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i_read_whatThe curse of the generational epic is that eventually we see all the characters we know and love (or in this series, despise) eventually die. And now we've just said goodbye to our last remnant of Shapechangers. Farewell dude, you were the best part of two terrible books.
We rejoin Niall, who is trying to write a letter to his father, to inform him of Rowan's death. It's not coming easy, but Rowan's worth the effort. Niall's writing it himself, rather than dictating to a scribe, because he wants the privacy to say what he really feels. He's just finished, in time for Ian to return, and tell us that the depressing part isn't over yet.
Remember Isolde? Who was pregnant?
Well, happily, she had a little boy. He's four months old, named Tiernan! Happy news!
I would have smiled, but there was a question I had to ask before I expressed my pleasure. “A healthy child? And ’Solde?”
“Healthy child? Aye.” He nodded. He shrugged. “Ceinn said the birth was easy. But the plague has taken ’Solde.”
I did not move. I could not. I sat in my chair and stared at the stranger who stood before me.
“Last night,” he said listlessly. “Last night, as Tiernan cried for the breast she could not give him—the plague had dried her milk.”
I've mentioned before that the frustrating thing about Roberson is that when she wants to, when she bothers to try, she can be very good. Characterization is her strong suit. Like here, it would be easy to see Ian as being callous, but we can tell he isn't.
I waited. I watched. I knew he would deny it. Ian had to deny it. This was all part of the same obscene jest fostered by Strahan upon us. I waited. I waited for Ian to admit it; to say Isolde lived.
But he did not. He wandered aimlessly into my father’s private chamber. Tasha, following, flopped down beside a storage trunk even as Ian sat down on the lid. “I watched it, rujho. I just watched. There was nothing I could do.”
No—not Isolde—
“I thought perhaps the earth magic might help to turn the plague away. But nothing answered. Nothing came at my call.” He sounded weary, confused, remote, as if the death had taken away more than just Isolde. “I watched—and knew there was nothing I could do.”
For the reader, Rowan is the bigger punch. But for the characters...at fifty-six, Rowan wasn't elderly. But this is a society with war, lousy medicine and even worse sanitation. It's not shocking that the man died of illness, though he might have managed a few decades more without it. But Isolde was young. And even though we only knew her for a few chapters, the boys knew her their entire lives.
Niall tries to offer comfort to his brother, who is alternating between listlessness and anger, but Ian rejects it. Niall muses that his two older siblings had always been close, closer than he was to his sister. And that makes sense. It's less about blood per se than about what that blood means: two bastard Cheysuli in Homana's palace. Ceinn, we're told, is inconsolable. The cold asshole in me wonders if this won't mean a return of the a'saii after all. Did Ceinn back down because of Niall's lir? Or because he saw a chance to reconcile with Isolde?
I guess we'll just have to find out.
Ian's still a good egg:
Slowly he turned, but not before I saw the telltale gesture of hand pressing tears away from flesh. “Forgive me. I have no right to be selfish, rujho…she was your rujholla, too.”
Niall fills him in on Rowan, and Ian has even more bad news:
“Oh—” he said, when he could, “—oh, gods, but how keenly Strahan strikes!” Like me, he sucked in an uneven breath. “Niall—it is worse. Much worse than we imagined. The plague has slain half our numbers.”
HALF. A race that's only a generation or two post genocide. Niall asks if Ian means half of their clan only, or of the entire race? Ian clarifies: their clan, for certain. But the other clans are sending word of their own deaths, so he thinks it's probably true all around. Strahan has effectively begun his own qu'mahlin.
The boys realize the old Ihlini woman was right. This plague is unnatural, and to stop it, they have to go to Strahan's fortress. They need to go now. But Niall isn't his father:
I looked over at the table. The parchment lacked my seal. But I knew now I would not send it. I would have to send another. “Ian—it is late, I know…but will you ask for the council to be summoned?—those members who are here. If we are to go in the morning, I must name my heir.”
“Without jehan?”
I shook my head. “We cannot wait for him. And even if he did come, he would say we could not go.” I shrugged. “An informal council, perhaps, and a more informal acclamation, but one that must be made. The Lion must remain secure.”
Hey! Look at that! Unlike SOME princes, Niall doesn't just fly off on quests without proper preparation! (I mean, he did run off to get his lir, but he didn't exactly plan that.)
That raises another dilemma of course: what to tell an overprotective mom?
But Niall isn't the only one who's had a growth arc:
In the end, I simply said I was going. I told her when. I told her why. I told her what must be done. And I waited. For refusals, anger, tears. But she gave me none of those things.
“Go,” she said. “Do what you must do.”
I waited. But she said nothing more. In the end, it was up to me. “Jehana?” I shrugged a little beneath her calm gray gaze. “I—thought you would forbid it.”
She sat in a cushioned chair, swathed in a bronze-colored robe. She had prepared herself for bed; the glorious hair, unbound, spilled about her shoulders and gathered in her lap.
“No,” she said. “The realm is near to ruin. There will be nothing left for Donal—nothing left for you. Something must be done. Strahan must be stopped.”
Look at that.
It's probably worth remembering that, at the start of the book, Aislinn was thirty six years old. She's probably thirty-seven now. She's not the child she was in Legacy of the Sword.
She is glad to hear that Ian is going with Niall.
“I can think of no two warriors better equipped for this confrontation.”
I smiled a little. “Such faith.”
“You are both of you Donal’s sons. I think it is not misplaced.”
Aw.
Unfortunately, the conversation with Gisella doesn't go nearly so well.
Gisella stared at me. “Strahan?” she said. “You are going to find the Ihlini?”
“Find him. Slay him, if I can. He must be destroyed.”
Her yellow eyes were very wide and startled; she was a child, I thought, afraid of losing something. “You are leaving me.”
I sighed. “No,” I told her. “No. Not permanently. I will be back, if the gods are willing.”
She sat in the center of her big tester bed, crumpling the coverlet into ruin with rigid, clawlike fingers. “You are leaving me. Because I am not like Deirdre of Erinn.”
Poor Gisella. Niall does flinch when she mentions Deirdre, and I wonder if she caused that pain on purpose. It's hard to say how much she understands. She does understand that if Niall goes up against Strahan, he'll be dead. She grabs his hand and puts it on her pregnant belly and chants at him to "stay here". He can feel the child move even. But he still leaves.
So then there's the council meeting. It's bare bones: only the oldest and ill, as the youngest members had gone with the armies. There are, of course, undercurrents:
I leaned forward a little. I felt Serri’s warmth and weight against my foot; he lay beside the chair. “This plague is not happenstance,” I told them. “Not a cruel test devised by the gods and visited upon us. It is Ihlini treachery, meant to strip Homana of the Cheysuli.”
Once again, sidelong glances were exchanged. And I knew what some of them meant: strip Homana of the Cheysuli, and the land is Homanan again.
I wish I thought this was overly-cynical, but there are people who think like this. But Niall is ready. He explains the trip, and basically orders the council to swear an oath of loyalty to his own heirs. Niall is great when he's assertive.
So here we go:
They brought them to the dais, where I bade the women to face the assembly. Two swaddled bundles, hardly enough to carry the titles I would give them. But I knew it could be done. I had done it myself.
I rose, rounded the end of the table, took my place between the women. One hand I placed on Brennan’s head. The other I placed on Hart’s. “Before the gods of Homana and the Cheysuli, I pledge the lives of my sons into the service of the Lion; into the service of Homana. My firstborn, Brennan, I acknowledge as my heir; he will be Prince of Homana. My second son, Hart, I acknowledge as Brennan’s heir until such a time as Brennan weds and sires his own. He will be Prince of Solinde.”
So Niall's settled on a fate for Hart after all. Folks are startled, but it's an effective gesture, showing Niall's confidence in their eventual victory.
Since this chapter, and the next, are very short. I'll move on.
Chapter Six covers the first part of their journey. It's pretty riddled with misfortune.
Twelve days out from the city: Ian's horse breaks a leg. Ian ends up having to mercy kill it. They ride double, with the hope of getting another horse before the extra burden kills this one too.
Eighteen days out: Niall's horse dies too. They go on in lir shape, leaving most of their packs behind.
And then...
Five days later, Ian began to cough. And as we neared the Bluetooth he fell markedly behind. I stopped, turned back, looked for two cats and saw only one; saw my brother on hands and knees.
In wolf-shape I ran back to him, but as a human I knelt beside him. “Ian!”
He clawed wool from his face and coughed, spitting into the snow. His breathing was loud, labored, rattling in his chest. I heard a sound I had heard before. I saw a face I had seen before.
Rowan’s before he died. “Oh gods—” I said, “—oh, no—”
He knelt in the snow, coughing; obscene obeisance to the plague. His face was deathly gray, filmed with sweat; his lips had begun to swell. His eyes were mostly black.
Noooo.
Though I think this is more evidence that the plague is magical. How else would Ian have even contracted it?
Niall is frantic and desperate. He's lost Rowan and Isolde, but he can't begin to consider life without his brother. Not again.
It's really an effectively upsetting scene.
He coughed. It rose from the deepest portion of his chest and brought up foulness with it. Fingers clawed at his throat; freed at last of the woolen wrappings, the swollen buboes were plain to see.
Frenziedly I dragged him up from the ground. Even as he protested, I half carried him to the nearest tree. There I settled him, putting his back against the trunk, and wrapped his throat again.
He coughed. Gods, how he coughed, and it ripped his chest apart. Lips split, bled, crusted, split and bled again. His face was a mask of pain.
Do not take him, I begged the gods. Do not take my brother. Once already I feared he was dead—do not make me go through it again—
His eyes were closed, but he did not sleep. He simply breathed, as Rowan had breathed. And each time the rattle stopped, I prayed it would start again.
Serri, who had been sent for help, returns. He's found a place. Niall basically drags/carries his brother, while the lir scout ahead. They make it to the ferry-master's home. A small stone hut by the Bluetooth river.
But will he help someone sick of a plague? A Cheysuli?
“My brother—” Leaning against the cold stone wall of the hut, I gestured toward the lir-shrouded shape of my brother. “He is ill.”
“Cheysuli,” the ferryman said sharply. “It be plague, then, aye?”
“I need your help,” I begged. “Warmth, shelter, food, drink—is it so much to ask? I can even pay you—”
“He’ll likely die of’t,” the ferry-master told me flatly.
I could barely stand up myself. “Then let him die in a bed beneath a roof!” I cried. “Let him die as a man!”
Brown eyes studied me fiercely a moment. Then he stared past me to Ian. At last he hawked, spat out the door, wiped his mouth and nodded. “Aye. Aye. Ye hae the right of’t—isna my place to turn away a sick man. Coom then, lad, we’ll bring him under yon roof.”
Oh, thank god. You know, I don't mind the occasional cynical take on humanity. I enjoyed Game of Thrones as much as anyone. But in my heart, I want to believe that there is a fundamental decency to humanity. We can be very cruel to each other, but we can be kind too. And I like when that shines through.
The ferry-master helps get the boys inside, urges Niall to sit and rest, while tending Ian: stripping him down, setting hot cloth-wrapped stones against him, and covering him up again. He's got food and usca (the Bluetooth sees a lot of trade from Ellas and Solinde. Usca is good for the cold.).
The man's name is Padgett, by the way. A fundamentally decent person deserves to have his name mentioned and remembered. Anyway, Niall tells him that he can't stay. He has to stop Strahan.
Interestingly, Padgett recognizes the name. He asks if the plague is Ihlini-made. Perhaps because of his location on the river, he has some experience with them:
Padgett’s brows rose, then knitted as he frowned. He sat down on a stool and picked at a blackened thumbnail in consternation. “They’ve ne’er done a thing to me,” he said quietly. “Oh, aye—a man could say they hae need o’ yon ferry, but they be sorcerers. They canna fly, but there are other ways.” He sighed and looked at Ian. “Folk say the ’lini are evil, and most’y I gie a nod o’ the head and go on—because they ne’er done me any harm. But—plague—” He shook his head. “Plague be unco’ bad. If Strahan turns his hand to harmin’ the folk o’ Homana—Cheysuli, Homanan, whate’er—I want nae truck with them.” He sighed pensively. “Go where ye will, lad. I’ll do what I can for yon boy.”
The Ihlini can be manipulative. But maybe this, like the old woman, is more evidence that not all Ihlini are evil.
...huh. Actually, we've met this ferryman before. I didn't realize it. Niall offers Padgett his signet ring in lieu of the coins he doesn't have. Padgett recognizes it. He saw it once, on "a soldier in royal liv'ry" who told him what it was. Donal. When Donal went to retrieve Sorcha, Ian, and Isolde. This was THAT ferryman.
With his memory jogged, Padgett looks at Ian again and freaks out a little. He asks if they've kept the Mujhar young, like the Ihlini too:
He looked at me. “I saw the Mujhar once, near twenty year ago. This ring was on his hand—this face was on his face.”
Fantasy genetics are fun. Of course, Ian is the spitting image of Donal. Just like Niall is of Carillon. Niall clarifies that Ian looks like Donal because Ian is Donal's son. Padgett, being capable of math, realizes that Niall being Ian's brother means Niall is ALSO Donal's son.
Padgett doesn't want to take the ring from the Prince of Homana, but Niall insists. They share some dramatic final words and declarations. Padgett understandably asking what he's supposed to tell people if Ian dies and the Prince never comes back. Niall just tells him to tell the truth. Folks know where he's gone and the risks involved. And because Niall is Niall, rather than Donal, this is actually true.
So Niall goes off to finish the quest. The chapter ends here.
We rejoin Niall, who is trying to write a letter to his father, to inform him of Rowan's death. It's not coming easy, but Rowan's worth the effort. Niall's writing it himself, rather than dictating to a scribe, because he wants the privacy to say what he really feels. He's just finished, in time for Ian to return, and tell us that the depressing part isn't over yet.
Remember Isolde? Who was pregnant?
Well, happily, she had a little boy. He's four months old, named Tiernan! Happy news!
I would have smiled, but there was a question I had to ask before I expressed my pleasure. “A healthy child? And ’Solde?”
“Healthy child? Aye.” He nodded. He shrugged. “Ceinn said the birth was easy. But the plague has taken ’Solde.”
I did not move. I could not. I sat in my chair and stared at the stranger who stood before me.
“Last night,” he said listlessly. “Last night, as Tiernan cried for the breast she could not give him—the plague had dried her milk.”
I've mentioned before that the frustrating thing about Roberson is that when she wants to, when she bothers to try, she can be very good. Characterization is her strong suit. Like here, it would be easy to see Ian as being callous, but we can tell he isn't.
I waited. I watched. I knew he would deny it. Ian had to deny it. This was all part of the same obscene jest fostered by Strahan upon us. I waited. I waited for Ian to admit it; to say Isolde lived.
But he did not. He wandered aimlessly into my father’s private chamber. Tasha, following, flopped down beside a storage trunk even as Ian sat down on the lid. “I watched it, rujho. I just watched. There was nothing I could do.”
No—not Isolde—
“I thought perhaps the earth magic might help to turn the plague away. But nothing answered. Nothing came at my call.” He sounded weary, confused, remote, as if the death had taken away more than just Isolde. “I watched—and knew there was nothing I could do.”
For the reader, Rowan is the bigger punch. But for the characters...at fifty-six, Rowan wasn't elderly. But this is a society with war, lousy medicine and even worse sanitation. It's not shocking that the man died of illness, though he might have managed a few decades more without it. But Isolde was young. And even though we only knew her for a few chapters, the boys knew her their entire lives.
Niall tries to offer comfort to his brother, who is alternating between listlessness and anger, but Ian rejects it. Niall muses that his two older siblings had always been close, closer than he was to his sister. And that makes sense. It's less about blood per se than about what that blood means: two bastard Cheysuli in Homana's palace. Ceinn, we're told, is inconsolable. The cold asshole in me wonders if this won't mean a return of the a'saii after all. Did Ceinn back down because of Niall's lir? Or because he saw a chance to reconcile with Isolde?
I guess we'll just have to find out.
Ian's still a good egg:
Slowly he turned, but not before I saw the telltale gesture of hand pressing tears away from flesh. “Forgive me. I have no right to be selfish, rujho…she was your rujholla, too.”
Niall fills him in on Rowan, and Ian has even more bad news:
“Oh—” he said, when he could, “—oh, gods, but how keenly Strahan strikes!” Like me, he sucked in an uneven breath. “Niall—it is worse. Much worse than we imagined. The plague has slain half our numbers.”
HALF. A race that's only a generation or two post genocide. Niall asks if Ian means half of their clan only, or of the entire race? Ian clarifies: their clan, for certain. But the other clans are sending word of their own deaths, so he thinks it's probably true all around. Strahan has effectively begun his own qu'mahlin.
The boys realize the old Ihlini woman was right. This plague is unnatural, and to stop it, they have to go to Strahan's fortress. They need to go now. But Niall isn't his father:
I looked over at the table. The parchment lacked my seal. But I knew now I would not send it. I would have to send another. “Ian—it is late, I know…but will you ask for the council to be summoned?—those members who are here. If we are to go in the morning, I must name my heir.”
“Without jehan?”
I shook my head. “We cannot wait for him. And even if he did come, he would say we could not go.” I shrugged. “An informal council, perhaps, and a more informal acclamation, but one that must be made. The Lion must remain secure.”
Hey! Look at that! Unlike SOME princes, Niall doesn't just fly off on quests without proper preparation! (I mean, he did run off to get his lir, but he didn't exactly plan that.)
That raises another dilemma of course: what to tell an overprotective mom?
But Niall isn't the only one who's had a growth arc:
In the end, I simply said I was going. I told her when. I told her why. I told her what must be done. And I waited. For refusals, anger, tears. But she gave me none of those things.
“Go,” she said. “Do what you must do.”
I waited. But she said nothing more. In the end, it was up to me. “Jehana?” I shrugged a little beneath her calm gray gaze. “I—thought you would forbid it.”
She sat in a cushioned chair, swathed in a bronze-colored robe. She had prepared herself for bed; the glorious hair, unbound, spilled about her shoulders and gathered in her lap.
“No,” she said. “The realm is near to ruin. There will be nothing left for Donal—nothing left for you. Something must be done. Strahan must be stopped.”
Look at that.
It's probably worth remembering that, at the start of the book, Aislinn was thirty six years old. She's probably thirty-seven now. She's not the child she was in Legacy of the Sword.
She is glad to hear that Ian is going with Niall.
“I can think of no two warriors better equipped for this confrontation.”
I smiled a little. “Such faith.”
“You are both of you Donal’s sons. I think it is not misplaced.”
Aw.
Unfortunately, the conversation with Gisella doesn't go nearly so well.
Gisella stared at me. “Strahan?” she said. “You are going to find the Ihlini?”
“Find him. Slay him, if I can. He must be destroyed.”
Her yellow eyes were very wide and startled; she was a child, I thought, afraid of losing something. “You are leaving me.”
I sighed. “No,” I told her. “No. Not permanently. I will be back, if the gods are willing.”
She sat in the center of her big tester bed, crumpling the coverlet into ruin with rigid, clawlike fingers. “You are leaving me. Because I am not like Deirdre of Erinn.”
Poor Gisella. Niall does flinch when she mentions Deirdre, and I wonder if she caused that pain on purpose. It's hard to say how much she understands. She does understand that if Niall goes up against Strahan, he'll be dead. She grabs his hand and puts it on her pregnant belly and chants at him to "stay here". He can feel the child move even. But he still leaves.
So then there's the council meeting. It's bare bones: only the oldest and ill, as the youngest members had gone with the armies. There are, of course, undercurrents:
I leaned forward a little. I felt Serri’s warmth and weight against my foot; he lay beside the chair. “This plague is not happenstance,” I told them. “Not a cruel test devised by the gods and visited upon us. It is Ihlini treachery, meant to strip Homana of the Cheysuli.”
Once again, sidelong glances were exchanged. And I knew what some of them meant: strip Homana of the Cheysuli, and the land is Homanan again.
I wish I thought this was overly-cynical, but there are people who think like this. But Niall is ready. He explains the trip, and basically orders the council to swear an oath of loyalty to his own heirs. Niall is great when he's assertive.
So here we go:
They brought them to the dais, where I bade the women to face the assembly. Two swaddled bundles, hardly enough to carry the titles I would give them. But I knew it could be done. I had done it myself.
I rose, rounded the end of the table, took my place between the women. One hand I placed on Brennan’s head. The other I placed on Hart’s. “Before the gods of Homana and the Cheysuli, I pledge the lives of my sons into the service of the Lion; into the service of Homana. My firstborn, Brennan, I acknowledge as my heir; he will be Prince of Homana. My second son, Hart, I acknowledge as Brennan’s heir until such a time as Brennan weds and sires his own. He will be Prince of Solinde.”
So Niall's settled on a fate for Hart after all. Folks are startled, but it's an effective gesture, showing Niall's confidence in their eventual victory.
Since this chapter, and the next, are very short. I'll move on.
Chapter Six covers the first part of their journey. It's pretty riddled with misfortune.
Twelve days out from the city: Ian's horse breaks a leg. Ian ends up having to mercy kill it. They ride double, with the hope of getting another horse before the extra burden kills this one too.
Eighteen days out: Niall's horse dies too. They go on in lir shape, leaving most of their packs behind.
And then...
Five days later, Ian began to cough. And as we neared the Bluetooth he fell markedly behind. I stopped, turned back, looked for two cats and saw only one; saw my brother on hands and knees.
In wolf-shape I ran back to him, but as a human I knelt beside him. “Ian!”
He clawed wool from his face and coughed, spitting into the snow. His breathing was loud, labored, rattling in his chest. I heard a sound I had heard before. I saw a face I had seen before.
Rowan’s before he died. “Oh gods—” I said, “—oh, no—”
He knelt in the snow, coughing; obscene obeisance to the plague. His face was deathly gray, filmed with sweat; his lips had begun to swell. His eyes were mostly black.
Noooo.
Though I think this is more evidence that the plague is magical. How else would Ian have even contracted it?
Niall is frantic and desperate. He's lost Rowan and Isolde, but he can't begin to consider life without his brother. Not again.
It's really an effectively upsetting scene.
He coughed. It rose from the deepest portion of his chest and brought up foulness with it. Fingers clawed at his throat; freed at last of the woolen wrappings, the swollen buboes were plain to see.
Frenziedly I dragged him up from the ground. Even as he protested, I half carried him to the nearest tree. There I settled him, putting his back against the trunk, and wrapped his throat again.
He coughed. Gods, how he coughed, and it ripped his chest apart. Lips split, bled, crusted, split and bled again. His face was a mask of pain.
Do not take him, I begged the gods. Do not take my brother. Once already I feared he was dead—do not make me go through it again—
His eyes were closed, but he did not sleep. He simply breathed, as Rowan had breathed. And each time the rattle stopped, I prayed it would start again.
Serri, who had been sent for help, returns. He's found a place. Niall basically drags/carries his brother, while the lir scout ahead. They make it to the ferry-master's home. A small stone hut by the Bluetooth river.
But will he help someone sick of a plague? A Cheysuli?
“My brother—” Leaning against the cold stone wall of the hut, I gestured toward the lir-shrouded shape of my brother. “He is ill.”
“Cheysuli,” the ferryman said sharply. “It be plague, then, aye?”
“I need your help,” I begged. “Warmth, shelter, food, drink—is it so much to ask? I can even pay you—”
“He’ll likely die of’t,” the ferry-master told me flatly.
I could barely stand up myself. “Then let him die in a bed beneath a roof!” I cried. “Let him die as a man!”
Brown eyes studied me fiercely a moment. Then he stared past me to Ian. At last he hawked, spat out the door, wiped his mouth and nodded. “Aye. Aye. Ye hae the right of’t—isna my place to turn away a sick man. Coom then, lad, we’ll bring him under yon roof.”
Oh, thank god. You know, I don't mind the occasional cynical take on humanity. I enjoyed Game of Thrones as much as anyone. But in my heart, I want to believe that there is a fundamental decency to humanity. We can be very cruel to each other, but we can be kind too. And I like when that shines through.
The ferry-master helps get the boys inside, urges Niall to sit and rest, while tending Ian: stripping him down, setting hot cloth-wrapped stones against him, and covering him up again. He's got food and usca (the Bluetooth sees a lot of trade from Ellas and Solinde. Usca is good for the cold.).
The man's name is Padgett, by the way. A fundamentally decent person deserves to have his name mentioned and remembered. Anyway, Niall tells him that he can't stay. He has to stop Strahan.
Interestingly, Padgett recognizes the name. He asks if the plague is Ihlini-made. Perhaps because of his location on the river, he has some experience with them:
Padgett’s brows rose, then knitted as he frowned. He sat down on a stool and picked at a blackened thumbnail in consternation. “They’ve ne’er done a thing to me,” he said quietly. “Oh, aye—a man could say they hae need o’ yon ferry, but they be sorcerers. They canna fly, but there are other ways.” He sighed and looked at Ian. “Folk say the ’lini are evil, and most’y I gie a nod o’ the head and go on—because they ne’er done me any harm. But—plague—” He shook his head. “Plague be unco’ bad. If Strahan turns his hand to harmin’ the folk o’ Homana—Cheysuli, Homanan, whate’er—I want nae truck with them.” He sighed pensively. “Go where ye will, lad. I’ll do what I can for yon boy.”
The Ihlini can be manipulative. But maybe this, like the old woman, is more evidence that not all Ihlini are evil.
...huh. Actually, we've met this ferryman before. I didn't realize it. Niall offers Padgett his signet ring in lieu of the coins he doesn't have. Padgett recognizes it. He saw it once, on "a soldier in royal liv'ry" who told him what it was. Donal. When Donal went to retrieve Sorcha, Ian, and Isolde. This was THAT ferryman.
With his memory jogged, Padgett looks at Ian again and freaks out a little. He asks if they've kept the Mujhar young, like the Ihlini too:
He looked at me. “I saw the Mujhar once, near twenty year ago. This ring was on his hand—this face was on his face.”
Fantasy genetics are fun. Of course, Ian is the spitting image of Donal. Just like Niall is of Carillon. Niall clarifies that Ian looks like Donal because Ian is Donal's son. Padgett, being capable of math, realizes that Niall being Ian's brother means Niall is ALSO Donal's son.
Padgett doesn't want to take the ring from the Prince of Homana, but Niall insists. They share some dramatic final words and declarations. Padgett understandably asking what he's supposed to tell people if Ian dies and the Prince never comes back. Niall just tells him to tell the truth. Folks know where he's gone and the risks involved. And because Niall is Niall, rather than Donal, this is actually true.
So Niall goes off to finish the quest. The chapter ends here.
Sporking time!
Date: 2022-10-04 05:45 am (UTC)We rejoin Niall, who is trying to write a letter to his father, to inform him of Rowan's death. It's not coming easy, but Rowan's worth the effort. Niall's writing it himself, rather than dictating to a scribe, because he wants the privacy to say what he really feels. He's just finished, in time for Ian to return, and tell us that the depressing part isn't over yet.
Remember Isolde? Who was pregnant?
Well, happily, she had a little boy. He's four months old, named Tiernan! Happy news!
I would have smiled, but there was a question I had to ask before I expressed my pleasure. “A healthy child? And ’Solde?”
Finn: Well, the child is healthy because the generations passed and now women are treated with respect.
I waited. I watched. I knew he would deny it. Ian had to deny it. This was all part of the same obscene jest fostered by Strahan upon us. I waited. I waited for Ian to admit it; to say Isolde lived.
But he did not. He wandered aimlessly into my father’s private chamber. Tasha, following, flopped down beside a storage trunk even as Ian sat down on the lid. “I watched it, rujho. I just watched. There was nothing I could do.”
No—not Isolde—
“I thought perhaps the earth magic might help to turn the plague away. But nothing answered. Nothing came at my call.” He sounded weary, confused, remote, as if the death had taken away more than just Isolde. “I watched—and knew there was nothing I could do.”
Rey: Goodness, a plague that surpasses magic? This is very serious!
Twelve days out from the city: Ian's horse breaks a leg. Ian ends up having to mercy kill it. They ride double, with the hope of getting another horse before the extra burden kills this one too.
Finn: Since I got some experience with horses, don't let the horse break its leg. If it happens, pray you or someone nearby has Force Healing and can use it.
Five days later, Ian began to cough. And as we neared the Bluetooth he fell markedly behind. I stopped, turned back, looked for two cats and saw only one; saw my brother on hands and knees.
In wolf-shape I ran back to him, but as a human I knelt beside him. “Ian!”
He clawed wool from his face and coughed, spitting into the snow. His breathing was loud, labored, rattling in his chest. I heard a sound I had heard before. I saw a face I had seen before.
Rowan’s before he died. “Oh gods—” I said, “—oh, no—”
He knelt in the snow, coughing; obscene obeisance to the plague. His face was deathly gray, filmed with sweat; his lips had begun to swell. His eyes were mostly black.
Rey: I have a very bad feeling about this!
Pan: Me too. This is the first book in the series which is scary for the right reasons!
Do not take him, I begged the gods. Do not take my brother. Once already I feared he was dead—do not make me go through it again—
His eyes were closed, but he did not sleep. He simply breathed, as Rowan had breathed. And each time the rattle stopped, I prayed it would start again.
Finn: Poor Niall. He is really a hero.
Rey: I would ask how Donal made him, but considering who my grandpa is or who Luke's father is...
Pan: Strahan, apart from Matt Engarde, reminds me of Dark Knight Kraig of the Postknight games. The main villain, a spiteful little... who made a plague that caused a lot of misery and was the main issue in the first game. He also makes the heroes look bad in the second game with sabotage, and has moles inside the good guys. A smart, effective bastard.
Re: Sporking time!
Date: 2022-10-04 01:26 pm (UTC)It is the first time in the series that we had heroes in peril where I wasn't saying "good! Let him die!!!" :-D
Re: Sporking time!
Date: 2022-10-04 01:48 pm (UTC)Re: Sporking time!
Date: 2022-10-04 02:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-04-17 02:26 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-04-17 06:48 pm (UTC)