The Weatherlight's Tale (A Rath and Storm Short Story)
Hello, all. Welcome back to the anthology mini-review series for Rath and Storm.
This part of the review will cover the 9th story in the anthology, “The Weatherlight's Tale”. Please see the review series introduction if you’d like an overview of how this anthology is being handled. Otherwise, let’s fly.
STATS
Title: “The Weatherlight’s Tale”
Anthology: Rath and Storm
Author(s): Francis Lebaron
Genre: Epic Fantasy
First Printing: July 1998
Publisher: Wizards of the Coast LLC
SPOILER WARNING
Mild, unmarked spoilers for “The Weatherlight's Tale” will be provided throughout this review. Heavy spoilers will be confined to clearly labeled sections. I will keep the first paragraph of any given section spoiler-free.
Heavy, unmarked spoilers will be provided for the framing device of Rath and Storm as well as for all short stories that preceded this one within the anthology.
Throughout this review, I will also be providing heavy spoilers for events at other points within within MTG canon, including events that occur during the Artifacts Cycle. While I will be steering clear of details that would spoil the progression of this book specifically, there is a strong chance that you will figure out certain spoilers if you pay attention to these bits of lore. I’ll confine the heavy spoilers that are relevant to this book into clearly marked sections.
STORY (HEAVY SPOILERS)
Moments before Tahngarth returns to the Weatherlight with Crovax and Mirri in tow, Hanna receives a warning from one of the ethereal Soltari people that the Weatherlight needs to flee. Hanna gives the order to cast off as soon as Tahngarth delivers Crovax and Mirri. Tahngarth leaps back off the ship to find Gerrard and tell him that the Weatherlight has repositioned. As the ship lifts off, Karn catchs up and climbs aboard, bearing the recovered pieces of the Legacy (which he recovered from the Sliver Queen in a sequence that we are not Shown or Told about in the interlude chapters).
The Predator catches up to the Weatherlight. The Phyrexian skyship attempts to bring down the Weatherlight with the same tow cables and cannons that allowed it to claim victory in “Greven’s Tale”, but Hanna turns these tactics against it, maneuvering the Weatherlight so that the Predator fires upon, and then gets smashed against, the Stronghold. The Weatherlight then makes its escape, with Hanna using its floodlights to dispatch a mogg glider that attempts to pursue and drop bombs on it.
When the Weatherlight reaches the Gardens (which are on the roof of the Stronghold), the crew discovers that Gerrad, Sisay, Tahngarth, Starke, and Starke’s daughter Takara are already there. Tahngarth disables a second mogg glider. Now safe, the Weatherlight waits for Gerrard’s party to board.
RATING: 6 / 10
This story is a single running action sequence, much like “Greven’s Tale”. Unlike “Greven’s Tale”, I think this one mostly works. There is an understandable ebb and flow to the battle, and the threats evolve over time as a consequence of the characters’ decisions.
At the same time, this story feels very rushed. Part of this is a result of its position within the wider anthology. This is effectively the big action climax of the book, but after having so much action exposited during the interlude chapters while the actual stories focused on character work and flashbacks, the sudden shift in pace feels inorganic. However, I do think that there is a deeper problem, and that is in the logistics. It feels like Lebaron is artificially accelerating the pace of the events to make this story feel bigger and more frantic than it actually is.
Overall, I do feel that the story is perfectly functional. It’s just a bit wonky in parts.
ANALYSIS
Logistics and Pacing
The events of the story kick off when this Soltari woman (who was previously established during the interlude chapters as having communicated with Ertai) just announces that the ship needs to move. This does make sense within the narrative as an inciting incident that could spontaneously occur. Hanna’s initial refusal to comply also feels nature. However, far too quickly, Hanna caves and agrees to do as asked. This feels like a break in Hanna’s character to drive the plot forward. (I think Lebaron agrees, as it’s a bit ambiguous as to whether the Soltari woman used magic to alter Hanna’s thoughts in this moment.) The opening of the story ends up feelings forced, rather than earned, because the initial conflict isn’t resolved in a way that feels true to who Hanna was previously established to be.
The other issue is that, by the time the Weatherlight and its crew fly up to the Gardens, Gerrard’s group is already there. With how massive the Stronghodl is described as being and how quickly the Weatherlight is described reaching the roof of the Stronghold, Gerrard’s party shouldn’t even have had time for Tahngarth to find them and deliver the news about the new rendezvouz point, let alone get to the roof to wait in the Gardens. It’s like Lebaron was unwilling to simply write about the crew waiting patiently up on the roof (even via a scene break with a timeskip). Everything has to be immediate so it can be resolved immediately.
There two points are why the story feels so rushed. This are being forced to move along at a rapid pace at points when it makes far more sense within the narrative for things to be dragged out. Since these two moments bracket the bulk of the story’s action (and the final action beat is only possible because Tahngarth was magically already in the Gardens), it makes the whole sequence feel like an action climax that was rammed in out of obligation rather than being earned. It’s spectacle within proper substance to tether it to the wider narrative.
POV & Title
Why is the titular character of this story the Weatherlight?
All of the other stories in this anthology (including “Mirri’s Tale”, as we’ll get to next week) either have the title character as the POV or (as was the case with “Crovax’s Tale”) at least focus primarily upon that character. “The Weatherlight’s Tale” instead focuses on Hanna acting as the officer in charge while Gerrard is away, with a couple of POV scenes for Karn and a Red Shirt officer. The story opened on a fully italicized insert scene describing the power core of the Weatherlight, so I initially thought this story would be framed as having the Weatherlight herself as a POV character (the ship is hinted at throughout the wider Weatherlight Saga as having a vague semi-sentience), but that’s not followed through on, and then one of the insert scenes instead describes the siege of the Stronghold by the human and elf tribes.
This isn’t a huge issue in and of itself. The title makes sense for a story about an aerial battle between the Weatherlight and its opposite. There’s just an unfortunate synergy with the forced nature of the action sequence. It adds to the sense that this story was thrust into a role that it wasn’t originally planned to fill.
LAST STAND OF A HERO (?)
For all of my gripes about “The Weatherlight’s Tale”, I do feel it’s a functional story. It’s merely let down by the context of existing as a piece of a larger anthology.
The same could be said about the last story in the anthology, “Mirri’s Tale”. It’s a decent character story in isolation, successfully introducing a whole character dynamic that I don’t recall even being hinted at in any of the previous stories. Where it falls flat is its thematic significance. Much like how Grinthy: A Goblin’s Tale was set up to carry a certain thematic load and then fell flat on its face, this story is set up as a final, dramatic character beat that will define Gerrard as a hero … despite not being in his POV, or even being about him.
That’s what we’ll get into tomorrow. Thank you all for stopping by. Please remember to subscribe and share if you enjoyed what you read here. Take care, everyone, and having a good week.