62 pages • 2 hours read
Steven EriksonGardens of the Moon
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1999A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Book 5Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Book 5: “The Gadrobi Hills”
Book 5, Chapter 14 Summary
Adjunct Lorn and Tool arrive at the Jaghut’s barrow. They must camp for a night. Their plan is to wake the Jaghut. They know that it is too powerful for them to control but gamble that Anomander Rake will stop the Jaghut at great expense to himself. This will weaken Rake in the fight against the Empire. They feel confident that Rake will intervene because the Jaghut, left to its own devices, could destroy the whole continent and enslave everyone on it.
Murillio, Crokus, Kruppe, and Coll also approach the Gadrobi Hills. Sorry follows them at a distance.
Toc the Younger and Paran, following Adjunct Lorn’s trail, come upon the site of Hairlock’s battle with the Great Ravens. Toc has a prophetic vision warning them that Hairlock is about to ambush them.
Book 5, Chapter 15 Summary
As they await the coming fight, Paran worries about Toc’s safety and feels guilty for leading his new friend into danger. When Hairlock finally emerges, he throws Toc into a Warren. Hairlock tells Paran that Chance won’t be able to cut him. Just then, they hear howling Hounds of Shadow. Quick Ben, having watched the fight through his connection to Hairlock, tells Cotillion through Sorry that now is the moment for Shadowthrone to attack Hairlock, per their bargain.
Quick Ben cuts Hairlock’s magic puppet strings, preventing Hairlock from fleeing the incoming Hounds. The Hounds kill the puppet before turning to Paran. Paran is readying to fight when Anomander Rake arrives. Rake tells the Hounds to leave, demanding that Shadowthrone not interfere with the conflict over Darujhistan. Instead, the Hounds attack. Rake kills two of the Hounds with his sword, Dragnipur.
After the two Hounds are slain, Shadowthrone himself appears. He is sad about losing the Hounds but tells Rake that he isn’t interested in the conflict in Darujhistan, although Cotillion is. Rake demands that Cotillion withdraw from any involvement relating to Darujhistan. Shadowthrone reluctantly agrees, “forcibly extract[ing]” Cotillion.
Rake examines Paran and tells him that Oponn has also retreated from within Paran but that the sword Chance is still Oponn’s tool. Rake lets Paran go.
Paran touches one of the dead Hounds, admiring its beautiful coat. He accidentally touches some blood, which flings him into the sword Dragnipur’s magical realm. Anyone who has been killed by the sword is in this realm, chained for eternity, pulling a giant wagon. Paran is horrified by the Hounds’ fate. He uses Chance to summon Oponn. The male twin appears and reluctantly helps Paran free the Hounds.
While they wait to open the Jaghut’s barrow, Adjunct Lorn is torn with indecision. She feels that it is wrong for them to free the Jaghut, thus joining and perpetuating an ancient pattern of war and genocide. Adjunct Lorn, lost in thought, wanders away from the barrow and stumbles upon Kruppe’s group as they summit a nearby hill. Surprised, Coll charges forward on his horse. Kruppe tries to draw on his magic, but Adjunct Lorn’s Otataral sword prevents him from doing so. The failed attempt knocks him unconscious. Adjunct Lorn injures Coll gravely. Murillo stabs Adjunct Lorn, and she knocks him out. Only Crokus is left standing; she tells him to nurse his friends' wounds and then leave the area.
Sorry watches the fight from a distance and decides to attack Crokus and steal Oponn’s coin now that he is left defenseless. Just as she is about to attack, Cotillion’s possession of her body ends; this scene happens simultaneously with Rake’s fight against the Hounds of Shadow. Sorry is disoriented and confused, no longer motivated by Cotillion’s violent desires. She remembers meeting Rigga the Seer and nothing else. Crokus recognizes her from when she killed the guard at the Phoenix Inn. Coll guesses that Sorry has been possessed and tells Crokus to take Sorry to his Uncle Mammot immediately.
Book 5, Chapter 16 Summary
Tool and Adjunct Lorn enter the Jaghut’s barrow. They walk a long, frozen corridor to approach the Jaghut.
Crokus and Sorry travel back to Darujhistan. Sorry asks Crokus to give her a new name. The only name he can think of is Apsalar, the name of the god of thieves. He doesn’t think she should use the name, but she likes it. From here on, Sorry goes by the name Apsalar. Crokus both enjoys her company and finds her irritating.
Kruppe and Murillio recover from their injuries and hurry after Crokus and Apsalar. They leave Coll alone as he is not yet recovered enough to travel.
Paran resolves to save Whiskeyjack and the Bridgeburners, motivated by the loss of Tattersail and Toc to finally sever his ties with the empire and do what he feels is right. While Paran is crossing the plains, a herd of buffalo-type creatures surround him. Rhivi warriors attack him, using the herd of animals as a distraction and cover. Paran holds the warriors off with Chance, but they encircle him completely. With them is a young girl. She is Tattersail, reborn. She feels strangely familiar to Paran, but he doesn’t recognize her. Tattersail tells Paran that he needs to be patient and that they will meet again. The warriors and Tattersail leave just as Paran pieces together the meaning of her message, realizing that Tattersail lives on in this new form.
Paran finds Coll, suffering from his sword wounds. The two strangers feel an immediate affinity for each other and decide to travel together to Darujhistan.
Book 5 Analysis
Prophecy is a recurring motif throughout Gardens of the Moon. In Chapter 14, Toc the Younger’s gift of foresight—one that has been threatening to develop in earlier chapters through flashes of light that Toc sees behind his blinded eye—manifests, warning him of Hairlock’s ambush on the plains. Despite his vision and warning, Toc and Paran do not attempt to avoid the fight, instead taking a moment to prepare. This reinforces the theme of Fate Versus Free Will as Toc’s foretelling of future events builds tension between the characters’ ability to make decisions and exist in circumstances that are outside their control.
Adjunct Lorn’s crisis of confidence highlights The Positive and Negative Aspects of the Human Condition as she wonders whether violence and warfare are human nature or whether she should attempt to break the pattern. Adjunct Lorn muses on another aspect of the human condition, wondering if the tension between the desire for control and the desire to give in to one’s emotions is another constant in human nature. She thinks to herself, “Was this the true nature of emotion? She wondered. The great defier of logic, of control—the whims of being human” (342).
The turning point that Sorry’s character experienced in Book 4 when she began to have stirrings of a sense of self beyond Cotillion’s possession, culminates in Chapter 15 when Sorry is freed completely from Cotillion’s hold. Her freedom from possession is a significant evolution in the motif of hidden identity; her identity is no longer being actively hidden, and she is free for the first time in the novel to act as herself. Her new freedom is marked by her name change from Sorry to Apsalar.
Book 5 also marks a turning point for Paran’s character. Paran embraces a newfound sense of freedom as he shakes loose two masters: Oponn and the Empire. Paran’s loss of faith in the Empire has been building since Tattersail and Toc convinced him that Adjunct Lorn’s mission threatened the Bridgebuilders. It reaches its culmination after Toc’s death as Paran takes account of all he has lost and sacrificed for the dubious mission of the Empire. He thinks to himself, “He was no longer on the Empire’s road. He’d walked that path of blood and treachery for too long. Never again. What lay before him, then, was the singular effort to save the lives of Whiskeyjack and the squad” (349). Paran’s relationship with Oponn changes after he speaks with Rake and then enters the realm of Dragnipur to free the Hounds. Paran shifts from thinking of himself as someone being used by the god to someone who is carrying a tool of the god (the sword Chance). He still sees Oponn’s influence and power acting through the sword, but Paran now views himself as the one in control of his own actions; he chooses when to use the sword and will choose when to leave it behind. Paran’s character arc is marked by Rebellion Against Conquest and underscores the difference between fate and free will and the power of choice.
Erikson uses pacing to build tension leading up to significant moments. This device is especially apparent in Book 5. In contrast to the longer chapters in Book 4, Chapter 14 is a short chapter as all the characters converge on the barrow hill. Not only is the chapter short, but the sections of each character’s perspective within the chapter are shorter as well. This increases the pace and tension of the narrative, with short scenes from each character’s perspective giving the impression of marching rapidly toward an important climax. Chapter 15 is much longer and more robust as the characters arrive at a direct conflict with each other. Chapter 15 is not the climax of the primary plot (the fight for Darujhistan), but a few subplots do reach their climax in this chapter, namely Sorry’s freedom from possession, Hairlock’s death, and the shift in Paran’s relationship with Oponn.
