an evil sorcerer adding to the mix. We see the ac-
tion through the eyes of a captain of the guard
who joins forces with the king’s half-human sister
to ensure that the castle’s magical defenses are
maintained during the chaotic days that follow.
The real charm of the novel is the interplay be-
tween these two characters, both of whom are
feisty but flawed. The novel also introduces the
land of Ile-Rien, the setting for most of Wells’s
subsequent work.
Her second novel, The City of Bones(1995), is
an Arabian Nights–style adventure, except that
the protagonist discovers evidence of a lost tech-
nology and we realize this might be a distant fu-
ture, magically transformed Earth. The Death of the
Necromancer(1998) returns to Ile-Rien and is a re-
markably fine book. The protagonist is the head of
a gang of thieves who poses as a necromancer as
part of his elaborate plot for vengeance against a
powerful aristocrat. Unfortunately, he runs afoul of
a genuine necromancer, and his plans go partly
awry. The characters are lively, the dialogue witty,
and the action at times hectic.
Wheel of the Infinite(2000) uses a much less
familiar setting, a culture in which the spirits of
the departed are still present. A disgraced priest-
ess is told to investigate the apparent sabotage of
the sacred wheel that provides structure to reality,
find out who is responsible, and correct the situa-
tion before disaster strikes. Much more somber in
tone than her other novels and a bit dense in the
opening chapters, the story rewards the patient
reader. Her two most recent novels, The Wizard
Hunters(2003) and The Ships of Air(2004), are
both set in Ile-Rien. In the first a small group of
people are trying to discover the secrets of an in-
vading race who have blockaded their world but
are diverted when they find themselves inadver-
tently transported to another reality. In the sec-
ond the engaging female protagonist leads a group
of insurgents determined to expel the enemy from
their world. The third and perhaps final volume in
this series has not been announced as of this writ-
ing. Wells is a skilled writer whose greatest
strength is her ability to create interesting, likable
characters and to place them in created worlds
that are original without being too farfetched to
be credible.
“The Wendigo”Algernon Blackwood(1910)
The Wendigo is a traditional spirit of the wilder-
ness in Canada, a mysterious creature whose
physical appearance is not clearly defined and
whose powers are equally vague. The Wendigo
lures its victims away from their companions by
calling to them, although its voice is inaudible to
everyone else. It can lift its prey into the air and
is fond of burning their feet. Possibly because
of the vagueness of its particular mythos, the
Wendigo has never been a common plot element
in horror fiction, but it is also possible that this
early story by Algernon BLACKWOOD covers
the ground so thoroughly that there is little new
to say on the subject, although Where the Chill
Waits(1991), by T. Chris Martindale, recreates
the eerie atmosphere of Blackwood’s story quite
effectively.
A party of hunters has been searching for
moose in a particularly remote part of Canada, but
without success. Determined to change their luck,
the party splits in two and moves to fresher terri-
tory. One pair consists of a guide and a brash
young man, the former of whom begins to act very
strangely after an unusual odor wafts through their
camp one evening. An eerie atmosphere of dread
begins to overtake the hunters, and the guide be-
haves inconsistently, sometimes cheerful and effu-
sive, sometimes withdrawn and clearly frightened.
When the young man hears the guide crying in his
sleep, he is particularly disturbed. Then a strange,
nonhuman voice seems to be calling the guide’s
name, and eventually he runs off, leaving his
charge to fend for himself.
The hunter trails his guide, whose tracks
change shape, are accompanied by those of an un-
known beast of enormous size, then disappear as
though he were lifted into the air and carried off.
He eventually rejoins the other half of the party,
who are convinced that he suffered from illusions
caused by stress. They attempt to find the missing
guide, but their efforts appear doomed to failure.
The guide then returns to their camp unexpectedly
and behaves quite unnaturally, and in due course
we realize that it is not the guide at all but a dupli-
cate created by the Wendigo. Blackwood was par-
ticularly skilled at creating an eerie atmosphere,
and “The Wendigo” is his masterpiece.“The Wendigo” 375