Jorith dies giving birth to Dagobert whose first child is Tharasmund. Thus, the line of descent from Carl, the Wanderer, is:
Dagobert
Tharasmund
Hathawulf, Solbern and Alawin
In the opening chapter, 372, the Wanderer had described Jorith as Alawin's "'...father's father's mother...'" (p. 340)
Dagobert's father visits him briefly every few years. Dagobert himself leads the Teurings south from the Vistula to the Dnieper. His grandparents stay behind:
"When the wagons had creaked away, the Wanderer sought those two out, one last time; and was kind to them, for the sake of what had been and of her who slept by the River Vistula." (p. 384)
"...one last time...," "...what had been..." This is the passage of time measured in lifetimes. p. 384 is a poignant ending but the main drama is still to come, two generations later.
4 comments:
One ironic point: they think the Wanderer is unaging.
He is... but he'd -look- unaging to them anyway, because he's skipping forward in time while they're living through it, 24/7.
The Goths know nothing of antithanatics or time travel but they sure see the effects and are bound to draw supernaturalist conclusions.
Paul: right. It's the most logical explanation from their p.o.v.
OTOH, that's about par for the course in their cultural background. I think it's mentioned in the story that the tales of the Wanderer aren't much different from hundreds of others about supernatural creatures intervening in human affairs.
Goths wouldn't necessarily expect explicit appearances from Gods and so forth, but they'd all think that it happened -sometimes-, and if it did to them here and now, well, that was extraordinary but not really -outre-.
In one of the other Patrol stories, the one set in Bactria, Everard tells a younger Time Patrol agent (she's from 1950's Jamaica) that an appearance by the Gods in an era like that is like a story about CIA agents leaping out of helicopters in her country in her own time. It's exciting and exotic, but not unimaginable and if it remains just a story it rapidly sinks into the background of rumor and tale.
Post a Comment