The Lost Steersman

The Lost Steersman

Rosemary Kirstein

#7332 of 8,085 books · #1689 in Fantasy

Shortlisted for the Locus Award for Best Science Fiction Novel (2004).

How do you find a man? How, if you have never seen him, never heard him described, did not know where he lived? How, if he wished not to be found? And how, especially, if he were the most powerful wizard in the world? The steerswoman Rowan has discovered that the fall of the Guidestar and the massacre of Outskirter tribes were caused by one man: the secret master-wizard, Slado. His magic will soon threaten not only the wild and distant Outskirts, but even the Inner Lands themselves. The wizard must be stopped. But first, somehow, he must be found. In the seaside town of Alemeth, the Steerswomen's Annex holds centuries of records. There, Rowan might find clues to the wizard's location. And happily, she also finds a lost friend: Janus, a steersman who had resigned his membership in the Steerswomen, giving no explanation. Now Rowan has hope for help in her search - But Janus has changed. The bright intellect is now shrouded in a dark, shattered spirit. When sleepy Alemeth becomes a place of terror; when death and chaos move in from the wildlands; when doubt and lies surround the steerswoman at every turn - then all Rowan's questions are reduced to one, the single question that drives every member of the Steerswomen: Why?