Chapter 4
Zelana
starts us off by drifting westward over the sea on the wind. Fair enough, it’s
an effective way to travel from A to B and it’s not like it’s laborious. She’s
heading west because she knows that there was a continent over there before she
got obsessed with the pink dolphins, once again bringing up the plot hole that they
seem to live forever as apparently there’s a real risk that continental drift
had already moved it away since she retreated to her grotto. I should also take
this moment to apologize, as apparently pink dolphins are a real phenomenon in
the form of albinism. Given that there’s an entire race of them I’m not sure if
it counts, but whatever. This book could benefit from having less plot holes,
so we’ll give it the benefit of the doubt. The sea is always referred to as ‘Mother
Sea’, which irks me… but that’s just my personal preference. Also, since the sea
in this setting is actually sentient the term is not entirely without merit.
How did the sea become sentient? Never explained, but apparently both the
planet and its moon are also sentient, as are: lightning; a manicure sun; the
winds (I think. Brief mention in a later book, and I could be misremembering).
I want you to dwell on that for a moment. The air has thoughts and feelings in
this world. You’re breathing in a sentient entity. That is all kinds of
horrifying.
It also
occurs to me that Zelana is arguably the worst goddess ever. She seems to be
such a fifth wheel in the whole running the universe thing, what with the fact
that she went into a cave and wrote poetry for a few millennia and everything
seemed to go along fine without her. Likewise, her brother got sent to the moon
for a similar amount of time with likewise no ill effects to his domain. I don’t
know, it seems like their presence isn’t really necessary either within the
context of the story world, or that of the narrative. In all honesty, I feel
that the story would have benefited if, instead of a goddess floating over the
ocean to go find outlanders to bring against her enemies, we were following a
lone tribesman braving the terrors of the open oceans in a desperate bid to
find someone, anyone, who could help save his tribe from the horrors of the Vlagh.
I don’t know, maybe I don’t find immortal and all-powerful protagonists that
interesting.
Anyway,
Zelana demonstrates her hit-and-miss knowledge of the world by not knowing what
a ship is (Despite her fellow gods knowing about how savage and warlike the
outlanders are, or even knowing about metalworking. Maybe she just didn’t ask
them for any information on the people she was going to try and meet… which
considering the urgency of her mission and the fact that using her fellow gods’
experience could save her valuable time seems to me to be a bit stupid). She
lands on the water and tiptoes towards the longboat. Screw you physics, I’m a
goddess! On the bright side, we’ve got a ship full of Viking warriors about to
be introduced to the story, and that has to be an improvement… right?
Ok, one
quick thing. Zelana quote ‘adjusted her hearing’ unquote to understand the Vikings.
Except that we established that the understanding of languages comes from
telepathy and has nothing to do with hearing, and we established this about 2-3
pages ago. They weren’t even trying.
In a surprisingly
well executed exposition dump we learn that the longboat is called the Seagull, the first mate is known as Ox,
the Vikings are known as the ‘Maags’, and their favorite prey are a race known
as the ‘Trogites’. I wouldn’t say that
the dialogue here is flowing, but I’ve seen a lot worse in my time and it gets
the job done quickly, cleanly, and without feeling too forced.
Take another
shot, the Maags are referred to as ‘Man-Creatures’. Seriously David, what have
you got against the word ‘humans’? Zelana knows what humans are, why do we need
the stupid hyphenated speech-on-paper-thing? Anyway, goddess-called-Zelana sits
on
big-water-thing-known-to-some-as-mother-sea-but-to-others-as-the-ocean-and-this-joke-is-going-on-too-long
and thinks, somehow avoiding hurting herself while doing so. She concludes that
the Maags are not in fact fishermen, what with their weapons and the fact that
they were talking about hunting down other ships. She also deduces that they
are in fact out to steal gold from the Trogites, for reasons that she cannot
fathom. I can’t actually fault her on this, as throughout the books the concept
of money is never broached or explained to any of the Dhrall characters,
leaving them to wonder about this obsession with gold the outlanders have. More
on that later.
It is now
that we are introduced to one of our interchangeable outlander main cast, Sorgan
Hook-Beak. His defining qualities are that he’s in charge and he’s greedy, with
the generic persona of a lovable rogue of the pirate persuasion. We’re mixing
and matching cultures at this point, just roll with it. We are also introduced
to the other Maags, most of whom we never hear about again. However, there are
two that we will see regularly introduced here: Kryda Ham-Hand and Rabbit.
Ham-Hand and Ox never receive any real characterization beyond dumb muscle and
that Ox has terrible hayfever, though this never gets forshadowed and is only
mentioned when it becomes important to the plot in book 3. These two are
basically interchangeable. Rabbit is one of the few members of this entire
series with an IQ as high as room temperature, and as a result will be our ‘smart
guy’ from now on. Be prepared to find yourself dazzled by his intellect. He is
genuinely a skilled metalworker, which will prove consistently useful throughout
the four books.
They attack
a Trogite vessel, who’s inhabitants bail out rather than show resistance. I
personally feel that this is a poor way to demonstrate how badass these guys
are, as all it really shows is that their reputation is bad enough that a bunch
of unarmed merchants will jump ship rather than get slaughtered. Ox suggests
burning the vessel after they’ve finished looting it. Our hero, ladies and
gentlemen! Oh, and remember that this is out in the middle of the ocean, so
burning the ship would effectively condemn all those men to swimming until they
were too tired and drowned. Sorgan vetoes the suggestion on the grounds that if
they get their ship back they can be robbed again at a later date. Whatever you
say about that, at least it’s better than his first mate’s ‘burn everything’
mentality.
Long story
short, Zelana abducts them by asking the sea to create a strong current to the
land of Dhrall, pulling their ship along for the ride.
No comments:
Post a Comment