Kushiel’s Avatar

Jacqueline Carey 2003 Buy from Amazon.com

This is the third novel of the Kushiel’s series by Jacqueline Carey and I would say it is both the darkest and the brightest of the three. Phedre has had years of peace with her consort Josceline, but she continues to study arcane Yeshuite legends to find the key that will release her friend Hyacinthe from Rahab’s curse. Doomed to an eternity as Master of the Straights, Phedre has come to believe that the true name of God can save him.

Phedre is contacted by her old nemesis, Melisande Shahrizai with an offer that she can’t refuse. Melisande’s son Imriel has vanished and she offers Phedre vital information in her quest if Phedre will find her son. The journey takes them through Aragonia and Menekhet, and finally to Khebbel-im-Akkad where Phedre learns that Imriel has been taken to a land called Drujan. In the capital, Darsanga, the Mahrkagir has created a harem of boys and women from throughout the world and Imriel is trapped there.

Phedre is compelled by Elua and Kushiel to enter Darsanga to retrieve Imriel, although at first she does not understand why. What she and Josceline experience there test them both to their utter limits. A cruel religion with a dark god has overtaken this country, and the Mahrkagir searches for the perfect victim to complete his power. Phedre suffers more than ever in her life, both physically and emotionally, as he tortures her and she feels helpless desire even in front of Josceline, who is pretending to be a recruit to the Mahrkagir’s army. She becomes known as Death’s Whore and even though she has found Imriel he despises her for being the Mahrkagir’s favourite. The women of the zenana, the harem, suffer and wait in a sick despairing nightmare for death.

This is a very powerful and disturbing section of the novel to read. Even though Phedre has been in dangerous and potentially fatal situations before this sequence was truly frightening to read. The boredom and terror of daily life in the zenana wear on Phedre and the certainty of the other women that only more pain and death await them is grinding. The petty spitefulness and internal politics of their tiny world become everything. The nightly torments and deaths for the entertainment of the Mahrkagir and his allies are made worse for Phedre seeing Josceline watch her reactions to pain and humiliation, knowing it is tearing him apart and wondering if they will ever be the same.

Eventually of course they prevail, and Phedre knows that she was sent to Darsanga to remove a great evil from the world, but the aftermath is handled well. They do not instantly recover from their ordeal, either physically or emotionally. They are fragile and Imriel is still in danger from assassination. As the son of Melisande and Benedicte de la Courcel he is a Prince of the Blood and there are many who are not comfortable with Melisande’s son so close to the throne.

Phedre and Josceline travel through Iskandria and Jebe-Barkal to reach the lost tribe of Dan in Saba. It is a long journey through the equivalent of what we know as Africa, and it is a healing and restful section of the book, much appreciated after Darsanga. That does not mean that there is not a great deal of interesting detail about the landscape, people and cultures they encounter on their journey. Imriel is becoming more comfortable and confident the longer he spends with them, and Phedre and Josceline eventually rediscover the intimacy that they had lost in Darsanga.

After all that had gone before in this novel, retrieving the name of God and freeing Hyacinthe from his curse would almost seem to be an anticlimax, yet it is so well written that the pages still fly by in anticipation and the story lacks nothing of interest. Phedre and Josceline, who have chosen to remain childless in case their child inherits Kushiel’s Dart, choose to adopt Imriel after coming to love him in their time together.

Many loose threads were wrapped in this book, yet there remains more than enough for speculation. Melisande still lives and perhaps plots, Imriel is still a Prince of the Blood with subtle enemies and there is always politics and love.

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