The Makers of Light: Book Two of The Masters That Be

By Lynna Merrill

Spring is coming to Mierenthia, yet coldness is still keeping a tight grip upon the world.

Reinstalled as a mentor but considering himself to be the attempted murderer of his father-figure Maxim, Dominick preaches the Master's wisdom but his heart is no longer in it. One morning he loses control and does what he thinks will condemn him forever. Instead, he is awarded with a task much harder, and much more important, than that of any other mentor.

Merley is now walking on the path of artificery, that of working with metal through magic. Yet, at certain moments she abhors metal and the tools and fire that mold it in ways that no Ber should.

Linden and Rianor continue to search for the secrets of science and Ber magic. They are almost convinced that the two are one and the same, when suddenly fire and magic fail even in Qynnsent. This forces them to doubt their choices. They must now decide what life truly is, as well as which lives are worth saving and which ones can, or should, be sacrificed.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lynna Merrill
• Release date: Nov 28, 2011
• ISBN: 9781465991881

Lynna Merrill

Lynna Merrill was accused at an early age that she lived in a world of her own. Since then she has changed the country, continent, and language—but she still lives in worlds of her own. As a result she is the author of the young adult dystopian novel "Unnaturals" and the fantasy series "The Masters That Be" ("The Seekers of Fire", "The Makers of Light", "The Weavers of Paths"). In the real world Lynna has a Master of Science degree in Computer Science from the Ohio State University and works in the software industry. She has participated in various open source software projects and writes her books using VIM and LaTeX. She also makes her own cover and interior art. Lynna is interested in books (of course), computers, and “what if” questions. She lives on the southern shore of lake Ontario with her husband and soulmate, Alex.

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The Makers of Light: Book Two of The Masters That Be

By Lynna Merrill

Copyright © 2011 Lynna Merrill

Cover artwork © 2011 Lynna Merrill

Map and title page artwork © 2011 Lynna Merrill

Smashwords edition

Discover more titles by Lynna Merrill, as well as updates, excerpts, and the author's blog at:

http://www.lynnamerrill.com

Also available as a trade paperback

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, concepts, and events are either products of the author's imagination, or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

This book, as well as the whole series, is dedicated to my husband, Alex

Chapter 1: Mentor

Mentor Maxim to Apprentice Mentor Ardelia, Mierber, Year of the Master 700:

You can only become a Mentor when, left alone in the middle of the darkest forest, you can find your way back again. This is the first part of the Mentor's Trial.

The second part is entering a human mind for the first time and finding your way out of that. Only after you have done both, can you receive your detector—Oh, but you thought you needed the detector in order to do those? Oh, no.

A detector can only make the way easier; it will never find the way for you. A detector, like any tool, and even more so than other tools, can be deadly in the wrong hands.

Before you are trusted with one, you must earn it. Before you are trusted with walking inside others' minds, you must learn to walk with no props, and to walk alone.

Dominick

Morning 8 of the First Quarter, Year of the Master 706

Dominick could hear the echoes of his steps, although he had stopped walking a while ago. The temple walls always affected sound. However, just before daybreak, when the first tiny rays of skyfire battled darkness into ghastly long shadows, sounds were especially contorted in the empty House of the Master.

The time just before daybreak had been special for Dominick, once.

He walked further, the echo falling silent for a moment as his right leg slid beneath him. He gritted his teeth and kept his balance, then continued walking. The detector vibrated strongly in his hand, but he ignored that, too.

The circle beneath the central dome was still dark, and a draft brushed Dominick's face, chilly despite its deceptive softness. He pulled his cloak more tightly around himself, as he stood inside the circle and closed his eyes.

I need wisdom, Master, he whispered, barely inaudible, almost in his mind. The only answer was the draft tugging at his collar, and the echo, reverberating nonsense from the walls and dome above his head. He opened his eyes. If you are ever going to offer me any—his voice was louder now—this is the time. This is the time I need it.

Nothing.

What had he expected? A great voice from the sky? The detector vibrated again, and he slapped at it with the other hand. Perhaps a voice, any voice, was too much to expect twice in a lifetime.

It had been eight years ago; he had been twelve. Just the age for the fifth son of two Balkaene peasants to decide whether he was going to toil in the same rotten field in the same filthy, backwards village as his father, or seek a life and fortune of his own. However, whereas other Balkaene boys seeking their own life and fortune mostly found other rotten fields in other filthy villages, Dominick succeeded in finding Mierber.

The central, largest city in Mierenthia—perhaps people would say it should not be too difficult to find. But it would be people who had never even seen Balkaene Province, never wallowed in drudgery, superstition, ignorance, and misery, thinking (in the rare cases when they managed to scrape a thought or two) that this was life.

The journey from Goritsa Village to the Blessedber Pass took him tens of days walking, or riding in the occasional donkey cart, living on what the merciful amongst the superstitious and ignorant gave in exchange for helping in the fields. Then, from the Pass to Mierber, it was just four day-nights riding in the biggest, fastest, most beautiful thing he had ever seen—what now he would call an old, dusty, screeching, bumping intercity stage coach. A symbol and harbinger of civilization. A new world.

Dominick watched the first rays of the Sun stream through the painted windows, with colored light spots dashing inside his circle. Soon the day would come, and the circle would be illuminated fully, the windows designed to concentrate bright light in this very spot while leaving the temple walls in shadows. A light designed for the Mentor, the father (or mother) of the masses who crouched beside the walls every tenth day to hear the wisdom of his words, and every thirtieth day to confess and await Cleansing.

Light captured and directed by a system of glass and mirrors. Not by the Master.

Trickery.

Make it shine beside the walls, will you? Do something to show me you exist.

Nothing.

I did not bring you anything this time.

He had, eight years ago. Thin, little, dirty, scruffy, meandering through wide, brightly-lit streets and gaping with wide, ignorant eyes at what to him had been enormous buildings, he had stumbled upon the temple and before it, the little tree. He had broken a little branch from it as an offering, like his simple, heedless parents had taught him for years.

It had been just before daybreak, and he had proceeded to walk inside the dark, empty temple, like a Balkaene peasant passing for a quick early prayer before leaving for the fields. He had later learned that sophisticated Mierberian people never did that, for in Mierber temple prayer was done only once every ten days and only under the guidance of a Mentor. (Sophisticated people rarely were out in the streets before daybreak, too.)

Then, like today, the temple had been tall, dark, and forbidding, despite the sleep candle that glowed on one wall. Whereas the temple in Goritsa was a small, smooth-cornered, crudely painted, unassuming stone building with a tiny circle and chairs beside the walls, this one offered no place to sit at all. The walls were stark and high, painted with dark pictures of a harsh, disquieting beauty. There was the Master, drawn as a black-clad, lean young man with a shadowed face, a book in one hand and a sword in the other. To fight the zmay—that evil, handsome fey man who could change shape into a giant flying serpent so that he could steal peasant girls, young Dominick had thought. Georgi the Balkaene fairytale hero had fought the zmay like this.

Little had Dominick known that Georgi, the zmay and the whole assortment of halli, heroes, tallasumi, forest spirits, samodivi, enchanted lords, and ladies who married grubby dim peasants who could not blow their own noses, were not real. Never had been.

Dominick sighed, then tiredly ran his right hand along his forehead, before resting it on the left wrist, where the detector was still throbbing. Whatever had happened, whatever was going to happen, they were not going to become real. Ever.

But how about you, Master?

The young man with the sword was silent, and so was the old-aged version of the same man, painted on the wall across from him, the one dressed in a red Ber robe, whose hands were empty and whose eyes watched Dominick with inexplicable sadness.

It was before the old man's painting that twelve-year-old Dominick had laid the blossoming tree branch—a boy knew to keep away from young men with weapons. The branch had lain lonely on the swept and polished stones. Had this been Goritsa Temple, there would have been many flowers, some still fresh, others wilting, shrunk petals and leaves sprinkled on a floor made of unswept earth.

Flowers grew freely and were picked freely in Balkaene, unlike in Mierber, where they were the province of little parks and nobles' gardens. Peasants often left flowers in praise of the Master, and every spring, on the Day of Flowers, each would take a flower to the temple and return with a flower brought by someone else. Such a flower carried the Master's blessing with it, they believed—as if the Master cared to bless worthless, rustic, good-for-nothings.

Master, I offer you this flower. Please bless me, Dominick had said, or rather, Masta', I offa' ye dis flawa. Plis bless m'.

And then a deep, disembodied voice had changed his life. It had echoed through the empty hollowness of the temple, behind the shadowed curtain between the dark, unlit chandeliers; a voice of harsh authority with the barest hint of softness. It had pervaded the little peasant's worthless little heart, even before his mind had registered the words themselves.

Do you believe that this is right, my son? the voice had said, while the boy fell on his thin, dirty knees before the wall, trembling. You did not plant the tree, you did not water it, you did not cover it in winter to keep it from the cold. Do you think that it is right to just come and break a little branch so that you can offer it?

Think? No one had ever before asked Dominick what he thought—or if he could think at all.

Forgive me, Master, I swear I'll give you something else, was all he could initially say, through tears. Then he shook his head and cast his gaze down to the floor, and said quietly, to himself, I've heard the Master's voice. The Master has spoken in my ear.

The Master? In your ear? The same voice, but it sounded closer now, more human and almost amused. When Dominick raised his head he met an old man's eyes—bright, intense eyes nested between bushy eyebrows, and long gray hair and beard. The eyes became slightly more gentle when their owner almost smiled, but still the boy felt as if the old man could see through him.

The Master, my boy ... He bent his long, bony fingers and reached towards Dominick, knocking on his forehead with a knuckle.

The Master only speaks here. The question is, will you listen to him?

Dominick watched the knuckle, transfixed. The man had not lied. At the same time, other people, people in Balkaene, had claimed that they had heard the Master's voice (as well as the voices of samodivi and halli) with their ears, and they had not lied, either, even though Mentor Spiridon had whipped them for it. Dominick always knew when people lied; once or twice it had saved him from some quite unpleasant things. Now, faced with contradicting truths, he was confused.

What do you do when you see many truths, or, rather, see no truth at all? Doubt. It was the path to a Mentor's undoing, the grown Dominick knew.

I ... I will, sir. Sir Blessed Mentor. I will listen to the Master, the little Dominick said.

The man wore a Mentor's brown robe, but he looked stern, not at all like Goritsa's Spiridon, who had a wide, red face and liked to laugh long and loudly, especially when someone had brought wine as an offering. This man was broad-shouldered, but whereas Spiro had a barrel of a belly, this one's belly was flat—but he moved with more stability than Spiro, and somehow his lack of fat did not make him look as if he were starving. Somehow, Dominick thought he did not drink wine, either.

Will you, now? The old man was examining Dominick with concentration, bearing the same expression that Goritsa overseers sometimes assumed when examining plow oxen. Dominick shivered, then rose his chin and met the old man's eyes fixedly. He had been whipped for that before, even if Spiro rarely whipped people.

This kind of staring is like trying to see directly into a person's quintessence, it is, Spiro had said. It is for Mentors, not for churls like you.

The old man inclined his head. He did not seem offended.

Dominick shifted uneasily on his feet. He had expected the whip, and now that the whip had not come, he was at a loss. The whip was a remedy against impertinence, disrespect, aberrant thoughts. He needed the whip when a certain sense of insecurity crept to the inside of his chest and he wondered about the world so much that he felt bruised by the world's sheer heaviness.

Who put the stars in the sky? Why was it wrong to wonder? Why did not Spiro, in his endless wisdom, know who of his clods of peasants were lying to him through their teeth, but whipped those stupid enough to tell him what they were thinking? Why did the Master, who saw everything, let someone steal old Haralambi's plow? Why did the Master, who loved everyone, let little Kalinka cough and wane and wriggle for tens of days before he supposedly took her to him? Little Dominick blinked furiously. Why didn't the Master heal her? Why didn't the samodivi, those rotten Byas harridans if they ever existed? Well, did they exist!? He clenched a fist. He had never seen them, and he had never seen the Master, either. And why should he never look old Spiridon in the eyes? Why could old Spiridon look him in the eyes? Why was Spiridon the Mentor and he the peasant, anyway?

Spiridon had whipped him hard at moments like this, then sent him straight to the fields, and it had all been a good thing. The Mentor's fat, good-natured heart did it from mercy. Bending your bleeding, writhing back over work that would have in any case been too hard for your scrawny self, could do wonders for thought clarity.

If left none. Everything was blended and dulled in the boy's little head, whenever at last his little body barely managed to drag itself to bed and fall into oblivion. But there were no aberrant thoughts left then—nothing to endanger himself, not a single breach in his mind for the eternally depraved Lost Ones to reach out and sully the world.

But then, he left to seek his own fortune and found Mierber.

The old man in the Mierberian temple was just watching little Dominick, doing nothing else, and Dominick stood with eyes narrowed and fists clenched, hating him for it.

Then the man reached towards his belt, and a whip surfaced from below his cloak. In a moment, it dropped before Dominick's feet with a clang. The man's bright, acute eyes were still watching him.

You want to hit me, don't you, boy? Here, a whip will make the job easier.

He wanted to hit him, yes. He wanted to trash him, break him, hear his bones crack. He wanted to hit the paintings next, to whip them until the glossy, perfect paint peeled into dirty flakes and mortal wounds marred both the young and old Master. And the Sun—the soft morning rays that had just sneaked through the high, multicolored windows, forming a circle of light beneath the dome—he wanted to hit them, too, and to beat them until the Sun screamed.

Somehow, he did not pick the whip. It was not because if he did, someone would whip him, severely and perhaps to the death, later. Right now he did not care about that.

Dominick stood there for a long time. He did not pick the whip, did not move from his place at all, but somehow his body felt as if he had been in a serious fight. He was dizzy, trembling, sweating, panting, not well at all.

The old man's eyes bore into his.

So, my boy, you do not think it would be right to hit me?

He could barely nod.

Why?

Why? There were only so many why-s an exhausted, perturbed boy could take at a time. Angrily, he blinked, but still the tears wet his face.

My son. He blinked again as a bony hand softly brushed his head. I never said listening to the Master would be easy. And responsibility can be a hard, thorny path. Do you wish to learn how to walk it?

Again, he could only nod.

Good. Good. What is your name, then?

It ... it is Doncho, sir. But I don't like it.

The old man almost smiled. Well, is there a name you like?

Was there, truly? The grown Dominick wondered. He had been wondering about many things, wondering too often in the last days, often enough to make up for eight years of walking on a straight, nondivergent path like a harnessed horse whose side vision was obstructed by the bridle. For, even Maxim's hard, thorny path was still a path. It might bend your back and scrape your knees, it might sometimes beat you so hard that it forced the air out of you, but it was there—in the dark forest, between murky shadows, beneath overcast trees, it was a bright thread to follow. It was a way. It kept the forest out.

Twenty-three days ago, this thread had ended in the middle of dark leaves, green twilight, and shadows, and there were times Mentor Dominick felt as lost as a pitiful little peasant with a flower in his hand.

He was still a Mentor. Even though he might be a most foul murderer, one who would attempt to destroy a fellow Mentor—one who would destroy the man who had been like a father to him for eight years. The Bers had restored his whip and title upon Maxim's own words, and time after time he still preached the Master's infinite wisdom and unerring ways.

But it all felt empty. Even the Day of the Master eight days ago had felt empty. Dominick's own preaching, the Judgement of youths, the Bers charging his Mentor's detector for the New Year—none of these had touched his heart this time. If anything, the detector had started hurting even stronger. Perhaps the Master had erred this time. For twenty-two days now, ever since he had awakened, Maxim had been supporting Dominick's innocence but still refusing to see him, as well as refusing to disclose what had happened that night and why.

A samodiva who could not exist, together with the vague image of a man whose face he had not seen, and his own dagger stabbing Maxim. Dominick turned his hands before himself and watched the now bright morning light stream on his clean, pale palms.

You are not much of a help, are you, Master?

The shadowed images of the Master stood silent on their walls.

Damn you, if you are not here for me, at least be here against me!

His right palm colored red as he smashed one of the chandeliers, but he felt nothing, so he smashed the other one, too.

Punish me, all right? Prove that this world is not an accursed, profane chaos where anything can happen!

Shards of glass and metal pieces sprinkled the polished stone floor, but besides that, nothing. He tore the curtain next, kicking the bed behind it—the bed, the temple's Confession secret, the place for a Mentor who had entered too many base, dirty minds to lie down and dream of trees, Lost Ones, and shadows, until his own mind broke through the web of stark confusion and made him walk and talk again.

By the time Dominick had wrenched the bed out of its alcove, blurred images were playing before his eyes and he was panting, but the tension inside had not eased at all.

Do something, damn you! Strike me with lighting if you wish. Just be here for me. Just—He shoved the bed away—Be. Here.

A metal piece of a chandelier smashed into the wall, and Dominick laughed as he watched the sunrays. Already broken by various metal pieces and glass shards, they hit this particular piece and started dancing on the wall itself.

The wall was illuminated now, even if it were just a tiny spot—even if it were just a piece of the old Master's red robe's hem, the Sun was shining on the wall.

So that's the way it works, then?

Dominick

Morning 8 of the First Quarter, Year of the Master 706

An hour later Mentors Ardelia and Nigel made only a vague attempt to stop him before Maxim's sickroom, and he rushed inside, barely slowing to kick the door open.

Ah. So you come, at last. I have been expecting you.

Dominick halted in the small, Sun-lit room with bright yellow curtains, staring at the white-clad, frail old man on the bed. Suddenly, his own presently sweaty, ruffled hair and crumpled brown robe, and especially the whip he had waved at Nigel and Ardelia, seemed very out of place.

You are making me feel like a loutish little peasant again, he said in a soft, controlled voice, all vehemence suddenly draining away from him to leave hollowness and shame.

Am I now? Can anyone truly make you feel anything you disagree with, my son?

I don't know, Dominick wanted to say. I don't want to think about it. I want to be angry, like a moment ago, so that I can shout at you and be done with it. But anger was a useless weapon against these sharp, all-knowing eyes. Looking at them, as well as listening to Maxim, more often than not made you wonder why exactly you were angry.

Max. Dominick sat on the edge of the bed, watching a face that bore many wrinkles whereas eight years ago it had born almost none, and gray hair that had been almost black but was now almost silver. The stabbing wound and the consequent fever had made Maxim's skin pale and sallow, both on the face and the thin, bony hands—but, strangely, what worried Dominick the most was the thin white pajamas.

Had he ever seen the man in anything but a somber brown robe with starched cuffs and collar? Maxim looked ... smaller right now. The accursed pajamas seemed to have taken something away and taken it away irrevocably—something important. His dignity. His strength. Dominick clenched his fists around the whip's handle. He was a Mentor and a man, but were he a twelve-year-old snotty-nosed peasant, right now he would have cried.

Maxim watched him, saying nothing. He had that habit.

Max. Dominick unclenched his fingers from the whip and drew his dagger. I need to know.

What do you need to know, my son? The old man did not even look at the weapon, and Dominick sighed, laying it on the sheets.

Start with why you said you were expecting me, while I was told you had refused to see me. And why the fools outside let me in so easily today. For all they know, I might be an accursed murderer going to finish the deed! For all I know.

Ah, one of the answers is easy. They let you in because I told them to do so, even though they were reluctant to obey. He cast a Dominick a sideways glance. That is, I told them to do so if you showed persistence.

You told me to not come.

Yes, my son. Maxim took Dominick's dagger, the dagger that had almost killed him, in his weak, trembling hands. Yes, I did. He played with the weapon, shifting it so that it would catch the Sun and make Sun spots on the wall. Like a child, playing with a toy. But you came, and I am glad.

Why? Why are you playing with me?

Dominick, my son, will you indulge an old man and accept 'I cannot tell you' as an answer?

Maxim, my father, I wonder if I would indulge you better if I answered 'yes,' or if I answered 'no.'

Maxim laughed, a weak laugh, but behind it—behind the whiteness of his pajamas, behind the wrinkles and the frailty of his figure—his eyes were no less sharp than ever, and even sharper still.

They were both silent for a while, and the old man closed his eyelids, his breathing becoming as slow and regular as if he had drifted into sleep. The Sun spots on the wall jumped, disturbed, as Dominick pulled his dagger from his hand.

He could kill him so easily. Just a quick snap with the dagger, and the thin, tired man would be gone. It was all so wrong, so unbalanced. A stab, and then the man was broken and the healer could not fix him for days, and then another stab, just a tiny little stab would be enough to finish him ... A stab with a tiny metal blade. A piece, a toy that humans had made, could undo humans. Such a fragile thing, a human. Such a fickle thing, a life. Dominick closed his fingers around the handle. A little thing, such a tiny, insignificant thing, but how much power it held.

And why was he, Dominick, thinking about all this? Gently, carefully, he pulled the white blanket to the old man's chin and wrapped the corners beneath his shoulders.

You know, old man, he whispered to the sleeping figure, the why-s are all your fault. You could have whipped them out of me so long ago. I should know, I have whipped some why-s out of people myself. But you did not do it, and I don't know what to do any more. He put the dagger back into its sheath. Why had he drawn it, anyway? Probably don't even know who I am.

Pretty normal for your age, actually. Dominick almost jumped at the calm, not-at-all-asleep voice. I might have once been like that myself. The sharp eyes bore into Dominick's again, suddenly not weak and sick, but strong, authoritative, invading. A Mentor's gaze, which no one had applied to Dominick for years. What, in the name of the Master?

Doubt, as you well know, is the path to a Mentor's undoing. But, Dominick, my boy, do you know what a Mentor is?

Dominick remained silent.

A Mentor's primary task, my boy, is to take care. Maxim reached out, propped a pillow in the corner where the bed met two walls, and raised himself to a sitting position. His movements were slow and deliberate, but he was not trembling. Suddenly the white pajamas did not matter so much.

Your task is to keep those who are weaker than you, more stupid than you, more lost than you, on the straight path and away from the dark, devastating forest—and sometimes that means that you, my boy, have to step away from the path and into the darkness, so that you can find those wandering and bring them back. Talk to them if you have to, lie to them if you need, whip them if they will let you, do whatever else you see fit—but bring them back. He extended his hand towards the glass of water on the nightstand, but Dominick was faster, handing it to him. Despite his slowness and the transparent thinness of his limbs, the old man's shoulders were still broad, and somehow that made things better. Maxim drank, deeply.

It is the path that is important, my son, or, rather, the system of paths that traverses the world, but you—you no longer have the luxury of staying on a path, even the hard, thorny one. It is a useful path, the path of thorns and trials. Nigel and Oliver walk it. Ardelia does. But you have strayed from it, for you have too much doubt in you. Well, doubt can be used. Now you have a choice. Will you be lost in the forest, or will you make finding the lost ones your priority? Will you break? Or will you build? Will you be a Mentor?

Old man. Dominick closed his eyes for a moment, running a hand over his forehead. The detector vibrated again in the other one. I have been to other people's damn minds. I don't know what worse, darker forest there could be.

Like he had done eight years ago, Maxim bent his long, bony fingers, reached out, and knocked on Dominick's skull.

Other people's minds are still a path.

What are you aiming at, Max? Dominick returned his gaze. I know you. Such a speech on the edge of aberration has a purpose. What has gotten into you this time, old man?

Gotten into me? Maxim placed his glass back on the nightstand, carefully, by himself. Nothing ever gets into me, Son. It is all there already. Oh, well. I have a task for you, Mentor.

Mentor, you say. Well, I should tell you something, Mentor. Just before I came to you, I vandalized the damn temple.

Maxim watched him calmly, not revealing any judgement or surprise. Dominick sighed.

Max, if I were a Ber or the Head Mentor—if the power to elevate or fell Mentors belonged to me—I would not have let one such as I remain here for a single moment after—he clenched a fist—that night. Whatever happened then, old man? Did I try to kill you? Did I see a samodiva, Maxim? Samodivi, little peasants, Balkaene stones, accursed visions. Doubt. I dream of her at night, did you know? It is trouble waiting to happen, damn the Bers and the Head Mentor! Whatever you have told them about me, they should know better! I am damaged. Can't they see? Can't they do something? I am a danger to all that is good and right, Father! His clenched fist met the nightstand. I am confused and thus I am weak!

And therein lies your greatest strength. For we have all become too certain, too set in our ways.

Dominick did not look at him, but strode to the window, staring at the temple at the other side of the street, barely controlling himself to not tear down the curtains. His breathing was uneven; his heart was beating too fast. The Sun was glaring at him, light reflecting from the rods at the temple's roof. The Sun had hit old Haralambi from Goritsa, long ago, and his heart had beaten exactly like this when Dominick had run to him and touched him.

Drink some water.

Damn old Maxim, did he ever say a word that was not calm? But he drank.

Did you try to kill me, you ask? Did you see a samodiva? How can I know? A voice. A disembodied voice, for currently Dominick could not see its owner, shadows scampering before the young Mentor's eyes, his body nearly falling. A voice of harsh authority with the barest hint of softness.

Damn you, Dominick murmured, and Maxim laughed.

"So are you a murderer, boy? Would you believe my answer, whatever I said? That night, I had

Reviews for The Makers of Light

[homelovebooks · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

So this is book two in the series, I reviewed the first book in the series The Seekers of Fire a few months back, and enjoyed it. To be honest first and foremost, if you are going to read The Makers of Light then you they you really should read The Seekers of Fire before hand, because this book really doesn't stand on it's own to well. I think you would appreciate it a lot more with at least a working knowledge of the people and the world the series takes place in. As with the first book the writer does a good job with creating a world and characters that you can enjoy and get wrapped up in. I think on of the things that made me like the book was that I recognized the people within it and everyone I already liked or enjoyed was there with me and along for the ride. Also another thing that went along with the first book was that the author was really good at bringing social issues into the book. She takes a look at a lot of different issues, but I really do enjoy her use of science throughout the book, and how it almost becomes like a religion to the people. I think there are a lot of things I could talk about that go on in this book, but I really think it would end up being like a huge spoiler for the first book. If I could on'y say one thing about this book is that the writer does a really fantastic job of continuing the series on. One of the most annoying things when I start reading a series is when the tone of the next book changes or I feel like the characters I fell in love with suddenly change, so this book being so on par with the last book makes this book all the more better. Overall, I think this book deserves the same good rating as the previous one got. Again I think anyone who like epic fantasy would enjoy this book. I also think if you read the first one the you really have to read the second one. I really do enjoy her writing style, and I always love when a woman writes epic fantasy.

[ufreviews · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

So this is book two in the series, I reviewed the first book in the series The Seekers of Fire a few months back, and enjoyed it. To be honest first and foremost, if you are going to read The Makers of Light then you they you really should read The Seekers of Fire before hand, because this book really doesn't stand on it's own to well. I think you would appreciate it a lot more with at least a working knowledge of the people and the world the series takes place in. As with the first book the writer does a good job with creating a world and characters that you can enjoy and get wrapped up in. I think on of the things that made me like the book was that I recognized the people within it and everyone I already liked or enjoyed was there with me and along for the ride. Also another thing that went along with the first book was that the author was really good at bringing social issues into the book. She takes a look at a lot of different issues, but I really do enjoy her use of science throughout the book, and how it almost becomes like a religion to the people. I think there are a lot of things I could talk about that go on in this book, but I really think it would end up being like a huge spoiler for the first book. If I could on'y say one thing about this book is that the writer does a really fantastic job of continuing the series on. One of the most annoying things when I start reading a series is when the tone of the next book changes or I feel like the characters I fell in love with suddenly change, so this book being so on par with the last book makes this book all the more better. Overall, I think this book deserves the same good rating as the previous one got. Again I think anyone who like epic fantasy would enjoy this book. I also think if you read the first one the you really have to read the second one. I really do enjoy her writing style, and I always love when a woman writes epic fantasy.