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Books : Science Fiction & Fantasy : Authors, A-Z : ( D ) : Dexter, Susan
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Revised, corected edition May 2012, formatting cleaned up, map added.
Tristan is a teenaged wizard with dark hair and green eyes--but he’s no Harry Potter. No cozy boarding school for Tristan either--he’s been home-schooled by the old wizard who discovered him as an abandoned infant under an apple tree on Midwinter’s Night. There’s no one to tell Tristan who he is or what abilities may be his. If not for Thomas, his smart-ass cat familiar, he’d be utterly lost.
One ordinary afternoon, Tristan returns home to find that his master has vanished, leaving his unprepared apprentice to take up the entwined quests for the legendary warhorse Valadan and the lost princess Allaire of the Nine Rings. He’d be no one’s first choice, but Tristan’s the only one left to assemble the essentials of the quest--a wizard, the Warhorse, the heir to Calandra’s throne--infiltrate Nimir’s fortress of Darkenkeep, and steal Allaire from beneath the Winter King’s icicled nose. In their hundreds, the other wizards have tried--and died.
Tristan’s training is exemplary. His will is indomitable. His confidence, however, is nonexistent, and his magic is flawed and unreliable. The fate of his world depends on him--whether he thinks himself equal to the task or not.
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Esdragon’s duke is bored. Dillan-Rhis should have been safe from administrative duties—he’s a third son, and free to please himself. But fate and plague intervene, and his freedom is curtailed. A duke of Esdragon has duties, and even a duke who is partnered with the immortal Warhorse Valadan finds those duties less than engaging.
So when a rainy night—and is there any other sort of night in Esdragon?—brings Marist Son of Marist, High King of all Calandra to his door, disguised and proposing a secret adventure, the duke is sorely tempted. Before duty recalled Rhis to Esdragon, he rode at Marist’s side for years, bringing one stronghold after another under Marist’s sway. Now Marist is called to Channadran by dreams sent him by a goddess, and who should accompany him but his boon companion?
What harm? A month of adventuring in a new land, wandering, seeing new sights, and then safe back home on his swift, magical steed, before anyone notices he’s gone. Rhis says nothing about the dreams he has begun to have, of a red-haired woman standing atop a cliff in Channadran, begging him to rescue her.
The duke does not believe that the king is called. He does not understand that his dreams are anything more than dreams. And he does not know that he is followed by a small black wolf with a scar on her nose…Wyndasha, whose grandmother’s voice ceaselessly tells her to “chase destiny.”
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The stallion, the swan, and the sorceress
Titch had trained all his life in the ways of honor and of arms. Now he saddled his late father's warhorse, belted on his heirloom sword, and set off to win his knighthood. Unfortunately, his first challenge pitted him against a formidable foe on a glossy black charger, and winning wasn't in the cards for Titch -- though he'd see that horse again.
Wren was an apprentice magician, a shape-changer and healer. She chanced upon the wounded warrior, bushed and left to die. She took Titch in, nursed him back to health, then sent him on his way -- though she'd see that youth again.
For a mad queen and an impossible quest would reunite Wren and Titch and the magical stallion Valadan. Together they would search out an enchanted swan, which Wren must somehow transform into a prince. Should she fail, she would pay with her life.
The penalties would be higher yet should she succeed!
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An orphaned unicorn. The pig-keeper’s son, reckoned as witless as he is speechless, but far more than he seems. The runaway heiress who knows nothing of the world but what the minstrels have sung of on endless winter nights. A proud Duke and a blue-eyed dog. In 1991, my novella “Thistledown” appeared as part of Once Upon A Time, Lester Del Rey and Rissa Kessler’s splendidly illustrated anthology of “modern” fairy tales. The reviewer for Locus called it “one of the best unicorn stories since The Last Unicorn.” I was suitably flattered, since Peter Beagle’s novel was a great influence on me as I began to write fantasy. And I considered that my story, which was structured like a mini novel, would bear expansion to novel length.
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Updated May 2012, improved formatting and map added.
Tristan does not imagine that his troubles are over. He stands reluctantly revealed as Calandra’s king--but his right is almost universally disputed, his castle has no walls, his wife is betrothed to a dead man, and his throne will kill him during his crowning unless he can lay hands on the long-lost sword of the Last King. And his homegrown magic is no more reliable than it’s ever been.
He seeks the sword by magical means, without success. Galan of Radak--and his sorcerer Reynaud--are laying siege to Crogen castle. After an attempt on his life, Tristan departs for Kovelir, convinced that Crewzel’s fortune-telling cards can give him a clue to the missing sword’s location. Of course, it's never that simple.
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Revised May 2012 to clean up formatting and add map.
Survival isn't everything. Tristan and Elisena are mortal, and Nimir can simply wait for them to age, to die--and then overwhelm a defenseless Calandra. Much as they dread it, they must take the battle to Nimir, into his stronghold of Channadran, at once.
They are burdened with aid they cannot refuse--Polassar and the highly suspect Reynaud insist on coming along--and help they urgently require but may not be able to secure. They seek the tower of Am Islin, hoping to enlist the aid of Magister Ambere. The journey there, aboard a spell-bound iceberg, nearly costs Tristan’s life.
Ambere first refuses them, then relents and offers his birds as guides for them. His daughter Welslin Fateweaver gives Tristan a strange gift--a small stone which she claims is the heart of a goddess.
Led by Ambere’s eagles, the fellowship crosses the Winterwaste and enters Channadran. Strength, resolve, loyalty, all are tested. Issues of trust are raised--and not only against Reynaud. As possibly the weakest link in the fellowship, Tristan is tested continually, and if Nimir cannot break him physically, he may manage to strike him in other, less obvious ways.
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Book Two of "The Warhorse of Esdragon"
Faithful wife to a small landholder, Druyan had lived her life in other people's shadows. And if she could sometimes hold the clouds at bay or whistle up a wind, Druyan made sure to keep that talent to herself. Then war came, and Druyan found herself a widow, with no one to help during the harvest but Kellis, the wounded prisoner her husband had locked in the root cellar the day he marched away. But when Druyan freed Kellis from the cellar, she unlocked a Pandora's box, for Kellis had secrets and magic of his own . . .
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Leith had been born under a curse, but when he found Valadan, a fabulous black stallion, he thought his luck and his life were about to change. He was only partly right. He wins the hand of a maiden who she doesn't want to be won. The maiden claims her missing mother is a witch and wants to look for her, not marry. And with Leith's help, she can. Perhaps when they finally find her, he can get rid of this curse. . . once and for all!
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A collection of short stories on Arthurian themes which previously appeared in Marion Zimmer Bradley's FANTASY Magazine and a theme anthology, Excalibur.
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Master magician Blais was dead, murdered by the evil ice-lord Nimir. Now there was only Tristan, an ill-trained apprentice, to carry on the quest to rescue Allaire, a princess held in enchanted sleep in Nimir's frozen halls. Though a thousand master mages had already failed in the quest, Tristan must succeed -- or all of Calandra would be doomed by Nimir's greed.
First Tristan would have to find the wonder-horse Valadan, who had vanished long ago. Then he had to secure the aid of the one knight among many who was a true Heir to the Throne. Together, they must overcome the Guardian dragon of Nimir's realm.
After that -- well, there was still the tenth ring to be found, since Allaire was powerless without it.
Nothing, of course, was ever that simple. There were complications . . .
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From losing his master's chickens to burning down the mayor's house, young wizard-to-be Tristan's adventures always seem to go wrong . . . until a talking cat named Thomas adopts him!Together they may be able to replace the chickens, set things right with Tristan's wizard master . . . and start to discover Tristan's true powers.
A delightful fantasy for the young and young at heart!
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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 . . .
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