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

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As another hateful missive from Kim in Cassarick reaches Detozi in Trehaug, this one treating infestations and allegations, “Other Lives” begins with Carson and Sedric conferring about the reasons behind the choice of Kelsingra’s location. The shifting shape of their life together receives some attention, as does their living situation–the latter of which rankles against the cleanly Sedric as Relpda’s hunger begins to press upon his mind. Sedric notes differences between his current and former lovers, and he and Carson confer together about their relationship and about the dragons that are in their care.

Thymara and Rapskal elsewhere confer abut Heeby’s increasing carrying capacity, which Rapskal demonstrates with little regard for Thymara’s wishes. Thymara arrives at realizations bout herself as Rapskal conducts her to Kelsingra. After an awkward dismount, Thymara surveys the city, Rapskal explaining his understanding of it and his inability to accurately convey that understanding to the others in their party. Thymara struggles to process the information and her place within it, and she comes to accept Rapskal’s assertions that they have but to remember the magic available to them as nascent Elderlings. That magic inheres in memory stone, and Thymara recoils at engaging with the material and the memories within, but Rapskal is able to persuade her to make the attempt at doing so.

Sintara grouses at having not been tended by Thymara, and her vexation is interrupted by the realization that Thymara is no longer accessible to her. Sintara reasons this means Thymara is dead, and she considers what other keeper she would take. She also reasons that Thymara’s death is Heeby’s fault, and she rages against the other dragon, and in her anger, she takes to the sky, exulting for a moment in doing so before becoming aware of doing so and faltering for a moment. In panic, Sintara makes a pair of shaky kills, taking heart and finding rest in doing so.

An interlude of a shared memory of long-ago lovers falling into an assignation follows. Thymara begins to emerge from the shared memory as Rapskal, still caught in it, presses forward with the assignation. A chance comment snaps Thymara fully from the memory, and she rebukes Rapskal bitterly as he attempts to explain matters. The explanation fails to satisfy, and Thymara stalks off, the prospect of falling into memories again calling to her until she realizes, belatedly, Sintara’s peril.

The present chapter reinforces the connection between the Elderlings and the Skill that I have noted, not only in my recent discussion of “Dragon Dreams,” but also in earlier entries in this series. Tintaglia’s connection to Nettle in the Tawny Man novels suggests the connection quite strongly, as does Selden Vestrit’s behavior in Buckkeep, and so does the propensity of Skill-users to find their way to the old stone-quarry and carve themselves into dragons. Thymara’s immersion in the memories of the long-dead Amarinda echoes the dangers of Skill-euphoria against which Fitz is warned and the perils of which he knows well, and Rapskal’s conduct is hardly a commendation. (I must note, though, that Rapskal, being under the influence of another stored personality, may not be wholly responsible for his actions. It’s not unlike intoxication in some regards, but there is an active sentience at work in the memory stones that is not found at the bottom of any cup or in the smoke of any toke.) So there is more thematic unity to be found in the Elderlings corpus, which is to its good.

The interchange between Sedric and Carson at the beginning of the chapter attracts my interest for a number of reasons, most of which have to do with my continued affective reading. Living where I do as I do (the rural Texas Hill Country), and being the kind of person that I am (a nerd, and a particularly bookish one), I understand Sedric’s…misalignment with the demands of living in the outskirts of Kelsingra. I, too, prefer to bathe regularly and to dress in clean, dry clothes; I, too, know that I would not do well if I were left to my own devices to find food and shelter outside of the comforts of civilization, that I would need assistance that I have nothing approaching a right to expect. At the same time, I also understand Carson’s attitude; I, too, want to make sure that those I love have what they want, and I grow frustrated at my all-too-limited ability to provide it to them. Again, I know it to be affective and therefore not necessarily desirable reading, but I am who I am. Clearly.

I note, too, amid Rapskal’s discussion of the Elderling civilization centered on Kelsingra a certain…parallel to another still-too-present feature of life in the United States: segregation. Rapskal remarks that “That side over there, all those huts and things, those were built for the humans….This side, all of this, this is for us” (149-50); it reads to me like a clear physical separation of people, and one distinctly unequal in application and benefit. It reads to me like a ghettoization of the have-nots within eyeshot of the haves, where each must look upon the other with something not apt to be love. A person might wonder what might end up being tried in what passes for the small towns thereabouts.

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