Our professional falconer, Paul, introduced us to an intriguing cast of characters: Egor the Golden/Steppe Eagle, Tak a Bengal Eagle Owl, Stanley a Great Horned Owl, Zach the Harris Hawk, Khalifa a Barbary tiercel, Gale the Kestrel, and Freya an 11-week-old Gyr/Saker falcon.
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Unknowingly, Tiercel has become the first High Mage in more than a thousand years.
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Tiercel goes off to the Great Library to look for a book titled A History of the City in Six Volumes. Working in the city harbor, Harrier stumbles upon a ship that is wrecked, the captain of the vessel claims that it is a kraken that attacked the ship, but krakens were presumably destroyed along with all the Endarkend at the conclusion of the Third War against the Light. Harrier showed Tiercel the ship and its damage and explained to him the story the captain is giving on the damage's origin. Tiercel felt sympathetic to the captain's losses and was determined to see if High Magick can discover the truth of the matter.
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The Enduring Flame Trilogy is a three-novel fantasy series, that continues the story covered by The Obsidian Trilogy. This tale takes place over a thousand years after the conclusion of The Obsidian Trilogy and chronicles the journey of Tiercel Rolfort and Harrier Gillain as they discover that Tiercel has become a Mage of the High Magick.He and Harrier must journey to the Isvanei Desert, to stop an unknown enemy from resurrecting an ancient evil. The novels are co-written by Mercedes Lackey and James Mallory.
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Having discovered a spell from one of the books in the Great Library called a Knowing Spell, Tiercel decides to attempt to cast it on a piece of the ship so he can know the truth of the captain's tale. Tiercel attempts to cast the spell at home not following the instructions verbatim but nothing happens, he gets tired and falls asleep. During his sleep he starts to dream about a beautiful lady within a lake of fire. She is waiting for something and he knows that if she gets her hands on whatever it is, its going to be trouble.
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He receives a book called A Compendium of Ancient Myth and Legend, Compiled from the Histories of the City from his frequently travelling uncle, Alfrin. Having no desire to read the book, he hands it to Tiercel to read who is fond of reading and is actually interested in the book. A couple of days later Tiercel begins reading the book and his interests are piqued when he comes across topics he has not heard of before, among them are: High Mages, High Magick, and the Third War against the Light. The only magic he, or anyone he knows has ever heard of was Wild Magic, his curiosity gets the better of him.
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The Gyrfalcon Islands are an uninhabited island group in the Qikiqtaaluk Region of Nunavut, Canada. The over 200 small islands form an archipelago in western Ungava Bay north of Quebec's Ungava Peninsula and northeast of Leaf Bay. Tiercel Island and Qikirtajuaq Island lie to the southwest. The closest community is the Inuit village of Kuujjuaq, Quebec, to the southeast.
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The City Hall tower is home to a peregrine falcon named Clara, and her current tiercel, named "Esteban Colbert" after Stephen Colbert, of whom Mayor Chuck Reed was said to be a fan. The original falcons, named Jose and Clara after the city and Santa Clara County, produced three offspring, named Spirit, Hiko, and Esperanza. In 2008, Clara and her then-mate Carlos had three chicks, Cielo and Meyye, both girls, and Mercury, a boy.
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Harrier Gillain is the youngest of four brothers and born in a family that has held the Harbor Master position in Armathelieh for centuries. As the youngest, he must follow in his father's footsteps to become the next Harbor Master. He is good friends with Tiercel Rolfort, the eldest of 6 children and born and into minor Nobility. The story begins during Festival Sennight in the city and Harrier's naming day falls on the first day.
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45 Most prey is thus 30% or less of the weight of the tiercel, which is a common prey size fraction across numerous species of falcons where the males do the majority of the hunting during the nesting season. However, over shorter distances wildlife biologists have documented prairie falcons carrying up to about 60-70% of their body weight.Anderson and Squires, p. 44 Common mammalian prey for prairie falcons includes squirrels, ground squirrels, prairie dogs, chipmunks, gophers, and rabbits of various species.
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Although the dream's imagery is not scary, the feeling that he gets frightens him greatly—more so because he feels that it is so real. Tiercel then wakes up amidst a fire in his room, the fire is snuffed out by his servants and he reports to his parents that he was trying to read during the night. He realizes that he must have messed up on the spell, having to improvise on a few things. He remembers from his readings that the simplest High Magick spell that can be cast is fire.
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The genus name Falco is from Late Latin falx, falcis, a sickle, referring to the claws of the bird. In Middle English and Old French, the title faucon refers generically to several captive raptor species. The traditional term for a male falcon is tercel (British spelling) or tiercel (American spelling), from the Latin (third) because of the belief that only one in three eggs hatched a male bird. Some sources give the etymology as deriving from the fact that a male falcon is about one-third smaller than a female"tercel", Oxford Dictionary ().
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The prairie falcon eats mostly small mammals (especially in summer) and small to medium-sized birds caught in flight, though as an opportunistic predator it will occasionally take larger birds. Though accounts of the prairie falcon taking prey as large as geese are verifiable (a prey that may be over 5 times heavier than a large female prairie falcon), it usually takes prey smaller than itself that it may safely subdue and which can be carried to the nest or to a safe perch to consume. The majority of prey is 150g or less, a weight that even the smaller tiercel (male) can carry long distances back to the nest.Anderson and Squires, p.
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The practice of hunting with a conditioned falconry bird is also called hawking or gamehawking, although the words hawking and hawker have become used so much to refer to petty traveling traders, that the terms falconer and falconry now apply to most use of trained birds of prey to catch game. Many contemporary practitioners still use these words in their original meaning, however. In early English falconry literature, the word falcon referred to a female peregrine falcon only, while the word hawk or hawke referred to a female hawk. A male hawk or falcon was referred to as a tiercel (sometimes spelled "tercel") as it was roughly one third less than the female in size...
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