Thursday 15 November 2012

The End Of The Three Of Ys


We seem to have tracked these Gods to their last stand. Nemeta becomes a Christian.

"'And the Gods of Ys lost Their last worshipper,' said Gratillonius in a rush of savage glee." (Poul and Karen Anderson, The Dog And The Wolf (London, 1989), p. 445)

Other former Ysans still invoke Them but perhaps this is not the same as worship? Their agent Dahut is still at large but will be exorcised at the end of the novel.

The transfigured Dahut's mode of consciousness is extraordinary:

she hears Niall's name on the wind, on gulls' wings, in "...the secret rivers of Ocean, and the whispering of dead men in the deeps" (p. 343);

she follows it and finds him;

she gives him good weather, guides him past rocks and wrecks his enemies' ships;

she leads the Scoti to attack Gratillonius' home when he is not there to defend it.

Indeed, the world is a better place when she has been exorcised.

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