Mammoths at the Gates (Nghi Vo)

Mammoths at the Gates
The Singing Hills Cycle, Book 4
Nghi Vo
Tordotcom
Fiction, Fantasy
****+ (Good/Great)

DESCRIPTION: After three years wandering the land and collecting numerous stories (while finding themselves pulled into more than one tale along the way), Cleric Chih finally returns to Singing Hills Abbey. They're looking forward to some rest, catching up with old friends while entering the stories from their travels into the abbey's extensive archives, and seeing their talking hoopoe companion Almost Brilliant and her hatchling. But what they find instead is something very, very wrong. The abbey is nearly deserted, and a contingent of soldiers stands outside the gates, along with two royal war mammoths. Worse, Chih learns that their beloved mentor, elderly Cleric Thien, has passed away... and that, it seems, is why the soldiers and their very irate leaders are there. Before joining the abbey, Thien was a prominent member of the powerful Coh clan of Northern Bell Pass. Now, Thien's relatives demand the body be returned, to be buried in the family graveyard as the man and husband and father they were before taking vows - and even though Singing Hills is supposed to be sacrosanct, the fact that they brought war mammoths means they appear willing to use force if necessary to get what they feel they deserve.

REVIEW: This is a welcome new entry in the interesting world of Singing Hills and the sometimes-too-eventful life of adventurous Cleric Chih. Though it, like the other novellas, can technically stand alone, it feels more connected to the previous stories, following up on Almost Brilliant's "maternity" leave to raise an egg and mentioning prior excursions. Also like the previous installments, there are definite themes being explored. In this case, matter of grief, identity, and transformations are dealt with, particularly how one person invariably becomes another and another onward throughout their lives. It also shares themes with other Singing Hills stories, particularly about stories, who owns them, and how retellings and biases often turn tales into something quite other than the truths that inspire them. Which story is the truth of Thien: the man who was an influential advocate and head of a prominent clan, the inspiring abbey cleric who helped raised new generations of story collectors, or both, or neither? Now that they have passed, stories are all that are left to the world of them, and the decision of whose take precedence could destroy everything. Cleric Chih, naturally, becomes part of the struggle that Thien's death has precipitated, balancing their own grief and the griefs of those who knew them both before and during the elder's time at the abbey. Thien's hoopoe companion, Myriad Virtues, is almost literally crippled by her grief, to a degree even the abbey's other hoopoes find disturbing; Vo delves a little more into the talking birds with this storyline, the living memory keepers of the clerics and Singing Hills, who are people but also not human. In the absence of most of the clerics (called away to another urgent project), Chih's childhood friend is temporary leader of those who remained behind... and, like everyone else (like Chih themself), they have changed over the years, and moreso with the mantle of even temporary power. Chih's well-intentioned efforts to defuse the growing conflict may only make things worse for everyone, and fracture relationships that have lasted for years. The resolution is a slight stretch, though it fits the world of Singing Hills and the characters (especially if one has followed along through the previous novellas, and understands the magical nature of the setting), involving some necessary sacrifice and loss, as well as moments of wonder and beauty. I'm still enjoying the world and the characters, and look forward to more visits to Singing Hills Abbey and its world.

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