52 pages • 1 hour read
Mark LawrencePrince of Thorns
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2011A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 27-31Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 27 Summary
Night falls, and Jorg’s band spots a light coming from one of the many caves higher up in the gorge. A figure illuminated by a strange lantern emerges and approaches them. Dread rises among the group, and they quickly notice that they are surrounded.
As the first figure approaches, Jorg can see that the “lantern” is actually a child whose skin glows bright white. The figure beside her turns out to be an enormous, man-shaped monster.
Jorg welcomes the girl. The monster smiles in response. The girl introduces herself as Jane and the monster as Gorgoth, a leader among the Leucrota. A small army of Leucrota now reveal themselves all around Jorg’s camp. They are all warped and distended, no two alike.
Jane can read Jorg’s mind and discerns his purpose in traveling to the center of the mountain. She asks what he brings in exchange for passage. Jorg offers Gomst to them so that they can have access to the Sacraments. Gomst is dismayed, but Gorgoth accepts and the deal is struck, although Gorgoth warns them that the necromancers will kill them.
Chapter 28 Summary
As they enter the mountain, Jorg asks about the necromancers. Gorgoth says that they are attracted to Mount Honas: “There’s death at the heart of the mountain. Old magics. It makes their work easier” (210).
The caves of the Leucrota are made from the poured and shaped stone of the Builders. At their settlement, Jane leaves Jorg and his group, but not before telling Jorg: “You have a dark hand on your shoulder. A hole in your mind. A hole. In your memories” (213). She also warns Jorg to run when he meets “her,” presumably meaning one of the necromancers.
Gorgoth begins leading them into the mountain the following morning. They pass a cage containing two Leucrota children, aged about five and seven, and Gorgoth releases them to bring them along. Gorgoth explains that they are for the necromancers; they are undergoing the changes of the Leucrota too quickly and will not live long anyway. Nevertheless, the brothers feed the children a bit. Both are discolored and covered with bits of horn.
Makin quietly asks Jorg what his plan for the necromancers is. Jorg doesn’t have one, and instead notes, “There was a time when the dead stayed dead” (217). Makin scoffs, reminding Jorg of the marsh road, so Jorg has the Nuban explain that the “veil between the worlds” was weakened permanently when so many died on the “Day of a Thousand Suns” (217).
Makin asks Jorg once again what the plan is. Jorg responds, “Same as normal. We just keep killing them until they stay down” (217).
Chapter 29 Summary
The group laboriously climbs up stairs cut into the vertical shafts left by the Builders. Jorg starts talking to the two brothers and gives them the names Gog and Magog. They tell Jorg that they do not try to escape because it is the law, but Gog, the elder brother, says that he will try to protect Magog. Jorg tells Gog that if he wants to “win the game,” then he should “leave little Magog to look after himself” (221).
They reach the top of the shaft, and Gorgoth leads them onwards towards the Great Stair. They begin to see bones in increasing quantities, evidence of the necromancers’ activities. A female necromancer suddenly appears and bewitches them all. She is extremely attractive and covered only in ribbons and swirls of paint. Jorg knows that this is the one Jane warned him of, but he introduces himself politely and kisses her hand. She introduces herself as Chella. Jorg is fully under her spell.
A coldness starts to spread, and the scattered bones begin fitting themselves into skeletons and approach the brothers. Gorgoth holds Gog tightly, and Magog tries in vain to fight. A skeleton lifts Magog and prepares to pierce his eyes with his fingers, but the Nuban explodes its hand with a crossbow bolt. Jorg is released from Chella’s spell and swings a skull into her face.
Chapter 30 Summary
Jorg whirls to cut Chella down with his sword, but she dodges away. Jorg kicks Rike into action, and Rike bashes the skeletons reaching for Gog and Magog. Jorg turns back to Chella, and he can see her true form, a withered husk kept alive by dark magics. The brothers come up to Jorg, who taunts Chella. A freezing cold descends on the chamber as many more skeletons assemble themselves.
Jorg and his companions fend off waves off shambling corpses, but hypothermia and exhaustion begin to set in. Focusing on his rage, Jorg bursts away from the group to find Chella. He knows the dead will stop rising if he can only kill the necromancer.
The scent of oil of cloves catches Jorg’s attention, and he follows it to find Chella feeding on the Nuban next to one of the open Builder shafts. Jorg picks up the Nuban’s enchanted crossbow off the ground and feeds a bolt into it. Chella tries to bend Jorg to her will, but Jorg shoots a bolt through the Nuban’s chest and into her. The pair fall down the shaft.
Chapter 31 Summary
Jorg returns to the group and gets into a fight with Rike, striking him with gauntleted fists because of Rike’s indifference to the Nuban’s death. Jorg beats Rike and force him to apologize.
Back at the group, Jorg discovers that Magog was killed in the fighting and names Gog the group’s new mascot. Before continuing, they burn their dead along with the bones of the reanimated skeletons.
At the Great Stair another necromancer attempts to ambush them, but Jorg immediately lops its head off and splits its chest open. On a sudden whim, Jorg cuts open the necromancer’s chest and takes a bite out of its heart. Jorg begins to feel odd and now hears angry voices approaching
Chapters 27-31 Analysis
In these action-filled chapters, Jorg sharpens his commitment to “the game.” His pity and quasi-affection for Gog and Magog do not extend to actively trying to rescue them, but the advice he offers to Gog—that he will never “win the game” trying to save someone else, even his little brother—is meant as a sort of kindness. Jorg puts his own advice to effect when he shoots Chella through the Nuban. Although the Nuban is one of the few people whose moral opinion counts with Jorg, he sacrifices the Nuban with no regret.
He also gains considerable experience dealing with enemies wielding magic. He learns from his hesitation with Chella to attack the necromancers and other magic wielders immediately. When he encounters the second necromancer by the Great Stair, he promptly cuts it apart before it can enchant anyone. Eating a bite of its heart promptly proves useful as Jorg can see the ghosts pursuing them and incinerate them. Jorg’s having eaten the heart will prove exceptionally important for his survival going forward.
