Tracking Song

Matthew Groves · 08 Jun 2007, 23:02 · from 2007-June.txt.gz

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From: matthewalangroves at gmail.com (Matthew Groves)
Date: Fri, 8 Jun 2007 18:02:52 -0500
Subject: (urth) Tracking Song
Message-ID: <39ed084f0706081602g1b96c78bsff0953f06c1b115c at mail.gmail.com>

Thanks, Roy for taking the time to reread and post on "Tracking Song."

Roy wrote:

"If his "birthmark" was a mark like Cain's, then it did him little good. He
was mortally wounded (in the dark!) by one of the "Min" from the cave, who
should not have been able to harm a true man."

...which I had failed to notice. (But why is "in the dark" significant?)
It's true that the "three laws" or something analogous should have prevented
the Min from wounding him (*if* Cutthroat is a true man), but Cain's mark
would not prevent it; it merely signifies that "whoever kills Cain shall
suffer sevenfold vengeance." No-one killed Cutthroat, but if the Min
Cutthroat killed in the undercity was the same that wounded him when they
took Cim, then Cutthroat was avenged.

And Cutthroat's birthmark does help him a little like the way Cain's mark
protects him: it prevents the Wiggikki from harming Cutthroat by causing
them to suspect he is under an enchantment that will seek a new home in
anyone who kills him. But I don't think Cutthroat got his "birthmark" from
the Great Sleigh, since they don't seem the type to use leashes. That's more
of a Mantru thing.

About the winged man at the end: It seems clear to me that, even if he
represents one of the cherubim guarding the entrance to Eden, he is also
bird-man -- a beast-man like the Wiggikki, the Pamigaka, and all the rest.
Here is what Robert Alter says about "cherubim" in a footnote at the end of
his translation of Genesis 3: "The root of the term either means "hybrid"
or, by an inversion of consonants, "mount," "steed," and they are the winged
beasts, probably of awesome aspect, on which the sky god of the old
Canaanite myths and of the poetry of Psalms goes riding through the air."

About the fourteenth day, Roy wrote:

"I think that, deep down, he understood that if he had simply stayed where
he was on day one, that the Sleigh would complete its leisurely
circumnavigation of the small planet in two weeks."
This sounds like a plausible explanation to me, and its better than anything
I have (which is nothing). However, note that Cutthroat says it is the
*number* fourteen that seems significant.

Matt G.

P.S.:  When first reading "TS," I believed that Cutthroat's wound resulted
from him having tried to hang himself, or having been hanged. This belief
persisted even after reading the scene where Mantru has Cim Glowing chained
by her neck. It took reading through the old archives for me to realize
Cutthroat's true nature, and the actual source of his "birthmark." The crux
(as it were) of Wolfe's story is always eluding me.
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