James Nicoll Reviews

1983’s The Four Wishes is the first volume in Charlotte Stone’s epic BDSM-flavoured sword and sorcery series, Cheon of Weltanland. The Four Wishes is also the only volume in Charlotte Stone’s epic BDSM-flavoured sword and sorcery series, Cheon of Weltanland.

A once-great empire is in decline¹. Barbarian Bunnish soldiers descend on Cheon’s undefended village. They murder all the men and subject the women to terrible abuses from which ten-year-old Cheon is not spared. A soldier’s moment of shame provides Cheon the opportunity to escape… or rather, to be captured and enslaved by libidinous subarboreal ape-men.

Two years after that….

Escaping from her unspeakably cruel masters, Cheon encounters Meon the witch. Meon pities the girl, and takes Cheon into her household, teaching the white girl certain civilized arts that black people have long ago mastered. Or in this case, mistressed.

Meon offers Cheon four wishes. After some thought, Cheon selects these:

“That no man shall again do to me as the Bunnish men and the men of the Dark Place did …” (…) ​“That I may grow tall and strong and skilled in the use of weapons, that I may slay men as I please. That I may be as you are, a witch skilled in sorcery, yet beautiful like the dawn as you are beautiful as the dusk. That I may be a queen as my father promised me, the queen of the Northlands.” 

Years pass in which Cheon grows unusually tall and strong, mistresses weapons both melee and ranged, learns the rudiments of sorcery, and is tutored in the Way of Truth, that philosophy to which all civilized people, and a few white people as well, adhere. Once Cheon is old enough — which is to say, once she begins making advances on Meon that Meon has little interest in returning²—Cheon is sent out to into a war-torn world to find her destiny.

Step one: kill every Bunnish man. Cheon discovers that there are certain practical details that she overlooked. There are a lot of Bunnish men and not all of them are immediately to hand, so killing them one by one will be very time consuming. As well, while some Bunnish warriors are more than happy to provide Cheon with the pretext to kill them, others do not. Unprovoked murder proves distasteful.

Therefore, she becomes an unparalleled mercenary adventuress. While her ability to identify women who might make suitable romantic partners is lacking, her prowess with sword and bow is legendary. Her talent for choosing the wrong side is matched by a knack for escaping or being freed… eventually.

The world will be transformed by Cheon. Specifically, many communities Cheon visits are transformed into charred ruins where the lamentations of a few survivors may be heard. Yet despite all the times Cheon wins, and all the times she almost wins, she is not queen. Is Cheon to be denied her fourth wish?

~oOo~

Cheon’s horrifying backstory only consumes the first 5% of the novel, which is for the best. Unfortunately, she spends a good chunk of the remaining 95% ensuring other people will experience what she did.

“Charlotte Stone” is the pen name of Charles Nightingale and Dominique Nightingale. ​“Nightingale” is an awesome surname, and Dominque is pretty eye-catching as well. I don’t know why the Nightingales or Donald Wollheim wanted to use the more pedestrian ​“Stone.”

According to the author’s bio:

CHARLOTTE STONE lives in England and has authored over a dozen mainstream, mystery, and fantasy novels in both English and French. A former college lecturer, she is a feature writer for a prominent British magazine and several of her science fiction short stories have been anthologized in various SF collections.

I was unable to verify any of that or show that it was not true³.

So, that sure is a Boris Vallejo cover. 

Astonishingly, he appears to have taken some liberties with the costuming. Civilized people like the woman in the background wear more clothes than none. In the text, Cheon does not favour battle-bikinis. She wears magical armor, courtesy of Meon:

Light it was yet stronger than the finest iron. It had a helmet in the fashion of the rising sun with rays which served to deflect blows, on top of a covering for the head which also protected my ears and neck. My chest and back were covered by a breast-plate (…). My upper thighs, buttocks and lower stomach were covered by a skirt of mail, flexible and strong. My shins had fluted armor with great extensions protecting the front of my knees and lower thighs.

In Vallejo’s defense, his lurid cover is more technically adept than Charles Nightingale’s 2005 cover.

The text hints that Meon lied and that the four wishes are a magic feather. Cheon has always been unusually large for her age. Her martial prowess is the result of years of training, as is her remarkable strength and her ability to resist predatory men. As for becoming queen, she doesn’t. The novel ends on a cliffhanger and there were no more volumes.

The story is told first person by Cheon, with occasional interjections by a historian writing much later, after Cheon’s death. Certain details in Cheon’s account cast doubt on her veracity. The historian’s comments suggest that Cheon is confused, deluded, disingenuous, and/or lying about certain details of her epic adventures. 

One might go further and assert that Cheon is a knucklehead on par with Cija, on top of which she is self-centered, amoral and possesses an astonishing capacity for violence and self-serving hypocrisy. Cheon is a stalwart defender of Cheon’s right to consent. Cheon is considerably less invested in other people’s right to consent⁴. As well, while she objects passionately to her own village having been sacked and massacred, her mercenary lifestyle ensures that other people will suffer the same fate. This double standard might have been intentionally chosen by the authors, as a comedic take on certain sword and sorcery tropes, specifically the disco-era interpretation of Red Sonja⁵.

Readers don’t seem to have cared for the adventures of a homicidal lesbian ditz⁶, judging by the lack of sequels. That said, The Four Wishes, retitled as Cheon, Witch Warrior is still available here (iUniverse), here (Bookshop US), here (Bookshop UK), here (Chapters-Indigo), and here (Words Worth Books)

I did not find The Four Wishes/Cheon, Witch Warrior at Barnes & Noble.

1: USA delenda est.

2 Because Meon believes Cheon would be a terrible lover.

“I could not abide your childish gropings.” she said. ​“Even though I would please you with an act of pretense if I could, I cannot, nor would it be in the Way.” 

3: I did discover that Charles Nightingale is an artist, but was less lucky regarding Dominique Nightingale.

4: Cheon does grumpily allow her servant to say no, but then she beats the servant for having done so.

5: The elevator pitch for this novel could be ​“Sergio Aragonés’ Red Sonja.”

6: But could a ditz learn magic? Apparently yes. Although she does not appear to have learned much magic.