That canted tower

Marc Aramini · 09 Nov 2011, 19:42 · from 2011-November.txt.gz

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From: marcaramini at yahoo.com (Marc Aramini)
Date: Wed, 9 Nov 2011 11:42:13 -0800 (PST)
Subject: (urth) That canted tower
In-Reply-To: <004301cc9f17$77e8a020$2fd24a0c@rclackey>
Message-ID: <1320867733.32611.YahooMailClassic at web161803.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

Fair enough Roy.  

--- On Wed, 11/9/11, Roy C. Lackey <rclackey at stic.net> wrote:

> From: Roy C. Lackey <rclackey at stic.net>
> Subject: (urth) That canted tower
> To: "The Urth Mailing List" <urth at lists.urth.net>
> Date: Wednesday, November 9, 2011, 11:40 AM
> I really don't want to be involved in
> this stuff any more, but some things
> bug me even more than others, so I'm going to pop out of
> lurker mode for a
> moment to address this particular issue. I was hoping
> someone else would
> point this out, but more than a day has gone by and it
> hasn't happened.
> 
> Marc Aramini quoted and wrote:
> 
> > From: Ant?nio Pedro Marques:
> 
> > Well, you've said this a number of times. But just
> what
> > makes Nessus similar to the City of the Inhumi?
> > _______________________________________________
> 
> >Really?
> 
> >I'm just going to use direct quotes.
> 
> >"This was a tower indeed, its nose high as the tops of
> the tallest trees
> and its sleek lines radiating a strength it no longer
> posessed.? I can see
> it now, that slightly canted tower gleaming dully in the
> reddish ligh of the
> stifling afternoon.? Like a rotting corpse, it showed
> ribs wehre some
> sideplates had been taken.? How we shouted in our
> delight, thinking it would
> save us!"
> >[tower on Green to save them, its a ship like the
> Matachin tower]<
> 
> [snip]
> 
> The above quote does little to support the contention that
> the City of the
> Inhumi is Nessus. In fact, it undermines it because the
> "canted tower" in
> question wasn't in the City of the Inhumi at all, or even
> near it, as the
> full context makes quite clear. The above quote is from
> page 125 of IGJ.
> 
> This is the gist of the context. After Horn was washed down
> the sewer when
> the clog of corpses was cleared, he eventually decided to
> return to the City
> to free Sinew and the other men who had arrived on their
> lander. He had
> about a hundred men when they fought their way out of the
> City (120). He
> tried to persuade the men to try to retake the lander, but
> they wanted to
> leave and find other colonists. They traveled a long way
> and found a small
> settlement, but were not welcomed. The two groups fought
> and Horn's band of
> men was down to 69 (121).
> 
> He again tried to get them to return to the City to reclaim
> the lander they
> had arrived in. There was dissension, but eventually he and
> a smaller band
> returned to the City and found that the lander was gone.
> They had to fight
> their way out of the City again, and Horn and Krait were
> both wounded. The
> band was down to 27, counting Krait (123). Krait died after
> imparting the
> Secret.
> 
> The survivors "traveled very far" and eventually came to "a
> deserted
> settlement, in whose center stood a ruined lander." This is
> from the
> paragraph immediately before the text quoted above by Marc.
> After the quoted
> text, it is established that this is the lander that Horn
> and his remaining
> men tried to restore. They found "cards as well as bones in
> the wretched
> huts" of that deserted settlement, and used the cards to
> restore the
> lander's monitor. Directed by the monitor, they "tried to
> restore the lander
> itself, raiding the few settlements we could locate, and
> sometimes carying
> heavy parts from other landers for scores of leagues." They
> didn't succeed,
> but came close. Sinew betrayed his father and there was
> more fighting, until
> only two men were left. They too left him.
> 
> The "canted tower" of the quote is the lander Horn died in,
> one of the many
> ruined landers scattered all over Blue and Green, landers
> that had been
> launched from the _Whorl_. We later learn that the lander
> Horn died in is
> not far from Sinew's village, but it is far from the City
> of the Inhumi.
> 
> -Roy
> 
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