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i_read_whatMade it to the last chapter. Janny Wurts reviews always make me feel so accomplished. It helps me not think about the fact that I still haven't posted my Stalking Darkness Table of Contents. (That one's going up tomorrow, I swear!)
But let's see what purple prose awaits us in the home stretch!
So we start out the chapter with "the Prince of the Light" and his handpicked company riding out in to the usual lushly described countryside.
As they're stopping for a rest, a fresh young recruit starts bitching about the waste of effort. The Hanshire riders have been gone for months and are probably dead. And even if not, a day or a week will hardly make a difference.
I mean, it's a fair point. But he's loud and brash and the perfect person to become an example:
Seemingly out of nowhere, hard fingers locked onto the whiner’s shoulder and jerked him face about toward the innyard.
“No man oathsworn to fight the shadow at my side shirks his given duty to his fellows,” cracked Lysaer s’Ilessid. The pale white of his tunic melding into the mist, he had moved up unseen.
Lysaer does know how to make an entrance. And as usual, he knows how to make a good speech:
The grief of his past night’s loss still marked him. Yet even through exhaustion and the incandescent fire of just anger, he noticed the ferryman’s youngest toddler, wandered in his wake from the guest-house. He knelt in the dust. “Go, child. The morning’s too fine to spoil with shouting when you can pick shells from the beach.”
As the girl wandered off, he straightened, confronted the miscreant, and resumed his lashing reprimand. “I will have it known beyond question that anyone needing help against the works of evil sorcery shall receive what they ask. Assistance will reach them with all the speed that crown resource can muster. My will on this matter shall brook no challenge. For today’s lack of diligence, consider yourself released from your oath of service to the Light.”
It's a bit of an extreme reaction to banish a guy for having a difference of opinion. Especially since there's no evidence that he was actually shirking his duties. But it's a rather nice demonstration of how Lysaer's been changed by his new approach to life.
The Lysaer of the first few books knew how to manage dissent. He took a lot more mouthiness from men like Pesquil or Bransien s'Brydion without batting an eye. And with a cause like this? It'd have been very easy to have this kid, and everyone else, eating out of his hand by pointing out that he'd never abandon a loyal subject until he was absolutely sure there was no hope.
But this isn't Lysaer the statesman. This is Lysaer, the divine figure. And no one gets to question the divine.
We see that right here:
Lysaer s’Ilessid cut him off. “Don’t trouble to speak. I won’t hear excuses.” His blue eyes as inexorable as arctic ice, he insisted, “There can be no faint hearts in my ranks. As we shoulder the coming war against darkness, every man must stand ready to give his life without question.”
So the guard captain rips the sunwheel badge from the begging recruit, and Lysaer orders him to leave before announcing to the rest that any man who looks back with be dismissed, and they can't afford to harbor doubts against sorcery.
Is it weird that it makes me a little sad? The Lysaer of Merior and Vastmark was already a monster, there's no question about that. And that monster was, himself, tragic when compared with the man we knew briefly in Curse of the Mistwraith. But this man is even less Lysaer than they were. He's lost more of himself along the way.
There's a note about Lirenda going her separate way. The poor woman makes no other impact on these events. But that's fitting, because Lysaer really doesn't need her for anything.
We do get some good description here and there:
Prince Lysaer led, his gleaming gold hair and scintillant jewels unearthly against the bald slabs of striated granite which scabbed that desolate setting.
But for Wurts, that's almost restrained. It gets the point across though of the symbol he makes against the desolate landscape.
Meanwhile, Lysaer is haunting himself about Talith's death. As he fucking should. But as usual, it's very Lysaer:
For Lysaer s’Ilessid himself, the bleak landscape left unpleasant, slack hours to think. His aching grief for Talith’s loss became a torment of wretched persistence. As though the mainstay to his intellect had splintered like glass, pain left its branding reminder. Circling memories reopened old scars. The cycle of betrayal and abandon begun by his s’Ahelas mother now magnified and replayed, until he wished he was numb to all passion.
The friend who might have shared his hour of mourning lay dead, slain along with the war host massacred by the dark on the field at Dier Kenton Vale.
It's interesting to me how self-centered this version of Lysaer is. And perhaps he's always been. He grieves Talith's loss, we're told, but there's no thought of her as a person. There's no suggestion that he might have wronged her, or that he could have heard her out, or that his rejection and judgment might have driven her to this. But even if Lysaer truly does believe he has no role in her demise, he doesn't think about HER.
And how dare Diegan not be there to share Lysaer's mourning. It's not like Diegan might have had thoughts about his sister's fate or anything.
But then again, Diegan was kind of an idiot. So maybe he would have been the source of comfort that Lysaer thinks.
There's is something interesting here though. Because Lysaer is a man who, all along, liked to glamorize his decisions as self-sacrifice. He really wanted to be with Talith, but he couldn't. He had to give her up for his righteous cause. But here we see how empty that justification is:
Once, his marriage to a single woman had threatened to seduce him from his oathsworn obligation to bring down the Master of Shadow. Now Talith was gone. Temptation removed, he had not gained relief. Death had not brought him one iota of freedom from the drawing agony of her allure, which had dreadfully threatened to snap his integrity and undermine all his high principles. He felt newly lost. No grand cause could bridge the terrible vacancy love had left torn through his heart.
And of course, in the end, it all comes back to Arithon. He'd orchestrated her estrangement. Of course. He'd manipulated her betrayal. It is rather interesting that he doesn't actually accuse him of sleeping with her though. That accusation had come up, if you recall, when he'd confronted her about her pregnancy, to the point of promising dire consequences if the baby had dark hair.
In the end though, we're told that Lysaer's "faithless mother's s'Ahelas farsight mocked him to gritty self-honesty". He's facing the grimward because he doesn't want to face his loss.
As usual the farsight is pretty fucking useless.
So they start to reach their destination, though they're still a day or so out from where the men disappear. And things get creepy. The animals are NOT happy. And everything starts going awry. They lose all sense of direction, and when Lysaer sends a bolt of light up in challenge...
The bolt seared aloft like the quenching shriek of hot steel. Its dazzling radiance slammed into resistance and summoned a veil of blank fog. Gray wisps eddied and curled, first as disorganized rags of vapor, then as a frothing, impenetrable veil which expanded to mask the known landscape.
To the men-at-arms rooted in trembling obedience, the surge of Lysaer’s gift seemed to collide with an uncanny barrier of mage-force.
Well. Not so easy, is it?
So then things really go awry. Lysaer's really kind of a one-trick wonder magically speaking, and his light isn't doing much good here. He's starting to lose control of himself, though, in the midst of the chaotic void, he does here someone cry:
“Lysaer, Prince of the Light, deliver me safe from the darkness!”
I'm sure that's not going to exacerbate the guy's god complex or anything. But then things seem to solidify back into existence. Everyone's shocked and dazed. And there's a dust-coated, haunted captain at arms weeping at Lysaer's feet.
Meet Sulfin Evend. He's going to be important. Very important actually. And by saving his life, but also letting Lysaer basically take credit for saving him, Asandir's kind of screwed over Arithon yet again.
I suppose I shouldn't bitch too much. I don't actually expect a heroic character to leave someone to die, and Asandir really didn't have much control about what happened after that point. It's just funny that even unintentionally, the Fellowship still manages to make trouble for the guy that they supposedly favor.
So yeah, everyone is shocked and amazed at Lysaer's feat.
But Lysaer actually knows better:
His racing heart rejected the implication, though to his bones, he knew. The powers which had redeemed the lost captain were none of his own. His memory of their uncanny strangeness pried at logic, undid belief, to the massive upset of clear principle.
Denial remained. If sorcery was wrought from the heart of life’s source, if music and grand harmony and clean balance framed its powers, then Lysaer rocked on the edge of the abyss. All that he strove to accomplish in the world became unveiled as a misguided illusion.
“No.” Lysaer shut his eyes, his two hands locked and shaking. Conflicted by self-honesty and devastated pride, he ached through a moment of absolute crisis, before he recalled his own truth: the adepts of Ath’s brotherhood once sought to sway him the same way. They had used such diabolically crafted illusion to distort his perception, and blind honor, and convince him that Arithon s’Ffalenn was born innocent.
But denial is very powerful, and Lysaer is nothing if not very good at self-justification.
And I wonder if we're not seeing another, subtler, sign of Lysaer's transformation. Since the curse hit, he's believed Arithon was evil. But this is the first time that Lysaer's expressed that he thought Arithon was BORN evil rather than had chosen evil.
It fits though. If Lysaer is the divine, then his enemy must be the opposite. And since we're talking fundamental religious nature, then he must always have been. Did Merior's Lysaer believe his brother was evil from birth though? I don't know that.
Sulfin Evend, who as far as I know is almost always referred to by both names, details his experiences. Including what he remembers of Asandir:
“There was a Sorcerer,” Sulfin Evend gasped, while a man knelt and cut away the clotted shreds of his sleeve to bare his untended wound. “He wore dark robes. While the rocks of Sithaer itself boiled and burned and ran molten about me, he came and forced me to walk down the throat of a dragon’s skull. I fought him. He told me to cease struggling, that resistance was wasted. Then he flung me into the dark.”
Maybe Asandir and Arithon can bond later about how grand gestures end up completely misunderstood by everyone around them.
But here we go:
While his gashes were dressed, the victim insistently pursued his story, trembling from shock and amazement at his deliverance. “I knew I would be imprisoned in that place for all time. In my hour of despair I called on the Name of the Prince of the Light, and was heard!” He turned shining, worshipful eyes upon the blond-haired scion of s’Ilessid who stood a half step removed from his honor guard. “Praise your Grace! The blessed powers of Light have triumphed over darkness, and I stand before you alive.”
The instant the bandage was secure on his arm, he pushed through the men and knelt once again at the feet of Lysaer s’Ilessid. “I have seen the truth. You are sent by divine mission to deliver us from darkness.”
The interesting thing about Sulfin Evend, as we're going to see in the future, is that he doesn't really fit the pattern of Lysaer's usual followers. He's not like Diegan, or so many of Lysaer's other followers: a weak man who gravitates toward a stronger one and eats up his blandishments and flattery. And he's not like Pesquil or that witchhunting fanatic whose name momentarily escapes me: someone who uses Lysaer's momentum and influence to push their own hateful causes.
If Sulfin Evend is similar to anyone, it's Talith. He's a strong-willed person with a clear sense of self who loves Lysaer for his own reasons. It's worship in one sense, I suppose, but not really. I suppose if you look at it like faith, Sulfin doesn't have blind faith in Lysaer. He genuinely believes, based on what he experienced, that Lysaer saved his life with divine powers. He's operating on proof, not faith.
He's wrong, of course, but it's simply a misinterpretation of evidence. Anyway, he's going to play an important role going forward.
But remember Lysaer knows that he didn't save Sulfin Evend. So what does this mean?
Surrounded by the worshipful circle of his men, the prince understood he must keep the pretense of manhood and react. If not, he risked being forced to explain how narrowly he had escaped an insidious and subtle attack of enemy subterfuge.
He laid his crossed hands upon Sulfin Evend’s bent head. Unable to imagine how a man could stay sane through a harrowing ordeal wrought of sorcery, he chose utmost tact and said gently, “You need not still serve.”
It means he lies of course. Interesting that his sense of justice has no issue with that.
Anyway, Sulfin Evend has no intention of leaving Lysaer's service and he's quite dramatic about it. Lysaer is "touched to relief" that a "man of such fiber" wants to carry his banner. Sulfin gets immediate promotion to command the host of Lysaer's field army.
--
We switch scenes now to Althain Tower. It's weeks after Sulfin Evend got his promotion. But remember how the Grimward spit Arithon and company out months later? NOW we see Asandir spit out essentially at Sethvir's feet.
There's lots of cool magical description here, but the important part is that it's time for Asandir to keel the fuck over. And he does.
He tries to fill Sethvir in on things, but Sethvir already knows most of it. It's time for some Fellowship hurt/comfort instead. It's all kind of mystical, see?
Through the jangled membrane of his skin, Asandir felt Sethvir’s sensitive fingers. Touch came and went with the lightness of moth wings, testing, then mapping the vortices of fusion where his biological body engaged with the more subtle frequencies of spirit. His colleague’s ministrations shored up flagging stamina, soothing with sympathetic infusions of fine energy; even so, Asandir felt the reverberation of each release drill through the marrow of his bones.
Asandir's kind of a control freak, so he keeps trying to tell Sethvir what to do. They shouldn't send Kharadmon, for example, because the "star ward" mustn't be left unguarded. (Not sure how that fits with Kharadmon running off to talk to Elaira and do other errands, but okay.) Sethvir just kind of nods patronizingly. Luhaine's going to deal with it.
And indeed, Sethvir sends out a summons so loud that Morriel will hear it. Which she's meant to. Apparently Luhaine's been keeping an eye on her since her plot to capture Arithon came to light. So maybe we're entering into a period of time when the Fellowship will actually be DOING stuff?
We can always hold out hope.
After Asandir keels over completely, we get some introspection from Sethvir:
“For mercy and the world, we cannot keep on like this.” Eyes shut through the moment he required to steady himself, he thanked every power in creation for Arithon s’Ffalenn’s resolve to renew his offshore search for the Paravians. Each hour that the Shadow Master spent provisioning his brigantine at Innish seeded the potential for another disaster. The Mistwraith’s curse had embedded too deeply since the great war in Vastmark. Lysaer’s grand cause now commanded too widespread an influence, and simple evasions would no longer serve. This time no less than a Fellowship Sorcerer had nearly been lost in the breach.
There's something that annoys me about that "no less than a Fellowship Sorcerer" line. I appreciate that these assholes value themselves over basically everyone else. Hence the Black Rose prophecy. But still.
I also like how they talk about Lysaer's spreading cause like they had no means of curtailing it. I mean, okay, I get that they're not supposed to interfere. But couldn't they TALK to people? Surely there are some people in the land that still believe in the old ways. The commoners of Rathain, as I recall, had actually been pretty enthusiastic about the coronation and charter, until everything went to Hell.
And if there really isn't anyone who believes in the old ways, the Fellowship has done a craptastic job of enforcing the Compact. What good is an agreement if one side doesn't give a shit?
They fucking excommunicated the guy, right? So what good was that?
But this does segue into sleeping Asandir, who's looking pretty rough and blistered. Sethvir gets to work. As he does, he gets to wax eloquently about Asandir's state:
The damage he mapped made him ache with shared sorrow. A mage of Asandir’s strength and stature should celebrate his existence wrapped in a mantle of pure light. His raiment of spirit was the limitless power of creation, maintained into flawless balance. The axis of his being should shine as a beacon, his shimmering vitality stitched like tamed lightning through the tapestry of sinew beneath. For a Fellowship Sorcerer, self-renewal became reflex. The infinite whole sustained his existence, channeled and tuned to harmonic alignment that flowed with each breath and surged to the rhythm of each heartbeat.
Instead, Sethvir beheld a fabric rubbed threadbare as old muslin. Where the weave should have blazed with energetic life, he saw dull voids, their edges dimmed to a fuzzy, splotched gray, etched like dark tarnish on lead. Where the energy vortices tangled, he reached through his mage-sense, raising the resonance and stroking out blockage. He coaxed each stressed channel, and whispered phrases of compassionate encouragement to the inner will, which would comprehend frequency and sound. No effort was spared. Past the blinds of unconsciousness, Asandir’s senses still functioned. The mind would record, and the body respond, and rally the life force for healing.
So yeah, there's a lot of this. It's kind of interesting to see what makes a Fellowship mage from the inside out.
But anyway, this continues for a while. There's mystical metaphysical stuff, and then something with herbs, then something with permissions and patterns and energy. I don't really know. As with most magical workings, it's very pretty sounding and I can make very little sense of it. Swirly lights, I'd guess.
It's not even like I can make bad jokes about sex, because it's only Sethvir here. And also I'd rather not.
Eventually Luhaine pops up. He's kind of pissy because Sethvir pissed off Morriel. They've got a bit of a disagreement here: Sethvir basically dismisses Morriel because of her very poor physical state. Luhaine thinks she's a volcano waiting to blow. And moreover, Lirenda's back. They're going to regret not having eyes on Morriel at this time.
He's probably right, but Sethvir insists that Koriathain plots must wait on Asandir's need. That's probably right too, but ten bucks says this is going to blow up in Arithon's face.
I know how this series works.
Speaking of Arithon, Luhaine's also irked at him for antagonizing the Koriani more with whatever he did to Lirenda's crystal. (“I refer to the specific disharmonies in her quartz that he retuned with compassionate melody, yes.”) Still not sure what that means.
Anyway, Sethvir wants Luhaine to watch over Asandir, so he can go reseal the grimward. Luhaine is actually a little humbled, saying that even with a body, he couldn't have done what Asandir had. And Asandir IS in bad shape since the grimward fucked up Asandir's ability to recover on his own.
This is maybe the first indication we've had that the Fellowship might be at all mortal and in real danger of death. I don't know yet what I think about it.
Anyway, to clarify, Luhaine might have done it for Arithon as he's essential to the Black Rose Prophecy, but not one misguided captain at arms.
Yeah, we know. Normal lives don't actually matter that much for you guys. Even Arithon only matters because he's needed to ensure your group becomes whole. But, to be fair, Asandir DID actually save that guy.
Oh god. I might end up not hating Asandir most of these assholes after all. That's annoying.
Luhaine might have a point when he notes that Sulfin Evend has "sworn to become all Lysaer has ever asked of a warrior priest."
But well, I am not going to fault the ONE time a member of the Fellowship got up off his ass to save an ordinary person. Maybe they can keep doing that?
--
The next part is Judgment.
We're here with Morriel. Who's not in great shape physically, as Sethvir had noted:
Swathed in quilts sewn with sigils of vitality chain-stitched in silver thread, and propped upright against goose-down pillows like piled snowdrifts, Morriel ruled the Koriani Order from an enormous, carved bed at Capewell. Reduced to a skeleton swathed in blanched skin, she held the reins of her power close to her breast, her eyes still like fathomless beads of chipped jet. Her speech was sparing, each word precise as engraving.
You know, if you'd leave Arithon alone, you might not end up in this state? Just saying. Some of your order's downfall might be less his fault and more you pulling a Wile E. Coyote on yourself.
There is a note here that might be relevant later: one of Morriel's attendants is an initiate of exceptional talent who's just been brought across Tysan "in whirlwind haste".
I THINK that's Selidie. And she'll be important later.
Not all purple prose is flattering, and I rather like this bit:
The Koriani Matriarch probed into the orbs like the listening spider slung in the strands of her web. One of these showed the dark horse and the rider, standing knee high in gold meadow grass. A maggot white smile turned the crone’s bloodless lips as that particular scrying unfolded.
Morriel by the way knows that Sethvir is on foot, traveling most of the way to deal with the grimward. He'll be using illusion to mask his travel. Morriel is frustrated by the fact that the Great Waystone would allow her to cut through that illusion, but she doesn't risk using it in her current state. She can barely talk without needing to rest afterward.
She's also aware of Luhaine's surveillance though, and waits until he's gone to deal with important matters. Including Lirenda's judgment.
So this is actually a pretty major ritual. One older than Koriani residence on Athera. Morriel names a peeress as the order's "Ceremonial Inquisitor" to act as her voice. The young initiate will stay as a witness. A page boy is sent for the Skyron crystal.
We switch to Lirenda, who is very nervous but trying not to show it. We get some nice eloquent description of her clothes and are told, possibly for the first time, that Lirenda has been Koriani First Senior for fifty-six years.
That's actually pretty interesting because based on characterization, I'd always assumed Lirenda was a peer of Elaira's. But well, maybe that's intentional. It seems that there's a lot about Koriani society that would keep someone stagnant and immature.
So she's led to Morriel's chamber, which seems quite dramatic:
Darkness as stilled as a panther’s tread awaited over the threshold. The air within breathed of close-kept secrets and a dusty perfume of dried lavender. For as long as living memory, the Koriani Prime had preferred the night for her significant meetings. When council could not be avoided in daylight, she ordered her chambers kept dark. The curtains were sewn of black damask and velvet. The dagged valance was looped on silver rings, each cast in the sigil for eternity, the triple-coiled snake trapped forever in the act of swallowing its own tail. The sulfurous, candlelit well by the bedstead seemed sealed in an ironclad silence.
Lirenda is losing her nerve, but fortunately pride and discipline save her.
We see the witnesses, and this is a first:
Three others were present by Morriel’s behest, one an untried girl with flaxen-fair braids, and another a grown woman wearing a blank-faced, idiot’s stare. Lirenda took a moment to discern the forehead tattoo which signified an initiate who had failed in her vow of obedience. A deeper chill shocked her as she recognized the emptied creature’s face. There stood the young initiate who had failed in her sworn charge to hold the circle of Morriel’s grand conjury. The traditional penalty allowed no appeal. She would serve out her days as a mindless slave, her identity stripped through the power of the vows sworn through the Prime’s master crystal.
So THAT's what it looks like when an initiate breaks her vow. That's what Arithon was trying to protect Elaira from. And that's what both Elaira and Lirenda risked.
Lirenda realizes now that her defense might "become her last chance for cognizant thought". Egads.
We get some purple, or rather aquamarine prose for the Skyron crystal itself:
As Morriel raised the strapped lid, the young girl who cowered by the bedside rubbed forearms raised into gooseflesh. Lirenda knew well her chills were no phantom. The Skyron stone’s presence was inimical as a predator, its etheric web steeped in old malice. Over the centuries while the Great Waystone had been held in Sethvir’s custody at Althain Tower, the smaller aquamarine had carried the burden of the order’s heaviest rituals. Years and hard use had left its channels surly with overload. That imbalance could never be rectified; not without losing the stored records of a thousand vows of service chained like steel-bolted ice through its heart.
So Lirenda's defense is basically telepathic rather than speech. Or rather, it's supposed to be. But Lirenda has something to say:
Lirenda snapped at that moment. “Merciful Ath! This charge of oathbreaking is a mockery.” Her protest slammed through the quiet like a shattering fist forced through lead. “As First Senior of the Koriathain, the authority was rightfully mine to use as I saw fit. I was summoned to Capewell because my Prime Matriarch had suffered a state of collapse. Certainly, I broke no vow of initiation through my decision to enter the observatory! If a personal shortcoming flawed my subsequent choices, that lapse is the one I must atone for. I demand a hearing in private. I will answer to my Prime for her broken conjury. Whether I forfeit free will for impertinence, I refuse to submit to examination for a transgression I did not commit!”
Interesting approach. In the initial silence afterward, we get a brief glimpse of other events through the crystals: a dark haired shepherd child, a shipwright inspecting wood, a midwife in Havish confirming a queen's pregnancy, and a fat spellbinder in Shand pacing down the wharf - I see you sneaking in some more sneak peeks, Ms. Wurts.
Anyway, it seems to work. Morriel declares the trial over. She dismisses everyone but the young girl and Lirenda. It's not yet over, and Lirenda isn't allowed to sit. But Lirenda has won something by asserting herself.
She confesses to letting personal feelings interfere with judgment and asks for a trial by recompense.
Morriel's going to grant it, but not before digging into what Lirenda's mistake cost them. Eventually though Lirenda gets her chance to redeem herself. But in the meantime, she's been stripped of her role as successor and may not claim honors or title, until she places Arithon in Morriel's hands as a living captive.
Lirenda is smart enough to realize how bad this is. Especially since she doesn't have her crystal. But Morriel has happy news for her on that score. Arithon's returned it.
Lirenda’s heart turned over. Before thought, she raised a yearning hand to touch the crystal’s shining facets and reestablish rapport with its presence. Yet even as her being cried out for the link of her lost quartz’s resonance, the impact of change stepped between. Fickle memory recaptured a living line of melody that stormed her mind, snapped her last hold on emotion, and broke her down in regret.
It really does seem like tampering with the stone, however well-meaning, was a dick move, Arithon.
Morriel promises that when the initiate masters the art of "selective resonance" they'll be able to cleanse it. In the meantime, Lirenda will have to work through other enchantresses. But Morriel will give her a writ to command them, at least.
Lirenda's also given a few potential avenues to pursue: a shepherd child playing with a Koriani enchantress, and a fairhaired woman talking to Dakar in Innish. Lirenda is to study the latter to keep track of Arithon's movements.
Since Sethvir's going to be busy for a while, Lirenda's got a window to devise a plan and come report it. She'd better be ready.
--
The third sub-chapter is End Game
We're with Lirenda, who is both miserable and scheming. She's the target of some unkind gossip at the moment, but she's nothing if not determined. She's continuing to track the fair-haired woman in the crystal - Feylind, of course. Eventually she goes into full scrying mode and we shift over to Feylind herself.
Feylind is arguing with Jinesse. Jinesse has apparently attempted to suggest that Feylind enlist on one of Lysaer's sailing ships. To be fair to Jinesse, I don't think this is meant to be an indicator that she favors Lysaer's cause. She never has. But she wants to see Feylind safe. (And well, I suspect she knows Arithon wouldn't hurt Feylind, even if they were adversaries. She doesn't have that guarantee for Lysaer.)
Feylind ends up blurting out something notable though. Namely that it's funny that Jinesse wants her to sign onto an Alliance ship when Arithon's sheltering in her attic.
Oh. Hah.
Arithon must have been in bad shape then, because I don't really believe he'd have gone for that if he were well. At least not without getting her permission first.
Jinesse is rather upset and calls Fiark down for an explanation. Apparently, this was his doing. Feylind wasn't even supposed to know about it. She only does because she'd met Dakar at the landing.
Tharrick steps in to complicate the issue further. He claims that HE was the one to invite them and gave permission for them to stay in the textile loft. He sees it as part of the debt he owes.
Jinesse doesn't agree that he owes a debt, but she does end up softening. In the meantime, Tharrick has news for Feylind - Arithon's already left, and didn't take her with him. Aw. Feylind is upset by this and storms off.
Fiark is cryptically reassuring to his mother and step-father, indicating that Arithon has a plan for Feylind. And indeed he did. Upstairs, Feylind finds the letter he'd left for her. She's been given the Evenstar to captain. She's thrilled.
And it seems like Jinesse's feelings about Arithon aren't so cut and dry either:
Now Jinesse straightened with surprising distress. “How long does he plan to be gone?”
Tharrick stared, amazed. “Then you’re not glad he’s left?”
“He was a friend,” Jinesse stated in perfect aplomb. She shot up and paced to the small copper sink and splashed water over her face. “I just don’t approve of his Grace’s activities where the safety of my daughter’s concerned. Now answer my question. When does he come back?”
I really do like Jinesse. I don't recall her having a significant role after this point but I've always thought she had an interesting role in the earlier books. I'm glad she has a happy ending. And that she doesn't hate Arithon after everything. I think it'd make him happy to know that.
Sadly, per Tharrick, Arithon has no intention to come back to the continent for the rest of his natural life. We'll see how long that plan lasts.
So back to Lirenda. She's kind of stuck. Arithon's out in the open sea now and she can't scry him directly. Which means she'll need another option. And then she sees one: the OTHER quartz sphere that showed Elaira in Araethura with the shepherd boy.
We saw him born, remember? And we saw his father, a kind of rough shepherd, who nonetheless, for a moment, made Elaira think of Arithon. This is relevant, because:
Through fronding black hair, his eyes were the identical, piercing green of any royal-born scion of s’Ffalenn. His expression of innocent entreaty gouged up the unbidden association: woke the echo of a grown prince’s compassion with the opening force of a thunderbolt.
I wonder if there are any bastard s'Ffalenn genes in Rathain's countryside?
But this gives Lirenda an idea. And since she still resents Elaira for so many reasons, she really likes the thought of wrapping Elaira up in a plan to take down Arithon. And she has the perfect means to do so:
If Arithon s’Ffalenn could not be bought with gold, or tracked with spells, or snared into captivity through dark lures of compulsive magic, he still had one weakness for which he would hold no rearguard defenses. The s’Ffalenn royal gift of compassion could not be gainsaid. He must come to the net of his own accord if the stakes were aligned, and the bait for her trap was an innocent.
Dun-dun-dun.
--
So our last sneak peek section of the book is Intervals
First, we see Felirin in Innish. He's unable to play his lyranthe and is pretty upset by it. But he's joined by Halliron's spinster daughter, who tells him that the house "cries out for the retired bard it never came to shelter". She'd like him to make his permanent home with her.
Aw.
Second, Mearn is busy in Avenor trying to find out who betrayed "the Shadow Master's" interests in Riverton.
Third, Lirenda presents her plan. It's going to take fifteen years, which is not great. But Morriel thinks the plan is sound and she grants her permission.
I sense a time skip incoming. For later reference, this book ends at Late Summer 5653. Stay tuned for a verdict. And maybe, eventually a table of contents.
Eventually.
But let's see what purple prose awaits us in the home stretch!
So we start out the chapter with "the Prince of the Light" and his handpicked company riding out in to the usual lushly described countryside.
As they're stopping for a rest, a fresh young recruit starts bitching about the waste of effort. The Hanshire riders have been gone for months and are probably dead. And even if not, a day or a week will hardly make a difference.
I mean, it's a fair point. But he's loud and brash and the perfect person to become an example:
Seemingly out of nowhere, hard fingers locked onto the whiner’s shoulder and jerked him face about toward the innyard.
“No man oathsworn to fight the shadow at my side shirks his given duty to his fellows,” cracked Lysaer s’Ilessid. The pale white of his tunic melding into the mist, he had moved up unseen.
Lysaer does know how to make an entrance. And as usual, he knows how to make a good speech:
The grief of his past night’s loss still marked him. Yet even through exhaustion and the incandescent fire of just anger, he noticed the ferryman’s youngest toddler, wandered in his wake from the guest-house. He knelt in the dust. “Go, child. The morning’s too fine to spoil with shouting when you can pick shells from the beach.”
As the girl wandered off, he straightened, confronted the miscreant, and resumed his lashing reprimand. “I will have it known beyond question that anyone needing help against the works of evil sorcery shall receive what they ask. Assistance will reach them with all the speed that crown resource can muster. My will on this matter shall brook no challenge. For today’s lack of diligence, consider yourself released from your oath of service to the Light.”
It's a bit of an extreme reaction to banish a guy for having a difference of opinion. Especially since there's no evidence that he was actually shirking his duties. But it's a rather nice demonstration of how Lysaer's been changed by his new approach to life.
The Lysaer of the first few books knew how to manage dissent. He took a lot more mouthiness from men like Pesquil or Bransien s'Brydion without batting an eye. And with a cause like this? It'd have been very easy to have this kid, and everyone else, eating out of his hand by pointing out that he'd never abandon a loyal subject until he was absolutely sure there was no hope.
But this isn't Lysaer the statesman. This is Lysaer, the divine figure. And no one gets to question the divine.
We see that right here:
Lysaer s’Ilessid cut him off. “Don’t trouble to speak. I won’t hear excuses.” His blue eyes as inexorable as arctic ice, he insisted, “There can be no faint hearts in my ranks. As we shoulder the coming war against darkness, every man must stand ready to give his life without question.”
So the guard captain rips the sunwheel badge from the begging recruit, and Lysaer orders him to leave before announcing to the rest that any man who looks back with be dismissed, and they can't afford to harbor doubts against sorcery.
Is it weird that it makes me a little sad? The Lysaer of Merior and Vastmark was already a monster, there's no question about that. And that monster was, himself, tragic when compared with the man we knew briefly in Curse of the Mistwraith. But this man is even less Lysaer than they were. He's lost more of himself along the way.
There's a note about Lirenda going her separate way. The poor woman makes no other impact on these events. But that's fitting, because Lysaer really doesn't need her for anything.
We do get some good description here and there:
Prince Lysaer led, his gleaming gold hair and scintillant jewels unearthly against the bald slabs of striated granite which scabbed that desolate setting.
But for Wurts, that's almost restrained. It gets the point across though of the symbol he makes against the desolate landscape.
Meanwhile, Lysaer is haunting himself about Talith's death. As he fucking should. But as usual, it's very Lysaer:
For Lysaer s’Ilessid himself, the bleak landscape left unpleasant, slack hours to think. His aching grief for Talith’s loss became a torment of wretched persistence. As though the mainstay to his intellect had splintered like glass, pain left its branding reminder. Circling memories reopened old scars. The cycle of betrayal and abandon begun by his s’Ahelas mother now magnified and replayed, until he wished he was numb to all passion.
The friend who might have shared his hour of mourning lay dead, slain along with the war host massacred by the dark on the field at Dier Kenton Vale.
It's interesting to me how self-centered this version of Lysaer is. And perhaps he's always been. He grieves Talith's loss, we're told, but there's no thought of her as a person. There's no suggestion that he might have wronged her, or that he could have heard her out, or that his rejection and judgment might have driven her to this. But even if Lysaer truly does believe he has no role in her demise, he doesn't think about HER.
And how dare Diegan not be there to share Lysaer's mourning. It's not like Diegan might have had thoughts about his sister's fate or anything.
But then again, Diegan was kind of an idiot. So maybe he would have been the source of comfort that Lysaer thinks.
There's is something interesting here though. Because Lysaer is a man who, all along, liked to glamorize his decisions as self-sacrifice. He really wanted to be with Talith, but he couldn't. He had to give her up for his righteous cause. But here we see how empty that justification is:
Once, his marriage to a single woman had threatened to seduce him from his oathsworn obligation to bring down the Master of Shadow. Now Talith was gone. Temptation removed, he had not gained relief. Death had not brought him one iota of freedom from the drawing agony of her allure, which had dreadfully threatened to snap his integrity and undermine all his high principles. He felt newly lost. No grand cause could bridge the terrible vacancy love had left torn through his heart.
And of course, in the end, it all comes back to Arithon. He'd orchestrated her estrangement. Of course. He'd manipulated her betrayal. It is rather interesting that he doesn't actually accuse him of sleeping with her though. That accusation had come up, if you recall, when he'd confronted her about her pregnancy, to the point of promising dire consequences if the baby had dark hair.
In the end though, we're told that Lysaer's "faithless mother's s'Ahelas farsight mocked him to gritty self-honesty". He's facing the grimward because he doesn't want to face his loss.
As usual the farsight is pretty fucking useless.
So they start to reach their destination, though they're still a day or so out from where the men disappear. And things get creepy. The animals are NOT happy. And everything starts going awry. They lose all sense of direction, and when Lysaer sends a bolt of light up in challenge...
The bolt seared aloft like the quenching shriek of hot steel. Its dazzling radiance slammed into resistance and summoned a veil of blank fog. Gray wisps eddied and curled, first as disorganized rags of vapor, then as a frothing, impenetrable veil which expanded to mask the known landscape.
To the men-at-arms rooted in trembling obedience, the surge of Lysaer’s gift seemed to collide with an uncanny barrier of mage-force.
Well. Not so easy, is it?
So then things really go awry. Lysaer's really kind of a one-trick wonder magically speaking, and his light isn't doing much good here. He's starting to lose control of himself, though, in the midst of the chaotic void, he does here someone cry:
“Lysaer, Prince of the Light, deliver me safe from the darkness!”
I'm sure that's not going to exacerbate the guy's god complex or anything. But then things seem to solidify back into existence. Everyone's shocked and dazed. And there's a dust-coated, haunted captain at arms weeping at Lysaer's feet.
Meet Sulfin Evend. He's going to be important. Very important actually. And by saving his life, but also letting Lysaer basically take credit for saving him, Asandir's kind of screwed over Arithon yet again.
I suppose I shouldn't bitch too much. I don't actually expect a heroic character to leave someone to die, and Asandir really didn't have much control about what happened after that point. It's just funny that even unintentionally, the Fellowship still manages to make trouble for the guy that they supposedly favor.
So yeah, everyone is shocked and amazed at Lysaer's feat.
But Lysaer actually knows better:
His racing heart rejected the implication, though to his bones, he knew. The powers which had redeemed the lost captain were none of his own. His memory of their uncanny strangeness pried at logic, undid belief, to the massive upset of clear principle.
Denial remained. If sorcery was wrought from the heart of life’s source, if music and grand harmony and clean balance framed its powers, then Lysaer rocked on the edge of the abyss. All that he strove to accomplish in the world became unveiled as a misguided illusion.
“No.” Lysaer shut his eyes, his two hands locked and shaking. Conflicted by self-honesty and devastated pride, he ached through a moment of absolute crisis, before he recalled his own truth: the adepts of Ath’s brotherhood once sought to sway him the same way. They had used such diabolically crafted illusion to distort his perception, and blind honor, and convince him that Arithon s’Ffalenn was born innocent.
But denial is very powerful, and Lysaer is nothing if not very good at self-justification.
And I wonder if we're not seeing another, subtler, sign of Lysaer's transformation. Since the curse hit, he's believed Arithon was evil. But this is the first time that Lysaer's expressed that he thought Arithon was BORN evil rather than had chosen evil.
It fits though. If Lysaer is the divine, then his enemy must be the opposite. And since we're talking fundamental religious nature, then he must always have been. Did Merior's Lysaer believe his brother was evil from birth though? I don't know that.
Sulfin Evend, who as far as I know is almost always referred to by both names, details his experiences. Including what he remembers of Asandir:
“There was a Sorcerer,” Sulfin Evend gasped, while a man knelt and cut away the clotted shreds of his sleeve to bare his untended wound. “He wore dark robes. While the rocks of Sithaer itself boiled and burned and ran molten about me, he came and forced me to walk down the throat of a dragon’s skull. I fought him. He told me to cease struggling, that resistance was wasted. Then he flung me into the dark.”
Maybe Asandir and Arithon can bond later about how grand gestures end up completely misunderstood by everyone around them.
But here we go:
While his gashes were dressed, the victim insistently pursued his story, trembling from shock and amazement at his deliverance. “I knew I would be imprisoned in that place for all time. In my hour of despair I called on the Name of the Prince of the Light, and was heard!” He turned shining, worshipful eyes upon the blond-haired scion of s’Ilessid who stood a half step removed from his honor guard. “Praise your Grace! The blessed powers of Light have triumphed over darkness, and I stand before you alive.”
The instant the bandage was secure on his arm, he pushed through the men and knelt once again at the feet of Lysaer s’Ilessid. “I have seen the truth. You are sent by divine mission to deliver us from darkness.”
The interesting thing about Sulfin Evend, as we're going to see in the future, is that he doesn't really fit the pattern of Lysaer's usual followers. He's not like Diegan, or so many of Lysaer's other followers: a weak man who gravitates toward a stronger one and eats up his blandishments and flattery. And he's not like Pesquil or that witchhunting fanatic whose name momentarily escapes me: someone who uses Lysaer's momentum and influence to push their own hateful causes.
If Sulfin Evend is similar to anyone, it's Talith. He's a strong-willed person with a clear sense of self who loves Lysaer for his own reasons. It's worship in one sense, I suppose, but not really. I suppose if you look at it like faith, Sulfin doesn't have blind faith in Lysaer. He genuinely believes, based on what he experienced, that Lysaer saved his life with divine powers. He's operating on proof, not faith.
He's wrong, of course, but it's simply a misinterpretation of evidence. Anyway, he's going to play an important role going forward.
But remember Lysaer knows that he didn't save Sulfin Evend. So what does this mean?
Surrounded by the worshipful circle of his men, the prince understood he must keep the pretense of manhood and react. If not, he risked being forced to explain how narrowly he had escaped an insidious and subtle attack of enemy subterfuge.
He laid his crossed hands upon Sulfin Evend’s bent head. Unable to imagine how a man could stay sane through a harrowing ordeal wrought of sorcery, he chose utmost tact and said gently, “You need not still serve.”
It means he lies of course. Interesting that his sense of justice has no issue with that.
Anyway, Sulfin Evend has no intention of leaving Lysaer's service and he's quite dramatic about it. Lysaer is "touched to relief" that a "man of such fiber" wants to carry his banner. Sulfin gets immediate promotion to command the host of Lysaer's field army.
--
We switch scenes now to Althain Tower. It's weeks after Sulfin Evend got his promotion. But remember how the Grimward spit Arithon and company out months later? NOW we see Asandir spit out essentially at Sethvir's feet.
There's lots of cool magical description here, but the important part is that it's time for Asandir to keel the fuck over. And he does.
He tries to fill Sethvir in on things, but Sethvir already knows most of it. It's time for some Fellowship hurt/comfort instead. It's all kind of mystical, see?
Through the jangled membrane of his skin, Asandir felt Sethvir’s sensitive fingers. Touch came and went with the lightness of moth wings, testing, then mapping the vortices of fusion where his biological body engaged with the more subtle frequencies of spirit. His colleague’s ministrations shored up flagging stamina, soothing with sympathetic infusions of fine energy; even so, Asandir felt the reverberation of each release drill through the marrow of his bones.
Asandir's kind of a control freak, so he keeps trying to tell Sethvir what to do. They shouldn't send Kharadmon, for example, because the "star ward" mustn't be left unguarded. (Not sure how that fits with Kharadmon running off to talk to Elaira and do other errands, but okay.) Sethvir just kind of nods patronizingly. Luhaine's going to deal with it.
And indeed, Sethvir sends out a summons so loud that Morriel will hear it. Which she's meant to. Apparently Luhaine's been keeping an eye on her since her plot to capture Arithon came to light. So maybe we're entering into a period of time when the Fellowship will actually be DOING stuff?
We can always hold out hope.
After Asandir keels over completely, we get some introspection from Sethvir:
“For mercy and the world, we cannot keep on like this.” Eyes shut through the moment he required to steady himself, he thanked every power in creation for Arithon s’Ffalenn’s resolve to renew his offshore search for the Paravians. Each hour that the Shadow Master spent provisioning his brigantine at Innish seeded the potential for another disaster. The Mistwraith’s curse had embedded too deeply since the great war in Vastmark. Lysaer’s grand cause now commanded too widespread an influence, and simple evasions would no longer serve. This time no less than a Fellowship Sorcerer had nearly been lost in the breach.
There's something that annoys me about that "no less than a Fellowship Sorcerer" line. I appreciate that these assholes value themselves over basically everyone else. Hence the Black Rose prophecy. But still.
I also like how they talk about Lysaer's spreading cause like they had no means of curtailing it. I mean, okay, I get that they're not supposed to interfere. But couldn't they TALK to people? Surely there are some people in the land that still believe in the old ways. The commoners of Rathain, as I recall, had actually been pretty enthusiastic about the coronation and charter, until everything went to Hell.
And if there really isn't anyone who believes in the old ways, the Fellowship has done a craptastic job of enforcing the Compact. What good is an agreement if one side doesn't give a shit?
They fucking excommunicated the guy, right? So what good was that?
But this does segue into sleeping Asandir, who's looking pretty rough and blistered. Sethvir gets to work. As he does, he gets to wax eloquently about Asandir's state:
The damage he mapped made him ache with shared sorrow. A mage of Asandir’s strength and stature should celebrate his existence wrapped in a mantle of pure light. His raiment of spirit was the limitless power of creation, maintained into flawless balance. The axis of his being should shine as a beacon, his shimmering vitality stitched like tamed lightning through the tapestry of sinew beneath. For a Fellowship Sorcerer, self-renewal became reflex. The infinite whole sustained his existence, channeled and tuned to harmonic alignment that flowed with each breath and surged to the rhythm of each heartbeat.
Instead, Sethvir beheld a fabric rubbed threadbare as old muslin. Where the weave should have blazed with energetic life, he saw dull voids, their edges dimmed to a fuzzy, splotched gray, etched like dark tarnish on lead. Where the energy vortices tangled, he reached through his mage-sense, raising the resonance and stroking out blockage. He coaxed each stressed channel, and whispered phrases of compassionate encouragement to the inner will, which would comprehend frequency and sound. No effort was spared. Past the blinds of unconsciousness, Asandir’s senses still functioned. The mind would record, and the body respond, and rally the life force for healing.
So yeah, there's a lot of this. It's kind of interesting to see what makes a Fellowship mage from the inside out.
But anyway, this continues for a while. There's mystical metaphysical stuff, and then something with herbs, then something with permissions and patterns and energy. I don't really know. As with most magical workings, it's very pretty sounding and I can make very little sense of it. Swirly lights, I'd guess.
It's not even like I can make bad jokes about sex, because it's only Sethvir here. And also I'd rather not.
Eventually Luhaine pops up. He's kind of pissy because Sethvir pissed off Morriel. They've got a bit of a disagreement here: Sethvir basically dismisses Morriel because of her very poor physical state. Luhaine thinks she's a volcano waiting to blow. And moreover, Lirenda's back. They're going to regret not having eyes on Morriel at this time.
He's probably right, but Sethvir insists that Koriathain plots must wait on Asandir's need. That's probably right too, but ten bucks says this is going to blow up in Arithon's face.
I know how this series works.
Speaking of Arithon, Luhaine's also irked at him for antagonizing the Koriani more with whatever he did to Lirenda's crystal. (“I refer to the specific disharmonies in her quartz that he retuned with compassionate melody, yes.”) Still not sure what that means.
Anyway, Sethvir wants Luhaine to watch over Asandir, so he can go reseal the grimward. Luhaine is actually a little humbled, saying that even with a body, he couldn't have done what Asandir had. And Asandir IS in bad shape since the grimward fucked up Asandir's ability to recover on his own.
This is maybe the first indication we've had that the Fellowship might be at all mortal and in real danger of death. I don't know yet what I think about it.
Anyway, to clarify, Luhaine might have done it for Arithon as he's essential to the Black Rose Prophecy, but not one misguided captain at arms.
Yeah, we know. Normal lives don't actually matter that much for you guys. Even Arithon only matters because he's needed to ensure your group becomes whole. But, to be fair, Asandir DID actually save that guy.
Oh god. I might end up not hating Asandir most of these assholes after all. That's annoying.
Luhaine might have a point when he notes that Sulfin Evend has "sworn to become all Lysaer has ever asked of a warrior priest."
But well, I am not going to fault the ONE time a member of the Fellowship got up off his ass to save an ordinary person. Maybe they can keep doing that?
--
The next part is Judgment.
We're here with Morriel. Who's not in great shape physically, as Sethvir had noted:
Swathed in quilts sewn with sigils of vitality chain-stitched in silver thread, and propped upright against goose-down pillows like piled snowdrifts, Morriel ruled the Koriani Order from an enormous, carved bed at Capewell. Reduced to a skeleton swathed in blanched skin, she held the reins of her power close to her breast, her eyes still like fathomless beads of chipped jet. Her speech was sparing, each word precise as engraving.
You know, if you'd leave Arithon alone, you might not end up in this state? Just saying. Some of your order's downfall might be less his fault and more you pulling a Wile E. Coyote on yourself.
There is a note here that might be relevant later: one of Morriel's attendants is an initiate of exceptional talent who's just been brought across Tysan "in whirlwind haste".
I THINK that's Selidie. And she'll be important later.
Not all purple prose is flattering, and I rather like this bit:
The Koriani Matriarch probed into the orbs like the listening spider slung in the strands of her web. One of these showed the dark horse and the rider, standing knee high in gold meadow grass. A maggot white smile turned the crone’s bloodless lips as that particular scrying unfolded.
Morriel by the way knows that Sethvir is on foot, traveling most of the way to deal with the grimward. He'll be using illusion to mask his travel. Morriel is frustrated by the fact that the Great Waystone would allow her to cut through that illusion, but she doesn't risk using it in her current state. She can barely talk without needing to rest afterward.
She's also aware of Luhaine's surveillance though, and waits until he's gone to deal with important matters. Including Lirenda's judgment.
So this is actually a pretty major ritual. One older than Koriani residence on Athera. Morriel names a peeress as the order's "Ceremonial Inquisitor" to act as her voice. The young initiate will stay as a witness. A page boy is sent for the Skyron crystal.
We switch to Lirenda, who is very nervous but trying not to show it. We get some nice eloquent description of her clothes and are told, possibly for the first time, that Lirenda has been Koriani First Senior for fifty-six years.
That's actually pretty interesting because based on characterization, I'd always assumed Lirenda was a peer of Elaira's. But well, maybe that's intentional. It seems that there's a lot about Koriani society that would keep someone stagnant and immature.
So she's led to Morriel's chamber, which seems quite dramatic:
Darkness as stilled as a panther’s tread awaited over the threshold. The air within breathed of close-kept secrets and a dusty perfume of dried lavender. For as long as living memory, the Koriani Prime had preferred the night for her significant meetings. When council could not be avoided in daylight, she ordered her chambers kept dark. The curtains were sewn of black damask and velvet. The dagged valance was looped on silver rings, each cast in the sigil for eternity, the triple-coiled snake trapped forever in the act of swallowing its own tail. The sulfurous, candlelit well by the bedstead seemed sealed in an ironclad silence.
Lirenda is losing her nerve, but fortunately pride and discipline save her.
We see the witnesses, and this is a first:
Three others were present by Morriel’s behest, one an untried girl with flaxen-fair braids, and another a grown woman wearing a blank-faced, idiot’s stare. Lirenda took a moment to discern the forehead tattoo which signified an initiate who had failed in her vow of obedience. A deeper chill shocked her as she recognized the emptied creature’s face. There stood the young initiate who had failed in her sworn charge to hold the circle of Morriel’s grand conjury. The traditional penalty allowed no appeal. She would serve out her days as a mindless slave, her identity stripped through the power of the vows sworn through the Prime’s master crystal.
So THAT's what it looks like when an initiate breaks her vow. That's what Arithon was trying to protect Elaira from. And that's what both Elaira and Lirenda risked.
Lirenda realizes now that her defense might "become her last chance for cognizant thought". Egads.
We get some purple, or rather aquamarine prose for the Skyron crystal itself:
As Morriel raised the strapped lid, the young girl who cowered by the bedside rubbed forearms raised into gooseflesh. Lirenda knew well her chills were no phantom. The Skyron stone’s presence was inimical as a predator, its etheric web steeped in old malice. Over the centuries while the Great Waystone had been held in Sethvir’s custody at Althain Tower, the smaller aquamarine had carried the burden of the order’s heaviest rituals. Years and hard use had left its channels surly with overload. That imbalance could never be rectified; not without losing the stored records of a thousand vows of service chained like steel-bolted ice through its heart.
So Lirenda's defense is basically telepathic rather than speech. Or rather, it's supposed to be. But Lirenda has something to say:
Lirenda snapped at that moment. “Merciful Ath! This charge of oathbreaking is a mockery.” Her protest slammed through the quiet like a shattering fist forced through lead. “As First Senior of the Koriathain, the authority was rightfully mine to use as I saw fit. I was summoned to Capewell because my Prime Matriarch had suffered a state of collapse. Certainly, I broke no vow of initiation through my decision to enter the observatory! If a personal shortcoming flawed my subsequent choices, that lapse is the one I must atone for. I demand a hearing in private. I will answer to my Prime for her broken conjury. Whether I forfeit free will for impertinence, I refuse to submit to examination for a transgression I did not commit!”
Interesting approach. In the initial silence afterward, we get a brief glimpse of other events through the crystals: a dark haired shepherd child, a shipwright inspecting wood, a midwife in Havish confirming a queen's pregnancy, and a fat spellbinder in Shand pacing down the wharf - I see you sneaking in some more sneak peeks, Ms. Wurts.
Anyway, it seems to work. Morriel declares the trial over. She dismisses everyone but the young girl and Lirenda. It's not yet over, and Lirenda isn't allowed to sit. But Lirenda has won something by asserting herself.
She confesses to letting personal feelings interfere with judgment and asks for a trial by recompense.
Morriel's going to grant it, but not before digging into what Lirenda's mistake cost them. Eventually though Lirenda gets her chance to redeem herself. But in the meantime, she's been stripped of her role as successor and may not claim honors or title, until she places Arithon in Morriel's hands as a living captive.
Lirenda is smart enough to realize how bad this is. Especially since she doesn't have her crystal. But Morriel has happy news for her on that score. Arithon's returned it.
Lirenda’s heart turned over. Before thought, she raised a yearning hand to touch the crystal’s shining facets and reestablish rapport with its presence. Yet even as her being cried out for the link of her lost quartz’s resonance, the impact of change stepped between. Fickle memory recaptured a living line of melody that stormed her mind, snapped her last hold on emotion, and broke her down in regret.
It really does seem like tampering with the stone, however well-meaning, was a dick move, Arithon.
Morriel promises that when the initiate masters the art of "selective resonance" they'll be able to cleanse it. In the meantime, Lirenda will have to work through other enchantresses. But Morriel will give her a writ to command them, at least.
Lirenda's also given a few potential avenues to pursue: a shepherd child playing with a Koriani enchantress, and a fairhaired woman talking to Dakar in Innish. Lirenda is to study the latter to keep track of Arithon's movements.
Since Sethvir's going to be busy for a while, Lirenda's got a window to devise a plan and come report it. She'd better be ready.
--
The third sub-chapter is End Game
We're with Lirenda, who is both miserable and scheming. She's the target of some unkind gossip at the moment, but she's nothing if not determined. She's continuing to track the fair-haired woman in the crystal - Feylind, of course. Eventually she goes into full scrying mode and we shift over to Feylind herself.
Feylind is arguing with Jinesse. Jinesse has apparently attempted to suggest that Feylind enlist on one of Lysaer's sailing ships. To be fair to Jinesse, I don't think this is meant to be an indicator that she favors Lysaer's cause. She never has. But she wants to see Feylind safe. (And well, I suspect she knows Arithon wouldn't hurt Feylind, even if they were adversaries. She doesn't have that guarantee for Lysaer.)
Feylind ends up blurting out something notable though. Namely that it's funny that Jinesse wants her to sign onto an Alliance ship when Arithon's sheltering in her attic.
Oh. Hah.
Arithon must have been in bad shape then, because I don't really believe he'd have gone for that if he were well. At least not without getting her permission first.
Jinesse is rather upset and calls Fiark down for an explanation. Apparently, this was his doing. Feylind wasn't even supposed to know about it. She only does because she'd met Dakar at the landing.
Tharrick steps in to complicate the issue further. He claims that HE was the one to invite them and gave permission for them to stay in the textile loft. He sees it as part of the debt he owes.
Jinesse doesn't agree that he owes a debt, but she does end up softening. In the meantime, Tharrick has news for Feylind - Arithon's already left, and didn't take her with him. Aw. Feylind is upset by this and storms off.
Fiark is cryptically reassuring to his mother and step-father, indicating that Arithon has a plan for Feylind. And indeed he did. Upstairs, Feylind finds the letter he'd left for her. She's been given the Evenstar to captain. She's thrilled.
And it seems like Jinesse's feelings about Arithon aren't so cut and dry either:
Now Jinesse straightened with surprising distress. “How long does he plan to be gone?”
Tharrick stared, amazed. “Then you’re not glad he’s left?”
“He was a friend,” Jinesse stated in perfect aplomb. She shot up and paced to the small copper sink and splashed water over her face. “I just don’t approve of his Grace’s activities where the safety of my daughter’s concerned. Now answer my question. When does he come back?”
I really do like Jinesse. I don't recall her having a significant role after this point but I've always thought she had an interesting role in the earlier books. I'm glad she has a happy ending. And that she doesn't hate Arithon after everything. I think it'd make him happy to know that.
Sadly, per Tharrick, Arithon has no intention to come back to the continent for the rest of his natural life. We'll see how long that plan lasts.
So back to Lirenda. She's kind of stuck. Arithon's out in the open sea now and she can't scry him directly. Which means she'll need another option. And then she sees one: the OTHER quartz sphere that showed Elaira in Araethura with the shepherd boy.
We saw him born, remember? And we saw his father, a kind of rough shepherd, who nonetheless, for a moment, made Elaira think of Arithon. This is relevant, because:
Through fronding black hair, his eyes were the identical, piercing green of any royal-born scion of s’Ffalenn. His expression of innocent entreaty gouged up the unbidden association: woke the echo of a grown prince’s compassion with the opening force of a thunderbolt.
I wonder if there are any bastard s'Ffalenn genes in Rathain's countryside?
But this gives Lirenda an idea. And since she still resents Elaira for so many reasons, she really likes the thought of wrapping Elaira up in a plan to take down Arithon. And she has the perfect means to do so:
If Arithon s’Ffalenn could not be bought with gold, or tracked with spells, or snared into captivity through dark lures of compulsive magic, he still had one weakness for which he would hold no rearguard defenses. The s’Ffalenn royal gift of compassion could not be gainsaid. He must come to the net of his own accord if the stakes were aligned, and the bait for her trap was an innocent.
Dun-dun-dun.
--
So our last sneak peek section of the book is Intervals
First, we see Felirin in Innish. He's unable to play his lyranthe and is pretty upset by it. But he's joined by Halliron's spinster daughter, who tells him that the house "cries out for the retired bard it never came to shelter". She'd like him to make his permanent home with her.
Aw.
Second, Mearn is busy in Avenor trying to find out who betrayed "the Shadow Master's" interests in Riverton.
Third, Lirenda presents her plan. It's going to take fifteen years, which is not great. But Morriel thinks the plan is sound and she grants her permission.
I sense a time skip incoming. For later reference, this book ends at Late Summer 5653. Stay tuned for a verdict. And maybe, eventually a table of contents.
Eventually.