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i_read_whatSo last time, we got some lessons in shapeshifting and a brotherly reunion. Now we get to go to Clankeep!
So we start the chapter as Niall and Ian reach clankeep. Niall realizes that Serri, his lir, is actually pretty nervous. This surprises him, but Serri points out that Clankeep is a place of many people and lir, and Serri knows none of them.
I'm really enjoying this glimpse into what things are like for lir. Unlike the dragons of Pern, they don't seem to be born from other lir or have any pre-existing relationship in their own right. It raises interesting questions. Was Serri born in a normal wolf pack, and just developed a more human mentality?
Serri's actually a little defensive about it, which I find charming.
There's another note that's interesting which is that Clankeep has gates now. Niall remembers being told that once there was no need for gates "to shut the Cheysuli in", but well, they do have enemies to keep out. Niall thinks that more and more Clankeep reminds him of Mujhara.
It is an interesting thought. I wonder if the gates were an innovation from Finn or his successor. They seem to have been in place for most of Niall's lifetime, but Donal hadn't mentioned them. Of course, there was a lot that went unmentioned in Legacy of the Sword, so who knows.
Ian intends to go to the shar tahl, the Cheysuli priest, so that he can make arrangements for "the Ceremony of Honors", but is told by another warrior (Hey! Non-main character Cheysuli with a speaking line), that the shar tahl is actually with someone named Rylan, and the Mujhar is there too.
Ugh, Donal. But I think this is only the second time in the series where we actually get to see Cheysuli who aren't our lead characters. Ceinn counts too, I guess, but he's an adversary and a plot point. These guys just exist. Cool.
So Ian's pretty startled to hear that their father left Mujhara NOW, and the emphasis on "now" puzzles Niall enough to ask Serri if Tasha knows anything. But all she'll say is that Ian is worried about a lot of things: Ihlini, the plague, the bastard.
So they get to a pavilion with a fox on it. And indeed, there's a fox hanging out with Lorn and Taj, who scoots over to give Tasha room. Niall realizes that this must be Rylan's lir, but he feels guilty for not knowing its name. And he wonders if maybe the fact that he avoids the Keep, and thus doesn't know a lot of people, might be part of why there are a'saii who would rather see Ian on the throne. Ian knows them when Niall doesn't.
So Rylan appears to be the clan-leader now. Which answers a question that I didn't think to ask. He's surprised to see Niall, but isn't unfriendly. And he seems downright pleased when Niall turns over his gold wedding belt, to be reforged into lir gold.
I really like how happy these characters are for Niall. Especially Ian:
Ian took the pouch and stuffed the belt inside it once again. “Rujho, go. I will see to the gold.” But even as I turned, he caught my upper arm. “There is also i’toshaa-ni,” he said seriously. “All will be explained, but you must prepare yourself.”
“Will you be the one to explain it?”
He grinned, suddenly young again in the time before he had learned so much of responsibility, and the concern in his face was banished. “If that is what you wish.”
“I wish.” And then I was gone, running after my father, with Serri running at my side.
Aw.
We get some lovely description of the Cheysuli Keep here:
The wall path… Rylan meant the footpath that edged the green-gray wall surrounding Clankeep. It reminded me a little of the sentry-walks atop the battlements of a castle, ringing the parapets, but there was nothing of castles about a Cheysuli Keep. Only a wall, curving through the trees like a granite serpent, lacking merlons and crenels, showing only an undulating line of piled stone, unmortared, but sealed with moss and ivy. The vines threaded their way up lichened flanks and clung tenaciously, setting roots and questing fingers into cracks and crevices. Trees from the other side sent reconnaissance patrols across over the wall and down, breaching Cheysuli security. Mistletoe clustered in crotches. Columbine twined the boughs and mantled the top of the wall.
The wall is interesting. Like the gates. They are a protection that the Cheysuli never had before. They're also more permanent though. Before, the clans were at least semi-nomadic. They still sleep in pavilions. But Clankeep is clearly not moving any time in the near future.
So he finds his dad and sister. Isolde is upset and to his credit, Donal is trying to comfort her. And when he spots Niall, his reaction is INTERESTING:
And recoiled, “Carillon—” he blurted.
I stopped walking. I stood in the middle of the footpath quite alone; Serri had paused along the way to make the acquaintance of a coney too far from his burrow. My first instinct was to resent the mistaken identity; once, I would have, but now I could not. I was too shocked. Though others often did, never had my father even remarked upon the resemblance. Never had he so much as likened me to my grandsire. Certainly he had never looked at me and called me by Carillon’s name. Not even by mistake.
And it was not a mistake now. Because, for that instant, he believed I was.
I don't think it's just the beard. It's also the lir, or at least what it represents. Carillon never had a lir of course, but he grew up early and hard. Niall had time to be a child longer. As much as I hate Donal, and I do, Donal has been able to provide a safe home for his son. And Niall's always had the support of his older siblings and his mother.
But now Niall's a grown man, both symbolically, figuratively and literally and it makes a difference.
Donal snaps out of it, but decides to talk to Niall frankly about his grandfather. So yay, for some Carillon shilling here. I'm not excerpting that crap. It's not inaccurate: Carillon was a strong, dedicated man who carried burdens and drove himself hard to make Homana whole and serve the prophecy in his own way. But I still remember him telling Donal to rape his daughter, so Carillon can go fuck himself.
But I think the key part of this is less "how great Carillon was" and more about Donal's own fears of inadequacy:
He looked up at me; I nodded and he went on. “Every day I looked at him, seeing how he drove himself to make Homana whole—seeing how he drove himself to serve a prophecy not even of his people, and I wondered. I wondered: how will I ever be able to take the Lion from this man? How will I ever be able to carry on the things he has begun?”
It's good moment as a character beat here, and a nice common ground for Niall who has spent the book suffering under various layers of perceived inadequacy. It's just spoiled a bit by the fact that I don't remember Donal ever thinking that. I mostly just remember him whining about the inconveniences of wealth and luxury.
But I should judge the book on its own merits, to be fair, and I really do like this bit:
“He told me: be Donal. He told me: you should not judge yourself by others. But, of course, I did. Even as you do now.”
“I hate him,” I said hollowly. “I hate a dead man, jehan.”
“But mostly you hate yourself.”
I sat down awkwardly in the middle of the footpath because I could no longer stand in the face of the realization. “Aye,” I said on rushing breath. “Oh, jehan… I have.”
“Be Niall,” he said gently. “Do not judge yourself by others.”
So there's some more back and forth. But this nice moment is over pretty quickly when Donal scolds Niall for running off as he did, and tells him he expects him to accept more responsibility in the future.
Um, hi. Lir sickness?! It wasn't his fault!
But to be fair, Niall's presumed death has caused some trouble. Now why none of this happened during the whole fucking year Niall was away is an interesting question, but here we go. Apparently with Niall's alleged death, the Homanan Council was outright considering naming the bastard as Donal's heir. And since fucking when can they do that?
Donal is, for once, justifiably offended that they're willing to name Carillon's bastard in place of his own as his heir. While apparently the Cheysuli Clan Council was pushing for Ian, citing the prophecy.
...okay both of these things are stupid. First, it was clear that there was no fucking Council telling Carillon what to do. Where did these guys even come from anyway? How did they survive Shaine and the later occupation? We saw them in the last chapter of Legacy of the Sword, but why do they matter?
That said, the Cheysuli Clan Council is as stupid as the a'saii. Citing the prophecy is all well and good, but the qu-mahlin was still in effect in living memory! How the fuck do they think they can get a Cheysuli bastard on the throne of a kingdom that tried to genocide them all within their current king's lifetime?!
The Cheysuli seem to have improved their position a lot in the twenty years since we saw them last, but STILL.
But, there's some good news too:
“Niall.” He turned back. “There is yet another thing. Perhaps the most important—the gods know it turned the councils upside down.” He smiled. “Suddenly they could no longer speak of which bastard would inherit, but who to name as regent for the Prince of Homana’s heir.”
“The Prince of Homana’s—heir?” I stared. “Gisella bore the child? A son?”
“Two,” he said succinctly.
“Two?”
“Both boys.” He grinned. “And so I am made a grandsire.”
So apparently all the panic about whether or not the kingdom will see them as legitimate was pointless. Okay then. But still! TWINS!
God, Aislinn is a thirty-six year old grandmother. That's...pretty fucking gross.
Gisella is well...for Gisella. Niall, rather understandably, has some mixed feelings about that, but he's thrilled by the news of his twin sons. He wonders how he'll tell them apart, but Donal, rather cryptically, says that won't be a problem. I'll spoil it now because there's no real mystery to it: the boys are nearly identical but have different eye colors. The younger has blue eyes.
Not sure why Donal couldn't just say that. Maybe he wants to preserve the surprise.
But anyway, Donal starts nagging at Niall to go back to Homana Mujhar, because he's a dick who will not listen to his son, ever. See:
“Cannot.” He swung me around to face him. “Niall, my patience is wearing thin.”
“So was mine!” I cried. “Why do you think I left Mujhara? Because I could not wait any longer!”
“Niall, I cannot express to you how precarious is our position at the moment…nor my surprise that you can so easily dismiss two newborn sons.”
“I do not dismiss,” I said curtly. “Gods, jehan, I could not. But—I need to stay. I must. There is a thing I have to do—”
“What thing is more important than the security of your claim to the Lion Throne?” He was angry, very angry; I wanted to look away and could not. “Do you understand what I have told you, Niall? As Strahan assembles another army in Solinde, the bastard assembles one here. There is plague all through the north, creeping down even now from the Wastes into the rest of Homana. And you have the audacity to tell me you cannot come to Homana-Mujhar?”
There are probably some italics in this excerpt that I forgot to put in, but fuck it. The over-abundance of italics is one of the banes of my existence in this series. (Assume every Cheysuli word is meant to be in italics.)
God, I hate you Donal. But I do have to maybe rescind one earlier complaint: apparently Donal doesn't know that Niall left due to lir sickness. You'd think Taj or Lorn might have filled him in. But I'd like to think they dislike him too.
Anyway.
My answer was to summon Serri to me. I heard his response within the link, and even as I turned the wolf came running, running to meet me. His ears lay back along his skull and his mouth gaped open, allowing the tongue to loll. The black-smudged tail stood out behind him like a pennon in the wind. How he ran, my magnificent lir; how he ran to answer my call.
I dropped to one knee and caught him in my arms. He snugged his muzzle against my neck and muttered into my flesh and beard, forgoing the link to express his feelings aloud. And then I twisted my head to look up at my astonished father. “I left because I had to. I had to find my lir. And now I stay because I have to, so I can be fully acknowledged a warrior—a Cheysuli—before my clan.”
He said nothing. He did not have to. All the world was in his eyes.
“Jehan—”
“Three days,” he said quietly. “I’toshaa-ni, for the cleansing, and then the Ceremony of Honors.” He swallowed heavily. “For this, I can give you three days. I wish I could give you three years.”
Aw. I still hate you, Donal.
Anyway, the chapter ends here, telling us about the tears of pride and thankfulness in Donal's eyes.
So we start the chapter as Niall and Ian reach clankeep. Niall realizes that Serri, his lir, is actually pretty nervous. This surprises him, but Serri points out that Clankeep is a place of many people and lir, and Serri knows none of them.
I'm really enjoying this glimpse into what things are like for lir. Unlike the dragons of Pern, they don't seem to be born from other lir or have any pre-existing relationship in their own right. It raises interesting questions. Was Serri born in a normal wolf pack, and just developed a more human mentality?
Serri's actually a little defensive about it, which I find charming.
There's another note that's interesting which is that Clankeep has gates now. Niall remembers being told that once there was no need for gates "to shut the Cheysuli in", but well, they do have enemies to keep out. Niall thinks that more and more Clankeep reminds him of Mujhara.
It is an interesting thought. I wonder if the gates were an innovation from Finn or his successor. They seem to have been in place for most of Niall's lifetime, but Donal hadn't mentioned them. Of course, there was a lot that went unmentioned in Legacy of the Sword, so who knows.
Ian intends to go to the shar tahl, the Cheysuli priest, so that he can make arrangements for "the Ceremony of Honors", but is told by another warrior (Hey! Non-main character Cheysuli with a speaking line), that the shar tahl is actually with someone named Rylan, and the Mujhar is there too.
Ugh, Donal. But I think this is only the second time in the series where we actually get to see Cheysuli who aren't our lead characters. Ceinn counts too, I guess, but he's an adversary and a plot point. These guys just exist. Cool.
So Ian's pretty startled to hear that their father left Mujhara NOW, and the emphasis on "now" puzzles Niall enough to ask Serri if Tasha knows anything. But all she'll say is that Ian is worried about a lot of things: Ihlini, the plague, the bastard.
So they get to a pavilion with a fox on it. And indeed, there's a fox hanging out with Lorn and Taj, who scoots over to give Tasha room. Niall realizes that this must be Rylan's lir, but he feels guilty for not knowing its name. And he wonders if maybe the fact that he avoids the Keep, and thus doesn't know a lot of people, might be part of why there are a'saii who would rather see Ian on the throne. Ian knows them when Niall doesn't.
So Rylan appears to be the clan-leader now. Which answers a question that I didn't think to ask. He's surprised to see Niall, but isn't unfriendly. And he seems downright pleased when Niall turns over his gold wedding belt, to be reforged into lir gold.
I really like how happy these characters are for Niall. Especially Ian:
Ian took the pouch and stuffed the belt inside it once again. “Rujho, go. I will see to the gold.” But even as I turned, he caught my upper arm. “There is also i’toshaa-ni,” he said seriously. “All will be explained, but you must prepare yourself.”
“Will you be the one to explain it?”
He grinned, suddenly young again in the time before he had learned so much of responsibility, and the concern in his face was banished. “If that is what you wish.”
“I wish.” And then I was gone, running after my father, with Serri running at my side.
Aw.
We get some lovely description of the Cheysuli Keep here:
The wall path… Rylan meant the footpath that edged the green-gray wall surrounding Clankeep. It reminded me a little of the sentry-walks atop the battlements of a castle, ringing the parapets, but there was nothing of castles about a Cheysuli Keep. Only a wall, curving through the trees like a granite serpent, lacking merlons and crenels, showing only an undulating line of piled stone, unmortared, but sealed with moss and ivy. The vines threaded their way up lichened flanks and clung tenaciously, setting roots and questing fingers into cracks and crevices. Trees from the other side sent reconnaissance patrols across over the wall and down, breaching Cheysuli security. Mistletoe clustered in crotches. Columbine twined the boughs and mantled the top of the wall.
The wall is interesting. Like the gates. They are a protection that the Cheysuli never had before. They're also more permanent though. Before, the clans were at least semi-nomadic. They still sleep in pavilions. But Clankeep is clearly not moving any time in the near future.
So he finds his dad and sister. Isolde is upset and to his credit, Donal is trying to comfort her. And when he spots Niall, his reaction is INTERESTING:
And recoiled, “Carillon—” he blurted.
I stopped walking. I stood in the middle of the footpath quite alone; Serri had paused along the way to make the acquaintance of a coney too far from his burrow. My first instinct was to resent the mistaken identity; once, I would have, but now I could not. I was too shocked. Though others often did, never had my father even remarked upon the resemblance. Never had he so much as likened me to my grandsire. Certainly he had never looked at me and called me by Carillon’s name. Not even by mistake.
And it was not a mistake now. Because, for that instant, he believed I was.
I don't think it's just the beard. It's also the lir, or at least what it represents. Carillon never had a lir of course, but he grew up early and hard. Niall had time to be a child longer. As much as I hate Donal, and I do, Donal has been able to provide a safe home for his son. And Niall's always had the support of his older siblings and his mother.
But now Niall's a grown man, both symbolically, figuratively and literally and it makes a difference.
Donal snaps out of it, but decides to talk to Niall frankly about his grandfather. So yay, for some Carillon shilling here. I'm not excerpting that crap. It's not inaccurate: Carillon was a strong, dedicated man who carried burdens and drove himself hard to make Homana whole and serve the prophecy in his own way. But I still remember him telling Donal to rape his daughter, so Carillon can go fuck himself.
But I think the key part of this is less "how great Carillon was" and more about Donal's own fears of inadequacy:
He looked up at me; I nodded and he went on. “Every day I looked at him, seeing how he drove himself to make Homana whole—seeing how he drove himself to serve a prophecy not even of his people, and I wondered. I wondered: how will I ever be able to take the Lion from this man? How will I ever be able to carry on the things he has begun?”
It's good moment as a character beat here, and a nice common ground for Niall who has spent the book suffering under various layers of perceived inadequacy. It's just spoiled a bit by the fact that I don't remember Donal ever thinking that. I mostly just remember him whining about the inconveniences of wealth and luxury.
But I should judge the book on its own merits, to be fair, and I really do like this bit:
“He told me: be Donal. He told me: you should not judge yourself by others. But, of course, I did. Even as you do now.”
“I hate him,” I said hollowly. “I hate a dead man, jehan.”
“But mostly you hate yourself.”
I sat down awkwardly in the middle of the footpath because I could no longer stand in the face of the realization. “Aye,” I said on rushing breath. “Oh, jehan… I have.”
“Be Niall,” he said gently. “Do not judge yourself by others.”
So there's some more back and forth. But this nice moment is over pretty quickly when Donal scolds Niall for running off as he did, and tells him he expects him to accept more responsibility in the future.
Um, hi. Lir sickness?! It wasn't his fault!
But to be fair, Niall's presumed death has caused some trouble. Now why none of this happened during the whole fucking year Niall was away is an interesting question, but here we go. Apparently with Niall's alleged death, the Homanan Council was outright considering naming the bastard as Donal's heir. And since fucking when can they do that?
Donal is, for once, justifiably offended that they're willing to name Carillon's bastard in place of his own as his heir. While apparently the Cheysuli Clan Council was pushing for Ian, citing the prophecy.
...okay both of these things are stupid. First, it was clear that there was no fucking Council telling Carillon what to do. Where did these guys even come from anyway? How did they survive Shaine and the later occupation? We saw them in the last chapter of Legacy of the Sword, but why do they matter?
That said, the Cheysuli Clan Council is as stupid as the a'saii. Citing the prophecy is all well and good, but the qu-mahlin was still in effect in living memory! How the fuck do they think they can get a Cheysuli bastard on the throne of a kingdom that tried to genocide them all within their current king's lifetime?!
The Cheysuli seem to have improved their position a lot in the twenty years since we saw them last, but STILL.
But, there's some good news too:
“Niall.” He turned back. “There is yet another thing. Perhaps the most important—the gods know it turned the councils upside down.” He smiled. “Suddenly they could no longer speak of which bastard would inherit, but who to name as regent for the Prince of Homana’s heir.”
“The Prince of Homana’s—heir?” I stared. “Gisella bore the child? A son?”
“Two,” he said succinctly.
“Two?”
“Both boys.” He grinned. “And so I am made a grandsire.”
So apparently all the panic about whether or not the kingdom will see them as legitimate was pointless. Okay then. But still! TWINS!
God, Aislinn is a thirty-six year old grandmother. That's...pretty fucking gross.
Gisella is well...for Gisella. Niall, rather understandably, has some mixed feelings about that, but he's thrilled by the news of his twin sons. He wonders how he'll tell them apart, but Donal, rather cryptically, says that won't be a problem. I'll spoil it now because there's no real mystery to it: the boys are nearly identical but have different eye colors. The younger has blue eyes.
Not sure why Donal couldn't just say that. Maybe he wants to preserve the surprise.
But anyway, Donal starts nagging at Niall to go back to Homana Mujhar, because he's a dick who will not listen to his son, ever. See:
“Cannot.” He swung me around to face him. “Niall, my patience is wearing thin.”
“So was mine!” I cried. “Why do you think I left Mujhara? Because I could not wait any longer!”
“Niall, I cannot express to you how precarious is our position at the moment…nor my surprise that you can so easily dismiss two newborn sons.”
“I do not dismiss,” I said curtly. “Gods, jehan, I could not. But—I need to stay. I must. There is a thing I have to do—”
“What thing is more important than the security of your claim to the Lion Throne?” He was angry, very angry; I wanted to look away and could not. “Do you understand what I have told you, Niall? As Strahan assembles another army in Solinde, the bastard assembles one here. There is plague all through the north, creeping down even now from the Wastes into the rest of Homana. And you have the audacity to tell me you cannot come to Homana-Mujhar?”
There are probably some italics in this excerpt that I forgot to put in, but fuck it. The over-abundance of italics is one of the banes of my existence in this series. (Assume every Cheysuli word is meant to be in italics.)
God, I hate you Donal. But I do have to maybe rescind one earlier complaint: apparently Donal doesn't know that Niall left due to lir sickness. You'd think Taj or Lorn might have filled him in. But I'd like to think they dislike him too.
Anyway.
My answer was to summon Serri to me. I heard his response within the link, and even as I turned the wolf came running, running to meet me. His ears lay back along his skull and his mouth gaped open, allowing the tongue to loll. The black-smudged tail stood out behind him like a pennon in the wind. How he ran, my magnificent lir; how he ran to answer my call.
I dropped to one knee and caught him in my arms. He snugged his muzzle against my neck and muttered into my flesh and beard, forgoing the link to express his feelings aloud. And then I twisted my head to look up at my astonished father. “I left because I had to. I had to find my lir. And now I stay because I have to, so I can be fully acknowledged a warrior—a Cheysuli—before my clan.”
He said nothing. He did not have to. All the world was in his eyes.
“Jehan—”
“Three days,” he said quietly. “I’toshaa-ni, for the cleansing, and then the Ceremony of Honors.” He swallowed heavily. “For this, I can give you three days. I wish I could give you three years.”
Aw. I still hate you, Donal.
Anyway, the chapter ends here, telling us about the tears of pride and thankfulness in Donal's eyes.
Came here after succeeding at a big misadventure
Date: 2022-08-10 09:09 am (UTC)Pan: And I beat Covid IRL.
So, I have my energy to comment back.
So we start the chapter as Niall and Ian reach clankeep. Niall realizes that Serri, his lir, is actually pretty nervous. This surprises him, but Serri points out that Clankeep is a place of many people and lir, and Serri knows none of them.
Pan: So the lir is really basically the new guy.
Also, this series started having good worldbuilding!
Ugh, Donal. But I think this is only the second time in the series where we actually get to see Cheysuli who aren't our lead characters. Ceinn counts too, I guess, but he's an adversary and a plot point. These guys just exist. Cool.
Alix: Side characters and extras help the worldbuilding.
So Ian's pretty startled to hear that their father left Mujhara NOW, and the emphasis on "now" puzzles Niall enough to ask Serri if Tasha knows anything. But all she'll say is that Ian is worried about a lot of things: Ihlini, the plague, the bastard.
Pan: I forgot there was a plot about a bastard son! For a second I thought it was Donal or Alaric!
The wall is interesting. Like the gates. They are a protection that the Cheysuli never had before. They're also more permanent though. Before, the clans were at least semi-nomadic. They still sleep in pavilions. But Clankeep is clearly not moving any time in the near future.
So he finds his dad and sister. Isolde is upset and to his credit, Donal is trying to comfort her. And when he spots Niall, his reaction is INTERESTING:
And recoiled, “Carillon—” he blurted.
Alix: Carillon is easy to spot, Donal. He is the only person who was progressively getting worse.
Pan: Indeed, Donal sucks less in this book. The worst thing I can say about him here is a result of something he did in the last book.
Re: Came here after succeeding at a big misadventure
Date: 2022-08-10 12:59 pm (UTC)Donal isn't quite so bad anymore, but I still think he's pretty awful to his kids.
no subject
Date: 2023-02-14 12:47 am (UTC)