{"id":33424,"date":"2016-10-14T06:30:16","date_gmt":"2016-10-13T17:30:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/?p=33424"},"modified":"2016-10-13T22:07:52","modified_gmt":"2016-10-13T09:07:52","slug":"artifacts-of-power-in-the-wall-of-night-series","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2016\/10\/14\/artifacts-of-power-in-the-wall-of-night-series\/","title":{"rendered":"Artifacts Of Power in “The Wall Of Night” Series"},"content":{"rendered":"

I thought\u00a0this one was going to be so-o<\/em> easy and quick, but then I started counting…<\/p>\n

OK, just to recap on context, on Monday I posted<\/a> on what imho is the great Fantasy tradition of \u201celves with soul-sucking swords\u201d, a topic that morphed into a more general reflection on artifacts of power in the genre.<\/p>\n

So then I thought I\u2019d better check out the extent to which I\u2019ve honoured these traditions in The Wall Of Night<\/a> series. Yesterday I looked at \u201celves\u201d and \u201csoul-sucking swords\u201d<\/a>; today I\u2019m focusing on artifacts of power.<\/p>\n

So that’s what you need to know first: no swords! Now onward to all those other<\/em> artifacts of power.<\/p>\n

\"USA\"<\/a>

USA<\/p><\/div>\n

The “Arms of Yorindesarinen”<\/strong> — Yorindesarinen is the single most famous hero in the Derai pantheon and when she died her arms, namely Nhenir, the “moonbright helm”, the frostfire sword* (which you heard about yesterday), and the Shield of Stars (aka the Shield of Heaven) were lost. (Or lost themselves in at least two out of the three cases…)<\/p>\n

As The Heir of Night<\/a><\/em> readers, in particular, will know, the “arms” also include an armband that connects the wearer (Malian) to the power of the weapons.<\/p>\n

Like yesterday’s “black blades”, the armband also comes with its own rhyme:<\/p>\n

“I move between worlds and time,<\/em>
\nI seek out the hidden, the lost I find.”<\/em><\/p>\n

The Token, aka the Black-Pearl Ring<\/strong> — this artifact, too, provides a bridge between its bearer (Kalan) and another power, in this case the wild hunt—known as the Hunt of Mayanne—that weaves its way through the ongoing story. But as well as the hunt, the ring\u00a0 is also connected to a weapon of power, the Great Spear (or spears, since there seems to be more than one…)<\/p>\n

\"USA\"<\/a>

USA<\/p><\/div>\n

The Great Spear aka the Black Spear(s)<\/strong> — the “great spear” is tied to the token and its bearer. It made a cameo appearance in The Heir of Night<\/em> and returned to play a more significant role in Daughter of Blood<\/em><\/a>. It’s also one of the family of Black Spears, which are closely related to yesterday’s “black blades”. Another black spear also featured, to some purpose, in The Heir of Night…<\/em><\/p>\n

The Web of Mayanne<\/strong> — speaking of artifacts of power tied to the Token and the Hunt of Mayanne, which make a first appearance (not cameo) in The Heir of Night<\/em> and return to play a more significant role in Daughter of Blood<\/em><\/a>, brings me straight to the tapestry known as the Web of Mayanne.<\/p>\n

It was made by a god and binds the wild hunt—significant to the WALL story much? You betcha.<\/p>\n

\"UK\/AU\/NZ<\/a>

UK\/AU\/NZ<\/p><\/div>\n

There’s also a sorcerer’s (Nirn’s) wand<\/strong> or baton<\/strong> that first appears in The Gathering of the Lost<\/em><\/strong><\/a>, but features in Daughter<\/em> too; as well as a walking stick<\/strong> with eyes (that belongs to a Mistress Ise), and a mirror<\/strong> that has a lot to answer for…<\/p>\n

In the best tradition, too, some of these artifacts are far from good, while others are downright evile.<\/p>\n

All in all, though, they add up to a reasonable number of artifacts of power — and provide plenty of scope for having fun with epic fantasy. \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n

PS Feel free to remind me if I’ve missed any!<\/p>\n

*I know I said \"no swords\" but since it's part of the arms I feel \r\nthe frost-fire sword must at least be 'tagged', so to speak.<\/pre>\n
 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I thought\u00a0this one was going to be so-o easy and quick, but then I started counting… OK, just to recap on context, on Monday I posted on what imho is the great Fantasy tradition of \u201celves with soul-sucking swords\u201d, a topic that morphed into a more general reflection on artifacts of power in the genre. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33424","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-about-my-books","category-epicfantasy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33424","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33424"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33424\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33436,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33424\/revisions\/33436"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33424"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33424"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33424"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}