Katharine Kerr - The Black Raven

Harper Voyager

An Imprint of HarperCollins Publishers , 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by Voyager 1999

Copyright © Katharine Kerr 1999

Cover design and illustration by Micaela Alcaino © HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 2020

Katharine Kerr asserts the moral right to

be identified as the author of this work

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication.

Source ISBN: 9780006482604

Ebook Edition © NOVEMBER 2013 ISBN: 9780007378159

Version: 2019-12-10

For my grandmother, Elsa Petersen Brahtin 1899–1985

The courage in her life amazed me

Cover

Title Page KATHARINE KERR THE BLACK RAVEN Book Two of the Dragon Mage

Copyright COPYRIGHT Copyright Dedication A Note on the Deverry Sequence Prologue: Winter, 1117 Bardek Part One: Winter, 1117 Deverry Part Two: Deverry Epilogue: Spring, 1118 Keep Reading Appendices Glossary Acknowledgements About the Author Also by the Author About the Publisher Harper Voyager An Imprint of HarperCollins Publishers , 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF www.harpercollins.co.uk First published in Great Britain by Voyager 1999 Copyright © Katharine Kerr 1999 Cover design and illustration by Micaela Alcaino © HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 2020 Katharine Kerr asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books. HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication. Source ISBN: 9780006482604 Ebook Edition © NOVEMBER 2013 ISBN: 9780007378159 Version: 2019-12-10

Dedication DEDICATION Dedication A Note on the Deverry Sequence Prologue: Winter, 1117 Bardek Part One: Winter, 1117 Deverry Part Two: Deverry Epilogue: Spring, 1118 Keep Reading Appendices Glossary Acknowledgements About the Author Also by the Author About the Publisher For my grandmother, Elsa Petersen Brahtin 1899–1985 The courage in her life amazed me

A Note on the Deverry Sequence A NOTE ON THE DEVERRY SEQUENCE It occurs to me that readers might find it helpful to know something about the overall structure of the Deverry series. From the beginning of this rather large enterprise, I have had an actual ending in mind, a set of events that should wrap up all the books in dramatic conclusion. It’s merely taken me much longer to get there than I ever thought it would. If you think of Deverry as a stage play, the sets of books make up its acts. Act One consists of the Deverry books proper, that is, Daggerspell, Darkspell, Dawnspell, and Dragonspell. The ‘Westlands’ books, A Time of Exile, A Time of Omens, A Time of War, and A Time of Justice, make up Act Two, while Act Three will unfold in the current quintet, ‘The Dragon Mage,’ that is, The Red Wyvern, The Black Raven, the volume you now have in hand, and its ‘sister’, The Fire Dragon. The Gold Falcon and The Silver Wyrm will bring the sequence to its end at last. As for the way that the series alternates between past and present lives, think of the structure of a line of Celtic interlace, some examples of which have decorated the various books in this set. Although each knot appears to be a separate figure, when you look closely you can see that they are actually formed from one continuous line. Similarly, this line weaves over and under itself to form the figures. A small section of line seems to run over or under another line to form a knot. The past incarnations of the characters in this book and their present tense story really are one continuous line, but this line interweaves to form the individual volumes. Eventually – soon, I hope – the pattern will complete itself, and you will be able to see that the set of books forms a circle of knots. Katharine Kerr

Prologue: Winter, 1117 Bardek

Part One: Winter, 1117 Deverry

Part Two: Deverry

Epilogue: Spring, 1118

Keep Reading

Appendices

Glossary

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Also by the Author

About the Publisher

It occurs to me that readers might find it helpful to know something about the overall structure of the Deverry series. From the beginning of this rather large enterprise, I have had an actual ending in mind, a set of events that should wrap up all the books in dramatic conclusion. It’s merely taken me much longer to get there than I ever thought it would.

If you think of Deverry as a stage play, the sets of books make up its acts. Act One consists of the Deverry books proper, that is, Daggerspell, Darkspell, Dawnspell, and Dragonspell. The ‘Westlands’ books, A Time of Exile, A Time of Omens, A Time of War, and A Time of Justice, make up Act Two, while Act Three will unfold in the current quintet, ‘The Dragon Mage,’ that is, The Red Wyvern, The Black Raven, the volume you now have in hand, and its ‘sister’, The Fire Dragon. The Gold Falcon and The Silver Wyrm will bring the sequence to its end at last.

As for the way that the series alternates between past and present lives, think of the structure of a line of Celtic interlace, some examples of which have decorated the various books in this set. Although each knot appears to be a separate figure, when you look closely you can see that they are actually formed from one continuous line. Similarly, this line weaves over and under itself to form the figures. A small section of line seems to run over or under another line to form a knot.