krial's Full Review: Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman - Forging the Dark...
Forging the Darksword is a rather exceptional book. Written by the bestselling authors of "The Dragonlance Legends", Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman, this book does them credit. Though the story starts off a little slow, it picks up quite nicely.
The story takes place in a world of magic. Their work, their play, their entire life, revolves around magic. There are nine types of magic, or "mysteries". When children are born, they are put through a test to see what type of magic they are best suited too, and then grow into different roles according to the results. If a child fails the test, he is considered "dead", being born to the ninth mystery, the mystery of death (or technology), or having no magic at all. A child born this way is left alone to die, as it is considered dead inside to begin with. They say technology destroyed the world last time, and they are not about to repeat the mistake in this new, magical world.
The Emperor has a child, heir to his throne, and it is born dead. This shocks everyone, and the child is sent away to die. This child (Joram) is taken by the Empress's cousin as her own child, and brought up as a field hand in an outlying farm town. He does not know, however, that he is the only son of the Emperor of Merilon, and heir to the throne of the great city.
Jarom was discovered to have no magic, and watched his mother (actually Anja, the Empress's cousin) die trying to save him from being killed. He picked up a rock, and killed the overseer with it, and fled to the outlands. The outlands is an area outside of the magic ruled part of the world, where "dead" people fled to after the Iron Wars.
The church rules the land on this world though, and Bishop Vanya sends Saryon, a catalyst (one who draws magic from the land and gives it to those who need it), to retrieve Jarom to try him for his murder. But Saryon had been tempted by the Ninth Mystery before, and, though morally against it, fell into an unwary alliance with those who lived there practicing the dark arts.
While they were there, Jarom and Saryon became unlikely allies, and Saryon realized Jarom's true identity, but did not tell him about it. Saryon became like a father to Jarom, showing him endless love and care, but Jarom was cold as ice and gave very little in return.
Jarom discovered, in ancient texts, "Darkstone", which absorbs magic. While working in the iron forge, he made a sword out of it, with Saryon's help, and managed to kill the evil warlock who had wrestled control of the community away from it's former peaceful leader.
Forging the Darksword is a thrilling fantasy-adventure, which will keep you glued to its pages for hours. I would recommend it to anyone who is interested in this type of reading.
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