Cover art: Donato
Those of you who’ve read previous books in the Isles series will note some repetition in these notes, but I go to a good deal of effort to make each book accessible to people who’ve never read anything of mine before. Bear with me.
The religion of the Isles is based on that of Sumeria. The magic, however, is derived from that of the Mediterranean Basin during classical times (and probably originally Egyptian). The words of power are the voces mysticae of real spells, intended to get the attention of demiurges whom the wizard is asking for aid. I don’t believe in magic myself; but a lot of other people, folks who’re just as smart as I am, did and do. I’m not comfortable speaking the words of power aloud.
I use classical models for the literature of this series. For the most part this isn’t important for Master of the Cauldron, but Celondre is model on Horace; the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles were the template for some of the documents; I used a snatch of the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite; and there’s a brief echo of the Ullman-Henry elementary Latin texts on which I learned to love Latin a very long time ago.
–Dave Drake