Like a good Neighbor

Roy C. Lackey · 19 Nov 2011, 23:42 · from 2011-November.txt.gz

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From: rclackey at stic.net (Roy C. Lackey)
Date: Sat, 19 Nov 2011 17:42:19 -0600
Subject: (urth) Like a good Neighbor
Message-ID: <002001cca714$e3ec4b00$abcf4a0c@rclackey>

Both Marc and James hold that Horn died in the pit. Marc says that Horn was
somehow eaten by a tree that left behind a body that looked just like the
Horn who fell into the pit, with the spirit of Horn intact. James has it
that Horn's spirit died in the pit, along with the body, but the body was
repaired and a Neighbor's spirit replaced Horn's. In the latter case, who
brutally raped Seawrack, soon after getting out of the pit? A good Neighbor?

While staying at Inclito's house, Silkhorn was yet again contacted by Mucor,
sans body, to tell him that Babbie had come back to her and Marble. She
greeted Silkhorn with, "There you are, Silk. There you are, Horn. I've been
looking everywhere for you." (IGJ, 146-47) Did she not know who she was
talking to, close to two years after sending her spirit to the Long Sun
Whorl to search for Silk at Horn's behest?

At the end of IGJ, Silkhorn was visited by two Neighbors. He asked them,
"Will the inhumi really drive us away as they did you?" He was answered
with, "You cannot go where we are." (381) At this point, Silkhorn had made
astral trips to both Green and Urth. If Silkhorn was being animated by a
Neighbor at that time, one implication is that the Neighbors had not gone
away to either Green or Urth when they left the Blue-Green solar system,
regardless of whether or not Silkhorn possessed an innate Neighbor's assumed
ability to travel astrally and/or in time.

Another implication is that those two Neighbors didn't know that they were
talking to a fellow Neighbor, which strikes me as strange since Neighbors
knew where to find Horn in the pit, on Green and, apparently, Silk on the
LSW, and Silkhorn there in Blanko territory and still later in Dorp. I
suppose they could have been lying or just bad guys, but Oreb, generally
taken to be a good judge of character, greeted those two Neighbors with,
"Good things. Things come."

-Roy

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