Mistress of Dragons
Margaret Weis
Tor, 384 pages
Order this book Margaret Weis turns in her first solo fantasy with this, the first installment of the Dragonvald Trilogy.
In Weis’s scenario, dragons are the superior race, the secret masters of
the world. For centuries they’ve watched the development of humankind, an
upstart species whose odd blend of intelligence and weakness intrigues the
dragons. By dragon law, humans are not to be harmed, nor are dragons to interfere
or interact with them. There’s just one exception: the Watcher, a dragon
who consents to take human form and go among the humans, keeping watch and
reporting back to the Dragon Parliament.
Three centuries before the action of the book begins, a renegade dragon called
Maristara broke all the laws of dragonkind, seizing a human kingdom called
Seth and setting herself up as its ruler. The people of Seth don’t know they’re
ruled by a dragon--Maristara has established an elaborate religion to conceal
that fact, administered by an order of priestesses who believe it’s their
sacred duty to watch for and defend against the savage dragons who covet
the kingdom. The leader of the order, known as the Mistress of Dragons, is
worshipped as a goddess.
Till now, the Dragon Parliament has tolerated Maristara’s deception. But the discovery that Maristara is teaching
her humans dragon magic--and may also be working secretly with another dragon,
possibly a spy within the Dragon Parliament itself--spurs them to action.
They summon the Watcher, Draconas, and order him to capture the current Mistress,
the beautiful and devout Melisande, and bring her back to them for questioning.
Draconas himself can’t enter Seth without triggering the anti-dragon magic
that defends it, so he chooses a surrogate: Edward, king of Idlyswilde, a
brave and romantic young man whom he tricks into believing he must free the
Mistress of Dragons from bondage. But Maristara’s power is more terrible
than Draconas suspects--as are her designs upon humanity. Edward’s incursion
into Seth precipitates a series of terrible events that may forever change
the fragile balance between dragons and humankind.
Weis employs a familiar fantasy template, from the European-style medieval
world, to the somewhat predictable string of perils suffered by the characters,
to the characters themselves--who for the most part are exactly as chivalrous,
beautiful, evil, calculating, etc. as you’d expect. The plot doesn’t always
hold up to scrutiny (Draconas’s plan to use Edward to kidnap Melisande doesn’t
make a lot of sense, and it’s never mentioned that in undertaking to kidnap
Melisande in the first place, the Dragon Parliament is violating its own
non-interference laws) and the prose clunks from time to time.
Nevertheless, it’s an expertly paced narrative, generating suspense in the
unfolding of Maristara’s secrets (most of which, by book’s end, remain mysterious).
While many of the characters feel like off-the-shelf D&D, some have more
depth--Draconas, his dragon nature at war with his human form, struggling
with his reluctant admiration for the humans whose lives he has disrupted;
Bellona, leader of the female warriors who guard Maristara’s temple, who
must choose between her love for Melisande and the sacred service to which
she has pledged her life. The dragon lore is interesting, as is the prickly
interaction between the members of the Dragon Parliament, and the uneasy
relationship between dragons and the rest of the world. And the story takes
an unexpected turn toward the end, offering interesting possibilities for upcoming
books in the series.
While connoisseurs of unconventional fantasy won’t find
a lot to challenge them here, fans of Weis’s collaborative work should enjoy
this new novel.
Copyright © 2003 Victoria Strauss
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