Description:

Crispin is a mosaicist, a layer of bright tiles. Still grieving for the family he lost to the plaque, he lives only for his arcane craft. But an imperial summons from Valerius the Trakesian to Sarantium, the most magnificent place in the world, is difficult to resist. In a world half-wild and tangled with magic, a journey to Sarantium means a walk into destiny. Bearing with him a deadly secret and a Queen's seductive promise, guarded only by his own wits and a talisman from an alchemist's treasury, Crispin sets out for the fabled city. Along the way he will encounter a great beast from the mythic past,and in robbing the *zubir* of its prize he wins a woman's devotion and a man's loyalty--and loses a gift he didn't know he had until it was gone. Once in this city ruled by intrigue and violence, he must find his own source of power. Struggling to deal with the dangers and seductive lures of the men and woman around him, Crispin does discover it, in a most unusual place--high on the scaffolding of the greatest artwork ever imagined.... ** ### Amazon.com Review *Sailing to Sarantium* is a small story. Its hero, Crispin, is unassuming as heroes go. He's a skilled mosaicist, an artist who makes pictures with decorative tiles, and responds to a request from a distant emperor to travel to the imperial capital and work on the new sanctuary there. Hardly the makings of high adventure. But then again, Guy Gavriel Kay could write about a peasant going to pick up a pail of water and you'd probably hang on every word. If you don't know Kay, you should. His pedigree is impeccable, starting with a well-loved fantasy debut, the Fionavar Tapestry trilogy (*The Summer Tree*, *The Wandering Fire*, and *The Darkest Road*), and a compilation he did with Christopher Tolkien called *The Silmarillion*. *Sailing to Sarantium*, the first half of the Sarantine Mosaic series, evokes his other historical fantasy titles, such as *A Song for Arbonne* and *The Lions of Al-Rassan*, and is a well-researched analog to the Byzantine Empire and fifth-century Europe--with all its political and religious machinations. Despite its seemingly prosaic cast and quest, *Sailing to Sarantium* is a charmer, another Kay classic. As usual, the character descriptions are subtle and precise--the mosaicist, Crispin, is a shrewd, irascible, and intensely likable man who is fiercely devoted to his art but troubled by guilt and loss. Reluctantly surrendering to events, he agrees to travel to Sarantium to work for the emperor. ("Sailing to Sarantium," we learn, is an expression synonymous with embracing great change.) As Crispin moves from roadside quarrels to palace intrigue, Kay gracefully shifts perspective from character to character, moving forward and backward in time and giving a rich sense of the world through the eyes of soldiers, slaves, and senators. *--Paul Hughes* ### From Publishers Weekly Heavy of character and light of plot, Kay's (The Lions of Al Rassan) new series opens with the heady scents of sex, horseflesh and power. In the Holy City of Sarantium, the wily, murderous new emperor, Valerius II, stiffs his soldiers of their pay in order to build a fabulous monument to immortalize his reign. To adorn his temple, he summons a renowned elder mosaicist, who entreats his brilliant, younger partner, Caius Crispus of Varena, to make the journey to Sarantium in his stead. Crispus, who lost his zest for life after his beloved wife and daughters died of the plague, makes the journey under protest. His besieged country's young queen forces him to carry a dangerous, private message to the emperor, the contents of which could cost him his life. En route to Sarantium, Crispus becomes involved with mystically souled mechanical birds created by the magician Zoticus; encounters an awe-inspiring pagan god; saves the life of a beautiful, enslaved prostitute; and demonstrates that decency brings out the best in hired workers. At his destination, he learns to trust his own instincts, especially where knife-wielding assassins and powerful women who use their sexuality as a weapon are concerned. Kay is at his best when describing the intertwining of art and religion or explicating the ancient craft of mosaic work. The slow pace of the novel and the sheer volume of its characters (if ever a book cried out for a listing of dramatis personae, this is it) are dismaying, however, and don't augur well for future installments in the series. Rights: Westwood Creative Artists. Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.