When last we encountered Ruithneadh of Ceangail, son of one of the most dastardly wizards ever to draw breath, and Sarah of Doìre, daughter of a notoriously unpleasant witch-woman, they were in dire straits indeed. Abducted at the hands of the sinister mage Urchaid, torn apart, and trundled off into what appeared to be separate and uncertain futures, Ruith and Sarah had just seen their quest to recover a batch of extremely nasty spells fall completely apart, and had every reason to fear for their very lives.

Interested readers will be relieved to learn that both Ruith and Sarah escape these immediate circumstances in record time (not really a spoiler -- this is literally the first 20 pages of the book) in Spellweaver, Book 5 in Lynn Kurland’s popular Nine Kingdoms series (and Book 2 in Ruith and Sarah’s particular saga). The bad news: it’s out of the frying pan and into the fire for our fair pair. In the preceding book, A Tapestry of Spells, the two had initially set out to stop Sarah’s brother Daniel from using his magic to destroy the world. But now they’ve realized that Daniel is only a very small part of a much larger problem. It seems that Gair, Ruith’s late and unlamented father, wrote down all of his most vile spells before he died, and that the pages were scattered to the four winds. Any wizard who manages to collect all of these spells in one place would be formidable, quite possibly unstoppable, and Ruith and Sarah are determined to gather the spells and destroy them before anyone else can get his or her hands on them.

Once reunited, they begin a desperate search for Gair’s spells, relying on Sarah’s emerging Sight to lead them to the places the spells are concealed. But then, scraps of one of the nastier spells begin to turn up in Ruith’s vicinity. It’s almost as though someone wants to be found. It’s almost as though the two are being led somewhere… but where? And by whom?

Spellweaver is an engaging read, and Ruith and Sarah are as lovable as ever, but overall the book suffers from a bad case of Second Installment Syndrome, i.e., it is pretty clearly a bridge linking the quick-out-of-the-gate first book and the third, where pretty much everything will hit the fan. It’s somewhat slower than its predecessor, and can be a bit repetitive, particularly with regard to conversations along the lines of “You’re an elven prince and I’m a witch-woman’s get”/ “But I love you”/ “NO! You must wed another,” etc. etc. etc. Many of the more colorful characters from Tapestry are absent, including, regrettably, that magnificent bastard Urchaid himself. New characters mysteriously waft in and out, including a couple of Ruith’s cousins who may be trouble or may not but in either case we never find out because after they exit stage right we don’t hear from or about them again. Kurland is pretty obviously taking great care to set up the next book, and she has a lot of parts and pieces to move into place.

The good news is that the third book in Ruith’s trilogy -- expected in Winter 2012 -- promises to be epic. Let us review: By the end of the book, matters remain to be settled with Ruith’s half-brothers (Gair’s illegitimate sons); probably the abovementioned cousins; certainly Daniel; undoubtedly Urchaid (oh, he’ll be back); and even smarmy Connail from Tapestry, who was presumed dead but we were never shown a corpse so as far as I’m concerned he’s alive and very pissed off until proven otherwise. And that’s before Ruith and Sarah ever even get to the Big Bad in the North. Block out some time on your calendar for next January, because you’re going to need it.

If you’re unfamiliar with the Nine Kingdoms novels, this is not the place to start; there’s too much by-play, and too many conversations about events that occurred in the first trilogy whose immediate relevance will be lost on most newbies. However, established fans of the series will not come away disappointed. You can’t help but root for Ruith and Sarah to be together, or rejoice when Sarah makes an important discovery about her own past, or celebrate the appearance of a couple of old friends from the first trilogy. And Kurland has done an expert job setting up the board, as it were. All the pieces are in place; now all we readers need to do is practice patience as we wait for next winter, when we finally get to see how the game plays itself out.

  -- Kate Nagy