THE RIDDLED NIGHT

Second part of Leith's trilogy (The Company of Glass, 1999) about the land of Everien and its ancient, bizarre, half-forgotten magic. Now, in deep winter, the Clans that supported the Pharician warrior Tash are already chafing under their conqueror's heel. The Pharician Emperor, Hezene, sends his beautiful daughter, Ukili, to marry Tash—but accompanying Ukili are an assassin-mage disguised as a Scholar; Chee the talking bird; Quiz, a skyfalcon (a species considered extinct); and Quiz's handler, the waif Liaku. Elsewhere, rich heiress and warrior Istar becomes fascinated by the bird-man Eteltar, who's not only a mage but also a deadly Sekk, one of the mysterious species whose slaving-spells are causing mayhem and war across Everien. The skeleton of a flying man has been found in Tyger Pass, at the same time that Quiz appeared; the Pharician emperor sends an army to recover it. Weary warrior Tarquin, marooned a thousand years in the past, meets their fascinating, baffling time serpents; his beloved, Jaya, trapped in time and threatened by monsters, may also be the merciless Sekk called Night, Tarquin's bitter foe. The Clans battle for control of the Fire Houses, Tash's source of magic weapons—but what will happen if the time serpents are freed to move through time itself?

Messy, certainly, and sometimes slow, but the real attraction here, as in book one, is Leith's shimmering, vaulting imagination: complex, enigmatic, seemingly limitless, her creations nonetheless have a satisfyingly plausible shape and weight and structure.