The Sorcerer's Tower Box Set: The Sorcerer's Tower

By Ian Irvine

Over a million copies of Ian Irvine's fantasy novels sold.

The orphan Tamly and his best friend Kym are as different as fire and snow. Kym has magic coming out of her fingers, and Tamly has none at all. 

When their village is threatened by bad magic this unlikely pair will need to use their combined talents to steal the Book of Spells from the evil sorcerer Lord Harshax.

Now the sorcerer brothers Harshax and Krushax are hunting Tamly down – but for what terrible purpose? It will take all his courage, and all Kym's magic, to face their enemies and thwart their evil plan.

Reviews and Honours for The Sorcerer's Tower

Shortlisted for the 2008 Aurealis Award, Best Children's Series

"A new series by two of Australia's best. It has all the things that turn reluctant readers into avaricious readers – fast moving plot, big gribbly monsters and really cool illustrations." Reading Time

"A thrilling bedtime chapter book for parents to read to children five years and older." The Courier Mail on Thorn Castle

"Fast moving fantasy adventure, brought to life by Cornish's distinctive illustrations." Good Reading

"A fast-paced, easy reading book for middle primary school." The Ballarat Courier

"This exciting story is likely to appeal to young readers who like their adventures action-packed, but also to slightly older, reluctant readers." Sunday Tasmanian

"Children as young as six will enjoy this fast paced novel. Non-stop fantasy action with humour and colourful detail." The Courier Mail on Black Crypt

"Beautifully crafted with magic, excitement, surprises, chases and fights all the way." Aurealis

"From one of Australia's masters of fantasy, this action-packed series is a wonderful introduction to the genre for readers aged nine and over. Perfect for the reluctant or younger reader." Aussiereviews.com

• Language: English
• Publisher: Santhenar Press
• Release date: May 29, 2019
• ISBN: 9781393625117

Book preview

The Sorcerer’s Tower Box Set

The Sorcerer’s Tower Box Set

Ian Irvine

Illustrated by

D M Cornish

Santhenar press

Text copyright © Ian Irvine 2008, 2019

Illustrations copyright © DM Cornish 2008

Covers copyright © DM Cornish 2015

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A Santhenar Press book.

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(First published by Scholastic Australia, 2008)

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

Contents

Thorn Castle

Giant’s Lair

Black Crypt

Wizardry Crag

About the Author

Also by Ian Irvine, for young readers

Thorn Castle

The Sorcerer’s Tower Book 1

THE SORCERER’S TOWER

1. THORN CASTLE

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Text copyright © Ian Irvine 2008, 2019

Illustrations copyright © DM Cornish 2008

Cover copyright © DM Cornish 2015

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A Santhenar Press book.

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(First published by Scholastic Australia, 2008)

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All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

Created with Vellum Created with Vellum

For John and Val

1

A Spy is Caught

The town was attacked by magic while Tamly was sweeping his great-uncle’s broom workshop. His skin prickled, then the glowglobes on the wall let out needles of white-hot light which set fire to everything they touched.

There were flames everywhere – even Great-uncle Rafe’s stovepipe hat was burning. One of the broom makers ran to the pump and worked the handle furiously, but it coughed up a clot of muck like brown custard, and jammed.

People were shouting and running back and forth.

‘Stop!’ Great-uncle Rafe roared. Running to the water barrel near the door, he thrust his arm out, saying, ‘Deluge, Douse!’

Broom on fire.

His spell fired jets of water from the barrel in all directions and put out the flames, all save one. The last jet of water squirted back at Rafe but, instead of putting out his smoking hat, it shot up his nostrils. He snorted as water dripped from his fleshy nose.

An apprentice sniggered; Great-uncle Rafe silenced him with a glare. The broom workshop was a smouldering mess. He strode to the door, studying the smoke rising all over town and shaking his grizzled head. ‘The attacks are getting worse,’ he said to no one in particular. ‘I don’t know how much longer we can hold out.’

The magical attacks had been going on for weeks and no one knew where they were coming from, but Tamly was afraid. In olden times the land had been laid waste by Shardax, the Black Sorcerer, for a hundred years. What if that evil was rising again?

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Hours later, Tamly eyed the huge pile of debris from the fire he still had to sweep up, leaned on the handle of his broom, and sighed. It had been good of Great-uncle Rafe to take him in after his parents died, but Rafe believed children should work for their living and Tamly did nothing but sweep all day.

If only I had magic, he thought miserably, for everyone in Meadowhythe could do magic, except him. Then I could save the day the way Great-uncle Rafe had. Why can’t I do magic? Why?

He began to sweep furiously. If the boards of Rafe’s workshop weren’t clean enough to eat off, Tamly would hear all about it.

After sweeping along the left-hand side where the racks of finished brooms were stored, and back down the middle, his nose was running from the straw dust and his burnt broom was falling to pieces. He began to daydream about having a magical broom that would do the sweeping for him.

Unfortunately, Great-uncle Rafe didn’t believe in using magic unnecessarily. He sometimes made flying brooms for customers but never for himself; there were no brooms with hands to carry water from the well; and especially no brooms that did the sweeping. Tamly stopped and leaned on his broom. What was the point in having magic but never using it?

Bang! The workshop door slammed and Rafe was standing there, looking furious. ‘I’m really disappointed in you, Tamly. After the day I’ve had, I thought I could rely on you to help. Get to bed.’

‘But I haven’t had my supper …’

‘Now!’

Tamly scuttled up the ladder to his attic room and huddled on the bed, his empty stomach rumbling. Supper was only a bowl of porridge with a few stringy bits of boiled chicken in it, but it was better than nothing.

---

Tamly jerked upright, for a white ghost was climbing the fig tree outside his window, and now moving along a broad branch straight for him. He was ducking under the covers when he realised that it wasn’t a ghost – it was Kym.

Kym, the daughter of the town conjuror, was his best friend, and she was brilliant at magic. She could make fire with her fingertips, create rainbows of light and call birds down from the tops of trees. Sometimes he wondered why they were friends at all, since Kym had magic coming out her ears, and he had none.

Lately she was always in trouble. Yesterday she’d been put into the stocks for making her father’s beard explode like a firework, but tomorrow she’d do something even worse.

She was balancing along the branch, her white nightgown billowing around her, her arms out as if walking a tightrope. Tamly’s mouth went dry. She’d break her neck if she fell. Kym wobbled, slipped and landed thump on the branch, on her bottom.

He opened the window a crack. ‘What are you doing?’ he hissed.

‘I heard you’d been sent to bed, so I brought you something … special. Open the window wide, muffin head.’

‘It’s too far to jump. You’ll fall.’

‘’Course I won’t. Hurry up!’

Tamly opened the window. ‘Try not to make any noise. Great-uncle –’

He didn’t have a chance to finish, for Kym ran along the branch and dived in a graceful curve towards the window. Too low – she wasn’t going to make it!

Her hands just caught the sill, then her small body hit the wall with a colossal thump. She lost her grip with one hand and Tamly saw the whites of her eyes. He grabbed her arm, couldn’t hold it, but managed to twist the front of her gown around his fist.

Her weight almost dragged him out the window but he jammed his knees against the wall and held on. Kym’s boots beat against the boards and she caught the sill with her flailing hand. Tamly heaved and she scrambled in, laughing.

‘Shh!’ whispered Tamly. ‘You’ll wake Rafe.’

‘He’s gone out.’

‘Well, I wish you wouldn’t take such risks –’

‘Oh, poo! You worry too much. Besides, I’ve got important news.’

Tamly weakened. ‘What news?’

‘Eat first.’ She began picking things out of her shoulder bag – a roasted chicken leg, a couple of spicy sausages, two slices of buttered bread and a wrinkled apple.

‘Thanks!’ he mumbled as he bit into the chicken leg, too hungry to bother picking off the fluff from her bag. ‘This is great!’ A piece of chicken fell from his mouth into his lap, turned into a wart-covered toad and hopped under his pillow.

He jumped, inspected the rest of the chicken leg and put it down. ‘I wish you wouldn’t do that.’

‘You laughed when I did it to Mel the other day.’

Mel, Tamly’s other friend, was the son of the town blacksmith. ‘It seemed funnier then.’

Kym smiled. ‘Go on – the rest is real.’

He picked up his chicken leg but a pair of toad eyes were staring at him, so he grabbed a sausage instead. ‘Please don’t eat me,’ squeaked the sausage piteously, and began to wriggle in his fingers like a fat worm.

Sausage with eyes.

He bit it in half, chewing furiously, and thankfully it turned back into sausage. ‘What’s your news?’

‘There’s a special town meeting tonight, about the attacks. You’ve got to come with me.’

He stopped chewing. ‘Why?’

‘To spy on them, of course.’

‘It’s a bad time to be sneaking out, Kym.’

‘How else are we going to find out what they’re talking about?’ she said innocently.

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Why do I let her talk me into these things? Tamly thought as he crept after Kym across the wet shingles of the town hall roof. We’re going to end up in the stocks, being pelted with rotten fruit.

‘Hurry up!’ Kym whispered. ‘The meeting’s about to start.’

She lifted the canvas over a hole where the shingles had been blasted off in a previous attack, and wriggled through into the dark roof space. Tamly gulped and followed her across dusty roof beams to a small hole in the ceiling.

Kym and Tamly on the roof.

‘Careful.’ Kym was peering down. ‘Don’t make a sound.’

‘You’re the one who’s talking!’

He looked through another hole. All the townsfolk were gathered in the hall and the council members were sitting around a long table at the front. Great-uncle Rafe looked worried. Beside him sat Kym’s father, Van, the town conjurer. He was a fussy little man with a white rabbit’s tail of beard on his chin. Kym’s mother, Lili, a plump witch-wizard with a streak of green in her red hair, was there too, and another five councillors, all talking at once.

Beside Tamly, Kym flexed her fingers. He caught her wrist, sure she was planning to set fire to someone’s beard. ‘Can’t you ever be serious?’

‘I wasn’t doing anything,’ she said, all wide-eyed innocence. ‘Shh!’

Great-uncle Rafe cleared his throat. ‘Councillors, townsfolk, these magical attacks are getting worse every time. Soon someone is going to be killed. We’ve got to do something.’

‘I've found where the twisted magic is coming from,’ said Van, stroking his whiskers. ‘Thorn Castle, in the Reeking Marshes.’

‘And I know who’s doing it,’ said Lili. ‘Lord Harshax.’

‘Why is he trying to destroy Meadowhythe?’ said old Mayor Ignatia.

‘I don’t know, but if the attacks continue, we’ll have to abandon Meadowhythe and become miserable beggars.’

‘The only way to remove the curse on our town is to get inside the castle and steal his Book of Spells,’ said Rafe.

Beside Tamly, Kym began scrabbling in her bag. ‘Kym, what are you doing?’

Grinning wickedly, she drew something long and knobbly from her bag and made passes over it with her fingers. It was a Thunder Charm. She was planning to scare the council out of their wits with it.

Tamly was reaching out to take it off her when he heard something alarming.

‘Thorn Castle is impregnable,’ Great-uncle Rafe said, ‘because Harshax can sense the smallest magics of any intruder. The only person who could possibly break into it is someone who has no magic at all ...’

Kym went very still, and Tamly felt a shiver creep up his spine. They were talking about him. He leaned forwards onto the old plaster ceiling, trying to hear what they would say next, but it broke under his weight and he fell through, down onto the table. Right into the middle of the astonished council members.

2

The Black Forest

Tamly groaned and wiped the dust out of his eyes. High above, he could see Kym’s frightened face peering through the hole.

The furious council members rose to their feet.

‘There’s your answer,’ cried Van. ‘Your wretched nephew can’t do magic and he’s useless for anything else. Send him to Thorn Castle.’

‘I agree,’ said Lili, and the other council members did too; they were nodding all the way around the table.

Rafe’s face was dark with anger and his black beard coated with white plaster dust. ‘The boy is good for nothing, not even sweeping,’ he fumed.

Tamly’s mouth went dry as he looked into the sunken eyes of his great-uncle. Rafe was right. He was a burden on everyone. Tamly was sure Rafe was