[What Came Before]

So I noticed that the High Round (the Mangecea's old stronghold, where Titirga was entombed) is in Shimeh.

Whatever that means.

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Lol I suppose we have no actual first-time readers here yet - which is actually an assumption I feel uncomfortable making.

I'm not actually even sure I can raise objection. While Bakker suggested Major Spoilers for the Unholy Consult in the False Sun, he's also written that he intends The Atrocity Tales (at whatever point they might be released) would actually serve a precursor to Darkness, to break the ice of the series so to speak...

Hrm.

Anyhow, when I look at the map of Shimeh I see a place called the Round in the High City. And now I've found "And there was the High Round, the great fortress raised by Triamarius II, its black concentric walls overlooking the Meneanor" (TTT, p336-37).

I assume no relation, Curethan - possibly Bakker doesn't even realize.

Low mountains knotted the north and east, domes of bald granite rising from forested slopes: the hunchbacked Urokkas.[1]

...

Nogaral stood upon the westernmost summit, Iros, a mountain that was a mass grave. Little more than ramp of blunt granite, it climbed from the River toward the Sea, where it ended in scarped confusion. Ruins made gums and teeth of its heights, structures obliterated in an age that Men could not recollect for ignorance and savagery.[2]

...

Nogaral, they named it, the ‘High Round.’

...

1 – As the Norsirai called them. The Nonmen called them the Vir’holotoi, the “Wards-of-Viri.”

2 – The Blessed Falling, when the Flesh-Angels first descended from the Void.

Seems pretty clear cut to me that the Mangaecca built Nogaral with the help of Mekeritrig near the ruins of Viri, near the fallen Ark.

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Ah yes, I forgot Viri seems to have been somewhere in the northeast.

I don't mind if you want to move or close the thread.

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I think I'll just move it and see where the convo goes . I've let other threads survive for worse reasons.

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Nah, as Madness pointed out, the place where Titirga died was on top of Viri, the mansion that was destroyed by the Inchoroi's landing. In other words, it's far to the northwest, very close to Golgotterath.

However, there is a Nonman mansion (of sorts) in the area of Shimeh. The hiding place of Moenghus is described as a holy place for the Nonmen, where they apparently gathered before the Womb-Plague.

(Siöl is the only named Nonman mansion that we don't know the location of, it seems. We know the whereabouts of Viri, Ishterebinth, Cil-Aujas, and that unnamed mansion under Shimeh.)

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Cheers, Curethan. And +1 Auriga. Thoughts that would not have existed otherwise :

The Kyudean Mansion...

"They gathered here in the hundreds ... Even thousands, in the days before the Womb-Plague ... Bathing was holy for them" (TTT, p403-4).

I remember in an old thread on Three-Seas, Cu'jara Cinmoi (Scott's moniker in the days before the hand of god stripped him of the internet) had said that the Nonman Mansions of the South had been abandoned, for some reason, in the days before the Fall of the Ark.

However, according to Moenghus, Nonmen too made pilgrimages to the Kyudean Mansion, even after the Womb-Plague... where water flows still.

Also, just happens that "The Tractate seems to suggest that Kyudea and not Shimeh was the location [of Inri Sejenus' Ascension]" (p519). And Moenghus dies/ascends/absolves there...

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Nitpick:  we don't exactly know that Titirga was killed, do we? 

I think it's clear that Shae's trap worked, but I don't know what that means.

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Nope. But I mean, the revelation of his character is that there is a more proper sorcerous mark as it were, a less abrasive balance to be struck in one's exercise of sorcery, whether Titirga survives or not. What does that mean?

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A few options I suppose. Has anyone seen Kell's mark? Could be that Titirga was a metagnostic user. Could be that he had some kind of communion with one or two gods. Something like what the cish have but not quite pure enough to remove the mark. Maybe he was using some strange and secret kind of magic (and we all know that you cannot guard against them, except with a big hole apparently).

[What Came Before]

Wrath flashed in Titirga’s eyes. “Nevertheless, there remains someone beneath me. Someone hooded in our shared sin.”

Still considers himself damned apparently.

He was certainly the most powerful Insinger ever born. And if what Cet’ingira said was true, the most powerful, period. No living Quya had the purity of his Recitations. Even his Stain was different, somehow muted, as if he could cut the Inward without scarring it. Even now, simply regarding him, his distinction literally glared from his image, a strange, sideways rinsing of the Stain.

Muted, but still a Stain.

The vital difference. The threat.

They said he had been blind as a child, that Noshainrau himself had found him begging in the streets. They said he went mad while Canting. They said his words seized things that should not be seized.

And here is the reference to a difference of seeing things - that he was once blind.  There are a couple of implications here - the cish with their 'invisible' Stain and the fact that Titirga seems to have healed his own blindness.

Note that Cants relate to grasping the souls of others - for example Aurang uses Cants of Compulsion to possess Esme, Cants of Communication are used to get a hold of others in their dreams etc.  What the heck are the 'things that should not be seized', I wonder?

...

The initial fall doesn't kill Titirga, but I'm pretty sure he's fucked when they drop a whole mansion on top of him.

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Cants are just offensive magic. Your examples (compulsion and communication) are cherry picking. Wards are directed inwards, cants outwards.

Stain yes, but fundamentally different than a mark. Or at least I think so. Not as simple as the mark left behind from red wine after its been partially cleaned.


how about this:
Id say that the cish arent not damned due to their absence of their mark. More likely the mark is something entirely different than being damned. It just so happens that schoolmen use their magic to kill people, thus damned. If only the judging eye had seen more! Oh well.
Anyway, I think that that mark could still reflect some kind of communion with gods/god. Could be that the correlation of being blind and having a mark has to do with being able to see that third sight. Whatever the hell that is. I guess it could be some kind sight through gods eyes. The cish are immersed in this vision and can thus wield the psuke through gods own eyes, therefore no mark. Titirga here only got a glimpse, but he can remember gods vision in some way or another, making his mark less deep. Close to some 'proper' vision, but tainted by the world.

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Well, not intentional cherry picking - they were just the ones that came to mind.
I had forgotten about Cants of Concussion etc.

My feeling that the Psukhe leaves a Mark that is simply invisible comes from the following (I have bolded the important part and include the rest for context);

Personally, I've always worried that the Chorae may come across as too ad hoc, as mere narrative conveniences that allow a happy (but not very credible) balance between the sorcerous and the non-sorcerous. But in point of fact, that role came after - the Chorae developed independently. From the outset, I've looked at each of the sorcerous branches in linguistic terms, as practices where language commands, rather than conforms to, reality. So the Anagogis turns on the semantic power of figurative analogies, the Gnosis turns on the semantic power of formal generalizations, the Psukhe turns on speaker intention, and so on. And much as language undoes itself in paradoxes, sorcery can likewise undo itself. The Aporos is this 'sorcery of paradox,' where the meanings that make sorcery possible are turned in on themselves to generate what might be called 'contradiction fields.'

Yes, the depth of the Mark is proportional to the amount of sorcery cast, and the severity of the Chorae is proportional the depth of the Mark.

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What good is an invisible mark ?
I suppose the mark is just some kind of outward sign of using magic so I dunno if I can say I agree with you. Yes the puskhe has some kind of permanent consequence, or else the chorae wouldnt work, but I have trouble calling it a mark.

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Heh, what good is a visible Mark? 

You are right though, with the term Mark the ready meaning no longer really fits.  Perhaps we could use the analogy of the Mark as a bruise - and with the Psukhe it is internal heamoraghing

The difference with Titirga's Mark demonstrates that the lasting effect of sorcery on the sorcerer can manifest in different ways, and the deliberate reference to a period of blindness hints that Titirga's differences and strength may come from similar insights to Fane's. (Minus the religious revelation, clearly)
If the source of his unmatched power was similar to Kellhus' escalation of the Gnosis, I suspect we would have have references to startling intellect etc.

It makes me wonder though, how Seswatha would have measured up. 
He was at least Shae's match in cunning, a true trickster on the Benjuka plate; clever enough to take down Skafra and who knows how many other dragons, despite the Wracu immunity to sorcery.

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haha ok if the mark is a bruise ill give you internal hemorrhaging