Marion Zimmer Bradley: Sharra's Exile

Sharra's Exile (pub. 1981) is an extensive revision of Bradley's second Darkover novel, Sword of Aldones (pub. 1962), and the immediate sequel to The Heritage of Hastur. In Sharra's Exile, the consequences of the Sharra rising on all the participants are examined, and a final resolution is finally found to the threat of another Sharra rising.

Lew and Kennard have been offworld for five years. Kennard is aging and in poor health. Lew has learned that using Sharra has distorted his very genetic structure -Terran regeneration techniques can not restore his hand, and when he meets and falls in love with Diotima Ridenow, a Darkovan Comynara travelling offworld, their child is born premature and fatally deformed, which strains the relationship past the breaking point.

Then comes news from Darkover - the Comyn Council is preparing to void Kennard's lordship of Alton and, ignoring both Lew as his declared heir and his younger son Marius, choose a new lord of Alton. But before Kennard can return to defend his claim, he suffers a fatal stroke - and his dying act is to use the Alton gift of forced rapport to compel Lew to go back to Darkover and secure Marius' rights.

With both Lew and Sharra on Darkovan soil again, Sharra wakes, and the former members of the Sharra circle are drawn to it. Kadarin steals the Sharra matrix from the Alton residence in Thendara; Marius is killed in the attack. Meanwhile, rumours about a child of Alton blood are circulating; the child - a girl named Marja - is found, and proves to be Lew's child by Thyra, conceived while he was drugged and under Kadarin's control.

Meanwhile, the question of Terran-Darkovan relations is still a key issue, with several factions - including the Ridenow Domain - pushing for closer ties and others urging less involvement. The isolationists have gained influence over the young and mentally unstable Prince, Derik Elhalyn, who has, behind the Council's back, made a treaty with the Aldarans, to be sealed with a marriage between Beltran of Aldaran, and Callina Aillard, underKeeper of the Comyn Tower in Thendara.

Lew, after consulting the two Keepers - Callina Aillard and the unbelievably ancient Ashara - learns that the only force that can stand against Sharra is the ancient Hastur relic, the Sword of Aldones. But the Sword is guarded in an ingenious fashion. It lies within the Comyn Chapel, the rhu faed, which is so shielded that only one of Comyn blood can enter - but the Sword itself is warded such that no one with the slightest hint of Comyn blood or laran power can touch it. Callina and Lew use a giant matrix screen to "call" to them a person who will be best suited to help them reach the Sword. This person is Kathie Marshall, a Terran nurse from the planet Vainwal, who was present when Diotima and Lew's child was born, and who is also a perfect double for Linnell Lindir-Aillard, Camilla's half-sister, Lew's foster sister, and the betrothed of Derik Elhalyn.

In an attempt to bring Lew back under Sharra's control, Kadarin and Thyra attend the Midsummer Festival in disguise, but Regis, who has discovered that he has an instinctive gift that can counter Sharra's influence, manages to keep Lew from succumbing. Sharra strikes out, killing Linnell; Prince Derik, weakened by a mysteriously spiked drink, dies in the psychic backlash.

Callina, Lew and Kathie succeed in retrieving the Sword of Aldones from the rhu faed, but Lew is seriously wounded when Kadarin and Thyra try - and fail - to take the Sword from them. A Terran helicopter, authorised by Regis, arrives in time to transport Lew, Callina, Kathie, and - under arrest - Kadarin and Thyra - to Terran Medical, where Regis heals Lew with the power of the Sword.

Using the powers of Sharra, Kadarin teleports himself, Thyra and Lew to the forecourt of Comyn Castle. Lew is almost drawn into Sharra, but Callina and Regis arrive, and challenge Sharra's power, weakening its hold over Lew. A psychic battle begins, Aldones against Sharra, with Lew torn between them, unable to lend his power to either side. Suddenly Dyan Ardais arrives, and, driven by his ambition, arrogance, and jealousy of Lew, joins Sharra and cuts the ties that draw Lew to its fires. The final battle is joined, with Kadarin, Thrya and Dyan sealed to Sharra, and Regis, with the support of Callina and Lew, wielding the Sword of Aldones. In the end, Sharra is broken, Kadarin and Thyra drawn bodily into the vortex of its passing, and both Callina and Dyan lie dead or dying on the cobblestones. Only Lew and Regis remain alive, and Regis' hair has turned white.

As the novel ends, the loss of so many of the Comyn and the collapse of the treaty with Aldaran forces Darkover into a closer relationship with the Terran Empire. Lew, reconciled with Diotima, goes back into space with his wife and daughter, to serve as Darkover's first representative in the Empire Senate. And Regis, once more, takes up the Hastur mantle as Lew goes out among the stars.

This is in many ways a novel of character and relationship rather than plot. All of the large cast of characters - including many who do not appear in the summary above, such as Lerrys and Geremy Ridenow, Merryl Aillard, Danilo Syrtis-Ardais, Dan Lawton, Jeff Kerwin (aka Damon Lanart-Aillard), Gabriel Lanart-Hastur and his wife Javanne, Danvan Hastur, Rafe Scott - are interrelated by blood, fosterage, love, hate, loyalty and power. And it is through these relationships that we see the changes occurring in Lew and Regis, and in the structure of Darkovan society.

Sharra's Exile has little new to tell us about Darkovan society, but much to say about how flesh and blood people interact within that society.

Marion Zimmer Bradley: Thendara House

Thendara House (pub. 1983) is a direct sequel to The Shattered Chain - it details the events immediately following on Jaelle n'ha Melora's freemate marriage to Terran (but Darkovan born and raised) Peter Haldane, and the entrance into the Thendara Guild House of Terran Intelligence Agent Magda Lorne (known among her guild-sisters as Margali n'ha Ysabet) for six months of training and seclusion.

For both women, it is a time of self-discovery. Jaelle, who has repressed her early life in the Dry-Towns, and who has lived since then among Renunciates, finds that her relationship with Peter raises those early memories. She is faced with an internal struggle between the deep, repressed conditioning that drew her to Peter - who is slowly revealed as a domineering and potentially abusive mate - and her identity as a Renunciate - a struggle that is only exacerbated when she realises that she is pregnant. Meanwhile, Magda is challenged to question her Terran values and sense of privilege, and is brought face to face with the reality that she is more deeply attracted to women than she is to men.

In addition to struggles with conditioning and culture shock, both women are dealing with the adult onset of powerful laran - Jaelle because of the resurgence of her childhood memories, which were shut down along with her laran when she experienced her mother's death while in rapport with her, and Magda as a result of her increased contact with other telepaths, including Jaelle.

Thendara House is not only a sequel to The Shattered Chain, however. It is also part of the story of the Forbidden Tower, in which both Magda and Jaelle will play a part. For both women, the connection that leads them to Armida is Andrew Carr, now known as Ann'dra Lanart.

Jaelle, in her role as cultural consultant in Terran Intelligence, is tasked with helping a visiting Terran official, Alessandro Li. Li is a Special Representative of the Senate, sent to investigate whether Cottman Four should retain its Closed World status or be reclassified, and to make recommendations about a Legation. Li is at first very interested in finding out all that he can about the Comyn and the rumours of telepathic abilities among the Darkovan ruling class. When the wreckage of Andrew Carr's downed plane is discovered and it is learned that Carr survived the crash, Li becomes fixated on finding out what happened to him.

Meanwhile, Magda meets Andrew when, along with a number of other Renunciates, she travels to the Kilghard Hills near Armida to help in fighting a fire. While they do not know each other, she recognises him as Terran - and vice versa. She believes him to be an Intelligence agent in deep cover, and later on, when she meets Alessandro Li, she innocently mentions seeing an agent at Armida. Li makes the connection between this unknown Terran and the missing Andrew Carr, and when all other attempts to contact Carr are thwarted, he sets out alone, unaware of a severe storm coming, to travel to Armida and confront him.

When Jaelle discovers what he has done, she determines to go after him, knowing the danger he is in. Peter attempts to stop her, threatening to have her declared temporarily insane due to her pregnancy, and placed in restraints. Jaelle lashes out and Peter is rendered unconscious (though Jaelle believes she has killed him). Jaelle, in emotional turmoil and psychic distress, heads out after Li, stopping briefly at the Guild House where she tries to see Magda. Magda, unfortunately, is in a meeting with the House Guild-Mother, and doesn't learn that Jaelle was asking for her until much later. Reaching out with her untried laran, she is able to discern where Jaelle is headed and why. Coming suddenly to understand that she is in love with Jaelle, she rides out after her. Magda finds Jaelle just in time for them both to find shelter from a sudden flood, but they are trapped by the rising waters. Jaelle miscarries and once more, Magda's laran enables her to reach out for help. A rescue party led by Andrew arrives, having also found and rescued Alessandro Li. During Jaelle's recuperation at Armida, both women realise that they have grown beyond both the limitations of their respective cultures, and the oppositional renunciations that form the essence of the Guild. Possessed of powerful laran, the next step for them is to join the Forbidden Tower - thus bringing together in Jaelle and Damon Ridenow the parents of Cleindori Aillard.

In Jaelle's experiences, we see through her encounters with other Terrans and with the cultural assumptions inherent in the way life and work are structured in the Terran Zone, the sexism of the Terran culture.

From the Terrans, Jaelle must deal with having her identity elided in a way that goes against her Renunciate's oath - among the Terrans, she is no longer Jaelle n'ha Melora, but Mrs. Peter Haldane. She is Haldane's wife, Haldane's girl, even Haldane's squaw. On the other hand, she encounters men in the Terran Service who accept her competence without question and work beside her without concern that she is a woman.

However, because Peter is Darkovan-raised and (as we are reminded several times) psychosexual development is fixed before adolescence, Peter's responses in intimate relationships are more typical of a Darkovan man who has acclimatised to Terran surroundings, than of a citizen of the Terran Empire. As Peter and Jaelle embark on their marriage, we see how the patriarchalism of Darkovan society affect relationships between men and women. Jaelle herself comes to think that it is the Darkovan in Peter, not the Terran, that creates problems between them: "Maybe it is not the Terran in Peter I find objectionable; maybe it is his Darkovan side which insists I must be no more than his wife and mother of his children… other Terran men are not like that."

Jaelle faces endless criticism from Peter over her inability to behave like a good wife, in either the Terran or Darkovan sense. When she acts "inappropriately" due to culture shock or the need to preserve her sense of autonomy, he lectures her on how this reflects poorly on him:

"I'm working under Montray now, and I'm in enough trouble with him without having him think—" he stopped, but to Jaelle, surprisingly, it was as if he had spoken aloud what was in his mind; think I can’t manage my wife.

As their relationship worsens, Jaelle comes to see that for Peter, love is equivalent to possession, and that he expects her as a matter of course to see to all his needs: "...and suddenly she knew him as Magda had known him, he really believed that he could treat her as valet, comrade-in arms, personal servant, breeding-anima, and somehow repay it all just with the ardor of his lovemaking..."

Nor is Peter's sexism limited his attitudes toward Jaelle. Because her heightened laran enables her to sometimes read his thoughts, Jaelle gains awareness of how he thinks about the new head of Intelligence Cholayna Ares, and his former wife and colleague Magda.

Not fair, dammit, I spent five years setting things up so that when Darkover got an Intelligence service I'd be at its head, and now some damned woman walks in and takes over. Bad enough playing second fiddle to Magda..."

When she finally tells Peter that she no longer wants to remain married to him, he responds that he will not allow her to leave - asserting his belief that she belongs to him and cannot break their connection without his permission, despite the fact that in Terran marriages, a married woman is not property, as she is under Darkovan law.

She detected a glimmer in his mind of logical resentment; women were damned unreasonable creatures, yet a man was at their mercy if he wanted children, and how else could they have any immortality? It almost made her pity him. “Don‟t be silly, Jaelle. I‟m not going to let you divorce me, not with a baby coming. I owe it to my child at least, to protect and look after his mother, even if we‟re not getting along too well.”

Thus in the short space of a few months, the intimate portrayal of the deterioration of their relationship brings into sharp relief the glimpses we have had previously of the traditional Darkovan marriage and the attitudes that shape it.

Magda's experiences in the Thendara Guild House mirror in some ways the early years (late '60s and early '70s) of the feminist movement - in particular the use of consciousness-raising groups to become aware of - and change - internalised sexist conditioning and to examine gender roles, institutionalised sexism, and nature of the differences between male and female. The other significant themes explored through Magda's life as a new Renunciate are lesbianism and transgender issues (through the emmasca character Camilla).

As a newly sworn Renunciate, Madga is expected to go through a period of training and seclusion, during which she may only leave the Guild House with permission of on the Elders of the House. At one of the first group meetings, the Guild Mother tells her and the other trainees "... you will learn to change the way you think about yourselves, and about other women.”

During her time in the Guild House, Magda comes to realise how pervasive same-sex attraction is on Darkover - and not just among Renunciates, although same-sex relationships between women are taken more seriously in the Guild than outside it, where such relationships between women are seen as adolescent fancies or secondary relationships, insufficient to keep a woman from her primary function, to marry a man and bear children.

Men may swear such oaths. And yet for women, such an oath is always taken, it seems, as a thing for untried girls, and means only, I shall be bound to you only so long as it does not interfere with duty to husband and children…”

In this perspective, it would appear that the frequent accusations against Renunciates, that they are all lovers of women and seduce honorable wives away from their husbands, refers not to the fact that many of them are in fact lesbian or bisexual, but that they value such relationships - and indeed, all relationships between women, sexual or not - as highly, or even more highly, than they do relationships between women and men. It is not that they love women, but that in doing so they choose not to be available to men.

Through the struggles of both women to find their true selves and desires, MZB explores much of the feminist analysis and praxis of second wave feminism of the 60s and early 70s. The nature of the patriarchy, the role of cultural conditioning, attitudes toward child bearing and rearing, alternative family structures, instititionalised sexism, the effects of sexism on men, the question of living separate from men as much as possible, even the debates over the role of lesbians in the movement, all have their expression in the inner journeys of Magda and Jaelle. It would be a rare woman of that era who did not see something of her own experiences and struggles somewhere in the pages of this novel.

Marion Zimmer Bradley: City of Sorcery

City of Sorcery (pub. 1984), takes place seven years after the events in Thendara House, and there have been changes. Peter Haldane is now Legate, and Renunciates and women of the Terran Service working together have created The Bridge Society, a means for Terran and Darkovan to share knowledge and learn to work and live together. Jaelle and Magda are sworn freemates, living mostly at Armida, each having born a daughter by men of the Forbidden Tower - Dorilys nHa Jaelle, now five, and Shaya n'ha Margali, aged two. In addition, Magda and Camilla are lovers, though not sworn.

During a visit to Thendara, Magda is called to the Terran Zone by a request from Cholayna Ares - a survey plane has been lost in the area between the Hellers and The Wall Around the World, but somehow, the pilot, Lexie Anders, has appeared, her memory gone, regressed to childhood, at the gates of Terran HQ. Magda is able to use her laran to restore Lexie's memories - including a familiar image of robed women and crows calling - and the pilot reports having seen a previously unknown city hidden in the mountain vastness.

Driven by ambition to make a name for herself, Lexie hires Renunciate and mountain guide/trail organiser Rafaella - Jaelle's former partner - to take her into the Hellers in search of this mysterious city. Rafaella - who has been nursing resentment against Magda for taking Jaelle away from their partnership and the Guild - leaves a message for Jaelle, begging her to follow with extra supplies.

Jaelle shares this message with Magda and Camilla, both of whom have some thoughts on the hidden city. Like all Renunciates, they know that there is a secret society of Renunciates with laran called the Sisterhood; Magda has accidentally intruded on their meetings, and associates them with the imagery in Lexie's memories, while Camilla has heard tales of a hidden city of wise women who can grant the successful supplicant the answer to one question.

Driven by their various loyalties, responsibilities, and personal desires, five women - Jaelle, Magda, Camilla, Cholayna and Vanessa ryn Erin, a Terran Personnel Officer who is a member of the Bridge Society and an experienced mountaineer - set out after Lexie and Rafaella. The journey is fraught with difficulty and danger - bad weather, treacherous mountain trails, altitude sickness and savage cold, bandits and wild animals, and eventually a cult of women who oppose the Sisterhood and seek to use the travellers to gain power.

In some ways, City of Sorcery is a Pilgrim's Progress for the feminist, a journey toward a legendary place of wisdom and solace that can only be found by facing and overcoming trials and temptations. It is certainly no accident that almost all the characters in the novel are women, with even glimpses of men limited to street and group scenes.

In the end, not all the women who set out to find the hidden city survive; of those who do, some are invited onward to enter the city, others decline to go further, but all have had the depths of their own courage, self-knowledge, and sense of sisterhood tested, and found, not necessarily the path they most desire, but the path they freely and knowingly choose.

Marion Zimmer Bradley and Mercedes Lackey: Rediscovery

Rediscovery (co-written by MZB and Mercedes Lackey, pub. 1993) tells the story of the rediscovery of the planet Darkover by the Terran Empire, more than 2,000 years after the original colonists crashed there. The crew of the survey ship that finds the planet try to follow basic First Contact rules, but when the flyer they send down to make an exploratory visit crashes during a storm in the Hellers, and the powerful young leronis Leonie Hastur senses their plight and sends a telepathic warning to the nearby Aldaran Comyn, that intention evaporates. Fortunately for the Terrans, crew members Elizabeth Macintosh and David Lorne have some telepathic ability, which enables Kermiac Aldaran to communicate with them. Before long, it's been verified that the Darkovans are descended from the colonists of a Lost Ship, the planet has been assigned Restricted Status - meaning a spaceport can be build if local government agrees, and limited trade may be permitted - and Lord Kermiac has granted the Terrans land to build their port near the village of Caer Donn. Lorill Hastur, Leonie's twin brother, is sent by the comyn of the other domains to investigate the situation.

There are, of course, many complications, including a secondary plotline involving Lorill Hastur, Leonie's twin brother, another Terran telepath, Ysaye Barnett, and Leonie, who is in telepathic contact with both of them during much of the novel. This ends in death for Ysaye and complete withdrawal from outside telepathic contact for Leonie after Lorill and Ysaye are inadvertently exposed to kiresith pollen intended as a trap for Elizabeth.

Meanwhile Elizabeth and David, now married and planning to remain on Darkover as Spaceport personnel, are captured for ransom by bandits while on a field trip. When the Terrans rescue them using aerial weapons that violate the Compact banning weapons that operate at more than an arm's length distance, setting off a dangerous forest fire in the process, only the Aldarans - who do not follow the Compact - remain interested in contact with humans. And so the first Terran spaceport on Darkover is built in the Hellers, at Caer Donn, and the pattern of relations between the Empire and the six Domains of the Comyn is set.

With respect to sexual politics, we see clearly the patriarchal family structure that has developed on Darkover, with occasional references to the exceptions (or escapes) to the restricted place of women in Darkovan society - life in the Towers, or life as a Renunciate (Free Amazon). Leonie lives in a secluded world where women have power as Keepers, and the Keeper of Arilinn has power at the highest levels as the representative of the Towers. But all other women must have a man to acknowledge their legitimacy or they are without any place in society. All the Darkovan women we see at Aldaran are in some way connected to, legitimated and protected by men - Lady Aldaran, Mariel, Felicia, Thyra. Indeed, the worst thing one can say of a child is that her father is unknown. And as women under the protection of a man, they cannot function as equals. Kermiac tells Elizabeth: "to tell the truth, I am not accustomed to discussing serious business with women."

Terran society, however, appears relatively egalitarian. Because the novels were not written in chronological order, in Rediscovery (written in 1993) which takes place several generations earlier than The Bloody Sun (written in 1964), the Terran Space Service is more integrated, with more women in positions of authority (Ysaye Barrett is the senior computer analyst, Aurora Lakshman is the Chief Medical Officer).

Contraception is freely available, as is abortion, at least within the Service. While sexuality in the Service seems to be a matter of personal choice, it's clear that the various planets in the Empire have varied cultural norms with respect to sexual behaviour. Ysaye comes from a culture that values monogamous marriage and frowns on contraception and abortion. On the other hand, various references are made to planets like Vainwal, where sex work is legal and attitudes seem very permissive.

One of the particularly enjoyable aspects of this novel for me is that many characters who play major roles in the saga of Darkover are shown here as they were before the events that made them crucial characters in the history of Darkover - Leonie and Lorill, but also Kadarin, and Thyra. Jeb Scott will eventually marry Felicia Darriel, and father Rafe and Marjorie Scott. Kermiac's younger sister Mariel will marry Wade Montray; their daughter Elaine will marry Kennard Alton. Elizabeth and David will stay on Darkover and raise their child Magda Lorne. In this book, written well after many of the novels dealing with the generations of contact with the Terrans, Lackey and Bradley have worked into the narrative a host of references to things to come. The narrative itself is rather on the thin side, but for the devoted fan of Darkover, the joy of seeing how it was in the beginning makes Rediscovery a book worth reading.