![]() ![]() There is a design to this, of course, and any skilled reader will infer that these diverging narratives must also be converging. As the former narrative sequence moves onwards with the gusto of an adventure (will he succeed, against the odds, in getting his charge to his destination? How will he be rewarded?) the latter narrative sequence moves further and further backwards in time. ![]() The two narrative sequences are interleaved, so that the "now" chapters alternate with the "then" chapters. Occasionally he has taken time out for contemplation, in one episode finding sensual fulfilment with a lover who composes beautiful but unintelligible poetry on some out-of-the-way planet, but he has always come back to fighting. Over many years, he has been burned and blistered and variously wounded in the service of his sublimely distant, apparently all-knowing masters. Often these appear to be accounts of missions that have taxed to an extreme his capacity to survive. Meanwhile, in a second sequence of chapters, headed by Roman numerals in reverse order (XIII, XII, XI …), we are given episodes from Zakalwe's past. ![]()
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