The way into the shadows

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The way in the shadows (original title: The Way of Shadows ) is a fantasy novel by Brent Weeks from the year 2008. It is the first book of the Night Angel trilogy.

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The story takes place in the city of Cenaria, capital of Cenaria, in the fictitious world of Midcyru. Cenaria City is divided into two halves: The rabbit burrows as well as the guilds and most of the Sa'Kage are located west of the Plith, the river that flows through Cenaria. This district is also called the labyrinth. Despite the crime, the richer middle and upper classes live on the east side, east of the Plith. In Cenaria there is a monarchy with the king who rules the land and hands over his power to his heirs. However, true power over the country remains with the Sa'Kage (Lords of the Shadows), a rabble-rousing organization involved in criminal activities such as extortion, prostitution and contract killings.

Cenaria borders another country called Khalidor to the north. Khalidor is a powerful empire ruled by a tyrannical god-king (Garoth Ursuul). This God-King seeks to use the power of Khalidor to rule all nations. He and the army of Khalidor have shown no mercy in achieving these ends.

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The main character in the story is the gutter boy Azoth, who is in the labyrinth / rabbit hole (the poverty area on the west side) in a gang of thieves (or guild) ("black dragon") of the Sa'Kage just collecting coins on the floor or get by in remote places. There he is terrorized by his tormentor "rat", who is the "fist" and thus the guild's debt collector. Since Azoth wants to get out of the neighborhood, he tries to persuade the blood boy Durzo Blint to take him on as an apprentice. Bloody boys are hired killers who use magic to gain advantage and are better than hired murderers (quote from the book: "A bloody boy has no goals, because a bloody boy's goal is already dead, a mere formality. A bloody boy has corpses . "- Durzo Blint). Blint demands that Azoth kill Rat, but he hesitates and his friends in the Labyrinth suffer as Azoth has become Rat's absolute enemy. Finally, Azoth kills Rat and accepts Durzo Blint as his master.

He learns to fight, to sneak, to brew poisons, takes on the name Kylar Stern, poses as a nobleman and gets to know the upper class of Cenaria. First and foremost the young Logan Gyre, a nobleman of his age, whose family is in line to the throne directly after the Gunder who are currently in power, and the two become good friends. Of course, Azoth does not trust anyone in the upper class on the east side of his true identity, except for Count Drake, who, as an acquaintance of Durzo, is responsible for Kylar's integration. Most of the money that Kylar earns goes to a girl from the labyrinth, "doll girl", who was mutilated in the face by a rat. The girl that Durzo takes out of the labyrinth at Kylar's plea on the condition that Kylar is no longer allowed to see her, takes the name Elene and from then on lives on the east side.

Kylar puts up with the hard training work with the hard Durzo Blint and learns to read and appear in public from Momma K. (Kirena), the mistress of the Sa'Kage's delights and mistress of brothels and spies in Cenaria.

Kylar discovers that his magical gift cannot emerge from a defect, causing him to fear that his training was in vain ("No magic, no blood boy." - Durzo Blint). However, this makes him a Ka'karifer, a person with a special bond with a magical Kakari. There are 6 of these, created 700 years ago by a powerful magician named Ezra the Mad, each mastering its own element (red: fire, blue: water, green: plants / tendrils, silver: metal, brown: stone / Earth, white: creates a strong charisma towards other people + illusions ("glossy magic")) These have disappeared for years and appear in many stories in Midcyru (the continent on which the story takes place).

Furthermore, one night he is visited by Dorian Ursuul, a prophet who tells him that he must kill his master the following day, otherwise a catastrophe would occur. In the Sa'Kage a certain Roth has worked his way up, who now has the society under control and proclaims himself the new Shinga (the master of the Sa'Kage). In the absence of his master, Kylar finds out that he is being blackmailed and has to work for the king, which complicates the game of intrigue in Cenaria.

Eventually the rumor that a Ka'kari had appeared in Cenaria solidified, and the Sa'Kage mobilized. Kylar is also made aware of the Ka'Kari by Momma K. This is said to be in the house of Trudana Jadwin, a noblewoman, and the blood boy Hu Gibbet, a brutal blood boy with a lust for murder who always kills too many targets, was hired to fetch him during a festival. However, there are many of Kylar's noble friends at the festival, such as Logan Gyre. So Kylar is forced to steal the Ka'Kari himself and kill Hu Gibbet. At the festival, the king's son and sole heir to the throne is killed, while Kylar sneaks into the house and finds the silver Ka'Kari, guarded by his old friend Dollmaid / Elene and forced to stun her. He promptly runs into his master, who was disguised as Hu Gibbet at the festival, who is now very angry because Kylar has carried out an assignment without his knowledge. Momma K had turned them on. Durzo tries to force Kylar to kill the defenseless witness Elene. Kylar refuses and Durzo tries to kill him when security guards storm the room. Kylar inadvertently binds the Ka'kari as Ka'Karifer. This binding renders the Ka'kari useless to anyone but him. Kylar offers his master his life and gives him the Ka'kari, but he reacts surprisingly calmly and protects Kylar from being discovered by the guards.

Angry at her betrayal, Kylar poisons Momma K. and demands explanations. However, he gives her the antidote after she has revealed her own intrigue before Kylar and that she is the mother of Durzo's daughter Uly, with whom he is now blackmailed and who grew up in the castle, in order not to have a dangerous connection with Durzo or her mother to have.

The following day, Durzo Blint is made to kill the king and the nobles in the castle of Cenaria. Kylar learns of the planned coup instigated by Roth, who is Roth Ursuul and thus a son of the God-King on his trial (UUdurthan). He is now blackmailing Durzo because he is threatening his daughter. At the festival, due to the threat posed by the intrigue, Logan is declared heir to the throne, as the king no longer has an heir. The king dies that same night in the chaos at the festival at the hand of his general, who in the uproar wants to pull soldiers away from the king, who is maddened by poison, in order to protect the new heir to the throne. All soldiers and nobles who come to Logan's aid are killed by Roth, who covers the invasion of the land of Khalidor on the city. Khalidor's force has already arrived by ship and is attacking the castle. Logan Gyre is tracked down with his wife Jenine Gunder (the king's daughter, to whom he was married hours ago) in the Roth room. He kills Jenine and wants to have Logan castrated and put in the throat, the prison of Cenaria. But an agent, Momma K's protégé Jarl, (an old friend of Kylars, apprentice of Momma K, who is the real undercover Shinga and trains him to be his successor) wants to save him. However, when they pass the hole, a dungeon for felons who can only survive in the hole with little water and bread, often only through cannibalism, to remove the body of a dead guard, the agent is killed with a tendon from the hole . Sorcerers, Khalidor's magicians, come down the throat and Logan is forced to jump down into the hole in order to survive, even if he is then trapped down there with the cannibals.

In the meantime, Kylar has found Logan's room, whom he wanted to save, but of course does not find him there. Instead his master finds him and a fight breaks out. However, Kylar does not want to fight his master and calls the Ka'Kari from his master and jumps out of the tower window into the river.

After Kylar has ravaged among the Khalidor, however, he is found by his master in a remote place and a decisive battle breaks out in which Kylar kills his master. The following day, after Kylar has recovered, he sets out with his powers, newly gained by the Ka'kari, to kill Roth Ursuul. Kylar now knows that he has not tied the silver Ka'Kari, but a black one. A secret Ka'Kari that belonged to Durzo. The silver one was a fake.

Kylars Ka'Kari is a devourer who protects him from all magical influences and can make him completely invisible. Roth's guards, especially the sorcerers, have no chance against his powers and abilities. But Roth Ursuul, who as it comes out, is also a rat, who survived the assassination attempt by the Azoth at the time, manages to ram a sword through Kylar's chest, but with his last breath Kylar deforms the substance of his Ka'Kari into a blade and kill Roth with it. Both die. Elene, who is in the castle at the time and looking for Kylar, conceals his body.

The Ka'kari brings Kylar's spirit after death into a sphere in which Kylar can choose for death and the life after, or for his old one. He returns and wakes up in Momma K's lair, where he was brought by Elene.

Kylar now understands that his master was immortal and that the Ka'kari was secretly received 700 years ago as Acaelus Thorne (his real name) from Jorsin Alkestes, the legendary military leader for whose warriors Ezra the Mad had made the Ka'kari, to hide it.

In the end he wants to turn his back on the city and leaves the city with Elene and Ully, Durzos and Momma K's daughter.

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The book was published on October 2, 2008 by Orbit Books. The German translation by Hans Link was published by Blanvalet Verlag on December 15, 2009 .

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