Darkness Over Mirhold

A short story by Patricia Shaw Mathews

Publishing History

Timeline Notes

  1. p154. Wars between Karsten and Estcarp are over, Louvain now Duke of Karsten. There is a shrine of Gunnora (see: The Warding of the Witch World) and abbeys of Dames in Karsten.
  2. p157-158. Rovagh of Mirhold, "I doubt they taught you in Karsten to defend yourself, but this is the Border."
  3. p159. "We shall not ride through Falconer country, but east-ward." (See: Falconers)
  4. p171. Samiel reveals herself to be an Alizonder sorceress with a blue stone(!) (See: Alizon.)
  5. p173. Samiel, "My father—so he is in all but blood—reared me in High Hallack, and I was sealed to Gunnora as even shield-maids are in the Dales."(!)

Notes

  1. This story seems to imply that Rovagh was a blank shield of the Old Race who fought both the Hounds of Alizon and Karsten and ended up settling in Karsten after the racial unrest finally settled down. He killed Samiel's sister when he massacred Samiel's fishing village in Alizon and somehow she was adopted and raised in High Hallack by a man who rescued her, where she got magic training(!), a blue stone (!!) and was "sealed to Gunnora"(!!!). How an Alizonder child was accepted in High Hallack by the Dalesmen and how she overcame her own racial aversion to magic to receive magic training (from whom? Magic users are rare in High Hallack) and a (what appears to be an Estcarpian Witch style?) blue stone to channel her magic instead of Gunnora's traditional amber amulet of wheat & grapes would be a VERY interesting tale. She is probably in her late teens here and is probably descended from one of the two mages who brought her people into the Witch World (see: The Magestone).
  2. This story probably takes place after Port of Dead Ships at least (if not later) for there to be a shrine of Gunnora in Karsten and for the Old Race to be no longer killed there too.
  3. The mention of Abbeys of Dames in Karsten further implies that the 'younger' race of Karsten were Dalesmen who left High Hallack to settle in Karsten. (Though this is the first time it's ever been mentioned.)
  4. "Shield-maids" are pretty rare in High Hallack. Elys and Joisan (and maybe Brixia) are about the only ones who could truly be thought of as such! It's possible the Dalesmen decided to finally teach their women how to defend themselves after the Invasion and all the rapine from bandits they had to deal with in the aftermath of that. Still now sure how they'd be "sealed to Gunnora" though…!

Discussion

This story, like La Verdad: The Magic Sword has many problems that may push it into non-canon status.

Unless otherwise stated, the content of this page is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License