Skip to main content

novel - Fantasy story; one type of magic grows in power with use, but the more powerful they are, they more they are drawn to travel to their source


World is a non-Earth and mostly steriotypical sword and sorcery. I think there were only humans. I believe it was a stand alone novel, but it could have been in a series. I think it was written in the 70's or 80's.


The main character is recruiting magic users to go with an army to land far to the south.


There are multiple types of magic users. One of them has telekinetic type magic. This particular type of magic is not based on internal energy, but is based on a combination of how much you use it and how far away from its source (in a mountain to the north) the user is. The more they use the magic, the more powerful they become.


The downside of their power, is that the more powerful you are, the more powerful is the urge to go to the source, from which no one ever returns. As they become more powerful, the users try to travel away from the source, as while distance reduces their power, it also reduces the urge.


This magic user signs on to travel away from the call he feels. The main character has a very minor bit of the telekinetic magic (uses it for dice games) and so knows as far south as they are going, the magic user will be limited to only minor magics such as untying ropes, but takes him on.



Once they are in the south, someone (the magic user, maybe) complains about a buzzing in their head, which turns out to be an inactive "source" similar to that used by the magic user. After others complain about how little help the magic user has been, someone says that it was too bad he couldn't just tap into that source instead.


The magic user briefly considers this (and as they are engaged in a siege at the time) is immediately able to single-handedly destroy the enemy and swiftly installs himself as the local ruler.


After some time, the main character wonders if his massive and continuous use of power will result in him eventually hearing the call from his original source. He considers warning the magic user, but then the magic user slaughters a servent for spilling wine and he decides to not do so.


Eventually, the magic user does hear the call and, shortly after, flys north towards his original source.



Answer



This is Lawrence Watt-Evans's The Unwilling Warlord.



The Unwilling Warlord was the third novel in the Ethshar series -- though it's not third in internal chronology. It's the story of a young man who finds that he's the hereditary warlord of a small kingdom that's on the verge of war against two larger neighbors. He has a simple choice -- win the war, or die.


And the only way he can see to win the war is to use magic to cheat.




Warlocks hear the call from a far-off source, grow in their powers with use, and eventually go mad and unwillingly go to the source (which is somewhere beyond the poisonous fog that surrounds the civilized world). One of the men he hires is a warlock hoping to protect himself by distance, only to find that new source of power, seemingly inert.



Eventually, Vond starts hearing the original source, and is drawn away to it.



I rather enjoyed the Ethshar books as a teenager, and read most of the ones released.


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Did the gatekeeper and the keymaster get intimate in Ghostbusters?

According to TVTropes ( usual warning, don't follow the link or you'll waste half your life in a twisty maze of content ): In Ghostbusters, it's strongly implied that Dana Barret, while possessed by Zuul the Gatekeeper, had sex with Louis Tully, who was possessed by Vinz Clortho the Keymaster (key, gate, get it?), in order to free Big Bad Gozer. In fact, a deleted scene from the movie has Venkman explicitly asking Dana if she and Louis "did it". I turned the quote into a spoiler since it contains really poor-taste joke, but the gist of it is that it's implied that as part of freeing Gozer , the two characters possessed by the Keymaster and the Gatekeeper had sex. Is there any canon confirmation or denial of this theory (canon meaning something from creators' interviews, DVD commentary, script, delete scenes etc...)? Answer The Richard Mueller novelisation and both versions of the script strongly suggest that they didn't have sex (or at the very l...

Why didn't The Doctor or Clara recognize Missy right away?

So after it was established that Missy is actually both the Master, and the "woman in the shop" who gave Clara the TARDIS number... ...why didn't The Doctor or Clara recognize her right away? I remember the Tenth Doctor in The Sound of Drums stating that Timelords had a way of recognizing other Timelords no matter if they had regenerated. And Clara should have recognized her as well... I'm hoping for a better explanation than "Moffat screwed up", and that I actually missed something after two watchthroughs of the episode. Answer There seems to be a lot of in-canon uncertainty as to the extent to which Time Lords can recognise one another which far pre-dates Moffat's tenure. From the Time Lords page on Wikipedia : Whether or not Time Lords can recognise each other across regenerations is not made entirely clear: In The War Games, the War Chief recognises the Second Doctor despite his regeneration and it is implied that the Doctor knows him when they fir...

story identification - Animation: floating island, flying pests

At least 20 years ago I watched a short animated film which stuck in my mind. The whole thing was wordless, possibly European, and I'm pretty sure I didn't imagine it... It featured a flying island which was inhabited by some creatures who (in my memory) reminded me of the Moomins. The island was frequently bothered by large winged animals who swooped around, although I don't think they did any actual damage. At the end one of the moomin creatures suddenly gets a weird feeling, feels forced to climb to the top of the island and then plunges down a shaft right through the centre - only to emerge at the bottom as one of the flyers. Answer Skywhales from 1983. The story begins with a man warning the tribe of approaching skywhales. The drummers then warn everybody of the hunt as everyone get prepared to set "sail". Except one man is found in his home sleeping as the noise wake him up. He then gets ready and is about to take his weapon as he hesitates then decides ...

warhammer40k - What evidence supposedly supports Tau as related to the Necrontyr?

I've heard of rumours saying that the Tau from Warhammer 40K are in fact the Necrontyr. Is there anything that supports this statement, in WH40K canon? I just found this, on 1d4 chan 1 : Helping Necrons? Or are they Necrontyr descendants? An often overlooked issue is that Tau have no warp signatures, just like Necrons, hate Warpspawns and Warp in general, just like Necrons, have the exact same skull shape,stature and short lives, and the overwhelming need for Technology and beam weapons, JUST LIKE NECRONS. GW may have planned a race that simply prepares a pacified, multiracial galaxy for Necrons to feast upon, supported by Ethereals that have a C'tan phase blade. Then there is a reference of "dark seed in east" by the Deceiver, so the tricky C'tan might give Tzeentch the finger in the JUST AS PLANNED competition. Or maybe GW just has so little creativity that they simply made a new civ conforming to an Old One's standards without knowing it. Is this the connec...