A Shadow on the Glass (81 page)

Yggur:
A great and powerful mancer. Formerly a member of the Council, now a renegade, living in Fiz Gorgo. His armies have overrun most of southern Meldorin.

Zain:
A scholarly race who once dwelt in Zile and founded the Great Library. They made a pact with Rulke and after his fall were slaughtered, the remnant exiled. They now dwell in Jepperand and make no alliances.

Zile:
A city in the northwest of the island of Meldorin. Once capital of the Empire of Zur. Now chiefly famous for the Great Library.

Zophy:
Llian’s mother, an illuminator.

Zurean Empire:
An ancient empire in the north of Meldorin. Its capital was Zile.

There are no silent letters, and double consonants are generally pronounced as two separate letters; for example,
Yggur
is pronounced
Yg-ger
, and
Faellem
as
Fael-lem
. The letter
c
is usually pronounced as
k
, except in
mancer
and
Alcifer
, where it is pronounced as
s
, as in
manser, Alsifer
. The combination
ch
is generally pronounced as in church, except in
Aachim
and
Charon
, where it is pronounced as
k
.

I
AN
I
RVINE
was born in Bathurst in 1950 and educated at Chevalier College and the University of Sydney, where he earned a Ph.D. in marine science in 1981. He has worked in a variety of jobs, including sweeping up in a cement factory, a research assistant in microbiology, and an environmental project manager. In the early 1980s he led several disastrous expeditions to Sumatra, which gave him many ideas for his books. He has spent too much of his life diving on filthy harbor bottoms investigating pollution.

In 1986, Irvine set up his own consulting firm, carrying out environmental studies for clients in Australia and overseas. He has worked in many countries in the Asia-Pacific region. An expert in marine pollution, he has developed some of Australia’s national environmental guidelines.

Ian Irvine is married and lives in the mountains of northern New South Wales. Having completed the four volumes of The View from the Mirror, he is now working on a novel about ecoterrorism,
The Last Albatross
, set in the near future.

With this stunning and original debut, Ian Irvine begins the saga of The View from the Mirror, a brilliant epic fantasy that rivals the works of Robert Jordan and J. V. Jones.

“Once there were three worlds, each with its own human race. Then, fleeing from out of the void came a fourth race, the Charon. Desperate, on the edge of extinction, they changed the balance between the worlds forever…”

THE TALE OF THE FORBIDDING

In ancient times the Way Between the Worlds was shattered, leaving hands of Aachim, Faellem, and Charon trapped with the old humans of Santhenar. Now Llian, a Chronicler of the Great Tales, uncovers a 3,000-year-old secret too deadly to be revealed—while Karan, a young sensitive, is compelled by honor to undertake a perilous mission. Neither can imagine they will soon meet as hunted fugitives, snared in the machinations of immortals, the vengeance in the of warlords, and the magics of powerful mancers. For the swelling deluge of a millennial war is rising, terrible as a tsunami, ready to cast torrents of sorcery and devastation across the land…

LOOK FOR VOLUME 2 OF THIS EXCITING SERIES,
THE TOWER ON THE RIFT
,
AVAILABLE JANUARY 2002