Palace of the Damned

Palace of the Damned is the third and penultimate book in The Saga of Larten Crepsley.

Plot
As Lartern Crepsley treks across Greenland, with a baby, he discovers the Palace of Perta Vin Garhrl. He sets the baby on a coffin and walks to a break in the ice which he plans on jumping in, but is stopped by Desmond Tiny. Desmond Tiny names the baby Gavner Purl then leaves Larten and baby Gavner in astonishment.

He later travels to Paris and meets a young woman named Alicia in a bar. She is the cousin of one of the men he gambled with. In the first part of part 2, Larten is going to fly with an experimental airplane made by Alberto. He crashes to the gorund and swears he will never go on an airplane again. It later explains how Larten met Alicia and how it would be easy to rear Gavner as a son, but Larten does not think he deserves Gavner's love. He also tries to offload Gavner multiple times, even though he cares for Gavner. He would have abandoned him but he wanted him to be sure that he had a chance to prosper. He eventually gives Gavner to Alicia. One night, he goes to an art exhibit and meets Tanish Eul (the previous leader of the cubs). Eventually Gavner begins to think of Tanish as an uncle, often referring to him as Uncle Tanish. During one of his visits in 1906, they are having a portrait done, where it states that Larten proposed to Alicia and they were due to be married the next year. Tanish states that the date is wrong and Larten says this is the date the painter started the painting before Larten banished him. Or so he thought. He also states that he may paint over the picture and Alicia warns him that if he even looks at the picture sourly, there will be trouble. During a conversation, Tanish states that Gavner does not have many friends and he has been bullied because of Larten. Tansih offers Larten a job helping him run a casino and he accepts, thinking of Gavner's well being ( though later he regrets accepting the offer and is often irritable). Later one day a man comes into the casino complaining about a stolen watch. Larten goes looking for Tanish in his office and he asks some of the employees if they have seen him. They reply not for three or four days. Then he asks for the girl who stole the watch but the young women state that they have not seen her and she was taken along with three others. They also say that it has happened before to other women who had worked for Tanish. He sees marks on one of the girls cheeks and realizes the killer is one of the Vampaneze. Larten searches for Tanish and finds him in a small casino gambling with friends. Later Tanish tells Larten the killer is Randle Chayne, a Vampaneze who killed a cub member. After a heated argument, Larten storms out of the casino. He soon runs into Randle and they fight. Larten is knocked out in the middle of the fight and wakes up to see Tanish and Randle with one of the casino women. Tanish kills the girl and runs away screaming that Larten is a vampire and he has murdered her. Larten flees and goes to Alberto the airplane creator who has not heard about the murder. After a couple of weeks, he asks one of his assistants to send a message to Alicia. He explains what happened to her. Alicia askes if Gavner is a vampire too and Lartren replies no. Then he breaks off there engagement and prospective marriage, gives Alicia a kiss, and Alicia leaves. Then he decides to go to Vampire Mountain.

At the mountain, he learns that Vancha has become a prince and Larten starts training to become a general. One day before the council he runs into Mika who has taken Arra Sails as an assistant. He did not blood her but took her in after her sire did not want her, saying she is too spunky and wild. He often flirts with her but Arra usually ignores him. Arra remains in the mountain with Mika for a number of years before departing with him. Vancha then asks Larten to go with him to see Arrow because Arrow has been tracking down every Vampaneze to avenge of the murder of his wife. Larten accepts and he brings Wester Flack with him.

When they finally talk Arrow out of his rage, Larten and Wester journey to France to check on Alicia and Gavner. They meet Evanna along the way, who tells Larten that his soul will surely find Paradise. He finally finds Alicia, widowed with a daughter Sylva. He also discovers that Tanish tracked her and Gavner down and that she suspects Tanish has turned Gavner into a vampire. Larten and Wester return to vampire mountain where Larten enlists Vancha's help to track Tanish down. They find him in a city in Russia, with Gavner acting as his assistant. Larten challenges Tanish to a duel which Tanish refuses, saying that he will surely lose anyways and tells Larten to just execute him. But Larten lets him go, or so it seems. As Tanish leaves, Vancha kills him, enraging Gavner .Gavner tells Larten that he will hunt him down and kill him but Larten tells him there is no need. He hands Gavner his knife and kneels before him, saying that while he does not regret killing Tanish, he did kill both of Gavner's parents. If Gavner killed Larten, no vampire would be able to hold that against him. The book ends with Gavner making his choice.

Trivia

 * This book was originally called Vur Horston, as Darren Shan wanted to name the books on the basis of what Mr. Crepsley was called at that time. It is called this as Mr. Crepsley used his orphaned cousin's name whom he loved more than anyone before he became a vampire. The real Vur Horston was killed by Traz and as a result led Larten to kill him and flee from his home subsequently causing him to meet Seba Nile and become a vampire, this occurred in the first book, Birth of a Killer.