Raymond E Feist Magician Apprentice

[Christina Smith]

Irediscovered my love for pleasure-driven reading this past Spring when I received a Kindle for my birthday. Being swamped with work, I decided to forgo the edifying classics and attack my increasingly growing fantasy reading list.

After starting their apprenticeships (Pug is training to be a magician while Tomas a fighter), they investigate a shipwreck on the shores of Cyrdee. Here, they find a foreign race with advanced magical skills. There is a lone survivor, and they save him along with a scroll before the ship sinks losing all its contents to the sea.

With the knowledge of an impending invasion by Warriors buffered by magic greater than their own, a sortie of Cyrdee royalty and warriors (including Pug and Tomas) leave to warn the rest of the Kingdom and bring them to arms.

There were about ten to fifteen characters of importance. It was a blessing to be able to see a name that was not mentioned for some time and still be able to recall them from the depths to continue reading. Their backstories were clear and concise and it was easy to feel like you understood them.

There were shallower moments, though, particularly when it came to the details of magic in this world. While you get some division and categories, it is hitherto unclear how any of it works. A significant plot point, the climax of the novel, was a deus ex machina where magic is able to solve all. Normally, this would make me run rampant with anger, but given how I felt this novel was more about exploration, different worlds, and the characters, I was willing to give this a pass.

Now, the first novel is full of fantasy tropes with your elven forest and dwarven mines, but once past the stereotypical settings, Midkemia is full of interesting places because of the people in them. Take for instance Krondor, your typical medieval town. While not initially too imaginative, here lives a thieves guild and a secret police ferreting out political dissenters. When our party finds themselves trapped, it is a riveting race to escape before found as we see the underbelly of city life.

Without exposing too much, the final pages evoked some of the strongest feelings I have had in some time. A slight twist involving a swashbuckler, it reminded me that I was saying a momentary goodbye to a wonderful world before realizing this: the adventure is never truly over.

Magician is the name of the bestselling fantasy novel by author Raymond E. Feist. Originally published in 1982 this is the first book in the Riftwar Saga series which after its success led to many more books being written by Feist about the fantasy world of Midkemia. It was re-published as a revised edition in 1992 which contained text omitted from the original release. It is currently released as two separate volumes in the USA, Magician: Apprentice and Magician: Master.

During a storm, a servant-boy, Pug, was caught outdoors and encountered a wild boar. He was saved by Meecham, a franklin, who brought him indoors, into the home of the Duke's magician and adviser, Kulgan. During their conversation, Pug was handed a crystal ball for scrying, to which he is able to activate and view Castle Crydee, much to Kulgan's surprise.

Days later, it was the time of the Choosing, where boys of age were to be chosen by various craft-masters as apprentices. Presiding over the events were the ruling noble of Crydee, the Duke Borric, and his children, Lyam, Arutha, and Carline. While other boys, including his best friend Tomas, were chosen, Pug remained the only person not chosen, until Kulgan stepped in, saying that he had a need for an apprentice.

As time went by, Pug grew increasingly frustrated by his lack of progress in his magical studies. As Kulgan and Father Tully speculated, Pug appeared to possess the ability, and he could grasp the theories of magic, but performing actual magic was more difficult. To help clear his head and cheer him up, Kulgan arranged for Pug to accompany the Princess Carline to go horseriding. Unfortunately, the duo encountered wild trolls, with their horses beyond reach. While Pug managed to get both trolls to chase him, he was unable to escape, and moments away from danger, he casted his first spell involuntarily, and killed both trolls.

When they reached home, Pug became an instant celebrity. For his deed, he was awarded the rank of squire, as well as the adoration of the Princess. Pug's deed concerned Kulgan, however, as traditionally, magicians could not simply cast spells out of thin air, but requiring an external focus, musing that Pug had probably found a new form of magic.

When the excitement wore off, another presented itself, in the form of an alien vessel shipwrecked on Crydee's shores. Pug and Tomas, being first on the scene, managed to enter the ship and liberated a few items before the tide reclaimed the wreckage. While on the beach, they discovered a survivor, who spoke a language unknown to them, and collapsed in terror as horsemen from the castle arrived.

Using a form of telepathy, Father Tully entered the mind of the survivor and gleaned some information before he died. As he explained, the survivor was a Tsurani, from a place far hotter, with a green sun, and an empire with a standing army of hundreds of thousands, far larger than any known empire in this world. A piece of pottery liberated from the ship appeared to be made of laminated wood, as is the alien's sword and armor. A magical scroll obtained from the ship stunned Kulgan, and opened a rift, a gateway through worlds. Hands reached from the other side of the rift, and was attempting to pull Kulgan through, when Pug threw a spear through, and the rift closed. As Kulgan explained it, the message was crafted by a magician from the ship, in order to bear a message back to his colleagues from wherever they came from.

Once they pieced everything they knew, Duke Borric decided that alien beings from another world could access Midkemia, and could appear again. In need of council, he send messages to hold a discussion with the elves from the nearby forest of Elvandar. The elves came, headed by their queen Aglaranna and her son, Calin, the Warleader of the elves. What they told him was even more distressing: strange people were sighted in the forest, mapping the area around Crydee, and disappeared without leaving tracks. With that, Duke Borric organized a party to travel to the Kingdom capital of Rillanon, to inform the King of a possible alien invasion.

During their journey through the forest, they were waylaid by bands of moredhel, the evil kin to the elves of Elvandar. Martin, the Huntmaster of Crydee, mentioned that the moredhel appeared to be migrating North by the thousands, and speculated on what could possibly uproot thousands of the most violent race known to mankind. Eager to avoid conflict, the party took a detour through the Mac Mordain Cadal, a dwarven mine that goes underneath the Grey Towers mountain range. During their trek, they were attacked by a wraith, and Tomas was separated from the party. While the party was forced to press on, Pug was inconsolable. The dwarven king who guided them through the mine, Dolgan, offered to go back and bring back Tomas back to the surface. Instead, he found Tomas in the company of a golden dragon, dying of old age. The dragon, Rhuagh, told them of his life story and his encounter with the Black Sorcerer Macros. Before he died, the dragon bequeathed a suit of magical armor to Tomas, and an ancient dwarven warhammer, the Hammer of Tholin, to Dolgan.

Duke Borric's party reached Rillanon and managed to convey the seriousness of the situation to King Rodric, a troubled young man new to the throne. The Duke was given command of the Armies of the Western Kingdom and they returned to find the outworlders appearing in force. On an intelligence mission to find out about how the outworlders accessed Midkemia, Kulgan and Pug led a raid into the heart of the Tsurani camp, and found a much larger rift. During the escape, Pug was captured and brought through the rift away from Midkemia.

Pug became a slave in Kelewan, where he worked alongside Tsurani and Midkemian slaves alike, for many years. A chance encounter with a Tsurani noble, Hokanu, led to himself and another Midkemian, Laurie, being bought as slaves for the noble's household, the Shinzawai. The Midkemians were to tutor Hokanu's elder brother, Kasumi, in the language and culture of Midkemia, among other things, horseriding, which the Tsurani lacked and took to like ducks to water. Falling into routine, Pug was beginning to like his new life, and even fell in love with another Tsurani slave, Katala. However, a passing magician, a Great One, recognized Pug's fledgling magical capabilities, and claimed the boy for the Assembly of Magicians.

In the meantime, Tomas was living amongst the dwarves in the Grey Towers, fighting off the Tsurani from their settlements high in the mountains, and making guerilla raids on various Tsurani encampments in the forests below. During the passing years, the boy had grown into the dragon's gift of magical armor, becoming a fearsome warrior. In one such raid, the dwarves were forced to enter Elvandar, the elven forests, as Tomas was injured by an arrow. He recovered by the next morning, much to the elves' surprise, who also noted and recognized the armor Tomas was wearing.

Having completed his education, Pug emerges as Milamber, a Black Robe magician. Besides being the first "barbarian outworlder" to ascend to such status, he also revolutionizes Tsurani art and culture by designing his own house. His estate was staffed by two Tsurani housekeepers, and the rest being Midkemian slaves that he gathered from around the Empire. He made one such trip to the Shinzawai estate, where he intended to liberate Laurie, and Katala. To his surprise, he found Katala the mother to his son, named William. Laurie, while touched by Pug's offer, refused to leave the Shinzawai estate, hinting at some political maneuver that the Shinzawai are planning with Kasumi and Laurie.

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