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The Elemenstor Cycle, Book 2: Dawn of the Dark Shadows
Dust Jacket Notes
Horatio the Tribbit (son of Julio son of Hermes) returns to his home village of Thithithmihos, only to realize that, while searching for some proof that he'd even been outside his house this whole time, he'd left the Omni Scarf Malatox sitting on the table at the home of Zenethir Foulblade. Oops!
Horatio, pretending he'd never even heard of the Omni Scarf, stays at home. Too bad he didn't have a sidekick to courageously goad him into questing for peace once again!
Meanwhile, now that Zenethir has a warm neck, he is able leave his prison cabin at the top of Mount Windice and is free to wreak havoc upon the countryside. The order of Elemenstors is decimated and all hope seems lost. The fires/ice of Mount Windice are cooling/melting (respectively)... what light will arise to vanquish the darkness???
Summary
All of South Battal is under the thumb of the evil Zenethir. In Battal, when a despot comes to power, there is always a hero that rises up from the masses and tested in the fires of desperate times, proves to be equal to the task at hand, a hero to rise up to cast off the yoke of oppression and slay the mighty oppressor. In Book 2 it is a war refugee named Heeroh Troughberry, who is reluctantly swept down this path by his ebullient 11 year old daughter Orphenna Troughberry, in whose eyes her father is truly invincible.
Heeroh unfortunately bares the same name as an amateur Gladiatingor of some note also named Heeroh Troughberry. This causes several confusing and alternatingly humorous and tragic mix-ups throughout the book.
Heeroh Troughberry is the bearer of the Dark Doomblade of Magical Overarching Darkness, which he received in an anonymous valentine.
A full third of the book takes place outside of Battal as Father, daughter, and the twins travel through the mystical dimension of the FaeriWraithe Lands, which they reach through magical means. Much of the beginning of the book is interspersed with accounts of the trial of Lextor the Vextor and the implications it had on Item Law 323.
The Troughberry's meet up with a pair of twin Fire Elemenstors named Oryand and Greg, whose flashy powers and bravado hide a deep rooted self doubt they both harbor as to their individual worth. It's ultimately Orphenna who shows them each that they have a value as individuals, in a heart warming speech given to the brothers while hiding between some craggy rocks, while a vicious Yellow Troll searched for them in the plains beyond.
Spoilers
Ultimately the party return to Battal and reach the fortress cabin (old habits die hard) of Zenethir Foulblade. In the ensuing battle Heeroh is woefully outmatched and the twins are incapacitated by a cleverly laid trap, so Orphenna takes up her fathers blade, and drenched in an icy magical darkness casts about blindly and lands a lucky blow which fells evil Zenethir on the spot.
Excerpts
Here a mysterious figure generally accepted to be Grimfleur is checking into a room at the Pig's Featherbag.
The innkeeper pushed the heavy leather registry book across the counter and said, "Sign yer name if ye kin it, just put yer mark if yer kain't. Quill and inkwell on the bar here nexter ye."
The dark figure extended a single warted hand from beneath his black canvas riding robe and took the Quill. With slow and deliberate movements he scratched a few words across the next free entry in the ledger. The innkeeper felt an icy chill run down his back and looked over to see if one of the wenches had left ajar the window at the end of the bar. It was closed.
When he looked back, the mysterious man had melted back into the crowd of patrons milling about near the stage, waiting for this evening's entertainment to begin. He looked down and next to the book were the two gleaming copper coins for this evening's lodgings. He pulled the book over to his side of the counter and glanced down at the fresh name drying on the page.
"Antagonist Majore"
Funny, he hadn't remembered that the ink in the well was red. He leaned in closer, perhaps it had been a trick of the light. No, it wasn't red, the ink on the page, now dry, was in fact dull brown.
Later in this same scene the mysterious cloaked figure is described as heckling the act on stage.
There is also an excerpt from this book of the story Mort and the Earl of the Pirates.
Trivia
Fan Reactions
Considered widely to be the second in the canonical trilogy written by Tycho Brahe himself, Dark Shadows is known by some as The Elemenstor Strikes Back. It is hailed by the most hardcore fans as clearly the farthest superior of the trilogy, while passing ELotH:TES fans prefer the marketable addition of the supremely-cute and sentient race of tablecloths, the Ublarg. The affection of hardcore fans is a result of the book's initial publication in parts as an appendix to Book 3. The move inspired a mass of fan fiction that combined the text provided in the appendix with their own interpolated text.
Further, this book was the probable introduction of antagonist majore Grimfleur, though he is not referred to by name until Book 3. The foreshadowing involved in the reference to Grimfleur simply as antagonist majore, even in the completed version of Book 2, is considered by advocates of the Single Author Theory to be one of Brahe's more clever meta-commentaries on the series. The formal manipulations of the function of foreshadowing itself foreshadows the centrality of timesorc'ley and contradiction in the later volumes, opening up an infinite regress that is both immanent to the story line and a characteristic of the material "thingness" of the books themselves.
Hardcore fans cried both bitter and sweet at the resurgence of the Dark Doomblade of Magical Overarching Darkness, one of the 100 Swords of Sepathok. The fact that this was the blade that did in Zenethir Foulblade (hence the name) was seen by some as a way to tie in several loose threads of the world's history. Others considered it a very convenient way to end a book that stymied Tycho Brahe's creativity for eight years.
See Also: Vasthar. The Plate. S'yrf'yl the Immortal. samhasnofriends. Epic of Epochal Accoutrements. Grimfleur. Dellberry. Drumhammers. Castle Ominousness. Book 3. Help Wanted. Ferngravellia. The Elemenstor Cycle. Chrome Garden. Tooth Pixlie. Twenty-One Man Gafroom. Mort and the Earl of the Pirates. Basilisk. Heeroh Troughberry. Availability. drinking and pill binge. Law 323. Excerpts from the cycle that are recounted here. Canon or non-canon. Elohim and the Plural of Elemenstor. The Mighty and Merciless Magical Monkey King Staff. Xoil. Mau'de. Oryand and Greg. Horatio. Boxcar Thurgood Brown. The Twelve Scourges of Battal. Quotable Quotes. Dreemkast. Fan Fiction. Midnight in the Garden of Lost Emotions. Buxom Succubi of Darkrend Mountain. Elemanifestations. Firewriting. Wikibook Content. FaeriWraithe Lands. Cameo Cloak. Yellow Troll. Book 5. Gespethio. RealLifeTimeLine. Book 1. Bendloyer Felkin. Elemenstor Cycle Timeline. Ablongox the Particularly Unusually Long Lived. Malatox. Lextor the Vextor. Forest of Forevergreen. Omnibread. Zenethir Foulblade. Orphenna Troughberry. A Night at The Rusty Spear. Mort and the Day Absoultely Nothing of Any Import Happened.
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