The other night, I finished reading through Master of Fiends, Douglas Hill's sequel to Blade of the Poisoner. This is a book I've read fewer times than Blade of the Poisoner, since I didn't have my own copy of it growing up, but I remember liking it nonetheless.
Taken as a pair, Blade of the Poisoner and Master of Fiends make for some entertaining, uncomplicated and undemanding fantasy that I am pleased to report was almost as enjoyable today as it was when I was a kid. The breezy young adult-level writing makes the whole thing remarkably quick to zip through — particularly as both volumes are quite short in and of themselves — but it doesn't feel especially "dumbed down" or "childish". There's a good, dramatic tone to the narration — towards the end of Master of Fiends I found myself internally voicing the narrator as the late Tony Jay, which added immeasurably to the experience and makes me sad we'll never hear him do an audiobook reading of these — and the characters, although straightforward and somewhat archetypal, are all likable.
I realise in my past musings on these books, I haven't really talked about the details of their narratives. So here we go, then.
In Blade of the Poisoner, we're introduced to our protagonist: 12 year old Jarral, who is out hunting in the Wellwood, when he comes into contact with a veritable giantess of a woman named Archer that he has, over the years, struck up something of a friendship with. Before long, Jarral discovers that his village has been destroyed by Prince Mephtik, better known as the Poisoner, and he flees the Wellwood with Archer — or at least attempts to, though before long he and his gigantic companion are captured by Mephtik and his monstrous spiders.
During their captivity, Mephtik opts to use his "favourite toy", a magic sword known as the Tainted Blade. It is said that a single scratch from this sword is fatal, with the recipient of the wound dropping dead (or, more accurately, pretty much magically burning to death) when the moon next turns full. It is nearly a full month before the moon is next full, and Mephtik makes it clear that he intends for Jarral to be in his captivity when the time comes, so he can watch the young boy die.
He doesn't get the chance, though, because before long two more of our central heroes enter the picture after being sent to the Wellwood by the mysterious wizard Cryltaur Tabbetang (Cryl to his friends): the blind warrior Scythe, and the fifteen year old Lady Mandragorina, or Mandra for short. Between them — and through judicious use of their mental powers known as Talents, which Cryl trained them in — they manage to free Jarral and Archer, escaping from the Wellwood and getting well clear of Mephtik and his beasts before they can pursue.
There is, of course, a problem that remains, which is that Jarral has been marked by the Tainted Blade, and will thus die in a month's time unless both the Blade and its wielder are destroyed. That sure sounds like an epic quest to me! And, sure enough, things unfold pretty much as you expect — though at kind of a breakneck pace compared to some other works of fantasy fiction.
There's not a lot of getting bogged down in the details of travelling, Hobbit songs or whatever; it's remarkably soon that the party finds themselves looking upon the city of Xicanti, where Mephtik has his stronghold, and a few chapters after that where, between them, they have defeated Mephtik in a thematically appropriate manner, defeated a Greater Demon using the Tainted Blade — which, conveniently, destroyed it in the process — and decided that rather than going home to celebrate, it would probably be a good idea to go after the world's Big Bad, a "thou shalt not speak his name" evil sorcerer known variously as the Demon-Driver or, you guessed it, the Master of Fiends, particularly as said Big Bad has kidnapped Cryl and promises to keep him alive for an "eternity of torment" or some such equivalent gesture.
Master of Fiends picks up almost immediately after Blade of the Poisoner after the party's second journey is underway. All of them are still present, including Jarral, who, during the climactic battles of Blade of the Poisoner, discovered he had the extremely rare Talent of being able to summon the powerful forces of nature that are Elementals: one of the few Talents that can stand up to honest-to-goodness demons, because demons are weakened and even paralysed with fear in the sheer presence of an Elemental. However, Jarral, being just twelve years old and having had no training in his Talent, is not entirely able to control his ability to everyone's complete satisfaction, so part of the running theme of Master of Fiends is Jarral quickly having to grow up and figure things out under, at times, extreme duress.
Throughout both books, Jarral is very obviously the teenage reader's wish-fulfilment character. Despite being unremarkable and inept, he has The Most Powerful Thing, and he's also the centre of the universe so far as the narrative of Blade of the Poisoner is concerned. As a young reader, I remember feeling like I was supposed to almost "inhabit" the role of Jarral, particularly when it came to his growing feelings towards Mandra — feelings that, I would note, are shot down in flames at the end of Master of Fiends due to the age gap between the pair of them, but with a whiff of hope that when they're both "grown up" something might be able to happen between them, maybe, possibly. I recall feeling a bit put out at that part of the ending when I was younger, but looking at it now, it does make a certain amount of sense, and means that none of us had to sit through any particularly awkward pre-pubescent romance scenes.
One could probably pick many faults with both Blade of the Poisoner and Master of Fiends. We don't learn much — if anything — about the background of any of the characters, for one thing, though I actually found this didn't really matter all that much in the grand scheme of things. The most backstory we get is when Scythe is introduced early in Blade of the Poisoner, and we discover he's been making his living using his ability to "see without sight" (and his formidable weapon-handling skills that come with it) to act as a juggler. We learn nothing about Archer, including why she is regarded as a "giantess"; similarly, we don't learn all that much about Mandra, either, just that she is from a noble background, unlike the others.
It might have been nice to learn a bit more about all the characters — particularly in an epilogue, as Master of Fiends does feel like it ends rather abruptly — but, as I say, these two books weren't really trying to be the next Lord of the Rings. They were just trying to tell an interesting, exciting and accessible story for young adults, and the many holes one can pick in their respective narratives and the overall settings don't get in the way of them achieving that goal. I came away from rereading both feeling vindicated at my longstanding fond memories of them both, and glad that I had taken the time (very little time, as it happened) to reread them as an adult.
So while they're not classics of great literature or anything, nor are they in any way the most amazing pieces of fantasy fiction you'll ever read, they were both perfectly enjoyable — and probably a good introduction to the genre for younger readers who are up to handling the more "horrifying" aspects of both narratives. Perhaps a fun exercise sometime could be to imagine what happened next for these characters, since sadly Hill, having passed away in 2007, is no longer around to do it for us.
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