"The Lady in White" in Daughter of Regals

[danlo]

Aside from Gilden-Fire and Ser Visal's Tale the coolest story in Daughter of Regals has to be The Lady in White, not only did I wish to give this poor forum a swift kick (!) I also wanted to share this quote from that story, page 171 (paperback):

---It was fiend-loathsome and ghoul-terrible, a thing of slime and scales and fury. Red flame ran from its eyes. In the dimness, its broadsword had the blue sheen of lightning. Its jaws were stretched to rend and kill, and it ran as if it lived for no other purpose than to hack my heart out from between my ribs for food.
---The fear of it unmanned me. Even now, looking back on things that are past, I am not shamed to say I was lost in terror--so much lost that I unable to take the knife from my belt to defend myself. The creature screamed as it charged and I screamed also.

[Skyweir]

oooh that is written sooo well I dont recall it .. I must re-read DoR again!!

<puts on ever growing list of things must read>

[danlo]

yes I was particularly struck by that passage--absolutely terrific story, I thought true SRD fans would definately enjoy that!

[Skyweir]

I love that expression ... 'fiend loathesome' .. very cool!!

[aTOMiC]

I noticed Mardik felt "unmanned" several times. It is so stark given what a tough guy he seems to be. I imagined what I would feel like with that ghoul, screaming and running at me with a broadsword. A changing of the undergarments would be very appropriate. A very good story indeed.

[Landwaster]

Loved that particular story!

[aTOMiC]

What would it be like to be blinded to all other things except a constant image of your heart's desire? Wouldn't you get sick of looking at her after a few months or years?

[Ryzel]

Maybe if you could change your heart's desire every so often it would not be that bad.

[aTOMiC]

I suppose if she wore a different dress on occasion. Or changed her hair style. Hmmm....Maybe then.

[variol son]

I loved the way that the story felt so mysterious and atmospheric. The whole idea of this strange and alluring Lady in White was palpable. Good show SRD.

I also liked the way Matdick was such a "mans' man", and yet sensitive as well, caring about his brother etc. The balance SRD has written into him wasn't screamingly obvious, more subtle and suggested.

Tre bien Mr Donaldson.

Sum sui generis
Vs

[drew]

Just a question though...How did Festil get past the Creature of fear and fire, and how did he get past the crazy leper lady?

[danlo]

bump for Workshop Creation.

[Workshop Creation]

Ahah.

Thank you, Danlo.

I absolutely loved this story. I'm not sure why, but afterwards (and I've never had to do this before) I had to given it half an hour to sink in. It was just a fantastically told, awe-inspiring tale of Love and Behold.

What would it be like to be blinded to all other things except a constant image of your heart's desire? Wouldn't you get sick of looking at her after a few months or years?

She didn't need to change because her spell was that, no matter how long her image lasted, the viewer of her beauty was submitted to Love time after time.

[Endymion9]

Ok...i'll ask the dumb questions <grin>... <SPOILERS>
As someone posted above, not sure how Festil got by the creature and the leper lady. Maybe the tests are different for different types of people.

Like Matdick, I assume the professor was just another test, since if he had the ability to totally hide his workshop he would have no need of disguise.

What did the Lady in White really want? Just too fey for us humans to understand her nature?

This story reminded me of Gene Wolfe's style. The two stories that came to mind as I was reading it were
Ziggarut
The Knight

[Cord Hurn]

I'm kind of sorry to say this, and mean no offense to anybody who has praise for it, but I really don't like this story.

The writing that begins it is skillfully done, there's no doubt about that.

I am a sensible man. I have been blacksmith, wheelwright, and ironmonger for this village for seven years; and I have not seen the need to believe in magic, no matter what that loon, mad Festil my brother, says. I have not had need of magic. I am a man who does what he wills without such things--without such nonsense, I might once have said.

Here we are, only four sentences into the story, and already the "hook" has been set, instilling enough suspense to pull the reader forward, wondering, "What does he mean? What changed for him?"

And I can't deny that our lead character, Mardik the blacksmith, is designed with enough complexity to make him far more interesting than some skeptical, hard-headed bully. That's evident in scenes like where he describes his reaction to seeing the intensely leprous woman who wants him to make love to her.

Gazing upon her, I could not say which of them had become the greater, my loathing or my pity--for I was sickened by the sight of her, it's true; and yet the deepness of her misery wrung my heart.

Something else I liked in Mardik's character design:

Well, I thought of all this often in my smithy--and not with displeasure, it's true. If our young men were fool enough to lose themselves in the Deep Forest--why, soon the village would be full of maidens in need of consolation. And who better to console them than Mardik the blacksmith?

Clever fellow. Not just a medieval version of the barroom brawler, after all.

So, what's my problem with this story, then?

I'm irritated with this statement in the tale:

And the Lady in White stood before me. "Ah, Mardik," she said gently, "be comforted," and her voice was a music that made my heart cry out within me. "My magic is strait and perilous, but it is not unkind."

Really? Her showing up in town to lure men costs the lives of Paoul (son of Megan and Pandeler the weavers), and Forin (the son of Fimm the fruiterer). No doubt that causes Megan, Pandeler, and Fimm deep pain that can never be healed. And the uncommitted women of the village keep getting available men stolen from them, and if they DO come back, these men will be more unappreciative of them because of the Lady in White's spell. And there's Mardik's confession to consider.

"And yet, I am not what I was. There is a lack in me that ale cannot quench and work and women cannot fill. For I have failed the test of the Lady in White in my way, and that is a failure not to be forgotten or redeemed."

The Lady in White causes harm aplenty. And there's no indication she has any intention of stopping it.

So, I'm dissatisfied with the Lady's accounting for herself, and that poisons the story for me. If fans of this story want to lob any criticisms towards me for that, I'll guess I'll just have to learn to keep my head down.

What would it be like to be blinded to all other things [as Festil was] except a constant image of your heart's desire? Wouldn't you get sick of looking at her after a few months or years?

There's THAT, too.

[Cord Hurn]

Magic, I call it, lacking another name for the thing I do not understand. Fools speak of magic with glib tongues that have no knowledge; they seek a respect that they cannot win with their own hands. Children prate of magic when they have taken fright in the Deep Forest. Well, the Deep Forest is strange, it's true. The trees are tall beyond tallness, and the gloom under them is cunning, and men lose their way easily. Our village sits with its back to the mighty trees like a man known for bravery; but oftimes tales are heard of things which befall those who venture into the Deep Forest; and in storms even the priests gaze upon that tall darkness with fear. And fools, too, are not always what they seem.

But fools and children speak only of what they hear from others, who themselves only speak of what they hear from others. Even the priests can put no face to their fear without consulting Scripture. I am neither fool nor child. I am not a priest, to shudder at tales of Lucifer. I am Mardik the blacksmith, wheelwright and ironmonger; and I make what I will, do what I will, have what I will. I fear not Satan nor storms nor black trees.

I speak only of what I have seen with my own eyes; and I was not struck blind by what I saw, as Festil was. I have kissed the lips of the thing I do not understand and have been left to die in the vastness of the Deep Forest.

I say I do not believe in magic; and I hold to what I say. Mayhap for a time I became ill in my mind. Mayhap all unknowing I ate of the mushroom of madness which grows at night under the ferns far in the Deep Forest. Mayhap many things, none of them magical. I say them because I cannot say them and be sure. This I do say: for a time under the spell of the Lady in White, I had need of a thing that was not in me; and because I had it not, I was left to die. If that thing has another name than magic, mad Festil knows it, not I. He smiles to himself in his blindness and does not speak.

This is an intriguing introduction made for the start of Mardik's tale, showcasing once again Stephen R. Donaldson's storytelling talents.

Nevertheless, I'm not particularly fond of this story, as the reasons I gave in the above post two years ago still hold true for me at this latest re-reading.

Again the door swung inward. And again I saw no one, heard no one.

I entered at once and found myself once more in that huge high hall, castle-forecourt spacious enough to hold a dozen such cottages. But now I did not waste my time in wonder. Though the image of the Lady in White filled my very bones with desire--and though the pennons of the dead (young men consumed by whatever hunger drove that cruel and irrefusable woman) did not fail to raise my anger--still I had not lost all sense. I knew my time was short. If I were to fail another test, I meant to do so and be gone from this place before day's end. No man would choose to travel the Deep Forest at night.

No one chooses to travel the Deep Forest at night? That statement is contradicted by Mardik encountering Creet a short while later:

But there was another thing in me beyond the humbling, and I came to know it soon. For while I was still within the bounds of the Forest, with the hand of the coming night upon me, I met a man upon the road. When we drew near enough to know each other, I saw that he was Creet the stonemason. He stood tall in the village; and it's true that his head overtopped mine, though mayhap he was not as strong as I. We were somewhat friends, for like me he had done much wooing but no marrying--and somewhat wary one of another, for we had only measured our strength together once, and there had been no clear issue to that striving. But I gave no thought to such things now. For Creet the stonemason was walking into the Deep Forest at dusk, and there was a spring of eagerness in his step.

The story has some interesting aspects to it, but I consider it one of the weakest offerings in Daughter of Regals and Other Tales.