CAN SABIS BE SAVED? Ancaran hordes swarm her Northern borders . . . Her armies are flung back broken upon her walls . . . Those with the wealth to do so flee daily to the lands beyond the Sea . . . Born of brute force, the Sabirn Empire falls now to an even greater force, a force that only a weapon born half a millennium before its time could withstand. The Sabirn have such a super-weapon—but what if the rulers are too short-sighted to recognize it, or too tight-fisted to pay the price? Then truly it will be time for A Dirge for Sabis!

THE BRUTAL FORCE OF OPPRESSION VERSUS THE SWORD OF KNOWLEDGE It is 500 years since the fall of the Sabirn Empire, an empire whose rulers sealed their fate by refusing to countenance the development of weapons that could have saved them from the barbarians. Now the Sabirn have fallen on hard times indeed, and lie supine beneath the boot of the Ancar, laboring in mines and fields and streets at work no member of a ”higher” race would touch. But rumors abound that among the Sabirn are some who retain occult knowledge and use it in secret rites aimed at the overthrow of the new master race. The Ancar say this is justification for genocide. The Sabirn say genocide is justification for anything; The Sword of Knowledge cuts both ways.

THE FALL ACCORDING TO C.J. CHERRYH The Roman Empire. Imagine its fall. Now imagine that warring time with cannon—and a working system of magic. C.J. Cherryh did. In The Sword of Knowledge, Cherryh has explored the fall of empires and the impact of technological knowledge while replacing the repressed religion of the Christians with a Church of Knowledge. In A Dirge for Sabis we saw the Sabirn Empire fall to barbarians because the rulers were too inflexible to make use of the technology available to them. Wizard Spawn opens centuries later, with the Sabirn empire a blighted memory and the barbarians established as the new and oppressive rulers. Now another half millennium has passed, and new barbarians are on the rise. It will be a battle of barbarian vigor vs. The Sword of Knowledge in Reap the Whirlwind!

A three-in-one volume combines the works of four popular authors—Nancy Asire, Leslie Fish, Mercedes Lackey, and C. J. Cherryh—and includes the fantasy novels A Dirge for Sabis, Wizard Spawn, and Reap the Whirlwind. Originally in paperback.