DRAGON SWORD AND WIND CHILD

From the Japanese, a heroic fantasy featuring an orphan swept up in the gods' quarrels. When, eons ago, the Goddess of Darkness fled from the God of Light, the world of death and rebirth was created; Light sent his immortal children Prince Tsukishiro and Princess Teruhi to conquer it, and the struggle continues. Tsukishiro invites the mortal Saya to be his Handmaiden; in his stronghold, she discovers the haunted Dragon Sword, a key weapon in the conflict, and also Chihaya, an innocently amoral dreamer—Light's previously hidden third child. After a series of escapes and adventures, the armies of Darkness are victorious, Saya and Chihaya are in love, and Chihaya begs a final gift from his father—mortality. The author's language is stylized and ornate (``Saya...could not read his expression, for his noble features surpassed the splendor of the moon in the sky above''), focusing more on the feeling of the moment, and on sensual details of dress and scenery, than on creating realistic characters or plot. Saya is more an observer than a shaper of events; though she is killed (temporarily), her sacrifices, suffering, and inner growth seem less vividly realized than Chihaya's. The physical, metaphysical, and metaphorical all mingle in this flowery, dreamlike love story. (Fiction. 12+)