Publisher's Synopsis
In the mad swirling darkness beyond the Gates of Chaos, two yellow lizard eyes, burning with insatiable appetites and festering hatreds, snapped open, and an eldritch evil woke. Thus begins "The Silver Key, "the first book of the epic high fantasy trilogy "The Gates of Chaos." The Silver Key of Reason, the Golden Heart of Courage, and the Iron Hammer of Strength--these three talismans were used to lock the Gates of Chaos a thousand years before. Now the spell that binds the Gates is crumbling, Heldra the Dragon Queen is awake and her Demons are once more loose in the Realm. Heldra has sent them to destroy the talismans and kill the One True King who might use the talismans together to re-lock the Gates. Aren, a fourteen-year-old orphan, does not believe in Demons or the Gates of Chaos. Thenhis guardian, the Sorceress of Harkfast reveals that he is the One True King and that the amulet he wearsis the Silver Key. Suddenly Aren's safe little world is turned upside down. Pursued by Demons and the evil wizard Kaldore, Aren flees from Harkfast with his friends Agorn the stoic Valk warrior and Tobin the wise-cracking innkeeper's son. Armed with only their ingenuity, their courage, and the mysteriously dormant Silver Key, the three boys embark on a desperate quest to gather the other two talismans and re-lock the Gates of Chaos. Joined along the way by a band of valiant friends including the tiny pixies Scoot and Flash and the sturdy dwarf Tyler Treadwell, Aren grows into a man ready to assume the mantle of leadership that is his destiny and face the final, terrible cataclysm waiting beyond the Gates of Chaos. The fate of the Realm hangs in the balance.
