Despite English being my first language and having long been an avid reader, I still continue to learn new words every now and then.
I learned the word “liminal” about 10 years ago when I watched Netflix’s “The OA.” (Which I highly recommend, BTW—very different from my own work, and yet one of my favorite television series of all time. It’s one of those stories that is very hard to market because much of what you could say would be a spoiler, but also because it’s a strange mix of genres.)
As a reader, you’ve probably noticed along the way that I have a particular love of unusual words that hold interesting or evocative meanings, so I’m always happy to use one in a chapter title.
No errata today - I didn’t notice any on first read through and I’m far too jittery AND tired to go through for a second read.
Oh my GOD what a chapter!!
I couldn’t even hold on to my thoughts and connections I was drawing as I was reading it. I was far too engrossed in the here and now.
What happened?! We are seeing hell on Earth right now, literal nightmares brought to life - what happens between this and the Red Guard arriving that they can dismiss it as a mere blight type aberrant?!
The things not being what they seem, the warping of space, the possession - it seems eerily reminiscent of what little we know of the Black Wastes. And there were definite bits that seemed to relate back to Siobhan’s walk through the land of dreams. And Claudio, at last revealed - “his one visible eye glowed golden-amber”.
So now, only one question remains - is he the nightmare, or is it a spirit within? Have they become one and the same? Have they been dealing with an imperfect possession this entire time?
What are they trying to do with the corpses? What are they trying to summon in? What are they trying to house?
A giant of flesh…are there spirits of titans? Are there titans trapped in the dream world? Or those that would be titans? Or something else entirely?
Where is Rory?!
I fear for his life. I suspect my fears are coming true
Where is grandfather? He needs to save Siobhan. This is too much for a baby. No wonder he erased her memories!
Are they trying to recreate the mirror aberrant that we think is Siobhan’s mom?
With regards to Claudio’s eye, maybe some dream walking spell? We still don’t know what the Land of Dreams really is. Another plane? The upside down? Just another aspect of reality? Related to the cataclysm? I fear that the land of dreams is somehow related to the issue of aberrants we see now.
Concerning the red guard, I think that they are either downplaying things heavily — Lacer does not have full clearance any more, so there might be the real report somewhere — or gramps saved the day in the end.
Well, Thaddeus does mention that the aberrant was particularly powerful (#205).
This is an open Red Guard record, and I do not believe she was tainted by the incident, but it does make one wonder what exactly might have led to such a powerful break event, and of whom.
And the Red Guard is known to wipe out entire settlements to contain the spread of an abberant. It’s just that the two aberrants we’ve seen in Gilbratha were created from weak thaumaturges.
They seemed to be eating to embody something, I suspect in many ways the sculptures are similar. For on some level what delineates my flesh from yours? I think one could note this whole thing as a kind of “cosmic alignment”. I rather suspect that due to the kind of alienation of borders this eventually induced a break event….or perhaps they simply framed it as such. I think there are a couple of levels here where Claudio is trying to do something while Raaz kind of incited some form of passive observation of alignment, and perhaps the mother is in here due to her breaking or rather perhaps something similar in essence happens when one cast through their own flesh? A smaller scale alignment that may end in death but in cases like this perhaps not quite so a full one.
Claudio may just be enthralled? But I think there are two aberrants, or an aberrant and a spirit.
This spell allowed one direct insight into the often-incomprehensible spirit realm, as well as both the intent and nature of its denizens. Unfortunately, the very purpose of the spell came with inherent downsides. When casting it, spirit realm insights didn’t need to be interpreted—they were unavoidable, and understanding was gained directly from exposure.
The journal’s author noted in a shaky hand how the spell had already caused thirteen career-ending incidents for either the thaumaturges casting it or those who were in the spell’s area of effect. Two of those had been break events resulting in Aberrants.
I’ve suspected that the doorway that Siobhan’s mother has become is a doorway like this.
In the meantime, Claudio has had a break event of some kind as well, or is affected by it. He lied about why he vomited; he’s thrall to some sort of spirit or aberrant that wants the spirit world to match material world. Something making the people’s dreams real. Maybe specifically his dreams real.
The incense and Paimon may not be messages from Siobhan’s mother, they may be Siobhan’s dreams in the world.
