1. Where is the Beforetime Road that Elspeth travels in the Sending located? (ie Sador? Land? Herder isle? etc)The Beforetime road that Elspeth travels is located in the Blacklands of The Land.
I think that the dark tunnel that Elspeth refers to throughout the series is probably related to the Entina pit of the Red Queens Land, leading to the weaponmachines, but the Beforetime road is something entirely different.
The two places are very closely related, so to prove the whereabouts of one, the other location must also be established.
Take this excerpt from
The Keeping Place.
The sixth line of Kasanda’s warning:
“[That which] will [open/access/reach] the darkest door lies where the...[lies/sleeps]? Strange is the keeping place of this dreadful [sign/key] but there is no other, for all who know it are dead save one, who does not know what she knows.â€
Now fill in the blanks.
“That which will open the darkest door lies where the Sentinal sleeps. Strange is the keeping place of this dreadful key but there is no other, for all who know it are dead save one, who does not know what she knows.â€
The last line of course referring to Dragon.
This indicates that although the Entina pit of the LotRQ may contain something very dangerous, it also holds something that will grant access to another place Elspeth must visit (“the darkest doorâ€).
Now for Dameon’s description of a true dream of Matthew in the LotRQ:
“...I am being herded with a group of others down a steep, uneven trail. A whip stings my back, and all at once it is cold and the air becomes damp and thick. I walk on and the others are around me. I feel their fear and then I hear the roaring of some indescribable beast. All at once a man begins screaming...I do not know if what I hear is real. I am inclined to think not, because I feel no emotion from it. Not even a primitive flicker when it roars. No real creature would emanate that chilly lifelessness...â€
An emotionless roaring beast? Sounds like the Entina pit to me. Not only that, but it doesn’t sound particularly tainted, if so many people are able to easily walk into it. And if it’s so easily accessible, I doubt there is much of a road leading into it.
And now take this line from the end of
The Farseekers:
Maruman:
“He [Darga] will come, and when he returns, it will be time...â€
Darga’s potent ability to sniff out taint will come in very handy whilst walking the Beforetime road through Blacklands to reach “the darkest doorâ€, don’t you think?
You’re probably thinking “why does it have to be Blacklands in The Land? There are Blacklands
everywhere!â€
Of course it could be anywhere; we don’t have a whole lot of information on it. But think of the symmetry of it all.
Elspeth is so afraid that her journey will take her away from her home at Obernewtyn, but what if it’s what leads her
back there from LotRQ?
The road could be located in two places: The Silent Vale (think of that symmetry, the series beginning and ending there!) or the mountains above Obernewtyn. I think it’s the latter of the two locations.
There’s a massive plot hole lingering about Jacob Obernewtyn wandering into the taint above the Ober valley, to wait for Hannah Seraphim. And what about the real Reichler Clinic that was meant to be where the Obernewtyn building is?
I quote Fian in
Ashling:
“The real Reichler Clinic was where Garth always thought it mun be – in th’ mountains...The actual Reichler Clinic labs were almost certainly sited where the cave of the Zebkrahn now stands.â€
Why not take it further? Have a building even higher into the mountains, further away from the public eye.
But of course, this contradicts my previous statement about Elspeth needing to go to TLotRQ first.
...not exactly!
My reasoning is this: Elspeth never really plans on doing anything; it just happens. Current events and the people around her usually initiate her discoveries eg. finding the glass sculpture under Tor, or Erit challenging her to go to Stone Hill and thus finding Evander’s words.
Yet again, chance has led Elspeth to travelling to the LotRQ (because of the slaver’s invasion), going to the Entina pit will just be another link in a chain of events.
But Darga’s return is
planned; it is effectively an actual initiation of Elspeth’s quest.
What lies at the end of the Blackroad in The Land? I think it is the control room for the Sentinal system. The LotRQ’s semi-functional unit may finally be put out of action by Elspeth (can you say, manual shut-down? :P ), but there is a network of dormant systems scattered around the world that need their power source eliminated to be completely put out of action.
The moon may or not be the power source for said systems (eg. via satellite signals).
2. Assuming that Elspeth must tell Rushton of her quest; how and what does Elspeth tell Rushton?I don’t think Elspeth
will tell Rushton. As mentioned above, things just
happen for Elspeth, no planning or pre-determined action, so she won’t be consciously make a decision to leave, the events leading up to it will just string together and seem perfectly natural (in a weird, saving the world kind of way).
When the job’s done, it won’t even seem like one giant quest, just a series of circumstances that had to be dealt with at the time.
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Give yourself a pat on the back if you managed to read through all that ~:|