A thirteen-year-old’s expectations of royalty give way to adventure in the first book in the post-apocalyptic Sword of the Spirits trilogy from the author of The Tripods series. In Winchester, roles are clearly defined. Warriors fight battles every spring. Dwarfs make the swords and the shields. Grotesque mutants are the servant class. Seers interpret the wishes and predictions of the spirits. And the Prince is the ruler of the city. Thirteen-year-old Luke has no reason to suspect that any of this will change. It’s been this way for centuries...at least since the year 2000. But things are not what they seem, and soon Luke is thrown into a story of ambition and adventure in the primitive world of the future, expertly crafted by critically acclaimed Tripods author John Christopher. John Christopher was the pseudonym of Samuel Youd, who was born in Lancashire, England, in 1922. He was the author of more than fifty novels and novellas, as well as numerous short stories. His most famous books include The Death of Grass , the Tripods trilogy, The Lotus Caves , and The Guardians . The Prince in Waiting ONE FOUR SWORDS IN CANDLELIGHT THE ARMORER’S FORGE WAS EAST of the river, in that part of the city called Chesil. It was a large, cavernous building, its floor of ancient stone cracked in places but all of a piece, dark except where the great central fire sent sparks springing up toward the square hole in the timbered roof. In the dimness the dwarfs moved here and there to the clang of metal on metal. They did not look up from their work when I came in. I stood for a moment by the door, watching and accustoming my eyes to the light. The Armorer Dwarf was on the far side of the fire, stooped over the big anvil. I went to stand beside him. “Health, Rudi,” I said. He did not answer at once. He took a sword off the anvil and held it between himself and the fire, lifting it up and down slightly to judge its trueness by the shifting gleam of light. He nodded and gave it to the dwarf who stood beside him, balancing the blade on his palm and offering the hilt. Then he turned to me. “Health, Master Luke. How is the world outside? Freezing yet? Your cheeks look as though frost has stroked them.” “It’s cold enough. A north wind still.” “A pot of mulled ale, would you say?” He called an order to a dwarf apprentice who went off roll-gaited into the shadows. “Come and sit with me, Master Luke, and tell me how life goes in the city.” My eyes followed the sword which had been taken to the whetstone. The dwarf there treadled with his foot and the wheel went round. He brought the steel edge to it and bright sparks flew. “Is that . . .?” “For the Contest? No, those are already made and burnished. Would you see them?” He lit a candle, thrusting the wick into the fire’s heat in a way that would have scorched my flesh, and took it to the wall where swords hung waiting collection. The four made for the Contest rested apart from the others. They were also smaller, no more than two and a half feet from hilt to tip. Rudi took one down and handed it to me. The hilt fitted my grasp. I swung it lightly in the air. Rudi watched me. He was big for a dwarf, close on five feet in height, and he did not have their squatness of figure to so marked an extent as was usual. His arms were brawny, muscled from his work, but the lower part of his body might almost have been human. His face was broad, brown and wrinkled, his hair and beard white. He said: “Being chosen for the Contest is not everything, Master Luke.” I did not answer but swung the sword once more and gave it back. He hung it carefully on its hook. They were not, of course, the swords that would actually be used in the Contest. Those were of wood, unpointed, capable of prodding or sweeping an opponent off his horse but not of penetrating the stiff leather jerkins they wore. But at the Contest’s end each of the Young Captains would be given his real sword, one of these four. That nearest me had a red stone in its crosspiece that winked in the candlelight. It would go to the winner of the Contest, the conqueror. Pots of ale were brought to us. Rudi offered me his own seat, its high back carved with the figures of past Armorers, but I refused it. I sat on a stool and sipped from the pewter pot. The ale was hot and sweet, flavored with spices. It warmed my throat and belly but did not lift the black depression from my shoulders. Rudi said: “You would have been young for it.” “No younger than Matthew is.” “But his father is cousin to the Prince.” “Yes.” He drank deeply and gave his pot to a dwarf for refilling. He wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. “You take things hard, Master Luke. It is a failing, if I may presume to say so.” I would not have taken such a criticism from any other dwarf, but no other would have made it. In the past I had often taken troubles to Rudi and had good counsel from him. This counsel, too, might be good, but I