I Read What?!

So last time, we found out that Arithon has developed a hobby of disguise and obnoxiously flirting with a man who despises him utterly, and yeah, that pretty much tracks. That's basically the only thing that really happened last chapter, but it was pretty amazing anyway.

Oh and he sent some message written in his own blood, because Arithon is fucking like that too. I missed the little bastard.



We rejoin Lysaer and his friend/sycophant Lord Diegan. Diegan used to be the commander of the Etarran garrison. Now he's Lysaer's right hand man, and seems to have inherited his own measure of purple prose as he glares at the man with eyes that are bleak and flat as black ice. They apparently argued about something, presumably to do with Lysaer's fiancee/Diegan's sister, Talith.

Honestly, Diegan's investment in this relationship has always seemed a little creepy to me.

Anyway, Diegan's only intermediate at purple prose and must bow before the master:

Clad for travel in blue-dyed suede and a cloak of oiled wool, his hair like combed flax under the gold-stitched velvet of his hat, Lysaer s’Ilessid adjusted his reins in gloved hands and suddenly, generously smiled. Still looking forward, as if the roadway behind were not packed with a chaos of groaning, creaking wagons and the whip snaps and epithets of bored carters, he said, ‘Still angry? At least that way you’ll keep warm.’

So indeed, the fight is about Talith. Diegan is concerned about Lysaer's reception in Tysan, since those cities haven't experienced the Shadow Master's power first hand, and "the massacre that broke an army in Strakewood forest was history told at second hand."

Um, I beg your pardon. The people who burned women alive and scalped children don't get to use words like "massacre".

Anyway, the cities in Tysan do not want a return to crown rule (something that is perceived as being linked to the clans, since the clansfolk were the original nobility pre-uprising), and Diegan thinks they're more likely to toss Lysaer in irons or feed him to their mastiffs.

Lysaer greets this news as he's wont to do:

‘Well then,’ Lysaer said equably. ‘The Etarran division will be sent home before any political misperception can arise to start any bloodshed.’ In maddening, single-minded majesty, he looked straight ahead as he added, Diegan, this issue is greater than me, more important than Tysan’s disorders. Somewhere in hilling, the Master of Shadow weaves plots. Sitting secure in Etarra flushing out barbarian encampments is never going to make him show his hand.’

Diegan can't really answer that. He agrees with the whole killing Arithon thing. He's just worried that Lysaer is underestimating the danger and that Talith will be in the middle of it. And that's fair.

Apparenlty the travel is going really slowly, and the royal cavalcade is getting bigger and bigger since each city they pass gives them gifts. Gosh, it'd be a shame if someone were to raid this slow moving turtle of an army.

It sounds like a good pile of loot though: From Narms, they had five loads of carpets and woven silk, sumptuously coloured; from Morvain, downcoast, wool bales profitably traded for crystal from the famed glassworks at Falgaire. They had lanterns in wrought brass, barrels of rare wines and brandies, and from some beneficent farmer, foundation stock for a pig herd.

...I do feel a bit sorry for the farmer. But I'm happy to see that Diegan winces at the pigs' squealing. He also winces at the camp followers who shriek at cheating customers, and thinks again that this camp is no place for anybody's "pedigree sister".

I don't know dude. Maybe if you made people pay the sex workers, the sex workers wouldn't damage your sensitive ears.

So they make it to Tysan. It's not a subtle retinue. Lysaer does good diplomatic work though, winning over crofters with fair pay, and collecting young boys who want training. They're another mouth to feed back home, whereas here they'll be good cannon fodder against Arithon. Lysaer says that more politely of course, but that's the gist. Diegan is more concerned about supply, claiming they'll need to cut tents out of carpets at this rate.

‘Spend the cold season in Erdane with Talith, then,’ Lysaer said, and grinned in suave provocation. He wore neither doublet nor shirt. Since his offer to sling yoke buckets in from the dairy, the matron had carped until he stripped off his fine silk. Afterward, nobody remarked that his lack of finesse in the farmyard had left him bespattered with milk. Unjustly magnificent in fitted breeches of blue suede embroidered with seedpearls, he leaned down and scooped another nut from the poke by his ankles.

"Unjustly magnificent." I really don't know which type of purple prose I love more. Lysaer's glamour or Arithon's angst.

Wait, no, Arithon's angst. Nothing beats "Scarred by severe conscience."

So yeah, they're traveling. Lysaer's having some modest luck with a few of the smaller towns. But that said, he apparently has some kind of plan.

Eventually they do get trouble. Headhunters out of the city of Isaer are here for Lysaer. And Lysaer handles this with some impressive manipulation. Basically a page uses stone and sling to cause the captain's horse to buckle and cause chaos, while he comes down with an honor guard to "accept" the invitation to meet with the lord of the city.

Works like a charm.

So Lysaer's forces get to spend a few days enjoying Isaer's hospitality. Eventually Lysaer brings up a pretty scandalous idea: a treaty with the clansfolk. His hosts are aghast at the thought, why Maenalle s'Gannley wears uncured animal skins!

Hilariously, there's a moment where Lysaer looks "blandly mystified" at the complaint. Hah. He points out that an armed campaign is more likely to cause the Tysan clans to ally with Rathain's. This leads to the Etarrans sharing their version of the "heinous slaughter that occurred on the banks of Tal Quorin, when a grisly chain of traps had savaged Etarra's proud garrison."

Ugh.

Diegan still has some trauma over the whole experience, and we're told that some of the survivors are "permanently deranged" by Arithon's confusion-causing spells, and others have been "broken in spirit and are haunted by fits and nightmares. I'm playing my violin for you, tragic genocidal assholes.

Later though, in private, things get interesting. Diegan wants to know what Lysaer is playing at, with his talk of treaties. Apparently they'd agreed that barbarian havens anywhere are "too ready a tool for the Master's use and design!" Lysaer just reassures Diegan that he intends to see the raids stopped one way or another.

There is a moment of genuine horseplay later as they leave Isaer:

Caught on a hill crest against sky, his gold hair wind-ruffled against racing fleeces of spring clouds, Lysaer regarded the riled profile of Avenor’s Lord Commander at Arms. He said in teasing merriment, ‘That merchant’s vixen daughter refused you, I see.’ Which comment got him shoved from his saddle into dung-spread furrows in just and indecorous vengeance.

From astride his snorting charger, Lord Diegan glared down at his prince, who accepted his demise without rancour for mud-spoiled velvets.

So anyway, they head through the passes. And Lysaer reminisces a little:

Here, a raffish band of barbarian scouts had once dangled Arithon s’Ffalenn upside down from a rope over a precipice. Lent abrasive reminder of a deceit that had once beguiled his trust and friendship, Lysaer gazed down a cliff wall bared of snow and jumbled with bone-grey, splintered timber and stone shards. He could wish now that the knots in the noose had failed.

Had the Shadow Master fallen to his death on that day, seven thousand Etarrans would still be alive with their families.

Remember when these boys were brothers? And they loved each other so much? And Arithon decided to get Lysaer his kingdom in the most melodramatic and assholish way possible?

Alas.

So anyway, Lysaer has been warned about carrying carts of goods through the pass, but he ignores the warnings. This is not due to stupidity however. He's as unsurprised as we are when they're accosted by clansfolk, including Maenalle herself.

Lysaer greets Maenalle, her grandson, and her peer, Lord Tashan with respectful diplomacy. He asks if she's come to bring her clans out of hiding and join the rebuilding effort. Diegan is horrified by this. Lord Tashan is incensed. Maenalle holds herself in check.

Maenalle’s mount recoiled as her hand snapped taut on the rein. Amber-pale eyes centred in black like a hawk’s never left the features of the prince. Unlike the young grandson who wore his heart in plain view, and despite an unsettled royal bodyguard forestalled by the interposed body of their own liege from stringing short bows to take her down, she showed neither nerves nor defiance. ‘There has been no oath of fealty sworn here, nor any sanction for crown sovereignty given by the Fellowship of Seven.’ The fine-grained lines on her face stayed unsoftened. ‘How dare you speak of annexing my clans as a fighting force? We have no cause to support your wars.’

I love Maenalle so much.

I am a little torn here. My first instinct, of course, is to say "fuck the Fellowship." But on the other hand, monsters who allow the murder of children shouldn't be given thrones. And the Fellowship sanctioning thing IS an established custom.

They discuss the events at Strakewood:

Diminished a little by sadness, he crossed his hands on his saddle pommel and sighed. ‘Let me pray, then, that you haven’t been beguiled into giving your loyalty elsewhere. That would grieve me. The clans of northern Rathain were all but wiped out for abetting the Master of Shadow.’

They defended their sanctioned prince,’ Maenalle corrected.

‘With children sent out to stab men in the back who were down and wounded,’ Lysaer shot back in bitter truth. ‘With sorceries and traps that slaughtered seven thousand souls in a day. The scion of Rathain is a trickster without morals, a sorcerer who preys on the innocent.’

That bit about the kids is interesting here. Because that was CLAN custom. It's very likely that Maenalle's people have a similar custom. Or at least, they understand where it comes from.

I really want to excerpt this entire section. But this part hits hard:

‘That’s not how the Fellowship phrased it.’ Unflinching as swordsteel, Maenalle never glanced at her grandson, white-faced and stiff at her side. ‘Nor Jieret s’Valerient, Steiven’s heir, whose parents and sisters all died because of Etarra’s invasion.’

‘Who were these people but deluded allies?’ Lysaer’s attentiveness shifted to the boy. ‘If you doubt me, my Lady, look to your own, who is of the right age to be influenced.’

And here's where we see Lysaer's monstrousness at full blast. Sure, the Fellowship is fucking worthless. But Jieret is not. Jieret is a direct victim and witness to the truth of what happened at Tal Quorin. And how does Lysaer respond?

He dismisses him entirely as a "deluded ally." He is told outright that Jieret lost parents and sister, but that's completely irrelevant to Lysaer. He doesn't even bother to defend himself, really. Steiven, Dania, and their daughters don't even exist to him. That's how little they matter.

At this point, Maenalle's heartbroken grandson (you'd be forgiven for forgetting him, he was the adorable child during the clan chapters in Mistwraith who served and adored Lysaer) turns his horse around, so that his back is to Lysaer.

Maenalle speaks truth:

‘Oh, but Maien was influenced,’ Maenalle said, as drawn now as the grandson at her side, who held his station, trembling and flushed. ‘But not by Arithon of Rathain. The boy’s loyalty was yours, and his love, until Desh-thiere’s curse wrecked the peace. Let us not confuse our issues and deny the sad facts of this feud. You seek to kill a man who is your half-brother, who has these last six years made no effort to outfit a war host against you. My clansmen cannot support your towns against him. Nor may we acknowledge false claim to Avenor. Our allegiance is to be held in reserve for the one of your heirs that the Fellowship endorses to be crowned.’

Lysaer tells them they're free to change their minds at any time. Maenalle responds that as a guest who swore oath at her table, Lysaer will be allowed to leave without being stripped of horse and arms. His escort however is not given the same leeway.

And indeed, the clansfolk attack. They're very good and the caravan is a sitting duck. They warn that if Lysaer uses his magic, they'll kill everyone. As it is, they're just going to confiscate the weapons, goods and gold. No one is harmed, and "Maenalle's matchless discipline had prevented anything worse than wisecracks and whistles to befall Lady Talith."

I'm of course reminded of the Etarrans' tendancy toward rape. I don't doubt the comparison is intentional. Ms. Wurts is not very subtle.

But this isn't the defeat for Lysaer that it looks like, unfortunately. In fact, he'd pretty much intended for somethin like this to happen:

Jabbed to suspicion, Diegan added, ‘You pulled your strike against those archers on the slope! You planned this whole thing, didn’t you?’

A dying thread of sunlight bloodied sparkles in gold hair as Lysaer gave back the barest shrug. ‘Not precisely.’ His levity vanished and his eyes went suddenly hooded. ‘You might say I expected things might happen as they have. If I tried for a happier outcome, the end result isn’t setback. No one can say, now, that Tysan’s clans weren’t fairly offered their chance to lay due claim to s’Ilessid loyalty.’

And Diegan realizes the undercurrents. Lysaer isn't coming into Erdane as a prince in luxury. He's going in as the impoverished victim of Erdane's long-standing enemies. As a fellow victim, Lysaer will have no problem getting support for his cause.

Lysaer really is good at being a villain, isn't he?

--

The next subchapter is Messenger.

The aforementioned messenger (sent from the clan's mountain outpost) is not the main feature of the subchapter though. Instead, we're given some nice exposition about Althain Tower, home of Sethvir of the Fellowship and probably the closest thing they have to a base of operations. There's an interesting bit of exposition that implies that Althain's role as a storehouse of Paravian artifacts may have actually predated Sethvir's custodianship of it. But that's more than a little tangential.

Anyway, there's lots of pretty language about Sethvir's mystical awareness. But ultimately, we get to the point. Maenalle's courier has arrived, with a message for Arithon. (Sethvir asks why the courier believes he can deliver it, and the courier has the best explanation ever: Maenalle said he could. Sethvir can't argue with that and agrees to send it but says to tell Maenalle that the scroll will be delivered at the time of his choosing.

...you mean a Fellowship sorcerer is planning to withhold information from Arithon again?! Surely you jest.

--

The third subchapter is Eviction:

And aw. We find out the fate of Faery-toes:

After the confiscated brown gelding, Faery-toes, kicked his stall doors to slivers, bit every groom within reach and knocked the head ostler off his feet, the alderman of Jaelot’s under-secretary at last seized the initiative to set seal to a writ to dispatch the beast to the knacker’s.

Poor Faery-toes. At least you went out with your own personal brand of "fuck you" though. (Especially since he causes so much damage that even the sale of his...products, so to speak, isn't even denting the cost.) I feel like both Dakar and Arithon would appreciate this.

Dakar's own fate on the labor gang is pretty miserable...for everyone else:

Dakar took ill in the draughty shacks where the convicts were housed. Poor food made him sick unto misery. His feet swelled from chilblains until he could not arise in the mornings without loud-voiced, piteous complaint.

His fellow inmates used their fists to stop his whining. His moans and his mewling as he languished from their beating disturbed what little sleep they could scrounge after days of backbreaking labour in the mason’s yard, dressing stone blocks for the sea walls that storms crumbled down every spring. With both eyes puffed shut with bruises, Dakar could not see to swing his mallet. Stone chips flew on wild tangents. A guardsman was home with a badly gashed face and an overseer limped on smashed toes.

Packed off to solitary confinement, Dakar passed his hours of punishment with singing. Even cold sober, he had no ear for pitch. The yawling echoes created by his ballads made the prison sentries grit their teeth, then brawl among themselves in driven fits of frustration. A gag was attempted. Dakar somehow ingested the cloth. The coarse fibres gave him a bellyache, but otherwise seemed not to faze him.

I mean, honestly, if you could get past the fact that Dakar hates Arithon, they'd be the perfect couple.

Anyway, the guards think he's crazy because he claims to be immortal. But they intend to keep him imprisoned as ordered. Even though they're suffering far worse than he is.

About three months in, they do try putting him on the labor gang:

Their work was cruel and dangerous; where currents had undercut the sea wall, the granite might shift and slide. A man could break his hands or his legs, caught in an unlucky place. Incoming waves could crest and slam down without warning, and a seething froth of brine would tumble the huge blocks like knucklebones stewed in a cauldron. Men died pinched like insects, or dragged under to drown in the weight of their fetters and chain.

Charming place, really.

Anyway, Dakar has no intention of taking part in this. And he finds his tool:

There were fiends in truth, out amid the breakers, riding the incoming tide to replenish themselves. Energy sprites native to Athera that drew fuel from the tumble of the waters, invisible to the eye except as crests that rose and broke, then subsided, unnaturally splashless, into the current of the bay. What the Paravian tongue named iyats, or tricksters, for their tireless penchant to make mischief.

Apparently iyats are attracted by mismanaged magic, and since Dakar tends toward carelessness and negligence, he's basically a magnet for them. He uses that now. The iyats come, and chaos ensues:

The invisible fiends knit about him in spirals of distorted breezes. They buffeted and pinched and tweaked at his hair in signal fits of irritation. When he refused to give in and fuel their wants further, they lent themselves in their madcap way to tease, to frustrate, to annoy, that they might sip what stray spurts of emotion they could wring from whatever victims were available.

In an eyeblink, the work on the jetty erupted into chaos.

Stone chips and rocks sprang up and whirled airborne, clanging off the helms of the officers and unmercifully pelting the conscripts. Bruised and screaming in wild surprise, men heaved off the encumbrance of their loads. The massive dressed blocks misaligned and jarred awry, then dropped with a thud to quake the sea wall. Granite rasped against granite, grinding off falls of small pebbles that ripped aloft to sting flesh. Men coughed out curses and spat grit while the older blocks already mauled by storms and ice loosened, cracked, and gave way, to fall with thunderous, geysering spray into white petticoats of surf.

The chaos doesn't stop there, of course. A waterspout kicks up to terrify the ox teams, a cart slams into a wall of rock that wasn't there before and is smashed. The guards are being sprayed with pebbles and leather straps keep crawling up their legs like maggots.

Four days later, Halliron's apprentice, Medlir, is engaged in a target shoot against one of Jaelot's archer captains. He's winning, of course. Anyway, there's some news! Dakar's been released! Since he's crazy and a magnet for iyats, they couldn't keep him. The guards, of course, gave Dakar the name of the inn where Medlir and Halliron are staying:

The guardsman’s brisk humour turned wicked. ‘The city dungeon won’t keep him. Who’s left? I hope you’ve got patience for waking up with your bootlaces snarled into knots.’

‘Well, I don’t.’ Energetically merry, Medlir laughed.

He kept to himself the piquant truth that a masterbard’s art included chords arranged in particular harmonic resonance to repel fiends. Halliron had forbidden his apprentice to perform any music in public; for himself, the old man avowed to make no appearance until the moment he was compelled by the terms of the judiciary’s bargain. If Jaelot was pestilent with iyats due to Dakar’s incarceration, the Masterbard and his singer in training would retreat to their attic and share rich appreciation of the havoc.

"Energetically merry", I see you and your inexplicable crush, Arithon.

--

Our sneak peek section is Spirit Tracks.

First: Sethvir has apparently sent a call to a raven, who rouses a fellowship sorcerer who ten journeys east toward a "Spell-guarded stronghold on the edge of the dread mires of Mirthlvain".

"The Dread Mires of Mirthlvain" sounds like a D&D module. I'd play it.

Second: A spirit mage also hears the call but declines it, as he is busy watching over "one initiate with dark auburn hair and a guarded heart, entrapped in the web of greater intrigue that surrounds the Master of Shadow …"

And Third: another discorporate sorcerer is trying to unlock the Mistwraith's secret, but has only found a lifeless, desolate, icy and fogbound world. He continues to travel.

And so the chapter ends, let's all pour one out for Faery-Toes, the best horse that ever lived.