Hiero's Journey, Chapter Three:
For a chapter-by-chapter index to this series, click here.
(For the previous entry in this series, see here.)
(For the previous entry in this series, see here.)
Kurt
Vonnegut once wrote that no sentence in fiction should do anything other than
develop character or advance the plot. This is a bit extreme - there is
something to be said for describing the setting, after all - but it is a principle to which Sterling Lanier generally tries to adhere. Chapter 3 of Hiero's story, "The Cross and the Eye,"
certainly develops Per Desteen's character, if by that you mean his physical
and mental abilities (rather than, say, his personality or motivations). For enthusiasts of the low-fantasy genre and
of role-playing games various and sundry that's all "character" needs
to mean. The chapter also advances both
Hiero's eponymous journey and the reader's understanding of his Evil Unclean mutant
adversaries' capabilities.
Early in this chapter Hiero and his animal companions cross the last eighty miles of the boreal forest that Hiero's people call the Taig (taiga). They then plunge into the lush unpleasantness of the Palood, the vast swamp fringing the Inland Sea. (I know not where the word Palood comes from; there is a French word palourde, but it means "clam.") Lanier also gives Hiero the chance to show off more of his heroic abilities. For a start, he uses his "nerve-block training" (50) to suppress pain while he stitches up his wounded leg, and one begins to suspect that the abbey where he trained is the 75th-century Canadian equivalent of the Shaolin temple. Later Hiero uses his seer's crystal to boost his native ESP, so that he can mentally scout the landscape ahead, and draws his "casting stones" to trigger his precognition and find out what perils await him and his companions. Among the stones he draws is the Cross and Eye, a symbol for great spiritual evil. This does not prevent our hero from pushing ahead into swamp-land; indeed, an extraordinary occurrence during Hiero's mind-projection convinces him he's found a shortcut through the Palood. During this brief mental voyage our hero inadvertently occupies the "highly intelligent" and very angry mind of an Unclean agent, piloting an unpowered glider high above the Taig. This episode perplexes Per Desteen, but does give him a brief bird's-eye view of his surroundings and allow him to spot the narrowest part of the upcoming Palood, and thus the shortest route through it to the sea.
Early in this chapter Hiero and his animal companions cross the last eighty miles of the boreal forest that Hiero's people call the Taig (taiga). They then plunge into the lush unpleasantness of the Palood, the vast swamp fringing the Inland Sea. (I know not where the word Palood comes from; there is a French word palourde, but it means "clam.") Lanier also gives Hiero the chance to show off more of his heroic abilities. For a start, he uses his "nerve-block training" (50) to suppress pain while he stitches up his wounded leg, and one begins to suspect that the abbey where he trained is the 75th-century Canadian equivalent of the Shaolin temple. Later Hiero uses his seer's crystal to boost his native ESP, so that he can mentally scout the landscape ahead, and draws his "casting stones" to trigger his precognition and find out what perils await him and his companions. Among the stones he draws is the Cross and Eye, a symbol for great spiritual evil. This does not prevent our hero from pushing ahead into swamp-land; indeed, an extraordinary occurrence during Hiero's mind-projection convinces him he's found a shortcut through the Palood. During this brief mental voyage our hero inadvertently occupies the "highly intelligent" and very angry mind of an Unclean agent, piloting an unpowered glider high above the Taig. This episode perplexes Per Desteen, but does give him a brief bird's-eye view of his surroundings and allow him to spot the narrowest part of the upcoming Palood, and thus the shortest route through it to the sea.
One
of the pleasures of post-apocalyptic fiction, incidentally, is identifying
elements of the destroyed old world that are mysterious to the story's
protagonists. Readers of John Christopher's YA novel The White Mountains, for
instance, can enjoy (at least until I spoil it for them here) guessing that the
letters "Lect City" on a corroded 20th-century sign once spelled
"Electricity," or that a raised iron road called a
"Shmand-fair" is actually an old French railroad (chemin de fer).
Lanier describes the Unclean pilot's vehicle sufficiently well to allow the
reader to deduce that it is a glider, but then he spoils the game by writing (I
paraphrase here) that "Hiero couldn't know this, but it's a glider."
Thanks loads, mate.
At any rate, mindful now that the Unclean Evil Mutants (UEMs, for short) have advanced technology and are using it to look for him, Hiero decides to plunge ahead into the Palood, which Lanier describes in terms that would have delighted Freud - thick, lush, damp, full of "fetid decay and overripe growth" (56). The inevitable mosquitoes swarm so thickly that Hiero, Gorm, and Klootz are obliged to wear face masks (nice touch, that). There are other dangerous things in the swamp, like the 15-ton froglike horror that menaces Hiero and co. midway through the chapter, and which finally decides to leap over the travelers and attack another giant frog 100 meters away. Personally, I doubt that any frogs would have survived a nuclear war and subsequent climatic upheaval, but Lanier was writing before we knew how environmentally sensitive frogs actually are, so we'll give him a partial pass on this one. (If they had been giant poison frogs, or something like this, I would give a full pass.) The reader may be disappointed that there was no man-versus-frog fight scene forthcoming, but I think Lanier was trying to keep to a one-fight-per-chapter rule, and the big confrontation in this chapter lies ahead.
During Chapter Two of Hiero's Journey Lanier presented readers with some additional details about the UEMs, which I left out of my last blog entry because, hey, there was a lot of action to cover. Hiero spent part of this section looking through the belongings of S'nerg, the improbably-named UEM leader whom he dispatched at the end of Chapter One (with a big assist from Gorm the Bear). These included a telescoping antenna with several disks attached, which, with almost unbelievable serendipity, Hiero accidentally pressed against his head, thereby discovering the device was a telepathic communicator. Hiero briefly got to enjoy having a UEM gauleiter yell at him in his head, before he finally broke the connection. I suspect we all know some managerial types who would kill to have such a device on their desks, ready to use against subordinates. The ex-mutant's belongings also included a round, compass-like device with a dial and a "fiery bead of light," presumably an LED indicator. Hiero can't identify this machine, but we may presume it includes some sort of tracking device, because later in Chapter Three, while Hiero and his companions are in the midst of an exhausted and possibly artificial sleep, a light begins flashing on the device. Shortly thereafter, Hiero and his companions were confronted by the Dweller in the Mist, about whom I will have to write in my next entry because I've already expended 1,000 words getting us this far.
Coming next: Like all Canadians, Hiero is invited to partake of "unspeakable pleasures."
(Some links added 22 Aug. 2015.)
At any rate, mindful now that the Unclean Evil Mutants (UEMs, for short) have advanced technology and are using it to look for him, Hiero decides to plunge ahead into the Palood, which Lanier describes in terms that would have delighted Freud - thick, lush, damp, full of "fetid decay and overripe growth" (56). The inevitable mosquitoes swarm so thickly that Hiero, Gorm, and Klootz are obliged to wear face masks (nice touch, that). There are other dangerous things in the swamp, like the 15-ton froglike horror that menaces Hiero and co. midway through the chapter, and which finally decides to leap over the travelers and attack another giant frog 100 meters away. Personally, I doubt that any frogs would have survived a nuclear war and subsequent climatic upheaval, but Lanier was writing before we knew how environmentally sensitive frogs actually are, so we'll give him a partial pass on this one. (If they had been giant poison frogs, or something like this, I would give a full pass.) The reader may be disappointed that there was no man-versus-frog fight scene forthcoming, but I think Lanier was trying to keep to a one-fight-per-chapter rule, and the big confrontation in this chapter lies ahead.
During Chapter Two of Hiero's Journey Lanier presented readers with some additional details about the UEMs, which I left out of my last blog entry because, hey, there was a lot of action to cover. Hiero spent part of this section looking through the belongings of S'nerg, the improbably-named UEM leader whom he dispatched at the end of Chapter One (with a big assist from Gorm the Bear). These included a telescoping antenna with several disks attached, which, with almost unbelievable serendipity, Hiero accidentally pressed against his head, thereby discovering the device was a telepathic communicator. Hiero briefly got to enjoy having a UEM gauleiter yell at him in his head, before he finally broke the connection. I suspect we all know some managerial types who would kill to have such a device on their desks, ready to use against subordinates. The ex-mutant's belongings also included a round, compass-like device with a dial and a "fiery bead of light," presumably an LED indicator. Hiero can't identify this machine, but we may presume it includes some sort of tracking device, because later in Chapter Three, while Hiero and his companions are in the midst of an exhausted and possibly artificial sleep, a light begins flashing on the device. Shortly thereafter, Hiero and his companions were confronted by the Dweller in the Mist, about whom I will have to write in my next entry because I've already expended 1,000 words getting us this far.
Coming next: Like all Canadians, Hiero is invited to partake of "unspeakable pleasures."
(Some links added 22 Aug. 2015.)
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