Collegium Sorcerorum - Thaddeus and the Master (Paperback)

In the second book of epic fantasy in the Collegium Sorcerorum series, begun in Collegium Sorcerorum: Thaddeus of Beewicke, four boys are taken to the Sorcerer's College to learn the most powerful forms of the practice of magic. None could know the immensity of the ancient Evil that some believe dwells there unseen. It is a summer in the Dark Ages, and Master Silvestrus of the Collegium Sorcerorum has guided his three charges -- Thaddeus of Beewicke, Anders of Brightfield Manor and Rolland of Fountaindale -- safely to the school of Sorcery to begin their magical education. There they meet a fourth, Zoarr, Prince of Mauretesia, completing their circle -- the Circuitus Octipes Magnus. The boys excel in their studies until accosted by Master Perditus, a shunned Sorcerer, whose mind and heart are seldom turned from the Minaret of Power, a magical tower stolen from the land of the Cin and housed in secrecy on the school's campus. Bizarre and unexplained acts lead the apprentices to seek answers from the Goblin Mistress of the College, Lilyput, and her phantom associate, Brother Longbone. Matters come to a head when the boys are lured to the twilit town of Bannock where agents of the Thieve's Guild and the Family of the Grecoliae seek to first subdue then enslave the good friends. Their quest for knowledge is perilous and on the way the apprentices are confronted by an ancient Centaur, Gargoyle lovers, the last surviving Neanderthal, a four hundred year old parrot who can mimic any living person and assume any form, a still-living leader of the first peoples of the Northern Continent, Ice Faerrae, Excelsior Class Thieves, an albino Griffon, an Arch Daemon, a mad Hermit amputee, and the warriors of the Iron Company as they seek to unravel the mystery of the laughing presence in the Tower. The apprentices' adventures continue in the third volume of the College of Sorcery series, Collegium Sorcerorum: Thaddeus and the Daemon.