Kushiel's Avatar

Kushiel’s Avatar- Jacqueline Carey

How I found this book: As with Kushiel’s Chosen, there was a huge plot whole left at the end of the last book that sort of needed to be addressed. Thus I assumed there was another.

Setting: Ten years after the events of last book, mostly in Darsanga, a land far away from Terre D’Ange, (in what in our world is Azerbaijan), as well as Saba, the mythical land where the Ark of the One God was taken for safe keeping, (in what is in our world Ethiopia).

Main Characters:

Phedre no Delauney, Comtesse de Montreve: After ten years of peace, Phedre is no less beautiful or prone to intrigue. She is called upon by her greatest enemy to do a favor for her, the price…the secret that might allow Phedre to set Hyacinthe free from the prison he’s been in for twelve years. All she is asked to do is to find Melisande’s missing son, Imriel. Phedre’s task proves to be much more than she ever bargained for, and will take her to the limits of her own nature and to the bounds of her love for Joscelin.

Joscelin Verreuil: Phedre’s constant companion and now her consort, he follows his vows and his love for her and goes with her to the darkest place in the world to rescue the child of a woman he has every cause to hate. This will task Joscelin as much as anyone, seeing Phedre in her element as Kushiel’s Dart in all it’s debasement, but he clings to the love he has for Phedre and remains her pillar as she attempts to rescue Melisande’s son from the hellish existence amongst the Drujan.

Imriel de la Courcel: The son of Melisande Sharhzai and Prince Benedicte de la Courcel, he is third in line for the throne of Terre D’Ange. He is hidden from Queen Ysandre for years in a Shrine to Elua in Siovale, ironically close to Phedre’s estates at Montreve. By an irony of fate, he is kidnapped by Carthaginian slavers and meant for the Menhket slave market, but is instead taken to Darsanga, where rule the bone priests of Angra Mainyu. He is meant to be a sacrifice to their dark god, but when Phedre arrives, she usurps his place. First angry at Phedre for her place as ‘Death’s Whore”, the Mahrkagir favorite, he begins to warm up to Phedre when he realizes his mother sent her, and then to depend on her for escape.

The Mahrkagir: The ruler of the Drujan, he was once one of the illegitimate children of the former ruler of Darsanga who led his people in an uprising against the Akkadians who ruled over the land. Just a boy, he watched as all the children and women of the zenana were slaughtered by the Akkadian forces, he himself only surviving because of a head wound that knocked him senseless but left him unharmed, save for the fact his pupils are unable to dilate and he must remain in darkness. This odd side effect, coupled with the fact that he was dug out of a pile of dead bodies causes the dark priests of the Angra Mainyu, the dark god/demons of Zorastrianism, to revere him and use him as a focal point for their own rise. Under the Mahrkagir, all the Magi, the priests of Ahura Mazhda, are overthrown and he creates a kingdom where all good thoughts, good words, and good deeds are replaced by their opposites. Everything is turned upside down; good is replaced by evil, life by death, light by dark. It is his goal to feed his dark god, Angra Mainyu and to offer the god something that is so perfect and pure that the god will help him and his minions take over the world.

The Aka-Magi or Skotophagotai: The bone prients of Angra Mainyu, they manipulate the situation created by the Mahrkagir, and use it to feed their own dark power. In any land they traverse, people quell from them in fear, and bad things happen to those unfortunate ones who cross their path.

Valerie L’Envers: The daughter of Duc Baraquiel L’Envers, and the wife of the heir to the throne of Kebbel-im-Akkhad, Valerie has little interest in seeing Imriel de la Courcel coming back from Drujan alive to threaten the throne of her cousin.

Hyacinthe: Phedre’s childhood friend, he is the new Master of the Straits, and is unable to break the curse that holds him to the island. It has been Phedre’s goal to break the curse that the Angel Rahab put on the island, and allow Hyacinthe to go free.


Plot: Ten years after saving the Queen’s life in La Serenissima, Phedre is happy and content with her consort, Joscelin. She has yet to discover the secret to freeing Hyacinthe, who has now fully become the Master of the Straits, and is desperate to do something to free him. As luck would have it, Melisande Sharhazai de le Courcel has the answer, but only at the price of discovering where her hidden son, Imriel, has been taken too. The boy was kidnapped, and not even Melisande’s extensive network of spies can find him, and his mother is frantic to get him back. Phedre does as she is asked, and is able to get the information to a land named Saba, where a race of Habiru escaped a thousand years before. It is where she might be able to find the Name of the One God, the one thing that would free Hyacinthe. But her dreams are haunted by the still missing Imriel, who has been taken to the mysterious land of Darsanga, where nothing is as it should be, and everyone fears it. Knowing it is the will of the gods themselves that she should go and rescue the boy, Phedre endeavors to rescue Imriel de la Courcel before it’s too late. The question is, is she still in time to save Hyacinthe?

Themes:

The Power of Love: More than just a cheesy lyric to a pop sing, love really does have power, both figuratively and literally in this book. Love is the driving force behind everyone’s actions in the book, Melisande’s love for her son, Phedre’s love for Hyacinthe, Joscelin’s love for Phedre, and Imriel’s love for Phedre and Joscelin and they for him. Love can make people do the craziest, most daring, stupidest, most impossible things. And sometimes it comes out all right in the end.

More than that, love can overcome quite a bit. Love has the ability to defeat the darkest, most hateful power on earth. Love can allow God to use an imperfect vessel for a great task. Love can overcome a curse cast by an angelic being. In all things, love is God, and perhaps that is why Blessed Elua, God’s grandson ordered his children to “Love as thou wilt.” Because in doing so, one sees the true nature of God.

The strength of the submissive: Phedre perhaps submits in things of passion, but by no means is she a submissive personality. Phedre is headstrong and stubborn and does what she has to, even if it nearly breaks her and those around her. While she might appear fragile and submissive, this ruse allows Phedre to work in ways that few people think or consider, thanks to her wits and her understanding of the nature of people. Being submissive in the moment only means that that she is bidding her time for the will of Kushiel to be done.

True friendship: Hyacinthe is Phedre’s oldest friend, and she his. Despite the years, she never once forgets him or her promise to free him from the curse that binds him to the island between Alba and Terre D’Ange. While her life has moved on, and he has found another who understands how he’s suffered the last twelve years, the two love each other with a bond that not even their respective partners can come between, not that they want to. While Hyacinthe and Phedre will never be together as lovers that bond between them is what keeps Hyacinthe and Phedre going even when it seems all hope is lost.

The love of a mother for her child: Who of thought that Melisande Sharhizai would love anything but her own political games. But it seems that even her cruel heart can be bent towards love for her own son, which is why she sends the only person she trusts to retrieve him without playing games with her. What Melisande never bargained for was that Phedre would love her son too, as the mother that Melisande never could be, and that she would die to protect Melisande’s son as surely as Melisande would. That love that Phedre has for this poor boy caught up in something not of his making is what gets Imriel out of the hell he is in. And it is what causes her to lay down her own life for the boy even when the one prize she has been seeking is within her grasp. Phedre’s love for Imriel would be the anchor the boy would latch himself on to as he returned to a world that he was unprepared for, and it will give Imriel in the future a foundation during the touch years of growing up.

The love of Joscelin and Phedre: Despite it all, through all the travails, the plots of Melisande, the degradation of Darsanga, the search for the true name of God, and the attempt to free Hyacinthe, Joscelin is at Phedre’s side, her Constant Companion, laying down his life for her and being the ‘compass by which she sets her heart’. Joscelin, steady, pragmatic, and true is the pillar for Phedre, and is what keeps her going when she fears all else will fail her. Though they started out as opposites, unable to stand each other, they have become equals and partners whose differences fit one another perfectly.


Every book sucks somewhere: It’s hard to pick anything that sucks about this book, of the first three Kushiel’s Legacy books, it is the best written. I would have to say if I could pick one sucky thing about the book; it would be that in the end, Hyacinthe isn’t the person he was, which is to be expected. What’s more, he doesn’t stay in Terre D’Ange, but goes to Alba, separating himself and Phedre. While it is understandable as their lives have diverged so wildly in the 12 years he’s been imprisoned by the Master of the Straits, you can’t help but feel a bit sad that the Prince of Travelers and the Queen of Courtesans don’t have a happier ending. But still, there is that bond between them that not even their respective mates can come in between, and it’s a good thing their mates understand that.

What did I like: Most everything, but in particular I loved the deepening of Joscelin and Phedre’s relationship. The first two books spent so much time hashing out the clashes and differences between the two that it is nice to see a book where they’ve learned to accept one another for what they are and that they are able to see those ‘differences’ as strengths now. If they didn’t have each other, I don’t think either of them could function nearly as well as they do.

I also liked the character of Imriel, who in so many ways is his mother’s son but her exact opposite. He has her intellect and her perception, but he has something his mother never had, which is a heart. While I think that is part of the reason Melisande had him raised where he was, (of course outside of her own schemes for the boy), Imriel cares for people in a manner that Melisande never has been able to do for anyone save her own son. And I think that makes Imriel such an interesting counterbalance to his own mother, a true scion of Kushiel, one who understands both justice and mercy, one who understand both punishment and love. Having been on both ends of the spectrum lends Imriel a perspective on life that his scheming mother will never have.

How would I rate this wormy book: I would rate this one a MONSTER worm. There is a warning, some of the scenes in Darsanga are not for the squeamish, but there is a reason for it. However, despite the sweep of the story, it isn’t nearly as scattered as Kushiel’s Chosen, and it is a story with more depth at its heart I think even than Kushiel’s Dart. It is a wonderful close to the story of Phedre and Joscelin, and sets us up for the next series, which has Imriel as its focus.