, Linden needs to get away from the situation to think, and has Mahrtiir lead her up to Glimmermere. She had been given back the two loves of her life, only to have them refuse her in a way that hurt her more deeply than she was prepared for. That refusal caused stress and confusion to mount in her, darkness to close around her insides. So she returns to the one place where she had experienced “perhaps the first joy that she had ever known” (23). She sends Mahrtiir away before reaching the lake, goes for a dip, gets physically cleansed and healed, then ascends a hill to summon Esmer.
She calls him a couple times, and he finally comes (either to her summons, or for some other reason; nevertheless, he arrives).
However, he arrives with about three score ur-viles, and about half as many Waynhim. The other ur-viles and Waynhim who fought against the Demondim the previous day arrive as well. The creatures all begin to bark in their bizarre tongues. Linden begins to question Esmer, believing that he owes her, that his betrayal has outweighed his aid and that he needs to even the score (and by the way, I just love the way Esmer states that Linden’s manner of speech about keeping score is “unfamiliar” to him). She asks a series of questions, and Esmer gives responses, many of which do not seem to relate to the questions at all. I will offer the questions and responses in summarized, abbreviated form (and pardon me for not quoting comprehensively throughout):
Q1: Why are the ur-viles and Waynhim with you, Esmer? Why did you bring them?
R1: I enabled them to come with me so they can serve you. I didn’t bring them from the abysm of time.
Q2: How will they serve me?
R2: The creatures perceive my peril, and wish to guard against me. They wish to stand with the other ur-viles and Waynhim who have discovered a purpose worthy of service. (These were all answered by Esmer in question format.)
Q3: What do you gain by bringing them to me? Are you listening to Cail’s influence, or to Kastenessen?
R3: (Esmer flinches, as if from an internal struggle, then resumes his scorn and responds) I owe you, so I brought them from the past. They will ward you and Revelstone from the Demondim better than the Haruchai can. (Wait, but you also said that you didn’t bring them from the abysm of time, so how are the past and the abysm of time different?)
Q4: That tells me what they can do, not why you brought them here. What kind of harm do you have in mind this time?
R4: Accusing me does nothing. ‘Good cannot be accomplished by evil means’, yet that hasn’t stopped you from doing the things you’ve done. Why should I be judged more strictly?
Q5: Who possessed Anele at the Verge of Wandering? Who used him to talk to the Demondim? Who filled him with all that fire? (suddenly, at these questions, the creatures fall silent—finally a question that grabs their attention?)
R5: (Esmer cowers, ducking his head; creatures advance a few steps as if to hear better) That was Kastenessen.
Q6: so the skurj…
R6: …are the beasts that Kastenessen was Appointed to contain.
Q7: Did Kastenessen command the Demondim to allow TC and Jeremiah to reach Revelstone?
R7: (at this question, Esmer launches into his long story of the Viles’ history) Your ignorance keeps you from understanding. Do you not know that the Viles were once a lofty race? They roamed the Land, yet inhabited the Lost Deep in majestic caverns. There they devoted their knowledge and lore to the makings of beauty. For an age they spurned the banes in Gravin Threndor—no ill was known of them even in Berek’s time.
However, they became corrupted thusly: The Despiser’s hand reached out to the Sarangrave long before coming to the Upper Land. Ravers emerged from the malevolence of Lifeswallower. So the One Forest was decimated. The trees created the Forestals and bound an Elohim in the Colossus. When the Colossus waned, the Despiser gathered the Ravers to his service in Ridjeck Thome. They began to twist the hearts of the Viles. Unable to enter the Lost Deep (because of the persistent interdict of the Colossus), the Ravers met the Viles who roamed east of Landsdrop. Slowly, the Ravers taught the Viles self-loathing—they began by sharing their hatred of trees and Forestals; but all contempt eventually turns upon the contemptuous.
Samadhi evaded the interdict south of the Southron Range, and instigated war via the King. The trees dwindled and the Colossus was diminished. When the Viles began making the Demondim in the Lost Deep, the Ravers couldn’t interfere (because the interdict still remained). The Viles sought to make their self-loathing impotent by creating the Demondim. Thus, the Demondim were free of their creators’ stain. The Demondim held themselves apart from the Viles in renunciation. Over time, the Demondim were also corrupted: their proximity to the Illearth Stone and the whisperings from the Sarangrave finally led the Demondim to the same fate as their makers. Having followed in their makers’ footsteps, they made the ur-viles and Waynhim. Even though the Demondim loremaster was later slain by Loric’s krill, the damage was done.
Since the Demondim were made with an aspect of mortality they, unlike the Viles, came into the Despisers direct service. They acted as extensions of the Ravers on the Upper Land, themselves not being spurned by the interdict. They consistently sought treachery that ultimately broke Kevin’s heart, leading to the Ritual of Desecration. Failing to comprehend the Despiser’s disdain, they perished in the Ritual that their actions helped bring about.
The ur-viles and Waynhim, being completely enfleshed, followed their own Weirds. Mortality inspired them to reinterpret their Weirds, and their allegiances were susceptible to change.
Q8: (Linden frustratedly reiterates Q7)
R8: Are you ignorant of the fact that the Cavewights were also once friendly to the people of the Land? I want you to understand such beings, to comprehend that ‘that which appears evil need not have been so from the beginning, and need not remain so until the end.’ Since you’ve gotten all your knowledge of such creatures from the Haruchai, you obviously don’t know that they retained the knowledge of their making. The ur-viles continued to work in the Deep, creating things that would alter the fate of their kind, the Land and the Earth.
Q9: Wait, but Stave said…said that much of the lore of the Viles and Demondim endured to them, and much did not. They created no descendants.
R9: The Haruchai know little. You knew Vain. Can you doubt what I’m saying? The ur-viles created other things too. They did not stop with Vain; they were not yet satisfied. Therefore they have made…manacles.
Q10: Why? Who are the manacles for?
R10: (Esmer shakes his head. The creatures started barking again.)
Q11: What are they saying?
R11: They debate the interpretation of their Weirds. Some insist that I explain further. I will not. I have balanced the scale between us.
Q12: How did you convince these creatures to come with you? Why have they set aside their long enmity?
R12: (with exaggerated patience) I offered the ur-viles the chance to aid the purpose which started when they made Vain. I offered the Waynhim the chance to join with their few remaining kind, so they might serve the Land once more. I required that they set aside their enmity in exchange for my service.
Wildwielder, I have given answers to the questions you’ve asked. I must leave, or else kick the bejeezus out of the Haruchai who approaches.
Q13: What is the shadow on the hearts of the Elohim? What does that mean? Why didn’t they stop Kastenessen from breaking free?
R13: Though the Elohim hold that they are equal to all things, they are not. If they were, they would not fear the Worm being roused.
They saw no need to preserve Kasenessen’s Durance. You are the Wildwielder, returned to the Land. The skurj pose no threat to the Elohim, though they are ruled by Kastenessen’s will. You will act to oppose both. Thus, the Elohim see no need for concern.
Q14: What’s the peril of the halfhand?
R14: You insist on asking questions which show your ignorance. You waste my help.
Linden then responds with anger. A few of the things she says are: “When I do learn something, it isn’t relevant to my problems.” “I’ve got nothing but questions.” “How can I help wasting you when you won’t tell me what I need to know?” Then Esmer makes his final statement of the conversation—“You must be the first to drink of the EarthBlood.”—and is gone.
In a way, it seems that Esmer is responding to two things with this final statement. Linden’s “What is the peril of the halfhand?” question, and her demand to be told “what she needs to know.” Either way, I see it as one of few direct answers he gives her in this whole conversation.
Lurch framed a question in his dissection that is also very relevant to this dissection: “Without naivete, how can there be revelation?” As I said above, both Linden and we, the readers, are those naïve. Though much is revealed in this chapter, the knowledge frankly left me more confused by virtue of the revealing. The conversation was structured in part as a juxtaposition of question-about-one-thing and then answer-about-something-else. Few direct lines existed between question(er) and answer(er).
It would seem that Linden shared my experience of this confusion. Esmer departed and she still didn’t feel as though she got the information that she needed. Esmer’s answers seemed to add to Linden’s sense of illusion, even though the stuff he told her was true (as far as we know it from FR). Truth and illusion: both are intertwined together in this chapter, and left me with an ominous sense of unfulfillment, or a foreboding of something not envisioned. And for Linden I think this was also true; on pg. 39 she says “Even with the Staff, I might as well be blind.” Though she has arguably more power than anyone else in the Land, she also feels more powerless than anyone else.
Though the crux of this chapter centered around this conversation between Linden and Esmer, there is other thing from the chapter that I would like to comment on:
1. While at Glimmermere, Linden walks through a host of memories in her mind, one of which was Covenant telling her of his experience as Kasreyn’s helpless prisoner. Kasreyn described the power of white gold thusly: (pg. 19) “…purity cannot endure. Thus, within each of my works I must perforce place one small flaw, else there would be no work at all. Its (white gold’s) imperfection is the very paradox of which the Earth is made, and with it a master may form perfect works and fear nothing.”
Linden muses that this explanation may help her understand why TC showed up at Revelstone. She thinks that maybe when Foul used the ring on TC and burned away the venom, he purified TC’s spirit to such an extent that he had become a sort of perfect being. While I don’t really buy this idea, I think it’s interesting that this morsel should be dropped on us in this particular chapter.
Ok, I’ll let my dissection end there. Can’t wait to get into it with y’all over the next couple weeks! Hail dissectors!
After the reunion in Revelstone’s entrance, Linden needs to get away from the situation to think, and has Mahrtiir lead her up to Glimmermere. She had been given back the two loves of her life, only to have them refuse her in a way that hurt her more deeply than she was prepared for. That refusal caused stress and confusion to mount in her, darkness to close around her insides. So she returns to the one place where she had experienced “perhaps the first joy that she had ever known” (23). She sends Mahrtiir away before reaching the lake, goes for a dip, gets physically cleansed and healed, then ascends a hill to summon Esmer.
She calls him a couple times, and he finally comes (either to her summons, or for some other reason; nevertheless, he arrives).
However, he arrives with about three score ur-viles, and about half as many Waynhim. The other ur-viles and Waynhim who fought against the Demondim the previous day arrive as well. The creatures all begin to bark in their bizarre tongues. Linden begins to question Esmer, believing that he owes her, that his betrayal has outweighed his aid and that he needs to even the score (and by the way, I just love the way Esmer states that Linden’s manner of speech about keeping score is “unfamiliar” to him). She asks a series of questions, and Esmer gives responses, many of which do not seem to relate to the questions at all. I will offer the questions and responses in summarized, abbreviated form (and pardon me for not quoting comprehensively throughout):
Q1: Why are the ur-viles and Waynhim with you, Esmer? Why did you bring them?
R1: I enabled them to come with me so they can serve you. I didn’t bring them from the abysm of time.
Q2: How will they serve me?
R2: The creatures perceive my peril, and wish to guard against me. They wish to stand with the other ur-viles and Waynhim who have discovered a purpose worthy of service. (These were all answered by Esmer in question format.)
Q3: What do you gain by bringing them to me? Are you listening to Cail’s influence, or to Kastenessen?
R3: (Esmer flinches, as if from an internal struggle, then resumes his scorn and responds) I owe you, so I brought them from the past. They will ward you and Revelstone from the Demondim better than the Haruchai can. (Wait, but you also said that you didn’t bring them from the abysm of time, so how are the past and the abysm of time different?)
Q4: That tells me what they can do, not why you brought them here. What kind of harm do you have in mind this time?
R4: Accusing me does nothing. ‘Good cannot be accomplished by evil means’, yet that hasn’t stopped you from doing the things you’ve done. Why should I be judged more strictly?
Q5: Who possessed Anele at the Verge of Wandering? Who used him to talk to the Demondim? Who filled him with all that fire? (suddenly, at these questions, the creatures fall silent—finally a question that grabs their attention?)
R5: (Esmer cowers, ducking his head; creatures advance a few steps as if to hear better) That was Kastenessen.
Q6: so the skurj…
R6: …are the beasts that Kastenessen was Appointed to contain.
Q7: Did Kastenessen command the Demondim to allow TC and Jeremiah to reach Revelstone?
R7: (at this question, Esmer launches into his long story of the Viles’ history) Your ignorance keeps you from understanding. Do you not know that the Viles were once a lofty race? They roamed the Land, yet inhabited the Lost Deep in majestic caverns. There they devoted their knowledge and lore to the makings of beauty. For an age they spurned the banes in Gravin Threndor—no ill was known of them even in Berek’s time.
However, they became corrupted thusly: The Despiser’s hand reached out to the Sarangrave long before coming to the Upper Land. Ravers emerged from the malevolence of Lifeswallower. So the One Forest was decimated. The trees created the Forestals and bound an Elohim in the Colossus. When the Colossus waned, the Despiser gathered the Ravers to his service in Ridjeck Thome. They began to twist the hearts of the Viles. Unable to enter the Lost Deep (because of the persistent interdict of the Colossus), the Ravers met the Viles who roamed east of Landsdrop. Slowly, the Ravers taught the Viles self-loathing—they began by sharing their hatred of trees and Forestals; but all contempt eventually turns upon the contemptuous.
Samadhi evaded the interdict south of the Southron Range, and instigated war via the King. The trees dwindled and the Colossus was diminished. When the Viles began making the Demondim in the Lost Deep, the Ravers couldn’t interfere (because the interdict still remained). The Viles sought to make their self-loathing impotent by creating the Demondim. Thus, the Demondim were free of their creators’ stain. The Demondim held themselves apart from the Viles in renunciation. Over time, the Demondim were also corrupted: their proximity to the Illearth Stone and the whisperings from the Sarangrave finally led the Demondim to the same fate as their makers. Having followed in their makers’ footsteps, they made the ur-viles and Waynhim. Even though the Demondim loremaster was later slain by Loric’s krill, the damage was done.
Since the Demondim were made with an aspect of mortality they, unlike the Viles, came into the Despisers direct service. They acted as extensions of the Ravers on the Upper Land, themselves not being spurned by the interdict. They consistently sought treachery that ultimately broke Kevin’s heart, leading to the Ritual of Desecration. Failing to comprehend the Despiser’s disdain, they perished in the Ritual that their actions helped bring about.
The ur-viles and Waynhim, being completely enfleshed, followed their own Weirds. Mortality inspired them to reinterpret their Weirds, and their allegiances were susceptible to change.
Q8: (Linden frustratedly reiterates Q7)
R8: Are you ignorant of the fact that the Cavewights were also once friendly to the people of the Land? I want you to understand such beings, to comprehend that ‘that which appears evil need not have been so from the beginning, and need not remain so until the end.’ Since you’ve gotten all your knowledge of such creatures from the Haruchai, you obviously don’t know that they retained the knowledge of their making. The ur-viles continued to work in the Deep, creating things that would alter the fate of their kind, the Land and the Earth.
Q9: Wait, but Stave said…said that much of the lore of the Viles and Demondim endured to them, and much did not. They created no descendants.
R9: The Haruchai know little. You knew Vain. Can you doubt what I’m saying? The ur-viles created other things too. They did not stop with Vain; they were not yet satisfied. Therefore they have made…manacles.
Q10: Why? Who are the manacles for?
R10: (Esmer shakes his head. The creatures started barking again.)
Q11: What are they saying?
R11: They debate the interpretation of their Weirds. Some insist that I explain further. I will not. I have balanced the scale between us.
Q12: How did you convince these creatures to come with you? Why have they set aside their long enmity?
R12: (with exaggerated patience) I offered the ur-viles the chance to aid the purpose which started when they made Vain. I offered the Waynhim the chance to join with their few remaining kind, so they might serve the Land once more. I required that they set aside their enmity in exchange for my service.
Wildwielder, I have given answers to the questions you’ve asked. I must leave, or else kick the bejeezus out of the Haruchai who approaches.
Q13: What is the shadow on the hearts of the Elohim? What does that mean? Why didn’t they stop Kastenessen from breaking free?
R13: Though the Elohim hold that they are equal to all things, they are not. If they were, they would not fear the Worm being roused.
They saw no need to preserve Kasenessen’s Durance. You are the Wildwielder, returned to the Land. The skurj pose no threat to the Elohim, though they are ruled by Kastenessen’s will. You will act to oppose both. Thus, the Elohim see no need for concern.
Q14: What’s the peril of the halfhand?
R14: You insist on asking questions which show your ignorance. You waste my help.
Linden then responds with anger. A few of the things she says are: “When I do learn something, it isn’t relevant to my problems.” “I’ve got nothing but questions.” “How can I help wasting you when you won’t tell me what I need to know?” Then Esmer makes his final statement of the conversation—“You must be the first to drink of the EarthBlood.”—and is gone.
In a way, it seems that Esmer is responding to two things with this final statement. Linden’s “What is the peril of the halfhand?” question, and her demand to be told “what she needs to know.” Either way, I see it as one of few direct answers he gives her in this whole conversation.
Lurch framed a question in his dissection that is also very relevant to this dissection: “Without naivete, how can there be revelation?” As I said above, both Linden and we, the readers, are those naïve. Though much is revealed in this chapter, the knowledge frankly left me more confused by virtue of the revealing. The conversation was structured in part as a juxtaposition of question-about-one-thing and then answer-about-something-else. Few direct lines existed between question(er) and answer(er).
It would seem that Linden shared my experience of this confusion. Esmer departed and she still didn’t feel as though she got the information that she needed. Esmer’s answers seemed to add to Linden’s sense of illusion, even though the stuff he told her was true (as far as we know it from FR). Truth and illusion: both are intertwined together in this chapter, and left me with an ominous sense of unfulfillment, or a foreboding of something not envisioned. And for Linden I think this was also true; on pg. 39 she says “Even with the Staff, I might as well be blind.” Though she has arguably more power than anyone else in the Land, she also feels more powerless than anyone else.
Though the crux of this chapter centered around this conversation between Linden and Esmer, there is other thing from the chapter that I would like to comment on:
1. While at Glimmermere, Linden walks through a host of memories in her mind, one of which was Covenant telling her of his experience as Kasreyn’s helpless prisoner. Kasreyn described the power of white gold thusly: (pg. 19) “…purity cannot endure. Thus, within each of my works I must perforce place one small flaw, else there would be no work at all. Its (white gold’s) imperfection is the very paradox of which the Earth is made, and with it a master may form perfect works and fear nothing.”
Linden muses that this explanation may help her understand why TC showed up at Revelstone. She thinks that maybe when Foul used the ring on TC and burned away the venom, he purified TC’s spirit to such an extent that he had become a sort of perfect being. While I don’t really buy this idea, I think it’s interesting that this morsel should be dropped on us in this particular chapter.
Ok, I’ll let my dissection end there. Can’t wait to get into it with y’all over the next couple weeks! Hail dissectors!