The story begins with Elderne Karos. It does not stay with him long.
Elderne is a naive young lord — young enough and inexperienced enough that when a stranger approaches him with an extraordinary offer, he believes it. The stranger is the Benefactor. The offer is a barbed black ring, and a promise: carry this to the Thartans at the northern wall, and you will command an army.
Elderne carries it. The wall breaks. The Thartans pour through.
The Inciting Act
Elderne’s decision is not malicious — that is the point. He is not a villain. He is a young man who was told he would be powerful, and who wanted that to be true. The Benefactor read him correctly: Elderne’s naivety and ambition made him the ideal instrument for an act that required someone who would not ask the right questions.
He carries the ring to the wall. The Thartans come through. His mercenary guard — Khe — is the only member of the party they do not take. They look at her and say wrong blood. Elderne they take. The Thartans drag him screaming into the blizzard.
What He Becomes
What happens to Elderne Karos in the mountains, in the custody of the Thartans, is one of the great unanswered questions of the series.
The Thartans do not kill carelessly. They torture, they transform, they create Thralls. But Elderne was specifically chosen by the Benefactor as the ring-carrier — which suggests he is not incidental. Whether the Thartans know this, what they make of him, and what version of Elderne Karos eventually re-emerges into the story is a question Book One does not answer.
It is one of the questions that makes Book Two necessary.
Leave a Reply