What if the cost of casting a spell is a portion of your life force? What if your life force was stolen to fuel someone else’s magic?

C.S. Friedman’s Feast of Souls uses both premises in this first book of the Magister Trilogy.

The story begins in the prologue with a brief narrative, describing a witch’s mindset when she is asked to use her art to heal a plague victim, and the agonizing decision she must make which would further diminish her already eroded life force.

In this volume, the story centers around two main characters who are trying to find each other, each for very different reasons.
Andovan, a prince of the royal house of Aurelius, is bespelled to find the magister who has caused the Wasting disease, named for the condition which arises from the gradual consumption of their consort’s soulfire, or lifeforce, to fuel their spells; and Kamala, a magic user who has challenged the basic tenets of the masculine Magisters society, as she seeks the reasons behind her dark dreams.

Friedman’s clear descriptive style and careful story development carry the reader through Kamala’s magic skills development and understanding of the rules of the magisters, through her brush with that misogynistic society of which she is an unrecognized – and as a female, forbidden - member, to the final culmination as she meets the subject of her dreams. Sadly, Friedman just glances over this part of the narrative – Kamala has the dreams which beg interpretation, she meets the subject, and lo, the dreams are gone and she is tranquil. That the dream is so strong as to compel Kamala to travel far and wide is definitely at odds with the rather week resolution, but other than its purpose of forcing the meeting between Kamala and Andovan, it is not critical to the storyline.

It is common knowledge in Kamala’s world that Magisters are only males, as females are both too nurturing and caring to coldly take another human being's life as they drain soulfire; and too weak to survive the transition which each magister must undergo as they are endowed with immortality. That does not mean that women cannot practice magic – they are the witches, whose spell-fuel is their own soulfire.
There are many secrets in the society, many of them rules which maintain the equilibrium between creatures of vast powers over life and death; and the transgressions of those rules have serious penalties. This is uppermost in Kamala’s mind after she inadvertently killed a magister in self-defense, and while they are not aware of who and what she is, Kamala is intensely cognisant of the consequences should she be discovered. It is this accidental death which leads one magister to focus on finding the perpetrator

It is interesting to see the power that Friedman has granted to the virtually immortal magisters – theirs is a political control with strong paranoia derived from their intense rivalries, tossed in with mischief and curiosity as they try to entertain themselves through the ages. She has shown the reader the depths of evil that some of these sorcerors will plumb in order to maintain their hold over the general populace and over the various kingdoms whose rulers are their ‘patrons’; and has imbued one or two of them with something akin to humanity.

I found this book to be a very enjoyable reading experience and will be certain to read the next book in the trilogy. I was dismayed to discover that I will have to wait until at least February 2009 for the release of volume 2, entitled Wings of Wrath. In the meantime, I will just have to explore another of C.S. Friedman’s sets, the Coldfire Trilogy.

Review by CoffeeBratt.

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