(urth) Short Story 110: The Cat

[Marc Aramini]

I don't think the larval- lemur talk is a silly tale.  I think it
references the hieros and hierodules.  Odilo just doesn't know about that.
On Tuesday, August 26, 2014, Gwern Branwen <gwern at gwern.net> wrote:

> On Tue, Aug 26, 2014 at 3:37 PM, Marc Aramini <marcaramini at gmail.com
> <javascript:;>> wrote:
> > That darkness and gloom of creation Gwern mentioned is evoked is because
> > this is a Halloween story dressed as sf/fantasy, for what it's worth.
>
> That's an out-of-universe reason for the setting yes, but look
> carefully at Odilo's introduction: he tells us it's Halloween and he's
> heard silly false stories:
>
> > I heard such recountings of larva, lemures, and the like as would
> terrify every child in the Commonwealth-and make every man in it laugh most
> heartily.
>
> But even though those stories of larva and lemures are false, there
> still are dark powers and things in the universe, and Odilo has
> witnessed them. To let people think that dark stories are false is
> itself a failing:
>
> > And do not such idle tales as I heard by the fire but serve to paint yet
> blacker that gloom through which we grope?
>
> So Odilo has a responsibility:
>
> > As every thinking man acknowledges, mighty powers move through this dark
> universe of Briah, though for the most part hidden from us by its infinite
> night. Is it not every man's duty to record what little he has glimpsed
> that may give light to it?...I am therefore determined to set down here,
> for the enlightenment (as it may be) of my successors and whoever else may
> read, the history, whole and in entire in so far as I know it, of a series
> of incidents that culminated (as I believe) this night ten years gone.
>
> And so he tells us the story of Sancha and her brush with the dark
> mighty powers hidden by infinite night (but reachable through
> mirrors).
>
> --
> gwern
> http://www.gwern.net
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