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

---

After a commentary from Chade about the decline of the Elderlings and the legendary alliance between them and the early Farseers, “Chalced” begins with Wolf-Father speaking to Bee of his being carried by the scruff of his neck as she emerges from the Skill-pillar into a hollow in the ground. Dwalia and the others–including Reppin–are crammed into the hollow with her, and Reppin finds herself pushed back into the stone as Wolf-Father helps Bee ground herself. She assesses her situation as Dwalia and the others fret and begin to panic.

At Wolf-Father’s urging, Bee attempts to pass back through the Skill-pillar, to no avail; at Wolf-Father’s further urging, Bee sleeps. When she wakes, Bee assesses her situation again, and she is somewhat taken aback by Kerf’s blunt discussion of their prospects and offer to kill her rather than let her suffer through what will come. Bee demurs, and the sounds of life outside the hollow begin to reach the group. Light begins to filter into the hollow, revealing it as the result of a collapse rather than a deliberate construction, and Kerf manages to move the fallen stones enough for Bee to slip out. She hides and watches as the others emerge, and Kerf notes his recognition of their location. Bee takes advantage of the others’ distraction to hide herself better, free from them but in a strange place.

The present chapter is not the first to bear the title “Chalced”; a chapter late in Blood of Dragons does so, as well. It is tempting to read the present chapter against the earlier, the coincidence of titles alone suggesting it as a short project that might well be done; the content of the present chapter, emerging from the content of the earlier, affirms it. I’m not going to do so at this point; it is very much the thing that makes for a decent scholarly someday, perhaps a good thing to take up in a post to this webspace that is not part of the rereading series, proper. I do always need to find outlets for my desire to write, after all, and turning to something resembling literary critical practice provides them in plenty. How the rest of my life will allow for such, though, I am not sure–hence the “someday” bit.

Anyway, the present chapter is relatively brief, only some eleven pages in my copy. (Again, I really need to get a cohesive run of the Realm of the Elderlings novels to see how the page numbers all line up. I really do think there’s something to the chapter-length, although I acknowledge that that might well be me digging deeper to find something than is needful or even useful. Such is life.) It does a good job, I think, of reinforcing something that a number of prior chapters in the Realm of the Elderlings novels point up: the danger of Skill-pillars. Repeatedly throughout the works, mention is made of the perils of traveling to unknown pillars, the thought of what would happen if the destination pillar was submerged (as here), broken, or buried. Bee and her captors–save Reppin–were lucky in the event (although so much could be expected, Bee being a deuteragonist and so needing to be around for the duration), but they need not have been. And the fact of Reppin being pushed back into the pillar…there are some implications there that stand some interrogating, I think.

Perhaps another scholarly someday is in order for that.

Want some more help with your writing? I’m still your guy! Fill out the form below to get started with me!

Or you can send your support along directly!

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

---

Following an excerpt from Bee’s dream journals, “In the Mountains” opens with Bee waking to find her efforts at escape noticed. Dwalia rebukes the others in her group and orders Bee secured more stringently, which orders are carried out with complaint. Dwalia, angry at needing to remain in place for another night, commands the others to seek out wood, and while they do, Bee finds evidence of her father’s presence and the bear attack he suffered. Dwalia also notices and retrieves some of what Fitz had carried.

Dwalia considers her findings, snapping angrily at the others in her group as she does, and Bee considers them. Wolf-Father speaks within her, offering counsel for how to proceed. In the night, she hears dissension brewing among Dwalia’s group as they lay out details of how their mission began and how Dwalia came to lead it. Bee notes not understanding all of what is said, but she takes from their conversation what she can, and not only about Clerres. At the group’s discussion of dreams, Bee considers her own, her captivity-enforced inability to record them, and the increasing urgency of the dreams as they go unrecorded. Pretending to write eases her somewhat.

More days pass, and matters among Dwalia’s party deteriorate. The one Bee had injured, Reppin, suffers the effects of the injury, and the others question Dwalia. Bee, advised by Wolf-Father, notes the nearby presence of a bear, and she finds herself confronted by Kerf, who is much taken by the Skill-visions that pervade their location. Strangely sympathetic, Kerf does offer her some ease, and she makes another attempt at escape that Dwalia violently interdicts. In the wake thereof, Kerf speaks to Bee again, and Dwalia arrives at an understanding of her location. Prompted, Kerf offers information about where he has seen one of the runes the local Skill-pillars display, although he hesitates to tender more assistance. Bee makes another unsuccessful attempt at escape, and Reppin is abandoned as Dwalia compels the group through another Skill-pillar.

The present chapter does fill in a bit of lore hinted at but not, to my recollection, presented before: the name of the Pale Woman. So far as I recall or have notes of (and I will acknowledge that my memory is not what it used to be, as well as that my notes may well not be complete), the Pale Woman was only referred to by that epithet or addressed directly previously. To have confirmation of her name as Ilistore does not necessarily change any previous reading, but it is nice to have a bit more information, a bit more depth and detail in an already well-built narrative world. It’s something I appreciate.

The present chapter also speaks to something I’ve noticed in Hobb’s work before: a focus on writing as writing. There’s a lot to say on the topic of how Hobb presents writing, even outside the present series that makes as much of both Fitz’s and Bee’s writing as it does–it’s probably another scholarly someday to trace it out. I will note, though, that there are times Hobb gets fairly heavy-handed about her thoughts about writing; Words like Coins, a minor entry in the Realm of the Elderlings corpus, and one I will eventually treat in this reread, offers an example, as I’ve noted before. Bee’s need to record her dreams, the way the dreams press upon her consciousness until she does so, seems another such comment. It’s not necessarily revelatory, admittedly; among others, Asimov quips about the demands of writing for a writer, and I, myself, have made comments about it (here and here, if not also elsewhere). But that something is not new or unique does not mean it does not merit attention; indeed, how much work done to understand literature (or any art), and how much of the enjoyment of the same, inheres in finding what a given piece pulls from and references?

I also note with some joy the ponerological thrust of the chapter (not least because I delight in the opportunity to use the word). The nature of evil has been a topic in the Realm of the Elderlings novels before, of course (here, for example), and I have written about the cartoonishness of some of the later iterations (here, here, and here, by that term). Dwalia’s readiness to abandon her companions and their plotting against her, with reference to higher-level plotting and infighting, seems to align with that, and I’m unsure how I feel about it. Part of what I like about Hobb is her nuancing of tropes; this seems less in that line than I have been used to seeing, although it may be that my reading has shifted as I have gotten older. Like I note above, my memory isn’t what it used to be.

Want some help with your writing? I’m your guy! Fill out the form below to get started with me!

Or you can send your support along directly!

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

---

Commentary from Fitz regarding the Outislander concept of finblead precedes “The Silver Touch,” which opens with Fitz experiencing the onset of elfbark’s effects as administered by Lant in Kelsingra. As the drug takes effect, upset continues to surround Fitz, with Rapskal repeating his accusations against the Fool as Amber, that she stole Silver, and manhandling her as Spark tries to extricate her. Fitz rehearses recent events, realizing that the series of Skill-workings he has performed on the people of Kelsingra will have drained him in ways he cannot yet address. Malta and Reyn work to take the situation in hand, and Amber frees herself with the threat of contact with the Silver, which Thymara backs.

Released from Rapskal’s grip but not his accusation, Amber reports that she bore Silver on her hand long before, even early in her relationship with Malta. The re-launching of the Paragon is noted, and Amber asserts that, at that point, she had marked Malta with Silvered fingers. Reyn affirms the assertion, and Amber attests to how she had come to bear the Silver that had marked Malta. Further discussion is quashed, and Fitz and his party are escorted to their rooms. There, Fitz finds that the elfbark he has taken has not fully impeded his Skill, and he inadvertently effects more healing, rejecting further assistance against the risk of yet more uncontrolled expression of power. The revelation prompts heated private conversation with the Fool, one that wearies Fitz to sleep.

Fitz partly wakes to find himself being attended and discussed; Lant evidently recalls his first experience of FitzChivalry Farseer clearly, and Perseverance had evidently paid attention to Withywoods gossip. Fitz recalls Molly amid his dozing, and Lant and Perseverance discuss the challenge looming before them of bringing Fitz home.

Slumbering more deeply, Fitz communes with a dragon in dream. The dragon, seemingly Sintara, notes displeasure with Fitz’s healings and presses him for information about his errand. Fitz admits to seeking vengeance on Clerres, and the dragon recalls an unspecified ill there. Fitz wakes in the night and begins to tend himself, assisted uneasily by Lant. The pair confer, and Lant apprises Fitz of how matters stand in Kelsingra as regards them. Lant moves off to retrieve supplies, and Amber joins Fitz, aided by Perseverance. More reports follow, and Fitz notes the peril in his continued Skill-workings in the city. He notes, too, his desire to depart, to which the rest agree, although Amber advises against a hasty exit, explaining some difficulties that would attend on such a thing. An invitation to dine with Reyn and Malta arrives, and Amber notes that bargaining will soon begin.

The prefatory comments to the chapter once again attract my attention. Here, is it because they once again look at the language of the Outislanders, something that has attracted Fitz’s attention before (for example, here). I have commented in earlier pieces about some of the ways in which Hobb uses something like early English to reflect the language of the Outislanders, something in which she mimics Tolkienian practice (yes, I know, but I also know) regarding Rohan and Gondor; the two peoples are akin, at some level, and their language shows similarities therefore. In the present case, however, the term being referenced seems much less…considered…than earlier examples; “finblead” seems a medievalist skinning rather than an earnest invocation of the medieval. It’s definitely the kind of thing that piques my interest, given my associations, so I think it will be something to which I return in some earnest.

The present chapter does a good job of demonstrating how the Fool manages to mislead without lying. As Amber, the Fool meets Rapskal’s accusation of having stolen Silver with the assertion that she had been marked by it before Rapskal was born–which is true enough; the Fool was marked by having touched Verity amid his work on his dragon. Not said is that the Fool as Amber did not go to the Silver well; she did, in fact, do so; what she says is that the magic that marks her “is the same that was accidentally gifted to [her] by King Verity” (28). But that, of course, he has from Kelsingra before. It’s honestly adept word-work, very much in keeping with the idea of the Fool as a jester (about which I’ve written before). I wonder if it’s something to which I might also return in time, yet another of my many scholarly somedays; I think I am building quite a collection of them at this point.

The present chapter also does well what the preceding chapter does: explicate the situation. As previously, the final book in a series can rightly expect (to the extent that anthropomorphizing a text is appropriate, which may well not be no extent, as I’ve gestured towards before) that its readers are broadly familiar with the series and so need not recapitulate every detail. Also as previously, any subsequent book in a series must expect that there has been some time between its release and that of its most recent predecessor, meaning that it should expect to have to do something to catch readers up on what’s going on. Too, my own readerly experience has not always been able to take in a series from its beginning; I’ve been paid to write lesson plans for many works (something I’m happy to do for you, too!), and no few of them have been later volumes in series with which I was not familiar when I took on the projects. Having explicatory passages has been helpful for me to understand what is going on well enough to write something to help other people teach it. I can easily imagine that someone else would be in a similar situation, or that a reader new to Hobb would see a copy of the present volume on a bookstore shelf and pick it up, coming in at the end and needing to know what has gone before.

If the Iliad can pick up where it does, surely later works can also do so.

School’s back in session? Need help? Fill out the form below!

Or you can send your support along directly!