Though she frees him from his servitude at the end of "Gate of Ivrel", he follows her through the gate to Shiuan, and their relationship strengthens and deepens. They come to love one another, but the experience is often painful and confusing. Unlike most genre fantasy, the narrative dwells much on the exhaustion, discomfort, pain and fear of their presumably endless quest. At an early stage, Vanye, in pious fear of her witchcraft-like technology, her apparent return from death and her legendary status as the ancient doom of the kingdoms of Andur-Kursh, begs not to be told many things Morgaine would be willing to communicate to him, which retards the pace of revelation further. In all four novels, Vanye is separated from Morgaine and has to fend for himself among enemies, not knowing if she is still alive or will pause to come back for him, with a concomitant increase in dramatic tension. Vanye’s uncertainties are one of the chief strategies Cherryh employs to keep the reader in a parallel state of uncertainty.