Minalan the spellmonger faces the boredom of house arrest after being confined to his lands by Prince Tavard for his defiance with the Wilderlands refugees. The Alka Alon have returned to their seclusion, dealing with their own crisis, the dead god is being quiet within the Umbra, and Min’s plans toward reestablishing a functional Duchy of Alshar are progressing. Min sees his punishment as a unique opportunity to indulge in thaumaturgical research. 

 Things were starting to look up for Magelord Minalan the Spellmonger: The magic mountain in his domain not only made him a wealthy man and the most powerful mage in history, it also produced a lode of magical gemstones with unique properties - properties the Alka Alon, the masters of magic on Callidore, are fascinated by. When Minalan gets his chance to trade some of his magic rocks for irionite, he finds himself in a position to raise hundreds more magi with the stones...making them High Magi. 

With the south in full rebellion, the goblins stirring on the northern frontier, and the summer capital being run by a corrupt baron and a gang of thugs, things could be better. But those aren’t the worst of her problems: Pentandra is learning how to live with her new husband, Arborn, while the town is driven to distraction by an incarnate sex goddess who is organizing all of the whores, a mopey spellmonger, a nun addicted to gambling, a prude sent by the queen, undead skulking through the shadows, and a mysterious blind girl shows up in her office claiming to be her new apprentice.

When the Magelord Minalan, the Spellmonger's two apprentices, Tyndal and Rondal, were knighted after the battle of Timberwatch, they were dubbed Knights Magi: a new class of nobility for distinguished High Magi. Designed to combine the pursuit of arcane knowledge with the noble aspirations of chivalry, it elevated them above common warmage...in theory. The problem was they had no idea how to be a Knight Mage...because no one had ever been one before.

When Tyndal and Rondal, journeymen wizards and knights errant, travel to southern Alshar to rescue a helpless boy and his mother, it sets in motion a series of events that will shake the foundations of the Five Duchies! While they are beginning their quest against the vast criminal gang known as the Brotherhood of the Rat, the two knights encounter the Cats of Enultramar, a family of shadowmagi and high-class thieves who help them discover a plot to attack the rich lands and prosperous people of Alshar, from the Wilderlands to the Great Bay...and only Rondal and Tyndal can stop them.

Just when Baron Minalan the Spellmonger figured out there was a slim chance to restore his mind-shattered wife Alya (if he's willing to journey to the undercaverns of Olum Seheri, the lair of Korbal the Necromancer), things start to go awry: not only does Prince Tavard, his unloved liege lord, decide to conduct an official state visit to Sevendor on pilgrimage to the Everfire on the Briga's feast day, but a mysterious seamage appears at his door with an intriguing offer from the Sea Folk who rule Callidore: They want to buy snowstone. An entire mountain of it.

After defending his fledgling realm against the undead lord Gaja Katar all winter long, Count Minalan of the Magelaw faces a new threat in the spring: the Nemovort Shakathet, favored of Korbal, leading the mighty hordes out of the Penumbra. This time, Minalan faces a real strategist; one who drives his armies with purpose and efficiency. The road to war leads through Megelin Castle and the vulnerable lands to the south of Vanado. Old enemies will become allies, and old friends will become valuable assets.   

When Minalan the Spellmonger was exiled from his beloved mageland of Sevendor by Prince Tavard, his friend Duke Anguin made him Count Palatine of the Magelaw, a vast realm in the Alshari Wilderlands with which Minalan is all too familiar. After the goblin invasion, the province is devastated, ruined, and peopled almost only by freed slaves. But Minalan has brought his recovering wife and family into exile with him, and he views their impoverished fief as an opportunity to build a new City of Magi in the wilderness.

After facing a hopeless siege, an implacable foe and an impossible escape, you would think that Minalan the Spellmonger would be able to rest - but the armies of the undead goblin shaman Shereul (known as the Dead God to his human victims) are rolling over the western reaches of the rustic Duchy of Alshar and is headed toward the heart of the Duchy of Castal. Thousands are fleeing for their lives as hordes of goblins pour out of Boval Vale and devastate the rugged fiefs of the Alshari Wilderlands.

But those seven bottles of mead were more than just a folk blessing. As Lord Minalan the Spellmonger began his honeymoon on a decadent river barge with his very pregnant bride, he had no idea that the occasion would have anything more complicated than eating, drinking, and making love on the agenda. But a frantic message from one of the Tree Folk indicating he and Alya may be in danger compels him to skip the lazy repose and travel to a far away ruin to speak with a possibly crazy Alka Alon mage - Lilastien, the Sorceress of Sartha Wood.

Minalan gave up a promising career as a professional warmage to live the quiet life of a village spellmonger in the remote mountain valley of Boval. It was a peaceful, beautiful little fief, far from the dangerous feudal petty squabbles of the Five Duchies, on the world of Callidore. There were cows. Lots of cows. And cheese. For six months things went well: He found a quaint little shop, he befriended the local lord, the village folk loved him, he found a sharp young apprentice to help out, and, best yet, he met a comely young widow with the prettiest eyes.

It is said by some that the Spellmonger’s exile to the Magelaw left Sevendor, the City of Magic, unprotected in his absence. That would be untrue, for though the mightiest mage of the era was forced by law and custom to refrain from visiting his realm in Castal, he left behind a significant body of learned and dedicated colleagues to continue his policies and see to the protection of the magelands. These were not all warmagi, nor even High Magi; indeed, the strength of Sevendor depended on magi of all types and descriptions.

When Lenodara the Hawkmaiden - Dara, to her friends - was made an apprentice to the foremost wizard in the world, Minalan the Spellmonger, Magelord of her native land of Sevendor, she thought that the adventurous life was behind her. She looked forward to a long, boring career of learning how to read and taking magic lessons...but Dara’s life as the Spellmonger’s new apprentice is anything but boring!

A secret project with the Alka Alon Emissary, Ithalia, leads Dara to new troubles and adventures, as the Hawkmaiden assumes new responsibilities. Lady Ithalia wants to use magic to transform her falcon, Frightful, into a giant, so that she and other giant hawks can defend the Five Duchies against dragons in the air. When Minalan purchases 20 hawks and hires a falconer to aid her efforts, Dara is tasked with building a mews to house them in the Westwood...and encounters her most difficult opponent yet: her father.

From the moment Dara of Westwood spied the Silver Headed Raptor nesting in Rundeval Peak, the precocious redheaded 12-year-old girl was enchanted. The youngest daughter of the Master of the Wood lived in ramshackle Westwood Hall, in the independently minded Westwood estate of Sevendor. Her determination to capture a baby falcon and train it wasn’t hampered by the fact that Dara had never climbed a mountain, had never been trained in falconry, or even remotely had permission from her father to do it.