Suldrun’s Garden by Jack Vance book review.

In this phantasy tale you will be charmed by the virgin sun goddess, Suldrun. She is locked away in a secret garden. Her purity and grace like tessellating dewdrops in the dawning sun.

Alas, she must die. Her virginity is taken, her child is taken, her husband is taken, she hangs herself from a tree.

What follows is the Son and Father. Gay magicians, sorcery, and witchcraft. Ogres, fairies, and phantasm. Journey through a mighty forest copse. Riding on horse with loads of gold in your waistcoat. On your way to find your son, you are the rightful king. Take your place upon the throne.

Book one in the Lyonesse trilogy.

Suldrun’s Garden by Jack Vance

Delight in this journey-quest storybook.

The Protagonist

My annotations and highlights:

The Complete Lyonesse Trilogy by Jack Vance

Book last read: 2024-03-02 14:18:54
Percentage read: 31%

Chapter 4: PRELIMINARY
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Chapter progress: 0.87%
Highlight: Dozens of missionaries, exalted through faith, paid terrible prices for their zeal.

Chapter 5: 1: “On a dreary winter’s day…”
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Chapter progress: 1.45%
Highlight: the perils of far places, dints against the mischief of fairies, the language of flowers, precautions while walking out at midnight and the avoidance of ghosts, the knowledge of good trees and bad
Notes: Warn the children.

Chapter 5: 1: “On a dreary winter’s day…”
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Chapter progress: 1.53%
Highlight: What to do with the defeated magician, who seethed with evil and hate?

Chapter 6: 2: “Ehirme returned, and Dame Maugelin continued…”
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Chapter progress: 2.25%
Highlight: obstreperous,
Notes: Noisily unruly or defiant.

Chapter 6: 2: “Ehirme returned, and Dame Maugelin continued…”
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Chapter progress: 2.69%
Highlight: a tumble of marble blocks among weeds and thistles.
Notes: It’s the end.

Chapter 6: 2: “Ehirme returned, and Dame Maugelin continued…”
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Chapter progress: 2.76%
Highlight: The flowers all loved her, except the proud asphodel, which loved only itself.

Chapter 7: 3: “Suldrun awoke to a cold gray room…”
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Chapter progress: 2.98%
Highlight: I would take two fine mice and change them to a pair of beautiful horses and I would become a handsome young prince not much older than you, and we would go riding away over hill and dale to a wonderful castle in the clouds, and there we would dine on strawberries and cream and listen to the music of harps and fairy bells.

Chapter 7: 3: “Suldrun awoke to a cold gray room…”
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Chapter progress: 3.13%
Highlight: Your preference must on occasion yield to the forces of reality.

Chapter 8: 4: “One morning of the summer…”
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Chapter progress: 4.22%
Highlight: she very much enjoyed shelter from the wind and rain and nice clean clothes and the dignity of her person.

Notes: Hypergamy.

Chapter 9: 5: “On the day of Beltane, in the spring…”
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Chapter progress: 4.51%
Highlight: Still, might she have been beguiled by a faun, who were known to be partial to the tart-sweet charms of young maidens?

Chapter 9: 5: “On the day of Beltane, in the spring…”
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Chapter progress: 4.73%
Highlight: Still, it’s a wild little nook, like the world must have been before men appeared.

Chapter 9: 5: “On the day of Beltane, in the spring…”
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Chapter progress: 5.16%
Highlight: It would seem far easier for all-powerful God to create the money
Notes: Fake money

Chapter 10: 6: “Between Dascinet and Troicinet was Scola…”
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Chapter progress: 5.38%
Highlight: They lived isolated in mountain glens, emerging only when the time came for dreadful deeds.
Notes: Skyls

Chapter 10: 6: “Between Dascinet and Troicinet was Scola…”
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Chapter progress: 5.6%
Highlight: I now declare a proscription against you and all your lineage; you will be hunted as criminals and killed on sight. I have no more words

Chapter 11: 7: “Suldrun sat in the Orangery…”
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Chapter progress: 6.04%
Highlight: prig.

Chapter 11: 7: “Suldrun sat in the Orangery…”
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Chapter progress: 6.4%
Highlight: Mischief in a girl is like salt on meat

Chapter 11: 7: “Suldrun sat in the Orangery…”
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Chapter progress: 6.47%
Highlight: A thousand candles in six massive candelabra suffused the chamber with mellow light.
Notes: Rich

Chapter 12: 8: “King Granice of Troicinet was a man thin…”
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Chapter progress: 7.42%
Highlight: The surest fact of this precarious existence is that one may never stand static. In this life everyone walks on ten-foot stilts; he must move and hop and cause an agitation; otherwise he topples. Fight or die! Swim or drown! Run or be trampled!

Chapter 13: 9: “The pre-dawn air was quiet and cool…”
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Chapter progress: 7.85%
Highlight: Otherwise all authority and order is lost, and we would live like wild
Notes: Help us.

Chapter 13: 9: “The pre-dawn air was quiet and cool…”
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Chapter progress: 8.07%
Highlight: We are like birds in an orchard of ripe fruit, where everyone trills his happiest song.

Chapter 14: 10: “During the reigns of Olam I…”
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Chapter progress: 8.87%
Highlight: a rambling stone manse in the northwest part of Lyonesse,
Notes: Take me to the Asylum.

Chapter 14: 10: “During the reigns of Olam I…”
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Chapter progress: 8.87%
Highlight: He long had resented Murgen’s prohibitions, and contravened them as flagrantly as he dared.

Notes: FBI visited home for not wearing face mask.

Chapter 14: 10: “During the reigns of Olam I…”
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Chapter progress: 8.87%
Highlight: plague of maggots.

Chapter 14: 10: “During the reigns of Olam I…”
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Chapter progress: 8.95%
Highlight: She appeared to him as a female clothed with a soft pelt of black fur and an oddly beautiful cat-like mask.
Notes: Furry chimera for Romans.

Chapter 14: 10: “During the reigns of Olam I…”
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Chapter progress: 9.09%
Highlight: On a wall hung an article of real power: Persilian, the so-called ‘Magic Mirror

Chapter 14: 10: “During the reigns of Olam I…”
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Chapter progress: 9.09%
Highlight: In a secret chamber he kept a number of curios and magical adjuncts, including a book of incantations,

Chapter 14: 10: “During the reigns of Olam I…”
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Chapter progress: 9.09%
Highlight: tabard
Notes: Sleeveless jerkin.

Chapter 14: 10: “During the reigns of Olam I…”
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Chapter progress: 9.16%
Highlight: goblin blood flowed in his veins.

Chapter 14: 10: “During the reigns of Olam I…”
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Chapter progress: 9.24%
Highlight: palanquin

Chapter 14: 10: “During the reigns of Olam I…”
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Chapter progress: 9.24%
Highlight: arbutus.
Notes: Strawberry tree

Chapter 14: 10: “During the reigns of Olam I…”
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Chapter progress: 9.31%
Highlight: Your forays and wars are a trouble; they disturb the quiet of the countryside.
Notes: Fake money forces.

Chapter 14: 10: “During the reigns of Olam I…”
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Chapter progress: 9.31%
Highlight: presagement?
Notes: Prophecy.

Chapter 14: 10: “During the reigns of Olam I…”
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Chapter progress: 9.31%
Highlight: epicene.
Notes: Indeterminite sex.

Chapter 15: 11: “In the chapel at the top of the garden…”
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Chapter progress: 9.45%
Highlight: Take your wine and go.”

Chapter 15: 11: “In the chapel at the top of the garden…”
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Chapter progress: 9.6%
Highlight: now roamed the gardens of paradise with the most beautiful of all golden-haired angels to tend him.

Chapter 15: 11: “In the chapel at the top of the garden…”
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Chapter progress: 9.75%
Highlight: I am happy now—even though I am frightened.

Chapter 15: 11: “In the chapel at the top of the garden…”
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Chapter progress: 9.82%
Highlight: Treachery and tribulation brought me here, but I give thanks for all of it.”

Chapter 16: 12: “King Casmir despatched an envoy to Tintzin Fyral…”
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Chapter progress: 10.84%
Highlight: No one is exempt from toll,
Notes: Wholly owned subsidiary.

Chapter 16: 12: “King Casmir despatched an envoy to Tintzin Fyral…”
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Chapter progress: 10.91%
Highlight: I have driven a well deep, through solid stone into a flowing aquifer.

Chapter 16: 12: “King Casmir despatched an envoy to Tintzin Fyral…”
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Chapter progress: 10.98%
Highlight: cloying taint,
Notes: overly romantic

Chapter 16: 12: “King Casmir despatched an envoy to Tintzin Fyral…”
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Chapter progress: 11.13%
Highlight: Every clan chieftain fancies himself an aristocrat and builds a mountain fortress, from which he raids his neighbors.
Notes: Consider mountain fortress.

Chapter 16: 12: “King Casmir despatched an envoy to Tintzin Fyral…”
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Chapter progress: 11.27%
Highlight: Kings, like children, tend to be opportunistic. Generosity only spoils them. They equate affability with weakness and hasten to exploit it.”

Chapter 16: 12: “King Casmir despatched an envoy to Tintzin Fyral…”
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Chapter progress: 11.35%
Highlight: Despite my love for you, I can part with none of my hard-won operators.

Chapter 17: 13: “Shimrod, scion of Murgen the magician…”
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Chapter progress: 11.49%
Highlight: who loved music, though no doubt for the wrong reasons.
Notes: Farries.

Chapter 17: 13: “Shimrod, scion of Murgen the magician…”
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Chapter progress: 11.71%
Highlight: a leather cod-piece encased a set of very large genitals.

Notes: Troll

Chapter 18: 14: “Murgen resided at Swer Smod…”
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Chapter progress: 12.8%
Highlight: Now and perhaps forever hence I am preoccupied with Doom.
Notes: Covid scam. FBI at door for rejecting mandates.

Chapter 18: 14: “Murgen resided at Swer Smod…”
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Chapter progress: 12.87%
Highlight: Yes. I will praise you and caress you and you may commit your erotic fornications upon my body.
Notes: Romance.

Chapter 19: 15: “In Irerly conditions were less easy…”
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Chapter progress: 13.24%
Highlight: mooncalf?
Notes: Foolish person.

Chapter 20: 16: “In a bell-shaped cell fourteen feet in diameter…”
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Chapter progress: 13.82%
Highlight: In truth, I fear too. But whatever happens, we have done our best.
Notes: Fighting commies.

Chapter 21: 17: “At the bottom of the oubliette, Aillas…”
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Chapter progress: 14.25%
Highlight: OUBLIETTE,
Notes: Secret dungeon.

Chapter 21: 17: “At the bottom of the oubliette, Aillas…”
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Chapter progress: 14.98%
Highlight: One cannot judge the high-born by sensible standards!

Chapter 22: 18: “Within and about the Forest of Tantrevalles…”
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Chapter progress: 15.13%
Highlight: Mangeon’s massive organ shriveled to the size of a small acorn and became lost in the folds of his great gray belly.

Chapter 22: 18: “Within and about the Forest of Tantrevalles…”
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Chapter progress: 15.13%
Highlight: body of a boy and the face of a girl.
Notes: Trans confusion.

Chapter 22: 18: “Within and about the Forest of Tantrevalles…”
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Chapter progress: 15.35%
Highlight: the secret language of the fairies, which so often is mistaken for bird-calls.

Chapter 22: 18: “Within and about the Forest of Tantrevalles…”
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Chapter progress: 15.49%
Highlight: It is a coarse face, an arena for stupid thoughts.

Chapter 22: 18: “Within and about the Forest of Tantrevalles…”
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Chapter progress: 15.56%
Highlight: This is a magic purse,” she told him. “It will never go empty, and better, if you ever give a coin and want it back, you need only tap the purse and the coin will fly back to you.”

Notes: Federal Reserve.

Chapter 23: 19: “In preparation for their journey the children…”
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Chapter progress: 16.58%
Highlight: The day was fresh; the wind herded a hundred clouds from the Atlantic high across the forest.

Chapter 23: 19: “In preparation for their journey the children…”
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Chapter progress: 16.73%
Highlight: Pleasure for him who holds the whip!
Notes: BDSM commie American lifestyle.

Chapter 23: 19: “In preparation for their journey the children…”
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Chapter progress: 16.95%
Highlight: tarn
Notes: Small mountain lake.

Chapter 23: 19: “In preparation for their journey the children…”
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Chapter progress: 17.09%
Highlight: This is a terrible world, so I am discovering. It is all you can do to care for yourself, let alone me.”

Chapter 23: 19: “In preparation for their journey the children…”
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Chapter progress: 17.09%
Highlight: How grateful I am for my bravery, even though I can’t be proud of it. I suspect that I am a fearful coward at heart.”
Notes: FBI and law enforcement at door for rejecting medical mandates.

Chapter 23: 19: “In preparation for their journey the children…”
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Chapter progress: 17.67%
Highlight: At fairs one finds merry gentlemen by the hundreds.”

Chapter 23: 19: “In preparation for their journey the children…”
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Chapter progress: 17.75%
Highlight: A theory propounded by the savants asserts that every niche in the social structure, no matter how constricted, finds someone to fill it.

Chapter 23: 19: “In preparation for their journey the children…”
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Chapter progress: 18.11%
Highlight: I have not a copper to my name and no one will hire me, and so I will die.”

Chapter 23: 19: “In preparation for their journey the children…”
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Chapter progress: 18.18%
Highlight: I won’t say we’ve learned a lesson, because we might do the same thing again tomorrow.

Chapter 23: 19: “In preparation for their journey the children…”
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Chapter progress: 18.4%
Highlight: mountebank!
Notes: Bill Gates

Chapter 23: 19: “In preparation for their journey the children…”
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Chapter progress: 18.4%
Highlight: Good music always defeats bad luck, and never forget it!”

Chapter 24: 20: “Early in the morning, with the sun low…”
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Chapter progress: 18.55%
Highlight: They think no more of us than we do of a fish.”

Chapter 24: 20: “Early in the morning, with the sun low…”
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Chapter progress: 18.69%
Highlight: brevity is the essence of wisdom.

Chapter 24: 20: “Early in the morning, with the sun low…”
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Chapter progress: 18.84%
Highlight: But I specifically renounced all obligation.
Notes: Proof of financial responsibility.

Chapter 24: 20: “Early in the morning, with the sun low…”
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Chapter progress: 18.91%
Highlight: bartizans
Notes: Corner turret at top of castle.

Chapter 24: 20: “Early in the morning, with the sun low…”
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Chapter progress: 19.05%
Highlight: I think they would prefer to suck the marrow from my bones.”
Notes: American commies.

Chapter 25: 21: “Four uneventful days brought Aillas…”
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Chapter progress: 19.27%
Highlight: hummock
Notes: Forested ground rising above a marsh.

Chapter 25: 21: “Four uneventful days brought Aillas…”
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Chapter progress: 19.35%
Highlight: Pale and coarse as rats!
Notes: u know who.

Chapter 25: 21: “Four uneventful days brought Aillas…”
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Chapter progress: 19.49%
Highlight: Death comes to all mortals.
Notes: Vaccine failure.

Chapter 25: 21: “Four uneventful days brought Aillas…”
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Chapter progress: 20.07%
Highlight: sexual perversion; lack of cleanliness; insubordination; sullen, insolent, truculent or disorderly behavior are not tolerated. Forget your past; it is a dream!
Notes: Begin new kingdom.

Chapter 25: 21: “Four uneventful days brought Aillas…”
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Chapter progress: 20.22%
Highlight: We expect no mercy from our enemies; we give none.”

Chapter 25: 21: “Four uneventful days brought Aillas…”
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Chapter progress: 20.44%
Highlight: thickets and copses shaded the swales.

Chapter 26: 22: “At Castle Sank Taussig’s gang…”
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Chapter progress: 20.58%
Highlight: Do you know what happens to shirkers and fiddity-didjets?

Chapter 26: 22: “At Castle Sank Taussig’s gang…”
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Chapter progress: 20.65%
Highlight: stoat.
Notes: Weasel

Chapter 26: 22: “At Castle Sank Taussig’s gang…”
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Chapter progress: 20.73%
Highlight: I have no title; call me slave-master, foreman, intercessor, chief

Chapter 26: 22: “At Castle Sank Taussig’s gang…”
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Chapter progress: 20.87%
Highlight: Each moved about the somber castle as if it were a stage where only this single person acted.

Chapter 26: 22: “At Castle Sank Taussig’s gang…”
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Chapter progress: 21.24%
Highlight: Take this cur out behind the stable and kill him.”

Chapter 27: 23: “The main hall at Castle Sank…”
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Chapter progress: 21.31%
Highlight: intractable slaves are gelded.”

Chapter 28: 24: “Where Dahaut bordered on North Ulfland…”
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Chapter progress: 21.75%
Highlight: Some persons are traitors by nature; they take pleasure in treachery.

Chapter 28: 24: “Where Dahaut bordered on North Ulfland…”
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Chapter progress: 21.96%
Highlight: And I suggest that if at all possible we steal from the rich, though the poor are somewhat easier prey.

Chapter 28: 24: “Where Dahaut bordered on North Ulfland…”
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Chapter progress: 22.18%
Highlight: What? Are you folk of Vervold all cowards?
Notes: Face mask death cult.

Chapter 28: 24: “Where Dahaut bordered on North Ulfland…”
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Chapter progress: 22.33%
Highlight: Presently they joined hands and danced around the cauldron in three concentric circles.
Notes: parboil ritual.

Chapter 28: 24: “Where Dahaut bordered on North Ulfland…”
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Chapter progress: 22.4%
Highlight: At marriages and hangings I am sober and reverent; ordinarily I am easy, gay and lightsome.

Chapter 28: 24: “Where Dahaut bordered on North Ulfland…”
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Chapter progress: 22.47%
Highlight: It is hard to separate fact from hysteria; I can only recommend caution.”

Chapter 28: 24: “Where Dahaut bordered on North Ulfland…”
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Chapter progress: 22.62%
Highlight: poppet,
Notes: Pretty child.

Chapter 28: 24: “Where Dahaut bordered on North Ulfland…”
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Chapter progress: 22.69%
Highlight: For my part I am happy that we sit here rather than out in the rain; but I am never free of the rage which smoulders in my bones: perhaps it will never leave me despite all revenge.

Chapter 28: 24: “Where Dahaut bordered on North Ulfland…”
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Chapter progress: 23.05%
Highlight: sybaritic
Notes: Fond of sensuous luxury.

Chapter 28: 24: “Where Dahaut bordered on North Ulfland…”
Annotation
Chapter progress: 23.2%
Highlight: why is everyone masked?
Notes: Covid death cult.

Chapter 29: 25: “Carfilhiot’s chambers, at the top of Tintzin Fyral…”
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Chapter progress: 23.78%
Highlight: At this time of day the sight and sound of other human beings offended him, and adversely affected the rest of the day.

Chapter 29: 25: “Carfilhiot’s chambers, at the top of Tintzin Fyral…”
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Chapter progress: 24.22%
Highlight: The land is in turmoil. Everyone resists authority.

Chapter 29: 25: “Carfilhiot’s chambers, at the top of Tintzin Fyral…”
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Chapter progress: 24.44%
Highlight: Passion is a hysteria.

Chapter 29: 25: “Carfilhiot’s chambers, at the top of Tintzin Fyral…”
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Chapter progress: 25.24%
Highlight: as gay and sweet as a daffodil.
Notes: Lily in dawn of sun.

Chapter 30: 26: “Glyneth and Dhrun joined Dr. Fidelius…”
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Chapter progress: 25.53%
Highlight: if, upon taking my remedies, you mortify and die, you may return the unused medicine for a partial refund.
Notes: Vaccine death mandate.

Chapter 31: 27: “The River Camber, approaching the sea…”
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Chapter progress: 26.84%
Highlight: Come out, you little lizard.”

Chapter 32: 28: “From Faroli back to Icnield Way rode the four men…”
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Chapter progress: 27.49%
Highlight: Why should we inconvenience each other over foolishness?
Notes: FBI social media police.

Chapter 32: 28: “From Faroli back to Icnield Way rode the four men…”
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Chapter progress: 27.71%
Highlight: Stop the ceremony! This is not your king!

Chapter 32: 28: “From Faroli back to Icnield Way rode the four men…”
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Chapter progress: 27.71%
Highlight: No man may besmirch my honor and live!

Chapter 33: 29: “Aillas and Shimrod, departing the palace Miraldra…”
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Chapter progress: 28.07%
Highlight: The war apparently is controlled by spies.

Chapter 34: 30: “King Casmir of Lyonesse, who never took comfort in half-measures…”
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Chapter progress: 28.36%
Highlight: Your castle will be taken and burned; you, if you survive, will live out your life as a thrall, with your sons and daughters.

Chapter 34: 30: “King Casmir of Lyonesse, who never took comfort in half-measures…”
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Chapter progress: 28.44%
Highlight: in order to achieve the full freedom of our expression.”

Chapter 34: 30: “King Casmir of Lyonesse, who never took comfort in half-measures…”
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Chapter progress: 29.02%
Highlight: “I obey no man’s bidding,

Chapter 35: 31: “With the coming of daylight the Ulf army…”
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Chapter progress: 29.53%
Highlight: Call away your armies, or I must exert my magic against you.”

Chapter 35: 31: “With the coming of daylight the Ulf army…”
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Chapter progress: 29.53%
Highlight: I tremble with the urge to destroy you at this moment.