The Spirit War

[sawyl]

After a slight hiatus — a combination of exhaustion and the need to read through a big pile of Hugo nominees — it's time to get back to Rachel Aaron's Legend of Eli Monpress series with the fourth book in the series, The Spirit War. Here Aaron focuses on Josef Liechten, Eli's swordsman and wielder of the Heart of War.

Eagerly anticipating the arrival of the posters announcing his newly enlarged bounty, Eli is upset to discover that someone has pledged such a vast sum for Josef's capture that his swordsman's reward now exceeds his own. Josef, not sharing Eli's obsession, sees the bounty for what it is: a ploy intended to draw him back to the home and family responsibilities he abandoned as grumpy teen. Gritting his teeth, Josef returns to the Island of Osera with Eli and Nico in tow. Here he discovers that he has been married off in absentia and that his dying mother is angling for him to replace her as Osera's ruler.

In a distant land, the unstoppable Den the Warlord chances across a woman living wild in the depths of the jungle. Recognising her as Nara, the Immortal Empress of half the world, Den sets about pulling her out of the funk she has been in since Eli usurped her position as the Shepherdess' favourite and sets her back on the path to war with the Council of Thrones — not that Den is particularly interested in the Council; he's merely after a good fight with a worthy opponent and Nara's war seems like a good way to get it. Full of renewed fury for her rival, Nara mobilises her vast fleet and sets sail for the continent, determined to crush the Council utterly, starting with the Island of Osera which just happens to lie directly between her and her goal.

Meanwhile Miranda Lyonette has arrived at Shaper Mountain, where she finds herself less than welcome. In company with rogue Shaper Heinricht Slorn, she speaks with the Teacher, the spirit of the mountain, and learns a great deal about the world as it is now, the world as it was before the Creator departed, and about the origins of the three god-like spirits: the Hunter, the Weaver, and the Shepherdess. Realising that she has to get her new-found knowledge back to civilisation, Miranda comes up with a way to escape back to Zarin and her mentor Etmon Banage. Unfortunately she finds Banage has been forced to choose between his duty to the spirit world and the temporal authority of the Council of Thrones and, inevitably given his strong sense of ethics, chosen the path of treason rather than betray his oaths to protect the spirits.

The Spirit War continues the general shift away from the caper plots of the first two books and emphasises the arc plot. It adds in a lot of nice details about Josef's background, how he came to carry the Heart of War, and why he is determined to make himself the best swordsman in the world without relying on the Heart's powers to win his battles for him, finally allowing him to step out of Eli's substantial shadow. Josef's unexpected marriage — something, it transpires, he has known about for a while but hasn't bothered mentioning — places his relationship with Nico under intense strain, just as she is starting to confront some of the uncomfortable truths thrown in her face by the Master of Dead Mountain. Eli, meanwhile, is in his element: playing up to his role as Josef's advisor and swanning about the Court of Osera under the name of Eliton Banage.

Events come to a head in a most satisfactory way with a pitched battle between the forces of the Immortal Empress and those of Osera — the Council are painfully slow to respond — bolstered by the power of the Heart of War, Banage's faction of the Spirit Court, Nico's demonseed abilities, and, eventually, the morally dubious powers of Sara, the Council's head wizard.

Aaron uses the battle to underscore the key theme of freedom of choice that drives the majority of the characters in the book. Having abandoned his responsibilities to Osera as a teenager, Josef's sense of morality obliges him to resume them in order to defend his home and to prevent his fellow Oserans from being slaughtered. Etmon Banage finds himself forced to chose between betraying his beliefs and defying his political masters, opting for the more difficult path; whereas Sara, having been faced with a similar decision 20+ years before, had chosen to go in precisely the opposite direction. Nico has to decide whether to embrace the demonic side of her nature and help to save her friends, or whether to deny it and watch them die at the hands of Nara and Den the Warlord. But it is Eli who faces the ultimate test of his resolve. He can either remain above the fray and watch his world fall apart, and see his friends and family slaughtered; or he can choose to call upon the power granted by the Shepherdess to her favourite and help fight off the invaders, but only at the cost of surrendering his freedom to choose anything ever again.

I think The Spirit War might just be the best book in the series — although it requires the weight of the previous novels to give context and to drive home the emotional impact of most of the decisions. The stakes are high, but not impossibly so; the main characters get a lot of extra background work; and a lot of the elements established over the course of the previous books finally snap into focus.