Chronicles of an Age of Darkness Volume 17

The Whale and the Watermaiden

This book is set in Chi'ash-lan, the ruling city of the Cold West, which is experiencing severe difficulties. The Rovac will no longer fight for Chi'ash-lan, but instead have returned to their home islands to place their swords at the service of the Rovac World Ring, aka the Rovac Ring, the Third Circle of Doors controlled by Morgan Hearst and Thodric Jarl.
        The old enemies are turning on Chi'ash-lan.
        Above all else, those enemies demand the death of Bailiff Vok, Chi'ash-lan's long-time ruler. They are also intensely interested in the x-x-zix, the wishstone of Untunchilamon, which has come into Bailiff Vok's possession. In Bailiff Vok's prisons there is a man who has the ability to command the x-x-zix. If this man is allowed to proceed to the City of Ice with the x-x-zix then he can warm the weather of the Cold West, causing an icemelt which will unlock, amongst other things, the sea route from the Cold West to the Hauma Sea.
        Bailiff Vok refuses to concede either his own life or Chi'ash-lan's supremacy. As Vok fights increasingly desperate and savage battles for control and survival, two men make the decision to dispossess him. These men are Prince Tatsu and the gladiator Bork. The book follows their ultimately successful attempt to win control of Chi'ash-lan and the difficult diplomacy which follows as, by a mixture of bluff, threat and bribe, they endeavour to protect their city from its enemies.

Summoned up from the frozen depths, Key Lago has risen, and she is full of pride. The icemelt has unlocked her cavern beneath the sea of Hauma, and emerging into the Sunlight Sea, Key Lago has a proud destiny to restore the Sunlight Sea's ancient Lago Whale population. But the old judges of the Lago breed, the Mermen, rise up to again taken control, and one particular Watermaiden sees it has her responsibility to rival her brother in a proud family and rule the newly returned Lago Whale population. 'Jinty Wavecrasher' has had a friendship with a man of the University of Knowledge and learned much of the Enlightenment. The Mermaids want all the knowledge and power they can gain at their disposal to rule the Sunlight Sea and perchance extend their dominion. But bothersome man in his wars in the Cold West between Rovac and Bailiff Vok are frustrating as man is devil on the ocean, and Mermen are far more serene creatures far fitter to rule the seven seas, but lacking the swordpower to accomplish their will. The whale Key Lago offers a truce to the power of enchantments and spells that the Mermen place over the Lago breed and, for a better destiny, they will thwart the power of the ships of the ocean, causing havoc and calamity and, with their own magic, summon bizarre leviathan creatures to haunt man, making the oceans a more perilous place than ever. Jinty agrees to this and the seas become a complex thorn in the side of Morgan Heart and Thodric Jarl in their combatting of Chi Ash Lan but they win their cause regardless, as does Jinty claim the glory she seeks, and the Lago whales a better quality of life all things considered.