Exile's Return (Conclave of Shadows, Book 3) - Hardcover

Feist, Raymond E

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0380977109 ISBN 13: 9780380977109

Publisher: Harper Voyager, 2005

Synopsis

The evil Duke of Olasko is lord no more—vanquished by his nemesis Tal Hawkins, the Talon of the Silver Hawk. Saved by a mage's intervention from certain death, the once-feared despot has been reduced to an exile's existence, forced to wander the harshest realms of the world he once enslaved.

Conclave of Shadows: Book Three

Only days ago, Kaspar, the powerful Duke of Olasko, had great armies at his command and was feared by nations. Now, half a world away from home, he is separated from his former seat of power by merciless deserts, forbidding mountains, and vast oceans. The fall of the tyrant is complete, his dark dreams of vengeance overwhelmed by the daily struggle for his very survival. But Kaspar's prodigious skills and cunning provide him the opportunity he seeks, guarding merchant travelers returning to the other side of the world and back to his homeland.

Yet there is a larger drama that will entangle the broken dictator. An evil more devastating and deadly than any encountered in Midkemia for centuries seeks entrance to the land—the mystical tool of a dark empire hungry for conquest and destruction—and Kaspar has inadvertently discovered the key.

The man responsible for the slaughter of countless men, women, and children must now assume a far stranger and most unlikely role—that of hero—if his world is to survive. For dire peril is advancing daily, and a long-slumbering malevolence is awakening to wreak havoc on the unsuspecting and unprepared. Suddenly, Midkemia's last hope is a disgraced and exiled duke whose history is written in blood, and who now must wield his sword as her champion ... if he so chooses.

About this title

About the Author:

Raymond E. Feist is the multiple New York Times bestselling author or coauthor of thirty previous books—all but one of which are Riftwar Cycle novels. He lives in San Diego.

From Booklist:

The third volume of Conclave of Shadows shifts focus from Tal Hawkins, who has overcome Kaspar, duke of Olasko, and wrought quite thorough vengeance upon him. But the ex-tyrant of Olasko is a survivor, though he first appears to have no other virtues. He makes shift as a farmhand, then as a common laborer, and while looking at the world from underneath, detects a good many things not visible from higher quarters. One, or maybe several, of these is a menace compounded out of dark magic of a sort thought buried too far in Midkemia's past to be threatening. Feeling loyalty to Midkemia, or at least to the portion of humanity living there, Kaspar uses his hard-bought knowledge to begin fighting the menace. The complexity of characterization here may surprise some, though not those who have followed Feist's work over the years and seen steady, across-the-board improvement in it. A must, of course, for rapt readers of Talon of the Silver Hawk (2003) and King of Foxes [BKL Ja 1 & 15 04]. Roland Green
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About this edition

• Publisher: Harper Voyager
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0380977109
• ISBN 13: 9780380977109
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 368