Status
Available
Call number
Collection
Publication
DelRey, 1993.
Description
Crocken the peddler had made a bad bargain. For a bag of gold and a chance to keep breathing, Crocken had grudgingly agreed to conduct the shadow-remnant of a murdered wizard to the distant kingdom of Armyn. Crocken kept his end of the deal. Trailed at every step by the chill, disapproving wraith, he braved wilderness, floods, and savage beasts. But when he finally won through to the Armyn fortress of Axe-Edge, he found his term of servitude extended at his intangible master's whim. For at Axe-Edge, Crocken was mistaken for a hero. Doors opened to a hero that would have slammed in any ordinary peddler's face. And behind one of those doors waited the wizard's murderer . . .
User reviews
LibraryThing member Stewartry
This was the first Susan Dexter I read in my reread, and it was my first clue that it had been longer than I thought since I read these books - too long. I might have reread them, but it would have to have been at least ten years, I think, for all of them. Ten years and hundreds of books later,
I've started with The Wizard's Shadow, which starts with a murder, or an execution. The impression is of something dark, something hunted, being pinned down and put, terribly, to death - very effective writing. It doesn't entirely die, though - a shadow takes shelter unter a rock, and settles to wait.
It has a long wait on the seldom-traveled path, until Crocken the peddlar comes along. The poor bugger has had a terrible time of it, with a string of bad luck, insult to injury, that has sent him off on a trading journey farther than he's ever gone before to recoup losses he's suffered. The ill luck hits him again, in the form of his bad-tempered mule and a fall ... which along with knocking him out dislodges a certain rock along the trail ... And when Crocken comes around he is no longer alone. His shadow is gone and has been replaced with a new one, one which, hard as it is to accept even in a world in which magic is common, can speak to him. It makes him a classic offer which cannot be refused: divert his path to the kingdom of Armyn, with the shadow trailing along behind, and he will be paid handsomely. If not ...
Crocken knows it to be a bad bargain - the way is difficult, and long, and very much not where he was headed - but there isn't much else he can do. He obeys, and the arduous journey is only the beginning of a complicated situation he feels completely unequipped for: a morass of motive and suspicion and very dark magic in the castle, a foreign bride for the young to-be-crowned king, and the mystery of what - who - the shadow is, or was, and what exactly it wants.
I loved it. Wizard's Shadow, and every other book I have by Susan Dexter, is exactly what I love best in a book: intelligent, funny, wonderful characters in a beautifully created setting involved in fascinating situations. I made guesses about what was going on - guessed wrong - didn't care, because I was enjoying the book too much. The story did not end up as I'd feared, with the typical everyone-neatly-paired-off trope, and I was glad. I hadn't planned to move on to the Tristan books, but after Shadow I didn't have any more of a choice than poor old Crocken: I had to keep going with Susan Dexter's work. I only wish there was more. ~Stewartry
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I've had plenty of time to forget almost everything: perfect. I've started with The Wizard's Shadow, which starts with a murder, or an execution. The impression is of something dark, something hunted, being pinned down and put, terribly, to death - very effective writing. It doesn't entirely die, though - a shadow takes shelter unter a rock, and settles to wait.
It has a long wait on the seldom-traveled path, until Crocken the peddlar comes along. The poor bugger has had a terrible time of it, with a string of bad luck, insult to injury, that has sent him off on a trading journey farther than he's ever gone before to recoup losses he's suffered. The ill luck hits him again, in the form of his bad-tempered mule and a fall ... which along with knocking him out dislodges a certain rock along the trail ... And when Crocken comes around he is no longer alone. His shadow is gone and has been replaced with a new one, one which, hard as it is to accept even in a world in which magic is common, can speak to him. It makes him a classic offer which cannot be refused: divert his path to the kingdom of Armyn, with the shadow trailing along behind, and he will be paid handsomely. If not ...
Crocken knows it to be a bad bargain - the way is difficult, and long, and very much not where he was headed - but there isn't much else he can do. He obeys, and the arduous journey is only the beginning of a complicated situation he feels completely unequipped for: a morass of motive and suspicion and very dark magic in the castle, a foreign bride for the young to-be-crowned king, and the mystery of what - who - the shadow is, or was, and what exactly it wants.
I loved it. Wizard's Shadow, and every other book I have by Susan Dexter, is exactly what I love best in a book: intelligent, funny, wonderful characters in a beautifully created setting involved in fascinating situations. I made guesses about what was going on - guessed wrong - didn't care, because I was enjoying the book too much. The story did not end up as I'd feared, with the typical everyone-neatly-paired-off trope, and I was glad. I hadn't planned to move on to the Tristan books, but after Shadow I didn't have any more of a choice than poor old Crocken: I had to keep going with Susan Dexter's work. I only wish there was more. ~Stewartry
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Language
ISBN
9780345380647
DDC/MDS
| Fic SF Dexter |