Book: Cinnabar Shadows by Lynn Abbey | Series: Dark Sun - Chronicles of Athas, Book 4 | ISBN: 0-7869-0181-0
So we’re done. Fifteen chapters and an epilogue of Cinnabar Shadows. Time to step back and talk about the whole thing.
Book: Cinnabar Shadows by Lynn Abbey | Series: Dark Sun - Chronicles of Athas, Book 4 | ISBN: 0-7869-0181-0
Pavek drifts in and out. He remembers fragments. Someone apologizing because there’s no piece of linen large enough to cover him head to foot. He remembers laughing at that. Remembers sunlight and food and sleeping under the stars because the halfling houses are too small for him.
Book: Cinnabar Shadows by Lynn Abbey | Series: Dark Sun - Chronicles of Athas, Book 4 | ISBN: 0-7869-0181-0
Chapter 15. The climax. And it starts in the worst possible place: a dirt pit beneath the black tree’s roots.
Book: Cinnabar Shadows by Lynn Abbey | Series: Dark Sun - Chronicles of Athas, Book 4 | ISBN: 0-7869-0181-0
Chapter 13 opens with Ruari cringing at his companions. Zvain announced they have a map. Mahtra told the armed strangers they’re looking for halflings and a big black tree. So much for keeping their mouths shut.
Book: Cinnabar Shadows by Lynn Abbey | Series: Dark Sun - Chronicles of Athas, Book 4 | ISBN: 0-7869-0181-0
“Pavek was gone. Pavek was dead.”
Book: Cinnabar Shadows by Lynn Abbey | Series: Dark Sun - Chronicles of Athas, Book 4 | ISBN: 0-7869-0181-0
Chapter 11 starts with Cerk, and honestly, it’s the most revealing look we’ve gotten at Kakzim’s young apprentice. This little halfling has been underground, running from the fighting in the cavern, and he surfaces into daylight with one job: warn Brother Kakzim that the templars have found them.
Book: Cinnabar Shadows by Lynn Abbey | Series: Dark Sun - Chronicles of Athas, Book 4 | ISBN: 0-7869-0181-0
After nearly dying on the Codesh killing floor, Pavek and his companions get the royal treatment. Luxurious rooms, incredible food, hot baths. It should feel like a reward. Instead, it feels like the calm before something terrible. And they are right.
Book: Cinnabar Shadows by Lynn Abbey | Series: Dark Sun - Chronicles of Athas, Book 4 | ISBN: 0-7869-0181-0
This chapter is a ride. Pavek takes his crew into Codesh, the most dangerous slaughterhouse village on Athas, looking for a tunnel to the underground reservoir. What they find is Kakzim, a mob of butchers, and a fight that almost kills all of them.
Book: Cinnabar Shadows by Lynn Abbey | Series: Dark Sun - Chronicles of Athas, Book 4 | ISBN: 0-7869-0181-0
This is one of those chapters that is quiet on the surface but full of weight underneath. Pavek takes possession of House Escrissar, the home of the dead high templar who tortured his friends. What he finds inside forces him to confront things no amount of sword practice can solve.
Book: Cinnabar Shadows by Lynn Abbey | Series: Dark Sun - Chronicles of Athas, Book 4 | ISBN: 0-7869-0181-0
After the emotional bomb that was Chapter 6, this chapter slows down and lets Pavek sit with his thoughts on a ten-day kank ride across the Tablelands. And honestly, I needed the breather too.
Book: Cinnabar Shadows by Lynn Abbey | Series: Dark Sun - Chronicles of Athas, Book 4 | ISBN: 0-7869-0181-0
Salt sprites are still dancing on the Sun’s Fist as sunset dies. Golden Guthay (one of Athas’s moons) climbs the eastern horizon. Pavek stops Ruari and Zvain at the edge of the salt flats. No point risking themselves out there until the sun is well set and the moonlight is strong enough to navigate by.
Chapter 14 is all Pavek, and it is the slow, quiet kind of chapter that somehow hits harder than any battle scene.
Book: Cinnabar Shadows by Lynn Abbey | Series: Dark Sun - Chronicles of Athas, Book 4 | ISBN: 0-7869-0181-0
After three chapters of scheming halflings, massacred cavern-folk, and a mysterious New Race woman meeting the Lion-King, we finally meet our main character. And he’s… weeding.
Pavek wakes up hog-tied inside a handcart rolling over terrible pavement.
His wrists and ankles are bound together behind his back and anchored to the cart itself. His limbs are stretched to the point of screaming. His hands and feet are completely numb. There is straw thrown over him, a cloth blindfold over his eyes, and the cold air of a night outside the walls of Urik.