The Phoenix and the Mirror

Gollancz, 2013. First Edition. Paperback. Good. Virgil the Roman poet was remembered as Vergil the Mage, a powerful and ben evolent sorceror who used his powers to protect the city of Naples. From th is beginning Davidson created a world surpassingly rich and strange. Vergil Magus is trapped by the spells of the exiled Queen Cornelia. To free himse lf he must undertake for her one of the greatest works of alchemy: the maki ng of a Virgin Speculum, a bronze mirror so forged that whoever first looks into it will see whatever they most desired to see. To do this will take V ergil to the very limit of his powers. He must undertake the arcane discpli nes of alchemy and magic. He must thread his way through intrigues both pol itical and occult. Along the way he will encounter manticores, mandrakes, a madwoman, a gargoyle, a Cyclops, Sea Huns, eunuch priests, sacred hermaphr odites and the two thousand beautiful priestesses of Aphrodite. And, more p erilous than any of these, the enigmatic being known as the Phoenix.