kalinara (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
kalinara) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
i_read_what2021-08-02 12:05 am
kalinara) wrote in i_read_what2021-08-02 12:05 am
Ships of Merior - Chapter Thirteen - War Host
Have you ever seen the tv show "Midsomer Murders"? It's one of those British detective shows set in the countryside. It's full of pleasant, ordinary people investigating tawdry crime. Lots of fun. But despite the occasionally risque subject matter, there's almost nothing by way of sex appeal.
Except one time. There is ONE episode, where they decide to send Ben Jones (Interchangeable bland sidekick #3, the actually intelligent one) undercover in a cult. And all of a sudden, things get surprisingly sexy. A change of hairstyle, an actually flattering wardrobe, and the guy turns from bland nobody into pretty fucking hot. (Basically, they just let the actually attractive actor look like himself for once.) ON TOP OF THAT, the cult is full of sexy invitations, and a full out nude (back only) shower scene...
It's like the showrunner suddenly ran across the concept of "fan service" and said "Oh, we should do that", shoved ten years of missed opportunity into ONE EPISODE, and then went back to normal right after that.
That's basically what happened last chapter. Ms. Wurts apparently realized that the Arithon/Elaira ship was nothing more than a string and a prayer anchored by one scene about 1200 pages ago and decided to make up for that by shoving all the ridiculous drama and sexual tension you can imagine into one chapter and there you go.
The weird thing is...it was actually somewhat effective. But afterward, I almost needed a cigarette.
By the way, we've also made it to the penultimate chapter set of the book! Go us!
So this chapter starts with Lysaer, now "the Prince of the West", arriving in Etarra with his forces. He gets a suitably dramatic entrance of course, though Diegan actually gets more purple prose ("resplendent in his silk and white diamonds and his hair ruffled sable under the bullion fringe of the royal standard.") than Lysaer himself.
Interestingly, the lack of purple prose for Lysaer seems to be a reflection of his mental state. Diegan is watching him with "critical care", and we're told that Lysaer's support in Tysan has "blunted" since the "sorcerous portent" crossed the sky at Maenalle's execution.
Good. But don't think this makes the Fellowship at all useful. They could have done more for her.
Anyway, the display has exacerbated cultural fears about wizardry/sorcery, and Lysaer's exhausted himself trying to deal with that.
Now, strain and weariness masked in gay decorum, Prince Lysaer caught a posy thrown by a blushing young girl in a window. He inclined his head to a row of clapping merchants, and through teeth clamped in a fixed smile, said to Diegan, ‘These were your people, once. You could show them a bit of gracious interest.’
Straight in his saddle despite the suffocating heat, Diegan stayed stiff-lipped and obstinate. The laughing, light-hearted gallants who called his name were as strangers to him, changed as he was from the man who had ridden from these same streets two years ago. Now, chiselled lean by rough training, in fact more than title the hard commander of troops, no change in physical prowess could blunt the instinct for politics bred into his bones since childhood.
See? Even his purple prose is listless!
There's a bit of trouble in paradise. Diegan is concerned that Lysaer isn't up to dealing with Etarran politics. This is Diegan's arena, and there's a fascinating line about how he'd forsaken his "pedigree birthright" to follow Lysaer to Avenor.
The idea of "pedigree birthright" is pretty interesting here, because, as you recall, the merchant towns overthrew the original noble houses, the survivors of which became the clans. But rather than instituting any kind of truly egalitarian system, they've just created their own phantom nobility.
Four legs good, two legs better indeed.
Diegan also spares a moment to regret the loss of the "cat-cool independence" that "gave no man leave to lead his heart."
Diegan, like Talith, is a horrible person but a very interesting character in his own right. And he, like Talith, underscores an aspect of Lysaer that we're going to see expanded upon later. Specifically, how the adoration he inspires goes hand in hand with this psychological dependence on him.
We get more description of Lysaer:
Inured to the flare and temper of Etarran street mobs, secure amid the ring of Lysaer’s captains, Lord Commander Diegan dismounted. He left his horse with the prince’s equerry. Humidity bogged the night like liquid glass, freighted with the calm of pending storm. Lysaer should have looked hot in his mantling layers of state finery. For this meeting, no symbol of dress had been spared: the fingers of both hands flashed jewels; his full-sleeved, damascened shirt was hemmed with bullion braid; and bracelets cuffed the bones of his wrists. Over a tabard of indigo silk, he wore Avenor’s linked chain of office. Dusky red against the purer gleam of his hair lay the gemmed circlet of his royal rank.
Every move he made embroidered by the flash of costly tailoring, he mounted the shallow stair. The duty guardsmen made way to admit him with servile humility.
See? Again, the purple prose is muted, more about dress than the man. I find that fascinating.
Arithon chose his location well, we see, as folks argue about money. To get there by land, Lysaer's men will have to march over a thousand leagues. Their best option is by ship, but even getting people to see and aboard ship by winter is going to be excruciatingly expensive.
Diegan, hearing them bitch, is aghast that someone told them Arithon's location. But actually, Lysaer's the one who gave it to them. Undoubtedly, for a reason, but Lysaer doesn't enlighten us.
The scene changes to Keldmar s'Brydion, one of the brothers who had the Alestron armory. He's at the war council because he was appointed by his brother to represent their case against "the Shadow Master".
He's not having a great time though. Recall that the s'Brydions are actually clansfolk, and every time he speaks, he basically gets accosted as a forest barbarian. The fact that the war council seems to be about to erupt into violence amuses him more than it probably should.
But of course, it doesn't erupt into violence. And here we go, the purple prose has returned with a vengeance:
‘Ath have mercy on you all!’ pealed an acrid, carrying voice. ‘For believe it, the Master of Shadow will show none when his ships are built and he takes up the piracy of his ancestors!’
Blinking through flash-blinded vision, Keldmar saw a vivid, fair-haired figure stride through the press from the doorway. Laced in a dazzle of gold and the ice-point sparkle of royal sapphire, the newcomer’s advance was attended by a dark man muscled lean from hard training, then a compact knot of officers in a smart polish of accoutrements.
So maybe the lackluster descriptions before were more of a reflection of DIEGAN's emotional state than Lysaer's. That's actually pretty fascinating.
Anyway, Lysaer is very good at dramatically reminding everyone about what's at stake:
‘What a perfect, meek target we offer, bent one against another, and over a matter as, transient, as petty as expense.’ Lysaer s’Ilessid, Prince of Tysan, mounted the dais with quick grace. Every eye in the chamber fastened on his person. Sizzling silence met the outraged fury which charged him from head to heel. The royal presence of him towered. Before the chair of Etarra’s Lord Mayor Supreme, he spun and glared over at the gathering. ‘Arithon s’Ffalenn is indeed ensconced at Merior. His location has been chosen most carefully, and I warn, to trap him there won’t be simple. War against any scion of s’Ffalenn has never been bloodless. This campaign will cost more than gold, more than lives, more than heartbreak, if we bicker ourselves into failure. Give anything less than total effort, and I promise: no city in the land will stay scatheless. No innocent life will escape suffering.’
Lysaer points out that seven thousand lives were lost against Arithon in Deshir, and they can't give him time to complete his fleet.
Keldmar's reaction to this is actually pretty interesting:
Splendid in rage, Prince Lysaer played his words like shot arrows, straight enough to flatten pride, kill objection, shame petty and divisive rivalries that would undermine his sworn cause. Keldmar s’Brydion curled his lip at the deference shown by the cowed city ministers. The garrison captains, too, were mollified, dressed down like children caught brawling. They might not relinquish their commands outright. But as they gave this prince full attention, their allegiance would be pulled in and knotted like so much wound string. Gold would be given for ships at Werpoint to transport the war host downcoast.
For all that he, understandably, hates Arithon, he doesn't seem to be susceptible to Lysaer's drama. The next paragraph, perhaps, gives us a reason why.
The Duke of Alestron had dispatched two brothers to attend his complaint against the Shadow Master. Mearn had carried formal protest in appeal for kingdom justice to the clanborn regent of Melhalla. As envoy to Etarra to gather news, Keldmar had neither authority nor desire to tie s’Brydion interests into alliance. The family quarrel lay with Arithon Teir’s’Ffalenn, a claim of blood-price for seven guardsmen and the wanton ruin of their armoury. Keldmar need only return to tell his brother’s captains to engage a blockade, then smoke the slinking sorcerer out of Merior by the Sea.
The townsfolk's fear of Arithon isn't personal. Arithon is linked to the clans, and the clans are the real enemy of the townsfolk. The townsfolk overthrew the clans and have pursuing them with the intention of genocide ever since. They mutilate their corpses, enslave their children. And they fear retribution for those acts.
Notice that Lysaer is in Etarra. This was the location of Arithon's disastrous coronation day, when he enveloped the city in darkness. And it's not like Arithon hasn't wreaked havoc in Jaelot. But what does Lysaer talk about? DESHIR. When he talks about Arithon's fleet, he makes a point of saying "the fleet of ships the barbarians of Camris have funded."
It's not about Arithon as a man, so much as what he represents.
In contrast, the s'Brydions have a very personal grudge against Arithon. Not Arithon-the-symbol, but Arithon-the-guy-who-blew-up-their-armory. They're not afraid of him or what he represents. They know he's not going to be back.
Their gripe is quantifiable: an armory. Seven guardsman. Notice the mention of a blood-price.
So Lysaer's rhetoric is far less effective. Hell, s'Brydion are clan too. They may not see Deshir in quite the same way as the Rathain townsfolk.
Anyway, Keldmar heads for the door, only to be stopped by "Avenor's glittering captains.":
Tall enough to intimidate, his clansman’s plait as haughty a statement of his bloodline as the tabard that clothed his straight back, Keldmar measured each officer with narrowed, stone-coloured eyes. ‘Am I a prisoner?’ he asked, his challenge flung into their very teeth.
Yet the discipline instilled at Avenor would not rankle at words. ‘You are the prince’s invited guest,’ said the senior man among them. ‘His royal Grace would not have you leave without extending his hospitality.’
No use to argue the points clan custom held in difference with merchant city law; that to bow to sovereign power from another kingdom’s prince denounced Melhalla’s founding charter. Avenor’s officers closed about their quarry, gracious, but unsmiling. Since the sincerity of the s’Ilessid intent could only be tested through steel, Keldmar s’Brydion held his temper and went along.
I think, before I read this series, I never really appreciated how description can be a weapon. A clansman's plait, indeed.
The cultural differences are also fascinating. Jieret was right: Arithon DID mishandle the s'Brydions.
And there's more:
‘Our liege could ill spare the men,’ the captain finished. ‘But Avenor couldn’t shirk its due part in suppressing the unrest expected from Tysan’s clansmen. The condemned was Lady Maenalle s’Gannley, descended, they say, of the old Camris princes.’
Keldmar sipped his dry wine and scarcely marvelled. Townborn upstarts dared to describe the honourless act of a caithdein’s murder to his very face because competence such as this camp possessed required no excuse for effrontery.
His own brother was an old-blood duke; that Alestron remained governed under the charter granted at the hand of a duly crowned high king was no pittance. Without prior cause against Arithon s’Ffalenn, for the lady’s ill usage, Keldmar would have spurned the cup for his dagger.
Only for the sake of shared enmity would the Prince of the West receive his hearing.
Arithon fucked up, but this also shows the fundamental flaw in the s'Brydion brothers. The exploded armory is an insult that deserves redress, sure. But is that worth allying with people who could defy tradition and custom to this extent? With people that hunt your own people like dogs?
So Keldmar has a meal with Lysaer. And again, Lysaer's description seems...different:
Then a stuttering flicker of torch light licked over a tabard flecked in jewels and bullion, and Lysaer s’Ilessid strode in from the dark. He peeled off his fine gloves and circlet, tossed both with a smile to the younger of his pages. The elder one handed him a goblet and flask. Hands burdened, the prince crossed the thick carpet, replenished Keldmar’s empty cup unasked, then poured for himself and sat down. The camp chair cupped his frame in easy grace despite the encumbrance of state clothing.
‘I’m sorry for the inconvenience of your wait, my lord.’ Up close, his eyes were unflawed as a zenith sky, direct and sharp under brows the stretched arc of a hawk’s wings. Burnished in candle glow, his straight cut hair gleamed a pale, fallow gold as he added, ‘I envied your escape from the tedium. Etarra’s minister of the treasury is slow as old frost when it comes to sealing writs for supply draughts.’
The flowery descriptions are still there ("unflawed as a zenith sky") but they don't hit as hard.
They converse about Lysaer's difficulties with the Rathain city captains and his difficulty with the clans. And, as always, Lysaer is very good at what he does. His frankness wins respect. And he doesn't flinch when it comes to the elephant in the room:
Lysaer looked up then, degrees colder than the frost-point gleam in his sapphires. ‘I know clanborn pride, none better,’ he said. ‘I put Lady Maenalle to death.’
A moment passed in glaring silence while, royal to the bone, the prince in his majesty refused outright to explain or excuse his summary act.
Blistered by that courage, then forced to unwilling respect, Keldmar was first to look away.
And Lysaer knows exactly what he can ask for. He isn't asking for s'Brydion fealty. He just wants the s'Brydions to wait on their own attack, and instead attack in concert with his own. The scene elegantly cuts away as Lysaer explains why the s'Brydion plan won't work. ("And in the sultry dark, across veiling candle-flame and above the growl of distant thunder from the ridges, he spoke of the sea raids on the world of his birth that had brought his father’s kingdom to its knees.")
Lysaer is successful, albeit quite hungover in the morning.
So the war host does end up marching from Etarra to Minderl Bay. We get pages and pages of details of the march which are interesting to read but dead boring to recap, so I won't. They face barbarian traps, designed to delay rather than kill. Jieret and Caolle are very effective.
The city garrison commanders are still problems that slow down the march. But Pesquil is, of course, invaluable.
But let's go to something a bit more interesting.
--
The next sub-chapter is Caithdein of Shand
It occurs to me that you guys don't have access to a map unless you go to Janny Wurts's website, and there are spoilers there, so I wouldn't recommend it. So this is the geography we're dealing with:
Rathain is the country in the north east corner of the continent. Below Rathain is Melhalla, which is kind of in the middle (where Alestron is) and below Melhalla is Shand. (Shand and West Shand make up the entire southern coast of the continent.) Merior and the oft mentioned city of Shaddorn are at the south eastern most tip of Shand.
Okay, anyway, we rejoin Arithon for this part. His shipwrights are continuing to work, but he's making some kind of field trip. " Withdrawn from the company of his workers, he ferried the comatose person of Dakar aboard his painted little sloop." Hee.
We're also told that he hasn't returned to "The Koriani sorceress's cottage" even when it was time to remove the splints from the injured boy's wrists. In fact, that's the day he set sail. Because of course it was.
And Arithon of course is "Bent to dark brooding by ill news from the north, and a recount of unmentionable tragedy" of course.
So...where is he going exactly?
At a time and place most carefully appointed, he grounded the boat in an exploding flock of terns and dragged her up beyond the tidemark. Wrapped in air that smelled of scrub pine and sea wrack, surrounded by the plaintive calls of fishing birds, he whistled a clear major triplet.
Then he perched on the trunk of a storm-toppled palm and waited, hopeful that his past request for a rendezvous had been received in good grace. In time, a lanky clansman clad in deerhide emerged from the brush to meet him.
No rustled foliage betrayed the presence of others, though such scouts were certainly there, crouched in concealment amid the vine-choked thickets and oat grass, and alert behind their strung bows. Well versed in his dealings with clansmen, Arithon understood the wrong move would see him skewered with a hail of broadheads at short range. Unprepossessing, a target limned in full sunlight, he showed no sign that he cared.
The clansman spoke, and was answered by prearranged words in Paravian. A carved wooden token changed hands.
...I'm not sure, but I think this might be the first segment of both books that is actually narrated from Arithon's point of view. Or maybe the second. STILL.
Anyway, we get one of my favorite running gags in the series here:
His other lean fist never far from his knives, the scout fingered the incised falcon set against a shaved crescent moon, device of Shand’s past high kings. ‘Ath!’ He pulled a vexed frown. Beneath mottled streaks of stain to mask the line of his profile, he looked little older than Jieret. ‘It’s his Grace of Rathain? Our chieftain’s going to lose silver. He wagered on a galley flying banners and a retinue prinked with large emeralds. Is your vaunted prince still on board?’
A smile flicked Arithon’s lips as he rose. ‘My sloop holds a fat prophet with a belly ache. He was much too sick to come ashore.’
A pause ensued. When the visitor listed no further passengers, the young scout recovered slack manners with a flush that left him dusky to the hairline. The unassuming figure before him was given a second, piercing study, though prior assessment had been accurate: the black-haired arrival carried no visible badge of rank. Small and neatly made, he wore the loose, shabby dress of a fisherman and carried no weapon beyond a longsword in black metal, the sleek line of its swept-back quillons half-buried in a fold of linen shut. ‘Arithon Teir’s’Ffalenn? Your Grace?’
‘Just Arithon, if you please. As well, you can call off your hunting pack.’
I don't know why this kind of thing amuses me so much. I think it's just the combination of factors. Arithon does like to present himself as being very ordinary. But at the same time, Wurts can't resist a bit of lavender tinge to the descriptions.
So it comes across as a rich model standing around wearing "peasant chic" that cost more than my car. Look how plain and ordinary Arithon is!
Anyway, the scout isn't stupid. He notes that anyone could carve a fake device or parrot a phrase in the old tongue. He wants proof of Arithon's identity.
Arithon, for his part, points out that only a fool would claim his name when he's like the most hunted fugitive on the continent, but does show off his mistwraith scar. This is accepted as proof of identity.
This leads to an arrival of a newcomer, who gets his own impressive description:
A movement behind the pine branches revealed the form of a man, who unfolded from a crouch and emerged on a cat’s stride onto the sandy verge. He topped the seed tufts of the oat grass by a head. A black and tan laminate bow made of horn hung from his immensely broad shoulder. He had a beard like rooted wire, clipped short. A fat black pearl strung on a braided cord nested in the tanned hollow of his throat. His hair capped his skull, glossy as a sable’s pelt licked through with silver, and salted pure white at the temples. The bones of his face were like fitted, stamped bronze, and imposing, coupled with straight brows and eyes of lucent turquoise.
This dramatic looking dude is Erlien s'Taleyn, High Earl of Alland. And we get an interesting nod to the other half of Arithon's heritage:
‘To a prince who wears rags, plain Erlien will do.’ Frost-crystal eyes swept the scion of Rathain and dismissed the whole man in fierce challenge. ‘Your mother descended from our own s’Ahelas royalty, it’s said. Well, I set no truth to the claim. The blood of the kings my forebears served was substantial, and you but a mouse with scarcely the growth to do more than bloody my kneecap.’
Arithon shrugged, grave-faced. ‘Be warned then, my lord. Since I favour my father, that should charge you to keep careful guard on your kneecap. What’s more, if you’ve lost any silver over galleys and flags, I shall pay off the debt myself.’
This is actually pretty delightful. Erlien is pretty amused too. He admits they "tested [Arithon's] presumptions". Since Arithon didn't presume anything based on his mother's ancestry, he's welcome to Shand. He does beg for the sake of tradition that Arithon leave his shanks intact.
I think Janny Wurts discusses the s'Ahelas claim to Shand in one of her FAQs. It is an interesting question. Talera was s'Ahelas, just as her father, the High Mage was. She was his only child, IIRC. But that doesn't mean the High Mage didn't have other siblings.
There isn't any mention of a king of Rauven anywhere, but given that the High Mage apparently gave Arithon a lecture about how magic and kingship are incompatible, that would imply that he isn't the equivalent of a king himself.
Either way, as the younger son of Talera s'Ahelas, Arithon likely wouldn't have expected to inherit anyway. It'd be interesting to see what Lysaer expects though.
Good humor and banter aside, there is still an underlying tension here. Arithon picks up on that and offers his sword. Erlien asks if that would do any good against Arithon's shadows. It might, actually, Arithon notes, and identifies it as Alithiel. Erlien's heard of it.
This part makes me laugh a bit:
‘Yet you’re a peril in our midst all the same.’ Erlien tapped his weapon hilt, the fringes on his buckskins the only ripple in resinous air. Cut off from the sea-breeze, the scrub forest was stifling, the sky through green and bronze needles cerulean as fired enamel. ‘If you’d give up your arms, what would you balk at? Being tied, or blindfolded, or dragged through the salt bogs at knife point? To put the issue baldly, does any means exist to disarm the dire powers of your birthright?’
It's a fair question of course, but this is Arithon. I think he'd enjoy all of those options.
Arithon's as good at dramatic pronouncements as Lysaer is:
Very still, his eyes wide open under spiked, dark lashes, Arithon forced his stance to stay easy despite the prickles that stabbed down his spine. ‘Dharkaron as my witness,’ he said at length. ‘If when you’re finished I can stop Lysaer’s headhunters from reiving through Shand after scalps, no paltry indignity you might name lies outside the reach of my patience.’
Erlien has a trump card though: what if he tried to stop Arithon from leaving. There's a price on his head in Alestron after all?
‘For that cause, I would certainly fight.’ In a blinding, smooth move, Arithon unsheathed his longsword. Paravian steel sang faintly at the kiss of the air to its edge. The black metal shimmered flint-sharp with highlights: scribed along its length, the interlaced angles of silver runes gleamed, rainbowed like chipped crystal, but raised to no pulse of ancient magic. Only the commonplace reflections of green pine and bright sunlight grazed its polish as Arithon held the tip at guard point.
I'm a little sad that Arithon has apparently gotten over his "my sword is too awesome" angst.
So somehow this turns into a duel to first blood. It's pretty fun. Erlien's big, Arithon's quick. But Arithon tires first, and eventually he slips up. Erlien gets first blood.
...but it doesn't stop there. Erlien keeps attacking. He's tiring too, but Arithon's worse off by far. And he's relentless, until finally Arithon gets the upperhand and disarms him. He demands to know why Erlien did this.
Erlien's answer is clear: since he's the clan chief responsible for Shand, he needed to test Arithon. He asks if Arithon heard what happened to Maenalle. He has, and of course he feels incredibly guilty about it.
To this living steward who sought to try him to the bitter limits of integrity, Arithon said, ‘Your reason hasn’t answered my question.’
‘Because it’s obvious.’ Erlien brushed off the leaf mould that clung to his sweat-damp knuckles. ‘You’re living bait for a war host thirty-five thousand strong. If you come here to involve my clansmen, I would measure firsthand what took place on the banks of Tal Quorin. Did your sorcery and your shadows defend your feal following, or in fact, merely shield your own life? I was duty-bound to find out.’
As Arithon stiffened, Erlien raised a swift hand. ‘I wished to know, too, if you could fight. Before Ath, I’ve sworn! I’ll not offer my people as a shield for a weakling prince who lacks courage. And if you proved true to honour and seized no advantage through fell powers, though you died on my sword here and now, there’s a balance met. Shand would be spared from your nasty coil of contention.’
I mean, fair.
But that's not actually why Arithon is here. He doesn't want defenders at all. He wants something else. Of course, we don't hear what it is before the scene shifts.
Apparently whatever Arithon wants requires a whole council of clan chiefs though. And we get Arithon's assessment of Erlien:
Lent the afternoon to apply his insight into the character of Alland’s high earl, Arithon reviewed his conclusions. Erlien’s authority was trademarked by a quick, inquisitive mind. In love with talk, jocular in dismissal of his guarding ranks of archers, his strength was quirky humour and an unfailing eye for detail. He liked surprises, encouraged combative rivalries among his captains, and seemed to thrive on keeping light guidance on disordered, freewheeling enterprise.
I like how the caithdeins that we've met: Maenalle, Steiven, and Erlien are all very different people with very different styles of leadership.
There's again a reference to the s'Ahelas heritage:
The introduction Lord Erlien offered his guest came typically pointed in acid. ‘On my honour, I’ve determined this prince is not here to claim loyalty for the distaff side of his pedigree.’
‘Did he try, he would die here,’ a hook-nosed grand-dame in a snowy battle braid cracked through the gathering dusk.
It's interesting that Arithon's parentage is common knowledge. Neither he nor Lysaer are inclined to be forthcoming about that kind of thing. Maybe it came out during the coronation? Or the Fellowship leaked it?
Erlien also makes another dig at Artihon's size:
Erlien assumed the high seat, a flat-topped boulder set apart by a woven red throw rug. Replete as a sun-warmed adder, he surveyed his disgruntled pack of clan chiefs and chuckled. ‘Ware Torbrand’s temper. I’ve tasted its sting. Rathain’s royal line might breed runt-sized, but there’s mettle enough for all that. His Grace has come here to bring warning. By right of arms, he’s earned his chance to speak.’
I think that's my favorite description of Arithon so far. It's funnier because of course Ms. Wurts has to follow it up with purple prose:
Arithon did not sit, but strode into the cleared ground by the fire. His footfall made scarcely any sound, even over washed gravel tailings. Splashed in the copper play of firelight, he was a form rendered in planes and shadow, the hawk-sharp angles of cheekbone and chin seared into profile against the gloom. His glance raked over the hardbitten company who waited to hear him bearing weapons and bows, and no small measure of distrust. Arrogance bracketed one elder’s mouth; hard patience stiffened another’s back. A flaxen-haired woman near the sidelines stared in frank curiosity, while others projected unsettled hostility on faces lined like worn leather from lifelong exposure to southern sunlight.
Exposed on all quarters to unfriendly stares, Arithon would not be hurried. He measured them all, to the last, most inimical granddame, until not a clan chief among them could mistake the stamp of his presence.
This prince was s’Ffalenn, and touched bitter by his past, and above any other thing, dangerous.
Peasant chic. Hee.
So Arithon gives his speech. And it's funny how this is, yet again, a parallel to Lysaer's earlier. But the substance is different:
Focused at need on necessities, Arithon let the chisel-cut buttresses of sandstone throw back the temper in his voice. ‘If any portion of this army wins through, they’ll eventually sail here to Alland. I’ve undertaken to escape, self-sufficient to sea by that hour. My departure should draw any threat away with me. But the best laid plans are not enough. The curse Desh-thiere has woven over me is remorseless, a compulsion inflicted without quarter. I would have you understand what that means.’
Evoked to a masterbard’s command over language, he described the fearful loss of control he had suffered, when, on the banks of Tal Quorin, he had come to face his half-brother. The moment, wrenched out of harrowing memory, when nothing and no one had mattered; when the last of his integrity had been torn away and undone, consumed by a storm of blank hatred. Terror remained. The truth could not be glossed over or evaded. He would have sacrificed all without compunction, from the green growing land to the life of his last feal clansman to meet the curse’s insatiable demand for the life of Lysaer s’Ilessid. While the geas held sway, all his love and conscience and humanity could be twisted to count for nothing at all.
In the bleak depths of nightmares, Arithon still tasted the poisoned ecstasy which had gripped him through that past second in time. Once, his half-brother’s life had lain in his hand to crush without mercy, without thought.
He elaborates on the curse: if he encounters Lysaer on the field all hell will break loose on BOTH sides.
The Shandian clansfolk are horrified of course. And, well...
‘You can’t expect us to turn tail!’ snapped a frost-haired scout on the fringes. ‘The false prince murdered his caithdein. Before we see his annexed war host run riot through our territory, we’d sooner quash their effort at the start.’
Shouts hailed back in agreement. ‘Who needs foreign headhunters riding for scalps here in Alland! Even without their interference, an army that size would strip the land as it passes.’
Braced for the wrong sort of argument, Arithon rounded on Lord Erlien in incredulous, exasperated dismay. ‘Are your elders all deaf? Have none of them heeded a single word I’ve said?’
The regent of the realm twitched his huge shoulders the way a wolf might shrug away flies. ‘For Shand, we judge as we see fit.’
‘If you’re offering help to fan the fires of this war, I refuse you.’ Scalded to impatience, Arithon flung back an ultimatum. ‘This time, I’ll give townsmen no cause at all to link my name with clan defenders.’
Erlien stretched, unbiddably tempered in mischief. ‘In that case, my friend, you should’ve lost a certain sword fight.’
...yep. That kind of backfired.
The thing is, the clans already have reason to hate Lysaer. And unlike the s'Brydions, they don't have a personal grievance to blind them to the fact that Lysaer proclaimed and enforced the execution of a sworn caithdein.
Erlien admits though, there was another reason for the fight:
A locked moment passed while Shand’s chieftains looked on. Then Erlien grinned like a shark and confessed to Arithon, ‘I drew steel in addition to address a complaint on behalf of the caithdein of Melhalla. Your attack on Duke Bransian’s armoury at Alestron was unprovoked, and against one of her feal vassals. Since you crossed into Shand, by kingdom law, form demanded her claim should pass to me.’
Arithon is, for once, honest about something that isn't how much doom he's bringing on everyone's head and explains that it wasn't an attack, but rather Fellowship business gone awry.
Erlien says that, for his part, Arithon's acquitted. He'll tell Duke Bransian's liege lord the same.
...that's a fascinating thought actually. The s'Brydions are the only clansfolk who never got deposed, but there's still a caithdein of Melhalla. (Erlien, if you recall is the caithdein of neighboring country, Shand.)
Anyway, that said, the duke's still within his rights to claim Arithon's life himself and the clansfolk won't stop him. Arithon says that if Bransien comes to him, he'll answer him on his own.
So, now having accidently recruited allies when he meant to ward them off, what is Arithon going to do now?
He's heading to Werpoint harbour, to see if he can turn Lysaer's fleet back. Erlien offers clan help: they're crack experts at cattle raids.
Arithon’s scathing rebuttal was forestalled as a scout in a braided leather vest dug his sore ribs in laughing sympathy. ‘Accept your lot and be merry. Anyone who bests our clan chief at swords, Lord Erlien adopts as a brother.’
Hee. Poor guy. He really can't do anything without it backfiring horribly on him. At least Jieret would probably appreciate the backup.
Anyway, everything devolves into revelry and contests eventually, and Arithon manages to slip away in his sloop. But Erlien is awesome anyway.
Erlien s’Taleyn, High Earl of Alland, received the news with a head-shaking, throaty spill of laughter. ‘Dharkaron himself! Should yon Shadow Master think we are quits after he’s fairly disarmed me in a fight, he shall in due time be shown better. If this false prince, Lysaer, and his war host plies south, we shall give him sharp welcome, with or without s’Ffalenn sanction!’
I love this dude.
--
So the last subchapter is Tidings.
We're back with the Koriani. This part makes me laugh a little:
As near as Koriani scrying could determine, the Fellowship of Seven met the imminent collapse of the peace with indifference, despite the fact that Athera’s royal lines were their own irresponsible creation. While war against the Shadow Master mounted to a certainty, the sorcerers kept close in their own affairs, as reticent as they had ever been at the time Etarra was abandoned to the destruction unleashed by Desh-thiere’s curse.
Even the Koriani know the Fellowship is useless.
We're told that the Great Waystone had allowed them to track the Fellowship once, but they can't do that anymore.
There's more trouble. Apparently, First Senior Lirenda is having some issues:
Morriel basked in the windowseat to ease the cruel ache in her joints. Gone were the days when she could meditate without the distracting, soft comfort of cushions. Intolerant of cold, less patient with setbacks, she forbade the attendance of her First Senior since Elaira’s failure to establish herself as Arithon’s mistress. On the night the younger initiate had unmasked the man’s defences and roused him to passion, the direct force of his character coupled with s’Ffalenn compassion had shocked a signal the clear length of the seventh lane.
A grave enough obstacle to the transfer of prime power, First Senior Lirenda’s fascination with the Shadow Master must be shielded from added temptation through the polishing phase of her training.
Arithon's just that sexy. Sorry.
So Morriel does some scrying. She catches glimpses of the twins badgering a craftsman. She notes the "spirit and loyalty to Arithon impressed in those paired young faces".
She sees Duke Bransien and his brothers planning to join with Lysaer's warhost. As well as an associated image of "a dishonored guard captain dressed in beggar's rags hunkered over a stolen bread crust" aching for vengeance against Arithon.
This guy again!
In Jaelot, merchant guildsmen are grumbling over the edict that conscript their galleys. I think that's pretty hilarious. You'd think they'd be more enthusiastic about the fight given how Arithon broke their city with bardic magic.
She catches sight of something interesting on Crescent Isle: a flotilla of derelict fishing luggers moored in a hidden cove. It's probably worth noting that Crescent Isle is in Minderl Bay. Near a place called Werpoint.
Some of these names might be familiar.
The war host is still bogged down in Valleygap, their progress slowed by a rockfall trap.
Morriel can't sense Jieret or his clan at all, which means they already left, or more likely are sleeping by day and not dreaming with sufficient enough intensity to get attention.
She spots Dhirken recruiting some disreputable crewmen, of a sort that even she wouldn't normally hire.
And a graceful painted sloop is laying in the fir groves of a place called Ithilt. Dakar is croaking drunken ditties. Arithon is nowhere to be seen. But that's enough right there:
Dakar’s presence offered proof: the Prince of Rathain had returned to his kingdom, sure sign he angled for conflict. Outside Elaira’s influence, Arithon’s mind was a maze of subtle intrigues a mere image could scarcely hope to track. Whatever he plotted, incessant lane watch offered tantalizing glimpses, but seldom enough insight to back a forecast. Though Elaira had affirmed that the s’Ffalenn prince had impaired his mage-sight, he had not lost the disciplines of his mastery. A trained awareness and a masterbard’s instincts yet enabled him to batten his emotions in stilled silence. The lane flow picked him up rarely, and almost never when his movements displayed intent.
"A maze of subtle intrigues a mere image could scarcely hope to track." Hee.
So Morriel is mad and frustrated, which is when Lirenda arrives. And we get an interesting description of her here:
The latch snicked up and the portal cracked to admit an oval face netted in coils of black hair. Lirenda, First Senior, did not step inside, but swept down in an arrowed mass of skirts until her forehead pressed her bent knee.
The contrast struck at odd moments, between this grown woman and a vain young initiate from a pedigree family who had begged to be taken in for training. Even humbled by desire, Lirenda had been too haughty for obeisance. Prodigious talent had burned in her like live coals, almost too wild to contain.
Blooded pride was still there, but tempered now by ambition. The driving desire to win, and the lonely heart that had prompted the girl to affect conceit now lay buttressed by ironshod discipline. Morriel pondered the change, satisfied that the precepts of mercy could be taught. Heartfelt emotion was less biddable, a fearful point of vulnerability in a candidate appointed for prime succession. Against the highest of stakes, Lirenda must be moulded to survive.
Lirenda hasn't had a terribly large role in the story yet, except as Elaira's foil. This indicates that that might be changing soon.
But anyway, Lirenda's here for a reason: she's escorting "beldame Haltha". (Morriel has some very nice imagery about how her lavender robes are dragging at her skeletal form like the wings of an exotic moth, by the way.)
Haltha has come to beg forgiveness:
‘My Prime,’ the beldame opened, while the grimy hem of her skirt fluttered to her terrified trembling. ‘A decision of grave moment was given into my hands and I was forced to a choice. For an act of unconscionable independence, I throw myself on your mercy. I closed a bargain with Prince Lysaer s’Ilessid. In exchange for the secret of his half-brother’s interests at Merior, I have his witnessed assurance that the Waystone of our order was never lost.’ In rising, uncontainable excitement, she finished, ‘The jewel is whole still, and held in close care by the Fellowship sorcerers at Althain Tower.’
Oops.
Well, needless to say, forgiveness is granted. Morriel is elated. Lirenda's feelings are a little more mixed:
Lirenda’s flush in the heat of stunning news showed more than exhilarated eagerness: under her varnished layer of poise flashed a spasm of unguarded anger.
Morriel seized upon that oddity. Barbed with searching power, sped to sharp force by the spell crystal still meshed with her mind, her scrutiny lanced through the First Senior’s reserve to wrest out that sand grain of dissidence. Understanding followed like a hammer blow to rock. Lirenda’s displeasure stemmed from personal betrayal, that the Waystone’s location had been bought at a cost of endangering the royal fugitive at Merior.
Proof stung, that the prime candidate’s recurrent fascination for Arithon s’Ffalenn had indeed threaded deep enough to unbalance her grasp of affairs.
Really, when you think about it, this is all Morriel's fault. Lirenda's fascination for Arithon came about when they used Elaira's emotions to attack him in Curse of the Mistwraith. Stop fucking with your followers, and this might not happen.
But anyway, Morriel gives Lirenda an assignment: to take the Skyron crystal and one hundred and eight seniors and wrest their Waystone back from Sethvir. She basically tells her that if she fails, she'll lose her position.
Anyway, Haltha has done well, but Morriel wants something from her too. Remember that guardsman? The one we keep seeing, who got whipped and exiled from Alestron? Who hates Arithon with a passion?
Morriel has Haltha repeat the scrying that revealed the location of Arithon's shipyard and send it to that guy too.
Morriel is happy now. If Arithon dies, Lirenda will be free. She also gives an additional order; the "sanction for congress with the Prince of Rathain" that she gave Elaira is now withdrawn.
Aw.
--
So now we get to the sneak peek section: Sunset, Midnight and Noon.
I feel like we already got one of these with Morriel's scrying, but okay.
1. I'm just going to excerpt this one:
Informed on the lane surge at sundown that Morriel Prime has released her charge to seek liaison with Arithon s’Ffalenn, a bronze-haired enchantress in Merior weeps in gratitude for restored honesty, and in loss for shared love that must languish unpartnered; through the quiet, resolved hour as she packs to depart, she prays for the man, that he might stay free to refound his happiness with another …
Poor Elaira.
2. A bearded blond outcast with whip scars is beginning his journey to Merior, to enact his vow of vengeance.
You know, the vow that comes as a result of a Fellowship assignment, which was then sabotaged by the dude that the Fellowship foisted onto Arithon to begin with.
Seriously, I think he'd be better off if they took Lysaer's side at this point.
3. Oh, this one's an excerpt too:
On a rocky slope above Valleygap, on the day of his twentieth year that clan custom reckons full manhood, a red-bearded chieftain called Earl of the North bends back his black bow, sets his aim on one figure above the crews who shift rocks in hot sunlight, and lets fly an arrow inscribed with the name of the killer who brought untimely death to a father, a mother, and four sisters…
...oh Jieret.
One chapter left!
Except one time. There is ONE episode, where they decide to send Ben Jones (Interchangeable bland sidekick #3, the actually intelligent one) undercover in a cult. And all of a sudden, things get surprisingly sexy. A change of hairstyle, an actually flattering wardrobe, and the guy turns from bland nobody into pretty fucking hot. (Basically, they just let the actually attractive actor look like himself for once.) ON TOP OF THAT, the cult is full of sexy invitations, and a full out nude (back only) shower scene...
It's like the showrunner suddenly ran across the concept of "fan service" and said "Oh, we should do that", shoved ten years of missed opportunity into ONE EPISODE, and then went back to normal right after that.
That's basically what happened last chapter. Ms. Wurts apparently realized that the Arithon/Elaira ship was nothing more than a string and a prayer anchored by one scene about 1200 pages ago and decided to make up for that by shoving all the ridiculous drama and sexual tension you can imagine into one chapter and there you go.
The weird thing is...it was actually somewhat effective. But afterward, I almost needed a cigarette.
By the way, we've also made it to the penultimate chapter set of the book! Go us!
So this chapter starts with Lysaer, now "the Prince of the West", arriving in Etarra with his forces. He gets a suitably dramatic entrance of course, though Diegan actually gets more purple prose ("resplendent in his silk and white diamonds and his hair ruffled sable under the bullion fringe of the royal standard.") than Lysaer himself.
Interestingly, the lack of purple prose for Lysaer seems to be a reflection of his mental state. Diegan is watching him with "critical care", and we're told that Lysaer's support in Tysan has "blunted" since the "sorcerous portent" crossed the sky at Maenalle's execution.
Good. But don't think this makes the Fellowship at all useful. They could have done more for her.
Anyway, the display has exacerbated cultural fears about wizardry/sorcery, and Lysaer's exhausted himself trying to deal with that.
Now, strain and weariness masked in gay decorum, Prince Lysaer caught a posy thrown by a blushing young girl in a window. He inclined his head to a row of clapping merchants, and through teeth clamped in a fixed smile, said to Diegan, ‘These were your people, once. You could show them a bit of gracious interest.’
Straight in his saddle despite the suffocating heat, Diegan stayed stiff-lipped and obstinate. The laughing, light-hearted gallants who called his name were as strangers to him, changed as he was from the man who had ridden from these same streets two years ago. Now, chiselled lean by rough training, in fact more than title the hard commander of troops, no change in physical prowess could blunt the instinct for politics bred into his bones since childhood.
See? Even his purple prose is listless!
There's a bit of trouble in paradise. Diegan is concerned that Lysaer isn't up to dealing with Etarran politics. This is Diegan's arena, and there's a fascinating line about how he'd forsaken his "pedigree birthright" to follow Lysaer to Avenor.
The idea of "pedigree birthright" is pretty interesting here, because, as you recall, the merchant towns overthrew the original noble houses, the survivors of which became the clans. But rather than instituting any kind of truly egalitarian system, they've just created their own phantom nobility.
Four legs good, two legs better indeed.
Diegan also spares a moment to regret the loss of the "cat-cool independence" that "gave no man leave to lead his heart."
Diegan, like Talith, is a horrible person but a very interesting character in his own right. And he, like Talith, underscores an aspect of Lysaer that we're going to see expanded upon later. Specifically, how the adoration he inspires goes hand in hand with this psychological dependence on him.
We get more description of Lysaer:
Inured to the flare and temper of Etarran street mobs, secure amid the ring of Lysaer’s captains, Lord Commander Diegan dismounted. He left his horse with the prince’s equerry. Humidity bogged the night like liquid glass, freighted with the calm of pending storm. Lysaer should have looked hot in his mantling layers of state finery. For this meeting, no symbol of dress had been spared: the fingers of both hands flashed jewels; his full-sleeved, damascened shirt was hemmed with bullion braid; and bracelets cuffed the bones of his wrists. Over a tabard of indigo silk, he wore Avenor’s linked chain of office. Dusky red against the purer gleam of his hair lay the gemmed circlet of his royal rank.
Every move he made embroidered by the flash of costly tailoring, he mounted the shallow stair. The duty guardsmen made way to admit him with servile humility.
See? Again, the purple prose is muted, more about dress than the man. I find that fascinating.
Arithon chose his location well, we see, as folks argue about money. To get there by land, Lysaer's men will have to march over a thousand leagues. Their best option is by ship, but even getting people to see and aboard ship by winter is going to be excruciatingly expensive.
Diegan, hearing them bitch, is aghast that someone told them Arithon's location. But actually, Lysaer's the one who gave it to them. Undoubtedly, for a reason, but Lysaer doesn't enlighten us.
The scene changes to Keldmar s'Brydion, one of the brothers who had the Alestron armory. He's at the war council because he was appointed by his brother to represent their case against "the Shadow Master".
He's not having a great time though. Recall that the s'Brydions are actually clansfolk, and every time he speaks, he basically gets accosted as a forest barbarian. The fact that the war council seems to be about to erupt into violence amuses him more than it probably should.
But of course, it doesn't erupt into violence. And here we go, the purple prose has returned with a vengeance:
‘Ath have mercy on you all!’ pealed an acrid, carrying voice. ‘For believe it, the Master of Shadow will show none when his ships are built and he takes up the piracy of his ancestors!’
Blinking through flash-blinded vision, Keldmar saw a vivid, fair-haired figure stride through the press from the doorway. Laced in a dazzle of gold and the ice-point sparkle of royal sapphire, the newcomer’s advance was attended by a dark man muscled lean from hard training, then a compact knot of officers in a smart polish of accoutrements.
So maybe the lackluster descriptions before were more of a reflection of DIEGAN's emotional state than Lysaer's. That's actually pretty fascinating.
Anyway, Lysaer is very good at dramatically reminding everyone about what's at stake:
‘What a perfect, meek target we offer, bent one against another, and over a matter as, transient, as petty as expense.’ Lysaer s’Ilessid, Prince of Tysan, mounted the dais with quick grace. Every eye in the chamber fastened on his person. Sizzling silence met the outraged fury which charged him from head to heel. The royal presence of him towered. Before the chair of Etarra’s Lord Mayor Supreme, he spun and glared over at the gathering. ‘Arithon s’Ffalenn is indeed ensconced at Merior. His location has been chosen most carefully, and I warn, to trap him there won’t be simple. War against any scion of s’Ffalenn has never been bloodless. This campaign will cost more than gold, more than lives, more than heartbreak, if we bicker ourselves into failure. Give anything less than total effort, and I promise: no city in the land will stay scatheless. No innocent life will escape suffering.’
Lysaer points out that seven thousand lives were lost against Arithon in Deshir, and they can't give him time to complete his fleet.
Keldmar's reaction to this is actually pretty interesting:
Splendid in rage, Prince Lysaer played his words like shot arrows, straight enough to flatten pride, kill objection, shame petty and divisive rivalries that would undermine his sworn cause. Keldmar s’Brydion curled his lip at the deference shown by the cowed city ministers. The garrison captains, too, were mollified, dressed down like children caught brawling. They might not relinquish their commands outright. But as they gave this prince full attention, their allegiance would be pulled in and knotted like so much wound string. Gold would be given for ships at Werpoint to transport the war host downcoast.
For all that he, understandably, hates Arithon, he doesn't seem to be susceptible to Lysaer's drama. The next paragraph, perhaps, gives us a reason why.
The Duke of Alestron had dispatched two brothers to attend his complaint against the Shadow Master. Mearn had carried formal protest in appeal for kingdom justice to the clanborn regent of Melhalla. As envoy to Etarra to gather news, Keldmar had neither authority nor desire to tie s’Brydion interests into alliance. The family quarrel lay with Arithon Teir’s’Ffalenn, a claim of blood-price for seven guardsmen and the wanton ruin of their armoury. Keldmar need only return to tell his brother’s captains to engage a blockade, then smoke the slinking sorcerer out of Merior by the Sea.
The townsfolk's fear of Arithon isn't personal. Arithon is linked to the clans, and the clans are the real enemy of the townsfolk. The townsfolk overthrew the clans and have pursuing them with the intention of genocide ever since. They mutilate their corpses, enslave their children. And they fear retribution for those acts.
Notice that Lysaer is in Etarra. This was the location of Arithon's disastrous coronation day, when he enveloped the city in darkness. And it's not like Arithon hasn't wreaked havoc in Jaelot. But what does Lysaer talk about? DESHIR. When he talks about Arithon's fleet, he makes a point of saying "the fleet of ships the barbarians of Camris have funded."
It's not about Arithon as a man, so much as what he represents.
In contrast, the s'Brydions have a very personal grudge against Arithon. Not Arithon-the-symbol, but Arithon-the-guy-who-blew-up-their-armory. They're not afraid of him or what he represents. They know he's not going to be back.
Their gripe is quantifiable: an armory. Seven guardsman. Notice the mention of a blood-price.
So Lysaer's rhetoric is far less effective. Hell, s'Brydion are clan too. They may not see Deshir in quite the same way as the Rathain townsfolk.
Anyway, Keldmar heads for the door, only to be stopped by "Avenor's glittering captains.":
Tall enough to intimidate, his clansman’s plait as haughty a statement of his bloodline as the tabard that clothed his straight back, Keldmar measured each officer with narrowed, stone-coloured eyes. ‘Am I a prisoner?’ he asked, his challenge flung into their very teeth.
Yet the discipline instilled at Avenor would not rankle at words. ‘You are the prince’s invited guest,’ said the senior man among them. ‘His royal Grace would not have you leave without extending his hospitality.’
No use to argue the points clan custom held in difference with merchant city law; that to bow to sovereign power from another kingdom’s prince denounced Melhalla’s founding charter. Avenor’s officers closed about their quarry, gracious, but unsmiling. Since the sincerity of the s’Ilessid intent could only be tested through steel, Keldmar s’Brydion held his temper and went along.
I think, before I read this series, I never really appreciated how description can be a weapon. A clansman's plait, indeed.
The cultural differences are also fascinating. Jieret was right: Arithon DID mishandle the s'Brydions.
And there's more:
‘Our liege could ill spare the men,’ the captain finished. ‘But Avenor couldn’t shirk its due part in suppressing the unrest expected from Tysan’s clansmen. The condemned was Lady Maenalle s’Gannley, descended, they say, of the old Camris princes.’
Keldmar sipped his dry wine and scarcely marvelled. Townborn upstarts dared to describe the honourless act of a caithdein’s murder to his very face because competence such as this camp possessed required no excuse for effrontery.
His own brother was an old-blood duke; that Alestron remained governed under the charter granted at the hand of a duly crowned high king was no pittance. Without prior cause against Arithon s’Ffalenn, for the lady’s ill usage, Keldmar would have spurned the cup for his dagger.
Only for the sake of shared enmity would the Prince of the West receive his hearing.
Arithon fucked up, but this also shows the fundamental flaw in the s'Brydion brothers. The exploded armory is an insult that deserves redress, sure. But is that worth allying with people who could defy tradition and custom to this extent? With people that hunt your own people like dogs?
So Keldmar has a meal with Lysaer. And again, Lysaer's description seems...different:
Then a stuttering flicker of torch light licked over a tabard flecked in jewels and bullion, and Lysaer s’Ilessid strode in from the dark. He peeled off his fine gloves and circlet, tossed both with a smile to the younger of his pages. The elder one handed him a goblet and flask. Hands burdened, the prince crossed the thick carpet, replenished Keldmar’s empty cup unasked, then poured for himself and sat down. The camp chair cupped his frame in easy grace despite the encumbrance of state clothing.
‘I’m sorry for the inconvenience of your wait, my lord.’ Up close, his eyes were unflawed as a zenith sky, direct and sharp under brows the stretched arc of a hawk’s wings. Burnished in candle glow, his straight cut hair gleamed a pale, fallow gold as he added, ‘I envied your escape from the tedium. Etarra’s minister of the treasury is slow as old frost when it comes to sealing writs for supply draughts.’
The flowery descriptions are still there ("unflawed as a zenith sky") but they don't hit as hard.
They converse about Lysaer's difficulties with the Rathain city captains and his difficulty with the clans. And, as always, Lysaer is very good at what he does. His frankness wins respect. And he doesn't flinch when it comes to the elephant in the room:
Lysaer looked up then, degrees colder than the frost-point gleam in his sapphires. ‘I know clanborn pride, none better,’ he said. ‘I put Lady Maenalle to death.’
A moment passed in glaring silence while, royal to the bone, the prince in his majesty refused outright to explain or excuse his summary act.
Blistered by that courage, then forced to unwilling respect, Keldmar was first to look away.
And Lysaer knows exactly what he can ask for. He isn't asking for s'Brydion fealty. He just wants the s'Brydions to wait on their own attack, and instead attack in concert with his own. The scene elegantly cuts away as Lysaer explains why the s'Brydion plan won't work. ("And in the sultry dark, across veiling candle-flame and above the growl of distant thunder from the ridges, he spoke of the sea raids on the world of his birth that had brought his father’s kingdom to its knees.")
Lysaer is successful, albeit quite hungover in the morning.
So the war host does end up marching from Etarra to Minderl Bay. We get pages and pages of details of the march which are interesting to read but dead boring to recap, so I won't. They face barbarian traps, designed to delay rather than kill. Jieret and Caolle are very effective.
The city garrison commanders are still problems that slow down the march. But Pesquil is, of course, invaluable.
But let's go to something a bit more interesting.
--
The next sub-chapter is Caithdein of Shand
It occurs to me that you guys don't have access to a map unless you go to Janny Wurts's website, and there are spoilers there, so I wouldn't recommend it. So this is the geography we're dealing with:
Rathain is the country in the north east corner of the continent. Below Rathain is Melhalla, which is kind of in the middle (where Alestron is) and below Melhalla is Shand. (Shand and West Shand make up the entire southern coast of the continent.) Merior and the oft mentioned city of Shaddorn are at the south eastern most tip of Shand.
Okay, anyway, we rejoin Arithon for this part. His shipwrights are continuing to work, but he's making some kind of field trip. " Withdrawn from the company of his workers, he ferried the comatose person of Dakar aboard his painted little sloop." Hee.
We're also told that he hasn't returned to "The Koriani sorceress's cottage" even when it was time to remove the splints from the injured boy's wrists. In fact, that's the day he set sail. Because of course it was.
And Arithon of course is "Bent to dark brooding by ill news from the north, and a recount of unmentionable tragedy" of course.
So...where is he going exactly?
At a time and place most carefully appointed, he grounded the boat in an exploding flock of terns and dragged her up beyond the tidemark. Wrapped in air that smelled of scrub pine and sea wrack, surrounded by the plaintive calls of fishing birds, he whistled a clear major triplet.
Then he perched on the trunk of a storm-toppled palm and waited, hopeful that his past request for a rendezvous had been received in good grace. In time, a lanky clansman clad in deerhide emerged from the brush to meet him.
No rustled foliage betrayed the presence of others, though such scouts were certainly there, crouched in concealment amid the vine-choked thickets and oat grass, and alert behind their strung bows. Well versed in his dealings with clansmen, Arithon understood the wrong move would see him skewered with a hail of broadheads at short range. Unprepossessing, a target limned in full sunlight, he showed no sign that he cared.
The clansman spoke, and was answered by prearranged words in Paravian. A carved wooden token changed hands.
...I'm not sure, but I think this might be the first segment of both books that is actually narrated from Arithon's point of view. Or maybe the second. STILL.
Anyway, we get one of my favorite running gags in the series here:
His other lean fist never far from his knives, the scout fingered the incised falcon set against a shaved crescent moon, device of Shand’s past high kings. ‘Ath!’ He pulled a vexed frown. Beneath mottled streaks of stain to mask the line of his profile, he looked little older than Jieret. ‘It’s his Grace of Rathain? Our chieftain’s going to lose silver. He wagered on a galley flying banners and a retinue prinked with large emeralds. Is your vaunted prince still on board?’
A smile flicked Arithon’s lips as he rose. ‘My sloop holds a fat prophet with a belly ache. He was much too sick to come ashore.’
A pause ensued. When the visitor listed no further passengers, the young scout recovered slack manners with a flush that left him dusky to the hairline. The unassuming figure before him was given a second, piercing study, though prior assessment had been accurate: the black-haired arrival carried no visible badge of rank. Small and neatly made, he wore the loose, shabby dress of a fisherman and carried no weapon beyond a longsword in black metal, the sleek line of its swept-back quillons half-buried in a fold of linen shut. ‘Arithon Teir’s’Ffalenn? Your Grace?’
‘Just Arithon, if you please. As well, you can call off your hunting pack.’
I don't know why this kind of thing amuses me so much. I think it's just the combination of factors. Arithon does like to present himself as being very ordinary. But at the same time, Wurts can't resist a bit of lavender tinge to the descriptions.
So it comes across as a rich model standing around wearing "peasant chic" that cost more than my car. Look how plain and ordinary Arithon is!
Anyway, the scout isn't stupid. He notes that anyone could carve a fake device or parrot a phrase in the old tongue. He wants proof of Arithon's identity.
Arithon, for his part, points out that only a fool would claim his name when he's like the most hunted fugitive on the continent, but does show off his mistwraith scar. This is accepted as proof of identity.
This leads to an arrival of a newcomer, who gets his own impressive description:
A movement behind the pine branches revealed the form of a man, who unfolded from a crouch and emerged on a cat’s stride onto the sandy verge. He topped the seed tufts of the oat grass by a head. A black and tan laminate bow made of horn hung from his immensely broad shoulder. He had a beard like rooted wire, clipped short. A fat black pearl strung on a braided cord nested in the tanned hollow of his throat. His hair capped his skull, glossy as a sable’s pelt licked through with silver, and salted pure white at the temples. The bones of his face were like fitted, stamped bronze, and imposing, coupled with straight brows and eyes of lucent turquoise.
This dramatic looking dude is Erlien s'Taleyn, High Earl of Alland. And we get an interesting nod to the other half of Arithon's heritage:
‘To a prince who wears rags, plain Erlien will do.’ Frost-crystal eyes swept the scion of Rathain and dismissed the whole man in fierce challenge. ‘Your mother descended from our own s’Ahelas royalty, it’s said. Well, I set no truth to the claim. The blood of the kings my forebears served was substantial, and you but a mouse with scarcely the growth to do more than bloody my kneecap.’
Arithon shrugged, grave-faced. ‘Be warned then, my lord. Since I favour my father, that should charge you to keep careful guard on your kneecap. What’s more, if you’ve lost any silver over galleys and flags, I shall pay off the debt myself.’
This is actually pretty delightful. Erlien is pretty amused too. He admits they "tested [Arithon's] presumptions". Since Arithon didn't presume anything based on his mother's ancestry, he's welcome to Shand. He does beg for the sake of tradition that Arithon leave his shanks intact.
I think Janny Wurts discusses the s'Ahelas claim to Shand in one of her FAQs. It is an interesting question. Talera was s'Ahelas, just as her father, the High Mage was. She was his only child, IIRC. But that doesn't mean the High Mage didn't have other siblings.
There isn't any mention of a king of Rauven anywhere, but given that the High Mage apparently gave Arithon a lecture about how magic and kingship are incompatible, that would imply that he isn't the equivalent of a king himself.
Either way, as the younger son of Talera s'Ahelas, Arithon likely wouldn't have expected to inherit anyway. It'd be interesting to see what Lysaer expects though.
Good humor and banter aside, there is still an underlying tension here. Arithon picks up on that and offers his sword. Erlien asks if that would do any good against Arithon's shadows. It might, actually, Arithon notes, and identifies it as Alithiel. Erlien's heard of it.
This part makes me laugh a bit:
‘Yet you’re a peril in our midst all the same.’ Erlien tapped his weapon hilt, the fringes on his buckskins the only ripple in resinous air. Cut off from the sea-breeze, the scrub forest was stifling, the sky through green and bronze needles cerulean as fired enamel. ‘If you’d give up your arms, what would you balk at? Being tied, or blindfolded, or dragged through the salt bogs at knife point? To put the issue baldly, does any means exist to disarm the dire powers of your birthright?’
It's a fair question of course, but this is Arithon. I think he'd enjoy all of those options.
Arithon's as good at dramatic pronouncements as Lysaer is:
Very still, his eyes wide open under spiked, dark lashes, Arithon forced his stance to stay easy despite the prickles that stabbed down his spine. ‘Dharkaron as my witness,’ he said at length. ‘If when you’re finished I can stop Lysaer’s headhunters from reiving through Shand after scalps, no paltry indignity you might name lies outside the reach of my patience.’
Erlien has a trump card though: what if he tried to stop Arithon from leaving. There's a price on his head in Alestron after all?
‘For that cause, I would certainly fight.’ In a blinding, smooth move, Arithon unsheathed his longsword. Paravian steel sang faintly at the kiss of the air to its edge. The black metal shimmered flint-sharp with highlights: scribed along its length, the interlaced angles of silver runes gleamed, rainbowed like chipped crystal, but raised to no pulse of ancient magic. Only the commonplace reflections of green pine and bright sunlight grazed its polish as Arithon held the tip at guard point.
I'm a little sad that Arithon has apparently gotten over his "my sword is too awesome" angst.
So somehow this turns into a duel to first blood. It's pretty fun. Erlien's big, Arithon's quick. But Arithon tires first, and eventually he slips up. Erlien gets first blood.
...but it doesn't stop there. Erlien keeps attacking. He's tiring too, but Arithon's worse off by far. And he's relentless, until finally Arithon gets the upperhand and disarms him. He demands to know why Erlien did this.
Erlien's answer is clear: since he's the clan chief responsible for Shand, he needed to test Arithon. He asks if Arithon heard what happened to Maenalle. He has, and of course he feels incredibly guilty about it.
To this living steward who sought to try him to the bitter limits of integrity, Arithon said, ‘Your reason hasn’t answered my question.’
‘Because it’s obvious.’ Erlien brushed off the leaf mould that clung to his sweat-damp knuckles. ‘You’re living bait for a war host thirty-five thousand strong. If you come here to involve my clansmen, I would measure firsthand what took place on the banks of Tal Quorin. Did your sorcery and your shadows defend your feal following, or in fact, merely shield your own life? I was duty-bound to find out.’
As Arithon stiffened, Erlien raised a swift hand. ‘I wished to know, too, if you could fight. Before Ath, I’ve sworn! I’ll not offer my people as a shield for a weakling prince who lacks courage. And if you proved true to honour and seized no advantage through fell powers, though you died on my sword here and now, there’s a balance met. Shand would be spared from your nasty coil of contention.’
I mean, fair.
But that's not actually why Arithon is here. He doesn't want defenders at all. He wants something else. Of course, we don't hear what it is before the scene shifts.
Apparently whatever Arithon wants requires a whole council of clan chiefs though. And we get Arithon's assessment of Erlien:
Lent the afternoon to apply his insight into the character of Alland’s high earl, Arithon reviewed his conclusions. Erlien’s authority was trademarked by a quick, inquisitive mind. In love with talk, jocular in dismissal of his guarding ranks of archers, his strength was quirky humour and an unfailing eye for detail. He liked surprises, encouraged combative rivalries among his captains, and seemed to thrive on keeping light guidance on disordered, freewheeling enterprise.
I like how the caithdeins that we've met: Maenalle, Steiven, and Erlien are all very different people with very different styles of leadership.
There's again a reference to the s'Ahelas heritage:
The introduction Lord Erlien offered his guest came typically pointed in acid. ‘On my honour, I’ve determined this prince is not here to claim loyalty for the distaff side of his pedigree.’
‘Did he try, he would die here,’ a hook-nosed grand-dame in a snowy battle braid cracked through the gathering dusk.
It's interesting that Arithon's parentage is common knowledge. Neither he nor Lysaer are inclined to be forthcoming about that kind of thing. Maybe it came out during the coronation? Or the Fellowship leaked it?
Erlien also makes another dig at Artihon's size:
Erlien assumed the high seat, a flat-topped boulder set apart by a woven red throw rug. Replete as a sun-warmed adder, he surveyed his disgruntled pack of clan chiefs and chuckled. ‘Ware Torbrand’s temper. I’ve tasted its sting. Rathain’s royal line might breed runt-sized, but there’s mettle enough for all that. His Grace has come here to bring warning. By right of arms, he’s earned his chance to speak.’
I think that's my favorite description of Arithon so far. It's funnier because of course Ms. Wurts has to follow it up with purple prose:
Arithon did not sit, but strode into the cleared ground by the fire. His footfall made scarcely any sound, even over washed gravel tailings. Splashed in the copper play of firelight, he was a form rendered in planes and shadow, the hawk-sharp angles of cheekbone and chin seared into profile against the gloom. His glance raked over the hardbitten company who waited to hear him bearing weapons and bows, and no small measure of distrust. Arrogance bracketed one elder’s mouth; hard patience stiffened another’s back. A flaxen-haired woman near the sidelines stared in frank curiosity, while others projected unsettled hostility on faces lined like worn leather from lifelong exposure to southern sunlight.
Exposed on all quarters to unfriendly stares, Arithon would not be hurried. He measured them all, to the last, most inimical granddame, until not a clan chief among them could mistake the stamp of his presence.
This prince was s’Ffalenn, and touched bitter by his past, and above any other thing, dangerous.
Peasant chic. Hee.
So Arithon gives his speech. And it's funny how this is, yet again, a parallel to Lysaer's earlier. But the substance is different:
Focused at need on necessities, Arithon let the chisel-cut buttresses of sandstone throw back the temper in his voice. ‘If any portion of this army wins through, they’ll eventually sail here to Alland. I’ve undertaken to escape, self-sufficient to sea by that hour. My departure should draw any threat away with me. But the best laid plans are not enough. The curse Desh-thiere has woven over me is remorseless, a compulsion inflicted without quarter. I would have you understand what that means.’
Evoked to a masterbard’s command over language, he described the fearful loss of control he had suffered, when, on the banks of Tal Quorin, he had come to face his half-brother. The moment, wrenched out of harrowing memory, when nothing and no one had mattered; when the last of his integrity had been torn away and undone, consumed by a storm of blank hatred. Terror remained. The truth could not be glossed over or evaded. He would have sacrificed all without compunction, from the green growing land to the life of his last feal clansman to meet the curse’s insatiable demand for the life of Lysaer s’Ilessid. While the geas held sway, all his love and conscience and humanity could be twisted to count for nothing at all.
In the bleak depths of nightmares, Arithon still tasted the poisoned ecstasy which had gripped him through that past second in time. Once, his half-brother’s life had lain in his hand to crush without mercy, without thought.
He elaborates on the curse: if he encounters Lysaer on the field all hell will break loose on BOTH sides.
The Shandian clansfolk are horrified of course. And, well...
‘You can’t expect us to turn tail!’ snapped a frost-haired scout on the fringes. ‘The false prince murdered his caithdein. Before we see his annexed war host run riot through our territory, we’d sooner quash their effort at the start.’
Shouts hailed back in agreement. ‘Who needs foreign headhunters riding for scalps here in Alland! Even without their interference, an army that size would strip the land as it passes.’
Braced for the wrong sort of argument, Arithon rounded on Lord Erlien in incredulous, exasperated dismay. ‘Are your elders all deaf? Have none of them heeded a single word I’ve said?’
The regent of the realm twitched his huge shoulders the way a wolf might shrug away flies. ‘For Shand, we judge as we see fit.’
‘If you’re offering help to fan the fires of this war, I refuse you.’ Scalded to impatience, Arithon flung back an ultimatum. ‘This time, I’ll give townsmen no cause at all to link my name with clan defenders.’
Erlien stretched, unbiddably tempered in mischief. ‘In that case, my friend, you should’ve lost a certain sword fight.’
...yep. That kind of backfired.
The thing is, the clans already have reason to hate Lysaer. And unlike the s'Brydions, they don't have a personal grievance to blind them to the fact that Lysaer proclaimed and enforced the execution of a sworn caithdein.
Erlien admits though, there was another reason for the fight:
A locked moment passed while Shand’s chieftains looked on. Then Erlien grinned like a shark and confessed to Arithon, ‘I drew steel in addition to address a complaint on behalf of the caithdein of Melhalla. Your attack on Duke Bransian’s armoury at Alestron was unprovoked, and against one of her feal vassals. Since you crossed into Shand, by kingdom law, form demanded her claim should pass to me.’
Arithon is, for once, honest about something that isn't how much doom he's bringing on everyone's head and explains that it wasn't an attack, but rather Fellowship business gone awry.
Erlien says that, for his part, Arithon's acquitted. He'll tell Duke Bransian's liege lord the same.
...that's a fascinating thought actually. The s'Brydions are the only clansfolk who never got deposed, but there's still a caithdein of Melhalla. (Erlien, if you recall is the caithdein of neighboring country, Shand.)
Anyway, that said, the duke's still within his rights to claim Arithon's life himself and the clansfolk won't stop him. Arithon says that if Bransien comes to him, he'll answer him on his own.
So, now having accidently recruited allies when he meant to ward them off, what is Arithon going to do now?
He's heading to Werpoint harbour, to see if he can turn Lysaer's fleet back. Erlien offers clan help: they're crack experts at cattle raids.
Arithon’s scathing rebuttal was forestalled as a scout in a braided leather vest dug his sore ribs in laughing sympathy. ‘Accept your lot and be merry. Anyone who bests our clan chief at swords, Lord Erlien adopts as a brother.’
Hee. Poor guy. He really can't do anything without it backfiring horribly on him. At least Jieret would probably appreciate the backup.
Anyway, everything devolves into revelry and contests eventually, and Arithon manages to slip away in his sloop. But Erlien is awesome anyway.
Erlien s’Taleyn, High Earl of Alland, received the news with a head-shaking, throaty spill of laughter. ‘Dharkaron himself! Should yon Shadow Master think we are quits after he’s fairly disarmed me in a fight, he shall in due time be shown better. If this false prince, Lysaer, and his war host plies south, we shall give him sharp welcome, with or without s’Ffalenn sanction!’
I love this dude.
--
So the last subchapter is Tidings.
We're back with the Koriani. This part makes me laugh a little:
As near as Koriani scrying could determine, the Fellowship of Seven met the imminent collapse of the peace with indifference, despite the fact that Athera’s royal lines were their own irresponsible creation. While war against the Shadow Master mounted to a certainty, the sorcerers kept close in their own affairs, as reticent as they had ever been at the time Etarra was abandoned to the destruction unleashed by Desh-thiere’s curse.
Even the Koriani know the Fellowship is useless.
We're told that the Great Waystone had allowed them to track the Fellowship once, but they can't do that anymore.
There's more trouble. Apparently, First Senior Lirenda is having some issues:
Morriel basked in the windowseat to ease the cruel ache in her joints. Gone were the days when she could meditate without the distracting, soft comfort of cushions. Intolerant of cold, less patient with setbacks, she forbade the attendance of her First Senior since Elaira’s failure to establish herself as Arithon’s mistress. On the night the younger initiate had unmasked the man’s defences and roused him to passion, the direct force of his character coupled with s’Ffalenn compassion had shocked a signal the clear length of the seventh lane.
A grave enough obstacle to the transfer of prime power, First Senior Lirenda’s fascination with the Shadow Master must be shielded from added temptation through the polishing phase of her training.
Arithon's just that sexy. Sorry.
So Morriel does some scrying. She catches glimpses of the twins badgering a craftsman. She notes the "spirit and loyalty to Arithon impressed in those paired young faces".
She sees Duke Bransien and his brothers planning to join with Lysaer's warhost. As well as an associated image of "a dishonored guard captain dressed in beggar's rags hunkered over a stolen bread crust" aching for vengeance against Arithon.
This guy again!
In Jaelot, merchant guildsmen are grumbling over the edict that conscript their galleys. I think that's pretty hilarious. You'd think they'd be more enthusiastic about the fight given how Arithon broke their city with bardic magic.
She catches sight of something interesting on Crescent Isle: a flotilla of derelict fishing luggers moored in a hidden cove. It's probably worth noting that Crescent Isle is in Minderl Bay. Near a place called Werpoint.
Some of these names might be familiar.
The war host is still bogged down in Valleygap, their progress slowed by a rockfall trap.
Morriel can't sense Jieret or his clan at all, which means they already left, or more likely are sleeping by day and not dreaming with sufficient enough intensity to get attention.
She spots Dhirken recruiting some disreputable crewmen, of a sort that even she wouldn't normally hire.
And a graceful painted sloop is laying in the fir groves of a place called Ithilt. Dakar is croaking drunken ditties. Arithon is nowhere to be seen. But that's enough right there:
Dakar’s presence offered proof: the Prince of Rathain had returned to his kingdom, sure sign he angled for conflict. Outside Elaira’s influence, Arithon’s mind was a maze of subtle intrigues a mere image could scarcely hope to track. Whatever he plotted, incessant lane watch offered tantalizing glimpses, but seldom enough insight to back a forecast. Though Elaira had affirmed that the s’Ffalenn prince had impaired his mage-sight, he had not lost the disciplines of his mastery. A trained awareness and a masterbard’s instincts yet enabled him to batten his emotions in stilled silence. The lane flow picked him up rarely, and almost never when his movements displayed intent.
"A maze of subtle intrigues a mere image could scarcely hope to track." Hee.
So Morriel is mad and frustrated, which is when Lirenda arrives. And we get an interesting description of her here:
The latch snicked up and the portal cracked to admit an oval face netted in coils of black hair. Lirenda, First Senior, did not step inside, but swept down in an arrowed mass of skirts until her forehead pressed her bent knee.
The contrast struck at odd moments, between this grown woman and a vain young initiate from a pedigree family who had begged to be taken in for training. Even humbled by desire, Lirenda had been too haughty for obeisance. Prodigious talent had burned in her like live coals, almost too wild to contain.
Blooded pride was still there, but tempered now by ambition. The driving desire to win, and the lonely heart that had prompted the girl to affect conceit now lay buttressed by ironshod discipline. Morriel pondered the change, satisfied that the precepts of mercy could be taught. Heartfelt emotion was less biddable, a fearful point of vulnerability in a candidate appointed for prime succession. Against the highest of stakes, Lirenda must be moulded to survive.
Lirenda hasn't had a terribly large role in the story yet, except as Elaira's foil. This indicates that that might be changing soon.
But anyway, Lirenda's here for a reason: she's escorting "beldame Haltha". (Morriel has some very nice imagery about how her lavender robes are dragging at her skeletal form like the wings of an exotic moth, by the way.)
Haltha has come to beg forgiveness:
‘My Prime,’ the beldame opened, while the grimy hem of her skirt fluttered to her terrified trembling. ‘A decision of grave moment was given into my hands and I was forced to a choice. For an act of unconscionable independence, I throw myself on your mercy. I closed a bargain with Prince Lysaer s’Ilessid. In exchange for the secret of his half-brother’s interests at Merior, I have his witnessed assurance that the Waystone of our order was never lost.’ In rising, uncontainable excitement, she finished, ‘The jewel is whole still, and held in close care by the Fellowship sorcerers at Althain Tower.’
Oops.
Well, needless to say, forgiveness is granted. Morriel is elated. Lirenda's feelings are a little more mixed:
Lirenda’s flush in the heat of stunning news showed more than exhilarated eagerness: under her varnished layer of poise flashed a spasm of unguarded anger.
Morriel seized upon that oddity. Barbed with searching power, sped to sharp force by the spell crystal still meshed with her mind, her scrutiny lanced through the First Senior’s reserve to wrest out that sand grain of dissidence. Understanding followed like a hammer blow to rock. Lirenda’s displeasure stemmed from personal betrayal, that the Waystone’s location had been bought at a cost of endangering the royal fugitive at Merior.
Proof stung, that the prime candidate’s recurrent fascination for Arithon s’Ffalenn had indeed threaded deep enough to unbalance her grasp of affairs.
Really, when you think about it, this is all Morriel's fault. Lirenda's fascination for Arithon came about when they used Elaira's emotions to attack him in Curse of the Mistwraith. Stop fucking with your followers, and this might not happen.
But anyway, Morriel gives Lirenda an assignment: to take the Skyron crystal and one hundred and eight seniors and wrest their Waystone back from Sethvir. She basically tells her that if she fails, she'll lose her position.
Anyway, Haltha has done well, but Morriel wants something from her too. Remember that guardsman? The one we keep seeing, who got whipped and exiled from Alestron? Who hates Arithon with a passion?
Morriel has Haltha repeat the scrying that revealed the location of Arithon's shipyard and send it to that guy too.
Morriel is happy now. If Arithon dies, Lirenda will be free. She also gives an additional order; the "sanction for congress with the Prince of Rathain" that she gave Elaira is now withdrawn.
Aw.
--
So now we get to the sneak peek section: Sunset, Midnight and Noon.
I feel like we already got one of these with Morriel's scrying, but okay.
1. I'm just going to excerpt this one:
Informed on the lane surge at sundown that Morriel Prime has released her charge to seek liaison with Arithon s’Ffalenn, a bronze-haired enchantress in Merior weeps in gratitude for restored honesty, and in loss for shared love that must languish unpartnered; through the quiet, resolved hour as she packs to depart, she prays for the man, that he might stay free to refound his happiness with another …
Poor Elaira.
2. A bearded blond outcast with whip scars is beginning his journey to Merior, to enact his vow of vengeance.
You know, the vow that comes as a result of a Fellowship assignment, which was then sabotaged by the dude that the Fellowship foisted onto Arithon to begin with.
Seriously, I think he'd be better off if they took Lysaer's side at this point.
3. Oh, this one's an excerpt too:
On a rocky slope above Valleygap, on the day of his twentieth year that clan custom reckons full manhood, a red-bearded chieftain called Earl of the North bends back his black bow, sets his aim on one figure above the crews who shift rocks in hot sunlight, and lets fly an arrow inscribed with the name of the killer who brought untimely death to a father, a mother, and four sisters…
...oh Jieret.
One chapter left!
no subject
(no subject)