The Golden Son — Kevin McMaster

Following where we left off in the first part of the "A Jester's Tear" trilogy, "The Golden Son" finds our gentle Fool Milo and his little Revellan friends Rolaf and Reelay still lost in the heart of the dangerous Lothian Jungle, having just escaped the dark and murky ruins of Murtagh's Maze, and now feeling confident that they are up to any challenge. But their new found elation will not last for long, as the influence of their new passenger Saramacks, the mysterious magical dagger that Milo found in the maze and used to fell the Stone Giant, begins to take control over the Fool and steer him towards darker paths. In the desert, the rescued survivors of the Cave of Crakhas, emerge from the Angry Coast a savage and disturbed populace. Toal, the angry old Ox, tries to lead them back to their home at the Oasis of Osha, but knows that they will need a true leader, one of their own, to guide them further and bring their Kingdom back to prominence once again. In the caustic north, a new warrior is emerging, from the torment and guilt of falling into the service of a wicked master. The Dark Prince Darragh is now a Dark King, and the influence of the Wizard Biercheart has led him down a tragic and desperate path. The Sheelian warrior Shiel is feeling conflicted about his service to a seemingly wicked purpose and is readying to emerge into becoming a force of his own. The Princess Aurora, the Dark King's own beloved, is now in the care of Heremon, the southern Knight and future Golden Son of Osha, who has been forced into the King's service by the wicked ways of magic. He is changed, altered by the work of Darragh's Blacksmith and moulded into the futuristic iron servant soldier, like the rest of his comrades, and now has Aurora as his prisoner. They are transporting her and her prize, the infamous Pearl of Oisin, back to the Kingdom of Cashel, with hopes of bringing the gem to the "healer" Biercheart, so he might use its magic to heal the New World of the accursed plague that now afflicts all the lands of man. But the Wizard has his own plans for the pearl. It is a new world indeed, one where futuristic mechanical creations roam the Kingdom of the north, a threat to any that they come across, where men and women have devolved into a savage lower form of being, and begin to look and act like animals of the field. It is a place where ancient ones, such as the Paramour D'Akar, stalk the streets unobstructed, hunting our heroes and providing a threat to all. Dragons awaken from the northern ice, the Insects gather in the desert, and all creatures, plants and their evil masters seem to be a threat to man. The skies and the waters have joined in their assault, and an end seems so near. It is in this madness that the story of the Golden Son is told. Where the first part of the "A Jester's Tear" trilogy focused more on the fall of the Dark Prince, as its title would suggest, this second volume reveals the truth of the southern Knight Heremon, and the historic and sometimes tragic events that led to him becoming the Golden Son of the desert, and next ruler of Osha, as well as his trials and tribulations, as he leads the Princess Aurora back to her beloved in the northern Kingdom of Cashel, while the world falls apart all around them.