Anaboraxus: the Young Wizard

Anaboraxus is being sent away from the small family farm to earn a better future as a goldsmith in the Imperial capital. Traveling with a band of itinerant poets on their way to the great harvest festival in the big city, the young man is disgusted to learn the poets are also itinerant thieves.

After they are attacked by highwaymen and scattered, Anaboraxus finds himself lost in the woods and it is too dark to find his way out. Strangers arrive and offer him help, then lead him down into a cavern where an ancient civilization lives in hiding.

And they hide because they are magicians!

All thoughts of goldsmithing vanish as the lad embraces the opportunity. But his exuberance brings the attention of the tribe's ancient enemy, and they have followed the trail to the cave.

He has to find some way to save the society he has so recently embraced as well as make amends for the inadvertent danger he brought upon them.