(urth) a lurker asks a question

[Jeff Wilson]

Steve McCann wrote:
> A quick run through the chapter _The Master of the Curators_ in SotT and 
> I'm not seeing this citation, even though I thought I had remembered it 
> as well. Was the book in Baldanders castle? But I did run across this 
> passage:
> 
> "I opened the book at random and read, '... by which means a picture 
> might be graven with such skill that the whole of it, should it be 
> destroyed, might be recreated from a small part, and that small part 
> might be any part.'
> I suppose it was the word /graven/ that suggested to me the events I had 
> witnessed on the night I had received my chrisos."  pg. 46 S&C
> 
> I'm not finding "chrisos" in the OED or via google, but the context 
> reminds me strongly of the eucharist. Before this scene Ultan spoke of 
> his time waiting for his master to die, so he could take his place as 
> Librarian. All of this foreshadows Sevs becoming the Autarch, so my 
> guess is that the function of the chapter is put this possibility in play.
> -s

The chrisos is the coin Vodalus gave him.

There is a bit of Autarch succession nearby, in that a circular room of 
books has been kept for three centuries pending the return of Autarch 
Sulpicius.

-- 
Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com
< http://www.io.com/~jwilson >