So who is the grimdark hero?
The grimdark hero is the protagonist in a story who survives in a world not of their choosing. By hook or by crook, they will always fight to survive. Death may eventually claim them but it will not be for a lack of fighting. They have some quality, some spark of humanity, that rebels against a world of meaningless cruelty and apathy. This may only be because they find themselves in an otherwise miserable hellhole. We see some element of ourselves in the grimdark hero, not as we aspire to be, at least morally, but how we hope we might scratch out an existence in the worst of circumstances.[GdM]
C.T. Phipps is a lifelong student of horror, science fiction, and fantasy. An avid tabletop gamer, he discovered this passion led him to write and turned him into a lifelong geek. He is a regular blogger on The United Federation of Charles:
http://unitedfederationofcharles.blogspot.com/
He's recently released the novels The Rules of Supervillainy and Esoterrorism. His third novel, Wraith Knight, is expected to release in January of 2016.
Review: The Liar’s Key
BY MARK LAWRENCE
REVIEW BY TOM SMITH
Reading The Broken Empire trilogy really changed the way I view fantasy. It was after reading this trilogy that I discovered and began to define for myself what grimdark is. As a kid I always rooted for the bad guys. I especially liked the villains or antiheroes who seemed pretty decent but made some bad decisions. I always loved the movies with a twist. The good guy wins but dies; the movie ends unresolved in some way. Lawrence has a way of creating likeable bad guys as heroes that I find extremely appealing.
After reading the description to The Red Queen’s War series, I confess to being disappointed. Mark Lawrence went from showcasing Prince Jorg, the ruthless rogue, to featuring Prince Jalan, the fop of the Red March? What on earth was he thinking?
Jalan surprised me in Prince of Fools, so much that I eagerly anticipated the release of The Liar’s Key, the second book in the Red Queen’s War, in a way I hadn’t looked forward to a book in a long, long time. And as much as I grew to hate Jalan sometimes for his lazy, cowardly ways, I also began to admire his cleverness and ingenuity.
Snorri ver Snagason is the straight foil to Jalan and his conniving ways, forming a very unlikely pairing. Snorri, a Northman, is a man’s man of deep honour and unrivalled fighting skills, a man of single-minded determination who wants to open death’s door and bring back his dead family. It’s a true tribute to Lawrence’s writing skill that this unlikely pairing makes believable companions.
One thing that the two characters have in common is the celestial spirits that have been attached to them in Prince of Fools by Jalan’s invisible great aunt, the Silent Sister. I say invisible because very few people seem to be able to see her or know of her existence. Using a spell of great power she attaches the two spirits (one good, one evil) to Jalan and Snorri to bind them together and send them on a mission.
The Liar’s Key opens with Loki, a trickster god from Snorri’s homeland, hatching an underhanded scheme. First, he creates an object of great power–the Liar’s key. The key can open pretty much any lock, portal or door no matter who made it. It’s called the ‘Liar’s key’ because it was created by Loki, the greatest liar in the pantheon of Northern deities. Then, he launches his scheme by finding Kelem, the Door Mage. Who better to tempt with a key to open any lock? Kelem, having spent way too many years alone with all of his secret doors, proves to be an easy target to manipulate as he is already half insane. Kelem then goes missing in action for a large part of the story, long enough for you to wonder why he was in the introduction, but comes back in a major way at the end.
Fast forward in time and we catch up with Jalan and Snorri in the North, where Jalan seems to think he is on a vacation, bedding every local woman he can, while Snorri continues the single-minded pursuit of his goal of getting his family back now that he has come into possession of the Liar’s key. He searches for a Völva (a witch of sorts) who can show him a door to Hel, whereby he can use the key to retrieve his long dead wife and children.
Although Snorri seems hell-bent on his own destruction, Lawrence makes the reader believe that if anyone can challenge Hel and win, it’s the massive northern warrior. He and Jalan are assisted by Tuttugu, the last remaining survivor of Snorri’s clan, the Undoreth. Tutt (as he is frequently called) is a fisherman by trade, but he is also a stout warrior who is fiercely loyal to Snorri. On a visit to see a Völva, the crew picks up an unlikely traveling companion, a Völva-in-training by the name of Kara. Kara is a mixed bag. While they all know that she has her own ulterior motives and those of her master as well, having a little magic and knowledge on their side doesn’t hurt either.
With plenty of challenges to face already, including a God of Mischief dogging their heels, the team encounters the Dead King who further plagues them by sending undead assassins after them. Readers of the Broken Empire books will well remember the Dead King as Jorg’s primary antagonist. The Dead King, though no god like Loki, is still a very powerful adversary whose motives are not entirely clear.
The big question is can Snorri open the door to Hel and rescue his family? You won’t find the answer to that question here sadly. What you will find here, though, is my strong recommendation that you read the series and find out for yourself.
I will proudly admit to being a fan of Mark Lawrence’s work, but I really feel that he outdid himself on this one. This is far and away my favorite novel of the year. I had trouble putting it down, even at midnight with work early the next day.
One thing I love about Mark Lawrence’s storytelling is his versatility. The Broken Empire Trilogy I love for the tone and creative, dark storytelling. However, The Liar’s Key (as a part of The Red Queen’s War series) I love for the prose and creative turns of phrase Lawrence sprinkles throughout the tale.
There’s something strangely organic about the way Lawrence brings the characters to life, making me develop relationships with them in my mind by playing one against the other, much like Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser of Lankhmar fame. Also, the way that he sucked me into the story made me not want to put it down, perhaps due to the intimate first-person narrative from Jalan’s point of view. Reading The Liar’s Key made me feel present in the story’s world.
That is why I read books. To escape to that far away impossibility. The highest praise I can give to a writer is that they helped me do that with their book. Mark Lawrence has done that with The Liar’s Key.[GdM]
First They Came For The Pigs
CHADWICK GINTHER
‘First they came for the pigs; then they came for their masters.’
The men’s expressions told the tale. They glanced at the corpse, with its piss-yellow skin and toadstools sprouting from its eyes, its mouth, its ears and nose. The mushrooms swayed, though there was no breeze. Straining against their roots, reaching. As if hunting for me.
I shuddered and all eyes were back to me. They didn’t believe me. How could they? It was too terrible to fathom. These were not men of a scholarly bent. These were street toughs. The best—or should I say worst?—Khyber had to offer, lured to my home with promises of wealth. I rubbed at my face; I needed to make them see the threat. All of my wealth would be meaningless if the attacks continued. There was no one left for them to take.
No one but me.
I settled my hand upon the braided silver Goodson’s Noose about my neck. He hung from the Wall and faced heathens to win His father’s favour. Surely, I could face these … men.
They came from all over the city of Khyber. Which meant they came from all over the world.
‘Who,’ asked Coal, the ebony-skinned Garan, ‘are they?’
He was dressed in the colourful robes common to his desert-dwelling people and towered over the assemblage. I, myself, barely came to the man’s chest. Furs swaddled him beneath those robes, peeking out here and there, making him seem all the larger. He shivered as if he could not get warm, though we we
re in Khyber’s High Summer and I felt the sweat gathering at my brow. He cupped his hands around a bowl of tea, taking a sip. A spider’s web of bright orange scars wound about those large hands, glowing like embers.
‘This,’ I said, gesturing at the toadstool, ‘is they. They walk like men, hunt like them. Kill like them. But they are not. Not men! Not beasts! They took my stock, but were not satisfied. I’ve lost my factors in every ward in Khyber. My seneschal! Even the bloody razor guild won’t take my coin for guard duty, now!’
I tried to calm myself. Such outbursts were unseemly, even among the lowborn.
Wei, an inscrutable Xiou, leaned against the wall, pushing his broad hat above his eyes with the tip of his staff. He pursed his lips, but said nothing.
‘Not even Old Wyrd would expect me to believe that,’ Hraki, a giant Valkuran from the North Sea, bellowed, jabbing at me with a sausage-thick finger, each jab forcing me to retreat a step. ‘And he’s a bigger liar than any god in Khyber.’ Hraki was almost as broad as the Garan was tall, a fury of hair and iron.
‘A Garan sorcerer could have worked such magic,’ Coal said cautiously, as if daring the others to accuse him. When they did not, he continued. ‘Though at a terrible cost to himself. He would need to give up his humanity to take the same from his victims.’
Hraki crossed his arms over his burly chest. He spat upon my rug. I was glad now that I’d had the foresight to remove my treasured woven Rusan rugs before I had invited these ruffians into my home. Like Hraki, they’d come from the barbaric far north. Unlike him, they were irreplaceable.
‘A witch or hex, nothing more,’ the Valkuran insisted.
‘You're all wrong, yeah?’ a cheery voice interjected.
Wheeling as one, we saw a slight man leaning against the doorframe. He picked at something between his teeth, regarded the prize, and then discarded it upon one of my tapestries.
I winced — those I’d forgotten to store away, more concerned about the muck on my … guests' feet.
‘Mushrooms out of everywhere,’ the stranger spoke, gesturing at what was once my seneschal. He shuddered, too, though I felt he was exaggerating the gesture with false disgust. ‘Glad you kept that one’s pants on, yeah?’
‘You.’
All of my dangerous men said the word, each with a different inflection. Anger from the Valkuran, suspicion from the Garan, amusement from the Xiou.
‘Who?’ I asked, curious, echoing Coal’s earlier confusion.
‘Needle,’ they answered at once.
Then, separately:
Coal added, ‘A thief and liar.’
‘A dead man,’ Hraki growled.
And from the Xiou, ‘An adequate tailor.’
Needle threw back his hood, revealing a tanned, smirking face. He nodded at Wei. Were it not for the smouldering mischief in his eyes, he could have been any man in Khyber.
‘It’s the creeping rot, it is. Cygaricus, god of shit and muck and what things grow there. It’s the Vile Truffle, luv. That’s your culprit.’
He spoke with the quick brogue of a Khyber native, though I could not quite place from which quarter his accent originated. He was also utterly unconcerned by his less-than-welcome reception.
‘I’ve never heard of this “creeping rot”,’ Hraki said.
Needle canted his head, rolled his eyes. ‘Take a closer look at your prick, then, and you'll have an idea, Hraki Hard-Sailor. Only thing hard about you is how damned hard it is to get your fat ass in a boat these days.’
‘I should've killed you,’ the Valkuran said through bared teeth.
‘Well you didn't, now, did you? And it's too late to go back.’
‘Never too late to try again.’ Hraki’s hand tightened on an axe handle.
‘Please, please,’ I interjected, trying to forestall a brawl in my sitting room. ‘This is not necessary. There is no time.’
Needle smiled, ignoring me. Odious little man. He had a dirk in each hand. I hardly saw his hands move to draw. ‘See how far you get, luv.’
‘I'm not your luv.’
‘Aye, that's what your sister said, though she bent over just the same.’
‘She asked me to bring her your manhood.’
‘I knew she still fancied me.’
Wei's staff slapped against Hraki’s chest, holding the Valkuran back from rushing the intruder. When he spoke, it was in a hard, clipped tone. ‘I think he may take more than a finger this time.’
This had gotten out of hand. I needed to wrest control of the proceedings back from these ruffians before they killed each other in my home.
Gathering myself to my full height — not much in the face of these warriors, but it was enough that I could look down upon this Needle — I glared at the thief as if he’d tried to pass me a wooden coin.
‘I ... we do not appreciate your intrusion.’
‘You’d best appreciate me,’ Needle shot back. ‘And by that, I mean, you’d best be following me through the Undercity, or you won’t be coming back up out of the dark. The Truffle wants back what’s his; that’s the word I’ve been hearing. You need to bring that body or they’ll keep coming. I wouldn’t trust even fire to kill this rot.’
‘I do not respond well to threats —‘
He snorted. ‘Of course you do. Something bad hit one of your operations. You didn’t like the smell of it and so, you found —‘ He looked at each of the men in turn. To Coal, ‘The biggest.’ To the Xiou, ‘Baddest.’ And, finally, to the Valkuran: ‘Smelliest shankers you could find. Only flaw was leaving one out, yeah?’
‘Which one might you be?’ I asked, dubious.
‘The best, luv. The best.’
‘Prove it.’
‘Well, I got this.’ Needle held up a greasy-looking leather pouch, bouncing it on his palm, and smiling at Hraki, ‘from that one.’
Hraki growled and made to snatch the pouch back. Needle darted back a step, wagging a finger.
‘Please, you great hairy lummox. I’ve been nabbing purses longer than you’ve been preening that beard of yours — and that’s a roll of years, it is.’
The thief dipped a finger into the pouch. Recoiling immediately, he grimaced.
‘I thought as much. Vala Mushrooms. Working for the Truffle, are we?’
‘They’re sacred,’ Hraki said.
‘They’re foolish, is what. Only a great fucking fool would eat a mad mushroom before facing the bloody god of fungus and rot. Poison to the mind, luv.’ Needle tapped at his temple. ‘Once they get in here …’
‘It is a gift that’ll prove more useful than your quick fingers. Or mouth.’
Hraki tore the pouch from Needle’s hands, though, I felt, he was allowed to do so.
‘Oh, aye,’ the thief muttered. ‘Always useful to have a mad Valkuran, frothing at the mouth, chopping up anything that moves. I'm still moving, and I plan on staying that way.’
* * *
I didn’t like it.
I didn’t know this man, and those who did gave me little reason to want to. Assurances that he could handle himself in a fight, or that he knew the Undercity as well as any man alive, did little to ease my troubled conscience.
I liked that I had to accompany them even less. With my trusted guards and factors gone — taken — who might I trust to prove to me they had succeeded?
What were our choices? Going gate to gate in Khyber, and the bribes and graft that would accompany such a journey, would drain even the Lord General’s purse, and I was nowhere near so wealthy as that. For better and worse, I had assembled my chosen elite and there were wards that would not allow a Garan to walk through. Others had the same taboo regarding Xiou or Valkurans. Needle, the crafty bastard, had me.
I needed him.
I fought to keep my cheek from twitching. I fought harder to show a smile.
‘It seems we can use you, after all.’
His grin terrified me.
‘Never doubted it, luv. Never doubted.’
* * *
> The Undercity was a labyrinthine world of sewers, cisterns and ruins buried under Khyber from the days when the city was young. I had prayed to the Goodson that I would never see its blackness again. There are ... things that live in the dark. Men, and what once wore the forms of men, worship fell masters where they hope the One God’s eyes cannot find them.
We descended into the darkness of the Undercity through a bolthole that Needle proclaimed as his own. It was a tight fit for my own belly and I must assume that Hraki was only able to push his bulk through due to the benevolence of his heathen god, Wyrd. He had scrapes all along his arms. Blood had dried red where he’d rubbed his flesh raw on brick. Needle laughed and I wondered then if he’d led us there because it was closest or because he wished to leave Hraki behind. I must assume the former, as the small man seemed to enjoy taunting the Valkuran. Almost as much as he enjoyed reminding us of his prowess.
Coal’s hands flared and flames rose from them as if the man himself were a torch. I jumped back, a hand at my chest. I could barely hear the fire crackle as it burned over the man’s skin, but did not consume it. All this time, I’d thought him a mere arsonist. I would have to watch myself. He was a sorcerer. A Garan sorcerer meant but one thing: He’d made a pact with the Goodson’s opposite.
But, Goodson preserve me, I would follow even a heathen’s light in this dark, dark place.
Water dripped from the ceiling, drops spattering over cisterns, a cacophony of little noises that seemed to roar in my ears. It was hot down here. I mopped at my brow with an already sodden sleeve. They had made me drag the wrapped body of my own seneschal as if I were their pack mule.
Outrageous.
They were to be working for me.
Grimdark Magazine Issue #5 mobi Page 2
