Literature / The Founding of Valdemar

The Founding of Valdemar is a trilogy of novels that serve as a prequel to Mercedes Lackey's Heralds of Valdemar series, recounting the founding of the titular kingdom by a small population fleeing an evil Empire, led by Duke-turned-Baron-turned-King Kordas Valdemar.

The first book, Beyond (2021), follows the evolution of the Duchy of Valdemar's long-standing plan to escape from the grip of the Empire by perfecting a way to send the entire population through a magical Gate into the western wilderness. The situation is complicated when Kordas is personally summoned to the Imperial Court to deliver his tribute of horses to the Emperor, where he must navigate the intrigues of the court and find new allies and opportunities, without being caught.

In Into the West (2022), having taken the first leap out of Imperial lands, the Valdamaran expedition continues westward, seeking an unpopulated area to settle for their own.

Valdemar (2023) details the early trials of the titular kingdom, the arrival of the Companions, and the founding of the Heralds.

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The Founding of Valdemar contains examples of the following tropes:

• Androcles' Lion: In Beyond, Kordas saves an infant Earth Elemental and reunites it with its mother. In Into the West, the two elementals appear to help Kordas fight a corrupted elemental.
• Animal Motif: Valdemar is known in the Empire for breeding superior horses. The first chapter of Beyond shows a difficult foal birth, the Valdemar crest is a white horse, and Kordas is ordered to the capital city to personally deliver the Emperor's tribute of horses. Of particular note are the Valdemar Golds, a line of such value they're never sold; even when ordered to give some as tribute to the Emperor, Kordas uses magic to create a couple of fakes instead, and even the fakes are magnificent enough beasts that the stablemaster bemoans their being wasted on the Emperor. Presumably, the prominence of horses will have some bearing on the Companions' choice of form.
• Blessed with Suck: Lythe Shadowdancer's and Rothas Sunsinger's lifebond is explicitly portrayed as this.
• Call-Back: Kordas gets a history lesson on the Mage Wars from his circle of secret mages.
• Call-Forward:
  • The crest of Valdemar is a white winged Rearing Horse, almost identical to the crest of the Kingdom in later-set stories. It lacks the broken chains around its feet, which will come to symbolize the breakaway of Valdemar's people from Imperial rule.
  • The vrondi, air elementals who appear frequently in subsequent novels. Here they've been trapped and enslaved by the Evil Empire, and escape with the Valdemarans while also bolstering the plan immensely. Kordas's narrative also makes it clear that they power the Truth Spells that are used later, which Star notes is pleasurable for them, as the truth is nurturing.
  • In Into the West, Kordas makes a speech about tolerance centered around the words, "There is no one, true way," exhorting his people to follow them as a Path. This credo becomes Valdemar's governing philosophy, followed word-for-word even centuries later.
• Cats Are Mean: The very aptly named Sydney-you-asshole who has a reputation of causing trouble and destruction.
• Coming of Age Story: After her Growing Up Sucks arc from Beyond, Delia is sent with the party scouting the river ahead of the main convoy. As Kordas hoped, the experience causes her to grow, learn to handle problems and become a capable and useful agent for Valdemar's future.
• Cool Horse: Valdemar Golds, which seem to be based on the Real Life Akhal Teke breed, are bred for notable speed, endurance, and intelligence, and have golden coats with a signature metallic sheen.
• Death World: Outside of a small village, the forest Kordas Gates into is an incredibly dangerous area filled with corrupted magical monsters constantly trying to kill the group. It's the Pelagir Wilds and the lands the Tayledras are tasked to cleanse and heal.
• Deconstructed Trope: Lackey heavily deconstructs the "lifebond" concept she introduced in earlier books. Lythe and Rothas are normal, slightly overdramatic teengers cursed with magic and a bond that they neither asked for nor wanted. Their bond causes misery to themselves and everyone around them when they can't be together. The unwanted feelings are overwhelming especially how it is suddenly imposed on them. And the lifebond doesn't necessarily mean they get alone or even like each other, Rothas and Lythe have to grow and learn about each other in spite of the lifebond.
• Ditzy Genius: Jonathan might be the most powerful and knowledgeable mage in Kordas' employ but he is also a Motor Mouth, very easily distracted and a kleptomaniac who uses magic to "borrow" other people's items.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: Magic is often shown to be analogous to modern technology.
  • One of Valdemar's mages is known for sharing funny images of cats.
  • The mirrors Kordas and Isla use to simultaneously scry each other are very much like tablets, both in appearance and use. Their mutual scrying sessions also sound like Zoom calls.
  • In Into the West, a magical projection device is used to make evening announcements, seeming very much like television—or perhaps a theater with newsreels, since the whole population watches the same image, projected over the lake. There's the evening news, followed by various entertainments, including a serial puppet show that sounds like a sitcom. Beltran even rapidly transcribes Kordas's speech onto cards and slides them into the imaging area, to provide captions.
• Don't Call Me "Sir": Kordas despite being de facto leader insists that he's only a Baron and everyone address him so.
• Dramatic Irony: The Valdemarans and Taleydras can only speculate as to the cause of Cloudfall's Face–Heel Turn. Readers who are familiar with the Mage Winds and Mage Storms series, however, can figure out that she was actually possessed by Ma'ar, since directly before her disappearance she had gone to practice the spell for calling fire.
• Evil Is Petty: An observation Kordas frequently makes of the casual cruelties employed by the Emperor and his cronies. The Emperor is shown to enjoy humiliating people, and it's noted that the vrondi were forced into Doll bodies that could feel pain, allegedly so they wouldn't accidentally harm themselves but really so random courtiers can enjoy abusing them.
• Exact Words: The vrondi are able to be highly selective in how they interpret their orders. For example, they can neglect to pass on information gained through their Hive Mind by treating it as "hearsay," which therefore they can claim not to know for sure.
• Facial Façade: The Dolls are Vrondi, air spirits drawn to truth, trapped in constructed bodies and made to serve the Evil Empire. To make them identifiable, people often decorate Dolls' bodies in various ways, including by making them artificial faces. The Dolls like this, seeing it as a token of affection, and this tradition continues until the end of Into the West, when the heroes find a way to free the Vrondi from the Doll bodies.
• Fantastic Firearms: Spitters are basically magitek compressed-air pistols, officially limited to nobility and used as dueling weapons. The larger Poomers are military weapons that use multiple compressed-air pellets to throw larger and more varied ammunition.
• Fantasy Gun Control: Averted in the Empire as Spitters and Poomers are guns and cannons.
• Gentleman Adventurer: Ivar, sixth son of one of Valdemar's Counts and possessor of a restless pair of feet. He's mentioned as having made an expedition to the North, not under orders, but just because. He's the natural choice to be first through the newly-established Gate and do some exploring.
• Gone Horribly Right: Merrin does too good a job propping up Kordas' "country bumpkin" act, accidentally getting the Duchy of Valdemar assigned to himself instead and Kordas downgraded to Baron.
• Growing Up Sucks: Delia's character arc through Beyond. In the first chapter, she's given the foal she helped birth to raise and train herself, which is noted as the first real responsibility she's ever had; up until then, she seems to have mainly been left to her own devices, and usually spent her time reading. Over the course of the novel, she's brought in on The Plan and given more responsibilities related to it, anything from delivering messages to people involved to helping set up base camp. She soon realises just how much work will be involved, and that it'll go on for years at least, and wishes to return to the way things used to be.
• Hive Mind: The vrondi, once they're imprisoned in Doll bodies, are able to share thoughts so that what one knows, they all know. This makes them incredibly useful in The Plan, as they essentially provide instantaneous long-range communication without security issues. They also have a wealth of information about the working of The Empire and are essentially invisible as they go about their business, allowing them to use authorization seals to rob the Empire wholesale.
• Irony: Kordas views the Emperor's spy in Valdemar, Merrin, as a moron he's successfully run rings around for years with his Obfuscating Stupidity. Which Merrin has been on board with from the start, trying to keep Valdemar Beneath Notice.
• I Surrender, Suckers: At the end of the final battle of Valdemar, Herald-Prince Restil pulls one of these on the enemy Adept to get her to try dragging him through a Gate ... along with an enchanted item that is very not compatible with Gate-magic. Cue one Adept sliced in half by a Tele-Frag.
• Magical Security Cam: The characters are very much aware that they may be being watched by a scrying mage at any moment, so unless someone who knows what they're talking about tells them it's safe they have to be very careful what they do or say. This becomes easier once Kordas allies with the Dolls, whose Hive Mind allows them to know when scrying is taking place, as the scrying mage will be attended by a Doll.
• Mind over Matter: Delia has the Fetching gift, which comes in useful many times.
  • In the first chapter, she successfully aids with a mare's breech birth by maneuvering the foal inside the mare so everything is aligned properly.
  • Part of establishing a stable Gate involves her Fetching a small object through a temporary one. The rock is then used as a link to make a less temporary Gate.
  • Her sister Isla gets her to help set up a time to communicate with Kordas by long-range Fetching (effectively teleporting) a scrap of parchment with the time written on it into his assistant's notebook. She apparently does so with such gusto that it gives the man a bruise.
  • When she starts to realise just how much hard work will be involved in settling a new land, someone reassures her that she can use her Fetching gift to do all sorts of useful things.
  • In Into the West, she turns out to be adept at repairing Dolls. In addition to being a skilled seamstress, she effectively has an extra hand.
  • Into the West also sees her using her gift offensively once she's sent with the scouting party. As well as using it to gather food by plucking birds from the sky or fish from the river, she punts large globes of freezing river water at a Change-Bear that threatens the party.
  • When the Red Forest attacks the new settlement, she uses her gift to dump explosives into it and then set them off by guiding arrows to the trigger.
• Mundane Utility: In contrast to much of the other series, mages in Kordas' employ primarily use their magic for mundane purposes - waste disposal, stealing trinkets, building Haven. Even an Elemental's primary purpose in the story is building roads.
• Mutant Draft Board: Mages are automatically taken to work for the Emperor, except for those secretly being sheltered in Valdemar while they work on a means of evacuation. At least, some of them do that; about two thirds are devoted to shielding the estate so the Empire doesn't realise what's going on.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: It's implied that the origin of Leareth's and Falconsbane's grudge against Valdemar is the Valdemarans' unceremonious defeat of Cloudfall. Previously, Cloudfall viewed the Valdemarans as bait to lure out the Tayledras and Beneath Notice otherwise.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Cloudfall sends the equivalent of a magical nuke against the fledging city of Haven during Kordas' coronation. The gods intercept that power to fuel the creation of Companions. Yes, Ma'ar is responsible for Companions and Heralds.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed:
  • With his pettiness, Lack of Empathy, low intelligence, and obsession with size and luxury, the Emperor comes off as an Expy of Donald Trump, who had recently become the former President at the time of publication. The physical description is similar as well, and upon receiving the False Golds he makes a very Trumpesque speech about how big and impressive they are, while proving Kordas right that he hasn't the brains or knowledge to spot the real thing.
  • Lythe Shadowdancer is described as looking uncannily like a young Elizabeth Taylor.
• Obfuscating Stupidity:
  • Kordas cultivates the image of a country bumpkin who won't shut up about horses to avoid being taken too seriously or looked at too closely. It's a fine line to walk, as appearing too dim would result in his being declared incapable of running the Duchy and having it taken away.
  • Merrin, the Emperor's spy in Valdemar who Kordas has delighted in running rings around for years. Turns out he's running a similar game to Kordas, propping up his country bumpkin façade and hoping to avoid too much notice.
• Oddly Common Rarity: Averted for Adepts, which in other parts of the series are exceptionally common on the heroes' side. The early Valdemarans have no Adepts on their side - Jonathan, the Old Men and Kordas are the most powerful mages and they are explicitly not Adept-level. The only one that appears is referred to as The Adept and is justified because the Adept is Ma'ar.
• Once Done, Never Forgotten: In Valdemar, it's noted that Kordas' line, "Tonight we eat pork!" after killing a magically-affected boar of enormous size, has now become a thing and there's nothing he can do about it.
• One Dialogue, Two Conversations: A necessity for those involved in The Plan, who are very much aware that they could be watched by a scrying mage at any time, and thus disguise discussions as innocuous conversations unless they're sure they're safe. Those who've been involved for a while are adept; Kordas is shown understanding in-depth instructions disguised as a history lesson about the Mage Wars that his companion missed. Delia, being only lately informed of the plan, has more trouble.
• One-Man Army: Rothas, showing how powerful and terrifying a Bard's projective empathy can be. He's even called a weapon once people realize the extent of his power. Rothas' singing convinces an entire battalion of soldiers to give up and lay down their arms, singlehandedly turning the tide of the battle.
• One-Steve Limit: Averted: The foal given to Delia has the same name as the most prominent Doll attending Kordas, Star, although in the foal's case this is an abbreviation of Daystar.
  • Kordas and Isla's two younger children are named after major secondary characters. Once they start coming into their own as characters in "Valdemar," this can occasionally get confusing.
• The Plan: The plan to evacuate the entire population of a Duchy from the Evil Empire and start a new country far away is referred to in this way in-universe by all the characters involved.
• Powered by a Forsaken Child: The vrondi Dolls show Kordas the source of the Imperial Mages' power: an infant Earth Elemental, trapped and tortured so the mages can harvest the magic it gives off as it heals. It's been trapped for decades, and its family are looking for it, causing frequent earthquakes. At the end of Beyond, Kordas frees it, almost leveling the city as it escapes. Then its family come back and finish the job.
• Precocious Crush: Delia is head-over-heels in love with her brother-in-law and guardian Kordas, who is very much aware of the situation. It's never discussed, but it's awkward and embarrassing for both parties.
• Properly Paranoid: Those involved with The Plan take obsessive care not to let the wrong people find out, storing supplies in secret and planning in coded conversations, because if the Emperor ever finds out what they're doing it's all over. Even once they're successfully evacuated far enough away that the Empire finding them is unlikely, they still plan to move on again from the area of the Gate site, just in case someone figures out a way to follow them (and because the land can't support them there long-term). This plan is still in place after the Empire is all but ruined at the end of Beyond, because someone will inherit whatever's left and it's not worth the risk.
• Refuge in the West: The founding of the titular kingdom come from a group of refugees fleeing The Empire, led by Baron Valdemar. The second book is called Into the West and follows the refugees leaving their original teleport destination for safety.
• Retcon:
  • One over the history of the Empire. In the Mage Storms series, the Empire is mentioned to have been formed by some of the remnants of Ma'ar's army. In Beyond, the Empire was never part of the war, survived the mage storms relatively intact and stepped into the Evil Power Vacuum.
  • Windrider's story is changed from the Filk Song versions. In the songs, Sunsinger and Shadowdancer give up their power to break free Darshay and Windrider who have been captured and held hostage. In the story, Rothas and Lythe give up the chance to break their curse by participating the the battle to defend Haven. Restil is captured as part of a Wounded Gazelle Gambit but breaks free with Jonathan's help. Could be justified as Bardic License and Legend Fades to Myth.
• Shout-Out:
  • Philip K. Dick is referenced when Kordas mentions to the Vrondi the difficulty of remembering all the many-faceted aspects of the plan.
    Star: We can remember it for you...
    Kordas: Wholesale?
  • Among the people that come through the Gate after the initial landing party are a fisherman that says, "Mornin'. Nice day fer fishin', ain't it?", a blacksmith, and a confused man with a string of garlic hanging from his belt.
  • In "Into the West," Kordas mentions wearing a sieve on one's head as an example of the range of beliefs and practices covered under "No One True Way."
  • In Into the West, there's a reference to a pastime of juggling goslings.
  • Late in Into the West, after a major mage battle, a mage who got a bit singed in the fight asks "Am I missing -- an eyebrow?"
  • Rothas Sunsinger just...wants to sing.
  • There is mention of a Goddess of Horses named Epona.
• Secret Test of Character:
  • Kordas and the Valdemaran's journey through the Pelagirs was this as the Tayledras observed how Kordas treated the land and its inhabitants to judge whether they were worthy of settling in a Cleansed and decommissioned former Vale.
  • Lythe and Rothas' respect curses are this and are broken the moment they both commit an act of pure selflessness (sacrificing the power to break their curse in order to defend Haven)
• So Beautiful, It's a Curse: Kordas' and everyones opinion of Lythe and Rothas as both are near inhumanly beautiful and overdramatic and slightly spoiled because of it. Lythe moreso since she can easily be the target of rape and assault and she was pushed to marry by her mother because of her beauty.
• Spoiled Brat: Downplayed. Delia admits to herself that she's led a very sheltered life; she's missed most of the awful things the Empire does to people by being insignificant and protected by her brother-in-law taking her in after her father died and his Barony given to a favourite of the Emperor. She's unhappy about the constant hard work and unpleasant conditions involved in settling a new place, although she does her work without complaint. In Into the West, she cries while mending clothes, because it's a chance to do so with no one hearing.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: Delia is a good girl, but aristocratic and with a sheltered upbringing. Faced with the hardships of frontier life, she does her work without complaint but is clearly struggling to adapt.
• Tame His Anger: Kordas wears a storm shirt (dyed in thundercloud colours) under his clothes to remind himself of his dangerous temper. This gets demonstrated in Into the West when he delivers a Curb-Stomp Battle to someone who tortured a Doll for fun. The narrative notes how good it feels to bestow his anger on someone who so richly deserves it.
• Un-person: A rare heroic example. Starbird refuses to be recorded in Heraldic records and asks to be forgotten in order to hide the fact that the Tayledras helped found the kingdom and to preserve their insular, dangerous, mysterious reputation.
• Wrong Context Magic: The Empire is not only capable of immense feats of magic, the Emperor throws magic around to awe and please his followers. Characters will remark and long-time readers will know that this should be impossible. The Mage Storms wiped away node magic and ley lines making near impossible powerful feats of magic and the world only recovers around Vanyel's time. Kordas speculates that the Empire might have made pacts with demons or is using blood magic. It turns out the the Empire is draining magic from an Earth Elemental.

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