In the Wells of Ihrain lies--perhaps--the magical key to resisting the Dark, whose walls of ice are advancing against human holdings. The humans have settled into an uneasy truce with the Pramans, who possess the wells, as a result of the crisis, but, in gross violation of the truce, the Pramans are about to send a spy, the warrior Else, to the human Patriarchy of the West. Else has defeated a creature of the Dark in battle--an outcome that was supposed to be impossible, and on the principle of "Do a little more, and you will be given still more," he is tapped for the espionage assignment, which by the end of this book, at least, hasn't become the suicide mission it seems to be. Whether it will in the next book assures plenty of fantasy readers for the immediate sequel to the first volume of the Instrumentalities of the Night, which promises to be a grim and sweeping epic, indeed. - Roland Green
