This science fantasy sequence by C. J. Cherryh consists of three novels published in the late 1970s — Gate of Ivrel, Well of Shiuan, and Fires of Azeroth — and one in the late 1980s: Exile’s Gate. My first serious girlfriend had an omnibus edition of the first three novels and insisted I read them. I had already read The Lord of the Rings, but this was different. This wasn’t a stand-in for a respectable middle-class Englishman who goes haring off on an adventure at the behest of a manipulative wizard. This was a story about a young man, alone and afraid, who makes a deal with the closest thing his world has to the Devil, only to find out that not only is the Devil mostly human — but she could really use a hug.
The prologue is a memorandum from the Union Science Bureau explaining humanity’s understanding of the space-time Gates left behind by the elves (who Cherryh called the qhal) who used them not morely for space travel, but time travel as well, until one qhal triggered a reality dysfunction that nearly wiped out the qhal and left their interstellar civilization in ruins. Knowing that use of the Gates could be as ruinous to humanity as it had been to the qhal, the Bureau put together a team with what was essentially a multi-generational mission with no hope of return: go through every Gate and shut them down. A hundred men and women set out. Morgaine was the sole survivor, and her name is a byword for treachery, witchcraft, and all other manners of evil in Andur-Kursh.
She’s not bad; she’s just written that way: Morgaine’s an atomic blonde outside context problem wielding a sword called Changeling that is itself both a Gate and an instruction manual for building new Gates. While she insists she’s not qhal, she isn’t wholly human either, and her tools and weapons (among them a laser pistol that recharges in sunlight) more closely resemble witchcraft to ignorant eyes. But when the outlawed warrior Nhi Vanye i Chya begs a night’s shelter from her lest he die of exposure, he finds himself in debt to her and all he can offer in repayment is a year’s service to her. He dares not trust her, and she dares not trust him. Nevertheless, they need each other because the Gate of Ivrel must still be closed less it be misused to do further harm.
Not only did I enjoy the story and the interactions between Morgaine and Vanye, but I liked how the novel depends entirely on Vanye as its viewpoint character. His ignorance makes Gate of Ivrel, etc. fantasy, because there is so much he doesn’t know, only so much he is willing to learn because of his superstition, and only so much Morgaine is willing or able to tell him. Cherryh doesn’t ever give us a peek inside Morgaine’s head. We only know what she’s thinking or how she’s feeling when she uses her words (or acts).
Let’s talk about the worldbuilding, too, since many people read fantasy fiction for their settings, and not so much their plots or characters. Cherryh doesn’t tell us much about her settings. Not directly. It comes down to her use of third-person limited viewpoints. In the case of Gate of Ivrel, we learn about the world of Andur-Kursh mainly through Vanye, who among other things is obliged to fill Morgaine in on what she’s missed during her century or so in a form of stasis she created for herself using one of the Gates. However, Vanye has no knowledge of the settings of Well of Shiuan and Fires of Azeroth; we discover these settings as he and Morgaine do, and much is left to conjecture on the reader’s part. It is a far cry from Tolkien, who has his world’s entire invented history at his fingertips and will regularly allude to it. It is bare stage worldbuilding by implication, and could be said to anticipate M. John Harrison’s objections to worldbuilding for its own sake.
Or, it might have done so if not for the fact that M. John Harrison had published The Pastel City in 1971, in which he practices what he preaches when first creating his Viriconium setting. Whereas C. J. Cherryh didn’t publish Gate of Ivrel until 1976. I can no more prove that Cherryh had read Harrison than I can prove she had read Michael Moorcock, but I would not be surprised. Morgaine might be a descendent of Oone the Dreamthief on her mum’s side, her sword Changeling might well be an aspect of the Black Sword more virulent than Stormbringer, and the qhal might be distant cousins to the Eldren, the Vadhagh, and the inhabitants of Melniboné.
I would mention, however, that the Morgaine Cycle is not happy fun beach fantasy reading. Vanye has seen some shit. Morgaine has seen a lot of shit. Neither of them are likely to see a therapist any time soon. They’re often hurt and hungry, too, not to mention hunted by people who either want them dead or want to use them. Worse, there are no few people who would happily use Morgaine if they could, not merely for their own pleasure, but because what she knows can give them unassailable power. Definitely not happy fun beach reading.
I would say that Fires of Azeroth is where readers hoping Vanye and Morgaine get a happy ending should stop. By the end of that novel, they’ve solved the problems created by the events in Morgaine’s backstory before Gate of Ivrel, Vanye is at peace with himself and his choices, Morgaine is remembering how to human again, and while their journey isn’t anywhere near over they’re in a strong position.
Exile’s Gate sets up a new problem that isn’t satisfactorily resolved because Cherryh stopped writing Morgaine stories afterward. One can only hope that they eventually found the last Gate and with it the the end of their mission, and that after they had passed through it and closed it behind them they found themselves in Tanelorn. They’ve earned it.
Gate of Ivrel (DAW, March 1976)
While Andre Norton had compared Gate of Ivrel to The Lord of the Rings. I’ve always seen Cherryh’s novel as more influenced by Michael Moorcock. It might be the sword, Changeling, which is a dragon-hilted crystal sword that — as mentioned previously — is also a Gate, and has engraved upon it instructions for creating Gates. It might not be sentient, but it kills indiscriminately; the only way to survive when it is drawn is to not be within its field of effect.
One could say it makes Morgaine the opposite of Duke Togo from Golgo 13: you’d damn well better stand behind her if you value your life. It’s a fearful burden for her, too. It’s loss, should it fall into the wrong hands, would mean the undoing of all of her work and that of her lost companions and make all of their sacrifices meaningless.
This isn’t my favorite cover by Michael Whelan covers for the Morgaine novels. It doesn’t quite match the way I imagine Morgaine and Vanye, who seem more sensibly attired (and heavily armored) in the text. However, I suspect that this is what the publisher wanted, based on marketing. Was he taking inspiration from Frank Frazetta and Boris Vallejo?
Scattered about the galaxy were the time-space Gates of a vanished but not forgotten alien race. In their time, long before the rise of the native civilizations, they had terrorized a hundred worlds — not from villainy but from folly, from tampering with the strands that held a universe together.
Now the task was to uproot these Gates, destroy their potency for mischief, take horror out of the hands of the few who hungered for power by misuse of the Gates.
This is the story of one such Gate and one such world.
Well of Shiuan (DAW, 1978)
Humans live in uneasy peace with qhal here, under a system of seven moons whose conflicting tides are slowly drowning the land of Hiuaj and Shiuan. When Morgaine and Vanye ride through in pursuit of Chya Roh and the master gate of this world, they encounter people whose language and customs are more familiar than they should be. Worse, many of them remember Morgaine as a death-bringer of dark legend.
The truth soon becomes clear: the army Morgaine lost in her first assault on the Gate at Ivrel did not die, even though they had been caught in the Gate-force emitted by her sword Changeling when they charged ahead of Morgaine despite her warning — because men never listen — and sent elsewhere. Rather than being lost in the void, they ended up in Hiuaj. Their descendants mean to follow Morgaine again. They mean to pass through the Gate she would close behind her, lest they be left behind to drown with the world of Shiuan.
This a story darker still than Gate of Ivrel, with more desperate chases, separations, and deceits.
Morgaine and Vanye have no reliable allies save each other, and Vanye still has doubts about his liege lady’s methods and ethics.
To which Morgaine says only, Thee will not appoint thyself my conscience, Nhi Vanye. Thee is not qualified. And thee is not entitled.
The lady has seen some shit, and isn’t about to take any from somebody she had told to stay behind in Andur-Kursh.
As for the cover: This is closer to the text than the cover for Gate of Ivrel. The way Changeling seems to rend the night sky asunder is haunting, as is the Vanye’s approach as an escaped captive. I’d love to have a print of this artwork, but Michael Whelan’s website doesn't seem to list it for sale.
Incidentally, epic metal band Smoulder used this artwork for their 2019 debut album, Times of Obscene Evil and Wild Daring. In that, Smoulder continues a tradition of heavy metal bands using Michael Whelan’s art for album covers that began with Cirith Ungol in the early 1980s.
The world of Shiuan was doomed. Rising waters and shattering earthquakes due to the coming of a vast and strange new satellite had sealed the fate of its peoples — flee or die with their world. Their sole escape routes were the Gates, the passages between worlds established by a forgotten cosmic race. And just as this knowledge dawned on the desperate tribes and cities there appeared the woman Morgaine — whose mission was to seal Shiuan’s Gates.
Fires of Azeroth (DAW, 1979)
WarCraft fans might recognize Azeroth as the franchise’s setting, but before Blizzard released the WarCraft: Orcs and Humans in 1994, it was the third and final planet in which Morgaine and her oath-sworn companion Nhi Vanye i Chya struggled against their enemy Chya Roh. Here lies another Gate that must be traversed and closed. However, between Morgaine and the Gate lies an entire army of refugees from the drowned world of Shiuan who had managed to make their way through before Morgaine and Vanye had reached the gate themselves.
Furthermore, Morgaine and Vanye must also contend with the native peoples of Azeroth, where humans and qhal live in cooperative harmony. The qhal are less than sympathetic to Morgaine’s cause; while they do not use the Gate to extend their lifespans by stealing fresh bodies as had been done to Chya Roh in Gate of Ivrel, they use the Gate in other ways.
Among other things, Vanye finally starts to understand Morgaine a bit, and the hints of a slow-burning romance between the two become a bit more than hints. Though Vanye had always thought himself dishonored by the fratricide that had made him an outcast and set him on the road that led him to Morgaine in the beginning of Gate of Ivrel, Morgaine insists that he has paid enough and should reclaim his pride. For her part, Morgaine seems to loosen up a bit, trusting Vanye more than she had in the previous novels. They aren’t quite equals yet; Morgaine still knows too much that Vanye does not, but he is learning to see past his superstitious fear of the qhal and their technology and accept that whatever her ancestry, Morgaine is a human being first and foremost.
Unfortunately, Michael Whelan doesn’t have the cover art for Fires of Azeroth on his website. Morgaine looks younger and more innocent in this artwork than she did in the covers for Well of Shiuan and Gate of Ivrel, but remains vigilant as she rides with her sword Changeling partially drawn. The armor is still a bit impractical, if not outright inspired by fetishwear; I suspect that if she wore in the novel what Whelan shows her wearing in his cover art, Morgaine would have severely chafed thighs at the end of a long day’s ride to add to her other hardships. But this is still the late 1970s, and we must be grateful Whelan had progressed away from the way he had depicted Cherryh’s heroine for Gate of Ivrel.
The Gates were relics of a lost era. The Union Science Bureau surmised that they had once linked a whole network of civilizations throughout the galaxy-an empire ruled by a ruthless race known as the qhal. This qhal empire had spanned both Space and Time, for their Gates warped time, enabling qhal travelers to step from point to point across light-years unaged. It was even possible to travel into the future. However, intervention in backtime could affect entire worlds and civilizations, could change the course of galactic history, could destroy empires and possibly even implode time itself...and this was what the Science Bureau believed had happened-sometime, somewhere in the unreachable past, an arrogant power-drunk qhal had done the unthinkable, and warped the very fabric of space and time.
Morgaine: pale in coloring and as tall as the tallest men, it seems clear that this mysterious traveler is a descendent of the long-vanished qhal. Aided by a single warrior honor-bound to serve her, it is her mission to travel from world to world sealing the ancient Gates whose very existence threatens the integrity of the universe. But will she have the power to follow her quest to its eventual conclusion-to the Ultimate Gate or the end of time itself?
Exile’s Gate (DAW, 1988)
Roughly a decade had elapsed between the release of Fires of Azeroth and Exile’s Gate, but C. J. Cherryh returned to Morgaine and her companion Vanye as if a mere fraction of that time had elapsed since she had last related some of their adventures. Since they had left their old enemy behind — Chya Roh, who managed a heel-face turn as part of the climax of Fires of Azeroth — the new world in which they find themselves presents new enemies: They happen upon a prisoner left to die, though he offers to serve as their guide he is unreliable and frequently betrays them. The local warlord Gault soon learns of Morgaine’s presence; because his mind is that of a qhal body-snatcher he knows about the Gates and the threat and promise that Morgaine’s presence in his world represents.
Worst of all is the power to whom Gault answers: He is apparently undying, but has never been seen to take a fresh body. Furthermore, he knows Morgaine of old. He knew her father, too, and knows what Morgaine had done to him despite him being of a race older still than the qhal, who had not created the Gates themselves but merely discovered and reverse-engineered them. And she has an offer for him, one Vanye fears because she has not told him everything: join her, travelling world to world, Gate to Gate, until all the Gates have been shut down.
It was not an offer Morgaine expected her enemy to accept. Though Morgaine confronts the Gatemaster and seemingly kills him, he still waits between Gates, waiting to claim the body of the first person to traverse his world’s master Gate. Thus Cherryh leaves off, and hasn’t written another Morgaine novel since.
I would say that Michael Whelan’s cover for Exile’s Gate is the most realistic of the set. Morgaine and Vanye are actually wearing realistic, full-coverage armor instead of looking like refugees from a Frank Frazetta painting or pinup art. I mention the latter because the hairstyle Morgaine had been rocking on the Well of Shiuan and Fires of Azeroth covers looked a hell of a lot like Bettie Page’s trademark do. On the Exile’s Gate cover, it looks more like a DIY job, unless she had gotten Vanye to give her a trim.
Morgaine must meet her greatest challenge: Gault, who is both human and alien, and also seeks control of the world and its Gate. She will meet the true Gatemaster, a mysterious lord with power as great as, or greater, than her own.
Audiobooks
All of Cherryh’s Morgaine novels are available as audiobooks, with Jessica Almasy narrating.
I had gotten copies for my wife, since she prefers audiobooks, but I have two words for how Almasy portrays Morgaine: nailed it
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The accent she uses when speaking Morgaine’s dialogue makes her sound fey and witchy while also capturing the character’s implacable defiance toward all opposition.