"Start of Obsidian trilogy is remarkable and you feel these people really do exist somewhere."

When 17-year-old Kellen Tavedon, son of Lycaelon Tavedon - a High Mage and head of the Mage Council - is wandering in the lower markets of Armethalieh, he finds three of the forbidden books - Book of the Sun, Book of the Moon and Book of the Stars. Little does he know that these books, primers in Wild Magic, will spur a series of events that will alter his life forever. For possessing them is a banishing offense in the stagnant society where the Mages Council is careful to censor outside influences, even controlling their minds.

When it's discovered that Kellen has been studying the books of Wild Magic, he's brought before the Council. Refusing to repent, he's banished and given only until sunrise to leave before he's hunted down by the deadly stone hounds. Desperate, he uses Wild Magic to summon aid, which arrives in the form of a unicorn, Shalkan, who carries him toward the border. When Kellen is wounded, Shalkan takes him to Idalia, a Wild Mage who was banished over a decade ago and is Kellen's long-forgotten sister. She heals Kellen and takes him on as an apprentice.

And just in time, too...the Demons of Shadow Mountain are once more stirring in the daylight realm of men and elves and centaurs, working subtly to guide events to suit their own malevolent ends. Idalia and Kellen flee to the lands of the elves, but the elves have problems of their own. The long drought has made it hard to keep their forests and fields alive. The elves suspect this drought is not entirely natural, but are unable to do anything about it since they sacrificed their ability to do wild magic in order to gain longevity and peace.

When it's discovered that the drought is being caused by a wicked spell, someone with wild magic has to destroy it. Kellen is elected to go, along with Shalkan and Jermayan, an elven knight in love with Idalia.

This is the first book of the Obsidian Trilogy. A fascinatingly intricate plot, entwined with the sort of deeply involving coming-of-age story at which Mercedes Lackey excels, makes this just about the best book I've read this year. The characterization is smooth and realistic, and one comes away with the impression that somewhere these people really do exist. I look forward to the next book of this trilogy.

Reviewed by Nichole Keeton
Courtesy Old Book Barn Gazette
Posted September 23, 2003

Summary

Kellen Tavadon, son of the Arch-Mage Lycaelon, thought he knew the way the world worked. His father, leading the wise and benevolent Council of Mages, protected and guided the citizens of the Golden City of the Bells. Young Mages in training-all men, for women were unfit to practice magic- memorized the intricate details of High Magic and aspired to seats on the council. Then he found the forbidden Books of Wild Magic-or did they find him? The three slim volumes woke Kellen to the wide world outside the City's isolating walls. Their Magic was not dead, strangled by rules and regulations. It felt like a living thing, guided by the hearts and minds of those who practiced it and benefited from it. Questioning everything he has known, Kellen discovers too many of the City's dark secrets. Banished, with the Outlaw Hunt on his heels, Kellen invokes Wild Magic-and finds himself running for his life with a unicorn at his side. Kellen's life changes almost faster than he can understand or accept. Rescued by a unicorn, healed by a female Wild Mage who knows more about Kellen than anyone outside the City should, meeting Elven royalty and Elven warriors, and plunged into a world where the magical beings he has learned about as abstract concepts are flesh and blood creatures-Kellen both revels in and fears his new freedom. Especially once he learns about Demons. He'd always thought they were another abstract concept-a stand-in for ultimate evil. But if centaurs and dryads are real, then Demons surely are as well. And the one thing all the Mages of the City agreed on was that practicing Wild Magic corrupted a Mage. Turned him into a Demon. Would that be Kellen's fate? Deep in Obsidian Mountain, the Demons are waiting. Since their defeat in the last great War, they've been biding their time, sowing the seeds of distrust and discontent between their human and Elven enemies. Very soon now, when the Demons rise to make war, there will be no alliance between High and Wild Magic to stand against them. And all the world will belong to the Endarkened.