Curse of the Mistwraith. Janny Wurts

      

      The Wars of Light and Shadow

      1

      Curse of the Mistwraith

      Janny Wurts

       Copyright

       Voyager

      An Imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

       www.voyager-books.com

      Previously published by HarperCollins Science Fiction & Fantasy 1994 and by Voyager 1996

      First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 1993

      Copyright © Janny Wurts 1993

      Janny Wurts asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

      A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

       This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

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      HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication.

      Source ISBN: 9780586210697

      Ebook Edition © JULY 2010 ISBN: 9780007346905

      Version: 2019-01-03

      Table of Contents

       Cover Page

       Title Page

Copyright

Prologue

I. CAPTIVE

II. SENTENCE

III. EXILE

IV. MISTWRAITH’S BANE

V. RIDE FROM WEST END

       VI. ERDANE

       VII. PASS OF ORLAN

       VIII. CLANS OF CAMRIS

       IX. ALTHAIN TOWER

       X. DAON RAMON BARRENS

       XI. DESH-THIERE

       XII. CONQUEST

       XIII. ETARRA

       XIV. CORONATION DAY

       XV. STRAKEWOOD

       XVI. AUGURY

       XVII. MARCH UPON STRAKEWOOD FOREST

       XVIII. CULMINATION

       Keep Reading

       Glossary

       Acknowledgements

       About the Author

       Also by the Author

       About the Publisher

       Prologue

      The Wars of Light and Shadow were fought during the third age of Athera, the most troubled and strife-filled era recorded in all of history. At that time Arithon, called Master of Shadow, battled the Lord of Light through five centuries of bloody and bitter conflict. If the canons of the religion founded during that period are reliable, the Lord of Light was divinity incarnate, and the Master of Shadow a servant of evil, spinner of dark powers. Temple archives attest with grandiloquent force to be the sole arbiters of truth.

      Yet contrary evidence supports a claim that the Master was unjustly aligned with evil. Fragments of manuscript survive which expose the entire religion of Light as fraud, and award Arithon the attributes of saint and mystic instead.

      Because the factual account lay hopelessly entangled between legend and theology, sages in the seventh age meditated upon the ancient past, and recalled through visions the events as they happened. Contrary to all expectation, the conflict did not begin on the council stair of Etarra, nor even on the soil of Athera itself; instead the visions started upon the wide oceans of the splinter world, Dascen Elur.

      This is the chronicle the sages recovered. Let each who reads determine the good and the evil for himself.

       I. CAPTIVE