#kencyrath chronicles

[tanoraqui]

Sentences Saturday

@thelordofgifs tagged me to share "some sentences" from a WIP (side note: I love how far this has devolved from neat tag memes like "Five-Sentence Friday" or even "WIP Wednesday). As it so happens, I spent yesterday and today writing a short little thing for the Chronicles of the Kencyrath, so here it is in full! Tagging @finxwrites, @smallblueandloud and @words-writ-in-starlight to go next if you want :)

---

Smothering, twisting darkness swirled around them in a dancing duel with silver-pale weirding mist, and the mist was winning. Where it cleared away the taint and then itself, it revealed a silent battlefield—exhausted, watching the center where the Tyr-Ridan stood, the living all still alive for now and the dead all staying dead at last. Rathilien was saved. Perimal Darkling was destroyed.

Yet darkness still loomed in front of them, utter, absolute Darkness. Ahead and behind. The ground had stopped shaking—Mother Ragga stood watching with the rest, not far away. But something still shifted unsteadily beneath Jame’s feet. Some loose thread—loose steering rope, loose fate whipping in the winds of history—was left untied.

"We have to go back." Her lips were numb with the realization. "We have to go back and start it all."

Kindrie shouted, a wordless rathorn cry of grief beyond endurance. He turned away and strode to where Kirien stood, not far behind them (or maybe distance hadn't mattered in…about as long as time hadn’t mattered).

He took her in his arms and kissed her fiercely, then pressed their foreheads gently together. The serpent cloak on his shoulders wrapped around them both.

Jame looked away to give them their privacy.

The final battlefield was full of friends and loved ones, kith and kin, more alive than she would have expected. Timmon and Gorbel were leaning heavily on one another, as were Trishien and Dianthe of Danior, all surrounded by Kendar of a melange of houses. Randiroc’s jewel-jaws were feasting on his corpse, which was fair. A few steps away, Death’s-head had started eating the Dark Judge’s corpse, which would probably give him indigestion. Before Ashe had finally gone still with the rest of the haunts, she’d sat back to back with Harn, who was gritting his teeth over a mangled forearm while Sheth, kneeling beside them, tore and tied his black coat into a hasty tourniquet.

The Kencyr had gathered closest to their lords and lady, but they were far from alone on the field. Gran Cyd bent a bloody-speared Chingetai into a passionate kiss and showed no sign of stopping. Wolvers began to howl, a rippling harmony of triumph tinged with mourning. An assortment of Tai-tastigonian gods, Bashti ancestors and other deities still ran amok, mopping up shadows with spears, fire, frying pans and odder weapons, egged on by Old Man Tishoo soaring above. Through the howling chorus, Jame heard a distinct quonk! Further yet, Arribek sen Tenzi was already stalking around, rallying his hillmen for whatever came next.

He wasn’t the only one. Countless people looked back at Jame and in their eyes she could see that one word from her, the slightest nod, and despite their wounds, exhaustion, and dawning sense of relief, they would stand and follow unflinchingly into the darkness. Brier was already getting to her feet, with blood coating her side and a mulish set to her chin. Yce was glaring past Jame, past Tori, straight into the heart of Perimal Darkling, teeth bared and legs coiled to pounce on the enemy that still hadn’t fully vacated her territory.

Kindrie let go of Kirien at last, and she of him. As he walked back to his cousins, the serpentine Cloak pressed closer and closer to his skin until it sank in completely, leaving only a ghost of snakes’ heads at his shoulders. As it faded, Kindrie shone brighter and brighter, with a white light so pure that it burned Jame’s eyes.

She turned away, and dropped the ivory Knife from her right hand. It disappeared into the shadows curling around her feet and never landed; in its place her claws slid out, longer and sharper and more natural-feeling than ever before. Each would be deadly with only a scratch. 

As usual, Torisen was the last to join them. He hasn’t reacted at all to Jame’s words; his head was bowed over the Book still open in his hands, his shoulders hunched.

With a deep breath, he straightened. The Book flared and fell into ashes in his hands. The fire licked down the bonds that tied the Knorth to their lord, and the Kencyrath to their Highlord, and set them all loose before any could be drawn into the Darkness before the three of them. Pure Creation remained, unbound, and the Kenthiar on his neck blazed as brightly silver as his open eyes.

Jame snapped her few bonds with a flick of her wrist, as easy as breathing for Destruction incarnate. With her other hand, she turned her claws carefully away one last time as she took her brother’s scarred hand, and leaned her shoulder against his. Her odd, black-purple glow was dark against his silver, though still bright against the Darkness.

On her other side, Preservation gripped the loose sleeve of her d’hen, just in case the road was rough.

And so the three faces of the Kencyr god, Torrigien, Regonereth and Argentiel, walked out of Rathilien and into the Darkness beyond worlds, beyond time.

A little while later and thirty thousand years earlier, the Three-Faced god bound together the Kendar, the Arrin-ken, the in-between race that would be known as Highborn, and the short gray folk who had always called themselves Builders, and charged them to fight the purest malevolence of entropy until it was defeated—and then upon its defeat, to the stupefaction of many on a small, divinity-packed world far down the Chain of Creation, released them all at last.

[words-writ-in-starlight]

Hello, I came across your Kencyrath rec post and I am tentatively intruiged. That said I wanted to ask about a trigger before I dive in. Suicide is pretty strong trigger for me. I can handle it if it's mentioned, but detailed descriptions of the act or a lot of time spent in a suicidal character's head/thoughts dealing with suicidal ideation would not be. Is this an issue in the Chronicles of Kencyrath, and if it is, do you have a different recommendation?

Okay SO.

The Kencyrath exist in a honor/shame society, in which going against the code of honor (lying, breaking your word, etc) is considered a sin that can only be forgiven through an honorable death. Sometimes this takes the form of going into battle without the intention to come back, generally without armor, but it also takes the form of ritualized suicide with a specific kind of knife. I would call it a very specific kind of suicidal ideation, in which it doesn’t come so much from a depressive headspace as it does from a kind of rigidly religious one. There isn’t a ton of time spent in the heads of characters actively pursuing ritual suicide, nor what I would call traditional depressive suicidality, but it IS a very present element of the society, including people freely making choices with the understanding that they will be expected to take their own life afterward, or people being forced to take their own life as an alternative to being dishonored. Think samurai rules or Imperial Chinese rules and you’ll be in the right ballpark. Ultimately I can’t know the inside of your brain, but if onscreen suicide discussion or aftermath is a concern, I might table this series until you feel more ready for it.

In terms of alternative recommendations, buckle up, I have a list based on what part of the Kencyrath pitch you were into. These recommendations are made with the assumption that all the OTHER content warnings for the Kencyrath are not a problem, but I’ll note any really major ones and include a broad rating according to AO3 rules. Anything with an asterisk by it heavily features the big Chivalric Devotion vibes of the main Kencyrath dynamics. I read a lot of that.

Sprawling politics:

The Unbroken* (drafted soldier impresses daughter of the empress, they try to stop a war, full of double-crossing schemes and gallant ladies, cw colonialism, M for violence, sex, and extremely real colonialism)

The Captive Prince* (dethroned prince is sold into slavery under his mortal enemy, definitional enemies-to-lovers content, cw sexual assault, E for a very sexually relaxed culture in a bad way)

A Taste of Gold and Iron* (unambitious prince gets tangled up in a currency fraud scheme and gets a shiny new bodyguard, E for a very sexually relaxed culture in a good way)

October Daye series (starts out classic urban fantasy, rapidly becomes Blood Magic and Politics The Series, for those committed to a long series, T for violence)

Pulp fantasy adventure vibes:

Hero and the Crown/The Blue Sword* (classic sword and sorcery fantasy, for DnD lovers and people who read Horse Girl Books as kids, General Audiences)

Silver Under Nightfall* (vampire couple teams up with vampire hunter to cure a magical plague, the polyamorous murder romance you need in your life, cw coercive assault and body horror, E for gore and numerous threesomes)

Heaven Official’s Blessing***** (translated Chinese novel, very old fallen god returns to Heaven and Does His Best, for those committed to a LONG book, currently on volume 8, T for violence)

Witch King (body hopping demon tries to solve his own murder with his found family in tow, perfect standalone book, T for violence)

Spicy magic systems:

The City We Became/The World We Made (sentient cities and extra dimensional invaders, for everyone who read a lot of Avengers In NYC fic back in 2012, cw racism and survival sex work, M for sex)

Gideon the Ninth/The Locked Tomb series***** (everyone knows about this series, it’s the one with the lesbian space necromancers, cw for just the craziest flavors of abuse, M for violence and cannibalism I guess, also fits the below category)

The Gilded Ones* (what if all the misogynists who said women were demons were absolutely correct, and it was fucking rad, cw for SO much sexism and also religious indoctrination, T for violence)

A Soul to Keep* et al (okay oKAY LOOK THIS IS MONSTERFUCKER CONTENT BUT I RECOMMEND IT, local cursed woman gets forced to marry a demon, they argue a lot and the sex scenes are REAL bizarre, cw kidnapping and the second book deals with a character coming out of a severe depression, HARD E for monsterfucking, obviously)

Interpersonal relationships that are just SO fucked up:

A Dowry of Blood (a letter from Dracula’s first wife to the man himself, cw domestic abuse, M for adult themes and sex)

Remnants of Filth/Yuwu* (translated Chinese novel, loyal general becomes the jailer for his traitorous ex-lover, cw slavery and discussion of sexual assault, E for sex)

The Salt Grows Heavy (homicidal Little Mermaid and plague doctor wander through an apocalypse together, actually read everything Cassandra Khaw has ever touched, the absolute pinnacle of horror, cw all her stuff for really creative violence and body horror, M for violence and gore)

Anyway if you have any other book recommendation questions and/or you read any of these and enjoy them, hit me up, recommending books to people is genuinely one of my great joys in life.

[elise-nic]

If you haven't read the Kencyrath series, which of the following would you guess didn't happen (yet):

@2-octopuses-in-a-trenchcoat

[thelaithlyworm]

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Chronicles of the Kencyrath - P. C. Hodgell Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Characters: Jamethiel "Jame" Priest's-bane, Torisen Black Lord, Original Character Additional Tags: Music, Band Fic, Apocalypse, Podfic, Podfic Length: 10-20 Minutes Summary:

When Jame sings, she doesn't just bring down the house, she brings down the world. Or: an ethnomusicological take on apocalyptic bandfic.

[seirnarei]

Gorbel is one of my favorite Kencyrath characters, he’s torn in so many directions and raised in one of the worst houses for respecting the Kendar but he still is one of the most respectful and decent highborn we see. Hes also just so much more calm about Jame’s general destruction than pretty much anyone other than Sheth.

[rattyjol]

I found a couple of old fics tonight and posted them on AO3 basically unedited:

Esk, Issa (Beginning, Movement): Imperial Radch, 800 words

My existence began in a single room. Or rather, this is where my memory record begins. My existence itself began in a laboratory some very many gates away, but this is only hardware. I, myself, did not begin until I was already in orbit, already set into place above the planet where I was destined to live and die.

The Merrikitt Hotel: Chronicles of the Kencyrath, mall AU, 1.2k

Jame stood in the empty hotel parking lot and tapped her chin. Up close, the Merrikitt Hotel was much nicer than she’d thought, dwarfed as it was by the Four Seasons’ veritable high rise next door. She contemplated the likely price for a room, weighed it against her unfortunately barren wallet, and then weighed it a second time against Rowan’s reaction if Jame came back from her lunch break still dripping mud all over The Knorth Face’s nice clean floors. Never mind that Jame thought it would lend a pleasing verisimilitude to an outdoor goods store; Rowan’s expressionless face could speak volumes when necessary. Right, showering at the Merrikitt it was.

[othercat2]

Book Blather

I have volumes three and four of Heaven Official's Blessing on hold at the library! (I was somewhat surprised to find that the library got them for some reason. I shouldn't have been, after all, Phoenix public library has a lot of LGBT titles, including some fairly obscure sf and fantasy.)

Books I'm reading:

Deathless Gods, PC Hodgell: This is the most recent book in the Chronicles of the Kencyrath. Jame and Tori have to deep with the extremely slimy political machinations of Caldane Caineron, who has screwed up the mercenary contracts with the Seven Kings, who are one of the Kencyr's major clients. (The Kencyr primarily support themselves through taking mercenary contracts. The Riverlands are not actually great territory for extensive agriculture.)

Jame's friendships with Timmon and Gorbel continue to be slightly surreal and hilarious. (Jame is obviously a Very Good Influence.)

Kindrie meanwhile is neck-deep in unspecified trouble. I think The Trouble will probably turn out to be related to his third of the Tyr-ridan and politics.

In other news, I adore Randiroc.

The Grief of Stones, by Katherine Addison: I am pretty much chugging my way through this book. The going has been pretty slow since it's a pretty dark read this time around.

Assassins of Thassalon by Lois McMaster Bujold: I only got a few pages into this book, and that was months ago, which means I will have to start from the begining. What I read was pretty good, but I got distracted.

Scorpica by G.R. Macallister: I have not even started this book, and I might not because its hard for me to start new books. The worldbuilding looks interesting! But I am also having mild flashbacks to obscure seventies/eighties fantasy-sf with matriarchal societies. As one does.

Beyond, by Mercedes Lackey: This is the first book in the Founding of Valdemar. This will be my second or third attempt to read the book. (I was only able to read a chapter before getting distracted.)

Book I am waiting for:

Witch King, by Martha Wells. Holy shit, what I've seen/heard of it is so cool. :D I am hoping for some weird found family with technical Dark Lords. (Because that's what it looks like from here. Weird found family case fic with technical Dark Lords.) May is too far away, and I am filled with Longing.

[othercat2]

This meme is reminding me that a male character in one of the recent Kencyr novels got himself a pair of "big naturals" due to Typical Jame Adjacent Chaos.

oh also, a stupid thing i did. mr judge big naturals

[laaxrun]

9 people you would like to get to know better

Tagged by @aeondeug

3 ships: hi i had to rewrite this entire section

Jame/Tori from the Kencyrath Chronicles. Not even always in a romantic way, I'm just so obsessed with them and all of the incredibly kind and incredibly (accidentally) fucked up ways they love each other. Utena/Anthy because that series rewrote my entire brain as a queer weirdo teen. I'll be thinking about their revolution until I die. Griddlehark and their situationship(s) with Ianthe because they're all so awful (affectionate) and I'm dying waiting for Alecto to come out. I may reread this series soon

First ship: I genuinely have no idea, but given what I was doing on the internet as a teen it could've been almost any popular ship in 2006

Last song: I had the sudden but very explicable urge to listen to the metalocalypse theme today. So it's that

Last movie: Zardoz! We hosted a movie night to watch this with friends and god it was fucking weird. Featuring a freshly post-Bond Sean Connery in a speedo with attached bandoliers

Currently watching: X-Files, very slowly. The Untamed, also very slowly. And theoretically my partner and I are watching Utena lol

Currently consuming: Ten Planets by Yuri Herrera, Deadhouse Gates by Steven Erikson, and Varney the Vampire. And lots of goth rock, because it's that time of year (all year)

Currently craving: hot apple cider and curry

Ah fuck, do I even know nine people to tag?

@professorahoge @rubberbandballqueen @awoocrew @prawnwar @v3rb4tim @cheshiremadds @pippinstark @glamourslime @clitar

Woe, questions be upon ye!

[tanoraquisloviebracket]

Round 2, Poll O

Dave the Polar Bear (mid-sized) is one of my first—maybe the first?—of my annual family Secret Santa gifts via the World Wildlife Fund's adoption program. He’s named after David Tennant because a friend of mine at the time was a big fan of both Tennant and polar bears. 

VS

Blackie (black-finned shark, small) was recently gifted to me by a friend. You may have noticed by this point that I like sharks! Mostly named for his black fins, a little bit named for Torisen “Blackie” Knorth of the Kencyrath Chronicles.

[tanoraqui]

Torisen & Klondike bar, please!

[ask meme]

What would they do for a Klondike bar?

Tori would do nothing for a Klondike bar. Tori has never heard of Klondike bars. Jame, however, would trip - literally - into an alternate dimension where there are Klondike bars, befriend a couple local divinities, infuriate a couple other local divinities, semi-accidentally help somebody stage a coup, scandalize any Kendar who'd managed to follow her here, and return with several crates of Klondike bars. She sends one of them to Tori with a letter explaining that she thinks these may be useful for feeding their people through the upcoming winter; also that she accidentally hastened the advent of the apocalypse again by personally punching Gerridon in the face (again) (it was during the coup. don't worry about it!).

Tori may or may not read the letter. He takes a bite of one of the Klondike bars and concludes that they're good, and sends them to the kitchens to see if they can be replicated in some way, lest everyone starve this winter. He sends one to the college at Mount Albion to see if they can do it, too.

Kirien writes back that she's set the appropriate scholars on it, and by the way why isn't Tori writing about Kindrie's arrival in Gothregor? He set out two months ago.

(Kindrie has been kidnapped again. He does not get a Klondike bar.)

[shadow-words]

Book Review: Deathless Gods by P.C. Hodgell

Deathless Gods by PC Hogdell--Some great moments but tending toward the darker side.

Deathless Gods by P.C. Hodgell is the tenth book in The Chronicles of the Kencyrath. It features a great deal of politicking, difficulties with the mercenary contracts the Kencyrath need to keep their people fed over winter, and a slowly building sense of dread. Torisen attempts to navigate the increasingly murky waters of a society under siege and possibly losing. Kindrie gets kidnapped (isn’t…

[elise-nic]

Monstress and The Kencyrath Chronicles are two series that I don’t think actually go together but for some reason my brain has linked them, probably because of some very surface level similarities in world building.

[aethersea]

you know, it's kind of wild that Ganth Grey Lord, Highlord of the Kencyrath, had a sword named Kinslayer and no one ever. said anything. about that.

it's just kind of a weird vibe. imagine being a regular Knorth highborn and your boss's primary weapon is his Sword For Killing Knorths With.

[eightopals]

It’s 100 words. I just got into an argument last week or so with a bunch of little twits on reddit who didn’t get why I cared.

Look, I wrote 100 of them:

just to cause chaos and mayhem and also because if this breaks containment i'd like to see what the consensus is, without further ado...

i am not responsible for any friendships broken over this, btw, lol

[words-writ-in-starlight]

Damar Kencyrath AU 5 Headcannons. Go!

THANK YOU FOR THIS GIFT.  For this headcanon meme!

When Jame is seven years old, her kelar comes in like a mountain falling down, in the Homeland keep.  Her father backhands her, and the yellow tide howls in her ears and she screams with it, screams until her throat bleeds, and the building shakes around her, the stone blasted and scorched under her feet and her nails hooked into claws.  Ganth roars back, and then--  

The next thing Jame remembers is stumbling through the Madamer Gate, bleeding and dressed in Northern armor, one hand clutching a strange sword, the other holding the bite on her arm, as if she could clutch it tight enough to stop the spread of the poison.  She knows what bit her, she thinks--a riding beast, something uncomfortably close to horse, if horses were made of snakes--but that’s a far cry from having a cure.  She drives the point of the sword into the ground as she sways, holding herself up, and the blue stone in the hilt gleams, flickers.  Points.  Jame is too hazy with sleep deprivation and hunger to question it, the poison starting to gnaw at her thoughts.  She lurches forward grimly and follows the lingering gleam of light, one step at a time.

When Tori is seven years old, his sister’s kelar nearly levels their house, and then she’s gone, and he--he bites his tongue and lips until the copper-red of blood washes away the gold, and he lives eight more years under his father’s hand, in the Homeland keep.  Then he’s fifteen and he breaks, he runs, and there’s nowhere to run to except the unforgiving Darian desert, the Damarian desert that their mother walked out of and then vanished into again, but anywhere is better than Ganth’s grim grey house.  Tori barely survives the experience, because he looks like his mother, he has the black hair and proud bone structure of the royal house even as a haggard teenager, and when the patrol finds him, dehydrated almost unto death, they bring him back to the City.  Tori learns Damarian, learns to ride, learns to fight, and he learns fast, unnaturally fast, so fast that everyone around him whispers and points, and he bites his tongue until he bleeds and his eyes are silver, silver, silver.

When Tori is twenty-one, he’s a soldier who stands in the Bledfi gap against the crashing tide of the North.  He watches the Regent fall, watches the Regent’s children and trusted generals fall, and Tori draws his sword.  He’s half Outlander, for all that he looks the part of the royal house, a mystery and an unknown, but Torisen shakes his sword in the air, and his black horse rears, and the army rallies to him like it’s the most natural thing in the world.  And they charge, in and again, with Tori in the lead, and when the dust settles, unbelievably, impossibly, Damar is alive.  Tori’s head aches like he’s driven a railroad spike through his temples, the air glittering strangely around him as he looks silver-eyed at the battlefield, and he’s bloody, exhausted, miserable, but his soldiers are alive, and they have won.  The councilors who have struggled to fill the empty throne for decades decide, finally, that a war hero and a diplomat is hardly the worst choice they could have made.  No kelar, true--a shame.  But Tori is honest and level-headed and strong, and the people love him, and Damar needs a king.

Torisen is a soldier first, even as King of the Hills, and he places patrols, struggles to build a fragile peace with the Outlanders--the North is vast, and Damar is small, and they need the strength of numbers.  This is how it comes to be that Tori is thirty-two and having a stiffly polite conversation with the assigned ambassador in the Outlander keep when a bloody figure clutching a shaft of blue light stumbles through the gates, unquestioned, and falls in a heap almost directly at his feet.

“Gods,” Tori says in shock as his guards catch the figure before it can hit the ground, blades coming up in defense.  The shaft of blue light clatters to the dirt, a sword and nothing more.  “Is that--Jame?”

“Hello, brother,” Jame rasps, blinking hazy eyes at him, the silver bursting with gold, and she smiles with lips that crack and bleed, teeth red with it.  She speaks Damarian with a strange lilt, hard on the stops and drawling over the vowels, and Tori wonders dizzily where she learned it, where she’s been all these years.  She looks so young, under the desert-burned cheeks and exhaustion, impossibly young.  She shrugs away his guards by the simple expedient of turning kelar bright eyes on them, and then steps toward Tori, hesitant.  He thinks, for a moment, that she’s about to say something, something important, something legendary and destiny-making, but instead she collapses into the king’s chest, unconscious, and Tori catches her on instinct.

“Sola,” Burr says, nervously prodding the sword fallen from her hand with his foot.  It looks entirely normal now, well-made and set with a blue stone at the hilt, but unremarkable.  “Who is that?”

“My sister,” Tori says, stunned.  “She’s my twin sister.  I suppose--I suppose we had better take her home.”