The Magic of Recluse

The Magic of Recluce is, on one level, the coming-of-age story of the young magician Lerris. Apprenticed as a teenager to his uncle Sardit, a master woodworker, the bright and impatient Lerris soon finds he is unsuited for the patient precision required for woodworking, or, indeed, for life on the order-ruled isle of Recluce. The requirement for order bores Lerris, especially since he rejects all the explanations offered for why it's necessary, and before long he finds himself packed off to the capital city of Nylan to be trained for an exile that will either make him, or destroy him. Even in Nylan, where he discovers he has a talent for order-magery, Lerris finds more questions than answers, especially about the magic surrounding order and chaos, and the answers he does receive are even less satisfactory than the ones he got from his parents and his uncle, especially when he begins to realize that, regardless of what he is being taught, order does not necessarily equate to good. When Lerris finally arrives in Freetown, on the continent of Candar, once ruled by the mightiest chaos wizards in history, his education truly begins, as he finds himself without friends and allies, and still trying to understand who he is and why he was exiled.Originally published in 1991, The Magic of Recluce was the first book of the Saga of Recluce, a series of books telling the stories of various individuals in the history of the world of Recluce on five continents over nearly 2000 years.