Demons are another matter. Most of them arise from attempts by ambitious magicians to shape and control some phenomenon of natural magic for their own purposes. This then proves to be beyond their powers, and they themselves are absorbed into the result. Since their original motive for making the attempt was almost invariably bad, the resulting monster is more or less powerfully malign. Angels arise from well-intentioned but failed attempts to do the same thing. Hence their rarity.
Further information can be found on the Web site of the Thaumatological Department at the University of Balin-Balan.
FOOTNOTES
*1 The prestige of course derives from the fact that the field to which the mathematics is applied is magic.
Return to text.
**2 We are more familiar with this sort of thing than we realize. It is impossible to imagine the square root of minus one, but formulae that involve it can have important practical results, such as the atom bomb.
Return to text.
*3 It is perhaps worth noting that we have intuitively designated seven as the magical number.
Return to text.
**4 In pre-Fodaran thaumaturgy wild magic was thought to be released whenever someone died. This is only partly true. It can come from other sources, including touching points, but the death of any living creature involves the departure of the individual anima into hyperspace, with a compensating flow of energy in the reverse direction.
Return to text.
About the Author
Peter Dickinson is the author of many books for adults and young readers and has won numerous awards, including the Carnegie Medal (twice), the Guardian Award, and the Whitbread Award (also twice). The Ropemaker was a Michael L. Printz Honor Book for excellence in young adult literature, an ALA Best Book for Young Adults, and winner of the Mythopoeic Society Children’s Fantasy Award. Dickinson’s novel Eva was a Boston Globe–Horn Book Fiction Honor Book. Eva was also selected as an ALA Best Book for Young Adults, as were Dickinson’s novels AK and A Bone from a Dry Sea. His most recent book for Random House was Inside Grandad. Peter Dickinson has four grown children and lives in Hampshire, England, with his wife, the writer Robin McKinley.
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
FOR YOUNG PEOPLE:
Inside Grandad
The Tears of the Salamander
The Ropemaker
The Kin
The Lion Tamer’s Daughter
and Other Stories
Chuck and Danielle
Shadow of a Hero
Time and the Clock Mice, Etcetera
A Bone from a Dry Sea
AK
Eva
Merlin Dreams
A Box of Nothing
Giant Cold
Healer
The Seventh Raven
City of Gold
and Other Stories from the Old Testament
Tuklu
Hepzibah
Annerton Pit
The Blue Hawk
The Gift
The Dancing Bear
Emma Tupper’s Diary
THE CHANGES TRILOGY:
The Weathermonger
Heartsease
The Devil’s Children
Published by Wendy Lamb Books
an imprint of Random House Children’s Books
a division of Random House, Inc.
New York
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Text copyright © 2006 by Peter Dickinson
Interior illustrations copyright © 2006 by Ian Andrew
All rights reserved.
WENDY LAMB BOOKS and colophon are trademarks of Random House, Inc.
www.randomhouse.com/teens
Educators and librarians, for a variety of teaching tools,
visit us at www.randomhouse.com/teachers
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Dickinson, Peter.
p. cm.
Sequel to: The Ropemaker.
Summary: While seeking the Ropemaker to restore the ancient magic that will protect their valley, Saranja, Maja, and Ribek must outwit twenty-four of the empire’s most powerful and evil magicians.
[1. Magic—Fiction. 2. Fantasy.] I. Andrew, Ian P., ill. II. Title.
PZ7.D562Am 2007
[Fic]—dc22
2007007053
eISBN: 978-0-375-89083-3
v3.0
Angel Isle Page 49
