Paying the Graphite Price: The Black Flame, by Lynn Abbey

What’ve the shelves served up today? A tale of a witch-barbarian and her empathic horned horse. Yep, that works.

I did something I don’t much, and read the second book of a series without having read the first. The treasure hunt nature of this (blog) series made me feel freer to do so, and there’s something relaxing about it. The Black Flame is a follow up to Daughter of the Bright Moon, which, as far as I could deduce from the former(former in the sentence, latter in… you get it), has a fairly conventional story - nomad/barbarian type rides out of her nomaddy barbarous desert into stuffy civilized lands where people have farms and castles and silk and other fripperies. A big overlord type with dreams of lording even more over starts eating up territory. The barbarian uses her untamed warrior ways to help overlord’s good son(I think) defeat him and save the land.

The key draw in these books is that the barbarian, Rifkind, is also a powerful witch with a very personal connection to her matron goddess the Moon, and Abbey dedicates time and detail to showing us how exactly her powers work(and when and why they don’t). I really like that Rifkind isn’t just an axe & drinking song delivery system, not because that type’s bad, it’s just been done a lot. The narrative follows her into deep trances, astral journeys, and tiptoeings through the psychedelic soul realm, and those were the most interesting parts of the book for me. As mentioned, she also has a cool horse, whom I’m pretty sure the book does call ‘a horse’ even though he’s got red eyes, horns, and the ability to empathically communicate with her. I guess ‘bicorn’ would be the more fantastical name to give him, but I like the idea that he’s just a special horsey.

The book starts with Rifkind trying to adjust to civilized court life, having won her battles and gotten her castle. News reaches the castle that trouble’s brewing in a massive swamp called the Felmargue, and she leaps at the chance to rectify whatever’s in need of rectification, bringing along a companion named Jenny, who serves as a civilized counterweight to her rough edges. The Felmargue used to be arable farmland before getting literally blasted by some gods long ago, and now is mostly marsh with only a small plateau of dry land at its middle. Local culture is dominated by raft flotilla ‘villages’ that the two get to know when they arrive. Atop the mysterious plateau in the center, though, is an ancient building, rumored to house a well whose contents, the Black Flame, are the elemental stuff of the universe. And the old villain has hatched a plan to get his hands on it.

I think The Black Flame somewhat misses an opportunity to go in a different or weird direction, being the sequel to a straightforward ‘beat the dark lord to save the world’ plot. I don’t think that heightening the stakes every time is necessary in sequeldom. It could’ve been interesting to see Rifkind have a smaller or more unusual adventure to pursue, having done more traditional heroing in the first book. It does feel like Abbey wanted to go in that direction, since most of the book is dedicated to exploring this mysterious marsh and its weird culture, which is well detailed and pretty fascinating. Once the book swings fully into ‘we have to find the Ultimate Power Thingy and stop The Evil from getting it,’ it loses some of its specialness.

Overall I liked the book a lot, though, largely on the uniqueness of the main character. Rifkind can swordfight. She can meditate and wander the world as a spectre. She can talk to gods. She can transform into a panther-like creature called a ‘ger-cat’ and stalk the wilds with fangs and claws. Now that I think about it, it is a little weird that her horned mind-linked creature gets to be ‘horse’ but the panther needs a silly fantasy name, but it’s not bad as fantasy names go.

So yeah! If you like cool, highly-detailed depictions of magic, this book series is definitely one for you. Ride out of the wilds and seize it with spells and swords.