Book Review: Slither’s Tale

Slither

The Wardstone Chronicles #11

by Joseph Delaney

Greenwillow Books, 2013

397 Pages

Middle Grade (8-12 and up)

In the opening scenes, a man called Old Rowler dies, gorged by the family’s bull in a tragic accident. Seeing her father in a pool of blood and attended by a huge, devil-like beast, his daughter Nessa becomes scared and runs away. The creature is Slither, a being that has been to the farm before and traded with her father, and who elects to stay with him for companionship as he dies. During those last moments, Slither makes a promise to deliver Old Rowler’s two younger daughters (Susan, 16, and Bryony, 8) to the safety of their aunt and uncle, but only in return for his eldest daughter, Nessa, whom he plans to sell at a slave auction. Later, he does not let Nessa forget her momentary weakness.

To Nessa:
I’ve promised the beast that he can have the farm and you. In return he’s promised to deliver Bryony and Susan to your aunt and uncle. I’ve tried to be a good father, and had it ever proved necessary, I would have sacrificed myself for you. Now you must sacrifice yourself yourself for your younger sisters.
-Your loving father

Though this is the eleventh book in the series ( ! ), Delaney keeps things fresh with a complete departure from his regular formula and even the characters we love, inventing new mythological beasts and exploring new lands in the same world as the young apprentice, Tom Ward. As always I am shocked at the strength of the imagery that can come from such a short book and stay with you in the dead silence of midnight. The story is told in turns by both Slither and his charge, Nessa.

Slither is a haizda mage, a Kobalos who has dedicated himself to perfecting his soul through study and contemplation. These magic users are generally isolated from the rest of their kind, tending to their haizdas, or people-farms, which are usually a village where the Kobalos watches over the humans who live within and takes what he needs for blood and mating as he sees fit.

On the journey Southward, the weather turns bad for Slither and the girls, forcing the party to stop for shelter at a Kobalos stronghold, a tower owned by the High-Mage Nunc. But Slither is double-crossed when Nunc attempts to murder him for the prize of the three young purras (human women) he is transporting.

Nessa saves Slither’s life by sacrificing some of her blood, but he still has to contend with not only the High-Mage, but his Shaiksa Assassin as well. Why is a Shaiksa so dangerous? They are telepathic, and can convey knowledge instantly, communicating their cause of death and the face of the one responsible to all other Shaiksa. After Slither does his impression of Conan the Barbarian, he is a marked mage.

He decides the best course of action is to travel to the central city of the Kobalos, Valkarky, and plead his case rather than wait for another assassin to kill him and take the girls. (This was kind of a contrived point, because Slither knows the only way to achieve justice in Valkarky is trial by combat with an undefeatable monster.)

Another rough point is that no one we like ever seems to get hurt. Like a John Wayne movie, the good guys survive every attempt on their lives, no matter the size of the threat laid before them. No challenge is too great. Until Valkarky, at least.

Then, out of the annals of Tom and Alice suddenly appears who else but our favorite witch assassin, captured by the Kobalos while seeking out the star metal she saw fall from the sky in a vision. In return for her weapons and freedom, she promises to help Slither win his combat. (And the bag with the Devil’s head in it, too. You can’t forget that little item.)

There was a blinding light so fierce that I feared my eyes would be burned from my head. Then a voice told me where and when it would fall– and then, once it was in my possession, what I must do with it… so I will forge a new blade!

The two triumph, but not everyone in the party survives. And Justice is lost even in victory when one of the High-Mages of the ruling Triumvirate takes issue with Slither’s win.

I was aware of Grimalkin’s cuts and thrusts as if they were my own; no doubt she too felt my strikes at the enemy that confronted us. It were as if I was floating just above my body, watching us do battle below.

It is a requirement of the Laws of Bindos that each citizen sell at least one purra at market every 40 years, and so Slither and Grimalkin travel together, first to the safe haven of Stoneleigh to meet Nessa’s aunt and uncle, then to the slave market. On the way, they face the greatest of the Shaiksa assassins, Eblis, sent by the vindictive High-Mage. As an end result, Slither decides there is a lot he could learn from the human witch, but also that one day he must fight her as the “summit of his endeavors as a haizda mage.”

Shaiksa assassins do not scream. And yet Eblis, the bravest, strongest, and most ruthless of them all, cried out. His screams went on for a very long time.

The Wardstone books have been misunderstood and called misogynistic before. This story will bring out the worst of the critics. The Kobalos, you see, have no females. Long ago in the dark of the early times, all their women were horrifically slaughtered by the Kobalos men, believed to be a source of weakness. (Grimalkin, of course, has a problem with this and, indeed, the very idea of the enslavement of women.) Yet the story is one of strength. All the women in the book overcome their weaknesses and show fortitude of mind, body, and spirit as they grow.

Nessa’s fate is forecast by her relationship with Grimalkin; but what ensues is much different than I had imagined. Though Slither is horrifying and eats people like the born-savage that he is, he, like Grimalkin, shows a sense of honor that made me want him to come to terms with his admiration of Nessa. In fact, he ends up risking great loss to his own well-being for the sake of delivering the girls to safety. No spoilers, but the way I thought this story would end was far outdone by what really transpires.

How is it that I can come away from a story about an evil, sadistic witch who cuts the thumb bones from her enemies, still alive, …with scissors… so deeply in love with her character? Perhaps it’s that I live in a culture that celebrates poetic justice achieved through savage acts, that holds punitive authority in such high regard, that is in love with Charles Bronson and Rambo and the nameless drifter from the Clint Eastwood westerns. But that is contemplation for another blog.

I am sure that Slither will be turning up again in the Wardstone Chronicles, with him and Grimalkin as a matched pair of anti-heroes.
 

Those who pursue me will die a death such as this! I am Grimalkin!