Now, however, such a necessity seems to be shaping up again.

But Breaker is unaware of all this when the Swordsman—grown elderly in peaceful service—nominates the lad to be his replacement. After much physical and mystical training, Breaker becomes the new Swordsman. He soon sets out to survey the land for which he is partially responsible. His peers are likewise roaming the domain, and he anticipates meeting them. But when he comes upon the Scholar and the Seer, he gets a shock. They are investigating a rumored deed from five years in the past, a potential mortal abuse of the Wizard Lord's power. Breaker accompanies them to the Wizard Lord's ancestral village of Stoneslope. There the three learn a horrible truth that makes them realize their ruler has indeed gone mad. He must be brought down.

But assembling five other scattered individuals, each with their own viewpoint on the process, might take longer than they have. For the Wizard Lord knows they know, and is marshalling his immense powers against them.

Duty, power and civic responsibility

Watt-Evans establishes a simple premise for his fantasy world, disarming in its lack of complexity, then proceeds to plumb its depths. His prose, in accordance with our inexperienced hero's viewpoint on life, is unadorned and straightforward. The combination might have added up to a bland novel—and in the first few circumscribed chapters, before Breaker hit the road, I was fearful of such an outcome—but by the end of the novel I was rather charmed by this storybook world, with its clean lines of action and its primal themes.

Barokan lacks the depths of, say, Narnia. Watt-Evans is no C.S. Lewis. (Who is?) And he's a degree or three below the subtleties of Patricia McKillip as well. But with its mix of nicely delineated commonfolk, eccentric questers, neurotic bad guy (the Wizard Lord had a very bad childhood) and weird magical laws, the whole affair comes alive rather well.

Breaker's life path hews pretty neatly to the famous Campbellian Monomyth, including a resonant return to his village at the book's end. Watt-Evans' examination of the convoluted systems that humanity has always to set in place to police its own worst desires and allow people to live together amicably bears relevance to the United States' own famous arrangement of checks and balances. (Is the Wizard Lord a power-struck president, with the Council a Supreme Court and the Chosen a combination of legislature and Fourth Estate? I leave such allegories to the reader.) The details of the cosmic underpinnings, where every entity and natural object possesses a divine spark, are well constructed. And the passing throwaway bits, such as the town where the priests and priestesses must remain naked and submerged, have a pleasantly Vancian ring to them.

All in all, Watt-Evans carries through his tale with a good mix of humor and suspense and insight into the human condition. Plus, there's a vicious attack by a pack of mind-controlled squirrels. What's not to like?