Is She Crazy or What?

Some readers have asked me what Talion is supposed to be: a symptom of Lu’s psychosis? a supernatural being? an angel?

Talion and his cohorts are none of these things entirely. Lu’s senses tell her they exist, but others do not see or hear them. A psychitrist would not doubt label her psychotic. They are central to her world, like Rad’s fantasies. He feeds his fantasies and make them real through the torment and death of his victims.

What does Lu feed Talion to make him real?

Her love.

When he enters the story in first chapter, her first words to him are “I love you.” And because she loves Talion she does his bidding and so brings her fantasy into that narrow realm of existence we share with others and call reality. It’s like one of many frequencies on a radio, and for many people the only one that counts. For those readers who must make sense of Talion in reality, he and Black Claw and Delatar may be conceived as aspects of Lu’s Self. They are actors in her inner struggle for survival.

Whatever is he, Talion has the potential to betray Lu, just as Rad’s fantasy of absolute conquest of his victims has the potential to betray him.