In my previous reviews for the Obernewtyn Chronicles, I made the twin observations that Obernewtyn is a very contained story and it’s The Farseekers where the series starts to find its feet. Now I can state that it’s in the third volume, Ashling, where the plot starts to learn to run.
Ashling takes place about a year after the events of The Farseekers, and we open with Elspeth rescuing a gypsy woman from being burnt at the state by the Herder Faction. While the woman is ultimately recovered physically uninjured, she seems to have fallen into a psychic coma. Elspeth, poor pawn of fate that she is, is told by the Futureteller Maryon that this woman must be returned to her people within a week or otherwise she’ll die before the next Days of Rain.
This expedition to return the gypsy woman—Iriny—to her family triggers a whole new avalanche of events that sweep up both Elspeth and the Misfits. Just who are the Twentyfamilies Gypsies, and what are their links to both the Agyllians and the Beforetime? And what is the meaning of Swallow? Meanwhile, rebellion is brewing in the Land, and Obernewtyn needs to decide how it is going to be involved. And while any new form of government looks better than what is currently in place with The Council and The Herder Faction, it cannot be guaranteed that these new rebels are without prejudice themselves. Can the Misfits really afford to help people who may hate them as much as The Council?
To complicate matters further, there’s a new slave trader tormenting the coasts. And surprise surprise, they seem to have forged a link to both he Herder Faction and a certain someone who loves living rent free in Elspeth’s head.
And I don’t mean that entirely metaphorically. Elspeth, as it is now clear, is the Seeker—someone who is destined to track down the rest of the Beforetime Weaponmachines and disable them all before the onset of a second holocaust. But as we learn from Maruman and our avian-prophet friends, the Agyllians, there is also a Destroyer; someone who exists to take advantage of the Beforetime Weaponmachines in the case Elspeth were to fail. They then would, of course, bring on the end of the world. In Ashling, both Maruman and Elspeth become more certain as who that person is. And they seem to take delight in haunting Elspeth on the dream trails as she sleeps.
Of the books in the Obernewtyn Chronicles, Ashling is one of the most balanced in regard to filling us in about the Beforetime while keeping us current with the events of the Land and Elspeth’s quest. But at the same time, it does feel like a ‘middle-book’ with so many plot points set up and very few resolved. Despite this, I think it’s one of my favorites in the series; it will be interesting to see if that changes through my re-read.
It’s also the first book where we really start getting some Young Adult-style relationship angst from our protagonist! Poor Elspeth is very much a product of her upbringing and is not really prone to causing much drama, but dear god, she’s really good at internalizing and fretting about all of her concerns and worries. She really needs a friend to confide in, and sadly, due to her position of leadership in Obernewtyn, she kind of doesn’t have one. Poor thing keeps it all to herself. (And with us, the reader, of course.)
In another first, it’s only in re-reading Ashling that my perspective has really started to shift concerning certain characters and events. I’m only now starting to realize that the our birdie-prophets, the Agyllians, are much more active in prophecy than I remember. This is where I should explain the term Ashling:
Sometimes dreams were gateways through which messages might come. Beasts called them ashlings: dreams that called.
This is where my memory was imperfect; I had mostly remembered the Agyllians as very strong Futuretellers who would relay messages to Maruman in his crazy fits. I had forgotten that that they are much more proactive than that; there’s hints here that they are also influencing Elspeth’s importance in the legends of the beastkindred. And now the promises of the Twentyfamilies as well. An Ashling is a dream that calls; rather than a message that just bubbles along from the dream trails, this may imply an active caller. And while the Elder of the Agyllians is portrayed as nothing but benevolent, I’m now starting to wonder more about that.
Things to keep in mind as I continue through the re-read, I suppose! Consider yourselves under tight scrutiny, birdie-birds.
For cbr16bingo, this is Dreams. For that’s what an Ashling is.
