a sincere question mostly for roy (not an attack)

Roy C. Lackey · 01 Jan 2011, 08:15 · from 2011-January.txt.gz

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From: rclackey at stic.net (Roy C. Lackey)
Date: Sat, 1 Jan 2011 02:15:16 -0600
Subject: (urth) a sincere question mostly for roy (not an attack)
References: <163817.55332.qm at web58206.mail.re3.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <006a01cba98c$08dce140$76d04a0c@rclackey>

Marc Aramini wrote:

>Do you or do you not agree that it is likely that Horn winds up in Babbie
through the mechanism of the Big Tree at the end of OBW? <

I'd swear I've been through all this before. I'm sure I have, and you
obviously remember what I said then about dream-travel Babbie, because you
repeated some of it a few days ago and called it asinine, so there is no
point in repeating it.

That said, there is something weird going on at the end of OBW that seems
somehow to involve Babbie, though Babbie wasn't anywhere near Gaon, then or
ever. That Babbie wasn't even there does not constitute an obstacle to your
theory however, given the example of dying Horn's spirit on Green being sent
into Silk's body on the distant LSW. But to answer your question, I can't
say that the Horn in Silkhorn somehow was removed to Babbie.

I'll reconstruct the scene, as I read it. Silkhorn was threatened by a score
of inhumi. He prayed on the boat, I assume to the Outsider, and tried to
sleep. He came to himself, as if from a dream, and thought he was calling
Babbie by name, and knew instantly that the inhumi were gone. Then someone
on the shore called *again* for Babbie, yet he somehow understood (or
thought he did) that the someone who called intended himself, Silkhorn, when
he called for Babbie. There is no mention of the voice on shore having
called before, so maybe the first calling had not issued from himself. The
voice from shore is masculine and urgent. He packed up his stuff, waded
ashore and ran of into the forest.

Daylight must have come, because he had light to write by and the leisure.
He drew the three-whorls symbol. He wrote again as darkness approached the
next night (because two days since he last ate, with Evensong) and spent the
night in a hollow place among the roots of a huge tree, after writing about
the previous night when he encountered a masculine being sitting in the
darkness under the trees. He couldn't see that being but laid his head on
its knee and was comforted. Many days later he wrote about the two children
he found and stayed with for a while. They told him of being helped by
Vanished People. He asked them about Vanished Gods. They said there was one
in the forest and he told them about "him", evidently meaning the being upon
whose knee he had laid his head.

So, no, I don't think the big tree he slept under had anything to do with
it. Trees don't talk and the voice from shore was apparently the voice of a
god, a god that Silkhorn took to be a Vanished God. Later revelations in the
series (the end of IGJ) suggest that the Outsider (by whatever name the
Neighbors used) had supplanted their old gods. When Silkhorn asked the
Neighbors if  the Mother on Blue was one of their gods, he was told, "Once,
she was." (383) He had already asked what god they had worshipped at the
altar that Oreb found near Blanko and was told "An unknown god". Then he
mentioned the altar to an unknown god Sinew had once found near Lizard, but
they refused to answer questions except to indicate that the Mother was no
longer worshipped by them. "An unknown god", twice in two pages. The full
context of that chat with the Neighbors suggests that the unknown god in
question was the god Silkhorn knew as the Outsider.

Whether or not the Outsider was also the Vanished God who comforted Silkhorn
under the trees in the forest near the Nadi can be debated. Silkhorn
couldn't see that Vanished God in the darkness under the trees, just as he
had known that he was not permitted to turn around to look at the Outsider,
the god he knew (or thought he knew) was standing behind him after he
sacrificed at that altar near Blanko.

-Roy

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