A sequel to The Wayfarer Redemption series by Sara Douglass...
In the begining there was the darkness of chaos named Kanubai. He got lonely and made two beings named Light and Water. Light and Water made Life, and this pissed Kanubai off because he had no part in the process, and he therefore wanted to destroy life. Light and Water then Imprisoned Kanubai. Years pass.
Then the Magi wanted to build a giant glass pyramid, so they could be a part of the One. Unfortunately... they built it on top of Kanubai's Prison. This goes as well as you would expect.
2,000 years later.
It's been five years since Tencendor sunk into the ocean. Ishabel Brunelle, high priestess of the order of the coil, is ordered by the great serpent to marry the Lord of Elcho Falling, Maximilian Persmius (the hero of Beyond the Hanging Wall) in order to save the world. Meanwhile, Isaiah, the tyrant of Isembaard, has resurrected Axis SunSoar from the after life so he can act as an adviser on dealing with the Skrailings and can help him take over the central kingdoms. Essentially, he wants to combine all their forces to assault Darkglass Moutain - but things don't go quite as planned.The novels in the series are as follows:
- The Serpent Bride (2007)
- The Twisted Citadel (2008)
- The Infinity Gate (2010)
These books provide examples of:
- Aerith and Bob: Justifed due to all of the different cultures.
- Always Chaotic Evil: Skraelings, becomes subverted over time. They just want to return to being river angels and live in peace.
- Always Save the Girl: Axis. One could call it his Fatal Flaw.
- And the Adventure Continues: For Axis and Isaiah, anyway.
- Anthropomorphic Personification: The One is the personification of the power of Infinity that the Magi use.
- Back from the Dead: Axis. as well as,
Borneheld in a small pocket universe until, he ends up dead again. - Big Bad Wannabe: Kanubai looks like he's going to be the main evil, but he's quickly hijacked by The One.
- Blood Knight: Axis is still this, but even less so then before.
- Blue-and-Orange Morality: Befitting his nature as an Eldritch Abomination, The One has unusual morality. He'll destroy thousands but still have his heart melted by a single stray cat.
- Break the Haughty: Axis' story arc involves breaking him over and over again. He lost his Star God powers, is reduced to being Water's lackey (though he does bond with Maximilian and grows less resentful as a result) and witnesses those he befriends suffer horrific fates. Not to mention his wife and children are all in the afterlife, and he has no guarantee he'll be able to get back to them when he dies again.
- Canon Welding: The Axis Trilogy, The Wayfarer Redemption, Beyond the Hanging Wall and Threshold.
- Character Development:
- Axis had plenty of this and became Older and Wiser as a result. He's still a Jerk with a Heart of Gold, but he does try to be the latter more.
- Ishbel starts out very introverted and withdrawn and in denial of her true powers but over time she gradually becomes more confident and accepts her powers and her role in the grand scheme of things and becomes more powerful than Maximillian as a result of her development as a character.
- Cool Big Sis: In a strange way, Salome is one of these for Ishbel.
- Darker and Edgier: and that is saying something when the previous books involve some of the most horrifying demons since Berserk.
- Deal with the Devil: People who stay near that evil pyramid tend to be corrupted into one of these deals by either it, or Kanubai, the Cosmic Horror of all Cosmic Horrors dwelling inside of it.
- The Lealfast and The One.
- Disproportionate Retribution: What's that Light? Maximilian doesn't want to listen to you because you're a Jerkass Manipulative Bastard who destroyed his and Ishbel's lives? Well sure thing, go ahead and betray him and try and have him murdered, even though you're sworn to help him defeat the Big Bad.
- Earn Your Happy Ending: Maximillian and Ishbel earn theirs despite all the bad stuff that happens and the Icarii have the Star Dance back and the chance to make a new home for themselves even if Tencendor's gone.
- Eldritch Location: that pyramid is not natural, it knows what you want and how to help you attain it...oh, you have a soul? That would be a perfectly acceptable price for whatever you want...
- Like Ba'al'uz
- Evil Feels Good: Ba'al'uz seems to have a certain... feeling every time he kills.
- Eviler than Thou: Subverted. Kanubai is easily dispatched by The One, who is by some measures more rational and kinder than Kanubai was (albeit still evil due to his Blue-and-Orange Morality.
- First Law of Resurrection: Axis was left in the afterlife last we see him after The End of the World as We Know It. He still manages to get resurrected for this series.
- Go Mad from the Revelation: Ba'al'uz
- God Is Evil: Kanubai and The One.
- Gorn: reaches a certain level of it in the first book.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Venetia makes one to stop Ravenna killing Ishbel while she's freeing the soul in the Weeper.
- Avaldamon makes one to save Maximillian and Ishbel from a trap The One set up.
- Hijacked by Ganon: The One, brutally, does Kanubai in the second book!
- Hot Skitty-on-Wailord Action: The entire Lealfast were conceived by one Icarii SummerStar after being raped by a Skraeling; she has 287 Lealfast children and died giving birth to the 287th child.
- Humanoid Abomination: The One chooses to take a human form, but it's entirely made of glass.
- Hybrid Monster: The Lealfast are
- I Did What I Had to Do: Isaiah aka Water strongly believes this. He's one of the few cases where it's not a morally gray area too, since if he hadn't, a lot more people would have died.
- Jerkass: Light is a demanding asshole who decides to betray Maximilian just because he chooses not to listen to him.
- The Lealfast are definitely some of the biggest Jerkasses in any of Sara Douglass' work. They're even more arrogant then the Icarii and are out for themselves and once they are free from their deal with the One, they decide to commit genocide on the Icarii and seize Elcho Falling for themselves.
- Ravenna.
- Coroleas thrives on this.
- Jerkass Gods: Light and Water. While Water is the lesser jerkass of the two, he still created a race, left them to their own devices, then cursed them into eternal pain and torment by transforming them into Skraelings when they started drowning the other races, believing they were relieving those races of their torment by doing so. Water then forgot about them for millennia and only allowed them to return to their previous forms via suicide once he remembered they existed. On the other hand, Light is a WolfStar wannabe trying to manipulate Maximillian and Ishbel into following his every command so he can take credit for having saved the world from Kanubai, and even betrays them to The One when they stop listening to him following Axis' advice.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Axis, Star Drifter, Salome and Isaiah.
- Karmic Death: Light gets one by being slain the way the Coil killed people when he pretended to be the Great Serpent.
- The Lealfast as a whole are killed by the River Angels who were once the Skraelings in self defense when the Lealfast try to kill them first after spending the trilogy betraying everyone and everything and just being power hungry fools.
- Love Makes You Stupid / Love Makes You Try To Kill Your Lover Because You Betrayed Him : Ravenna.
- * Light Is Not Good/Light Is Not Nice: Actually, he's kind of a jerkass who will screw you over for what he thinks is the greater good. Water is much nicer.
- Morality Pet: The One takes in a stray cat that dared to stand up to him, keeping it alive and genuinely loving it as his pet. Subverted when it turns out the cat was really a supernatural ally of Elcho Falling.
- Morning Sickness: One of the first signs of Ishbel's pregnancy. Of course, everyone knew by that point already anyways.
- Making a Splash: Isaiah, as the personification of Water.
- Never My Fault: Eleanon's justification for letting thousands of Lealfast die so he can continue deceiving Axis into thinking the Lealfast are incompetent, then swears that Axis will pay for it.
- Obviously Evil: Ba'al'uz.
- Older and Wiser: Axis and StarDrifter. They're still flawed, but they've grown a lot as people since their time on Tencendor.
- In Axis' case, this allows him to be a big help to Maximillian and be able to give him advice on how to fulfill his role as The Chosen One. In StarDrifter's case, it winds up with him being Talon of the Icarii.
- Pet the Dog: If The One adopting a recently orphaned kitten isn't this, I don't know what is. Though it backfires on him since it's really Avaldamon.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: StarDrifter as Talon of the Icarii, Axis as StarMan (Though Axis does try to stop people using the title since he thinks it's worthless now) and Maximilian and Ishbel as Lord and Lady of Elcho Falling.
- Riding into the Sunset: Literally happens to Axis and Isaiah/Water at the end of The Infinity Gate.
- Self-Made Orphan: Ravenna. She murders her mother Venetia for trying to stop her from murdering Ishbel.
- Technical Pacifist: River Angels made a vow to attack only to defend themselves, because their original curse happened because of their murderous pride.
- The Load: Hereward doesn't accomplish anything at all, she's just there and ends up randomly killed in The Infinity Gate.
- The Man Behind the Man: The One, killing and taking over for Kanubai immediately.
- Token Aquatic Race: The River Angels, a mermaid-like race who were cursed into becoming the Skraelings.
- The Unchosen One: While Maximillian and Ishbel share the role of The Chosen One, Axis is this. He's a fundamental part of making sure Maximillian survives and is a supportive friend and usually runs things for him while Maximillian and Ishbel are busy doing something else that's important.
- Redemption Equals Death: the Skraelings return to being River Angels by drowning themselves in a lake.
- Rewarded as a Traitor Deserves: Light, Vorstus and Ravenna all got this at some point of The Twisted Citadel.
- Resurrection Sickness: Axis. He lost a great deal of his power in resurrection and he greatly misses his family who are still in the afterlife.
- Sealed Evil in a Can: Kanubai as well as The One
- The Usual Adversaries: Skraelings Subverted, since the heroes never actually directly fight the Skraelings.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Everyone of the main protagonists (Maximillian, Ishbel, Axis, Isaiah and StarDrifter) get at least one each from one of the other protagonists.
- Yandere: Ravenna. She betrays Maximillian and arranges for him to be killed, all out of love, as well as jealously and hatred towards Ishbel.
