City of Jade

Tales of Mithgar
(a story collection)
The Vulgmaster
(the graphic novel)
The Eye of the Hunter
Silver Wolf, Black Falcon
City of Jade
Red Slippers: More Tales of Mithgar
(a story collection)

ROC
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First published by Roc, an imprint of New American Library, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

First Printing, October 2008

REGISTERED TR ADEMARK—MARCA REGISTRADA

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA:
McKiernan, Dennis L., 1932-
City of jade : a novel of Mithgar / Dennis L. McKiernan.
p. cm.

eISBN : 978-1-436-28132-4

1. Mithgar (Imaginary place)—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3563.C376C58 2008
813’.54—dc22 2008012568

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To Martha Lee McKiernan
The heart of my world

Acknowledgments

To Martha Lee McKiernan for her enduring support, careful reading, patience, and love. Additionally, much appreciation and gratitude goes to the Tanque Wordies—John, Frances, and Diane—for their encouragement throughout the writing of
City of Jade
. Lastly, I would say of all the languages used herein—some of my own devising, others of known nationalities—any errors in their usage are entirely mine.

Foreword

Back when I began the Mithgar series, I didn’t know about Aravan and his Elvenship, the
Eroean
. I wrote
The Silver Call
and
The Iron Tower
completely ignorant of that magnificent ship. Then I wrote
Dragondoom,
followed by
Tales of Mithgar
, and it was in
Tales
, in the very last story—“When Iron Bells Ring”—that the name Aravan first appeared, though we only saw the name and little else of that Elf.

But then I wrote
The Eye of the Hunter
and there he was—Aravan, a crucial member in the search for Baron Stoke. It was here we first learned of the
Eroean
and of some unknown tragedy that lay in Aravan’s past, and of the disappearance of that splendid ship. What had happened, none knew . . . but Aravan held subdued grief in his eyes, and his ship was among the missing.

It was when I went back in the history of Mithgar and wrote
The Voyage of the Fox Rider
that we first got to sail on that Elvenship—with its crew of forty men and forty Dwarves, and a Pysk and two Mages—and sail we did, over much of the world. It was also there that we discovered why grief dwelt deep in Aravan’s gaze, and where the
Eroean
had gone when it vanished from the world.

Once I discovered where the
Eroean
was, I realized then that Aravan had indeed sailed on the
Eroean
during the Winter War, a war at the center of the story told in
The Iron Tower.
And so when the book was revised, I added a single paragraph telling of Aravan’s mission during that conflict.

However, after
Voyage of the Fox Rider
, we didn’t get to sail on the Elvenship again through three more Mithgarian novels—
The Dragonstone
and the two books of the Hèl’s Crucible duology—but finally we re-boarded that craft in
Silver Wolf, Black Falcon
, and then once again in
Red Slippers: More Tales of Mithgar.

And so, of the many books about Mithgar, in only two (or perhaps three) have we really spent time with the crew on the decks of the
Eroean.

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