City of Miracles

The final chapter of The Divine Cities trilogy, City of Miracles treads a familiar path, putting an old side character, Sigurd je Harkvaldsson, under the spotlight, once more having to deal with a divine threat and humans who yearn for violence. Although it never reaches the same heights as its predecessor, the novel represents a solid conclusion to the series written by Robert Jackson Bennet.

After a dear friend is assassinated, Sigurd goes on a quest for revenge. He thinks of himself as a blunt instrument and now intends to strike hard and true at the killers without caring about his wellbeing. However, he soon uncovers a plot that may threaten his friend’s daughter, Tatyana, as well: a divine being is after her and they will stop at nothing until she’s devoured.

Sigurd has never been a deep, round character, but in the previous books, he worked perfectly because he stayed on the sidelines, appearing mostly during action sequences. City of Blades managed to make him a tragic character nonetheless, turning his violent aspect into a character flaw that led to serious consequences. Here, we finally have access to his point of view and, as a result, a couple of elements now stand out.

First, there’s a big contrast compared to how he was presented to us before: in the previous novels, he was this big brute, the silent type that appeared in the story to solve problems with a great display of violence – and almost always succeeded. We were led to view him as this imposing, menacing, inscrutable figure. Here, however, we see that the image Sigurd has of himself could not be worse.

He’s marked not by his successes, but by his failures. His mind is usually flooded with self-deprecating thoughts, with Sigurd often chastising himself for his mistakes: “His instincts take over. It was bad, what you did back there in the camp, he tells himself. Cover blown. Again. What a stupid creature he is, driven by rage and emotion.” Sigurd thinks of himself as a monster, a barbarian that is destined to die a violent and horrible death.

On the outside, Sigurd seems self-assured and confident, capable of anything, a dangerous man without regrets – that’s how he appeared to us before because we were watching him mostly through the perspective of the other characters. But his thoughts reveal the opposite, a man consumed by doubt that second-guesses his every move. He believes that he deserves all the bad things that are coming to him and that his soul is so tainted that his mere presence is enough to condemn his loved ones: “What an ugly thing I am, he thinks. Why did I ever believe I could wreak anything but ugliness in this world? Why did I ever think that those near me would meet anything but pain and death?”

Sigurd is a flat character that is aware of his own limitations, begrudging the fact that he still remains the same person he has always been: “I am still exactly that wretched fool that Shara dug out of prison so many years ago. Nothing has changed. Nothing has changed. Except now I have no hope that things could ever change,” he thinks.

The protagonist frames his inability to change and evolve as a sort of tragic fate. In his mind, he deserves pain precisely because he’s unable to grow past his violent tendencies: he doesn’t deserve redemption because he will always be the same man. His only hope to become better was his friend’s influence on him, as he secretly expected that one day, they would be able to save him from himself. But this means that their death robs him of any will to live: Sigurd is mourning his friend, but also his soul.

Even though he doesn’t appear to be, Sigurd is old. People look at him and see a man in his 40s even though he may be reaching his seventies. This contrast between what he appears to be on the outside and what he actually is what defines the character in City of Miracles.

His age is also reflected in the descriptions of the places he visits. Even though he is well acquainted with the elusive streets of Bulikov, for example, they still seem alien to him due to the passage of time. Progress and technology changed the landscapes and, since he was laying low for too long, he is unable to recognize modern buildings and structures:

“He sees now how different it all is. There are bright, resplendent buildings where there used to be ruins, modern brick structures with large, glass windows – he remembers very few windows had good glass when he was here last. The auto putters through clean, squares and avenues lined with electric lights, all clear of rubble or blockades.”

There’s a strong sense of the passage of time in these descriptions. Sigurd remarks on how things have changed: the past is familiar territory to him; it feels like home. The present, meanwhile, is alien and oppressive. Consequently, he’s full of regret and nostalgia: he’s haunted by the past but also yearns for its return.

This links him to some of the antagonists, who are soldiers that also feel out of place in the modern world. They are creatures of war that resent the times of peace their new rulers have finally achieved – not because they’re sadists (well, some indeed are) but because they were fed hatred for the other for so long that now they simply can’t live any other way. They fought and killed and witnessed the death of close friends, all to annihilate a monstrous other. Conciliation, then, means they were lied to and suffered for nothing, as it implies that the other was not that monstrous after all. In other words, they keep killing because they’ve already killed too many to back down now: violence has become a self-sustained machine.

But the big villain of the story is not a common soldier but a divine being that wants retribution. Just like Sigurd wants revenge for the death of his friend, the villain wants revenge for what was done to him. He’s depicted as a fearsome foe, connected to shadows and darkness, which grants him a creepy edge. But, just like Sigurd, he may appear confident and powerful, but the truth is that he’s just as fragile and lost. He thinks like a child, mistaking power with being a bully, believing brute force is all it takes to overcome his enemies (“How strong do I have to be to stop them from hurting me?”). He acts like an angry young man with a gun, posing a danger to everyone around him because he feels wronged.

And some of the human soldiers still support him because total destruction is a concept that they can embrace when sufficiently disguised. They yearn for violence and a fight against an abstract, undefined “system” provides the perfect excuse to justify their actions. One of the main characters explains her actions in such terms, “The game’s rigged. Every system’s broken. Saypuri, Continental, Divine. There are no innocents. He’s going to burn it all down. Burn it all down and start over again.”

Early on, Sigurd looks at some men cutting down an ancient tree and there’s a great parallel to the death of his friend, who was also put down by fools with access to powerful weapons: “Sigurd looks at the stump for a moment – the only thing that will mark this tree’s decades of existence here – and notes its countless growth rings. How odd it is to think that such a colossus could be eradicated in a few hours by a handful of fools with axes and a saw.” This brief passage directly juxtaposes Sigurd’s friend – the tree – with the antagonists – the handful of fools – aggrandizing the former, which is depicted as nothing short of a colossus.

Structurally, City of Miracles may be the less ambitious book of the trilogy. First Sigurd seeks to kill those who murdered his friend and then he sets out to protect their daughter, Tatyana, running from one place to the next, hoping the next safe house will be more secure (it never is). This provides a tense atmosphere – they’re constantly on the run – and there are some unique set-pieces spread throughout, such as a fight against a monstrous beast on top of a cable car. Sigurd, however, is far from a philosopher, which means other characters have to step in to provide us with some food for thought.

One of them is Tatyana herself, who is grieving just like Sigurd and wants retribution just like the villain. Her arch is all about understanding what made Sigurd’s friend special: how they enacted change in the world through the people, instead of unilateral decisions.  The people can more often than not misuse the power they are given – the friend’s death being the ultimate proof of that – but any other way of ruling leads to tyranny.

The passage of time is a big theme in the novel and, since it deals with divine beings, it doesn’t take long for time travel to come into play, which is its own can of worms: it’s a narrative device that often comes with plot holes and arbitrary rules, and it’s no different here. Time travel never becomes the focus of the book or is used too much, but this also means that it leaves us wondering if the story wouldn’t have been better without it.

City of Miracles successfully concludes The Divine Cities trilogy, delivering a fast-paced story and some memorable scenes while shedding new light on one of its biggest and most memorable characters.

March 22, 2022.