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At the end of The Jewel of Fire, the sorcerer Caolin is dead and his forces disbanded. King Julian has married Rana, and is beginning to heal. Everything seems set for the two to enjoy a long and happy reign. And so it comes to pass. For twenty-five years, Westria enjoys a golden age of peace and prosperity, ruled by the Shaman-King.

The Master of the Junipers serves as Master of the College of the Wise until one day he resigns and disappears. Frederic of Havn makes the journey to Awahna and returns as an adept, but changes the grey robe for the red when he becomes Julian's seneschal. He and Ardra have three children: Sunny, who takes the name of Lenart at his initiation and becomes a deputy seneschal, Garnet, who takes the name of Bera and becomes a beast-mistress at the College of the Wise, and Sombra. Queen Rana manages to bear only one living child, a son called Phoenix. Sombra and Phoenix grow up together. Her ambition is to become an adept, but his is simply to survive the pressure of growing up as a great man's son.

In the meantime, outside the borders of Westria things have not been so peaceful. A great war between the Iron Kingdom (roughly the Great Lakes, the Ohio River valley, and upper Midwest) and the Empire of the Sun (most of the Southeast) has displaced many, some of whom drift westward to the Sea of Grass (Great Plains). One of them is a soldier called Tadeo Marsh, once known as the Iron General, one of the few competent commanders for the Empire. He finds himself a refugee in a dusty town on the Plateau (Platte) River, where he meets Mother Mahaliel, leader of a small cult called the Children of the Sun. The Suns are fanatical, but not very successful, until Mother Mahaliel recruits the General, and he turns her mob into an army. Unable to find a home on the plains, they seek the mythical Golden Land to the West of which an errant Farin Piper, retracing he epic journeys of his mentor, Silverhair the Wanderer, sings.

At their initiations, Frederic's daughter takes the name of Luz, not knowing it was once the name of her grand-father Caolin. The prince, haunted by fears of failure, dreams of his grandfather, the ill-fated King Jehan, last seen in Mistress of the Jewels, and takes his name, shortened to Jo. Luz goes to the College of the Wise, where she runs up against the powerful Master Granite. Jo gets into trouble at home and is exiled to the Ramparts (Sierra Nevada Mountains) where he is captured by raiders from the Barren Lands (Nevada et al) and sold as a slave in Arena (Reno).

He does not deal with this well.

As a result, with his psyche as damaged as his body, he is sold to a circus to train as a gladiator under the mysterious Master Garr, and eventually ends up in Aztlan (the Southwest), just as the Suns' migration arrives. Along with the rest of the circus, Jo is swept up by the invaders. By the time the Suns reach Westria, his personality has fractured into the berserker Dragon, the child Fix, King Jehan, and Red, who is Mother Mahaliel's fool and token of her luck.

King Julian must fight a guerilla war against the Iron General's highly trained troops, while Mother Mahaliel seeks to win Westria's souls to her creed of submission to the Sun. City after city falls to the invading army. But when Master Granite brings Luz south to aid in the fight, she is captured and brought into Mother Mahaliel's household.

Together, Luz and Jo must escape from the Suns and journey to the Otherworld of Awahna to find the power that will enable them to win the battle on which King Julian has staked all, and finally face Mother Mahaliel.

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This page was last modified on Sunday, 12 February, 2006 at 14:15:57
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