After the success of the Belgariad and Malloreon the author David Eddings followed it up with another twin series – this time the trilogies known as the Elenium and the Tamuli. These series focused initially on a quasi-medieval European society complete with monarchies, internal squabbles between nobility, knights in armour, and a dominant Catholic style church. Later, we travel further afield into an East Asian analogue as well. Layered over this is the concept of gods being very real and capable of giving the gift of magic to followers – but that being initially thought to be the province of Styrics (a Jewish analogue culture with the expected middle-ages nastiness from the non-Styric populace). The Styrics supported the ‘Church Knights’ – 4 militant orders who were trained in combat, magic, and diplomacy (of sorts).
Our primary character across all six books is a knight – Sparhawk – the champion of the Elene royal family. We follow his, and his companion’s journey to at first restore his queen to her throne, then to prevent a corrupt takeover of the church, and then onwards to kill a god. And that’s the first trilogy…
Before giving an overview of each book I’d like to caveat my review by flagging that I know David Eddings and his wife were convicted of child abuse in 1970 and jailed for a year. I didn’t know anything about this when I first read books by the author, and here I do separate the books from their author and still re-read them. I totally understand that is not something everyone could do.
The Diamond Throne
The first book of the series quickly establishes Sparhawk’s character – he’s older, cynical, and quite ruthless. Makes a strong contrast to the younger Garion of the Belgariad. The corruption of Elenian culture is also clearly shown with the young queen Ehlana having been poisoned to prevent her cutting off access to money that was being funnelled away by our initial villain (Annias – a churchmen with eyes on the equivalent of the Papal Seat). Ehlana’s life is preserved by a spell that will last a year in the hope that a cure can be found. The 4 orders of Church Knights each provide a champion to search for a cure – giving us our main characters on this quest. Joined by Sparhawk’s squire Kurik and Kurik’s illegitimate son Talen (who is a skilled thief even at an early age), and the priestess and magician Sephrenia, they follow clues across the continent of Eosia to find a potential cure. Ultimately this leads them to Rendor (our Muslim analogue) and the discovery that only one magical artefact can cure Ehlana – the Bhelliom – a sapphire that has been lost for centuries
The Ruby Knight
The cast regroup to search for the Bhelliom – that was lost from the crown of our a king centuries ago during a massive war against the Zemochs (an eastern race with a corrupt and evil god Azash). They trace the paths of battle to find where the king was buried only to lose the Bhelliom, also known as the Sapphire Rose, to it’s ‘creator’ the troll Ghwerig. Bhelliom contains the spirits of the Troll Gods and isn’t very friendly. Sparhawk, Sephrenia, an ‘orphan child’ called Flute, Kurik, and Talen they head to Ghwerig’s cave to retrieve the gem. At this point we discover that Flute is the child-goddess Aphrael when she had to perform a miracle to recover the stone, and that she has manipulated Sparhawk and Ehlana’s family for centuries to ensure they could handle Bhelliom
The Sapphire Rose
Ehlana is rapidly restored with the Bhelliom, takes back control of her kingdom, and decides she’s going to marry Sparhawk. There’s a big age difference here which some people may struggle with… We then get my favourite part of the series – political intrigue as our heroes contend with Annias to get enough votes to become the Archprelate. It’s actually fun to see them using kidnapping, hiding people, and general sneakiness to win votes. Even more fun is when Ehlana decides that the candidate the heroes have picked for Archprelate wouldn’t be a good one so she manipulates everyone into the right choice by feigning religious hysteria (the right choice being a friend of our team – Dolmant). After this we settle down for a final battle against Azash – and it’s time for Sparhawk to kill a god (and lose a good friend in the process). They dispose of Bhelliom in the ocean because of its risk to the world and go back home. We end with an epilogue in which Sparhawk has settled down and has a daughter called Danae – who it turns out is the latest physical incarnation of Aphrael!
Domes Of Fire
In our second trilogy things have settled down for a few years. We start with politics as Dolmant has been ordering Sparhawk around and Ehlana is unhappy with this – there is a conflict between his role as leader of a religious military order, and his role as Prince of Elenia. This triggers our events as Sparhawk is ordered to meet Dolmant to deal with a situation in Tamuli, and Ehlana insists on coming along. Our story for this trilogy is there are strange events happening in the eastern continent of Tamuli – long dead heroes rallying troops, the appearance of monsters, etc. This ties in to similar events in Eosia and also explains why the trolls had disappeared. The same crew, now joined by Ehlana and her ladies in waiting, the leader of thieves Stragen, and Mirtai (Ehlana’s bodyguard – a young woman from the Tamul continent) head across land to find information and deal with issues on the way. It’s a long journey with many tales and reunions along the way that leads the team to realise that they are facing powerful magic, probably a god, and someone is definitely trying to destroy the Tamul Empire. Tamul being an amalgam of East Asian and Polynesian influences…
The Shining Ones
Having now arrived in Tamuli the team quickly realise they’re in a political fight – the Emperor is not the dumb puppet of his court that they were led to believe but an inexperienced genius. He’s given a quick lesson in harsh realities by Ehlana and becomes and ally in essentially running a coup against his own government who are largely corrupt and also in some cases, definitely working for the bad guys. In finding the trolls are really in Tamuli they decide they need Bhelliom to bring them to order – Sparhawk heads off to fetch this and also investigate along the way. They discover Bhelliom has a consciousness of its own and is in fact one of two primordial forces that has created the universe. In investigating its abilities they end up visiting ‘The Shining Ones’ – a race of Tamuli cursed to be able to kill with a touch. This causes some issues but eventually they gain a new ally with the handy ability to read minds. But we also discover that rather than Troll Gods our team are facing a more powerful god – Cyrgon – who has hidden his militaristic nation for millennia (they’re Spartan analogues) and who know wants to use Bhelliom to free his people and takeover the world
The Hidden City
In the final book our team discover the Cyrgon plot has been aided by someone they trusted. This leads to the kidnapping of Ehlana and sees our team split into smaller groups to investigate the kidnapping, find the hidden city of Cyrga, coordinate military forces, and generally cause trouble. In particular they face Bhelliom’s opposite – an ‘evil’ primordial being called Klael – who manages to kill many people before they realise what they’re facing. We finish with all parties ending up at the Hidden City at the same time for an old-fashioned fight between good and evil, settled with a duel.
To Sum Up…
- I still love this series – it’s just cosy and easy to read when you don’t want to think too much
- The political intrigue is actually well done and the added maturity of the characters makes it a bit more grown up than the Belgariad
- Even the religious conflict is a pretty well observed take on the equivalent issues in our world
- Characters can still be a bit cookie-cutter and sometimes come across as copies of characters in the Belgariad
- The age-gap romance and some other attitudes can feel a little dated and uncomfortable but female characters do have more agency I feel than in earlier books
- Overall it’s between a 4 and 5 for me as a series