Another book down...

I just finished reading another book, "The Cup of Morning Shadows" by Rosemary Edgehill. This is the second in a trilogy, the first being "The Sword of Maiden's Tears". In the first book, one of the twelve treasures of Elfhame is stolen and brought to earth, known to the elves as the "Land of Iron" for all the iron humans use. Iron is painful for Elves, so those who stole the sword thought it safely hidden in the human world.

An Elf named Rohannon Melior came in search of the sword and was found by a woman named Ruth Marlowe and her friends. They aided Melior in search of the sword, but the cost was high. Ruth lost her closest friend, Naomi, fell in love with Melior (and he with her), and found that her soul had been riven away from her and somehow placed in the sword long ago. That wasn't the only tragedy she had seen in her life, as she had spent 8 years in a coma after an accident on prom night killed her boyfriend, when he was apparently drunk and crashed his father's car into a tree for no discernable reason. Melior also discovers who it was who imprisoned Ruth's soul in the sword, it is the soon-to-be High King, Eirdois Baligant, who also seeks to destroy the twelve treasures and the noble houses of the elves who guard them.

At the end of the book, Melior had asked Ruth to return with him to faerie. She agreed, but the final battle that won Melior the sword had taken too much out of him to allow him to work the magic to return both of them to faerie. Instead, she let him believe she would follow him, but did not, staying in the human world.

Now, it is two years later, on Christmas, and Ruth has been talked into going to a party with her colleagues from the Library. However, there is an alarm at the library that they must check out, and Ruth finds herself slipping through a portal in the basement of the Library back to the borderlands of Chandrakar, or Faerie. And she isn't the only one. Her boss, the library director Nic Brightlaw, has made the journey with her. Nic, a former army man, saves her life when they are attacked by bandits, and they flee through the borderlands, looking for the Goblin Market, where they may find a means to travel through a gate to the main lands of Chandrakar. Before they get there, Nic discovers they are being tracked, and goes off to try and find out who is doing the tracking, only to be met by a woman who attempts to get him to go home, and when he will not, turns into a dragon and attacks him. Nick jams his gun down the dragon's throat and fires, then passes out.

Melior, meanwhile, with Ruth worlds away from him, goes in search of a wizard to back up his story about Baligrant, or to return Ruth to him. But with Ruth already returned to the lands of Chandrakar, he is able to interpret the mage's clues and ask instead for the wizard to take the enchantment off the sword and reveal who set the enchantment on it when Melior confronts Baligrant. The Wizard agrees to do so, in return for a bride from the world of Iron, to be delivered before Melior's firstborn son marries.

Melior heads for the Goblin Market and finds Ruth, only to be attacked by a mage, the same woman who took on Dragon shape to fight Nic Brightlaw. This is Baligrant's pet wizard, bound to him by an addiction to certain flowers mixed with Baligrant's blood. Baligrant has commanded her to kill Ruth, and to take her away from Melior. Melior is injured and poisoned with her attack form, and Ruth and Melior are separated. She finds a small cottege in the woods to take refuge in, whose only inhabitant seems to be an orange tabby cat. There she finds food, shelter and a warm bath. Later that night, she wakes from a nightmare and realizes that her memories of the night of the accident are not lost to her forever, as her doctors had claimed, but are slowly coming back to her in her dreams in Faerie. She also senses that Melior is near and rescues him from where he has come to the gate.

She just manages to drag him inside and tends his wounds with the help of the cat, who, it seems, is more than just a cat. Meanwhile, Melior's cousin, Floire Jausserande, the keeper of the Cup of Morning Shadows, has been unable to reach the site where it is hidden due to a group of humans outlaws. She is attacked and imprisoned by them, and the leader, who calls himself Fox, also wants the treasures of Chandrakar destroyed, and has a decided hatred for the Elves. After kidnapping Jausserande, he tries to force her into retrieving the cup, but because she resists him, they may have made the cup unretrievable, which suits him just fine. He lets her go, but Jausserande wants revenge against him, and so sets out to bring him to justice.

Nic, meanwhile, has been found by the same mage who Melior asked for help, and deals with the wizard for help in finding and rescuing Ruth. But the price is steep. Nic must give up all his memories in return. He is only able to keep 5 years of his memories for a month as he goes in search of her, with a horse and gear provided by the wizard. Nic keeps his memories of being in the army, and goes out in search of her, and meets up with Jausserande, who he aids in going after Fox.

Melior and Ruth are once more separated when Melior is kidnapped by the same mage who had attacked him earlier. Ruth is found by Fox and his outlaws, and she discovers, much to her amazement, that Fox is actually Phillip, one of the friends who aided her and Melior in the first book. He will not tell her how he got to Faerie, but he is happy that Melior is gone, since he blames Melior for the death of Naomi, who Phillip loved. He only wishes that the Sword of Maiden's Tears had also been destroyed.

At the end, Jausserande and Nic catch up with Ruth and Fox/Phillip. Jausserande tricks Fox into surrendering by threatening the life of one of his men and is taken into custody. Ruth tells her that Melior has been captured, and Fox says he will help retrieve Melior in exchange for his life.

The third book, which I am reading now, is called "The Cloak of Night and Daggers". Ruth, Nic, Jausserande and Fox go in search of Melior. Meanwhile, on earth, Human Holly Kendall travels to New York for a con and runs into an actual elf with Amnesia at the hotel. He can't remember his name, but calls himself Mac. He has managed to escape from an upstate mental hospital, where a group of Humans were torturing him to make him read the book of Airts, a catalog of the treasures of faerie, for them. Holly is appalled at the wounds and mistreatment they have inflicted on him, and when she finds that another elf appears to be at the hotel searching for him, she takes him with her on a trip to a friend of hers named Rook, a man who served as her squire in the SCA, which both of them are still in together.

Together, they break into the Happy Moon Psychiatric Facility at night, and manage to retrieve one of Mac's possessions, a pair of glasses which he says, "Are made for looking out." When Holly tries them on and looks at her food at the diner, she can see everything about the food: where it came from how the salad came from a place that sprayed their crops with DDT, and so on. The glasses are needed to read the Book of Airts, but only Mac, an elf, can interpret the book.

The next night, they discover where the book is being hidden and retrieve it, but at a cost. Holly, wearing her SCA armor and carrying a real sword, which she calls Lady Fantasy III, is shot at by the guard who discovers them, and lashes out with her sword unthinkingly, killing the guard. This is the first person she has ever killed, and it throws her into shock, but Mac, called Makindeor by the guard, manages to snap her out of it. Another guard confronts them, but Holly is able to scare him off with a battlecry and charge, and they make their escape.

Rook wonders if Holly's friends at the convention are all right, so she and Makindeor leave to return to the con. After a number of scrapes and nearly getting caught, they find her friends all right and also discover that her friend Margot has the treasure belonging to Makindeor's line, the Cloak of Night and Daggers. It turns out that Margot is really Marcet of Chandrakar, a human maid to the Cloakholder of the line, who was making her way through the outlands to the world of Iron. One morning, she didn't wake up, and Marcet decided to flee the rest of the way to the human world. She only took the cloak because it was warmer than her own, but the cloak's power is to hide itself and its wearer, being able to turn them invisible and look like any item of clothing. Margot/Marcet returns the cloak to Makindeor, and he and Holly escape from the hotel when the men who imprisoned him come after them both.

They travel to Ippisiqua, where Ruth was head librarian, stopping at Rook's trailer on the way. Rook had bred dogs, but all his dogs are dead, and the trailer he lived in is burnt out. Rook is missing. They make a detour to hide the book, and when they return to the Library, Makindeor is able to force open the gate to Faerie in the basement. He and Holly make the passage to Chandrakar, with Holly wearing her armor and carrying Lady Fantasy III. But in her haste to go, she leaves behind the pills that control her bipolar disorder.

Ruth, Fox, Jausserande and Nic track Melior to a tower on the plains, in which he has been imprisoned by Baligrant and his chosen bride, Hermonicet. Hermonicet holds magic enough to strip mages of their own, learned in secret, and she supports Baligrant's ambitions because she has plans to take the magic of the Treasures into her body and become immortal as Chandrakar is. The tower, which she creates, is a trap, set to collapse and kill Melior and those who would rescue him as soon as they find him.

Nic goes off scouting, and is separated from the others when ferret-like creatures called losels go on a rampage of eating and destruction. They flee in the direction of the tower, leaving behind their horses as the horses one by one go lame and are unable to keep up. They enter the tower and are able to find Melior, incredibly hurt and dying. They prepare to give him the last of their water when Ruth pulls out a cup she was given at the Faerie Market. Jausserande recognizes the cup as the Cup of Morning Sorrows, and Ruth turns it over to her despite Fox's protests. Jausserande uses it to heal Melior, filling the cup with the power of life itself, but they are trapped within the tower, with illusions covering the way out.

Nic returns and encounters Holly and Makindeor after some mercenaries working for Baligrant have found them. Holly, on edge without her medications, slaughters them all with the cold iron of her sword and armor. Makindeor claims she is gifted as a Berserker, and with his magic, he can keep the wolf inside her in check. They go to the tower, which, since it is made of magic, can be cut by the cold iron swords and daggers they wear. Since Nic's mount is also made of magic, he can use it to bypass the tower walls and ride directly inside, which he does so after nearly cutting an opening through the walls with his daggers and blades. Holly lends her sword to the endeavor, and when he rides inside and touches her sword with one of his daggers, the magic of the tower is broken and goes away, leaving no tower at all. They find that the tower has been constructed over one of the seals that holds power in Faerie, and use the Cloak to find Melior, Ruth and the others.

The mage confronts them and they bargain with her for their release. Nic agrees to become her hound, and she accepts the bargain, but since he has already bartered his life away to the other mage, she has made a false bargain, and lets them go from the shame of it. When they reach the outside, they are taken prisoner again, by the Earl of Silver, Baligrant's Father, and brought to the Citadel to speak their claims. Fox agrees to release Ruth from a promise she made regarding Melior, and the Council is held, but interrupted by an army of humans led by Fox's subordinate Raven, who has come to set Fox free or gain a place where humans can be free in the lands of Chandrakar.

I really enjoyed these books, although it is obvious that the author is/was planning a sequel to the series at some point. Promises are made that are not fulfilled, such as Melior finding a human bride for the wizard, and a threat at the end in the human world when the men who were chasing Makindeor threaten to cause problems for the friends Holly and Ruth left behind. (I say *was* because this is an older series of books, being written in the 90's.) I certainly would like to track down any further volumes in this world. Of course, no mention is made of how elves seem to be much longer lived than humans, and how will Melior feel when his bride fades and dies so much faster than he will? But then, it seems that it is never explicitly stated that elves live so long (at least, that I could see), but time runs faster in Chandrakar than in the human world, and the conflict in faerie is said to have run many human generations, and Hermonicet, who was the woman who set off the war, is still alive and vital, so you can definitely read between the lines.

The best part about the books is the world-building. Actually, the hotel that Holly and her friends stay in at the con, called the Hotel Escher, actually exists and is based on a real hotel, the Ryetown Hilton in Rye, New York. And it is just as it is described in the books, where you can be on the fourth floor, walk down the hall and down a ramp, and now you are on the 7th floor.

But it is the world-building in Chandrakar that really struck me. Chandrakar comes off as a real world, not the creation of an author, as real as the hotel she describes in our world, with its own hazards and dangers, and its amazing scenes and places. It's worth the trip. I'd only like to go back there again.

Next up on the plate, The Sisters Grimm: The Fairy-Tale Detectives by Michael Buckley, which has the distinction of being chosen as the Juvie book for the One Book New Jersey initiative this year. Basically, everyone across New Jersey of the same age will be reading the same book, with categories for adults, teens, children, and babies (called the "read to me" category.) Find out more at www.onebooknj.org.