These 4k a day marathons is making the procrastinator in me come out with these random blog posts. My brain reasons as long as I’m doing some form of work, it’s all right. Of course, the usefulness of this is all debatable, but whatever keeps me from actually writing, right?
I’m doing two lines this time because The Agartes Epilogues is on a grander scale than Annals of the Bitch Queen (although the latter will beat the former in word count). Still, Annals of the Bitch Queen is a fairly straightforward character-driven romp from the point of view of one character, while The Agartes Epilogues is the product of a young writer on crack. Well, not really, but it might as well have been.
The first line of Jaeth’s Eye, the first book of The Agartes Epilogues, goes like this:
It is not recorded how Agartes knew that it was his son’s head inside the box.
Now, I’m not sure how much I can divulge without spoiling the entire series. I’ll try.
“It is not recorded…” warns you that the prologue you’re about to read is history. This series plays a lot with the idea of “great heroes” versus regular figures, and the Jaeth’s Eye prologue is the first attempt in blurring these lines. The next few pages, after all, proceeds to drag this established figure of history down to a human level–the tone shifts from “historical” to personal and we experience his grief first hand as he discovers the slaughter of his entire family. Every. Single. One.
But let’s go back to that line, because it starts there with “… his son’s head…” A visceral image for sure, but one that’s not exactly meant to shock. It’s the first of many that are supposed to stick with you.
It’s a painful prologue to both write and read for me…part of writing it involved having to really see how a man like Agartes, who was celebrated for most of his life for his accomplishments and always felt like he was in control of everything, would feel encountering this whole thing. He’s not falling apart, not yet…not really giving into the grief, but it’s there. Normal people would break. He tries not to.
The last bit about this first line is that it leads us to learning about the agan. In layman’s terms, the agan is the “magic” of this world. It’s really more of a “life source”–sort of like a river where souls can travel, and which certain people can “see” (i.e. mages) and manipulate in order to affect the physical world. More than a plot device, it’s an important part of the fabric of this series because the agan is also a direct connection to the afterlife, and this series attempts to tackle the circle of life and death and how people find ways to fit in between.
And now, that second line:
The true story, as always, is in the details.
It’s meant to be a warning that this is not a story about someone going on a quest to save the world or what seems like your typical fantasy fare. Instead, it’s what’s in-between. The two lines sandwich this prologue that seemingly randomly details a man’s grief. It is then conveniently forgotten. Or is it?
As the series goes along, you’re going to start finding “echoes” of that first prologue–events or scenes that draw parallels to the central theme. The first one happens innocuously, in Camden’s story arc. This is a man who loses a child (albeit not his, but it doesn’t matter to him), and instead of explanations, we see how Camden feels about the entire thing–his rage and grief. There’s others, such as with Hana and Dai, and in the background plot of how it’s children that’s being used for what seems like a sinister plot to feed a monster from the depths of hell.
The second prologue of the series in Aina’s Breath gives you a different perspective of loss, as experienced by a father who is about to miss out on his daughter’s life. The story then expands on this via Kefier and his relationship with Rosha; old Narani, watching them at one point, comments that “Loss is not always tragic.” She’s saying that time can also be a killer, because our lives revolve mostly around memories and without the chance to make more, sometimes they’re all we have.
This echoes back to the first prologue, of course:
He could remember the feel of his infant child in his arms twelve years ago, but could he hold on to everything for the rest of his life? They were all irrevocably behind him, now.
Later on in Aina’s Breath, Kefier encounters yet another echo which culminates into him making a decision that goes against his nature, but which he feels driven to.
I’m not going to talk about Sapphire’s Flight at this point. There’s too many spoilers, and I think they all speak for themselves anyway. For anyone who has read it, the end of Act Two and the beginning of Act Three are very important parts of this skeleton. The reader experiences the prologue of Jaeth’s Eye all over again, and with that comes…I’m hoping…a sense of understanding that’ll lead them to the end of the novel. By that point, the “hows” are no longer important. You understand why. It is akin to watching the source of a train-wreck…it’s not about the point of impact or the way the sparks fly. What’s inside the cars? What do they feel when it is all over?
I cheated. That wasn’t just two lines. Procrastination done. Back to writing now…
