Ethshar Series by Lawrence Watt-Evans (#1-#11)
Requirements: Epub reader, 3.29 Mb
Overview: Lawrence Watt-Evans (born 1954) is one of the pseudonyms of American science fiction and fantasy author Lawrence Watt Evans (another pseudonym, used primarily for science fiction, is Nathan Archer). Born in Arlington Massachusetts as the fourth of six children, he made his first attempts at professional writing when he was eight.
Watt-Evans was president of the Horror Writers Association from 1994 to 1996, and has also served as Eastern Regional Director and treasurer of Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. From 1995 to 1997, he was half of a partnership known as Malicious Press (with screenwriter Terry Rossio), which published Deathrealm magazine, edited by Stephen Mark Rainey and he was the managing editor of the webzine Helix SF for its entire run of ten quarterly issues.
Genre: Fantasy
01 – The Misenchanted Sword
The old wizard wasn’t exactly happy with Valder, who’d led his enemy to his hut. Now hut and magical supplies were destroyed. But he’d promised the young scout a magic sword to get him safely back to his own lines — and a much enchanted sword Valder would get!
The resulting sword gave perfect protection — sometimes! It could kill any man — or even half demon. In fact, once drawn, it had to kill before it could be put down or sheathed.
Army wizards told Valder that the sword would keep him alive until he’d drawn it 100 times; then it would kill him! It wouldn’t prevent his being wounded, maimed or cut to pieces, but it wouldn’t let him die. If his new job as Chief Assassin for the army didn’t make him use up the spell, he’d be practically immortal.
Not bad, it seemed. There had to be a catch somewhere. There was — and it was a lulu!
02 – With 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?
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? Well, it wasn’t as if Tobas had much of a choice . . .
03 – The Unwilling Warlord
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.
04 – The Blood of a Dragon
Dumery of Shiphaven was a lad with a love of wizardry — and no magic at all. He dreamed of apprenticing himself to a great wizard, but because he had not even a touch of the talent, it was a dream he could never fulfill. He would never apprentice himself to a great wizard, nor even a meager one; no matter how he loved magic and the magical arts, he would never work with wizards or wizardry.
That’s what Dumery was beginning to think, anyway — until he spied a great wizard humbling himself before a man selling dragon’s blood, the precious stuff that made difficult spells work. If Dumery couldn’t be a wizard, he could still become a dragon-hunter — and have all those condescending wizards crawling to him.
And so Dumery set off on a quest — a quest in search of dragons and dragon-hunters, and ultimately the secret that lay beneath all the wizardry in Ethshar. Before he reached its end, he would uncover the terrible mystery of the dragon-hunters — and scheme a scheme that would change the face of Ethsharitic magic forever.
05 – Taking Flight
Kelder had always dreamed of a life more exciting than what waited for him on the family farm. So when a fortune-teller predicted a glorious future, that he’d roam free and unfettered and be a champion of the lost and forlorn, he immediately set out on the fabled Great Highway to Shan in search of adventure.
But once he was on the road, life was hardly as exciting as he’d hoped — until he met Irith. She was the most beautiful girl, and the only girl with wings, Kelder had ever seen. They teamed up to see the world, and then Kelder found adventures aplenty: there were bandits and demons, and there were curses to lift, wizards to seek spells from, orphans to champion, and legendary cities to visit. For the young and carefree, life on the Great Highway was filled with fun, action, and magic.
But Kelder began to wonder about his beautiful companion. Irith certainly had seen a lot of the world for one so young — and everyone along the highway seemed to know her . . . Soon, discovering Irith’s secrets became Kelder’s greatest adventure of all . . .
06 – The Spell of the Black Dagger
Tabaea the Thief stole something more precious that dragon’s blood from the enchanted old house: eavesdropping on the doddering wizard who owned the place, she stole the secret of wizardry itself! The spell she learned was the one all wizards learn as apprentices to make their athames — the sacred, ceremonial, and magical daggers that mark them out as wizards and allow them to work their spells.
The Spell.
The trouble was, Tabaea wasn’t any wizard. When she cast that spell herself it went disastrously wrong, creating a magical black dagger that would leach the strength and virtue out of anything alive.
The magical strength of a wizard, a warlock — the eye of a cat; the physical strength of an ox. Before she was done Tabaea the Thief had become a murderess, an Empress, a monster — a creature so awesome and so terrible that the act of trying to stop her could destroy Ethsar itself!
07 – Night of Madness
Chubby, good-natured Lord Hanner is his Uncle Farran’s errand boy. He works as a liaison between his uncle, who is chief adviser to Lord Azrad the Sedentary, and the community of wizards, witches, sorcerers, necromancers, etc. Since the rules set up by the Wizards’ Guild include "No mixing different sorts of magic. No mixing magic and government," all Hanner can do is learn about magic, not practice it. Then comes the Night of Madness, when people awaken with terrible dreams and strange powers. This new magic creates unusually powerful warlocks; moreover, it affects many regular citizens and members of government, breaking the rules set by the Wizards’ Guild. Magical mayhem ensues, and Hanner must learn the rules of the new magic, keep command of his small army and learn to control his own burgeoning powers as his uncle, the Wizards’ Guild and Lord Azrad fight among themselves for control of Ethshar.
08 – Ithanalin’s Restoration
Despite several years of study, Kilisha, an aspiring young apprentice 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.
09 – The Spriggan Mirror
Every wizard in Ethshare knew that if you needed something special, something difficult 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 the little green nuisances that called themselves "spriggans," the Guild hired Gresh to fetch them the magic mirror that had created the troublesome imps in the first place. The wizards thought finding it looked impossible. Gresh thought his methods would do the job.
10 – The Vondish Ambassador
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?
11 – The Unwelcome Warlock
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!
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