Karn’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 7th story in the anthology, “Karn’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: “Karn’s Tale”

Anthology: Rath and Storm

Author(s): J. Robert King

Genre: Epic Fantasy

First Printing: July 1998

Publisher: Wizards of the Coast LLC

SPOILER WARNING

Mild, unmarked spoilers for “Karn’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)

The story is framed as a flashback that Karn has while in Phyrexian captivity in the Stronghold. He remembers the events that led to him being frozen for a decade by the Touchstone, as well as to his vow of extreme pacifism (where he will not harm another being even to save his life or the lives of his friends).

The flashback takes place during the events of “Starke’s Tale”, after Starke pushes Vuel to steal the Legacy artifacts from Karn but before Vuel is taken to Rath to become Volrath. After being goaded by Gerrard, Karn marches to where Vuel is mustering his army, intending to steal the Legacy back. Vuel out-maneuvers him by forcing Karn to choose between killing an innocent man and letting the Legacy go. Karn rejects his choice, but when he takes out his frustration on a cart of food, he accidentally kills the child beneath the cart. Vuel then disables Karn with the Touchstone.

The story ends with Karn being tortured by the Phyrexians. They lock him in a room with mogg goblins and then trigger a trick floor, causing Karn to bounce around and crush the moggs under his massive body. Karn realizes they are trying to break his spirit by forcing him to relive the killing of the child.

RATING: 5 / 10

This story is essentially the same thing as “Starke’s Tale”, but it is much more effective. Yes, the events that make up the flashback were already exposited to the audience in the interlude chapters, but the story isn’t rushing us through a large number of these previously-covered events, nor is it glossing through multiple significant events in the present-day timeline. It focusses on one event and explores Karn’s emotions throughout it. This takes what could have been rehashed events and transforms them into a character study.

The reason I rate this book under a 5.5 comes down to the particulars of the study itself. We already know, thanks to the interlude exposition, that Karn will kill an innocent before Vuel disables him with the Touchstone. Time is spent to build up Karn’s rage and his resolve prior to confronting Vuel. However, King twists at the last second. He doesn’t commit to Karn actually being guilty of a tragic mistake. As a result, the air goes out of the story at the most crucial moment. The arc still makes rational sense, but it feels anticlimactic.

ANALYSIS

The Swerve (Heavy Spoilers)

Okay. So Karn goes to this village where Vuel is assembling his forces. He sneaks in like a commando, walking along the bottom of the lake on which the village is built and climbing up into the middle of a crowded square via one of the anchors that keeps the village in place. He then bulldozes through the gathered men to confront Vuel directly and begins to strangle Vuel while demanding where the Legacy is.

Vuel then plays an UNO reverse and shows Karn exactly where the Legacy is (or, rather, where he claims the Legacy is). He brings out his ‘Karn’: a village blacksmith who he cut open to stash the artifacts inside the man’s body. Karn can have the Legacy back if he rips this man open.

All this is wonderful buildup. Based on what was exposited previously, it seems like Karn will, in a moment of passion, kill this man. This is a rather dark turn, but it was earned through the exploration of Karn’s emotions leading up to this moment.

So when King swerves away from the darkness, it feels rather weird.

First, Vuel spells out that the blacksmith is already dead. In order to make room for the Legacy, he had to remove all the man’s organs. The blacksmith is now being kept alive via necromancy. The obvious impact of this is that Karn can’t simply abduct the man to get the Legacy back - the man will die the moment Vuel’s archmage stops sustaining the spells - but it also has the effect of partially absolving Karn. Even if Karn did rip this man open, he’s be ending the existence of a man who is, by the rules of this world, already dead.

Then the blacksmith decides to go for the heroic sacrifice. He rips open the surgical wounds, ending his own existence so Karn can kill Vuel. So Karn didn’t even kill the blacksmith himself.

This is when Karn loses his temper and smashes the car. Yes, this does kill the child, but Karn had no idea the child was even there. Is it traumatic? Yes, but it also means that there’s no real connection between the killing and Karn being such an extreme pacifist. I could understand this as a moment that convinced Karn to never lose his temper or act in violence, but not as a moment that convinces him to let his allies die in the name of not harming the people trying to kill said allies. The kid ends up feeling like an afterthought, tagged on because Karn had to kill someone in this story.

I don’t think this completely kills the story (hence why I rate it higher than “Starke’s Tale”. It just reads like this arc was derails to protect Karn. This story would have worked so much better if Karn made a deliberate decision that killed someone, rather than deliberately choosing not to hurt anyone and then accidentally killing someone.

How old is this kid?

This is a minor detail, but it does kick the whole story into motion, so I have to ask: how old is Gerrard meant to be in the story?

According to information elsewhere in Rath and Storm, Gerrard is 16. Why, then, does he behave like he’s 10? He’s introduced to this story as he weeps about the Legacy being stolen. He then guilt-trips Karn into trying to get the Legacy back. We were previously told that Vuel was at the age to be considered a man (Gerrard disrupted Vuel’s rite of passage, after all), and there didn’t seem to be more than a year or two between the pair’s ages. Why is Gerrard acting so immature, then?

Look, I get it. I’d be emotional, too, if my foster brother whose life I saved turned around and stole my very literal destiny from me. That doesn’t explain why Gerrard is acting like a petulant little boy, though. And since this behavior is what goads Karn into action, there’s a very real chance this story would not have happened if Gerrad were actually written to age his age.

HEART OF GOLD

While I had a lot to say about “Karn’s Tale”, I don’t think it’s a terrible story. I just think the ending was fumbled. If that had been simplified, and Karn were allowed to intentionally make a mistake, I feel like the intended character beat would have landed better.

Which brings us to the next story in the anthology: “Crovax’s Tale”.

Once again, we have a story that retreads ground covered via exposition. However, it is much closer to “Karn’s Tale” than “Starke’s Tale”. The story is a character study of Crovax - or, rather, of his obsession with the angel Selenia - and how this leads to his downfall. And while this information could have been left in the exposition, the author of this story took a rather interesting route to give the events an emotional punch.

That’s what we’ll get into tomorrow. Thank you all for stopping by today. Please remember to subscribe and share if you enjoyed what you read here. Take care, everyone, and have a good week.