Join me as I review The Medusa Plague by Mary Kirchoff, live! Share your thoughts on this second novel in the Defenders of Magic trilogy, released on December 1, 1994. You can buy a copy here: https://amzn.to/4fyoSZR
About The Medusa Plague
Between Earth and Sky!
The name Guerrand DiThon has been cursed by his family since the day he disappeared. When a mysterious plague strikes their beleaguered village, Guerrand’s name is invoked again — as the cause of the disaster.
Bram DiThon, Guerrand’s nephew, is more like his uncle than the family would care to admit. A skilled herbalist, Bram has unknowingly turned his skills toward magic. It is to Bram the villagers turn when the plague changes their eyes to onyx, their limbs to snakes, and their flesh to stone.
Unable to stop the unexplainable deaths, Bram sets out to find his missing uncle. He learns that Guerrand is the High Defender of Bastion, the last stronghold before the Lost Citadel. But in finding him, Bram has unwittingly given an evil mage — once Guerrand’s friend, now his archenemy — the key to destroy the three orders of sorcery.
The Medusa Plague is the second in the Defenders of Magic Trilogy, a series by Dragonlance saga author Mary Kirchoff that will explore for the first time many of the secrets of sorcery in the world of Krynn.
Review
Intro
Welcome to another DragonLance Saga review episode. It is Misham, Darkember the 7th. My name is Adam and today I am going to give you my review of The Medusa Plague by Mary Kirchoff. I would like to take a moment and thank the DLSaga members, and invite you to consider becoming a member by visiting the link in the description below. You can even pick up Dragonlance gaming materials using my affiliate links. This is my perspective only, and if you have any thoughts or disagree with mine, I invite you to share them in YouTube chat.
The first third of this novel is pretty intriguing… Guerrand DiThon and Esme are among the wizards crafting the Bastion, a fortress to protect the Lost Citadel per the gods of magic’s request slash demands. The head of the orders sent them all away after the walls were built and furnished the inside and transported it to its own demiplane in the Ethereal Sea. Rand returns to a village where Esme is growing more concerned with his obsession over an event in his test. Rand saw himself as Ranniker, the black robe who cursed the Tower of High Sorcery in Palanthas. The dream has plagued him since the test, as if there is something he is supposed to learn from it that has eluded him.
This causes Esme to leave him and return to her fathers estate as he dies. After five years he receives word about a message from Justarius, so he returns home to collect it from a fey creature. The scroll says he needs to return to Wayreth as the council wants to see him. He is presented with the opportunity to run the Bastion, as the current master had left, I don’t recall them saying why. I do recall immediately thinking of the Shining however. Anyway, Rand is offered the position of master and must accept or reject it that night. He is told that he will never receive anything as important from the council again, and so he accepts it.
He travels to the Bastion and meets the two other mages there. They are sore for having been passed up for the promotion, but ultimately accept him. They take shifts protecting the area and in one shift, the hellhounds which patrol the grounds fought the gargoyles that watched over it from the walls. There are charm spells the wizards have to cast to maintain peace between them, and after dealing with it, they are invigorated by the necessity of their attention.
Cut to Lyim Rhistadt. He stayed at Wayreth but ultimately no one could cure his snake hand. This drove him to search elsewhere and heard a tale of a crone under the new sea who could help. He travels down there as a sea troll and fights with some water zombies but ultimately confronts the Coral Oracle in the ruined ancient city of Itzan Klertal. She tells him that she can help but needs favor. There is a harpoon that is cursed holding her to the throne, if he removes it she will tell him what he wants to know. He reluctantly does so, and she leaves telling him that his old master knows how to cure the arm.
Frustrated, Lyim researched summoning spells and speaking with the dead from his old masters study, and finds a jar of his nail clippings. He uses that to summon his old master from the Abyss and asks him how to reverse his arm. His master tells him that he must open a portal to the Lost Citadel to reverse it. Knowing that the Bastion was made to guard it, Lyim knows he cannot open a portal but others may be able to help. So he reaches out to Esme, finding out that she has a piece of stone from the Bastion, and that Rand is the master there now! He steals the stone and wanders the Ethereal Sea calling out to Rand.
A Ki-Rin tells Rand there is a human calling him in the Ethereal Sea and that he will kill him. Rand tells him to wait and confronts Lyim. Lyim all but begs him to let him into the Bastion but Rand refuses. It is his mission not to allow anyone, and tells Lyim to petition the Orders. Lyim refuses and Rand leaves. But now Lyim will figure out a way to manipulate or go around Rand.
We then cut to Bram, Rand’s nephew. He has been working himself to the bone to bring his father’s westate back into order, and making friends in the nearby village. It’s his birthday so he goes to visit his sister who is out, but has boots for him as a gift and he visits an oldtimer who he makes candles with, when a boy runs upon them. He tells them that his father is sick and Brand has to help. They discover the father‘s skin is shedding like a snake and he is in very ill health. All Brand can do is give him some yarrow tea and leaves, but I believe this is obviously not only a cue to the title of the book, but Lyim’s doing. We shall see if Rand forsakes his duty to help.
We cut to Bram helping others with the sickness including his old friend Nahamkin, they have their hand turn to snakes, their body turn to stone, then die as the snake says Rand’s name. Now believing his uncle had something to do with this, he returns home to find his mother refusing to help and trying to get Bram to stop helping the town, then his father starts talking shit about Rand, blaming it all on him. Knowing he heard Rand’s name from the snake hand, Bram believes he needs to find his uncle to help stop the disease. He leaves and is met by little brownie fairy creatures called Tuatha. They give Bram a coin to pass through the feywild to get to Wayreth faster and tell him to give the coin to Par-Salien only. He passes a few trials in the feywild, then emerges outside Wayreth. Meanwhile Lyim goes to Thonville to see Rand’s sister, trying to see if she knows where he is. This is odd because he already knows where Rand is, then he hears about Bram and heads to Wayreth.
Lyim sees Bram outside Wayreth and prepares to follow him if he is sent to Bastion. How? I have no idea, nor do I recall how he knows that Bram went to Wayreth. But here we are. Bram talks to Par-Salien and Justarius about the situation and disease. We have already learned that Lyim used an existing medusa plague and twisted it with a curse to cause Rand’s name and the snake hand. They are willing to help, and send Bram to Bastion. This is where Lyim follows him, but again, how is never satisfyingly explained. He talks to Rand about the situation and gives him a scroll Justarius sent with him. He sends Bram to get some sleep and reads that Justarius has given him a scroll to teleport both he and Bram to their town to deal with the issue.
Then the alarm goes off. Someone has breached the Bastion… guess who? They go to fight Lyim and actually end up killing him, however, I think he’s not actually dead…. Just mostly dead. I don’t know for sure yet, but I have a feeling. And my feeling was correct, but that comes at the end. With Lyim seemingly dealt with, Rand and Bram return to their home to deal with the plague. Rand is stunned at the state of the town, and when he sees his sister Kirah, she blames him, reciting what Lyim told her. However, she is now sick, refusing to acknowledge it till her skin peels off her arms. Terrified and confused, Rand tells her the truth about Lyim, and sets out to find a cure before she is dead.
He wanders the town, and meets an old blacksmith friend of his fathers, who just buried his family and is ill himself near death. He reveals that Bram is part Tuatha which makes a ton of sense and hearkens back to old celtic myths, which I like. It explains why they were so willing to help Bram get to Wayreth and tend to his fields. He also tells Rand that it is with the rising of the moons that his family died. This presents a new idea to Rand, if he can temporarily make Nuitari two-dimensional, like Bastion is, it cannot shine on the town, and will end the curse. He then buries his friend with Bram.
Rand writes magical scrolls to teleport other scrolls to the surface of Nuitari, turning it two dimensional, but before he can finish, Nuitari himself summons Rand to condemn his actions. The god of magic seems to care less about Rand’s intentions or plight, but ultimately relents, vowing that Rand will owe him a favor. Rand accepts and returns, completing the spell. This breaks the plague and his sister is saved. As he begins to leave Bram asks to go with him, but as he’s not a mage, he cannot, then they are put to sleep with magic and awake with the tuatha and their king Weador telling them of the sorry state of the town. They live in a symbiotic state and the plague has decimated everything. Bram vows to rebuild and the King proposes Rand stay and help, but of course he cannot.
The Tuatha leaves and Rand travels back to Basion with a warning that danger awaits from the King. He confronts Dagamier, the female black robe that watches bastion with him and she says Ezius the white robe, is acting strange and even called her Ezra. This informs Rand that Lyim is possessing Ezius, and he goes to stop him. Lyim is opening a portal to the Lost Citadel and when open puts his hand inside, releasing the snake and returning it to normal. However he is pulled in by magic and standing at the gate, he hears Rand yell his name. Rand and Dagamier broke into his room and fought two naga’s, which killed Zagarus, Rand’s familiar, and paralyzed Dagamier. Rand faces off against Lyim, but the Bastion begins being torn apart.
Rand tells Lyim to get the bodies with him to safety or they will surely die, but Lyim is stunned and being attacked by the gods for having entered the Lost Citadel dimension. Rand gets Ezius and Dagamier’s bodies to the courtyard and watches as Bastion is destroyed. We cut to a council of the Orders of High Sorcery talking about how the Bastion was built as separate wings for the orders, but their strength lies in their shared protection of the Art. So it will be rebuilt so they are all together. Then Ezius asks to stay on, and Rand asks for Dagamier to be the new master as he prefers to go home. The council agrees and is dismissed. The final moments of the novel are the head of the orders deciding to send assassins after Lyim as his body was never recovered.
I really enjoyed this novel. I truly understood Lyim’s motivations and though I was angered by them, they made sense for the character. Rand was great as a more mature wizard, and I am stoked for him to return home to his family and help rebuild the town. I hope he gets back together with Esme, I feel like they are really good together. All in all, I have no idea how this trilogy will end, but I am very pleased with it thus far. If you enjoy stories about wizards, you will enjoy this novel, I highly recommend it.
Outro
And that’s it for my review of The Medusa Plague by Mary Kirchoff. What did you think of The Medusa Plague itself? Did you believe Lyim’s motivations? And finally, will Rand and Esme get back together? Feel free to email me at info@dlsaga.com or leave a comment below.
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