Creatures of Light and Darkness - Curiosities

Curiosities

The novel is dedicated "To Chip Delany, Just Because".

In one scene, a "scrier" (or augur) tries to read the future by disemboweling and examining the entrails of a professional rival. He misses an important detail, and his victim screams, "They are my innards! I will not have them misread by a poseur!"

Wakim, later revealed to be Set the Destroyer, seeks the gear he lost a thousand years ago. One item (which has seen better centuries) is currently hidden in a cave and guarded by a three-headed dog.

Osiris has reduced old enemies, lovers, and others to elementary forms. He holds the skull (and brain) of a former lover in his hands. She taunts him until he throws her skull against the wall, smashing it and giving his victim release from further torment.

Osiris has captured another enemy and woven his nervous system into the fabric of a rug. He amuses himself by jumping up and down on it, listening to the screams of his victim via loudspeakers on the walls.

The blind Norns, the best smiths in the universe, await the arrival of Thoth, for whom they have built the Star Wand, a powerful weapon. Their fee: artificial eyes, which Thoth will install himself, because he is a skilled surgeon. He is also a skilled anesthetist. Unfortunately, the Norns are physiologically incapable of unconsciousness, so each begs to be operated on last. There is considerable screaming. After each Norn receives his new eyes, he lovingly regards his tools, until his neighbors, envious of his advantage, blind him, as is their legal right.

The Steel General (like the Tin Woodsman) has had his organic body replaced with stainless steel, but wears a ring made from his last hide of skin. He has alternated many times between flesh and metal: in flesh phases, he wears a steel ring, from his last metal skin; in metal phases, he wears a leather ring made from his last organic skin. He rides an eight-legged mechanical horse with diamond hooves, and plays a banjo. He is the spirit of rebellion, which can never be killed.

The Steel General, Set, and some others practice a novel martial art called temporal fugue. A fighter, seeing that his enemy is ready to attack, projects himself behind his enemy—in both space and time—to strike him from behind. Of course, the enemy does the same thing. When both warriors use the technique, recursively, things get complicated. Each character is replicated over a hundredfold, at various times in the past and future, thus putting a considerable strain on the space-time continuum.