Short Story 110: The Cat

Gwern Branwen · 26 Aug 2014, 19:46 · from 2014-August.txt.gz

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From: gwern at gwern.net (Gwern Branwen)
Date: Tue, 26 Aug 2014 15:46:10 -0400
Subject: (urth) Short Story 110: The Cat
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On Tue, Aug 26, 2014 at 3:37 PM, Marc Aramini <marcaramini at gmail.com> wrote:
> That darkness and gloom of creation Gwern mentioned is evoked is because
> this is a Halloween story dressed as sf/fantasy, for what it's worth.

That's an out-of-universe reason for the setting yes, but look
carefully at Odilo's introduction: he tells us it's Halloween and he's
heard silly false stories:

> I heard such recountings of larva, lemures, and the like as would terrify every child in the Commonwealth-and make every man in it laugh most heartily.

But even though those stories of larva and lemures are false, there
still are dark powers and things in the universe, and Odilo has
witnessed them. To let people think that dark stories are false is
itself a failing:

> And do not such idle tales as I heard by the fire but serve to paint yet blacker that gloom through which we grope?

So Odilo has a responsibility:

> As every thinking man acknowledges, mighty powers move through this dark universe of Briah, though for the most part hidden from us by its infinite night. Is it not every man's duty to record what little he has glimpsed that may give light to it?...I am therefore determined to set down here, for the enlightenment (as it may be) of my successors and whoever else may read, the history, whole and in entire in so far as I know it, of a series of incidents that culminated (as I believe) this night ten years gone.

And so he tells us the story of Sancha and her brush with the dark
mighty powers hidden by infinite night (but reachable through
mirrors).

-- 
gwern
http://www.gwern.net

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