Conclusion of the Dalemark Quartet. Here we jump all around the Dalemark timeline, dwelling mostly in the “present day” of Moril and Mitt, but spending part of the narrative about two hundred years later, and drawing in components from the more distant past of The Spellcoats.

As a series conclusion goes, it’s . . . odd. For one thing, as I mentioned in the post on The Spellcoats, this book came out fourteen years after its predecessor. That’s quite a long time to wait for a finale, and I’m not sure why the pause happened — especially given the way things were left hanging in some of the previous books. Cart and Cwidder ends on a mostly-resolved note (sorry, pun not intended); there’s clearly room for more to be told, but if that was the last of it, we’d be okay. Drowned Ammet more obviously leaves things hanging, with Mitt making promises for the future that don’t get addressed in his book. The Spellcoats is the most open-ended of the lot, but I’ll leave the statement at that, to avoid spoilers.

This isn’t your usual sort of last book; the stories it draws together are quite widely scattered. Even Moril and Mitt, who at least exist in the same century, hail from opposite ends of Dalemark, and have never met each other before this story begins. We also get a new character in the form of Maewen, a girl from the future of Dalemark, and quite a bit of the history being addressed is hers — but although she’s a central character, the book doesn’t belong wholly to her. It’s as much Mitt’s book, or possibly more. This leads to some weird structural elements. To say more about those, though, I’ll have to get into spoilers.

I find it odd that the book begins with Mitt, and stays with him for such a long time before introducing Maewen at all. Given that she’s the new component, and plays such a major pov role in the story, sixty pages in feels awfully late for her to show up. (That’s a full seventh of the book.) Then Maewen gets a lot of focus — enough that I think of her as the protagonist, even though the story didn’t start with her — but Mitt’s the one who confronts and destroys Kankredin, and we aren’t even in his pov when it happens. Maewen’s sort of an observer to his coronation and that last fight. Her final protaggy contribution is to return the cwidder to Wend. It feels off-kilter to me.

It’s also odd because the conflict mostly doesn’t have to do with what we saw in the first two books. The Countess uses the events of DA as leverage on Mitt, and a Southern army shows up at the end, but Mitt doesn’t go back to the Holy Isles (except in an offscreen fashion, when they talk about what Amil did as king), which I was expecting to see happen. The aftermath of The Spellcoats isn’t quite what I expected, either. It isn’t exactly a surprise to find out that Tanaqui and some of her siblings are Undying, but the business with their battle and Kankredin feels sort of like a side note, if that makes any sense.

Which isn’t to say I don’t like the book. Mitt’s conflict is a good one, with him caught up in politics and questioning his own morality. I liked seeing Tanaqui and Duck again, grown up but still identifiably themselves. Navis, as someone promised in a previous comment thread, grows a great deal as a character (I quite like him now, actually). The disappearance of Noreth is disturbing, even if I wish Maewen didn’t forget about it so thoroughly for a good portion of the book. I was sad about Hildy, though; while she wasn’t quite a good person in DA, she did grow, and it’s a pity to watch her backslide here, even if it’s realistic. (Biffa, however, is awesome, and needs her own fandom.)

I think my favorite part is the meeting with Hern in the past-realm of Kernsburgh, and the way he winnows through them — or rather, gets them to winnow themselves — to figure out who should be King. Maewen noting that he doesn’t look like his portrait, and then thinking about how the Undying can be bound, was another nice touch. There’s lots of good numinousness here (which is something I’m obviously fond of); it’s just that the arrangement of it is a little peculiar.

Aaaaand that’s it for Dalemark, and for this month of the project. Presuming I manage to stick to my schedule, only three more months and less than a dozen books to go!

. . . yeah, it still sounds like a lot, when I put it that way. Still, weighed against what I’ve gotten through already, I really am nearly done.