Relationships, plots, and counterplots are complicated in this series and, oh… what tangled webs these mortals and immortals weave. But she has fallen in love with Tempus, much against her father’s wishes, and wants to stay with him, permanently. Jihan, however, loves and cares for Shamshi only as if he was her own son. Even though Roxane has already introduced him to the pleasures of the flesh, Shamshi knows he must wait to seduce Jihan, wait until he is a man full-grown when she will accept him as such, or so he believes. To further complicate matters, Shamshi is in love with Jihan, Froth Daughter of the weather god, Stormbringer she has come to Earth to spend one year as a mortal, and Shamshi can’t wait to grow into manhood so he can take her for his own. Roxane has her own agenda, of course: she is one of the most seductive, dangerous and deadly foes in this trilogy. He is guided and goaded by the “voice” of Roxane, who has been in hiding since the death of Datan, her former partner in crime, and the loss of Wizardwall at the hands of Tempus and his Stepsons. Though he may be a child in the eyes of men, Shamshi is already plotting against Tempus and Niko.

Shamshi, once a pawn in the game played by the late sorcerer Datan in the previous novel, is still under the spell of Roxane the witch, but is now being held as a guest-hostage by Tempus and the Sacred Band. Her mission is to take 11-year old Shamshi, the young wizard-boy, back home to Mygdonia. It begins with the murder of a courier on his way to meet with Tempus, and the arrival of a young woman named Kama, of the 3 rd Commandoes, (a unit of special rangers originally formed by Tempus) who seeks audience with Tempus, who is also known as Riddler. Once again, “War is coming, sending ahead its customary harbingers: fear and falsity and fools.” Now, after the battle to win Wizardwall that took place in book one, Beyond Sanctuary, Tempus, Niko, and the Sacred Band are caught between the local rebels and the empire of Mygdonia’s blackest magic. This is a pivotal book in the trilogy, where foreshadowing and story threads begin to weave in and out to form a tapestry, telling a tale of friends who become foes, enemies who become allies, and what fate lies in store for certain demigods and mortals. Once again, she does not disappoint in this stirring novel of political and religious intrigue, dark magic, gods and men, witches and mages, and the price of love and war. I continue with my review of the 5-star, Author’s Cut editions of Janet Morris’s classic of Homeric Heroic Fantasy, the Beyond Sanctuary Trilogy, of which Beyond the Veil is the second book.

Beyond the Veil by Janet E. Morris