What’s worse, is that he feels a strange attraction to one of Savil’s students, a beautiful young man named Tylendel. He discovers that, compared to his fellow students, he is almost ignorant, and his dreams of becoming a Bard are utterly dashed. When his father has finally had enough and sends Vanyel to the faraway capital city of Haven to be instructed by his ill-tempered aunt Savil, Vanyel’s despair deepens. He puts on an air of indifference to keep from feeling hurt by his family’s treatment, which makes them see him as a snob. Vanyel is different, and he doesn’t know why. His father neglects him in favor of his brawny younger brother, and for all the fluttering attentions his mother gives him, she isn’t much more helpful. With his good looks and love of music and books, Vanyel is an outcast in his family. Neither of these traits is in his favor in his home on the border, where the men of his noble family fulfill every masculine image of his time and place- they are tall and brawny, blunt, have a healthy sex drive, and frown upon traditionally ‘feminine’ pursuits of education and music. In fact, when the story opens he seems to have very few talents aside from music and an excellent fashion sense. Vanyel does not begin his life as an incredibly powerful mage. In a snippet from a ballad popular in Talia’s day, we hear of the last stand of Vanyel, a legendary mage, and his poignant good-bye to his lover, Stefen.īut every legend has a beginning, and The Last Herald-Mage trilogy gives us that story. We first hear of Vanyel Ashkevron in the first few pages of Arrows of the Queen, Mercedes Lackey’s debut novel which had been published just two years earlier. First published June 1989 by DAW Books, Inc.

Magic's Pawn by Mercedes Lackey