Once a month, we’re spotlighting a Tor/Forge book that will soon become available in paperback! Today, we’re featuring Madness in Solidar by L.E. Modesitt, Jr., coming out in paperback March 1st, 2016.
Four centuries after its founding, Solidar’s Collegium of Imagers is in decline, the exploits of its founder, the legendary Quaeryt, largely forgotten. When Alastar arrives in L’Excelsis and becomes the new Maitre, he finds disarray and lack of discipline within the Collegium, and the ruler of Solidar so hated by the High Holders that they openly refer to him as being mad. To make matters worse, neither Rex Ryen nor the High Holders have any respect for the Collegium. Alastar finds himself in the middle of a power struggle.
Chapter 1
The two gray-clad imagers sat in the two chairs before the oblong desk. The prematurely gray-haired one glanced at the timepiece on the corner of the desk, and its sands flowing from the top of the glass to the bottom.
“Do you have to go?” asked Cyran, the younger of the two men, if only by a few years, although some silver hairs streaked his blond thatch.
“Not quite yet. I’m supposed to meet the rex at half past eighth glass. He’d be happier if it were sixth glass.”