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i_read_whatSo last time, Arithon managed to get out of the city and catch up to a bunch of clansmen who are immediately loyal to him, which means he's basically spending all of his time trying to piss them off. And failing! Has Arithon's assholishness met its match???
Anyway, another thing that happened was that Arithon stole drugs that apparently cause vision quests. Since this chapter is titled "Augury", I think we can guess what happens next! DUDE'S GETTING HIGH!
So we rejoin Arithon as he's found a nice quiet place to get high. There's lots of flowery description of the place in which he is getting high. He's apparently been in a trance for twelve unbroken hours even BEFORE getting high, because he's like that.
Really, Steiven? You seem to have a pretty clear understanding of Arithon already, you let him out of your sight for twelve hours??? Well, I suppose the man does have to sleep.
And really, by now, the entire clan thinks he's a shiftless layabout, so Arithon thinks they probably thought he'd gone off to mope. That's good, because the preparations involved fasting, which would have gotten Dania or Halliron's attention. He doesn't want the clan to realize he's mage trained...for some reason. I guess because they'd realize he's not a brainless twit.
So anyway, why is Arithon doing this?
If the clans of the north were determined to stand to war against Etarra’s army, his oath to Rathain bound him to make sure that no man’s life be needlessly endangered.
Of course.
So now we get into magic drug use. Yay!
We're told this is pretty dangerous. Back at Rauven or Althain Tower, there are wards to protect a seer's mind. Here there aren't, which means Arithon's in danger of magically lobotomizing himself or something. He loads a pipe up with the herby stuff. (Apparently it came with the herb. Sethvir keeps his drugs organized.)
Arithon's still plotting how to get out of kingship and you know what? Fair enough. He might be a whiny little twit, but he gave it a good college try. He went along with Asandir's nonsense. He let a bunch of assholes crown him, and now his brother is trying to kill him. It's not like they ever told him why it was so important that he sit on the throne, so why the fuck shouldn't the poor guy book it?
More description. It's very nice. I'm not sharing any of it. Sorry. Arithon's getting high. There's a mention of "poisoned smoke" which makes me think this might not be a good idea.
Vertigo upended his physical senses. Well-prepared, he pressed against the tree and let live wood reaffirm his balance. The kick as the drug fired his nerves was harder by far to absorb and master. He gasped in near pain at the explosive unreeling of his innermind as sights, smells, and sensations launched him through a spiralling hyperbole.
Poor asshole can't even get high pleasantly.
The visions seem fun:
Reeling holocaust met him. Fire and smoke swallowed all, while the higher-pitched vibration of dying trees screamed across his lacerated senses. Arithon cried out in forced empathy. Through a wilderness of chaotic sensation he groped, and finally separated the cause: Lysaer’s army, waiting until the tinder-dry days of midsummer, then firing Strakewood, that the windcaught blaze drive the clans out of cover to be rounded up and slaughtered. Vistas followed, of razed timber and dead men, blackened with ash and feeding flies. Clan children marched in ragged coffles, then died one by one in a public display that packed Etarra’s square with vicious, screaming onlookers. Arithon’s stomach wrenched at the smell of the executioner’s excitement, charged and whelmed to a sickness of ecstasy by rivers of new-spilled blood.
...that sucks donkey balls. Got a better option?
He saw a hillside strewn with corpses; banners fallen and snarled by the trampling passage of horses; and beyond these a clearing that held townsmen who were also Rathain’s subjects, hideously disembowelled and hung by their ankles from game hooks.
...that's marginally better, I guess?
Meanwhile, Arithon's dry heaving and yeah, fair enough. He finally manages to narrow in on the potential futures that come from Caolle's strategy. And we learn a bit more about what that is: basically, he'll be luring the "thousands" of Etarra up the creekbed, then force them upriver where they'll have to divide their ranks more than once due to terrain. There'll be both natural and manmade barriers and archers to help.
So how does that look?
Arithon paused to resteady himself. The bowmen would not be enough, he saw, as prescience swooped and spun to frame a grim chain of disasters. Etarra’s guardsmen slaughtered clan scouts like meat behind over-run embankments until the screams of dying men gave way to the croak of sated crows, all because the left flank of Etarra’s army would be commanded by a man whose lifetime obsession had been the study of barbarian tactics.
The butcher had grizzled grey hair and hands that were narrow and expressive. The face with its pocking of scars and out-thrust jaw was that of Pesquil, Mayor of Etarra’s League of Headhunters. His were the orders that sent city officers upslope like terriers to secure the ridge-tops. Etarra’s west division of pikemen would split two ways, then weaken the cohesion of barbarian resistance by storming both ends of the ridge. Then the light horse cohort dispatched single file through a ravine to the east would circle back and eventually bottle the valley from the north. They would crush the barbarian right flank and rejoin Gnudsog’s troops in time to effect rescue of the main columns bogged in the Tal Quorin marshes.
Faint and sick, Arithon watched the Deshans left alive at that juncture become herded into slaughter to a man.
...well, that sucks too. Man, you can't even enjoy getting high!
So what if they try to assassinate that dude in the last excerpt? Nope, tortured scouts and the dude still in command. AND the dude's got shielding against sorcery.
This really fucking sucks, dude. Are there ever ANY good tienelle scryings? The sorcerers' one sucked too.
But Arithon decides to go back to the begining: Caolle's strategy with Arithon's magic involved BEFORE the head-hunter dude can make trouble:
Inspired to terrible invention by the breadth of tienelle awareness, he gave his whole mind, bent the talents his grandfather had nurtured to full-scale killing. Wrought of magecraft, and shadow mastery, and devious cunning, he tested strategies that brooked no conscience. He toyed with the visions, slanted and skewed them to tens and thousands of variations. He weighed and recombined results; counted the dead and the wounded with a will locked hard against any acknowledgement of suffering. To feel, to think at all, was to lose the mind to sorrow. Dogged, driven half mad by his oathtaken weight of responsibility, he inhaled more tienelle and threshed through each chain of happenstance in exhaustive review for blind errors.
By the end, spent to a weariness that soaked in dull pain to his bones, he had garnered a handful of tactics that might yield the lowest toll of lives. His work would hold only if no unforeseen circumstance arose to upset his tested effect patterns; if against odds he had managed to circumvent all possible avenues of probability.
Well, that's something at least. And now, he's out of the drug. Withdrawal kicks in immediately. Because apparently tienelle is really fucking poisonous. Magic ability can "annul" the poison though. So it's not that bad. And now Arithon's got a few options.
All of which involve killing a fuck lot of Etarrans. And the Deshan clansmen aren't going to be having fun either.
Arithon suffers for our benefit of course:
The water hit his stomach and set off a rolling bout of nausea. He clamped his hands to his mouth, unsettled by the fight he underwent to keep the precious moisture down. Worn through a brutal and difficult scrying, he recognized his judgement had blurred. Had he considered with his full wits about him, he should never have dared try this much tienelle in one session, far less in seclusion. He needed herbal tea, a bed and the presence of another mage to ward the thought-paths that yet lay vulnerably open. Lacking such comforts, he had no choice left but to wait. The herb must be allowed time to fade. Only with his senses released from its burning scope of vision would he be able to transmute the residual poisons the water could not flush through. Until then, he could tolerate no human company.
Sadly, still with a shirt on. What's the point of drug withdrawal and toxic poisoning if you're going to keep your clothes on, dude.
Oh, fun moment, while coming down from vision drugs, Arithon gets a vision of the dude who owned the clothes before him. Lady Dania's younger brother, who'd been wounded and died at the age of fifteen. Caolle had to give him the mercy strike. Man, Arithon is tiny.
Arithon distracts himself with Dakar's favorite drinking song, until he realizes he's not alone. He calls for the person to come out: it's Jieret, Steiven's adorable son. The kid with the visions who kidnapped Halliron a while back.
They banter a little. Jieret is smart enough to realize Arithon's high as a kite, but doesn't know why. When he calls him "Your Grace", Arithon balks:
You will use no title, when you address me,’ said Arithon. ‘Your blade was not one I swore oath over, yesterday afternoon. You owe me no homage at all.’
‘But I was too young!’ Jieret dropped to his knees. ‘Here.’ He groped at his belt and proffered the knife he kept for whittling. ‘Take my steel now. I’ll be of age next season.’
Arithon refuses, citing that he won't go against Steiven's wishes. He promises friendship though. Then when Jieret insists he'll be fighting at Arithon's side, Arithon forbids it. (He also lets slip that Halliron had bet someone that Arithon is better with a sword than Caolle is. Arithon denies that, of course.)
Arithon wants Jieret to protect his sisters, but Jieret's scornful insistence that the girls will be in battle too (disarming the fallen and catching loose horses), causes aother vision:
Arithon gasped. Hurled into an explosion of prescience like a bloodbath, he reeled, saved from toppling only by the tree at his back. His mind, his heart, the very breath in his throat all but stopped as involuntary foresight seared through him: of women and girls lying gutted in pitiful death. The peace of forest night was swallowed by the din of future screaming. Shocked to hot tears and futile fury, Arithon struggled to recover; while the moss dug up by his spasmed fingers seeped warm red with the blood to be reaped by the vengeance of Etarra’s steel.
So no more playing idiot. Arithon's got to talk to Steiven now. He gets Jieret to take him back. As they go, Arithon's health improves a bit and Dania comes out to intercept them and scold her son for running off. Arithon takes the blame for that. Jieret takes off to avoid maternal wrath, while Dania and Arithon wait.
The dynamic between Dania and Arithon is pretty interesting, I think. For all that Arithon's behavior is mostly designed to make the clansmen dislike him, he DOES have certain "townsborn" biases and inclinations himself. He may have been a pirate, but he's never been the express target of genocide and he's not as hard as they are. Dania is more perceptive than the men when it comes to that kind of thing, I think.
Eventually, Dania leaves him alone to see to Jieret. Halliron's lyranthe is here. And well, Arithon's had a really fucking rough day. Alone, he can't resist playing softly. Which of COURSE, Lady Dania hears as she gets back: "Unwitting party to something not meant to be shared, she poised stock-still with the fringed end of the privacy curtain forgotten between her clenched hands."
She's very complimentary, crediting him with a gift even Halliron might envy. He bristles at the comparison of course. His hand injury has split, but he doesn't wipe it on his tunic. Dania wonders if, somehow, he KNOWS the origin of the clothing. Of course we know he does.
Interestingly, there's a moment that gets a little sexually charged:
Dania absorbed the awkward moment by rearranging the skirt over her knees. Blue cloth settled a ring of twilight over a tawny landscape of flax hassocks, and her hands, like paired birds, nestled together in her lap. Arithon ducked quickly forward and hoped his fallen hair would shade his face. His breathing was harder to temper; Steiven’s wife had a vivid, magnetic beauty beneath the wear of hard living and the fullness lent by child bearing. The fact she tracked his mind without effort evoked an intimacy that played havoc with drug-heightened senses and provoked him to shameless response.
Arithon's type is "not willing to take his shit" apparently. Anyway, he's a little more open with her than he would be otherwise. And gets a nasty vision: Prescience arose, full-bodied and ugly enough to choke him, of Lady Dania sprawled in black leaf mould, the leathers she wore for workaday ripped down to expose muddied thighs, and her throat slashed open by a sword stroke.
She says that if it were up to her, she'd drop every weapon in Etarra in the bog and hire him as the clansman's bard. That gets to him like a proposition, and he ends up playing more on the lyranthe as a distraction/comfort.
I like this moment because while there is a clear charge here, that's all there is. Neither Arithon nor Dania even remotely consider acting on the attraction. The possibility doesn't enter either of their minds. It's just a spark of connection.
Of course, the downside is that Halliron has time to come in, hear the playing and is IRKED.
Halliron took back his instrument, derisively abrupt. ‘I heard it all. The fragment preceding as well.’ Pale, hard eyes touched the prince with a look as inimical as a knife-thrust. ‘I know the voice of my lyranthe better than that of my own child. You should have known she would call me. Did you lack the guts, not to speak to me beforehand?’
Arithon apologizes and promises not to meddle with it again. But OF COURSE, that's not Halliron's problem:
Meddle!’ Dania had never heard the bard’s voice so charged with fury. ‘You arrogant, manipulative young fool! Don’t insult my intelligence by playing your falsehoods on me. It’s an Ath-given talent you’ve been hiding. I say it here, you’ve no right to see that strangled.’
Arithon sat back sharply, discomfort plain upon his face. The bard had managed to shock him, as nobody else ever had, and his recovery lacked courtesy or grace. ‘That was not my intent.’ For once too upset to try pretence, he hitched his shoulders in dismissal. ‘Of course, I’m touched by your regard. But I saw no reason to inflict my inadequate fingering upon you.’ The sarcasm used in desperation bloomed now to drive back tearing anguish. ‘My sword, you’ll recall, is now wedded to the cause of a kingdom.’
Halliron shrugged off the protestation. ‘The mechanics of your playing can definitely be improved upon.’ He cradled the lyranthe against his shoulder, set fingers to strings, and repeated several bars of Arithon’s work. Beneath his skill, melody emerged refocused into a rendition to make the heart leap for pure pain.
The effect left Dania with her fingers pressed to her lips, and the Prince of Rathain dead white.
We knew this was inevitable, of course.
Halliron thinks that, with work and life training, Arithon will surpass him. And, OF COURSE, he's never heard the equal in terms of natural ability.
Arithon does not appreciate this, freezing the man out. He says he'll speak to Caolle instead if Steiven's unavailable. Dania offers food, and the fact that Arithon shakes his head rather than snaps back alarms her. She realizes that he's sick. There's a standoff that's only broken when Halliron tells him where the others are.
Dania and Halliron commiserate in a scene I remember seeing a few times in these books:
The lodge-flap sighed closed on his heels, and infused the close tent with the night-scent of dew-soaked evergreen. Lady Dania stared blindly across an emptiness left brilliant with candles, her arms hugged forlornly across her chest. ‘He tries hard to make us think he takes us lightly.’
Wordless in sympathy, Halliron caught her shoulders. He turned her, sat her down and fetched her wine. This once in his life unwilling to seek music to quiet an uneasy mind, he poured a second goblet for himself. ‘It’s fate that’s his enemy, not ourselves.’ He drank deep, to dull a grief he could not bear, that his search for a successor had found its match in a man who had no use at all for an apprenticeship.
It's the "oh no, the assholishness is just a mask for his DEEP CARING, and we must sympathize from afar with his terrible life, because he is still kind of an asshole. Who cares about us deeply. But is also an asshole" scene.
It tends to be a theme with Arithon.
So he's off to talk to Caolle and Steiven. Steiven is concerned and attentive, especially as Arithon's physical state has taken a downturn again. Dramatic asshole. Caolle is scornful, which is probably good. Arithon's the kind of asshole who gets strength from spite.
Eventually, he's able to warn about the women and children. He wants them taken out of the battle. Caolle thinks it's suicide to hold a resource back, but Arithon's got a resource to offer them.
‘There are alternatives,’ Arithon interjected. At his word, the candle flicked out, though no hand had moved to pinch the flame.
When Caolle leaned out to test the wick, Steiven stopped him on instinct. ‘Don’t. Snuffed candles usually smoke. I smell none, which must mean the light is still burning.’
‘The sun can be blackened as easily,’ Arithon’s voice resumed out of darkness. ‘Mine is full command of shadow. Though I am loath to kill by trickery, the night can be a formidable weapon.’
He released the captive candle as abruptly, and in a steady, undisturbed spill, flamelight glinted in multiple reflection on the helms and scale brigandines of a dozen men-at-arms, conjured from nowhere and arrayed behind the prince’s chair.
Arithon basically gives them an ultimatum: listen to him, or he'll skip the fuck out of here.
Steiven calms the situation (realizing that Arithon probably isn't drunk as they'd initially assumed, but rather "driving for the opening to provoke", and I mean, yeah. Steiven's got his measure.)
Caolle's impression of Arithon actually goes up a little here. He still thinks Arithon is weak (and as I said above, comparatively, he is), but clever, and with some battle experience, he might be toughened enough to make a passable sovereign.
They end up interrupted: Dania's calling Steiven. Jieret's had a nightmare. They explain that Jieret, like Steiven, has the Sight, which horrifies Arithon. Apparently visions are contagious. Jieret picked up "the sequence" from Arithon when they were walking back. Damn. That poor kid.
At some point around here, Arithon ends up either passing out or falling asleep. Caolle ends up carrying him "like a game carcass" into the Steiven's tent. I admit to being amused any time Arithon's carted somewhere completely without dignity.
Steiven emerges and he and Caolle discuss Jieret's condition (he's so traumatized by it, he doesn't really remember. Thank god) and recollect a time when Steiven suffered through the same thing: right before his own father's death.
With the women and girls out of things, now the young boys over ten will be charged to disarm the fallen. Arithon won't like that either, but he's up against clan culture here. In an amusing moment, Steiven seems to be expecting an argument and then realizes that Arithon's out cold. He really does know him well in a very short time.
Halliron's the one who realizes that something is wrong though. In fact, he's freaking out. He's smelled and identified the tienelle that Arithon had used. And apparently it's worse than we thought, because the clansfolk know the herb as "Seersweed" and when Steiven hears that Arithon uses it, he freaks the fuck out.
We get a bit of a parallel scene to the beginning of the novel, because through the next nasty struggles with the after effects, Arithon comes to enough to get himself under control in a way that makes it really obvious that he's not the lazy twerp he was pretending to be. Caolle is forced to reassess yet again.
So anyway, more preparation follows. Arithon's recovering from tienelle sickness, and told that basically the participation of the boys in the battle is "a matter beyond his royal right to question"
So Arithon retaliates in a particularly Arithonish way:
If his initial reaction was too quiet, his response came typically obstinate. He waited until Dania’s back was turned, called young Jieret to his bedside, and with the blade of a boy’s knife for carving, nicked his left wrist. There and then he swore a blood pact of friendship with his caithdein’s only son.
Confronted minutes later by the father’s anger, Arithon gazed up from his pillows, peaceful with grieved affection. ‘That is the best I can do for you, whom I love as my brother. I can see your heir survives this war to continue your line and title.’
Steiven's response is emotional, of course, and we learn that Steiven is absolutely certain he's not going to be surviving this battle. He's a seer too, after all.
--
The next section is Incarceration.
We join Dakar and Kharadmon as the former is roped into carrying the Mistwraith to Rockfell Peak. He's grumbling, of course, and Kharadmon is picking on him. Dakar is upset about Lysaer, about how the Fellowship used a good man and then broke him.
And you know, that's pretty fucking fair.
Kharadmon defends Asandir in a way that makes me dislike Asandir more:
Dakar resumed inching up a track better suited for small goats. ‘You don’t agree,’ he said sourly.
The discorporate mage surprised with an answer. ‘You’ve seen Asandir take deer for the supper pot.’
‘He never hunts anything I ever saw.’ The Mad Prophet bent, clawed out a pebble that had worked its way into his boot-top, then sidestepped through a hair pin bend, his buttocks pressed to sheer rock while his beer-gut jutted over sky. ‘Asandir just goes out and sits in a thicket somewhere. Eventually a buck happens along, lies down, and dies for him.’
‘He projects his need and asks,’ Kharadmon corrected tartly. ‘The deer chooses freely, and its fate and man’s hunger end in balance.’
Oh bull fucking shit.
Dakar and I are on the same page again:
‘You’re not saying Lysaer volunteered,’ Dakar protested.
The trail doubled back, its frost-split stone scoured lifeless except for mustard and black flecks of lichen. From ahead, Kharadmon sent back, ‘No. Your prince answered circumstance according to his inate character. The Fellowship imposed nothing outside his natural will and intentions.’
Oh, really? REALLY?
YES, Lysaer reacted a certain way. BECAUSE YOU DIDN'T GIVE HIM ALL THE FACTS. The Lysaer we knew loved his brother and didn't have any intention of plunging an entire region into a war! I'm pretty sure that he wouldn't have gone along with this if he knew that THAT was a possible outcome!
I'm pretty sure Arithon wouldn't have gone along with this either. The Mistwraith had been in place for five hundred years. Uncomfortable, sure. But people were surviving! Lysaer and Arithon both drank from the magic fountain of long life, so you guys HAD TIME to find another solution!
Kharadmon does say something interesting here:
‘Where opening did not already exist, the creature could not have gained foothold,’ said Kharadmon.
Dakar waves that away as being the fault of Lysaer's inborn gift. If Lysaer hadn't been driven to seek "perfect justice", the wraith wouldn't have found anything to exploit.
...I'm not sure about that. Dakar doesn't know what happened in the desert between worlds. I do.
Anyway, Kharadmon kind of sort of capitulates a little there, noting that "If so, our Fellowship has a reckoning to answer for."
And yeah, you fucking do.
Dakar agrees, pushing him on why Lysaer was surrendered without a defense. That does get Kharadmon's hackles up:
‘Because,’ his reply cracked back at length, ‘Ath Creator himself did not insist that his works spring perfectly formed from the void. We are permitted our mistakes, for which, my fat prophet, you should kiss the earth daily and be grateful.’
...oddly this makes me like Kharadmon just a little more. He's being an asshole here, of course, but he's clearly angry about the whole situation. It's a nice change from the Fellowship veneer of infallability.
Unfortunately, Asandir shows up to scold Dakar and take over carrying the Mistwraith. And really, Asandir seems like a terrible instructor:
‘How did you do that?’
Silver-grey eyes now flicked up, keenly bright in their scrutiny. ‘Which question did you actually want answered?’
Hopeful, Dakar said, ‘Both.’
But Asandir’s mood since Etarra had not been the least bit forgiving.
Yeah, fuck you, dude. Imagine Lysaer and Arithon's mood since Etarra.
So anyway, they're off to make sure the rocks are okay with holding the Mistwraith, because the Fellowship are about consent, remember. Fucking whatever, man.
They climb for a while and eventually find a staircase courtesy of renegade member Davien, who I'm starting to appreciate, if only for the fact that he apparently told the other Fellowship folks to fuck themselves. He'd apparently built the stairs assuming that anyone trying to climb would be on mage's business.
Eventually, they find the hidden door of Rockfell and go inside. There's some interesting dialogue here that I won't bother recapping. Mostly about the surroundings and creatures and banter and bitching about things.
And god, no wonder Dakar drinks:
‘You didn’t need me,’ Dakar retorted. ‘Why insist that I come?’
‘But Kharadmon told you already.’ Impatient, Asandir abandoned the intricacies of his spell-work. He turned full around and gave Dakar a regard that was testy enough to peel skin. ‘Your body needed the exercise.’
Which point incensed Dakar to black rage. He filled his lungs to shout imprecations.
No word emerged. His jaw opened, shut and opened again like a fish’s. His eyes bulged. Then, in some odd fit of difficulty that had no visible cause, his features crumpled in frustration and his knees buckled. His Fellowship master caught him before he collapsed.
Laughing, Asandir lowered the Mad Prophet’s bulk the rest of the way to the floor. ‘How timely.’
Kharadmon’s ripe chuckle answered. ‘Quite.’ His image unfurled, posed in satisfaction over Dakar. ‘He’ll sleep through the night. Good. That should leave us some peace in which to work.’
Imagine dealing with these assholes for five hundred years.
Anyway, eventually they wake Dakar up. Not out of consideration, but because he's laying across space they need for the wards. On the plus side, he gets to appreciate some cool magic:
Dakar grumbled, and finally yielded to the prodding that urged him back to his feet. His bones ached from hours spent on hard and chilly stone, and his eyes felt bored through by a blast of unbearable light. He determined after a moment that the glare emanated from the centre of the pit. He blinked, squinted through hurting vision and, at the heart of the dazzle, barely made out the shadowy outline of the flask that contained the Mistwraith.
About then he noticed that his skin tingled as if drenched by a tonic, and all of his body hair had lifted. Throughout his service with Asandir, he had never witnessed such a presence of raw force. For once in his life awed to silence, he gaped.
I know they need to restrain the Mistwraith, but it'd serve them right if Arithon died of tienelle poisoning while they were taking care of this. He's important to their plans after all.
Anyway, after considerable description and effort, they get Desh-thiere, the Mistwraith, sealed.
--
The third section is Warning.
We're with Elaira! Hi Elaira! She's not having a great day. She still blames herself for Morriel choosing Lysaer's side. She's so lost in thought that she even passes a beggar without greeting him, which is something she always does, since beggars had been her family during her early childhood.
We get some great sea description here:
She rounded a jumble of boulders, then picked her way over the breakwater that protected Narms harbour from the sea. Sheltered there, fishing smacks and trader galleys loomed at anchorage, or sat low on their marks, made fast to the bollards at the wharf. Deck lanterns threw greasy orange streaks across waters pocked with light rain. At the taffrail of the nearest vessel, a woman crooned a melody, her knees tucked up under a fishing tarp as she peeled vegetables for her supper. Down the docks a bent grandfather trundled a wheelbarrow of cod toward the street, while a boy and his brother mended nets. The reek of fish offal and the squabble of the gulls that dipped and dived through dank pilings checked Elaira as if she had run against a wall.
So poor Elaira is stuck between her feelings for Arithon and her loyalty to the Koriani. And we get a lot of words to that effect. I particularly like this bit:
Eyes closed, her hearing awash with the seethe of salt foam, Elaira reviewed the unalterable absolutes that imprisoned her in misery. Where once she could have lightened her mood with flippant behaviour and sarcasm, now the frustrated, circling grief of knowing a man with indelible intimacy ate at her, night and day. The surcease of physical release was denied her. That one act of spirited curiosity had caused her to be culled, and now used, as Morriel’s personal instrument to map Arithon’s motivations, could neither be escaped or avoided.
Suddenly the beggar comes over, all kind and comforting. She realizes suddenly that he wasn't ever really a beggar. It was Traithe, one of the less annoying Fellowship members. He's there with a message from Sethvir.
As Elaira moved to speak, he restrained her. Though his step was careful and lame, his hands could grip hard enough to bruise. ‘No. Say nothing. You’re aware that the wrong words could set your vows to your order in jeopardy.’
She stilled, shocked by his bluntness.
Traithe said, ‘Understand, and clearly, that my purpose here is to shield you from any such breach in your loyalty.’
Stung still by guilt-ridden thoughts, Elaira’s sensibilities fled. She wrenched off Traithe’s hold and stepped back. ‘My Prime might command my obedience. She does not own me in spirit!’
Times like this, I can definitely see why Elaira and Arithon are drawn to each other. And we learn more about why things suck so much for her:
Yet his affirmation of natural order could not undo vows sealed to flesh through a Koriani focus-stone. A piece of herself that Elaira was powerless to call back had been given over into Morriel’s control. Her ambivalence toward the traps that Traithe most carefully never mentioned gave rise to an outraged admission. ‘Ath’s mercy, I was six years old when the Prime Circle swore me to service. They claim, always, that power must not be given without limits. But lately, I suspect my seniors prefer their trainees young, the better to keep their talent biddable.’
I see that the Koriani have a similar grasp of "consent" as the Fellowship do.
Anyway, apparently Sethvir had seen that Elaira was going to do something stupid out of remorse, using the salt pool to try to send a warning to the Fellowship. And indeed, that was what she was torn about earlier. But Traithe calms her down. Apparently the Fellowship can shield her from THEIR actions, but not actions that she undertakes in free will.
And well, they know already, so she doesn't need to risk herself by warning them.
Well. THEY know. Whether or not they tell Arithon himself is a really fucking good question. (Any bets on that?)
Traithe reveals basically that Luhaine is watching Morriel all the time. Something that Morriel knows, but refuses to tell Lirenda or the others, because it's a sore point.
‘Furthermore, if your Prime has chosen to meddle with Arithon s’Ffalenn…’ The gleam in his eyes hot with mischief, the sorcerer shrugged ruefully. ‘Let’s by all means stay plain. I’m not saying she’s resolved on such an action. But if she should, her pack of conniving seniors will be richly entitled to the consequences.’
It really would serve you right if Arithon died, right now. I like Arithon, so I'd rather that not happen, but it might be worth it to fuck over you guys.
Anyway, Traithe tells Elaira about the incident where Morriel tried to scry Arithon at Kieling Tower.
Choking and spluttering through a mirth just shy of a seizure, Elaira tried and failed to picture Lirenda upended in her own tangled skirts. ‘A worthy prank.’ She caught her breath finally, stung from her laughter by real grief. ‘I’m a game piece.’ She, who most questioned Koriani tenets and practices, had unwittingly become their most indispensable cipher in the course of the coming conflict.
Oh, poor Elaira.
Traithe explains to her that Arithon understands her position. he doesn't like it. And if Morriel tries to use her against him again like that, he's going to hit back a lot harder. He recommends she read the old chronicles again, and see what happens when someone pisses off a s'Ffalenn. And Arithon's a cranky son of a bitch.
So anyway, Traithe reassures her that Arithon can protect himself from Koriani interference through Elaira, and will, without asking her preference. Elaira appreciates that, actually, since it means she won't be in a position to break any vows. She's still, understandably, incredibly upset.
Traithe tries to offer some hope:
Traithe stood and roused his raven, which croaked like a drunk with a hangover and hopped sullenly to its master’s wrist. Never so absorbed by his bird as he appeared, the sorcerer said suddenly, ‘You’re not alone, brave lady. Nor are you entirely Morriel’s plaything. Not since the day you chose to seek out Asandir in Erdane.’
and an emotional goodbye:
Poised to leave, unobtrusive as the beggar she first had mistaken him for, Traithe reached out and stroked her cheek, as the father she had never known might have done to reassure a cherished daughter. As his hand fell away, she cupped the place he had caressed; and now the tears fell and blinded her.
but this is annoying:
‘Lady, great heart.’ He sighed gently. ‘The love within you is no shame. And since you fear to ask, I’ll tell you: there is no secret to be kept. The Fellowship stepped back at Etarra because the grace of spirit we know as life lay in danger of permanent imbalance. Asandir urged, but never forced your beloved. Arithon chose his kingdom ahead of music, by his own free will.’
‘What?’ Elaira stared back in ice-hard fury and disbelief. ‘Why would he?’
Suddenly bleak as the clearest winter starfield, Traithe said, ‘Because he would not be the one man to stand in the path of the Paravians’ return to this continent.’
‘Well,’ said Elaira wretchedly. ‘For his sake, I hope the creatures prove worth it!’
"free will" is a funny way to say "under a great deal of emotional pressure and manipulation."
Still, I appreciate the parallel roles that Elaira and Dakar have in this chapter. Lysaer and Arithon have been screwed over royally, pun mostly intended. And it feels good to have someone SAY that.
Anyway, Traithe basically gives Elaira a prophecy:
Seamed features lost beneath cloth that the raven sidled under to take shelter, Traithe shook his head. ‘Take instead my blessing. You need the consolation, I suspect. I was sent to you because an augury showed the Warden of Althain that, for good or ill you’re the one spirit alive in this world who will come to know Arithon best. Should your Master of Shadow fail you, or you fail him, the outcome will call down disaster.’
Congratulations, Elaira, you have ten or so books of torment and misery to go through. Hope you're ready.
But I do like Elaira's last sentence here: Morriel might command her to Koriani loyalty and obedience; but where Elaira chose to give her heart was a choice reclaimed for her own.
--
Our preview section is Eventide.
1. Gnudsog of the terrible name is reporting that Diegan and Lysaer have settled on a strategy. And...oh...
‘We take the sure route tomorrow, poison the river and the springs to kill the game, then methodically starve out each campsite. Pesquil’s plan is best. Children are the future of the clans, and without women the wretched breed will die…'
Oh, Lysaer. NO.
2. the clansmen are sharpening swords and waxing bowstrings for the last time, while Halliron plays to inspire them.
3. Sethvir checks the wards on the Mistwraith. He has the interesting thought that Arithon might actually be able to unravel the work, but having suffered in order to stop it, he's least likely to meddle with them.
...Is that foreshadowing? I don't remember that coming up in the later books that I've read. But Ms. Wurts is writing the final book now. It'll be interesting if that comes up.
And with these depressing notes, the chapter ends.
Anyway, another thing that happened was that Arithon stole drugs that apparently cause vision quests. Since this chapter is titled "Augury", I think we can guess what happens next! DUDE'S GETTING HIGH!
So we rejoin Arithon as he's found a nice quiet place to get high. There's lots of flowery description of the place in which he is getting high. He's apparently been in a trance for twelve unbroken hours even BEFORE getting high, because he's like that.
Really, Steiven? You seem to have a pretty clear understanding of Arithon already, you let him out of your sight for twelve hours??? Well, I suppose the man does have to sleep.
And really, by now, the entire clan thinks he's a shiftless layabout, so Arithon thinks they probably thought he'd gone off to mope. That's good, because the preparations involved fasting, which would have gotten Dania or Halliron's attention. He doesn't want the clan to realize he's mage trained...for some reason. I guess because they'd realize he's not a brainless twit.
So anyway, why is Arithon doing this?
If the clans of the north were determined to stand to war against Etarra’s army, his oath to Rathain bound him to make sure that no man’s life be needlessly endangered.
Of course.
So now we get into magic drug use. Yay!
We're told this is pretty dangerous. Back at Rauven or Althain Tower, there are wards to protect a seer's mind. Here there aren't, which means Arithon's in danger of magically lobotomizing himself or something. He loads a pipe up with the herby stuff. (Apparently it came with the herb. Sethvir keeps his drugs organized.)
Arithon's still plotting how to get out of kingship and you know what? Fair enough. He might be a whiny little twit, but he gave it a good college try. He went along with Asandir's nonsense. He let a bunch of assholes crown him, and now his brother is trying to kill him. It's not like they ever told him why it was so important that he sit on the throne, so why the fuck shouldn't the poor guy book it?
More description. It's very nice. I'm not sharing any of it. Sorry. Arithon's getting high. There's a mention of "poisoned smoke" which makes me think this might not be a good idea.
Vertigo upended his physical senses. Well-prepared, he pressed against the tree and let live wood reaffirm his balance. The kick as the drug fired his nerves was harder by far to absorb and master. He gasped in near pain at the explosive unreeling of his innermind as sights, smells, and sensations launched him through a spiralling hyperbole.
Poor asshole can't even get high pleasantly.
The visions seem fun:
Reeling holocaust met him. Fire and smoke swallowed all, while the higher-pitched vibration of dying trees screamed across his lacerated senses. Arithon cried out in forced empathy. Through a wilderness of chaotic sensation he groped, and finally separated the cause: Lysaer’s army, waiting until the tinder-dry days of midsummer, then firing Strakewood, that the windcaught blaze drive the clans out of cover to be rounded up and slaughtered. Vistas followed, of razed timber and dead men, blackened with ash and feeding flies. Clan children marched in ragged coffles, then died one by one in a public display that packed Etarra’s square with vicious, screaming onlookers. Arithon’s stomach wrenched at the smell of the executioner’s excitement, charged and whelmed to a sickness of ecstasy by rivers of new-spilled blood.
...that sucks donkey balls. Got a better option?
He saw a hillside strewn with corpses; banners fallen and snarled by the trampling passage of horses; and beyond these a clearing that held townsmen who were also Rathain’s subjects, hideously disembowelled and hung by their ankles from game hooks.
...that's marginally better, I guess?
Meanwhile, Arithon's dry heaving and yeah, fair enough. He finally manages to narrow in on the potential futures that come from Caolle's strategy. And we learn a bit more about what that is: basically, he'll be luring the "thousands" of Etarra up the creekbed, then force them upriver where they'll have to divide their ranks more than once due to terrain. There'll be both natural and manmade barriers and archers to help.
So how does that look?
Arithon paused to resteady himself. The bowmen would not be enough, he saw, as prescience swooped and spun to frame a grim chain of disasters. Etarra’s guardsmen slaughtered clan scouts like meat behind over-run embankments until the screams of dying men gave way to the croak of sated crows, all because the left flank of Etarra’s army would be commanded by a man whose lifetime obsession had been the study of barbarian tactics.
The butcher had grizzled grey hair and hands that were narrow and expressive. The face with its pocking of scars and out-thrust jaw was that of Pesquil, Mayor of Etarra’s League of Headhunters. His were the orders that sent city officers upslope like terriers to secure the ridge-tops. Etarra’s west division of pikemen would split two ways, then weaken the cohesion of barbarian resistance by storming both ends of the ridge. Then the light horse cohort dispatched single file through a ravine to the east would circle back and eventually bottle the valley from the north. They would crush the barbarian right flank and rejoin Gnudsog’s troops in time to effect rescue of the main columns bogged in the Tal Quorin marshes.
Faint and sick, Arithon watched the Deshans left alive at that juncture become herded into slaughter to a man.
...well, that sucks too. Man, you can't even enjoy getting high!
So what if they try to assassinate that dude in the last excerpt? Nope, tortured scouts and the dude still in command. AND the dude's got shielding against sorcery.
This really fucking sucks, dude. Are there ever ANY good tienelle scryings? The sorcerers' one sucked too.
But Arithon decides to go back to the begining: Caolle's strategy with Arithon's magic involved BEFORE the head-hunter dude can make trouble:
Inspired to terrible invention by the breadth of tienelle awareness, he gave his whole mind, bent the talents his grandfather had nurtured to full-scale killing. Wrought of magecraft, and shadow mastery, and devious cunning, he tested strategies that brooked no conscience. He toyed with the visions, slanted and skewed them to tens and thousands of variations. He weighed and recombined results; counted the dead and the wounded with a will locked hard against any acknowledgement of suffering. To feel, to think at all, was to lose the mind to sorrow. Dogged, driven half mad by his oathtaken weight of responsibility, he inhaled more tienelle and threshed through each chain of happenstance in exhaustive review for blind errors.
By the end, spent to a weariness that soaked in dull pain to his bones, he had garnered a handful of tactics that might yield the lowest toll of lives. His work would hold only if no unforeseen circumstance arose to upset his tested effect patterns; if against odds he had managed to circumvent all possible avenues of probability.
Well, that's something at least. And now, he's out of the drug. Withdrawal kicks in immediately. Because apparently tienelle is really fucking poisonous. Magic ability can "annul" the poison though. So it's not that bad. And now Arithon's got a few options.
All of which involve killing a fuck lot of Etarrans. And the Deshan clansmen aren't going to be having fun either.
Arithon suffers for our benefit of course:
The water hit his stomach and set off a rolling bout of nausea. He clamped his hands to his mouth, unsettled by the fight he underwent to keep the precious moisture down. Worn through a brutal and difficult scrying, he recognized his judgement had blurred. Had he considered with his full wits about him, he should never have dared try this much tienelle in one session, far less in seclusion. He needed herbal tea, a bed and the presence of another mage to ward the thought-paths that yet lay vulnerably open. Lacking such comforts, he had no choice left but to wait. The herb must be allowed time to fade. Only with his senses released from its burning scope of vision would he be able to transmute the residual poisons the water could not flush through. Until then, he could tolerate no human company.
Sadly, still with a shirt on. What's the point of drug withdrawal and toxic poisoning if you're going to keep your clothes on, dude.
Oh, fun moment, while coming down from vision drugs, Arithon gets a vision of the dude who owned the clothes before him. Lady Dania's younger brother, who'd been wounded and died at the age of fifteen. Caolle had to give him the mercy strike. Man, Arithon is tiny.
Arithon distracts himself with Dakar's favorite drinking song, until he realizes he's not alone. He calls for the person to come out: it's Jieret, Steiven's adorable son. The kid with the visions who kidnapped Halliron a while back.
They banter a little. Jieret is smart enough to realize Arithon's high as a kite, but doesn't know why. When he calls him "Your Grace", Arithon balks:
You will use no title, when you address me,’ said Arithon. ‘Your blade was not one I swore oath over, yesterday afternoon. You owe me no homage at all.’
‘But I was too young!’ Jieret dropped to his knees. ‘Here.’ He groped at his belt and proffered the knife he kept for whittling. ‘Take my steel now. I’ll be of age next season.’
Arithon refuses, citing that he won't go against Steiven's wishes. He promises friendship though. Then when Jieret insists he'll be fighting at Arithon's side, Arithon forbids it. (He also lets slip that Halliron had bet someone that Arithon is better with a sword than Caolle is. Arithon denies that, of course.)
Arithon wants Jieret to protect his sisters, but Jieret's scornful insistence that the girls will be in battle too (disarming the fallen and catching loose horses), causes aother vision:
Arithon gasped. Hurled into an explosion of prescience like a bloodbath, he reeled, saved from toppling only by the tree at his back. His mind, his heart, the very breath in his throat all but stopped as involuntary foresight seared through him: of women and girls lying gutted in pitiful death. The peace of forest night was swallowed by the din of future screaming. Shocked to hot tears and futile fury, Arithon struggled to recover; while the moss dug up by his spasmed fingers seeped warm red with the blood to be reaped by the vengeance of Etarra’s steel.
So no more playing idiot. Arithon's got to talk to Steiven now. He gets Jieret to take him back. As they go, Arithon's health improves a bit and Dania comes out to intercept them and scold her son for running off. Arithon takes the blame for that. Jieret takes off to avoid maternal wrath, while Dania and Arithon wait.
The dynamic between Dania and Arithon is pretty interesting, I think. For all that Arithon's behavior is mostly designed to make the clansmen dislike him, he DOES have certain "townsborn" biases and inclinations himself. He may have been a pirate, but he's never been the express target of genocide and he's not as hard as they are. Dania is more perceptive than the men when it comes to that kind of thing, I think.
Eventually, Dania leaves him alone to see to Jieret. Halliron's lyranthe is here. And well, Arithon's had a really fucking rough day. Alone, he can't resist playing softly. Which of COURSE, Lady Dania hears as she gets back: "Unwitting party to something not meant to be shared, she poised stock-still with the fringed end of the privacy curtain forgotten between her clenched hands."
She's very complimentary, crediting him with a gift even Halliron might envy. He bristles at the comparison of course. His hand injury has split, but he doesn't wipe it on his tunic. Dania wonders if, somehow, he KNOWS the origin of the clothing. Of course we know he does.
Interestingly, there's a moment that gets a little sexually charged:
Dania absorbed the awkward moment by rearranging the skirt over her knees. Blue cloth settled a ring of twilight over a tawny landscape of flax hassocks, and her hands, like paired birds, nestled together in her lap. Arithon ducked quickly forward and hoped his fallen hair would shade his face. His breathing was harder to temper; Steiven’s wife had a vivid, magnetic beauty beneath the wear of hard living and the fullness lent by child bearing. The fact she tracked his mind without effort evoked an intimacy that played havoc with drug-heightened senses and provoked him to shameless response.
Arithon's type is "not willing to take his shit" apparently. Anyway, he's a little more open with her than he would be otherwise. And gets a nasty vision: Prescience arose, full-bodied and ugly enough to choke him, of Lady Dania sprawled in black leaf mould, the leathers she wore for workaday ripped down to expose muddied thighs, and her throat slashed open by a sword stroke.
She says that if it were up to her, she'd drop every weapon in Etarra in the bog and hire him as the clansman's bard. That gets to him like a proposition, and he ends up playing more on the lyranthe as a distraction/comfort.
I like this moment because while there is a clear charge here, that's all there is. Neither Arithon nor Dania even remotely consider acting on the attraction. The possibility doesn't enter either of their minds. It's just a spark of connection.
Of course, the downside is that Halliron has time to come in, hear the playing and is IRKED.
Halliron took back his instrument, derisively abrupt. ‘I heard it all. The fragment preceding as well.’ Pale, hard eyes touched the prince with a look as inimical as a knife-thrust. ‘I know the voice of my lyranthe better than that of my own child. You should have known she would call me. Did you lack the guts, not to speak to me beforehand?’
Arithon apologizes and promises not to meddle with it again. But OF COURSE, that's not Halliron's problem:
Meddle!’ Dania had never heard the bard’s voice so charged with fury. ‘You arrogant, manipulative young fool! Don’t insult my intelligence by playing your falsehoods on me. It’s an Ath-given talent you’ve been hiding. I say it here, you’ve no right to see that strangled.’
Arithon sat back sharply, discomfort plain upon his face. The bard had managed to shock him, as nobody else ever had, and his recovery lacked courtesy or grace. ‘That was not my intent.’ For once too upset to try pretence, he hitched his shoulders in dismissal. ‘Of course, I’m touched by your regard. But I saw no reason to inflict my inadequate fingering upon you.’ The sarcasm used in desperation bloomed now to drive back tearing anguish. ‘My sword, you’ll recall, is now wedded to the cause of a kingdom.’
Halliron shrugged off the protestation. ‘The mechanics of your playing can definitely be improved upon.’ He cradled the lyranthe against his shoulder, set fingers to strings, and repeated several bars of Arithon’s work. Beneath his skill, melody emerged refocused into a rendition to make the heart leap for pure pain.
The effect left Dania with her fingers pressed to her lips, and the Prince of Rathain dead white.
We knew this was inevitable, of course.
Halliron thinks that, with work and life training, Arithon will surpass him. And, OF COURSE, he's never heard the equal in terms of natural ability.
Arithon does not appreciate this, freezing the man out. He says he'll speak to Caolle instead if Steiven's unavailable. Dania offers food, and the fact that Arithon shakes his head rather than snaps back alarms her. She realizes that he's sick. There's a standoff that's only broken when Halliron tells him where the others are.
Dania and Halliron commiserate in a scene I remember seeing a few times in these books:
The lodge-flap sighed closed on his heels, and infused the close tent with the night-scent of dew-soaked evergreen. Lady Dania stared blindly across an emptiness left brilliant with candles, her arms hugged forlornly across her chest. ‘He tries hard to make us think he takes us lightly.’
Wordless in sympathy, Halliron caught her shoulders. He turned her, sat her down and fetched her wine. This once in his life unwilling to seek music to quiet an uneasy mind, he poured a second goblet for himself. ‘It’s fate that’s his enemy, not ourselves.’ He drank deep, to dull a grief he could not bear, that his search for a successor had found its match in a man who had no use at all for an apprenticeship.
It's the "oh no, the assholishness is just a mask for his DEEP CARING, and we must sympathize from afar with his terrible life, because he is still kind of an asshole. Who cares about us deeply. But is also an asshole" scene.
It tends to be a theme with Arithon.
So he's off to talk to Caolle and Steiven. Steiven is concerned and attentive, especially as Arithon's physical state has taken a downturn again. Dramatic asshole. Caolle is scornful, which is probably good. Arithon's the kind of asshole who gets strength from spite.
Eventually, he's able to warn about the women and children. He wants them taken out of the battle. Caolle thinks it's suicide to hold a resource back, but Arithon's got a resource to offer them.
‘There are alternatives,’ Arithon interjected. At his word, the candle flicked out, though no hand had moved to pinch the flame.
When Caolle leaned out to test the wick, Steiven stopped him on instinct. ‘Don’t. Snuffed candles usually smoke. I smell none, which must mean the light is still burning.’
‘The sun can be blackened as easily,’ Arithon’s voice resumed out of darkness. ‘Mine is full command of shadow. Though I am loath to kill by trickery, the night can be a formidable weapon.’
He released the captive candle as abruptly, and in a steady, undisturbed spill, flamelight glinted in multiple reflection on the helms and scale brigandines of a dozen men-at-arms, conjured from nowhere and arrayed behind the prince’s chair.
Arithon basically gives them an ultimatum: listen to him, or he'll skip the fuck out of here.
Steiven calms the situation (realizing that Arithon probably isn't drunk as they'd initially assumed, but rather "driving for the opening to provoke", and I mean, yeah. Steiven's got his measure.)
Caolle's impression of Arithon actually goes up a little here. He still thinks Arithon is weak (and as I said above, comparatively, he is), but clever, and with some battle experience, he might be toughened enough to make a passable sovereign.
They end up interrupted: Dania's calling Steiven. Jieret's had a nightmare. They explain that Jieret, like Steiven, has the Sight, which horrifies Arithon. Apparently visions are contagious. Jieret picked up "the sequence" from Arithon when they were walking back. Damn. That poor kid.
At some point around here, Arithon ends up either passing out or falling asleep. Caolle ends up carrying him "like a game carcass" into the Steiven's tent. I admit to being amused any time Arithon's carted somewhere completely without dignity.
Steiven emerges and he and Caolle discuss Jieret's condition (he's so traumatized by it, he doesn't really remember. Thank god) and recollect a time when Steiven suffered through the same thing: right before his own father's death.
With the women and girls out of things, now the young boys over ten will be charged to disarm the fallen. Arithon won't like that either, but he's up against clan culture here. In an amusing moment, Steiven seems to be expecting an argument and then realizes that Arithon's out cold. He really does know him well in a very short time.
Halliron's the one who realizes that something is wrong though. In fact, he's freaking out. He's smelled and identified the tienelle that Arithon had used. And apparently it's worse than we thought, because the clansfolk know the herb as "Seersweed" and when Steiven hears that Arithon uses it, he freaks the fuck out.
We get a bit of a parallel scene to the beginning of the novel, because through the next nasty struggles with the after effects, Arithon comes to enough to get himself under control in a way that makes it really obvious that he's not the lazy twerp he was pretending to be. Caolle is forced to reassess yet again.
So anyway, more preparation follows. Arithon's recovering from tienelle sickness, and told that basically the participation of the boys in the battle is "a matter beyond his royal right to question"
So Arithon retaliates in a particularly Arithonish way:
If his initial reaction was too quiet, his response came typically obstinate. He waited until Dania’s back was turned, called young Jieret to his bedside, and with the blade of a boy’s knife for carving, nicked his left wrist. There and then he swore a blood pact of friendship with his caithdein’s only son.
Confronted minutes later by the father’s anger, Arithon gazed up from his pillows, peaceful with grieved affection. ‘That is the best I can do for you, whom I love as my brother. I can see your heir survives this war to continue your line and title.’
Steiven's response is emotional, of course, and we learn that Steiven is absolutely certain he's not going to be surviving this battle. He's a seer too, after all.
--
The next section is Incarceration.
We join Dakar and Kharadmon as the former is roped into carrying the Mistwraith to Rockfell Peak. He's grumbling, of course, and Kharadmon is picking on him. Dakar is upset about Lysaer, about how the Fellowship used a good man and then broke him.
And you know, that's pretty fucking fair.
Kharadmon defends Asandir in a way that makes me dislike Asandir more:
Dakar resumed inching up a track better suited for small goats. ‘You don’t agree,’ he said sourly.
The discorporate mage surprised with an answer. ‘You’ve seen Asandir take deer for the supper pot.’
‘He never hunts anything I ever saw.’ The Mad Prophet bent, clawed out a pebble that had worked its way into his boot-top, then sidestepped through a hair pin bend, his buttocks pressed to sheer rock while his beer-gut jutted over sky. ‘Asandir just goes out and sits in a thicket somewhere. Eventually a buck happens along, lies down, and dies for him.’
‘He projects his need and asks,’ Kharadmon corrected tartly. ‘The deer chooses freely, and its fate and man’s hunger end in balance.’
Oh bull fucking shit.
Dakar and I are on the same page again:
‘You’re not saying Lysaer volunteered,’ Dakar protested.
The trail doubled back, its frost-split stone scoured lifeless except for mustard and black flecks of lichen. From ahead, Kharadmon sent back, ‘No. Your prince answered circumstance according to his inate character. The Fellowship imposed nothing outside his natural will and intentions.’
Oh, really? REALLY?
YES, Lysaer reacted a certain way. BECAUSE YOU DIDN'T GIVE HIM ALL THE FACTS. The Lysaer we knew loved his brother and didn't have any intention of plunging an entire region into a war! I'm pretty sure that he wouldn't have gone along with this if he knew that THAT was a possible outcome!
I'm pretty sure Arithon wouldn't have gone along with this either. The Mistwraith had been in place for five hundred years. Uncomfortable, sure. But people were surviving! Lysaer and Arithon both drank from the magic fountain of long life, so you guys HAD TIME to find another solution!
Kharadmon does say something interesting here:
‘Where opening did not already exist, the creature could not have gained foothold,’ said Kharadmon.
Dakar waves that away as being the fault of Lysaer's inborn gift. If Lysaer hadn't been driven to seek "perfect justice", the wraith wouldn't have found anything to exploit.
...I'm not sure about that. Dakar doesn't know what happened in the desert between worlds. I do.
Anyway, Kharadmon kind of sort of capitulates a little there, noting that "If so, our Fellowship has a reckoning to answer for."
And yeah, you fucking do.
Dakar agrees, pushing him on why Lysaer was surrendered without a defense. That does get Kharadmon's hackles up:
‘Because,’ his reply cracked back at length, ‘Ath Creator himself did not insist that his works spring perfectly formed from the void. We are permitted our mistakes, for which, my fat prophet, you should kiss the earth daily and be grateful.’
...oddly this makes me like Kharadmon just a little more. He's being an asshole here, of course, but he's clearly angry about the whole situation. It's a nice change from the Fellowship veneer of infallability.
Unfortunately, Asandir shows up to scold Dakar and take over carrying the Mistwraith. And really, Asandir seems like a terrible instructor:
‘How did you do that?’
Silver-grey eyes now flicked up, keenly bright in their scrutiny. ‘Which question did you actually want answered?’
Hopeful, Dakar said, ‘Both.’
But Asandir’s mood since Etarra had not been the least bit forgiving.
Yeah, fuck you, dude. Imagine Lysaer and Arithon's mood since Etarra.
So anyway, they're off to make sure the rocks are okay with holding the Mistwraith, because the Fellowship are about consent, remember. Fucking whatever, man.
They climb for a while and eventually find a staircase courtesy of renegade member Davien, who I'm starting to appreciate, if only for the fact that he apparently told the other Fellowship folks to fuck themselves. He'd apparently built the stairs assuming that anyone trying to climb would be on mage's business.
Eventually, they find the hidden door of Rockfell and go inside. There's some interesting dialogue here that I won't bother recapping. Mostly about the surroundings and creatures and banter and bitching about things.
And god, no wonder Dakar drinks:
‘You didn’t need me,’ Dakar retorted. ‘Why insist that I come?’
‘But Kharadmon told you already.’ Impatient, Asandir abandoned the intricacies of his spell-work. He turned full around and gave Dakar a regard that was testy enough to peel skin. ‘Your body needed the exercise.’
Which point incensed Dakar to black rage. He filled his lungs to shout imprecations.
No word emerged. His jaw opened, shut and opened again like a fish’s. His eyes bulged. Then, in some odd fit of difficulty that had no visible cause, his features crumpled in frustration and his knees buckled. His Fellowship master caught him before he collapsed.
Laughing, Asandir lowered the Mad Prophet’s bulk the rest of the way to the floor. ‘How timely.’
Kharadmon’s ripe chuckle answered. ‘Quite.’ His image unfurled, posed in satisfaction over Dakar. ‘He’ll sleep through the night. Good. That should leave us some peace in which to work.’
Imagine dealing with these assholes for five hundred years.
Anyway, eventually they wake Dakar up. Not out of consideration, but because he's laying across space they need for the wards. On the plus side, he gets to appreciate some cool magic:
Dakar grumbled, and finally yielded to the prodding that urged him back to his feet. His bones ached from hours spent on hard and chilly stone, and his eyes felt bored through by a blast of unbearable light. He determined after a moment that the glare emanated from the centre of the pit. He blinked, squinted through hurting vision and, at the heart of the dazzle, barely made out the shadowy outline of the flask that contained the Mistwraith.
About then he noticed that his skin tingled as if drenched by a tonic, and all of his body hair had lifted. Throughout his service with Asandir, he had never witnessed such a presence of raw force. For once in his life awed to silence, he gaped.
I know they need to restrain the Mistwraith, but it'd serve them right if Arithon died of tienelle poisoning while they were taking care of this. He's important to their plans after all.
Anyway, after considerable description and effort, they get Desh-thiere, the Mistwraith, sealed.
--
The third section is Warning.
We're with Elaira! Hi Elaira! She's not having a great day. She still blames herself for Morriel choosing Lysaer's side. She's so lost in thought that she even passes a beggar without greeting him, which is something she always does, since beggars had been her family during her early childhood.
We get some great sea description here:
She rounded a jumble of boulders, then picked her way over the breakwater that protected Narms harbour from the sea. Sheltered there, fishing smacks and trader galleys loomed at anchorage, or sat low on their marks, made fast to the bollards at the wharf. Deck lanterns threw greasy orange streaks across waters pocked with light rain. At the taffrail of the nearest vessel, a woman crooned a melody, her knees tucked up under a fishing tarp as she peeled vegetables for her supper. Down the docks a bent grandfather trundled a wheelbarrow of cod toward the street, while a boy and his brother mended nets. The reek of fish offal and the squabble of the gulls that dipped and dived through dank pilings checked Elaira as if she had run against a wall.
So poor Elaira is stuck between her feelings for Arithon and her loyalty to the Koriani. And we get a lot of words to that effect. I particularly like this bit:
Eyes closed, her hearing awash with the seethe of salt foam, Elaira reviewed the unalterable absolutes that imprisoned her in misery. Where once she could have lightened her mood with flippant behaviour and sarcasm, now the frustrated, circling grief of knowing a man with indelible intimacy ate at her, night and day. The surcease of physical release was denied her. That one act of spirited curiosity had caused her to be culled, and now used, as Morriel’s personal instrument to map Arithon’s motivations, could neither be escaped or avoided.
Suddenly the beggar comes over, all kind and comforting. She realizes suddenly that he wasn't ever really a beggar. It was Traithe, one of the less annoying Fellowship members. He's there with a message from Sethvir.
As Elaira moved to speak, he restrained her. Though his step was careful and lame, his hands could grip hard enough to bruise. ‘No. Say nothing. You’re aware that the wrong words could set your vows to your order in jeopardy.’
She stilled, shocked by his bluntness.
Traithe said, ‘Understand, and clearly, that my purpose here is to shield you from any such breach in your loyalty.’
Stung still by guilt-ridden thoughts, Elaira’s sensibilities fled. She wrenched off Traithe’s hold and stepped back. ‘My Prime might command my obedience. She does not own me in spirit!’
Times like this, I can definitely see why Elaira and Arithon are drawn to each other. And we learn more about why things suck so much for her:
Yet his affirmation of natural order could not undo vows sealed to flesh through a Koriani focus-stone. A piece of herself that Elaira was powerless to call back had been given over into Morriel’s control. Her ambivalence toward the traps that Traithe most carefully never mentioned gave rise to an outraged admission. ‘Ath’s mercy, I was six years old when the Prime Circle swore me to service. They claim, always, that power must not be given without limits. But lately, I suspect my seniors prefer their trainees young, the better to keep their talent biddable.’
I see that the Koriani have a similar grasp of "consent" as the Fellowship do.
Anyway, apparently Sethvir had seen that Elaira was going to do something stupid out of remorse, using the salt pool to try to send a warning to the Fellowship. And indeed, that was what she was torn about earlier. But Traithe calms her down. Apparently the Fellowship can shield her from THEIR actions, but not actions that she undertakes in free will.
And well, they know already, so she doesn't need to risk herself by warning them.
Well. THEY know. Whether or not they tell Arithon himself is a really fucking good question. (Any bets on that?)
Traithe reveals basically that Luhaine is watching Morriel all the time. Something that Morriel knows, but refuses to tell Lirenda or the others, because it's a sore point.
‘Furthermore, if your Prime has chosen to meddle with Arithon s’Ffalenn…’ The gleam in his eyes hot with mischief, the sorcerer shrugged ruefully. ‘Let’s by all means stay plain. I’m not saying she’s resolved on such an action. But if she should, her pack of conniving seniors will be richly entitled to the consequences.’
It really would serve you right if Arithon died, right now. I like Arithon, so I'd rather that not happen, but it might be worth it to fuck over you guys.
Anyway, Traithe tells Elaira about the incident where Morriel tried to scry Arithon at Kieling Tower.
Choking and spluttering through a mirth just shy of a seizure, Elaira tried and failed to picture Lirenda upended in her own tangled skirts. ‘A worthy prank.’ She caught her breath finally, stung from her laughter by real grief. ‘I’m a game piece.’ She, who most questioned Koriani tenets and practices, had unwittingly become their most indispensable cipher in the course of the coming conflict.
Oh, poor Elaira.
Traithe explains to her that Arithon understands her position. he doesn't like it. And if Morriel tries to use her against him again like that, he's going to hit back a lot harder. He recommends she read the old chronicles again, and see what happens when someone pisses off a s'Ffalenn. And Arithon's a cranky son of a bitch.
So anyway, Traithe reassures her that Arithon can protect himself from Koriani interference through Elaira, and will, without asking her preference. Elaira appreciates that, actually, since it means she won't be in a position to break any vows. She's still, understandably, incredibly upset.
Traithe tries to offer some hope:
Traithe stood and roused his raven, which croaked like a drunk with a hangover and hopped sullenly to its master’s wrist. Never so absorbed by his bird as he appeared, the sorcerer said suddenly, ‘You’re not alone, brave lady. Nor are you entirely Morriel’s plaything. Not since the day you chose to seek out Asandir in Erdane.’
and an emotional goodbye:
Poised to leave, unobtrusive as the beggar she first had mistaken him for, Traithe reached out and stroked her cheek, as the father she had never known might have done to reassure a cherished daughter. As his hand fell away, she cupped the place he had caressed; and now the tears fell and blinded her.
but this is annoying:
‘Lady, great heart.’ He sighed gently. ‘The love within you is no shame. And since you fear to ask, I’ll tell you: there is no secret to be kept. The Fellowship stepped back at Etarra because the grace of spirit we know as life lay in danger of permanent imbalance. Asandir urged, but never forced your beloved. Arithon chose his kingdom ahead of music, by his own free will.’
‘What?’ Elaira stared back in ice-hard fury and disbelief. ‘Why would he?’
Suddenly bleak as the clearest winter starfield, Traithe said, ‘Because he would not be the one man to stand in the path of the Paravians’ return to this continent.’
‘Well,’ said Elaira wretchedly. ‘For his sake, I hope the creatures prove worth it!’
"free will" is a funny way to say "under a great deal of emotional pressure and manipulation."
Still, I appreciate the parallel roles that Elaira and Dakar have in this chapter. Lysaer and Arithon have been screwed over royally, pun mostly intended. And it feels good to have someone SAY that.
Anyway, Traithe basically gives Elaira a prophecy:
Seamed features lost beneath cloth that the raven sidled under to take shelter, Traithe shook his head. ‘Take instead my blessing. You need the consolation, I suspect. I was sent to you because an augury showed the Warden of Althain that, for good or ill you’re the one spirit alive in this world who will come to know Arithon best. Should your Master of Shadow fail you, or you fail him, the outcome will call down disaster.’
Congratulations, Elaira, you have ten or so books of torment and misery to go through. Hope you're ready.
But I do like Elaira's last sentence here: Morriel might command her to Koriani loyalty and obedience; but where Elaira chose to give her heart was a choice reclaimed for her own.
--
Our preview section is Eventide.
1. Gnudsog of the terrible name is reporting that Diegan and Lysaer have settled on a strategy. And...oh...
‘We take the sure route tomorrow, poison the river and the springs to kill the game, then methodically starve out each campsite. Pesquil’s plan is best. Children are the future of the clans, and without women the wretched breed will die…'
Oh, Lysaer. NO.
2. the clansmen are sharpening swords and waxing bowstrings for the last time, while Halliron plays to inspire them.
3. Sethvir checks the wards on the Mistwraith. He has the interesting thought that Arithon might actually be able to unravel the work, but having suffered in order to stop it, he's least likely to meddle with them.
...Is that foreshadowing? I don't remember that coming up in the later books that I've read. But Ms. Wurts is writing the final book now. It'll be interesting if that comes up.
And with these depressing notes, the chapter ends.
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Date: 2021-04-23 10:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-04-23 11:02 pm (UTC)