Mordant's Need

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Mordant's Need is a two-volume fantasy book series by Stephen R. Donaldson (better known for the Thomas Covenant and The Gap Cycle series) which tells the story of a woman named Terisa who travels from our modern world to a medieval setting where political and military struggles are entwined with the power of Imagery, a form of magic based on mirrors. The books deal with themes of reality, power, inaction and love in the context of a fantasy adventure. The intrigue is complex and the characters are some of Donaldson's most memorable. This series is also much lighter in tone than either The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever or The Gap Cycle.

1 Plot summary
2 Central characters
3 Themes
4 Books
5 External links

[edit] Plot summary

Terisa Morgan opens the series living a vacant life, supported by her father from afar and volunteering at a mission for lack of anything more purposeful to do with her time. She fills her apartment with mirrors so as to see her reflection and thus be constantly reassured of her existence. Geraden, an apprentice Imager (magician) from a land called Mordant appears in her apartment, searching for aid against a powerful enemy who has been plaguing Mordant with monsters transported from other worlds. As mirrors are inextricably linked with magic in Mordant, Terisa's decor convinces him that he has stumbled into the lair of a powerful sorceress. He persuades her to accompany him back to the Castle Orison, where she finds herself embroiled in a morass of political intrigue and danger from both the political plotting and from the magical creatures that appear without warning and can't seem to be defended against.

Terisa is suddenly the centre of attention, a position that she has never before held. Because Geraden is held in little regard in Orison, opinion is divided on whether she should be taken seriously as a potentially powerful ally or treated as an object of ridicule and proof of Geraden's incompetence. She must deal with the earnest Geraden, the senile King Joyse and his headstrong daughters, the mad Adept Havelock, the inimical Castellan Lebbick, Geraden's mostly-well-meaning brothers, the lascivious Master Eremis and the rest of the disorganized group of Geraden's Imager masters known collectively as the Congery.

Unsurprisingly, very little is as it seems in Orison. Various groups plot to depose King Joyse and take over Mordant. The rogue Imager is still sending magical creatures to cause destruction seemingly without rhyme or reason. And Geraden remains firmly convinced that he has not made a mistake and that Terisa is to be Mordant's champion and salvation despite her own protests and debilitating passivity.

[edit] Central characters

Terisa Morgan
Geraden
King Joyse
Elega and Myste and Torrent, the King's daughters
Adept Havelock
Castellan Lebbick
Master Eremis
Prince Kragen
Artagel

[edit] Themes

The story deals deeply with themes of what reality is, and how we can know what is real. Terisa is a troubled young woman who doubts the reality of her own existence, even before she is summoned to Mordant, where the prevailing belief among Imagers is that the things they summon from their magic mirrors (such as Terisa) do not actually exist before Imagery brings them into the world of Mordant.

There is a similarity between the handling of this theme in Mordant's Need and in Donaldson's Thomas Covenant series, where Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever, commits at least one reprehensible act because he refuses to believe that the world he perceives around him could be real.

The castle-dwelling community of Orison may have its origins in the Gormenghast series of Mervyn Peake. Also the dynamic between the aged King Joyse and his daughters strongly echoes Shakespeare's King Lear.