A vivid and richly detailed science-fantasy epic set against the backdrop of a terrifying past.
In Part 2: West, Captain Tomas Casadore of the Righteous Supplicant makes port with the Fleet of the Five Winds in Tetwan, a powerful and decadent city-state which the Admiral Gai-Loh seeks to bring beneath the imperial fold. The lords of Tetwan are proud, however, and as payment for their submission they demand the impossible: the newcomers must “cage the quetzal”—a bird that dies in captivity—and thereby fulfill an ancient prophecy of their people.
Only the lawless jungle-dwellers called Quetzitos know the secret of their quarry’s capture, and so Tomas, a “half-savage,” is dispatched to find them. Success demands that they brave the treacherous jungle of the Knot and enter into the mountain called Stoneheart, where a vanished civilization lies entombed with the tools of its self-destruction. There amidst the ruins, Tom will be forced to reckon not only with the tragedy of his own fate, but that of all mankind.
