The Sacred Pool
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- $6.99
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- $6.99
Publisher Description
A MILLENNIUMIN PROVENCEA lost little girl weeps in the high wilderness, and her cries are heard ... Is her rescuer a crazy, lonely woodsman, or a timeworn Celtic god, and she his only believer Does an ancient female deity live beside the ool, among the ancient trees of the cool beeS grove, or is she little Pierrette's "imaginary friend", a poor substitute for a murdered motherWill the Black Time come, when dark, evil machines tower over the sunny little harbor of Citharista and all the goodness of the world is locked in an ebon box, or will young Pierrette indeed become the great sorceress of her dreams, with fire at her fingertips to stem the evil tideJourney with her across the ancient landscape, wander among the bleaching limestone bones of dragons that lie still atop the hills, and see for yourself whether the old gods yet endure....The Sacred Pool stands at the midpoint of a vast historic tapestry try, looking both forward and back: From the sea-girt Paleolithic caves of Sormiou and enchanted forests of ancient Gaul, to the steamy swamps of Midicor IV, a million years hence; from old Polybius in his leather tent at the siege of Numantia, to Achibol the Charlatan in a cybernetic fortress buried beneath the Columbia Icefields of Alberta, L. Warren Douglas is there-and he takes his readers with him.At the publisher's request, this title is sold without DRM (Digital Rights Management).
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
As the first in Douglas's projected trilogy the Sorcerer's Tale, this highly literate, intricately allusive alternative Dark Ages fantasy ingeniously explores the evolution of myths that sprang from various pagan roots to blossom into Christian tradition. Douglas's delightful heroine, Pierette, lives in coastal Provence sometime between the eighth and the ninth centuries A.D., when a succession of pillaging invadersDSaracens, Christians, Huns and VikingsDleft their marks (and not a few offspring) on the native Proven als. Child of a cowardly olive-grove farmer and an ethereal woods-dweller stoned as a witch by scapegoat-seeking villagers, Pierette eventually grows into a full-fledged sorceress capable of shaping reality to her requirements. Buoyed by the sacred spring, Ma, where her mother's spirit guides her growth, Pierette learns to pierce the Veil of Years, traveling through time and space to an early Stone Age tribe and to the Atlantean Fortunate Isles. Pierette's quest is to undermine the "terrible sameness" of skepticism that institutionalized Christianity induces. Douglas brilliantly highlights many of the pagan foundation-stones that supported the early Christian church through characters loosely based on historical and mythic figures as well as his own creations. His central philosophical preoccupation concerns the coexistence of good and evil, which he presents as two sides of the same concept, rather than two opposing forces. Immensely readable and elegantly simple in execution, this vivid reimagining of Western humanity's turbid adolescence engages, enchants and enthralls.
