Horn's astral Journey to Nettle

In an earlier post I asked why Horn never made an astral journey to visit Nettle. I obviously had forgotten this passage from OBW. p.203 Once, as I lay there at the bottom of the pit, it seemed to me that a man with a long nose (a tall man or an immense spider) stood over me... He touched my forehead with something he held, an the pit vanished. I was standing in Nettle's kitchen... "Come with me," I told her... ...tried to lead her back to the pit in which I lay. She stared at me then as if I were some horror from the grave, and screamed. I can never forget that scream. Was Horn trying to lead Nettle into death with him? Is this why Horn has never tried to return to Nettle in an astral trip again? Her reaction. Wasn't there some conjecture as to whether an inhumi had to be present for an astral trip to take place? Looks like a neighbor will do also, unless Krait was along on this journey but hidden ( I doubt it). The more I think of the Neighbor/Inhumi relationship I think that they might be a creation of the Neighbors. When the neighbor touches Horn is he doing the same type manipulation on Horn? Creating an inhumi? or something else? out of him? Dennis/Endy http://home.mindspring.com/~endymion9/index.htm *This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun.

Interesting. But if Horn is astrally-journeying in the same sense that he does in IGJ, you would expect him to appear to Nettle in her kitchen with his "inner self exposed" - cf. the changes of appearance of Horn, Oreb and the inhumi when they astrally travel. Given that Horn's soul is in torment in the pit, he may appear to Nettle to be in less than the best of health (I can't help thinking of the "return of the friend" in An American Werewolf in London ;-). Which Nettle might well find somewhat scary. All just speculation, though. old newt *This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun.