references!
Dec. 11th, 2006 10:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thanateA small white stone! (because apparently people keep asking ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
fishy1 why I drew one on her quote board some time back)
This is out of the middle of The Mountains of Channadran by Susan Dexter (third in a trilogy); our heroes are on their way to save the world and have stopped off in the tower of the magician Ambere. The following is a conversation that takes place when Tristan is summoned to the top of the tower by his canary, where he finds a beautiful woman waiting for him among her white birds and the magic tapestries she's weaving.
It's actually a much slower scene; I've taken out most of the description and just left the dialogue here-- most of the rest is either plot oriented or just Tristan being confused. (and trying to transcribe this, it has been impressed upon me that Susan Dexter uses even more supurfluous commas than I do...)
"You have come," the woman said. "At last... Come. Sit with me. The view from my window is wide indeed. The ends of the world may be seen by those who have the way of looking. One day I looked down from this my window and my heart beheld you."
She put both her long white hands on his arms, holding him still before her, and looked at Tristan, long and slow, as if she would drink his soul. Tristan met her gaze, feeling as if time, or at least his heart, stopped.
"Yes. It was you. I would know even did I not see your face. My heart is quiet, satisfied at being near you."
Tristan, looking not at her but past her, out the window since that seemed safest in his utter confusion, saw only the white sky...
"I am Welslin Amberesdaughter," the silver voice said, in his ear. "And you are my heart's desire."
"Lady--" his voice was a cracked whisper, and he didn't think she heard.
"I sent for you," Welslin said, " to offer you a gift. Not offer, in truth, for you cannot refuse me.
"My heart.
"My heart has belonged to you since time came to be. It is only right that you should take it into your keeping, now that you have come to me."
Reaching into the neck of her gown, Welslin drew forth a small, white bag. From it she removed a tiny object and pressed that against Tristan's palm. He looked down at his hand, wondering what he'd find. He saw only a rose-and-honey colored stone lying upon his palm, warm as sunlight in his fingers. It was smaller than his littlest fingernail, veined faintly with red-brown.
"Lady, such... such a gift demands recompence, and you must know I can make you none. It's not... you're beautiful beyond all imagining. Your love would be an honor, but it's one I can't possibly take. I'm wed to Elisena."
He tried to pass the stone back, with stiff fingers, but the pebble clung to them. "I love her," Tristan said, desperately.
"This I know. Be easy. I do not ask you to forsake that pledge."
"Then you must take this back again."
"No. Fate decreed that I must have a woman's heart. It did not ordain that I must keep that heart by me, to torment me forever. No. I shall stay here alone by my loom in my misty tower until time ceases to be and I shall be well content. Such is my destiny, my glory, and my duty. But my heart has a longing for the world and for you. Let it therefore follow that yearning and go with you. Its powers will serve you at need. And better it should go with you now than wither here."
Her eyes, as she raised them from the room and to him, were alight with some emotion Tristan did not quite grasp. Joy, or was it relief? Tears of pain as well? His throat hurt from holding his own tears back.
"I shall no longer keep watch from my tower, feeling a sorrow I cannot put a name to, longing for a stranger's face, a face I see now before me but knew too well before ever you came. I shall have peace, at last! You shall go forth and fight your battles with the world, and my wayward heart shall accompany you. Each of us shall then be content. There can be no fairer bargain."
Still he would have protested, but Tristan began to sense that Welslin was reaching out to him on a level beneath her words, pleading in a way he could barely sense, but must yield to.
"Take it. I have no need of it, no use for it, but you shall have both. And when you look upon it, remember that one thing in this world will never change-- this tower will stand forever between air and land and sea, and I will always be at its window, looking out."
[And in fact, at the end of the book, her heart is the thing that saves them all from freezing to death]
---
...and there are two others: Wishbringer (from the infocom game, where the princess's evil stepmother sends all 7 of her sutors off to get killed in impossible quests, and she waits eternally until her heart shrivels up from disuse into a small white stone that grants wishes) and a story called "the black slave" wherein there's an old man who sits on the bank of a river writing truths on the black river stones with a small white stone and casting them into the water.
fishy1 why I drew one on her quote board some time back)This is out of the middle of The Mountains of Channadran by Susan Dexter (third in a trilogy); our heroes are on their way to save the world and have stopped off in the tower of the magician Ambere. The following is a conversation that takes place when Tristan is summoned to the top of the tower by his canary, where he finds a beautiful woman waiting for him among her white birds and the magic tapestries she's weaving.
It's actually a much slower scene; I've taken out most of the description and just left the dialogue here-- most of the rest is either plot oriented or just Tristan being confused. (and trying to transcribe this, it has been impressed upon me that Susan Dexter uses even more supurfluous commas than I do...)
"You have come," the woman said. "At last... Come. Sit with me. The view from my window is wide indeed. The ends of the world may be seen by those who have the way of looking. One day I looked down from this my window and my heart beheld you."
She put both her long white hands on his arms, holding him still before her, and looked at Tristan, long and slow, as if she would drink his soul. Tristan met her gaze, feeling as if time, or at least his heart, stopped.
"Yes. It was you. I would know even did I not see your face. My heart is quiet, satisfied at being near you."
Tristan, looking not at her but past her, out the window since that seemed safest in his utter confusion, saw only the white sky...
"I am Welslin Amberesdaughter," the silver voice said, in his ear. "And you are my heart's desire."
"Lady--" his voice was a cracked whisper, and he didn't think she heard.
"I sent for you," Welslin said, " to offer you a gift. Not offer, in truth, for you cannot refuse me.
"My heart.
"My heart has belonged to you since time came to be. It is only right that you should take it into your keeping, now that you have come to me."
Reaching into the neck of her gown, Welslin drew forth a small, white bag. From it she removed a tiny object and pressed that against Tristan's palm. He looked down at his hand, wondering what he'd find. He saw only a rose-and-honey colored stone lying upon his palm, warm as sunlight in his fingers. It was smaller than his littlest fingernail, veined faintly with red-brown.
"Lady, such... such a gift demands recompence, and you must know I can make you none. It's not... you're beautiful beyond all imagining. Your love would be an honor, but it's one I can't possibly take. I'm wed to Elisena."
He tried to pass the stone back, with stiff fingers, but the pebble clung to them. "I love her," Tristan said, desperately.
"This I know. Be easy. I do not ask you to forsake that pledge."
"Then you must take this back again."
"No. Fate decreed that I must have a woman's heart. It did not ordain that I must keep that heart by me, to torment me forever. No. I shall stay here alone by my loom in my misty tower until time ceases to be and I shall be well content. Such is my destiny, my glory, and my duty. But my heart has a longing for the world and for you. Let it therefore follow that yearning and go with you. Its powers will serve you at need. And better it should go with you now than wither here."
Her eyes, as she raised them from the room and to him, were alight with some emotion Tristan did not quite grasp. Joy, or was it relief? Tears of pain as well? His throat hurt from holding his own tears back.
"I shall no longer keep watch from my tower, feeling a sorrow I cannot put a name to, longing for a stranger's face, a face I see now before me but knew too well before ever you came. I shall have peace, at last! You shall go forth and fight your battles with the world, and my wayward heart shall accompany you. Each of us shall then be content. There can be no fairer bargain."
Still he would have protested, but Tristan began to sense that Welslin was reaching out to him on a level beneath her words, pleading in a way he could barely sense, but must yield to.
"Take it. I have no need of it, no use for it, but you shall have both. And when you look upon it, remember that one thing in this world will never change-- this tower will stand forever between air and land and sea, and I will always be at its window, looking out."
[And in fact, at the end of the book, her heart is the thing that saves them all from freezing to death]
---
...and there are two others: Wishbringer (from the infocom game, where the princess's evil stepmother sends all 7 of her sutors off to get killed in impossible quests, and she waits eternally until her heart shrivels up from disuse into a small white stone that grants wishes) and a story called "the black slave" wherein there's an old man who sits on the bank of a river writing truths on the black river stones with a small white stone and casting them into the water.