The Pillars of the World

Anne Bishop 2001 Buy from Amazon.com

This is the first novel of the Tir Alainn trilogy, and it is amazingly rich and vibrant. It has Witches, Inquisitors, Smallfolk and Fae all twined together in a new way. The inquisitors are quite unusual. They are led by Adolfo, the Witch Hammer, who behaves exactly as one would expect for an Inquisitor, but he is not led by religion. There is no Christianity or centralised religion as you usually get in stories about the persecution of Witches. Instead he talks of the Evil One and witchcraft and the subjugation of women in more open and straightforward terms.

The lands of the Fae, Tir Alainn, are disappearing. The shining roads that link them to the world of men are closing and clan lands are vanishing. Dianna is the Lady of the Moon, the Huntress. Her brother Lucian is the Lord of the Sun, of Fire. All Fae must answer to them, but they do not know why the roads are closing. Their only clues are songs heard sung in the world of men by Aiden the Bard and Lyrra the Muse, telling of the Wiccanfae, witches who use magic to harm.

Ari is a Witch who lives in the Old Place called Brightwood, close to the town of Ridgeley and the part of Tir Alainn where Dianna and Lucian live. She holds the Mother’s branches of Earth and Fire, two of the four that witches can access. She tries to live peacefully in her little cottage but the townspeople distrust her and she is lonely. When she becomes involved with Lucian, the Fae quickly realise that she is a witch and they can learn whether she is a threat to them and their world. When Lucian realises he has a rival in her old friend Neall, the Fae’s selfishness quickly becomes apparent.

Meanwhile Morag, the Gatherer, travels through the world of men finding the souls of Witches who have been tortured to death. She begins to piece together the truth that the Witches anchor Tir Alainn and as they die, the shining roads close. By the time she reaches Brightwood with a warning, trouble is already drawing close.

This was an amazing book, the threads of known tropes woven together to make something that is both new and yet resonant with familiar ideas. Although the persecution of witches, Fae lovers and shapechanging are old concepts, Anne Bishop has breathed new life into them. Although I very much enjoyed her Black Jewels novels, this is a whole new level of storytelling.

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