The Curse and The Quest

Afast-paced adventure across two worlds. It is a classic quest, with narrow escapes from night-people, sun-worshippers, a deathsnake, an evil wizard, a curse, and a war, and it is also the modern struggle between the pressure to succeed and the struggle to be an individual living one’s own life. Prince Bryan and Dreya are sent from the safety of their home into a hostile world armed with little information other than conflicting goals that they have to keep secret. The only thing that’s clear is that if they fail, their kingdom will be destroyed and the world will be plunged into endless war.

They are joined by two exotic friends who help them, but one of them distrusts the truth at every turn and the other one is their enemy. His kingdom and their kingdom are at war.

They are given two Quest Tasks that strike Prince Bryan as completely weird and they must solve a Quest Riddle which, like the rest of the book, is not typical:

“Each day above the clouds, Archon ate a rat.
He chewed until the sun went down, then burped it up and spat.
The tail flew out and fell to earth. He drew a circle ‘round it.

“Now circles fill the earth, each splits it into two.
Each is a sun that sees the same and opposite as true.
When you can see what it cannot, then you have finally found it.”

Midway through the book, they discover that everything they thought was true, was false. It is a surprising book, as creative, enchanting, and fast-paced as it is deep. It is a book for people young enough to enjoy an adventure and old enough to think. A quest with a very modern overlay.