Stillness Broken

Vault Of The Ages, Chapter 1.

Carl says:

"'...a divided tribe is a weak tribe.'

"He sat for a while in a stillness broken only by..." (p. 18)

This is a pause at a dramatic moment in the dialogue. Anderson readers have learned to expect the wind to have its say during such a pause. It might howl around the farm house, for example. It will not be a gentle wind in these circumstances. This time, there is no wind but there are other appropriate sound effects. The sentence continues:

"...crackling of the fire and the whisper of the loom where John's wife worked. Somewhere outside, a wild dog howled [yes!], and Bull stirred where he lay on a deerskin and snarled an answer." (pp. 18-19)

John is the farmer. Bull is his dog. John has just told Carl that the northern Dalesmen will not muster for war but will stay at home - to guard their local peace and domesticity which Anderson's prose represents by the crackling fire and the whispering loom. But there is a howling outside! Some dogs have returned to the wilderness in the post-apocalyptic world and wild men will come out off that wilderness just as Huns come from the east and barbarians with spaceships come from beyond the marches of the Terran Empire in other works. We are very much in an Andersonian milieu.

Anderson's characters either defend or restore civilization. His works are a history of civilizations and of the interregnums between them.