We made it. Fourteen posts covering one book about a half-elf and a human woman trying not to die on a desert planet ruled by tyrants. So what did we actually just read? Let me break it down.
The escape fails. I’ll just say it upfront so you’re not holding your breath. After all that planning, all that fighting through guards and blasting psionicists, Jedra and Kayan don’t make it out. They end up right back where they started, except now their captors are angry and the timeline just got shorter.
The arena chapters have been building toward something terrible. You could feel it coming. Two people who love each other, forced to fight as gladiators, performing for a crowd that wants blood. The only question was how bad it would get.
Tyr was supposed to be the destination. The city where things would get better. The place where Jedra and Kayan could finally stop running and start building something. But Athas doesn’t work like that. Athas takes your plans and feeds them to a mekillot.
You’d think almost dying inside a crystal world would be enough to keep someone from touching another one. You’d think that. But this is Jedra we’re talking about. The guy who grew up on the streets of Urik and apparently never learned the meaning of “maybe don’t do that.”
Remember last chapter when I said the crystals were a miracle and a potential disaster? This chapter is the disaster part. It happens fast, and Jedra has to grow up real quick to deal with it.
This chapter starts ugly and ends somewhere incredible. The emotional range is wild. You go from a relationship falling apart to one of the most mind-bending discoveries in the whole series.
This chapter is basically a tour of the coolest home on Athas. And the fact that it belongs to a giant insect philosopher makes it even better.
This chapter is basically a walking interview. The three of them are crossing the desert toward Tyr, and Kitarak decides it’s the perfect time to figure out who he’s traveling with. But the way he does it tells you so much about who he is.
The dying creature is not what they think it is.
Jedra looks down at it and sees a thri-kreen, one of those giant mantis-like insect people. But something about it seems off. Bigger cranial bulge behind the eyes. Narrower face. And strapped to its back is a massive pack stuffed with gear, most of it made of metal. On Athas, where a single metal knife can buy you a month of food, this creature is carrying a fortune in hardware. Cooking pots, gythka blades, curved throwing weapons, and tools Jedra cannot even identify.
Kayan collapses within a mile.
It is the middle of the day. The sun is relentless. They were exiled with three days of food and water, and the chief’s parting threat is still ringing in their ears. They are so exhausted from the cloud ray battle and Kayan’s healing that they can barely walk. And the elves sent them out at noon, which on Athas is basically a death sentence.
The chapter opens with Jedra staring at the chief like the man just said it was going to rain. “Anybody here can call anybody else a coward, and that person has to fight? That’s a tribal rule?”
The book opens with a slave caravan burning in the desert while a tribe of elves throws a party around the wreckage.
So I just finished the second book in the Dark Sun Chronicles of Athas series, and I have thoughts.
The Darkness Before the Dawn by Ryan Hughes is set in the Dark Sun campaign world, which is basically the bleakest Dungeons & Dragons setting ever created. If you are picturing green forests and friendly taverns, stop. That is not what this is. Athas is a dying world. The sun is red. The desert goes on forever. Water is worth more than gold. Metal is so rare that people fight with weapons made from bone and obsidian. And the people who run things are immortal sorcerer-kings who have been draining the life from the planet for thousands of years.