But now, after centuries of peace and prosperity, mysterious shadows of evil are spreading chaos across the Hundred and darkening even the holy shrines and reeves' halls. Even the eagles seem to be affected. And the Guardians have not been seen for generations. Some say they never existed. It is forbidden to enter the secret places of the Guardians, but two reeves, Marit and Joss, invade a Guardian's proscribed height, seeking answers. The two find no answers they can understand. And they pay a high price.

Meanwhile, beyond the borders of the Hundred, the Qin captain Anji and his foreign bride, Mai, must flee with his loyal troops from the unjust death sentence ordered by his imperial half-brother. They have no choice but to cross half the known world and enter the Hundred, where they are all outlanders—and where they may be seen as yet another enemy. Can they find an ally among the Hundred's selfish lords or corruption-torn reeves? And if they don't, will Anji and his wife and warriors be exiled anew—or will they be annihilated in the Hundred's ever-worsening war?

Too many pieces on the chessboard

Nebula-Award finalist Kate Elliott has written more than a dozen novels of SF and fantasy, including the four novels of the Jaran series, the seven-book Crown of Stars epic fantasy series and her collaboration with fellow fantasy stars Melanie Rawn and Jennifer Roberson, The Golden Key, a World Fantasy Award finalist. Elliott's Spirit Gate launches the Crossroads, a new, seven-book epic-fantasy series.

As the first novel of a series projected to outnumber two trilogies, Spirit Gate necessarily introduces far more characters than a review can enumerate. Fortunately, Elliott has a gift for deft characterizations that sharply differentiate her characters, so readers don't become confused as the narrative crosscuts among the many cast members and subplots. And, though women leads aren't numerous, Elliott does an especially effective job of establishing believably strong female characters in a male-dominated (though not always sexist) world. She also demonstrates a considerable gift for world-building, creating complex, imaginative cultures and religions for the Hundred, the nomadic Qin and other tribes and nations.

Spreading such an ambitious chronicle across so many lands and novels requires the author to act like a general conducting a war on several fronts: She must move a large number of characters through an enormous number of maneuvers. To meet, all the important characters in Spirit Gate must travel, sometimes across vast distances. However, character movement isn't necessarily plot momentum, and Spirit Gate sometimes bogs down. This slowdown is worsened by the reader's struggles to figure out just what evil is afflicting the Hundred, because the author withholds too much crucial information until too late in the novel. But Spirit Gate resolves its storyline, and the subplots and principal characters come together for the well-paced, exciting climax of this first volume of the Crossroads.