There comes a point in Ian C. Esslemont’s newest Malazan book, Forge of the High Mage, when the Elder being Nightchill turns to the human mage Tayschrenn and tells him: “You Malazans will have to be careful now; you’re entering into a larger world.” And that pretty much sums up the main shift, or more accurately one of the main shifts, that takes place in High Mage, the fourth in the series of prequels leading up to the main sequence of Malazan novels.
That main sequence, set in a world co-created by Esslemont and Steven Erikson, comprises sixteen novels: ten by Erikson (The Malazan Book of the Fallen) and six by Esslemont (Novels of the Malazan Empire), though once one throws in ongoing prequel series and standalone novellas, the series is now up to well over twenty books, nearly half being of 800+ pages. The sheer amount of material—combined with the series’ reputation (somewhat overstated, I’d argue) for being fiercely difficult thanks to an immense cast of characters, the number of sprawling plots and subplots, and a definite lack of narrative handholding—means that it is often viewed as one of the most intimidating peaks amongst the mountain range of contemporary fantasy, more K2 than Catskills.
That said, Esslemont has always been the more straightforward and streamlined of the two authors (his novels weigh in at 500 pages rather than 1000—it’s all relative), and if the general consensus has him as also less honed in his craft than Erikson at the outset, at least the reader wasn’t struggling through two or three massive tomes while he worked out the kinks. In fact, one of the pleasures of reading those earlier works was experiencing his improvement book to book, particularly with regard to pacing and structure (characterization was always his strong point). By the midpoint of the main sequence, Esslemont was clearly a polished author, and this prequel series, Path to Ascendancy, stands as his best, most consistent work to date.
And so to the latest, Forge of the High Mage. Whereas in the earlier Path to Ascendancy books we’ve mostly watched the Old Guard Malazans meeting each other and organizing their early attempts at empire-building in a relatively narrow band of geography and human action, in this latest volume they step out onto a far greater stage, catching the notice of, and/or interacting directly with, their world’s great ancient powers—the “Elder Races” in the series’ terminology—such as the K’Chain Che’Malle and Tiste Andii. That’s not to say the empire-building isn’t important in these books; the inciting incident for Forge after all is a planned invasion of an archipelago. But while that invasion kicks off the novel and continues to its conclusion, it’s more than a little sidetracked by that aforementioned interaction.
Forge’s plot can pretty much be summed up in a single (admittedly long) sentence: The Malazans begin a land/sea invasion of Falar, the land element of which is interrupted by discovery of an ancient K’Chain hover-city that threatens widespread devastation, leading to an unlikely alliance of old friends, old enemies, and newly met strangers who try to stop it. For the Empire we have the Emperor, Kellanved; his partner, co-ruler, and uber-assassin Dancer; High Mage Tayschrenn and fellow mages Nightchill and Hairlock; and Kellanved’s high-ranking military officers Cartheron, Dujek, and Dassem. From outside the Empire the alliance includes Ullara, high priestess of the Jhek (an indigenous and newly encountered race of shapeshifters); Bellurdan, a mage of the giant Thelomen race, age-old blood-enemies of the Jhek; and several members of the Crimson Guard, a mercenary company that has long fought the Empire’s advance. Other important characters are a group of treasure-seekers (particularly Turnagin and Hessa), Gianna (high priestess of the sea god Mael), and the corrupt, power-hungry priest of Mael, Mallick Rel. Rel is everyone’s favorite Malazan character to hate, thanks to how in the main sequence he seems always to escape unscathed from every fraught situation his devious actions and multiple betrayals have created (he does so usually by leaving a series of bodies behind).
Despite this unwieldy case, the plot is fast-paced—I happily sped through the book in a single sitting—and also relatively streamlined, despite being conveyed through a host of smoothly handled POVs. Along the way we get several wonderful set scenes—a vividly depicted large-scale battle between the Jhek and the Malazan army, a compellingly formalized series of duels, a suspenseful one-against-many fight in the surf, a powerful mage face-off, a joyfully sweet encounter with one of my favorites in the Malazan pantheon of gods (unrecognized as such by the character who meets him), and the kind of witty banter, sharp dialogue, laugh-out-loud scenes, and Kellanved-befuddles-the-onlookers moments that pepper the Malazan series. It all flows smoothly and naturally, while the ticking-bomb facet of the hover-city threat adds a nice sense of urgency.
I mentioned above that the Malazans entering the world of the Elders was only one of the novel’s main threads. The other is the source of the title: the “forging” of the magic-user Tayschrenn into the High Mage readers of the later books know he will become. If Forge is anyone’s story it’s his: he’s the one with the largest character arc in terms of fundamental change—in power, in personality, in worldview. At the novel’s start, he faces two issues: his relatively weak wielding of power and his distance from the other Malazans. With regard to the former, Nightchill tells him early on: “You approach magery too intellectually. There is another side to it. One you seem afraid of. … Push yourself. Go as far as you dare and then onwards. … Because there is something there. I have sensed it.” As for the latter, observing a group of soldiers, he thinks:
It wasn’t that he wanted their friendship—by the gods, no—yet … something. He identified a deep-down longing that would not go away. What he wished for, he realized, was their respect. How pedestrian and insipid. Yet there it was … How, then, did one go about achieving such a thing?
Throughout the rest of the novel we watch him level up, step-by-step, as he is forced to draw ever more on his power, moving beyond intellect to “[r]age and passion. All the shrieking corporeal demands that he thought beneath him.” By the end, he is, as one character observes, “High Mage in truth” as opposed to simply wearing the title. It is a truth he himself recognizes: “now at peace with his own self-doubts and constant second-guessing … [h]e was the master who would use these resources as he would—come what may.” As to whether he comes better to understand how to interact with regular folks, I’ll leave that a mystery.
This thread is made interesting even to non-readers of the rest of the series by how Tayschrenn’s rise up the magical abilities scale is paralleled by an accordant sinking down into the gamesmanship and politics of those jockeying for position and rank, raising the question of whether it is possible to ever gain power free of taint. Tayschrenn’s journey, then, adds a nice level of thematic and character depth as well as some welcome humor to such a plot-heavy novel. Still, it is at times a bit methodically trod, a tad bluntly stated (“[this] meant that he too was now playing the game. This saddened him …”): Tayschreen’s development proceeds one clear step down at a time, like descending a ladder into a pool. Nevertheless, the plotline remained one of my favorite elements of the novel, thanks to its inverse symmetry with the rest of the plot—and the slow blossoming of Tayschrenn into the character we see throughout the main sequence.
Esslemont explores multiple other themes, many that will be familiar to longtime Malazan readers. Imperialism in action is one (as Dancer says at the start: “Expand. Expand or die. It’s the nature of the beast”). Esslemont doesn’t shy away from questioning both its methods and impact, for all that those doing the expanding are the protagonists. During a council meeting on how to deal with the indigenous Fenn, Tayschrenn asks Sialle, a Seti shamaness newly part of the Malazan mage cadre, if she thinks the Fenn will “listen to reason.” Rooted in her own culture’s recent conquering by the Malazans, her response is biting:
Ah yes, your reason. We Seti know all about your Malazan reasonableness. And the Talians before you. All you outsiders. You claim our hunting territory, our pasturage for your farms. And when your sheep or cows wander onto our lands and we eat them because we are starving you take even more lands as reparations. After all, that’s only reasonable, yes? And when our villages or people are attacked, we defend ourselves—yet we are jailed or hunted for murder. More of your reasonableness, yes? … For my part, I pray to all the gods that the Fenn remain ignorant of your self-serving reason.
It’s not only the Malazans’ enemies who question the Empire’s acts, though. Even some of the Malazans themselves evince discomfort with the Empire’s directed violence. Tayschrenn, considering how to deal with a potential threat, thinks, “Was it hostile? Overtly hostile? … It had to be dealt with regardless. It was too close to Malazan lands. Or, perhaps more accurately, Malazan territory was advancing too close to it.” Later, Sialle does manage to convince Dujek to back off from further violence after defeating the Jhek:
”Track them down,” [Dujek] was saying … “Find their lair, or home …”
“Perhaps we have done enough,” Sialle called as she approached. “You have delivered your lesson, Fist.”
“Can’t leave them behind us,” he answered gruffly.
“And what will you do with the children and the elders? What of Malazan justice and forbearance?” She pointed to the corpses. “Is this not blood enough for you? …”
“We’re trespassing on their land, that’s true. Blundering through. But they chose how to respond, what to offer. We merely reacted to their choice … You have a point about the bloodshed though. I don’t like it either. So, I’ll give the order for no more hostilities. But we have to drive them off.”
If Dujek sees the violence as a necessary evil to be avoided if possible, Cartheron goes further, questioning even the “necessary” part after witnessing the atrocities committed by the pirates whom the Emperor hired to initiate the Falar sea invasion:
What was Kellanved thinking here? This was no way to win over any people …
Creel came to him, shaking his head. “Cruel—but ya gotta rule by force, hey? Gotta show ‘em they’re a conquered people. The rule of strength.”
“This is strength, is it?” Cartheron muttered.
Even compassionate, kind-hearted Dancer isn’t immune to imperialism’s corrupting influence, as when he blithely informs Ullara that the Emperor is magnanimously “leav[ing] these lands in your hands.” Noting his blind spot, her reply is no less sharp than Sialle’s early response to Tayschrenn: “I do not think these lands are yours to give or take.” I appreciated being able to sink into some serious exploration of this topic and found myself wishing for more of Sialle and Ullara’s points of view.
It’s worth noting that the novel’s consideration of imperialism goes still further: an idea that crops up repeatedly is that those who write histories control history. Tayschrenn notes that, “Kellanved seemed to collect historians the way other rulers collected mistresses.” We see why when Dancer and Kellanved debate the failed invasion of Korel:
“Greymane is not to blame for our failure,” Dancer cut in …
“But he must be, dear Dancer. I can’t possibly be. That’s what historians are for.”
We even see this play out in real time, thanks to one such imperial historian who, since he is in the right place at the right time, gets to craft the “real truth” of the moment (let’s just say it is neither), though I won’t spoil the humor by detailing the scene here.
Despite this apparent hegemony and avowed partisanship, the seeming inability of people to put group interest ahead of individual ones is another theme, conveyed via the way apparently monolithic groups are constantly riven by infighting. For the Malazans, we see this immediately, when Kellanved is forced to call a meeting due to internal disagreement over the next stage of empire-building, and then again when at the meeting we first meet Surly this way: “Surly stood to one side.” This is a physical positioning that foreshadows later events both in Forge and down the road in the main series. Later, Tayschrenn worries that “the growing mutual suspicion and paranoia among the top echelon was beginning to be a concern.” The later split amongst the Crimson Guard, meanwhile, is also foreshadowed by several conversations, including this early one:
[Jacinth] shook her thick mane of reddish hair. “Skinner wouldn’t touch this.”
“But Shimmer would,” Blues answered.
Likewise, Ullara is constantly battling to get the Jhek to stop their infighting. And one major plot point is how the original religion of Mael was co-opted and corrupted, turned to a means of power, and then even amongst those doing the corrupting. Backstabbing (literally in some cases) is rife. Even the Tiste Andii, one of the most ancient and powerful races in his world (they are nigh on immortal), are shown to have their own internal issues as they float aloof above the world in their flying city/fortress. In this novel, power is sought after and gained, but it’s like sand running through the characters’ fingers: they are always undermining each other so that any one person or group that attains power stands only on shaky ground.
This constant push-pull between the group and the individual complicates the stance toward empire that has always been a nuanced one in this universe, perhaps stemming from Esslemont and Erikson’s work as archaeologists trained to take the long view, accept cultures as they exist, and recognize the constant ebb and flow of humanity’s creations. These novels express the idea that all is ephemeral: that grand empires, like grand buildings, all eventually fall. Archaeologists are also trained to try and see their sites and artifacts as remnants not simply of “culture” but of actual persons who were not simply living out their lives as representations of a group.
So across the series we see both the good and the ugly of the Empire. We’re shown how the Malazan Empire brings order and stability, stamps out evils like slavery and blood sacrifices, more widely distributes the benefits of the economy as compared to the prior warlords and kings. It mostly allows local cultures generally to govern themselves and worship or act as they will. This is no clear-cut argument in favor of empire, then: for the books, as conveyed so vividly here in Forge, also make sure we see with open eyes how the benefits of the Empire are built upon oppression, subjugation, military force, and wholesale slaughter.
Taken together with the focus on the internal divisions that flow from differing individual viewpoints and aims, it’s possible that the argument being made is that systems, being soulless and conscienceless, will always spawn both succor and horror, benefit and harm. They can do nothing else. Lacking a mind, a system is unaware of whatever it currently brings: lacking a heart, lacking empathy, it doesn’t care to be aware and wouldn’t care if it were. What may balance that out is individual action and intentionality within the system. And here the Malazan books are much more clear on their stance: those who display empathy and compassion will always be painted in a better light (though they, too, have their own flaws or bad days). Hope, therefore, doesn’t lie in the “benefits of empire,” and it certainly doesn’t lie in those like Mallick Rel or Hairlock, who see the power of the Empire only as a means to personal benefit. Instead, what hope there is in these novels lies in the attempt by Dujek to do no more harm than is absolutely necessary, in the agonized reaction of Cartheron to atrocity, and in the passionate, righteous anger of Sialle and how she refuses to let people with power close their eyes to the tangible harm their power has wrought—or ignore their responsibility to ameliorate that harm.