Prologue
Three hundred leagues from the people's palace, at the far edge of the Wilds lay the village of Umber. A tiny construct of bush timbers and scrounged materials, it blended into the rough landscape like an insect to bark. Many travellers following the road to the Callakirin River, passed Umber unnoticed and that was exactly how the townspeople liked it.
Even Lord Rahl's conquest of the midlands had left the village untouched, leaving it one of the few places left where deals of a magical and illegal nature could take place in relative safety. And take place they did, regularly.
The word Umber had become synonymous with magic and to a greater extent the Auctions held annually, when items of great magic power were traded.
It is at one such auction where our story begins…