![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
masterghandalfThis is a repost from Das_sporking2. Previous installments of this sporking may be found here.
Warning: This chapter contains some violence, deaths and squicky moments.
MG: Well, everyone, it’s time to wrap up our journey through Ed Greenwood’s Cloak of Shadows, second volume of his Shadow of the Avatar trilogy! So far, we’ve learned all about how awesome Elminster is (yaaay…) how all the Malaugrym are evil monsters who deserve to die (even those who aren’t) and Sharantyr, Belkram and Itharr have bumbled around making fools of themselves without a whole lot to show for it. Today, we’ll wrap the story up and see if the journey’s been worth it (spoilers: it hasn’t). Joining us once again will be Errezha and Calassara!
Chapter Twenty-One: Shadows Cloak, But Make a Better Shroud
Errezha: *muttering* I’d like to wrap this book in a shroud, and then bury it somewhere I never had to see it again… And so, we open still in The Castle of Shadows, Kythorn 20, with Sharantyr struggling against the shadows that bind her and managing to wiggle slightly free, while the surrounding Malaugrym laugh mockingly at her and Olorn was sending another tentacle her way with taunting slowness while musing about what part of her he wants to play with next. Greenwood… you are not making this sound less sexual, or disturbing. As the Malaugrym yell out suggestions Sharantyr closes her eyes, thinking that she’d never dreamed that dying could be this bad, or this slow. By the sounds of it, midair surgery could go on for days, if they kept her – parts of her – alive with their spells. Which is, again, disturbing and Greenwood seems to be putting far, far too much thought into this, but even so… has Sharantyr really never imagined something like this could happen, considering what we’ve learned this very book about the horrors she’s already endured?
Calassara: Oh, you think Greenwood would actually remember that? That’s uncharacteristically optimistic of you, Errezha! Suddenly, the tentacle in her mouth quivered – no, shuddered and Greenwood, stop it – as Olorn screams. Sharantyr manages to look up to see a glowing blue sword, held in ghostly hands flashing in midair, cutting Olorn to pieces. He withdraws his tentacle and tries to shapeshift out of the way, but to no avail. Pieces of the Malaugrym, great writhing lumps, rained down onto the floor in flames. Well, I can’t say he didn’t have it coming, but even so… *she shudders theatrically* The other Malaugrym start casting spells at the entity holding the sword – none other than Sylune herself! She flits around the room, using the sword to turn the attackers’ spells back on them, as Olorn finally dies and drops Sharantyr to the floor. Meanwhile, the two Harpers are also struggling back to their feet, while the “sword” that Olorn had trapped reveals itself to be an illusion as it vanishes; Sylune has the real thing. With the room already in bloody chaos now, Sylune transmutes Sharantyr, Belkram and Itharr’s daggers to silver, and they plunge into the fray, stabbing Malaugrym who get too close.
Errezha: *rolling her eyes* And so it seems Greenwood will end this book as is his wont, with lots of bloodletting and our heroes confronting antagonists who don’t actually challenge them at all. Why should I expect any different? Sharantyr starts furious hacking and slicing at any Malaugrym within reach, while apparently letting out all the rage she’s felt ever since she saw “Elminster” die. *she sighs and rubs her forehead* Sharantyr, you saw Elminster’s image die. Elminster is fine. Sylune, who was puppeteering that body, is also fine. You know this full well and always did. But apparently seeing the mere likeness of Elminster killed is enough to provoke such murderous rage, and it’s presented as entirely rational and justified that it does. Why am I not surprised? But suddenly, the room is rocked by a flash of light as Milhvar himself appears in its center, declaring things have gone far enough. He unleashes his prepared spells, blasting everyone, human or Malaugrym, into the walls – everyone, that is, except for the incorporeal Sylune, who hurls her sword at him. But Milhvar, proving himself to have a marginally greater level of competence than the average Greenwood character, sees it coming and teleports himself away, switching places with another Malaugrym mage, Iyritar, who is skewered and flailed his hands about vainly, clawing at the air in his agony.
MG: Iyritar has been mentioned… all of once before this, by my reckoning. And do note that Milhvar seems to be using a spell here that Elminster himself has gotten a fair bit of mileage out of, especially in Making of a Mage (I’d think Milhvar could teleport himself out of harm’s way without needing to sacrifice one of his own people, but I guess that wouldn’t be evil enough).
Calassara: …but of course. Well, from his new position Milhvar starts weaving another spell, as the rangers get up from where they were blasted and charge at him. Suddenly, Sylune vanishes, and then we get this lovely description of the spell Milhvar was casting.
Iyritar’s gore was on fire, blazing with scarlet flames as it sprayed from the dying Malaugrym’s body and spread out to form a sphere of blood around the sorcerer’s limp form, with the blade of Mystra lodged in it. In seconds the sphere was complete. Milhvar wiped sweat from his brow and visibly relaxed.
Calassara: Well. That was… horrible. *to Errezha, in an aside* Is this the sort of thing your family gets up to, by chance? Mihlvar smiles and conjures a wall of force to protect him from the rangers, and then declares that without the sword, they’re stuck here, to become our playthings or slaves – or carrion, if you prefer. But, as he continues speaking, Sylune reappears behind him. She manages to thrust her hand into the conjured sphere, and though doing so appears to cause her agony, it was the sphere that moaned, oh my. Milhvar doesn’t even look and just tells someone named Argast to sop trying to get the sword, as the spell blocks Malaugrym as well as mortals, and then starts stalking towards the rangers, using the wall of force to shove them backwards, completely oblivious to what’s happening behind him. *applauds sarcastically* Wonderful job, oh great Shadowmaster! Meanwhile, Sylune, with more effort and more apparent agony, finally manages to wrench the sword free. She falls backwards but manages to weakly point at Milhvar.
In silent obedience the blade leapt across the chamber and burst through the heart of Milhvar of the Malaugrym.
Errezha: …and so it seems that’s it for Milhvar, then. What a pity; he actually seemed to have some potential. I know I shouldn’t be surprised any more when Greenwood squanders his antagonists… and yet somehow, I still am. Milhvar collapses, protesting Not… when I have… the Cloak… as he flickers in and out of visibility. Sylune speaks a word of power, and the sword suddenly bursts into blue flames. Milhvar continues to fade in and out of view, but the flames keep consuming him no matter what he does, and then at last he vanishes completely, leaving only the flames behind – flames that rose and rose hungrily, outlining an upright human form at the last as they roared into a hungry pillar that parted the shadows and ate through the ceiling and kept on burning away shadows, like mist parting before the hot sun. And then we cut to Milhvar’s chambers, where a pillar of white fire flickers and vanishes, releasing Elminster’s fake head. The head chuckles, says, Done, then? Well done, I should say! And then vanishes. And, by the Prince and all the Lords of the Nine, does he mean that Milhvar himself is “well done” because he just died by burning? I fear he did… and now I want to hurt something. Preferably Elminster.
MG: And so… first off, Argast, that Malaugrym Milhvar referenced. He’s been mentioned before but hasn’t been important or done anything. He’ll have a bigger role in All Shadows Fled. Second… Milhvar. I really do have to agree that Greenwood wasted Milhvar. He actually got a decent build up, for a Greenwood villain, and actually managed to make it from the beginning of the book that introduced him until the end, which so few of them manage. We got to see him create the Cloak, manipulate a bunch of the other Malaugrym, including Dhalgrave, into helping him test it, actually managed to capture (a form of) Elminster… in other words, he’s genuinely powerful and rather cunning, even if some of the shilling of him as the “true Shadowmaster High” and such isn’t actually borne out by the text. And then here, at the end of the story, he just sort of… hits a brick wall and dies, very suddenly. We never even learn much about what he actually planned to do with the Cloak, or what his ultimate ambitions were! And while we’re not quite done with his legacy yet, he’ll only end up getting a handful of mentions by name in All Shadows Fled. It really feels like Greenwood just suddenly got bored with the character and decided to throw him away, jettisoning all the buildup in the process.
Calassara: Greenwood. Why. We cut back to the battle, where Sylune (who is apparently barefoot – can she even appear in different outfits, I wonder?) asks the rangers if they’re all right. Belkram thinks they should ask her that, since they can see right through her (she’s a ghost… a believe that’s normal), and Sylune insists that since she’s a lady, she gets to ask first. I… don’t think I’ve heard that rule before, but since at this point I just want this book done, I’ll not press the issue. The rangers all say they’re whole, and Sylune is glad, since she still has some work to do. She casts a telekinesis spell on the sword (what, another one? I thought she already had, considering what she just did to Milhvar!) and settles down next to Belkram as she sends the sword shooting down towards the Hall of Stars. It stabs into a wall, melts through it, and keeps going, repeating the process as needed, while Itharr exclaims that she’s burning the whole Castle. *crossly* If the castle is so fragile that the ghost of one witch with a magic sword can destroy it… I can’t say much for Malaug’s construction, or Dhalgrave’s maintenance. The rangers scramble up, with Sylune warning Belkram not to let her fall, since the shadows are plenty solid to her, but tells them to follow the sword, which can protect them from the Malaugrym.
Errezha: And so, the rangers do as she says, watching as the entire Hall of Stars comes apart and then a distant tower falls as they go; Sharantyr asks Sylune not to destroy it all, and Sylune at least admits she has limits, as she says they don’t have time for that.
I am going to ruin the Great Hall of the Throne, though, and carve up the Shadow Throne. I want the Malaugrym to know that they were defeated this day, not just that some lucky humans got loose and managed to do some damage while escaping.
Errezha: …and I’ll note the humans in question mostly just bumbled around the castle accomplishing very little but killing someone most of the other Malaugrym seemed to have hated, right up until a certain ghost apparently got bored and decided to take matters into her own hands… thus far, I’m not impressed. The rangers continue following the sword as it burns and slices its way through the castle until at last it reaches the Chamber of the Veils, the last antechamber before the throne room. There a large number of Malaugrym appear, including Bheloris, Ahorga, and others the humans recognize by sight, and, excuse me? They’re shapeshifters. They shift their forms constantly, especially when they’re showing off for each other or trying to evade assassination. How is it remotely possible to recognize them by sight? And even if you do recognize a particular look or persona, there’s no guarantee it’s the same person who was using it the last time you saw it! They saw grim determination, and fear, on the shapeshifters’ faces. Sylune raises her hands as roughly forty spells hit her at once and then, of course, she sends them all shooting back at their casters.
The chamber rocked; balconies broke off and crashed to the tiles below. All over the chamber Malaugrym bodies collapsed, slain by their own spells, or sagged back in pain and flickered out of sight as contingencies and rings took them elsewhere. Amid the veils, the blue blade began a sudden spiral. Sylune looked up and said a very unladylike word.
Errezha: *waspishly* I can add a few more, if you wish.
Calassara: As can I, if you wish. Human curses are so dull. I know languages where you can get creative. But suddenly the whole chamber starts twisting and spinning; apparently the sword struck a portal and opened it, and now it’s sucking everyone in. How convenient! …ah, I think? Sylune tells the rangers to watch closely, since they’ll probably never experience something like this again – it’s usually fatal. Very reassuring! Belkram asks if she’s going to do something about it, and she says she is, overly muscled one. Specifically, she’s making sure the malfunctioning portal spits them out in Faerun and not in the Nine Hells or a plane of endless fire or antimatter.
MG: …huh. I mean, considering the options for studying things that powerful magic grants, I’m not that surprised a learned archmage like Sylune might have a concept of antimatter… I am a bit surprised she calls it “antimatter,” though.
Calassara: …well, Belkram asks what part of Faerun they’re going to, but Sylune just punches him when she sees him grinning (oh, an incorporeal punch – very threatening!) as the scene ends. Belkram’s question then gets answered immediately as the timestamp clearly says Daggerdale, Kythorn 20. And indeed, the portal spits them all out right at the ruined manor house where they left Faerun, even as the sword sinks into the ground nearby. How very shocking.
Errezha: Sharantyr is left staring at the sword as it fizzles and then finally explores into radiant blue shards and is no more. As Mystra no longer was. *rolls her eyes* Don’t worry. I’ve heard you’ll be getting another one before long. Another Mystra, that is, not another sword, which I’m less sure of. The rangers and Sylune all sit up, only to find themselves surrounded by a semicircle of seven Malaugrym in monstrous forms. Belkram curses loudly, but when nothing happens the Malaugrym grin and advance; Sharantyr can’t believe they’ve come all this way just to die here, while Belkram and Itharr complain about Save the world! Have daring adventurers! Join the Harpers! And then Belkram tosses Sharantyr his sword, since she’s lost hers. And as he does it, he calls her breeding maiden like it’s a damned joke. *narrowing her eyes* Listen to me very carefully, Belkram. One, she’s a rape survivor. Two, she was just nearly charmed into being uncontrollably attracted to Amdramnar earlier today. Three, you are currently being menaced by beings who will, allegedly, rape her with the intention of siring children on her if they take her alive. And finally, even if none of those were true, that’s still not something you joke about, you unbelievable cretin. But Sharantyr, alas, doesn’t even react to the “joke” and just salutes him with her weapon. May the Prince damn you all. Especially you, Belkram.
Calassara: …and of course at that exact moment all the Malaugrym are suddenly engulfed in white fire; they writhe in agony, and then a moment later the fire dies and they’re all revealed in human form. Ahorga, seemingly the most powerful of the lot, finally manages to sprout wings and flies off, vowing that you’ve made a foe forever this day! I’ll be back! Belkra, watching him go, tells him not to hurry. *flatly* Ha. Ha. Does he even know you? Two more Malaugrym also manage to overcome the effect – a spell of Sylune’s, apparently – and also flee, while the others have devolved into rolling around on the ground, beating on each other in their rage. How very mature of them. One of them does manage to get a whole of Belkram and starts choking him, buy Sylune blows his head off (the Malaugrym’s, not Belkram’s). Really, if you’d let him die, nothing of value would have been lost. The three rangers, bloody but unharmed, walk over to stand together, and Itharr states the obvious by saying they’re back. And then, completely out of nowhere, Elminster’s pipe comes flying past, and his voice comes out of it. Back, are ye? …a fine mess ye leapt into, and stirred up further, to be sure? Well, for once, he’s not wrong… Belkram asks if that’s who he thinks it is, Itharr says it is, and Sharantyr groans and buries her face in her hands… and the book ends there. Seriously, that’s it. It just stops, right there, with everyone seeming to realize they’re sick of Elminster after all. Which would be appropriate… but I doubt Greenwood will let it stick.
MG: So… yeah. That, as sudden and random as it was, is indeed the end of the book. Actually, there’s a short preview for Daughter of the Drow, the first novel in Elaine Cunningham’s Starlight and Shadows trilogy starring Liriel Baenre, that comes after and is the very last thing in the book. But it’s not part of this story. And, honestly, while such previews were fairly common in D&D novels of all settings back in the day (and some publishers still do them – Orbit Books comes to mind) in this case, it really just feels like taunting the reader with a better book. Anyway, this last chapter is very short and very rushed. It really does feel like Greenwood got bored with the book and decided to just have Sylune – who has mostly just been a disembodied voice giving advice and casting the occasional spell ever since her Elminster body was destroyed – sweep in and kill all the bad guys and save the day. Which also has the side-effect of making our “heroes” feel like a collective Trojan Horse whose sole purpose was to sneak Sylune and the sword into the Plane of Shadows… which might be an interesting idea, if Greenwood was actually committed to exploring it at all. As is, though, we’re just sort of left with our protagonists standing around watching as someone else defeats all their enemies for them. And speaking of, I’ve already mentioned how Milhvar’s whole arc fizzled out there at the end, but I’m also pretty sure Bheloris was one of the ones who died when Sylune turned their magic back on them, as he doesn’t appear or get mentioned at all in All Shadows Fled. And he was also one of the most powerful and prominent Malaugrym in the book. (We will be seeing Ahorga – and Huerbara – some more, though, along with some other Malaugrym we’ve met but who weren’t in this chapter, including Amdramnar). But, all in all, a pointless and anticlimactic end to a pointless and meandering book.
Anyway, like with Shadows of Doom I’m going to give some abbreviated Final Thoughts here, though I’ll be saving the really detailed ones for the last book in the trilogy:
Final Thoughts
…it was better than Shadows of Doom, at least in terms of being more interesting to spork, since it wasn’t taken up by a single, endless, slogging, grinding battle. And that’s about all I can say about it. Plot-wise, it’s still a mess, though. The basic conflict is established early enough, as Dhalgrave, having sensed Saharel’s death last book, decides to put a price on Elminster’s head and sends his Malaugrym out to collect, with the winner getting to succeed him as Shadowmaster High. Meanwhile, Sharantyr, Belkram and Itharr are preparing to lure the Malaugrym into a trap, with Sylune posing as Elminster as bait. Straightforward enough. The problem is, this is all resolved in about the first 40 percent or so of the novel, after the trap is sprung and a lot of Malaugrym and “Elminster” are killed. After that… things just sort of fall apart. First off, Dhalgrave dies out of the blue, leaving the book without the main antagonist it’s been building up and no one left who can really fill his shoes (the closest being Milhvar, who’s sort of running his own schemes on the side and not particularly involved in the “Malaugrym vs Elminster” plot). Then we have Elminster’s subplot, which just involves him popping around Faerun, solving random crises, killing a lot of people in the process and, of course, grooming Midnight into being the new Mystra, in defiance of both basic decency and the story’s own internal logic. Milhvar keeps sending Malaugrym to assassinate random Chosen (and they keep failing) ostensibly to test his cloaks, seemingly instead to advance some agenda that is never actually revealed or goes anywhere. And, of course, the rangers and Sylune randomly decide to raid the Castle of Shadows partway through the book, get a magic sword to do so, and when they get there clearly have no idea what to do or what they’re trying to accomplish and spend more of their time bumbling around the castle and/or dealing with Amdramnar’s amorous interest in Sharantyr, And then, as we’ve already mentioned, the whole thing comes to a very sudden end as Sylune just decides randomly to resolve everything herself, leaving the whole book feeling rather pointless and underwhelming.
Oh, and we mustn’t forget, the Time of Troubles, having started last book, starts again at the beginning of this one, with nobody seeming to notice the contradiction at all. But it still barely seems to matter; a few avatars randomly appear and Midnight makes her inexplicable cameo, but outside of a few instances we hardly even get any wild magic, despite this book being heavily concerned with wizards and spellcasters. Just… huh?
Character wise… Elminster continues to be the same insufferable asshole we’ve all learned to loathe over the course of these sporkings and proves himself to be every bit as indifferent to collateral damage as ever, not helped by the fact that everyone seems to be going out of their way to sing his praises and stress how important he is to the world, with Ao himself – who barely even interacts with mortals, remember – not only giving him a job but actually offering him godhood, even after Elminster defies him. Speaking of said defiance, Elminster trying to turn Midnight into a second edition of Mystra is presented as a noble and necessary step he has to take, defying the Overgod if need be… but really, it actually comes off like Elminster being determined to ruin a young woman’s life in the name of getting his waifu back. Blegh. Sharantyr continues to be the most tolerable of Greenwood’s protagonists, which isn’t saying much, though she’s still fairly bland… but this book also introduces her backstory involving slavery, torture and rape, and it’s abundantly clear Greenwood has put no thought at all into how carrying this sort of trauma around would affect the character in the present. Belkram and Itharr remain insufferable chuckling dudebros – we make some attempt at differentiating them, trying to present Belkram as more of a sad clown type and revealing that Itharr is a godsdamned serial killer, but it somehow fails to make much of an impression, and they remain almost entirely interchangeable. Sylune gets rather more to do in this book than the last but spends most of it as the rangers’ spirit advisor when she’s not impersonating Elminster… but her apparent willingness to genocide an entire species with no regrets does her no favors, nor does her becoming a last-minute Deus ex Machina to resolve the story.
As for the Malaugrym themselves… Dhalgrave gets a pretty cool introduction but gets shuffled out of the story remarkably quickly (though as I’ve noted, we’re not quite done with him yet…). Milhvar had the potential to be a cool villain, but Greenwood got bored with him by the end of the book and tossed him away, without ever really giving us a good sense of what he was even after or why. Bheloris and most of the other elders are… there. Huerbara and Taernil were moderately interesting as a pair of young up-and-comers rising through the ranks, but both are rather underdeveloped and Taernil gets killed off rather randomly partway through (though Huerbara and her father have some of the very few actually effective emotional beats in the whole story, oddly enough!). Olorn is just a cannibalistic (the Malaugrym are part human, I’m counting it) rapist asshole who deserves what he got. And of course, there’s Amdramnar. For most of the book he genuinely comes off as a charming, likeable antivillain whose back and forth with Sharantyr and the Harpers actually works… but of course, we have to constantly be reminded that he’s up to no good and can’t be trusted because he’s a Malaugrym, and then Greenwood has him try to mind-control Sharantyr into loving him just to make sure we get the memo, effectively ruining him. Because who wants an actually complex and compelling antagonist, right?
As for the Malaugrym as a whole… Greenwood feels like he was trying to do a bunch of things with them, and it doesn’t really work. They’re supposed to have complex internal politics, but we never really establish different factions or what they want and why they might oppose or ally with each other, so it’s kind of hard to care, not helping that a lot of the minor Malaugrym – and even some of the elders – just blur into each other and don’t make much of an impression. They’re supposed to be more powerful and dangerous than any human wizards and a much greater threat to the Realms, but are also depicted as lazy and sloppy, and just as foolishly reckless and prone to getting themselves killed for stupid reasons as any of Greenwood’s other villains. Greenwood seems to be going out of his way to humanize them, especially with characters like Huerbara (and her father), Amdramnar, and so on, but at the same time we’re apparently supposed to cheer uncritically as they’re slaughtered en masse and agree with Sylune’s assessment that they all deserve to die except maybe one or two for “entertainment” (eurgh). Their castle is one of the more interesting environments Greenwood has created but still manages to feel more like a series of weird and creepy parts rather than a cohesive setting as a whole.
As a whole, Cloak of Shadows seems to contain less egregiously gross or offensive material than some of Greenwood’s other stuff, when it does jump out at us, it hits hard. There’s Elminster’s grooming of Midnight, for one, and aforementioned justification of Malaugrym genocide for another. The random moments of utter horror, like Sharantyr’s backstory or Olorn trying to eat her alive, feel like they come out of nowhere and are especially stomach-churning as a result. The Malaugrym reproducing entirely by raping humanoid women isn’t, to my knowledge, supported anywhere else (including in Greenwood’s other novels) and feels like it was just thrown in there to make us root against them (since, take that away, and you’re left with the idea that they’re just fighting to protect their species against someone who wants to wipe them out – not exactly villainous!) and feels less like something that’s treated with the proper weight it deserves (especially in the last-minute demonization of Amdramnar) and more as just a bit of gratuitous edge, as well as partaking in some very ugly real-world tropes. The same goes for their utterly inexplicable sexism. In short, Greenwood hasn’t gotten any more tasteful in how he handles this sort of material since the last books of his we’ve looked at.
Anyway, this book is bad. It has slightly more substance than its predecessor, and isn’t as tedious, but it’s still really bad. I’ll save my further exploration of what I might do differently for the next book, since Cloak of Shadows and All Shadows Fled are tied together much more closely than either is to Shadows of Doom. In any case, the time will soon come for us to move on to the last volume of this trilogy and see if Greenwood actually does manage to wrap the story up satisfactorily, and if the tie-in to the Time of Troubles ever actually matters! (The answer… sort of to the latter, and no, not really to the former). If you’re interested, I’ll see you there!
Warning: This chapter contains some violence, deaths and squicky moments.
MG: Well, everyone, it’s time to wrap up our journey through Ed Greenwood’s Cloak of Shadows, second volume of his Shadow of the Avatar trilogy! So far, we’ve learned all about how awesome Elminster is (yaaay…) how all the Malaugrym are evil monsters who deserve to die (even those who aren’t) and Sharantyr, Belkram and Itharr have bumbled around making fools of themselves without a whole lot to show for it. Today, we’ll wrap the story up and see if the journey’s been worth it (spoilers: it hasn’t). Joining us once again will be Errezha and Calassara!
Chapter Twenty-One: Shadows Cloak, But Make a Better Shroud
Errezha: *muttering* I’d like to wrap this book in a shroud, and then bury it somewhere I never had to see it again… And so, we open still in The Castle of Shadows, Kythorn 20, with Sharantyr struggling against the shadows that bind her and managing to wiggle slightly free, while the surrounding Malaugrym laugh mockingly at her and Olorn was sending another tentacle her way with taunting slowness while musing about what part of her he wants to play with next. Greenwood… you are not making this sound less sexual, or disturbing. As the Malaugrym yell out suggestions Sharantyr closes her eyes, thinking that she’d never dreamed that dying could be this bad, or this slow. By the sounds of it, midair surgery could go on for days, if they kept her – parts of her – alive with their spells. Which is, again, disturbing and Greenwood seems to be putting far, far too much thought into this, but even so… has Sharantyr really never imagined something like this could happen, considering what we’ve learned this very book about the horrors she’s already endured?
Calassara: Oh, you think Greenwood would actually remember that? That’s uncharacteristically optimistic of you, Errezha! Suddenly, the tentacle in her mouth quivered – no, shuddered and Greenwood, stop it – as Olorn screams. Sharantyr manages to look up to see a glowing blue sword, held in ghostly hands flashing in midair, cutting Olorn to pieces. He withdraws his tentacle and tries to shapeshift out of the way, but to no avail. Pieces of the Malaugrym, great writhing lumps, rained down onto the floor in flames. Well, I can’t say he didn’t have it coming, but even so… *she shudders theatrically* The other Malaugrym start casting spells at the entity holding the sword – none other than Sylune herself! She flits around the room, using the sword to turn the attackers’ spells back on them, as Olorn finally dies and drops Sharantyr to the floor. Meanwhile, the two Harpers are also struggling back to their feet, while the “sword” that Olorn had trapped reveals itself to be an illusion as it vanishes; Sylune has the real thing. With the room already in bloody chaos now, Sylune transmutes Sharantyr, Belkram and Itharr’s daggers to silver, and they plunge into the fray, stabbing Malaugrym who get too close.
Errezha: *rolling her eyes* And so it seems Greenwood will end this book as is his wont, with lots of bloodletting and our heroes confronting antagonists who don’t actually challenge them at all. Why should I expect any different? Sharantyr starts furious hacking and slicing at any Malaugrym within reach, while apparently letting out all the rage she’s felt ever since she saw “Elminster” die. *she sighs and rubs her forehead* Sharantyr, you saw Elminster’s image die. Elminster is fine. Sylune, who was puppeteering that body, is also fine. You know this full well and always did. But apparently seeing the mere likeness of Elminster killed is enough to provoke such murderous rage, and it’s presented as entirely rational and justified that it does. Why am I not surprised? But suddenly, the room is rocked by a flash of light as Milhvar himself appears in its center, declaring things have gone far enough. He unleashes his prepared spells, blasting everyone, human or Malaugrym, into the walls – everyone, that is, except for the incorporeal Sylune, who hurls her sword at him. But Milhvar, proving himself to have a marginally greater level of competence than the average Greenwood character, sees it coming and teleports himself away, switching places with another Malaugrym mage, Iyritar, who is skewered and flailed his hands about vainly, clawing at the air in his agony.
MG: Iyritar has been mentioned… all of once before this, by my reckoning. And do note that Milhvar seems to be using a spell here that Elminster himself has gotten a fair bit of mileage out of, especially in Making of a Mage (I’d think Milhvar could teleport himself out of harm’s way without needing to sacrifice one of his own people, but I guess that wouldn’t be evil enough).
Calassara: …but of course. Well, from his new position Milhvar starts weaving another spell, as the rangers get up from where they were blasted and charge at him. Suddenly, Sylune vanishes, and then we get this lovely description of the spell Milhvar was casting.
Iyritar’s gore was on fire, blazing with scarlet flames as it sprayed from the dying Malaugrym’s body and spread out to form a sphere of blood around the sorcerer’s limp form, with the blade of Mystra lodged in it. In seconds the sphere was complete. Milhvar wiped sweat from his brow and visibly relaxed.
Calassara: Well. That was… horrible. *to Errezha, in an aside* Is this the sort of thing your family gets up to, by chance? Mihlvar smiles and conjures a wall of force to protect him from the rangers, and then declares that without the sword, they’re stuck here, to become our playthings or slaves – or carrion, if you prefer. But, as he continues speaking, Sylune reappears behind him. She manages to thrust her hand into the conjured sphere, and though doing so appears to cause her agony, it was the sphere that moaned, oh my. Milhvar doesn’t even look and just tells someone named Argast to sop trying to get the sword, as the spell blocks Malaugrym as well as mortals, and then starts stalking towards the rangers, using the wall of force to shove them backwards, completely oblivious to what’s happening behind him. *applauds sarcastically* Wonderful job, oh great Shadowmaster! Meanwhile, Sylune, with more effort and more apparent agony, finally manages to wrench the sword free. She falls backwards but manages to weakly point at Milhvar.
In silent obedience the blade leapt across the chamber and burst through the heart of Milhvar of the Malaugrym.
Errezha: …and so it seems that’s it for Milhvar, then. What a pity; he actually seemed to have some potential. I know I shouldn’t be surprised any more when Greenwood squanders his antagonists… and yet somehow, I still am. Milhvar collapses, protesting Not… when I have… the Cloak… as he flickers in and out of visibility. Sylune speaks a word of power, and the sword suddenly bursts into blue flames. Milhvar continues to fade in and out of view, but the flames keep consuming him no matter what he does, and then at last he vanishes completely, leaving only the flames behind – flames that rose and rose hungrily, outlining an upright human form at the last as they roared into a hungry pillar that parted the shadows and ate through the ceiling and kept on burning away shadows, like mist parting before the hot sun. And then we cut to Milhvar’s chambers, where a pillar of white fire flickers and vanishes, releasing Elminster’s fake head. The head chuckles, says, Done, then? Well done, I should say! And then vanishes. And, by the Prince and all the Lords of the Nine, does he mean that Milhvar himself is “well done” because he just died by burning? I fear he did… and now I want to hurt something. Preferably Elminster.
MG: And so… first off, Argast, that Malaugrym Milhvar referenced. He’s been mentioned before but hasn’t been important or done anything. He’ll have a bigger role in All Shadows Fled. Second… Milhvar. I really do have to agree that Greenwood wasted Milhvar. He actually got a decent build up, for a Greenwood villain, and actually managed to make it from the beginning of the book that introduced him until the end, which so few of them manage. We got to see him create the Cloak, manipulate a bunch of the other Malaugrym, including Dhalgrave, into helping him test it, actually managed to capture (a form of) Elminster… in other words, he’s genuinely powerful and rather cunning, even if some of the shilling of him as the “true Shadowmaster High” and such isn’t actually borne out by the text. And then here, at the end of the story, he just sort of… hits a brick wall and dies, very suddenly. We never even learn much about what he actually planned to do with the Cloak, or what his ultimate ambitions were! And while we’re not quite done with his legacy yet, he’ll only end up getting a handful of mentions by name in All Shadows Fled. It really feels like Greenwood just suddenly got bored with the character and decided to throw him away, jettisoning all the buildup in the process.
Calassara: Greenwood. Why. We cut back to the battle, where Sylune (who is apparently barefoot – can she even appear in different outfits, I wonder?) asks the rangers if they’re all right. Belkram thinks they should ask her that, since they can see right through her (she’s a ghost… a believe that’s normal), and Sylune insists that since she’s a lady, she gets to ask first. I… don’t think I’ve heard that rule before, but since at this point I just want this book done, I’ll not press the issue. The rangers all say they’re whole, and Sylune is glad, since she still has some work to do. She casts a telekinesis spell on the sword (what, another one? I thought she already had, considering what she just did to Milhvar!) and settles down next to Belkram as she sends the sword shooting down towards the Hall of Stars. It stabs into a wall, melts through it, and keeps going, repeating the process as needed, while Itharr exclaims that she’s burning the whole Castle. *crossly* If the castle is so fragile that the ghost of one witch with a magic sword can destroy it… I can’t say much for Malaug’s construction, or Dhalgrave’s maintenance. The rangers scramble up, with Sylune warning Belkram not to let her fall, since the shadows are plenty solid to her, but tells them to follow the sword, which can protect them from the Malaugrym.
Errezha: And so, the rangers do as she says, watching as the entire Hall of Stars comes apart and then a distant tower falls as they go; Sharantyr asks Sylune not to destroy it all, and Sylune at least admits she has limits, as she says they don’t have time for that.
I am going to ruin the Great Hall of the Throne, though, and carve up the Shadow Throne. I want the Malaugrym to know that they were defeated this day, not just that some lucky humans got loose and managed to do some damage while escaping.
Errezha: …and I’ll note the humans in question mostly just bumbled around the castle accomplishing very little but killing someone most of the other Malaugrym seemed to have hated, right up until a certain ghost apparently got bored and decided to take matters into her own hands… thus far, I’m not impressed. The rangers continue following the sword as it burns and slices its way through the castle until at last it reaches the Chamber of the Veils, the last antechamber before the throne room. There a large number of Malaugrym appear, including Bheloris, Ahorga, and others the humans recognize by sight, and, excuse me? They’re shapeshifters. They shift their forms constantly, especially when they’re showing off for each other or trying to evade assassination. How is it remotely possible to recognize them by sight? And even if you do recognize a particular look or persona, there’s no guarantee it’s the same person who was using it the last time you saw it! They saw grim determination, and fear, on the shapeshifters’ faces. Sylune raises her hands as roughly forty spells hit her at once and then, of course, she sends them all shooting back at their casters.
The chamber rocked; balconies broke off and crashed to the tiles below. All over the chamber Malaugrym bodies collapsed, slain by their own spells, or sagged back in pain and flickered out of sight as contingencies and rings took them elsewhere. Amid the veils, the blue blade began a sudden spiral. Sylune looked up and said a very unladylike word.
Errezha: *waspishly* I can add a few more, if you wish.
Calassara: As can I, if you wish. Human curses are so dull. I know languages where you can get creative. But suddenly the whole chamber starts twisting and spinning; apparently the sword struck a portal and opened it, and now it’s sucking everyone in. How convenient! …ah, I think? Sylune tells the rangers to watch closely, since they’ll probably never experience something like this again – it’s usually fatal. Very reassuring! Belkram asks if she’s going to do something about it, and she says she is, overly muscled one. Specifically, she’s making sure the malfunctioning portal spits them out in Faerun and not in the Nine Hells or a plane of endless fire or antimatter.
MG: …huh. I mean, considering the options for studying things that powerful magic grants, I’m not that surprised a learned archmage like Sylune might have a concept of antimatter… I am a bit surprised she calls it “antimatter,” though.
Calassara: …well, Belkram asks what part of Faerun they’re going to, but Sylune just punches him when she sees him grinning (oh, an incorporeal punch – very threatening!) as the scene ends. Belkram’s question then gets answered immediately as the timestamp clearly says Daggerdale, Kythorn 20. And indeed, the portal spits them all out right at the ruined manor house where they left Faerun, even as the sword sinks into the ground nearby. How very shocking.
Errezha: Sharantyr is left staring at the sword as it fizzles and then finally explores into radiant blue shards and is no more. As Mystra no longer was. *rolls her eyes* Don’t worry. I’ve heard you’ll be getting another one before long. Another Mystra, that is, not another sword, which I’m less sure of. The rangers and Sylune all sit up, only to find themselves surrounded by a semicircle of seven Malaugrym in monstrous forms. Belkram curses loudly, but when nothing happens the Malaugrym grin and advance; Sharantyr can’t believe they’ve come all this way just to die here, while Belkram and Itharr complain about Save the world! Have daring adventurers! Join the Harpers! And then Belkram tosses Sharantyr his sword, since she’s lost hers. And as he does it, he calls her breeding maiden like it’s a damned joke. *narrowing her eyes* Listen to me very carefully, Belkram. One, she’s a rape survivor. Two, she was just nearly charmed into being uncontrollably attracted to Amdramnar earlier today. Three, you are currently being menaced by beings who will, allegedly, rape her with the intention of siring children on her if they take her alive. And finally, even if none of those were true, that’s still not something you joke about, you unbelievable cretin. But Sharantyr, alas, doesn’t even react to the “joke” and just salutes him with her weapon. May the Prince damn you all. Especially you, Belkram.
Calassara: …and of course at that exact moment all the Malaugrym are suddenly engulfed in white fire; they writhe in agony, and then a moment later the fire dies and they’re all revealed in human form. Ahorga, seemingly the most powerful of the lot, finally manages to sprout wings and flies off, vowing that you’ve made a foe forever this day! I’ll be back! Belkra, watching him go, tells him not to hurry. *flatly* Ha. Ha. Does he even know you? Two more Malaugrym also manage to overcome the effect – a spell of Sylune’s, apparently – and also flee, while the others have devolved into rolling around on the ground, beating on each other in their rage. How very mature of them. One of them does manage to get a whole of Belkram and starts choking him, buy Sylune blows his head off (the Malaugrym’s, not Belkram’s). Really, if you’d let him die, nothing of value would have been lost. The three rangers, bloody but unharmed, walk over to stand together, and Itharr states the obvious by saying they’re back. And then, completely out of nowhere, Elminster’s pipe comes flying past, and his voice comes out of it. Back, are ye? …a fine mess ye leapt into, and stirred up further, to be sure? Well, for once, he’s not wrong… Belkram asks if that’s who he thinks it is, Itharr says it is, and Sharantyr groans and buries her face in her hands… and the book ends there. Seriously, that’s it. It just stops, right there, with everyone seeming to realize they’re sick of Elminster after all. Which would be appropriate… but I doubt Greenwood will let it stick.
MG: So… yeah. That, as sudden and random as it was, is indeed the end of the book. Actually, there’s a short preview for Daughter of the Drow, the first novel in Elaine Cunningham’s Starlight and Shadows trilogy starring Liriel Baenre, that comes after and is the very last thing in the book. But it’s not part of this story. And, honestly, while such previews were fairly common in D&D novels of all settings back in the day (and some publishers still do them – Orbit Books comes to mind) in this case, it really just feels like taunting the reader with a better book. Anyway, this last chapter is very short and very rushed. It really does feel like Greenwood got bored with the book and decided to just have Sylune – who has mostly just been a disembodied voice giving advice and casting the occasional spell ever since her Elminster body was destroyed – sweep in and kill all the bad guys and save the day. Which also has the side-effect of making our “heroes” feel like a collective Trojan Horse whose sole purpose was to sneak Sylune and the sword into the Plane of Shadows… which might be an interesting idea, if Greenwood was actually committed to exploring it at all. As is, though, we’re just sort of left with our protagonists standing around watching as someone else defeats all their enemies for them. And speaking of, I’ve already mentioned how Milhvar’s whole arc fizzled out there at the end, but I’m also pretty sure Bheloris was one of the ones who died when Sylune turned their magic back on them, as he doesn’t appear or get mentioned at all in All Shadows Fled. And he was also one of the most powerful and prominent Malaugrym in the book. (We will be seeing Ahorga – and Huerbara – some more, though, along with some other Malaugrym we’ve met but who weren’t in this chapter, including Amdramnar). But, all in all, a pointless and anticlimactic end to a pointless and meandering book.
Anyway, like with Shadows of Doom I’m going to give some abbreviated Final Thoughts here, though I’ll be saving the really detailed ones for the last book in the trilogy:
Final Thoughts
…it was better than Shadows of Doom, at least in terms of being more interesting to spork, since it wasn’t taken up by a single, endless, slogging, grinding battle. And that’s about all I can say about it. Plot-wise, it’s still a mess, though. The basic conflict is established early enough, as Dhalgrave, having sensed Saharel’s death last book, decides to put a price on Elminster’s head and sends his Malaugrym out to collect, with the winner getting to succeed him as Shadowmaster High. Meanwhile, Sharantyr, Belkram and Itharr are preparing to lure the Malaugrym into a trap, with Sylune posing as Elminster as bait. Straightforward enough. The problem is, this is all resolved in about the first 40 percent or so of the novel, after the trap is sprung and a lot of Malaugrym and “Elminster” are killed. After that… things just sort of fall apart. First off, Dhalgrave dies out of the blue, leaving the book without the main antagonist it’s been building up and no one left who can really fill his shoes (the closest being Milhvar, who’s sort of running his own schemes on the side and not particularly involved in the “Malaugrym vs Elminster” plot). Then we have Elminster’s subplot, which just involves him popping around Faerun, solving random crises, killing a lot of people in the process and, of course, grooming Midnight into being the new Mystra, in defiance of both basic decency and the story’s own internal logic. Milhvar keeps sending Malaugrym to assassinate random Chosen (and they keep failing) ostensibly to test his cloaks, seemingly instead to advance some agenda that is never actually revealed or goes anywhere. And, of course, the rangers and Sylune randomly decide to raid the Castle of Shadows partway through the book, get a magic sword to do so, and when they get there clearly have no idea what to do or what they’re trying to accomplish and spend more of their time bumbling around the castle and/or dealing with Amdramnar’s amorous interest in Sharantyr, And then, as we’ve already mentioned, the whole thing comes to a very sudden end as Sylune just decides randomly to resolve everything herself, leaving the whole book feeling rather pointless and underwhelming.
Oh, and we mustn’t forget, the Time of Troubles, having started last book, starts again at the beginning of this one, with nobody seeming to notice the contradiction at all. But it still barely seems to matter; a few avatars randomly appear and Midnight makes her inexplicable cameo, but outside of a few instances we hardly even get any wild magic, despite this book being heavily concerned with wizards and spellcasters. Just… huh?
Character wise… Elminster continues to be the same insufferable asshole we’ve all learned to loathe over the course of these sporkings and proves himself to be every bit as indifferent to collateral damage as ever, not helped by the fact that everyone seems to be going out of their way to sing his praises and stress how important he is to the world, with Ao himself – who barely even interacts with mortals, remember – not only giving him a job but actually offering him godhood, even after Elminster defies him. Speaking of said defiance, Elminster trying to turn Midnight into a second edition of Mystra is presented as a noble and necessary step he has to take, defying the Overgod if need be… but really, it actually comes off like Elminster being determined to ruin a young woman’s life in the name of getting his waifu back. Blegh. Sharantyr continues to be the most tolerable of Greenwood’s protagonists, which isn’t saying much, though she’s still fairly bland… but this book also introduces her backstory involving slavery, torture and rape, and it’s abundantly clear Greenwood has put no thought at all into how carrying this sort of trauma around would affect the character in the present. Belkram and Itharr remain insufferable chuckling dudebros – we make some attempt at differentiating them, trying to present Belkram as more of a sad clown type and revealing that Itharr is a godsdamned serial killer, but it somehow fails to make much of an impression, and they remain almost entirely interchangeable. Sylune gets rather more to do in this book than the last but spends most of it as the rangers’ spirit advisor when she’s not impersonating Elminster… but her apparent willingness to genocide an entire species with no regrets does her no favors, nor does her becoming a last-minute Deus ex Machina to resolve the story.
As for the Malaugrym themselves… Dhalgrave gets a pretty cool introduction but gets shuffled out of the story remarkably quickly (though as I’ve noted, we’re not quite done with him yet…). Milhvar had the potential to be a cool villain, but Greenwood got bored with him by the end of the book and tossed him away, without ever really giving us a good sense of what he was even after or why. Bheloris and most of the other elders are… there. Huerbara and Taernil were moderately interesting as a pair of young up-and-comers rising through the ranks, but both are rather underdeveloped and Taernil gets killed off rather randomly partway through (though Huerbara and her father have some of the very few actually effective emotional beats in the whole story, oddly enough!). Olorn is just a cannibalistic (the Malaugrym are part human, I’m counting it) rapist asshole who deserves what he got. And of course, there’s Amdramnar. For most of the book he genuinely comes off as a charming, likeable antivillain whose back and forth with Sharantyr and the Harpers actually works… but of course, we have to constantly be reminded that he’s up to no good and can’t be trusted because he’s a Malaugrym, and then Greenwood has him try to mind-control Sharantyr into loving him just to make sure we get the memo, effectively ruining him. Because who wants an actually complex and compelling antagonist, right?
As for the Malaugrym as a whole… Greenwood feels like he was trying to do a bunch of things with them, and it doesn’t really work. They’re supposed to have complex internal politics, but we never really establish different factions or what they want and why they might oppose or ally with each other, so it’s kind of hard to care, not helping that a lot of the minor Malaugrym – and even some of the elders – just blur into each other and don’t make much of an impression. They’re supposed to be more powerful and dangerous than any human wizards and a much greater threat to the Realms, but are also depicted as lazy and sloppy, and just as foolishly reckless and prone to getting themselves killed for stupid reasons as any of Greenwood’s other villains. Greenwood seems to be going out of his way to humanize them, especially with characters like Huerbara (and her father), Amdramnar, and so on, but at the same time we’re apparently supposed to cheer uncritically as they’re slaughtered en masse and agree with Sylune’s assessment that they all deserve to die except maybe one or two for “entertainment” (eurgh). Their castle is one of the more interesting environments Greenwood has created but still manages to feel more like a series of weird and creepy parts rather than a cohesive setting as a whole.
As a whole, Cloak of Shadows seems to contain less egregiously gross or offensive material than some of Greenwood’s other stuff, when it does jump out at us, it hits hard. There’s Elminster’s grooming of Midnight, for one, and aforementioned justification of Malaugrym genocide for another. The random moments of utter horror, like Sharantyr’s backstory or Olorn trying to eat her alive, feel like they come out of nowhere and are especially stomach-churning as a result. The Malaugrym reproducing entirely by raping humanoid women isn’t, to my knowledge, supported anywhere else (including in Greenwood’s other novels) and feels like it was just thrown in there to make us root against them (since, take that away, and you’re left with the idea that they’re just fighting to protect their species against someone who wants to wipe them out – not exactly villainous!) and feels less like something that’s treated with the proper weight it deserves (especially in the last-minute demonization of Amdramnar) and more as just a bit of gratuitous edge, as well as partaking in some very ugly real-world tropes. The same goes for their utterly inexplicable sexism. In short, Greenwood hasn’t gotten any more tasteful in how he handles this sort of material since the last books of his we’ve looked at.
Anyway, this book is bad. It has slightly more substance than its predecessor, and isn’t as tedious, but it’s still really bad. I’ll save my further exploration of what I might do differently for the next book, since Cloak of Shadows and All Shadows Fled are tied together much more closely than either is to Shadows of Doom. In any case, the time will soon come for us to move on to the last volume of this trilogy and see if Greenwood actually does manage to wrap the story up satisfactorily, and if the tie-in to the Time of Troubles ever actually matters! (The answer… sort of to the latter, and no, not really to the former). If you’re interested, I’ll see you there!
