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Mistress of the Pearl is the third installment in Eric Van Lustbader's The Pearl, a series which began with The Ring of Five Dragons and continued with The Veil of a Thousand Tears. The dust jacket copy asserts that this latest volume is a great place to pick up on the series, but the reader planning to do so should beware. Lustbader's massive yarn weaves innumerable characters and strands of plot into a tapestry of story so complex that even readers who have been on board from the beginning occassionally find themselves wishing for a scorecard.
On the surface, The Pearl is a story of conflict between the V'ornn, a practical, warlike race and the various races that inhabit Kundala, a planet that has been ground under the boot heels of these brutal oppressors for over a century. On a deeper level, the narrative, which adds liberal doses of science fiction to its fantasy base, is about the tension between the rationality and science of the V'ornn and the spirituality and magic of the Kundala. One of the Gyrgons, overlords of the V'ornn, neatly summarizes this tension in Mistress of the Pearl; "Mysticism, as I have no need to remind you, has no place in our world. Equation after equation has proved its invalidity."
Mistress of the Pearl picks up where The Veil of a Thousand Tears left off, following the ongoing adventures of the large cast of characters rolled out in the first two books and tossing in a few new ones for good measure.
The Kundalan resistance continues to battle the brutal V'ornn, but one of the main plot points in this volume is the questing of various factions for the critical ninth banestone. Among the groups most interested in this magical talisman are the sauromicians, a vile assemblage of necromancers who maintain their power by dispatching living beings and feeding on their life energy. The sauromicians have captured one of the five dragons said to have created Kundala with help from the goddess Miina. The dragon is imprisoned in the unfinished Cage of Nine Banestones, which will, upon completion, endow them with untold power and result in the dragon's death.
In the meantime, the intrigues and political wrangling among the V'ornn continue, with a number of key figures in the Khagggun military being deposed, and in several cases, meeting with an unpleasant ends at the hands of those who have supplanted them. Among the more gritty scenes are those that feature the brothers, Iin and Hannn Mennus, a pair of schemers and torturers so brutal and unfeeling that their characterizations border on one-dimensional.
As the book unfolds, Lustbader also makes clear the ultimate aim of the Gyrgon, a race of hermaphroditic technomages - hybrid beings composed of equal parts V'ornn and various high-tech implants. Up until this point, the motivations of the Gyrgons, to whom even the V'ornn rulers answer, have not been completely clear. As volume three unfolds, it becomes apparent that they are engaged in a series of not so savory experiments aimed at creating an amalgam of V'ornn and Kundalan. The goal is to use these superior beings to defeat the Centophennni, a warlike race so vicious that even the V'ornn and the Gyrgons have not been able to vanquish them.
It is this theme of metamorphosis and transformation that has served as the foundation of Lustbader's story from the start. It manifests itself in various ways. Book one saw the transformation of the dying Kundalan, Riane, who became the Dar Sala-at, a fabled messianic figure, after First Mother Giyan merges her spirit and memories with those of Annon Ashera. Annon, the son of the Kundalan, Giyan, and the V'ornn regent, Eleusis Ashera, was facing an almost certain death after the regent's violent overthrow.
In book two, the Gyrgon Nith Sahor merged himself with the infant son of Kundalan resistance fighter Eleana, who had been raped by Kurgan Stogggul, Annon's best friend, in the first book. Book three finds Kurgan taking over for his father as regent. Nith Sahor, now jut Sahor, has forcibly caused his new Kundalan body to age sixteen years in the span of a few days and spends much of volume three in conflict with his old Gyrgon peers.
Another transformed character carried over from the earlier books is Rekkk, the V'ornn commander who saved Giyan's life after the regent's overthrow and fell in love with her. Book two saw Rekkk change into Nawatir, a being from Kundalan legend who, in book three, is torn between his feelings for Giyan and the Kundalan high priestess, Konara Inggres.
The most significant transformation in Mistress of the Pearl is that of Kurgan Stogggul, the V'ornn regent, who has become increasingly deranged after repeated contact with the ninth banestone. As the book winds down, Kurgan is modified by the Gyrgon breeder Gul Aluf and becomes a Gyrgon himself - Nith Kurgan.
Mistress of the Pearl ends with an important reunion for the Dar Sala-at - Riane - who then descends into the underworld to save the dragon. Riane, who was more than a little bit disconcerted, earlier in this book, when she found out that the fabled Pearl was nothing more than a bauble, discovers its true nature and the stage is set for volume four.
No summary can really do justice to Lustbader's latest installment in The Pearl saga, much less the entire work. Fans of massive works of epic fantasy who are patient enough to follow the intricate and labyrinthine plot turns and the frequent jump cutting among the many threads of the story would do well to seek out Mistress of the Pearl and its predecessors.
William I. Lengeman III currently at work on a nonfiction book about haunted houses and the first book in a trilogy of young adult horror novels. His web site resides at http://wileng.home.mindspring.com/.
© William I. Lengeman III
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