Born to Exile and In the Red Lords Reach by Phyllis Eisenstein
"Born to Exile" and its sequel "In the Red Lord's Reach" follow the journey of Alaric, a fifteen-year-old minstrel with the unique ability to teleport. The story begins with Alaric's mysterious origins, as he was found as a baby with a severed hand gripping him, later revealed to belong to his midwife, Artuva. Raised by an adoptive family, Alaric faces hardship, including the death of his mother and the cruelty of his father. His adventures include falling in love with Princess Solinde, only to be exiled for being accused of witchcraft.
In the sequel, Alaric encounters the sadistic Red Lord, whom he ultimately escapes, saving a captive woman at her request. Alaric's travels lead him to a nomadic group that values magic, where he faces challenges including jealousy and betrayal from the leader's sons. The narrative culminates in a confrontation with the Red Lord, resulting in his defeat. Throughout both books, Alaric grapples with themes of identity, power, and the consequences of his abilities, ultimately returning to his life as a wandering minstrel while reflecting on his exile.
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Born to Exile and In the Red Lords Reach
First published:Born to Exile (1978; portions published as short stories in the August, 1971; November, 1972; January, 1974; and February, 1975, issues of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction) and In the Red Lord’s Reach (1989; portions published as short stories in the September, 1977, and July, 1979, issues of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction; novel serialized in the July-September, 1988, issues of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction)
Type of work: Novels
Type of plot: Fantasy—extrasensory powers
Time of work: Unspecified, preindustrial
Locale: An Earth-like world
The Plot
In Born to Exile, the wandering fifteen-year-old minstrel Alaric is introduced. In addition to his talent for music, he has the power of teleportation. The power is limited in that he is able only to move himself and objects he is carrying to a location that he is able to visualize and position in relation to his current location. He was found, as a newborn baby on a hillside, covered in blood with a “gory hand raggedly severed above the wrist” clutching his ankle. He was taken in by a couple and reared as their son. When he was seven years old, his adoptive mother died, and his father was cruel to him, raising a whip to strike him. As he was about to be whipped, he visualized a tree in the nearby woods and was instantly transported there.
Alaric initially lives by stealing but soon meets Dall, a wandering minstrel who makes him his apprentice. Dall is later murdered by bandits, and Alaric transports himself away to safety. In his wandering, Alaric comes to the Castle Royal, where he falls in love with, and becomes the lover of, Princess Solinde. He is accused of witchcraft by one of her maids, who witnesses his teleportation power being used. The king, Solinde’s father, exiles him from the kingdom. Solinde’s brother, Jeris, who has become Alaric’s friend, gives him a sword, belt, and scabbard.
In his continuing travels, Alaric uses his teleportation power to escape being killed by the proprietors of an inn, at which travelers are routinely killed for their belongings. He leaves the inn accompanied by Mizella, a prostitute who had been used by the inn to lull travelers into a false sense of security. He and Mizella rescue an old woman whom villagers have thrown into a well to die, thinking her to be a witch. It turns out that this woman is Artuva, the midwife who slapped Alaric’s rump after he was born, frightening him into using his teleportation powers. It was, she explains, her bloody severed hand that gripped his ankle when he was found on the hillside as an infant.
Artuva was herself exiled by Alaric’s true father, as a result of the loss of his son. She leads Alaric to the home of his father, Baron Garlenon, and his mother, Lorenta Garlenon. Ten generations of Garlenons, all of whom have both the power of teleportation and musical talent, have ruled there and in surrounding lands. The Garlenons inbreed in order to maintain their genetically transmitted talents. Alaric is welcomed home and meets many of his “cousins” but is ultimately ejected when it becomes clear that he will not cooperate with the others in using their talents for the purpose of conquering still other neighboring lands by suddenly appearing and slaughtering opposing leaders. As the book ends, “Once again he was merely a minstrel—not a baron’s son, not a lord of power, but a wandering exile.”
In the Red Lord’s Reach presents more of Alaric’s wandering life as a minstrel. Entertaining the Red Lord in his castle, he learns that this cruel lord delights in torturing captives to death, enjoying their pain. The Red Lord shows Alaric a woman whom he is torturing in this fashion in a locked room and states his intention of doing the same to Alaric after the woman dies. Alaric teleports away, taking the woman with him. Alaric uses his sword to kill her, at her request, because of the severity of her injuries.
Alaric ponders whether he should use his powers to return and kill the Red Lord, acknowledging that he has always simply run away from danger before. He ultimately joins up with some nomadic deer herdsmen and engages in a love affair with Zavia, the daughter of the herdsmen’s self-proclaimed witch, Kata. He encounters jealousy from Gilo, Morak, and Terevli, the three sons of Simir, the herdsmen’s leader. They plot to kill him and ultimately attack Simir himself. Alaric teleports away but decides to return and fight them, helping to save Simir. Simir exiles his own sons, going as far as leaving Gilo bound where the Red Lord will find him, and adopts Alaric as his new son.
The herdsmen, different from other people Alaric has encountered, value, rather than fear, magic and “witchcraft.” Kata wishes Alaric to become her apprentice, but he is resistant to the idea, just as he is resistant to Simir’s evident desire for Alaric ultimately to become his successor. Because of a harsh winter, there are few deer, and the herdsmen fear that they may not survive. They decide to fight the Red Lord and try to take over his lands and castle. Alaric and Simir go there in disguise but are recognized by Gilo, who is now serving the Red Lord. Alaric uses his powers to help teleport herdsman warriors, who do battle with and kill the Red Lord’s soldiers. Simir himself, who long ago was one of the Red Lord’s soldiers, kills the Red Lord. Alaric also battles Gilo, but it is Simir who kills him.
As this book ends, Alaric decides to decline Simir’s offer to become his successor. Alaric resumes his wandering minstrel life and once again feels the “winter of exile closing about him.”