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i_read_whatSo last time, we met Song of Homana's version of Duncan, who apparently got demon possessed much like Finn did, because he was actually tolerable and even somewhat interesting. Also, Finn and Carillon are still pretty much married, but that's not new at this point.
So we rejoin Carillon as he stands outside Duncan's tent. Duncan, Finn and Donal are inside. Alix has gone off to another tent. I like the thought that Alix presumably has a social life and talks to other people in this book.
Carillon is contemplative, his thoughts drifting from Cheysuli stealth, to the lir, and the burden of service to the gods. He heads back into the tent and has a moment of racist regression, seeing all three pairs of yellow eyes focus on him:
Beast eyes.…
Even friendship does not dampen the residual fear engendered by such eyes.
In a way, I like this. Because it's true that prejudice and bigotry doesn't go away immediately just because someone is trying to be better. Carillon still has a lot to unlearn.
Anyway, Carillon says he'll go visit the army, he's spent enough time away from his men. Finn gets up too.
Finn rose at once, handing his cup to Duncan. The light glittered off the Steppes knife in his belt, and suddenly I recalled I had none to wear at my own. The bone-hilted Caledonese weapon lay in the snowfields near Joyenne.
Finn caught up a night-black cloak and hung it over his shoulders. It hid the gold on his arms entirely, turning him black from brown in the dim glow of light. His hair swung forward to hide his earring, and all I saw was the yellow of his eyes. Suddenly, in the presence of three Cheysuli, I found myself lacking, and I the Prince of Homana.
Finn smiled. “Do we go?”
I needed no weapon, with him. He was knife and bow and sword.
Get a room, dude.
So anyway, Carillon tells Duncan that he'll talk to Rowan, and Duncan responds cryptically;
He smiled. In the dim light he seemed older, but the boy by his side made him young again. The future of his race. “Perhaps it will be enough for Homana to know her Mujhar again.”
...that doesn't really make sense as a response to what Carillon said, but I get the sense that Duncan is supposed to be mystically cryptic here rather than this being one of Roberson's bizarre non sequiturs.
I have to admit, now I'm genuinely curious about what it was like for THIS Duncan and THIS Finn to grow up together. I can only imagine how exasperated our sardonic chaotic bisexual Finn would have been growing up with this wise and mystical older brother. Sadly, neither of these men actually appear in Shapechangers, as we well know by now.
Finn and Carillon exchange a bit of banter as they head on, with Finn leading the way, and Storr guarding Carillon's back. ("It is an exacting service, and one they perform with ease") Carillon gets a bit mystical himself as he appreciates the forest and the trees and just being in Homana again. He compares it to Finn's lir bond, and notes that [e]ven an exiled Mujhar can find joy in such an exile, does it bring him home again.
I think this might be the first time Carillon's actually called himself the Mujhar, as opposed to the Prince or Heir.
So they get to the main army. Carillon identifies himself and states that he's with a Cheysuli and a lir. This gets a startled reaction, but they're allowed in. The leader of the men is a big red-haired dude named Zared, who is apparently a veteran of the war with Solinde.
Zared is skeptical of Carillon's claim to be Carillon. He fought with Fergus, and had seen Carillon captured. The scars from the Atvian chains aren't enough to identify him completely, but the sword is.
Carillon asks why Zared joined the army, if he thought Carillon was dead. Zared responds that he's a soldier, he serves Homana and wants to defend his land. He is, however, very happy that Carillon is alive and admits that. Carillon wants to speak to Rowan, which shocks Zared.
And so we see Rowan's position clearly now. No one's attacking him or anything, but as noted, now that the Homanans have had up close looks at real Cheysuli, there's no doubt of Rowan's race. Ad, as Zared says: "Cheysuli do not lead Homanans".
Carillon decides that he has to make his position crystal clear now:
I drew in a steadying breath and spoke exceedingly calmly. “We will dismiss any man who chooses to hate the Cheysuli. Any man. We will not argue with what my uncle’s purge has put into your mind—he worked hard enough to do it—but we do not have to tolerate it in our army. Those of you who wish to continue Shaine’s policy of Cheysuli extermination may leave now. We will have none of you with us.”
Rowan gets a poetic description:
Rowan sat alone by his tiny firecairn. He was surrounded by clustered trees, as if he had gathered about himself a royal guard, stolid and silent. And yet within his guard he was a man alone, untouched by all save his grief. He had been found out, and no more was the secret kept.
The firecairn was not enough to warm him, I knew; probably not enough to warm the leathern cup of wine he held in rigid fingers. But the tiny light threw illumination over his face in the thick darkness, and I saw the gaunt expression of loss.
Aw. Poor kid.
Carillon realizes from the resignation on Rowan's face that he had known what he was. He, rather stupidly, asks Rowan why he hid it.
Um. Dude. There's a PURGE going on, and has been for this kid's entire life.
Rowan basically says as much, he knew he'd be reviled by the Homanans and now he is. He tells his story:
“I was five,” he said quietly. “I saw the Mujhar’s men murder, my kin. All save me.” A quiver passed over his young face. “They came on us in the trees, shouting they had found a nest of demons. I ran. My jehan and jehana—and my rujholla—could not run in time. They were slain.”
I know I've complained about the way Roberson uses the old tongue, but I have to admit that here, it's actually effective. Carillon acknowledges that too. It's oddly shocking to hear Cheysuli words coming from Rowan's mouth.
Finn appears and Carillon notes the resemblance, that they're similar enough to be father and son, and wonders if they might even be related. (Finn isn't actually old enough to be Rowan's father himself, barring an act of rape. Even if we go with the ages established in Shapechangers as opposed to Song's soft retcon, Finn should be thirty-three. That's only fourteen years older than Rowan.)
Anyway, Rowan had been found and adopted by a pair of Ellasian immigrants who lived in a fairly distant, insular valley, and therefore he could escape detection. When he was old enough, he came to Mujhara, realizing most of the men interested in fighting Bellam were young like him and didn't know what a Cheysuli actually looked like.
But Rowan says something else interesting: he knows what he is and what he's not. He has no lir.
Carillon is immediately worried that this means that Rowan will seek his death, but Finn speaks. He notes that there's no need for that: since Rowan never had a lir at all, he isn't bound to the death ritual.
Rowan feels pretty much like he's been through it already. And Finn lays out Rowan's situation from the Cheysuli side:
“The gods are blind to you,” Finn said quietly.
I stared at him in shock. “Do you seek to destroy what is left of him?”
“No. I tell him what he knows. You have only to ask him.” Finn’s voice and eyes were implacable. “He is lirless. Unwhole. Half a man, and lacking a soul. Unblessed, like you, though he be Cheysuli instead of Homanan.” He went on, ignoring the beginnings of my protest. “He is not a warrior of the clan, lacking a lir. He will have no passage to the old gods.”
My hand was on his arm. I felt the hard sinews beneath his flesh as my fingers clamped down. I had never before put my hand on him in anger.
He stopped speaking. He waited. And when I took my hand away he explained the words to me. “He gave it up willingly, Carillon. Now he must suffer for it.”
a) So Finn's being an asshole here, but I also think that he's saying something that Carillon needs to hear: basically, Rowan isn't Cheysuli. Not in any way that counts to the Cheysuli people. He's not going to be able to go to them for help or support.
Carillon needs to find a way to reconcile his army to the Cheysuli, not just because it's the right thing to do, but for Rowan specifically. Because Rowan doesn't have anything else.
b) I'm also weirdly glad to get this moment of the Cheysuli being kind of awful. Because, of course, they are being awful. But this isn't the disgusting rape-centric portrayal we see in Shapechangers. This is an awfulness that makes complete sense with the complex culture that's been established...in this book at least. The Cheysuli are a very religious people and every aspect of their lives is devoted to the service of their gods. The lir represent that bond.
Rowan, having rejected that (and we'll learn the circumstances momentarily) has rejected his identity as a Cheysuli. Their culture has no room for him.
But I like this because the Cheysuli, in this book at least (without the rampant rape and rape-apologia of Shapechangers) do tend to be over-romanticized.
c) I complained before in Shapechangers of the missed opportunity to have Alix and Rowan talk, because their situations compare in a fascinating way. When Alix rejoins the Cheysuli, she's not much younger than Rowan is now. She has less of the ancestry really, being only half. But because she's a woman, she didn't miss her opportunity to bond with a lir.
And well, she's also of child-bearing age. That is definitely a factor in Shapechangers, but likely also would be a factor here.
Anyway, Alix was raised with no knowledge of her heritage and ultimately chooses to be Cheysuli. Rowan was born Cheysuli but he chooses to be Homanan.
d) Unnecessary physical contact, heh.
So anyway, Carillon tries to intercede, but Rowan acknowledges that Finn is just saying what he's expected all his life. Rowan notes that there's much about Cheysuli culture that Carillon still doesn't understand. Basically, Rowan gave up his soul.
Rowan tells us that he was sick for days. His foster parents worried he'd die, and he knew exactly what was happening at the time. He rejected it. (Interestingly, if we extrapolate from what both Song and Shapechangers have established about Rowan and Carillon's first meeting: one of two things must have happened. Rowan either went back to his parents after his captivity by Atvian hands OR his lir-sickness came very early. Which possibly makes sense, if the Gods are taking an active role here.)
Finn reacts badly to this story, basically calling Rowan a murderer. The lir is a gift from the gods, and when it doesn't bond with its chosen warrior it gives itself to death.
Rowan on the otherhand knows exactly what he's done, according to Cheysuli culture, and lives with the guilt and shame every day.
It's interesting to think that Rowan spent his first five years as a Cheysuli. Exactly as long as Carillon spent with Finn. (It's also the age Duncan was when Raissa's pavilion was torched, but that's less relevant here.)
Carillon feels torn between the men, because he can't truly understand either side. He doesn't understand what it means to have a lir or to give one up. But he notes that he needs both of them.
The two men make peace in a very strange way:
“This much I know,” Rowan said, still looking at Finn. “No man, unblessed, can ever know the grace of the gods or understand the prophecy.”
Finn laughed, though it had a harsh sound. “Not so soulless after all, are you? You have enough blood in you for that much.”
The tension lessened at once. They still faced one another like predatory beasts: one a wise wolf, the other a man who lacked the gifts of the lir-bond, and yet claimed all the eerie charisma of the race.
...wise wolf? Carillon, really. Get a room.
Anyway, we move to the next day, when Carillon is still trying to figure out how to reconcile his two armies. He speaks to the Homanans frankly, reminding them of how outnumbered they are. He breaks them into groups and explains his strategy to each. It's basically guerilla warfare. He keeps the Cheysuli and Homanan troops separate, and at least there does seem to be some respect for the Cheysuli as warriors, at least from the veterans who remember the days before the qu'mahlin.
Carillon names Rowan one of his captains, putting him in charge of the men he'd led in the tavern. He realizes that Rowan won't be able to lead other Homanans until he proves himself. He won't be able to lead Cheysuli at all.
Finn approves:
“You have mastered them.” This from Finn, sitting behind me on his horse.
I smiled, watching the army depart. “Have I? Then you are deaf to all the mumbled complaints.”
“Men will ever complain. It is the nature of the beast.” He kneed his mount forward and came up next to me. “I think you have won their hearts.”
“I need that and their willingness to fight.”
“And I think you will have it.” He pulled something from his belt and held it out. A knife. A Cheysuli long-knife hiked in silver, with a gleaming wolf’s-head pommel. It was my own, given to me by Finn so many years before. “I took it from your things,” he said quietly. “A Mujhar ever carries one.”
Fuck, you two. Get a room.
Also, is it weird that I feel like we know more about Cheysuli wedding rituals from this book than Shapechangers. :-D
So Carillon finally tells Finn the full story of how he lost his other knife. Finn is more focused on the level of power that the Ihlini showed by transforming the knife. He'd heard about such powers but never saw them. Carillon finally asks something that he probably should have asked a long time ago: what else can Ihlini do.
A stray breeze lifted a lock of black hair from Finn’s left shoulder. The earring glittered. Seated on his dark horse in his dark leathers, he reminded me of the stories I had heard of man-horses, half of each, and inseparable. Well, so was Finn inseparable. From his lir, if not from his horse.
“With the Ihlini,” he said, “expect anything.”
a) That was incredibly unhelpful, Finn
b) Get a room.
Then Carillon and Finn share a more serious moment;
I felt a roll of trepidation in my belly. “I am afraid,” I said flatly, expecting ridicule—or worse—from him.
“No man, facing what you face, denies his fear,” Finn said calmly. “Unless he lies. And you are not a liar.”
I laughed, albeit oddly. “No, not a liar. A fool, perhaps, but not a liar.” I shook my head, tasting the sharp tang of apprehension in my mouth. “What we face—”
“—we face,” he finished. “As the gods desire.” He made the familiar gesture. “Tahlmorra, my lord. It will go on.” He closed his hand abruptly, the gesture banished. His hand was a fist, a hard brown fist of flesh and bone, and the promise of death to come.
Seriously, I don't think I can take any more romantic declarations guys. Fortunately the chapter ends here.
So this chapter was interesting because for the first time in this book we see Finn being downright hateful and cruel. When I was a kid, this chapter was actually what cemented Finn as my favorite character in the book. Because he is terrible here. But he's terrible here in a way that makes sense. The Cheysuli culture as portrayed in Song, and later books, is in a lot of ways a culture of religious fanatics. They have a complex set of values that are occasionally downright alien to us. Rowan was a child, trying to survive. But to Finn, and to the other Cheysuli, Rowan is a murderer who repudiated the gods.
It's complicated and it's ugly. But it's INTERESTING. And the ugly intolerance is something that will come up occasionally in the later books.
Now I beg you, imagine my horror to go from this complex portrayal to SHAPECHANGERS. I will never get over that.
So we rejoin Carillon as he stands outside Duncan's tent. Duncan, Finn and Donal are inside. Alix has gone off to another tent. I like the thought that Alix presumably has a social life and talks to other people in this book.
Carillon is contemplative, his thoughts drifting from Cheysuli stealth, to the lir, and the burden of service to the gods. He heads back into the tent and has a moment of racist regression, seeing all three pairs of yellow eyes focus on him:
Beast eyes.…
Even friendship does not dampen the residual fear engendered by such eyes.
In a way, I like this. Because it's true that prejudice and bigotry doesn't go away immediately just because someone is trying to be better. Carillon still has a lot to unlearn.
Anyway, Carillon says he'll go visit the army, he's spent enough time away from his men. Finn gets up too.
Finn rose at once, handing his cup to Duncan. The light glittered off the Steppes knife in his belt, and suddenly I recalled I had none to wear at my own. The bone-hilted Caledonese weapon lay in the snowfields near Joyenne.
Finn caught up a night-black cloak and hung it over his shoulders. It hid the gold on his arms entirely, turning him black from brown in the dim glow of light. His hair swung forward to hide his earring, and all I saw was the yellow of his eyes. Suddenly, in the presence of three Cheysuli, I found myself lacking, and I the Prince of Homana.
Finn smiled. “Do we go?”
I needed no weapon, with him. He was knife and bow and sword.
Get a room, dude.
So anyway, Carillon tells Duncan that he'll talk to Rowan, and Duncan responds cryptically;
He smiled. In the dim light he seemed older, but the boy by his side made him young again. The future of his race. “Perhaps it will be enough for Homana to know her Mujhar again.”
...that doesn't really make sense as a response to what Carillon said, but I get the sense that Duncan is supposed to be mystically cryptic here rather than this being one of Roberson's bizarre non sequiturs.
I have to admit, now I'm genuinely curious about what it was like for THIS Duncan and THIS Finn to grow up together. I can only imagine how exasperated our sardonic chaotic bisexual Finn would have been growing up with this wise and mystical older brother. Sadly, neither of these men actually appear in Shapechangers, as we well know by now.
Finn and Carillon exchange a bit of banter as they head on, with Finn leading the way, and Storr guarding Carillon's back. ("It is an exacting service, and one they perform with ease") Carillon gets a bit mystical himself as he appreciates the forest and the trees and just being in Homana again. He compares it to Finn's lir bond, and notes that [e]ven an exiled Mujhar can find joy in such an exile, does it bring him home again.
I think this might be the first time Carillon's actually called himself the Mujhar, as opposed to the Prince or Heir.
So they get to the main army. Carillon identifies himself and states that he's with a Cheysuli and a lir. This gets a startled reaction, but they're allowed in. The leader of the men is a big red-haired dude named Zared, who is apparently a veteran of the war with Solinde.
Zared is skeptical of Carillon's claim to be Carillon. He fought with Fergus, and had seen Carillon captured. The scars from the Atvian chains aren't enough to identify him completely, but the sword is.
Carillon asks why Zared joined the army, if he thought Carillon was dead. Zared responds that he's a soldier, he serves Homana and wants to defend his land. He is, however, very happy that Carillon is alive and admits that. Carillon wants to speak to Rowan, which shocks Zared.
And so we see Rowan's position clearly now. No one's attacking him or anything, but as noted, now that the Homanans have had up close looks at real Cheysuli, there's no doubt of Rowan's race. Ad, as Zared says: "Cheysuli do not lead Homanans".
Carillon decides that he has to make his position crystal clear now:
I drew in a steadying breath and spoke exceedingly calmly. “We will dismiss any man who chooses to hate the Cheysuli. Any man. We will not argue with what my uncle’s purge has put into your mind—he worked hard enough to do it—but we do not have to tolerate it in our army. Those of you who wish to continue Shaine’s policy of Cheysuli extermination may leave now. We will have none of you with us.”
Rowan gets a poetic description:
Rowan sat alone by his tiny firecairn. He was surrounded by clustered trees, as if he had gathered about himself a royal guard, stolid and silent. And yet within his guard he was a man alone, untouched by all save his grief. He had been found out, and no more was the secret kept.
The firecairn was not enough to warm him, I knew; probably not enough to warm the leathern cup of wine he held in rigid fingers. But the tiny light threw illumination over his face in the thick darkness, and I saw the gaunt expression of loss.
Aw. Poor kid.
Carillon realizes from the resignation on Rowan's face that he had known what he was. He, rather stupidly, asks Rowan why he hid it.
Um. Dude. There's a PURGE going on, and has been for this kid's entire life.
Rowan basically says as much, he knew he'd be reviled by the Homanans and now he is. He tells his story:
“I was five,” he said quietly. “I saw the Mujhar’s men murder, my kin. All save me.” A quiver passed over his young face. “They came on us in the trees, shouting they had found a nest of demons. I ran. My jehan and jehana—and my rujholla—could not run in time. They were slain.”
I know I've complained about the way Roberson uses the old tongue, but I have to admit that here, it's actually effective. Carillon acknowledges that too. It's oddly shocking to hear Cheysuli words coming from Rowan's mouth.
Finn appears and Carillon notes the resemblance, that they're similar enough to be father and son, and wonders if they might even be related. (Finn isn't actually old enough to be Rowan's father himself, barring an act of rape. Even if we go with the ages established in Shapechangers as opposed to Song's soft retcon, Finn should be thirty-three. That's only fourteen years older than Rowan.)
Anyway, Rowan had been found and adopted by a pair of Ellasian immigrants who lived in a fairly distant, insular valley, and therefore he could escape detection. When he was old enough, he came to Mujhara, realizing most of the men interested in fighting Bellam were young like him and didn't know what a Cheysuli actually looked like.
But Rowan says something else interesting: he knows what he is and what he's not. He has no lir.
Carillon is immediately worried that this means that Rowan will seek his death, but Finn speaks. He notes that there's no need for that: since Rowan never had a lir at all, he isn't bound to the death ritual.
Rowan feels pretty much like he's been through it already. And Finn lays out Rowan's situation from the Cheysuli side:
“The gods are blind to you,” Finn said quietly.
I stared at him in shock. “Do you seek to destroy what is left of him?”
“No. I tell him what he knows. You have only to ask him.” Finn’s voice and eyes were implacable. “He is lirless. Unwhole. Half a man, and lacking a soul. Unblessed, like you, though he be Cheysuli instead of Homanan.” He went on, ignoring the beginnings of my protest. “He is not a warrior of the clan, lacking a lir. He will have no passage to the old gods.”
My hand was on his arm. I felt the hard sinews beneath his flesh as my fingers clamped down. I had never before put my hand on him in anger.
He stopped speaking. He waited. And when I took my hand away he explained the words to me. “He gave it up willingly, Carillon. Now he must suffer for it.”
a) So Finn's being an asshole here, but I also think that he's saying something that Carillon needs to hear: basically, Rowan isn't Cheysuli. Not in any way that counts to the Cheysuli people. He's not going to be able to go to them for help or support.
Carillon needs to find a way to reconcile his army to the Cheysuli, not just because it's the right thing to do, but for Rowan specifically. Because Rowan doesn't have anything else.
b) I'm also weirdly glad to get this moment of the Cheysuli being kind of awful. Because, of course, they are being awful. But this isn't the disgusting rape-centric portrayal we see in Shapechangers. This is an awfulness that makes complete sense with the complex culture that's been established...in this book at least. The Cheysuli are a very religious people and every aspect of their lives is devoted to the service of their gods. The lir represent that bond.
Rowan, having rejected that (and we'll learn the circumstances momentarily) has rejected his identity as a Cheysuli. Their culture has no room for him.
But I like this because the Cheysuli, in this book at least (without the rampant rape and rape-apologia of Shapechangers) do tend to be over-romanticized.
c) I complained before in Shapechangers of the missed opportunity to have Alix and Rowan talk, because their situations compare in a fascinating way. When Alix rejoins the Cheysuli, she's not much younger than Rowan is now. She has less of the ancestry really, being only half. But because she's a woman, she didn't miss her opportunity to bond with a lir.
And well, she's also of child-bearing age. That is definitely a factor in Shapechangers, but likely also would be a factor here.
Anyway, Alix was raised with no knowledge of her heritage and ultimately chooses to be Cheysuli. Rowan was born Cheysuli but he chooses to be Homanan.
d) Unnecessary physical contact, heh.
So anyway, Carillon tries to intercede, but Rowan acknowledges that Finn is just saying what he's expected all his life. Rowan notes that there's much about Cheysuli culture that Carillon still doesn't understand. Basically, Rowan gave up his soul.
Rowan tells us that he was sick for days. His foster parents worried he'd die, and he knew exactly what was happening at the time. He rejected it. (Interestingly, if we extrapolate from what both Song and Shapechangers have established about Rowan and Carillon's first meeting: one of two things must have happened. Rowan either went back to his parents after his captivity by Atvian hands OR his lir-sickness came very early. Which possibly makes sense, if the Gods are taking an active role here.)
Finn reacts badly to this story, basically calling Rowan a murderer. The lir is a gift from the gods, and when it doesn't bond with its chosen warrior it gives itself to death.
Rowan on the otherhand knows exactly what he's done, according to Cheysuli culture, and lives with the guilt and shame every day.
It's interesting to think that Rowan spent his first five years as a Cheysuli. Exactly as long as Carillon spent with Finn. (It's also the age Duncan was when Raissa's pavilion was torched, but that's less relevant here.)
Carillon feels torn between the men, because he can't truly understand either side. He doesn't understand what it means to have a lir or to give one up. But he notes that he needs both of them.
The two men make peace in a very strange way:
“This much I know,” Rowan said, still looking at Finn. “No man, unblessed, can ever know the grace of the gods or understand the prophecy.”
Finn laughed, though it had a harsh sound. “Not so soulless after all, are you? You have enough blood in you for that much.”
The tension lessened at once. They still faced one another like predatory beasts: one a wise wolf, the other a man who lacked the gifts of the lir-bond, and yet claimed all the eerie charisma of the race.
...wise wolf? Carillon, really. Get a room.
Anyway, we move to the next day, when Carillon is still trying to figure out how to reconcile his two armies. He speaks to the Homanans frankly, reminding them of how outnumbered they are. He breaks them into groups and explains his strategy to each. It's basically guerilla warfare. He keeps the Cheysuli and Homanan troops separate, and at least there does seem to be some respect for the Cheysuli as warriors, at least from the veterans who remember the days before the qu'mahlin.
Carillon names Rowan one of his captains, putting him in charge of the men he'd led in the tavern. He realizes that Rowan won't be able to lead other Homanans until he proves himself. He won't be able to lead Cheysuli at all.
Finn approves:
“You have mastered them.” This from Finn, sitting behind me on his horse.
I smiled, watching the army depart. “Have I? Then you are deaf to all the mumbled complaints.”
“Men will ever complain. It is the nature of the beast.” He kneed his mount forward and came up next to me. “I think you have won their hearts.”
“I need that and their willingness to fight.”
“And I think you will have it.” He pulled something from his belt and held it out. A knife. A Cheysuli long-knife hiked in silver, with a gleaming wolf’s-head pommel. It was my own, given to me by Finn so many years before. “I took it from your things,” he said quietly. “A Mujhar ever carries one.”
Fuck, you two. Get a room.
Also, is it weird that I feel like we know more about Cheysuli wedding rituals from this book than Shapechangers. :-D
So Carillon finally tells Finn the full story of how he lost his other knife. Finn is more focused on the level of power that the Ihlini showed by transforming the knife. He'd heard about such powers but never saw them. Carillon finally asks something that he probably should have asked a long time ago: what else can Ihlini do.
A stray breeze lifted a lock of black hair from Finn’s left shoulder. The earring glittered. Seated on his dark horse in his dark leathers, he reminded me of the stories I had heard of man-horses, half of each, and inseparable. Well, so was Finn inseparable. From his lir, if not from his horse.
“With the Ihlini,” he said, “expect anything.”
a) That was incredibly unhelpful, Finn
b) Get a room.
Then Carillon and Finn share a more serious moment;
I felt a roll of trepidation in my belly. “I am afraid,” I said flatly, expecting ridicule—or worse—from him.
“No man, facing what you face, denies his fear,” Finn said calmly. “Unless he lies. And you are not a liar.”
I laughed, albeit oddly. “No, not a liar. A fool, perhaps, but not a liar.” I shook my head, tasting the sharp tang of apprehension in my mouth. “What we face—”
“—we face,” he finished. “As the gods desire.” He made the familiar gesture. “Tahlmorra, my lord. It will go on.” He closed his hand abruptly, the gesture banished. His hand was a fist, a hard brown fist of flesh and bone, and the promise of death to come.
Seriously, I don't think I can take any more romantic declarations guys. Fortunately the chapter ends here.
So this chapter was interesting because for the first time in this book we see Finn being downright hateful and cruel. When I was a kid, this chapter was actually what cemented Finn as my favorite character in the book. Because he is terrible here. But he's terrible here in a way that makes sense. The Cheysuli culture as portrayed in Song, and later books, is in a lot of ways a culture of religious fanatics. They have a complex set of values that are occasionally downright alien to us. Rowan was a child, trying to survive. But to Finn, and to the other Cheysuli, Rowan is a murderer who repudiated the gods.
It's complicated and it's ugly. But it's INTERESTING. And the ugly intolerance is something that will come up occasionally in the later books.
Now I beg you, imagine my horror to go from this complex portrayal to SHAPECHANGERS. I will never get over that.
no subject
Date: 2026-02-11 05:40 pm (UTC)That's one kind of retcon I don't mind at all (as long as Roberson sticks by it, of course).
I like the thought that Alix presumably has a social life and talks to other people in this book.
Me too, given that I remember her as being somewhat isolated in the previous book, and because she really deserves to have a nice life after all that!
It's also been several years since Carillon has been around Cheysuli other than Finn, which would make unlearning his racism all the more difficult... I rather appreciate how well the qu'mahlin plot has been done so far, and I do hope it will stay this good during the rest of this book and the following one.
“Perhaps it will be enough for Homana to know her Mujhar again.”
If it were only Bellam they had to right against, that might be enough, but as he is backed by Tynstar, I doubt it'll be.
Good to see Carillon growing into his role; I don't think he'd make a bad Mujhar (from what we see of him at the moment, at least...), and his speech to the army is quite good!
As short as Rowan's story is, it doesn't miss its impact, so kudos to Roberson for that. I also find that hearing both this and Finn's story helps with showing the extent of the genocide in a way that she didn't manage before (as their clans were attacked in much the same way fifteen years apart).
It's certainly a good way to give the Cheysuli some more depth and complexity, and to show us how important the lir are to them; Finn's behaviour is also understandable, which is definitely an improvement, though I don't think that seeing people like Rowan as "half a man" is exactly a good thing, either. And now we also fully know what's going on with Rowan, which is also nice to know! Overall, it's quite a good scene, even if it isn't a very nice one.
Rowan either went back to his parents after his captivity by Atvian hands OR his lir-sickness came very early.
I see Rowan was twelve years old when we first met him and I recall Donal bonding at eight, so the latter is probably what happened (which would have made the choice all the more difficult, I think).
The lir is a gift from the gods, and when it doesn't bond with its chosen warrior it gives itself to death.
...That does make the Cheysuli attitudes toward those who refuse the lir bond a bit more understandable, though I don't blame Rowan for making the choice he did (and of course, if he had accepted, his lir would have been killed if he was outed, so the outcome is much the same).
The division of troops sounds quite sound to me, so good on Carillon for managing that!
Seated on his dark horse in his dark leathers, he reminded me of the stories I had heard of man-horses, half of each, and inseparable.
So the Homanans have centaurs in their mythology? I didn't expect that at all.
Hmmm, I think the Cheysuli become more tolerant later on (from Track of the White Wolf onward we explicitly hear about fanatics, at least), so that will be interesting to see with this background.
This is the chapter that has got me invested in the book, mostly because we get to see more cultural complexity of the Cheysuli, and especially because it's ugly, like with Rowan's story. It's also nice to see the war's not too far off, of course, but I'm now also enthusiastic without it.
I'll see you next time, then!
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Date: 2026-02-11 09:18 pm (UTC)I think part of the issue is that Finn and Donal are the last lead characters that we have that have a full on Cheysuli upbringing. Niall (and Isolde and Ian) has been raised by Donal to be culturally Cheysuli, but his ability to truly immerse himself in his culture is limited by necessity and rank.
Because of that, I think that he ends up not internalizing as many of the prejudices that he'd otherwise have been exposed to (which we see more strongly in the extremist characters.)
Niall's children have the same issue - they are culturally Cheysuli, but are also raised to rule a Homanan kingdom and that effects perspective. The Cheysuli attitudes toward disability and mental issues/neurodivergence though are a pretty strong thread in the later books as we see with Gisella, Brennan, Hart, and Aidan.