He discloses to them that Ani is aboard the Over-City, along with Sheridan and the Device. Sheridan had had Ani brought here to be given to Avery once the Device was aboard the Over-City. He’d given up having his daughter back for a chance at getting the Device away from Sheridan, thus partially redeeming his earlier mistakes. Layanna forgives him and they resume their relationship, although they have to hide out from angry Octunggen occupiers (who have retaken control of the city) in the meantime.
While Sheridan and the Device get away aboard the Over-City, Avery and the others are hunted. They find shelter with Layanna’s human son Frederick, who lives in an expatriate quarter of the city. He’s never forgiven Layanna for leaving his father, and he’s become a bitter junkie hooked on hava.
Determined to end the threat Layanna poses once and for all, the Octunggen occupiers bomb the city with an alchemical gas, causing strange effects among the populace. Octung sacrifices the entire city to kill Layanna.
BOOK FIVE
Avery uses Frederick’s addiction against him, and the group secures a dirigible, going after the Over-City and rising above the toxic gas. They infiltrate the aerial brothel known as Paradise, kidnap a high-ranking Octunggen officer and take possession of his aerial yacht, a very expensive dirigible.
In this, they pursue the Over-City and at last land on it, posing as loyal Octunggen. They rescue Ani and confront Sheridan, who informs them that Uthua is leading the ceremony that will activate the Device in favor of Octung even then. They have reached the sea and Octung has reversed the Device’s functions.
Avery, posing as Sheridan’s plus-one, attends the activation ceremony with her, having concocted a plan with the others. Sheridan is arrested at the ceremony but Avery is left free. Sartrand attends the ceremony, as well, and Avery tricks him, getting him to attack Uthua. While the two Collossum fight, Avery steals the Device and runs. He rejoins the others and they fly away with all the forces of the Over-City in pursuit.
Layanna restores the Device’s original functions just as the dirigible is shot down by Uthua. She prepares to activate the Device aboard the sinking ship when Uthua arrives in person. Sheridan, who is with them at the time, fights Avery while the others hold off Uthua. Frederick sacrifices his life to wound the Collossum, and Uthua is sent into the sea. Avery asks Sheridan why she’s siding with beings like Uthua, and she tells him it’s because she wants Octung to win; if it doesn’t, the R’loth will rise up and prosecute their war themselves, and it will be terrible. She begs Avery not to activate the Device or the world will suffer.
Ani shoots Sheridan. Avery activates the Device. The Over-City falls. The War of Octung is over. But Avery knows that Sheridan is right. Now the R’loth, denied their puppet Octung, will act themselves. Avery braces himself for the worst.
BOOK SIX
The worst arrives. The R’loth send giant beings that look like starfish to obliterate one island after the other, killing millions. The Starfish drive toward the mainland. Avery and Layanna collect samples of Starfish tissue and mean to analyze them, find some weakness of the Starfish.
The band has been picked up by a whaling vessel, and in its medical bay Avery works on Sheridan, saving her life so that Ani will not be a murderer … and maybe for some other reason, too. Layanna is very suspicious of that other reason and she refuses to sleep with Avery because of it.
Sheridan, once well, betrays them into the hands of pirates, who seize the whaling ship. Pirates have replaced Octung as the R’loth’s power at sea, and the pirate fleet, ruled by Janx’s former boss and old enemy Segrul the Gray, worships the R’loth. The band is brought to Davic, a Collossum and Layanna’s former husband. He attempts to kill them, but they manage to escape, after having seen Sheridan be sent off on an important assignment, something to do with an Atoshan relic. She’d been dispatched to Ghenisa, but for what they don’t know.
They arrive at the mainland to find Prime Minister Denaris at odds with Grand Admiral Haggarty, a puppet of Sheridan’s and an agent of Octung. The Grand Admiral is trying to stage a coup and take over the government. Denaris gives Avery’s band refuge and allows them to set up lab in which they analyze the Starfish samples.
During this time the Voryses make contact with Avery. His late wife Mari was a distant relative of the old ruling family, the Voryses, commonly referred to as the Drakes. Despised and hated, they had been dethroned half a century ago and their members killed or driven into hiding, like Mari. Ani is a descendant and they want her to rejoin her family, led by a man called Idris, who would be King of Ghenisa like his forefathers. He wants to take power, using the turmoil to his own advantage. Avery refuses the request, but Idris asks him if Ani’s been having strange dreams. Sure enough, she has, and they’ve been bothering both her and Avery. She dreams of singing, and a doorway. Could these dreams be shared by other Voryses, and might they have some insight into what they mean?
Meanwhile the Starfish drive ever closer to the mainland, wiping out one island after another. There is no sign of Sheridan and no news of what her special assignment could have been. Finally Avery and Layanna have a breakthrough in the laboratory. They discover that the nectar of the rare “ghost flower” allows Layanna to establish a psychic link with the Starfish tissue. In theory, if she can ingest enough fresh nectar and can “plug herself” into the brain of one of the giant Starfish, she can send a psychic pulse out to all the Starfish, killing them and saving the world from the wrath of the R’loth.
The hitch is that the ghost flower only grows in the
Crothegra Jungle, also known as the Atomic Jungle. A man named Losg Coleel
holds the sole rights to the nectar, and he resides in the war-torn city of
Ezzez. Avery leaves Ani with her “Uncle Id”, patriarch of the surviving
Voryses, hoping for the best, realizing he can’t take her into the Atomic
Jungle, and the four members of the band depart for Ezzez at once, only to
learn that Sheridan knows where they’re going … and why.
Chapter 1
Heat boiled around Avery as he emerged from the plane, and sweat stuck his clothes to him as he descended the ladder toward the tarmac. Layanna and the others followed immediately behind. It had taken several days to reach their destination, as the first plane had only flown them so far and they had to wait till the next day before a second plane could take them to the city of Tuzi, which, while somewhat out of their way, offered a third, much smaller plane to Ezzez. Despite its size, few people wanted to come here these days. Around Avery family members met with those arriving, some offering gifts or receiving them. Many embraced. Others looked tense, starting at every sound, and Avery didn’t miss the groups of people rushing here and there about the loading and unloading area as he and the others collected their few bags. In the distance he thought he heard the pops of gunfire. The sounds were far off, but there was no mistake: this was a city at war.
