The Seekers of Shar-Nuhn

by Ardath Mayhar

Book Overview

The mage Kla-Noh and his foster son, Si-Lun, are "Seekers After Secrets." In their fantasy adventures, they aid a woman from another dimension, calm a Weatherwitch, and heal the Beast in the Barrens,... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0385156235
• ISBN13: 9780385156233
• Release Date: January 1980
• Publisher: Doubleday Books
• Length: 188 Pages
• Weight: 0.65 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Seekers After Secrets, in a world mixing science and magic

The short stories of this collection are set in the same world as HOW THE GODS WOVE IN KYRANNON, but a few years earlier, on another continent. The stories don't quite form a novel, but characters appear in multiple stories, and the events of earlier stories influence how later stories play out. The language used is in the unusually formal and lyrical style as that in HOW THE GODS WOVE IN KYRANNON: not as archaic as Elrond in THE LORD OF THE RINGS, however, and with a fair dollop of humour mixed in. This world has 'magic', but in the form of various flavors of ESP: telepathy, mainly, for long-range communication. Most of the more spectacular results of arcane knowledge seem to owe more to secret science than to magic. There are even hints that this may be a post-holocaust world. "Three Secrets" - Kla-Noh, Seeker After Secrets (somewhat like a private investigator), wants to retire in a blaze of glory - and any secret that he doesn't possess maddens him with curiosity. He already knows the first secret of the Initiates - how to calm the seas - and even the deadly second secret, that of causing earthquakes. But the existence of the third secret, known only by the eldest of the Initiates, is a torment to him, and to reach the Tower of the Initiates out in the bay, he takes on a ragged sailor as an assistant - Si-Lun, whose eyes are much older than his years, and who appears to have secrets of his own. "The Cat with the Sapphire Eyes" - Tro-Ven, a local sorcerer, once wooed, won, and wed a princess of another world as a ploy to learn her magical secrets. He abandoned her many years ago - but much of her knowledge could be used by only one of her own blood. His daughter, Li-Ah, brought to Shar-Nuhn against her will, now seeks the help of Kla-Noh and his assistant - a powerful talisman given her by her mother has disappeared. (Kla-Noh's first advice to his client shows that this isn't a rescue-the-helpless-princess story: he tells her to leave the search to him, because *she* should be practicing her command of her arts rather than despairing at her captivity. At best, it will doubly arm her against her father; at worst, she will still be stronger than had she given up.) "The Man Who Thought Batwise" - Si-Lun's first tale of his own past. Despite Si-Lun's desire to go to sea, his father apprenticed him to an adept of science and sorcery - but Lo-Vahr's dabbling in secrets turned out to be far less wholesome than Kla-Noh's... "Shallah Sits at Her Loom" - Shallah's family asks for Kla-Noh's help - her gift of prophecy, which impels her to compulsive weaving of tapestries while she's in its grip, is showing her something that seems likely to destroy her, if no one can break the vision's hold on her. "The Weatherwitch" - Some of the evil done by the sorcerer Tro-Ven can never wholly heal, but Kla-Noh must do the best he can. "The Beast in the Barrens" The wastelands inland of Shar-Nuhn are called barren because they are uninhabited - and for more si