Rondal

Rondal enters the series at fifteen as the studious, slightly nearsighted middle apprentice of Garkesku the Great, a castle-servant bastard of uncertain parentage who "excelled in alchemy." When Garkesku brings his apprentices to receive witchstones, Rondal is given "a largish chunk that was flat on one side . . . [with] more focus than the other pieces." Even the junior Urik briefly outperforms him in raw power, a sign of his scholarly nature. During Garkesku's coup attempt he is floated helplessly in midair by the spell.

His defining contribution is spotting the crucial flaw in the gurvani counter-tunnel during the climactic defense, "a fifty-foot spur, a simple jog around a rock too big to move." Minalan gives him targeted command duties ("throw everything at them that you can, vary it quickly, stay on their furry black asses like an obsessed flea"), and by book's end he is listed among the household as Minalan's apprentice alongside Tyndal.

Rondal has a supporting role in Warmage. He is entrusted with custody of Gurkarl, the Alon-tongued gurvan who saw the sacred cave, stationed at "an ancient monastery devoted to Gorbarb" with the mercenary Gobarba monks. At the Battle of Timberwatch he is posted "at the peak of Timberwatch Tower" as a spotter; Minalan stretches mind-to-mind to ask "Rondal, can you see the entire column?" After the battle he arrives "accompanied by two burly infantrymen who dwarfed the bookish lad to the point of being funny."

He is knighted alongside Tyndal, Pentandra, and the rest of the warmagi by the Dukes: "One by one, they knighted every warmagi there." He is dispatched to search the "massive amount of goblin corpses for witchstones," and by book's end Minalan has announced he will send Rondal to Inarion Academy with Tyndal for formal Imperial magical training.

Returns as Sir Rondal, Knight Mage. Now slender, grown two inches taller, wearing "ratty loose-fitting ring mail over a black gambeson, and there was a nameless mageblade over his shoulder." Minalan assesses:

Rondal was more suited by both temperament and experience as a future court mage, or perhaps an enchanter or even a thaumaturge, far more accomplished in Imperial style magic than Tyndal.

Reveals a stone-magic affinity: rebuilds Hyer's Tower (the gate tower), "knitting the blocks together and smoothing the interior walls to a glass-like finish" and carving artful window arches, and crafts a vitrified slate bathing basin for Alya that earns her delighted "Oh, dear Ishi's beneficent grace, Rondal, after I'm done bearing Min's brat, for this pleasure I'd consider bearing one of yours!" (he stutters so badly he hides at the tower for two days). His tower-top magelight is a deep blue, contrasted with Tyndal's fiery red. Serves as scribe and treasurer at court alongside Sire Cei, and provides the precise toll math during the Warbird confrontation at Robinwing: "Thirteen ounces and seven silver pennies." His righteous outburst at Sir Ganulan ("Do you have any idea what a mess your father made of that hold? It's a disgrace!") shows a buried temper.

At the Battle of Cambrian he leaps "haphazardly over the top of the primitive redoubt, his mageblade in hand, leading the heavy infantry within into the fray." After the dragon falls, "It's still breathing!" Rondal says incredulously, and he and Tyndal personally extract the two largest dragon teeth as trophies. Minalan announces his future:

Rondal, I'll want you to join the Hesian Order, where your talents will be helpful.

Rondal is a POV character for the first time. Physical:

a wide-shouldered lad, shorter than Tyndal by four inches, his hair nondescript brown, flat, and cut with a bowl. He was just a bit nearsighted and had to correct his vision magically. He had the broad face and wide nose of the Wilderlands peasants and dark green eyes.

Minalan says:

Rondal was a sponge when it came to learning, math, magic, masonry, you name it.

Inarion Academy. His scholarly aptitude humiliates Tyndal. When Tyndal's witchstone is stolen, Rondal conducts a forensic investigation with the student mage Estasia: "The thief did not leave the premises with the stone." Breakthrough insight: "look for what isn't there, not what is." In a wand-duel exercise he dominates Tyndal by casting before Tyndal can raise his wand.

Maramor command. Minalan sends the boys to command a secret magical outpost at Maramor Manor behind gurvani lines. Rondal is commanding officer, his first independent command. He finds the manor occupied by "Lady Arsella" (actually Belsi, a servant impersonating the dead heiress) and falls for her. When her attention flips to Tyndal his heart breaks. He uncovers the impersonation through a formal magical trial and rules with mercy, letting Belsi take the Arsella name "in reward for her service" and sending her to a half-aunt as ward. He refuses to lock her door at Tyndal's suggestion, giving her a third option: slip away. This decision becomes load-bearing in Book 15.

Rescues captured slaves with Tyndal and the freed hayward Alwer, and at book's end is promoted to Commander. When Master Denga of the Horkan Order asks about Minalan's prospects, Rondal answers:

If he is not, my lord Marshal, then no other man is better suited.

Returns from the Coran Mor War College transformed. "Rondal had emerged from the rigors of the Mysteries of Duin a changed boy, a man, now, in all but years. His shoulders had broadened and his voice had deepened, and he carried himself with a self-assuredness that he had not possessed." Tyndal now "gave his junior a wide berth." Minalan gives both boys new battle staves alongside their mageblades.

In the war-worm fight Minalan commands "Rondal! Striker!" (his Mysteries of Huin war-name):

Rondal's worm sat down on its hind legs and was refusing to move. I wasn't sure what the boy was doing to it, but it was effective.

At Anthatiel he fights in the city streets, sheathes his sword, and leans on a pike he picks up from somewhere: "There are an awful lot of them." Scholarship pays off in crisis when he recognizes the Ghost Rock:

It is the Ghost Rock. I read about this . . . something in Old High Perwyneese.

Both boys declare they're ready to fight dragons:

Don't. We can handle ourselves. If you want to worry, worry about the poor dragons.

Rondal and Tyndal return from a Kasari mission to the Land of Scars ("We dodged goblin patrols and bandits the entire way"). They have recovered a sacred idol and enigmatic Old High Perwynese parchment from the Rat spymaster Rellin Pratt.

Both pass their certification examinations with Master Hartarian and are formally declared journeymen magi at Wilderhall; Rondal is now senior apprentice because he sat his exam first. Tyndal teases, "Mastered might be overstating it," Rondal said guiltily.

On the Kasari Great March to Anghysbel he commands the second troop, paired with Rael (Master Andalnam's oldest daughter). He is rumored to have an affair with her. At the Cleft defense his switchback gatehouse design stops the gurvani cold; he duels Lady Mask to a standstill; and he devises an enneagramatic construct made of sewn-together sacks filled with animated earth, "A bronze anthropomorphic ursine wearing a hat." Minalan names the spirit-bear the Tortoise and declares the plan elegant: "Thank Rondal. My apprentices are surprisingly crafty."

Rondal and Tyndal return with a new apprentice discovered in Enultramar (Ruderal) and unsettling intelligence: "the Brotherhood [of the Rat] has been working in secret with the gurvani," and Korbal may have been located. Rondal is blunter and harder now. Tyndal blurts out the embarrassment: "Rondal almost got engaged!" (referring to Rael from the Long March). Rondal deflects: "It was . . . complicated."

He builds his personal baculus at the Bouleuterion and pairs it with thrini-leaf guardian constructs. Fights alongside Tyndal in Lorcus's Rolone campaign. At the climactic raid on Dunselen's keep he is wounded ("It hit the muscle, didn't even get down to the bone") and saved from a killing blow when Lanse of Bune incinerates the attacker. In a moment of tactical insight he warns Minalan says:

Before you approach that keep, I'd suggest you scry it with your baculus, before you assault it with your warstaff. He's done something there. It's transformed the place.

Isily the seductress hurls him nearly off the tower's merlons.

Rondal appears only briefly but returns from Enultramar with Tyndal bearing the great coup of the book. They had infiltrated Rat Brotherhood operations, captured Master Merimange (the Spider), and stolen the entire central treasury of the Brotherhood, along with evidence that the Rats sold Princess Rardine.

Rondal addresses Pentandra's council with uncharacteristic theatricality: he "clearly enjoyed the attention and suspense, something Pentandra had never suspected about the lad." On the dragon attacking Vorone:

Rondal just stood and stared, his hand over his open mouth.

He stays in Vorone as Pentandra's assistant while Tyndal leaves: "Rondal elected to stay in Vorone and assist." Tyndal lets slip the infamous hint: "Rondal almost made a family."

Rondal's defining book. He and Tyndal return to Enultramar undercover and meet Atopol the Cat of Shadows, shadowmage son of House Furtius, during a chance encounter pursuing the same job. Atopol introduces Rondal to his younger sister Gatina, the Kitten of Night, who from the moment she meets him announces:

Sir Rondal of Sevendor, Knight Mage of Alshar, I name you my intended bridegroom!

Gatina has "deep lavender/violet eyes," a lean slender figure, and is a master of disguise (fake freckles, buckteeth, wigs). Her courtship is aggressive and fearless; Rondal is flustered ("I am unable to wed") but "he found his mouth preoccupied with Gatina's full, warm, wet lips." He and Tyndal swear a fake oath "not to wed until Anguin sits on the throne in Falas" as a stall.

Major operations: destroys a Brotherhood slave-processing abbey with a collapse wand, assists Lorcus's Tower Arcane heist of Old Falas, operates his dahman spy-construct. Minalan awards witchstones to Atopol and Gatina at Sevendor; Gatina is presented as "Lady Gatina anna Salaines." In the Tyndal-Gatina confrontation scene, she takes Tyndal aside and lectures him coldly: "You worry that I will seek to take your brother and change him, earned, not lightly given," a turning point where Tyndal accepts her as Rondal's partner. Rondal's interior voice:

He really did like Gatina. Her sharp wit and keen observations were just the beginning, he had sensed a much deeper soul behind those gorgeous purple eyes.

The Estasi Order, the new knight-magi brotherhood Rondal and Tyndal have founded, is headquartered at Taragwen Keep: Rondal, Tyndal, Gareth, Noutha, and Sir Atopol are its core. Rondal is POV for extensive chapters. He represents Anguin at the Vernal Moot in Falas, delivering a Nemovort skull to the Coral Seat and demanding Alshari unity against the undead.

At Olum Seheri he leads the rescue of Princess Rardine and other prisoners from the Tower of Despair. When the Ways fail:

Rondal. Something has happened to the Ways. We can't use them to escape this place.

He uses his hoxter-wand to smuggle food and weapons from Timberwatch to the besieged prisoners, reasons out Korbal's logistics network (the stolen Pocket Stone) atop the tower, and commands the flanking force in the final battle:

Our goal is to slay the Necromancer. We slay him. Really hard.

He and Tyndal together tackle Korbal at the knees and shoulder, bowling him over and making possible Minalan's strike. Blasted by Korbal but survives.

Rescues Anguin and Rardine through the Ways with Tyndal at book's end. Also quietly deduces, to Minalan's horror, that Rardine and Anguin are falling for each other:

He blames her mother, not Rardine, for his parent's deaths, he could be rationalizing away his infatuation.

Rondal's engagement to Gatina is formally in progress. Anguin grants him the estate of Oirghort as steward "in reward for his excellent service to the duchy. He himself prepares to wed his own bride." Rondal now resides mostly in Falas at Anguin's court; Minalan notes he is "without Rondal around" and wonders how Tyndal will cope.

When thirty draugen ambush Anguin and Rardine's wedding, Rondal is a heroic combatant: "Rondal slew three the moment he entered the hall" (per Pentandra). He saves Minalan from a draugen about to take his head from behind. His thaumaturgical diagnosis:

These were all draugen. Combat draugen. Slayers. Old stock, almost expired.

He diagnoses Pratanik as the probable sponsor. He is now Minalan's most trusted court-political mind:

I respected Rondal's opinion on that sort of thing. He was far more intuitive about governance than his fellow.

On Rardine post-captivity:

Olum Seheri changed her, Master. She is embittered and grateful at the same time.

Rondal is mostly offstage in Arcanist, busy in Enultramar when Minalan needs a warmage. Tyndal thinks about visiting him there. He is glimpsed attending the Alka Alon Hall of Wisdom as part of Pentandra's party. Essentially offstage while the book focuses on Korbal's rising and the approach to Farise.

Rondal is offstage in Footwizard. He is a member of Rardine's Alshar Garden Society (Pentandra teases "Rondal isn't exactly the earthy type"), a euphemistic cover for Rardine's secret intelligence network. Gareth regrets he can't join the Anghysbel expedition:

He would have loved this place. After getting soggy by the sea and contending with dull, boring court politics, a bit of adventure would have done him good.

Rondal's headline title: Deputy Court Wizard of Alshar, accepted from Pentandra partly to ease her burden, partly to be near Gatina while learning Alshari culture. A whole chapter is titled "Rondal's Army." He is established at court in Falas, visibly concerned about Pentandra's overwork:

She seems tired, these days. Like she's getting overwhelmed.

Gatina is his bride-to-be, now with distinctive bright white hair and pale violet eyes, playful and politically savvy. She calls him "Beloved," banters expertly about Imperial politics and the Remeran-style "Game of Whispers," and when an assassin attacks Pentandra in the palace, Gatina scales the Tower Arcane wall and subdues him with thrown blades ("Kittens always land on their feet") while Rondal runs up the stairs.

His central deed is Rondal's Army: raising a mercenary force of over two thousand Kasari, sworn into the Orphan's Band and marched under Sevendor's snowflake banner to seize Wilderhall (Castal's seat) in a stunning political coup. His speech from atop an ale cask is awkward but effective; "You'd make six hells of a recruiter!" says Bold Asgus. He unfurls his banner and has to explain what the snowflake is ("It's a snowflake," Rondal protested. "Obviously!"). The operation captures Lady Maithieran (Tavard's wife) and Moran, directly enabling Terleman's counter-move. Book ends with Gatina captured at Darkfaller when Mycin Amana seizes the castle during the Magic Fair.

Brief mentions in Mad Mage. Rondal gathers warmagi "for the Westlands and the Darkfaller raid," and Pentandra had been "hard-pressed to control Terleman and even Rondal" during the civil-war crisis, an acknowledgment that he has grown into an independent military commander who needs political supervision.

Rondal is POV for much of the Darkfaller rescue plotline. He commands the Alshari contingent in the Westlands, suppressing Colleitite revolts while Pentandra works politics. He is torn up by Gatina's captivity. Hearing from Atopol that she is safely loose inside Darkfaller (spying on Mycin Amana by choice), he erupts:

So when are you heading back to Darkfaller, Cat? Because I want to go with you. I want to get Gatina out of there.

Atopol dissuades him; military duty outranks fiancé's impulses.

Resigned humor to Lorcus on the eve of battle:

At least you won't have a bunch of in-laws on the field in battle. My future brother-in-law and my future father-in-law are insisting on being included. He's just shown up wearing warmage armor, and he's wearing it wrong, and I have to tell him.

In the Darkfaller battle he commands a squadron, stalls the wyverns with sniper fire, coordinates reports to Ruderal and Pentandra. Rard honors him with estate grants for "puissance on the field at Darkfaller."

In the Luinite court case at Losara (Astyral's innovative truth-tell court), Rondal is summoned as star witness and, wearing the truth-amulet, gives his full titles:

Sir Rondal of Alshar, at the moment. Knight of Alshar, Deputy Court Wizard of Alshar, founder of the Estasi Order of Arcane Knights.

He honestly reports the Maramor episode, confirming that the impersonator was the "real" Arsella through continuous use of the identity. Minalan's wise ruling gives Belsi a new noble identity.

Rondal is part of the Conspiracy of Friends, the secret conclave prepared to forcibly stop Minalan if he loses his mind:

Terleman and I have decided we will be the first to challenge him. Tyndal and Rondal will follow.

He also acts as emissary between Minalan and the Nemovort Karakush via the chandler Pionin:

I wouldn't trust him on that basis alone. But it seems as if he's willing to betray his master if it became advantageous.

Rondal is mostly offstage. He leads the Alshari contingent at Vorone during the great northern assault that takes the Enshadowed keep:

the Alshari troops under Rondal came through to the south and boxed them in.

Minalan discusses his upcoming wedding alongside Tyndal's:

I'll probably get started on it [Farise] in a few weeks, after Tyndal and Rondal's weddings.

Minalan also references fondly having "three apprentices already" (Sir Rondal, Viscount Tyndal, and Lady Dara) as an argument for training Prince Tavard's son. Minalan sends Rondal off briefly after Lilastien in the wilderness.

The opening chapters are devoted to Rondal and Tyndal's joint wedding in Vanador. Minalan's meditation on them:

Rondal, a frail-looking village boy of uncommon intelligence and uncertain parentage, had become exquisitely versatile tools, had far exceeded my expectations.

Minalan escorts the grooms up the temple steps in place of their dead fathers.

Rondal's party is "smaller" than Tyndal's but "no less robust, included his new in-laws, not just Atopol and his parents, but dozens of cousins from southern Alshar." The night before: "Someone painted cats whiskers on Rondal's face with charcoal," the Enultramar in-joke made literal. On the day, Gatina appears "in intricately cut black satin, complete with an elegant headdress over her stark white hair, the epitome of the sophisticated Magelord of Imperial stock and culture, the look of triumph in her violet eyes." Rondal kisses her at the altar. "I've never seen my former apprentices happier than when they were whirling with their brides."

After the wedding Rondal is called "son-in-law" of Hance. He continues ongoing missions with Atopol and is referenced as still holding a grudge with Rellin Pratt that needs settling. Minalan recalls "Rondal's eagerness for female companionship" in contrast to Ruderal's reserve.

Senior former apprentice of Minalan and -- by the events of The Golden Goblin -- Baron of Oirghort in the south, though he and Tyndal are still most often in Vanador. He introduces himself at the Goblin King's court as "Baron Rondal" alongside "Viscount Tyndal."

The more bookish and cautious of the two warmages, he keeps a heist journal at his wife Gatina's insistence -- a habit she has impressed on Tyndal as well -- and quietly enjoys the income from his barony plus his pay from the duchy plus the boys' take from the Rats. Gatina jokingly calls him "Sir Haystack" when teasing him about errantry.

On the mission he runs into Garkesku -- his original master in magic -- broken, malnourished, and unrecognizable, in one of the book's sharpest reunions. He is also the first to decode "the Adrian" from overheard gurvani chatter as a western-bound prophecy rather than a person. The old castle he and Tyndal once tried to move out of is now used by Ruderal and Laresk, the next "Spellmonger's apprentice" generation.