Survival isn't everything. Tristan and Elisena are mortal, and Nimir can simply wait for them to age, to die--and then overwhelm a defenseless Calandra. Much as they dread it, they must take the battle to Nimir, into his stronghold of Channadran, at once. They are burdened with aid they cannot refuse--Polassar and the highly suspect Reynaud insist on coming along--and help they urgently require but may not be able to secure. They seek the tower of Am Islin, hoping to enlist the aid of Magister Ambere. The journey there, aboard a spell-bound iceberg, nearly costs Tristan's life. Ambere first refuses them, then relents and offers his birds as guides for them. His daughter Welslin Fateweaver gives Tristan a strange gift--a small stone which she claims is the heart of a goddess. Led by Ambere's eagles, the fellowship crosses the Winterwaste and enters Channadran. Strength, resolve, loyalty, all are tested. Issues of trust are raised--and not only against Reynaud. As possibly the weakest link in the fellowship, Tristan is tested continually, and if Nimir cannot break him physically, he may manage to strike him in other, less obvious ways. Then, within a vast volcanic crater, a wizard faces his destiny at last. As Thomas, Tristan's cat Familiar says, living happily ever after will be hard work--for some.
About the Author: I was born in Greenville, PA in 1955. I started writing early, scrounging unused diaries and notebooks and writing "books" in them. Illustrated too, because I was drawing even before I was writing. In the late 1970s, inspired by a couple of wretchedly cold winters in western Pennsylvania, I set out to write fantasy short story in a "Write Your Own Book" I had been given, which had a knight on horseback on its cover. It still does, and it's still empty because by the time I had finished outlining I could see there was no way The Ring of Allaire was going to fit in there. My novel about a wizard's first quest was published in 1981. Thinking titles for a sequel, I came up with two, and so I knew I would "commit trilogy". And The Sword of Calandra and The Mountains of Channadran continued Tristan's saga. (I like to say that my wizard is just like Harry Potter-but Tristan was home-schooled.) I have recently reworked and expanded this trilogy, once known as "The Winter King's War" into "Wizard's Destiny". The first thing Tristan quested for was the immortal, ageless, magical warhorse Valadan. And since I had dropped some good hints about Valadan's legendary past, I had a lot to live up to or some interesting problems to solve making the next books agree with the backstory, as I began to tell of Valadan's pre-Tristan adventures. And thus came about The Prince of Ill Luck, The Wind-Witch, The True Knight and the unpublished The Wandering Duke, the rest of "The Warhorse of Esdragon". I was invited to pitch a mid-grade book, but the time "wasn't right for a fantasy mid-grade", so "Moonshine" became Moonlight, my POD set in Tristan's early years. My novella Thistledown appeared in Del Rey's invitational anthology Once Upon A Time, I sold "Herding Instinct" to the Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, and "Where Bestowed" to the Excalibur anthology, and "Butternut Ale", "Crawls" and "Tasks" to Marion Zimmer Bradley's Fantasy -and most of this time, I was working in advertising full time, for a regional discount department store. Now I work full time for a Catholic parish, doing the books and the weekly bulletin. And though it keeps shifting shape, I'm still working on a novel of Arthur, though I don't style him a king. Way back, I thought of writing a fantasy as a way to break into illustration. I did maps for all my books-but at the same time I kept up with Fine Art and Fine Craft. I paint with pastels. Now, I've painted my own cover art!