Ydwyr's arcane objects are:
two mounted animal skulls;
convoluted tubes and flasks;
a large carved monolith;
a large, beaked, leathery, winged, perched "thing" - alive or stuffed?
He describes them as:
"'...symbols...certain objects, certain rites, which different thinking species have found will help raise buried parts of the soul.'"
-copied from here.
See also:
"The Old Way To The One"?
Abandonment Of Reason?
Ydwyr lets Djana see what I call his arcane objects which are kept in an inner room not shown to most of his colleagues. He thinks that she:
"'...might understand where they cannot.'" (p. 298)
I had not previously mentioned that:
there are many more such objects than the few that are described and that I have listed;
they are "...barely lit by blue flambeaux in curiously wrought sconces..." (p. 299);
the flambeaux crackle like a forgotten song, emit pungent, brain-tingling smoke and make shadows that "...move like demons..." (ibid.)
Ydwyr, in his "lion voice" tells Djana not to be afraid and that:
"'These are not instruments of the darkness, they are pathfinders to enter it.'" (ibid.)
I thought that he was going to say that they were pathfinders to the light! The scene as described and the prospect of entering the darkness sound sufficiently frightening.
Ydwyr further explains:
"'The Vach Urdiolch are the landless ones. So is the Law, that they may have time and impartiality to save the Race.'" (pp. 299-300)
We know from "Day of Burning" that Urdiolch was landless long before the Roidhunate. Maybe they have made a virtue of a necessity or maybe that was the reason why they were chosen to be the Vach from which the Roidhuns were to be elected?
Their landlessness means that their wealth comes from what they can win offplanet which, in Ydwyr's case, is all this magical/mystical stuff.
"'This has put us in the forefront of the Race's outwardness; but it has also brought us closest to the unknowns of worlds never ours.'" (p. 300)
Ydwyr's four-armed, six-legged nurse practiced magic which got him interested in alien ways. He has been a disciple of Aycharaych who has looked deeper into "'...pandemic Mind...than any other being alive.'" (p. 301)
We have now looked deep inside both Brechdan Ironrede and Ydwyr the Seeker, two very different Merseians.
2 comments:
Paul:
Your reference to "arcane objects" and the reminder that he keeps them hidden even from most of his colleagues led me to wonder if most Merseians are sufficiently devout in their monotheism that they would be offended by his dabbling in what they might regard as heresy and witchcraft. But the use he makes of them seems to be only as "theatrical props" to manipulate Djana's mind, so perhaps the other Merseians are sophisticated enough to recognize that he's not truly engaging in heresy.
David,
He does mention that his objects suggest pagan cults etc. We know far too little about Merseian monotheism.
Paul.
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