The Innkeeper’s Song
{4.5/5} “Most people are wide awake only now and then — on special occasions, as you might say. But a magician is wide awake all the time, on call for everything, which is why post people call him a magician. And he is never more so than at the moment of his own death.”
The Innkeeper’s Song by Peter S. Beagle, published in 1993
Tikat’s fiancée Lukassa fell into a river and was washed downstream. At night after all the other searchers had gone home, Tikat sees a woman on a horse who sang — and Lukassa rose up out of the river, alive once more. The women ride off, and Tikat pursues them until he almost dies. He’s rescued by a man who can turn into a fox — or vice versa.
Three women on horseback, one white as a ghost, ask to stay at an inn. The innkeeper knows they’re trouble and attempts to refuse, but they steer around his lies. He ends up giving them his own room.
Beagle draws you into his world right away, and makes you feel like you’ve been to this world before.
It’s about what happens when you cross paths with a wizard, and what happens when you become a wizard’s pupil. It’s about how eventually you might tell the truth to the person who needs to hear it.
I’ve read 3 books by Beagle. I previously reviewed A Fine and Private Place.