The moment a character I had NOT intended to be insane went crazy was when she said, “I like him. His spine sounds like daffodils.”
She instantly became a favorite. ^-^
The “I smell her bones” line made me think of an early episode of Farscape where they encounter a creature who can smell bones, and who subsequently eats the bones. Now I have a scene in my head that is a weird synthesis of that show and Ursula’s style that features Murai running from the creature. The alien looks really cool in Digger’s world; at least in my head 🙂
If Digger was right and they let her escape initially, one wonders why they’re pursuing them now? Maybe they hope to encounter them asleep and avoid a fight?
I can’t believe I forgot this sequence! So glad I decided to go on a re-read through the earlier chapters. I love the way the cold servants’ words are split up — I imagine their voices sound like the scrape of dry bone against bone and that forcing out each word is a major effort for them.
> Maybe they hope to encounter them asleep and avoid a fight?
Or perhaps they are hoping to capture them alive, and realized the futility of this down in the deeps …
TekServer: Why would taking them alive be easier on the surface? They would lose their home-field advantage, plus they would have to drag them all the way back to, and then through, the tunnel.
Peppercorn, we got a great comment on the old comments section about someone picturing them sounding like Darth Vader with a nasty cough in their imagination, but i think your interpretation is creeper.
Given they seem to put each abstract concept in its own speech bubble rather than stinging a sentence together i initially presumed telepathy. I always pictured (if picture is an adequate word for describing sound or something very like it) the voices of the Cold Servants as quiet, slightly horse and hissing whisperings that in true Pratchett style arrive straight in the language center of your brain without having passed thought your ears. Or the intervening air for that matter. Telepathy is inherently creepy as the contact necessitated by communication would be so direct it blurs the boundaries of self. That is what the fear of ghosts is all about; not the fear they will HURT you, the fear they can TOUCH you, despite all the little boundaries your mind frantically constructs to keep the crushing dead weight of the universe out, like names and self and identity and sexuality and concepts of language and age and class and memory and warmth and light. The idea that as far as these COLD servants are concerned, like ghosts, those little shields don’t exist to them, that to them perhaps your just another little flickering thing separated from everything else in the big cold world by eggshell thin walls, now how much scarier is that that Darth Vader with Laryngitis boys and girls.
I’ve never thought before of what a telepathic voice would “sound” like, if you’d never heard that entity’s “ordinary” voice aurally. I’m trying it now, imagining the cold servants speaking in my head, and I can’t hear any tone at all, other that my own voice speaking those words, unless I deliberatley imagine an exisitng known aural voice speaking those words. How odd.
I can’t decide which would be creepier and more invasive a feeling – a “voice” I’d never heard before projecting itself into my thoughts, or my OWN “voice” saying things I certainly hadn’t thought like jaynee suggests.
Speaking as someone who has had a shockingly real-seeming (save for the fact that the “voice” was both distinctly male and very clear despite my headphones) voice show up in her head without truly hearing it, it’s much more disturbing to have a “foreign” voice whispering nonsense than your own voice.
Then again, I am accustomed to a certain amount of unwelcomed thoughts on a regular basis. It might be different for someone who is neurotypical.
“I smell her bones”, now that’s a great and creepy phrase.
…Agh, I should go to class, I want to keep reading Digger!
This is why I read Digger in the middle of the night. That way, my only problem is lack of sleep, and random quoting. 😉
The moment a character I had NOT intended to be insane went crazy was when she said, “I like him. His spine sounds like daffodils.”
She instantly became a favorite. ^-^
Anyone else notice that Murai is called a priest, rather than a priestess? Go gender equality!
Also, NigaiAmai, could I please have a link to that, if it’s on the web?
The “I smell her bones” line made me think of an early episode of Farscape where they encounter a creature who can smell bones, and who subsequently eats the bones. Now I have a scene in my head that is a weird synthesis of that show and Ursula’s style that features Murai running from the creature. The alien looks really cool in Digger’s world; at least in my head 🙂
If Digger was right and they let her escape initially, one wonders why they’re pursuing them now? Maybe they hope to encounter them asleep and avoid a fight?
I can’t believe I forgot this sequence! So glad I decided to go on a re-read through the earlier chapters. I love the way the cold servants’ words are split up — I imagine their voices sound like the scrape of dry bone against bone and that forcing out each word is a major effort for them.
> Maybe they hope to encounter them asleep and avoid a fight?
Or perhaps they are hoping to capture them alive, and realized the futility of this down in the deeps …
😉
TekServer: Why would taking them alive be easier on the surface? They would lose their home-field advantage, plus they would have to drag them all the way back to, and then through, the tunnel.
That’s a good point, WJS. I’m trying now to remember what I was thinking when I wrote that previous post.
Element of surprise, perhaps? Digger was definitely ready to go down fighting in The Deeps …
😉
Peppercorn, we got a great comment on the old comments section about someone picturing them sounding like Darth Vader with a nasty cough in their imagination, but i think your interpretation is creeper.
Given they seem to put each abstract concept in its own speech bubble rather than stinging a sentence together i initially presumed telepathy. I always pictured (if picture is an adequate word for describing sound or something very like it) the voices of the Cold Servants as quiet, slightly horse and hissing whisperings that in true Pratchett style arrive straight in the language center of your brain without having passed thought your ears. Or the intervening air for that matter. Telepathy is inherently creepy as the contact necessitated by communication would be so direct it blurs the boundaries of self. That is what the fear of ghosts is all about; not the fear they will HURT you, the fear they can TOUCH you, despite all the little boundaries your mind frantically constructs to keep the crushing dead weight of the universe out, like names and self and identity and sexuality and concepts of language and age and class and memory and warmth and light. The idea that as far as these COLD servants are concerned, like ghosts, those little shields don’t exist to them, that to them perhaps your just another little flickering thing separated from everything else in the big cold world by eggshell thin walls, now how much scarier is that that Darth Vader with Laryngitis boys and girls.
I’m of to bed. Sweet dreams all!
I’ve never thought before of what a telepathic voice would “sound” like, if you’d never heard that entity’s “ordinary” voice aurally. I’m trying it now, imagining the cold servants speaking in my head, and I can’t hear any tone at all, other that my own voice speaking those words, unless I deliberatley imagine an exisitng known aural voice speaking those words. How odd.
I can’t decide which would be creepier and more invasive a feeling – a “voice” I’d never heard before projecting itself into my thoughts, or my OWN “voice” saying things I certainly hadn’t thought like jaynee suggests.
Speaking as someone who has had a shockingly real-seeming (save for the fact that the “voice” was both distinctly male and very clear despite my headphones) voice show up in her head without truly hearing it, it’s much more disturbing to have a “foreign” voice whispering nonsense than your own voice.
Then again, I am accustomed to a certain amount of unwelcomed thoughts on a regular basis. It might be different for someone who is neurotypical.
“Why am I talking to myself?”
“Even worse, why am I listening, and talking back?”