Carmella

Carmella is already inside Boval Castle as one of the warmagi when the narrative focuses on her. She is given a role in the portal-opening team as "the Transformer, controller of the various apis that we would need in the course of this spell, really a director of power and monitor of our physical bodies," working beside Pentandra, Terleman, Delman, Reylan, and Taren.

During the Great Portal working that evacuates four thousand refugees, Carmella acts as Monitor of the sex-magic energy circuit. Vivid moment: "Finally, Carmella called out, 'Sir Cei just went through, ladies and gentlemen! We have officially rescued everyone! Over four thousand people just saw your hairy, naked arse, Min!'" After Minalan collapses, she shakes him awake and feeds him sausage and Boval cheese. In the confrontation with the Dead God, she tries to restrain Minalan from challenging Sheruel over Koucey:

Milord Captain, is it not best that he live out his fate?

When Sheruel strikes and time freezes, Minalan sees her as a statue with "a mixture of fear and excitement on her face as she mouthed the trigger of her own attack."

Carmella's breakout book. She reappears from "points south," having completed private research. Minalan's character sketch:

Carmella is adept at a lot of obscure kinds of warmagic, but she wasn't the stealthy, scouty type. She's better at building siege engines or scrying for weaknesses in the enemy's fortifications, highly intelligent but just didn't have that social awareness. Plus, she has this kind of barking laugh that's really grating.

She briefs the war council on ninety thousand goblins massed north of Nandine, dagger pointed at the map, "brushing her dark hair out of her dark eyes." She arrives with "Four Swordsisters of Feshara" who "hire out to me, sometimes." Minalan's dry aside:

It also explained how Carmella had friends. She paid them.

Lanse of Bune is recruited through her and comes to Timberwatch on her letter.

At Timberwatch she builds the massive trebuchet that becomes her signature weapon. First full physical description:

waxed leather armor and a small steel cap, an artillery-officer's garb. She looked intense, her long nose and dark eyes emphasizing the expression to the point of caricature.

Incendiary pumpkin bombardment: Her engineers sling pumpkins loaded with honey, alcohol, phosphorus, naphtha, and pitch deep into the gurvani rear, then keep firing while Minalan summons a fire elemental ("Carmella, I need more. Keep it going steady, as long as you can"). She reports fuel salvos remaining and announces "last salvo outgoing." Notes Delman's death with doubt in her voice:

They say it was a result of a wound he received yesterday.

Carmella is one of the core nine High Magi summoned to Robinwing. When Minalan founds the Hesian Order, "For the Hesian Order, I named Carmella the Mistress of Works, charging her with the lasting defense of the realm, and tasked her to build a storehouse and supply chain." This is her defining appointment, effectively founder-director of the Order under Minalan's titular headship. Sigil:

a black castle tower on a red field surmounted by five white stars.

She spends the year hardening Tudry:

Carmella has been all over them, and she's got them as tight as magically possible. The surrounding country is filled with redoubts and hidden defenses.

At King Rard's coronation she rides into the ceremony beside Minalan and Terleman as one of the Heads of the Orders. At the witchstone distribution she fights hard for the Hesians' share; Minalan concedes seven stones but requires they go to members who can fight offensively as well as support, which "Carmella and her people were indignant over."

Carmella, one of Minalan's original Farisian warmage companions, serves as mistress of the Hesian Order — now formally responsible for siege engineering, fortification magic, and logistics in the fledgling Kingdom's magical defense. She attends Tyndal and Rondal's graduation and training milestones at Inarion, providing practical warmage perspective on their curriculum.

Book 13 is Lilastien's biggest book. The ancient Alka Alon "Sorceress of Sartha Wood," exiled from the Council, rejoins Minalan as the Anghysbel expedition's medical and scientific lead. Opens the Cave of the Ancients with Forseti's override, distributes plasma rifles and pistols to the party, and teaches the basics of Colonial Defense Force weaponry.

Central roles in Anghysbel: performs the miracle-surgery on Lord Kanlan's spinteca wound, guides Minalan through the striekema hunt and the Grandfather Tree's prophecy, and performs CPR to revive Minalan after the Yith encounter kills him for four minutes. Her patience with Minalan's mortal limitations is laced with genuine affection.

Her Colonial-era accent, medical knowledge, and insouciant humor serve as the expedition's connective tissue to the ancient human past. At the end, escorts the Anghysbel evacuees to the Wilderlands to begin their resettlement.

Major book. Now "Magelord Carmella," headquartered at Wilderhall in a rented townhouse managing the Hesian Order. "Carmella was not a particularly likable woman, largely because she had almost no social perceptions. Pentandra had made friends with her, of all people, largely because she found Carmella's blunt social perspective refreshing. Carmella was cerebral and brutally honest, without the slightest bit of social pretension."

The Great Kasari March. With Minalan she plans the Hesian-manned pele-fort chain across the Penumbra edge. Negotiates for a new piece of irionite per tower manned. Her strategic demand is the first articulation of what becomes Vanador:

We need a real citadel, at least a hundred miles back from the Penumbra. Something safe from dragon attacks.

Leads Troop Four, the Construction Troop. At Baelor Tower her crews build the fortification in days using earth elementals, bricking wands, and Bonding Wands; at the trailhead siege she builds improvised trebuchets and hurls Tyndal/Rondal-animated dirt-bag constructs into the enemy camp ("Yes, Spellmonger! This is going to be more fun than Timberwatch!"). Minalan names the spirit-bear the Tortoise.

Salik Tower. She becomes personally attached to the slighted ruin and pours herself into refurbishing it: a four-story spire atop two existing stories, hall, gatehouse, drawbridge, flanking towers. "I plan to take up residence here." It becomes a Hesian commandery. She also clears fallow fields, plants winter wheat, and invites peasants, notably un-Carmella behavior Minalan attributes to exposure to Kasari children. Begins planning the Anvil site (future Vanador):

We really need something big, strong, and permanent. Something big enough to withstand dragonfire. Walls large enough for five thousand men and towers seven stories high.

Lighter book. Credited as the creator of the Sashtalia-breaking warstaff given to Baron Arathanial's court wizard:

one of Carmella's designs, a staff specifically enchanted for breaking walls and undermining towers.

Minalan mentions that during the Long March he and Carmella discussed building a great fortress in the west "to act as such a lure." Arrives with the Alshari contingent at the Conclave, and at the Dark Vale raid planning she and Gareth organize operations when Minalan sleeps; Salik Tower is under attack. Still Lady Carmella.

Pentandra-POV, major Carmella book. Now "Lady Carmella, head of the Order of Hesian Warmagi," operating from Salik Tower where she has "quietly been using the post to develop a program of instruction about magical siege techniques," effectively founding the Hesian siege school and inadvertently revitalizing the regional economy.

Pentandra recruits her to design Anguin's first proper defensive fortress in Vorone. Anguin says:

If anyone can make a simple keep appear impressive, it's Magelord Carmella.

Carmella proposes instead the Anvil site for the eventual great fortress (Vanador). She arrives for the Conclave with Rumel the Malkas Alon (Wood Dwarf) builder, wearing "a dark gray smock that was unadorned, save for a sash that bore her arms as the master of the Hesian Order."

Dragon attack on Vorone. She directs the pele-tower defenses; Salik Tower is the most besieged. Weirwood hairpins she'd given Pentandra as a wedding present are used as emergency enchantment components during the attack. Appearance:

Carmella was sitting quietly with the tea she favored, unless she felt like drinking for effect. She wore a simple smock-like tunic under her mantle, man's trousers, and a delicate-looking mageblade of her own was at her hip. But she looked content, confident, and almost happy, far different from the fretful girl Pentandra had met at Alar, so many years ago.

At the dragon-struck feast:

Then it is settled. We guard against Sheruel while we strike against Korbal.

The second dragon attack on Vorone is her defining scene. At the fateful council she sits with the warmagi when the dragon's cry erupts: "Is that . . . ?" asked Carmella, the plain-looking mistress of the Hesian Order. Terleman assigns her, Cormoran, and Astyral to evacuate civilians and cover the palace in anti-incendiary spells. She deploys a "magical machine" (likely a construct siege engine) which is smashed against a fallen tower; Tyndal finds her "clutching her arm behind it, a warwand in her hand." She survives; many die, but the dragon is brought down.

In the aftermath she directs the entire cleanup "riding around the site on her construct." At a planning meeting under her canopy HQ she unveils the plans for Castle Vorone, a fully rendered light-and-shadow projection of a crenelated curtain-wall fortress with eight circular double towers, a central square keep, a seven-story gatehouse, a moated connection to the river, and a large storehouse. Promises to complete it in three years with magical construction, hoxter pockets, and bricking and setting wands. She also names Vanador: "For Vanador," Carmella said, as the true capital to come. Her stone inventory: "Hesia's Seven, and eleven beyond that," and she is awarded ten more.

Carmella's operational base is now the rebuilt Anguin's Tower, an expanded pele tower grown into a keep with eight mural towers, almost a dozen war engines in the courtyard (some walking catapults), plus two other estates and Honeyhall. "She was also becoming a mundane lord of some note." Minalan says:

Carmella's elevation had also leant her a certain maturity about being a magelord that she hadn't possessed as a mere warmage.

The new Wood Dwarves' Hall (Kraverak Hall) has been built inside her bailey by Rumel's resettled clan; Pentandra gossips that Carmella and Rumel are lovers.

Opens and chairs the Secret Council of Anguin's Tower:

Carmella nodded to me as I took my seat, then cleared her throat. She must have had a charm ready, because the sound of a loud silver bell sounded in the hall.

Assures the Prime Minister that any dragon attacking the new Vorone keep will regret it, but admits:

The keep, itself, will not be complete until late summer.

Vanador construction begins. Minalan walks the site and finds it laid out street by street to her master plan: roads paved, gutters cut, quarters staked for every profession including Iron Folk, Karshak, Tera Alon districts. Over a hundred workers at the quarry, bricking wands doing the long-haul shipping. By book's end she is preparing to finish Vorone Castle and begin the Anvil site proper.

The book of Carmella's masterpieces. She has set up the Hesian Order in a construction camp "under the protection of the Anvil" and laid out the whole of Vanador by craft-district alongside Gareth. Fortifies the western gap above the escarpment with the Spellgate complex. Drawbridge "constructed of mage-kilned redwood and bound by iron, the exterior of the door was shod in thick iron and heavily enchanted." "Carmella named the complex Spellgate, and it was perhaps the most important fortification in the Magelaw. It was certainly the most secure." Terleman concedes:

It's a shared endeavor. She had the vision for fortification. I have the better insight about how best to deploy defenses.

Also builds Minalan's personal estate Spellgarden: chooses a double-peaked hilltop west of the pass, surveys it, wards away predators with a beastmaster. Her Hesian Order now has "ninety full-time warmagi, another hundred wizards of other specialties, and over a thousand dedicated builders."

And the legendary Lightning Mother (Mother Lightning) trebuchet: five stories tall, nine-ton counterweight, half-ton missiles of iron slag with an enchantment that heats the core to molten while keeping the shell intact, then instant-freezes a portion on impact to shatter and spray molten slag across the enemy. Her crews call it Mother Lightning and treat it "like a minor goddess." At Spellgate's first Gaja Katar assault it mauls the horde long before conventional artillery is in range.

Yule scene: drunk for the first time ever, stumbling with her arm over Rumel's shoulder:

My lady has been celebrating the solstice most devotedly.

She protests being called attractive:

Why would this little bundle of muscle and good sense want to marry me? I'm as ugly as a castaway boot!

Rumel replies with open admiration:

She really did move the mountains around to protect Vanador. And a goodly portion of my folk.

Rewarded with a fee thrice any commander's and a long stretch of land north of Salik Tower.

Sandoval runs the Shakathet campaign while Terleman and Carmella remain the defensive backbone. Salik Tower is now a boom-town of hundreds of warmagi, workmen, and Malkas Alon:

Salik Tower boasted warmagi, professional men-at-arms, skilled combat engineers and plenty of rough-looking craftsmen, and they were formidable enough to scare away anything but an infantry column.

She delegates civic admin to Magelord Gurmalan.

Politics: she leads the moderate faction against Azar and Terleman's militant one, becoming the focal point of Magelaw politics despite preferring construction. Minalan calls her one of the wisest magi in the Magelaw. At Stanis Howe she sets up all the field artillery under Terleman's tactical lead, contributing "last-minute cargo of magical constructs" from Salik.

At the Victory Court she is named Viscount of the Towers (deputy count responsible for the southern frontier of the Magelaw, with authority over the baronies in her mandate). Characteristic outburst against the nobility at court:

We couldn't be worse than the nobility. They can't run a bloody tournament without assistance! Bunch of ignorant sword monkeys who think everyone exists just to make them look good. They need to be replaced with magelords!

Very light book. Credited as co-builder of the Magelaw alongside Gareth. Supplied defenses against dragons for Minalan's new home. Designed and built Anguin's new palace in two years, earning his praise:

I love the castle, Anguin. It's a dramatic improvement over the old palace.

Late in the book, while Minalan is in Anghysbel, she is preparing for "extended war" as Terleman fights at Barrowbell.

Carmella helps defend Vanador during Minalan's absence. Her materiel is exhausted:

Terrible. Minalan pretty much exhausted our store of constructs and certain weapons during the war. Those things take time to make. I won't even have some of the simpler ones for another few weeks, if the bouleuterion can keep up its current pace.

Goes with Pentandra and Terleman to King Rard's court at Kaunis; wears "the smug satisfaction of a conqueror" after the Magelaw humbles Castal in Gilmora. Her sharpest line at court against Count Tavard says:

Only those foolish enough to believe they can fight a battle against warmagi without using warmagi themselves. Cavalry has its place. It is not necessarily at the top of the social order. If the chivalry wish to prove their worthiness to lead our people, then they need to prove their worth on the field, first. Until then, get used to losing castles, and baronies, and counties.

Warns Tavard that his quarantine of Sevendor is "dangerously close to war."

Also designs and builds negotiation chambers inside the new Vorone palace. Antimei prophesies that Carmella will tunnel to the top of the Overhang "and the entire top of the cliff will be filled with magnificent buildings and towers" (Vanador's second phase). She also consults Lilastien at Henga General Hospital, the beginning of the transgenic plot arc.

Single mention: Minalan's journal refers to Viscountess Carmella as the builder of Spellgarden, designed "with this task in mind" (his post-Yith recovery). Confirms her formal title by this point: Viscountess of the Towers.

Her personal transformation book. References across the book establish her as the gold standard of professional female warmagi, contrasted with Noutha says:

most women lacked Pentandra's subtle insight or Carmella's brilliant competence.

Malkas Alon transgenic transformation. Lilastien uses Minalan's gift, the Acennan life forge, to transgenically transform Carmella into a Malkas Alon (Wood Dwarf) woman. First she is made biologically Malkas, then refined into "the prettiest Malkas Alon maiden I could." Carmella tests her new body: "I have a beard! I feel strong!" She is already fluent in Malkas and intends to marry Rumel, bear his children (twenty-four-month gestation), and live a long Malkas life. She can switch back to human form but is advised against it during pregnancy.

Tender moment:

I never wanted to be a queen. Just a wife. A mother. With someone smart enough to understand me when I talk about building things.

She helps Lilastien fight the giant enchanted spider monstrosity as her first major Malkas-bodied work:

It's a big godsdamned bug! Ishi's tits, Min, why did you have to bring us a bug?

She offers her own eight-legged mount construct as a potential counter. Attends Azar and Noutha's wedding with Rumel as her escort, the first of Vanador's "strange unions."

The book of her wedding and her "water feature." Minalan returns to Spellgarden to discover she built him a lake. She defends herself blandly:

Because you said you wanted a water feature. When we first broke ground. Alya said she liked the water, you said to build a water feature. So I did.

The project dammed the stream at the base of the escarpment, creating the Magewater, stretching from Salik Tower to Spellgate, serving as moat, ferry-highway, flood control, and pretty feature. Cost: five or six thousand acres of arable land and "a few hamlets" relocated. She announces she is retiring from major works:

I've built two major castles, a city, and a number of defensive fortifications in the last few years. The war is more or less over. I want some time off.

She asks Minalan's acceptance (not permission) to marry Rumel and found a Malkas Alon city in the forests near Malkasora. Emotionally:

I want to build Rumel something grand. I want him to have a hall that he can brag about. Something that really demonstrates the skills and crafts of the Malkas.

On Karshak disapproval she is defiant:

They've been underpaying and exploiting the Malkas Alon long enough, arbitrary rules, impossible standards, and demeaning behavior. It's time for that to stop.

Attends High Council at Anguin's court as one of the realm's heads of magic.

Minimal presence. She emerges from the Alka Alon Ways at the Carneduin council alongside Terleman, Mavone, Astyral, Taren, Onranion, and Gareth to represent the Magelaw at the Beryen Council meeting. No dialogue assigned in this passage.

Head of the Hesian Order and one of the finest magical engineers in the world, though notoriously hard to hold a normal conversation with -- she simply sees the world differently.

In The Golden Goblin she is the subject of the season's biggest Alon-society scandal: Lilastien used a transgenic device Minalan supplied to transform her into a Malkas Alon -- and, by Lilastien's own boast, "a hot and sexy Malkas Alon" -- so that she could marry her long-time secret lover Rumel.

Onranion reports it conspiratorially: "From what I understand Carmella and Rumel are quite happy with the result. Indeed, they're planning on building an entire city for the Malkas, now, out in the woods. But it is quite scandalous, from the Alon perspective."