The sequel to the exciting portal fantasy The Pomegranate Gate is a long story full of treks and battles. Toba, Naftaly and their small group of allies find themselves heading for THE REPUBLIC OF SALT. The two young Jewish refugees are now known to be half-Mazik, and the full Maziks mostly despise them while the humans are suspicious of them. So, what’s new? At the end of the last story, the group was split between the Mazik world and its mirror image, the world resembling our Inquisition-era Spanish peninsula.

Barsilay revealed to be a lost heir to the Mazik throne of Luz, has fewer people between him and the throne, as someone is hunting down and assassinating all the possible heirs. Barsilay has lost an arm to his enemy, but cunningly creates a fake appearance to pass as two-handed. A bigger problem is that some of the Maziks are stranded in the human world, and to say they are allergic to salt is putting it mildly.  That’s probably the only thing that has stopped Tarsus and the Maziks from pouring through the once-monthly portals to take over. Toba and Naftaly can cope, but Naftaly has an unbalanced power that causes visions. Everyone is making for the city of Zayit, which has a portal and brings through stockpiles of salt to the Mazik world – as protection from marauding kings.

While we get some more Jewish mythology such as demons and birds, the issue of the people fleeing the Inquisition seems to have been forgotten. The author has cast the characters wide but keeps on needing to have them communicate across the worlds, swap information and take oaths, and so on. To do this she has some of them enter dream realms while sleeping, in which they can meet, and this actually confuses the reader. Whole new characters are met while dreaming, the dreams can be set in either world or none, any time period, and characters can be imprisoned in a dream or have same-sex relationships that they could not carry on freely otherwise. I stopped keeping track of who was where, as the landscape was the same in both worlds, and the main distinguishing factor of Mazik horses with a taste for flesh was soon left behind when everyone got on boats – salt sea notwithstanding. 

The characters are also hard to keep track of, as four different names start with T, while Toba Bet is not the original Toba but might as well be. I didn’t see the point of the switch as the reader takes too long to get to like Toba Bet, whose favourite shape is a flock of birds. Asmel, Rimon, Elena, Naftaly, and the old woman – still with no name, which seems disrespectful - are hoping to stop Tarses from getting hold of a book, but the actual book plays very little part in the adventure. There are many horrible deaths and towards the end, desperate battles in besieged cities. The Mirror Realm Cycle by Ariel Kaplan certainly doesn’t end with the dramatic THE REPUBLIC OF SALT, there will be another round of fantasy to come. I recommend reading the first book to get to know everyone, before digging into the politics and power play.