Stone 22

**Chapter 22**

We now learn Adie's backstory, which I'm sure everyone has been clamoring for. Adie was born in the town of Choora, in the country of Nicobarese, and her grandmother was a sorceress. In Nicobarese, spellcasters are *“loathed and distrusted,”* since magic is thought to come from both God and Satan. Wait, what? Isn't that supposed to be “from Satan?” If the Nicobareseians acknowledge the magic can come from God...oh, screw it.

Incidentally, I've always wondered how witch-hunts would work in a world with actual magical powers. How effective would Cotten Mather have been if some of those old women really *could* conjure up demons or hurl hellfire? I have a hard time imagining a bunch of ill-trained farmers doing well against, say, Gandalf or Raistlin, or even Harry Potter. It would be interesting to see a fantasy story that explains this: how a bunch of non-magical mortals could successfully wage a campaign against actual witches and wizards.

But that would require thought. And research. And a basic understanding of the fantasy genre. \~/

Blah blah. Our word for the day is “baneling.” A baneling is one who secretly serves the Keeper; in short, a Satanist. Sorceresses in Nicobarese were persecuted as banelings (no mention of sorcerers, though). I will be using “Satanist” instead of “baneling” hereafter.

We learn about Adie's sad childhood. In brief, she was never taught to use her powers, because sorceresses had to swear a “soul oath” not to use magic without the permission of the government. One day Li'l Adie instinctively used magic to saved a little girl from a burning house. Her grandmother punished her and shaved her head (remember, a woman's hair length is a sign of her social status) until she reached womanhood. Granny also made Li'l Adie swear the soul oath, which was as follows” *“I swear **on my hope of salvation**, **never to use the gift on another, for any reason, without the permission of the king or one of his circles, and upon forfeit of my soul to the Keeper, should I ever use the gift to harm another.” (bolding mine).***

“Salvation,” eh? What salvation? This implies some sort of Christian-inspired divine salvation, but there's no context for it. Does this imply that the unsaved will go to hell when they die? I want to rant about this more, but there's literally **no information!** \~/\~/

Anyway, Li'l Adie grew up and Granny taught her how to use magic. Eventually Adie fell in love with a young man named Pell, but the eeeevil king's circle of Choora, lead by a guy named Mathrin, wanted to marry her off to the son of the next town's mayor. A “king's circle” is apparently a council or similar governing body; I mention this now because it's never explained in the text.

Apparently Adie *“was a prize to the people of Choora. Having a sorceress bonded to a people by her oath was seen as a sign of virtue of those people.”* Which makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. According to Adie, sorceresses in Nicotiana were regarded as Satanists, and Adie herself was shaved bald and publicly whipped for blasphemously using magic to save a little girl's life. And yet, she somehow goes from “hated social pariah” to “valuable bargaining chip.” This is utter garbage that exists only to set up the next angsty chapter in Adie's angsty backstory. \~/\~/

Adie married Pell and they were happy for three months. Then the Blood of the Fold intervened! The Blood, we're told, are a band of professional Satanist-hunters: *“In the larger cities of Nicobarese, the Blood of the Fold were an organized group of men who hunted banelings; rooted out evil, as they saw it. In other lands, there were men like them, who went by other names,* [note: we will never meet any of them] *but they were the same. None were especially picky about proof. A corpse was the only proof they need show of their job well done. If they said the body was that of a baneling, then it was. In the smaller towns, the Blood were usually self-appointed thugs and toughs.”*

“Self-appointed thugs and toughs?” What? Shouldn't that be “self-appointed lawmen” or “self-appointed guardians of morality?” \~/

And...wait a minute. The Blood are implied to wander around murdering sorceresses because they're Teh Ebil. But...weren't we just told that a sorceress is a valuable commodity, and indicates how awesome the town is where she lives?

Stupid book. \~/

So the Blood are our Generic Inquisition-Style Witch Hunters, a la the Children of Light from the Wheel of Time series. They do not seem to be affiliated with any church, largely because *there are no churches!* They seem to be widely feared, which makes me wonder why the rulers of Nicorette allow them to exist. Large, well-armed organizations are often frowned upon by the government, especially ones with a habit of murdering citizens.

I suppose it goes without saying that we never learn why they call themselves “the Blood of the Fold.” What blood? What fold? Again, it sounds vaguely Christian (blood of Christ; fold = sheepfold, protecting the flock) but it's not elaborated upon. This seems to be a drawback to being Too Good for Religion: your pseudo-religious writings come across as shallow and superficial.

To shorten an unpleasant story, the Blood, lead by Mathrin, captured Adie and Pell and tortured them, trying to get each to either confess to being (or confess that the other was) a Satanist. Of course, both refused. Adie also refused to fight them with her magic because *“it would have been blasphemy against the Creator.”* The Blood finally convinced Pell that Adie had betrayed him, then murdered him and blinded her. Adie finally cut loose and killed them all except Mathrin, who somehow escaped.

More exposition. The king sent more Blood of the Fold after Adie, and she killed them all except for Mathrin. Him she enchanted so he had to come to her every new moon, at which time she *“cut something off him, letting his screams try to fill the emptiness in me.”*

Our heroine, Adie. \~/

I have to say, I've got no problem with heroes who kill their enemies. I don't even mind heroes who kill their enemies in creative, poetically appropriate ways (Inigo Montoya is awesome). What I have a problem with is “heroes” who slowly torture their enemies to death over a period of at least seven months (it's not specifically stated, but Zedd mentions having met the guy, and he was missing all the fingers on one hand and both eyes). Yes, he was a terrible person, and yes, Adie was justified in taking vengeance, but the slow, sadistic nature of it overwhelms any sympathy I might have had.

Anyway, Adie de Sade eventually decided to end the enchantment forcing Mathrin to come to her every new moon. Her reasoning was that she had never used magic to keep him from killing himself, so there must be a reason he endured her endless torture rather than commit suicide. He came back next month even without being magically compelled, so Adie used magic to discover his worst fear, then collected *“the little cages and the other things.”* Since she very specifically doesn't say what Mathin's worst fear was, I'm going to assume it was hamsters.

Adie asks what Mathrin's secret is, that makes him keep coming back to her. He refuses to talk, so she tortures him with hamsters for a while. \~/ Eventually, Mathrin reveals his secret: *he is a Satanist!* Astonishing, isn't it?

Mathrin reveals that he set the fire when Adie was little, he tortured Pell, he killed that fat barkeep. It was all part of some Xanatos gambit to corrupt Adie to the Dark Side.

Yeah. This Mathrin guy starting plotting to corrupt Adie when she was *a child.* He took *decades* to carry out this plan – the corruption of one lone sorceress – including willingly allowing himself to be tortured and slowly dismembered over a period of months. All to turn one sorceress evil. Uh-huh. \~/\~/

Mathrin then dies of hamsters. Back in the present, Adie angsts about having turned to the Dark Side, Zedd reassures her that she hasn't (I notice he doesn't say anything about the months of torture). Zedd assures Adie that *“You are no Baneling, dear lady,”* and I have no idea why “baneling” is suddenly capitalized.

Now that Zedd has whitewashed away Adie's brutal torture of Mathrin, she launches into an infodump on skrin. Skrin are *“guardian beasts to the underworld...they guard in both directions.”* They sort of *are* the boundary, according to Adie: they're solid monsters on the normal world side, and a force (they're compared to gravity) on the underworld side. The point of this is that Adie and Zedd each have a skrin bone, and carrying a skrin bone hide you from the skrin.

We learn that Adie decided to live near the pass through the boundary for two reasons. The first that she hoped the presence of the boundary would somehow hide her from Satan. The second is that she swore an oath that she would contact Pell and tell him she never betrayed him...so I guess she was trying to summon ghosts up through the boundary. Seems like an odd way to hide from Satan, but there you go.

Oh, and Adie still thinks of herself as a Satanist. I might call this unnecessary angst, but given that she tortured a man to death with hamsters, a certain amount of guilt is good, I think. She tells Zedd that she has *“done worse than a man like you can understand.”* This is Zedd's cue to tell *his* Tragic Backstory and what a terrible, terrible person he is.

To make it brief: Zedd had a wife, and Panis Rahl sent a quad that killed her in some unspeakable way, possibly involving hamsters. Zedd is implied to have tortured them to death (*“What I did to each of them would make whatever you did to Mathrin seem a lark.”* So I guess he used gerbils). Since Zedd couldn't get at Panis Rahl himself, he attacked his armies *“For each man you killed, Adie, I killed a thousand. Even my own side feared me. I was the wind of death.”* Zedd then cast a death spell on his unnamed daughter to make Panis Rahl believe she was dead. Blah blah blah, Rahl raped his daughter, her son was Richard.

Zedd finally convinces Adie that, if she stays where she is and does nothing, she will be aiding Satan. She agrees to come to Aydindril with him, and he promises to help her find a way to contact Pell.

Whew. That took a while.

Drinks: 12

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