Indeed, Under Heaven showcases a Guy Gavriel Kay at the top of his game. Simply put, this is one of the very best novels I have ever read. And yet, though I've given this much thought, I'm woefully aware that this pathetic review can never do justice to just how grandiose Under Heaven truly is. I needed time to gather my thoughts to come up with something that would fully encompass how I felt when I reached the last page of Guy Gavriel Kay's latest. Not only does Tai now face the consequences of the Empress's gift, he must reckon with the fact that someone wanted him dead even before the gift of the horses was known.It doesn't habitually take this long for me to write a review, but I needed time to let Under Heaven sink in properly before doing so.
The second visitor is an assassin, trained in the ways of the Kanlin warriors, who nearly takes Tai's life hours later. You gave him four or five of those glories to exalt him above his fellows, propel him toward rank - and earn him the jealousy, possibly mortal, of those who rode the smaller horses of the steppes." The gift makes Tai a marked man, and thrusts him into the perilous intricacies of life from his silent observation of death. So precious that "you gave a man one … to reward him greatly. of courage and piety, and honour done the dead of Kuala Nor," has given him 250 Sardian horses, the most precious steeds known to man. The White Jade Empress, in "royal recognition. The first is a Taguran soldier, who brings him tidings from the court of the Kitan's traditional enemies.
Tai spends his mourning period burying the dead, putting their ghosts to rest, one grave, one body at a time, Kitan indistinguishable in death from Taguran, "tangled together, strewn or piled, skulls and white bones."Īs his mourning period comes to a close, Tai is brought back to the world by two visitors in the same day.
The ground there is littered with the remains of 40,000 men, equally split between Kitan and their perennial foes to the west, the Taguran Empire. Following his father's death, Tai spends the two years of his official mourning on the isolated shores of Kuala Nor, the site of one of his father's greatest triumphs 20 years before. Shen Tai is the second son of General Shen Gao, one of the most distinguished military leaders of the Kitan Empire.
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