Demon Lord of Karanda

[sawyl]

I've reached the middle of David Eddings' Malloreon series with Demon Lord of Karanda. The book marks the re-introduction of Emperor Zakath, who appeared briefly at the end of The Belgariad and who now becomes a core character. It also marks the point in the narrative where the action moves from the Western Continent to Mallorea, only sketchily alluded to in the previous books and here drawn out in full detail.

We begin with Garion and his companions — wife Ce'Nedra, his aunt Polgara and her husband Durnik, his grandfather Belgarath, Silk and Liselle, Sadi, Errand and Toth — in the custody of General Atesca and bound for Rak Hagga and an interview with Zakath, Emperor of Mallorea, who is much as he was when Ce'Nedra met him back in Enchanter's End Game: melancholy, insomniac, and completely dedicated to conquering Cthol Murgos. Gradually, on being told a few hidden truths about King Urgit and learning from his spy chief that someone called Lord Mengha is using demons to conquer the province of Karanda, Zakath begins to accept that the time has come to return home. But it is only when he is poisoned by the grolim Naradas, acting on behalf of Zandramas, that the Emperor abandons his crusade and travels back to Mal Zeth with his guests in tow.

I rather like the way Garion and Zakath gradually feel out their growing friendship: each comes to like the other a great deal, but they are often at odds because their ultimate goals are very different. Garion is desperate to get to Mallorea to resume the search for his missing son, while Zakath is primarily interested in power and consolidating his position. There a particularly fun moment when Garion, after days of carefully stepping round the Zakath's excuses in the aftermath of his poisoning, finally gets fed up and casually blows out the wall of the emperor's bedroom and drags him off in search of Belgarath.

Even when Garion and Brador, Zakath's head of intelligence, manage to persuade him to return to Mal Zeth, the emperor refuses to give his guests free rein, preferring to keep them in a luxurious set of apartments while he concentrates on pulling his forces out of Cthol Murgos. Unable to endure this, Garion has Silk, Liselle and Sadi come up with a way to generate enough confusion to allow them to slip out of their gilded cage unnoticed. But almost as soon as the plan is put into motion, a plague breaks out in Mal Zeth and the group have to come up with a way to escape the now-sealed palace and safely navigate the disease-ridden streets of the largest city in the world.

Another quiet little section that allows Eddings to add a few new elements to the mix. For the first time we get a feeling of the extent of Silk's trading concern, which spans the world sucking up money and information in equal measures. The descriptions of Mal Zeth and the palace in particular strongly imply that the Malloreans are considerably more civilised that the west, with hot and cold running water in the royal apartments and a highly efficient bureaucracy — matching my conception of them of the equivalent of Medieval China in Eddings' world. We also get a significant new character in the form of Feldegast, a travelling juggler, who seems to come equipped with a cliched Irish brogue assumed largely to annoy Belgarath; to which I say: you and me both. I'm really not convinced by Eddings' use of comedy accents — especially the truly appalling West Country one he uses in The Tamuli — but I suppose it adds colour to the world.

In company with the juggler are a pair of Nadraks: Silk's trading partner Yablek and Vella, who first appeared dancing in a mining tavern in Enchanters' End Game. I have rather mixed feelings about the way Vella — and Nadrak women in general — are portrayed. On the one hand, Vella shows a certain amount of independence and is willing to enforce her personal boundaries with her knives. But on the other, Nadrak women are considered property and pretty much have to be owned by a man — although, in a nod to feminism, the women get half their price when they are sold and men gain prestige from the women they own! Hmm. It's also implied in one of the later books that Vella's behaviour is atypical — she's described as a wild woman of the forest by one of King Drosta's guards — suggesting that the lot of your average Nadrak isn't all that good.

Once safely outside Mal Zeth, the group head for the ruined castle of Ashaba in Katakor where Garion hopes to find Zandramas and Belgarath hopes to lay his hands on an uncensored copy of the Ashabine Oracles, a set of prophecies containing the location of the final meeting place between Light and Dark. Sadly neither of them finds what they are looking for, although they do find Urvon, the last Disciple of Torak who has been driven into madness by the demon lord Nahaz, and his underling Lord Mengha, who is actually the grolim Harakan who was last seen posing as a Dagashi assassin in Rak Urga. Garion is tricked into a confrontation with Urvon, who promptly flees with Nahaz, leaving Harakan to be killed.

Finally, with the scene in Torak's former throne room, we get a few answers. Not only is Mengha's identity confirmed, both as Harakan and as one of Urvon's underlings, but it is suggested that he may have arranged a side-deal with Nahaz, giving his former master to the demon lord in exchange for a chance to become king of the world when the demon raises himself as the new God of the Angaraks. We also discover one of Liselle's little secrets and find out why Belgarath has been quite so phlegmatic about the presence of Feldegast, having previously complained bitterly about every other addition to the party.

Leaving Ashaba on the trail of Zandramas, the party travel through Karanda bound for the east coast, fighting their way through Urvon's various underlings and dodging the remains of Mengha's demon worshipers. On the shores of Lake Karanda they run into a large crowd, waiting for a wizard to summon up a demon for them. Realising that the ceremony is a fraud, Belgarath steps in and puts on a spectacular show, appearing to summon a demon so terrible it has all the watching Karands running for the hills and allowing them to steal a boat with impunity. On the opposite shore of the lake the Orb of Aldur reacts to an unseen presence and when Belgarath investigates, he discovers a shrine to the Sardion, the Orb's dark twin.

The most obvious high point of the journey through Karanda is Belgarath's dramatic illusion in which he pretends to summon the King of Hell to punish the unfaithful Karands. As with Polgara's great show of power in King of the Murgos and Garion's destruction of Jarviksholm in Guardians of the West, it's always exciting when one of the main characters gets to enact an extremely theatrical bit of sorcery. There's a nice comedy moment just after the illusion when Garion punches out the supposed wizard and Belgarath complains that he has almost knocked the man into a coma, something Garion attributes to irritation, which prompts Silk to remark that he causes more damage out of simple irritation than most men are able to cause in a towering rage.