The Outcast (1987)

This is the second book in the Time Master Trilogy, the first and third being (respectively) "The Initiate" and "The Master". I sort of trundled through "The Initiate", having little else to read, and I did not finish "The Master", though I might at some point to see how it ends. Anyway, of these three, "The Outcast" is the one I enjoyed the most. In the beginning, a young seer and an arrogant lord's son get whisked away to the abode of a soulless sorcerer by a supernatural storm. The sorcerer has met the seer before, and the book is partly a love story between the two of them. The seer and the lord's son explore the castle where the sorcerer lives, which used to be full of people until the sorcerer stopped time to preserve his own life, having been condemned for being Chaotic and for crimes which were sort of his fault. He's soulless because the Chaotic stone which held his soul was removed from the ring on his finger, and is trapped in an area which he cannot access, but the seer can. Meanwhile, the arrogant lord's son is busy telling the seer what a horrible person the sorcerer is, having found some documents in the deserted castle to that effect. Eventually, the seer and the sorcerer fall in love and the arrogant lord's son, whom the pair underestimated, starts throwing all their plans to get out of the time trap awry. The first half of the book is about the seer's struggle with her emotions toward the sorcerer, and the second half is the lord's son getting progressively more annoying. It's pretty angsty, and the ending has a sort of "oh no, how do they got out of this one?" vibe, and overall I'd say I liked it, though i'm not completely sure why... the author did a good job conveying tragicness, i suppose. ( )