A warrior. Her deadly magic. And the ghost ship she must bring home.
In the lower wards of Kahnzoka, the great port city of the Blessed Empire, eighteen-year-old ward boss Isoka comes to collect when there’s money owing. When her ability to access the Well of Combat is discovered by the Empire—an ability she should have declared and placed at His Imperial Majesty’s service—she’s sent on an impossible mission: steal Soliton, a legendary ghost ship—a ship from which no one has ever returned. If she fails, her sister’s life is forfeit.
The Wells of Sorcery is a Dark Fantasy book trilogy by Django Wexler, consisting of the books Ship of Smoke and Steel, City of Stone and Silence and Siege of Rage and Ruin. The books are based on a setting of Wexler's own creation, in which some people are born with one of the eponymous Wells of Sorcery. Isoka and her sister Tori are born in Kahnzoka, where all well users are put to use serving the Emperor.
The Wells of Sorcery provides examples of the following tropes
Setting tropes
- Blue Blood: Enforced. Nobles are almost certain to be mageborn , but not out of any inherent superiority. The wells are In the Blood, so to make sure their heirs are born with a well, nobles have mageborn from the lower classes arrested and used as breeding stock.
- Crapsack World: Played with. Kahnzoka is definitely this. The emperor and the nobles couldn't care less about the lower classes, who are used as forced soldiers in their labor. Men with any sort of talent with magic are forcibly conscriped into the army or, if they're especially good, the Emperor's Praetorian Guard, while women are forced to be breeding stock for the noble families who insist that magic should be exclusive to those of pure blood. It's made clear that this is the case in Kahnzoka, however. We don't see enough of Jyashtani to know how it is, but Meroe's homeland is, while not perfect and far from democratic, not a terrible place to live.
- Crystal Dragon Jesus: The Blessed Empire worships the Blessed One, a divine figure who lived long ago before ascending to heaven.
- Fantasy Counterpart Culture: The Blessed Empire is mostly Imperial China, including the God-Emperor and the food (the cover of the first book also makes Isoka look distinctly east-asian, while the other covers are more ambiguous), but with the Crystal Dragon Jesus and Divine Right of Kings of medieval Europe.
- Future Slang: Well, fantasy slang. "Rot" is the strongest (and most used) swearword in the setting, which is explained in-unvierse as refering to the Vile Rot, an island where some Ghul adepts got out of control and bad things happened. "Rut" is also largely used instead of fuck when refering to intercourse.
- Functional Magic: Some people in the setting are born with one of the nine Wells of Sorcery. There are three tiers of how much power you can draw from your well, but Training the Gift of Magic is possible, though it won't make up for raw power. Touched are those who can barely access their wells, and even with skill can perform little more than parlor tricks. Talents are more powerful, able to use their well in combat and even kill. Adepts are the most powerful, able to fully tap into their well. The wells are
- Myrkai, the Well of Fire. Touched can perform simple pyromancy and parlor tricks, while adepts can unleash deadly infernos.
- Tartak, the Well of Force. Touched can lift and manipulate small objects, even fine manipulation with practice., whole adepts can create deadly waves of force and crush lungs.
- Melos, the Well of Combat. Adepts can form blades and armor from energy.
- Sahzim, the Well of Perception.
- Rhema, the Well of Speed. Touched can move slightly faster than normal, while adepts can move with near Super-Speed.
- Xenos, the Well of Shadows.
- Ghul, the Well of Life. Touched can mend small wounds and provide contraceptives, while adepts can toy with the forces of life at their leisure. Ghul touched are tolerated, while anyone more powerful are killed, due to the great risk of their power growing out of control.
- Kindre, the Well of Mind. Adepts can touch the minds of others and sense their thoughts and intentions.
- Eddica, the Well of Spirit. No known practicioners. There are actually a few practicioners, but using the Well requires being in the right location such as Soliton or the Docks. The well seems mostly concerned with manipulating life energy and animating dead things.
- Playing with Fire: Myrkai, the Well of Fire, bestows the power of fire upon its users. The title Pyromancer is specifically used for a touched Myrkai user who uses their power for entertainment, usually having greater fine control than other users.
- Praetorian Guard: The Emperor's Immortals, adepts in their well who are forcibly conscripted to serve the emperor as elite soldiers. They are also The Dreaded, and any non-noble adept have to hide their gifts, lest the emperor turns them into an emotionless warmachine.
Ship of Smoke and Steel
- All for Nothing: Isoka's first major Kick the Dog moment is when she kills Hagan, a close friend, out of fear that he'll reveal something about Tori under questionning. Turns out that Kuon Naga already knows everything, and is taking in Isoka with the intent of using Tori as leverage.
- Aristocrats Are Evil: Isoka is certainly under this impression, and Kuon Naga particularily shows himself from his worst side. The Kahnzokan aristocracy are certainly awful, terrible people, treating the lower classes like chattel. Meroe subverts this, being a princess of an eastern clan while still being a good person (better than Isoka, even).
- Blade Below the Shoulder: Isoka mainly uses her Melos energy to form blades like this
- Call a Smeerp a "Rabbit": The "crabs", as Isoka lampshades, are not crayfish. They're called that because they live on an abandoned ship, like crabs, and have hard exoskeletons. Soliton's "angels" also hardly resemble actual angels, being more akin to grotesques.
- Dark Secret: Meroe's reason for being exiled and sacrificed to the Soliton. It's eventually revealed that she's a Ghulwitch, an adept of the Ghul well.
- Dead All Along: The captain was a member of an earlier cycle of the Soliton, but died when the ship passed the vile rot. The current ruling council is using him as an unseen figurehead.
- Fake Aristocrat: Isoka uses the wealth she earns from being a lower ward boss to set up a cozy life for Tori, having bought her a mansion and manufactured a noble title for her.
- Ghost Ship: The Soliton, a massive ship made of metal that sails around the local ocean every year and collects sacrifices from each location, or something terrible happens. It is devoid of life, save the sacrifices brought onboard and the monstrous crabs that seem to live there naturally, but it has a crew of animated statues that come to live and follow the command of its mysterious captain. The captain is actually dead, and the Soliton seems to operate on some pre-given command without anyone actually controling it. It is also fueled by the spirits of those who die on board or nearby, making it a rather literal ghost-ship.
- Gratuitous Rape: The potential of being used as a Sex Slave is brought up a lot in the first book. It gets better with the second.
- I Have Your Wife: Kuon Naga, the Emperor's spymaster and the real power behind the throne, forces Isoka to steal the Soliton, or he'll have Tori revealed as a fraud noble and punished in unimaginable ways.
- Instant Armor: Isoka can form her Melos energy into armor to block strikes. Crossed with Elemental Armor and Wreathed In Fire, as the armor is painful to get into contact with, and if the strike is hard enough, she may get burned from it herself.
- No One Sees the Boss: Soliton's captain will only speak to the ruling council of its crew, and only acts through his angels.
- Required Secondary Powers: Averted. Isoka is not immune to her own armor's heat, and often gets burned.
City of Stone and Silence
- Always a Child to Parent: Tori's chapters makes it clear that Isoka has a bit of an issue with this in regards to her sister. Throughout Ship of Smoke and Steel, Isoka's chapters made Tori seem like a little girl who didn't fully understand the grim realities of the world, and was content where she was. Here, it's obvious that Tori is very aware of the world she lives in, and knows what Isoka does for her.
- Bourgeois Bohemian: Garo mentions that the nobles are aware of how terrible it is to live in Kahnzoka's lower quarters, and often discuss how awful it is that people have to live like that. It's more performative or to lighten their consciousness, however. Sometimes they'll donate a sack of money to a rigerously background checked beggar and pat themselves on the back, and Garo calls it "fashionable" to care about the poor.
- Conscription: With the Jyashtani-Kahnzokan war getting worse, men across the city are being forcefully conscripted into the army. This is what leads Garo and Tori to meet, since he was fleeing from conscription.
- G-Rated Sex: An example where it's used because the characters are minors, instead of the audience. After learning that Isoka was taken by the Immortals, Tori and Garo end up in a cramped hotelroom together and, after having a swig of some strong drink, she asks if he wants to kiss her. The implications of what that kiss would lead to are obvious, especially since Garo refuses on the grounds that she is not of sound mind, but they are just kids by the audience's standards.
- He Who Must Not Be Seen: In-Universe, there are plenty of puppet theatres in Kahnzoka that depict scenes of political intrigue at the court using the likeness of real nobles, but the Emperor himself never appears in person. He only shows up as a booming voice from beyond the scene.
- Nice Guy: Garo is a genuinly kind and friendly boy who wants to help people, even though he's a bit naive as to how he should do that. Even when in a room alone with a girl who actually wants him to kiss her, he refuses because he realizes she's not of sound mind at the moment.
- Not Using the "Z" Word: Prime's reanimated corpses are called "corpse things" and "the dead", but never zombies or even undead. It's implied that, since eddica hasn't been seen for centuries, the concept of necromancy is not known in the blessed empire.
