Read the previous entry in the series here.
Read the next entry in the series here.

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A message from Detozi to her new relation, Erek, commending him and advising him precedes “Pathways,” which begins with Thymara considering her upbringing in the Rain Wilds and the disjunction from it to her present circumstances near Kelsingra. Local geographical features, described, intrigue her. The difficulties imposed on her by inclement weather and degraded equipment are noted as she is joined by Tats. As they proceed together, the two talk about the likely permanence of their relocation, and Thymara finds herself assessing her long-time friend again. The gain and loss involved in the relocation receives attention, as well, and Thymara carefully considers the options available to her–including in terms of relationships, returning to the ideas of social sexual taboos that she had been raised to respect.

The conversation between Thymara and Tats is interrupted by her sighting game, which is described. Before the hunters can seize upon it, however, Heeby falls upon it, fouling Thymara’s shot and taking the meat. The hunters move on, getting distance from the feeding dragon and the smell of death that will drive other quarry away, and they talk about their relationships with their dragons–and hers with her family. They are interrupted again by the arrival of Rapskal, who apologizes for Heeby’s interference in their hunt before annoying Tats into stalking off. Rapskal asks Thymara to go to Kelsingra with him to show her something.

Thymara reflects on her one sojourn to the ruined city, which is described in some detail. The strange juxtaposition of desolation and preservation receives attention, and the sound of wolves drives most of the keepers away. Rapskal, however, carried by Heeby, visits frequently.

Rapskal reiterates his plea to Thymara, which she refuses, citing the need to feed Sintara. He grudgingly offers to help her hunt, and she similarly accepts his offer.

Elsewhere, Selden is rousted brusquely and in some confusion, roughly assessed by his enslaver and a potential buyer. Selden protests the treatment proposed of him, but the enslaver and the potential buyer reach an accord, and terrible proceedings begin.

The description of the game sighted by Thymara and taken by Heeby reads to me as nothing so much as a moose, which could “have slung a sleeping net between the branches of his two flat-pronged antlers….His shoulders were immense, and a large hummock of meaty flesh rode them” (49). While moose do occur in Eurasia, they are most commonly associated with the subarctic regions of North America, another suggestion that the Realm of the Elderlings is well read as borrowing more from the New World than the Old. (Someday, perhaps, I will return to the project in a more sustained way; I do not know if I have another chapter in me on the subject, but perhaps I do.)

Less fortunate a parallel is in the enslavement of Selden. The degradations and desecrations involved in slavery in the Realm of the Elderlings novels are attested early on and in detail, and matters have not improved. Indeed, Selden fares worse than his brother did, not indentured against debt but flatly treated as butcherable livestock despite the acknowledgement by his enslavers of his sentience and, indeed, humanity. I cannot help but perceive the echoes of the system of chattel slavery that marks the early history of the United States, the effects of which remain all too present in the lives of all too many. This is not to say that other times and places did not have their own barbarities; of course they did. But that others have done wrong does not excuse the wrongs one does; whataboutism is a distraction, and tu quoque is long identified as a fallacy for good reason.

As I consider the matter of parallels further, I find myself somewhat stymied. If it is the case, as I have argued, that the Realm of the Elderlings should be read as a fantastical gloss on the Americas (not so much as Gernia in the Soldier Son novels, as I have had recent cause to reflect upon, but still), then I have to wonder what Kelsingra ought to be heard as echoing. Should the ruined streets and broken towers be regarded as some refiguration of X̱á:ytem, perhaps, or Cahokia? Do the cyclopean remains of Chichen Itza offer an antecedent, or does Teotihuacan, or Copán, or Tenochtitlán? Or is this, instead, a case where the fantastic emerges from the mundane, the miraculous from the quotidian?

I confess to not being adequately informed about any of them to offer any kind of useful answer to such questions–only just barely enough to be able to ask them. But perhaps others, more knowledgeable, can offer those answers.

I shall read and learn eagerly from those who do.

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