The Last Light of the Sun
{5/5} “It would nourish my own desires to do so, to sit here and share learning as old age comes. Do not think I am not tempted. But I have tasks in the west. We Cyngael live where the farthest light of Jad falls. The last light of the sun. It needs attending to, my lord, lest it fail.”
The Last Light of the Sun by Guy Gavriel Kay, published in 2004
Halldr, governor of Rabady, was dead. A key part of his funeral was his horse, which Bern had stolen. Bern took this small revenge because Halldr had made Bern a servant because of his father’s actions.
Dai and Alun are part of a raiding party, intent on stealing some cows. But first they have to rescue Gryffeth, who’s feen captured by the farmers. Just as they’re about to make a move, high cleric Ceinion appears, telling them whose farm it is and suggests a different plan.
This novel has truth in it — the truth of the way people lived a thousand years ago in difficult conditions.
It won’t make you wish you lived during that time, because it’s a bit too harsh. But it does illuminate the lives of (fictional) people who did live then in a beautiful way.
Kay is to fantasy what Neal Stephenson is to science fiction — an author who works slowly, doing lots of research, producing works of astonishing perfection.
I previously reviewed Kay’s Lord of Emperors.