The Sons of the Silent God

Stephen Symons holds an MA in Creative Writing (University of Cape Town) and is currently completing a PhD in Historical Studies at the University of Pretoria. His poetry and short fiction have been published in journals, magazines and various anthologies, locally and internationally. His first collection of poetry, Questions for the Sea received an honourable mention for the 2017 Glenna Luschei Prize for African Poetry, and was also shortlisted for the 2018 Ingrid Jonker Prize. His unpublished collection Spioenkop was a semi-finalist for the Hudson Prize for Poetry (USA) in 2015. Landscapes of Light and Loss is his second collection of poetry.

All Edrun and Jina ever wanted was to get married, raise children and have a long, happy and uneventful life in their native village, at the very last walking together hand in hand through the Gate of the Sixth Path into eternity. But the Gods of the Kalion Islands have other plans for Edrun and Jina. Dark forces are stirring up strife and discord that threatens to explode into destruction even more terrible than the chaos of the Temple Wars, still a bitter memory. Neither Edrun nor Jina alone can stop that. But together...?
No longer does the threat of civil war hang over the Island of the Sixteen Gods. Edrun and his companions can relax for a while before returning to their homes. But the High Priest and Priestess complain that brigands are causing trouble in one of the more remote corners of the territory of the Lute. Edrun and his companions offer to eradicate this menace, but instead Edrun ends up stumbling in the dark with a crack on the head, lost in a storm. When he awakes, he is still in the land of Lute...or is he? Where are his friends? Where is the Inn of the Stranger Maiden? And who are these men--the sinister Brotherhood of the Sword? Edrun is forced to wonder if he is, in fact, dead, journeying on the path of the Sixth Stage, and, if so, can he ever get back again?