"'Oh, Niall, death itself cannot quench my wanting of you.'
"The wind keened, the sea rumbled."
-Poul and Karen Anderson, Dahut, Chapter XIX, section 3, p. 432.
Our old friend, the wind, returns. As for the sea, when it has destroyed Ys, the drowned Dahut will persist as a siren who sings of vengeance to Niall:
"Someone sported in the surf, white as itself, like a seal but long and lithe of limb..."
-Poul and Karen Anderson, The Dog And The Wolf, Chapter I, section 3, p. 35.
The siren also sings of her love for Niall, stronger than death. Dahut had said that herself, before her death, but we probably do not remember unless we reread.
4 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I've told Poul Anderson that the story of Dahut has to be thought of as one of his few horror stories. And that Dahut was his first actually EVIL female character.
Sean
Kaor, Sean!
I'm a bit behind on the blog. Na Violante de Lebia Tari in ROGUE SWORD was pretty evil. One could say that she was psychologically messed up, but how far that excuses her behavior is debatable; during most of the novel, she appears to be at least minimally sane.
Best Regards,
Nicholas D. Rosen
Nicholas,
Thanks. I don't remember that character too well.
Paul.
Kaor, Nicholas!
I'm chagrined! Why didn't I think of Na Violante both at the time I wrote to Poul Anderson and more recently in this blog? After all, I've read ROGUE SWORD at least three times!
I could argue that Na Violante was not as evil as Dahut because the harm she did or tried to do did not as affect as many people as what Dahut had done. Also, at the end of ROGUE SWORD, Na Violante is more pathetic than actively evil.
Sean
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