Book description
In a remote mountain academy, the politically expendable younger sons
of the Great Houses study for an extraordinary task. Most will fail,
some will die, but the reward for the dedicated few is great: mastery of
the andat, and the rank of Poet. Thanks to these men - part sorcerers,
part scholars - the great city-states of the Khaiem enjoy wealth and
power beyond measure, and the greatest of them all is Saraykeht:
glittering jewel of the Summer Cities. There are those in the world,
however, who envy such wealth. There are great riches to be had in the
Summer and Winter Cities, and only the threat of the andat unleashed
holds the enemies of the Khaiem in check. Conflict is brewing in the
world. Alliances will be broken and friends betrayed. The lowly will be
raised up, the mighty will fall and innocents will be slaughtered. And
two men, bound to each other by an act of kindness and an act of
brutality, may be all that stands between the civilised world and war.
War and something worse . . . Daniel Abraham's short stories have been
nominated for the Nebula award and included in Gardner Dozois's Year's
Best Science Fiction anthology. He lives in New Mexico with his wife and
daughter.
