Nightrunner series continues

STALKING DARKNESS, by Lynn Flewelling, Bantam Books, 1997, 501 pages, $5.99 paperback.

There are plenty of good words to be said about Lynn Flewelling’s “Stalking Darkness,” the second volume in the Nightrunner series this Maine author is writing for Bantam. But if you want to enjoy this novel to the fullest, make sure you’ve read its predecessor first.

It’s the challenge of every series writer to bring first-time readers up to speed without boring the original readers stiff. Flewelling created a vivid and convincing world with her inaugural Nightrunner fantasy novel, “Luck in the Shadows.” In this sequel she has the somewhat more difficult job of evoking and maintaining the elaborate structures of politics, religion, language and character found in the first book — all while moving the plot forward, rather than covering old ground. Truth to tell, the military and metaphysical maneuvers that provide the energy for this second book’s plot — heavily foreshadowed in the previous volume — have considerably more depth in the context of the first of the series.

So pick up “Luck of the Shadows” first. It was one of four finalists last year for the Compton Crook-Stephen Tall award for best first novel-science fiction and fantasy.

Then grab “Stalking Darkness” and prepare for a front-row seat in a fight between Good and Evil where archaic warfare — such as cavalry skirmishes — blends with the magical shenanigans of wizards and others.

The actual or imagined high-tech world is never far away here. Despite the characters’ reliance on horses and sail-powered ships for everyday transportation, on candles and lanterns for illumination, when the going gets heavy there are lightstones instead of flashlights, firestones instead of matches, divination rather than satellite surveillance, and — instead of a radiation burn — the persistent skin imprint of an unprepossessing yet magical wooden disk.

With this book our old friends Seregil and Alec are back, along with their supporting cast of associates. So is their mentor, the wizard Nysander, whose role as the guardian of a collection of sinister artifacts is pivotal to the novel’s climax. “Stalking Darkness” is also a chance for the baddies of Flewelling’s universe to strut their stuff, and strut they do.

Not only does Mardus, the sociopathic villain of “Luck in the Shadows,” step further into the spotlight; you’ll meet his partner in atrocity, the ancient Irtuk Beshar, whose nightmarish necromantic powers include the ability to reassemble her severed body parts and renew the attack like a sacked quarterback coming back for the big sneak play. The novel’s landscape of casual murder and ritual sacrifice is littered with bodies by the time this unlovable pair, backed by a merciless military force, have completed their quest for the Helm, a headpiece that Anatole of Paris couldn’t have conjured up in his wildest dreams.

When Mardus and Irtuk Beshar manage to reconstitute the Helm from a rocky tide pool on the northern coast of Flewelling’s fictitious landscape, the author’s home-state readers may experience a twinge of deja vu. The novel’s climactic scenes play out against scenery that for locals can’t help but evoke the rugged shores of Acadia National Park at a high moon-tide.

The final pages of “Stalking Darkness” carry no suggestion of Vacationland, though, among the forces converging for world domination and redemption. Only after the resolution of this round between Light and Darkness does Flewelling give in to the temptation to tie up every loose end in a neat bow, including the romantic longings of every character who hasn’t already been messily dispatched.

While her happily-ever-after conclusion may take the edge off the novel’s often gritty texture, Flewelling offers hope to new fans who can’t wait to skulk the back alleys of her fictitious city again. Some of the heroic characters ride off into the sunrise, but it’s safe to assume she is busy concocting new problems for them in the series’ soon-to-be-published third novel, “Traitor’s Moon.”