I Read Books: Mistress Of The Catacombs

 

Mistress Of The Catacombs

Prince Garric is effectively ruler of the Isles; as such several enemies are coming together against him. A wizard tries to incapacitate him by swapping his mind with a twin from a thousand years in the future; it later turns out this character, Gar, was bitten by a seawolf on the head and is mentally disabled. It doesn’t work; Garric has been sharing his head with King Carus, his ancestor and ruler of the Isles from a thousand years in the past, and he now takes control.

In the future Gar is part of a band of rebels and mercenaries hired by a wizard to find a ring that will let them release Lord Thalemos and defeat the ruler of the island. The last island, as the Kingdom of the Isles went down when Prince Garric lost a battle on the island of Tisamur. As ever wizards have great power but leave great bloodshed in their wake.

Cashel, Garric’s friend, is sucked away by the same spell. He finds himself accompanying Lady Tilphosa, destined to marry Lord Thalemos, but every time they try to get anywhere they find themselves in stranger and odder places.

Carus takes command, and he has Sharina, Garric’s sister and Cashel’s fiancée to keep him calm. Which he needs as his first instinct is to kill wizards and his second to lead his army against his enemies. Worse still, every time he sleeps his nightmares get worse. He also has Tenoctris, a wizard he’s willing to tolerate. She and Ilna, Cashel’s sister, try a spell to find Cashel; Ilna is dragged away in the dream world by Alecto, a beast-girl wizard who is impulsive and sensual, and generally everything Ilna despises. But Ilna knows what happens when she judges, things go to hell, and she and Alecto find themselves joining forces against the moon cult, who are behind the rebellion on Tisamur, and also Laut and Blaise.

And when they track down the moon cult Carus, as Garric, mobilises the army and the fleet. He heads for Tisamur, where Prince Garric is fated to lose as the Archai, giant insects from the deep past, return to attack.

The fourth volume, the majority of the novel is structured like the previous ones, with the four protagonists scattered across time, space and weird magical dimensions, having various episodic adventures. Each of them tied to the same wizard-plot, or at least related time-twin-wizard plots. Sharina this time gets to have the most normal adventure, as aide to Carus and his war. And Carus, a thousand years dead, might learn to use mercy as a weapon.

Read This: Things are mixed up, with new elements to the almost-picaresque episodic encounters, which tie together in a complicated way
Don’t Read This: The Isles fell a thousand years ago and you weren’t interested then

This is the last book I read in 2023, and having also completed writing up all the films, TV and short stories from last year that I intend to, I'm declaring it done. Now on to 2024.