The Penitent Damned

[sawyl]

Before tackling the next big novel in Django Wexler's Shadow Campaigns, I've decided to go for The Penitent Damned — a short prequel to the series. Essentially a heist story, it manages to fit a lot of world building and introduces a couple of key characters who go on to become extremely significant in the books.

The story of the theft is relatively simple: Alex, a talented young cat-burglar, has persuaded her retired mentor, Metzing, to return to Vordan City for one last job. Naturally, the fee is enormous, but so too are the risks: Alex has been hired to steal a file from the Concordat, the Ministry of Information's secret police. Fortunately, she has a gift no-one else in her profession shares: the magical ability to shape shadows into forms that allow her to climb buildings, swing across gaps, and inflict quiet but fatal wounds.

The story quickly sketches out the Vordan capital, a place unseen in The Thousand Names which takes place entirely in Khandar, and gives the impression of a place with distinctly Parisian airs with wide boulevards and rational planning rubbing shoulders with medieval slums, all dominated by the decaying gothic ruin of the Sworn Cathedral. It also introduces, from the first, one of the principal villains of the series: Orlanko, the Last Duke and all-knowing Minister of Information, whose power is sufficiently great that the mere presence of his agents in Khandar is enough to unsettle the hardened soldiers of The Thousand Names.

Through the involvement of Orlanko's Concordat, we also get a crash course in magic and how it is viewed. By and large most people seem to see it as something that was once real but which has now vanished from the world along. Gone too, from popular view at least, are the Priests of the Black, ruthless destroyers of those they believe owe their powers to demonic possession, and their terrifying penitent damned — people who have accepted the eternal damnation of their soul in exchange for magical abilities which allow them to serve the greater goals of the church.

The Penitent Damned an interesting and effective short that could be read on its own, which probably works best when inserted between the two longer novels. This allows it to pave the way for The Shadow Campaign, which is also set in Vordan City and which also features both Orlanko and his underling Andreas, and also adds a nice level of significance to the ending without undermining anything in The Thousand Names.