A Circus Of Hells, CHAPTER FOURTEEN.
Sometimes a passage of scripture, Shakespeare or other literature seems to apply directly to a current situation but that is because a situation has arisen that exactly fits the text.
"'Your words shall be shared and chewed on,' G'ung decided. 'We shall assemble tonight. Meanwhile is much to do while light remains.' The darkness of Talwin's clouded summer was pitchy; and in this dry period, fires were restricted and torches tabooed." (p. 293)
(I am familiar with "pitch-black" but not so much with "pitchy," which my computer does not recognize.)
The words "...dry period, fires..." seem to me to apply directly to the current catastrophe in Australia.
Unusually, this Domrath tribe lives during summer not in temporary shelters but in a village of dry-laid stone houses built by the Ruadrath whom they never see. An old female thinks that she glimpsed a Ruad once in an early spring when she was young. The Domrath leave payment for -
"Ruadrath: elves, gods, winter ghosts." (p. 294)
One Dom, cleaning bronze tools of the Ruadrath, makes a sign which:
"...surely reflected the universal sense of a mortal creature confronting the unknown." (ibid.)
Really universal? Here is another xenological analogue or generalization.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
I fear my characteristic writing style is ponderous, heavy, and repetitive! (Smiles)
And "pitchy" was merely another way of Anderson saying the night was "pitch dark."
I would like to see the Domrath learning how to use metals themselves. But that would probably first mean they would have to be able to be awake longer than a miserable seven months or so of Talwin's long year.
Ad astra! Sean
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