Amazon.com Book Description (ISBN 0061092959, Hardcover)

A ruined tower in a vast forest is the haunted home of the world's last great wizard, Mauryl. Here in the storm drenched night, Mauryl performs a final act of the highest Old Magic, a Shaping, hoping that by this most wondrous of spells the wrongs of a long forgotten wizard war may be righted.

In the tower, a boy is brought full grown to life. Named Tristen, he is neither golem nor man, and to Mauryl's dismay he has none of the wisdom needed to ensure the success of his last gambit of the wizard's long life. Presented with the precious book that contains the knowledge he needs, Tristen cannot understand a single word. Instead, Tristen loves his maker blindly, and loves the beauty of the world.

Tristen walks alone and helpless from the last outpost of the Old Lands into a new age of holiness rife with treachery and war. A glamour protects him until, as the veils of unknowning are blown aside by events, Tristen's power is manifest. Then Mauryl's enemies become his. And though Mauryl's book is with him always, still Tristen cannot read it.