Change is coming to the island land of Eiden Myr, and one young woman is caught directly in its heart ….
“The end came to her in images, in shapes.
Torrin Wordsmith at the precipice, head flung back, arms spread, leaning into the wind with hair and cloak streaming behind him. The sky a rage of chartreuse and charcoal and the angry purple of a bruise; the sea boiling white below. Heff on one knee, three fingertips on the first stirrings of sowmid in the hard ground, eye shut. Their triad, a tight ring within the ring of reckoners inside the ring of fighters. Local mages who had arrived during the night, huddling by their mounts, well back — Ailanna and her triad, the phlegmatic mage who claimed he could talk to haunts, the prenticemonger with melting smile and emerald eyes. Beyond them, up the slope, at the edge of bare trees just fuzzing green, the splindly figures of bonefolf, waiting. The wind whipped their tatters; the storm sky in their parchment flesh a glaucous white.
Someone would die here.
She had traveled the length and breadth of Eiden Myr in her journey year, traveling backward into the past. History had been illuminated, as by a torch carried ever deeper into a cave. Her own past. Graefel and Hanla’s. Her mother’s. The past of Eiden Myr itself. Every motion had a consequence, every life was a world. The past settled like yeast; you drank the ale, but what you tasted was the story of its making.
How bitter to die with so much only just discovered.” – From Illumination
That is how it might end. It all starts, however, with a celebration. Liath, apprentice mage, is about to undergo the last of her tests before becoming a full-fledged illuminator. Once acknowledged as such, she’d then journey the land, partnering with binders and wordsmiths to form temporary triads, working magic for the protection and benefit of the people of Eiden Myr. No triad can exist without the three distinctions of mages; no one mage can work alone. This is the best night of Liath’s life. Until it all goes wrong. At the moment of her greatest joy, the light within her fails, her magic refusing to answer to her call. She has failed. She is not a mage, save in spirit.
It’s in that spirit that she refuses to accept this turn of events. It’s in that spirit that she journeys to the Holding of the Ennead, home of the nine most powerful mages, the three triads which govern the ways of magic and protect Eiden Myr from the fierce storms that threaten it every so often. It’s in that spirit that she wins past the Holding’s defenses, past its people, and into the very chamber of the Ennead. And it’s in the spirit of a mage that she accepts the task they lay out for her, before they can help Liath and restore her magic: to find the legendary Dark Mage, Torrin Wordsmith, and to either force him to return to the Holding, or help them to defeat him from afar.
It’s a journey that will take Liath to the very limits of her strength and resources, as she seeks out a man she knows only by the style of his magic. She’ll leave no town unexplored, experience every style of magic there is, and exist one step ahead of those who would use or destroy her. She’ll travel deep into the heart of Eiden Myr, to its furthest reaches, to its most secretive corners. She’ll discover more about herself than she ever thought possible, find new levels of will and resolve, and discover just how deep-rooted the treachery that threatens the land can be. She’s caught between Torrin Wordsmith and the Ennead in a deadly game to which there may not be any winners. And only her own magic and the help of a few loyal friends can save her. But when even friends and family stand in her way, can she survive?
Illumination is more than a coming-of-age story, it’s an intriguing tale of a land where magic reigns and chaos threatens. It’s a tale of morality, of black and white and shades of grey, and the light which can obscure the lines of differentiation. The characters are complex and believable, each with their own motivations and goals, each as flawed as any real person. No one is wholly evil; there are no cackling paper cut-out villains here, just men and women willing to do what it takes to achieve their goals. Liath herself is forced to choose between the perceived good and the perceived evil, and to cloak herself in shades of dubious morality in order to survive and succeed.
The magical system that forms the very backbone and basis for the novel is new, and different, speaking much of the need to work with others to achieve a common goal, but also pointing out the folly in following traditions without question. As the book progresses, we see the evolution not just of Liath, but of the land of Eiden Myr, as it comes out of the happy, carefree childhood born of peace and ignorance of the past, and into the harsh realities that have been warded against for so long.
Illumination is not a quick read, or an easy book. Rather, it’s dense and multilayered, with revelations being sprinkled throughout the text, each one building to the next. What seems at first to be straightforward is ultimately revealed as keen misdirection, but a sort that enlightens, rather than surprises. All in all, this book was highly satisfying, and as a first novel, it bodes quite well for Terry McGarry’s future efforts at novel-length works. With any luck, she’ll return to the world of Eiden Myr, either to shed light upon some of its past mysteries, or to expand upon its future after the end of this story.
To say much more would be to give away any of the myriad twists, turns, and detours this book thrives upon. But between the intricate system of proxies, warders, reckoners and triads that make up the magical society, the philosophical seekers, and the fully-realized world in which the action takes place, this is without a doubt one of those fantasy novels which finds something new to say, and a worthy way of saying it. Give this one a shot if you like fantasy, but are tired of the same old same old.