By Any Other Name

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By Any Other Name

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Cord Hurn wrote:I've been trying to start new topic threads on several of Donaldson's short stories in the forum General SRD Discussion and Other Works. And every time I press submit to post the topic, I get the notification that Internet Explorer cannot read my message, and I'm given no option but to go back to previous page, where I'm back at topic submission, and as I click Submit, I keep getting the same message.
Seeing if I have the same issue...

And it seems okay. Well, you can use this thread. I will re-title it as needed.

Oh, a change is coming, feel these doors now closing
Is there no world for tomorrow, if we wait for today?


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Post by Cord Hurn »

"'By Any Other Name' brought me back from the worst case of writer's block I've ever experienced"--Stephen R. Donaldson, in the Introduction to Reave the Just and Other Tales.

It's a pleasant trip back into creativity from Mr. Donaldson, a story with enough unexpected turns that I'm tempted to think SRD was eager to surprise himself once his creative spark had returned to him.

In this story, prosperous merchant Massik Urmeny recalls when being an identity theft victim was actually an empowering experience for him.

Urmeny inherited his title of "sher" and his comfortable level of wealth (second only to that of this region's ruler, the Thal) from his father, and its creation and maintenance has been mainly due to the foresight and perserverance of his overseer, Tep Longeur. So Urmeny is disappointed when Longeur gives a reaction to an assignment of procuring product for a relatively recent migrant named Sher Abener, an assignment Urmeny has already agreed to undertake.
"Sher Urmeny," he informed me stiffly, "it won't be done. We won't do it."

"My good man, why ever not?" I responded in protest. Truth to tell, I had at that moment no notion of what he meant, My transaction with Sher Abener--ominous though it was--had already vanished from my mind.

"The men won't do it," Tep Longeur explained. "And I won't force them. I wouldn't do it myself in their place. That trek is already dangerous enough. These things--" The neat scrim of his beard lifted in disgust. His eyes flashed a careless anger past the sun-belabored leather of his cheeks. "Thy're evil, Sher Urmeny."

"'Things', Tep Longeur?" I made no attempt to conceal my bewilderment. He had served my family longer than I had been alive, and knew me too well to be misled by feigned certainty. "'Evil'? Have you dismissed your senses?"

"No I haven't, Sher." My overseer brandished before me a parchment marked by Sher Abener's crabbed hand. A thrust of his finger indicated one illegible item. "This is a mechanism used to suck the blood of a man while he still lives. And THIS"--Tep Longeur pointed again--"keeps a man's member rigid after death, so he can still be used for fornication. For those," he sneered bitterly, "who enjoy that sort of amusement."

I found that I needed to seat myself. I had been cognizant of Sher Abener's reputation, certainly. And a moment's thought might have informed me that the objects and potencies he desired were of unpleasant application. Yet I had not considered that I might become an unwitting participant in some dire rite.

"But I have accepted Sher Abener's request," I informed Tep Longeur. "It must be carried out. That is the nature of merchantries. The alternatives"--I could hardly suppress a shudder--"are disagreeable."
Indeed, my overseer himself had always insisted that a merchant must stand by his word.

Now, however, he jutted his jaw stubbornly. "The men won't do it," he repeated. "They'll leave your service first." Then he added, "I'll leave it myself. We're decent folk, all of us. We'll have nothing to do with necromancy."

Had I been of a less dignified temperament, I would have groaned aloud. Here was a choice for which I had no taste thrust upon me. The prospect of informing Sher Abener that I must decline his requirements appeared unpleasant in the extreme. At the same time, I had no answer for the threat of Tep Longeur's defection. I was entirely dependent on him. I could no more have filled his place myself than survived a contest of necromancy. If he abandoned me, I ould be forced to rebuild my entire merchantry. And that burdensome task might prove impossible. If men who had grown fat in my service refused my commands, others would likely do the same.
So Urmeny bravely enters Sher Abener's spooky abode (lights turn on & off by themselves, the stone walls speak with an amplified version of Sher Abener's voice) to tell him the deal's off but would offer him a bargain deal transporting any other merchandise Abener might want. Abener demands Urmeny transport six slaves as gifts to him and Urmeny objects on moral grounds.
"Sher Abener, I am outraged, The purchase and sale of men and women is not a transaction I am inclined to countenance. You presume too far upon my goodwill." In desperation more than daring, I concluded, "Perhaps if you were sold and purchased yourself you would consider the matter in another light."
Sher Abener responds with fiery magic and chases Urmeny out of his house with the power of his "voice of a furnace" emanating from all the walls.
Urmeny heads back to his villa to find the gates closed and his servants, including Tep Longeur, ready to forcefully oppose his re-entry.
Was this the man who had served me, and my father before me, with such fidelity for so many years? I could not credit my ears--or master my dismay. "Have you lost your wits?" I protested. "Are you drunk? Tep Longeur, I command your obedience. It is my right. You are not yourself."
Clenching the bars of the gates, I pressed my appeal as near to him as I could. "Sher Abener wishes to us to procure slaves for him. SLAVES, Tep! He means to introduce that vile practice HERE."

Though I had little acquaintance with such extremes, I saw madness in Tep's stare. Bitterly, he answered, "So it will be. He's already taken me. He'll take as many as are required to produce the outcome he intends. Do you think I CHOOSE to serve a master such as him?" Whips of fury and loathing flayed in the overseer's tone. "I, who refused to acquire his foul mechanisms and serums for him? I would prefer death by my own hand. As he well knows. But he cares nothing for my choices or desires. I'm only allowed to let you flee."

Foundering as though I were a swamped coracle, I strove to counter, "The Thal--"

Tep Longeur spat at my feet. "If you appeal to the Thal, you'll be laughed away. If you attempt to approach any of your friends, I must bind you and deliver you to the Sher." The mad glaring of his gaze hinted at Sher Abener's fire. "No theurgy in Benedic can preserve you. No force of arms will rise to your aid. The Sher was driven from many lands before he came among us, but he's drawn profit from those defeats. He's grown wise in the ways of power. He wouldn't have declared himself to you if he hadn't first secured his grasp upon this demesne."
Seeing the situation, Urmeny tells Longeur he MUST have a horse or he can't even survive fleeing through the hot countryside. Longeur manages to comply with this while slapping himself and commands his men to release the nag to Urmeny. As this is occurring, Longeur flatly states, "Urmeny, it's your place to help us. The merchantry was yours. The villa was yours. We were yours. The burden is yours. If you don't rescue us, we'll never be free. Even death won't redeem us from the Sher."

Urmeny rides west of his hometown of Benedic haunted by both Longeur's demand and Abener's threats.

He experiences thirst and hunger heading into the parched hill country to the west while reflecting on this turn of affairs and concluding he has no idea how to fix it. Riding down to the River Ibendwey among these hills, Urmeny sees a man on a boulder mid-river with the waters surging around him.
...as I neared the marge where the Ibendwey's rush gnawed at my road, and halted to scrutinize the man more closely, I discovered that despite his lowered head and dull raiment he seemed more vivid than his circumstances or surroundings, He drew my gaze as though he made all other things illusory by comparison. An air of significance resembling a hint of the sun's own fire defined him against the far verge of the river. In some fashion, he was more truly there than any man I had ever met.
Though this stranger is unnamed for this story, he matches Donaldson's earlier (in the "Reave the Just" story) description of Reave.

Urmeny rescues Reave by riding to the boulder and carrying him back. After a nap, Urmeny sees this stranger upon his horse, and the stranger asks his name, Finding out, he states he is Sher Urmeny and rides back to Benedic with the real Urmeny pursuing to protect him from the consequences of Abener's ire (and to get his horse, too). But Urmeny finds that this identity theft gives him an anonymity that empowers him to more effectively fight for himself and his people.

The story title comes from Act II, Scene 2 of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, where Juliet tells Romeo they could openly admit their mutual love if they would cast aside their names representing rival families.
'Tis but thy name that is my enemy
Though art thyself, though not a Montague
What's Montague? it nor hand, nor foot,
Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part
Belonging to a man. O, be some other name!
What's in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;
So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call'd,
Retain that dear perfection which he owes
Without that title. Romeo, doff thy name,
And for that name which is no part of thee
Take all myself.
What Sher Urmeny and the stranger we know to be Reave do to Sher Abener could be called justice, retribution, revenge, a moral battle, or an act of protection for the land of Benedic. No matter, though, what names or names their actions are assigned in this story's final part.

In the end, knowing that he fought for the freedom of loyal people and for the just cause of refusing to transport evil should give Urmeny satisfaction in his victory over Abener, and it seems to do so.

A victory like that by any other name would taste as sweet.
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Post by Cord Hurn »

Above, I wrote:It's a pleasant trip back into creativity from Mr. Donaldson, a story with enough unexpected turns that I'm tempted to think SRD was eager to surprise himself once his creative spark had returned to him.
It sounds like Stephen R. Donaldson was feeling creatively drained once he had completed the Gap Cycle novels. If I am comprehending SRD's writing chronology correctly, "By Any Other Name" is the first fiction he completed after finishing up on the Gap.
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Post by Cord Hurn »

The following quote is after Sher Urmeny and "the stranger" leave the Thal's (the ruler of Benedic's) palace and the stranger makes it clear to all in attendance at the palace that he's going to deal with Sher Abener.
I had no cause for optimism. The plain fact was that I did not understand anything the stranger had done. If I told myself that he now meant to free Tep Longeur, I did so only because I wished devoutly to believe it, not because his actions made the notion credible.

He spoke bravely. I could not forget the clarion conviction with which he had announced, It is the place of every honest citizen to name injustice whenever it occurs, and to reject it honestly.
Reave (the unnamed stranger) is nothing if not inspirational, isn't he? Of course, it could be said that it's easy for him to be so absolute when he has such strong supernatural abilities. But it's nice to see amiable-if-not-courageous Urmeny decide to fight for the soul of Tep Longeur and the safety of his fellow citizens. Though how he can fight someone as powerful as Sher Abener remains to be seen. Urmeny first has to overcome his desire to flee Benedic altogether.
Thus I prepared myself, to the accompaniment of voices and remembered anguish.

It is the place of every honest citizen to name injustice whenever it occurs, and to reject it honestly.

At last, I was ready to depart. I had already chosen the road which would lead me away from my life in Benedic.

And yet--

And yet I could not do it. My resolve failed me--or was transformed. When I bid farewell to my villa, I took no coin, and no horse. I carried neither food nor drink. I had no need of them.

From my gates, I directed my steps, not away from Benedic, but toward Sher Abener's dark abode.

My course horrified me. Indeed, I felt that my mind had failed altogether. Still I did not turn aside.

I did not ask you to accompany me.

The choice was mine to make. Therefore I made it. I could perhaps have borne abandoning the stranger to possession and death. He had disregarded both my warnings and my attempts to save him. Somewhere during this long day, however, I had lost my capacity to endure Sher Abener's wish to practice his cruel arts in Benedic. He did not merit my compliance.

If my usurper yearned for doom, I would require him to seek it in his own name, not in mine.

Midafternoon had turned toward evening, for I had spent more time in preparation--or in the Thal's mansion--than I realized. The sun spread tall shadows upon the roadway before me so that they led me into darkness. Along the avenues to the necromancer's manor, I questioned my resolve a thousand times. But I did not alter it. The easy comfort of my former life could not be reclaimed. Therefore I let it go.

All too soon, I reached the grim granite which enclosed Sher Abener's manor.
I've probably already said this, but there's enough unexpected turns in this story to make it very entertaining for me. This is definitely one of my favorite stories in Reave the Just and Other Tales!
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Post by Cord Hurn »

I look forward to rereading this short story in a little while. It is enjoyable seeing how Sher Urmeny becomes ever more sensitive to the needs of his people and his country as the tale rolls along. And the confidence of his mysterious companion makes his appearance in the story an entertaining turning point.
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