Katherine Kurtz, ‘Deryni Rising’ (1970)

 

Katherine Kurtz's Deryni Rising (1970) was the first installment of what has since grown into a very lengthy series of linked trilogies of fantasy novels. The titular Deryni are a race, or caste, of humanoid warrior-sorcerers, possessed of various magical powers, who once ruled over the muggle human populations of Gwynedd—a version of early medieval England and Wales. Their power was overthrown centuries before, their people outcast and persecuted for many years, but as the series starts the Deryni are starting to re-emerge into human society again. 

I had not previously read any Deryni novels, but reading a little about them made them seem promising. Kari Spelling notes that Deryni Rising was the first book included in the Ballantine Modern Fantasy Series that was not a reprint from an earlier or dead author. Though ‘unequivocally fantasy’ it is, she says, ‘written more in the mode of the historical fiction of the time than its companion books on the Ballantine and other lists.’

It is closer to the complex and thoroughly researched novels of Dorothy Dunnett, Maurice Druon, and Zoe Oldenbourg than the fantasy that surrounded it …. Its treatment of magic too was dramatically different. This is a world of highly formal, ritual magic, without sorcerers, or demons, or exoticized and stereotypical “witchdoctors.” Magic requires training, careful and sometimes demanding preparation. It is never easy, or casual, and it is hard to come by … And it is set against a background of closely observed and detailed faith, which is closely intertwined with every aspect of her characters’ lives. [Kari Sperring, ‘Matrilines: The Woman Who Made Fantasy: Katherine Kurtz’, Strange Horizons (30 March 2015)]

Kurtz herself claimed that ‘in 1969, when I actually began writing Deryni Rising, the sub-genre of what I now refer to as historical fantasy did not exist. I was making it up as I went along, though at the time I thought that all fantasy had to have magical creatures, rhyming spells, and special languages.’

Reading this got my hopes up. Reading the actual novel, though, got those hopes right back down again to where they belong. It is possible that the later books in the sequence are more detailed and nuanced, more complex and rounded, but Deryni Rising is, well, not. It's a pulp melodrama with medieval trappings. The king of Gwynned, Brion Haldane, drinks poisoned wine whilst out hunting and dies. His teenaged son Kelson Haldane, inheriting the crown, must protect himself and his kingdom from the Deryni usurper who murdered his father. It' is easily readable, page-turny, and with some gestures towards things like court politics and the importance of church power. But there's nothing here of, say, Dunnett's richly woven complexities and textures.

Character are central-casting, stereotypes. Or, flatter than that: monotypes. The good characters are heroic in look and deed (‘dark, lean, with just a trace of grey beginning to show at his temples, he commanded instant respect by his mere presence in a room. When he spoke, whether with the crackle of authority or the lower tones of subtle persuasion, men listened and obeyed’). The wicked characters are decadent, devious, orientalised. If a man, feminised and semiticised. The main villain is the sorceress Lady Charissa, ‘the Shadowed Lady of the North’, attended by her dark-skinned ‘Moors’. This is how she first appears: ‘sat motionless on the pillow, a slender, pale figure shrouded in richest velvet and fur, delicate hands encased in jewelled doeskin gloves [her] blue eyes searched serenely across the clearing, noted with satisfaction the black-robed Yousef standing guard over the horses.’ Here is her accomplice, the cruel and wicked Ian Howell. Not that Ian Howell. This one:

Tall, slim, almost ascetic of face and feature, Lord Ian Howell viewed the world through a pair of eyes even deeper brown than his hair. A meticulously-tended beard and moustache framed a rather thin mouth, accentuated the high cheekbones, the slight cant of the round eyes—eyes which outshone the dark jewels that glittered coldly at his throat and ears. [17]

Howell, Howell, Howell, Howell! O, you are men of stones. Had I your tongues and eyes, I'd use them so that heaven's vault should crack and so on.

Stylistically the novel is egregiously in hock to cliché. It’s not often one encounters the phrase ‘why oh why’ in the wild, used in earnest rather than as Private-Eye satirical ridicule (‘why oh why had he promised Jehana there would be venison for her table tonight?’ [3]). Characters ‘laugh mirthlessly’ and ‘toss their heads defiantly’, heroes move with ‘catlike tread’, eyes ‘sparkle’ and ‘flash angrily’, and sometimes leap clean out of skulls and go scuttling around.

His eyes darted briefly over the Moor who reached up for his horse’s bridle, then came casually to rest on the grey-shrouded form of the woman. [14]

Characters scheme and plot in an excessively obvious plotting-scheming manner:

“I must confess, I rather like your little plan, my pet,” Ian murmured. “The deviousness of your lovely mind never fails to intrigue me.” He glanced down at her thoughtfully through long, dark lashes. “Are you certain no one besides Morgan will suspect, though?” Charissa smiled complacently and leaned back against his chest. “You worry too much, Ian,” she cooed. “Brion will feel nothing until my hand clutches at his heart—and then it will be far too late”

People don’t fight, they ‘cross swords’. Nobles pour themselves glasses of wine out of ‘crystal decanters’ from tables ‘of burnished oak, claw-footed legs resting solidly on the polished marble floor.’ Libraries have secret doors (‘a portion of the wall recessed to reveal a dark stairwell descending’). Deryni magic is an early video-film special-effect: ‘long sparks of golden light streamed from her fingertips’; ‘blue and red auras met, a sparkling violet interface crackled brightly in the darkness’.

Morgan whirled defensively on his haunches. [189]

That’s a neat trick! Not easy to do.

As he headed slowly for the door, watching her every flicker of an eyelash, every rustle of her gown, she smiled languidly. [131]

Can one watch a rustle? (‘a soft crackling sound similar to the movement of dry leaves’). Or perhaps we should say instead: eyesight sharp enough to capture such a thing would naturally make short work of a single flickering eyelash. So it all works out. On occasion the prose strains desperately for effect, bathetically-hilariously:

Brightness ... pain... swirling colors ... pain throbbing . . . a cool shiver of—what? . . . Pain subsiding... better now... cool weight in the hand ... Look! ... Colors ... swirling... faces: ... light, dark . . . light fading... faces... growing darker... spinning ... darkness ... Father! … [173]

The novel is not long, and the story not complicated. Though it should be obvious to any simpleton that Charissa is behind the poisoning of King Brion, the wrong person is suspected until the right person is. In the antepenultimate plot-turn, it seems Charissa has triumphed. Her champion Ian fights, single-combat, against Morgan, the king’s champion, and though cut down Ian manages to throw one last dagger, badly wounding Morgan. Charissa crows over him.

Charissa began to laugh. “Yes, who now is ruler of Gwynedd, my proud friend?” she taunted, as she strolled easily to where Ian still writhed on the floor. “I had thought you better trained than to turn your back on a wounded enemy.” 

As Kelson, Nigel, and other of Morgan’s friends gathered around the wounded general, Charissa glanced down at Ian and prodded him with her toe. When he gave a low moan, she stooped over to look him in the eye. “Well done, Ian,” she whispered. “What a pity you. won't be here to see the outcome of our little conspiracy.”

Ian grimaced with the pain, tried to protest. “Charissa, you promised! You said I would rule Corwyn that we would—Charissa, please—”

Charissa put her fingers across his lips. “Now, you know I detest pleading.”

… Charissa’s other hand moved in another spell. For a few seconds, Ian struggled to breathe, his hand clutching at her cloak in desperation. Then he relaxed, the life gone. Casually, Charissa stood up again. [246]

Of course there’s a final twist: Kelson, despite being a human and not Deryni, discovers he has within him Deryni powers, and blasts Charissa with a beam of scarlet magic: ‘the crimson at last engulfed her, she let out a long, agonized scream, edged with fury, which slowly faded as she grew smaller. Then she was gone.’ [267]. So much for her. Thereupon Kelson is crowned king, by a human crowner and also a sort of spectral Deryni crowner: ‘figure supported the crown above Kelson’s head—a tall, blond man garbed — in the shining golden raiment of the ancient High Deryni Lords … the shining stranger used the ancient Deryni formula, which bespoke quite a different destiny for the brave young King he crowned.’ [269]

Now it may be that Deryni-fans, the Deryniphiles, all those Deryni-girls (and Deryni-boys), the knights-who-say-Deryni, will tell me: I need to read on in the series. That it improves as it goes, gets less clumsy and gnashing. If so I will persevere. Should I?