The Spirit Eater

[sawyl]

Onwards to the third of Rachel Aaron's Eli Monpress novels in the form of The Spirit Eater, which emphasises the darker elements of the setting and brings the story arc to the fore.

Following the events of The Spirit Rebellion and the sudden increase in his notoriety, Eli, Josef and Nico have decided to take a vacation in Home, the small village Eli supports via his larcenous activities. The place is supposed to be a secret so Eli isn't best pleased to find Heinricht Slorn's daughter waiting for him with the news that her father has disappeared. Suspecting that Slorn may be chasing the demon-infected warrior Berek Sted, Eli decides that the best way to get to Slorn is through Sted, and the best way to get to Sted is through the Master of Dead Mountain, the demon bound by the Shepherdess at the very beginning of the world. After a disastrous encounter with the Lord of Storms, an elemental being created to purge the world of demonseeds, Eli and Nico flee with the injured Josef to a small hut deep in territory controlled by Izo the Bandit King.

Meanwhile back in Zarin, Miranda Lyonette finds herself caught in a scheme to separate her from her mentor, Etmon Banage the Rector Spiritualis, and place her under the control of Sara, the Council of Thrones' ruthless head wizard. When Sara's extensive network of spies alerts her to Eli's whereabouts, she wastes no time in dispatching Miranda, a fickle fop called Sparrow, and Tesset, a stoic warrior, to negotiate with Izo. But events rapidly spiral out of control when Berek Sted, who has been offered in service to Izo by the Master, slips his leash in order to settle his score with Josef and his legendary sword, the Heart of War.

As mentioned the tone of the book is much darker than the first two, not because of a fundamental change to the setting but rather because darker elements which have been present all along are emphasised and brought to the fore. Thus the Master of Dead Mountain, who spent the last book as a whispering voice in Nico's head, finally appears on stage and it becomes clear just how much control he exerts over his children even from within his prison. We also get to see more of the Shepherdess, discovering along the way that she's capricious and prone to using her powers for deeply selfish reasons regardless of any possible impact on the world, while her creature, the Lord of Storms, isn't much better than a bad temper with a cause and a sword.

Sara is a welcome addition to the cast. She combines ruthless intelligence with a strictly pragmatic approach to morality, running roughshod over her supposed superiors and casually manipulating or threatening people in to doing her bidding. In contrast to the stark, strict morality of the Spirit Court, Sara adds a great deal of grey to the plot. Nico, too, gets a certain amount of additional backstory as we learn about how she and Josef first met and, in seeing her past, it becomes clear just why she's unwilling to give any ground to the Master even when he starts to remove the demonseed abilities that have been keeping her alive.

The ending of the book is very mixed and promises good things for the next in the series. While Eli may be happy, having parleyed Izo's bounty into increasing his own, Miranda finds herself on the road with Heinricht Slorn, facing a very uncertain future indeed...