Intrigues by Mercedes Lackey

 Reviewed by Holly White

Intrigues is the sequel to Foundation, and the second in the Collegium Chronicles quintet.  Intrigues takes up where we left off in the story of Herald Trainee Mags.  Mags’s circle of friends includes Lena, a Bardic Trainee; Bear, a Healer Trainee; and Amily, the daughter of King’s Own Herald Nikolas.  In addition, Herald Nikolas has also started training Mags to be a spy for the Crown.  Mags must learn to go into the city unobtrusively, and observe others while going unnoticed himself.

In Intrigues, Mags and his friends endure a series of difficulties.  Lena, the daughter of the most Gifted Master Bard in Valdemar, strives to live up everyone’s expectations of her due to her father’s reputation, but her father barely notices her.  She feels it must be because she is not good enough to merit his notice, which breaks her heart.  Bear comes from a family of Healers, and wants to become a Healer as well, but he does not have the Healing Gift.  Bear does, however, know how to grow and mix herbs, and treat patients with medicine; he excels at this so much that even Master Healers come to him for advice and potions.  Bear’s family, however, embarrassed by him, pressure him to come home, get married (to someone of their choice), and begin to produce children who will hopefully have the Healing Gift that Bear himself lacks.  Amily, daughter of the most important Herald other than the King himself, is lame, one leg ruined in the same long-ago accident that also killed her mother.  A new sport is being instituted at the Collegium, a game called kirball, and the Heralds in charge of it, unaware of Mags’ undercover work for Nikolas, asked him to join one of the kirball teams.  Mags fears this will have the dual disadvantage of taking too much time away from his spy work as well as causing him to be noticed which would be detrimental to any undercover work.

Mags does join a kirball team, and because of his excellent riding skill and use of his Gift, he becomes a kirball star overnight.  Everyone is talking about him.  Exactly what he wanted to avoid.  But his good notoriety was short-lived; he was about to become famous for a very different reason.  His search for information about his parents led to information that caused the entire Collegium to suspect Mags of plotting against the King.  At first, his friends and kirball teammates support him against the onslaught of public opinion, but soon rifts develop between him and everyone he cares about, even his Companion.

Will Lena live up to her famous father’s heritage?  Will Bear leave the Collegium and his true calling for an arranged marriage?  Will Amily ever find a way to walk again?  Will Mags’ kirball notoriety help or harm his undercover endeavors?  Will Mags ever be able to prove his loyalty to Valdemar and its King?  And when everyone turns away from Mags, how will he find a way to get back into their good graces again?  Find out by reading Intrigues.

If you love fantasy, good vs. evil stories, or character-driven stories with a hint of romance, a bit of magic, and a large dollop of adventure, then you will love Intrigues.  Once again, Mercedes Lackey’s depiction of the character Mags is so vivid that one feels what he feels.  When Mags’ friends all abandoned him, I cried because I related.  We have all had those moments when we feel utterly alone in the world, even if it is not actually so.  When it happens to Mags, the emotions are as real as if it was happening to me.  Intrigues is a delicious book with a satisfying ending, and yet, there are still unanswered questions.  Which is why I hasten on to the third book in the Collegium Chronicles quintet, Changes.

Foundation by Mercedes Lackey

Reviewed by Holly White

Foundation, the first of the Collegium Chronicles quintet, goes back in time in the Valdemar chronology, back to the very foundation of the Heraldic Collegium (hence the title).  Foundation begins the story of Magpie aka Mags, a young orphaned boy forced to work as a slave in a gem mine.  He and other orphans worked long hours with little food and no comforts, not even warm clothes during the harsh winters.  His parents were killed during a raid on a bandit wagon when Mags had been a toddler.  Mags survived and was taken in by Old Man Pieters, the owner of the mine.  Pieters never failed to remind Mags that no one else would have taken him since, as the son of bandits, Mags was “bad blood;” therefore he was incapable of good, and deserving of any bad thing that happened to him.  Old Man Pieters put him to work even at that young age, attaching rags to him so that he dusted the floor even as he crawled around on it.  As he grew older, Mags had taken on increased responsibilities, working in the kitchen, at the sluices, and in the mines themselves.  Once a year, the priest on circuit visited the mine to make sure that the orphan workers were well treated.  On that day alone of all the year, Mags was fed well.  Most of the children eventually either died from untreated illness or went mad.  Some were killed or beaten literally senseless as punishment for various infractions.  Mags, though, learned to do his work, keep his head down, and try his best not to be noticed.

Mags could not avoid being noticed, however, on the day the Herald Jakyr came to visit the mine with two Companions.  Old Man Pieters tried his best to stop it, but nothing can stop a Companion on Search.  Then Companion Dallen Chose Mags, and the whole world changed for him.  Before long, men had cleaned him up, fed him well, and allowed him to sleep on an actual bed for the first time in his life.  Jakyr asked him about his life up until now, and Mags told him, so that Herald Jakyr would rescue the other orphans from that situation.  But Mags feared that when the Heralds confronted Old Man Pieters with his misdeeds, Pieters would find out that it was Mags who had been the informant.  Mags had seen some of the punishments Pieters could inflict; what would he do to Mags if his whole operation were dismantled? 

Soon, Jakyr took Mags to Haven, where the new Heraldic Collegium was being built.  To Mags who had never seen so much as a village until this journey, the capital city of Haven was overwhelming.  However, before they even arrived at the door of the building, Jakyr had to be off on an urgent mission, leaving Mags alone and friendless except for Dallen.  Mags was then thrown into a world where he got to learn all day, eat delicious food at every mealtime, and spend his evenings blessedly alone in a warm bed with a room all to himself.  He felt that he had arrived at the place the priests had always talked about, the place where good people went when they died.  Even so, a lifetime of bad treatment made him instinctually distrust the intentions of everyone he met, in spite of Dallen’s reassurances that these people were good and trustworthy.  So, while Mags enjoyed the new experiences, he feared to make friends other than Dallen.  To make matters worse, sleeping on a warm bed did not prevent Mags from suffering nightly from horrible nightmares.  Furthermore, when a group of foreigners came to Haven ostensibly to make an Alliance, but in reality to spy on Valdemar, and Mags got caught in the middle of that. 

Would Mags ever learn to trust people and make friends?  Would his rudimentary education be enough to catch up to the other Heraldic Trainees?  Would Pieters find out it was Mags who snitched, and get revenge?   Would Mags ever learn to trust other people enough to make friends?  Would the nightmares ever stop?  When the foreign spies made their move, would Mags survive it?  Find out by reading Foundation by Mercedes Lackey.

If you love rags to riches stories, fantasy, and good vs. evil stories, this one will do your heart good.  I have read Foundation before, but I still had places in it that made me cry for joy again.  Mercedes Lackey knows how to make you really care about her characters.  My next review will be Foundation’s sequel, Intrigues, the second in the Collegium Chronicles quintet.