BEYOND SANCTUARY by Janet Morris
THE SACRED BAND GOES NORTH – TO WAR!
Here is the newly revised Author’s Cut edition of BEYOND SANCTUARY, the first ever full-length novel to take you beyond the notorious Thieves World™ fantasy universe, where gods still stalk the land, warring with demons and human sorcerers and trampling unfortunate humanity underfoot.
If you like stories of bold brave knights employed in meritorious duty, or tales of ladies delicate and fair, be warned: Beyond Sanctuary, set at the foot of notorious Wizardwall, may be too realistic for your sensibilities. War is coming to Tyse, an occupied town at the foot of Wizardwall. And so is the Sacred Band, commanded by Tempus, who is called the favorite of the storm god, the Riddler, Tempus the Black, and worse by his enemies.Tempus longs to align his cavalry with the Nisibisi freemen on Wizardwall's slopes,fighting to regain their homeland against the allied sorcerers of Black Nisibis and the evil Mygdonian empire, intent on conquering all who stand in their way.
BEYOND SANCTUARY lies occupied Tyse, a war-torn town in the shadow of Wizardwall that hosts refugees, insurgents, murderers, thieves, and wizards whose allegiance shifts with the wind. And abutting Tyse is godless Peace Falls, where anything can happen, and often does. . . .
To some, Tempus is a villain. To others, a hero, albeit a hero with a terrible curse: any he loves will spurn him; any who love him soon die of it. His curse grants him immortality, the gift of healing, and great prowess on the battlefield, but denies him sleep and love -- a curse so dreadful that even the southern storm god he once served has turned against him. But god or no god, Tempus and his Stepsons, with help from his sorcerer-slaying sister Cime and Jihan the Froth Daughter, must battle Datan, the archmage of Black Nisibis and the inhuman legions of Roxane, Death's Queen.
In BEYOND SANCTUARY, Tempus and his Sacred Band must war against the deadliest demons and most malevolent mages conceivable. In this war there is no such thing as honorable defeat, or even honorable death in a losing cause. The winners will eat your soul.
BEYOND SANCTUARY is the first novel in Janet Morris’ Sacred Band of Stepsons: Beyond Trilogy, followed by BEYOND THE VEIL and BEYOND WIZARDWALL.
Beyond Sanctuary: "While showing a fine flair for the sword and sorcery genre, Morris succeeds as well in making her more than human characters more than entertaining." -- Library Journal "Janet Morris's Beyond Sanctuary is the first volume in a trilogy that includes Beyond the Veil and Beyond Wizardwall, and the events in this trilogy take place before The Sacred Band, the magnificent novel by Janet and her husband Chris, which I previously reviewed here for Black Gate. Beyond Sanctuary is a complex novel and truly literary heroic fantasy. It is textured and layered, subtle at times, and yet always powerful. Like the best of all literary fiction, it has emotional depth and human drama, subtext and a philosophy that is expressed through the thoughts, words, and deeds of its characters, and not through narrative lecture and dissertation that slows the pace of narrative thrust. This is a novel driven by eloquent, intelligent characters with real emotions and real problems, with plots and subplots born of the classical tradition... characters that speak to us, that have something to say. And the action never falters or loses momentum. Each chapter picks up more and more steam right up until the explosive finale of the attack on Wizardwall and the resulting aftermath that ends like the final note in a great opera or symphony on the last page." -- Black Gate Adventures in Fantasy Literature
