One of the great themes of Rebecca Roanhorse’s impressive third volume of her Between Earth and Sky trilogy is the struggle of humans to use godlike power without being destroyed by it. In Mirrored Heavens, the major characters either reach for such power or have it imposed on them, and all pay a heavy price. For a discussion of the background of the first two novels in this series, you might want to read my review of Black Sun and Fevered Star. It provides an overview of the world known as the Meridian as well as the main characters and societies that shape them. In this review, I want to focus on the arcs of some of the major characters as they try to make fate, magic and the power of gods work in their favor.
In the first chapter Zataya, a witch of the Coyote clan, consults her omens and finds that a war has already begun in the heavens, a war that would soon begin on earth since earth is a mirror of the heavens. In this way, Roanhorse plunges us back into the complex world of the Meridian, with its culture and geography based on those of several pre-columbian indigenous peoples of the Americas. Zataya will soon transmit a prophecy to Serapio, known as the Crow God reborn or Odo Sedoh, who was trained and forced into this role by his mother since childhood. While he has rebelled against his fate, he has become more and more powerful. Though blind, he can summon crows to be his eyes and transform into a flock of crows to fly where he needs to go.
He now rules the city of Tova, and when we first see him in Mirrored Heavens, the power of the Crow God is pulsing through his veins as he takes deadly revenge on the House of Golden Eagle. Their powerful matrons have been responsible for a massacre of the scions of the other clans at the War College in the city of Hokaia. Serapio not only wants to kill all the leaders but even the ordinary citizens to wipe this clan off the face of the earth. It is impossible to detect the young man we have come to know in the earlier books. All subtlety and human feeling are gone as he directs a bloody rampage.
But when he encounters Zataya and hears her prophecy in the form of a riddle about the war that he must fight, it brings out his humanity once more. He rebels at the idea that this prophecy, which seems to make no sense, should control his future. We see him struggle with self-doubt and his yearning to express his own free will and take control of his destiny. He often thinks of Xiala, his lover who has been seemingly lost to him and who is very much an anchor for what is left of his humanity.
If Serapio is to be the gods’ focus in a coming war, it is Balam, a lord of the trading city of Cuecola, who builds a coalition of forces to defeat him and take over the city of Tova. Early on, we see Balam trying to enhance his power by studying books of magic and by consuming ever greater doses of godflesh, a psychotropic mushroom that leads people into the realms of gods and death. Even though he has acquired powers that can induce his reluctant allies to join him, he already senses the cost of such knowledge. He regularly finds a dead person talking to him, and he worries that he might be going insane as he develops his powers.
Naranpa, the Sun Priest long thought dead by her lover Iktan, a former Priest of Knives, lives in a remote village where she has placed herself under the tutelage of an elder steeped in the ways of magic. She needs help to enable her to cross into the realm of the dead where she believes she can retake the sun power and even more than that. Her first foray into the realm of dreams, aided by a strong dose of godflesh, proves a terrifying encounter within Iktan’s dreams of violence and deadly presences that overwhelm her.
When we first see Xiala in Mirrored Heavens, she is almost comically struggling to see if she can transform into a sea creature of godlike powers by coming close to drowning herself. She is frustrated that she is still merely human, but, alone among her Teek people, retains the potentially deadly power of song in her voice that she dare not try to use. While she retains her humanity, she is gradually forced by a deadly attack on her people to reach more and more deeply for a divine power to resist the aggression. The world of the Teek, once a paradise of floating island homes, abundant food and beautiful coves, has been reduced to ruin by drought and war. Even worse, the Teek have lost the Song that has been their lifeblood, the voice of their god flowing through them, and the strength of the people. Xiala is the only one who retains a trace of this power, and, as danger returns to the islands, she tries to regain the power to transform and overwhelm the enemies of her people.
The story that intertwines the fates of these characters, and all the peoples of the Meridian, is a compelling one and comes to a fitting climax in this third novel of the series. The characters we sympathize with seem trapped in fates they did not always seek, and what makes this novel so interesting to me is the powerful drama of their struggles to balance humanity and god-like power, sometimes actively seeking it to vanquish their enemies, sometimes wanting to hide from it and assert what is left of their human needs and desires. While some of the villainous characters lack any of this multi-dimensionality, the principal engineer of the war that drives the story, Lord Balam, is perfectly aware of his better nature and consistently sidesteps it in his quest for power.
Roanhorse carefully constructs each chapter to move the story forward with economy and ever deepening drama. I found Mirrored Heavens to be the most riveting of the trilogy, the most carefully executed and brilliantly conceived. It makes me want to go back and reread the earlier novels as well in order to re-experience the richness of this world and its people.
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