To the Wounded City

One of Piranesi’s ‘carceri’ or prisons.

The Relic Master by Catherine Fisher.
Volume One of The Book of the Crow Quartet.
[Also published as The Dark City,
Book 1 of The Relic Master series.]
Red Fox, 1999 (1998).

A wonder worker and an apprentice are wandering through a sparsely populated, almost desolate landscape, bearing dangerous secrets and in fear of both strangers and of a ruthless authority.

But someone is following their trail with motives of her own. And then a horseman appears to ask for the wonder worker’s help. How will Galen and his young apprentice Raffi respond to this and other potential threats?

“The Relic Master was the first book I wrote as a full-time writer,” the author tells us, “and I think a lot of pent-up energy went sweeping into it.” That transferred energy is evident right from the start and continues right to the end of this first instalment.

Architectural Veduta, late 15C.

The Relic Master conforms to the classic quest trope, but instead of a sought-for object the search involves a mythical figure and perhaps even the restoration of lost magical powers. For the now impotent but still strict Master Galen is reliant on Raffi’s emergent abilities to negotiate the hostile territories they wander through, attempting to locate the relics of a disappeared civilisation, inhabited by dispersed societies reliant on a subsistence economy.

We discover that these relics, evidently powerful technological devices, are scattered remains of a superior human society that colonised the planet Anara eons ago but which succumbed to a devastating disaster, leaving fragmented knowledge maintained by a so-called Order of wonder workers. But then there’s the Watch, a repressive group who rule by fear and coercion, opposed to the Order; and there’s also the Sekoi, the indigenous people of Anara, tall seven-fingered beings with cat-like features. The scene is set for jeopardy, conflict, betrayal and the possible achievement of a perilous quest.

I’m always reluctant to get immersed in High Fantasy: amongst many familiar tropes and clichés there are usually so many unfamiliar names to negotiate, often attached to individuals whose characters are insufficiently fleshed out. I’m glad to say that’s not the case here: in fact our main characters not only have recognisable names but are immediately identifiable amongst the people whom they encounter during the quest. For example, Galen shares his name with an classical Greek physician and philosopher, the put-upon Raffi derives his name from Raphael, Carys (the stranger who attached herself to the pair) gets hers from a Welsh root meaning ‘love’, and the diminutive robber leader Alberic translates as ‘elf-king’.

I also wonder about the origin of the Sekoi, the planet’s displaced inhabitants. Is their name related to the Greek term (σηκός in the singular) for the sacred enclosures or sanctuaries open to the sky in ancient Greek temples, implying that their nature sees the land as sacred, not the wasteland the human colonisers have made it?

Not only names but also landscapes feel recognisable, unsurprising as Fisher herself says she was inspired by places such as “Glastonbury, Wells, and whole swathes of Mendip,” while Tasceron, the ‘wounded city’ that represents the trio’s goal, “is a mixture of Oxford and a lot of Rome.” Doubtless by the series’ end the reasons for such familiarity will become clearer.

The Relic Master was a surprisingly immersive read, its energy taking me on a bleak journey through desolate and wasted lands, with a trio becoming a quartet of oddly matched and flawed individuals descending a Dantean labyrinth. I enjoyed it more than I anticipated – how will the unequal, almost abusive relationship of master and pupil develop, what of the ambivalent roles of Carys and the Sekoi individual? I would be curious to see where the next stage might take me.

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#WyrdAndWonder 2024: Ariana @ The Book Nook, Annemieke @ A Dance With Books, Jorie Loves A Story, Lisa @ Dear Geek Place, and imyril @ There’s Always Room For One More

Read for Wyrd & Wonder, which runs all through May. My reviews of a couple of other Catherine Fisher novels can be found here.