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My favourite fantasy chapter

Magician by Raymond E. Feist is a simply fantastic book. It is a joy to read from beginning to end but there is one chapter that stands out above the rest. If you have never read the book before, please be warned that the following could give away a very important section of the story and spoil what might be one of the best fantasy books you have ever read. I wouldn’t want to do that. If you are happy to continue then please read on…

After becoming a slave Pug is found to have magical power. He is sent for training and has no knowledge of his past. Re-named Milamber, he has passed the first stages of his magician’s training and has shed his white robe for grey. He continues to learn quickly and then he is led to a large staircase which leads up and up to the top of a high tower. A spire sat on top of the stone tower with further stairs leading into the clouds. He stands precariously on a small platform and then begins a simply mind-expanding experience.

“FOR A TIME he floats, nameless and lost. A pinpoint of flickering consciousness, an unknown swimmer through a black and empty sea. Then a single note invades the void. It reverberates, a soundless sound, a sense-lacking intruder on the senses. -Without senses, how is there perception?- his mind asks. His mind! -I am!- he cries, and a million philosophies cry out in wonder. -If I am, then what is not me?- he wonders.
An echo replies, -You are that which you are, and not that which you are not-
-An unsatisfactory answer- he muses.
-Good- replies the echo.
-What is that note?- he asks.
-It is the touch of an old man’s sleep the moment before death-
-What is that note?-
-It is the color of winter-
-What is that note?-
-It is the sound of hope-
-What is that note?-
-It is the taste of love-
-What is that note?-
-It is an alarm to wake you-

HE FLOATS. Around him swim a billion billion stars. Great clusters drift by, ablaze with energy. In riots of color they spin, giant reds and blues, the smaller oranges and yellow, and the tiny reds and whites. The colorless and angry black ones drink in the storm of light around them, white others pulse out energies in an unknown spectrum, and a few twist the fabric of space and time, sending his vision swimming as he tries to fathom their passing. From each to each a line of force stretches, binding them all in a net of power. Back and forth along the strands of this web energy flows, pulsing with a life that is not life. The stars know as they fly by. They are aware of his presence, but acknowledge it not. He is too small for them to be concerned with. Around him streches away the whole of the universe.
    At various points in the web, creatures of power rest or work, each different from the others, but all somehow the same. Some he can see are gods, for they are familiar to him, and others are less or more. Each plays a role. Some regard him, for his passing in not without notice; some are beyond him, too great to comprehend him, and so being, are less than he. Others study him closely, weighing his power and abilities against his own. He studies them in return. All are silent.
    He speeds among the stars and beings of power, until he espies a star, one among a multitude, but one that calls to him. From the star twenty lines of energy lead away, and near reach is a being of power. Without knowing why, he understands that here are the ancient gods of Kelewan. Each plays on the nearest line of power influencing the structure of space and time nearby. Some contest among themselves, others work oblivious to the strife, and still others do nothing that is descernible.
    He moves closer. A single planet swings about the star, a blue-and-green sphere shrouded in white clouds. Kelewan.”

This chapter is but a small section of this wonderful chapter that follows Milamber through the final stages of his training. H witnesses the beginning of worlds and is shown how wars started. We hope this gave you a flavour of just how excellent it is. To appreciate this chaper in full it should be read in the context of the book as a whole and not as a stand alone entity.

If this has whetted your appetite, why not buy the book today and read it for yourself, you will certainly not regret it.

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Posted: January 6th, 2008
Author: admin
Categories: Articles, Raymond E Feist