Gate of Ivrel Slide Show Page Three
Everywhere Morgaine is led by her intrepid ilin, they run into
people to whom he's related in some fashion---meetings never to their advantage.
Curious thing about Vanye however, everyone starts out wanting to kill him on general
principles and ends up compromising--- for reasons they never quite figure out. We
the readers know full well it's just because he's so darn lovable!
Of course, his father never quite felt that way ... |
But then, he did kinda sorta ... well ... kill his brother, Kandrys.
Who just happened to be their father's heir. This did rather tick
Papa off, who exiled
Vanye, which led to a rather less than welcoming homecoming later in the books...
And then there's his mother's folk, the Chya, who have an
on-going feud with his father's folk, the Myya. When he shows up on their doorstep,
they're understandably suspicious.
All except Medhwyn. |
One of the things about Vanye that struck me was his
fascination with the children of RaKoris. Having had such a screwed up childhood
himself, he's always amazed to see the easy, laughing mingling of children with adults.
While CJ could hint at this within the text, I really wanted to come up with something
to highlight it visually. Together, CJ and I came up with Medhwyn. The
central sketch here is literally a combination of Cherryh/Fancher pencil strokes.
Medhwyn's inclusion surpassed our expectations. She would have appeared in Family Ties; the layout sketches of which will one day appear on this page even if a finished version never makes it to bookstores. But Medhwyn wasn't the only one to see right through his breeding to Vanye's inherent qualities. From childhood, horses recognized him immediately as a soft touch... |
Except, of course, the black horse. That evil-incarnate creature every horse-person meets at some point in his/her life. A horse so vile of temperament Vanye, once stuck with him, never even names him. |
However, one can hardly blame the black horse completely. He was, after all, the property of Chya Liell... |
...with whose gentle touch Vanye becomes all too familiar. |
But Liell isn't the only one in RaLeth that would like to get their
hands on Vanye. One of the |
Without question the closest thing she's seen to a white knight.
Certainly far more the |
One of the fun parts of doing this particular scene was trying to capture the effect that we're seeing Flis through Vanye's fever-hazed eyes. She's much more seductive than we see her later. This was done deliberately to try to reflect Vanye's perception in the novel. |
On to the next page for more relationships.