Le Cycle de Vrénalik (The
Vrénalik Cycle)
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This is one of the metaphors/definitions used to attempt, in times more preoccupied with transcendence, to give an image of the Deity. In its substance, in its form, in its very movement, it could also be quite a good description of Esther Rochon's work in general, and of L'Épuisement du soleil in particular. Solaris |
 Illustration : Guy England |
In those times, Vrénalik was at the height of its power. The Asven, its people, traded with all the lands that stretched along the Inner Sea. Their ships, numerous and fast, left the Archipelago laden with copper and the Island of Drahal's turquoise stone and came back with wheat and iron, but also bearing the workers needed to extract more copper and more stone. One day, in order to protect his merchant fleet from the many storms of the Inner Sea, Skern Strénid, the ambitious leader of the Asven, brought from the land of Irquiz a master of the drug farn, Ftar, and forced him to transform Shaskath, a paradrouïm, into a Dreamer who could control the weather. In those times, Vrénalik was at the height of its power... until the Dreamer's revolt brought upon it the curse of the God Haztlèn, forever chaining part of the Asven people to their devastated Archipelago... |
| Esther
Rochon Le Rêveur dans la Citadelle (The Dreamer in the Citadel) 176 pages, $11.95 |
 Illustration : Bernard Duchesne |
The Citadel of Frulken is seven stories high. Seven stories of stone, seven stories of rock and four stories of caves hollowed out of the cliff, four lost stories, four deserted stories, four centuries of woes that have befallen the land... Since the time when the Dreamer called down the curse of the
god Haztlèn, the people of the Archipelago have turned
inward. It is in that atmosphere of desolation that a man named
Jouskilliant Green arrives from beyond the seas. Relying on his
foreign knowledge, he tries to free this crushed people. But,
realizing with the futility of his efforts, he retires into the
cellars of Frulken, where everyone forgets him. Following Green's tracks in the dank cellars, among the spiders,
Anar Vranenegal will discover her own path and, in the deepest
darkness, a flicker of hope for her people.
* L'Aigle des profondeurs (The Eagle of the Deep) is a new version, extensively rewritten and augmented, of Esther Rochon's first novel, En hommage aux araignées (In Hommage to Spiders), published in 1974. |
| Esther Rochon L'Aigle des profondeurs (The Eagle of the Deep) 307 pages, $13.95 |
 Illustration : Guy England |
Vrénalik is now only an archipelago lashed by the waters' cold fury. Its inhabitants, who cannot leave because of the ancient curse put on them by the Citadel's Dreamer, live there on the margins of the world, frozen in a state of lofty degeneration, among the ruins of Frulken, their ancient capital. One man, and one man only, a sorcerer, cares about his people's survival, because he knows how to break the chains of the spell that holds them captive : the statue of the god Haztlèn, buried somewhere beneath the island of Vrend, must be found so that the ocean that surrounds them will agree to carry their ships again. When Taïm Sutherland leaves Ister-Inga, he knows nothing of the curse weighing on the archipelago and of the sea god's statue. Still, Ivendra Galana Galek knows that Sutherland is the man from the south he's been dreaming about for so long, the one who will have to carry the burden of a whole people before delivering them. |
| Esther Rochon L'Archipel noir (The Dark Archipelago) 179 pages, $11.95 |
Another novel set in the world of Vrénalik is available : L'Espace du Diamant (The Diamond Space), published by La Pleine Lune. It will tell you the tale of Taïm Sutherland and the She-Dragon of the Dawn.
