"Why did Orien return to Cal, the night he was killed? Orien was certainly Nahir-Nuri: Couldn't he foresee what would have happened? Besides, he had recently fled from a furious Cal who had tried to strangle him! And how could he visit a guest in Seel's house in the dead of night? I can't believe that in Saltrock one could forget to lock the door for the night, whit the Uigenna and other rogue tribes on the prowl and all that. Did he travel through the Otherlanes?

The nightmarish night's run of Flick to the Nayati, and his encounter with Cal: Was this reality or a dream? And what of the "bad dream" from which Flick awoke, and that he couldn't remember? And what of the strangely hollow words uttered by Cal? Why Flick didn't wake Seel after that awful experience?

And another thing...

That night Orien came, presumably through the Otherlanes as Thiede did when he visited Pellaz. He found Cal weeping and made aruna with him, then he and Cal fell asleep. In Fulfilments Cal remembers his things prepared to go and a knife in his hand, but doesn't remember how. He tells of his access of psychotic homicidal fury and the carrying of the corpse of Orien in a strangely detached way.

And Seel didn't hear anything. Flick must have heard or sensed something who awoke him, why not Seel? And while we're at it, what is Seel caste level? It must be high-seeing as he is the founder and leader of the Sarocks, and it's clear from the Inception scene that he is high in the ceremonial hierarchy, and yet he felt nothing, not even when he went that morning in the crime scene itself.

Prior to the murder, prior to the return of Cal, we witness Seel questioning Orien in an aggressive and inquisitive manner very similar to Cal's. It's clear that Seel's resents Orien's withholding of information as much as Cal. He sees it like a limitation of his power. He joins with Cal in the accusations and inquisitions.

Seel told Flick that Orien, in his shamanic fit, saw "his own death," not only Pell's. How could he be so unreceptive the day after the night of Orien's killing? He makes a great scene of being stymied about what Cal could have done, and told Flick to go to Orien, and to Colt and Stringer (by the way, the names of those two, seem taken from a Western movie).

When he learned that Flick had gone directly to the two friends from the O.K. Corral, skipping Orien house, he asked him why, and sensed the lie in Flick's response. He would remain obsessed with what Cal could have told to Flick, even got to the extreme of sequestering Flick when he re-encountered him years later in Galhea. Such obsession is peculiar. What had happened was grimly clear enough. Or wasn't it? When Seel had Cal at his mercy, he could have interrogated him. Instead he flooded him whit invectives and lies. Seel had never looked more unsavoury.

Why was an aggressive and clearly perturbed Cal was allowed to remain unguarded all night in his room?

What possessed Orien to return that night? That is the big question.

Another is: Why was Seel so obsessed to know what Flick saw?

And another: What made Calanthe kill? Why, as Cal said, the morning after "the lunatic remembers nothing"? ( Cobweb will make him remember, after he's arrived to Galhea in a sort of trance, affected by a strange illness.)

Orien was the second Wraeththu. He must have had clairvoyant powers second only to Thiede's. It's not conceivable that he could put himself in a trap in this way. Maybe he's sacrificed himself, but to what? Maybe that night some mystery was celebrated, with Cal as officiant. "I've brought an offer to the temple", he says. Or maybe the truth is something else, just as sinister.