Tamora Pierce : The Immortals 9781847600370

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Reading Tamora Pierce The Immortals Wild Magic Wolf-Speaker The Emperor Mage The Realms of the Gods

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Genre Fiction Sightlines

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Humanities-Ebooks

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John Lennard

Genre Fiction Sightlines

Reading Tamora Pierce, The Immortals John Lennard

HEB ☼ Humanities-Ebooks.co.uk

Copyright Text © 2007, 2013 John Lennard The Author has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this Work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published as A Guide to Tamora Pierce: The Immortals as an ebook in 2007 by Humanities-Ebooks LLP, Tirril Hall, Tirril, Penrith CA10 2JE. Published as a Kindle ebook with updated bibliography and notes 2010. Second edition, retitled Reading Tamora Pierce: The Immortals, with revisions and updating 2013. Purchase of this work in Kindle format licenses the purchaser only to download and read the work. No part of this publication may otherwise be reproduced or transmitted or distributed without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the publisher. This work is copyright. Making or distributing copies of this book or any portion thereof would constitute copyright infringement and would be liable to prosecution. PDF ISBN 978-1-84760-037-0 Kindle ISBN 978-1-84760-230-5 The PDF ebook is available to libraries from Ebrary, EBSCO and MyiLibrary.com and to individuals from http://www.humanities-ebooks.co.uk Your purchase of this ebook licenses you to read this work on-screen. No part of this publication may be otherwise reproduced or transmitted or distributed without the prior written permission of both the copyright owners and the publisher. Making or distributing copies of this book would constitute copyright infringement and would be liable to prosecution. Thank you for respecting the rights of the author.

This e-book is dedicated to the memory of my father,

Michael Briart Lennard 1922–1986 who let me read his books when I ran out of my own on holiday and taught me more about them and the world than I can ever say, but died before I could know him as an adult. I believe that, despite a technology he would have hated, he would like what it tries to do for reading and for thinking about what you read.

Contents

Part 1 ~ Notes 1.1 Tamora Pierce 1.2 The World of Tortall 1.3 Magic and Mythical Beasts 1.4 Interfering Gods Part 2. Annotations 2.1 Wild Magic 2.2 Wolf-Speaker 2.3 The Emperor Mage 2.4 The Realms of the Gods Part 3. Essay Of Stormwings and Valiant Women: Reading   the Tortall books Part 4. Bibliography 4.1 Works by Tamora Pierce 4.2 Works about Tamora Pierce and Children’s Writing 4.3 Websites A Note on the Author

6 6 8 26 32 38 38 60 76 89 105 105 119 119 122 124 125

Part 1 ~ Notes 1.1 Tamora Pierce

Tamora Pierce was born in December 1954 in South Connellsville, Fayette County, Pennsylvania, a coal-mining area. Neither of her parents’ families were well-off but her mother was studying towards a degree and intended to teach, while her father worked for the telephone company, so there were both a steady income and plenty of books around. Tamora was the eldest child; sisters Kimberley (b.1960) and Melanie (b.1961) followed, and there was a large extended family who cared for and shared with one another. But there were also tensions with and snobberies from her mother’s family, who were classconscious and found her father’s family vulgar rather than warm. In 1963 her father got a job in California and took his immediate family west. For six years, with the 1960s in full swing, Pierce grew up around San Francisco, where the district known as HaightAshbury was at the centre of US hippy culture. Though young and by her own account ‘geeky’, much liberalism rubbed off, especially where traditional restrictions on women were concerned. Homelife was difficult, though, and it may partly have been as a defence against the strain of living with her parents’ failing marriage that she

The Immortals  7 began inventing stories initially fuelled by TV SF and drama. “I was telling myself stories, but I didn’t begin to write them down until my father caught me telling stories to myself one day as I did dishes. This was in early 1966, I think. He suggested that I write a book instead and even loaned me his typewriter. He also suggested an idea that he knew I would like, because he shared books he liked with me: a time travel story.” (TP, email to the author, 26 July 2013; quoted with permission.) In 1965 Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings had come out in the US in paperback, and Pierce (led to it by a canny teacher) became a serious fantasy reader and thinker. But in 1969 her parents’ marriage ended and she moved with her mother back to Fayette County, and genuine poverty. Writing was Pierce’s great ambition, but she ran into a severe writer’s block in tenth grade, lasting several years, so when in 1972 she went to Penn State University on full scholarship it was to read psychology with a plan of working with teenagers. She graduated in 1977 with a general degree, difficulty with statistics having forestalled psychology, and moved to central New York, before living in Idaho for a while with her father. The writer’s block had lifted at college, and Pierce had taken some writing courses. Stories flowed again, and by 1976–7 she had completed a long fantasy novel for adult readers, but was unable to get it published. She did sell occasional stories, but for income in Idaho worked as a Housemother, cannibalising bits of her novel for stories to tell the girls she looked after. Moving to Manhattan, she held jobs in a literary agency and later a radio production company, but everything began to change when an agent suggested turning the long fantasy novel for adults into a quartet for teenagers. Alanna: The First Adventure came out in 1983 and its sequels followed, completing the quartet under the general title ‘Song of the Lioness’. The books were well-received and, after marriage to Tim Liebe in 1985, Pierce began astonishingly to develop the world she had created. Two further quartets (‘The Immortals’, 1992–6, ‘The Protector of the Small’, 1999–2002) were followed by a duology (‘The Daughter of the Lioness’, 2003–04), a trilogy (‘The Provost’s Dog, 2006–11), and a collection of stories (Tortall and Other Lands, 2011). Amid all this Pierce also created a second world in her

8  Reading Tamora Pierce ‘Circle’ books, of which two quartets and two free-standing novels have appeared since 1997. She has also co-written with Tim Liebe a Marvel graphic novel, White Tiger (2007). The grand total to date is 27 novels in 28 years, plus the collected stories, that together have won Pierce a formidable international following and wide praise. Pierce has no children, but a lively extended family of nephews, nieces, great-nephews and the like provide an audience (as well as many distractions). She and her husband also keep a fair-sized menagerie of cats and birds, and in 2006 moved out of Manhattan to upstate New York, where there are more trees, space, and cats to rescue. 1.2 The World of Tortall 1.2.1 The Five Tortall Series The world of Tortall was created in three quartets, a duology, and a trilogy. (The duology is almost as long as the quartets, and Pierce has thanked J. K. Rowling for making longer books for young adults acceptable.) There is also a collection of short stories, all but five of which are tales of Tortall. In order of publication, these are: Song of the Lioness Alanna: The First Adventure (1983) In the Hand of the Goddess (1984) The Woman Who Rides Like a Man (1986) Lioness Rampant (1988) The Immortals Wild Magic (1992) Wolf-Speaker (1994) The Emperor Mage (1995) The Realms of the Gods (1996) The Protector of the Small First Test (1999) Page (2000) Squire (2001)

The Immortals  9 Lady Knight (2002) The Daughter of the Lioness Trickster’s Choice (2003) Trickster’s Queen (2004) The Provost’s Dog Beka Cooper: Terrier (2006) Beka Cooper: Bloodhound (2009) Beka Cooper: Mastiff (2011) Tortall and Other Lands: A Collection of Tales (2011) Song of the Lioness deals with the education and early adventures of Alanna of Trebond & Olau, the first woman in Tortall for more than a century to become a knight. Despite the magic in this world, a Victorian stupidity about women being incapable has set in, and to undertake her training as a Page and Squire she has to disguise herself as a boy. With the help of her skills, dedication, magical talent, and the friends she makes, plus the blessing of the Goddess, she is knighted, and forestalls the usurpation of the Tortallan throne by the King’s brother Roger—a very powerful mage and the main villain of the quartet. In the later books Alanna travels as a knight, visiting the desert tribes of the Bazhir and winning their respect both with arms and magic. Her greatest adventure takes her to distant lands and gains for Tortall the fabled ‘Dominion Jewel’, that can secure a state’s prosperity or lock fast a tyrant’s grip. Roger thus also desires the Jewel, and summons an earthquake to help him get it; he is eventually defeated and killed, but only at great cost to the land. Alanna acquires an immense reputation, the nickname ‘the Lioness of Tortall’, and a position as King’s Champion. Alanna’s growth to maturity means a growth into sexuality— not easy for a woman in disguise, nor afterwards for a knight both notorious and clearly trained to kill. For most of the quartet the love interest is divided between (i) Jonathan of Conté, heir to the Tortallan throne, who trained with Alanna, discovered her secret, and takes her virginity, but must in the end marry for politics, not love; and

10  Reading Tamora Pierce (ii) George Cooper, of very humble birth but considerable power in the underworld, eventually becoming ‘the Rogue’, King of Tortall’s thieves and hard men. Though lacking Jonathan’s royal status George has a kind and wise heart, and after marrying Alanna becomes deputy chief of the Tortallan secret service. The Immortals begins some years after Alanna’s triumphs. Tortall and its neighbours are troubled by Immortals—unicorns, griffins, etc. but also stormwings and spidrens, vile combinations of human and beast—that were banished to the Divine Realm four centuries past. They have been loosed by the Emperor Mage Ozorne of Carthak, who covets more power and land and whose defeat is the quartet’s major theme. The heroine is Daine, illegitimate daughter of an unknown father in the poor north of Tortall’s neighbour Galla. Gifted with animals, Daine flees her village with her pony Cloud after raiders kill her family, and meets a pony-trader, Onua, who works for the Tortallan military and hires Daine as assistant. Fostered by the Badger God, who visits her dreams, her uncanny way with animals, including sensing Immortals, secures her in favour, and she trains in ‘wild magic’ with a great mage, Numair, born in Carthak. Attacks by Ozorne on the Queen and in north Tortall are defeated; Daine does great things, becomes guardian of an orphan dragon, Skysong, and extends her magic from animal empathy to shapeshifting, earning the name ‘the Wildmage’. A visit to Carthak during peace negotiations precipitates a crisis: the gods are angry with Ozorne and use Daine to dethrone him, but he survives, transformed into a stormwing, and forges an alliance with all Tortall’s enemies and the anti-Goddess of Chaos, Uusoae, who seeks to end the world. It also transpires that Daine’s father was Weiryn, a northern God of the Hunt, and that after death her mother has become a minor Goddess of Childbirth and Healing, the Green Lady. In the last novel Daine and Numair visit the Divine Realm, meeting her parents and other Gods, Skysong’s dragon family, and much peril. The Gods themselves need Daine as one of their own to help defeat Uusoae and Ozorne. Eventually Daine kills Ozorne and saves the day, but because she precipitates such change is confined thereafter

The Immortals  11 to mortal lands. Love with Numair and the many friends she made in Tortall make it the richer prospect. The Protector of the Small begins some years after the Immortals War, and follows the second female candidate for knighthood in Tortall. Unlike Alanna the Lioness, whom she greatly admires, Keladry of Mindelan (from a newly ennobled diplomatic family) has neither the steering hand of a goddess nor magic, and no need to disguise herself to be admitted for Page training. But that cannot prevent the prejudice of her peers and trainers, and Kel has to draw deep on her upbringing and fierce childhood training in discipline and stoicism in the Yamani islands (a version of imperial Japan) to get through her hazing and beatings, the last an openly criminal assault. The theme of formal justice runs throughout. Successive novels trace Kel’s four years as page and four as squire, but develop quite differently from Song of the Lioness. Kel is not only a very good trainee, she can command; and to her suprise (having hoped to be chosen by Alanna) she is taken as squire by Raoul of Goldenlake, commander of the King’s Own—the business end of the Tortallan army. Fighting mortal and immortal raiders, travelling the length and breadth of Tortall, Kel receives a fine training in logistics, learns to joust, and discovers in the escalating war with invasive northern neighbour Scanra what battle truly is. The Scanrans, newly coherent and disciplined under a fresh warlord-king, Maggur, also have ‘killing devices’, razor-fingered robots made from giants’ bones and powered by the trapped souls of murdered children. Temporarily commanding a seasoned squad, Kel’s thinking and fighting skills help them kill one; but the terror runs deep. When Kel graduates the Chamber of the Ordeal assigns her a special task, to kill the magician making the devices, Blayce. Military need puts Kel in command of a refugee camp, guarding 300 adults and 200 children, without a chance to follow her quest. But after a Scanran strike force abducts all the refugees, enslaving adults and marking the children for Blayce, Kel and a motley band of friends strike out behind enemy lines, and burn the evil out, killing Blayce and rescuing most of the refugees, as well as various others. A better refuge is built, and Kel resumes command as the war drags on without

12  Reading Tamora Pierce the devices. The Daughter of the Lioness (also known as the ‘Trickster series’) jumps some years and provides a new heroine. Alianne (Ali) is the daughter of Alanna the Lioness and George Cooper, and fancies her father’s trade as a spymaster rather than her mother’s as a knight. They will hear none of it, but Ali’s chance comes, rather brutally, when she is caught by raiders and sold into slavery in the Copper Isles (a version of colonial Indonesia). Long ruled by light-skinned Luarin from the Tortallan continent who oppress the native Raka, the Isles were cast down because their God, Kyprioth the Jester, a trickster-divinity, was cast down by his more warlike and dedicated brother Mithros and the Great Mother Goddess. In Ali he sees a perfect tool for revenge, and inserts her, via a mixed-race noble household, as spymaster into a rebel conspiracy that grows into an insurgency. Over the two books wrongs earthly and divine are comprehensively righted—and real blood, sweat, and tears are shed. Racism and colonial insurgency are new themes, but the real costs of war, and young women’s abilities to wage it both with blood and secrets, continue from Protector of the Small. There is no ‘portrait’ of Indonesia, but there is a raw historical reality to some action. A lively romance plot sees Ali fall for, sleep with, and marry Nawat Crow, so called because he used to be one; all crows, it seems, could change shape, but most think Nawat’s choice very odd. At the end a pregnant Ali is established as spymaster of a liberated Copper Isles, politely chasing out her father’s agents. The Provost’s Dog is set two centuries earlier, and written in the firstperson as the diary of Beka Cooper (an ancestor of George’s) as she sets out on a career as a Provost’s Guardswoman, a feudal policeforce. The books import elements of the crime story, with forensic science modulated by magic, that Pierce very interestingly developed in the second of her ‘Circle’ quartets, ‘The Circle Opens’ (2000–03). Terrier sees Beka starting as a probationer in the slums of Corus, tackling what is in effect a slave-labour operation. Bloodhound sends her to Port Caynn and involves a counterfeiting operation. Mastiff

The Immortals  13 turns on a threat to the royal family, and sees Beka effect a daring rescue and fall in love. She has a familiar cat, purple-eyed Pounce, clearly the same divine creature that as Faithful accompanied Alanna in ‘Song of the Lioness’; she also has a limited magical gift that enables her to speak with ghosts (carried by pigeons) and dust-devils. The frustrations of these gifts are stressed as much as their utility, and the series is far more concerned with human than divine relations. The crime-writing theme of policemen necessarily communicating with and in some ways resembling criminals is prominent, replaying and developing Alanna’s relationship with George Cooper in Beka’s relationship with Rosto the Piper, who in Terrier becomes the ‘Rogue’ of Corus. 1.2.2 The Setting and Cultures The world of Tortall is very unusual as a fantasy creation because it openly corresponds in a rough but perfectly clear way with real geography. The maps provided with the books have never been bigger than a page, and have varied in scale, but local detail rarely matters. At the same time, geography is warped into convenience, much as magic can in this fictional world bend reality. Tortall itself is Europe, combining English, French, Spanish, and German elements into a generic mediaeval kingdom; its culture of feudal chivalry has a Roman context but predominantly British surface. To the north, mountainous and cold, is Scanra, whose blond armies are distinctly like Vikings and the Germanic tribes who once fought against Rome. The neighbouring nations of Tusaine, Galla, Tyra, Maren, and Sarain, all to the east, are little explored. Beyond them are lands Alanna visits that are plainly India and the Far East, with the Himalayas (‘The Roof of the World’) and a version of the Chinese Civil or Vietnam Wars. Queen Thayet and Onua are ‘K’miri’, and seem Vietnamese or Cambodian. South-eastern Tortall, however, strangely includes the lands of the tribal Bazhir, who are like Bedouin nomads and live in deep desert that is African or Middle Eastern, not European. The land analogous to Northern Africa is occupied by Carthak,

14  Reading Tamora Pierce which despite its name is not much like the ancient Carthage (modern Libya) that was Rome’s greatest enemy. It is more a version of Alexander the Great’s empire strongly flavoured with the notorious pirate-kingdoms of the North African ‘Barbary Coast’ (modern Algeria and Morocco), that until the early nineteenth century regularly raided European ships and coasts for slaves. Reported lands south of Carthak include ‘the grass plains of Ekellatum’, which sound like the Kenyan Masai Mara or South African veldt. Out in the Atlantic, less than a week’s sail from land, are two large archipelagos. Further north are the Yamani Isles, there from the first but emerging in Protector of the Small as a full-blown version of imperial Japan, complete with language, dress, customs, sword and steel technologies, politics, nobility, and raider-problems of their own. Further south are the Copper Isles, also there from the first as the source of a nasty princess very troublesome to Alanna, but emerging in the two novels about Alianne as an equally full-blown version of colonial Indonesia, complete with tropical climate, oppressing rulers, oppressed darker-skinned natives, language, customs, dress, technologies, double nobility, and developing nationalist insurgency. The problem as a smart reader, seeing these real-world references appeal to history while re-arranging geography and climate at will, is what to make of it all. It matters because Tortall is evidently more deserving and kinder than most of its neighbours. Scanrans are thoroughly destructive and unscrupulous, and Carthakis (once commandeered by Ozorne, and subsequently recovering under the nicer Emperor Kaddar) are inveterate raiders and slavers whom the Gods recently punished. Other countries are generally mistrusted, and the East, racked by endemic wars, is a source of refugees. Isn’t this a little disturbing? even racist? But the plots suggest otherwise, and Pierce’s reason for mixing things up so much, historically and geographically, may be precisely to mobilise these issues, not to endorse them in some reactionary fashion. Tortall’s European feudal and chivalric culture, for example, imposes a rigid social system and cultural prohibitions given solid reality, but the whole idea has been their systematic defeat and modification by women. Alanna challenges the patriarchy of the

The Immortals  15 knighthood and monarchy. Daine challenges exploitation and abuse of animals and is, with Kel, a reluctant warrior enraged by slavery, war, and the politics that drive them. Kel is also a sterling and sometimes satirical protector of children and refugees with an increasingly acute class-consciousness, while Ali helps a people and a nation liberate themselves from abusive and impious foreign rule. Evidently committed to gender and social equality in law and custom, but recognising sexual and moral differences that make people unequal in many ways and degrees, Pierce’s contemporary feminism is far more interested in realism and imagination than political correctness. The distinct quartets and duology have helped by keeping the various dimensions self-contained, and despite the acknowledged influence of Tolkien’s massively coherent The Lord of the Rings Pierce does not make a fetish of detailed cohesion. In later volumes of Protector of the Small some aspects of Yamani life and the clash of Euro-Asian values have featured in mainland Tortall, via Prince Roald’s marriage to Princess Shinkokami and Kel’s memories of Yamani childhood, but events with Ali in the Copper Islands were discrete, and what impact they may have in future has been postponed by the move back in time to Beka Cooper in Terrier. But the stories and nations that are present offer a wide range of liberations for women and all children to consider—and if the oppressions from which folk need liberating are sometimes brutally real, in the real world oppression is brutal and Pierce, for all her delight in fantasy, is deeply committed to changing it. 1.2.3 The Cast of The Immortals Although all Pierce’s quartets, and for the most part each individual novel, can stand alone, they are highly accumulative, and knowing who or what everyone is, and does throughout all the novels, makes reading enormously richer. What follows is therefore a cast-list (or dramatis personae, the ‘characters of the drama’) with some summaries. Readers are warned that some spoilers inevitably creep in. As mortals, immortals, and gods, with variant names, are all present, entries are given in strict alphabetical order— ‘Daine’ is

16  Reading Tamora Pierce under ‘D’ and her full name, Veralidaine Sarrasri, under ‘V’ (not ‘S’, as would be usual in an index). The only exception is ‘the’, so ‘the Cat’ is under ‘C’. Alamid  A Carthaki mage serving Tristan Staghorn. Alanna the Lioness  Alanna of Olau and Trebond, the heroine of Song of the Lioness and present in all the series except The Provost’s Dog. The first woman to achieve knighthood in Tortall for a century, Alanna is a god-touched mage and a difficult, high-tempered woman, but a fearsome King’s Champion and loyal friend. Myles of Olau is her adoptive father. She is married to George Cooper, formerly ‘the Rogue’, now deputy chief of the Tortallan secret service, and they have three children, Thom (named for Alanna’s dead twin brother) and younger twins Alan and Alianne (the heroine of The Daughter of the Lioness). Alanna warmly welcomes Daine, and is Kel’s secret sponsor in The Protector of the Small. Aranh  One of the male spotted hyenas in Ozorne’s menagerie, distinguished by a nicked ear. Arram Draper  See Numair Salmalín the Badger  The male Badger God, first animal of his kind and not simply immortal, but divine; if ‘killed’ he is immediately reincarnated. He looks after Daine on Weryn’s behalf because after petitioning for Sarra’s incarnation as a goddess Weiryn himself is bound to his lands in the Divine Realms for a century; thus he is a father-substitute, less important once Daine has met Weiryn and increasingly offstage, helping Thayet and the darkings against Ozorne’s alliance. the Banjiko  A central or southern African tribe famous for wild magic with animals, but mistakenly believing themselves also divinely destined for slavery. Daine meets them as Ozorne’s slaves and frees them. They are the first people to recognise Daine’s semidivine nature. Barzha Razorwing  A stormwing queen, usurped by Jokhun Foulreek and Ozorne and freed by Daine, whom she helps in the Divine Realms. Battle  One of the wolves in the Long Lake pack, who famously defended cubs against a mountain lion.

The Immortals  17 Belden of Dunlath  A treasonable Tortallan lord, married to Maura of Dunlath’s half-sister Yolane. the Black God  A great God, master of death and the afterlife, and father of the Graveyard Hag, he is also reputed the kindest God, refusing none in death. He figures by name in all novels, briefly in spirit-person in Trickster’s Choice, and in Terrier it is revealed that pigeons are his messenger-servants, bearing souls to him (that Beka Cooper can hear). Blueness  A large tomcat in Castle Dunlath, who as a kitten fell into a bowl of food colouring. He protects the kitten Scrap. Bonedancer  A Tortallan version of Archaeopteryx, the fossillink between dinosaurs and birds—Bonedancer is literally a fossil, magically resurrected by Daine while she wields the power of the Graveyard Hag in Carthak. He chooses to stay alive afterwards as the pet of Lindhall Reed, and also appears in The Protector of the Small. Broad Foot  The male God of ‘duckmoles’ (broad-billed platypi), first animal of his kind and not simply immortal, but divine; if ‘killed’ he is immediately reincarnated. A friend of the Badger, Weryn, and Sarra (whose fish stew he likes), he helps Daine and Numair in the war against Uusoae by controlling the Three Sorrows. Brokefang  The Alpha wolf of the Long Lake pack, who is manipulated by the Wolf God into summoning Daine to Dunlath. Daine feels morally indebted to him for the pack’s shelter after her family were killed, and because the greater intelligence she arouses in him causes him grief. Buriram Tourakom, ‘Buri’  A K’miri friend of Queen Thayet who fled to Tortall with her, and became co-commander, then full commander, of the Queen’s Riders. A kindly but tough woman who is a good friend to Daine, she figures in all three quartets, and in The Protector of the Small 3–4 pairs with and marries Raoul of Goldenlake. the Cat  A mysterious animal God and constellation, who can choose to become incarnate (always with striking purple eyes) and assist struggling individuals, the Cat features primarily in Song of the Lioness as Alanna’s companion, and returns in Terrier as Beka Cooper’s. It turns up briefly when Daine is in the Divine Realms.

18  Reading Tamora Pierce Cloud  Daine’s faithful shaggy-coated mountain pony, at a critical time her only companion, who has become preternaturally intelligent through contact with her. Daine  See Veralidaine Sarrasri Darkmoon  Alanna’s horse, whose granddam she rides in Song of the Lioness. Deniau of the Copper Isles  A prince allied to Ozorne, killed in his wars. The mad Rittavon blood he represents is expressed through Josiane in Song of the Lioness and central to The Daughter of the Lioness. Diamondflame  The chief dragon, Skysong’s great-greatgrandfather, who helps Daine fight Ozorne and Uusoae. Evin Larse  A Queen’s Rider from a theatrical family whom Daine meets as a trainee. In Protector of the Small he has advanced to a command rank with the Riders. Flamewing  A dragon, Diamondflame’s great-granddaughter and Skysong’s mother, killed after helping Daine by Carthaki mages during the attack on Pirate’s Swoop. Flicker  A squirrel, whom Daine heals from a stormwing-gash and empathically inhabits to reconnoitre Dunlath. Frostfur  A wolf, the Alpha female of the Long Lake pack and Brokefang’s second mate. Daine thinks her much nastier than the dead female she replaced, and Frostfur returns the dislike. Gainel, Master of Dream  One of the great Gods, but permitted only to converse with mortals in dream and standing with one foot in the Divine Realms, the other in Chaos. He recruits Daine and Numair on the Gods’ behalves to fight against Uusoae, and heals Daine after she kills Ozorne. His eyes are infinitely deep, and he can in dream take any form; to Daine he first comes as Rattail, a dead wolf she loved. Gardiner  A Carthaki mage serving Tristram Staghorn. Gareth the Elder of Naxen  A duke and senior official from the days of King Jonathan’s father. He plays a larger role in Song of the Lioness. Gareth the Younger of Naxen  A classmate of King Jonathan’s as a page and squire, now to the son as his father was to Jonathan’s

The Immortals  19 father. He heads the Tortallan delegation to Carthage, and features in all three quartets. George Cooper  Alanna’s plain-featured husband, of poor birth, once ‘the Rogue’, now deputy chief of the Tortallan secret service (his street-name is ‘the Whisper Man’) and Baron of Pirate’s Swoop. He features in all the series except The Provost’s Dog (about one of his ancestors), but is most important in Song of the Lioness and The Daughter of the Lioness, where his paternal advice to Alianne is often very sharp and funny. Gissa of Rachne  A Carthaki mage serving Tristan Staghorn who spills ‘blood rain’ on her hand and has to cut it off to save her own life. Gold-streak  A darking, the first to rebel against Ozorne’s commands and contact Daine, and later the architect of the plan to spy for Daine. It survives and goes to live with other darkings in the Dragon Lands. the Graveyard Hag  A great Goddess, but only of real power in Carthak where she is the dominant divinity. A daughter of the Black God, she typically appears as a one-eyed hag, loves dicing, and has as her sacred animals rats and spotted hyenas. She lends Daine divine power to resurrect the dead to punish Ozorne’s neglect of her and the other Gods. She also appears in Trickster’s Queen. the Great Mother Goddess  The greatest female divinity, subsuming classical and northern deities of childbirth, love, and maternity. She has aspects as Maiden, Mother, & Hag, but allows the Graveyard Hag to dominate in Carthak, and lesser local gods like Sarra, the Green Lady, to hold sway in small ways. She is enamoured of military prowess and hates deception; though Alanna’s patron in Song of the Lioness, Alianne manages to deceive her to her face in The Daughter of the Lioness. the Green Lady  See Sarra Hakim  A Bazhir soldier in the King’s Own, who recognises Daine’s divinely-gifted archery; he also appears in Protector of the Small as a welcome friend and mentor to Kel. Hebakh  A stormwing lord, mate of Barzha Razorwing, and a nervy, intelligent creature, always bating.

20  Reading Tamora Pierce Huntsong  A golden eagle of Dunlath with whom Daine magically rides. Iakoju  An ogre who helps Daine free the enslaved immortals, mortals, and animals of Dunlath. Imrah of Legann  An important Tortallan, commanding the biggest port. He was Roald’s knight-master, and though gruff and intimidating is kindly and wise. Inar Hardensra  A powerful Scanran mage with one eye replaced by a large ruby who becomes an important ally of Ozorne and Uusoae. He is eventually slain by Numair. Iry  A spotted hyena in Ozorne’s menagerie, distinguished by having (in Teeu’s words) “more spots than he can use”. Jachull  A stormwing queen devoid of feeling, who allies herself with Ozorne and is eventually slain by Barzha Razorwing. Jelly  A darking, third to defect from Ozorne but only after exposing Daine and Numair to attack by hurroks, and later killed by Ozorne; a darking martyr. Jewelclaw  A nasty dragon, who threatens Daine and Numair and summons the Dragonmeet against them. His fate is unclear but involves a severe punishment for discourtesy by Rainbow Windheart. Jokhun Foulreek  A stormwing king, who usurped Barzha Razorwing (whom he could not fight) by betraying her to Ozorne as the price of an alliance; after her escape he must fight her, and is slain. Josiane of the Copper Isles  A Rittavon Princess who figures in Song of the Lioness as an enemy of Alanna and the Cat. She matters here because her death is a cause of political hostility between the Isles and Tortall, making the Rittavon monarchy (overthrown in The Daughter of the Lioness) ready allies of Ozorne. Jonathan of Conté  King of Tortall, once Alanna’s lover but married to Thayet; basically a good king and wise reformer, but of necessity a politician and compromiser. Sympathetically presented in Song of the Lioness and The Immortals, he gets a much more critical examination from Kel in The Protector of the Small. Kalasin, ‘Kally’  Jonathan’s and Thayet’s elder daughter, a powerful healing mage-to-be. She is about 8 in the Immortals

The Immortals  21 Quartet, and wants to be a knight like Alanna, but in The Protector of the Small readers learn that Jonathan dissuaded her for sexist reasons. Kaddar  Ozorne’s nephew, heir, and successor as Carthaki emperor, whom Daine knows and likes. A reformer, but with a lot to reform in the teeth of serious dissent; in The Daughter of the Lioness readers learn that after eight years in power Kaddar still faces rebellious opposition, but the internal unrest has curtailed Carthaki slave raids and military adventurism. Kidunka the World Snake  A great God, only glimpsed in the Divine Realm but important as the God of the Banjiku. Kit  See Skysong Leaf  A darking, the second to defect from Ozorne and later killed by him with Jelly; a darking martyr. Leaper  A wolf-cub Daine meets with the Long Lake pack. Lindhall Reed  A Tortallan mage concerned with animals and zoology who worked at the University in Carthak and knew Numair. He resists Ozorne’s tyranny through an ‘underground railroad’ network smuggling escaped slaves north, and returns to Tortall after Ozorne’s downfall. The resurrected fossil Bonedancer is his pet. the Lioness  See Alanna the Lioness Maura of Dunlath  A noble Tortallan orphan whose half-sister and her husband treacherously deal with Ozorne. Daine forestalls the plot and Maura inherits all Dunlath with a guardian, making it notable for interspecies co-operation: immortal ogres, ‘the People’ (animals), and mortal humans are all represented in the fief’s government and live in explicit harmony as a rebuke to intolerance and exploitation—a crucial pilot-project for Tortall after the Immortals War. Myles of Olau  Alanna the Lioness’s adoptive father, and the chief of the Tortallan secret service. Kind and wise, ruthless and efficient, he figures by name in all the series except The Provost’s Dog, but after Song of the Lioness rarely in person save as an instructor of pages in diplomatic history. Miri  A Queen’s Rider whom Daine meets and helps as a trainee. She is important because her fisherfolk knowledge of Wild Magic with dolphins helps to convince Daine of her own sanity and normality. Mithros the Sun Lord  The greatest of the Gods, a handsome

22  Reading Tamora Pierce black-skinned soldier, usually dressed something like a Roman legionary. Proud and overbearing, he is quintessentially male but can be stood up to by fellow Gods—and Daine. In The Daughter of the Lioness Kyprioth and Ali fight him, and Ali does manage, thanks to Daine’s teaching, to deceive him to his face. Night Black  The female Wolf Goddess, first animal of her kind and not simply immortal, but divine; if ‘killed’ she is immediately reincarnated. Daine sees her once, in Dunlath. Numair Salmalín  Born Arram Draper in Carthak, and one of only seven living ‘Black Robe’ graduates from the University there, Numair fell foul of Ozorne and fled to Tortall. As the kingdom’s most powerful mage he is central to its defence, but as one of the few people to know Wild Magic exists becomes Daine’s teacher and eventually lover/husband. He appears briefly as an instructor in The Protector of the Small, and in The Daughter of the Lioness readers learn he and Daine have children, Sarralyn and Rikash. Old White  The male Wolf God, first animal of his kind and not simply immortal, but divine; if ‘killed’ he is immediately reincarnated. He prompts Brokefang to summon Daine, who hears and sees him once each, in Dunlath. Onua Chamtong  A K’miri woman who fled an abusive marriage and now works as Horsemistress for the Queen’s Riders, buying the mountain ponies they need. She takes Daine on as assistant at the first, and is a good friend throughout, embracing her at the last, but is not explored in detail. Ozorne  In full Ozorne Muhassin Tasikhe, Emperor Mage of Carthak and a bad man before becoming a bad stormwing. Very gifted magically but arrogant and cruel in person, he falls because he neglects the Gods, especially the Graveyard Hag, who chooses Daine as her ‘mortal vessel’ of punishment. His successor as emperor is his nephew Kaddar. As a stormwing he forms a cross-species alliance against Tortall, and is the primary villain of The Immortals. Padrach  A Queen’s Rider whom Daine meets and helps as a trainee. Prettyfoot  A wolfhound belonging to Tait whom Daine befriends in Dunlath, and a noble dog, willing in need to have a truce with

The Immortals  23 wolves. Queenclaw  The female Goddess of house-cats, first animal of her kind and not simply immortal, but divine; if ‘killed’ she is immediately reincarnated. She gives Scrap (a kitten in Dunlath killed fighting a coldfang) a new life at Daine’s request, and Daine meets her at her parents’ house in the Divine Realms. Quickmunch  A marmoset whom Daine uses as a medium to bypass the magical barrier set around Dunlath by Tristram Staghorn. Quickmunch likes Daine and amusingly disapproves of Numair’s noisiness. Rainbow Windheart  The eldest living dragon, more than 10,000 years old and convener/arbitrator of the dragonmeet. Daine and Numair meet him in the Dragonlands. Rikash Moonsword  An unusual stormwing, a follower of Barzha Razorwing and Hebakh, whom Daine meets in Dunlath, Carthak, the Divine Realms, and Tortall, where he is killed in the Battle of Port Legann by a Chaos-dweller. Daine is swayed by Rikash to think better of stormwings, and her second child is named Rikash in his memory. Raoul of Goldenlake  Also known as ‘the Giantkiller’; a contemporary of King Jonathan’s as a page and commander of the King’s Own. An important presence in Song of the Lioness and The Protector of the Small (where he married Buriram Tourakom), he and Alanna command the force that relieves Dunlath. Rebel  The fastest horse in Dunlath, who bears Daine speedily at need. Roald  The eldest son of King Jonathan and Queen Thayet, heir to the Tortallan throne. A child in The Immortals, present at the siege of Pirate’s Swoop, he is a page and squire (to Imrah of Legann) in The Protector of the Small, where his betrothal and marriage to Princess Shinkokami of the Yamani Islands (a friend of Kel’s) also features. Sarge  A former Carthaki slave, training-master and subordinate commander of the Queen’s Riders; a good if brusque friend to Daine. Sarra  Daine’s mother, a hedgewitch in northern Galla, murdered by raiders before The Immortals begins—but as Daine’s father was Weiryn of the Hunt, after her death Sarra becomes ‘the Green

24  Reading Tamora Pierce Lady’, a minor Goddess of childbed and matters of the heart. She is considered the best cook in the Divine Realms. Scrap  A bold and charming kitten in Dunlath, protected by Blueness, who tried to help defend Daine against a coldfang and is killed; at Daine’s impassioned request, Queenclaw restores him to life. Selda  A dropout trainee from the Queen’s Riders whom Daine dislikes, and who frightens her about the military liabilities of her Wild Magic. Short Snout  A mischievous wolf in the Long Lake pack, fond of cheese. He appears briefly, stealing some, in Protector of the Small 2. Silly  A wolf-cub in Dunlath who bravely but rather pointlessly attacks a coldfang, breaking off its rattle; Daine heals his injuries. Skysong  Or Kit/ten—the orphaned baby dragon Daine rescues after her mother, Flamewing, is killed attacking the Carthaki and pirate raiders. She has a useful ability to pop or melt locks, but is too young for Daine to be able to communicate with explicitly; she does know the spoken dragon tongue, but that Daine cannot speak. Sunclaw  An eagle of Dunlath whom Daine uses to carry a despatch from Numair to King Jonathan. Tahoi  The loyal and intelligent guard-dog of Onua Chamtong, who has good tricks to enable him to lick people’s faces in greeting. His immediate liking for Daine helps persuade Onua that she is honest. Tait  A huntsman of Dunlath, master of Prettyfoot and other dogs, with whom Daine makes an alliance. Teeu  The Alpha female spotted hyena in Ozorne’s menagerie, instrumental in bringing him to bay and dethroning him. Thayet of Tortall  Jonathan of Conté’s queen, a half-K’miri refugee whom Alanna rescued (to her personal cost in losing Jonathan) in Song of the Lioness 4. A good woman and a wise, personable queen, she is important in befriending Daine, and as the founder of the Queen’s Riders. She features positively (unlike Jonathan) in The Protector of the Small, welcoming Princess Shinkokami as Roald’s bride and going out of her way to learn and endorse Yamani custom. Thom  The eldest child and son of Alanna the Lioness and George

The Immortals  25 Cooper, named for Alanna’s dead twin, also a mage. T’kaa  A basilisk, the first to re-enter Mortal Lands in centuries, slipping through a breach Tristan Staghorn makes. Deeply curious and polite, he saves Daine and the cubs of the Long Lake pack from coldfang, and subsequently assists both in the liberation of Dunlath and the Immortals War, In The Daughter of the Lioness readers learn he has become one of Myles of Olau’s and George Cooper’s ‘best operatives’ in the Tortallan sacret service, Tristram Staghorn  A Carthaki mage, known to Numair as a student, who leads Ozorne’s attack on Dunlath; Numair eventually turns him into an apple tree when he tries to kill Daine. Uusoae, Queen of Chaos  The singular anti-Goddess, opposed to the Gods because she seeks in her nature to overthrow all, and willing to make alliance with Ozorne to that end. After Daine kills Ozorne she is sentenced by Father Universe and Mother Flame to imprisonment in a cage of starfire “until the next star is born”. Varice Kingsford  A Carthaki female mage who was Numair’s lover before he fled Carthak and has become Ozorne’s official hostess. Somewhat victimised by the Graveyard Hag, she survives Ozorne’s fall thanks to Daine, but her later life is unreported. Veralidaine Sarrasri  Or Daine, the heroine of The Immortals. The illegitimate daughter of Sarra and (unknown to Daine) Weiryn of the Hunt, she has wild magic enabling her to speak to all animals and immortals (save those who have a human component and can speak for themselves). Her discovery of her powers, her dead and divine parents, and love with Numair form the central action. She also appears in The Protector of the Small, and in The Daughter of the Lioness readers learn that she and Numair have had two children, Sarralyn and Rikash. Weiryn of the Hunt  Daine’s divine father, a northern Gallan– Tortallan God of hunting and marksmanship. From him Daine inherits her wild magic with animals and unfailing aim with a bow. He stands tall, helped by great curving antlers, but is shorter than Numair; his gifts are, to Daine, two bows; to Numair, a staff ; and to both a magical map. Wingstar  A dragon, daughter or mate of Diamondflame and

26  Reading Tamora Pierce great-grandmother of Skysong, who helps Daine in the Immortals War. Wisewing  A bat, whom Daine magically rides with in Dunlath. Yolane of Dunlath  Half-sister of Maura, who inherits and betrays the fief. Her husband is Belden of Dunlath. She is captured by Daine and the Long Lake pack. Zhaneh Bitterclaws  A stormwing queen, whose eye Daine puts out with an arrow while Zhaneh is in service to Ozorne. Daine eventually kills her (with Cloud’s help) at the Siege of Pirate’s Swoop. Zek  A pygmy marmoset, whom Daine rescues in Carthak from drowning and crocodiles, and who rescues her from Ozorne’s captivity. 1.3 Magic and Mythical Beasts With Harry Potter about magic seems commonplace these days, but is less so than you might think. There have always been stories with curses, enchantments and the like, but the highly organised magical education systems in Rowling, Pierce, and others are much more recent. In The Lord of the Rings (1954–5) Gandalf and Saruman the wizards are incarnate angels rather than men; their ‘magic’, like that of Tolkien’s doomed Elves, is passing, and will not come again. Rowling and Pierce are quite different: in their worlds, though not everyone has magical ability or talent, many humans do and are still no more or less than human. Once you have added such naturally occurring magical ability to a fictional world with social and historical depth, one has to ask about training mage-children. The pioneer was Ursula Le Guin in the Earthsea trilogy (1968–72), where the mage-boy Ged is first apprenticed to the best local mage, then sent to the School of Wizardry on Roke Island. What he learns there is what Numair Salmalín in The Immortals knows, that to use magic affects the balance of the world, and that the greater part of a mage’s skill is self-control. Pierce’s magical–scientific university in Carthak owes something to the School on Roke, but mixes magic and science in a different way—an interesting trick she also pulls off superbly in her second

The Immortals  27 ‘Circle’ quartet, The Circle Opens (2000–03), and is repeating in The Provost’s Dog. Pierce is also careful not to allow magic to become a prop of the wrong kind. In The Immortals it is necessarily central because of Daine’s identity and ‘wild magic’, but Kel in The Protector of the Small hasn’t a magical bone in her body, and the kinds of limited magic that Alianne and Beka Cooper have help their particular work but are a source of problems as well as solutions. Most of the celebrated children’s books to feature magic are quite moral about it in this way, and their ‘bad’ children who do not learn wisdom tend swiftly to nasty ends (as happens in Song of the Lioness 3). In Daine’s case a similar control is applied by her initial ignorance and distrust of her powers, and by the time she develops them fully, her care and control have been repeatedly tested. Additionally, once in her power her duties are overwhelmingly dictated by necessities of war, and poor Daine has little chance for irresponsibility. The distinction of ‘wild magic’ from ‘the Gift’ is also important. Varieties of wild magic used by the Bazhir and an Eastern people called the Doi had already featured in Song of the Lioness, but as tamed human tools, not the animal-centred wildness Daine learns to trust and control. As no-one else can emulate her, and she lacks the Gift, another important limit to the nature of her magic is set in place, and much thereby forestalled. (In her ‘Circle’ books Pierce creates a distinction between ‘academic’ and ‘ambient’ magic, one working out from human power, the other drawing on the power in natural things, that reworks and develops the distinction between ‘the Gift’ and Wild Magics.) Pierce’s magical animals, the Immortals, are considerably more original. Though she makes them her own, some, of course, are not her inventions—basilisks, centaurs, dragons, griffins, and ogres are ‘real’ in the sense of being very widespread and often detailed mythic beasts, while the ‘Three Sorrows’ are adapted from the Christian Book of Revelation. But many are her creations, and the best of them are striking: coldfangs, hurroks, and tauroses are all memorably nasty (and the tauroses pitiable), but the two part-human, part-animal grotesques who truly linger in the mind are spidrens and stormwings.

28  Reading Tamora Pierce There is among Pierce’s original animals a pattern of nice and nasty variants, so that hurroks (slurring ‘horse-hawk’) are distorted, carnivorous kudarung (winged horses), and her unicorns come in vegetarian and flesh-eating varieties. This also probably goes back to The Lord of the Rings, where Tolkien similarly mixes ‘real’ myths (elves, dwarves, trolls) with his own inventions (orcs, hobbits), and makes the bad ones distorted versions of the good; as he explains, evil mocks and perverts good because it cannot create for itself. But the spidrens and stormwings are distinct in their human parts, and lack with Daine the special relationship she has with wholly animal Immortals as an interspecies translator. The two also become increasingly distinct from one another. Nothing good is ever said of spidrens, and throughout The Immortals and The Protector of the Small the only valid response is killing them before they kill you. They too (like the giant spiders in the woods outside Hogwarts) might be traced back to Tolkien, whose ancient and evil spider-like Shelob catches Frodo in the Pass of Cirith Ungol, and who has other horrible spiders in The Hobbit and throughout his legendarium (the whole set of myths and legends he created). But for stormwings there is no antecedent, and while their behaviour is unspeakably vile, it has clear moral purpose, and the need to come to terms with all that stormwings represent is a major theme in The Immortals and The Protector of the Small 3–4. A stormwing hero emerges, as well as two stormwing monarchs with dry wit, and in many ways the stormwing narrative that plays out is a gathering tragedy. What matters most is attitudes to the young. Spidrens prefer them, whether children or kittens, for the tender taste, and when spidren nests are exterminated the young must also be killed—events Kel has to face in The Protector of the Small 1. Implicitly, spidrens bear multiple young with ease, and part of their terror is the ability to multiply and infest. Stormwings, on the other hand, lay steel eggs, and while details are never given the process is hard; few are laid, fewer hatch, and stormwing numbers, despite their immortality, have declined. Ozorne does them more damage as a species than he inflicts on any other, but Daine saves their remnant, and they seem

The Immortals  29 to have recovered in The Protector of the Small and The Daughter of the Lioness. Their care for children, voiced through Rikash in The Immortals, is demonstrated in Trickster’s Queen by the rescue of street-children from a spreading riot. Fiercely original and potent, the stormwings are Pierce’s most significant Immortal creations, and are considered in the Essay. As there are so many kinds of Immortal, a list with summary information appears below. basilisks  Tall but not giant lizards with grey beaded hide and pouches, who walk upright carrying their tails. They are great travellers and linguists, curious rather than aggressive, but able to turn things to stone (which they eat) with a roaring voiced spell that sounds like an avalanche. The first and last elements—lizards who petrify—come from Greek myth (the basilisk in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets also has these features), but the rest is very much Pierce’s invention. centaurs  Creatures having the body of a horse with a human torso and head rearing from the forequarters. Given to archery, centaurs fight in the Immortals War, and are important in Protector of the Small 3. They come as archers from Greek mythology, but in Pierce additionally live in herds which the herdmasters can cull, and worship ‘the Mares with Bloody Teeth’. chaos-dwellers  Beings who dwell in the Realm of Chaos with Uusoae, but try to invade the Divine Realms through Chaos vents. They can take any form. coldfangs  Large, poisonous, and toothy lizards, brightly but sickly coloured, around whom ice blooms and air freezes. They alone of all things go at will through the world, the Divine Realms, and the Peaceful Realms (where the mortal dead go), and act as guards or trackers of thieves. Their gaze hypnotises (as dragons’ often does), but they are otherwise Pierce’s invention. darkings  Small black blobs, created by Ozorne (as a stormwing) from his blood and magic to act as his spies. They later rebel against and materially help to defeat him, and after the Immortals War are invited to live in the Dragon Lands. Some adventurous ones return to

30  Reading Tamora Pierce help Ali in The Daughter of the Lioness. dragons  Mostly Germanic and Scandinavian, or Chinese, in origin, dragons are one of the great mythic beasts. Pierce’s are fairly typical in size and shape—long, winged lizards, with scaly, jewelcoloured and powerful bodies, limbs, and tails who grow to a hundred foot or more—and not that unusual in their great age (over 10,000 years in one case) or rather aggressive natures! But Diamondflame and especially Skysong (Kit/ten) are highly original in conversation, and Kitten in behaviour and particular magical abilities. giants  Usually though not always aggressive and quarrelsome, and not overly intelligent. In The Protector of the Small their bones are used to make the ‘killing devices’ and they fight the Tortallans; Raoul of Goldenlake is known as ‘the Giantkiller’, having dealt with several. griffins  As in Greek myth, a combination of giant lion and eagle, clawed, beaked, feathered and flying, but sinuously powerful on the ground. The association with honesty Pierce stresses in The Immortals and The Protector of the Small—no-one can lie around a griffin, griffin-fletched arrows fly true, and a griffin-feather headband enables the wearer to see through magical illusions—are traditional, but she adds their taste for eating dolphins, and when Kel has to look after a baby griffin invents other original behaviours. hurroks  A slurred pronunciation of ‘horse-hawk’—flying, fanged and clawed carnivorous horses who reek of stale hay and rotting meat. Hurroks are used as mounts by mages in Ozorne’s service (which enrages them), and are Pierce’s creations. the Kraken  A truly massive but urbane super-squid. The idea comes from Norse mythology, but the urbanity is Pierce’s invention. kudarung  This is the Raka word for winged horses, like Pegasus in Greek mythology. In Pierce they are most important in the Copper Isles, where they nest in large numbers and are the symbol of Raka royalty and legitimacy. Beautiful and benevolent, but shy, they feature memorably in The Daughter of the Lioness. ogres  Initially thought of (by Daine) as the usual sort of large, predatory, misshapen sub-giant, some ogres are no more than brutish mercenary killers up to 12 feet tall—but others prefer farming, if they

The Immortals  31 are allowed to live peacefully, as in Dunlath. Pierce makes them blueskinned and gives them her characteristic immortals’ silver blood. spidrens  One of Pierce’s major original creations, spiders with human heads and steel fangs, violent, predatory, and always malign. Ready allies of Ozorne, and thoroughly unpleasant on their own account, they are best hunted at night, when their webs glow. stormwings  Pierce’s major creation, creatures with human heads and chests, razor-feathered steel wings, legs, and claws. Created when a human who had seen what wars do wished to persuade all of its horror, stormwings drink human fear, and flock at battlefields to play with the corpses, which they also desecrate with excrement. Their smell repels all, but they are what they were made to be, as Daine and subsequent protagonists come to realise. Stormwings have a hard time reproducing, and so a tenderness for the young of all species. They also have a code, and its fracture by Ozorne induces a kind of civil war, as well as many fatalities in battles; loyalists to the code are allies against Ozorne. See also the Essay. tauroses  Tauros is Greek for ‘bull’ (as in the Zodiac), and tauroses are a form of the bull-headed Minotaur from Greek mythology. Zeus took the form of a bull to rape Europa, and tauroses are rapists: only male ones exist, attacking human women on sight and trying to rape them to death. the Three Sorrows  Slaughter, a hyena, Starvation, a mangy dog, and Malady, a rat, vast but invisible to mortal sight, whom the gods at times release from the Divine Realms into the world. More allegories than mythic beasts like Immortals (though Broad Foot can fight Malady with his poison-spurs), they are a version of the ‘Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse’ described in chapter 6 of the biblical book of Revelation. The horsemen are given power “to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth” (verse 8), but this is often brought down to ‘war, starvation, and malady’—exactly Pierce’s trio, though her choice of the hyena is idiosyncratic. tree-sprites  Harmless little dryads, from Greek mythology. unicorns  As usual, one-horned horses, but Pierce adds a twist in that there are vegetarian and flesh-eating kinds, whose saliva is deadly. water-sprites  Harmless little naiads, from Greek mythology.

32  Reading Tamora Pierce winged apes  Pierce’s invention—the most limited Immortals, able to create magic fog and wield weapons as well as fly, but more a background feature than an important creation. 1.4 Interfering Gods The United States of America remains a strongly Christian country in a way that is no longer true of most European nations, and Pierce particularly stands out as a US Children’s writer because her fictional worlds are so plainly and importantly not Christian. She is certainly not alone, but the best fantasy narratives to deal with religious issues (such as Lois Master Bujold’s The Curse of Chalion and its sequels), though popular with older teenagers, are not written for or marketed to younger readers. And Pierce is in many ways unusual in her deities. The basic model for a world that has a parallel, real heaven inhabited by multiple god/desse/s who interfere in human affairs is Homer’s Iliad, which tells the story of the Trojan Horse and the ten years’ siege of Troy by the Greeks. Most things in it happen because god/desse/s get up to no good, favouring one human over another and generally stirring the pot. Even in versions of the story that blame Helen of Troy’s great beauty, remember that she was so beautiful because she was a daughter of Zeus, who raped her mother in the form of a swan—so both Helen’s beauty and her life, rooted in and propagating violence, are a god’s handiwork. Pierce’s gods are more restrained than Homer’s, but similar in temperament. Her pantheon, however, comes from all over the world and out of her own head, representing many different kinds of god/ desse/s and ways of thinking about who and what they might be. Classical Greek and Roman gods are in charge, but Scandinavian, Asian, and animist (natural-spirit) gods are all present. There are also First Male and Female animals of each species—and in some cases, such as Old White and Night Black, the Wolf Gods, a First Pack as well—as well as First Plants and at least two First Bridges of various kinds (but these last are all in the Divine Realms, and how they influence mortals has never been explored). There is also a broad mythic cosmography that underlies it all—a creation by a paired fe/male principle, Father Universe and Mother

The Immortals  33 Flame, the division of the Realms, mortal, Divine, and Peaceful (where the dead go), and the distinct Dragonlands. One child of Universe and Flame was Chaos, and its Queen Uusoae, who controls half of everything, will eventually overthrow all in disorder (as in scientific theories of the ‘Big Bang’ and ‘Big Crunch’, beginning and ending/re-beginning the universe). Mortal men and women, but not animals, are half-chaos; Immortals and gods are free of chaos, and the divine-mortal mix in Daine can be a serious problem. Gainel, Master of Dream, alone among the deities stands with one foot in Chaos, and for that reason greatly assists Daine and Numair in fighting Ozorne after he has as a stormwing allied himself with Uusoae. At a general level one can see that Pierce’s theological structure serves the causes she believes in, broadly speaking, feminism and animal rights. The temples of the Great Mother Goddess in Tortall (and equivalents in the ‘Circle’ world) are refuges and courts for battered women, and with the consent of the state maintain private armies who seize and punish men (or women) who hurt women. Children may or may not be similarly protected, but the issue is often raised. The First Animals also protest and where they can help to prevent human cruelty to their kinds: they accept predation by hunting and slaughter for food, but rightly loathe sadism—a quality very rare among animals other than human beings. They stand for ecological sensitivity, so humans and animals—or as they tellingly call themselves, ‘the People’—may all thrive in harmony amid natural wealth. And individual creatures, especially birds often regarded as pests such as starlings, crows, and pigeons, are variously shown to be interesting in themselves and the servants of a particular god. It’s no surprise then to identify Pierce as at heart a good 1960s–70s feminist, nor to learn from her website that she is a great bird-lover, keeping many and feeding very many more. The fact remains that everyone in Tortall is wholly religious— deities show themselves in dreams, visions, and reality often enough that no-one has the slightest doubt of their reality—but no-one is Christian (or anything else from real history). To be God-touched like Alanna the Lioness is a burden, and few so touched are ever happy; Daine endures but hates it in Carthak. God/esse/s can be fooled if one

34  Reading Tamora Pierce is a fast enough thinker with a good enough tongue, and they also both make mistakes (the dinosaurs all died in one) and like the Greek deities are prone to hissy fits and sheer meanness that they justify as character-building for puny mortals. It’s thus no surprise either that among the Tortallan population there is a tough-minded attitude to religion, giving it a central place and nervous respect mixed with commonsense aversion. Humans thoroughly respect god/esse/s if they know what’s good for them, but would rather they kept away, thanks all the same. Nor do many of Tortall’s religious find any difficulty in being pious while approving slavery, capital punishment, acute social snobbery, and gross exploitation of people and the environment. It’s also all often rather funny, and the special humour of The Immortals is divinely capped at its end, when Diamondflame (openly distrusting Mithros the Sun Lord to return Daine to mortal lands Himself) says “—Come, Gods annoy me.—” and the Graveyard Hag snaps back “As dragons annoy us”, before winking at Daine. Adults who worry that reading Harry Potter books endangers the reader’s soul, or believe that a singular God will punish those who do so, will also worry about or believe the same of Pierce. Nothing very much can usually be done about these beliefs, which are by definition irrational (as all faith proudly is), and not often open to argument. But there is a very clear and strong case that all Pierce’s novels are strongly moral. Her morality is not the same as any particular religious morality, but it is clear, vivid, and righteous, and the values of female strength and independence, ethical treatment of animals, and ecological sustainability are for very many people, religious and otherwise, of the utmost tangible and spiritual importance. No-one guided by reason could sensibly argue that she is anything but a very good author for children (and plenty of adults I can think of) both to read and to take firmly to heart. As there is such a disparate assemblage of deities, a list follows with some brief notes about each. the Badger  The First Male badger, Daine’s protector on behalf of Weiryn. Kind but with a temper, and more fallible than he thinks. the Black God  The God of Death, ruler of the Peaceful Realm;

The Immortals  35 reputed the kindest god as he refuses none. The Graveyard Hag is his daughter and holds sway in Carthak, but elsewhere the Black God is absolute. Broad Foot  The First Male duckmole, or duck-billed platypus, whose first greeting to Daine (“G’day”) sounds Australian, but thereafter is indistinguishable from his friend the Badger, though gentler. the Cat  A most interesting deity, the Great Mother Goddess’s purple-eyed cat; when it is in the Divine Realms it appears in mortal skies as a constellation of stars, but when incarnate in the mortal realm (as it can be when he chooses) the constellation disappears. The cat was Alanna’s Faithful in Song of the Lioness, appears in The Immortals at the end, and has re-appeared as Beka Cooper’s Pounce in The Provost’s Dog. the Crooked God  The patron deity of thieves; a name for Kyprioth. Father Universe  The absolute male principle, co-creator of all. Gainel, Master of Dream  A tall man with infinitely deep eyes, who alone stands with one foot in Chaos and may visit the mortal realm only in dreams. Kind to Daine, helpful to mortals, unusually gentle for a god, and fond of the Green Lady’s cooking, Gainel is a Pierce original, though various cultures do have deities who preside over dreams. the Graveyard Hag  Pierce’s variation on one aspect of the Great Mother Goddess, a one-eyed hag who gambles, jokes, and avenges. Her sacred animals are rats and spotted hyenas. As the Black God’s daughter he heeds her in Carthaki matters (where she is supreme); elsewhere she is unimportant, but in The Daughter of the Lioness capable of mischief in the Copper Isles. the Great Mother Goddess  Most older religions have some form of female divinity with the triple aspect of maiden, wife/mother, and hag (or crone), to whom all that is specifically female in life is sacred. The aspects may also appear separately, as the Graveyard Hag and the Green Lady do here. Pierce’s version of the Great Mother Goddess, when she appears in person, is usually in her martial prime, and is fairly close to the stern, chaste huntress deities like Diana and

36  Reading Tamora Pierce Juno. The sexual aspect of Aphrodite/Venus or equivalent openly desirous and desirable women is relatively excluded, a commercial consideration in writing for younger readers—though sex is not excluded and menstruation dealt with openly. the Green Lady  Daine’s mother Sarra, transformed after being killed by raiders into a local Goddess of childbirth and matters of the heart. A minor healer and midwife in life, Sarra’s promotion to divinity was seen as a solution to the stretching thin of the Great Mother Goddess by geography and population growth. Her area of influence is limited and remote, but in it she has powers over the aspects of maiden and wife; hag-ness is wholly absent, perhaps because Sarra died in her prime. the Horse Lords  K’miri gods of storm and fire, invoked mostly as inoffensive oaths by the important K’miri refugees in Tortall— Thayet, Buri, and Onua—but glimpsed by Daine in the Divine Realms and dreams. They are Chavi West-wind, Bian North-wind, Vau Eastwind, and Shai South-wind. Cf. the Mares with Bloody Teeth. Kidunka the World Snake  A mighty serpent, lord of the Banjiku tribes (whom he seems to have left under a terrible misapprehension for a very long time, as slaves). Great serpents appear in various myths and religions, but the most relevant one here is probably the Norse Midgard Serpent (from the same pantheon as Thor and Odin). Kyprioth  Present in person in The Daughter of the Lioness (though elsewhere referred to as the ‘Crooked God’), Kyprioth was and again becomes the dominant God of the Copper Isles. He is a trickster, like the Norse Loki or the Crow in many Amerindian myths, and thinks of the Graveyard Hag as a trickster too. His sacred animals are crows—the First Crows seem to live in his house in the Divine Realms—and he has a nasty temper as well as innate dishonesty, selfishness, charm, power, and entertaining dress-sense. Lord Mauler  An antique First Animal of an extinct crocodile species, famous in the Divine Realms for uncertain temper. He lives in a swamp. the Mares with Bloody Teeth  Centaur goddesses of vengeance, mentioned in Protector of the Small as terrifying figures who come to kill. They are like Greek Furies who pursued wrongdoers relentlessly.

The Immortals  37 Mithros the Sun Lord  The chief of the ‘Great Gods’ humans worship, a powerful black man in early middle age usually dressed in a short tunic and armour; primarily a male god of warfare, weapons, & pride. The consort of the Great Mother Goddess in her militarised and chaste aspect, he is brutal and imperious in the way of Gods, but not unkind as such, and in The Daughter of the Lioness is tricked and cast down (in the region of the Copper Isles) by Kyprioth, who arranges to have his brother’s shield stolen. Although much of the historical material is dropped, he is inspired by Mithras, a Roman soldier-god of eastern origin whose temples can be excavated wherever legionaries were stationed. Mother Flame  The absolute female principle, co-creator of all. Night Black  The First Male Wolf, willing to intervene to save habitat. Old White  The First Female Wolf. Uusoae, Queen of Chaos  Pierce’s invention for a principle represented in some pantheons, fundamental disorder. She is that against which gods and some men strive; others follow their mortal half that is chaos. She appears as everything at once, mutating in hideous combinations of all life, and her appetite is insatiable. In some ways she is an allegory of entropy, the tendency of the Universe as a whole to disorder. Weiryn of the Hunt  Daine’s father, a vigorous, antlered man with green lights in his skin who hunts with a bow. He is kind but not much of a father, predatory by nature though connected to all animals of his forest and mountain range. He petitions for Sarra’s elevation to divinity, and is consequently bound (with her) to his lands in the Divine Realms for a century—Daine’s needs notwithstanding. Though he has no hounds like the Wild Hunt of Anglo-Scandinavian mythology, who pursue wrongdoers like Greek Furies, he closely resembles Herne the Hunter, antlered and woody but leader of the Wild Hunt and sometimes with yellow owl’s eyes. Herne appears in Shakespeare’s The Merry Wives of Windsor, and (very differently but memorably) in Susan Cooper’s Over Sea, Under Stone quintet (1965–77), which Pierce probably knows.

Part 2. Annotations As pagination varies between editions references are by book and chapter, but page-numbers of the first Random House/Scholastic paperbacks are given in parenthesis to indicate relative position within a chapter. 2.1 Wild Magic Dedications  ‘Raquel Wolf-Sister’ is Raquel Starace (who plays Onua in the Full Cast Audio recording of The Immortals), and ‘Tas Horse-Hearted’ is Tas Schlabach, identified in the ‘Acknowledgements’ in Wolf-Speaker and The Realms of the Gods respectively. Pierce’s nicknames for her animal-loving friends set up the main theme of the whole quartet. Chapter 1  Girl with a Pony A quiver (1)  The proper name for both a bunch of arrows and the cylindrical container in which archers (users of a bow) carry them. unstrung (1)  Bows mustn’t be left strung, or the stave (the wooden or metal shaft) loses its elasticity. an archer’s wrist- and armguards (2)  In firing the bowstring can (very painfully) strike the inner arm. Crossbow? (2)  The bow Daine has is a long bow, with a stave 5 feet or more long, and looks like a capital ‘D’ when in use. Crossbows, held with the stave horizontal, are much smaller, fire shorter, fatter arrows called ‘quarrels’, and pack more punch—but take much longer to reload, because a mechanism is needed to cock the bow. Tortallan crossbows probably look like this one, cocked with a lever (picture credit: Nordisk Familjebok).

The Immortals  39 sling (3)  Not the familiar Y-shaped schoolyard ‘slingshot’ or catapult, but the weapon with which David killed Goliath. A stone is held in the central part, both ends gripped in the hands, and the whole whirled at an angle before releasing one end. Ancient illustrations show the sling-men ranged behind the archers, suggesting slings had greater range than bows. Daine has to use one in The Realms of the Gods. a shaggy mountain pony ... a mare (3)  The mountain ponies of northern Tortall and Galla are like Welsh mountain ponies; this is a stallion (male), not a mare (female) like Cloud (picture credit: www. horseponyequine.com). her magical Gift (3)  ‘Gift’ with a capital ‘G’ always refers to the magical power some people are born with. Snowsdale (4)  ‘Dale’ is northern English for a valley. The K’mir (4)  The name summons Khmer, the dominant ethnic group in Cambodia, who created a mighty civilisation in the 9th–15th centuries ce. Pierce would have learned about them as a teenager through US violations of Cambodian sovereignty during the Vietnam War, and from the notorious Khmer Rouge (‘Red Khmer’) dictatorship, which killed 2 million people—so it makes sense that Onua (like other K’miris in Tortall) is a refugee. Tahoi (4)  The dog’s name is that of a language (also spelt ta’oih, Ta-Oy etc.) spoken in Laos and Vietnam, neighbours of Cambodia. Horse Lords (5)  The K’miri Gods of Fire and Storm—a common exclamation by K’miris and Tortallans who know them. a pretty like this one (6)  Onua means ‘a pretty girl like this one’. Because this paragraph is Onua thinking, not the narrator telling, the colloquial (ordinary, speaking) phrasing is appropriate, and the adjective ‘pretty’ is quite often used on its own, as a noun, for ‘pretty things’ that can be possessed—like jewels, or (as here) potential victims. The strawberry (6)  Applied to horses, ‘strawberry’ or ‘strawberry

40  Reading Tamora Pierce roan’ means a chestnut colour (reddish with no black hairs) with a roaning pattern (white hairs evenly spread through the coat). mum (7)  Not ‘mother’, but a form of ‘madam, ma’am’; Daine is being respectful. monsters ... human ones (7)  It’s easy to call someone or something a ‘monster’: The Immortals tests the word on almost every page. two coppers ... silver nobles (8)  Tortall’s coinage uses copper, silver, and gold; coins can be ordinary ones or ‘nobles’, large ones. a lady knight ... king’s champion (8)  Alanna the Lioness: Daine can’t have read Song of the Lioness, but she has heard the stories. hostler (8)  Also ‘ostler’—one who looks after horses; a stable-hand. Swear by the Goddess (11)  Oaths by the Great Mother Goddess and by Mithros are the most serious anyone can make. a skinflint (11)  A miser, reluctant to pay for anything; the image is of someone who would ‘skin a flint’—like the tiny ones used in cigarette lighters—rather than just throw it away. lead reins (12)  Reins used to lead horses, not to ride them. a halter (12)  The double-collar that fits on a horses head, to which the bit and reins may be attached. by all the gods (14)  Onua’s surprised thinking offers a good example of religion in Tortall: the many gods are real, and Onua means what she says when she invokes them, but it isn’t the same as the Christian ‘by God’, to say or to read. to follow her path (15)  Daine’s mother Sarra was a hedgewitch, an untrained magician with a limited Gift. three arrows (16)  Daine’s archery, as much as her ‘knack’ with animals, is a sign of her unusual parentage; it is her speed as much as accuracy that is very unusual even among highly trained adults. ticks (17)  A term covering both small blood-sucking insects and a group of blood-sucking arachnids (little, spider-like bugs) many of which transmit serious diseases. spiced white cereal grains ... “rice” (18)  Rice is a dietary staple in the Far East, and so familiar to Onua; in Tortall, clearly, some is imported but it isn’t common, and Daine, isolated in Snowsdale, has

The Immortals  41 never seen it before. The fire was banked (18)  To bank a fire is to cover it with ashes, turf, or a very slow-burning fuel so that it stays alight overnight. first in salt, then in water (18)  Before modern industrial methods were developed salt was valuable and very important. Both salt and water are often thought to have special or magical properties, and Onua’s use of them (rather than, say, blood) in spell-casting makes her magic feel safe and natural. The queen, Thayet (19)  A half-K’miri woman, also a refugee, with whom Onua has the special bond of migrants in a new land. The badger (19)  Badgers have figured in children’s literature since a very wise one appeared in Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows (1908). This badger is also a god, and a prime male, described in Wolf-Speaker as “over a yard in length, with a tail a foot long” and weighing “at least fifty pounds” (Ch. 1). This makes him a very large European badger (Meles meles), with a black-and-white face, rather than an American badger (Taxidea taxus), with a black-and-yellow face: M. meles often reaches 3 feet in length and 30 pounds, but T. taxus rarely exceeds 2 feet and 24 pounds (picture credit: Prosthetic Head). Now you know how I can take the road ... (21)  Galla is a dangerous place: Daine’s village was raided, and these countrymen would have stolen the ponies, killing or enslaving Onua. The question of women’s safety when travelling, and the need for company, training, or magic is a running question that reflects real debates about safety and crime. the Human Realms (21)  The first mention of a topography that is very important: there are the Human Realms, the Divine Realms, the Peaceful Realm (where the dead go), and the Dragonlands. a kit (21)  Badgers have cubs or kits, and live in underground ‘setts’. A silvery mist ... shiny silver (22)  Silver claws are characteristic

42  Reading Tamora Pierce of Immortals, but the silvery mist is specifically a sign of divine magic. Chapter 2  The Hawk the River Drell (23)  Cold and fast-flowing, the Drell forms part of Tortall’s borders with Scanra and Galla. “bastard” (23)  Often now treated as just another rude word, bastard used to be the usual term for an illegitimate child; how it slid into meaning someone particularly unpleasant or strict is unclear. game birds (24)  Those usually hunted to eat (as ‘game’), such as pheasant, grouse etc.. a rabid bear (25)  Rabies is a viral disease, usually fatal, that can attack any warm-blooded animal (including humans) but is commonest in dogs, jackals, and bats. The virus attacks the nervous system and the brain, causing foaming at the mouth, convulsions, erratic and aggressive behaviour, and death. The word comes from Latin rabere, ‘to rage’, and the disease is also called ‘hydrophobia’, fear of water, because suffering creatures may convulse when they swallow. a fief (25)  In feudal political and social systems, a fief is an area given by a king to a noble who then rules (and profits from) it under the crown. Your ma was a leech ... Your da was a peahen (28)  Leeches are blood-sucking worms, and peahens are female peacocks, notoriously stupid and drab birds. Daine’s insults probably owe something to a famous line in the comedy film Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1974), when a rude French soldier says to King Arthur “I fart in your general direction! Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries!” A burn throbbed on a finger (34)  Probably not from fire, but a friction-burn from her bowstring after firing at the Stormwings. mead (34)  An alcoholic drink made from honey. splints (35)  Before plaster-of-paris and modern plastics were invented broken bones were ‘splinted’ to heal, by lashing the broken limb to a straight piece of wood on both sides of the break.

The Immortals  43 gelding (36)  A male horse that has had its testicles removed (‘castration’), making it calmer and gentler as an adult. The fever ... began to climb (40)  The high temperature might signal infection in the broken wing, but can also happen as shock and starvation cause the metabolism to ‘run hot’. a fire that now burned scarlet (41)  The colour of Onua’s magic; her open hands are an important gesture—magic as ritual and religion. She warmed small rocks ... (41)  This is how beds were warmed for the wealthy, elderly, and ill before hot-water bottles or electric blankets. Box-footwarmers were also made, that could take one or two hot bricks. full mail or plate armour (43)  Mail or chain-mail armour is made of little interlocked rings; plate armour is shaped from plates of metal. the war-horse’s head (43)  A war-horse is large, usually a stallion or gelding, and highly trained both to assist the rider in fighting by manoeuvering and to fight themselves, with hooves, teeth, and body-mass. Hakim ... A brown man (43)  Like the K’miri Onua, an indication of Tortall’s multicultural population; Hakim is a Bazhir, like a Bedouin tribal warrior in northern Africa. Sir Alanna of Pirate’s Swoop and Olau (44)  (i) Alanna is ‘Sir Alanna’ because she was knighted while still disguised as a boy; Kel becomes ‘Lady Knight Keladry’, not ‘Sir Keladry’. (ii) Alanna was originally from fief Trebond; Olau is the fief of her adoptive father, Myles, and Pirate’s Swoop the fief of her husband, George. She was first ‘of Trebond’, then ‘of Trebond & Olau’, before her marriage. purple eyes (44)  A sign of Alanna’s god-touched destiny. a healer and a sorceress (44)  The extra distinction arises because Alanna learned some strange magics on her travels, beyond her natural ‘Gift’ as a healer. Don’t let these men bully (45)  Though all kindly and disciplined, the ‘warriors’ are exactly that, not always aware of how scary they can be. Tahoi growled ... Alanna stared (46)  An important exchange:

44  Reading Tamora Pierce animals defend Daine when she is upset, whether she will or no, and Alanna, however casually accustomed to command, is observant and immediately corrects her discourtesy. Your Ladyship ... mum (46)  In feudal and very class-conscious societies the humble poor (which Daine very much is) often don’t know the ‘proper’ forms nobles use, and typically use a higher form than necessary for safety. Alanna would ‘properly’ be ‘Sir Alanna’, even to complete strangers, but dropping the ‘sir’ is for good friends only. Chapter Three  Spidrens and Meditation she had an owl’s nightsight (51)  Spoiler warning! See the entry for Weiryn of the Hunt in Part 1.4. Her sword flashed once ... then twice, beheading (52)  The scene recalls the famous lines in Lewis Carroll’s poem ‘Jabberwocky’: “One two, one two, and through and through / The vorpal blade went snicker-snack. / He left it dead, and with its head / He went galumphing back.” your ancestors are proud tonight (53)  Hakim’s kindness, thinking to compliment Daine when she is shaken, also marks his ethnicity: the Bazhir, like Bedouin and many African cultures, revere ancestors. His grandam (57)  Moonlight, Alanna’s horse in Song of the Lioness. refusal in her face (59)  Daine’s wary doubts of others’ kindness are complicated: they reflect her fear and shame about the ‘madness’ that happened to her, but also her treatment in Snowsdale as a ‘bastard’ without social standing. She seems never to have encountered kindness outside her family, and doesn’t know what to make of it— especially from famous and high-ranking people. A sword was a weapon for nobles! (59)  Daine forgets soldiers, but she is right: metal swords were expensive, so cost (and sometimes laws) made it difficult for ‘ordinary’ people to have more than a knife. Daine’s longbow was made by her grandda; her cross-bow is unexplained wealth.

The Immortals  45 magistrate ... a writ of arrest (60)  A sign of Tortall’s reforms— feudal justice is beginning to be tempered by the rule of law if a local magistrate can order a noble’s arrest. a face that was dark and sensitive (62)  Numair’s NorthAfrican ethnicity is important. Before Ursula Le Guin’s Earthsea books (1968–72) very few white writers created heroes of colour, and it’s still rare. she kept her eyes away from him (63)  The old word for this humble looking down and away was ‘veiling’—not the same as actually wearing a veil, but the same idea of ‘proper’ modesty. enemies in Carthak (65)  Numair’s enemies are important in The Emperor Mage. Players (66)  Travelling actors and entertainers who play roles. Until Shakespeare’s day all such performers were players, and only became ‘actors’ in about 1600. woodchuck (66)  A burrowing rodent, also called a ‘groundhog’. away from the males of the village (67)  The picture of Daine’s childhood deepens—and isn’t pretty; she is coping fantastically for 13, but she has had a genuinely bad time, and the scars run a lot deeper than grief for her family. Buri (68)  Buriram Tourakom, Co-Commander of the Queen’s Riders. the People: the folk of claw and fur, wing and scale (70)  That animals call and think of themselves as ‘the People’, while humans are ‘two-leggers’ is very important, especially in a US context where ‘government of the people, for the people, by the people’ is a famous credo. Some Amerindian tribes, including the Cherokee and Navajo, call themselves ‘the People’. the raccoon and the marten (73)  Raccoons are nocturnal, tree-climbing, New World (North, Central, & South American) carnivores with bushy, ringed tails and black faces; martens, similar but unrelated, and lithe, like weasels and stoats, are found both in the New and the Old World (Europe, Africa, and Asia). sedan chair (75)  The kind inside a box, carried on poles by four men. She saw more glass in a look (77)  Glass-making is ancient, but

46  Reading Tamora Pierce glass has always been expensive, and even after modern industrial manufacturing began was so heavily taxed that it was a luxury. Before the 1860s relatively few people, all wealthy, had glazed windows. Chapter Four  The Queen’s Riders two coppers a day, plus room and board (80)  Before modern times payment in some money but also in kind was common, and usual for apprentices. It is still used in the military and in some schools and industries. we make sure the recruits don’t abuse their ponies (81)  Even before Daine’s arrival, the ruling Tortallans treat animals well. Socially, you’re as good as a trainee (81)  The trainees may have ‘natal rank’ from their parents’ titles and position, but as trainees they cannot use it; though an unknown younger foreigner, Daine now has equal social standing as Onua’s assistant. old scars wrapped around his wrists (81)  The scars are from manacles: Sarge used to be a slave in Carthak, and was chained; the iron chafes, causing wounds that become infected and scar. to be alone in the world as she was (82)  Daine’s bond with animals, however magical, is also a function of her human isolation. stars, blazes and masks, stockings (83)  Stars are between or above the eyes; blazes are a stripe down the middle of the face, while masks cover the whole face; and stockings come up to the knee: all are usually white on whatever the general coat-colour may be. the arch of her nose ... bad blood (85)  Arched (Roman or aquiline) noses are almost unknown in the Far East, and apparently among the K’mir; Thayet means that she has some Western blood, and the kind of Roman-nosed Westerner who might sire children in the East was probably a ‘bad-blooded’ adventurer or philanderer. Odd’s bobs (85)  One of Daine’s favourite expressions. ‘Odd’s’ is a contracted form of ‘God’s’ (Shakespeare has “Odd’s lifelings” in Twelfth Night, 5.1.137). schools have been open to everyone for nine years now (88)  That is, since Jonathan and Thayet came to the thrones as reforming rulers.

The Immortals  47 one Beltane night (90)  Beltane was one of two great Celtic feasts, the turn of the year into summer, held on 1 May; the other was Samhain, on 1 Novermber. Both featured bonfires, and on Beltane couples-to-be leaped through the flames for luck and fertility. Welcome to Corus (93)  The Tortallan capital; the echo of ‘chorus’ suggests the harmony and co-operation of the palace and realm. scrolls (99)  Before books were bound at the spine (an expensive business), long sheets of paper were rolled (or scrolled) up. Kill it! (103)  Bitterclaws does to Daine what Daine does to her— ‘it’ not ‘she’, to depersonalise the enemy as a monster. Cold with terror (103)  Daine is not only physically frightened: stormwings can induce the psychic terror they feed on. Purple fire ... weaving a net (105)  As her Gift is mainly in healing, Alanna’s magic can’t kill stormwings directly as Numair’s can. Chapter Five  Wild Magic sapphire blue (109)  Sapphires are gemstones that are most often a deep and lustrous mid-blue. Four hundred years ago ... (111)  The history of the banishment from the Mortal Realm of all but the greatest gods is suggestive of the eighteenth-century ‘Enlightenment’, when science and reason displaced religion as the basis of society and government. The Bazhir tribes ... . The Doi ... (115)  These wild magics and peoples figure in Song of the Lioness 3–4. Hag’s bones (118)  A Carthaki oath, invoking their dominant goddess, the Graveyard Hag. Father Storm and Mother Rain (121)  K’miri gods, reflecting (i) Father Universe and Mother Flame, and (ii) various human distinctions—in the West Indies, for example, ‘male’ rains are violent downpours that scour away soil, while ‘female’ rains are gentler and soak in. Two big dogs (123)  Wolfhounds, bred specially to hunt wolves. yellow dun mare ... liver chestnut gelding (125)  Dun means a

48  Reading Tamora Pierce tan coat with ‘dun factors’—a darker mane and tail, a stripe on the back, and sometimes faint stripes elsewhere; liver chestnut is a very dark brown. Three hundred gold nobles (129)  The prices and values of clothing in Protector of the Small suggest this figure is an exaggeration or mistake. a barn owl ... with the white ghost-face of his kind (134)  Barn owls (Tyto alba) are the most widely distributed kind of owl (picture credit: Racheeo).

mews (138)  Stables & coach-houses with servants’ living quarters above; an eighteenth-century British word. omniscient (138)  ‘Knowing everything’, like God or some narrators. willy-nilly (140)  ‘Willingly or unwillingly’—a contraction of ‘will he, nill [ne will] he’; it can also mean ‘randomly, haphazardly’. animals ... past ... future (140)  This is Pierce’s opinion, rather than hard science: it makes good sense but it’s fiction. Numair (like many people) sees humans as fundamentally different from animals: Pierce backs this up with separate animal gods, Realms, etc., but on the other hand her animals have equal rights—a much more radical and contentious idea. The likes of me ... peasant girls didn’t own books (141)  Attitudes like this may seem odd now, but they were once very common, and Pierce would have been familiar with a form of them in her 1950s childhood. Daine’s false self-limitations also bring readers firmly onto her side.

The Immortals  49 Chapter Six  Magelet draft horses (144)  Breeds like Belgian, Clydesdale, and Shire horses, bred for size, strength, and endurance in drawing heavy carts. to take on the scent of the herd (147)  Daine’s loss of identity through her magic is a powerful image, and what it means is food for thought. It’s clearly about her growing-up to take an adult place with animals as well as humans, but also goes back to what happened to her after the murder of her family—grief and a bitter rejection of other humans. The badger’s token had fallen outside her shirt (149)  Gods’ personal gifts tend not to do things by accident, but Daine’s emotions blind her. cob (150)  A sturdy, short-legged horse. Mangle? (150)  The horse’s inappropriate name has two meanings—the verb ‘to mangle’, ‘grossly to disfigure, or spoil through ineptitude’, and the noun, ‘a mangle’, an old-fashioned wringer for squeezing wet clothes, sometimes with heated rollers. I’m a man. I can’t be runnin’ with the herd (151)  Stefan means ‘I’m human so I can’t’, rather than ‘I’m male, so I can’t’— but Daine’s abilities (whatever they are exactly) lessen any barrier between human and horse, and are invested in her as a woman. he never forgets ... . And I can’t remember (152)  Daine can and does remember—she just doesn’t want to. a large amber drop (153)  Amber is fossilised resin while Numair was educated in Carthak, and in The Emperor Mage there are strong connections between the two. since His Majesty built his university (160)  Another glimpse of Jonathan as a thinking reformer—he realises Tortall’s need to match Carthak educationally and magically, as well as militarily. the magic of the crown (160)  This is set up in Song of the Lioness, especially Lioness Rampant: Jonathan’s personal magic is hugely extended and enhanced by the Dominion Jewel that Alanna won. I never should have left home (162)  Daine had no choice. a dab of sail (164)  ‘Dab’ captures the ocean as a painting—a

50  Reading Tamora Pierce view. “Singing” (166)  Daine is hearing whalesong; you can hear some samples at http://www.new-brunswick.net/new-brunswick/whales/ avi.html and http://www.whalesong.net . huge, liquid brown eyes (168)  Pierce is very familiar with sealions from her childhood in San Francisco, where they gather at Pier 39. big predators ... sounds (168)  Most large predators are intelligent, with high co-ordination and acute senses, so they may be more inclined to vocalise because they are closer to ‘sapience’, the kind of self-aware wisdom of which primates (humans, gorillas, chimpanzees), cetaceans (whales, dolphins, porpoises), and odontocetes (elephants) are capable. the power of her mind (169)  Daine’s unawareness of how she seems to others, human and animal, is consistently stressed. your fear of the hunt (172)  The Badger’s description of Daine’s fear is important. It has seemed a loss of identity—the individual losing itself in the group—but with the forest wolves and Darkmoon hunting or violence was involved, and the Badger equates the loss of individual identity with participation in group hunting—i.e. not loss of identity, but co-operation to live, of which no-one can afford to be afraid. breech birth (174)  This means the unborn young is the wrong way round in the womb, tail-end rather than head down; it can happen in all species, but is more dangerous in larger animals. They fought—all of them (174)  Though Daine perhaps doesn’t realise it, the animals fought because having lived with her they had changed. The dynamic of her resistance to her animal friends’ desire to repay her loyalty with their own is a major theme. Mammoth (174)  Mammoths are an extinct form of elephant. Here it presumably just means ‘big’—but Daine sees real mammoths in The Emperor Mage. dam and sire (174)  Mother and father—the correct words for horses, and once used perfectly politely of people. Two days! (175)  Even without Sarra’s hedge-witchcraft, Daine’s outrage at this long delay would be right: implicitly, her illegitimacy

The Immortals  51 (and hence her mother’s ‘reputation’) led to their exclusion from mutual help between the other survivors of the raid—a truly disgusting and callous social snobbery. all this mad inside me (175)  In ordinary US (but not British) usage, ‘a mad’ is being angry; British English has ‘mad’ for angry, but not ‘a mad’. Daine’s meaning hovers between rage and insanity. The boss male and female (175)  Brokefang and Rattail, both of whom figure in later novels of The Immortals. it made them crazy (175)  The rage/insanity problem again— and the wolves are incensed less by what happened than by Daine’s reactions. We picked off three shifts of sentries (176)  The ‘we’ seamlessly melds Daine into the pack, and vice-versa—wolves, clever as they may be, do not in nature ‘pick off shifts of sentries’, or anything else; that is Daine’s human knowledge at work, as “pack-brothers” acknowledges. Hakkon Falconer (176)  Hakkon is a Norwegian name, in keeping with Snowsdale’s closeness to Scanra. calling me a monster (177)  The human/monster theme again, with a twist. Stories of children reared by and living with wolves are old and important: Romulus and Remus, nursed by a she-wolf, founded Rome, and there is a famous mediaeval case, the Wolf Boy of Hesse. Both probably influenced Rudyard Kipling’s Mowgli in The Jungle Book. You don’t know what it’s like ... (178)  In retrospect a different explanation of the Badger’s words on p. 172—not a fear of hunting, but of being hunted; as a predator one has identity, as a prey-animal none, and no value save as meat, hide, or trophy. Chapter Seven  Buzzard Rocks that’s easy enough to fix (180)  A slight narrative convenience— but Numair is very powerful, and the problem having loomed large in Daine’s mind doesn’t mean it’s genuinely difficult. Yet there are elements of which both (and readers) are at this point ignorant, and in retrospect Numair’s explanation and curative spell are too easy a

52  Reading Tamora Pierce solution to a real problem. Thanks for trusting me (180)  Onua isn’t just kind, but thoughtful about how to be kind, and what reassurance will comfort Daine most; Numair appreciates her insight, but doesn’t usually share it. runes (181)  Runes are ‘letters’ in ancient Germanic and Scandinavian alphabets, adapted for carving on stone and wood, and so typically made up of straight lines. They are associated both historically and in literature with old and powerful spells, special wizards’ languages etc.. sea otter (183)  Almost all otters live in fresh water, but there is a large rare marine otter, Enhydra lutris, of the northern Pacific that Pierce might have seen on the Californian coast. Hunted almost to extinction for its fur by 1910, it is now protected; numbers are recovering a little. will ... want (184)  A common stipulation about magic—it is intensity of desire and focused discipline of will that makes powerful mages. Never break a promise to an animal (185)  A clever and wise credo, subtly insisting on what many humans would deny—that one can make a binding promise to an animal. Marrow (185)  The substance in the centre of bones, which makes both red and white blood cells. a sea urchin shell (187)  Sea urchins have beautiful spiny shells, so the gift is thoughtful, but the otter’s desire to thank is more striking; it has been changed as well as saved by contact with Daine—an enduring pattern—but shows why animals are ‘the People’ (while human people are often beastly). Ma, I wish you were here to see! (188)  The ‘Gift’ for which Sarra so repeatedly tested Daine was her own Gift in healing: this matters so much to Daine not only because she loves animals but because she is at last able not to ‘disappoint’ her ma by failing to have a healing Gift. mule deer (188)  A western North-American species, so-called for their long ears. They are also notable for ‘stotting’, bounding with all four feet coming down together, rather than running. A wide smooth path ... (191)  Daine’s vision sets up events in

The Immortals  53 The Realms of the Gods. ants ... a purple fire (191)  Daine sees herself being healed by Alanna from far above; the purple fire of Alanna’s magic is the “lightning” that shot through Daine, acting like electroshock treatments to restart a heart. Mithros, Mynoss, and Shakith! (192)  A common Carthaki oath. He sighed (194)  Numair is exasperated, as if his knowledge were common sense—but how could Daine know? The failure of adults to explain things to her begins with her parents, and extends to Tortall—but Numair’s crossness is also a sign of his fright, and his developing feelings for Daine. pet (194)  Not a kept animal, but a little sulk or tantrum: these senses may be related, but their origins are unknown, and neither is related either to ‘petty’ or to ‘petulant’. wood’s lily or sweet pea (195)  Wood’s or wood lily usually means Lilium philadelphicum, a summer-flowering dry-woodland plant of the east central US that grows to about 3 feet with striking orange flowers (see ª http://www.ct-botanical-society.org/ galleries/liliumphil.html). Sweet pea is in the pea family and bears fruit, but is widely cultivated for its bright colours; many kinds are winter-flowering. Have Tahoi bring Onua (197)  Another major development that passes quietly amid other excitement—animals have not previously been seen to use inter-species communication (Cloud to Tahoi) on request. otherness (199)  ‘Other’ and ‘otherness’ are important words in some politics and in almost all science fiction and fantasy. Each of us knows ourselves, but what would it mean to be ‘other’—in gender? or in species, whether another earth animal or an alien? Pierce’s Immortals aren’t exactly ‘aliens’—but they’re certainly ‘other’ than human and animal. She screamed her fury (201)  The scene replays the sea-lion attack and Daine’s defence of her attacker, but (i) this time it is fury, not fear, and she wields her own power, and (ii) the immediacy of her feelings for Immortals who are being dangerously hostile is striking, and like her ‘death’ vision a clue to her identity and purpose.

54  Reading Tamora Pierce stalled with his wings (201)  That is, flapping them turned forward to brake in the air without falling. each ringing note (204)  The bell-like tones of the griffin’s voice draw on old associations of music with magic and divinity. griffins held captive on human shields (204)  Griffins are common heraldic devices, as are their ‘component’ lions and eagles, both noble and royal beasts. The sort of entrapment magic the griffin describes is never seen or practised in Tortall, but a stolen griffin cub figures in Protector of the Small 3. Lies can’t be told near a griffin (204)  If this isn’t Pierce’s invention, she certainly upgrades the connection of griffins with honesty. As noble animals the lion and eagle are symbols of the Christian gospel-writers St Mark and St John, who proclaimed religious faith against opposition. lore (204)  The special knowledge of something derived from experience—gardening lore—or long study—dragonlore, griffinlore. I didn’t—honest (206)  But Daine did—instinctively and unconsciously. mistress ... Your Majesty (207)  For all her friendliness Thayet is queen, and a commander for whom Daine’s instincts are a problem as well as a blessing. Numair’s and Onua’s formal address signals the tension. Chapter Eight  Pirate’s Swoop three to Alanna, two to the queen (210)  Alanna’s children are Thom and twins Alan and Alianne; the prince is Roald, the princess Kalasin. Our predators? (215)  Just as humans tend to separate ourselves from our animal cousins, so we exempt ourselves from being prey— but the various stories of ‘man-eating’ big cats and sharks show clearly that we can be prey, as anything can. Daine and stormwings suggest we’d be better if there were a predator we had to fear—an idea to chew on. You saved my life ... (218)  Daine doesn’t credit her own achievements, and her effect on animals is a challenge for the

The Immortals  55 Tortallans, so she fears complete rejection. Onua’s kindness and reassurance are important in helping her begin to see herself more clearly and confidently. thieves’ cant (220)  ‘Cant’ here doesn’t mean ‘hypocritical blather’, but ‘special language’, the jargon of a group or a particular job. Thieves do have special cant, recorded from the late 1500s on; street cant is important in The Provost’s Dog. the Golden Net (220)  A spell, not an object. the red star that blazed (221)  Such portents are common in stories, including the Christian Nativity, but in Tortall they are also fiercely real; Ozorne and the gods’ signs are central to The Emperor Mage. feline ... carnivore ... vertebrate (222)  ‘Feline’ indicates the cat-family, ‘carnivores’ eat meat, and ‘vertebrates’ have backbones. I’m no mage (222)  Daine may be untrained, but she is a mage, and a very powerful one: her humility is again blinding her to herself. a nap (223)  Healing usually leaves patients sleepy. she’d never spoken with a child (224)  Another searing detail of Daine’s victimised childhood in Snowsdale—isolation even from other children, in case her illegitimacy or strangeness somehow rubbed off. a page (227)  The first step in training for knighthood, covered in detail in the first books of both Song of the Lioness and The Protector of the Small. if he wanted his shield (227)  To ‘win your shield’ is to become a knight, and be presented at graduation with a shield and personal coat-of-arms. She was the greatest of the People (230)  Daine, whom animals seem to think of not only as a friend and healer, but as a hero and champion. Bats tended to count ... (232)  A theory that makes sense, but is just speculative. It might seem that an awareness of number is basic, but whether and how animals count at all is unknown. I must look like a monster (234)  The human/monster theme again with another twist—but Daine is right: humans call the strange ‘monstrous’ much too easily.

56  Reading Tamora Pierce Chapter Nine  Siege Once she had explained things to them (237)  Daine’s lessons in extending and directing her magic pay off when a crisis demands. The two boys ... were in worse condition (243)  For someone with the Gift, to have it ‘dampened’ must be like having to wear a blindfold. in the space of a day (248)  The catapults’ ammunition must also be magical—the best siege-cannons took several days at least (and sometimes weeks or months) to make a breach in a castle-wall that was ‘viable’—big enough to attack through. Scanran wolf-boats (249)  These sound like Viking long-ships; the picture shows a replica of the ‘Gokstad’ ship at the World’s Columbian Exposition at Chicago in 1893.

adepts (249)  In ordinary usage an adept is an expert in something, but in real mysticism and fictional magic it is often an intermediate rank, implying some skill but not yet any mastery. reduce ... enslave ... kill ... sow (250)  To ‘reduce’ a castle or any fortification is to destroy its defences; sowing fields with salt was a Roman technique to make conquered peoples dependent on them for food until rain could wash the soil clean enough for crops to grow again. by runnin’ up (251)  George Cooper’s dropped ‘g’s are a sign of his humble background and rough childhood. they added pure fear (252)  Stormwings drink fear, but they can also wield it as a weapon of attack, paralysing with stench and terror. to twist a little girl’s mind (257)  Kally is 8—but Daine is only

The Immortals  57 13, and her mind has been twisted into self-blame and self-fear too. Perhaps the real example, though, is parents who use their children as weapons or excuses during divorces. They druther steal (257)  ‘They would rather steal’—a standard US usage; to ‘have one’s druthers’ is to have what one would like. That child ... (258)  It isn’t just the siege that means Kally must work: Tortall is not secure generally, needs must, and a princess especially has little time just to be a child. her claws and teeth were silver (259)  The mark of an Immortal. copper fire ... being pulled out of her (261)  Just wild magic being wild? or something more? Divine influence may be at work here. Ma’s daughter realized (262)  Daine’s ma Sarra was a midwife-healer. an emotion that looked like fear (262)  A sign of Daine’s insoluble problem—even brave warriors cannot accept the Immortals as she can, griffin or dragon, and fear her ability not to fear them. Chapter Ten  Listening Far Enough They’ll get killed! (266)  The heart of Daine’s fear, burned deep by the murder of her own family only months before—but as Onua says, do the animals not have a right to defend themselves and help their friend? humans and animals are meant to be partners (266)  This is plainly Pierce’s belief, and a common one—but there are views, including some Christian ones, who see animals as given to humans to use (and abuse) as we will. The Riders’ ponies are full partners (267)  Retrospectively the importance of Daine meeting Onua is put in a new perspective: the Queen’s Riders necessarily valorise a human-animal pairing, and the fact that war and combat do so in general partly explains Pierce’s persistent use of that theme. blue whales (275)  The largest of all creatures, reaching 100 feet in length. that atrocious accent (275)  Presumably Daine’s magical accent

58  Reading Tamora Pierce is like her spoken one—that of northern, rural, mountain folk. the People have vowed ... (277)  How this is possible isn’t clear— the animals with ‘higgledy-piggledy’ minds Daine has described don’t seem vow-makers—but the idea of a chain of predation in which prey animals accept their status is old and common. In Shakespeare’s Macbeth one terrible sign of things amiss is that “a falcon, tow’ring in her pride of place, / Was by a mousing owl hawk’d at, and kill’d” (2.4.12–13). She dropped into ice water (279)  Daine goes beyond the ‘coastal shelf’ that surrounds continents, to the abyssal plains of the Emerald Ocean; in the Atlantic coastal waters are only about 660 ft (200m) deep, but the abyssal plains average 12,960 ft (3,868m). The kraken (279)  These sea-monsters, perhaps based on glimpses of giant squid, figure in Norse mythology; kraken is ‘octopi’ in modern German. Pierce’s singular kraken owes something (like most modern krakens) to the poem ‘The Kraken’ (1830) by Tennyson, which begins “Below the thunders of the upper deep; / Far, far beneath in the abysmal sea, / His ancient, dreamless, uninvaded sleep / The Kraken sleepeth”. This 1801 painting by Pierre Dénys de Montfort was based on reports of a Kraken attack on French sailors off the coast of Angola. mantle (279)  The protective skin over the body-mass of mollusks (where it secretes the shell) and cephalopods like octopi—or krakens! Deals with demons (280)  The proverb says ‘If you sup with the devil, you’d best have a long spoon’—but is the kraken a demon? or just it’s own kind of Immortal?

The Immortals  59 Goddess and Horse Lords (280)  Only Daine combines the Goddess and the K’miri gods—but it’s appropriate, as they are gods of fire and storm. liquid fire (286)  Fire-arrows are ancient weapons, but flamethrowers became common in World War 2 (1939–45), and Pierce would know about two fire-weapons notoriously used by the US during the Vietnam War—napalm and white phosphorus—that are like both dragon’s fire and the Carthaki catapulted fire. the Graveyard Hag (287)  Numair invokes the Carthaki goddess. a company of the King’s Own (288)  About 100 mounted soldiers. the sound of hooves (289)  This would be possible, because Cloud is a mountain pony, not a full-size horse. that greedy-guts (289)  As an Immortal Bitterclaws would know of and about the kraken. My gods made me. You’re just a freak. (290)  Without endorsing Bitterclaws’s sentiments, she’s not wholly wrong—Daine’s unique identity is a major theme, and has consequences. like that poor dragon (290)  A first, telling sign that stormwings have noble feelings as well as base behaviour. Epilogue That’s where you’re wrong (293)  Even Numair has been affected by what Daine has achieved: despite her age, when she says she has to do something now he immediately accepts it, organising the escort. You behave (294)  A little circle closes: Miri was too nervous even to walk past a pony before Daine helped her; now she repays in friendship and can cheerfully threaten Cloud. Now they avoided her glance ... A small explosion (295)  Daine has done nothing but help—yet being able to chat with krakens and dragons leaves the stableboys scared of her; the younger children are more sensible and loving—an important, persistent idea in Pierce. a unique way of finding things (296)  Yes—but one might again suspect divine oversight, and either a god’s sense of humour or (like

60  Reading Tamora Pierce the repeating dream?) dragon magic, taking Daine where she wants by the shortest possible way. Me? / You ... Veralidaine Sarrasri (298)  When Alanna offered Daine thanks and help, Daine didn’t really believe it, though it came true. Now the queen thanks her directly, with witnesses, using her full name (that stigmatises her illegitimacy) with honour. no home ... too many! (299)  A good problem to have, but still a problem of sorts—and Daine finds more homes in Wolf-Speaker and The Realms of the Gods, so the question of where is her home remains open. 2.2 Wolf-Speaker Dedications  ‘Raquel Wolf-Sister’ is Raquel Starace (to whom Wild Magic is dedicated), Pierce’s best friend. ‘Thomas’ has not been identified. ‘Tim’ is Pierce’s husband, Tim Liebe. Chapter 1  Encounters Fleetfoot and Russet (1)  ‘Fleet’ means fast, as in ‘fleet of foot’; russet is a reddish-brown colour, and is transferred to homespun cloth so dyed. two winters before (2)  Daine’s family were murdered in January, and she met Brokefang after that; Wild Magic ends early in the summer, so it must now be about a year after the end of Wild Magic. Pack (3)  Wolves live in packs, but ‘Pack’ with a capital P means not just ‘wolf-kind’ or ‘of the People’ (i.e. animals), but his own pack; ‘family’. breeches (3)  The word can mean ‘underclothes’, but here means ‘knee breeches’, trousers that fasten just below the knee, worn with tall boots. a place that could be Snowsdale’s twin (4)  The issue of Daine’s home continues directly from the end of Wild Magic. you fidget over stupid things (6)  An interesting gap opens up between Cloud and Daine: Daine’s worry may be emotional rather than rational, but that doesn’t make it less real for her—which Cloud

The Immortals  61 doesn’t quite get. timber wolf (9)  Or ‘grey wolf’: males stand up to 32” (81 cm) at the shoulder, and weigh up to 132 lbs (60 kg). They are the ancestors of domestic dogs, but have (on average) brains about 30% larger, keener smell, better immune systems, and greater size and strength. Some populations are stable, but many sub-species are (critically) endangered by hunting and loss of habitat (picture credit: Gary Kramer).

When the animals were done (11)  Typically for her, and unusually for a person, Daine puts animals first. ... valley,” as ... (12)  A misprint that appears in some editions; it should read: ‘...valley.” As ...’. the Big Cold (12)  Dunlath is far enough north for winters to be severe, with many animals hibernating, so ‘Big’ is no joke. We finish them all (16)  Though never stressed in Wild Magic, Daine was when we met her already a revenger and killer; she and the Pack kill 10–12 raiders at least, and she has killed many stormwings. a silvery light (17)  The sign of a god. eyes coldly intelligent (17)  Not animal warmth, but divine detachment. For a mortal (19)  The Badger, like all gods, takes a very long view. questioned ... flattened (20)  See Wild Magic, Ch. 6, ‘Magelet’ (p. 171). my home sett (20)  A sett is the proper name for a badger’s

62  Reading Tamora Pierce underground lair of tunnels and chambers. the Lady of Beasts (21)  This god’s goddess is never explained. Daine hugged him (21)  Animal or no, how many gods let themselves be hugged? And how many people would even try to hug a god? who my da is (22)  A reminder that the overall plan of The Immortals is in large part Daine’s quest for her own and her father’s identities. symbiote (22)  (i) The idea of symbiosis, living with others in mutual benefit, is extremely important in nature and in Wolf-Speaker, applying to humans living with not on or off the environment as well as specific animal-pairs. (ii) Numair’s use of a long-word, Daine’s incorrect repetition, and his explanation is a repeating topos that allows complex ideas to be explained without disrupting the story. I will tell him a few things (24)  Cloud’s attitude is a reminder that while humans tend to become awestruck about gods, animals have more horse-sense. Answering god/desse/s back is another favourite topos in Pierce. (“I wish ... softly ... sometimes.”) (25)  The brackets typographically signal the ‘aside’ from Daine’s and Cloud’s dialogue. The moon ... monthly journey (26)  The moon only seems to journey but Tortall does not have good telescopes (partly because mages can scry) and astronomy does not seem advanced, so the lunar ‘journey’ may still be the best explanation available. a golden eagle (26)  Among the largest, up to 34” (85 cm) long, weighing 11 lbs (5 kg), & 83” (210 cm) in wingspan (picture credit: Illinois Raptor Center). Something nasty ... a familiar sense (28–9)  Daine’s interaction with stormwings is picked up from Wild Magic and continuing throughout; see the Essay. Other things were charred as well (31)  Though writing for young readers Pierce doesn’t shrink from the horrors of war—deliberately juxtaposed with stormwings. too young to be so close-minded (32)  Numair is right—

The Immortals  63 psychologically stormwings bear the brunt of Daine’s grief for family—but Daine is right that the ones she saw knew about killing Riders. Chapter Two  The Valley of the Long Lake an island capped by a ... castle (34)  Such castles are commoner in fiction than reality because they are not of much military use, but there is one on Trakai Island, Lake Galvé, Lithuania. Mont St Michel, Brittany, and St Michael’s Mount, Cornwall, are built on rocks isolated at high tide. Under law ... (34)  Allowing nobles to keep large forces invites rebellion. wolverine (37)  A solitary, burrowing hunter-and-scavenger, related to the weasel but larger, stockier, and with strong, clawed forepaws. too silly to have names (39)  As in other things, animals have no-nonsense attitudes. The smells, the sounds (42)  Daine’s extension of her mind to other animals extends not only her awareness but its nature, and the sharper sensations in turn change her thinking. as beasts of burden, or as slaves (47)  It isn’t the first time Daine has seen Immortals so used—stormwings are bound in service to Ozorne. opals ... black (48)  ‘Black’ opals are actually an opaque grey with deep iridescence; most are mined in Australia. blue liquid—his blood (49)  There may be a joke in this, despite the situation, in that to be ‘blue-blooded’ is to be an aristocrat—the last thing one would call an ogre. We need to speak with those in charge (50)  As Daine later complains, Numair is not very sensible; suspecting serious wrongdoing, a plan to knock on the front door and ask is not wise. I’m a hunter (51)  Yes, she is, and a killer of men and Immortals as well. Though Daine sounds righteous and definite here, her views

64  Reading Tamora Pierce on meat and vegetarianism change in each volume of The Immortals. vision came in blacks, whites and greys (53)  Like many animals wolves lack the ‘cones’ in the retina that enable colour vision. adjoinin’ rooms ... locked (56)  There has been no indication Daine thinks of herself sexually, but others are clearly beginning to; Numair’s demand for a locked door is more likely to cause than prevent gossip. picking at the lock (57)  Kit has a natural fascination for rocks and locks It’s typical of nobles who live out of the way (58)  It may be— but not all nobles have stormwings and soldiers keeping all visitors out. an obstinate streak (58)  As many have—but why Numair decides it is needed is unclear; his thinking is muddled throughout this period. Belden ... Yolane (59)  Belden is rare as a first or surname, but common as a place-name (towns in California, Mississippi, and Nebraska). Yolane seems made-up, but Yolan/da is a Spanish first name. deep falls of lace (60)  ‘Falls’ in this sense are hanging cloth ornaments, usually lace or trimming, at collar and/or cuffs; ‘deep’ may mean long or wide, or both. brocade (60)  A heavy fabric with a raised design. wolfhounds (60)  Various breeds are so called, but these sound like Irish Wolfhounds, the tallest of dogs, very close to wolf-size and weight (picture credit: George Egger).

The Immortals  65 Chapter Three  Fugitives scoffed ... my own man now (63)  As Numair knows well, no-one just walks away from Ozorne; Tristan is plainly lying. Yolane’s lips twisted (65)  An awkward moment: Numair probably means courtesy by using Daine’s full-name, but it exposes her to Yolane’s smirking contempt at her illegitimacy; the contempt is worthless, but Numair might have been kinder had he thought about how things are for Daine, especially after forcing her into an ill-fitting dress she hates and that may well make her seem socially pretentious. in a brown study (66)  That is, preoccupied, abstracted; Belden has things to think on, Numair having suddenly turned up in Dunlath. a complete outsider (66)  Numair’s disregard of Daine continues. eat with his servants (68)  This particular form of snobbery (class-status overriding feudal links of care and respect) recurs in Trickster’s Choice. If you’re from Galla (68)  Daine’s name may be specifically Gallan, and she would have an accent Maura would as a northerner recognise. no one seemed to care (71)  Daine is sympathetic not only as anyone with a heart would be, but because Maura (if in a privileged rather than a poor setting) is treated as she was herself—as a social embarrassment. Mistress Sarrasri (75)  There was little chance Yolane would ever have listened—but Numair killed all chance when he gave away the fact of Daine’s illegitimacy. ‘Mistress’ heaps more scorn on Daine. Brute creation serves man (76)  A religious opinion, held by some Christians who cite Genesis 9:2–3, that justifies all human excess. these arrogant two-leggers (76)  The real point of course is that most humans treat the Earth just as these spoilers and polluters treat Dunlath. the crossroad god (81)  Little shrines at crossroads were once common, and in many pantheons there are gods of crossroads or forked paths.

66  Reading Tamora Pierce esoterica (83)  Things that are esoteric—strange, rare knowledge, secrets and mysteries etc.. Hurrok ... awful (85)  Just as stormwings and spidrens offend as grotesques, mixing human & animal, hurroks offend Daine by mixing carnivore & herbivore; cf. griffins, mixing noble predators (lion, eagle). simulacras (87, 90)  See annotation to p. 91. ruff (89)  The thicker hair around the neck and shoulders, like a mane. sentiment ... danger (90)  For all his exposure to Daine, Numair still doesn’t take animals seriously; his attempted emotional blackmail (“let me down”) is unattractive. maybe you couldn’t (91)  Numair may be a ‘black robe’ but Daine is in her own way extremely magically powerful. “Simulacras,” he corrected (91)  This may be deliberate, but is an error: ‘simulacra’ is a plural, of ‘simulacrum’ (from Latin simulare, ‘to make like’; cf. ‘simulation’). A related error affects media, the plural of medium—‘medias’ is always (and ‘mediums’ usually) wrong. Chapter Four  Brokefang Acts thinking about the future ... knowing tools were separate (98)  These may seem obvious things, but to grasp them is actually difficult, and rare in nature. Besides humans, only chimpanzees are definite tool-users. she dreamt (99)  Daine’s first vision came when she accidentally stopped her own heart in Wild Magic, Ch. 7; that this one comes on the first night she is alone suggests a deliberate sending, a comfort. nasty vixen (101)  She-wolves are properly ‘bitches’, male ones ‘dogs’; a vixen is a female fox (from ‘fox-en’, an old feminine form— in Old English a ‘she-wolf’ was a wylfen). turned three times (105)  As a wolf or dog might? humans used little of their brains (105)  It seems to be true that we have spare capacity we could do with using; with whales it is even more of a problem to know what they use their huge brains for—

The Immortals  67 because nature otherwise does not give anything what it doesn’t need and use. something longer and hairier (106)  It seems important that Daine first senses physical change (shape-shifting) when feeling intense sympathy. stone, paper, knife (108)  Also called ‘stone, paper, scissors’. dangerously thin (112)  Squirrels hibernate, so they need the fat to live through winters. bright markings ... poisonous (114)  Animals that are poisonous to eat want to advertise that fact, not camouflage themselves. a knobbed bone rattle ... desert snakes (114)  Most obviously the rattlesnake; the rattles are made of modified scales (picture credit: Michael Parker). Runt (115)  The smallest pup in the litter is the first to attack the lizard-Immortal. Berry (115)  The five pups are now all named. Except for bird-folk ... (122)  The basilisk immediately sees what is truly unusual—that human, wolf, and dragon (person, animal, Immortal) should co-operate. too much of a mouthful (122)  And a humiliation, after meeting Yolane. Chapter Five  The Trap I sneaked through ... (125)  Tkaa deliberately does what happened accidentally to Flamewing, Skysong’s mother, in Wild Magic. four-winged immortals (129)  In some editions—a misprint for ‘four winged immortals’—i.e. four stormwings. a being who’s pure evil (130)  A philosophical-religious debating-point, but Cloud means ‘a species that is intrinsically evil’, and is quite right: racism, for example, is presuming that all people of a certain colour are bad or inferior, lumping together the good, bad, and indifferent.

68  Reading Tamora Pierce tolerance (131)  A key word in political history: allowing multiple religions within one polity, for example, is ‘religious tolerance’. Wolves never eat humans (133)  Overwhelmingly true. There are a few instances of Siberian wolves attacking ponies with riders, and wolves might well eat dead bodies, human or otherwise, but they do not hunt humans as food, and ‘man-eating wolves’ do not figure even in legend. the shocks she got from the rugs (136)  Static electricity, or electric charge at rest—charge that builds up in an insulated body. You could be nicer (137)  Daine also forgets that Maura is only 10. First things first (139)  Daine’s priorities are (as always) impressive. every vertebrate creature (139)  Invertebrates (insects, mostly) don’t move fast enough for the barrier to harm them. her ten-mile range (139)  In Wild Magic Daine’s range was only 1 ½ miles; presumably it has grown with age as well as study. upset at the suggestion of trickery (142)  It’s also the subject the K’miri stormwing spoke about, which angered Daine before—as Bitterclaws did with the same accusation at the end of Wild Magic. She’s only ten (142)  Daine remembers Maura’s age only as suits her. “Ungerfoll” (142)  ‘Wonderful’ as spoken with your mouth full. they squeak at things (146)  Quite true: bats have a form of radar, using ‘echo-location’—sound used ‘to see’ much as we use light. false dawn ... true dawn (150–1)  False dawn is caused by light that spills over the horizon before the sun rises; true dawn is when the sun’s disc first appears above the horizon. voles (151)  Burrowing rodents, resembling rats and mice but heavier-bodied with shorter legs and tails. Her hand shook (151)  The Badger said Daine might “be quite surprised at what comes of” using her magic to ‘ride’ animals (p. 20)—and she is.

The Immortals  69 Chapter Six  Rebellion my skills were rusty (155)  Tkaa is vain, maybe? a marmot (157)  A coarse-furred burrowing rodent, a groundsquirrel; resembles a prairie-dog (picture credit: Jon Sullivan).

Maura lunged at Daine (160)  Maura does what Daine’s magic made animals do to save griffins in Wild Magic—stop a human firing to kill. bones braided into his ... hair (160)  The first ornament other than a crown and dried blood any stormwing has been described as having. Lord Rikash (161)  On Daine and stormwings, see the Essay. a race that spends more time murdering (161)  Stormwing or no, Rikash speaks true: humans are by far the greatest, most needless killers. backboard ... to sit up straight (167)  A Victorian device to improve ‘posture’—still ‘taught’ (slightly more humanely) at posh girls’ schools. Anyone who has a strong Gift leaves (169)  This is analogous with what happens in reality in rural and depressed areas—the young and talented leave as they can. Life is more vivid here (172)  Tkaa’s unexpected comparison of Divine and Mortal Realms anticipates The Realms of the Gods. that may break ... will cause (174)  As (almost) always, Numair considers balance before using magic—the sign of a good wizard. a mummer (177)  Literally, ‘one who wears a mask’, but generally any masked and/or costumed performer at a festival or parade. They used to hang children (180)  They still do: Amnesty

70  Reading Tamora Pierce International says seven countries have executed ‘child-offenders’ (crime committed as a juvenile) since 1990; the youngest was 14 when executed. See: ª http://www.fidnet.com/~weid/capitalpunishment.htm#Juveniles our people made to leave (180)  Collective punishments are a feature of feudalism, and specifically banned in most democracies. She had battled them for so long (182)  Well—for about 18 months. Chapter Seven  Counting Soldiers enthroned on Sharp Nose’s back (186)  As Brokefang listened to bats, and Russet co-operated with Kitten; the inter-species helpleague grows. the mess (191)  The communal dining-room/kitchen. a Stormwing roost (191)  A ‘roost’ is a roofed dwelling for birds. Duty Roster—Troops (192)  A chart of who is on duty when. crossed sword and wand, topped by a crown (193)  Symbolising the Emperor Mage. thaks (193)  The currency of Carthak; ‘Thak’ is also their language. How the badger had crept up on her ... (197)  He is a god ... you alone speak to all three kindreds (199)  The Badger at last clarifies Daine’s role as an interspecies translator and negotiator, possessed of abilities suddenly sorely needed as the Immortals War looms. Someone older and bigger will not do (201)  A keynote of many children’s books but handled very powerfully throughout The Immortals both through Daine and, for example, her correction by the younger Maura with regard to stormwings. Badgers ... always have to be wiser and grumpier (202– 03)  Certainly they have had that reputation since Badger in The Wind in the Willows. A whistle by one of her ears (212)  Daine’s sudden squirrel’seye view of Kitten subtly reinforces Maura’s and the Badger’s lesson about tolerance: how do humans seem to smaller animals?

The Immortals  71 Chapter Eight  Friends I said Daine would welcome her (216)  Implicitly Maura and Tkaa argued about Daine’s in/tolerance of ‘monsters’. Kitten and Flicker joined her (217)  Daine and these two form an emblem of the Badger’s words—a human with an Immortal and an animal. Ugly (218)  Ugliness as much as beauty lies in the eye of the beholder. Find ridge, dig out cup ... (219)  This technique for farming steep hillsides is ancient, and is called ‘terracing’. Her mouth curved in a smile (219)  Iakoju knows that Maura’s unwillingness to promise when she cannot do so fairly is a far better guarantee of her honesty and goodwill than making a thin promise. Iakoju backed up (224)  Already co-operation bears fruit: Prettyfoot could summon Daine, Iakoju has the strength to free Tait. Give a man a hand up? (225)  Tait learns quickly to trust Iakoju, as Maura and Daine did—yet who would expect a friendly, farming ogre? Pierce may have been influenced by William Steig’s Shrek! (1990), the basis of the 2001 animated film. red streaks ... when a wound’s gone bad (231)  This is caused by septicaemia or ‘blood-poisoning’: toxins and bacteria from the wound-site begin to infect and inflame veins and arteries, causing the red streaks. Untreated septicaemia is often and rapidly fatal. She cut off her own hand? (231)  The context is quite different but Titus in Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus also cuts off his own hand—and there was a memorable production of the play in New York in 1994–5, directed by Julie Taymor and later filmed as Titus (1999). Weiryn (231)  Tait is the first person to name this northern god to Daine. kin to all (232)  As Daine is ... King’s Champion ... Knight Commander (234)  Alanna the Lioness and Raoul of Goldenlake, the ‘Giantkiller’. Blueness ... Scrap (236)  These fine cats are based on Pierce’s own.

72  Reading Tamora Pierce a mix of pure white and sable black (237)  Despite the funny explanation soon given of Blueness’s name, his white-black mix would (evened out, on a horse or dog) be called ‘blue’, as in ‘blue roan’. a skeleton metal hand (238)  Gissa must have had magical healing: an artificial limb cannot usually be fitted for several months at least after an amputation. bloodrain (240)  This particular evil is Pierce’s invention, but the name summons ‘acid rain’, water that has absorbed pollutants to become acidic and damages trees and lesser plants wherever it falls. seven years or so (241)  A magical time-limit (seven is often a mystic number), not a natural one. Rebel (244)  An appropriate name, which may owe something to Don Marquis’s poem ‘The Rebel’, lines 7–8: “But how the heart leaps up to greet / The headlong, rebel flight”. Longwind, the conservative (247)  For the first time Daine attributes a political attitude to an animal (though the pacifist whales had one in Wild Magic). The role of ‘conservatives’ opposed to change even when the status quo is morally wrong is important to Pierce, and recurs in The Protector of the Small, The Daughter of the Lioness, and The Provost’s Dog. I was wrong ... the real monster (248)  An explicit statement that holds good in future: Daine is largely over her prejudices about grotesques. Chapter Nine  War is Declared so he can get the servants out (250)  In the true feudal code— not the vile travesty Yolane believes in—masters dealt with the needs and safety of animals and servants before their own. plate armour (253)  As opposed to chain-mail; solid sheets of metal. I hate to endanger them, but ... (258)  Daine’s attitude is very different than it was in Wild Magic. Animals are far more directly threatened here, but Daine has also matured. bird bones (261)  Birds (like the osprey Daine healed in Wild

The Immortals  73 Magic) have very light, hollow bones; solid ones would weigh too much. They cut my mate to ribbons (263)  Golden eagles mate for life. Wheeling, wheeling (264)  The circling of large predatory birds is partly a hunting pattern, but also comes from riding thermals of rising air. down (267)  Soft fluffy feathers—a bird’s first or under-plumage. Scrap was ... fascinated by Kitten (272)  Cats’ legendary curiosity is clearly enough to overcome animals’ usual fear of Immortals, such as the wolves (and especially the cubs) felt. Chapter Ten  The Fall of Tristan and Yolane The chapter-title recalls ‘Tristan and Iseult’, tragic lovers in Celtic legend whose tale became incorporated into the Arthurian cycles and is the basis of a famous opera by Richard Wagner, Tristan and Isolde (1865). Broadswords (281)  Not only broad, but long—the typical filmsword, not the fine, thin swords used for duelling (épée) or the curved swords used from horseback (hanger, sabre). the mess she had made (283)  Daine never kills needlessly—but at need she is as ruthless a killer as her beloved wolves. the small body (283)  An incident with a cat helping to fight and being hurled against a wall recurs in the climactic fight of Lady Knight in The Protector of the Small. Queenclaw (284)  The First Female Cat, whom Daine meets in The Realms of the Gods. Whoever the speaker was ... (284)  Old White, the First Male Wolf. this prayer (284)  Daine’s was as much a demand as a prayer, but gods understand the spirit of things, not just the letter. brazier (285)  A metal pan for holding burning coal or charcoal. pommel (286)  A knob at the end of the hilt of a sword or dagger. its scent attracts flies (288)  There are such flowers, and their use of bad scents is called ‘sapromyophily’; among the commoner flowers that use this method are Aristolochia, or birthworts.

74  Reading Tamora Pierce I am sorry I did not think to warn you … (289)  Numair is slowly learning, but it was a narrow squeak: if the explosion had spilled the bloodrain … Arram (292)  Numair’s birth-name was Arram Draper. a clump of roses (292)  As Numair is not a natural battle-mage like Tristan he can’t just blast with raw power, so he uses things he can control, like roses. This sort of magic is central in the ‘Circle’ quartets. A single feather ... plummeted (295)  Being steel, stormwing feathers do not float down but fall hard and fast. a two-hundred yard range (295)  Crossbows with a metal bow, designed to punch metal quarrels through armour, can have a range of up to about 330 yards (300 m); Daine’s lower range goes with faster reloading, because the bow has to be bent less to be cocked. In the Acknowledgements to both Wolf-Speaker and The Realms of the Gods Pierce thanks Robert E. J. Cripps for turning her on to crossbows. meath (296)  The sense is clear, but not in any dictionary I can find; meath is an old spelling of ‘mead’, a drink made from honey, and ‘meathe’ an old word for maggots; Meath is a region and parliamentary constituency in Ireland. that weak-willed idiot in Corus (297)  King Jonathan: Tristan thinks him weak because he isn’t a fearsome tyrant like Ozorne. Numair said a word (297)  A direct threat to Daine makes Numair use a word of power, as he would not when he had a choice. a sour apple (287)  Also known as a ‘crab apple’. a tree that is now a—a two-legger (298)  The consequences of Numair’s act are explored in the stories ‘Elder Brother’ and ‘Hidden Girl’. Are you going to lead the hunt? (303)  Suddenly in wolf-form for the first time, Daine seems to Brokefang to challenge him, which in her human form she doesn’t. She could run all day (305)  When hunting wolves can run at about 20 mph (32 kmh) for many hours, and they can maintain a slightly lower speed for days with only short breaks; this ability is mentioned several times in Kipling’s The Jungle Book.

The Immortals  75 riding side saddle (307)  Women used to be taught to ride with both legs on the same side of the horse, because it was supposed ‘indecent’ for them to straddle the animal. Yolane would follow the old custom—but to do so when fleeing for your life is plain silly. Sir Raoul dismounted (311)  As often, Raoul is thoughtful and kind as Onua was; his kindness is very important in Protector of the Small. I hearby arrest you (312)  A misprint, for ‘hereby’. these monsters (312)  The last twist of the monster/beast theme. Epilogue a basilisk, ogres, bats, wolves and squirrels (313)  The gods’ plan worked out: the Dunlath council has all the kindreds, human, animal, and Immortal, negotiating and being ruled in harmony. Pierce is planning a novel about Maura growing to maturity, tentatively scheduled for publication in 2015. When flour is heated ... (316)  Anything sealed and heated may explode, but it sounds as if there was also a ‘dust explosion’, which can happen when any fine particles densely suspended in air are sparked—the dust need not itself be an explosive, just something flammable. fading into the trees (318)  As Fleetfoot said, wolves don’t say goodbyes. 2.3 The Emperor Mage Chapter One  Guests in Carthak His Royal Highness ... (1)  Multiple titles are typical of great kings or emperors and their heirs. ‘Serene Majesty’ is a continental European title, and a lower rank than plain ‘Majesty’; it became known in the USA in 1956 when film star Grace Kelly (1929– 82) married Prince Rainier and became Her Serene Highness The Princess of Monaco. the panoply of his office (1)  All his official robes, chains etc.. the slaves (2)  Unlike Tortall, Carthak has slavery, from conquest

76  Reading Tamora Pierce and raiding. The evil of slavery is a major theme of the novel, but it is important to understand that the kind of slavery Pierce shows is based on slavery in the ancient world (especially Ptolemaic Egypt), and this is not the same as the ‘chattel slavery’ of Africans in the Americas in recent centuries. In Exodus it is said clearly that the enslaved Children of Israel had their traditional musical instruments, personal possessions etc.; African slaves in the Caribbean and USA were murdered en masse during transportation, were liable at all times to summary execution, and could only preserve any heritage at all with great effort and in permanent danger. Eerily, that vast collection (2)  This does not happen everywhere Daine goes: the hand of a god/dess ought to be suspected immediately. a battalion ... in the Yamani Isles (4)  A battalion has a headquarters and at least two companies—say, 280 men—but a US army battalion typically has 8–900 men. And what is Ozorne doing sending whole battalions to the Yamani Isles? The grounds for a Yamani–Tortallan alliance are suggested. Fifteen (4)  A year has passed since the end of Wolf-Speaker. which fork to use (4)  The ‘social test’ of using the right fork was made notorious as an absurd snobbery by the poet John Betjeman in his verse-autobiography Summoned By Bells (1960). (If ever in doubt, work from the outside in, course by course—which is how personal cutlery ought to be laid out, for the convenience of any uncertain guests.) your Grace (6)  The correct honorific style for British non-royal dukes, Anglican archbishops, and some other religious ranks. Do nothing to jeopardize our mission (6)  Predictable, sensible advice, but the mission is misconceived and hamstrung from the start. the other Eastern lands (6)  Tusaine, Maren, Tyra, Galla, and Sarain. the more common sorceries ... (7)  Kitten’s ability to detect magic is an extremely important resource for Daine—so the partnership deepens. No childish pranks (8)  But what is or isn’t ‘childish’? and what really matters? Would you trust Lord Martin to know? to arrest, try ... (8)  The details of Numair’s falling-out with

The Immortals  77 Ozorne are the subject of a book scheduled for 2014, but all that is known is that he would not bow to Ozorne’s will—i.e. he did nothing for which he should need to be pardoned. So mote it be (9)  This is the standard Tortallan closing formula for a prayer, like ‘Amen’ (which means ‘truly’ or ‘so be it’). ‘Mote’ means ‘may’ or ‘might’, from the Old English mōtan. sett (11)  The proper name for a badger’s underground den. a creature of pine and chestnut forests (11)  The badger has always told Daine about new things she can do; now he talks of limits and danger. no one can prove ... (11)  One of the handy things about executions is that no-one can answer questions afterwards. a swirling fog ... silver (14)  The sign of divine magic; Immortals only have silver claws, not the silver-mist powers. friends wherever she went! (14)  After Wolf-Speaker rightly Daine’s philosophy of life—but her friendships cross the kindreds; the animals are the easy bit. the rats ... unwelcome (15)  Daine said in Wild Magic that her magic didn’t work well with rats—who even more than friends are everywhere. man into a tree (15)  Tristan Staghorn, in Wolf-Speaker. Kitten lost patience (18)  Dragons, oddly, can be patient like nothing else, but also seem prone to act on impulse. Kaddar Gazanoi Iliniat (19)  Carthaki names are odd, but seem to mix a Roman basis with Arabic forms. mother-of-pearl (21)  The iridescent lining of the shells of pearl oysters and some other molluscs; also called ‘nacre’. Lindhall Reed (23)  The naturalist-mage is based the great wildlife presenter Sir David Attenborough, whose TV series fascinated Pierce. bright rectangular shields (26)  Like those of Roman legionaries. a pygmy marmoset (31)  The world’s smallest monkey, native to Amazonia; you can find pictures and information at:  http://nationalzoo.si.edu/Animals/PhotoGallery/Primates/7.cfm Her palms felt hot (32)  The tiger’s skin is the first dead thing Daine has touched since the Badger’s visit.

78  Reading Tamora Pierce Chapter Two  Imperial Welcome our royal cousins (40)  Kings and queens formally use ‘we’ not ‘I’; Ozorne is not related by blood to Jonathan or Thayet, but uses ‘cousin’ because they are all royal rulers. A blue-eyed blonde (42)  Carthak is, like Tortall, a multiculture; this woman must be of northern stock, but is a born Carthaki. crimson kilt and ... armour (42)  This also recalls Roman military wear. Why did you pardon Numair ... (49)  Daine rushes in where others fear to tread—a force of her youth but also of her directness and honesty. pieces of colourful stone (54)  This is a mosaic—a common Roman art. lapis, jade, and citrine (59)  ’Lapis’ is lapis lazuli, of a marvellous blue; ‘jade’ can be colourless, white, green, or reddish; ‘citrine’ is a pale yellow quartz. mutes (60)  Those who do not or cannot speak—in this case probably because their tongues have been removed to ensure their discretion. balefully (65)  ’Threateningly, darkly’, from Old English bealu, ‘evil, malice’. The word was unused for centuries, but was revived by the Romantic poets. Chapter Three  Hall of Bones giant, pig-like animals (68)  These sound like tapirs, related to horses and rhinoceroses. Spotted hyenas (69)  Clever hunters and scavengers of the great West and South African plains, related to cats and dogs (picture credit: L. A. Dawson). monsters (72)  The great theme from Wolf-Speaker again—are the Immortals as monstrous as those who cage such beings so punitively? Don’t mind me (73)  The ‘old

The Immortals  79 servant woman’ speaks very freely and without deference for a Carthaki slave. Daine barely noticed ... (74)  Another clue—only one kind of being makes Daine forget her most basic priorities. Famine ... locusts (75)  Locusts were the eighth of the ‘Ten Plagues of Egypt’ (Exodus 10:3–20); the first, fifth, and seventh— Nile water to blood, cattle murrain, and hail (Exodus 7:14–15, 9:1–7, 18–35)—would create famine and drought. Her own folk (77)  How would this old servant know about dragons? elephant ear soup (81)  This is made from the fruit of the Elephant Ear tree, Enterolobium cyclocarpum. name-plates in gold (82)  An absurd waste of resources. filigree (82)  Intricate ornamental work, usually in precious metal. a land open to attack (83)  A subtle insult and threat by Ozorne. monogamous (87)  Having one ‘wife’, or female mate—common in birds but rarer in mammals.

Three horns (88)  This fossil is of a Triceratops (picture credit: Cas Liber). the horn-faced lizards (89)  This translates the scientific name ‘ceratopsia’, from Greek keras, ‘horn’, + ops, ‘face’. more like birds (89)  Modern birds are descended from dinosaurs. Ten inches tall (90)  This sounds like Compsognathus, the ‘compys’ in Jurassic Park films, or Ornitholestes, but the adult size doesn’t fit. “armoured lizards” (93)  This translates the scientific term Panoplosauris, but the bone club on the tail implies one of a group of related species, the Ankylosaurids.

80  Reading Tamora Pierce plated lizards (93)  There are living ‘plated lizards’ but this clearly describes a stegosaurus.

“Great Snake-neck” (93)  This must be what used to be called a ‘brontosaurus’, and is now called an ‘apatosaurus’. another frightening skeleton (94)  Plainly a Tyrannosaurus rex. duck-billed skeleton (94)  Such a bill distinguishes the hadrosaurs. the skeleton’s head-knob (94)  This crested dinosaur is probably a Parasauralophus (picture credit: Ballista). Mammoths (94)  Enormous hairy elephants, much younger than dinosaurs (which went extinct c.65 million years ago); mammoths died out only c.10,000 years ago, perhaps partly from human hunting. Complete frozen specimens have been found in Siberia. The last time ... (98)  Daine last saw Rikash at the end of Wolf-Speaker. Chapter Four  Strange Conversations vassal (99)  In the feudal system a vassal may be landholder under the crown or a servant: Ozorne applies his own standards to stormwings. bated (100)  Of a bird, to extend and flap wings without flying. Female slaves, wearing ... (103)  Topless female slaves are not unusual when the slavery is in hot climates; slaves have few or no rights of privacy or decency, and may be thought fair sexual game for

The Immortals  81 any master. Last spring ... (105)  It is clear Daine has not been idle during the time between novels, fighting against Immortals and suffering injury. tall, rangy, spotted cats (106)  Cheetahs, capable of reaching 71 mph (114 kph) over short distances. Could it be—? (109)  Daine has been (understandably) slow to suspect she might be half-divine, but it would explain almost everything about her. Do you moult? (119)  Yes: Nawat in The Daughter of the Lioness collects their feathers to make mage-killing arrows. fickle (123)  Changeable, inconsistent. Stop it, Numair (128)  As in Wolf-Speaker Numair is impulsive and foolish—and it’s increasingly clear he is irrational about Daine. chaperone (131)  A friend or servant who accompanies a woman so that she is never alone with a man other than her husband—a form of patriarchal oppression based on male ideas of a woman’s ‘honour’. a stuffed king vulture (132)  The most brightly coloured of the New World vultures, found from Mexico to Argentina. .

Chapter Five  Palace Tour the Three-Fold Goddess (149)  The Great Mother Goddess, maiden, mother, & crone. acolytes (150)  Religious followers of and/or assistants to a priest. genuflect (150)  Literally, ‘bend the knee’; in Roman Catholicism the gesture of bowing to the altar and crossing oneself.

82  Reading Tamora Pierce My uncle decreed ... (157–8)  Ozorne’s impious decree directly connects his lack of respect for the gods via taxation with his warmongering. they can worship him (158)  The Egyptian pharaohs were regarded as god-kings, and some Roman emperors were declared to be gods. double-curved bows (160)  These resemble a letter ‘B’ rather than ‘D’. in her mind, not her eyes (165)  Some target-shooters and hunters do say that they do something like this, but Daine’s special abilities with archery are as much a part of her magic as a skill. recurved bow (165)  This seems to refer to the ‘double-curved bows’, but there is a difference—recurved bows bend away from the archer at each tip, but do not have a double-curve in the main part of the stave. Chapter Six  Carthaki Mage-Craft between your lands (167)  That is, Daine’s and Kaddar’s lands, Tortall and Carthak. cumin ... bay (169)  Both Mediterranean herbs: cumin is pungent and used in curry powder; bay is a variety of laurel, and more delicate. Numair ... privately (172)  In many cultures such questioning might be appropriate from a parent—but not in public to an imperial heir, and Numair is not Daine’s parent. Her rage is understandable, his arrogance in the matter hurtful: it seems increasingly likely that his confusion is a result of a romantic attraction to her he refuses to recognise. the northern fleet ... the western one (176)  Ozorne puts on a massive show of force. The two fleets reflect the Carthaki coasts on the Inland Sea and the Emerald Ocean. It’s a statue (177)  Statues coming to life is a very old trope, most famously in the story of Pygmalion, where it is a divine gift, but more often as in Mozart’s opera Don Giovanni, where it bodes very ill. the three warnings (179)  A traditional number—but there have so far been only two, the lightning and the statue.

The Immortals  83 Ozorne’s choice will determine (181)  Imagined knowledge of the future often has this problem—that things may be foretold only up to a point, a swirling nexus of choices that none can see through. she’s only ten (183)  Young age would not be a barrier to a royal/ political marriage, which need not be a full marriage until the bride and/or groom are older, but Ozorne’s lack of negotiation is very rude. ichneumons (187)  A large superfamily of long, thin wasps and flies who lay their eggs in the flesh of other insects’ larvae; after hatching, the ichneumon larvae eat their host alive. When first described in the nineteenth century ichneumons were felt to present a major theological challenge, for how could such a cruel means of reproducing have been designed by a beneficent god? close (193)  Stuffy, airless. Chapter Seven  Waking Dreams another, incomplete skeleton (197)  From the description this is clearly like the famous fossil-slabs containing Archaeopteryx (‘old-wing’), linking dinosaurs and birds. This is the ‘Berlin’ specimen. a bird’s wishbone (200)  The Y-shaped breastbone (or furcula) is used to anchor the wing-muscles. pockets of noodles and pork (208)  Chinese food—Carthak is a very eclectic place, mixing many national customs and foods. Numair had worked ... (209)  This little sketch is presumably the basis of the book of Numair’s adventures scheduled for publication in 2014. ell (209)  In architecture, a wing of a building at right angles, like an ‘L’. Rats (210)  The third divine warning to Ozorne (see annotation to p. 179).

84  Reading Tamora Pierce pick it with him (212)  Daine has a good point—the god/desse/s’ willingness to use whatever is to hand disregards care and kindness. On reaching the menagerie ... (215)  In draft this scene developed quite differently, and involved Daine healing a camel— hence the thanks to a camel-expert in the acknowledgements. The deleted scene can be read at ª http://www.tamora-pierce.com/excerpts/ camel.html missish (216)  That is, miss-ish—like a ‘miss’, hesitant or disapproving. Chapter Eight  The Badger Returns They must thank their gods ... (228)  One of the worst and saddest things known of any god/dess is this ‘gift’ of Lushagui’s, which turns out to be a gross mistake the goddess has not bothered to correct. very little rain (232)  Carthak’s savage drought recalls the severe Ethiopian droughts and famines of the 1980s–90s, which kick-started Live Aid. Flatten your fur, Weiryn (237)  The first clear statement that Daine’s father is Weiryn of the Hunt—and one might think the row between him and the Badger not before time. Gods seem to be very careless parents. Dragons go where they will (239)  Kitten’s strange ability to accompany Daine into dream-visions and death is explained— and this draconic trait is important in The Realms of the Gods. It is interesting in putting dragons outside the gods’ control. This is the second time Daine has died and been recalled to life; the first is in Wild Magic. around Kitten ... his fur (242)  This is a misprint, for ‘around the Badger’—Kitten has no fur. Their world ended through a god’s mistake (242)  This is a wry joke of sorts: current scientific theory believes the dinosaurs were killed by the prolonged ‘winter’ caused by dust thrown up from a giant meteor-strike, probably in the Yucatan Basin in the Gulf of Mexico.

The Immortals  85 the otherworld that serves the spirits of the People (243)  Christianity and other religions claim humans have souls but animals do not; Pierce plainly disagrees, as do increasingly many people. Glass splinters ... (248)  This was the problem with the camel in the deleted draft—see annotation to p. 215. the imperial “we” (252)  Also known as the ‘royal we’—the first-person plural used by royalty, editor, and the pope (and, as an old joke has it, pregnant women and people with tapeworms). a bit thick and over-sweet (254)  Extra sweetness is useful for hiding other tastes. no one will stop me (256)  The boast of dictators down the centuries. The night the traitor warned my heir ... (256)  Ozorne was listening in. You will have ... (256)  In keeping with his cruel arrogance, Ozorne uses the future determinative, ‘you will’—Daine is to have no choice. Chapter Nine  Daine Loses her Temper more at stake than any girl (262)  Despite his magery Lindhall thinks of Daine as simply Numair’s beloved pupil. He has some excuse for underestimating her, but a Tortallan like Lord Martin has only adult bigotry about children. the slave underground (262)  A route for smuggling escaped slaves to free countries, as there was between the southern slaveholding and northern free US before their civil war of 1861–5, after which slavery was abolished. I’m fair certain (270)  A characteristic phrasing of Daine’s that has been in abeyance while she is on her best behaviour in Carthak. Coolness trickled into her mind (271)  Daine is in shock. Great One (274)  With Banjiku abilities to see the divine Tano knows that Daine’s anger is that of the gods. Muleskinners (275)  The proper term for mule-drivers. She had done it before ... (275)  In Wild Magic. Rats are always hungry (279)  Not just because they’re

86  Reading Tamora Pierce scavengers who’ll eat anything—small animals must eat more often than big ones. their roar of agreement (283)  We think of fossil museums as educational and good—but if you’d been stuck on display, wouldn’t you want revenge if the chance came? I’d druther not (283)  I would rather not—a standard US usage. Why are you angry? (288)  Yet again a smaller, younger creature restrains Daine, as Lady Maura did in Wolf-Speaker. Chapter Ten  Silver Feather bound for a lush forest (293)  The dinosaur otherworld sounds like a good place—a heaven for them. skeletons opened the menagerie cages (298)  Though Daine gave no instructions, her ‘army’ obviously knows what her concerns are. spoor (302)  The scent or trail of a wild animal. bowstave (304)  The part that bends to give the bow its power. taking it from your own life-force (309)  A common problem with magical exhaustion—if you don’t rest and recharge, the magic begins to drain your own life. This is a repeated issue in some ‘Circle’ books. No immortal may hold a throne (312)  This rule hasn’t been revealed before but makes good sense: if Immortals could conquer and rule, they’d rule for ever. simulacra ... simulacrum (315, 316)  Numair has learned the proper plural since Wolf-Speaker—see the annotation for that book, p. 91. a Shang blade (320)  Though unmentioned until now in The Immortals, Shang warriors—martial arts experts trained from childhood—are important in Song of the Lioness and feature in The Protector of the Small and the story ‘Student of Ostriches’. thunder boomed again (320)  The gods like their special effects—but then so do most people. reach their proper homes unhurt (321)  The animal gods again seem kinder and more thoughtful than the two-legged ones.

The Immortals  87 Epilogue That’s what they’ll think back home (323)  Daine has had previous experience of people ceasing to be friendly after seeing her power. No one can refuse a god (324)  As Alanna has cause to know, having been god-touched herself in Song of the Lioness. If your slaves ever think to break out (329)  Historically, successful slave revolts are very rare, but there is the great example of the Haitian rebellion led by Toussaint L’Ouverture in 1791–3. Acknowledgements Mr. James Breheny (333)  This passage revealing that Pierce had to “cut the camel diseases” made so many fans write to ask about the deleted scene that she posted it on her website; see annotation to p. 215. 2.4 The Realms of the Gods Prologue Some explanation is necessary for the novel to stand alone, because the storyline has become so complex. Without a prologue the data would have to be woven into the first few pages, and tends to seem to readers who do know what’s happened like lumps in the gravy. over four hundred years (1)  See annotation to Wild Magic, p. 111. tauroses (1)  Previously unmentioned, they figure in this novel. the gate spells were destroyed (2)  This was not mentioned in The Emperor Mage, but Kaddar presumably felt it was for the best. the last three years (3)  A year or so must have passed since the end of The Emperor Mage, so Daine is now ‘sweet 16’. Suddenly he learned something ... (3–4)  Pierce trails a mystery—but after Numair’s behaviour in The Emperor Mage it seems clear the something must be to do with Daine’s feelings for him—and what but love returned could ‘erase’ his sense of a major

88  Reading Tamora Pierce magical event? cataclysm (4)  A great upheaval, of physical destruction and/or complete change; originally tied to the idea of a great flood, as in the bible, it comes from Greek kata, ‘down’, + klyzein, ‘to wash’. Chapter One  Skinners a puddle of darkness (5)  Not just a dark puddle: Ozorne is not simply ‘scrying’, but spying in a different way. A ball of shadow (8)  Like the ‘puddle of darkness’? Ozorne’s evil seems as a stormwing to manifest itself overtly in living darkness ... your mistress proud (8)  ... and he has a female ally—a major theme. a copper breastplate (8)  An ornamental, not a functional, piece of armour—copper is too soft to stop iron or steel weapons. Legann ... Port Caynn (9)  Port Caynn is further north, close to Corus at the mouth of the River Olorun; Port Legann is much further south, below Pirate’s Swoop. The –nn endings suggest a linguistic feature of Tortallan (or ‘Common’), but this is never explored. the Yamani Islands (9)  Ozorne laid the grounds for a Tortallan– Yamani alliance by attacking both. Inar Hadensra (10)  A witch with the same surname, perhaps an ancestor, appears in The Provost’s Dog. Arram Draper (11)  Numair’s birth-name. a wyvern (11)  A lesser breed of dragon, usually represented as having only two legs, its lower body resting on its tail; Pierce makes hers legless and able to breathe only a sickening fog, not fire. grow, shrink, and vanish rapidly (19)  This peculiar quality, like a sort of speeded-up and malignant chameleonism, is a recurring motif. a crow’s beautifully nasty vocabulary (21)  Crows (and their vocabulary) are important in The Daughter of the Lioness. A rabbit ... The hare (21)  In British English rabbits and hares are distinct, but in the US wild hares are called ‘jackrabbits’ and the terms are more interchangeable.

The Immortals  89 Its fur and hide vanished (21)  This vile magical skinning is Pierce’s invention, but skinning has been used as a form of execution since classical antiquity. The myth of the ‘Flaying of Marsyas’ is the most important source of the idea. Old Thak (25)  The ancient language of Carthak, used for some magic. silvery white (25)  The sign of divine presence or action. a man ... an inky shadow (25)  Ozorne and his enslaved darkness. Leave mortal affairs to mortals (26)  Gods seem to want the best of both worlds—interfering or disclaiming responsibility at will; the Badger knows better, as animals are often better than people. sweet pea and woods lily (26)  Daine remembers these as her mother’s characteristic winter and summer perfumes in Wild Magic (p. 195). Sarra Beneksri (27)  The full name reveals the name of Daine’s grandfather, Benek, who was murdered with her mother. He turned them to ice (28)  Numair’s last water-spell seemed to work, and the Badger does something similar using ice. Where normally potent magics failed, a kind of simplicity worked—and water being the symbol of mutability and impermanence, the skinners’ weapon, it seems a case of like against like. I’ve never seen the like (28)  God/desse/s are not omniscient. He touched his antlers uneasily (29)  The image of an embarrassed, uncertain father-god recalls the title song of the Crash Test Dummies’ album God Shuffled His Feet (1993)—a very big hit while Pierce was writing this novel. Chapter Two  Meetings With Gods We had meant to bring you only (32)  Had they done so, Numair would probably have been killed—which would to them mean nothing, but to Daine everything. Gods’ carelessness can be callous and damaging. Light bloomed (32)  A coincidence juxtaposing the light revealed as war with chaos and the mystery of the skinners’ origins—which is a clue.

90  Reading Tamora Pierce Normally ... reflect your mortal wars (33)  As things aren’t normal this fascinating idea is never explored, but like the stormwings posits a fundamental connection with war—a basic force in all Pierce’s work. We’ll talk of that later (34)  Like so many adults, two-legger gods just don’t get it, and truly don’t care about or for human emotional needs. Father Storm’s curses (35)  In rage Thayet invokes K’miri gods she knew in childhood. Broad Foot ... duckmoles (36)  The god is a duck-billed platypus, Ornithorhynchus anatinus, a distinctly Australian animal found only in Tasmania and eastern rivers. In the acknowledgements Pierce thanks Virginia Caputo for helping her “to find a different name for platypi”, but doesn’t say why she felt she needed one. The sketch is by John Gould in 1863.

Mind the spurs (36)  The venomous spurs of male platypi feature in a bestselling naval novel, Patrick O’Brian’s The Nutmeg of Consolation (1991), that Pierce may have known. a pink shift ... (37)  As in other things, Sarra is trying to turn the clock back—understandably, but nevertheless foolishly and wrongly. essence ... shadow (39)  This idea is very complex, and goes back to the Greek philosopher Plato, who thought mortal life was like seeing only shadows on a cave-wall while the fullest reality remained unseen. Queenclaw (39)  The cat goddess granted the kitten Scrap another life in Wolf-Speaker (pp. 283–4); her voice is described as “silky and cruel”.

The Immortals  91 Daine was uneasy (41)  Changes in the colour of someone’s magic may indicate illness or possession. a breech birth (41)  See annotation to Wild Magic, p. 174; being delayed by a breech birth in a sheep saved Daine from the raiders who killed her ma and grandda. the darking hadn’t done any harm (42)  So far as Daine knows—and she’s wrong; the others’ suspicion is right, but Daine’s kindness will pay greater dividends in the long run. the Great Mother Goddess can’t be everywhere (42)  A sharp distinction from Christian belief, which claims a single god as omniscient (knowing everything) and omnipresent (being everywhere). equinoxes and solstices (44)  The equinoxes, in March and September, mark times when day and night are of equal length; the solstices, in June and December, mark the shortest and longest days/ nights. to elephant hide (44)  Daine presumably learnt this from the resurrected mammoths in The Emperor Mage; elephants haven’t otherwise been reported in Tortall. a striped skink (45)  Skink covers c. 1,200 species, mostly shortnecked and -legged; striped skinks are a southern African species. a pika (47)  Pikas are small mammals related to the rabbit, also known as coneys, rock rabbits, and mouse hares. Sunbirds (48)  A wonderful invention—but it is odd (given what Queenclaw and the skink say of the Divine Realm) that there should be non-divine animals not represented in the mortal realm. I know what I’m doing (50)  She didn’t with the chaos vent. It’s fair foolish ... what it is (51)  Yes it is—but many humans feel the urge to do exactly that, with unknown animals and with aliens in SF. He sounded like those humans ... (52)  Those with power and privilege often cannot understand those without, politicians born wealthy being a prime example; sports mantras like ‘No pain, no gain’ can also become an excuse for inflicting or tolerating pain. Are you so eager to get away (52–3)  Gods also stoop to emotional blackmail, it seems; Sarra makes no allowance for other

92  Reading Tamora Pierce claims on Daine than her own, nor for Daine’s experience of Sarra’s murder. how tired I’ve been (55)  To be fair, Sarra will have seen the bone-deep tiredness of both Daine and Numair, but when needs must, they must. Chapter Three  Dreams from my perspective (57)  Numair, though for different reasons, is no better than Sarra, and sets aside what he knows to be Tortall’s dire need. Maybe he loves you (59)  Love and unfairness are often bound up, and in the Victorian attitudes that afflict/ed Tortall to be a woman was to be helpless and powerless (in male eyes). In her dream (59)  It may seem like a dream, but this is what is usually differentiated as a ‘vision’—a true dream, a divine sending. Gainel, Master of Dream (61)  Dreams have often had divine connections, in Greek mythology through Oneiros, Morpheus, and Icelus (or Phobetor), but a full-blown god of dream is a rarity. a cow, a wheatfield, ... grape ... wine, bread, and cheese (62)  This mirror-symmetry of order (cow/wheat/grape–wine/bread/ cheese) is a formal rhetorical figure called chiasmus, from the Greek letter chi, ‘X’. myths (63)  As these gods definitely exist, ‘myths’ needs to be understood in its radical sense, from Greek mythos, ‘speech’, as distinct from written history or instruction. balance ... mortal and divine blood (66)  Mixed heritage is often tricky, but for Daine outrageously so: her mortal half is itself half-chaos. all ... but one (67)  The absentee is presumably Gainel. she changed (67)  As the skinners did: this is Uusoae, and they were her creatures. left ... right ... gray-green muck (68)  Gainel as dream-king stands with one foot in chaos—hence his greater affinity for mortals. Given my druthers (68)  ’Given what I would rather’—a standard US usage.

The Immortals  93 breast bands (69)  Brassieres were invented only in the early twentieth century; before that, if any garment specific to the breasts was worn, it would probably have been a band—a length of cloth wound around the body to reduce breast-movement with walking, bending etc.. a tauros (72)  These violent and sad Immortals resemble the Greek Minotaur (who lived in the original labyrinth). he’ll rape me (73)  As Daine has got older, her thoughts have changed, and Pierce angles for slightly older readers. She rarely pulls her punches as an author, but the explicit mention of rape signals a new maturity. a lifetime of looking after Sarra (74)  Sarra has by all accounts never been sensible. Daine’s protective love and need to escape may reflect the unhappy senility and death of Pierce’s own mother from Huntington’s Chorea in 1993, while she was writing The Immortals. the sling (74)  See annotation to Wild Magic, p. 3. She didn’t want to kill a beast ... (76)  Daine has come a long way from how she felt about stormwings in Wild Magic and Wolf-Speaker. Two hundred and forty-eight Stormwings ... sixty-three (79– 80)  These hard numbers are a shock—an animal species with as few as 311 living individuals would be on the very edge of extinction. who did not care ... who ignore (79)  With the shock of numbers comes a plain statement of a Stormwing honour and loyalty code— big changes. my daughter ... too risky (81)  Weiryn does care for Daine, but it’s a bit late (and rich) to become protective now. Gods can’t force a dragon (81)  As the Graveyard Hag implied of Kitten in The Emperor Mage (p. 239). Though it is never fully explored, dragons are clearly not just Immortals, and are equal to gods in a way. Chapter Four  Travellers What about making horses? (84)  Who but a mage would even ask?

94  Reading Tamora Pierce horn nocks (85)  Nocks are the grooves that hold the bow-string in place, sometimes (as here) cut into caps fitted to the ends of the bow-stave. A vision of Numair (86)  In a way Weiryn does to Numair what Numair did for Daine in Carthak, looking out for her interests as a father. he may have young (88)  There is a serious underlying problem, logically speaking—how do the Divine Realms function? Only gods and Immortals can live there, and gods are reborn; what then of their young? I promise (90)  Daine does not promise lightly; this one will matter. them bandits (90)  Emotion gets the better of grammar. what’s the point of good-byes? (90)  The logic is one thing, the words another: good-bye is from ‘God be with you’—and what would it mean for a god forbidden to leave his lands to say that? a First Tree (91)  Another fascinating confusion: what are all the non-First plants in the Divine Realm? his eyes changed (93)  As Daine matures sexually, so Numair is finding it harder to be only her teacher. counter-clockwise (94)  The left-hand way is often important in magic: in the northern hemisphere the sun seems to travel clockwise (or ‘sunwise’) and there is an old word for going the other way, ‘widdershins’, which is important is some Wiccan (modern pagan) thinking. did others feel ill when she ... (95)  Yes—Maura couldn’t watch her change back from squirrelishness; see Wolf-Speaker, p. 215. It had been six months (97)  This cannot refer to the end of The Emperor Mage—Daine must have ‘met’ Ozorne sometime at the start of his attacks on Tortall. what difference does it make? (97)  All and none: all because to kill humans is against stormwing nature and purpose, none if humans do kill them anyway—as Daine and others have learned not to do if they are not attacked themselves. Chaos bile (102)  Bile is a bitter fluid produced by the liver that helps to digest fats. In ancient and Renaissance theories of ‘humours’,

The Immortals  95 excess of ‘yellow bile’ made one ‘bilious’, and of ‘black bile’ melancholic; it is also a word for bitterness of speech and thought. He blushed (103)  The first time Daine has embarrassed Numair—a sign. a ban ... won’t be looking (106)  The gods sound like a harassed government—which is not so comforting. Chapter Five  The Bridge twisted hemp and ancient slats (107)  There is a memorable sequence involving just such a rickety bridge in one of Hergé’s Tintin adventures, Prisoners of the Sun, which lingers in readers’ minds. The Incas were the great masters of rope bridges. First Bridge or ... (108)  The Badger’s explanation does not help logically—there should be a First everything at this rate—but the problem can’t be solved; the narrative just glides over the confusions. more than forty yards ... a third of the way (111)  Perhaps the bridge grew when it was moved, for it’s enormous for a rope-andwood bridge, with a span of more than 360 feet on these figures. The longest Inca bridge spanned a 220 ft (67 m) canyon but had stone pillars, not logs: for wonderful photos see http://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/Inca_rope_bridge. Only modern steel cables make longer spans possible. Daine rubbed her nose ... (116)  Numair isn’t the only one whose feelings are changing. Here, life is forbidden to remain a slave (125)  A very interesting condition: much of The Emperor Mage is concerned with slavery, and the same theme (with an insurgency like the darkings’, in which they again participate) dominates The Daughter of the Lioness. when she fell asleep (126)  This is Daine’s third dream-vision, and proves the most terrible so far—but also the most explicit; the next will be the climax of the sequence. Chapter Six  Chess Game a privy (135)  A lavatory. the courtship dance of cranes (135)  These displays are famous:

96  Reading Tamora Pierce Pierce would have seen the remarkable programme on animal courtship in general in David Attenborough’s third great natural history series, The Trials of Life (1990). A video of cranes dancing can be seen at http://ibc.hbw.com/ibc/phtml/especie.phtml?idEspecie=1175 Mortal blood tastes best (137)  Tkaa said something to the same effect when he first reached mortal lands in Wolf-Speaker (pp. 171–2). a link between crocodiles and the dinosaurs (138)  This would make Mauler of the sub-order Mesosuchia. What did the Dream King want to say tonight? (140 ff.)  This whole sequence is very complicated if one once starts to analyse it: Daine in a dream shared with Numair and the god who is dream sees her own and Numair’s chess-selves die and triumph. Like the difficulties with First plants, bridges, winds etc. there is intractable philosophy involved, but the narrative skims over the difficulties like a water strider on a pond. Discord (141)  Another sign that the tale has entered the realm of allegory—the Romans personified Discordia as a goddess. Violence ... With Discord, the gatekeeper (142)  In John Milton’s great epic Paradise Lost (1667) the gates of Hell are kept by Sin and Death. It’s their nature (142)  As it must be given that these are allegories of the qualities they name—but that does not mean any individual living thing has in it their nature to be purely discordant or violent. King Oron’s sons (143)  The ruling house of Rittavon is shown in The Daughter of the Lioness to be almost all bad; one princess, Josiane, is a villain in Song of the Lioness. dull-eyed female Stormwing (143)  Presumably Queen Jachull, whom Daine overheard speaking through the darkings (p. 97). no mortal would risk the destruction (145)  A very serious divine error: human beings have an astounding capacity for suicidal aggression. sheer (147)  Transparent, gauzy—as in ‘sheer blouse’, one that is see-through. mangy (147)  ‘Mange’ covers several animal diseases, all caused by parasitic skin-mites and characterised by hair-loss and sores. Slaughter ... Malady ... Starvation (147)  See p. 31. The

The Immortals  97 unusual choice of a hyena, with the more traditional rat (associated with illness through its role as a carrier of plague fleas), summon the Graveyard Hag. there were no two-leggers ... (148)  The equivalent of Australia has not been discovered in Pierce’s world and has no Aborigines. It is only fair (150)  The animal gods seem to have a much keener sense of fairness than any of the Great Gods. a massive boulder ... the shape of a question-mark (156)  This image recalls wonderful cartoons by Saul Steinberg in The New Yorker in the 1960s and much reprinted, of question-marks in various situations. Chapter Seven  Falling Of all the immortals ... (162)  None of Daine’s encounters with spidrens have been reported until now except the first, in Wild Magic Ch. 3, and spidrens figure more in The Protector of the Small. This encounter owes something to Bilbo’s capture by spiders in Tolkien’s The Hobbit. Jelly ... Leaf (166)  The darkings were taught to kill in this way by Ozorne when he used them to kill the Copper Islander (pp. 9–10). Then his mouth ... (167)  As in so many films, surviving danger releases sexuality. Shakith (170)  Rarely mentioned save in the compound Carthaki oath ‘By Mithros, Minoss, and Shakith’, but the goddess of seers, or prophets, and so appropriate in this situation. a focus (170)  Such a talismanic possession is a common feature of magical beliefs the world over; hair or nail-clippings are common foci. Sex? (174)  Daine and Numair are in a comedy of confusions. He feels (unnecessarily) that their age-difference and (rightly) that his role as her teacher make physical love immoral; he has considerable sexual experience but also hang-ups. She is inexperienced, but from her mother’s ways and the vulgar prejudices of Snowsdale has a far more practical outlook. Their decision to wait makes sense, but might also have been insisted on by US publishers.

98  Reading Tamora Pierce Enough, both of you (177)  Daine’s attitudes towards stormwings clicks on another notch as she treats one (and Numair) like an excited child. Qirev ... Yechakk ... Mogrul ... Jachull (179–80)  Though only sketched, the outlines of the stormwing tragedy become clearer, with generational conflict and at least one psychotic queen. laid the ... odor (180)  As in ‘lay dust’—i.e. damp it down. Stormwings with honor! (181)  Daine’s astonishment is understandable, but stormwings must in one sense have honour, for their fundamental purpose is to show the dishonour of (most) death in battle: see the Essay. fighting over ground they soon lost again (182)  This is true of many wars, but Pierce’s description suggests the Thirty Years’ War of 1618–48, which is also the setting of one of the great anti-war plays, Bertolt Brecht’s Mother Courage and her Children (1939). lie about how glorious a soldier’s death is (182)  This summons the great First World War poem ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’ by Wilfred Owen; see the Essay. Daine stalked toward the curtain (185)  Usually it is Numair who is more impulsive, and on the face of it Daine is not being wise— but as it proves the right thing she may have wit gathered unawares from Kitten. Chapter Eight  Dragonlands Scamp (187)  The young dragon is rather like the kitten Scrap and the wolf-cub Silly in Wolf-Speaker. Steelsings (187)  This dragon gave her name to a major fansite; see Bibliography. Children should be ... (188)  A quotation from Harry Graham’s ‘The Stern Parent’ (in Ruthless Rhymes for Heartless Homes, 1901): “Father heard his children scream, / So he threw them in the stream, / Saying, as he drowned the third, / ‘Children should be seen, not heard!’”. Skysong (191)  Kitten’s proper name. Separatists (192)  This bit of dragon politics is resonant with a

The Immortals  99 long-running US foreign policy debate about whether the US should isolate itself or act as a world policeman; Pierce would have lived most of her life, from Vietnam to the Gulf War and beyond, hearing these arguments. first making sure ... (193)  A good rule from the Country Code. heat lightning (194)  Bright flashes without thunder, almost always on the horizon on very hot evenings, and thought to be cloudreflections of lightning so distant its thunder is inaudible. the Dragonmeet put a ban (194)  Dragons were not excluded from the mortal realm by the barrier, but by their own laws. lynch mobs (194)  From southern US history, gangs of whites who seized blacks, usually men, supposed to have done something and summarily hanged them; once a horribly common form of racist murder, and still a thing human beings are prone to do. the Silence (197)  This spell recalls what the Graveyard Hag repeatedly did to Kitten and Daine in The Emperor Mage. coterie (199)  A small, select group; a gang of friends. your overweening selfishness ... (199)  The coterie’s thinking sounds just like that of most humans, who think all other species unimportant. His screech dwindled rapidly, as did he (200)  Whether Riverwind truly disappears or flies rapidly away isn’t quite clear: actual shrinkage to nothing would seem to be a summary execution, but that doesn’t gel. the Compact of the Godwars (202)  An unexplained glimpse of a much older history—and the fallibility of the Divine Realms looms again. The least I can do (205)  As Rikash predicted (p. 81) a draconic sense of honour and obligation makes Wingstar feel she must help. Nothing (206)  Dragons’ ability to go where they will must extend to any passengers they care to carry. Chapter Nine  The Battle of Legann extremely varied collection of folk (215)  As in Wolf-Speaker Daine has added even more variety to the Tortallan alliance—

100  Reading Tamora Pierce dragons, stormwings, darkings ... the Dominion Jewel (215)  A great magical treasure that Alanna won in Lioness Rampant; it helps to hold Tortall together. To her surprise he laughed (217)  Another stage in Daine’s relations with stormwings; see the Essay. You’ll be much better off ... (220)  Not for the first time, Numair is quite wrong. She is so much more advanced (226)  The Dragonmeet ban on visits and draconic isolation retards their young; Kitten learned the stones trick when barely a year old from Tkaa in Wolf-Speaker. One might say something very similar of humans who never travel. Imrah led mounted knights ... (230)  This kind of attack from a besieged city (or an armed camp) is called a ‘sally’; castles have ‘sally ports’ for the purpose. white threads of fire (233)  This kind of magic recalls the terrible weapon white phorphorus, used by the US in Vietnam and elsewhere. Sparrows darted into the fray (237)  Another circle closes: Daine used starlings against stormwings in Wolf-Speaker; now other small birds are called to help. packed with dead birds (242)  This kind of eye-socket attack by small birds recurs with the ‘killing devices’ in Protector of the Small. Rikash—no! (242)  On Rikash’s death see the Essay. Chapter Ten  Judgments a common-born bastard (248)  Quite apart from the grossness, snobbery, and sexism of Ozorne’s insults, he is being stupid: whatever Daine may be, common isn’t it. a giant strangling-snake (248)  As opposed to venomous snakes, and most obviously an Amazonian anaconda, like pythons and boas a constrictor that kills by crushing; anacondas reach 33 ft (10 m) in length. barrel-rolled (249)  An aeroplane manoeuvre in which the plane rolls right around on its long axis (flying upside down in the middle) without changing direction. her large bird’s bowels (249)  Ironically, a sort of stormwing

The Immortals  101 gracenote as Daine uses their habits with excrement to fight the ape; there is also an echo of the yahoos, humanoid apes who throw their own dung at one another, in Swift’s famous satirical fantasy Gulliver’s Travels. silly clunch (250)  Clunch is a kind of hardened clay; Pierce seems to have invented it as an insult, adapting the US terms ‘cluck’ and ‘clunk/head’, all meaning a dolt (unseeing) or fool (unthinking). she could smell it (250)  Daine learned Ozorne’s scent with hyena-precision in The Emperor Mage. thermals (250)  Rising columns of warm air. Gulls had come to her rescue (251)  Just because of her wild magic? Or might there be some prompting from the bird gods? Grabbing ... feeling its bite in her palm (255)  The need to accept an injury to strike the final blow is a common topos in climactic fights. like a mad thing (255)  In some senses, Ozorne has always been slightly mad as well as thoroughly bad. The spilling of his blood echoes his creation of the darkings and recent murder of Leaf and Jelly. It is as we said (256)  Mithros is good at claiming credit—but he and all the other gods except Gainel said exactly the opposite. to openly defy (257)  Father Universe should not split his infinitives. dead matter and starfire (257)  Fantasy, not physics. Gainel’s shadowy eyes (257)  Yet again Gainel seems the only Great God with the slightest kindness. a vast courtyard (258)  This home of the gods seems like a vision of their halls on Mount Olympus in Greek mythology. a black cat (258)  The Cat is Alanna’s companion Faithful in Song of the Lioness and Beka Cooper’s companion Pounce in The Provost’s Dog. I know (259)  All darkings know what happens to other darkings. She must choose ... (260 ff.)  This last twist in the tale again shows the gods to severe disadvantage, selfish and callous. It culminates in a dismissal of the gods by Diamondflame that is a funny formal version of what in dragon-stories is called the dracomachy, the battle

102  Reading Tamora Pierce of dragon and god—but Daine’s conflict with them is the real conflict here. her word (261)  Daine means the promise given to Sarra when she and Numair set out for the Dragonlands (p. 90). They’re evil; they’re—  (262)  The whole of Daine’s changing heart about stormwings is recapitulated in a flash. In her mind’s eye (263)  The stormwings Daine thinks of are Rikash, Queen Barzha, and Hebakh, the three she knows individually. a killer whale beating a seal pup to death (263)  Pierce conflates two famous pieces of footage: killer-whales playfully hunting seals, caught on film for David Attenborough’s The Trials of Life (1990), and footage of the then-annual Canadian seal-cull, showing men battering pups to death, widely used as an animal-right’s campaign film in the 1970s–80s. the young dragon was scolding Mithros (266)  And so someone should! needed ... valued ... loved (267)  As Sarra herself was not in Snowsdale. Our daughter is going home (267)  The issue of where Daine’s home is (see Wild Magic, p. 299) is at last settled, however broadly. Epilogue Big Blue (273)  It is an ‘interesting nickname’—for giant IBM computers, from the colour of their early mainframes. earth-coloured glass (275)  The sand of the river-bank has been fused into glass by mage-fire. colts frisking in the sun (276)  A last moment of horse-sense. return to juggling (277)  Numair lived as a conjuror-entertained after fleeing Carthak. a spiraling pattern, feathers blazing (277)  As if the stormwings were really the glorious sunbirds of the Divine Realms—not monsters at all.

Part 3. Essay Of Stormwings and Valiant Women: Reading the Tortall books

A

longer version of this essay incorporating material in the Notes appears with a slightly different title and a lot more footnotes in my collection Of Modern Dragons and other essays on genre fiction (Humanities-EBooks, 2007). A different version appears in my Reading Tamora Pierce: The Protector of the Small (Humanities-Ebooks, 2013)

R

eading Tamora Pierce is an adventure no matter where you start, but if you read her 17 Tortall novels in order of publication— Song of the Lioness, The Immortals, The Protector of the Small, The Daughter of the Lioness, and The Provost’s Dog—you get more than all the individual stories. Each quartet, the duology, and the trilogy follow a new heroine through growth and education to maturity, and

each adds to the geography, history, and interest of Pierce’s world. Many feminist authors have written good books about girls as well as boys coming of age, fighting adult prejudice and cruelty to realise their individual talents, and follow their own hearts by their own lights. There are very realistic writers, who get stuck into the real challenges girls and women face in education and junior employment, and with sexuality and pregnancy, but there are also ones who write fantasy stories—and not just as a sort of ‘sugar to make the medicine go down’. Fantasy settings and conventions can allow unexpected approaches to real subjects, including education, employment, sex, and pregnancy, and at the same time can ask about deeper hopes and fears than jobs and boyfriends. They’re also fun to read, and can become important furniture in a (growing) reader’s head. Pierce is very much like that. Most writers for children, however feminist, would think their job well done if they published a successful quartet of novels about the first woman for a century to become a knight. Pierce did it rather well, in Song of the Lioness, but went on to consider the first woman (and person) in Tortall ever to

104  Reading Tamora Pierce be a Wildmage, the second woman to become a knight, the first woman in at least three centuries to become spymaster of the Copper Isles, and most recently a girl who isn’t the first of anything, just an honest, talented young woman determined to become a good ‘Dog’, a Provost’s Guardswoman, in Tortall’s proto-police force. Alanna the Lioness, Daine the Wildmage, Lady Knight Keladry of Mindelan, Alianne Cooper, and Trainee Guardswoman Rebekah Cooper are plainly similar heroines, strong women followed from early age to adulthood, professional success, and sexual maturity. They are also all different, and getting more ordinary. Alanna is ‘God-touched’, a chosen vessel of the Great Mother Goddess. Her striking purple eyes and powerful magecraft prove it, as do her emblematic success in training as a knight, divine cat-companion Faithful (also purple-eyed), and amazing feats of heroism. Daine is semidivine, the daughter of Weiryn of the Hunt (and as her mother becomes after her murder a minor goddess, the Green Lady, sort of divine on both sides)—but for most of The Immortals she doesn’t know it, and is scared of her own powers and possibilities. Kel is much more normal: though highly trained and unusual, she makes it through determination, bruising hard work, innate kindness, and an unwillingness to let bullying go unchecked. Alanna’s daughter Alianne has ‘the Sight’ and a god to call on, but Kyprioth the trickster causes her as much grief as He gives opportunities, and the joys she wins are her own. Ali’s paternal ancestor Beka is equally normal, and lacks all Kel’s advantages of nobility and relative wealth—but is also very determined, and like Alanna has the companionship and help of a purple-eyed cat, this time called Pounce, and the helpful ability (for a policewoman) to hear the ghosts of murder victims. In an important way her successive quartets show Pierce reading and criticising herself. Alanna as a creation is bursting with a woman’s pride and indignation at being absurdly and horribly undervalued in a sexist world. Righteously aided by the Great Mother Goddess and the amusing Faithful, she shows everyone just what a girl, and a Lioness, can do. But how many of us, girls or boys, have the advantage of a school for knights to go to, let alone a divine cat and a friendly supreme goddess? To be fair, Alanna has problems with boyfriends, a woman wearing armour and

The Immortals  105 notoriously trained to kill not quite being every man’s dream, even if very sexy indeed—which Alanna isn’t, though very striking with her purple eyes and armour. But how realistic does Pierce really make her? After all, Alanna’s problem lies in choosing between Prince Jonathan of Conté, heir to the Tortallan throne, with whom she sleeps (no-one the wiser), and George Cooper, Tortall’s ‘Rogue’ or King of Thieves—again, not exactly every woman’s problem. The most realistic thing about it is that in the end Jonathan has to marry for political reasons, and his Queen, Thayet, is a woman Alanna rescued, and likes even when she doesn’t want to. Thayet is also a royal beauty, a natural diplomat, and a born leader, and Alanna is too honest not to realise that she would herself make Jonathan a terrible queen and be a liability for him and for the Tortall she is sworn to defend. So—after thinking it through while writing The Immortals, Pierce went back to the subject of female knighthood, and in The Protector of the Small produced a quartet of extremely impressive novels. Without magic or a goddess (though with a faithful mongrel dog, Jump, of sterling character and dubious morals), Kel has to rely on herself, time and again, and finds that she can safely do so: she can do it. To make it plausible Pierce gave her a particular early childhood: her parents were ambassadors from Tortall to the Yamani Isles, a version of imperial Japan, and early in their residence her mother was able to save two sacred swords by holding off some pirate-raiders until the imperial guard came. As part of the Yamani Emperor’s thanks Kel and her parents moved into his palace, and under palace routine she trained with other children under imperial experts in combat disciplines and self-defence—standard for Yamani ladies of rank. The different culture shifts the light: noblewomen are trained to kill others or themselves, but are still pawns of men from birth, and of their mothers-in-law after marriage. Kel’s Yamani physical stamina and stoicism are vital in surviving the criminal bullying to which she is subjected in page-training. She is also given brothers who have trained as knights, and can advise her, and all the siblings have a background explaining their determinations: their father has been ennobled only for his success in securing a Yamani treaty. This diplomatic coup results in the marriage

106  Reading Tamora Pierce of Jonathan’s son and heir Prince Roald to Princess Shinkokami— whom Kel unwittingly befriended in the imperial palace when Shinko’s parents were temporarily in disgrace, and other, more knowing children shunned her in case the disgrace rubbed off. Kel and her brothers believe both in their parents and the greater motive of cultural tolerance and international alliance. They sweat to train and uphold the monarchy because they believe in Jonathan and Thayet as reformers, though Jonathan himself sometimes disappoints Kel in his compromises, especially about female equality. The same background explains Kel’s class-consciousness, suppressed in the Yamani Isles but rapidly developing in sexist, snobbish Tortall. To ‘old nobility’, her father’s recent title simply marks him out as a ‘Johnny-come-lately’ gatecrasher of their ‘natural’ (i.e. older and more ingrained) ranks and privileges. Antiquated laws on Tortall’s books support a horrible status quo in which nobles may fight to the death over (supposed) insults, while if the victim is a commoner anything short of murder is punishable at most by a fine. Masters legally take servants’ earnings at a cruel rate, and beating is common. So too are harassment, sexual assaults, and rape, although the temples of the Great Mother Goddess act as sanctuaries and justicers for battered women, sending privately maintained squads of hard women armed with sickles to mete out justice. The monarchy and magistrates of Tortall accept these squads, but perhaps because they exist do not themselves do what they ought to protect women. Money is not shown as a major consideration in corrupting justice, but social snobbery amounting to violent bigotry, and habituation to abuse, surely are. ***** The Protector of the Small develops very unexpectedly as a quartet. The first novels, First Test and Page, are in some ways similar to the opening volumes of Song of the Lioness: Alanna and Kel are, after all, undergoing the same training. But if both quartets send brave and growing heroines on a quest of great significance, those quests are very different. Alanna went to a distinct sub-culture, the desertdwelling and tribal Bazhir, to prove herself away from her home-

The Immortals  107 ground, then won from a mountain-spirit (who tested her with icy cold and in armed combat) the fabled Dominion Jewel. It’s an excellent yarn, and as heroic feats go, right up there. Kel, however, has different talents, and faces a different challenge. Raoul of Goldenlake, also called ‘the Giantkiller’, is Kel’s knight-master as a squire. When she thinks the problems he is setting her irrelevant, he explains things clearly, to readers as much as Kel, and is worth quoting at length:   “At our level, there are four kinds of warrior,” he told Kel. He raised a fist and held up one large finger. “Heroes, like Alanna the Lioness. Warriors who find dark places and fight in them alone. This wonderful, but we live in the real world. There aren’t many places without any hope or light.”   He raised a second finger. “We have knights—plain, everyday knights, like your brothers. They patrol their borders and protect their tenants, or they go into troubled areas at the king’s command and sort them out. They fight in battles, usually against other knights. A hero will work like an everyday knight for a time—it’s expected. And any knight has to be clever enough to manage alone.”   Kel nodded.   “We have soldiers,” Raoul continued, raising a third finger. “Those are warriors, including knights, who manage so long as they’re told what to do. These are more common than lone knights, thank Mithros, and you’ll find them in charge of companies in the army, under the eye of a general. Without people who can take orders, we’d be in real trouble.   “Commanders.” He raised his little finger. “Good ones, people with a knack for it, like, say, the queen, or Buri, or young Dom, they’re as rare as heroes. Commanders have an eye not just for what they do, but for what those around them do. Commanders size up people’s strengths and weaknesses. They know where someone will shine and where they will collapse. Other warriors will obey a true commander because they can tell that the commander knows what he—or she—is doing.” Raoul picked up a quill and toyed with it. “You’ve shown flashes of being a commander. I’ve seen it. So has Qasim, your friend Neal, even Wyldon, though it would be like pulling teeth to get him to admit

108  Reading Tamora Pierce it. My job is to see if you will do more than flash, with the right training. The realm needs commanders. Tortall is big. We have too many still untamed pockets, too cursed many hidey-holes for rogues, and plenty of hungry enemies to nibble at our borders and our seafaring trade. If you have what it takes, the crown will use you. [...]” (Squire, ch. 6, pp. 116–18).

This has many merits, beyond clear prose and good analysis. Raoul is a kind teacher who thinks to build up Kel’s confidence. “At our level”, he says—casually including her with himself, ‘Giantkiller’ and commander of the King’s Own—and extends to her not a promise (maybe to be kept, maybe forgotten) but a solid truth: “The realm needs commanders. [...] If you have what it takes, the crown will use you.” The training Kel gets with Raoul, riding with the King’s Own to every corner of Tortall to fight mortal and immortal enemies, or help where disaster strikes, is a training in command. But on the northern border with Scanra, in a summer plagued by hit-and-run raids, a new factor enters the war, worse than Scanrans or even Immortals. Clanking like the dreadful tanks of World War One (1914–18, the ‘Great War’), ‘killing devices’ are made from iron-clad giants’ bones and equipped with double-jointed arms spiked at every joint and fingered with long, lethal knives. Worst of all, as Kel and a small squad discover in managing to kill one by smashing open its armoured head-dome, what powers the awful things is a child’s ghost. Children, Kel realises, are being slaughtered wholesale by a mercenary mage for the sake of their ghosts whom he can imprison in each ‘device’ with his special death magic. Killing this mage become Kel’s quest. The plain truth, through all the exciting trappings of knighthood and a very good war story, is that the mage, Blayce, is a serial child-abuser and child-killer. He pampers and dresses-up the children until the time is ‘right’ to kill them. His sexual perversion is never made explicit, but his grotesque cruelty, use of torture, summary executions, and desecration of corpses are all spelt out. Perched in his remote castle, sending squads of mercenary soldiers to scour the countryside and refugee-camps for children to ‘process’, Blayce is like the child-stealing monsters

The Immortals  109 of northern legend, nixes and nicors, or the German Erlking. He is also recognisably a modern child molester and serial killer whom Kel literally cuts off at the knees. Rescuing some 200 living children from his chambers, and exterminating his evil with sword and fire like the villagers in Frankenstein movies, Kel is a one-woman Society for the Protection of Children, a crusader like Esther Rantzen, who founded the charity Childline in 1980s Britain, or the parents in the US who campaigned throughout the 1990s for ‘Emily’s Law’. She’s also by turns a Tortallan Squire who has to look after a griffin, and a Lady Knight who must command a refugee camp, but the forceful truth of her campaign to hunt and kill the disgusting Blayce is a very different kind of fantasy. Children’s writers had tackled serial killers before, but not without protest. There was, for example, a terrific fuss in 1993 when Stone Cold by Robert Swindells won the Carnegie Award for Children’s Literature. Written when there were many young people living rough on London’s streets (because rules about social benefit and living at home had been changed for 17–18-year-olds), Stone Cold tells of a young runaway who has to live rough through a winter, and becomes a witness to a serial killer preying on homeless folk no-one but other vagrants will miss. It’s a good, honourable book, and deserved its award, but it’s also a bleak, cheerless tale, not to everyone’s taste. (There is also Fernando Vallejo’s La Virgen de los Sicarios (1994), translated as Our Lady of the Assassins, about teenage killers-forhire in Medellin, Columbia, one of the centres of the cocaine trade. It’s about children, but not for children.) Pierce by dressing her far worse serial abuser and killer as a mage and his ‘killing devices’ makes a very tough issue enjoyably available to a much bigger and younger audience. She also pushes everything further to connect the male child-killer with warfare. Blayce’s production-line sacrifice of ‘peasant’ or ‘enemy’ children, vile in itself, is like the endless slaughter of soldiers in needless royal and political wars. Children are central as victims and avengers (Kel is 19 at the end); while adults either hideously prey on children or faff about doing nothing, Kel and her friends act, sometimes blindly but often and ultimately with vital success—an old formula adapted to excellent purpose.

110  Reading Tamora Pierce It helps that there are a lot of sources and models, all miraculously balanced. Just as the disparate gods of Pierce’s pantheon all rub along, so fantasy novel and school story, quest and romance, crime tale and re-enacted legend fuse into a single, multi-faceted plot. The Erlking and Frankenstein resonances (whether or not one notices them at the time) help to balance the modern serial-killer side of Blayce, and that modern side stops the older mythic elements from being too fusty or cute. And above all this there is something more, an issue Kel inherits from Daine in The Immortals and has to fight through all over again for herself. Stranger than any serial killer could ever be, the oddest things in all Pierce’s writing are stormwings—human-bodied and -headed, steel-winged and -clawed, and filthy beyond belief in their habits. It’s a conundrum because they are also in origin and driving purpose utterly moral. They desecrate as they do to persuade foolish and prideful humans that there is no honour in any battlefield death; that to fight with weapons is always to fail, regardless of the outcome. The stormwings’ moral is the message of Wildred Owen’s great World War One poem ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’. Walking behind a dying man after a chlorine-gas attack, Owen saw it as it was: If in some smothering dreams you too could pace Behind the wagon that we flung him in, And watch the white eyes writhing in his face, His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin ; If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs, Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,— My friend, you would not tell with such high zest To children ardent for some desperate glory, The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori. (The Collected Poems of Wilfred Owen (ed. C. Day Lewis, London: Chatto & Windus, 1963), p. 55.)

The “old Lie” is from the Odes of the Roman poet Horace: ‘it’s sweet and proper to die for your fatherland’. Bishops, heroes, politi-

The Immortals  111 cians, and family have said it down the ages, one way and another, to make a loss of husband or son seem less bitter. Then again, tell it, as they say, to the marines, and you wouldn’t like the answer. When machine-guns, barbed-wire, and tanks ruled the battlefield, ‘honourable’ combat was long dead, and the war Kel faces with ‘killing devices’ is no place for a traditional knight. Nor are the stormwings a traditional kind of enemy, for knights, growing girls, or anyone else. They can be slain, by one another, by mages, by a good archer, or by animals that catch them on the ground, but while their razor-edged steel wings are far more beautiful and natural in form than the devices’ whirling knife-blades, stormwings too threaten death by chopping and rapid dissection. So far, so good, however nasty, but their key behaviour and attribute, smearing the corpses of a battlefield with dung and urine and playing with them, isn’t traditional fare in any literature. Even more than Stone Cold or thinking it right to give Owen’s great and terrible poem to schoolchildren, the popularity and acceptance by publishers and readers alike of Pierce’s very strong storytelling signals the new strength and range of ‘children’s writing’. ***** Stormwings have depth, and Pierce is clever in how she reveals it. As much as Daine herself, Cloud, and Numair, stormwings are the story of The Immortals, from early in Wild Magic to the end of The Realms of the Gods. But unlike those people, unswervingly heroes from their first appearances, stormwings change, and make readers change too.The first stormwings Dane sees are also the first Immortals she has ever seen, and she can sense only wrongness:   Shrieks, metallic and shrill, tore the air. Eight giant things— they looked like birds at first—chased the hawk out of the cover of the trees. Immense wings beat the air that reached the women and ponies, filling their noses with a stink so foul it made Daine retch. The ponies screamed in panic.   Daine tried to soothe them, though she wanted to scream too. These were monsters. No animal combined a human head and chest with a bird’s legs and wings. Sunlight bounded off talons

112  Reading Tamora Pierce and feathers that shone like steel. She counted five males, three females: one female wore a crown of black glass. (Wild Magic, ch. 2, pp. 26–7)

Everything counts to damn the stormwings. Beyond the shock of their grotesquerie and stench, the hawk they chase is Numair, shapeshifted, and they serve Ozorne. This queen, Zaneh Bitterclaws, is an especially nasty piece of work, whose enmity for Daine as an archer whose skill brings down many of her flock is a running theme of Wild Magic. Bitterclaws dies at the last, in the novel’s finale, but the fact of stormwings remains, and they are never absent from Daine’s thoughts for long. When in Wolf-Speaker Daine again sees stormwings working for Ozorne by helping terrorise Dunlath, renewed loathing is understandable, but meets opposition. Both Numair and Cloud remind her even stormwings are what they were made to be, and a growing experience of Immortals, including spidrens and hurroks as well as the kindly basilisk Tkaa, gives Daine a better context in which to understand stormwing qualities. Even so the necessary shove comes from a younger girl, Maura of Dunlath, who flees her castle-home because she knows her ruling half-sister and brotherin-law are committing high treason; finding her with stormwings circling above, Daine assumes Maura is in danger and rides in with her crossbow up only to have Maura block the shot:   Stormwings were landing on the ground in front of them. Three moved out of Daine’s sight. Turning, she saw them settle on the road behind her, cutting off any escape. Coldly she levelled her weapon at the nearest Stormwing, a male who wore a collection of bones braided into his long blond hair.   He stared back at her, contempt in his eyes, then looked back at the younger girl. “Tell her we mean you no harm, Lady Maura.”   “You’re on speaking terms with them?” Daine asked.   Maura shrugged. “They visit Yolane and Belden a lot. He is Lord Rikash.” (Wolf-Speaker, ch. 6, pp. 160–1)

An awkward three-way conversation follows:

The Immortals  113   “Let us talk of this away from prying ears,” Rikash said, an eye on Daine.   “We can speak of it now. Daine can’t tell anyone. She’s stuck here, too.”   “Quiet!” ordered the Stormwing. “You’re a child. You do not understand what is taking place, and you must not speak of matters you cannot comprehend.”   Her sense of humour overpowering her hatred of Stormwings. Obviously he liked Maura, or he would have bullied rather than debated with her. She also could see debate was useless. Maura had the bit between her teeth, and would not obey orders. “Go on,” she urged the fuming immortal. “Shut her up. I never thought to see you stinkers baulked by anyone, let alone a ten-year-old.”   Rikash turned red under his dirt, and a few of his own flock cackled. “It is hard for us to bear young,” he said, a hint of gritted teeth in his voice. “That being the case, we value others’ young, particularly when they are neglected. Affection has led me to indulge Lady Maura more than is wise.” (Wolf-Speaker, ch.

6, pp. 163–4)

This is a virtue Daine cannot ignore, and a stormwing motif. Laying steel eggs that do not always hatch, their numbers have declined badly, not least thanks to Daine’s bow and Bitterclaws’s arrant hostility. She was evil; Rikash may stink and do the things stormwings do, but he is a cultured being richly capable of kindness. When he and Daine face off at the end of Wolf-Speaker, as she did with Bitterclaws in Wild Magic, neither’s heart is in violence and a stand-off begins. The second pivot comes in The Emperor Mage. Travelling to Carthak Daine again meets Rikash, and his monarch, King Jokhun Foulreek— but she also finds the previous monarchs, Barzha Razorwing and her consort Hebakh, in Ozorne’s menagerie. Rikash and other stormwings had thought them killed by Foulreek in combat, when in fact he had plotted with Ozorne to betray Razorwing and Hebakh to captivity as the price of a stormwing alliance. These captive royals are impressive creatures, as dignified in appalling circumstance as Bitterclaws was a screeching menace when free, and they have things to say that strike home as only truths can. The plot winds to a conclusion in which

114  Reading Tamora Pierce Ozorne escapes Daine only by becoming a Stormwing, at which point his human spells fail and Barzha is free. As he sets off in pursuit of her and Ozorne, Rikash is able to give Daine some very good news, and the balance of her feelings shifts again into mellower acceptance of all things for what they are. This journey of virtue is completed in The Realms of the Gods— and of Immortals. Trapped there awhile, Daine discovers Rikash, whose poetic surname is Moonsword, has made himself known to her parents, Weiryn and Sarra, as well as her mentor the Badger. Finding herself dining with one great, two minor, and three animal gods, as well as the mage she is beginning to discover she loves and a stormwing, Daine passes far beyond the feelings she felt as she first saw Bitterclaws. The rest of the novel plays out the mutual debts between Daine and Razorwing, who helps her quest, but also plays into a stormwing tragedy. Ozorne as stormwing proved as tricky as Ozorne the Emperor Mage, and neither Rikash nor Razorwing could slay him. Mastering stormwing magic, and cruelly vengeful, he forges a grand alliance of enemies against Tortall, and a secret alliance with Uusoae, Queen of Chaos. He also suborns a majority of stormwings to his side, using them (deeply unnaturally for stormwings) as one more kind of killer. Only Razorwing, Rikash and 60-odd others remain loyal to stormwings’ moral purpose—preventing war, not waging it— and they must in the end fight their own kind over that purpose, a stormwing civil war in which, inevitably, yet more perish. As the tensions rise, Daine finds an unexpected companionship: Leaning on the rail, [Daine] squinted at the shore. She wanted to get moving.   “Fretting about your stork-man?” Rikash inquired, lighting on the rail beside her. He dug steel talons into the wood. “He’ll be fine. Mages always are.”   “I’d feel better if I could be there to look after him.”   “Then stay.”   “I can’t,” Daine replied, shaking her head. “I don’t want Kitten there without me when the big noise starts. In the Dragonlands, I saw—she’s just a baby still. She ought to be in a safe place.

The Immortals  115 Since she isn’t, I need to be with her, as much as I can.”   “You’re breaking my heart,” drawled the immortal.   “Got a bit of sand in your crop?” she demanded irritably. “A swallow or two of oil should wash it right out the end that does your thinking for you.”   To her surprise he laughed. Around them, she saw goldskinned Yamanis and Tortallans make the Sign against evil. “I deserved that. Don’t mind me.” (The Realms of the Gods, ch. 9, pp.

216–17)

This time ‘Kitten’, the dragonet in Daine’s care, is the orphaned youngster in the case, as Maura was in Wolf-Speaker. The camaraderie of Daine and Rikash now scares others, for whom stormwings were never as purely evil as they once seemed to Daine, but who don’t share jokes with them either. And the inevitable thing, of course, as Pierce is no Hollywood gooey-ender, is that Rikash dies in the battle, assailing a chaos-dweller loosed by Ozorne that threatens Raoul and takes three Immortals and a god to kill:   “Rikash—no!” someone cried in a voice that cracked as it rose. “No! No! NOOOOO!” It was her voice. If she screamed loud enough, long enough, he would live. She hadn’t realized that he meant something to her. She hadn’t known he was her friend. (The Realms of the Gods, ch. 9, p. 242)

The phrasing echoes almost the first lesson the Badger taught Daine way back in Wild Magic—“If you look hard and long, you can find us. If you listen hard and long, you can hear any of us, call any of us, that you want.”(ch. 2, p. 24)—and the wheel has come full circle. Daine as mature and beloved Wildmage can do almost anything, looking, listening, and becoming, but she cannot recall Rikash from the dead, and she mourns. She can and does intercede with the gods on stormwings’ behalf, and readers learn at the very end of Trickster’s Queen that Daine’s and Numair’s second child, after daughter Sarralyn, is “baby Rikash” (p. 242). But the stormwing himself is gone to the Peaceful Realm, and what the babe commemorates is not so much an Immortal’s valiant death as the lesson he taught in life

116  Reading Tamora Pierce about care of and for the young, and the valiant life of the woman who learned it. ***** Daine’s adventures are as unusual as Daine herself, with an antleredgod father and a murdered mother who becomes a goddess. One interesting sign of Pierce’s quality as a writer is how uncertain her ‘reading age’ becomes. Prompted by publishers’ cover-art, booksellers tend to put The Immortals in the 9–12 or 12–15 brackets, with Song of the Lioness, and The Protector of the Small in 12–15 or 15+ with The Daughter of the Lioness and The Provost’s Dog. The truth is that all of them are books from which no-one who is or wants to be grown-up should be debarred. If Pierce takes her readers deep into very serious territory indeed, she does so with great skill, great boldness, and considerable finesse, and for her stinking steel nightmares as well as her wondrous and valiant women, readers and their parents can give heartfelt thanks.

Part 4. Bibliography 4.1 Works by Tamora Pierce NOVELS SET IN TORTALL NOVELS SET IN TORTALL Song of the Lioness Alanna: The First Adventure (New York: Atheneum, 1983) In the Hand of the Goddess (New York: Atheneum, 1984) The Woman Who Rides Like a Man (New York: Atheneum, 1986) Lioness Rampant (New York: Atheneum, 1988) Omnibus editions: The Song of the Lioness Quartet (box set, New York: Random House, 2004) The Song of the Lioness Quartet (London: Scholastic Point, 2004) The Immortals Wild Magic (New York: Atheneum, 1992) Wolf-Speaker (New York: Atheneum, 1994) The Emperor Mage (New York: Atheneum, 1995) The Realms of the Gods (New York: Atheneum, 1996) Omnibus edition: The Immortals Quartet (box set, New York: Random House, 2004)

118  Reading Tamora Pierce The Protector of the Small First Test (New York: Random House, 1999) Page (New York: Random House, 2000) Squire (New York: Random House, 2001) Lady Knight (New York: Random House, 2002) Omnibus edition: Protector of the Small (Mechanicsburg, PA: Science Fiction Book Club, 2004) The Daughter of the Lioness Trickster’s Choice (New York: Random House, 2003) Trickster’s Queen (New York: Random House, 2004) The Provost’s Dog Terrier (New York: Random House, 2006) Bloodhound (New York: Random House, 2009) Mastiff (New York: Random House, 2011) NOVELS OF THE CIRCLE Circle of Magic Sandry’s Book (variant title, The Magic in the Weaving, New York: Scholastic, 1997) Tris’s Book (variant title, The Power in the Storm, New York: Scholastic, 1998) Daja’s Book (variant title, The Fire in the Forging, New York: Scholastic, 1998) Briar’s Book (variant title, The Healing in the Vine, New York: Scholastic, 1999)

The Immortals  119 The Circle Opens Magic Steps (New York: Scholastic, 2000) Street Magic (New York: Scholastic, 2001) Cold Fire (New York: Scholastic, 2002) Shatterglass (New York: Scholastic, 2003) The Will of the Empress (New York: Scholastic, 2005) Melting Stones (New York: Scholastic, 2008) Battle Magic (New York: Scholastic, 2013) SHORT STORIES ‘Plain Magic’, in (i) Douglas Hill, ed., Planetfall (Oxford: oxford University Press, 1986), and revised in (ii) Mercedes Lackey, ed., Flights of Fantasy (Logan, IA: Perfection Learning, 1999) ‘Testing’, in Helen J. & M. Jerry Weiss, eds, Lost and Found (New York: Tor, 2000) ‘Elder Brother’, in Bruce Colville, ed., Half-Human (New York: Scholastic, 2001) ‘Student of Ostriches’, in Tamora Pierce & Josepha Sherman, eds, Young Warriors: Stories of Strength (New York: Random House, 2005) ‘Hidden Girl’, in Helen J. & M. Jerry Weiss, eds, Dreams and Visions (New York: Tor, 2006) ‘Huntress’, in Firebirds Rising: An Original Anthology of Science Fiction and Fantasy (New York: Firebird, 2006) ‘Time of Proving’, in Cricket 34.1 (September 2006): 12–18 ‘The Dragon’s Tale’, in Jack Dann & Gardner Dozois, eds, The Dragon Book (New York: Berkley, 2009) Tortall and Other Lands: A Collection of Tales (New York: Randon House, 2011) (Collects all the stories listed above, with the previously unpublished ‘Nawat’, ‘Lost’, and ‘Mimic’.)

120  Reading Tamora Pierce WITH TIM LIEBE White Tiger (New York: Marvel Publishing, 2007) Many of Pierce’s novels are available as audio-books from Full Cast Audio, at http://www.fullcastaudio.com/. (Notably, Melting Stones was released as an audiobook a year before being published in hardback.) ARTICLES ‘Fantasy: Why Kids Read It, Why Kids Need It’, in Sheila Egoff et al., eds, Only Connect: Readings in Children’s Literature (3/e, New York: Oxford University Press, 1993) 4.2 Works about Tamora Pierce and Children’s Writing CRITICISM BROWN, Joanne, & ST CLAIR, Nancy, eds, Declarations of Independence: Empowered Girls in Young Adult Literature, 1990– 2001 (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2002) CARR, Michael, From Romance to Realism: 50 Years of Growth and Change in Young Adult Literature (New York: HarperCollins, 1996) DAILEY, Donna, Tamora Pierce (New York: Chelsea House, 2006 [Who Wrote That?]) EGOFF, Sheila A., Worlds Within: Children’s Fantasy from the Middle Ages to Today (New York & London: American Library Association, 1998) GALLO, Donald R., ed., Speaking for Ourselves, Too: More Autobiographical Sketches by Notable Authors of Books for Young Adults (Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English, 1993) KUNZEL, Bonnie, & Susan Fichtenberg, Tamora Pierce (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2007 [Teen Reads] LEHR, Susan, ed., Battling Dragons: Issues and Controversy in

The Immortals  121 Children’s Literature (Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 1995) LENNARD, John, ‘Of Stormwings and Valiant Women’, in Of Modern Dragons: Essays on Genre Fiction (Tirril: Humanities-Ebooks, 2007; print-on-demand, Troubador, 2008; Amazon Kindle edition, 2010), pp. 187–223 — Reading Tamora Pierce: The Protector of the Small (Tirril: Humanities-Ebooks, 2013) MELANO, Anne L., ‘Utopias of Violence: Pierce’s Knights of Tortall and the Contemporary Heroic’, in Crossroads: An Interdisciplinary Journal for the Study of History, Philosophy, Religion, and Classics 3.2 (2009) SULLIVAN III, C. W., ed., Young Adult Science Fiction (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1999) TRITES, Roberta Seelinger, Disturbing the Universe: Power and Repression in Adolescent Literature (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2000) There are various reviews, blogs, and fansites that can be found by googling. The most important (beside Tamora Pierce’s own site—see below) are: ª http://www.sheroescentral.com ª http://www.sheroesfans.com ª http://www.steelsings.com Children’s books are not often reviewed widely, but for some examples see: ª http://bccb.lis.uiuc.edu/0600rise.html ª http://www.dy8.co.uk/tamora/ Pierce also maintains her own excellent website, where most questions can be answered and she can be contacted by fans: ª http://www.tamora-pierce.com/index.html INTERVIEWS http://www.tamora-pierce.com/index.html

122  Reading Tamora Pierce 4.3 Websites http://tamorapierce.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page (The Tamora Pierce Wiki) http://tpwords.wordpress.com/ (Words of Tamora Pierce) http://fiefgoldenlake.proboards.com/ (The Goldenlake Forum)

A Note on the Author John Lennard took his B.A. and D.Phil. at Oxford University, and his M.A. at Washington University in St Louis. He has taught in the Universities of London, Cambridge, and Notre Dame, and for the Open University, and was Professor of British & American Literature at the University of the West Indies–Mona from 2004–09. His publications include But I Digress: The Exploitation of Parentheses in English Printed Verse (Clarendon Press, 1991), The Poetry Handbook (2/e, OUP, 2005), with Mary Luckhurst The Drama Handbook (OUP, 2002), and two collections, Of Modern Dragons and other essays on Genre Fiction (HEB, 2007) and Of Sex and Faerie: Further essays on Genre Fiction (HEB, 2010). For HEB’s Literature Insights series he has written on Hamlet, King Lear, Lolita, and The Raj Quartet, and for the Genre Sightlines series on Reginald Hill, Walter Mosley, Ian McDonald, and Octavia E. Butler.

Humanities-Ebooks.co.uk All Humanities Ebooks titles are available to Libraries through Ebrary, EBSCO and Ingram Digital (MyiLibrary.com)

Some Academic titles Sibylle Baumbach, Shakespeare and the Art of Physiognomy John Beer, Blake’s Humanism John Beer, The Achievement of E M Forster John Beer, Coleridge the Visionary Jared Curtis, ed., The Fenwick Notes of William Wordsworth* Jared Curtis, ed., The Cornell Wordsworth: A Supplement* Steven Duncan, Analytic Philosophy of Religion: its History since 1955* John K Hale, Milton as Multilingual: Selected Essays 1982–2004 Simon Hull, ed., The British Periodical Text, 1797–1835 Rob Johnson, Mark Levene and Penny Roberts, eds., History at the End of the World * John Lennard, Modern Dragons and other Essays on Genre Fiction* C W R D Moseley, Shakespeare’s History Plays Paul McDonald, Laughing at the Darkness: Postmodernism and American Humour * Colin Nicholson, Fivefathers: Interviews with late Twentieth-Century Scottish Poets W J B Owen, Understanding ‘The Prelude’ Pamela Perkins, ed., Francis Jeffrey’s Highland and Continental Tours* Keith Sagar, D. H. Lawrence: Poet* Reinaldo Francisco Silva, Portuguese American Literature* Trudi Tate, Modernism History and the First World War* Laura Vivanco, For Love and Money: the Literary Art of the Harlequin Mills & Boon Romance* William Wordsworth, Concerning the Convention of Cintra* W J B Owen and J W Smyser, eds., Wordsworth’s Political Writings* The Poems of William Wordsworth: Collected Reading Texts from the Cornell Wordsworth, 3 vols.* * These titles are also available in print using links from

http://www.humanities-ebooks.co.uk

Humanities Insights These are some of the Insights available at: http://www.humanities-ebooks.co.uk/

General Titles An Introduction to Critical Theory Modern Feminist Theory An Introduction to Rhetorical Terms

Genre FictionSightlines Octavia E Butler: Xenogenesis / Lilith’s Brood Reginal Hill: On Beulah’s Height Ian McDonald: Chaga / Evolution’s Store Walter Mosley: Devil in a Blue Dress Tamora Pierce: The Immortals

History Insights Oliver Cromwell The British Empire: Pomp, Power and Postcolonialism The Holocaust: Events, Motives, Legacy Lenin’s Revolution Methodism and Society The Risorgimento

Literature Insights Austen: Emma Conrad: The Secret Agent Dickens: Bleak House T S Eliot: ‘The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock’ and The Waste Land English Renaissance Drama: Theatre and Theatres in Shakespeare’s Time William Faulkner: Go Down, Moses and Big Woods Faulkner: The Sound and the Fury Gaskell, Mary Barton Hardy: Tess of the Durbervilles Hardy: Selected Poems Ibsen: The Doll’s House Hopkins: Selected Poems Ted Hughes: New Selected Poems Philip Larkin: Selected Poems Lawrence: Selected Short Stories

Lawrence: Sons and Lovers Lawrence: Women in Love Paul Scott: The Raj Quartet Shakespeare: Hamlet Shakespeare: Henry IV Shakespeare: King Lear Shakespeare: Richard II Shakespeare: Richard III Shakespeare: The Merchant of Venice Shakespeare: The Tempest Shakespeare: Troilus and Cressida Shelley: Frankenstein Wordsworth: Lyrical Ballads Fields of Agony: English Poetry and the First World War

Philosophy Insights American Pragmatism Barthes Thinking Ethically about Business Critical Thinking Existentialism Formal Logic Metaethics Contemporary Philosophy of Religion Philosophy of Sport Plato Wittgenstein Žižek

Some Titles in Preparation Political Psychology Plato’s Republic Renaissance Philosophy Rousseau’s legacy Austen: Pride and Prejudice Blake: Songs of Innocence & Experience Dreiser: Sister Carrie Eliot, George: Silas Marner Eliot: Four Quartets Fitzgerald: The Great Gatsby Heaney: Selected Poems James: The Ambassadors Lawrence: The Rainbow Melville: Moby-Dick Melville: Three Novellas Shakespeare: Macbeth Shakespeare: Romeo and Juliet