Plot Summary
Terisa Morgan opens the series living a vacant life, supported by her father from afar and volunteering at a mission for lack of anything more purposeful to do with her time. She fills her apartment with mirrors so as to see her reflection and thus be constantly reassured of her existence. Geraden, an apprentice Imager (magician) from a land called Mordant appears in her apartment, searching for aid against a powerful enemy who has been plaguing Mordant with monsters translated from other worlds. As mirrors are inextricably linked with magic in Mordant, Terisa's home decor convinces him that he has stumbled into the lair of a powerful sorceress. He persuades her to accompany him back to the Castle Orison, where she finds herself embroiled in a morass of intrigue and danger from both the political plotting of a corrupt court and from the frightening magical creatures that appear without warning and can't seem to be defended against.
Terisa is suddenly the center of attention, a position that she has never before held, which is not easy because Geraden is held in little regard at the castle; so court opinion naturally is divided on whether she should be taken seriously as a potentially powerful ally, threat, or treated as an object of ridicule and proof of Geraden's perceived incompetence. She must deal with the ever earnest Geraden, the senile King Joyse and his headstrong daughters, the mad Adept Havelock, the inimical Castellan Lebbick, Geraden's mostly-well-meaning brothers, the lascivious Master Eremis and the rest of the disorganized group of Imager masters Geraden belongs to known collectively as the Congery.
Unsurprisingly, the story twists and turns, very little is as it seems in Orison and various groups plot to depose King Joyse and take over Mordant. The mysterious rogue Imager is still sending magical creatures to cause destruction seemingly without rhyme or reason; the High King's Monomach, the best swordsmen in the land, appears in Orison by seemingly impossible translations; and Geraden remains firmly convinced that he has not made a mistake and that Terisa definitely is to be Mordant's champion and salvation despite her own doubts, protests, and debilitating passivity.
Read more about this topic: Mordant's Need
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