Legend of Ethshar
11 total works
wizard, has much to learn. After gathering ingredients for a lesson, she returns
home to find her master, Ithanalin the Wise, transformed into a statue. A tax
collector interrupted Ithanalin while working on a spell, a magic mirror tells
her, with the result that the wizard's soul has been distributed among the
various household objects. "The dish had run away with the spoon" is literally
the case here, as all the furnishings have become animated and escaped out the
door. In her efforts to track down the runaway objects and restore her petrified
master to his former self, a quest that will eventually take her to the Overlord
of Ethshar's fortress, Kilisha first tries to involve the Wizards' Guild, but
ultimately must rely on the few spells she knows and her master's spell book-as
well as her own imagination, initiative and ingenuity.
- Every wizard in Ethshar knew that if you needed something special, somethingdifficult to find, that Gresh the Supplier was the man to see. He was expensive,but always delivered. So when the Wizards' Guild finally got fed up with thelittle green nuisances that called themselves "spriggans," the Guild hired Greshto fetch them the magic mirror that created the troublesome imps. The wizardsthought finding it looked impossible. Gresh thought his methods would do thejob. But no one had asked the spriggans what theythought!
A STAR RISES IN THE SOUTH
When the foreigners confronted Sterren in Ethshar of the Spices he was uneasy; when they all but abducted him, taking him to an obscure kingdom in the south, he knew he was in a terrible predicament.
A predicament some might actually find appealing - he was by heredity the Ninth Warlord of Semma, least of the small kingdoms; he was a noble, and his rank afforded him material privileges, even in a place as insignificant and obscure as Semma.
But the office also carried certain terrible responsibilities: he was to win the war the stupid King had stirred up by his arrogance. Two larger and stronger Kingdoms were preparing to invade Semma.
And if the country lost, the first thing likely to be forfeit was the life of the Warlord.
And if it won . . . if it won, the fate and shape of Ethshar would change forever.
For deep in the south there are secrets of magic not even Sterren can imagine.
A LEGEND OF ETHSHAR
A SINGLE SPELL
Tobas had been lucky to find a wizard to take him on as apprentice. But then the wizard died suddenly and unexpectedly after teaching Tobas only a solitary spell, and the youth was too old to find a new master. How could he earn a living when all the magic he could do was light fires?
A DESTINY UNFOLDING
In the Small Kingdoms there were dragons to be slain, princesses and gold to be won, magic castles, witches who knew the secret of immortality, and other treasures. But how could a wizard with a single, simple spell hope to find them and win them?
Young Ishta found it in the forest, buried beneath dead leaves: a rounded, flattened stone as black as onyx. One side held a golden oval that glowed with a unnatural light. Of course, it had to be magic.
But what did farmers know of magic? It could be dangerous, or it could be some harmless toy. They had to find out.
Since Ishta was too young to bring her discovery to the Baron of Varag's stronghold, her older brother, Garander, went instead. Once there, Azlia, a beautiful wizard, recognized the stone immediately as Northern sorcery. She had to call Sammel, the local sorcerer, to find out its nature . . . a relic of the last great war.
When the Baron takes the stone for himself, that should have ended things. But it was just the beginning for Garander. Because that magical stone wasn't the only relic left in the woods...
Tabaea was an ordinary thief, sneaking and prowling and stealing for a living. Then one night while burgling a house, she witnessed a wizard teaching his apprentice a spell - the creation of a magic dagger.
Tabaea decided to try the magic for herself. But even though she could feel the power rising around her as she went through the steps of the ritual, something had clearly gone wrong. The apprentice's dagger had glowed; it had resisted attempts to pick it up; and there had been a blinding flash at the end of the ceremony.
But Tabaea's dagger didn't do any of those things. And it wouldn't free her from bonds, or heal her wounds - it didn't seem to be magical at all. It just turned black.
Then, by chance, Tabaea discovered that her dagger indeed had its own kind of unusal magic - a dark, powerful magic that promised invincibility to its bearer.
But magic can be dangerous even in the hands of an expert - and for Tabaea, magic and power could spell disaster . . .
Once, not so long ago, A warlock named Vond built an empire in the southern part of the Small Kingdoms. Vond is gone, but his empire survives under the rule of a seven-person Imperial Council and a young regent named Sterren. The Empire of Vond was hardly trouble-free after Vond's departure. Its neighbors are understandably wary of further expansion, there are questions about how Vond's magic became so potent, and so on. Most of the World, though, doesn't care -- Vond is off there in the southeastern corner of the World, far away from anywhere important.
But one day a dockworker named Emmis watches a Vondish ship arrive in Ethshar of the Spices and finds himself hired as native guide and aide to someone who claims to be Vond's ambassador plenipotentiary to the overlords of the Hegemony of the Three Ethshars.
But who is the Vondish ambassador, really, and what is his true business in Ethshar? And who has followed him to the city?
The Calling. Sooner or later, it claimed every powerful warlock ... a growing magical compulsion to go north to the mysterious land of Aldagmor that nothing could stop. None ever returned.
Hanner the Warlock knew his days were numbered. The Calling pulled at him ceaselessly now, and his ability to resist had begun to crumble. So he determined to find a place where the Calling couldn't reach him . . . another world, located through a magic tapestry. Every warlock knew that the farther he was from Aldagmor, the weaker the Calling was - and the weaker his magic was, as well, but that was only a secondary consideration. That weakening had given Hanner the idea to find, or make, a place so distant from Aldagmor that the Call couldn't reach it at all.
Unfortunately, the Call took him anyway. And that's where his story really gets interesting. Because the Calling wasn't what everyone believed. And when the warlocks who had been Called over the decades suddenly woke up again beside the object doing the calling - and found themselves without their powers - their world may never be the same!
