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The Troy Game IV: Druid's Sword | Contributor: Martin | Posted: 08/02/07 | 12:55 |
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Troy Game IV:
Druid's Sword
Fantasy doesn’t get much more epic than Sara Douglass’ The Troy Game: Four novels spanning 3000 years and a struggle between good, evil, friends, enemies, past, present and would-be allies.
Druid’s Sword is the conclusion to the series, and wraps up a sprawling story inspired by the legend of Theseus, from Ancient Greece. In Douglass’ world, the Labyrinth of Crete was just one of dozens around the ancient world, each one designed and built by a 'King-Man’ and a ‘Mistress of the Labyrinth’ in order to protect the cities of the Aegean by trapping evil within the confines of the maze.
But the ‘games’ as the labyrinths are known, are swords with a distinct double-edged: powerful and evil unless safely sealed on completion, and The Troy Game deals with this aspect of the labyrinth's nature: a maze created but not completed by exiles from Troy in ancient Britain on the site of modern-day London by a King-Man called Brutus. In failing to be completed, this labyrinth has cursed with near-immortality both its creators and those who would thwart its creation, a curse they must suffer until the maze is completed.
By Druid’s Sword, the London labyrinth or Troy Game as it is called, has taken on the malevolent physical form of Catling, an icy driven being that appears as a young girl, and the task of Brutus is to destroy Catling – who has managed to ensnare Grace, the daughter of his former wife and enemy, Cornelia in an enchantment that will cause Grace’s fate to be bound to Catling’s. Any questions?
The events of Druid’s Sword take place in the London of the Blitz, and the events of World War Two are intrinsically linked with the story. Catling feeds on the horror and death created by the Blitz, and her role in starting and sustaining the war is hinted at throughout the novel. This again is a feature of the series: the taking of ancient myths and history and integrating them with Douglass’ story of the London labyrinth. This does paint a veneer of realism across the novels, but also brings the series perilously close to history-as-conspiracy-theory, a trope that can quickly become tiresome.
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