the Golden City (the Everstone Book 3)

the Golden City is the third in the Everstone series, though by far the longest and best. it is a magnificent allegory and details the further adventures of Nima and Neok and the Everstone. it starts like this:
The traveler watched from the wildly tilting deck of the ship as storm driven waves mounted higher and dashed like thunder against the creaking timbers of the tattered wooden vessel that he traveled in. The howling wind drove curtains of rain and piled wave after wave upon the heaving ship, threatening to sink it at last after such a long and costly voyage.
He scanned the rainy night through storm stung eyes, seeking for a spark of light, as all around him weary seafarers clung to rigging ropes and the drifting ship groaned in the raging sea.
The sailors had recently given up any attempt at controlling the hopelessly tossed ship, though the grim captain still shouted unheard commands through the screaming winds. The brass buttons of his sea soaked jacket glinting brightly in the intermittent lightning flashes were the only sign marking his authority over the other sailors, all dark and soaked alike in the endless spray of sea and storm.
Clinging to a wet rope the traveler reflected how, days before, all of the crew had been men of their various homelands, clustering together at mealtimes and night watches into small bands of countrymen, recreating their port nations in miniature, complete with borders, trade, and language. Those from tropical climes gathered together and ate the foods of their distant homes, while those from colder places stood in haggard groups telling jokes in their own provincial tongues.
The traveler sat alone, having journeyed so far that no kinsmen shared his voyage, and none of these sailors had even heard the name of his homeland.
Now all were the same. The cold and rain had driven from them any difference, and all together they clung mutely to the rigging, similarly battered by the storm.
Then, through the crashing waves and wind blown rain he saw what he had come so far to find. A glinting light shone through the storm, though only a pinprick. He glanced back once at his ragged pile of provisions, roped to the soaked deck, looked at the torn sails of the ship and the weary seawashed sailors, and released his cold and clamped fingers from the rigging he clung to.
Without another look back he walked the length of the tilting deck to its edge, and jumped boldly into the sea.




He awoke to the sound of seagulls and sunlight burned his eyes too brightly to see. He felt the gritty sand beneath him, and tasted it mixed with the sea in his mouth, which to him was indistinguishable from the seashore.
Stumbling, he arose and rubbed the ocean grit from his eyes. He saw seagulls wheeling overhead, and a bright and sunny seashore spread before him.
Nearly too tired to stand, a smile cracked his broken lips as his eyes followed a ridge of tall cliffs to the slim silhouette of a lighthouse.
He laughed deliriously as he noted a piercing white light crowning the tall tower’s uppermost parapet, and then he began a determined plodding, footstep after footstep towards the shell white lighthouse.
When he reached the cliff face directly below the tower he nearly fell dead with despair and exhaustion, for a steep and irregular staircase carved into the raw cliff side was his only path to the lighthouse, but he looked to the intricate tattoos covering his chest and arms, and with one indrawn breath bravely mounted the interminable stair.
Then his world shrunk to one step, and then another. All the way up the steep stone staircase he walked, one step at a time, his mind and body empty when he staggered at last across the last step and onto the stone porch of the gleaming white tower.
There he rested, regaining his ragged breath. He noted distantly that he was very hungry, and bled from many wounds. Then he continued along the sun-bright path around to the back side of the tower,