Contents

PART ONE: THE PATH FROM OBERNEWTYN

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

PART TWO: THE HIGH ROAD

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

PART THREE: THE PERILOUS DREAMTRAILS

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

EPILOGUE

Characters of the Obernewtyn Chronicles

Question and Answer with ISOBELLE CARMODY

Acknowledgements

Isobelle Carmody began the first of her highly acclaimed Obernewtyn Chronicles while she was still at high school, working on it while completing a Bachelor of Arts, and then a journalism cadetship. The book was shortlisted for the CBC Book of the Year Award for Older Readers. The series, and her short stories, established her at the forefront of fantasy writing in Australia.

She is now the author of over thirty novels and many short stories for children and adults. The Gathering was the joint winner of the 1993 CBC Book of the Year Award; Darkfall won an Aurealis for Best Fantasy Novel in 1997; Billy Thunder and the Night Gate, volume one in The Gateway Trilogy, was shortlisted for the Patricia Wrightson Prize in the 2001 NSW Premier’s Literary Awards; and Alyzon Whitestarr won a Golden Aurealis in 2006. The Legend of Little Fur was Isobelle’s first series for younger readers, and The Red Wind, first in The Kingdom of the Lost series, was awarded the 2011 CBC Book of the Year Award for Younger Readers.

Isobelle divides her time between her home on the Great Ocean Road in Australia and her travels abroad with her partner and daughter.

obernewtyn.com.au

SERIES BY THE SAME AUTHOR FROM PENGUIN BOOKS

Other titles in The Obernewtyn Chronicles

Obernewtyn

The Farseekers

Ashling

The Keeping Place

The Stone Key

The Legendsong

Darkfall

Darksong

The Gateway Trilogy

Billy Thunder and the Night Gate

The Winter Door

The Legend of Little Fur

Little Fur

A Fox Called Sorrow

A Mystery of Wolves

A Riddle of Green

The Kingdom of the Lost

The Red Wind

OTHER BOOKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR

Scatterlings

The Gathering

Green Monkey Dreams

Greylands

This Way Out (with Steve Taylor)

Alyzon Whitestarr

for my friend Kristin Olson,
who has all the qualities of a good heroine:
she can kickbox, she is courageous and clever and
intrepid, and she has perfect manners.

PART ONE: THE PATH FROM OBERNEWTYN

PART ONE

THE PATH FROM OBERNEWTYN

Chapter 1

1

At the far end of a narrow passage, a yellow light flashed a dull summons in the grainy dimness. The ground underfoot was broken and dangerously uneven, but a sense of urgency drove me on.

‘Stop!’ a woman’s voice commanded.

The murk quivered and thinned and I saw Dragon ahead, sitting on a broken stone column and gazing into an ornamental pond surrounded by a terrace of cracked paving stones. A wall mosaic half-obscured by a shaggy creeper rose up behind her and the full moon floated in the pool at her feet, its light limning her face and hair silver.