Urth Net
Beast with Three Horns / Pike as Father of Blood
First, I'd like to say I think I found something pretty cool, but I'm not sure if its been discussed before. It's weird, but there is a ton of evidence for it (or at least a little bit that is hard to ignore).
First, off the main topic for just a second: Wolfe said Patera Pike was Blood's Father. Besides the common sense interpretation, "Who else could get Rose pregnant?", there is only one or two direct pieces of evidence. She watches Marble and Silk as they talk in Nightside the long sun, but I think the following passage from page 27 of my paperback edition shows the weird leaps in logic Silk can make: "He had at first called Blood sir (italics), and afterward, my son (italics), himself scarcely conscious of the change. But why? Sir because Blood had been riding in a floater of course; only the richest of men could afford to own floaters. My son (italics) afterward. "The old cull's dead, then? ... It doesn't make a bad bit's difference to us, does it, Patera? ... Nice of him."
Thinking of Blood as my son conjures the remembrance of Blood's treatment of Patera Pike. We must admit that that is a very insubstantial clue. Thinking of the words "my son" in conjunction with Pike's memory is about all the textual support we can find for identifying his father as Pike.
What I am about to explore involves a lot more textual evidence, but its very weird. Have we talked about it before here?
The prophecy Maytera Marble gives Horn in Chapter Three of On blue's Waters says "'I see long journeys, fear, hunger and cold, and feverish heat Then darkness. Then more darkness and a great wind. Wealth and command. I see you, Horn, riding upon a beast with three horns.' (She actually said this)" (pg 52 of SFBC Book of the Short Sun, pages different from Tor editions)
Incidentally, this is where Horn picks up Babbie for the first time.
Ok, then we get that weird scene at the very end of On blue's Waters where "someone on shore called again, for Babbie, and I understood that he mant me; it never so much as occurred to me then that I had sometimes been called "Silk" or "Horn." He who called me seemed quite near, and he called me with more urgency than Sewrack ever has." (221 of SFBC BOTSS) ..."Goodbye again Nettle. I have always loved you. Good-bye, Sinew, my son. [more good-byes to everybody]...I found him in the forest, sitting in the dark under the trees. I could not see him. It was too dark to see anything. But I knelt beside him and laid my head upon his knee, and he comforted me." (222)
Ok, so someone calling for Babbie was really calling for Horn. We have often noted that there is a big change between the narrator in On Blue's Waters when he is very depressed and at the beginning of In Green's Jungles. I believe that this is the point that some of Horn's spirit flees into Babbie (across a great distance, just as it fled into Silk from a great distance).
Here is further evidence, from chapter 17 of Return to the Whorl, when Babbie undertakes Astral travel with Silk and Hoof (Hoof is the narrator): "Our boat was water, and Babbie was a hairy man with thick arms and real big shoulders, and glasses, and a couple of Babbie's eyes." (707) ""It's me Babbie. It's Hoof' ...Something hapened then that surprised me as much as just about anything I saw on the Red Sun Whorl, except for the part right at the last. Becuase Babbie threw his arms around me and gave me a great big hug, saying "huh! huh! huh!" and lifted me off my feet. Babbie's arms were shorter than mine, but thicker than my legs, and he was the strongest person I ever met." (712). The Huh Huh Huh could be either an attempt to say Hoof or Horn, and later: "Babbie was pointing to his mouth. "Huh-huh-huh." ...Father knew right away what he wanted. He gave Babbie a big curved knigfe with a double-edged blade, and then another one just like it, telling him he had to be careful how he used them." Babbie points at where his horns (and I looked up Horn in the dictionary to be sure it could be used for Tusks)used to be and says huh huh huh just as before he tried to say Horn but could only get out huh huh huh.
Horn rides a Beast with Three Horns! Two are tusks, and one is Horn himself! Have we discussed this before? At the end of On blue's Waters when Horn says goodbye, part of his spirit goes into Babbie, and that is the change in him from one book to the next. I'm so sure of this right now. Babbie recognized his son and joyfully hugged him. Pretty cool, huh?