Sisters of the Raven
Barbara Hambly
Aspect, 465 pages
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In
the Realm of the Seven Lakes, magic is dying. Or so fear the men, in
whom the world’s magic has always, exclusively, been born. But reluctant
as they are to admit the dwindling of their powers, the male mages are even
more unwilling to acknowledge the fact that the sorcerous ability they are
losing isn’t actually vanishing from the world, but only awakening in different
vessels: women.
In a society where women are utterly subject to men, with few rights or privileges
of their own, this is not only a cosmic insult but a profound threat to the
social order. The situation is desperate, however, for the mages of
the Citadel can no longer summon the seasonal rains, and without them the
desert-bordered Realm faces catastrophic drought. For the first time
in history, a female magic-wielder has been admitted to the College of the
Sun Mages in the Yellow City, in hopes her power can revitalize the annual
ritual.
Centuries of tradition can’t immediately be overthrown, of course, and Raeshaldis,
the new novice, must struggle with the prejudice of her teachers and the
hazing of the other students. Meanwhile, Oryn Jothek, king of the Realm,
tries to persuade the reluctant lords of his council to back his plan to
reduce the Realm’s reliance on magic by finding a mechanical way to bring
water; and magic-wielding women--including Oryn’s consort, the Summer
Concubine--experiment in secret to harness their unpredictable new powers,
with equally unpredictable results. As the rains fail to arrive, the
people’s fear grows, while Oryn’s lords plot against him and a fanatical
religious leader with an alternative explanation for the drought acquires
an increasingly violent following. And somewhere in the Yellow City,
someone--or something--is kidnapping and horribly murdering women who do
magic.
At her best, Barbara Hambly is a writer of grace and subtlety, and this is
one of her best. The Realm of the Seven Lakes is vivid with sun and
dust and squalor and luxury, a world carefully built (like the 19th century
New Orleans of Hambly’s historical mystery series) through an artful layering of historical
detail, custom and physical description, and revealed like a painting through
the eyes of the characters. Hambly draws on Persian, Egyptian, and
Japanese elements to create this vibrant imaginary world; the magic
system, involving elemental forces and spells worked with runes and sigils,
is more conventional, but this is offset by the book’s interesting portrayal
of the consequences of dwindling magic in a society that depends on sorcery
for even the most basic tasks. What do you do, for instance, if you’ve
always relied on wards to keep mice out of your larder, and suddenly those
wards don’t work? Or when healing charms lose their efficacy and there’s
no herb lore to put in their place? The mages’ loss of magic isn’t
merely a supernatural puzzle, but a cultural disaster threatening terrible
disruption--a more interesting and realistic exploration of this sort of
theme than usual.
There’s also a nuanced examination of the conflict that arises when
entrenched gender roles are threatened. In the Realm of the Seven Lakes,
women are so devalued that proper names are given them only when they marry;
until then, daughters are known simply by number, according to the order
of their birth. Men are free to abuse their wives and treat them as
slaves; the greatest aspiration available to a girl of good birth is
to become a Pearl Woman, her husband’s most perfect and versatile servant.
Given such a context, a book about the transfer of magic from male to female
could easily become an exercise in authorial ideology, with women’s magic
cast as more natural or more wise or more something-conventionally-feminist
than men’s. But Hambly is subtler than this. Women’s magic is
certainly different, but not in any predictable gender-specific way.
Women’s wisdom--shaped by their subjugation to and abuse by males--isn’t
any more intrinsically incisive or correct than men’s: untrained women
wreak havoc by making magic for others’ good, or create grief and injury
by employing it for malicious ends. At the book’s climax, women do
save the day--but only with the cooperation of the powerless male mages,
who possess the training and knowledge the women lack.
Sisters of the Raven contains other fine things--a convincing
depiction of the power of fanaticism and the damage it can do; deft
and sympathetic characterizations (especially Oryn, the formerly dissipated
king forced to assume the burden of rule, whose combination of rueful self-knowledge
and steely will is very winning); lovely, evocative prose; and
a suspenseful murder mystery. While the mystery is resolved, other
issues, such as the reasons behind the transfer of magic, aren’t--very frustrating
if the novel is indeed (as the publisher’s packaging makes it appear) a standalone,
but leaving plenty of room for interesting exploration if there are to be
sequels. Hopefully there will be. I’m eager to pay another visit
to the Realm of the Seven Lakes, and see how it all turns out.
Copyright © 2003 Victoria Strauss
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