Peril's Gate

January 28, 2002
The latest installment in the Wars of Light and Shadow series, also the third movement of an inner story arc called the Alliance of Light, well represents the vast and tangled plot lines readers have come to expect from this prolific and popular author. In the first book in the series, Curse of the Mistwraith
(1993), the half-brothers dark Arithon s'Ffalenn and blond Lysaer s'Ilessid were set against each other by the eponymous enemy, and now, 30-some years later, they're still going after each other. This book's action begins in mid-flight during a winter gale, with Arithon fleeing the walled city Jaelot, where he's been imprisoned. With him he drags the unwilling peasant Fionn Areth Caid'an, magically raised as his double to trap him. Soon they join forces with Dakar the Mad Prophet (whose prophecies have an erratic track record, though some have been important), assigned by the Fellowship of Sorcerers to defend our protagonist. Dakar has supplies and horses ready. Much geography is traversed with many turgid pages spent attempting to describe the indescribable effects of magic. Occasionally the focus moves to Lysaer, with his large retinue of soldiers and fanatic priests, who in private practice rituals as sorcerous as the techniques of which they accuse Arithon. While fans have compared this series to Robert Jordan's extended Wheel of Time series, newcomers may be put off by the stilted language ("The guard captain's baleful stillness held threat") and the mishmash of plot.