REDEEMING THE LOST

Wrapping up Kerner’s fantasy trilogy (The Lesser Kindred, 2000, etc.) about a struggle pitting white-hat Gedri (humans) and Kantri (dragons) against black-hat wizards and demons from the Six Hells.

Berys, the evil archimage, has captured the Demonlord’s hidden heart; both know that the mingled blood of Gedri and Kantri can destroy the still-living heart, so Berys’s control is absolute. What Berys doesn't yet realize is that this mingled blood now flows in the veins of his captive, Lanen, thanks to Lanen’s husband, Varien, a dragon now constrained to human form—and that Lanen is pregnant. Instead, Berys, assisted by Marik, Lanen’s father, intends to sacrifice Lanen to demons. In his previous incarnation, the Demonlord cast out the souls of dragonkind’s Lesser Kindred, reducing them to mindless beasts. Varien and the Kantri learn Lanen’s whereabouts, and rescue her. Lanen urges the Kantri to focus the power of the magic Farseer globe to restore sapience to the Lesser Kindred. She also learns that Berys has managed to corrupt most of the land’s Healers by selling their souls to demons, hence the source of his unquenchable power; and she will be reconciled with her estranged mother, Maran the smith. Vilken the uncorrupted Healer must resolve his internal inhibitions and summon his irresistible powers. Meanwhile, the Demonlord dons a new impregnable body fashioned of molten rock, the Black Dragon; and Berys releases demons from all the hells to destroy the Kantri.

A rousing, inventive, action-packed conclusion—once you come to terms with the confusing and absurd multiple first-person narrators.