Circle of the Moon
by Barbara Hambly
Category: Fiction

Faced with an attempt by the land chiefs to oust the King, and with the efforts of her own family to re-enslave her, Raeshaldis must play a deadly guessing-game while an even more terrible threat awaits. The laws of magic have changed-no one knows how or why. And with that change, new perils have arisen: deadly water-monsters from the depths of the Seven Lakes and a plague of madness in the desert. In the strongholds of human safety, anger and greed bloom as nobles and landchiefs fight for power. Raeshaldis, the only woman formally trained in the old systems of male magic, allies herself with the beautiful concubine Summerchild to found the Circle of the Moon-a motley group of women whose powers are untested, unknown, and unreliable. Faced with an attempt by the landchiefs to oust the King, and with the efforts of her own family to re-enslave her, Raeshaldis must play a deadly guessing-game, while an even more terrible threat awaits....