But then one day the unlikely happens: Official workers from the Wizard Lord put in a road between Madoak and its neighbor. Why unlikely? Because the landscape of Barokan is infested with ler, or nature spirits, and roads trouble the ler. But the current Wizard Lord seems hell-bent on ignoring the old traditions and rituals in favor of a strange modernity.

Is the Wizard Lord consequently ripe for an official beheading? Sword decides the only way to learn is to visit the man.

At the Wizard Lord's castle, he encounters Lore, another one of the Chosen, acting as an advisor to Artil. Good sign. But Artil's second consultant is Farash, the traitor who nearly undermined the previous mission of the Chosen. Bad sign. After interviewing all three players, Sword reserves judgment and returns home. Another year passes, and Barokan continues to convulse under the prodding of Artil's schemes. Finally, Sword receives a summons from Boss, the new leader of the Chosen. With all eight members eventually gathered—some are old friends, some new inheritors of the talismans—Sword learns that beneath Artil's overt actions are a series of covert ones, involving murdered fellow wizards and other assaults.

Artil seems ripe for being legitimately deposed.

But the Chosen are a little too slow on the draw ....

A villain more Donald Trump than Sauron

I concluded my review of this book's predecessor, The Wizard Lord, by admiring its neat done-in-one resolution and wondering how Watt-Evans could truly continue the series. The direction was not apparent to me.

Well, to his credit, he's found an intriguing new narrative vector, although it does reprise the MacGuffin of the first to some degree, does take a while to get going and does spill over into future volumes rather than being self-contained in this one. Still, there's enough solid new developments and tasty food for thought that the reader ultimately garners plentiful rewards.

But, to start, my quibbles.

The entire first half of the book, when Sword is operating alone, could have been condensed into a much shorter section leading directly into the reunion of the Eight Chosen. Sure, we need to see what Artil is up to on the surface, and Sword's solo fact-finding tour accomplishes that. But then he's back in Madoak and another year goes by! Why not just leap right into getting the gang back together, especially since six years have passed already? It's the group dynamics among the Chosen that are most fascinating (as we see in the second half). On his own, Sword's a little stiff and forced to monologue his thoughts.

The fact that another Wizard Lord goes bad so soon after the last one is a little hard to take as well, initially. Watt-Evans even alludes to the unlikelihood. But if we have to grant this much to get the ball rolling, so be it. And there's an interesting twist: Sword's own unthinking comments six years ago seem to have propelled Artil on his course!

As for the cliffhanger nature of this volume—well, that's just modern publishing.

What's neat about this new direction is the nature of Artil's schemes of "conquest." He seems like a sincere do-gooder with an unfortunate tendency to bulldoze the opposition, making him a villain of unusual qualities. And his changes are sociopolitical and cultural ones, not dumb military campaigns, as in too many fantasy series. It's almost as if Watt-Evans is stepping lightly into the same territory of speculative economics as Delany's famed Return to Nevèrÿon series. Watt-Evans also sets up story bits with contemporary resonances: How does one interfere in the affairs of a sovereign nation exhibiting repugnant practices? His village of Bone Garden sounds a lot like Darfur or other hot spots on our Earth.

When you add in the mysterious nature of the hidden Ninth Chosen, a new venue known as the Uplands and Watt-Evans' affection for pulling the rugs out from under characters you assumed were inviolate, then the whole novel adds up to a rousing adventure just a bit slow out of the gate.