# Sphigx *The Whorl list — 2 messages, 2 voices, 07 Mar 1997* > Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright > in each message remains with the person who wrote it. > Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original > archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than > retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact. --- ### Alice Turner *07 Mar 1997, 11:06* Quill just prodded me into a new thought: Remember the little statues of Sphigx for sale in the Viron marketplace, by which Crane sends his spy messages to Trivigaunte? Well, those statues are actually *illegal* in Trivigaunte because of their no-image ruling! -alga- Questions or problems to whorl-owner at lists.best.com --- ### m.driussi *07 Mar 1997, 21:22 · follows Alice Turner* Reply: Item #4804845 from WHORL at LISTS.BEST.COM@INET00# Patrick, You are right: cat' and bird get best lines! (Yes, to the unspoken question: I do think the talking animals are also specially designed god mounts, so that the gods can ride around in their emblematic animals. Sphigx could ride Tick like a wizard using a familiar; Pas, Tartaros, Hierax could use Oreb the same way, in a manner not unlike Odin with his black birds. I don't see any evidence that such has happened--though I do continue to wonder what may have passed between Doctor Crane and Oreb when they were alone in the room together--I only offer this as an explanation of how talking animals might fit into the god plan aspect of the mission.) Re: "Planet-Breaker," yes, I remember that, too (CASTLE OF DAYS, 297). (I still think it is especially funny since one could legitimately give that title to THE URTH OF THE NEW SUN. "Not that I would seriously propose doing so," I hasten to add.) And in this LONG SUN case, it actually =was= listed in Library of Congress terms as one of those silly titles. alga, Re: statues. Hey, now there's something. Somewhere out in the barren desert there must be a pit where the traders chuck the statues before they get to Trivigaunte. ("I guess we could call it a sphincter," he said, making an ass of himself.) =mantis= Questions or problems to whorl-owner at lists.best.com ---